From the WSJ Opinion Archives
Hillary:
My Hubby, Not Bush, Lied
Sen. Hillary Clinton appeared Tuesday on CNN's "Larry King Live,"
and CNN describes an interesting exchange:
The lack of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq contradicts years of intelligence indicating Saddam had such weapons, which also was the conclusion of officials in the Clinton administration.
"The consensus was the same, from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration," she said. "It was the same intelligence belief that our allies and friends around the world shared.
"But I think that in the case of the [Bush] administration, they really believed it. They really thought they were right, but they didn't let enough sunlight into their thinking process to really have the kind of debate that needs to take place when a serious decision occurs like that."
So the Clintonites and the Bushies both said Saddam Hussein has weapons. The difference is that the latter "really believed it." The former didn't really believe it, but they said it anyway. So it turns out it was CLINTON who LIED!!!!
Quantitative
Quagmire
We're sorry to keep mentioning the Boston Globe's Derrick Z. Jackson, who probably
doesn't deserve all the attention, but his latest effort is another masterpiece
of illogic, augmented this time with bad math, all in the service of claiming
that Iraq is another Vietnam:
Even by the most conservative estimates of human rights observers, we did not spare innocent lives while removing the regime. The Project for Defense Alternatives estimated between 3,200 and 4,300 civilians were killed in the invasion. Other groups claim that around 10,000 civilians have been killed in the invasion and occupation. That would translate into a kill ratio during the invasion of at least 23 civilians for every US soldier during the invasion.
If the 10,000 figure, used by Medact, the British arm of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, is accurate, then we are killing Iraqi civilians--not Iraqi soldiers but Iraqi women, children, and nonmilitary men, at a clip of 14-1. That is the same rate at which we killed North Vietnamese soldiers.
Yet all these numbers are meaningless, for several reasons. Saddam Hussein's army simply melted away, so the coalition has faced hardly any regular soldiers. The essence of irregular warfare is to blend into the civilian population. Are the "human rights" groups counting these faux civilians simply because they don't look like soldiers?
On the other side, note Jackson's use of the passive voice in his description of estimates "that around 10,000 civilians have been killed in the invasion and occupation." But many of those casualties have come at the hands of the enemy, an enemy some elements of which were slaughtering Iraqis at a far faster clip when they were part of the old regime. Do the estimates reflect any effort actually to determine who is responsible for the violence, or is every Iraqi death simply being charged to the U.S. account?
When comparing kill ratios, Jackson fails to understand that a ratio has both a numerator and a denominator. In this case, one of the reasons the ratio is so high is that the denominator is so low. U.S. deaths in Vietnam approached 60,000, whereas in Iraq they're closer to 700. If the actual death toll among Iraqi "civilians" resembled that of Vietnamese fighters, the former would be dying at roughly 100 times the rate they actually are.
In any case, the comparison of Iraqi civilians with Vietnamese fighters is apples and oranges. America wages war with a sense of civilized ethics: We do not deliberately inflict casualties on civilians, and indeed go out of our way to avoid doing so. A genuine civilian death is a tragic mistake, which does not further our military goals. The death of an enemy fighter is helpful to the war effort, even if at some level it is a human tragedy.
Finally, entirely missing from Jackson's commentary is any mention of the war Saddam Hussein's regime waged against the Iraqi people for decades. How many Iraqi civilians would have died over the past year had Saddam remained in power?
Just
Think of All the Money We Didn't Steal!
The left-wing site ZMag.org has a piece by Anjum Niaz that contains a revealing
quote from a U.N. official implicated in the Oil-for-Food scandal:
Before [Benon] Sevan's recent mysterious disappearance into the nether world, facilitated by boss [Kofi] Annan, who shrewdly packed him off on long leave before retirement, Sevan nonchalantly admitted, "that as much as 10 percent" of the programme's revenues may have been "ripped off," telling a TV channel: "Even if 10 percent of the revenue was stolen, 90 percent got to the people it was intended for. Why does nobody report that?" he asked peevishly.
The
Wireless Effect
Here's one reason political polls may be unreliable and likely to become more
so. The Olympian, a daily newspaper in Washington state's capital, points out
that telephone pollsters do not call cellular telephones:
For a decade, Federal Communications Commission regulations have restricted pollsters from using modern dialing equipment to call cell phones. And even if they dial by hand, another rule prohibits them from phoning anyone who would have to pay for the call.
Now, if you have a cell phone in addition to your ordinary land line at home, this shouldn't matter. The pollsters can find you. But increasingly, people are forgoing land-line service altogether. According to an October 2003 report in the Sun-Sentinel of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., "up to 5 percent of traditional phone service users in the U.S. have switched to wireless phones as their only residential phone, according to the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, a trade association."
A December article in the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal says that "15 percent [of phone users] plan to give up landline service within the next five years, a shift that could boost the number of wireless-only users from 6 million now to 20 million by 2008."
The effect of all this on poll results will depend on the demographics of the people who make the switch. The San Jose journal reports that "the trend is even more pronounced for those under 24, about 12 percent of whom don't have landline phones"--between 2 1/2 and three times the proportion for the population as a whole. And the Olympian notes that "a recent Sprint Wireless survey of more than 500 college students found that half are cell-only customers."
Of course, young folks tend to vote in smaller numbers than their elders, but if trends in phone usage drive them out of polling samples, this could end up skewing the results. Since today's young adults seem to be moving in a conservative direction--the result, among other things, of 9/11 being a formative experience for them, and of the Roe effect--the polls of the future may end up biased in a Democratic direction.
