by JAMES TARANTO
Monday, March 1, 2004 3:55 P.M. EST

Yahoo's Enemies List
The other day, for reasons we no longer remember, we searched the Yahoo.com Web directory for information about Tipper Gore. One of the listings piqued our curiosity; it was titled "Tipper Gore: Enemy of Freedom." Figuring this must be some sort of nutjob right-wing site, we clicked on the link. What came up was a biography of the erstwhile second lady that appeared on the WhiteHouse.gov Web site during Bill Clinton's presidency and is now stored on the National Archives Web site.

We searched both the text and the source code for the words enemy and freedom; neither appears anywhere on the page. Thus the characterization of Tipper Gore as an enemy of freedom is nothing but editorial commentary from Yahoo. A search for the phrase reveals that Mrs. Gore is the only person Yahoo so designates. Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, to take a few examples that spring to mind, do not appear on Yahoo's enemies list.

Yahoo is entitled to its opinions, of course, but we wish they'd take the time to explain what makes Tipper Gore Enemy No. 1 and Only.

Agnostic About America
The two remaining Democratic presidential candidates, with Al Sharpton and Dennis Kucinich along for comic relief, showed up for a debate in New York yesterday morning, and the most revealing moment came toward the end, when the New York Times' Elisabeth Bumiller posed a question to John Kerry:

Bumiller: President Bush has said that freedom and fear have always been at war, and God is not neutral between them. He's made quite clear in his speeches that he feels God is on America's side. Really quick, is God on America's side?

Kerry: Well, God will--look, I think--I believe in God, but I don't believe, the way President Bush does, in invoking it all the time in that way. I think it is--we pray that God is on our side, and we pray hard. And God has been on our side through most of our existence.

Blogger James Lileks nicely juxtaposes this Kerry quote with a quote from President Bush and asks "Which one best represents the face of America you'd like the President to show to the world?":

"The liberty we prize is not American's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity."--Bush

"We pray that God is on our side, and we pray hard. And God has been on our side through most of our existence."--Kerry

Lileks also points out that it would be interesting to know when Kerry believes God wasn't on our side. In Vietnam, perhaps, where Kerry accused American soldiers of committing all manner of brutal war crimes (he now denies having made such accusations, though they are a matter of public record). "But that puts God on the side of the triumph of atheistic communism," Lileks notes.

The real point here is that the question Bumiller asked Kerry wasn't about his religious beliefs, but rather about his belief in his country. By his answer, Kerry suggested that he is at best agnostic about America.

The Tardy, French-Looking Massachusetts Democrat . . .
Kerry was also asked about the situation in Haiti, where the Bush administration ended a crisis yesterday by forcing the resignation of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who illegitimately held on to power after his elected term ended. Here's the exchange between Kerry and Dan Rather:

Rather: Senator Kerry, President Bush has made it clear that the United States will be part of an international force going to Haiti. You've been critical of that action. Tell me what your beef is with what the president is doing.

Kerry: He's late, as usual. This president always makes decisions late after things have happened that could have been different had the president made a different decision earlier.

Bumiller: Senator Kerry, what would you have done in this situation?

Kerry: Well, first of all, I never would have allowed it to get out of control the way it did.

The New York Daily News reports that Kerry told the paper's editorial board, "I would intervene with the international community, and absent an international force, I'd do it unilaterally." This is in contrast to the Bush administration's multilateral approach; last night the U.N. Security Council unanimously approved Resolution 1529, authorizing an international force, including Americans and Frenchmen, to keep the peace in Haiti.

Now, this is the same John Kerry who has spent the past year carping about President Bush's "failed diplomacy" and "rush to war" in Iraq. Now suddenly in Haiti he's Mr. Unilateral Pre-emption.

Or is he? We searched Kerry's campaign Web site for statements on Haiti. There were 32 hits, most of which were false positives (Haiti is listed in a pull-down "country" menu on forms for contributing or subscribing). One was to an article from The Nation that cites something Kerry said about Haiti in the 1980s. Here's a complete list of Kerry's own statements about Haiti that appear on his Web site:

• A Dec. 16, 2003, foreign-policy speech whose sole mention of Haiti was in this sentence: "And from Haiti to Bosnia, Bill Clinton placed America's might on the side of America's values while he expanded our circle of allies at the same time."
  
