by JAMES TARANTO
Monday, May 24, 2004 3:57 P.M. EDT

The Abu Ghraib Obsession
"Today's press," writes Michael Barone, "works to put the worst possible face on the war" in Iraq. Is this an exaggeration? We'd have to say not. Consider the press's obsession with the Abu Ghraib prison abuses. Sure, it's a big and important story, but as others have pointed out, it's far from the only story in Iraq. Why, for example, did it get so much more coverage than the murder by terrorists of American civilian Nick Berg?

We suppose one could argue that point. But the surest sign that the journalistic obsession with Abu Ghraib has gotten out of hand is the way news stories on unrelated topics ritually invoke it. Today's New York Times has a good-news story, about an enemy defeat in Karbala. The article explains that "the retreat came at a time when the American military was being forced to defend itself in light of the prison scandal at Abu Ghraib." As if Times readers wouldn't already have heard about this.

It gets worse. Here are the first three paragraphs of a May 17 Associated Press dispatch:

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist on Monday praised a Supreme Court justice of a half-century ago for his commitment to "intellectual integrity" as chief prosecutor in the Nuremberg trials of accused war criminals.

Rehnquist made his remarks at the annual meeting of the American Law Institute, two days before the court-martial of Army Spc. Jeremy Sivits, the first soldier to stand trial for allegations of abuse of Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib prison.

Justice Robert Jackson accepted President Truman's invitation in 1945 to prosecute 22 German defendants accused of charges that included conducting harmful medical experiments on humans. Many of the Nazi defendants argued they were following orders from their superiors.

What in the world does the Sivits court-martial have to do with the Nuremberg trials? Well, both were legal proceedings, and both took place in the Northern Hemisphere, but that's about it. Yet not only does the AP's delightfully named reporter Hope Yen feel obliged to cite Abu Ghraib; she does so before she even mentions Justice Jackson, the subject of her article.

These Abu Ghraib non sequiturs are reminiscent of the way John Kerry constantly mentions his service in Vietnam, even when talking about things that have nothing to do with his service in Vietnam. "I served in Vietnam" is the one thing Kerry wants to make sure everyone knows about him. "Our soldiers abused prisoners at Abu Ghraib" is the one thing our press corps wants everyone to know about America.

The People vs. the Press
The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press has a new survey of "547 national and local reporters, producers, editors, and executives across the country." It finds, not surprisingly, that journalists are far more liberal than the general public (Pew surveyed the latter separately). The section on "Values and the Press" finds that only 7% of national journalists described themselves as "conservative," compared with 33% of the public. Thirty-four percent of national journalists called themselves "liberal," vs. just 20% of the public. A majority of national journalists (54%) called themselves "moderate," while 41% of the public did.

In some ways, though, journalists are even more liberal when compared with the general public than these numbers would indicate. Pew asked three specific questions to gauge journalists' social views:

• Is belief in God necessary to be moral?
  
  
• Should homosexuality be accepted or discouraged by society?
  
  
• What's more important: that everyone be free to pursue his goals without government interference, or that the government guarantee no one is in need?

On the first two of these questions, the views of self-described moderate journalists were far to the left of the public's:

Self-described liberal journalists were nearly unanimous on both questions, with only 3% saying belief in God is necessary to be moral and 2% saying homosexuality should be discouraged.

In addition, 55% of national journalists say they think the press is "not critical enough" of President Bush; only 24% of the public agrees. Thirty-four percent of the public thinks the press is "too critical," vs. a mere 8% of the national press. Thirty-five percent of both groups characterize coverage of the president as "fair."

Journalists were also asked, "Can you think of any news organizations that are especially liberal?" Among national journalists, 62% said they couldn't. But 82% said they could think of an organization that is "especially conservative."

Among both national and local journalists, 68% percent of self described conservatives answered "yes" to each question, while among self-described moderates, 70% could think of a conservative organization and just 40% could think of a liberal one. Among liberals the gap was even greater: 79% could think of a conservative organization and only 24% of a liberal one.

All this suggests that journalists not only are considerably more liberal than the general public but also wish their own coverage were more liberal than it is. No wonder public confidence in the press is suffering.

