From the WSJ Opinion Archives
Why
Kerry Should Resign
Yesterday the U.S. Senate considered a measure that would extend federal unemployment
benefits for 13 weeks. Twelve Republicans joined 46 Democrats and independent
Jim Jeffords in supporting it--but it failed on a 59-40
vote in favor. Sixty votes were required "to overcome objections that extending
the benefits violated last year's budget agreement," as the Associated
Press explains.
The one senator not voting: John Kerry, who was campaigning in Kentucky. Kerry apparently supported the measure; a spokesman tells the AP, "John Kerry has fought again and again to extend unemployment benefits for workers left behind in the Bush economy." But he couldn't be troubled to cast a vote on their behalf.
We understand that campaigning for president requires a lot of time and travel, and it would be unreasonable to expect Kerry to be in Washington for every Senate vote. But his frequent absences are depriving Massachusetts residents of full representation in Congress, and in this case having what Kerry himself would view as a deleterious effect on public policy.
There's an easy solution: Kerry should quit the Senate, as Bob Dole did in June 1996. This not only would allow the appointment of a full-time replacement but also would demonstrate Kerry's own confidence in his presidential campaign, possibly giving a boost to his party's morale.
Out
on a Limb
This column doesn't usually issue predictions, but we're going to make an exception,
because, frankly, we're jealous of all the buzz pollster John Zogby has been
generating with an essay he posted on the Web over the weekend called "This
Election Is Kerry's to Lose."
We disagree with Zogby. In our view, this election is Bush's to lose. That's right, we predict that George W. Bush will win the election, unless he loses it.
You heard it here first.
Why Isn't Bush Losing?--II
Yesterday we
asked why John Kerry can't seem to take a lead in the polls, despite declines
in President Bush's approval ratings, the "right track/wrong track"
numbers and other indicators that would seem to spell trouble for the incumbent.
Several readers added to our reasons. Here's Ray Newton:
I think that you are missing one important point on the polls. If a pollster asked me if I approve of the job Bush is doing I would have to say no. Too apologetic, not strong enough.
Do I approve of his handling of Iraq? Again no. Need to get tougher.
Do I approve of his handling of the economy? Again no. Too much spending. Too much appeasing the Dems. Tax cuts must be permanent.
For all of these reasons Kerry is a much worse choice. That is why polling can be very confusing. When you disagree, they never ask if you tend more towards the right or the left.
Steve Wesche offers a similar analysis:
Most commentators characterize "satisfied/not satisfied" polling as judgment of the president. This is rather shallow analysis. I personally would respond on this "dissatisfied" side with respect to the direction of the nation. I am disturbed by judges who unilaterally redefine marriage. I am disturbed by teachers unions that impede quality education. I'm disturbed by trash "culture," by advertising that promotes negative behavior, and by the blatant racism of many black political figures.
And I firmly support the president for trying diligently to redirect the nation, doing the relatively small amount at the margin that a president actually can do. In short, dissatisfaction with the direction of the nation does not equate to dissatisfaction with the orientation or performance of George W. Bush.
And Jerry Skurnik looks at the big picture:
Another reason why Bush-Kerry numbers stay stable despite events is the polarization of the country.
I'm obviously making up the numbers, but in general, about 40% of the country is so pro-Bush that he could do anything short of shooting Laura and they'd still vote for him. Another 40% is so anti-Bush that if Osama bin Laden were captured wearing a Kerry button, they'd still vote Kerry.
So the campaigns are fighting over the 20% in between. And that's only in the popular vote. They are really fighting over the 20% in between who live in 15 to 20 states.
That sounds about right, though we'd guess the anti-Bush numbers are somewhat smaller than the pro-Bush ones. What's interesting about Skurnik's analysis, though, is the nature of the polarization. It's not Bush vs. Kerry but Bush vs. anti-Bush. Our sense is that this bodes well for Bush.
Consider: Between 1972 and 1996, six incumbent presidents sought re-election. Three of them--Nixon, Reagan and Clinton--were polarizing figures, intensely loathed (for a variety of personal and ideological reasons) by partisans on the other side, but solidly supported by their own party. All three won.
The other three--Ford, Carter and the elder Bush--spurred much more tepid opposition from the other party (is the idea of a "Ford-hater" even imaginable?). But all three faced challenges for their own party nod, and Carter and Bush saw third-party candidates drain away their support in November. All three lost.
