From the WSJ Opinion Archives
Reporters
for Kerry--I
Kedwards have been all over the place the past couple of days, in what the Associated
Press calls a "joint tour." If they're following the precedent
of the last Democrat to win the White House, they didn't inhale. But they sure
exhaled a lot, and when they did, they frequently passed air through their glottises
as they moved their tongues, jaws and lips to produce meaningful sounds.
OK, you may quarrel with "meaningful," but some of the things they said were at least interesting. Here's the elder Kedward in an interview with the New York Times:
KERRY: And I believe if you talk with Warren Hoge or you talk to David Sanger, you talk to other people around the world, they will confirm to you, I believe, that it may well take a new president to restore America's credibility on a global basis so that we can deal with other countries and bring people back into alliances. The credibility of this country has been tarnished by this president. We can restore it. We will restore it.
Hoge and Sanger are New York Times reporters. Do they really endorse John Kerry, or at least one of the central premises of his campaign, as the candidate says here? We're inclined to think the answer is yes, since the Times itself published this statement without any denial or clarification--though it did so only in the Web transcript, not in the news story on the interview, which led with the earth-shattering revelation that Kedwards are critical of the Bush administration's Iraq policy.
A few months back, when Kerry claimed to have been endorsed by various "foreign leaders," he insisted he was not at liberty to say who they were. But when he asserts he has the backing of New York Times reporters, not only does he name names, but the Times views the claim as neither newsworthy enough to report prominently nor embarrassing enough to rebut. It's as if Times reporters taking sides in a political race were the most ordinary thing in the world.
Purple
Haze
In the Washington Post's Kedwards interview, Kerry defends his inexperienced
running mate against the charge of inexperience:
"Don't get suckered into the how many years you've been in one job or this job" debate, Kerry said. "You've got people in [Washington] who have been in one job [for] 30 years of what you call experience, and they have done nothing, they don't stand for anything and they don't know how to fight."
Hmm, maybe our quip about the "joint tour" was more than just a bad pun. After all, we seem to recall an adage about pot (and kettle) that would apply here. The Post headline, incidentally, makes fitting use of scare quotes: "Kerry Vows to Restore 'Truth' to Presidency."
Say,
It Ain't So, Joe
So cool, like jazz on a summer's day, the Valerie Plame kerfuffle appears to
have just blown away. "Former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, dispatched
by the CIA in February 2002 to investigate reports that Iraq sought to reconstitute
its nuclear weapons program with uranium from Africa, was specifically recommended
for the mission by his wife, a CIA employee, contrary to what he has said publicly,"
according to the Washington Post, which relays the conclusions of last week's
Senate Intelligence Committee report.
The Post explains that the report also undermines Wilson's Bush-bashing claims about Saddam's innocence vis-à-vis Niger. But we'd like to concentrate on the Plame matter, since we wrote about it extensively last year. Here's the Post:
The report turns a harsh spotlight on what Wilson has said about his role in gathering prewar intelligence, most pointedly by asserting that his wife, CIA employee Valerie Plame, recommended him.
Plame's role could be significant in an ongoing investigation into whether a crime was committed when her name and employment were disclosed to reporters last summer.
Administration officials told columnist Robert D. Novak then that Wilson, a partisan critic of Bush's foreign policy, was sent to Niger at the suggestion of Plame, who worked in the nonproliferation unit at CIA. The disclosure of Plame's identity, which was classified, led to an investigation into who leaked her name.
The report may bolster the rationale that administration officials provided the information not to intentionally expose an undercover CIA employee, but to call into question Wilson's bona fides as an investigator into trafficking of weapons of mass destruction. To charge anyone with a crime, prosecutors need evidence that exposure of a covert officer was intentional.
Wilson publicist Josh Marshall is trying to keep the kerfuffle alive. He asserts:
There's no "challenging the bona fides of a political opponent" exception to the law in question. While Plame's alleged role may have some political traction, it's legally irrelevant. Government officials are not allowed to disclose the identity of covert intelligence agents, whether they feel like they have a good reason or not.