  
• An undated AIDS plan that observes, "Programs in Haiti demonstrate that individuals from the community who are trained to recognize the symptoms of AIDS, TB, and malaria, can help support patients and administer drugs." (You have to click on "U.S. Leadership in the Battle Against HIV/AIDS" to see the Haiti reference.)
  
  
• A Feb. 24, 2004, statement faulting the Bush administration: "The Administration has now finally realized that it must work multilaterally to broker a power sharing agreement between the parties--the only question is why they didn't do this sooner."
  
  
• A Feb. 26 statement calling on President Bush to appoint failed Democratic presidential candidate Bob Graham as a "special envoy" to Haiti.

Kerry claims that if he were president, he never would have let things get to this point, yet he had nothing to say about the crisis in Haiti--which, as CBS News notes, dates back at least to 2000, when Clinton was president and Aristide stole an election--until a mere five days before President Bush sent in the Marines.

. . . Who by the Way Served in Vietnam
"The Op-Ed page asked the two leading Democratic candidates, Senators John Edwards and John Kerry, to write about an event or realization early in their lives that helped shape their character," today's New York Times explains. Kerry's contribution turns out to make some news. Did you know he served in Vietnam?

Meanwhile, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week endorsed the "combat-sharpened" Kerry in tomorrow's Georgia primary. "Kerry has never shied from duty or hardship," the AJC notes. "As a young Yale graduate with other options open to him, Kerry took a course that most others like him did not, and volunteered to serve in Vietnam. Once in uniform, he volunteered again to serve in a combat role in which he demonstrated considerable bravery and coolness under fire."

The paper vaguely acknowledges Kerry's subsequent antiwar activity: "Some of what he told the country back then about the reality of the Vietnam War was highly controversial, but almost all of it has been vindicated by the passage of time."

On April 22, 1971 (link in PDF), Kerry told a Senate committee that U.S. servicemen "personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned on the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam." He said these were "not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command." Does the AJC think these charges have been "vindicated"?

This Just In
"Black Voters Align With Democrats Against Bush"--headline, Washington Post, March 1

What Would We Do Without Strategists, Independent Analysts and House Members of Both Parties?
"Strategists, independent analysts and House members of both parties say that after a decade out of power, Democrats are unlikely to reclaim control of the House in November."--New York Times, Feb. 29

Pryor Restraint
Last month President Bush used a recess appointment to install Bill Pryor, Alabama's former attorney general, as a judge on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Pryor serves only until next year; a normal lifetime appointment will require Senate confirmation. Although Pryor had the support of a majority of senators, Democrats had used Senate procedures to prevent his nomination from coming to a vote.

Not surprisingly, Pryor's opponents reacted with bitterness. "Judge Pryor has a narrow-minded judicial temperament and a ferocious attachment to an ideological agenda that puts him well to the right of the judicial mainstream," sniffed the New York Times.

"Apparently White House political strategists have decided that the president needs to shore up his disgruntled political base, and that an in-your-face appointment of a right-wing ideologue to the federal bench will help rally the troops," moaned a press release from the left-wing outfit that styles itself the People for the American Way.

"Of all the people waiting to be confirmed for federal judgeships, it is stunning that Bill Pryor would be the president's choice for this extraordinary move," bellyached Bill Clymer of the Constitution Party.

Wait, the Constitution Party? Isn't that a right-wing populist party? Yep, sure is. The party is upset with Pryor because in his role as attorney general, he ordered then-Chief Justice Roy Moore to comply with a federal court order and remove a Ten Commandments monument from the Alabama Judicial Building.

"Bill Pryor was a professed Christian who had to choose between his Lord and his political career," a party press release quotes Clymer as saying. "He chose his political career. By all indications, he was rewarded for prosecuting the Justice by the Bush administration which has been his behind the scenes opponent throughout his career."

