by JAMES TARANTO
Wednesday, September 10, 2003 2:47 P.M. EDT

Juan Williams Smears Dean
Howard Dean deviates from liberal orthodoxy on one issue: gun rights. Coming from Vermont, the state with the nation's least restrictive gun laws, Dean holds a genuinely moderate position. He opposes new federal gun-control laws, but he also believes the 10th Amendment trumps the Second and that states have the authority to pass whatever gun laws they see fit.

Here is how Juan Williams, a journalist for NPR and Fox News Channel who was among the panel of questioners at last night's Democratic presidential debate, characterized Dean's position (note: Fox, which co-sponsored the debate with the Congressional Black Caucus, does not seem to have a transcript on its Web site, though the Washington Post does, but the transcriptions are our own, aided by TiVo):

Gov. Dean has suggested that states like Vermont, Montana and Wyoming, with overwhelmingly white populations, really don't need gun control, in part because of their rural character, but urban areas, such as Baltimore, Md. [where the debate was held], with large minority populations, do need gun control.

This didn't sound right to us. We've certainly never heard Dean cast his position in racial terms, and indeed it's hard to imagine any politician in the 21st century taking the position that Williams attributes to Dean. Dean's response convinces us we were right:

I have never said that African-American cities need gun control and white states don't. I have never said that. What I have said is that rural states--and this includes places like Tennessee perhaps--that have low homicide rates, don't need the same gun laws that urban states do, and if urban states want to have lots of gun control, let 'em have it, but just don't impose the same gun laws that you have in New York City or New Jersey or California on states like Vermont, which have a very low homicide rate.

Now, Williams's question is not completely off the wall. There is a historic link between gun control and racism, as Clayton Cramer noted in a 1995 law-review article: "Throughout much of American history, governments openly stated that gun control laws were useful for keeping blacks and Hispanics 'in their place' and for quieting the racial fears of whites." It is implausible, however, to suggest that is the case today, when black citizens are full participants in the political process.

Williams could have raised the question of the racial implications of Dean's gun-rights views in an unobjectionable way, perhaps by prefacing it: "Gov. Dean, doesn't your position amount to saying that . . ." Instead, Williams simply stated as if it were a fact that Dean's position is based on racism. Cravenly, he didn't even direct the question to Dean but to novelty candidate Carol Moseley Braun. After describing Dean's putative views, Williams asked Moseley Braun: "Do you agree?"

Moseley Braun, to her credit, didn't take the bait, and Dean took time out of an answer to a subsequent question to set the record straight. None of that, though, makes Juan Williams's performance any less shameful.

Senator Quagmire
Although Sen. John Kerry voted last October to authorize the president to use force in Iraq, as soon as it became clear that the president was actually going to act on that authority, Kerry joined his party's defeatist chorus. During yesterday's debate, journalist Ed Gordon asked Kerry to explain his vote in light of his subsequent opposition to liberating Iraq. Here is his answer, in full:

The vote is the vote. I voted to authorize. It was the right vote, and the reason I mentioned the threat is that we gave the--we had to give life to the threat. If there wasn't a legitimate threat, Saddam Hussein was not going to allow inspectors in. Now, let me make two points if I may. Ed [Gordon] questioned my answer. The reason I can't tell you to a certainty whether the president misled us is because I don't have any clue what he really knew about it, or whether he was just reading what was put in front of him. And I have no knowledge whether or not this president was in depth--I just don't know that. And that's an honest answer, and there are serious suspicions about the level to which this president really was involved in asking the questions that he should've.

With respect to the question of, you know, the vote--let's remember where we were. If there hadn't been a vote, we would never have had inspectors. And if we hadn't voted the way we voted, we would not have been able to have a chance of going to the United Nations and stopping the president, in effect, who already had the votes, and who was obviously asking serious questions about whether or not the Congress was going to be there to enforce the effort to create a threat. So I think we did the right thing. I'm convinced we did.

There actually is a simple explanation for Kerry's behavior: In October he believed supporting Iraq's liberation would be politically expedient; by the spring, he realized that opposing America's effort was much more appealing to Democratic primary voters. He can't just say he was changing his position for political reasons, so he is making the logically untenable claim that he's been consistent all along.

