by JAMES TARANTO
Thursday, November 13, 2003 12:58 P.M. EST

189-2
You've gotta love these wacky Democratic talking points. As GOP senators are holding a 30-hour debate calling attention to the Dems' use of parliamentary maneuvers to prevent the Senate from voting on certain judicial nominees, the Democrats are offering the defense that they're only a tiny bit obstructionist. From today's Washington Post:

The debate got off to a wobbly start when Sens. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) and Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) complained about unfinished work on a spending bill. Republicans, meanwhile, objected to a large purple sign reading "168 to 4" that Democrats posted on their side of the chamber. The Senate has confirmed 168 federal judges tapped by Bush, while Democrats have blocked four. Democrats were told to remove the sign until it was their turn to speak.

"Despite the fact that the Senate has confirmed 168 of his nominees, the right wing is hopping mad that we've blocked just 4 of the most hard-core ideologues," says an e-mail we received yesterday from the Angry Left outfit MoveOn.org.

Well, how about this: We'll stop calling the Democrats obstructionists when these guys stop complaining about Iraq. President Bush has invaded only two countries, Iraq and Afghanistan, both of which were ruled by ideologues even harder-core than Priscilla Owen. That means there are 189 countries Bush hasn't invaded. He should get to invade at least two or three more before anyone calls him an imperialist or war monger.

Operation Iron Hammer
"U.S. forces in Iraq on Wednesday launched a planned and coordinated operation codenamed Iron Hammer that targeted pro-Saddam loyalists," Fox News reports. Not a bad name for a military operation; it certainly beats the overly literal Operation Iraqi Freedom. Here's what happened:

Based on intelligence collected on the ground, U.S. infantry set a number of traps all over Baghdad. Several of those traps--monitored from the air and known as NAIs or Named Areas of Interest--were activated almost simultaneously Wednesday night.

In the most dramatic action, about a dozen Bradley armored vehicles used 25mm cannons to destroy a warehouse used by anti-U.S. forces in southern Baghdad. A special forces AC-130 Spectre gunship also took part from the air, targeting the warehouse with precise fire.

Let's hope the warehouse was filled with bad guys. As our Brendan Miniter noted earlier this week, the coalition has been fighting back a lot more vigorously than you might think from reading news reports. It's good to see the effort getting more attention.

Epistemology for Dummies
Life is too short to read Maureen Dowd, but we had to laugh when a reader called our attention to this passage from today's column:

Clearly, Mr. Cheney remains oblivious to the fact that the president has already had to correct the vice president's previous assertion that the government did not know whether Saddam Hussein had a connection to the 9/11 attacks. Mr. Bush conceded that "no, we've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th."

Dowd is completely flummoxed by epistemology, if not basic logic, if she thinks there's a contradiction between saying "we don't know" and saying "we've had no evidence."

Breaking News From Nine Months Ago

"President Bush sketched an expansive vision last night of what he expects to accomplish by a war in Iraq. Instead of focusing on eliminating weapons of mass destruction, or reducing the threat of terror to the United States, Mr. Bush talked about establishing a 'free and peaceful Iraq' that would serve as a 'dramatic and inspiring example' to the entire Arab and Muslim world, provide a stabilizing influence in the Middle East and even help end the Arab-Israeli conflict."--editorial, New York Times, Feb. 27

"The White House recently began shifting its case for the Iraq war from the embarrassing unconventional weapons issue to the lofty vision of creating an exemplary democracy in Iraq."--editorial, New York Times, Nov. 13

American Journalists Against America
Reuters reports from London on what the "news" service calls "a wave not of anti-Americanism but anti-Bushism," though it sounds a lot like anti-Americanism to us. Two of those piling on are American journalists:

"It's tougher being an American in London than it used to be. Our President has made it so," said Newsweek Magazine's London correspondent Stryker McGuire.

"Even among friendly Britons, there's a growing skepticism about the gun-toting, electric-chairing land that has let Dubya be Dubya for nigh on three years now." . . .

The New York Times' London correspondent Warren Hoge told Reuters: "America is now something of a rogue state, a pariah nation."

