by JAMES TARANTO
Thursday, February 13, 2003 3:49 P.M. EST

The Sun Also Gets a Rise
When we read last week's New York Sun editorial in which the paper floated the idea of prosecuting "antiwar" protesters for treason, we laughed out loud at the sheer audacity of the suggestion. But not everyone was amused. Eugene Volokh took the idea seriously enough to pen an article for National Review Online in which he argued that the protests are protected speech, not treason, and that it's in the national interest to protect antigovernment speech, even in wartime. This isn't a difficult case to make, but Volokh makes it elegantly:

The only way that we Americans can tell whether the government is wrong is by hearing the arguments on both sides, before the war and during the war. Free speech has persuaded the Sun's editorial board (as it has me) that war is right. But I'm confident in my position precisely because I know that the war's opponents were free to present their best arguments against it.

Other commentators were far less sober in responding to the Sun's editorial. "We must take a stand against the use of such tactics," exhorts Spinsanity.com's Brendan Nyhan. "Treason is one of the most serious accusations imaginable. It must not be used to poison political debate." Salon's Joe Conason accuses the paper of practicing "gutter politics." He calls the editorial "irresponsible and rabid" and demands that Sun editor Seth Lipsky and his columnists "repudiate his authoritarian outburst." Slate's Timothy Noah wonders how Lipsky "could allow such fascist rantings into his newspaper."

There's an element of irony, and hypocrisy, in these three self-styled advocates of vigorous public debate working themselves into a lather over a newspaper editorial. Volokh is right to distinguish between speech and actions on behalf of America's enemies; our constitution protects the former, while the latter may constitute the crime of treason. But no less salient is the distinction between advocating censorship and practicing it. If John Ashcroft or Mike Bloomberg were making noises about prosecuting protesters for treason, that would be cause for outrage. But if someone outside government makes the argument, why is that any less worthy of respect than the "dissent" of those who make such "arguments" as that America is an "imperialist" power that wants "blood for oil"? If it's a calumny to liken the latter to treason, it is equally so to call the former fascist.

Further, it strikes us that all four critics (even Volokh, whose analysis is otherwise spot on) are misreading the editorial. To hear them tell it, you'd think the Sun were urging the cops to throw every protester into the dock for treason. But here is the crucial passage:

So the New York City police could do worse, in the end, than to allow the protest and send two witnesses along for each participant, with an eye toward preserving at least the possibility of an eventual treason prosecution.

The Sun here doesn't actually urge any course of action. It merely observes that the cops "could do worse" than to maintain an "eye toward" the "possibility" of an "eventual" prosecution. Isn't it obvious that this suggestion is meant to be ironic? The paper is throwing an outlandish idea into the debate, carefully hedging its statement so as to avoid actually endorsing it. In short, the Sun is guilty of nothing more than being provocative--hardly the worst thing you can say about an editorial page.

(Full disclosure: The New York Sun prints daily excerpts from this column, and both Lipsky and managing editor Ira Stoll were regular contributors to this Web site before their newspaper's launch. However, we have no input into, or inside knowledge of, the Sun's editorial positions or practices, and we have not discussed the protest editorial with anyone at the Sun.)

Semi-Tough
The New York Times editorial board continues to flirt with coherence, but it is still a long way from consummating the relationship. Today's editorial on Iraq is at least somewhat tough: It urges the U.N. Security Council to adopt a resolution that would establish a deadline for Iraq's compliance with the 17 previous U.N. resolutions and authorize military action if Saddam Hussein failed to meet it:

Debating a new resolution would compel both the United States and France to answer a fundamental question. For President Bush it is what, if anything, would persuade him not to go to war with Iraq. And France must declare what, if anything, would persuade it to endorse military action. Their answers could restore a sorely needed sense of common purpose.

Well, this is lovely, but what if the differences between France and America really are fundamental? What if Jacques Chirac is determined to leave Saddam in power and refuses to sign on to the sort of resolution the Times urges? The paper doesn't even seem to have thought of the possibility.

The Times also opines that "however serious the crimes of Mr. Hussein, we do not find that the administration has made a compelling case that he poses an immediate danger to the vital interests of the United States." Yet the very next paragraph informs us that "the Europeans and the United Nations must recognize that Saddam Hussein does pose a clear and present danger to the peaceful international order that the United Nations purports to protect."