All we can say is, if the New York Times, People for the American Way and Constitution Party are on the same side, we're happy to be on the other side.

Good News Watch
Things are looking up in Iraq. The month of February, although unusually long, saw only 16 coalition deaths as a result of hostile action, according to Lunaville.com. The number of hostile deaths peaked at 94 in November before dropping to 32 in December and inching up to 39 in January.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that "Iraq's oil industry has undergone a remarkable turnaround and is now producing and exporting almost as much crude oil as it did before the war." This is actually a misnomer; the Times means before the liberation, not before the war, which started in 1990.

Indiana University reports that 25 Iraqis, including six women, have come to America as Fulbright Scholars. "Believe me when I say that I had never heard of Fulbright Scholarships, or any other scholarships, during Saddam's regime," says Barakat Jassem, one of Eight Fulbright Scholars at IU. "The people of Iraq, and I am one of them, were living inside the cocoon of dictatorship and tyranny. . . . Our only cares were to survive each day."

But here's some bad news: The New York Times reports the Iraqi Governing Council--which is making plans to allow Iraqis who fled or were expelled from the country--appears likely to exclude Jews. Iraq's Jewish population once numbered in the hundreds of thousands; today fewer than 40 remain.

"My feeling is, as long as the Palestinian problem exists, as long as there is a state of war, then we should not allow the Jews to return," Muhammad Bahaddin Saladin, a member of the Governing Council, tells the Times. This is exactly the sort of idiocy that has kept the Arab world impoverished, both morally and economically, for decades. It's not encouraging to hear it from a leader of the new Iraq.

A Saudi Milestone
"Faryal Al-Masri hopes to be the first Saudi-American to enter the US Congress, contesting elections in California to become a member of US House of Representatives," reports the Arab News:

Al-Masri is running on a Democratic Party ticket in the 37th electoral district in California, which has been a Republican stronghold for over half a century. But Democrats have high hopes for her. "They are optimistic as they see my birth in Makkah [Mecca] as a good omen," she said.

At first we suspected this was a hoax, because California's 37th Congressional District is in fact represented by a Democrat, Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald and we couldn't find any other reference to al-Masri in news databases or Web searches. But it turns out she does exist; she just transliterates her name differently, and although she's running for office, her name won't appear on the ballot tomorrow. A letter to the editor of the Ventura County Star urges readers to write in the name Ferial Masry because "the previously declared candidate, Paul Herzog, became ill and missed the filing date." If Masry gets 1,187 votes or more, she will be on the November ballot.

The district Masry seeks to represent is indeed the 37th, but she's running for the state Assembly, not the U.S. House. So there isn't yet a Saudi-born woman running for Congress in America, though perhaps one day there will be. Also, perhaps one day a Saudi-born woman will seek elective office in Saudi Arabia. That may take a few centuries, though.

A Questionable Question
Our item Friday on Saudi travel restrictions quoted a press release from the Saudi Embassy in Washington as saying, "It is not the policy of the Kingdom to deny the issuance of visas on the basis of religion." The Saudis were backpedaling from a statement that had appeared on their tourism Web site listing "Jewish People" among groups that were forbidden to enter the kingdom.

So what exactly is Riyadh's policy with respect to religion and visas? We ask because readers have sent us still-active links to three Saudi visa applications--one from the Washington embassy (link in PDF), one from the embassy in Buenos Aires and one from the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs (for a "governmental visit visa")--all of which ask applicants to list their religion. Why?

We also heard this story from a reader:

I visited Saudi Arabia last fall, and I was told by the people I was going to meet for business purposes that I needed to get a new passport. Even though my current one still had 5 years left on it, I'd been to Israel twice, and those entry stamps were enough to disqualify me for a Saudi visa. This was the second time I had to get a new passport, by the way. I was prepared to visit the same people in November 2001, but 9/11 intervened. That time I had been allowed to get an additional temporary passport good for 2 years, but this time I had to pay for an entirely new passport.

