by JAMES TARANTO
Monday, May 5, 2003 4:59 P.M. EDT

Loud Nine
It was billed as the earliest debate in American presidential history, coming a day shy of 18 months before Election Day. It may also have been the most populous debate ever, featuring no fewer than nine candidates in 90 minutes. But the Columbia, S.C., forum, moderated by ABC-TV's George Stephanopoulos, proved a worthwhile exercise, a way of sizing up the Democratic field. (There's no transcript, but ABC's politics page has a RealAudio link and Greenville's WYFF-TV has some excerpts.)

To a New Yorker, the biggest surprise was Al Sharpton. We had expected him to be this year's Jesse Jackson--a racial demagogue who, though he has no chance of winning the nomination, pushes the party to the left, to the discomfort of its eventual standard-bearer and the benefit of the Republicans. On Saturday, however, Sharpton was more goofy than demagogic. For example, he complained that there's no right to vote in the Constitution and said he wanted to establish one. Apparently he's never heard of Article I, Section 2 or the 15th, 17th, 19th, 23rd, 24th and 26th amendments.

It's possible that Sharpton will ramp up the demagogy as the campaign progresses, but if he continues in Saturday's night's vein, he will be no more than a novelty candidate, along with Dennis Kucinich and Carol Mosely Braun.

Two of the candidates--John Edwards and Bob Graham--seem likely to join Fritz Hollings, Tom Harkin, Dick Lugar, Orrin Hatch and others in the Annals of Forgotten Senators' Presidential Campaigns. Edwards's only distinction is that he's the prettiest of the nine candidates (OK, not much of a distinction in this crowd). He's only a first-term senator, and hardly anyone outside his home state other than political junkies has heard of him. Granted, he's spent as much time in public office as George W. Bush had four years ago, but Bush surely benefited from having a famous political name. If you ask most Americans who John Edwards is, chances are they'll say the crackpot who talks to the dead.

Bob Graham is the one candidate we feel sorry for. He's as unknown outside his home state as Edwards is, and he doesn't have inexperience as an excuse. If anyone has paid his political dues, the 66-year-old Graham has: elected governor of Florida in 1978, and to the Senate in 1986, where he's been ever since. When he opens his mouth, the reason for his obscurity becomes clear; to put it bluntly, he is one of the dullest men in American politics. To be sure, dullness also reflects good qualities--responsibility, sobriety--but America is electing a president, not a designated driver.

This leaves four more or less serious candidates: Dick Gephardt, John Kerry, Howard Dean and Joe Lieberman. Gephardt, who last week put forward a proposal for using the tax code to finance health insurance, finds himself in a political quagmire. The other candidates attacked his plan from both the left (as a tax break for corporations) and the right (as a tax increase).

We have no opinion on the merits of the plan and the criticisms; the whole topic is just too boring to become informed about. And that's the problem for Gephardt. The average Democratic voter isn't going to read the plan either; he'll listen to Gephardt's description and the other candidates' criticisms and probably choose to believe whomever he likes best on other grounds. So it's hard to imagine Gephardt winning many votes on the strength of this plan.

Kerry, the haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat who by the way served in Vietnam, and Dean, the developer of subterranean elastic pavement, continued their recent clash, and as a result both men emerged from the debate diminished. "I don't need any lectures in courage from Howard Dean," Kerry complained, apparently in reference to something Dean had said earlier about Kerry's views on gay rights.

No doubt Kerry doesn't need any lectures in courage from a pipsqueak like Dean, but why is he even dignifying Dean's comments with a response? Unfortunately, this is par for the course for Kerry. He's constantly whining that people are questioning his patriotism, lecturing him on courage, etc. For a man who served with valor and distinction in Vietnam, he sure is a big baby.

As for Dean, he backed away from some of his recent statements for which Kerry and others had rightly criticized him. He proclaimed himself "delighted to see Saddam Hussein gone" (last month he said he didn't know if Saddam's ouster was good or not), and he said he wouldn't allow America to lose its military superiority (last week he suggested that such a decline was inevitable).

Dean made a lot more sense on Saturday than he had in the past--but this is actually a drawback for his campaign. Dean's appeal is to the demented wing of the Democratic Party--the folks whose entire worldview centers on the delusion that President Bush "stole" the election. These people sympathized with Dean's pro-Saddam stance not because they care one way or the other about Iraq, but because in their minds the freedom of the Iraqi people and the security of the world were worth sacrificing in order to deny Bush a political victory. By bowing to reality, Dean can't help but alienate his base, and it's unlikely he picked up many sentient Democrats' votes either. He may be destined to join Kucinich, Moseley Braun and Sharpton in the novelty category.

