by JAMES TARANTO
Tuesday, July 6, 2004 2:37 P.M. EDT

When You're Hot, You're Hot
Just a reminder to anyone with a TV or radio talk show that we're still interested in coming on to talk about our book, "Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House." All you have to do is write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and we'll set something up. We know what you're thinking: Is this book available from the OpinionJournal bookstore? Hey, did John Kerry serve in Vietnam?

Reader Mike B., who saw us on "Hannity & Colmes" last week, writes: "While I know you probably won't use this in your self-promotional campaign, I thought you were really hot! (Maybe this will help with your gay market.)"

Mike, we've got a book to sell here. We don't care if you're pink, so long as your money's green.

What a Scoop!
John Kerry's running mate is Dick Gephardt. Congratulations to our friends at the New York Post for their EXCLUSIVE in this morning's paper. "The Democratic presidential hopeful's stunning choice for his vice president comes after months of speculation," the paper notes on its front page. (Dick Gephardt? Stunning?) Inside, we learn that Kerry's decision not to choose Sen. John Edwards "could be a sign that Kerry is 'writing off' " the South.

Well, we don't know about that. We guess we're inclined not to read too much into the Gephardt pick. Still, the Post deserves kudos for getting a story no one else did. As for the reporter responsible--well, the story doesn't have a byline, so we're not sure who it is. Cheers to the humble scribe who broke this story for shunning the spotlight and being concerned only with keeping the public informed. All in all, today's Post is a tribute to the craft of journalism. We'll bet we're not the only reader who'll be saving it as a souvenir.

Homer Nods
John Kerry's running mate is John Edwards, not Dick Gephardt as we said in an item today. We were relying on a report in the New York Post that turned out to be erroneous. We've double-checked the Edwards story, reported by the New York Daily News among others, and so far it seems to hold up.

This may be a sign that Kerry is not "writing off" the South. Then again, it may not. Who knows? Edwards seems unlikely to lift Kerry to victory in North Carolina, where George W. Bush beat Al Gore, who was ostensibly from neighboring Tennessee, by a comfy 12.8% margin. Edwards himself garnered only 51% of the vote when he won his Senate seat in 1998, and he decided not to seek re-election, perhaps fearing that he would lose the seat, which changed parties in 1980, 1986, 1992 and 1998.

On the other hand, Edwards, who has the charm Kerry lacks, has shown an ability to attract independent and Republican voters, as we noted after the February Wisconsin primary.

Picking Edwards may also be an effort to keep would-be Ralph Nader voters in the Democratic fold. Edwards is a trial lawyer, Nader is the country's leading champion of trial lawyers, and, as the Village Voice points out, Nader actually urged Kerry to pick Edwards. Meanwhile, Alan Murray reports in today's Wall Street Journal that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce vowed to "abandon its traditional stance of neutrality in the presidential race and work feverishly to defeat the Democratic ticket" if Edwards is on it.

The choice of Edwards also shows the phoniness of the Democratic attacks on President Bush for serving in the Air National Guard and on Dick Cheney for not serving in the military. Unlike Kerry, who by the way served in Vietnam, Edwards, who by the way is the son of a millworker, has no military experience. The New York Times notes that in January debate Kerry made fun of Edwards's lack of military experience: "When I came back from Vietnam in 1969, I don't know if John Edwards was out of diapers then."

As we noted in May, Kerry's wife went so far as to call Cheney "unpatriotic." Will she level the same charge against Edwards?

What Would We Do Without Statements?
"Post editor in chief Col Allan said in a statement that he made the decision to go with the Gephardt story based on information that turned out to be inaccurate."--Associated Press, July 6

'Nuance' or Just Hypocrisy?
John Kerry's supporters love to tout his "nuance." Unlike simple-minded old George W. Bush, they claim, Kerry appreciates complexity and sees the world in shades of gray. Assuming for the sake of argument that this is indeed a virtue, is it really one that Kerry possesses?

