From the WSJ Opinion Archives
Ban
Marriage, Save Democracy
"Confused by the twists and turns of the US gay marriage issue, Oregon's
Benton County has decided to err on the side of caution and ban all weddings,"
the BBC reports:
Until the state decides who can and cannot wed, officials in the county have said no-one can marry--even heterosexual couples.
They hit upon the plan to ensure that none of the county's 79,000 residents are subject to unfair treatment.
The Beeb's assertion that the county commissioners are "confused" is absurd. They know exactly what they're doing. A "Marriage FAQ" on the county Web site explains that the county banned marriage "to maintain consistency with our initial position that to not issue same-gender marriage licenses is not fair and equal treatment under the Oregon Constitution."
Yet these West Coast wackos just may be on to something. By following their example, Massachusetts could strike a blow for democracy by preventing court-mandated same-sex marriage.
To recap the Massachusetts situation: Last November a four-justice majority on the state's Supreme Judicial Court "discovered" that the state constitution confers a right for men to marry other men and women to marry other women. It ordered the Massachusetts Legislature to legalize same-sex marriage within 180 days, or by May 16.
This was a direct assault on democratic institutions, even more so than most judicial activism. Not only did the four justices impose a radically new policy on the state without the voters or their elected representatives having any say in the matter, but by imposing the 180-day deadline, they aimed to make their decision unchallengeable by democratic means.
A move is afoot--endorsed by Sen. John Kerry, among others--to amend the Massachusetts Constitution by enshrining in it the traditional definition of marriage. But the procedure for formally amending the Massachusetts Constitution is quite onerous, the commonwealth's founders apparently having failed to anticipate that judges would one day effectively amend it by fiat. No amendment can pass until 2006, by which point, if the Supreme Judicial Court majority has its way, the state will already have been issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples for two years.
This is where the Benton County idea comes in. Suppose the Massachusetts Legislature were to pass a law--call it the Suspense of Marriage Act--prohibiting the issuance of any marriage license in the state beginning on May 16? This would render moot the "inequality" claim that is the basis for the Supreme Judicial Court's imposition of same-sex marriage on the state. If no one can get married in Massachusetts, same-sex couples have no grievance against the state.
The effect would be to buy time for Bay State citizens and legislators to sort out the matter through democratic means. Once they have done so--either by redefining marriage to include same-sex couples or by amending the constitution to make the traditional definition the law of the land--they can repeal the SOMA.
The SOMA would, of course, inconvenience Massachusettsans who wish to marry. They would have to travel to another state to obtain a license, though they could hold ceremonies and receptions back home. But Massachusetts is a small state; pretty much anyplace in it is within an hour's drive of somewhere in Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island or Vermont. Enduring a drive through New England's charming countryside with one's betrothed seems a small price to pay for helping to preserve America's tradition of self-government.
Libyan
Son Rise
"The son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi said Wednesday Arab countries
should support President Bush's campaign to promote democracy in the Middle
East," the Associated Press reports:
"Instead of shouting and criticizing the American initiative, you have to bring democracy to your countries, and then there will be no need to fear America or your people," said Seif al-Islam Gadhafi. "The Arabs should either change or change will be imposed on them from outside."
He said that unlike other Arab countries, monarchies and "republics" alike, he does not plan to succeed his father as Libya's ruler. "Seif even praised Israel, saying that unlike Arab countries, sons do not tend to succeed their fathers in power there. 'We don't put the appropriate person in the right place, but Israel is a democratic country,' told the Al-Jazeera television station."
Seif heads the Gadhafi International Association for Charitable Organizations, but it's unclear to what extent he speaks for his father's regime. Still, some of Tripoli's actions have been encouraging of late, and in a part of the world where corrupt autocrats dominate, one has to be impressed by the emergence of such a prominent voice for reform.
The
Road to Peace
When Israel rid the world of terrorist Ahmed Yassin earlier this week, the question
that occurred to a lot of us was: What took so long? Writing in the New York
Post, the Iranian commentator Amir Taheri offers an astute analysis of Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon's strategy:
Possibly the most important reason why Sharon believes he can hit Hamas at the highest level of its leadership is the Israeli belief that the Palestinian radical movement is losing momentum. In 2003, the number of Israelis killed by Hamas and other radical groups such as Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine was down by almost 50 percent compared to 2002. Although this was partly due to more effective prevention work, there has also been a sharp decline in the total number of planned attacks.
Hamas and virtually all other Palestinian radical groups have been experiencing growing difficulties in attracting new recruits, especially for suicide operations. Hamas is also facing financial difficulties.
The fall of Saddam Hussein closed what had become the single biggest source of funds for Hamas in the past five years. Several other Arab countries have been forced to close channels through which funds were collected for and directed to Hamas.
