From the WSJ Opinion Archives
A
Little Help for Dean?
Judge Charles Pickering, target of a Democratic smear campaign and filibuster,
has accepted a recess appointment from President Bush. That means Pickering
will serve on the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals until the 109th Congress
convenes next January.
Democrats predictably voiced outrage. "It is now clear that the White House will exploit any procedural tactic in order to pack the courts with right-wing ideologues," the Washington Times quotes Minority Leader Tom Daschle as saying. Daschle's Dems, of course, have used a procedural tactic, the filibuster, to keep Pickering off the circuit court even though, in the latest Senate vote, 54 senators voted in his favor.
Daschle is a politician, so you expect this sort of disingenuousness from him. But is it too much to expect that the editorial board of a major newspaper rise above such vacuous partisanship and at least try to cobble together an intellectually respectable argument? Apparently so, if the newspaper is the New York Times. A Times editorial, although acknowledging that the recess appointment is "perfectly legal," calls it "lamentable" because it "avoids the confirmation process." The Times doesn't mention that the reason a recess appointment is necessary is because of the Dems' lamentable efforts to avoid the confirmation process.
The Times' substantive reasons for opposing Pickering are rather eyebrow-raising as well: "Over the years, Mr. Pickering has displayed skepticism toward cases involving civil rights and expressed doubts about well-settled principles like one person one vote."
He's expressed skepticism! And doubt! Why, he must be stopped! This is further evidence of the intellectual bankruptcy of liberalism. We don't need to muster an argument, the Times seems to be saying. It's enough to declare Pickering a heretic. And these people accuse the right of stifling dissent?
The Times also observes that Pickering "seems outside the mainstream on abortion rights"--which presumably means that he agrees with the late Justice Byron White, an appointee of President Kennedy, that Roe v. Wade is bad law.
The politics of the Pickering appointment seem likely to redound to President Bush's advantage (though also giving a boost to Democratic fund-raising efforts). Karl Rove has argued that in 2000 Bush suffered from weak turnout among evangelical Christians, and there's no better way of bringing this constituency to the polls than by confronting Democratic judicial obstructionism. If Rove is right, and more evangelicals can be induced to vote in November, it will not only boost Bush's re-election prospects, but also those of Republican Senate candidates in such states as Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina--and South Dakota.
Pickering's appointment was brilliantly timed, too. The White House made the announcement on Friday, just three days before the Iowa caucuses. Polls have shown two of the more plausible Democratic candidates, Sens. John Kerry and John Edwards, rapidly gaining in the Hawkeye state. Could it be that the recess appointment for Pickering is an effort to get out the Angry Left vote, thus improving the chances that Bush's opponent in November will be hotheaded Howard Dean?
Losers
for Clark
Wesley Clark has now emerged as the candidate of acid, amnesty and abortion,
breaking Howard
Dean's loser streak by picking up the endorsement of George McGovern. "There
are a lot of good Democrats in this race, but Wes Clark is the best Democrat,"
Reuters quotes McGovern as saying. "He is a true progressive. He's the
Democrat's Democrat."
At least McGovern isn't a complete loser; he won Massachusetts. So far as we know Walter Mondale, the only major-party candidate in history to lose all 50 states (Minnesota in the 2002 Senate race, the other 49 in 1984) has yet to issue an endorsement. An anxious nation holds its breath . . .
Candy Is Dandy?
"Welcome to
the Clark Bar Association!" announces Wesley Clark's campaign Web site.
"By joining us here, you're joining a local chapter and national network
of like-minded legal professionals who recognize that Wes Clark represents the
best hope for America."
"The Clark Bar Association"? That name is sure to draw snickers when crunch time arrives. Clark will face mounds of mockery, which may prove to be the kiss of death for his candidacy and, if he's the nominee, ensure the re-election of the jolly rancher now in the White House. If Clark is smart, he'll make sure that whatever staffer thought of this doesn't see another payday. Such a decision could be a lifesaver for the campaign.
