by JAMES TARANTO
Wednesday, October 20, 2004 3:28 P.M. EDT

Is the U.N. Worth Dying For?
From an article in today's Washington Post on John Kerry's approach to foreign policy:

Kerry's belief in working with allies runs so deep that he has maintained that the loss of American life can be better justified if it occurs in the course of a mission with international support. In 1994, discussing the possibility of U.S. troops being killed in Bosnia, he said, "If you mean dying in the course of the United Nations effort, yes, it is worth that. If you mean dying American troops unilaterally going in with some false presumption that we can affect the outcome, the answer is unequivocally no."

So the U.N.--that club of dictators and anti-Semites--is worth dying for, but America isn't? This quote sharply summarizes why the thought of waking up two weeks from today to the news that Kerry is president-elect invokes in us a sense of utter dread.

For a concrete example of how this might play out, we turn to Park Sang-seek, a Korean "peace studies" academic, who writes (with apparent approval) in the Korea Herald:

Kerry is likely to rely on the United Nations in dealing with any future crises in Northeast Asia and the Korean Peninsula. Take a hypothetical situation in the Korean Peninsula: it is discovered that North Korea has experimented with nuclear weapons or exported nuclear materials to hostile nations or terrorist groups. Bush may make a surgical strike without consulting South Korea and the United Nations. Kerry is likely to try to solve the issue through multilateral forums, particularly the United Nations.

If North Korea gives nukes to terrorists and this is how a President Kerry responds, soldiers may not be the only Americans to die for the U.N.

Where the Allies Stand
"Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Tuesday he hopes George W. Bush wins a second term in office, and praised the U.S. president for his 'great leadership to the world in the fight against terrorism,' " the Associated Press reports from Jakarta, where Howard was visiting Indonesia's delightfully named President-elect Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

John Kerry used to talk a lot about the support he supposedly has from "foreign leaders"--but we'll take John Howard and (for all his faults) Vladimir Putin over Mahathir Mohammad and Yasser Arafat any day.

Anti-Americans Against Kerry
A frequent argument in John Kerry's favor is that because he isn't a "cowboy" like President Bush, he will be able to tame anti-Americanism overseas. Color us skeptical. After all, Jimmy Carter was no cowboy, and his presidency wasn't exactly a golden age of American prestige.

In today's Guardian, a left-wing London paper, columnist Simon Tisdall launches a pre-emptive strike against Kerry. Tisdall complains that the Bush administration has been "led by the nose" by Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, but then complains that Kerry likewise will not betray the Jewish state:

Dismayingly for the Palestinians and others opposed to Mr Sharon's policies, it also seems unlikely that a John Kerry presidential victory would make any significant difference. Like Mr Bush, Mr Kerry in theory supports a viable Palestinian state. "The conflict will not be an afterthought but a priority," he has said.

But he also wants a new Palestinian leadership as a precondition for progress. He backs Mr Sharon's Gaza withdrawal plan, rejects the right of return, and says it is "unrealistic" to try to reinstate the 1949 armistice lines. These positions coupled with his strongly pro-Israel Senate record hardly suggest an even-handed approach--or the forceful US engagement so lacking under Mr Bush.

On the other hand, James Zogby of the Arab American Institute (his brother is the pollster) urges voters to judge Kerry by the company he keeps:

I believe our concerns are better met by the party that includes: Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Jesse Jackson, and Congresspersons like John Conyers, John Dingell, Marcy Kaptur, Dennis Kucinich, Jim Moran, Nick Rahall, Maxine Waters, and so many other champions of peace and justice.

There's something pitiful about Arab- and Muslim American leaders using the democratic process here to try to defeat a president who has done so much to promote democracy in the Arab and Muslim worlds.

Red Kids Read, Blues Watch Boob Tube
As if the conflicting polls of "registered voters," "likely voters" and "national adults" weren't confusing enough, now we have a pair of surveys of American children that show contradictory results:

Senator John Kerry has been declared the winner of Nickelodeon's "Kids' Vote" according to kids nationwide who exercised their voting power in the network's presidential poll held online Oct. 19. . . . In this year's vote, Sen. John Kerry received 57% of the vote, and President George W. Bush received 43%.

