by JAMES TARANTO
Friday, August 27, 2004 4:42 P.M. EDT

Moon Over Manhattan
One of the ironies of this year's political conventions is that the Democrats, who style themselves champions of civil liberties, were much less tolerant of street dissent than the Republicans are. As we noted last month, the Dems penned protesters into a "cage," a hard-to-get-to area separated by a tall fence from the path the delegates took to get into the Fleet Center. Partly as a result, the protesters got little media coverage.

We're not sure this was a wise approach. As we noted, visiting the cage during an anti-Jewish rally, "it gives us some comfort that these views are kept on the outside, even at the Democratic convention." Conveying the message that these nuts are not actually part of the Democratic Party might have been helpful to the party. Instead, perhaps mindful of the political toll the 1968 Chicago convention riots took, the Dems chose to treat dissenters as heavy-handedly as possible.

The GOP doesn't seem to be making that mistake. Yesterday, four days before the Republican Convention opens, protesters were already out in force, helping the Republicans by showing the world the face of the opposition. And not just the face, as the New York Sun reports:

The group of naked people with slogans painted all over their bodies broke the morning routine of commuters at Eighth Avenue and 33rd Street, near Madison Square Garden, while they chanted "Drop the Debt. Stop AIDS" and held up signs. Some of the protesters from AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power escaped arrest by donning clothing and slipping into the crowd, but police caught 11 of them, including two who stood on top of a truck. The group is trying to get additional funding for AIDS research.

What better way to draw attention to a serious problem like AIDS than by taking off your clothes in the middle of midtown Manhattan? Some photos of the disrobed demo (warning: nudity) have been posted at the far-left site Indymedia.org.

Meanwhile, the Sun reports, "four men from 'Operation Sybil,' an anti-Bush group, climbed up on the roof of the 18-story Plaza Hotel to unleash a 60-foot by three-story banner displaying the words 'Bush' and 'Truth' and arrows beneath each pointing in opposite directions." That's sure to win a lot of swing-state votes for John Kerry.

In an example of just how petty the Bush-haters are, Playbill reports that "a group called Shut It Down NYC! had reached out to Broadway casts in an attempt to organize a desertion of Times Square stages in protest of the presence of Republicans delegates [sic] in the city and in Broadway auditoriums." The Broadway union has had to take a stand against the tactic:

An Aug. 26 posting on the Equity website read: "Actors' Equity, the national union representing actors and stage managers in the U.S., has advised its members working on Broadway to report to work as usual during the upcoming Republican National Convention in New York City. 'Our members are consummate professionals and will, pursuant to our collective bargaining agreement, honor their obligations to our employers, as well as our audiences,' said Equity executive director Alan Eisenberg. Equity has a long standing policy that the Association does not endorse or take a position on any political candidate or party."

United Press International reports that the Democratic Party also plans a "campaign to counter next week's Republican National Convention":

"Every day next week we will be highlighting the simple truth about the administration of George Bush--mission not accomplished," said Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe, unveiling a sign bearing the party's slogan for the convention.

"(Bush) didn't make this sign, but it is based on his record of failure," he later added.

Actually, as the Associated Press reported earlier this month, President Bush's much-maligned speech declaring an end to "major combat operations" in Iraq was the idea of Gen. Tommy Franks:

''That's my fault, that George W. Bush said what he said on the 1st of May of last year, just because I asked him to," said Franks, former commander of forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Less than two months after the invasion of Iraq, Bush flew to a US aircraft carrier and declared an end to major combat with a banner proclaiming ''Mission Accomplished" in the background.

The event, Bush's words, and the banner have been criticized and mocked. . . .

''I wanted to get the phase of military operation over as quickly as I could because a lot of countries on this planet had said as soon as that major stuff is over, we'll come in and help with all of the peacekeeping," Franks said.

''On the 1st of May when Bush did what he did, I was proud of him because he did what I, as the commander, had asked him to do," Franks said in an appearance at the National Press Club. ''So if there's a mistake there, it's mine, not a plot. So I thought I'd share that with you."

So the official Democratic response to the Republican National Convention is to make fun of the U.S. military. Does this sound like a smart political tactic during wartime?

Kedwards to Drug Dealers: We Want Your Vote
John Edwards showed up in Cleveland the other day, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports he made a pitch for the drug-dealer vote:

The Rev. Kyle Earley of Mt. Sinai Baptist Church, for instance, asked Edwards how his campaign is trying to reach the "corner vote," a term for drug dealers and jobless teens who loiter on street corners.