Peculiar Polls
More Wesley weirdness: ForClark.com, an official campaign Web site, features
a series of very strange online surveys. "What is the best
Democratic ticket for '04? asks one--and of the 10 choices offered, Clark
heads the ticket in only four of them. Four more have Clark as No. 2 on the
ticket, and two of them (Dean/Edwards and Edwards/Dean) shut out Clark entirely.
The most popular ticket, garnering more than a third of the votes, is Kucinich
for president, Clark for veep.
Another poll asks "Would Lyndon LaRouche make a good Treasury secretary?" Only 40% say no, though the results are perhaps inconclusive, since only five people have cast votes in the poll.
Yet another question is "Where do you consider yourself to be on the political ideology spectrum?" Here the answers rather than the questions are what's weird. Only 34% of Clark supporters describe themselves as Democrats, and fully 10% say they're Socialists.
What
Would We Do Without Strategists From Several Campaigns?
"The candidate who closes the most deals with undecided voters this weekend
and most successfully pulls diehard backers to the caucuses will win, strategists
from several campaigns say."--Washington Post, Jan. 17
The
Stupid Party
"Four-fifths of registered voters who want to take part in Democratic primaries
or caucuses say they don't know enough about the presidential candidates to
make an informed choice, according to a poll."--Associated Press, Jan. 18
Monsieur
Malaprop
The New York Times has an article on verbal miscues by the Democratic presidential
candidates--which, unlike President Bush's errors, the Times attributes to fatigue
rather than stupidity. But one of them we don't quite get: "In a particularly
run-down moment for Senator John Kerry, the Wahhabi Muslim fundamentalists he
frequently mentions in speeches came out as 'wasabi.' "
As far as we know, the haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam, is right. Wasabi Islam is a particularly harsh form of Sushi Islam, a religious movement that has its origins in Japan and foments raw hatred--and combating this scourge is crucial to winning the war on teriyaki.
Scribble
Fight!
Howard Dean isn't the only angry man on the campaign trail. The Des Moines Register
reports a pair of journalists nearly came to blows during a Dean campaign stop
at a Dairy Queen in Osceola, Iowa:
New York Post reporter Vince Morris grabbed hold of Fortune free-lance photographer Christopher Anderson and began to shove him backward.
The scuffle ended when a Register reporter separated the two.
"I had a reason!" Morris yelled. "This guy had his hand on me! So I took care of it!" Then he stomped off.
Anderson said Morris had stepped between a group of photographers and Dean a moment earlier. Anderson said he asked the reporter to move, and when Morris refused, Anderson said, "Don't be a jerk."
"He said, "Do you want to step outside?" And I said, "No, I don't want to step outside," " Anderson recalled.
The shoving began later, when Anderson left the Dairy Queen, he and other photographers said.
When it was over, we didn't know what exactly had happened, but we knew this: Neither journalist got any ice cream.
If it happens again, let's hope Dean sends them to study hall.
And
Here We Thought He Was in Pretty Good Shape
"Bush Accused of Failing to Act Over Obesity"--headline, Financial
Times, Jan. 17
Cosmic,
Dude
Our Friday
item on Al Gore's "global warming" speech--delivered, hilariously
enough, in New York on the coldest day in recent memory--included a long quote
from the speech in which Gore went on in hippy-dippy fashion about the insignificance
of Earth amid the vastness of the universe. It turns out the words were not
Gore's but the late pop scientist Carl Sagan's. Gore did credit Sagan, but the
MoveOn.org
transcript made it difficult to determine where the quote ended; as it turns
out, it was the entire last four paragraphs of the speech.
The Sagan quote comes from "Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space," published in 1994, so it's still possible that Sagan took his inspiration from Monty Python's 1983 "The Galaxy Song."
A reader forwarded us a link to the Oregon Petition:
We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.
There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.