This leaves us with Joe Lieberman, the clear winner of Saturday's debate. Lieberman has received generally good marks for his presentation, but what was really impressive about his performance was the underlying political strategy. Lieberman has figured out that he is uniquely positioned to appeal to the Democratic base while remaining a plausible challenger to President Bush.

Lieberman made the point that no Democrat can win who isn't credible on national security. This is true, and it's also self-serving: Lieberman, who has been more of an Iraq hawk and for longer than most pols in either party, meets this test better than any of his opponents. You'd think this would cause him trouble with the antiwar voters who constitute the Democratic base, but not necessarily. If, as we suggest, these people's pro-Saddam views are merely a proxy for their hatred of Bush, then Lieberman, as part of the losing ticket in 2000, can appeal to them despite favoring the liberation of Iraq. And during Saturday's debate he did just that.

During a portion of the debate in which each candidate asked another candidate a question, here was Lieberman's:

My question is to Ambassador [Moseley] Braun. . . . I had the honor of being the vice presidential candidate in 2000. When people ask me how was that experience, I say I loved every minute of it--until the end. That wasn't so good. That was profoundly unfair. An election decided by five judges of the Supreme Court. But what we found was that African-Americans, senior Americans, new Americans were deprived of their right to vote. African-Americans 10 times greater than other Americans in Florida. Ambassador Braun, what can we do to make sure that in 2004 every vote is counted?

In his closing statement, Lieberman echoed the point: "I know I can beat George Bush. Why? Al Gore and I already did it." This is a brilliant bit of political opportunism. Suddenly, the relatively moderate Lieberman is palatable to the far-left bitter-enders. Bush must still be reckoned a favorite for re-election, but we may end up with a real race--especially if Lieberman has the good sense to shut up about the "stolen election" after he's won the nomination.

Fish and Chips
The Washington Monthly, fresh from its big exposé of President Bush's hidden agenda--you know, the one he talks about in all his speeches--has a new scoop, one it came up with in an odd collaboration with Newsweek. It seems William Bennett, President Reagan's secretary of education and the first President Bush's "drug czar," likes to gamble, and is quite a high roller.

You can see why this would be a big scandal. Oh sure, Bennett hasn't actually held public office in over a decade. But still it's news when it turns out he's been violating the law.

Only he hasn't been violating the law. According to The Washington Monthly, "Bennett has made dozens of trips to casinos in Atlantic City and Las Vegas"--places where gambling has been legal for decades.

But still he's a hypocrite, right? After all, he often argues that gambling should be outlawed. Actually, he doesn't. The Washington Monthly reports that "Bennett and his organization, Empower America, oppose the extension of casino gambling in the states." But apparently they take no position on casino gambling where it's already legal. And while he "has opined on everything from drinking to 'homosexual unions' to 'The Ricki Lake Show' to wife-swapping," gambling "has largely escaped Bennett's wrath."

So maybe Bennett has a conflict of interest. After all, the gambling industry has one of the most vigorous lobbies in Washington, the American Gaming Association, and its president, Frank Fahrenkopf, is a former Republican National Committee chairman. But there's no apparent connection here either; Bill Bennett is not a gambling-industry lobbyist.

OK, but even if Bennett's gambling is entirely legal and above board, he's squandering money on which his family depends, right? Well, uh, no. The Washington Monthly quotes Bennett as saying: "I don't play the 'milk money.' I don't put my family at risk, and I don't owe anyone anything"--and then acknowledges that "the documents offer no reason to contradict Bennett on these points."

So maybe this all comes down to that old Washington adage that the coverup is worse than the crime. Yeah, that must be it--except that Bennett isn't covering up anything. He freely acknowledges that he gambles "for fairly high stakes."

What, then, is all the fuss about? It seems to be nothing more than that Bennett thinks and writes a lot about virtue, and he indulges in a vice. In other words, the crack reporters at Newsweek and The Washington Monthly are shocked, shocked to learn that human beings are fallible. This may be news to them, but not to most people.

Incidentally, Bennett's gambling isn't news either. Time reported in 1996 that he had won a jackpot in a Las Vegas casino and that, while "sheepish," he acknowledged that he does gamble. Newsweek's reward for teaming up with The Washington Monthly is to get scooped by its main rival by seven years!