If you use this item, please don't use my name, as that might get the people I was visiting (expat business people) in trouble--which itself says a lot about Saudi policy. Anyone foolish enough to visit Saudi Arabia as a tourist had better be prepared for a lot of oppressive measures, including watching out for the religious police who have cane whips and aren't afraid to use them.

The Web site of the Saudi Embassy in Washington notes that the Saudis have not changed their policy of apartheid in Mecca and Medina, which "hold special religious significance and only persons of the Islamic faith are allowed entry."

Grin and Blare It
The South Australia Advertiser reports that Hamed Abderrahman Ahmad, a Spanish national recently released from Guanatanamo Bay, is complaining he was tortured--by being forced to listen to Bruce Springsteen music:

"All day they blared patriotic American music.

"It was Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen.

"I remember we had to put wet towels on our heads to be able to bear the heat and not hear the music. . . . Later they put us in even smaller cells."

What's funny about this is that "Born in the USA" is anything but a patriotic song. Here's how the 1984 tune begins:

Born down in a dead man's town
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground
You end up like a dog that's been beat too much
Till you spend half your life just covering up

Born in the USA
I was born in the USA
I was born in the USA
Born in the USA

Got in a little hometown jam
So they put a rifle in my hand
Sent me off to a foreign land
To go and kill the yellow man

As we noted last month, North Vietnamese jailers used speeches in which John Kerry expressed similar sentiments (though in fairness to Kerry, he never said the Vietnam War was about nothing other than killing the "yellow man") to torture U.S. prisoners of war. We guess there's something universally torturous about being forced to listen these antiwar screeds, whether the listener agrees with them or not.

Great Moments in Chutzpah
Book publisher Michael Viner is accusing the New York Times of behaving unethically. Viner's company, New Millennium Press, has a book coming out Saturday, but the Times has already reported on its content. Viner accuses the Times of breaking an embargo that was a condition of the paper's receiving an advance copy of the new book. The Times denies the charge, saying it obtained the book through another source before revealing what was in it.

This sort of ethical kerfuffle would normally be far too boring to mention, but what makes this funny is the identity of the book's author: Jayson Blair, the disgraced former Times reporter. The Washington Post quotes Viner as saying the Times s "has had an ongoing campaign to do anything they can to hurt Jayson and his credibility." And it all began when it hired him.

What Would We Do Without Local Film Observers?
"TEL AVIV--In the land where the events dramatized in 'The Passion of the Christ' were played out 2 millennia ago, it is unlikely that the controversial film will attract mass audiences of Israelis, local film observers say."--Washington Times, Feb. 27

What Would We Do Without Clergy?
"Clergy Agree: 'The Passion' No Excuse for Anti-Semitism"--headline, Home News Tribune (East Brunswick, N.J.), Feb. 29

The World's Smallest Violin
The Washington Legislature is considering "whether poor families can afford $5 a month in Medicaid premiums for their kids," the Associated Press reports from Olympia. "Democrats say premiums will force families to drop out of Medicaid. They argue the state should take responsibility for making sure poor kids get health care."

The paper quotes Annette Hensley, a 43-year-old mother of a 14-year-old Medicaid beneficiary: "It would put a big strain on us. Something would have to go. I don't have cable, so probably the Internet. Maybe my cellphone." And don't poor people have a right to cellphones?

Zero-Tolerance Watch
The Hook, a Charlottesville, Va., magazine, reports that 13-year-old Alan Newsom has settled a lawsuit against the local school board, which began two years ago when Becky Pitt, principal of Jack Jouett Middle School, ordered him to change or turn inside out his a shirt that he got at a National Rifle Association shooting camp.

The Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled in Alan's favor, which suggests the settlement is a victory for the boy's right to free speech. We can't be sure, though, because The Hook reports the settlement includes a nondisclosure agreement.

We first noted the case in September 2002, and ZeroIntelligence.com, an anti-zero-tolerance blog, called our attention to the settlement.

In a similar case, 16-year-old Nathan Griggs, a sophomore at Elmhurst High in Fort Wayne, Ind., is suing the school district over his suspension for wearing a T-shirt "emblazoned with the likeness of an M-16 rifle and the text of the Marine Corps creed," reports the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel.

