From the WSJ Opinion Archives
Fox
Envy
Time magazine has the latest on the quest for a liberal news network. Al Gore
"has been devoting considerable time" to the "dream" of
"creating a media enterprise that could challenge the dominance of conservative
voices in cable television and talk radio":
Numerous sources in Hollywood and Washington tell Time that Gore has been quietly sounding out potential financial backers for a cable television network. Separately, Gore has helped arrange meetings between key Hollywood figures and a wealthy Chicago couple who have publicly announced plans to invest $10 million in a liberal radio network.
The obvious rejoinder is: What market would this network serve? After all, we already have an alphabet soup of liberal radio and TV networks: ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, NPR, PBS. On the other side, all we have is a few very popular talk-radio shows, Fox and lately MSNBC--though one suspects the latter network's turn to the right will prove to be a temporary phenomenon, just like all its previous reinventions, unless the ratings improve very soon.
Yes, there are those who deny that the "mainstream" media are liberal, or even assert they tilt to the right--a laughable claim by our lights, but if there's an underserved market for unabashedly left-wing news and commentary, we can hardly begrudge Gore or other entrepreneurs from trying to meet it. We just doubt that such a market exists.
In the late 1980s we worked briefly for the Heritage Foundation, the Washington think tank best known for its aggressive marketing of conservative ideas. In those days we read lots of news articles about folks who hoped to establish a liberal counterpart to the Heritage Foundation. The other week we were in Washington and dropped in on Heritage, where a friend in the PR department told us that nothing's changed: Liberals are still trying to figure out the secret of Heritage's success and imitate it. Why haven't they been able to do it?
Here's why: Heritage was founded in the early 1970s, when liberalism reigned so supreme in American politics that the Democrats had dominated Capitol Hill almost continuously for 40 years. Like Fox News Channel today, Heritage owed its vitality in large part to its role as an alternative to the establishment. Liberal Democrats today, by contrast, still have an establishmentarian mindset, and one can't really blame them: Although the Republicans now hold the White House and both houses of Congress, the Dems are within striking distance of recapturing at least the Senate, and the GOP hasn't won a decisive victory in a presidential election since 1988. One good election, and the Democrats would be back in power, where they feel they rightfully belong. On the other hand, if the Republicans are en route to becoming America's undisputed majority party, it'll take a lot for Democrats accept their minority status--at the very least, a loss in the 2008 presidential election.
As a consequence of this uncertainty about their future, today's Democrats are intellectually stagnant. They are the conservative party--not in the ideological sense, but in the sense of being opposed to change: Leave Social Security alone. Don't cut taxes (but don't raise them either). Roe v. Wade is sacrosanct, and anyone who questions it is unqualified for the federal bench. Affirmative action? Defend it, don't end it. And on foreign policy, the top liberal priority is the maintenance of Cold War-era institutions and alliances. Only on a few fringe issues (gay rights comes to mind) can liberals and Democrats be said to have any sort of agenda other than the preservation of the status quo.
It's understandable that liberals are suffering from Heritage and Fox envy. But setting up Heritages and Foxes of their own will require more than imitating their techniques. It will take ideas, and it's a lot easier to come up with bold ideas when you have nothing to lose. The Democrats still have a lot to lose, and we probably won't see an intellectual revival on the left until they've lost it.
Vote
for Me, I'm a Chump
"Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said Wednesday that President
Bush broke his promise to build an international coalition against Iraq's Saddam
Hussein and then waged a war based on questionable intelligence," the Associated
Press reports from Lebanon, N.H., where the haughty, French-looking Massachusetts
Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam, was campaigning for next year's
primary:
"He misled every one of us," Kerry said. "That's one reason why I'm running to be president of the United States."
Well, actually, "every one" overstates the case. The Senate vote in favor of authorizing force in Iraq was 77-23, with Kerry voting "yes." For the sake of argument, let's say Kerry is right and Bush perpetrated a sham. In a hypothetical general-election match-up, who would you rather choose to deal with hostile foreign leaders: a guy who's capable of pulling off such an elaborate deception, or the sucker who fell for it?
'Many
Iraqis'
Reuters is at it again. The "news" service carries a "report"
from Baghdad that begins:
The United States insists die-hard supporters of Saddam Hussein are behind a spate of deadly attacks on U.S. troops-but many Iraqis believe American blunders are more to blame.
They argue it is heavy-handed American raids, along with the failure to restore basic services, that are fueling the violence and insecurity, not Saddam loyalists.