Edwards said that while the campaign has "a group of people whose job is to reach out to those folks, it doesn't know your community like you know your community, and I'd be the first person to say that."

Maybe Edwards should put in for a stint as a guest blogger at The Corner.

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
  
  
• "We scheduled this on a Thursday so we wouldn't interfere with your weekend trip to Canada to buy prescription drugs, folks."--John Kerry

Viet Commies Still Cite Kerry Testimony
One of the chief complaints of the Vietnam veterans who are opposing John Kerry is that he slandered them as war criminals in his famous 1971 Senate testimony. Kerry's supporters try to portray his claims then as a youthful indiscretion. Yet Kerry has never renounced them, and they still turn up in Vietnamese communist propaganda. In an article for the English-language Viet Nam News dated June 11, 2004, one Diem Quynh cites Kerry to bolster his argument that the communists treated American prisoners of war well:

Candidate in this year's American presidential elections, John Kerry, who fought in the war, went further in his criticism. In a statement to the US' Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in 1971, he said the war crimes committed by US soldiers in Southeast Asia "were not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."

But despite these abuses, the Vietnamese did not reciprocate in kind; instead, they treated captured US troops humanely.

John McCain might disagree. So might Jim Warner, a former POW who tells the conservative weekly Human Events that he "first learned about Lt. John Kerry in a North Vietnamese prison camp":

When his captors brought him out of solitary confinement in the infamous Skid Row punishment camp for an interrogation, they made him read the typewritten transcript of a statement by Kerry, speaking in the United States. His interrogator kept pointing at Kerry's words, saying, 'See? This officer from your Navy says you deserve to be punished.' "

"All I could think of was that this must be a really contemptible human being," said Warner, although We can't expect the rest of the country to share our disgust at Kerry for turning on us. A lot of people are too young to remember that." . . .

Tom Collins, another Vietnam POW whose plane was shot down in 1965, was made to listen to Kerry's testimony on tape during his captivity. He explained that the North Vietnamese were constantly trying to elicit confessions of war crimes from Americans, promising them better treatment.

"He knew he was putting us at risk," Warner says of Kerry. "And he was demanding unilateral withdrawal, which means our value as bargaining chips would be gone. And what do you think would have happened to us then?"

Kerry Backers Try Clinton Defense
With the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth's claims that John Kerry exaggerated his Vietnam record having been borne out in part, Kerry's defenders are trying a new tack: arguing that it doesn't really matter. Today's New York Times features an op-ed by one Larry Heinemann, who by the way served in Vietnam, called "When Actions Speak Louder Than Medals":

The plain fact is that in Vietnam medals were handed out like popcorn, right down to the Good Conduct Medal and the Rifle Sharpshooter Badge, particularly among career-minded officers and NCO's. Ticket-punching lifers, we called them with all the derision that the phrase implies; they seemed more interested in tending their precious careers than anything else.

I know officers who were given the Bronze Star for simply being in country (the ultimate in merit badges). An Air Force pilot told me that his commanding officer suggested that he write himself up for a Distinguished Flying Cross on no particular account, and that he, the commander, would sign it. To his credit, my friend did not do so. By the same token, a writer friend of mine keeps his Bronze Star to prove to his children and grandchildren that despite what they may hear about Vietnam, he acted the way an adult is supposed to act, with compassion and grit, and that if he is not especially proud of his service in Vietnam, he's not ashamed of it, either. . . .

And all these years later--the name-calling and nitpicking about wounds suffered and medals earned and honorable service aside--the important matter is that, when push came to shove, Lieutenant Kerry turned his boat around and drove back into a firefight to fetch an Army Green Beret out of the river. I know that if it had been me in the water, I would surely remember the man's name, the look on his face, and the reach of his arm for the rest of my life; I would be sure to tell my grandchildren about him.

In other words, it doesn't matter if Kerry deserved his medals or not, because lots of guys got undeserved medals in Vietnam. It's rather reminiscent of the Clinton defense that "everyone lies about sex." But even Clinton didn't proclaim himself chaste and make this the central issue of his campaign, the way Kerry has done with his "war hero" status.

Kerry Boatmate Corroborates 'Unfit' Claim
"Retired Rear Adm. William L. Schachte Jr. said Thursday in his first on-the-record interview about the Swift boat veterans dispute that 'I was absolutely in the skimmer' in the early morning on Dec. 2, 1968, when Lt. (j.g.) John Kerry was involved in an incident which led to his first Purple Heart," reports columnist Robert Novak. This contradicts the Kerry camp's claim that none of his detractors served on Kerry's swift boat.