Bush is clearly in the Nixon-Reagan-Clinton mold rather than the Ford-Carter-Bush one. That doesn't mean he's a shoo-in, but the "anybody but Bush" vote is not going to be sufficient to carry Kerry to the White House. If you don't already hate George W. Bush, it's unlikely that you will develop such a passion between now and November.
Convention has it that when a president seeks re-election, the vote is a referendum on the incumbent. He might lose if voters see him as tainted by scandal (Ford), incompetent (Carter) or out of touch (Bush père). The challenger also has to convince voters of his own superior merits: Carter's honesty, Reagan's optimism, Clinton's compassion. The Dems may yet find a winning formula, but our sense is that "Bush is evil and Kerry served in Vietnam" won't do the trick.
Vote
for Me, You Arrogant Jerks!
"What has happened [at Abu Ghraib] is not just something that a few, you
know, privates and corporals or sergeants engaged in. This is something that
comes out of an attitude about the rights of prisoners of war. It's an attitude
that comes out of how we went there in the first place, an attitude that comes
out of America's overall arrogance as policy."--John Kerry, quoted in the
Louisville (Ky.) Courier-Journal, May 12
The
Great Escape
The New York Times reports on a Saturday John Kerry rally in Baton Rouge, La.:
To applause and angry shouts, Mr. Kerry, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, told them not to be discouraged by Bush campaign efforts to paint him as an out-of-touch Northeast liberal. "You know why they're doing that?" he said. "Because he doesn't have a record to run away from."
Vote for John Kerry: He has a record to run away from!
Does
Her Hubby Want Teresa Her Taxes?
The Kerry campaign has released data on Teresa Heinz Kerry's taxes and promises
to release her 2003 return once she's filed it (she filed for an extension),
CNN reports:
Mrs. Kerry--whose wealth derives from the Heinz food fortune--earned about $5 million in 2003 and paid approximately $750,000 in taxes, according to the information.
That would mean she paid roughly 15% of her income in taxes. One wonders if she has looked at her hubby's Web site, which informs us that "John Kerry has the courage to roll back Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans so we can invest in education and healthcare."
See
No Evil?
Last week National Review's Jonah Goldberg blasted CBS News for showing photos
of the prison abuses at Abu Ghraib. "The good reasons" to display
the photos, he contends, are "vastly outweighed by the bad":
The good reasons are obvious. The people have the right to know. The scandal firestorm sharpens the resolve of politicians and the military to investigate and stop the abuse of prisoners. The bad is that uproar from these pictures drowns out all other messages, explanations, and journalistic "context."
Lost is the fact that in America torturers get punished, while in the Arab world they get promotions. Huge percentages of Arabs are illiterate, which means these pictures will tell the whole story, particularly in the hands of the vilely anti-American Arab media. This will harden hearts against us and almost certainly result in lost American and Iraqi lives.
Goldberg came in for quite a bit of criticism from fellow journalists, but today he shoots back with a new column asking why the media aren't running the unexpurgated video of al Qaeda's putatively retaliatory murder of an American citizen in Iraq:
It's time to put up or shut up. If the media wants to advance the Abu Ghraib story rather than wallow in it, its course is clear. It can help Americans "appreciate" the Nick Berg beheading by showing it over and over. I don't know if that would be a good idea, but at least the press would be consistent.
One man who isn't consistent is the Washington Post's media reporter, Howard Kurtz. Here's what he wrote on May 5 about those who criticized the airing of the Abu Ghraib pictures:
And yet some people are questioning whether "60 Minutes II" should have done this.
What would be the alternative: covering it up?
Sitting on the story so the U.S. military wouldn't look bad?
Why not suppress all negative news and just salute?
Yet here he is today on the Berg snuff film:
Did the networks have to play the gruesome video, except for the final act, thus handing the terrorists the propaganda victory they wanted? A still shot, a snippet, and a description wouldn't have been enough?
Actually, Kurtz isn't even consistent on this point. Here's his very next paragraph:
If this was an old-fashioned propaganda war, this sickening decapitation tape would never have been released, since it trumps a story that was making the United States look very bad. But these killers don't care about that, or apparently about human life itself. So they've succeeded in making the American abuses--for which the president has apologized, and which is being investigated, and courts-martial convened--small by comparison.
