From the WSJ Opinion Archives
Terror
in the Senate?
"Three Senate office buildings were closed Tuesday after the discovery
of what Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said was identified by early tests
as the deadly toxin ricin," CNN reports. The substance turned up on an
automatic letter-opener in a mailroom that serves Frist's office; the offending
envelope has not been found, but one surmises that if indeed it was ricin, Frist
was the target.
"A tiny amount of ricin can be deadly," CNN notes. "But unlike anthrax, it is very difficult to spread through the air."
In addition, "Connecticut and federal authorities said they are investigating a suspicious letter laced with white powder discovered at a postal facility Tuesday morning in Wallingford. The letter was addressed to the Republican National Committee, a postal inspector said." It's not yet clear if the powder was anything dangerous.
CNN adds: "Ricin was found in a letter in October at a postal handling facility in Greenville, South Carolina, and the FBI has offered a $100,000 reward in that case. The typewritten letter was addressed to the Department of Transportation and demanded that changes in truckers' sleep/work schedules not be implemented." It's not known if there's a connection to today's events.
Worth noting, though again it would be premature to draw any conclusions: Last week, when erstwhile weapons inspector David Kay testified before a Senate committee, he pointed out, as the San Francisco Chronicle puts it, that "Iraq had been in clear violation of United Nations resolutions calling for it to disarm, and that Iraq had had an active program to convert ricin, a deadly chemical, into a weapons material, which was only interrupted by the invasion."
Political Poison
The ricin scare inevitably prompts a bit of déjà vu, for in October
2001 the offices of several Democratic senators, including then-Majority Leader
Tom Daschle, received letters containing anthrax. That case remains unsolved.
Our instinct is still to think it was international terrorism, but who knows?
Well, some people, in the immediate aftermath of the attack, thought they knew:
- "There is every likelihood that those responsible for mailing anthrax
spores to media and government targets are right-wing extremists bent on spreading
panic and creating the conditions for new attacks on democratic rights. Many
such elements have close political links to the Republican Party and the Bush
administration. . . . That right-wing extremists are responsible
for the current round of anthrax attacks is further suggested by the choice
of targets: Senator Daschle, the most prominent Democrat in Washington, and
the offices of the major television networks, regarded by the far right, however
incorrectly, as bastions of liberalism. The casualties up to now have all
been workers in the federal government and the media, long demonized by the
extreme right."--World
Socialist Web Site, Oct. 27, 2001
- "The letters could have been sent by a right-winger, trying to stir
up racial tension in the wake of 11 September and using the hijackings as
cover. . . . Mr Daschle, despite his prominence as majority leader,
is a Democrat not a Republican (indeed, investigators have noted, few politicians
have riled the right as much as Mr Daschle, with websites calling for a concerted
effort to do him down)."--Chris
Blackhurst, (London) Independent, Oct. 21, 2001
- "What the profile doesn't tell, but what is equally apparent to me, is that this guy is some kind of right-wing wacko. How else do you explain his decision to send one anthrax-laden letter to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and what is now believed to be a second anthrax-laced missive to Sen. Patrick Leahy--two Democrats in a Senate that Democrats control by a one-vote majority. The other letters were sent to media companies, another favorite target of the radical right. None of the pathogen was mailed to Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott or to Rep. Tom DeLay and Rep. Dick Armey, the leading House right-wingers."--DeWayne Wickham, USA Today, Nov. 20, 2001
To be sure, the World Socialist Web Site is a crackpot outfit, and Blackhurst puts forward various other theories in his article as well. But Wickham's piece, which was distributed to virtually every airplane and hotel room in America, is harder to shrug off.
Of course it's possible that the anthrax attacker acted out of partisan motives. And it's possible that the putative ricin attacker, who appears to have targeted Republicans, did so as well. But we hope our friends on the right will be more circumspect about throwing around unfounded accusations than some left-wingers were in 2001.
New
England Patriots
Back in April we
noted that John Kerry was raising questions about his own patriotism. If
a new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll is any indication, this may have affected public
perceptions of him. CNN reports that those surveyed see President Bush as "more
patriotic than the senator from Massachusetts, 49 percent to 34 percent."
Why would Kerry want to raise questions about his patriotism? Who knows, but maybe he thinks patriotism is a turn-off to Democratic primary voters. That would explain why the haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat is so shy about mentioning that he by the way served in Vietnam. Roger Simon of U.S. News & World Report says that Kerry tried to change the subject when Simon brought up Vietnam:
In a recent interview with him we innocently began a question by saying, "The Vietnam War is a big part of your campaign and a big part of your life . . ."
At which point, Kerry sharply interjected: "No! The Vietnam War is not; my life experience is. Vietnam is one part of it. But I also offer up and talk about my experiences as a prosecutor, as a lieutenant governor. The theme is delivering to the American people, making government accountable, making it work for people."