"Kerry nicked himself with [an] M-79," a grenade launcher, Schachte tells Novak. "Kerry requested a Purple Heart." This matches the account of the incident in "Unfit for Command."

"Schachte said he has never been contacted by or talked to anybody in the Bush-Cheney campaign or any Republican organization," Novak reports. "He said he is a political independent who has voted for candidates of both parties." And he wasn't among the signatories of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth May 4 open letter to Kerry.

History's First Draft
Perhaps the most persuasive argument against the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is that in many cases official military records match John Kerry's version of events and not theirs. But CNSNews.com offers a reason to be wary about trusting the official version of events (ellipses in original):

Kerry's 1971 testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee reveals that the then anti-war activist admitted to writing many of the battle reports during his four months of combat in Vietnam.

Kerry told the committee on April 22, 1971, ". . . I can recall often sending in the spot reports which we made after each mission . . ."

Kerry also said that many in the military had "a tendency to report what they want to report and see what they want to see."

"What is significant about this is [Kerry] is readily admitting that he often submitted reports and he is implying that he himself exaggerated in those reports," B.G. Burkett, author of "Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of Its Heroes and Its History" (1998), tells CNSNews. "We have no way of knowing specifically which documents Kerry composed; and of the the ones he did compose--did he in fact exaggerate or outright lie in those reports? That is the issue here."

Putting On the Dog
Blogger and radio host Hugh Hewitt interviews Steve Gardner, a Kerry crewmate who belongs to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and asks him about the tale of VC the Dog, which we most recently noted yesterday:

Hewitt: "Steve, was there a dog named VC on your boat?"

Gardner: "Buddy, to the best of my knowledge (laughing), I never saw any dog at any time on the 44 boat." . . .

Hewitt: "In the time that you were on the swift boats--totally--did any of the swift boats have a dog?"

Gardner: "Never saw one, ever."

Hewitt: "Would it have been a good idea to have a dog on the swift boats?"

Gardner: "Not likely."

Hewitt: "Why not?"

Gardner: "Because there was just too much action going on. We had hot brass rolling around there any time we were in a firefight. He would have got beat up."

Hewitt: "Is this the first time you have ever heard of the dog story?"

Gardner: "It sure is."

Hewitt acknowledges that "it is possible that Kerry had a dog named VC after Gardner left Kerry's command." But back in March, reader Steve Sturm noted the dubious science behind Kerry's claim that VC had been blown off the boat by a mine and landed, unharmed, on another boat.

This raises questions not only about Kerry's honesty vis-à-vis Vietnam but also about his use of animals in the campaign. Was the claim that Kerry saved the life of his daughter's hamster just another fish story? And don't forget blogress Ana Marie Cox's suggestion, inspired by Kerry's exploitation of the wheelchair-bound Max Cleland: "Perhaps someone could demand that Bush admit he misled the country about going to war in Iraq or else we'll have to shoot a puppy."

No wonder a new poll finds "that 51 percent of dog owners trusted Bush more than Kerry (37 percent) to walk their dog."

Homer Nods
An item yesterday (since corrected) left out a crucial word in the following sentence: "A lot of Kerry supporters seem genuinely mystified as to why veterans would not prefer John Kerry, who by the way served in Vietnam, to George W. Bush, whose military service was stateside."

Proof? Who Needs Proof?
The New York Times' Stephen Holden reviews "Bush's Brain," a hostile documentary about White House adviser Karl Rove. Holden thinks the movie makes a persuasive case against Rove:

Although few if any of the movie's allegations of unethical behavior by Mr. Rove can be proved, the dirty tricks laid at his doorstep, mostly by association, add up to a pattern of contemptuous disregard for the truth and the arrogant pushing of legal limits without technically breaking the law.

Doesn't a movie that alleges unethical behavior without being able to prove it, and that traffics in guilt "mostly by association," add up to a pattern of contemptuous disregard for the truth?

Dumb and Dumber
In a long article in London's Guardian, Howell Raines argues that President Bush isn't too bright. Wow, there's an original thought. "Does anyone in America doubt that Kerry has a higher IQ than Bush?" Raines asks. "I'm sure their SATs and college transcripts would put Kerry far ahead." Writing in today's Political Diary (subscribe here), Holman Jenkins has a good rejoinder:

We could understand how you might make this mistake about Al Gore, who labored to present himself as an "intellectual" and even wrote a pretentious book. But John Kerry? If you listen carefully, his spontaneous utterances are unusually banal and his thinking, with few exceptions, besotted with obvious and unimaginative tropes. Nor is there much in the way of real wit--which, whether it's your taste or not, Mr. Bush's combative, wisecracking style occasionally contains.

