by JAMES TARANTO
Wednesday, March 24, 2004 1:55 P.M. EST

When Nuance Kills
Remember after Sept. 11 when President Bush said he wanted Osama bin Laden "dead or alive"? Some Americans faulted the president for not being, as we say in 2004, more nuanced. To take an example from our archives, left-wing feminist Patricia Ireland complained in October 2001 that since Sept. 11 there had been too much "guy talk" from "rich, white, able-bodied and apparently straight men." She elaborated: "Guy talk is 'Osama bin Laden, wanted dead or alive.' Guy talk may be speaking in black and white of good and evil."

Guy talk also is straightforward, which can be an advantage when you're dealing with a mortal enemy. Judging by this Bloomberg News report, President Clinton took just the sort of dainty approach to bin Laden that Ireland urged, and the result was confusion and carnage:

Tension and miscommunication between Clinton White House officials and intelligence officers hindered efforts to get Osama bin Laden for years before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, an independent commission says. . . .

There was a clash between the intentions of administration officials, who said President Bill Clinton clearly approved covert actions to kill bin Laden, and the understanding of top officials in the Central Intelligence Agency, who felt their instructions were to try to capture him, the report says.

The New York Post reports that Clotaire Rapaille, a French-born "marketing guru," has a new book coming out called "Archetypes of the Presidency," in which he criticizes John Kerry for being, well, French-looking:

"The French are thinkers--'I think, therefore I am.' Americans want somebody that is going to take action. . . . All this association [of Kerry] with thinking too much and nuance and five-sentence answers is off-code," he told The Post.

It's all good fun when candidate Kerry says things like, "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it." But the thought of President Kerry getting tongue-tied trying to explain how he'd fight America's enemies is terrifying.

This Caracas Us Up
Yesterday we noted that John Kerry was spurning yet another foreign near-endorsement, from Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's far-left president. To his credit, Kerry issued a strong statement last week denouncing Chavez for working to destroy his country's democracy.

But the Xinhua News Agency, an official Red Chinese outlet (and thus presumably sympathetic to Chavez), reports that Kerry's comments have prompted much merriment in Caracas. Tarek William Saab, president of the Venezuelan National Assembly's Permanent Commission on Foreign Affairs, told a newspaper called El Nacional that, in Xinhua's words, "his country would not take seriously" Kerry's criticism. Saab added "that Kerry could 'soften the pro-war features of George W. Bush's government.' "

Such is Kerry's reputation for irresolution that even when he does talk tough, America's adversaries don't take him seriously. Which means that if ever President Kerry issues a threat that isn't a bluff, war will be inevitable because the enemy won't regard Kerry's word as credible.

'Bush Did Not Follow Up'
From an MSNBC report on the Sept. 11 commission:

The report revealed that in a previously undisclosed secret diplomatic mission, Saudi Arabia won a commitment from the Taliban to expel bin Laden in 1998. But a clash between the Taliban's leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, and Saudi officials scuttled the arrangement, and Bush did not follow up.

What was Gov. Bush supposed to have done in 1998? As Glenn Reynolds asks, "Why didn't he send the Texas Rangers to finish off Bin Laden?"

Did Anyone Think He'd Back al Qaeda?
"CIA Boss Backs Bush Over al Qaeda"--headline, BBC Web site, March 24

Iraq's Liberation Reverberates
The New York Times reports that Syrian Kurds, inspired by the liberation of Iraq, are rebelling against the Baathist dictatorship that rules their own country:

In Malikiya, a nearby town, two gilded plaster busts of the elder Mr. [Hafez] Assad and his son, President Bashar al-Assad, the main décor inside a culture center, were also decapitated and the building was set on fire. Someone scrawled "Kurdistan" in bright red spray paint across an interior wall of the gutted Water Authority building there, too.

Antigovernment protests are extremely uncommon in Syria, where grim memories are vivid of thousands of Islamic militants mowed down by government troops in the early 1980's. But grievances simmering within the Kurdish minority for decades--over their difficulties in obtaining citizenship, the ban on their language, their poverty amid rich farmland--finally boiled over in the last few weeks.

Kurdish Syrians, 2 million of Syria's 17 million people, say that watching rights for Kurds being enshrined in a new if temporary constitution next door in Iraq finally pushed them to take to the streets to demand greater recognition. In their wake is a toll of blackened government buildings, schools, grain silos and vehicles across a remote swath of the north.

Meanwhile, Agence France-Presse reports the rulers of Libya, already intimidated into giving up their nuclear ambitions to avoid Saddam Hussein's fate, are making other encouraging noises: "Saif al-Islam, a son of Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, said in remarks published that Tripoli is ready to compensate Jews that [sic] left Libya for Israel and other countries and whose assets were seized":

"We're not thinking now of establishing contacts or relations with Israel because it's not on the agenda and no one has requested it of us. But we can in the future open the file of compensation for Jews for their seized funds or assets," he told Qatari newspapers in an interview during a two-day visit.

"It is a responsibility to invite Libyan Jews, including from Israel . . . to return to Libya, their ancestral land, and to abandon the land they acquired from the Palestinians," he added.

It might be more useful if Libya were to offer to resettle some of the Palestinian Arabs, who've been languishing in "refugee camps" for decades thanks to the Arab world's rejection of them. But hey, it's a start.