Bolstering Taheri's analysis, Ha'aretz reports that "Israel Defense Forces sources said they were surprised by the low number of demonstrations in the territories in the wake of Yassin's death."
We
Won't Stand for This
From a New York Times article on Abdel Aziz Rantisi, the new Hamas honcho: "While
a major figure in the movement, Dr. Rantisi, a pediatrician in his mid-50's,
lacks the towering stature of Sheik Yassin, who established Hamas in 1987."
"Towering stature"? Shame on the Times for making fun of an old man in a wheelchair.
The
Dead End Kids
Yesterday Israel caught a teenage boy, Husam Abdu, trying to cross a checkpoint
clad in an explosive suit, the Jerusalem Post reports:
"He was fully aware of what he was to do and told us he received NIS 100 and was instructed to blow himself up near soldiers," battalion commander Lt.-Col. Guy told The Jerusalem Post. "The soldiers' quick action not only saved their lives but those of 200 Palestinian men, women, and children who were at the roadblock." . . .
Abdu, who lives in Nablus, told interrogators he was jeered at by his friends who made fun of him, and decided to take advantage of the offer.
"Blowing myself up is the only chance I've got to have sex with 72 virgins in the Garden of Eden," Abdu said his handlers had told him.
The boy's age is in some question. Early reports said he was as young as 8, but the Post says he's 14, and Maariv reports "his identity card indicates that he has already celebrated his 16th birthday." He may also be mildly retarded; Britain's Press Association quotes brother Hosni: "He doesn't know anything, and he has the intelligence of a 12 year old."
A CBS News report makes this bizarre statement: "Many, if not most, Palestinians are also shocked by the use of children by terrorists--but try to put it in context"--as if CBS thinks there is some sort of "context" that could ever justify the murder of children. The New York Times report on the incident, meanwhile, omits crucial elements of context, namely the 100-shekel payment and the fact that he was promised a heavenly orgy. It seems as though the Times is hesitant to underscore the utter depravity of the Palestinian terrorist culture.
The
Moral Authority of the U.N.
"The United States is expected to veto a UN Security Council resolution
Thursday night condemning Israel for killing Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin,"
the Jerusalem Post reports. The U.S. objects to the resolution because it does
not also include a condemnation of Palestinian terror--which means that the
U.N. is even more eager to condone terrorism than it is to condemn Israel.
Clarke Is Worse
Than His Bite
So what is one to make over the Dick Clarke kerfuffle? Well, for one thing,
even Slate's Fred Kaplan, a defender of Clarke, acknowledges that the "basic
charges" in Clarke's new book, are "nothing new." Clarke's controversial
claims seem to amount to these three:
- Terrorism was the top priority of the Clinton administration.
- Prior to Sept. 11, the Bush administration did not take terrorism seriously
enough.
- The liberation of Iraq was a "distraction" from the war on al Qaeda.
The second of these points seems obvious, and the third is simply an ideological position, a view it isn't surprising Clarke would take, as Holman Jenkins writes in today's OpinionJournal Political Diary (subscribe here):
What you have is classic bureaucratic myopia. The invasion of Iraq was a presidential decision, made by looking at the totality of the national interest. Mr. Clarke's niche was terrorist organizations narrowly defined. And like all such "stovepipe" occupants in Washington, he spent his life trying to get others to adopt his narrow priorities rather than trying himself to see a bigger picture. Gen. Eisenhower is credited with the dictum: If a problem is insoluble, enlarge it. Mr. Clarke's book is an expression of bureaucratic rage that the Bush administration enlarged the terrorism problem beyond Mr. Clarke's bailiwick.
Clarke's effort to rehabilitate the Clinton administration's antiterror record is somewhat surprising, especially in light of his account, in Richard Miniter's "Losing bin Laden" (we noted it in September), that in October 2000 Clarke stood alone in arguing for a strike against al Qaeda in response to the bombing of the USS Cole.
At various times in the past, Clarke has contradicted all the things he is saying now. Fox News has made available the transcript of a background briefing Clarke gave reporters in August 2002. At that time, Clarke credited the Bush administration with a more aggressive approach to al Qaeda than the Clinton administration had taken:
There was no plan on Al Qaeda that was passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration. . . .
Second point is that the Clinton administration had a strategy in place, effectively dating from 1998. . . . In January 2001, the incoming Bush administration was briefed on the existing strategy. They were also briefed on these series of issues that had not been decided on in a couple of years.
And the third point is the Bush administration decided then, you know, in late January, to do two things. One, vigorously pursue the existing policy, including all of the lethal covert action findings, which we've now made public to some extent. . . . The second thing the administration decided to do is to initiate a process to look at those issues which had been on the table for a couple of years and get them decided.