Mr. Raines has a history of being obsessed with class and status issues (especially race) and it's obvious that he confuses the stereotype that Mr. Kerry inhabits (northeastern intellectual) and the stereotype that Mr. Bush inhabits (southwestern good ol' boy) for the entirely unrelated matter of originality and smarts.

Raines doubts whether Bush was really smart enough to question ex-CIA director George Tenet's statement that the intelligence on Iraqi weapons was a "slam dunk." And come to think of it, we don't remember the president catching Jayson Blair's phony reporting either.

Looks Like Terror
"Explosives of a kind used by Chechen rebels have been found in one of two airliners that crashed almost simultaneously, pointing to a terrorist attack, Russian investigators say," Reuters reports. Note that the "news" service doesn't put scare quotes around terrorist, since the attack was not against Americans or Israelis.

More Is Less

"Now It's Official: Economy Shrunk"--headline, Reuters, Aug. 27

"U.S. gross domestic product--which measures total output within the nation's borders--expanded at a 2.8 percent annual rate in the second quarter."--Reuters, same story

At Least the World Didn't End
"Steep Rise in Poverty Reported: Women, children hit especially hard"--headline and subheadline, Chicago Tribune, Aug. 27

Those Spineless Europeans
"Germans Grow Jaw Bone in Back Muscle"--headline, Associated Press, Aug. 27

Not Too Brite--CLX
"Chinese police have detained a 'sorcerer' who killed 10 people and sold their bodies to bereaved families to cremate in the place of loved ones who were secretly buried," Reuters reports from Beijing.

Oddly Enough!

(For an explanation of the "Not Too Brite" series, click here.)

Wouldn't You Pass on It Too?
"Woman Sues Man for Passing on Herpes"--headline, Associated Press, Aug. 26

Vegetable Gouging?
Several readers wrote to dispute farmer Ray Levan's claim, which we noted yesterday, that the $10 Dick and Lynne Cheney paid him for some produce during a campaign stop in Pennsylvania wasn't enough. Here's John Volk:

If the details you report are right it was the VP that got "stiffed," not the farmer. Here in Lancaster, Pa., Cheney would have got $5 back (and better produce). Some honor!

Wayne Rutman says he's comparison-shopped across the country:

I shop pretty regularly at roadside farmers' markets, and I think 10 bucks should have covered their purchases.

Earlier this month, I bought a dozen ears of corn from a farmer in Maryland for $3. I also paid $2.50 in Delaware. A couple of days ago in California, I bought eight apples for a buck from an orchard. That seemed cheap--I'd expect to pay two bucks, I suppose. That leaves five tomatoes and three peppers. No firsthand farm experience there, but I seem to recall buying a bunch of tomatoes in the supermarket for $2, and I'm sure the average green pepper doesn't sell for more than 70 cents.

So if the idea is that the Cheneys are somehow out of touch with what things cost, I think that inference is wrong. Maybe the farmer is overcharging his customers!

And reader Dierdre Smith said: "Here in California the $10 bill would cover the fruits and veggies that the Cheney's bought from the farmer. Tell the reporters to get over it."

The story didn't seem implausible to us, but of course we're used to paying New York prices.

(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Ethel Fenig, Kevin Kaufman, Michael Segal, George Parry, Charlie Gaylord, Michael Siegel, Steve Baus, Henry Hanks, John McElwee, Samuel Walker, Erica Seiguer, Donald Waterworth, Clyde Middleton, Leonard Dobrowski, Todd Dierdorff, Roger Jones, Aaron Ammerman, Tom Wright, Dart Montgomery, John Williamson, Michael Stewart, Joseph Little, Shelby Gubin, Steven Tolle, Bill Vis, Aaron Dickey, Michael NeedhamS.E. Brenner, C.E. Dobkin, Ron Wright, Mara Gold, George Miller, Michael Zierdt, John Dubas, Andrei Muresianu and Phil Hord. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

Today on OpinionJournal:

• John O'Neill: President Bush can't stop us from telling the truth about John Kerry.
• Daniel Henninger: Why didn't John Kerry find some way to make peace with the John O'Neills of the world?

And on the Taste page:

• Review & Outlook: Why do even the best colleges get defensive about the U.S. News rankings?
• Tony & Tacky: A Canadian dumbs down the American National Anthem; San Francisco men are "progressive" tightwads.
• Eric Gibson: Hack antiwar artists invade New York.
• Dan Ackman: A porn star is now a mainstream cultural celebrity. How did that happen?
• Jon Sanders: A college "derecognizes" a Christian group.