Several thousand scientists have endorsed this statement, proving that Gore's thuggish statement--"there is any longer a credible basis for doubting that the earth's atmosphere is heating up because of global warming"--is a lie. Once again, we have to ask: Who is trying to stifle dissent?
An
'Antiwar' Jihadi
"A key member of an alleged Virginia jihad network pleaded guilty to federal
weapons and explosives charges [Friday], denying that he intended to harm Americans
but acknowledging that he and his co-defendants had sought to fight on behalf
of Muslim causes abroad," the Washington Post reports:
Randall Todd Royer, 30, of Falls Church, entered his surprise plea in U.S. District Court in Alexandria. He faces at least 20 years in prison when he is sentenced April 9. Another of the 11 men originally charged in the case, Ibrahim Ahmed al-Hamdi, 26, of Alexandria, pleaded guilty to similar charges and faces at least 15 years in prison.
Royer also goes by the name Ismail, and in September 2002 he penned an article for the crackpot libertarian site Antiwar.com titled " 'Pro-Democracy' Think Tank Is Front for Israeli Lobby." As Glenn Reynolds would say, are these guys antiwar, or just on the other side?
Weasel
Watch
Saddam Hussein isn't the only Arab dictator the French government is eager to
protect. In the Jerusalem Post, Nir Boms and Erick Stakelbeck report on the
case of Nizar Nayouf, a Syrian dissident who won political asylum in France,
only to find himself in a bureaucratic nightmare:
Despite repeated requests by Nayouf during the last 18 months, the French government has refused to grant him access to official documents that would allow him to travel freely and continue his human rights work. Moreover, upon asking French authorities last month for the political refugee passport he was legally granted in 2002 (and is due to him by French law), Nayouf was denied yet again and told, much to his surprise, that he "already had" a Syrian passport.
Agnes Vondermull, an official at the French Embassy in Washington, DC, said last month that Nayouf had been asked to turn his Syrian passport over to French authorities in 2002 but refused to do so. But Vondermull admitted that a refugee does not need such a passport to begin with, and that the two issues should not be connected.
In any case, Nayouf has an official document issued by French police stating that his Syrian passport has been missing since December 2002.
Because the French refuse to issue a passport, "Nayouf remains confined to Paris, denied permission to attend Syrian human rights conferences, where he has often been invited as a featured speaker." He wanted to attend such a conference in Washington in November, but he "says he was 'advised' by French police not to attend the conference and speak out against the Ba'ath Party." Boms and Stakelbeck note that the situation "raises concerns about France's close relations with Middle Eastern dictatorships."
And remember, most of the Democratic presidential candidates insist that we should have waited for French permission before liberating Iraq.
This
Just In
"France Has No Plans to Send Troops to Iraq"--headline, Associated
Press, Jan. 16
When
It Rains, It Pours
Doing their best impression of Capt. Renault, U.N. nuclear inspectors proclaim
themselves shocked with Libya's nuclear-weapons program:
The ease with which the complex bomb-making equipment was acquired has stunned experienced international inspectors. The scale and the sophistication of the networks supplying so-called rogue states seeking nuclear weapons are considerably more extensive than previously believed.
Fortunately, Libya's dictator, Moammar Gadhafi, was smart enough to give up his nukes after seeing what happened to Saddam Hussein. Another possible sign of good behavior from Tripoli: Ha'aretz picks up a report from a newspaper in Nazareth that "an official Libyan delegation visited Jerusalem . . . last week, meeting with a government official" from Israel.
You
Don't Say
"Cameras, Not Phones, Seen as Photography Mainstay"--headline, Reuters,
Jan. 17
What
Was the First Clue?
"Man Flies Car Into Lake; Police Suspect Alcohol"--headline, Dallas
Morning News (fourth item), Jan. 18
This
Sounds Like a Human-Rights Violation
"Cold Canada Postmen Probed for Not Delivering Mail"--headline, Reuters,
Jan. 16
High
Apple Pie in the Sky Hopes
"Rubber Plant to Pay $500,000"--headline, Dayton Daily News, Jan. 17
Who
Knew?