In a general election campaign, however, Kerry would do well to reinvent himself as a proud patriot. We're not so bold as to make an actual prediction, but we're going to go out on a limb and say that if Kerry is the nominee, we would not be shocked if he begins mentioning Vietnam from time to time.
But
Can He Save His Campaign?
"Wes Clark Endorsed by the Man Who Saved His Life in Vietnam" reads
the headline on a campaign press release. Somehow that's not as impressive as
John Kerry getting the endorsement of the man whose life he saved in
Vietnam. On the other hand, it's a lot more impressive than Ted Kennedy getting
"endorsed" by Mary
Joe Kopechne.
You
Don't Say
"If Rivals Can't Slow Kerry, He Could Cruise to Nomination"--headline,
Dallas Morning News, Feb. 3
What
Would We Do Without Formulas?
"Formula Predicts Bush Win"--headline, Yale Daily News, Feb. 3
When
the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Printing
The Finger Lakes Times of Geneva, N.Y., carries this report on a visit by Sen.
Hillary Clinton to a local business:
The former first lady made it to Wolcott yesterday for the dedication of the addition at Electromark. . . .
Clinton's visit to Electromark wasn't her first brush with screen printing. [Co-founder Harold] Rickles said that he read in her book, "Living History," that Clinton's father had opened a screen printing factory in Chicago when she was a little girl.
"When Hillary and her brothers were old enough, they all worked in the factory screen printing fabric for draperies," he said, to which Clinton noted:
"Of the many people who read my book, only Harold noticed that on page 8. I really appreciated that. When times got tough and [my father] had more business than he . . . could deal with, it was my mother and me and my brothers at the print plant."
It's interesting that Hillary thinks times are "tough" when business is good.
Weasel
Watch
What's all this we keep hearing about America losing "credibility"
with its "allies" amid possible intelligence errors that affected
the decision to liberate Iraq? "Germany is seeking to distance itself from
France's tight embrace and realign itself more closely to Britain and America,"
London's Daily Telegraph reports today, citing "senior German officials":
They said the row with Washington over Iraq had been "catastrophic" for Berlin and Chancellor Gerhard Schröder had become "a prisoner" of President Jacques Chirac's campaign to oppose the war to topple Saddam Hussein last year.
"We were more dependent on the French in that situation. But this will not be a permanent situation," said one authoritative source.
Another official explained: "We have to be careful that we are not identified with every word that the French president utters. We must have our own identity and be a little more clever."
The real question is, will France ever come to its senses and rejoin the community of nations?
Our
Friends the Saudis
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher "confirmed that 16 Saudi nationals
who had been accredited to the embassy in Washington had been asked to leave,"
United Press International reports:
"We were able to determine that they were not, in fact, working as diplomats in the Saudi Embassy, but rather were teaching in Northern Virginia and therefore were not entitled to diplomatic status. Since they were on diplomatic visas, . . . we had to tell them your visa status is no longer valid. We gave them till Feb. 22 to clean up their affairs and leave the country," Boucher said.
The place where they were "teaching" is the Institute of Islamic and Arabic Sciences in America, a Saudi-affiliated religious institution. "More expulsions from the United States of Saudis with diplomatic status are expected," UPI reports, citing an unnamed "Middle East area expert."
'Antiglobal'
Is Pro-Terror
Writing in the Jerusalem Post, Shimon Samuels of the Simon Wiesenthal Center
reports on the recent "World Social Forum" in Bombay, India:
An Israeli backpacker added: "I am a good Israeli. I accept the Palestinian right to violent resistance." He was crushed by the response of Faisal from Tullkarm: "I know better Israelis; they are dead."
What's the difference between these World Socialists and the National Socialists of 65 years ago?
The
Wrath of Khan
The plot thickens in the Pakistan nuke story, reports the Washington Post:
Pakistan's top nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, has told investigators that he helped North Korea design and equip facilities for making weapons-grade uranium with the knowledge of senior military commanders, including Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, according to a friend of Khan's and a senior Pakistani investigator.
Since Musharraf has just fired Khan, it's hard not to conclude there's an element of revenge in his decision to finger Musharraf. Of course, the claim could still be true.
What
Would We Do Without AP?
"AP: Nuclear Black Market Is Small, Covert"--headline, Associated
Press, Feb. 2
Zero-Tolerance
Watch
The Free Lance-Star of Fredericksburg, Va., reports on some fine detective work
by the people who run Chancellor
High School:
Rachel Warrick changed into her PE clothes and headed for the gym, leaving her book bag in the locker room as she always did. . . .
Shortly, an announcement came on through the PA system explaining that all students would be locked into their second period classes until further notice. Drug bust. This is a normal event in almost every high school across America.
Warrick had nothing to worry about. She had never been in trouble before in her life. The only sedatives she carried came in the form of heavy textbooks. . . .