Thus when asked to explain his thinking on the most important issue of the day, the haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam, is reduced to incoherent blather. Poor John Kerry has sunk into a verbal quagmire.

Jake Calls It Quits
Slate editor Jacob Weisberg appears to have quietly retired his unbelievably tedious "Bushism of the Day" feature, which highlighted minor errors in the president's extemporaneous remarks. Slate's "Complete Bushisms" page still claims to be "updated frequently," but the most recent "Bushism" listed is from Aug. 1, nearly six weeks ago.

Perhaps Weisberg finally realized that the genre is fundamentally dishonest, since virtually no one speaks in perfectly formed, fully fact-checked sentences. Indeed, the Democrats who want to replace President Bush delivered plenty of "Bushism"-style quotes last night. See if you can spot the goofs in each of these:

• John Kerry: "I think that $87 billion should not be just granted as a rubber check to this president."
  
  
• Howard Dean: "[I favor] a renewable energy policy in this country so we stop sending all our oil money to the Saudis and the Iranians and the Syrians, where they recycle it back into terror."
  
  
• Kerry: "We deserve a president of the United States who will write laws for all Americans, not for campaign contributors."
  
  
• Bob Graham: "the president . . . abandoned the war on terror in the spring of 2001 by moving military and intelligence resources out of Afghanistan to begin the war on Iraq.
  
  
• Carol Moseley Braun: "A generation ago, a president of the United States told the American people that all we had to fear was fear itself."

Hunting for political bloopers is an amusing sport for awhile, but Weisberg did "Bushisms" for nearly four years (the earliest one we could find is dated Oct. 25, 1999.) "The sharpest tool in the shed he ain't," Weisberg wrote of Bush in November 1999. A sharper tool than Weisberg, though, would have realized far earlier that the "Bushism" shtick was exhausted.

Great Orators of the Democratic Party

• "One man with courage makes a majority."--Andrew Jackson
  
  
• "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."--Franklin Roosevelt
  
  
• "The buck stops here."--Harry Truman
  
  
• "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."--John Kennedy
  
  
• "Here's what we ought to do. We ought to go over to the White House and hang a big warning sign on the door of the White House that says, 'This president is hazardous to your health.' That's what we ought to do."--John Edwards

U.N.-Favorable
Most of the candidates last night were at pains to say President Bush erred in not deferring to the United Nations on Iraq and now should let the U.N. run things there. Once again, this is a view that seems perfectly in tune with the Angry Left but not with the country as a whole. "More Americans say the United Nations is doing a poor job in solving world problems than at any time in the past 50 years," USA Today reports, citing a new Gallup poll.

Sixty percent of those polled said the U.N. is doing a "poor job in trying to solve the problems it has had to face," vs. just 37% who said it's doing a "good job." These numbers show little change since March, just after the veto-wielding French balked at passing an 18th resolution on Iraq. The March numbers were a reversal from January, when it still seemed possible the U.N. might do the right thing; then, 50% said the U.N. was doing a good job, vs. just 42% who said it was doing a poor job. Fifty-five percent said the U.N.'s failure to pass an 18th resolution caused them to have a less favorable view of the U.N., vs. just 15% who said their view became more favorable.

The loss of confidence in the U.N. cuts across lines of age, sex, education, party and ideology. Only 47% of Democrats think the U.N. is doing a good job, down from 65% in January. For self-described liberals, the percentage dropped to 41% from 60%. And more-educated people have less confidence in the U.N.: Just 28% of respondents with a postgraduate education think the U.N. is doing a good job, vs. 43% of those who never went to college.

How's This for an Answer?
Blogress Karol Sheinin reports that an Iranian democracy activist named Banafsheh contacted the most prominent "antiwar" group asking them to take a stand against Tehran's thuggish theocracy. In an e-mail (quoted verbatim), Banafsheh describes the answer she got:

Recently I contacted a group called A.N.S.W.E.R. COALITION which organizes marches. After having introduced myself and explained to them the situation in Iran (after 4 phone calls and messages) I was told that they won't help the Iranian activists and their friends in organizing marches against the Islamic Republic as they're afraid the Iranian student movement might be run by IMPERIALIST!!!!!

