From the WSJ Opinion Archives

by JAMES TARANTO
Friday, February 28, 2003 1:47 P.M. EST

Limousine Illiberals
Forbes is out with its annual list of billionaires, and its report includes a sublist of the world's wealthiest heads of state. The biggest moneybags are King Fahd of Saudi Arabia ($20 billion) and Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei ($11 billion). Tied for third place with Liechtenstein's Prince Hans Adams II is Saddam Hussein ($2 billion). And also in the top eight are Yasser Arafat ($300 million) and Fidel Castro ($110 million).

It's puzzling, isn't it? American liberals pose as the scourge of the rich, waxing indignant over plans to lower marginal tax rates or eliminate the double taxation of dividends. Yet these same liberals are America's most fervent supporters of the filthy rich Saddam, Arafat and Castro. Why can't we all agree that liberating Iraq is a form of class warfare that's worth waging?

Meanwhile, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette quotes billionaire George Soros: "President Bush is pushing the wrong buttons when he says, 'Those who are not with us, are against us.' This is an imperialist vision in which the U.S. leads and the rest of the world follows." Soros and Saddam--those rich guys always stick together, don't they?

Will France Surrender?
President Jacques Chirac is facing opposition in his own party to his anti-American, pro-Saddam policies, the Associated Press reports:

Above all a bloc of so-called "Atlanticist" lawmakers from the conservative Union for the Parliamentary Majority, or UMP, are concerned about what will happen if France uses its veto as one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council to block Washington.

Saying he believes war on Iraq is inevitable, pro-American UMP lawmaker Herve de Charette said Thursday the use of a veto "is a decision with great ramifications, of great gravity." . . .

"A veto is unimaginable," Claude Goasguen, another senior conservative lawmaker, told daily Le Monde in its Thursday edition. "We are not going to break the United Nations and Europe just to save a tyrant," he said, referring to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

"We are not going to shoot them (the Americans) in the back," added Pierre Lellouche, the unofficial leader of the "Atlanticist" block.

Meanwhile, the Grand Guignol continues at the U.N., with France vying with the U.S. and Britain for the votes of the various backwater nations that hold temporary seats on the Security Council. "The absurdity of the exercise mirrors the absurdity of the United Nations itself," Charles Krauthammer observes:

Guinea is a perfectly nice place and Guineans perfectly nice people. But from the dawn of history to the invention of the United Nations, it made not an ounce of difference what a small, powerless, peripheral country thought about a conflict thousands of miles away. It still doesn't, except at the Alice-in-Wonderland United Nations, where Guinea and Cameroon and Angola count.

Ultimately, though, they don't count. Even if Guinea, Cameroon and Angola all take America's side, France can still veto the proposed 18th U.N. resolution. But will it? President Bush has put France between a rock and a hard place. If it does exercise its veto (or if Russia does), America and its allies will enforce the 17 previous U.N. resolutions anyway, and it will be an end to the fiction that the Security Council is an authoritative body. The French veto, in other words, is a weapon that destroys only itself. Despite their storied penchant for surrender, this may not be a weapon the French want to use.

Hans Blix reports to the Security Council again tomorrow, and CNN reports that a draft of his written report sounds relatively tough, calling Iraq's disarmament steps "very limited." Since the U.N. has demanded full and immediate compliance, "very limited" is no better than "nonexistent." But the politics of the Blix report may hinge on his emphasis. If he stresses Iraq's failure to comply, that may allow the French to save face while acquiescing in an 18th resolution. Of course, we thought Colin Powell's presentation would have this effect, and we were mistaken. It may be that our pals in Paris have elevated petulance into a principle.

Yeah, Go Figure
A group of South Africans, including Deputy Prime Minister Aziz Pahad, were in Baghdad this week "to share [their] experience in verifiably destroying [their country's] programs to produce weapons of mass destruction," the Associated Press reports. The dispatch adds that "Pahad said he did not know why weapons inspectors have been so suspicious of Iraq's efforts to disarm."

Y2K3 Debunking Watch
The Los Angeles Times reports from Maan, Jordan, on anti-American and pro-Saddam sentiment there. "Sept. 11 made me so pleased," a 40-year-old called Khalil tells the paper. A neighbor adds: "What I liked was that [the United States] faced a catastrophe, like we face." Khalil loves the Iraqi dictator: "Saddam, his picture is in my heart."

So does this mean anti-Americanism will increase once Saddam is gone? It doesn't seem likely. "Saddam is not liked for himself," Taher Masri, a former Jordanian prime minister, explains. He is liked, if he is liked, because he stands up to America and Israel." A voice from the street, Khalid the phosphorous-plant worker, echoes the sentiment: "Saddam is the favorite Arab leader because he's against America." The liberation of Iraq will shatter the myth of Saddam the defiant leader.

