From the WSJ Opinion Archives

by JAMES TARANTO
Tuesday, October 7, 2003 1:25 P.M. EDT

A Recall to Remember
We guess we're supposed to be more high-minded than this, but this California recall has been a real hoot, and we're going to miss it. A lot of scolds complained that this was a political circus, but they fail to acknowledge a crucial point: Circuses are fun!

The high-minded complaints about the recall never made sense anyway: Here we had people deploring an election as an affront to democracy (even going to court to try to get it stopped), and defending an atrociously bad governor in the name of good government. Come to think of it, many of the same people also defended Saddam Hussein in the name of international law and human rights. California may be a circus, but these people are from Bizarro World.

Before the voting is done, enjoy a final blast of recall news. Today we inaugurate OpinionJournal's Political Diary, edited by Holman Jenkins and featuring John Fund, with a recall roundup and more. Later this month the Political Diary will become a premium e-mail service--i.e., you'll have to pay for it. It will be well worth the cost, and we urge you to sign up.

And here are some final recall tidbits:

  • Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, the Democrats' backup candidate, was supposed to capture the votes of his fellow Hispanics. It may not work out that way. A San Jose Mercury News poll of 400 California Latinos finds Bustamante unable to muster a majority; his plurality is just 48%. "Schwarzenegger received a significant 22 percent."

  • As his prospects fade, Bustamante is waxing macho. The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that at a debate with Republican Tom McClintock and Green Peter Camejo, the lieutenant governor had this to say about allegations that Schwarzenegger has groped women: "I tell you one thing, that if this had gone on with my daughter, it wouldn't have taken a campaign to resolve it." Bring 'em on, Cruz!

  • The LA Weekly's Bill Bradley--presumably not the former New Jersey senator by the same name--is disputing the Los Angeles Times' claim that the women whose allegations of boorish behavior it reported were not put up to it by the candidate's rivals. In fact, according to Bradley, one of the women "says she came forward at the urging of Jodie Evans, described by the Times as a peace activist and 'co-founder of the women's peace group Code Pink.' " Evans "is actually a former close colleague of Gov. Gray Davis, a longtime Democratic operative and a friend of noted Democratic hit man Bob Mulholland." And she's "the ex-wife of Westside financier Max Palevsky, the man who gave Gray Davis his first job in politics as the fund-raiser in Tom Bradley's 1973 mayoral campaign."

  • The new issue of The New Yorker features a "Letter From California" by Tad Friend called "Jumpers: The fatal grandeur of the Golden Gate Bridge." It's not clear if Friend wrote this with Davis in mind.

  • In an example of the kind of reporting only Reuters can provide, the "news" service reports from Buenos Aires that "Argentines are watching the California governor recall vote with a sense of deja vu and have this advice to offer: booting out your leaders won't necessarily solve your problems." Reuters quotes an Argentine insurance salesman as saying of the Golden State: "They're turning into a banana republic just like we are."

  • On reading Jill Stewart's 1997 article about Davis's tendency to explode at his underlings, we noted this passage: "Davis's hurling of phones and ashtrays at quaking government employees . . . bespeak a man who cannot be trusted with power." Ashtrays? Are those legal in California?

As if the end of the recall weren't bad enough, last night brought news from the Associated Press that Sen. Bob Graham has withdrawn from the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. "I'm leaving because I have made the judgment that I cannot be elected president of the United States," Graham said. Somehow the candidate is always the last to know.

Sure, we still have Al Sharpton and Dennis Kucinich to provide comic relief, but somehow Graham's goofiness was special, perhaps because the contrast between his excruciatingly dull personality and the deranged statements coming out of his mouth was so striking.

You Don't Say
"Governor Will Have Task Fixing California"--headline, FoxNews.com, Oct. 6

Unfair and Unbalanced
"Heavy viewers of the Fox News Channel are nearly four times as likely to hold demonstrably untrue positions about the war in Iraq as media consumers who rely on National Public Radio or the Public Broadcasting System, according to a study released this week by a research center affiliated with the University of Maryland's School of Public Affairs," reports the Baltimore Sun.

This "study," however, turns out to be pure propaganda. (It's here, in PDF form.) The "untrue positions" the survey measured are these:

  • "Saddam Hussein has been directly linked with the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks."

  • "Weapons of mass destruction have already been found in Iraq."

  • "World opinion favored the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq."

Here are some demonstrable untruths the survey didn't ask its subjects about:

  • President Bush said Iraq posed an "imminent" threat.

  • Bush claimed Iraq had bought uranium from Niger.

  • America's intervention in Iraq was unilateral.

Would not a fair survey have included examples of the misperceptions on both sides?

Come and Get Us!
Who says the world is against us? Slate's Christopher Hitchens interviews Hossein Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's 45-year-old grandson, a Shiite cleric now living in Iraq because he finds the mad mullahs' Iranian theocracy too oppressive:

The best outcome, he thought, would be a very swift and immediate American invasion of Iran.