They claimed to be "intelligent" and very well informed though essentially they had NO IDEA what on earth I was talking about. They were not only unaware of the crimes committed by the Islamic Republic, they had never even heard that an organized group of hoodlums, called the BADR Brigade, trained by the KGB and Palestinians, armed and bankrolled by the Islamic Republic's ruling theocrats, were infiltrating Iraq to run a muck in killing American soldiers and destroy the future of Iraq! When I explained that the people of Iran are acting on their own but that encouragement from the PEOPLE of the west was crucial in holding anti-Islamic Republic demonstrations etc. (that's all I had asked them for: help in organizing demonstrations) the woman basically said that they won't help because their cause was to eradicate Imperialism! I explained that Iranian oil was being pilfered by member nations of the EU and other countries such as Japan, at which she replied: since we don't live in Europe or Japan, I cannot help! I guess imperialism is concentrated only in the U.S.!!!!! AND that Mullahs can't be "Imperialists!"

I then explained that Hossein Khomeini (Khomeini's grandson) is now one of the biggest opponents of the Mullacracy in Iran...She told me that he was probably being bought by Americans!!! In other words, she was convinced that there could be no dissent among the Mullahs themselves!!!!!

I told her about my father and other political prisoners in Iran (not to mention the number of people stoned to death, hung, assassinated, raped...), she thought for a moment and said that my father is probably a dissident and that the Islamic Republic was possibly justified in putting him in prison!!!!! I don't know, but doesn't that seem oxymoronic coming from someone working at an "activist/protestor" organization?????

Well, not really. International Answer is the brainchild of America-hating ex-attorney general Ramsey Clark. As we've noted before, this group makes common cause with every one of America's enemies, from Fidel Castro to Saddam Hussein to Kim Jong Il.

The Boston Globe's 'Freedom Fighters'
Ha'aretz reports from the scene of the latest suicide bombing in Israel, in which a suicidal Arab murdered, at last count, seven Jews:

The team of the emergency room at Shaare Zedek Medical Center was already used to many terror attacks, but Tuesday night's suicide bombing at Cafe Hillel on Emek Refaim Street brought a new, horrific experience.

As the hospital's doctors and nurses waited to treat the wounded, they received word that the attack had killed the head of their emergency room, Dr. David Appelbaum.

Appelbaum, 50, had taken his daughter, Naava, 20, to the cafe on the eve of her wedding, which was to have taken place Wednesday night. Both were among the seven Israelis killed in the suicide bombing. Both were lain to rest in Jerusalem on Wednesday.

Naava's fiancé, Chanan Sand, also 20, became a widower before he could become a husband. The Jerusalem Post reports that "at the funeral Chanan placed their wedding ring on her body as it was lowered to the grave."

As we noted Monday, Christine Chinlund, the Boston Globe's ombudsman, thinks it's perfectly reasonable to characterize the perpetrator of such a horrendous act as a "freedom fighter."

What Would We Do Without Witnesses?
"September 11 Suspect Was Anti-Jewish Fanatic - Witness"--headline, Reuters, Sept. 9

The Heart Bleeds
"Truffle expert" Albert Verlhac tells Agence France-Presse that, in AFP's words, "France's harvest of truffles has been devastated by the summer's heatwave and drought and looks unlikely to recover for at least the next two years."

Plenty of Blame to Go Around

"Report Blames Bureaucracy in Heat Deaths"--headline, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Sept. 9

"Medical System Blamed in France's Killer Heat Wave"--headline, Charleston (S.C.) Post and Courier, Sept. 9

"Absent Doctors Blamed for French Heat Wave Deaths"--headline, San Mateo County (Calif.) Times, Sept. 9

"France Blames Heat Deaths on Hospitals "--headline, Associated Press, Sept. 8

"Pollution Cited as Factor in French Heat Deaths"--headline, Associated Press, Sept. 1

"Blame Shifts to Families in Heatwave Deaths"--headline, Washington Times, Sept. 1

"Dennis Prager: Socialism Kills--France and Beyond"--headline, Chronwatch.com, Sept. 3

"French Capitalism Kills 12,000 During Heat Wave, Paris Blames 'Mother Nature' "--headline, The Militant, Sept. 22 issue

Weapons Found
Remember all those Angry Leftists who insisted that TRUMAN LIED!!!! about Japanese weapons? Well, OK, neither do we, but anyway, the Associated Press reports that "construction workers digging a drainage ditch have unearthed dozens of World War II-era Japanese bombs in an eastern Chinese city."