In his testimony yesterday before the 9/11 commission, Clarke said he was simply doing the bidding of the administration, which wanted him to "put the best face" on its record. But he flatly denied having said anything untrue at the time: "No one in the Bush White House asked me to say things that were untruthful, and I would not have said them."
But Rich Lowry points out that the truths Clarke told in 2002 do not appear in his book:
In his 2002 briefing, Clarke said that the Bush administration decided in "mid-January" 2001 to continue with existing Clinton policy while deciding whether or not to pursue more aggressive ideas that had been rejected throughout the Clinton administration. Nowhere does this appear in his book.
He said in 2002 that the Bush administration had decided in principle in the spring of 2001 "to increase CIA resources . . . for covert action, five-fold, to go after al Qaeda." Nowhere is this mentioned in his book.
The Associated Press reports Clarke also sent an e-mail to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on Sept. 15, 2001, in which he wrote:
"When the era of national unity begins to crack in the near future, it is possible that some will start asking questions like did the White House do a good job of making sure that intelligence about terrorist threats got to the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) and other domestic law enforcement authorities."
He attached an earlier memo from before Sept. 11 in which Clarke warned such agencies that "a spectacular al-Qaeda terrorist attack was coming in the near future."
"Thus, the White House did insure that domestic law enforcement . . . knew that (his office) believed that a major al-Qaeda attack was coming and it could be in the U.S.," Clarke's e-mail said.
As for Iraq, Clarke has not always sung from the nothing-to-do-with-terrorism hymnal. This is an excerpt from a 1999 Washington Post report (link requires payment to view article, but the relevant portions are quoted here):
Clarke did provide new information in defense of Clinton's decision to fire Tomahawk cruise missiles at the El Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan, in retaliation for bin Laden's role in the Aug. 7 embassy bombings.
While U.S. intelligence officials disclosed shortly after the missile attack that they had obtained a soil sample from the El Shifa site that contained a precursor of VX nerve gas, Clarke said that the U.S. government is "sure" that Iraqi nerve gas experts actually produced a powdered VX-like substance at the plant that, when mixed with bleach and water, would have become fully active VX nerve gas.
Clarke said U.S. intelligence does not know how much of the substance was produced at El Shifa or what happened to it. But he said that intelligence exists linking bin Laden to El Shifa's current and past operators, the Iraqi nerve gas experts and the National Islamic Front in Sudan.
Democratic partisans obviously hope that Clarke's "revelations" will hurt President Bush in November. We rather doubt they will. The idea that Iraq is a "distraction" has been endlessly debated for the past two years; it's unlikely that Clarke's rehashed arguments are going to change many minds. No one thinks the government took terrorism seriously enough prior to Sept. 11, and Clarke's argument that the Clinton administration did is too far-fetched to be taken seriously. (We certainly don't recall Al Gore making the terrorist threat a major campaign theme.)
A question of interest to historians, however, is this: What does Clarke's propensity for changing his story tell us about the character of the man who led America's antiterror efforts in the years leading up to Sept. 11?
Kerry vs. Kerrey
"It's primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation."--Massachusetts senator John Kerry on the war on terror, Jan. 29
"Honestly, I don't understand if we're attacked and attacked and attacked and attacked, why we continue to send the FBI over like the Khobar Towers was a crime scene or the East African Embassy bombings was a crime scene."--9/11 commissioner and former Nebraska senator Bob Kerrey, March 24
Not
Guilty by Reason of Spinsanity
We like Ben Fritz and Brendan Nyhan's Spinsanity.org Web site; though we don't
always agree with them, Fritz and Nyhan usually display a scrupulous honesty.
So we were disappointed that they misquoted us in an article arguing (wrongly,
in our view) that John Kerry's Francophilic tendencies should be off limits
in the presidential campaign:
A handful of conservative pundits initially took the lead in flogging the Kerry-France association. It's been a favorite, for instance, of James Taranto, editor of the Best of the Web Today column on the Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal.com website. Soon after the Bush advisor's comment last year, for instance, Taranto referred to Kerry as the "haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat" on April 30, a label he has repeated literally dozens of times since.
Actually, we have seldom referred to Kerry as the "haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat," and we certainly did not do so on April 30. The standard formulation is the haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam.
Progress
Against Discrimination
Last June, when the U.S. Supreme Court decided a pair of cases on racial preferences
at the University of Michigan, we dissented
from the common view that this was a defeat for proponents of colorblindness
in college admissions. Although we would have preferred to see the court strike
down all racial preferences, we argued that the court's decision in Gratz
v. Bollinger, which invalidated Michigan's preferences in undergraduate
admissions, was likely to result in the scaling back of racial preferences.