It hurt me somewhat to have to tell him that there was scant chance of deliverance coming by this means. He took the news pretty stoically (and I hardly think I was telling him anything he did not know). But I was thinking, wow, this is what happens if you live long enough. You'll hear the ayatollah's grandson saying, not even "Send in the Marines" but "Bring in the 82nd Airborne." I think it was the matter-of-factness of the reply that impressed me the most: He spoke as if talking of the obvious and the uncontroversial.

Not only in Iraq but in Iran as well, Hitchens opines, "the United States has also managed to get on the right side of history, as we used to say."

Good News Watch
"American-occupied Iraq" is "teetering on the brink of bedlam," the New York Times reports from Beirut. Beirut? Can we look forward to firsthand coverage of the California recall campaign from the Times' man in Seattle?

Meanwhile, the Christian Science Monitor reports Baghdad's nightlife is picking up again:

The US invasion briefly shut down Baghdad's cafe culture. It has suffered since because of the plague of nighttime carjackings and theft that swept the capital after the collapse of the regime.

But in one sign last week that security is improving, the US-led coalition authority moved the start of curfew from 11 to midnight. Thousands took advantage of the extended evening last Thursday, the end of the Iraqi workweek.

Though far from the prewar war throngs, business is picking up at Baghdad's cafes, where men have gathered around tiny glasses of cardamom-flavored coffee to trade gossip and political rumors for centuries. Many Baghdadi's [sic] say they're free to speak their minds in the cafes these days, without fear of being denounced by the informers that were everywhere under Saddam. . . .

"Praises be to God, it's finally safe to come out again," says Haider Saffa, a beetle-browed tool salesman who left his house at night for the first time since a few days after the invasion. . . . A Saddam loyalist, he hates the American presence in the city, but concedes that conditions have improved in recent months. "They've got more Iraqis out on the streets as police now, and that's making a difference," he says. "We've got to return to a normal life."

Democracy, whiskey, sexy!

But Saddam Didn't Have Any Weapons!
"Two Iraqi scientists were shot in Baghdad after they talked to the U.S.-led team hunting weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and others believe they will be in danger if they collaborate in the search, Washington's chief weapons inspector David Kay said on Friday," Reuters reports.

What Would We Do Without Putin?
"Putin Says U.S. Faces Big Risks in Effort in Iraq"--headline, New York Times, Oct. 6

Unemployment Rises in Reuterville
"Reuters, the electronic information group, is pushing through a big editorial shake-up with the departure of its top news editor and several senior managers," the Financial Times reports. Among the changes: "About 2,400 editorial staff were on Monday told that Stephen Jukes, global head of news, was standing down with immediate effect."

Who is Stephen Jukes? Reuters itself describes his job this way: "Jukes is responsible for news quality." For some reason Reuters doesn't mention the aphorism that made Jukes famous: "One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter."

Israel Should Wash His Mouth Out With Soap
"Arafat Swears in New Palestinian Cabinet"--headline, Associated Press, Oct. 7

Must've Been Something They Hate
Here's a weird little campus commotion: A press release on the Young America's Foundation Web site complains that officials at Gonzaga University, a Catholic institution in Spokane, Wash., "censored flyers advertising a Young America's Foundation organized lecture because the word 'hate' was used on the flyer":

The flyer in question featured the topic of guest speaker Dan Flynn's speech, "Why the Left Hates America," which is also the title of his book. The administration first approved the flyer then rescinded the approval after some professors and students complained of the use of the word "hate." . . .

In a conversation with Gonzaga's Director of Student Activities, student organizer Paul Schafer was told that the word "hate" is a strong word and that the students shouldn't hold an event at which a speaker hates someone. The director also told Schafer that many students and faculty members tore down his group's flyers to bring them to the office to make complaints. The director has so far refused to give Schafer the names of the people who tore down the flyers, which is a violation of Gonzaga's posting policy. He then compared the speech title "Why the Left Hates America" to an imaginary Caucasian club talking about how it hates black people.

Granted, Flynn's book title is provocative and arguably obnoxious. But discriminatory? This is the sort of convoluted logic that would make sense only to a college administrator or professor. Didn't President Bush's father hate broccoli? Is that "discriminatory" too?

In any case if Gonzaga is engaging in censorship, it's not very thorough about it. The university's home page features a prominent link to a press release titled "Author, Activist Flynn to Speak at GU Oct. 7." Yep, the name of the book is there.