Well, let's count the Iraqis in Reuters' "report": (1) "Ali Jassem, a unemployed Shiite Iraqi who lives in a slum." (2) "Akram Hussein, an assistant in a compact disc shop." (3-4) "Low-ranking Baath member Muayid Ghadad" and "his brother Ibrahim, also a low-ranking Baathist." (5) "Sheikh Kassem Sudani, a Shi'ite cleric."
That's it. Five Iraqis, two of them from the same (low-ranking Baathist) family. Iraq has a population of 24 million. Reuters won't call Osama bin Laden a terrorist, but it will use the phrase many Iraqis, with no scare quotes, to describe 0.00002% of the population.
The
Ace of Clubs
When we were in college, we belonged to the campus Solipsist Club. We were the
only member!
We made up this joke years ago, and we'll admit it was rather esoteric, but it's pretty funny if you know what solipsism is. We were reminded of this joke when we discovered that Yahoo! has a "group" called "The Adel al-Jubeir Fan Club":
This is a fan club to honor the Foreign policy Advisor to the Crown Prince Abdullah, Adel al-Jubeir. Anybody who has a great admiration for Mr. al-Jubeir is welcomed to join in to talk about this great man and the great job that he is doing for Saudi Arabia. This group could also serve as an Activist group for Adel al-Jubeir, as the American media tries to put him down.
The club was started by someone with the screen name libertysoldier2000, and as we write, it has exactly one member. Someone must've told LS2K he needed a hobby, and he misheard it as "Wahhabi."
General Knowledge
Our item
yesterday on the political aspirations of retired general Wesley Clark draw
lots of interesting comments from readers. Several pointed out that we erred
in saying George
Washington had never held elective office before becoming president. In
fact, although he never held federal or state office, he did serve from 1759
through 1774 as a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, the colonial legislature.
Other readers questioned our assertion that Franklin
Roosevelt had no military experience, pointing out that he served as assistant
secretary of the Navy in the Wilson administration. But this is a civilian post,
so we stand by our characterization.
Reader Christopher Larkin thought our comparison of Clark to Zachary Taylor was unfair to Taylor:
Gen. Clark led a dominant NATO force against a country that was outmatched in every way; though the Serbs put up forceful resistance, the outcome was never seriously in doubt. In the 1840s, the U.S.'s and Mexico's forces were much more evenly matched, and nonetheless Gen. Taylor achieved important, hard-won victories at Monterrey and Buena Vista. He would have captured Mexico City had President Polk not sent Winfield Scott to do the deed, with a brilliant landing at Veracruz.
Larkin and several other readers suggested that a more apt comparison might be to Gen. George McClellan, the 1864 Democratic nominee for president, who of course got trounced by President Lincoln. All this assumes, of course, that Clark is serious about seeking the presidency. But what if he's merely after the No. 2 spot? In November Newsmax.com picked up a United Press International report that some Dems speculated that Clark was "angling for a bid as Al Gore's running mate in 2004."
Gore is out of the race, of course, but what if Howard Dean were to win the Democratic nomination? Dean's views on national defense can be most charitably described as flaky, and in order to avoid being laughed off the political stage, he would probably want to pick a vice presidential candidate with some military credentials. Perhaps by choosing someone of such high rank he could hope to avoid the 49-state drubbing his party suffered the last time it nominated a lefty peacenik. After all, George McGovern's running mate was only a Sargent.
Checking
the Polls--III
Last
week we criticized an opinion poll that found overwhelming support among
Hispanics for Miguel Estrada's nomination, for asking what struck us as leading
questions. We published pollster Raul Damas's defense on Monday.
Now there's another poll of Hispanics (link requires National Journal subscription),
conducted by the Democratic firm Bendixen & Associates, that seems to show
significant though not overwhelming support for Estrada. Here are the relevant
questions:
Are you aware of President Bush's nomination of Miguel Estrada to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington D.C.?
Yes No Don't know / no answer (Asked of those who said "yes" in the above question) Do you support or oppose President Bush's nomination of Miguel Estrada to the U.S. Court of Appeals? (Responses combined with "no" or "don't know/no answer" responses in the above question)
Support Oppose Not aware / no opinion
Twenty-eight percent support may not seem like much, but it amounts to 64% support among those who are aware of the nomination--which suggests that this could be a potent political issue if President Bush worked to make more Hispanics aware of Democratic obstruction of the Estrada nomination.