(Hat tip: reader Roger Miksad.)
A
Quagmire or a Bayou?
From an Associated Press dispatch out of St. Bernard, La.:
The Mississippi River Gulf Outlet is a long way from the Mekong Delta, but it brought back memories for Democratic presidential hopeful and Vietnam War veteran John Kerry on Wednesday.
Standing at the bow of a 25-foot power craft called "Fishing Magician" inspecting coastal erosion in southern Louisiana reminded Kerry of his days as commander of a Navy "swift" boat 35 years ago.
"I looked out at the shoreline and I commented that parts of it looked a lot like the rivers and coastline that I went through in Vietnam," the Massachusetts senator said.
He told about 100 supporters sweltering in the heat on the banks of the Mississippi that he had spent a lot of time "in a habitat that looked a little like this" as a young Naval officer. He said the 50-foot gunboat he commanded was built "right here in Louisiana."
Wow, John Kerry served in Vietnam? This is the first we've heard of it.
Great Orators of the Democratic Party
- "One man with courage makes a majority."--Andrew
Jackson
- "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."--Franklin
Roosevelt
- "The buck stops here."--Harry
Truman
- "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for
your country."--John
Kennedy
- "For the first time in history, our generation may pass this country on to our children in worse shape than we were in fact handed it by our parents. And I believe that is an unacceptable principle worth fighting about, worth having an election about, worth changing the direction of this country for."--John Kerry
Takes
One to Know One
You've gotta love the photo
that accompanies this Buffalo News story on a protest against President Bush's
visit to town. It shows a man holding up a public-sector union placard (it's
at stage left) carrying the following hand-scrawled message (quoting verbatim):
SOMWHERE
iN TEXAS ........
A
VILLAGE iS
MISSING iT'S
IDiOT
Is the sign-holder referring to himself?
Not
Quite Getting the Concept
"Maine's crime rate has fallen 19 percent in the past decade, but its prison
and jail populations have jumped by 50 percent during the same period, according
to a new report," the Associated Press reports:
That seeming paradox is among the dozens of findings in the 2003 Crime and Justice Data Book, an 80-page report that looks at statistics and trends about crime, arrests and incarceration in the state.
What if Maine emptied its prisons and the crime rate went up? Would that be a "seeming paradox" too?
Who
Knew?
"Study Finds Doctors Prescribe Pricey Drugs"--headline, CNN.com, April 21
It's the Eponymy, Stupid
We thought we'd bring back this feature today, just for old times' sake and
because since our last
installment, we've accumulated some nice ones. We begin in the world of
finance, with Sterling/Carl
Marks Capital. Their motto isn't "Investors of the world, unite!,"
but wouldn't it be cool if it were? We also heard from reader David
Berish, who writes: "You might be interested to know that I work as
an analyst at a boutique investment bank and I'm bullish."
From capital to labor: Les Watrous is the founder of Cert-a-Roof, a roof-sealing company. His opposite number is Mo Wada, city engineer of Falls Church, Va., who's in charge of the city's drainage system. Rusty Nail runs a tire warehouse in Texas, and the Fire Department of New York City has a fireman named Arsen Kasparian.
Out of the fire and into the frying pan: Will Cook is a chef for Professional Cutlery Direct. And the director of dining services at Princeton University is none other than Stu Orefice, which we suppose is the Atkins-friendly synonym of pie hole. And if any of these guys lose their job, they can consult with Steven Mitchell Sack, author of "Getting Fired."We hope Arsen Kasparian never gets fired.
In the world of sports, we find Nathan Leeper, a high jumper, and Kathi Shotwell, a marksman (but no relation to Carl Marks). Actually, we goofed: Shotwell's specialty isn't shooting sports but photography.
The Youngstown (Ohio) Vindicator reports that James Martin, police chief of Fowler township, is under investigation over allegations that two of his officers have been "paddling teenagers as part of a juvenile diversion program." Martin's lawyer is Randall Weltman.
A spokesman for the anti-America group International Answer is named Sara Flounders, and we learn this from an MSNBC.com story called "What Happened to the Antiwar Movement?"
In the great outdoors we find Timber Weller, a spokesman for Florida's Division of Forestry, and Judy Pelikan, author of "The Music of Wild Birds."
A CNN.com report on an effort to banish pornographic billboards from the highways of Missouri features this man-on-the-street interview: 'Jeff Trampleasure of Wentzville said the billboards made him dread the day he'll have to explain the sexy pitches to his children. 'I think it's trash,' Trampleasure, 27, said." So why does he live in the Show-Me State?
(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Catherine Brooks, David Eike, Terry Young, S.E. Brenner, Gary Petersen, Darren Gold, Thomas Campanile, Mark Van Der Molen, Erik Smelser, P.F. Erlin, Ben Sandler, Lynn Segal, Scott Lawrence, Bill Buckingham, Russell Zwerg, John Esposito, Alan Stahura, Daniel Mark, Ed Holton, Chip Paschal, Don Hunt, Ted Rathkopf, Brian Noggle, Gil Yoder, Michael Williams, Jeff Touchet, Erik Ivers, John Corringan, Ken Shotwell, John Sanders, Mike Hohman, Jonathan Mairs, Stephen Silkowski, Cheryl Pedersen and Bradley Lawrence. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Review & Outlook: The Democrats morph into Brent Scowcroft "realists."
- Peggy Noonan: Americans dislike Bush's enemies more than they dislike Bush.
- Dorothy Rabinowitz: Meet Kelsey Grammer, a happy man happily out of step with Hollywood politics.