El Pollo Atlético
A Spanish basketball team, Pamesa Valencia, says it may beg off on a scheduled game against the Israeli team Maccabi Tel Aviv because it fears terrorism, the Jerusalem Post reports:

Valencia announced yesterday that as a result of the increasing security threats in Israel after the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin on Monday morning, the team does not plan to come to Tel Aviv for the match.

In a statement released on the club's Web site, Valencia said that "the climate of tension and the situation of violence which is only escalating are not conducive to playing basketball and that the team is not prepared to play under these conditions. The team's mental state is not good [because of the situation] and it will only get worse upon entering the warlike atmosphere, for the players as well as their families."

Maybe they should play in Spain, which is safe from terrorism.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports from Berlin that "German President Johannes Rau canceled a trip to Djibouti Tuesday after receiving threats that Islamic terrorists were planning to try and assassinate him." Apparently supporting Saddam Hussein wasn't enough to appease the terrorists, so the Germans will just have to try harder.

Brother, Can You Paradigm?
Remember Alexander Boros, the guy whose nutty letter to the Boston Globe we noted yesterday? It turns out he's quite a prolific letter-writer--not to mention a candidate for president. Here's a missive of his that the Dover (N.H.) Community News published last week:

Truth be told, the one and only commander-in-chief is God, not some Bush in Washington. Although not widely accepted, divine authority is always higher than earthly authority. It is vitally important to not confuse the two because, as ego would have it, some ego-centric politicians like to play God.

In this day of emergency and opportunity (approx. 24,000 die of poverty every day--that's eight World Trade Centers every day) we desperately need solutions that work for the greatest good, not just for the elite and elected few. Today there are some 450 billionaires on Earth possessing some 40 percent of all wealth and controlling 90 percent of the world's power. Unbridled capitalism is not the solution, sorry to say.

Why re-elect a spiritually regressive president who follows the false gods of war, fear, and condemnation, when you can instead elect a spiritually progressive president who follows the one true God of peace, love, and forgiveness? Vote for me as a soul-centered write-in candidate for president. It's high time for some presidential paradigm shift.

For more information on my campaign, you can attend the free "A Course In Miracles" bookstudy group which I facilitate and which meets every Monday from 7 to 8 p.m. on the top floor of the Rochester Public Library. All are welcome to attend. God Bless America--we need all the blessings we can get!

This has to be bad news for John Kerry. If the Boros campaign gets any traction, he won't be able to take for granted the votes of all those legions of Kucinich supporters.

Fuel Fools
A CNN online poll asks "Which concerns you more?" Results: 54% say "rising gas prices," and just 46% say "threat of terrorism."

To be sure, gas prices have gotten rather high of late. Also to be sure, these online polls are unscientific and not terribly meaningful.

Even so, what the hell is wrong with these people?

'Life' Is Too Short
Mijailo Mijailovic, who murdered Sweden's Foreign Minister Anna Lindh last year, has been sentenced to life in prison, Agence France-Presse reports. Actually, make that "life" in prison. AFP explains:

The life sentence, Sweden's harshest penalty, usually translates into about 15 years behind bars, but can be longer.

Josef Zila, criminal law professor at Stockholm University, said that as with all life sentences, the Swedish government would decide after seven or eight years whether to commute the life sentence, saying he expected it to be changed to 15 to 20 years.

"In practice there are no rules. Since no explanations are required for pardons or rejected pardons, every case gets a different treatment," he told AFP.

Meanwhile, the Scotsman reports an Englishman has been sentenced to eight years in prison for minding his own business. Twenty-five-year-old Carl Lindsay of Salford, near Manchester, "answered a knock at his door . . . to find four men armed with a gun. When the gang tried to rob him he grabbed a samurai sword and stabbed one of them, 37-year-old Stephen Swindells, four times." Swindells died, and Lindsay, who should be hailed as a hero, was convicted of manslaughter.

Shopper's Paradise
"Wal-Mart Coming to Eden"--headline, WXII-TV Web site (Winston-Salem, N.C.), March 23

A Good Reason to Dress Down
"RIAA Targets Students With New Suits"--headline, Billboard, March 23

Old-Style BBQ
"Scientists have confirmed that our primitive ancestors were roasting meat up to 1.5 million years ago, marking the oldest evidence of the controlled use of fire," London's Daily Telegraph reports:

American and South African experts have analysed ancient burnt bones from the Swartkrans cave in South Africa using electron spin resonance.

The technique showed the bones had been heated to temperatures usually only achieved in hearths, double the 300C [572 degrees] typical of a forest or brush fire, providing compelling evidence of the earliest recorded controlled use of fire by humans.

We also hear that people were known to go naked in public 1.5 million ago. Must've been PETA protesters.

(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to John Koenig, Yitzchak Dorfman, Steve Roberts, Jim Orheim, Jeff Smith, Pat Mizell, Russell DePalma, Dean Barnett, Michael Segal, Matt Drance, Edward Morrissey, S.E. Brenner, Cliff Thier, Ethel Fenig, Carl Sherer, Moran Yaniv, Bernard Cohen, David Kaspar, C.E. Dobkin, H.D. Miller, Patrick King, Rosanne Klass, Bennett Stern, Vincent Hancock and Dave Sheridan. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

Today on OpinionJournal:

• Jose Maria Aznar: The truth about 3/11.
• Claudia Rosett: Meet Fathi Eljahmi, a Libyan freedom-fighter.
• Brendan Conway: A pair of liberal profs want to pay us to "deliberate." No thanks.