Apparently, then, the New York Times' view is that maintaining the "peaceful international order" is not a "vital interest of the United States."

Osama's Valentine for Saddam
A new audiotape that purports to be from al Qaeda honcho Osama bin Laden "undermines Saddam's claims that he has no connections to bin Laden or his al-Qaeda organisation," the Times of London reports. The man on the tape "offered specific advice to the Iraqi military on how best to fight the Americans and their allies," the Times notes. The putative bin Laden answers those who claim his style of Islamic fundamentalism precludes any alliance with secular socialist Saddam:

It doesn't harm in these conditions the interest of Muslims to agree with those of the socialists in fighting against the crusaders, even though we believe the socialists are infidels. For the socialists and the rulers have lost their legitimacy a long time ago, and the socialists are infidels regardless of where they are, whether in Baghdad or in Aden.

Reuters reports on another supposed recording: "A British-based Islamic news agency said Wednesday it had a new tape recording of Osama bin Laden in which the Saudi militant allegedly predicts his own death this year in an unspecified act of 'martyrdom.' " Let's hope this turns out to be as accurate as our Super Bowl prediction.

You Don't Say--I
"Bin Laden Tape May Hint at Attack, C.I.A. Says"--headline, New York Times, Feb. 13

You Don't Say--II
"Pataki: War Could Help, Hurt State"--headline, Binghamton (N.Y.) Press & Sun-Bulletin, Feb. 13

You Don't Say--III
"Some Weapons of Mass Destruction Are More Destructive Than Others"--headline, Associated Press, Feb. 13

The Smoking Gun?
"The chief United Nations weapons inspector will report tomorrow that Iraq has been developing a ballistic missile that is in clear violation of UN restrictions," the Times of London reports.

Street News
Last night we were in a bar in Midtown Manhattan, where a voluble Wall Street trader was holding forth on his disgust with the French and Germans, his eagerness to liberate Iraq, his love for America, his admiration for President Bush and sundry related topics. The other patrons were terrifically entertained, egging him on; not a dissenting view was heard.

We hear a lot about the "anger" of the "Arab street" and the "European Street." Well, listen up world: There's an American street too, and if this is the mood of the street in famously liberal Manhattan (Gore by 65.58%), we can only imagine how inflamed it is in the "red" states. And unlike the denizens of the Arab street, we actually have politicians who have to listen to us.

The concept of the American street has been getting a lot of attention of late, with Glenn Reynolds leading the way on his MSNBC blog. Sen. John McCain, in a Saturday speech in Munich (of all places), fired off a warning to his German hosts and their fellow weasels:

There is an American "street," too, and it strongly supports disarming Iraq, accepts the necessity of an expansive American role in the world to ensure we never wake up to another September 11th, is perplexed that nations with whom we have long enjoyed common cause do not share our urgency and sense of threat in time of war, and that considers reflexive hostility toward Israel as the root of all problems in the Middle East as irrational as it is morally offensive.

The Scotsman reports that the French Embassy in Washington has been deluged with furious phone calls: "Angry Americans flooded its telephone lines to send a message to France's diplomatic emissaries that could be summed up in two words: you suck. On the day after Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations, that verdict was delivered 1,124 times."

Rep. Peter King (R., N.Y.), had harsh words for France the other day. "We cannot allow a second-rate country to have a veto power or obstructionist power over American foreign policy," the Associated Press quotes him as saying. "France is posturing itself as a moral guardian, when they would have lost World War I, and they set a world record in World War II for the quickest surrender by a world power." King is a "moderate" Republican, one of a handful who voted against impeaching Bill Clinton. If you're wondering what the immoderate Republicans have to say, check out this Washington Post anecdote from House Majority Leader Tom DeLay:

"I was at a celebration of India's Independence Day," he told reporters, "and a Frenchman came walking up to me and started talking to me about Iraq, and it was obvious we were not going to agree. And I said, 'Wait a minute. Do you speak German?' And he looked at me kind of funny and said, 'No, I don't speak German.' And I said, 'You're welcome,' turned around and walked off."