Is Our Children Learning?--I
"Study: UC Berkleley Rebuffed Highly Quality Applicants in Favor of Others"--headline, Associated Press, Oct. 6

Is Our Children Learning?--II
"Deerfield Community School remembers September 11th by pledging to strengthen communitys."--Deerfield (N.H.) Community School Web site, undated

Life Imitates 'South Park'

"Now pay attention, all right? I'm going to show you the proper way to put on a condom. First of all you remove the condom from its package. Then you find which way the condom rolls out. Put it in your mouth and apply."--"Mr. Garrison" in "Proper Condom Use," an episode of "South Park," first aired Aug. 1, 2001

"HOW TO PUT A CONDOM ON WITH YOUR MOUTH"--"Condom Connection," Michigan State University Web site, noted by the Drudge Report on Oct. 6, 2003

Someone Should Show Her the Door
A Moroccan schoolteacher defenestrated two boys because they were "too noisy," the nation's Education Ministry tells Reuters. Luckily for the kids, they were on the first floor:

One of the pupils, aged nine, ended up in hospital with a fractured shoulder and serious injuries to his face and head while the other, age 10, suffered only slight injuries, the official from the ministry's delegation in Casablanca said.

Reuters quotes the unnamed ministry official, who blames the kids: "They did not listen. They should have listened. She (the teacher) suffers depression."

Does That Make It a Homicide Webcast?
"Suicide Webcast Killed"--headline, Launch.yahoo.com, Oct. 6

Only 10,606 Days Late
This correction appeared in yesterday's New York Times:

An article in The Times Magazine on Sept. 22, 1974, about the movie actor Charles Bronson, who died on Aug. 30 this year, misstated his military record. Publicity material asserting that Mr. Bronson had been a B-29 gunner in World War II, called into doubt by the article, was indeed correct. (The magazine error came to light after it was repeated in an obituary on Sept. 2 and in some late editions on Sept. 1. The more recent error was corrected in this space on Sept. 18.)

Who Knew?
"World Bank Faults Tight Regulation: Study to Argue Fewest Rules Foster Strongest Economies; Goal Is to Promote Changes"--headline and subheadline, The Wall Street Journal (link for subscribers), Oct. 7

The MoveOn Mob--II
Back in August, we noted that The Wall Street Journal has been hit by an e-mail harassment campaign because this column criticized MoveOn.org, the far-left group that agitated for the continuation of Saddam Hussein's rule in Iraq and now is trying to keep Gray Davis in power in California. Such harassment, it turns out, is standard procedure for MoveOn. The New York Post's Bob McManus reports that he was the target of a "swarming" by the MoveOn mob hive:

Last week, MoveOn decided that Robert Novak, the syndicated columnist and a long-time colleague, should no longer appear in The Post.

Novak, who may (or may not) have blown the identity of a CIA agent, is, in MoveOn's view, unfit to practice his trade. Thus did Noah Weiner, of MoveOn, call last Tuesday afternoon: Does the Post intend to fire Robert Novak? he asked, tendentiously.

I responded in that spirit: I said, "No," and I hung up. Silly me.

Presently, Weiner stirred MoveOn's rank-and-file. He cast my name, my crime and my office-desk phone number into cyberspace. And for three days, continuing into the weekend, the phone calls arrived--in the aggregate, several hundred.

They were depressingly unoriginal, many clearly read from a script. Some calls were angry. Most seemed informed by a befuddled, albeit vaguely self-righteous, sincerity.

Novak and MoveOn were actually on the same side of the Iraq issue, so they must be mad at him because he supports Davis's recall. Meanwhile, Reuters reports from Oslo that the Norwegian Nobel Institute will announce Friday the winner of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize. The "news" service interviews Geir Lundestad, the institute's director, who explains how the winner will find out:

Lundestad typically calls the winner about 45 minutes before the prize is publicly announced at 0900 GMT in Oslo. He said he sometimes does not call when there is a clear favorite--[Kofi] Annan, for instance, did not get a call.

Is this really responsible journalism? Thanks to Reuters, anyone who wants to perpetrate a hoax by falsely informing someone he's won the Peace Prize now knows when to call and who to claim to be. And McManus's column includes Noah Weiner's phone number. Let's hope no one gets any ideas.

(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Chris Stetsko, Kyle Stedman, Paul Deffebach, Edward Morrissey, Kristi Kendall, Thomas Dillon, Michael Simons, Edward Hildebrand, Andy Hefty, Tack Cornelius, Mark Kolmar, Scott Cosman, S.E. Brenner, Paul Music, Mark Wallace, Chip George, Barak Moore, Kirk Petersen, Stan Zahorsky, Bob Sinnema, C.E. Dobkin, Danny Carlton, Daniel Sterman, Aaron Spetner, Robert LeChevalier, Steve Roberts, Pam Stanton-Wyman, Steve Ginnings, Jeffrey Johnson, Jason Miller, Josh Logan, Matt Drance, Joshua Weiner, Chana Lajcher, Henry Hanks, Heidi Huettner, Jim Dornan, Doug Payton and Michael Segal. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

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