But Scholastic, a children's publishing company, gives victory to Bush:

In the 2004 Scholastic Election Poll, George W. Bush received 52 percent of the votes and the Democratic contender, John F. Kerry, received 47 percent. Rounding out the vote, 1 percent of students.

Apparently kids who read favor Bush, while those who watch TV prefer Kerry. Hmm, whose parents are more likely to vote?

Guess She Didn't Read the Report

"I fought for the 9/11 Commission, something George W. Bush, the man my husband Ron and I voted for, didn't think was necessary. And during the Commission hearings we learned the truth, we are no safer today."--9/11 widow Kristen Breitweiser in a Kerry campaign ad released yesterday

"Because of offensive actions against al Qaeda since 9/11, and defensive actions to improve homeland security, we believe we are safer today. But we are not safe."--executive summary, 9/11 Commission report

Dems vs. Free Speech
Score one for the pro-Kerry thugs trying to stifle free speech. "Stolen Honor," the controversial documentary in which former prisoners of war in Vietnam speak out about John Kerry's antiwar activities, was to have been screened at a theater in Jenkintown, Pa., last night. But "management of the Baederwood Theater cancelled the showing after threats of civil disturbances," reports Philadelphia's WPVI-TV.

Imagine the outcry we would have heard if Republicans had threatened "civil disturbances" at theaters showing Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11."

Speaking of Moore, the mendacious moviemaker turned up Monday at the University of Oregon in Eugene, where he urged students to vote for the haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam. "There's a reason that they're saying Kerry is the No. 1 liberal in the Senate," the Register-Guard quotes Moore as saying. "It's because he is the No. 1 liberal in the Senate."

Billionaires Against Bush
From The New Yorker:

On August 6th, a week after the Democratic Convention, a clandestine summit meeting took place at the Aspen Institute, in Colorado's Rocky Mountains. The participants, all Democrats, were sworn to secrecy, and few of them will discuss the event. One thing that is certain, however, is that the guests formed a tableau that not many people would associate with the Democratic Party of the past.

Five billionaires joined half a dozen liberal leaders in a lengthy conversation about the future of progressive politics in America. The billionaires were not especially close socially, nor were they in complete agreement about politics or strategy. Yet they shared a common goal: to use their fortunes to engineer the defeat of President George W. Bush in the 2004 election.

"No one was supposed to know about this," an assistant to one participant told me, declining to be named. "We don't want people thinking it's a cabal, or some sort of Masonic plot!" His concern was understandable: the prospect of rich men concentrating their wealth in order to sway an American election was an inflammatory one, particularly given the Democratic Party's populist rhetoric.

If Bush is supposed to be the candidate of "the rich," why do these billionaires hate him so? Here's one reason: Two of the Bush-bashing billionaires, currency trader George Soros and insurance executive Peter Lewis, are advocates for drug legalization. In 2000, the magazine reports, Lewis was arrested in New Zealand for possession of pot.

Social Security Surprise

"Just yesterday, we found out that the president told his biggest and wealthiest donors about his big 'January surprise.' He's going to 'come out strong' to fight for his plan to privatize Social Security. . . . his risky plan will force benefit cuts for seniors of up to 45 percent."--John Kerry, Oct. 17

"Social Security payments to more than 47 million retired and disabled workers will rise 2.7 percent in January."--Washington Post, Oct. 19

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
  
  
• "He said, 'You know, when the other guy wants you to stop thinking and he's trying to scare you into not thinking, and you want Americans to think about their future, it's pretty clear who you ought to be voting for.' "--John Kerry quoting Bill Clinton

Teresa Takes On Teachers
From a USA Today interview with Teresa Heinz Kerry, the opinionated ketchup heiress and philanthropist:

Q: You'd be different from Laura Bush?

A: Well, you know, I don't know Laura Bush. But she seems to be calm, and she has a sparkle in her eye, which is good. But I don't know that she's ever had a real job--I mean, since she's been grown up. So her experience and her validation comes from important things, but different things. And I'm older, and my validation of what I do and what I believe and my experience is a little bit bigger--because I'm older, and I've had different experiences. And it's not a criticism of her. It's just, you know, what life is about.