A Dippy Diplomat Departs
John Brady Kiesling has resigned in disgust. Who the hell, you may ask, is John Brady Kiesling, and why does the New York Times consider his departure newsworthy? We're as puzzled as you are about the second question, but the Times answers the first: He holds the crucial post of "political counselor at the United States Embassy in Athens." In his resignation letter, he declares: "Our fervent pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us to squander the international legitimacy that has been America's most potent weapon of both offense and defense since the days of Woodrow Wilson."

What a great idea. President Bush should encourage all federal civil servants who oppose America's Iraq policy to resign in protest--thereby cutting the federal workforce and freeing up more money to pay for tax cuts and war.

You Don't Say
"ISLAMIC MILITANTS OPPOSE WAR ON TERROR"--subheadline, Reuters, Feb. 28

Peta's Holocaust--II
On Tuesday we noted that the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals are expanding the frontiers of bad taste with an ad campaign that likens chicken farms to Nazi death camps. In a letter to the editor of WorldNetDaily, PETA's Matt Prescott explains his group's position: "Tragically, those who dismiss the abuse of animals on factory farms today sound hauntingly similar to those who dismissed the suffering of Jews because they were 'subhuman.' "

Matt, you birdbrain, chickens are subhuman.

Gluttons for Punishment
There's a new Web site called DraftGore.com--it seems to have been registered in mid-December. The homepage explains:

We are grassroots Democrats from coast to coast who believe Al Gore is the only Democrat who can represent us--who must represent us--in what may be the most crucial election in American history. . . .

With the world on the brink of war and our nation under increasing repression, who will stand up for us? Not the major Democratic candidates for president, all of whom have backed George Bush again and again. Not even our own party, which right now represents no one and has betrayed us all.

By forcefully speaking out against the policies of this administration, Al Gore has become the voice of patriotic dissent in America--a voice for the people, not the powerful; a voice against a senseless war; and a voice in defense of our Constitution!

There's another name for people who want Al Gore to run for president in 2004: Republicans.

Not Too Brite--LXI
"A British man plunged to his death from a hot air balloon in California's Napa Valley area," Reuters reports from San Francisco. "The British man, whose name was not immediately released, was apparently hanging from the side of the balloon throughout the flight for unknown reasons. . . . He fell from a height of 300 to 500 feet and died instantly upon hitting the parking lot below."

Oddly Enough!

Coming Next: Auschwitz Land
"Hoping to capitalise on a wave of nostalgia for Communist East Germany, a Berlin company is planning to build a theme park that revives life behind the Iron Curtain in the country that disappeared nearly 13 years ago," Reuters reports from Berlin. The attraction will include "surly border guards, rigorous customs inspections, authentic East German mark notes, and restaurants with regulation bland East German food."

Maybe we should call it an abusement park.

For Want of a Nail
A Galveston, Texas, man "put more than $18,000 in his pocket by selling fingernails and toenails from bodies donated to the University of Texas Medical Branch for medical research," the Houston Chronicle reports. University records show that between November 1999 and August 2001, Allen Tyler "received at least $18,210 from Watson Laboratories Inc. of Salt Lake City for hundreds of human fingernails and toenails":

Tyler received $4,005 from Watson in one transaction. The money paid for 232 fingernails at $15 each and 35 toenails at $15 each, according to Tyler's records. Tyler sent letters directing the company to make out checks to him, and he gave his home address in Galveston as the place to which the payments should be sent, records show.

The Chronicle says Tyler was fingered by his former boss, who "said Tyler took care of all the paperwork on willed bodies and cut bodies up for use by researchers at UTMB and around the nation."

Why Is the Attorney's Race Relevant?
"Great White Attorney Says Singer Will Seek Immunity; Dealer Says Club Bought Cheap Packing Foam"--headline, Associated Press, Feb. 28

An Author Gets Discovered
From the caption of an Associated Press photo of Oprah Winfrey:

Winfrey, who announced last April that she was suspending her book club because she could not find any worthy books, revealed Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2003, that she was bringing back her club. She said she had been reading works by William Shakespeare, William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway and wanted to celebrate these and other writers from the past.

Hey Oprah, we've got news for you. We were reading Shakespeare in high school, which means his stuff is at least 20 years old.

(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Ann Ellwood, Judie Amsel, Barak Moore, Daniel Foty, Monty Krieger, Carl Sherer, Howard Weiser, Jenifer Sawicki, Albert Turin, Mara Gold, Hershel Ginsburg, Yehuda Hilewitz, Natalie Cohen, Nancy Zimmerman, Damian Bennett, Craig Berkowitz, Marie Bourgeois, Urbach Yehudah, Milo Grummons, Ken Hennesay, Michael Segal, Raghu Desikan, Monty Gray, Robert Waterson, Robert LeChevalier, Mike Daley, Scott Goodman, Brian Crouch, Ian Colle, Brian Herrick, Geoffrey Berg, Rosslyn Smith, Rebecca Mansour, Karen Louis, Alan Hegi and Scott Troeger. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

Today on OpinionJournal:

And on the Taste page:

Click to email this article EMAIL THIS Click to format this article for printing FORMAT FOR PRINTING
ARCHIVE