Jonah Goldberg notes that even granting Marshall the benefit of the doubt about the law (about which more in a moment), Wilson & Co.'s claims about the White House have been revealed as ridiculously overblown:
Marshall's been banging the drums about the Plame story for a very long time. The essence of the entire scandal has been the contention that the White House deliberately endangered a CIA agent's life in order to punish Wilson. Must we recount all of the paranoid pieties about how "this White House will stop at nothing to silence its enemies"? Now Marshall's new talking point is a legalism. Well, excuse me: If in fact the White House inadvertantly [sic] revealed Plame's identity in order to explain why a dishonest hack like Wilson was being sent to Africa (i.e. "His wife pulled some strings") and not so as to endanger a whistle-blower's life that sounds like more than a matter of "some political traction." That sounds like the whole enchilada, scandal-wise.
Quite so. What's more, the Post is correct about the law, and Marshall is either mistaken or disingenuous. As we explained in October:
In order for the alleged leakers to have violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, they would have to have known that [Plame] was covert and that the government was "taking affirmative measures to conceal" her relationship to the CIA. Novak's statement that the CIA made only "a very weak request" that he not use her name suggests the absence of such "affirmative measures," which would put the leakers in the clear legally if not politically.
In addition, the Novak column did not describe Plame as covert, only as "an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction."
If indeed Plame was a covert agent, why wouldn't the CIA take "affirmative measures to conceal" her identity? The answer may turn on the legal definition of covert. As we also noted in October, an employee is a "covert agent" for the purposes of the statute if and only if he "is serving outside the United States or has within the last five years served outside the United States."
Little has been revealed publicly about the details of Plame's CIA career. But we do know that she gave birth to twins in 1999 or 2000, and it's unlikely that the CIA would send a new or expectant mother overseas on a dangerous assignment. Thus one may surmise that if indeed Plame was legally a covert agent, it was because she worked overseas during the early part of the five-year period preceding July 2003, when Novak's column appeared--that is, between mid-1998 and mid-1999. If she had been at a desk job at Langley for four years by last July, then concealing her identity, even if it was still classified, might not have been such a high priority for the agency.
A special prosecutor is investigating the Plame leak, so if we're wrong, it'll become clear soon enough. But at this point we'd be surprised if anyone gets charged, or indeed if any crime turns out to have been committed. And since Wilson appears to have lied about his wife's role in getting him the Niger gig, why should we lend any credibility at all to his claims about the leakers' motives?
This Just
In
"Front-Runner Is Leading in Presidential Race"--headline, New York
Times (Paris edition), July 6
Reporters
for Kerry--II
From a Boston Globe report on a survey about the media and the presidential
race:
Despite months of tough coverage, the Pew poll found that "the strongest associations people have with President Bush are positive."
Guess they'll have to try harder.
Reporters
for Kerry--III
"Under fire for intelligence failures in Iraq, President Bush will try
to change the subject on Monday by highlighting Libya's abandonment of unconventional
weapons and his efforts to bring stability to countries threatened by Islamic
militants."--lead paragraph, Reuters dispatch (by Steve Holland), July 12
Brainless
in Seattle
Newhouse News Service offers this man-on-the-street interview about the 2004
election:
Walking in Washington's sun- splashed Lafayette Park across from the White House on a recent afternoon, Jean and Lee Bondurant, tourists from the suburbs of Seattle, said they feel the unfamiliar tension among friends and neighbors.
"I don't like Bush," said Lee Bondurant, a political independent who was laid off from his job at Boeing in 2002 and now teaches computer-aided drafting to college students. "Because he ain't got no smarts. Just listen to the way he speaks. He's damaging our country's image in the world. I think he was put in office by his father."
This reminds us of a gag on an old "All in the Family" episode, in which Archie Bunker complains that someone "don't speak no good English." We guess latter-day Archie Bunkers ain't voting for no Republicans.