"People repeatedly say it isn't Americans we don't like, it is just Bush. He pushes hot buttons. Bush has so much to do with this rather stupendous fall-off in American popularity. It is quite amazing to think where we were the day after September 11 and how much of that goodwill has been squandered."

Why don't Newsweek and the Times just dispense with the pretense of objectivity and hire Michael Moore as a reporter?

Librarians Against America
Over the past few years librarians have been trying to reinvent themselves as fearless fighters for civil liberties. When Congress mandates porn filters on library computers or authorizes federal agents to obtain library records in terrorism investigations, hysterical librarians shriek that free speech is in peril.

So what are we to make of this story from the Delco (Pa.) Daily Times? It seems that a local charity asked Addie Ciannella, the head public librarian in Haverford Township, Pa., to put what she characterizes as a "symbol" on display in the library. She nixed the idea on the ground that the symbol might offend some people. Here's her explanation, in a letter to library trustees quoted by columnist Gil Spencer:

"It was a rather awkward situation" but she didn't feel as if she had much of a choice given her "professional opinion" which is "the library (any public library) is a place for all people of all beliefs, backgrounds, etc. Symbols can send a message of unwelcome philosophical orientation, expectations of others, and can produce ill will and even fear. I know we are an adjunct of the government but we are not the (township) or county or other government. . . ."

And what was this symbol that was so threatening to certain Haverfordians that it could not be displayed at the library?

The American flag.

Vandals Against America
In "an apparent Iraq war protest," vandals "poured concrete into almost 200 holes that are used to hold flag poles on Veterans Day" in Sebastapol, Calif., the Santa Rosa Press Democrat reports. "The city spent more than $1,000 drilling out the concrete so Boy Scouts could erect flags along city sidewalks Tuesday morning."

And Isn't His Happiness What's Really Important?
"Arafat Happy With Israel as Neighbour"--headline, Reuters, Nov. 12

Looking for Love in All the Left Places
Boy, there sure are a lot of lonely women on the Angry Left. PoliticsNH.com has been adding new contestants in the Dennis Kucinich marriage sweepstakes (we noted it Tuesday), and the left-wing matchmaking site LiberalHearts.com has joined the action. There are now 16 women competing to become the loopy lawmaker's blushing bride. They range in age from 20 to 58.

That's right, there's a 20-year-old lass who wants to spend the rest of her life--well, the rest of his life, anyway--with 58-year-old Dennis Kucinich, a man who was bankrupting Cleveland before young Geri was even a gleam in her daddy's eye. When she's 50, he'll be 88. Who does she think he is, Strom Thurmond?

Geri is from Massachusetts but is a native of France. "I've adopted America as my new home, and i consider myself a true patriot," she writes (quoting verbatim). "I find Dennis to be a very handsome man, and i would be so lucky if he even gave me a chance."

Dennis Kucinich, handsome? He doesn't even look French.

Punching Bag
Yesterday we noted that John Kerry, the haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat who by the way served in Vietnam, is a defender of the American flag. "If I saw someone burning the flag, I'd punch them in the mouth because I love that flag," he said.

So, would he have slugged Rachel Corrie?

Mitigating Factor: They're No Longer French
"Court Convicts 3 Ex-French Oil Executives"--headline, Associated Press, Nov. 12

The Living Constitution
Sorry to beat up so much on the New York Times today; it just sort of worked out that way. Check out the second item in the corrections column:

An article yesterday about Gen. Wesley K. Clark's support for a constitutional amendment to ban desecration of the flag referred incorrectly to the process for adopting one. In the process that begins with passage by Congress, a proposed amendment is normally sent to state legislatures or state conventions for approval, not directly to voters.

It seems reporter Edward Wyatt and his editors were all ignorant of this basic fact of American civics. And what does the Times mean, "normally"? State legislatures and state conventions are the only bodies that can ratify an amendment under Article V of the Constitution. Though we suppose it's true that the procedure isn't always followed. The constitutional amendment establishing the right to abortion, for instance, was never ratified by the states.