The Post reports members of Congress "are considering retaliatory gestures such as trade sanctions against the French and pressing for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Germany." (Trade sanctions are a terrible idea, but we've heard from quite a few readers who tell us they're forgoing Bordeaux, brie and Evian as a personal protest.)

Democrats are ticked off too; the AP quotes California's Rep. Tom Lantos as saying he was "particularly disgusted by the blind intransigence and utter ingratitude" of France, Germany and waffling Belgium. "If it were not for the heroic efforts of America's military, France, Germany and Belgium today would be Soviet socialist republics" (as opposed to mere socialist republics), Lantos said at a committee hearing. "The failure of these three states to honor their commitments is beneath contempt."

On Tuesday the House voted 402-6 for a resolution "condemning the selection of Libya to chair the United Nations Commission on Human Rights," also a rebuke to the European commission members, which abstained in the vote electing the chairman. Siding with Libya were Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, an isolationist libertarian Republican who's a perennial foreign-policy dissenter; and five left-wing Democrats: William Clay of Missouri, Mike Honda and Barbara Lee of California, Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and Nick Rahall of West Virginia.

Eight more Democrats, profiles in courage all, voted "present": Frank Ballance and Melvin Watt of North Carolina, Maurice Hinchey of New York, Carolyn Kilpatrick of Michigan, Jim "Baghdad Boy" McDermott of Washington, and George Miller, Fortney Pete Stark and Maxine Waters of California.

A Portrait of the Weasel as a Young Man
Columnist Michael Kelley reminds us that Joschka Fischer, Germany's Green Party foreign minister, "rose in public life as an important figure in the anti-American, anti-liberal, neo-Marxist, revolution-minded German radical left of the generation of 1968." Addressing Fischer in the second person, he also recounts a story from the foreign minister's youth:

For the formative years of your political life, you were no man in a blue government suit. You were a man in a black motorcycle helmet. That is what you were wearing on that day in April 1973 when you were photographed, to quote the New Left historian Paul Berman, "as a young bully in a street battle in Frankfurt."

In 2001, Stern magazine published five photographs of you in action that day. What these pictures depicted was described by Berman, in a deeply informed 25,000-word article, "The Passion of Joschka Fischer" (The New Republic, Sept. 3, 2001). The photos showed you, Mr. Fischer, inflicting a "gruesome beating" on a young policeman named Rainer Marx: "Fischer and other people on the attack, the white-helmeted cop going into a crouch; Fischer's black-gloved fist raised as if to punch the crouching cop on the back; Fischer's comrades crowding around; the cop huddled on the ground, Fischer and his comrades appearing to kick him . . ."

Like his homeland, Fischer was not always such a pacifist.

Call the Copy Desk
This is from a New York Times article on American plans for postwar Iraq: "The two faced skeptical senators from both parties, who sharply questioned whether the administration had done enough to prepare for the aftermath of a war."

Someone must have been asleep at the Times' copy desk. Not only is this a sentence fragment, but two-faced should be hyphenated.

Deep Background
This correction appears in today's New York Times:

Because of an editing error, a front-page article yesterday about diplomatic developments in the Iraq crisis misidentified the Bush administration official who said about the weapons inspectors in Iraq, "At some point it will become obvious that it's time for them to go." It was an administration official speaking on condition of anonymity, not Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser.

This Looks Like a Job for Superman
A press release from the Department of Homeland Security informs us that "President Bush has announced his intention to nominate Clark Kent Ervin as Inspector General."

Wow, What Range!
"India Tests Missile That Can Hit Pakistan," according to the headline of an Associated Press dispatch. Isn't that like America testing a missile that can hit Canada?

Rhyme and Reason
Yesterday's Day of Poetry for the War was a smashing success. But if your soul hungers for more, check out PoetsfortheWar.com, edited by Charles Weathersford, a counter to Sam Hammill's idiotarian effort. There's also a blogger, DoggerelPundit, who specializes in pro-war light verse.

Not everyone appreciated our departure from prose. One writer, whom out of kindness we won't name, writes: "I look forward to your Best of the Web column every day. It's almost always terrific. Today was complete crap. Poetry is stupid." Then there's blogger Eric Olsen of Blogcritics.org ("a sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, and technology), who turns thumbs down on our readers' efforts, which he says are just as bad as the "antiwar" poets' stuff:

This is not a time for blithe exhortations and mindless sloganeering, nor hubris, nor sarcastic dismissals of the opinions of the other side, all of which is found in the poetry of both camps. This is a time for quiet reflection, planning, soul-searching and gathering of the collective resolve, not a time for mocking, trash-talking and sentimentality in meter and by the stanza. The entire impulse reveals the crassness of an advertising campaign and a similar shallowness as well.