When she walked back into the locker room, she was shocked to find that her bag had been taken. A gym teacher was waiting for her. She explained that the police had taken her bag after one of the dogs had barked upon sniffing it. . . .
"We found this in your bag," someone told her.
There were two Tylenol tablets enclosed in the plastic.
Now, lest you think this is an overreaction, remember that acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, is a dangerous drug. As WebMD advises: "Avoid alcohol during treatment with acetaminophen. Together, alcohol and acetaminophen can be damaging to the liver." What if Rachel took the Tylenol tablets and washed them down with a couple of martinis from the school cafeteria? There's no telling what might've happened to her liver.
You may not have known that drug-sniffing dogs can detect Tylenol. And it turns out that indeed they can't. Instead, the dog "barked when they caught the scent of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich that [Rachel] had brought with her the day before." If Chancellor High students want to protest their schools idiot zero-tolerance policies, they should all start bringing PBJ sandwiches to school every day, rendering the detective doggies useless.
Perhaps
the Bee Gees Can Mend It
"Manilow Returns Home Following Hospital Stay for 'Broken Heart' "--Barry
Manilow press release, Feb. 2
Say
What?
"EU on Line to Prohibit GM Oilseed Rape Crops"--headline, Guardian
(London), Feb. 3
What
Would E-Commerce Do Without Experts?
"Experts: Spam Hurting E-Commerce"--headline, Reuters, Feb. 2
A
Defendant With Deep Pockets
"Wayne Carey Sues Kangaroos"--headline, Herald Sun (Melbourne, Australia),
Feb. 4
Whatever
Happened to Standards of Decency?
"FCC Probes Bare Breast on Network TV"--headline, Reuters, Feb. 2
The
World's Smallest Violin
It
seems not everyone is happy about the kerfuffle that broke out at the Super
Bowl two days ago, when during the halftime show the sister of accused child
molester Michael Jackson exposed her right breast to an audience in excess of
100 million on CBS-TV. Well, OK, actually, hardly anyone is happy about
it; Middle Americans are outraged over the display, while Porn
Belt denizens are outraged over Middle America's outrage.
But the Press Association, a British wire service, reports one man is upset for a different reason: "Serial streaker Mark Roberts said today that Janet Jackson's controversial moment of right breast nudity 'stole my thunder' at the Super Bowl." Roberts whines: "If she hadn't done that I would have been front page material."
Poseur
Alert
"My death-match with Stanley Kurtz on the question of equal marriage rights
in Scandinavia is beginning to remind me of Frodo and Gollum battling on the
edge of Mordor with a marriage ring in their hands."--Andrew Sullivan,
Feb. 3
Puppy
Love
"Animal sex is not illegal in Sweden, and every year between 200 and 300
pets are injured because of sexual assaults," reports the broken-English
service of the Norwegian TV network Nettavisen (quoted verbatim):
The fact that animal sex is becoming an increasing problem can be indicated by the mere fact that there is an increasing selection of animal porn at video rentals and there an increasingly number of websites with animal pornography is surfacing.
No one knows for sure how many animals that are abused, but a British study from 2001 indicates that every 20th dog or cat that receives treatment at veterinaries, the injuries are not a result of a direct accident, but the animal has been inflicted the injury as a result of a sexual assault.
According to the Swedish paper Expressen, if the same estimate can be used in Sweden that will indicate that 200 to 300 dogs and cats every year are injured as a result of sexual assaults.
Is this the result of Sweden being too permissive about sex? Maybe. Animal sex "was decriminalized in 1944 in connection with the decriminalization of homosexual sex," Nettavisen reports. On the other hand, Johan Beck-Friis, a Swedish veterinarian, is quoted as saying, "We have seen an increase since 1999 when child pornography became illegal."
Some people are making fun of America over the Super Bowl breast kerfuffle, which, Charles Taylor writes in Salon, "might make us even more of a laughingstock in Europe, where nudity is common on television." Should anyone really be bothered by being a "laughingstock" to people who didn't think to outlaw child porn until five years ago?
(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to S.E. Brenner, Ron Wright, Raghu Desikan. Michael Hopkovitz, Natalie Cohen, Michael Segal, Henry Hanks, John Kelley, Tim Graham, Matthew Anderson, Chris Hayes, Steven Getman, Rosanne Klass, Yehuda Hilewitz, Monty Krieger, Keith Davis, Robert Eleazer, Jeff Currin, John Sinnott, Robert LeChevalier, Ethel Fenig, John Klaczynski, Mark Davies, Robert Seaburg, C.E. Dobkin, Carl Frank and Tom Wasiak. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Review & Outlook: The president tells Congress to choose between guns and butter.
- Brendan Miniter: Trade barriers won't help South Carolina's economy--or America's
- Leonard Garment: Laura Bush and Dana Gioia remake the National Endowment for the Arts.