Judging by his views on abortion, we'd have to say the answer is no. This column takes a nuanced view of abortion. We are uncomfortable with the extremes on both sides of this debate; as we wrote in a 1999 op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, in which we defended John McCain for waffling on abortion:

It's awfully far-fetched to think that an abortion in the early stages of pregnancy is murder. But it's equally implausible to suggest that a human embryo or fetus is just a mass of tissue and not a human life. Waffling is a natural, even principled, response to these moral intuitions

Contrast this with Kerry's views on abortion. This is from an interview he gave the Telegraph Herald of Dubuque, Iowa, picked up in a secondary report by the Washington Post:

"I oppose abortion, personally. I don't like abortion. I believe life does begin at conception. But I can't take my Catholic belief, my article of faith, and legislate it on a Protestant or a Jew or an atheist . . . who doesn't share it. We have separation of church and state in the United States of America."

And this is from a speech he delivered to a meeting of NARAL Pro-Choice America in January 2003:

As I said 18 years ago in my maiden speech in the U.S. Senate: "the right to choose is a fundamental right . . . neither the Government nor any person has the right to infringe on that freedom." If I get to share a stage with this President and debate him . . . one of the first things I'll tell him is: "There's a defining issue between us. I trust women to make their own decisions. You don't. And that's the difference." So it's time we said to this President: "we're not going to let you turn back the clock."

No overturning Roe v. Wade

No packing of the courts with judges hostile to choice

No denial of choice to poor women

No outlawing of a procedure necessary to save a woman's life or physical health

No more cutbacks on population control efforts around the world

We wouldn't dream of questioning the sincerity of Kerry's religious convictions. But if he really agrees with his church about abortion, then, as blogger Edward Morrissey points out, "he practices hypocrisy on a scale so monstrous, it boggles the mind":

If life begins at conception, why then does . . . Kerry not only agree to allow abortion, but campaigns on its behalf? Does he care so little for human life and the souls of the unborn that he cheerfully sells them out for political gain? . . .

Unlike those who define life differently, and who therefore have a consistent philosophical argument to support abortion, Kerry's actions do not equate with these professed beliefs. Either Kerry has trotted out a new lie in order to shore up his Catholic support, or he has opened the window into his heartless, calculating political soul.

Far from staking out a moderate position on abortion--pro-choice with limits, or pro-life with exceptions--Kerry expects us to believe that he stands for both pro-life and pro-choice absolutism. "Personally," he claims to agree with the Catholic Church's position that life begins at conception, full stop. That means abortion is murder. But politically he never met an abortion he didn't like--not even the partial-birth kind, which 17 of his fellow Senate Democrats voted to ban last year. This isn't nuance; it's trying to have it both ways.

The Gentleman From Wisconsin?
Campaigning in Wisconsin yesterday, John Kerry took a position with which we agree: He now opposes the Northeast Dairy Compact, a federal subsidy that enriches New England dairy farmers at the expense of their Midwestern counterparts and of consumers, who pay more for milk.

This philosophically sound move is also politically shrewd. Whereas Kerry can count on carrying most of New England, several Midwestern states--including Wisconsin, which Al Gore carried by a scant 0.2%--are very much up for grabs. It's common for presidential candidates to tailor their policies to appeal to swing states, as President Bush did when he imposed steel tariffs in a play for votes in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. And unlike the steel tariffs, the abolition of the dairy compact is a good policy--so far be it from us to fault Kerry.

We did, however, notice this passage from the La Crosse (Wis.) Tribune story on Kerry's dairy-compact position:

"We need a national policy," he said. "As a senator from Massachusetts, I had to fight for my region. Now I'm running for president. I think we need to help dairy farmers from all areas of the country.

"As president, I will not disadvantage one region of America (in favor of) another. That means putting policies in place that benefit all farmers," Kerry went on.

But though he seldom casts votes anymore, isn't Kerry still a senator from Massachusetts? Indeed he is, despite suggestions (including ours) that he resign his Senate seat so that Massachusetts can enjoy full representation in Congress. Last month, the Associated Press reported, Kerry rejected Republican demands that he quit:

Asked about the GOP calls, Kerry dismissed the suggestions, telling reporters as his plane landed in Kentucky, "I'm running for president because we have to put this country back into a place of responsible leadership. And I believe that I'm serving the citizens of Massachusetts and the country in the proposals that I've laid out."

Since he no longer feels obliged "to fight for my region," isn't it time for him to leave the Senate so that he can focus completely on the good of the country as a whole?