Yeah, well, we can't all be superior bloggers; the Internet isn't Lake Wobegon, after all. But gosh, Eric, you don't have to be so snotty about it.

Dems to Hispanics: Drop Dead
Senate Democrats have gone ahead with their threatened filibuster of Miguel Estrada, a nominee for the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia. Republicans are eager to win Hispanic votes, and Democrats seem determined to help. It's nice to see the two parties work together for a change.

At Last, The Wait Is Over!
"Former Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois said Wednesday that she intends to formally enter the 2004 Democratic presidential race next week and target her campaign toward women voters and party activists who oppose the prospect of war with Iraq," the Chicago Tribune reports from Washington. The first primary isn't until next January, and Moseley-Braun plans to make an issue of "the prospect of war with Iraq"? And they say conservatives want to turn the clock back.

The Silencer Speaks
The Upper Canada School Board says the Ottawa Citizen got the story wrong when it reported a districtwide ban on the word gun in spelling lessons. (We noted it Tuesday.) "The word was only removed from the Grade One Spelling List at Lombardy Public School," says a school district press release. "There has not been a Board-wide ban on the use of the word, as was incorrectly reported in [the] media. . . . It's expected that the decision will be reviewed."

You Don't Say--IV
"Study: Premature Babies' Intelligence May Improve Later"--headline, CNN.com, Feb. 12

You Don't Say--V
"Sex Riskier When Internet Used to Find Partners"--headline, Reuters, Feb. 12

Not Too Brite--LV
"The death of an unemployed Slovak man went unnoticed for nearly two years until his landlord broke into his apartment to evict him," Reuters reports from Bratislava. "Accompanied by police, the landlord discovered the renter's desiccated corpse on a mattress in the flat." Oddly Enough!

(For an explanation of the "Not Too Brite" series, click here.)

Lemming Loses Libation Lawsuit
The delightfully named Lawrence Lemming, 65, was playing the slot machines at an Atlantic City casino four years ago "when he asked the waitress for a diet cola but instead was given a rum and cola," the Associated Press reports:

Lemming, who said he had not consumed alcohol for 32 years, quickly realized what had happened and spit out the drink. He then passed out, but quickly regained consciousness and was not injured.

Lemming sued, but lost because "state law says servers are only liable if they provide alcohol to minors or those who are noticeably drunk." Although he claims not to have touched the sauce in over three decades, the AP describes him as a "recovering alcoholic." That's a heck of a long recovery.

(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to C.E. Dobkin, John Steele Gordon, Tom Rowe, Michael Segal, Barak Moore, Raghu Desikan, Vidya Sagar, Jerome Marcus, Mara Gold, Damian Bennett, Edward Himmelfarb, Jerry Skurnik, Rosanne Klass, Ron Kimura, Drew Anderson, Robert LeChevalier, David Schlosser, Monty Krieger, Linda Cooke, Christian Peck, Natalie Cohen, Diane Ravitch, Mark Morgan, Jim Orheim, Joseph Mazuryk, David Gerstman, Hershel Ginsburg, Amelia Matthews, David Fenton, Boris Shrayer, David Worley, Jenifer Sawicki, Jose Guardia, David Bookless, Joel Goldberg, John Archer, Michael Zukerman, Daniel Melvin, Ira Slomowitz, Jim Reingruber, Joseph Wilkinson, Dave Fobare, Jon Ham, John Hartness, Lawrence Truoccolo, Ted Villa, Cheryl Sturm, Rick Nelson, Jonathan Mairs, Max Garfield, Stuart Brown, Phillip Brown, Aviva Ross and Michael Siegel. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

Today on OpinionJournal:

• Fouad Ajami: Will Iraq's liberation help free Iran?
• John Fund: Has Willie Brown come to terms with term limits?
• Mark Lewis: The baby boomers snubbed a sexpot. She deserves an Oscar.