by JAMES TARANTO
Monday, March 14, 2005 3:41 P.M. EST

Is There a Doxy in the House?
Over the weekend C-Span3 reaired an appearance by onetime CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite, who spoke at George Washington University on Sept. 22, 2002. Cronkite talked about the state of the news business, but he also weighed in on current events, 10 days after President Bush made the case at the U.N. for liberating Iraq. Even we were amazed at just how wrongheaded he was. Here are some highlights, transcribed with the help of TiVo:

Q: Do you think we still have some serious challenges ahead of us?

Cronkite: Oh, gracious. I think we have the most serious challenges ahead of us we have possibly seen in the entire 20th century--the century just passed, of course--and certainly the greatest for this century. A brand-new century dawned on us almost in the midst of this terrible Iraq crisis, this question of what we're going to do about the administration's plans to, for the first time, go into combat--begin the combat, begin a war--for defensive reasons.

This debate is going on, of course, here in your precincts in Washington, but being watched word for word around the world, because I think most of the world understands, as I hope most Americans do, that what we're talking about is launching what very well could be World War III. This whole idea of a quick and easy victory, I think most of the military people themselves would be inclined to doubt and have doubted, some of them openly. It's gonna be a much longer, more difficult--

With the entry now of Israel into the debate, with [Ariel] Sharon's announcement yesterday that Israel will defend itself if it's attacked during an Iraqi war--and that happened of course in the first war in that area, three or f--10 years ago now, whatever it is. This has aligned, officially aligned Israel with us in this campaign to have a war, or to win a war. Even if Sharon says it would be defensive on their part, this in the Arab propaganda world certainly puts us in the basket they've always claimed we were, of a mutual interest and our support of Israel regardless.

With that, it seems to me that we have almost certainly seen, to our much great discomfort, I should think, any possibility that the Arab nations are going to come in with us, in the early stages at any rate, of a war of this nature, and indeed might actually come in against us. So the story is a terrible one, and an awful crisis for us and for the world.

In the event, of course, Iraq did not attack Israel, probably because it had vowed to defend itself, unlike in 1991, when at any rate Saddam Hussein failed in his effort to turn the Gulf War into a conflict between Jerusalem and the wider Arab world.

Even if all had gone according to Cronkite's pessimistic scenario, his fears of "World War III" were absurdly overwrought. Between 1948 and 1973 Israel alone fought several wars against the combined forces of the Arab world, all of which it won quickly. Does anyone really think that had it come to it, the U.S. and Israel wouldn't have been able to vanquish the Arabs easily?

The event ended with an audience question on the International Criminal Court. Cronkite's answer, which we quote in part, was staggeringly wide-ranging and incoherent:

Cronkite: Here we are again, the United States, saying, as we have now in several treaties recently and other activities--we are saying, with considerable chutzpah, I'd say, "Well, you can have your court if you want, but we [sic] not gonna belong to it." Well, what kind of progress can we make if the United States keep saying, "We are the exception to the rule," that everybody else should belong to this organization, should obey the rule, but we're not going to have anything to do with it? Or if you want to have something to do with it, if your country wants to do with it, you've got to now tell us that if anybody is arrested in your country, you weren't [sic] turn them over to the court.

Well, special laws for the United States. I don't know, that to me doesn't sound like the democracy that I would like to think it is in debate in international society that I would like to think we would promulgate and include in our agenda--the continuing debate to make these things work rather than simply write them off because we don't like them.

The Kyoto environmental pact, for instance. All right, so it wasn't a treaty, it never was voted as a treaty. That's not the point. We made a pact. We accepted that pact. Other nations have accepted that pact to do something. We have said, this government has said, "We are not going to accept the Kyoto pact. Forget it. We're never gonna, we're never gonna, we're--because it would cost us money." My God! That's the reason that we're not going to help the world try to avoid the danger of pollution in the world, the danger of warming, all of these things? We're not going to participate in that 'cause it'd cost us money?