Man vs. Machines--II
Yesterday we
noted that Sen. Orrin Hatch thinks it might be a good idea to equip computers
with a device that would allow record companies to destroy them if their users
pirated music. Reader Clifford Peterson notes that this idea has broader applications:
If Orrin Hatch is in favor of destroying miscreants' machines (if there's no other way to stop them), would he be in favor of installing explosive devices in automobiles and destroying the engine if you exceed the speed limit? Or how about mattresses that burst into flames if you remove the tag? I know--how about destroying your VCR if you've recorded a show and then (gasp) skipped through a commercial during playback?
Meanwhile, blogger Laurence Simon alleges that Hatch's congressional Web site uses a program called DHTML Menu, the copyright for which belongs to a company called Milonic Solutions, and that Hatch is failing to comply with Milonic's licensing terms.
Is
Mr. Tater There? First Name, Dick.
Remember when a pair of Miami radio hosts prank-called Venezuela's beleaguered
left-wing president, Hugo Chavez, claiming to be Fidel Castro? (We noted
it in January.) Now they've done the same thing in reverse. Enrique Santos
and Joe Ferrero apparently managed to get a call through to the Cuban dictator.
Here's what happened, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:
Posing as an aide to Chávez, Ferrero told those he reached with the Cuban government that Chávez had left a suitcase with "sensitive documents" at a hotel when he and Castro were in Argentina recently. After being told to call another number, the radio personality managed to reach Castro, who spent much of the conversation trying to make sure the fake Chávez could hear him.
After several minutes, Castro said he was "informed and fine" with the matter of the suitcase at which time Santos got on the line and started berating Castro.
"Are you fine with the s--- you've done on the island, assassin?" Santos asked. "You fell for it just like Hugo Chávez."
That prompted a profanity-laced tirade from Castro in which he called the radio host several names.
The Washington Times gets a bit more specific: "The Cuban leader hurled profanities at Mr. Santos and his mother and questioned her marital status at the time of Mr. Santos' birth. Mr. Castro also questioned the disc jockey's sexual orientation."
WTVJ-TV has a clip of part of the exchange, with Castro's antigay and anti-illegitimacy remarks (or "explicatives," as the station calls them) bleeped out.
What
Would We Do Without Experts?
"Experts Say It's Very Rare for a Jetliner to Disappear"--headline,
ABC News Web site, June 18
Not
Too Brite--XC
"A Florida woman died from injuries she received in a 'Toughman' amateur
boxing match," Reuters reports from St. Petersburg. "Stacy Young,
30, of Bradenton, died on Monday. . . . Young was knocked out and
suffered brain damage during a fight with another woman Saturday night."
Oddly Enough!
We
Could've Sworn It Was Women Who Were Different
"Genetically Speaking, Men Really Are Different"--headline, Austin
American-Statesman, June 19
What
Would the Class of 2003 Do Without Experts?
"Experts Say Seniors Ought to Have Fun"--headline, USA Today, June 19
Who
Knew?
"Keeping Mentally Fit Wards Off Dementia, Study Says"--headline, Associated
Press, June 18
You want to hear something really surprising? It's a proven fact that if you smoke a pack of cigarettes a day for 80 years, you'll live to a ripe old age.
(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Barak Moore, Hovig Hegnenian, David Schlosser, Mara Gold, C.E. Dobkin, Rosanne Klass, Tom Linehan, Joel Goldberg, Jeffrey Murphy, Raghu Desikan, Jim Orheim, Natalie Cohen, Monty Waters, Joe Simon, Daniel McLaughlin, Mac Overton, Jim Triller, James Silverglad, Harlan Sonderling, David Lincoln, Kevin Coleman, David Levy, Kevin Coleman, Eduardo Vidal, Nelson MacPherson, Richard Mason, Bernard Levine, Donald Sipe, Chris Hamilton, David Bookless, Joe Deltoro, Abe Beyda, Nancy Zimmerman, Michael Segal, David Gerstman, Edward Himmelfarb, Jerome Marcus, Ashley Tate, Drew Cooper, Michael Hopkovitz, Ethan Corey, Reuven Weiser, Patrick Keel and Peter Melvoin. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Michael Barone: Yes, Hillary's running for president. Is that good for the Democrats?
- John Fund: A bipartisan proposal would make the Senate less secretive.
- Eugene Tempel: What's a nonprofit to do when a donor reneges on a pledge?