The
Wrong Ron
"In a move sure to embarrass Republicans, Ron Reagan will address the Democratic
National Convention this month," Knight Ridder Newspapers report. Say what?
The 40th president has come back to life as a Democrat? No, this is "Ron"
Reagan, the late President Reagan's ne'er-do-well son.
Why exactly would this "embarrass" Republicans? If Roger Clinton showed up to speak at the GOP convention, would the Democrats be embarrassed, or would they be glad to be rid of him?
Great
Moments in Democracy
"Funkybutt," a New Orleans-based contributor to the left-wing hate
site DemocraticUnderground.org, has an inspiring tale of democratic participation
at a MoveOn.org voter registration party (quoting verbatim):
The croud was great. One woman had her John Kerry shirt on and the whole group seemed to be Kerry supporters. I know that moveon is not affiliated with any party so I found that to be a relief after at the F-911 party I was approached by a writer who had written and article in "Workers Democracy" about how the working class CAN'T count on the Democrats. We discussed teaming up with other groups (LouisianaForKerry, KerryRoots.com, ect) in future efforts that may be more effective locally.
I was dissappointed with this party because:
a. i thought i would be calling a list of local people. (I think we could have done a lot better if our list was of unregisterred New Orleanians) Instead, we were phoning people in Florida which I agree is very important.
b. Almost none of us had ANY success signing up a voter. The list seemed pretty bad. Most of the numbers were wrong numbers and sometime it was someone who claimed to already be registerred to vote (which I suspected was a lie in SOME cases)
c. several people I spoke with said they didn't "WANT" to vote. I couldn't convince them how important it was.
*One Bite* I called about 50 people and I only had one bite. The guy had a VERY strong french accent. He was mildy rude but when he heard I was working to defeat Bush he became interested. I began signing him up but while getting his address, because of the language barrier, I had to ask him to repeat himself many times. He got irritated with my inability to understand him and hung up on me!
Sounds as though Kerry can't even count on his haughty, French-sounding base!
This
Seems Awfully Harsh
"Olympic Teams Frozen After New Drugs Claim"--headline, Sydney Morning
Herald, July 12
What
Would Eels Do Without Bomb Experts?
"Bomb Experts Light Up Eels"--headline, Sydney Sun-Herald, July 11
The
Pelican Brief
"Biologists Wonder, Where Are the Pelicans?" reads the ABCNews.com
headline on an Associated Press dispatch. The repetitive subhead: "Where
Are the Pelicans? Everybody Has a Theory, but No One Really Knows."
If these biologists would spend less time biologizing and more time surfing the Internet, they would know the answer. The pelicans are on the road in Arizona. "Some Pelicans Mistaking Asphalt for Lakes," according to an ABCNews.com headline that predated the biologist story by three days. The subhead: "Endangered Pelicans Mistaking Arizona Asphalt for Lakes, Creeks; More Than 30 Have Crashed."
Not
Too Brite--CL
"An Australian surfer was attacked and killed by possibly two sharks off
the west Australian coast Saturday," Reuters reports from Sydney.
Oddly Enough!
(For an explanation of the "Not Too Brite" series, click here.)
Math Hysteria
We've heard from several readers who've let us know that our discussion of math,
animal husbandry and the editorial we, all prompted by our innocent
remark about geometry, has made them nostalgic for our old "It's the
Eponymy, Stupid" feature. Well, let that be a lesson: Instead of complaining,
learn to appreciate what you have before it's gone. We'll probably run out the
string on this one pretty soon too, so savor it while you can.
Reader Brett Thorn has an application of geometry for really bored couch potatoes:
Believe it or not, the 3-4-5 rule is useful for one other insipid stupidity in the world. TV and monitor makers give you size as the diagonal size rather than the horizontal size. The fact that these TVs have 4:3 aspect ratios and (roughly) square corners means that the diagonal is the "5" in a 3-4-5 right triangle. So divide the size they give you by 5 and then multiply by 4 to get the horizontal size and by 3 to get the vertical size. So a 25-inch television screen is 20 inches across and 15 inches top to bottom.