Male Call
Columnist Ellen Goodman uses a photo of President Bush signing the Partial Birth Abortion Act to make a rather tendentious argument:

The picture shows the president surrounded by an all-male chorus line of legislators as he signs the first ban on an abortion procedure. It's a single-sex class photo of men making laws governing something they will never have: a womb.

This was not just a strategic misstep, a rare Karl Rove lapse. It perfectly reflected the truth of the so-called partial-birth abortion law. What's wrong with this picture? The legislators had indeed erased women. They used the law as if it were Photoshop software, to crop out real women with real problems.

Now, we'll agree that it was a politically boneheaded move not to include women in the ceremony. It would have been smart for the White House to ask some of the female lawmakers who backed the ban, including Sens. Elizabeth Dole (R., N.C.), Blanche Lincoln (D., Ark.), Mary Landrieu (D., La.) and Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska), to join the picture.

But it's silly to paint this ban, which applies only to an especially gruesome form of abortion performed late in pregnancy, as somehow sexist. After all, not all the children who have their skulls crushed and their brains sucked out in partial-birth abortions are boys.

Zero-Tolerance Watch
Wesley Julh, who was a senior at Valley High in Las Vegas, received an "in-school suspension and a required parent conference" because he wrote "Kill Alaina!"--a "throwaway comment about an irritating friend"--and made "a vulgar comment about a teacher," the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports. (He was also kicked out of the school for want of a "zoning variance.") The offending comments, however, were not made in school, or even during the school year; he wrote them on his personal Web log during the summer.

Wesley's mother, Deanna Korim, asked principal Ron Montoya to reverse the decision, but, she says, "He kept talking about Columbine, Columbine."

The World's Silliest Correction
In an item yesterday on John Kerry, we misstated the motto of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. The correct motto is "For me to poop on." "Come Poop With Me!" is the name of Triumph's new compact disc. We regret the error.

Good Thing Only Half the Population Is on It
"Experts: Testosterone Not Proven Safe for Wide-Scale Use"--headline, Washington Post, Nov. 12

Who Knew?
"Study: Lowest Is Best for Bad Cholesterol"--headline, Associated Press, Nov. 13

Something Smells Fishy
"Biologists have linked a mysterious, underwater farting sound to bubbles coming out of a herring's anus," reports New Scientist magazine, which helpfully provides a WAV-format file of the fishy flatulence. The scientists say, however, that "the sounds are probably not caused by digestive gases because the number of sounds does not change when the fish are fed."

The fish make the sound only when it's dark, leading scientists to hypothesize that they use it to communicate their location. Our theory is that they're just embarrassed. We have an image of a bunch of herring packed sardine-like onto an elevator and everyone's thinking, Who farted?

This Burns Us Up
"By 2025, funeral industry studies suggest, nearly half of Americans will be cremated," reports the Los Angeles Times. That's barely 20 years from now, and if this isn't scary enough, consider this elaboration that comes later in the same article: "By 2025, studies predict, 1.4 million--or 45% of Americans--will be cremated."

The 2000 census found the population of the U.S. was roughly 281 million; if 1.4 million is 45% of Americans, that means there will be only 3.1 million Americans by 2025. What does the funeral industry think is going to happen between now and then that will cause the population to decline by nearly 99%? The Times doesn't even think to ask this obvious question. If the projections are right, the next 20 years should be boom times for funeral directors--those who are still alive, anyway.

(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Michael Segal, Barak Moore, Robert LeChevalier, Jan Wasilewsky, Steven Schein, Thomas Dillon, C.E. Dobkin, Gerald Liberace, Craig Taylor, Luis Albright, Gilbert Weinstein, Lawrence Greenfield, Erik Moy, Angus Dwyer, Eric Crawford, Michael Katz, Julie Beck and Paul Kedrosky. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

Today on OpinionJournal:

• Review & Outlook: Dean's Confederate stumble shows the limits of identity politics.
• John Fund on New York's tasteless, clueless mayor.
• George Sim Johnston on God and the counterculture.