That has indeed happened, The Weekly Standard's Terry Eastland reports:
Colleges and universities are having second thoughts about the wisdom of retaining their minority-exclusive programs. Indeed, according to a recent story in the Chronicle of Higher Education, many schools have opened such programs to "students of any race." A trend appears in the making, and it's worth applauding.
Yale University, for example, has opened to all interested students a summer orientation program formerly limited to just black, Hispanic, and American Indian freshmen. Amherst College has taken a two-day, on-campus program designed to give high school "students of color" a sense of college life and said white students also may participate. And St. Louis University has changed a scholarship program named after a former black faculty member so that it no longer is just for black students.
The court's other Michigan decision, Grutter v. Bollinger, held that "narrowly tailored" racial preferences were acceptable in the name of "diversity." But the requirement that preferences be "narrowly tailored" does impose limits on colleges, and Eastland argues that as a result, "admissions--indeed, everything a university does--is going to have to be race-neutral someday soon." Let's hope he's right.
Zero-Tolerance
Watch
Sanity has prevailed in Yolo County, Calif., where the school board has overturned
the expulsion of Adam Liston, who "accidentally brought an unloaded shotgun
to school in the back of his pickup truck earlier this year," Sacramento's
KCRA-TV reports: "The county board said that the school board made several
mistakes when they expelled Liston from school, and that he should be allowed
to return immediately." We noted
the case in January.
In Hillsboro, N.D., meanwhile, 18-year-old Leona "Oni" Fitzpatrick has been banned from her high school prom for smoking, the Fargo Forum reports--even though she is an adult and did not smoke on campus.
Samurai
Pusher
It turns out there was more to the story we noted
yesterday about an Englishman sentenced to eight years in prison for killing
a man with a Samurai sword in self-defense. The Lancashire Evening Telegraph
reports that Carl Lindsay, the swordsman, was a drug dealer, a fact the report
on which we relied omitted.
Not
Too Brite--CXXXVIII
"A German man has gone on trial accused of decapitating his mother with
a Samurai sword," Reuters reports from Berlin. "Prosecutors say the
22-year-old, identified only as Axel T., beheaded his mother last June after
his parents wanted to move him out of the family home in Munich, a court spokesman
said on Tuesday."
Oddly Enough!
(For an explanation of the "Not Too Brite" series, click here.)
What
Would We Do Without Experts?
"Following Chain E-Mail Won't Lower Gas Prices, Experts Say"--headline,
Miami Herald, March 25
What
Would We Do Without Polls?
"Poll: Voters Want Cheaper Health Care"--headline, Associated Press,
March 24
What
Would We Do Without Panels?
"Panel: New Technology Affects Health Costs"--headline, Associated
Press, March 25
EU:
Entirely Useless
The European Union plans to institute new "working at height regulations"
in July, the BBC reports, and professional mountaineers in Scotland are understandably
piqued. "An MEP [member of the European Parliament] has suggested that,
as the regulations stand, teams would have to display signs warning that mountains
are high."
(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Jennifer Ray, Michael Segal, Peter Melvoin, Ethel Fenig, Robert LeChevalier, Brent Silver, Monty Krieger, Brendan Schulman, Alia Darrow, Barak Moore, C.E. Dobkin, Joel Goldberg, S.E. Brenner, Michael Lipkin, Maxine Elkins, Carl Sherer, Jonathan Rothenberg, Jonathan Blinken, Thomas Conway, Nathan Wirtschafter, Gabriel Scherzer, Judie Amsel, David Darby, Janice Borawick, Jonathan Yunger, Scott Offen, Michael Sosnow, Mara Gold, Thomas Linehan, Michael Zukerman, Aaron Krakowski, Dimitri Raitzin, James Foster, Ben Filippini, Raghu Desikan, Hershel Ginsburg, David Shapero, Brian Dawson, Michael Siegel, Yoav Thaler, Nancy Zimmerman, Mike Renshaw, Jeffrey Shapiro, Linda Cooke, Geoffrey Bland, Mary Pinkowish, Adam Fishman, Yishai Ben Mordechai, Charles Saul, Fred Worth, Gregory Taylor, Martin Karo, Byron Sanders, John Lott, Steve Roberts, Richard Kirkpatrick, Mark Schulze, Jim Orheim, Michael Bell, Michele Schiesser, Catherine Baum, Terry Harris, Henry Hanks, Allen O'Donnell, Mark Merkley, Tracy Schultz, Bryan Hight, Scot Silverstein, Pat Curley, Greg Nelson, Tim Tweeton, Jim Peacock, Gabe Sunshine, Paul Hurley, Robert Salmon, Brian Nicholson, Skip King and Ray Eckhart. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Review & Outlook: Florida's school-choice success terrifies the establishment.
- Peggy Noonan: The 9/11 commission and sins of omission.
- Tunku Varadarajan: India and Pakistan celebrate their weapons of mass (cricket) destruction.