That's exactly the reason that those Arabs are so mad at us. We are--they see our television. I blame television for a lot of the problems we have today. Before television, they didn't know what we were like [audience laughter and applause]. But now they do. They see these riches, these riches pouring out of us. Every doxy on the air has gold and diamonds and sapphires, and they drive great big cars; we live in these magnificent houses. And they're starving to death. They're watching a television set energized by a hand--by a foot pump, one set to the village. They gather there every night. What do they see? I dunno, "Sex in the City," for heaven's sake [audience laughter].

I think if I were hungry, if I were starving, if my family were dying of AIDS or any other illness, and there was no medical help there, and I was watching this rich nation play at its own fashion, I'd be pretty damn mad. I'd be pretty damn mad [audience applause].

So I'm just saying that I'd like to see this very rich nation of ours work on the diplomatic front, the diplomatic wars if you please, fight those diplomatic wars to get this world straightened out and make it work. And I think that's going to take an international body, like the United Nations, for that to be a true world government. It means giving up sovereignty; it means a lot of sacrifices. But aren't we prepared, for heaven's sakes, to make those sacrifices in order for a better world? I would like to think so.

So, to sum up: "Those Arabs," who are at once "dying of AIDS" and "starving to death," and who by the way get their electricity from "a foot pump," are "mad at us" over the Kyoto accords and bejeweled TV "doxies." Ergo, we need "true world government." Such wisdom is the product of 65 years in the news business.

Don't Lose Your Head, Hafez
Syria's dead dictator Hafez Assad has joined the ranks of Lenin and Saddam Hussein, becoming the latest tyrant to have a statue toppled by freedom-starved subjects. It happened in the village of Qana, in southern Lebanon, reports the Daily Star of Beirut:

The monument was first attacked on February 27, when the metallic statue of Assad's head and torso in the middle of a water fountain was felled from a stand hailed "the eternal leader" and was left lying damaged on the ground. This time, the statue was completely destroyed by unknown people on Thursday night. . . .

The president of the Committee for Immortalizing Martyr Hafez Assad, Hussein Dakhlallah, accused the Israelis of perpetrating the attack.

"Dirty Israeli hands attacked the statue and those hands will be cut off for committing this stupid act," he said.

If you take literally this crude appeal to anti-Semitism, the president of the Committee for Immortalizing Martyr Hafez Assad (we just love reciting that ludicrous title) is saying that the mighty Syrians are unable to keep Israeli iconoclasts from sneaking into Lebanon to smash the precious Baathist idols.

George W. Bush, Arab Hero
The Cedar Revolution continues, the Associated Press reports from Beirut:

Hundreds of thousands of opposition demonstrators chanted "Freedom, sovereignty, independence" and unfurled a huge Lebanese flag in Beirut on Monday, the biggest protest yet in the opposition's duel of street rallies with supporters of the Damascus-backed government. . . .

A line of people in the square carried a 100-yard-long white-and-red Lebanese flag with the distinct green cedar tree in the middle, shaking it up and down and shouting, "Syria out."

Protesters chanted "Truth, freedom, national unity!" or "We want only the Lebanese army in Lebanon!"

"Syria out, no half measures," read a banner, borrowing from President Bush's description of Damascus' gradual withdrawal from this country of 3.5 million.

That's right, they're quoting President Bush, the simian-American unilateralist cowboy! And they're not alone. In a Washington Post essay, Youssef Ibrahim, formerly a reporter for the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and now a Dubai-based consultant, says that throughout the Arab world are coming "murmurs of approval for the devoutly Christian U.S. president, whose persistent calls for democracy in the Middle East are looking less like preaching and more like timely encouragement":

"His talk about democracy is good," an Egyptian-born woman was telling companions at the Fatafeet (or "Crumbs") restaurant the other night, exuberant enough for her voice to carry to neighboring tables. "He keeps hitting this nail. That's good, by God, isn't it?" At another table, a Lebanese man was waxing enthusiastic over Bush's blunt and irreverent manner toward Arab autocrats. "It is good to light a fire under their feet," he said.