Of course, with wide screens, they chose 16:9, which is not a perfect square proportion (they could have chosen 15:8 from an 8-15-17 triangle).
Then again, our set has a 27-inch screen, so it's 16.2 inches tall and 21.6 inches wide. Or is that 21.6 inches long and 16.2 inches wide? This is almost as confusing as the metric system.
Reader William White thinks reader Jami Lynn was too literal-minded in her remarks on boar mammaries:
I can't believe that a reader is caviling over the phrase "useless as mammary glands on a boar." Sigh. I assume you original reader was paraphrasing an earthy expression I once heard: "That makes about as much sense as tits on a bull."
Now, in my mind, "mammary glands on a boar" is a pretty gosh-darned funny euphemism--along the lines of "Boy, if that Michael Moore just ain't the west end of a horse walking east!" Anyway, kudos to your reader if "mammary glands" is his own formulation.
Heck, while on the subject, allow me to suggest another suitable-for-mixed-company phrase regarding objects of tenebrous utility? "Well, bucko, that's gonna do us about as much good as a football bat." I forget where I first heard that, but years later it still cracks me up.
Oh, by the way, getting back to the original Q&A the good governor found himself in, IMHO he missed an opportunity. He should have answered the the student: "Gosh, you've got me stumped there, smarty-pants. What's a triangle?"
Reader Steve Miller picks up on the Michael Moore theme:
I did find it interesting that one of your readers has an advanced degree in meat science. Wow! Could you ask her to take a look at Michael Moore's head? Being a hog farmer would probably also enable her to provide additional insights. I just hope Moore has a small number of mammary glands.
And an unnamed reader seeks more information:
The usefulness of mammary glands on a boar hog has already generated a discussion in your column. Can we have some undersea mariners debate the usefulness of a screen door on a submarine?
We've never been on a sub, but we're guessing a screen door would not be of much use underwater, since most screens are not fine enough to block water molecules. On the other hand, if your sub were parked in, say, Colorado Springs, a screen door would be quite useful for keeping out mosquitos and other pests. But maybe we're out of our depth here, so let's let the experts dive in.
Reader Ben Orlanski makes the case for the editorial we:
It is more dignified and keeps attention on your column, where it belongs, and not on you personally. If you started using I, I would have to think about you--James Taranto--and, without the slightest offense intended, I really don't want to when I'm reading the column.
We think we, James Taranto, have just been insulted. Anyway, reader Bill Sneed offers a mathematical proof that one can be simultaneously singular and plural, and thus the editorial we is grammatically correct (note to text-only subscribers: "a2" means "a squared"):
Let a=1
Let b=1
Therefore a=b
Multiplying both sides by a gives a2=ab
Subtract 1 from the left and b (which equals 1) from the right: a2-1=ab-b
If you remember your quadratic equations, this factors to: (a+1)(a-1)=b(a-1)
Dividing both sides by a-1, we have a+1=b, or 1+1=1
Therefore 2=1
To be sure, this is a counterintuitive result, and math purists will no doubt find fault with it. Well, we just have three words to say to them: E pluribus unum. Got a problem with America, Math Boy?
He
Only Looks 30
From a letter to Salon advice columnist Cary Tennis:
I recently discovered that a good friend of mine is interested in being more than friends. We are both in our 30s, both married men, and both ostensibly "straight." . . . Our time together now feels like a flurry of unspoken hints that he seems to think are going to lead up to a kiss.
This leads to an obvious question: When did John Edwards start lying about his age?
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Today on OpinionJournal:
- Review & Outlook: The Senate vindicates President Bush and exposes Joe Wilson as a partisan fraud.
- Pete du Pont: Four Republican senators are determined to raise your taxes.
- Orson Scott Card: "Mainstream" reporters aren't just liberal--they're fanatical.