All the News That's Fit to Hide
On Friday we quoted the following passage from a New York Times report, posted that afternoon on the paper's Web site, about a battle in Karbala, Iraq:

Iraq has become one of the most dangerous places in the world from which to report, with enormous potential for journalists to be deliberately targeted by either side or caught in the crossfire.

The outrageous implication that the U.S. is deliberately targeting journalists has now disappeared from the story, and it did not appear in the Saturday paper's version of it. If there's been a correction, we haven't been able to find it.

More 'Homicide'
"The next domestic terrorist attack may come in the form of homicide bombings, the FBI warned law enforcement officials," Fox News reports. But Time magazine's Web site tells a different story: "The FBI is warning law enforcement agencies to be on the alert for the possibility that suicide bombers may attempt to strike inside the United States."

Presumably just about any bombing is a "homicide" bombing--that is, one that seeks to kill people. Terrorists do not typically set off bombs merely to make noise or damage property. So what's happened here is that the FBI has issued a warning about a particular method of murder--suicide bombing--and Fox is once again using the word homicide to mean suicide in order to make a silly political point.

The Iraq War, Explained
In a letter to the editor of the Salt Lake Tribune, Kathleen Anderton of Salt Lake City spells out the "plan for domination":

I believe President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld's thinking goes along these lines:

The American population is growing about 0.92 percent a year; 66.7 percent of that very same population is between the ages of 15 and 64 and these same people are having about 14 babies a year per 1,000. At this rate, we need to greatly reduce the male half of the population.

Without the males, females will slow down and, in some cases, stop breeding. This will move us in the direction of a more controllable number of people, mostly weak women. By sending large quantities of men to fight this war in Iraq that we've cooked up, we can eliminate many of the stronger ones.

The children who lose fathers in this war, especially the boys who won't have a father's guidance, will succumb to depression and have possible suicidal tendencies. The surviving female children will be hardened by losses and by their mothers who turn bitter and tough. We'll give these children one great thing to hold onto and strive toward, an absolute sense of patriotism; not just faith in our country, but unshakable faith in our president and other leaders since we are in fact guided by God himself.

We will make machines out of these children, willing to die for any course we decide to lay out for them. We will keep some of the weaker ones in the factories to build our weapons and machines for our continued plan of world domination.

This Just In
"All Is Not Rosy in the Arab League"--headline, United Press International, May 22

The Last Refuge
John Kerry finally got his wish: Someone is questioning his patriotism. Only it's not a Republican politician but a Boston business leader, the Boston Globe reports. At issue is the notion the Kerry camp has floated of gaming campaign-finance laws by not accepting the nomination at the Democratic National Convention (for more on this see today's editorial in The Wall Street Journal):

Clayton Turnbull, vice president of the convention host committee, said Kerry should accept the nomination at the convention to make the point that the event "is about patriotism," and not simply part of a "business deal."

"It is our hope that Senator Kerry would accept the nomination in Boston," he said. "I know politics has become a financial chess game, but the convention is a significant part of our patriotism to America."

Hey Clay, didn't you know Kerry served in Vietnam?

Vicious Cycle
President Bush took a spill on his bicycle over the weekend, and the Washington Times picks up a Matt Drudge report that John Kerry quipped, "Did the training wheels fall off?":

Interviewed by The Washington Times yesterday, Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter would say only that the words Mr. Drudge reported were "off the record."

Mr. Drudge said the debate among reporters over the on-camera "training wheels" remark has been "whether to treat it as on or off the record."

As the Times notes, "Mr. Kerry had his own bicycling mishap earlier this month. . . . Mr. Kerry fell when his bike hit a patch of sand. He was not injured." As we noted in March, Kerry also fell while snowboarding. According to the New York Times' account, "When asked about the mishap a moment later, he said sharply, 'I don't fall down,' then used an expletive to describe the [Secret Service] agent who 'knocked me over.' " The "expletive" turns out to have been "son of a bitch."

Perfect physical grace is too much to expect from anyone; even professional athletes take a spill from time to time. Kerry, however, shows a distinct lack of grace in his dealings with other people, especially if the Drudge quote is accurate.