According to her White House bio, Laura Bush has worked as a public school teacher and librarian. Does Teresa not believe these are "real jobs"?

Wrong War, Wrong Place, Wrong Time
Jimmy Carter seems determined to surpass John Tyler as the most anti-American ex-president ever. Tyler, who served from 1841 through 1845, died in 1862, after being elected to a seat in the Confederate congress. Now Carter tells MSNBC's Chris Matthews that the Revolutionary War was a mistake:

Matthews: As an historian now and studying the Revolutionary War as it was fought out in the South in those last years of the war, insurgency against a powerful British force. Do you see any parallels between the fighting that we did on our side and the fighting that is going on in Iraq today?

Carter: Well, one parallel is that the Revolutionary War more than any other war until recently has been the most bloody war we've fought. I think another parallel is that in some ways the Revolutionary War could have been avoided. It was an unnecessary war. Had the British Parliament been a little more sensitive to the colonials' really legitimate complaints and requests the war could have been avoided completely and of course now we would have been a free country now as is Canada and India and Australia, having gotten our independence in a non-violent way. I think in many ways the British were very misled in going to war against America and in trying to enforce their will on people who were quite different from them at the time.

So Carter views the American revolutionaries as the equivalent of the enemy in Iraq--never mind that America's goal in Iraq is precisely to install an independent democratic regime there.

And this "historian" doesn't seem to know much about history. The Revolutionary War "the most bloody" until "recently"? According to the Defense Department (link in PDF), American forces suffered 4,435 combat deaths in the Revolutionary War, a figure far surpassed by the 140,414 in the Civil War.

Signed but Not Authorized
Click on the link above and you'll see a lovely example of the absurdity of our campaign finance regulations. It's an Internet ad for the Democratic National Committee, and it shows a photo of John Kerry alongside this message, which appears over Kerry's signature:

Dear Friend:
The Democratic Party is the only organization working hand in hand with my campaign to get out the vote and win a Democratic victory on November 2nd.

But we can't win without your help. Please contribute today.

Here's the fine print at the bottom of the ad: "Paid for by the Democratic National Committee, www.democrats.org. This communication is not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee."

What Would We Do Without Probes?
"Probe: Intense Flames Sped WTC Collapse"--headline, Associated Press, Oct. 20

The Planes Might've Had Something to Do With It
"Study Suggests Design Flaws Didn't Doom Towers"--headline, New York Times, Oct. 20

You Need a Math Major to Figure This Out

"College Costs Spike Again"--headline, CNN/Money, Oct. 19

"College Costs Level Off--a Little"--headline, CBSNews.com, Oct. 19

"Studies: Pace of College Costs on Decline"--headline, Associated Press, Oct. 19

Not Too Brite--CLXIX
"A brown bear in Romania killed one person and severely wounded nine others picnicking on a mountain pasture in Transylvania," Reuters reports from Bucharest.

Oddly Enough!

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

'Matt Damon!'
Talon News quotes actor Matt Damon as saying, "I would pay $1 million to have Kerry in the White House."

Yes, you can put John Kerry in the White House. First, get a million dollars. Then, when George W. Bush is re-elected, just remember two simple words: "I forgot."

(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Samuel Walker, Erik Moy, Justin Taylor, Joshua Stanton, Lawrence Weiss, S.E. Brenner, Michael Segal, George Milewski, David Ringelman, Douglas Noren, Susan Dempsey, Tim Graham, Tom David, Doug Levene, Henry Hanks, Greg Yamada, Chris Stetsko, Nathan Wirtschafter, Ethel Fenig, Marji Meyer, John Plunket, Steve Eggleston, Johnny Lanctot, Barak Moore, Ed Lasky, Bob Krumm, John Hartness, David Beebe, Alisa Duncanson, Kirk Kelsen, Peter Huntsman, Lisa Schell, Kathleen Myalls, Tony Booth, Mary Serr, Ariel Dybner, Steve Ginnings, Royal Dellinger, Steve Klein, Don Williams, Michael Krauss, Bill Lalor, Debby Pennington, Jason Stout, Robert Brooks, Joshua Weiner, Brent Silver and Scott Ryan, and apologies to Steve Martin. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

Today on OpinionJournal:

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