You Heard It Here First

"Why not at least consider having a little Iraq-style war to liberate Cuba?"--Best of the Web Today, May 2

"Why wouldn't we think about liberating the people of Cuba the way we liberated the people of Iraq?"--Tim Russert to Colin Powell, "Meet the Press," May 4

Red Alert
On Friday we cited a Reuters dispatch from Havana on a group of "intellectuals" who had signed a statement of support for Cuba's communist tyranny. The author of the Reuters dispatch was Marc Frank.

So we're just wondering: Is it the same Marc Frank who wrote a piece of pro-Castro, anti-American propaganda called "TV Marti vs. the Cuban People"? Is this the same Marc Frank who wrote the 1993 book "Cuba Looks to the Year 2000," and who, according to this article from Communist Voice, "has spent a number of years in Cuba as the correspondent for the Soviet revisionist CPUSA's [Communist Party USA] newspaper People's Daily World"?

Syria's Consequences?
Colin Powell, just back from Syria, gave Damascus what London's Daily Telegraph calls "a final demand to stop aiding terrorist groups" or "face 'continuing difficulties' with America." Early reports said Syria had complied by shutting several terror groups' Damascus offices, but the Jerusalem Post reports "the offices appeared to be open for business as usual Sunday."

An Altercation in Westminster
Sounding for all the world like Eric Alterman, Tam Daynell, a far-left member of the British Parliament is accusing Tony Blair of "being unduly influenced by a cabal of Jewish advisers," the Telegraph reports:

In an interview with Vanity Fair, the Left-wing Labour MP named Lord Levy, Tony Blair's personal envoy on the Middle East, Peter Mandelson, whose father was Jewish, and Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, who has Jewish ancestry, as three of the leading figures who had influenced Mr Blair's policies on the Middle East.

As the Sydney Morning Herald reported in March, Jack Straw, one of the purported cabalists, invidiously compared Israel to Saddam Hussein's Iraq. There may be less anti-Semitism in post-Saddam Baghdad than in London, though; the Associated Press quotes a shopkeeper in the Iraqi capital who says he wants someone, anyone, to restore order: "It doesn't matter if they're Iraqi, American, Indian--even Jewish. We just want security."

The Inspections Are Working
"Dr. Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash, an American-educated top scientist in Iraq's biological weapons program, has surrendered to U.S. officials in Baghdad," NBC News reports. Known as "Mrs. Anthrax," she "is believed to have played a key role in rebuilding Baghdad's biological weapons capability since the first Persian Gulf War in 1991."

All That's Ritter's Is Not Gold
"Iraq's intelligence services bought gold jewellery that they planned to give to the wife and daughter of Scott Ritter, the controversial former weapons inspector, as part of a clandestine project to encourage him to work closely with Saddam Hussein's regime," London's Telegraph reports, citing documents it found in Baghdad. According to the documents, Shakir al-Khafaji, a pro-Saddam Iraqi-American businessman, was to have acted as an intermediary, offering Ritter the gifts. But "Mr Ritter and Mr al-Khafaji have both made clear that they received no such gifts or funds."

Weasel Watch
Jacques Chirac's popularity is on the wane, the Telegraph reports. "At their highest, the polls showed that M Chirac had the confidence of 75 per cent of French voters and more than 85 per cent backed his opposition to war in Iraq," but his support is now "back down to 53 per cent, around its pre-war level."

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports from Paris that "Two men attacked the director of a Paris theater Sunday, punching him and slashing his face, apparently because of a play he is staging that criticizes President Bush":

Attilio Maggiulli, director of the Theater of Italian Comedy, was attacked in the building's entrance on Sunday, said Claudine Simon, his assistant. One man held him down, while another cut his face. They also splashed paint on the theater's walls, she said.

It was unclear exactly what motivated the beating, said Simon, who said she found her employer bleeding in the entryway. But she said it may have been over the play the theater has been showing since Wednesday, titled "George W. Bush, or God's Sad Cowboy."

Simon suggested the assailants might have been offended by a poster showing a skull in a cowboy hat to represent Bush, or by a photo of an Afghan man that the theater showed as part of its publicity display.

"They said things like, "Oh, you're defending the Arabs," Simon said. They also insulted President Jacques Chirac.

Now, let's be clear: We don't approve of attacking anyone, including anti-American directors of French theaters. All the same, this is a good opportunity for Maggiulli to ponder what he might have done to provoke his attackers' rage. He should ask himself: Why do they hate me? While their methods are inexcusable, he might find they have some legitimate grievances.