There's certainly an argument to be made that the networks did the right thing with the Berg video--that an actual murder is too horrific to show, and far worse than anything in the Abu Ghraib photos we've seen. But Kurtz really seems to be tying himself in knots with his varied opinions about networks' responsibilities vis-à-vis disseminating enemy propaganda.
Family
Feud
"A company run by Osama bin Laden's family has been shortlisted to construct
the world's tallest building, according to officials in Dubai," London's
Guardian reports:
The Saudi Binladin Group--one of the largest businesses in the Middle East--is the only Arab company bidding for the contract, the latest in a series of extraordinary projects in the tiny Gulf emirate.
At 2,313ft (705 metres), the Burj Dubai tower will be al most twice the height of the World Trade Centre destroyed by supporters of the family's renegade offspring in 2001.
One imagines Osama sitting in his cave somewhere, wondering where his cousins went wrong.
What Did We Mean, 'We'?
Occasionally the editorial we can get us in trouble. Several readers
seem to have misconstrued the following passage in an item
yesterday:
The world has not given up altogether on the idea of imposing some standards of decency. Now if only we would give up the idea that nothing more than barbarism is to be expected of Arabs and Muslims.
Indeed we were unclear. We meant the we in the latter sentence to refer to "the world," not to this column, which rejects the idea that Arabs and Muslims should be held to lower standards than everyone else.
Look
Who's Invoking Vietnam
"Let [me] remind you of Vietnam," a leader of the opposition to the
U.S. war effort in Iraq said today. No, not a Democrat, but Muqtada al-Sadr,
the anti-American Shiite. He continued: "We are an Iraqi people that has
faith in God, and his prophet and his family. The means of victory that are
available to us are much more than what the Vietnamese had. And, God willing,
we shall be victorious."
The rantings of Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd sound more and more like enemy propaganda.
Will
the Enemy Name Its Sub the Killer Rabbit?
A press release from the Electric Boat Corp., a Connecticut-based subsidiary
of General Dynamics, announces that "the third and final Seawolf-class
attack submarine" has been "moved outdoors for the first time"
in preparation for its commissioning June 5. The vessel's name: the USS Jimmy
Carter.
Still
Not Getting It
The New York Times' Fox Butterfield is at it again:
Almost 10 percent of all inmates in state and federal prisons are serving life sentences, an increase of 83 percent from 1992, according to a report released yesterday by the Sentencing Project, a prison research and advocacy group. . . .
The increase is not the result of a growth in crime, which actually fell 35 percent from 1992 to 2002, the report pointed out. Instead, it is the result of more punitive laws adopted by Congress and state legislatures as part of the movement to get tough on crime, the report said.
Not considered, as usual, is the likelihood that the fall in crime is the result of locking up more criminals.
Good
Thing Our Parents Studied Science
"Parents' History Major Factor in Heart Disease"--headline, USA Today,
May 12
When
Lethal Injection Just Won't Do
"Public Authorities Committee Gets Chair"--headline, Crain's New York
Business, May 11
Would You Buy
a Used Car From This Man?
The following ad appears on the People magazine Web site (on the right, scroll
down to "Shopping Information"):
Alora's Bimbi air fresheners: Used by Courteney Cox and Sarah Jessica Parker, the fresheners are available for $76 by calling 888-8BARNEYS.
If you wanted fresh air, would you buy a used air freshener?
(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Erik Andresen, Charlie Gaylord, Tom Linehan, Mark Schulze, Steve Roberts, John Williamson, Daniel Wiener, Chris Stetsko, Mike Williamson, Ethel Fenig, Henry Hanks, Edward Schulze, David Farkas, Andrew Fox, Steve Bunten, Tee Forshaw, Barak Moore, Michael Segal, James Eaves-Johnson, Randy Whittell, Vincent Fried, Eric Liederbach, Jim Swift, Terry Harris, Jim LaFronz, Paul Dyck, Diane Ravitch, Ron Allday, Michael Kingsley, Bill Long and Julie Walker. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Review & Outlook: Winning is everything in Iraq. The public understands this.
- Claudia Rosett: At U.N. headquarters, North Korean dissidents find only indifference.
- Nat Hentoff: Quincy Jones--past, present and future.