"Poll Shows Opinions on Affirmative Action Split by Race"-headline,
Associated Press, Jan. 19
Dr.
King, Mr. Reagan and Mr. Bush
Today is a national holiday in honor of Martin Luther King, who, had he lived,
would have been 75 last Thursday. The New York Times op-ed page marks the day
with a remarkable piece honoring not just Dr. King but also the president who
in 1983 signed the law establishing the holiday in his honor: Ronald Reagan.
The author, Kiron Skinner, is co-editor of "Reagan: A Life in Letters," and she argues that although Reagan started out skeptical of Dr. King, there was in fact a philosophical kinship between the two men:
Party affiliation and politics--and, surely, background and race--separated the president from Dr. King. "Finding material for the remarks was easy," says Peter Robinson, the White House speechwriter who drafted the speech that the president delivered when he signed the King holiday into law. "The dignity of the individual, the equality of all men before God, the promise that America could set an example for the world--I kept finding passage after passage in King's work that Reagan might almost have written himself."
Indeed, when one looks closely at each man's writings, it's clear that they shared an unswerving commitment to democracy, liberty and equality. Having spent years studying and archiving the former president's letters and speeches, I have concluded that he overcame his reservations about the King bill by tapping into his personal experiences--and coming away with an understanding of the ways in which racism and bigotry violate the basic American values he and Dr. King worked to make real.
It's difficult to imagine such an article appearing in a liberal newspaper during Reagan's presidency. It's also hard to imagine a conservative celebrating Dr. King during his lifetime. But in America, political passions have a way of fading with time. Like Lincoln, both Reagan and Dr. King now belong to the ages (Reagan is still alive, but his mind is ravaged by Alzheimer's, and he has been out of the public eye for nearly a decade). The principle of racial equality is no longer controversial, and even most liberals admire Ronald Reagan, whether or not they agree with his policies.
That ought to put today's political wars in some perspective. On Dr. King's birthday President Bush visited Atlanta and laid a wreath at his tomb. Shockingly, some 400 people protested, as if there were something wrong with an American president paying tribute to an American hero. CNN quotes one of the protesters was the Rev. Tim McDonald of of First Iconium Baptist Church:
"The thing that is most hypocritical is choosing the 75th anniversary of his birth--the man who was the epitome of peace, perhaps the most noted African-American anti-war individual," McDonald said.
"To come on his birthday . . . when this president unilaterally went to war, is still engaged in war, an illegal and unjust war."
Would Dr. King really have favored leaving a genocidal dictator in power in Iraq? There's no way of answering that question, but Skinner is surely correct to say Dr. King believed in liberty and democracy--the very values for which America is fighting in Iraq. Perhaps in another generation, when the Angry Left has cooled down, the New York Times will carry an op-ed piece exploring the philosophical kinship between Martin Luther King and George W. Bush. Just remember, you heard it here first.
(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Brian Azman, Chip Switzer, Michael Segal, Jim O'Toole, Fred Deichert, Robert LeClevalier, Barak Moore, C.E. Dobkin, Raj Pai, Jake Ewing, Catherine Baum, Ron Ackert, Charlie Gaylord, Todd McGuire, Thomas Dinsmore, Tom Deakins, David Gentile, Brad Lambert, Dick Ruth, George Wasserstein, James King, Carl Sherer, S.E. Brenner, William Katz, Ethel Fenig, Rosanne Klass, John Forsberg, Karen Giles, Patrick Charles, Sandip Patel, Pete Drum and Paul Ruschmann. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Victor Davis Hanson: The case against the Bush immigration plan.
- John Fund: Big Labor and Big Government are increasingly one and the same.
- Steven Malanga: A New Age theory of urban development amounts to economic snake oil.