Ginzo's Last Second
Remember William Ginsburg? He was the family lawyer for Monica Lewinsky, whose appearance on five different Sunday morning news shows one day in 1998 was a record at the time. It prompted us to write this limerick:

Said Ginzo: "Set my client free
Or take her to court, where you'll see
    I'm such a fine lawyer
    You'll never destroy her--
Hey, look at me! I'm on TV!

Monica eventually sacked him and hired a team of Washington criminal lawyers. Ginzo returned to his well-deserved West Coast obscurity. But apparently he got only 14 minutes, 59 seconds of fame, because last week he showed up to claim his final Warholian second. The Whittier (Calif.) Daily News reports that Ginzo spoke at a "Law Day celebration" in nearby Norwalk, where he claimed to have given advice to President Clinton, which the president failed to heed: "I told him to go and tell the court he had an inappropriate relationship with [Lewinsky]."

Ginzo, a medical-malpractice specialist, also "warned about what he said is a gradual erosion of civil rights after Sept. 11, calling it a 'slippery-slope' ":

He singled out a recent ruling by the Supreme Court that allows the U.S. attorney general to keep illegal immigrants in jail indefinitely.

"The Justice Department in this country now has the right to ethnically, racially and nationally profile anybody they want to," he said.

But he also praised the United States and its Constitution.

"I want to tell you this is the greatest country in the world," Ginsburg said. "And I'm going to defend the Constitution as long as I live."

OK, civil libertarians, you can quit sounding the alarm now. The Constitution is safe as long as Ginzo is on the scene.

Will They At Least Get a Kill Fee?
"Daily News Looking to Slash Staffers"--headline, New York Post, May 1

Dept. of Redundancy Dept.--I
"Brighter Outlook Offers Hope"--headline, Birmingham (England) Post, May 3

Dept. of Redundancy Dept.--II
"Tornadoes Kill at Least 26 Dead in Three States"--headline, Reuters, May 5

You Don't Say
"Executing Innocent Doesn't Fight Crime"--headline, Wilmington (N.C.) Star-News editorial, May 3

Say What?
"Investigation Expected to End in Shooting"--headline, Hutchinson (Kan.) News (fourth item), May 2

You Don't Say--II
"Online Love: Not All Happy Endings"--headline, ABCNews.com, May 5

Bedlam at Turtle Bay!
Cafeteria workers at the U.N. went on strike Friday against Aramark, the contractor that operates five restaurants and bars at the international body's New York headquarters, Time magazine reports:

Kofi Annan, who had a private lunch previously scheduled with the members of the Security Council in the Delegates Dining Room, found they were only served the main course. After that, they were on their own--no desserts, no cleanup, no coffee for Kofi. And the service was no better for anyone else at the U.N. But as tensions grew and stomachs growled, a high-ranking U.N. official boldly ordered that all the cafeterias open their doors for business even without staff. The restaurants had been locked shut by security until about 1:00 pm when the doors flung open.

The decision to make the cafeterias into "no pay zones" spread through the 40-acre complex like wildfire. Soon, the hungry patrons came running. "It was chaos, wild, something out of a war scene," said one Aramark executive who was present. "They took everything, even the silverware," she said. Another witness from U.N. security said the cafeteria was "stripped bare." And another told TIME that the cafeteria raid was "unbelievable, crowds of people just taking everything in sight; they stripped the place bare." And yet another astonished witness said that "chickens, turkeys, souffles, casseroles all went out the door (unpaid)."

The good news is that the looting was done under U.N. auspices, so at least it has legitimacy.

(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Michael Segal, Bruce Oakley, Barak Moore, Raghu Desikan, Dan Rorabaugh, Linda Cooke, Judie Amsel, Mara Gold, Monica Showalter, S.E. Brenner, Carl Sherer, Robert LeChevalier, Howard Weiser, C.E. Dobkin, Yehuda Hilewitz, Elliot Ganz, William Katz, Rosanne Klass, Avi Bell, Monty Krieger, Steve Sonwoo, Jerome Marcus, Pat Mizell, Paul Music, Joel Goldberg, William Schultz, Edward Tannen, Bruce Campbell, Bob Vorick, Brent McIntosh, Ed Chinn, Reuven Weiser, Bill Carpenter, David Schlosser, Gregory Taylor, Don Mishell, Terry Young, Joshua Weiner, Jared Silverman, Peter Cummings, Rolf Mattsson, Nancy Zimmerman and Steve Ginnings. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

Today on OpinionJournal:

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• Pete du Pont: America's public schools are still risky after all these years.