Sneering at America, but Campaigning for Bush
Reuters pulls out its trademark scare quotes for the headline of an Independence Day dispatch: "Bush Extols American 'Values' in West Virginia." Yet in another dispatch the same day, the "news" service paints Bush's opponent in a bad light and doesn't even bother with scare quotes: "Inscrutable Kerry Stays Mum on Running Mate," reads that headline. (This of course is before Kerry picked Geph--uh, Edwards.)

Merriam-Webster defines inscrutable as "not readily investigated, interpreted, or understood." We'd have to say we agree with Reuters' characterization of Kerry. (Remember his convoluted explanation of his position on Iraq?) But we are an opinion columnist; our job is to editorialize. Reuters claims to "report" the "news" in an "objective" fashion. It ought to play it straight and avoid both the pro-Bush slant and the anti-American one.

Saddam's Gone. Is Robert Byrd Next?
"Bush Backs War in West Virginia"--headline, Oakland (Calif.) Tribune, July 5

Can't We All Just Get Along?
"Dispute Emerges on How Deeply U.S. Is Divided"--headline, New York Sun, July 6

Out-of-Date Boilerplate
" 'Terrorist' groups were seeking to acquire the warheads containing mustard or sarin gas which Polish troops recently discovered in Iraq, the head of Poland's military intelligence service said on Friday," reports Agence France-Presse (scare quotes in original). Scroll down to the 10th paragraph, though, and you read this:

No weapons of mass destruction have yet been found in Iraq, seriously undermining what was the central argument for the United States and Britain for launching their invasion of the country in March 2003.

"No weapons of mass destruction have yet been found"--in a story about weapons of mass destruction that have been found! You kind of get the feeling they just stick that boilerplate at the end of every story and forget about what it says.

The Press Corps' Porn Obsession
This is an op-ed, so we guess it's not exactly a product of the press corps, but the New York Times' editors could have cut the gratuitous Abu Ghraib reference if they'd wanted to. The author is David Thomson and the subject is Marlon Brando, who died last week:

Mr. Brando's Colonel Kurtz went "up the river" in Vietnam for similar reasons--the best soldier of his time had seen how depraved the American armed forces had become. That Kurtz had seen Abu Ghraib. Look today at the 25-year-old "Apocalypse Now," and you cannot miss its dismay at where America was headed.

The 500-Muslim Myth
On Friday we noted the New York Times' implausible claim that 500 Muslims died in the Sept. 11 attacks. It turns out the Times isn't alone in making this claim; Colin Powell did in Senate testimony on Oct. 25, 2001, and so did Bill Clinton in a Dec. 13, 2001, speech in London.

We actually visited the question in March 2002, when the Times was claiming 800 Muslim victims; we found an Agence France-Presse list, compiled when 6,574 people were dead or "listed as missing" at the World Trade Center (the actual toll turned out to be around 2,800), which included only 383 citizens of predominately Muslim countries.

If anyone knows of a serious estimate of the number of Muslims who died Sept. 11, let us know.

Dems Imitate Us
Today is President Bush's birthday, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Web site celebrated with a "Bush birthday haiku" contest--actually a bye-ku contest, since all the haiku center on the hope that Bush will lose his re-election bid.

The page linked above lists "the ten most imaginative and hilarious haiku." All we can say is, we'd hate to read the 10 least imaginative and hilarious. Still, we're flattered.

(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Joe Deltoro, Joel Goldberg, Ethel Fenig, Daniel Mark, Matthew Beck, Paul Dyck, Andy Hefty, Dan O'Shea, Barak Moore, Mark Van Der Molen, David Gordon, William Schultz, Clyde Middleton, Allen O'Donnell, Raghu Desikan, Ed Lasky, Jeff Meling, Mark Schulze, Anil Adyanthya, Bernard Levine, Bob Morrison, Gary Petersen, Jim Grodnik, Rob Kulak, Jim Fraivillig, Scott Masten and Douglas Mooney. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

Today on OpinionJournal:

• Alan Dershowitz: Can Saddam get a fair trial?
• John Fund: Gov. Schwarzenegger aims to get California's flabby government into shape.
• Nat Hentoff: At long last, you can win a Pulitzer for improvising.