As for the president, United Press International reports that "he was accompanied on his bike by his doctor, Richard Tubb, a military agent, and a member of the secret service." Four guys on one bike? No wonder he fell.

Red Alert
Langston Hughes, the poet who inspired John Kerry's new campaign slogan, "Let America be America again," turns out to be a favorite of communists. "Outstanding is the working-class content of this life and writings of Langston Hughes," the People's Weekly World, official organ of the Communist Party USA, enthused in March 2002:

From an early age Langston Hughes identified with working-class internationalism and to the role of workers in basic social change.

In 1917 when the Russian working class came to power and withdrew their country from World War I, Langston Hughes and his fellow students at Central High School in Cleveland held a celebration for the Revolution and its leader V.I. Lenin. . . .

He made clear his admiration for Communists. For instance, he wrote about Mother Ella Reeve Bloor, a leader of the Communist Party USA and a women's rights leader. "She battled the capitalists tooth and nail for seventy years."

Here's an excerpt from one of Hughes's poems, "Lenin":

Lenin walks around the world.
The sun sets like a scar.
Between the darkness and the dawn
There rises a red star.

This is from "Goodbye Christ":

Goodbye,
Christ Jesus Lord God Jehova,
Beat it on away from here now.
Make way for a new guy with no religion at all--
A real guy named
Marx Communist Lenin Peasant Stalin Worker ME--
I said, ME!

Another Hughes poem, "Revolution," celebrated violence:

Great mob that knows no fear--
Come here!
And raise your hand
Against this man
Of iron and steel and gold . . .
And tear him limb from limb,
Split his golden throat
Ear to ear

And we thought Howard Dean was angry.

The Pope Gets Reuterized
"Pope John Paul on Saturday repeated the Roman Catholic Church's opposition to homosexual marriage after Massachusetts became the first U.S. state to allow same-sex marriage," Reuters "reports."

But the Associated Press, reporting on the same speech, says that it "contained no reference to the debate raging in the United States over decisions by some authorities to allow marriage between homosexuals."

So where did Reuters come up with its characterization? Well, here's the quote it supplies from the pope's speech: "Family life is sanctified in the joining of man and woman in the sacramental institution of holy matrimony." This is simply a statement of the centuries-old Catholic view of marriage. Reuters--the "news" service that goes out of its way to treat Osama bin Laden evenhandedly--simply added its own spin to the pope's remarks.

What About Hurricane Monica?
"Years Later, Hardly Any Signs of Tornado That Ravaged Clinton"--headline, Herald & Review (Decatur, Ill.), May 22

Terminal Terminal
A roof collapsed at Paris's Charles de Gaulle Airport yesterday, killing four. TollRoadsNews.com takes a break from its coverage of the growing movement for toll roads to look at the Paris airport authority's handling of the accident. A map at the Web site of Aéroports de Paris has already been modified to remove the damaged terminal, No. 2E:

At left the upper of the two maps is the ADP map which for Terminal 2 shows halls A, B, C, D, and F. But no E! It is still shown clearly in the bottom righthand corner of the lower map which is from the World Airports Guide.

The Soviets redid the photographs of officials on the reviewers stand of past May Day parades whenever Stalin had one of his former close colleagues shot. But they were never as quick as this to rewrite history.

Reuters, meanwhile, reports that "ADP Chairman Pierre Graff has said the entire terminal would be torn down if the building turned out to be unsafe." How many more people have to die for the building to be "unsafe"?

Say It Loud, We're TGFAISISOTSKFOUSCFTROEBLATHATAOTSL and We're Proud
Our item Friday on the Group for an Indefinite Sit-in Strike of the South Korean Federation of University Student Councils for the Repeal of "Enemy-Benefiting" Label Attached to Hanchongryon and the Abolition of the "Security Law" led some readers to ask us how to pronounce the group's acronym, TGFAISISOTSKFOUSCFTROEBLATHATAOTSL.

The answer is, you pronounce it just like it's spelled, only there's a silent "T."

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Today on OpinionJournal:

• Review & Outlook: Kerry's nomination gambit makes a mockery of campaign finance "reform."
• John Fund: Radio hosts worry about the FCC's indecency regulations. What about political speech?
• Pete du Pont: Gas is good. Here's how to keep it flowing.