It's the Eponymy, Stupid
We're starting to feel bad about the people who don't like this feature, but we're not yet ready to give it up, and besides, lots more people do like it. Since we like to please everyone at Best of the Web Today, we thought we'd throw a bone to the antieponymists and at least let a couple of them have their say.

"A kerfuffle is brewing over my vexation at your eponymy series!" writes Mike Zimmerman. Well, tough luck, Mr. Zimmerman--but we will admit you have quite a way with words. And here's Stan Babicz:

I concur with those of your readers who tire of the eponymy thread. But I want to thank you for at least keeping it at the end of the day's Best of the Web Today. That way I can get back to work sooner!

Best of the Web, doing our part to keep America productive.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming. Today's eponymy selections begin in the world of agriculture. Seaver Sowers is an agriculture expert at the American Bankers Association. We heard about Sowers from an ABA colleague, who works in the association's Office of Grassroots Advocacy--another likely place for a Sowers. Meanwhile, there's an Iowa company called Suckow Dairy Equipment.

Dr. E. Ai sounds ag-related, at least if he takes out a loan (E. Ai, E. Ai owe), but actually he's an ophthalmologist. So is Vincent C. Yu. Walter Dippy is a psychiatrist; his name isn't exactly eponymous, but it's amusing. And as long as we're on the subject of shrinking, let's not forget Richard Smalley, a specialist in nanotechnology.

Riverhead, N.Y., has an auto body shop called Hitman Collision, and the Do It Yourself Network has a radio show on auto repair, hosted by Steve Ford and Lauren Fix.

Irvine, Calif., has a law firm called Payne & Fears. And a reader writes with this bit of wordplay:

Your note about the Franklin, Ind., law firm Roach, Lynch & Belch reminded me of a funny experience. During the 1980s, on one of our drives to Boston to visit my parents, my bride pointed to the offices of Temple Barker & Sloan and said, "That is the strangest name for a synagogue. And it's the ugliest synagogue I have ever seen, too." It took me a long time to stop laughing.

If you decide to use this story, please do not put my name on it. I would not want to embarrass my bride.

Finally, there's Priscilla Feral, who heads a Darien, Conn.-based group called Friends of Animals. We almost noted her back in December, when the New York Times quoted her as an opponent of feeding venison to the "homeless." But it turns out, according to this article, that "Feral was born Priscilla Brockway, but after her divorce in 1974, she took as her last name the word that describes a domestic animal gone wild. 'I gave serious consideration to it,' she said. 'I did it with intent and to define myself.' "

It's shameful that someone who poses as a champion of nature would resort to a synthetic eponym to make her point.

(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Aaron Krakowski, Mary Yonts, Robert LeChevalier, Yitzchak Dorfman, Barak Moore, Chris Stetsko, Michael Segal, Ethel Fenig, Nathan Wain, Wayne Rutman, Joel Goldberg, Michael Nunnelley, Paul Sisco, Thomas Dillon, Edward Schulze, Joe Lowry, Charlie Gaylord, Randy Rohn, Steve Roberts, Todd Mitchem, Royal Dellinger, Richard Gregory, Dave Anderson, Sam Wakim, David Simantob, C.E. Dobkin, David Ouellette, Ellen Beeman, Lynn Duncan, Erik Andresen, Max Garfield, Glenn Patterson, Chip Switzer, Jim McKee, Shawn Smith, Mark Hunn, Guido Sandulli, Bill Hale, Leta Hix, Allen Ingling, Ben Pearce, John Snape, Peter Malcolm, Christopher Pey and Ray Samori. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

Today on OpinionJournal:

• Review & Outlook: Aristide's finest act was to resign.
• John Fund: As Virginia mulls a tax hike, all Americans should guard their wallets.
• Laura Armstrong: Don't play the Vietnam card with me, John Kerry.
• Kim Strassel: Netanyahu gives Israel a taste of Milton Friedman.