Edward Teller, RIP
A great American died yesterday. Physicist Edward Teller, known as the "Father of the H-Bomb," succumbed to a stroke at age 95. "Witty and personable, with a passion for playing the piano, Teller nevertheless was a persuasive Cold Warrior," reports the Associated Press. What's with that "nevertheless"? Does the AP find it surprising that a persuasive Cold Warrior would be a witty, personable piano player? The New York Times, meanwhile, claims that Teller "was seen as the model for Dr. Strangelove." Nonsense, replies pseudonymous blogger Robert Musil:

In fact, Dr. Teller was seen as a model for Dr. Strangelove only by a few critics determined to grasp whatever rhetorical device they could, regardless of how obviously wrong that device might be. Strangelove spoke with a clearly German accent. Dr. Teller was Hungarian. Strangelove's mechanical arm was likely to spring into a SEIG HEIL at the slightest provocation. Teller was a Jew. It is therefore weirdly despicable of the Times to make this association, especially since Dr. Teller was not widely seen as a "model" for Strangelove and was probably not intended by Stanley Kubrick as even a partial model.

Is This Who's Been Writing the Editorials?
"Federal prosecutors in Manhattan charged a man yesterday with hacking into the computer network of The New York Times, creating fictitious user identities and running up $300,000 in database research charges over three months last year," the Times reports.

What Would We Do Without Scientists?
"Scientist: NASA Funding Key to Future Space Travel"--headline, Reuters, Sept. 9

Great Moments in Socialized Medicine
Britain's ITV reports that 50-year-old Lorraine Wolstenholme, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, has had to sleep in her wheelchair for the past year because her nurses, supplied by the country's self-styled National Health Service, are not permitted to lift her into bed "in case they hurt themselves."

A Muscular Model
A Reuters dispatch claims that model Shannon Ledbetter "sported a 250,000 pound designer PVC dress in the 1997 James Bond film 'Tomorrow Never Dies.' " Her dress weighed 125 tons? We like strong women, but this is ridiculous.

Joy to the World?
"Co-Founder Joy to Leave Sun"--headline, CNET News, Sept. 9

Will Newt Gingrich Attend?
"Congressman to Host Salamander Talk"--headline, (Stockton, Calif.) Record, Sept. 10

Not Too Brite--CXII
"Bangladeshi paramilitary troops shot and killed a wild elephant after a marauding herd of the animals trampled through villages and killed four people," Reuters reports from Dhaka.

Oddly Enough!

Is There Or Noir in the Pinot Noir?
In an article about rising fuel prices, the San Jose Mercury News makes this odd comparison: "Making gasoline is like making wine. Crude oil goes into a refinery and comes out as gasoline."

Hmm, we've been drinking a lot of California wine lately, but this is almost enough to persuade us to go back to the French stuff.

Are Fruits and Flakes Next?
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Valle Verde Elementary School in Walnut Creek, Calif., has adopted a draconian ban on "peanut butter sandwiches and other nut products" because the mother of a five-year-old student says her son suffers from life-threatening allergies. The school decreed that "all kindergarten students will begin the day by washing hands with soap and water . . . supervised by classroom staff." What's more, parents said that on the first day of school "their kids' backpacks and lunch boxes were searched for peanut butter sandwiches and such."

Yeah, well, good luck trying to establish a nut-free zone in California.

(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Kevin Compton, Brian Azman, Dan Calabrese, Thomas Brueckner, Chris Mykrantz, S.E. Brenner, Michael Segal, Barak Moore, Jerome Marcus, Jonathan Kahan, C.E. Dobkin, Monty Krieger, Yehuda Hilewitz, Stanley Schaffer, Milo Grummons, Adam Smith, Tucker Goodrich, Ken Shirriff, Charles Kalina, Kendall Simmons, Chris Stetsko and Nancyann Curtis-Dubost. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

Today on OpinionJournal:

• Karl Zinsmeister on what Iraqis really think.
• Claudia Rosett on what Faulkner had to say about the war on terror.
• Brent Bozell: Network anchors are captains whose ships list left.