From Casablanca to Kuwait City, the writings of newspaper columnists and the chatter of pundits on Arabic language satellite television suggest a change in climate for advocates of human rights, constitutional reforms, business transparency, women's rights and limits on power. And while developments differ vastly from country to country, their common feature is a lifting--albeit a tentative one--of the fear that has for decades constricted the Arab mind.

Regardless of Bush's intentions--which many Arabs and Muslims still view with suspicion--the U.S. president and his neoconservative crowd are helping to spawn a spirit of reform and a new vigor to confront dynastic dictatorships and other assorted ills.

Ibraham himself admits to second thoughts: "It's enough for someone like me, who has felt that Bush's attitude toward the Mideast has been all wrong, to wonder whether his idea of setting the Muslim house in order is right."

Where Have All the Martyrs Gone?
Time magazine reports that Iraq-based Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been fantasizing about undertaking terrorist attacks inside the U.S., according to a captured "top aide" who's been singing. The most interesting detail:

Al-Zarqawi's aide also revealed that his boss, after pondering the absence of attacks in the U.S. in recent years, concluded that a lack of "willing martyrs" was to blame.

So much for the old saw that the liberation of Iraq is a boon to al Qaeda recruitment.

What Liberal Media?
"U.S. media coverage of last year's election was three times more likely to be negative toward President Bush than Democratic challenger John Kerry, according to a study released Monday," Reuters reports:

The annual report by a press watchdog that is affiliated with Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism said that 36 percent of stories about Bush were negative compared to 12 percent about Kerry, a Massachusetts senator.

Now, a newsman might say in his industry's defense that the media were simply reporting the facts, and the haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam, was simply a more appealing candidate than President Bush. Which we guess would explain why Kerry won . . .

The Press Corps' Porn Obsession
From the San Diego Union-Tribune:

Put a handful of American soldiers talking trash about prisoners on stage today, and there are bound to be contemporary reverberations--Abu Ghraib comes to mind, as does the Bush administration's covert policy of extraordinary rendition, which outsources prisoners to regimes that practice torture.

What occasions the mention of Abu Ghraib? It's a review by arts critic Jennifer de Poyen of 'Thunder at Dawn," a play "about three soldiers on 'nail duty' at the crucifixion."

Zero-Tolerance Watch
School officials in Fort Wayne, Ind., "violated a high school student's free-speech rights when they suspended him for wearing a T-shirt bearing the likeness of an M-16 rifle and the text of the Marine Corps creed, a federal court ruled Friday." The Associated Press reports:

The district suspended Nelson Griggs in 2003 for violating a provision of the school dress code that prohibits students from wearing clothing depicting "symbols of violence."

At the time, Griggs was a sophomore at Elmhurst High. We noted the case last year.

Underclassmen
A Harvard Crimson editorial denounces Dormaid, a student's entrepreneurial venture, which sells cleaning services to students living in on-campus housing:

As appealing as the thought of a perpetually tidy room may be, (independent of family visits), Dormaid could potentially mess up as many rooms as it cleans. By creating yet another differential between the haves and have-nots on campus, Dormaid threatens our student unity.

There are already plenty of services at Harvard that sharpen the differences between socioeconomic classes. Harvard Student Agency Cleaners, for example, lets some students pick up clean and neatly-folded clothes in crackling plastic bags. The less well-off among us, however, make semi-weekly journeys to the basement with bulging mesh laundry bags and quarters in hand. These differences extend to the social sphere as well--to final clubs composed predominately of wealthy young men, or to basic activities, like eating out, that some students cannot afford to enjoy. But while class differences are a fact of life--yes, there are both rich and poor people at Harvard--there is no reason to exacerbate these differences further with a room-cleaning service.

Somehow our eyes remained dry as we read about the plight of the impoverished Harvard student; we guess we're just callous. But maybe Walter Cronkite can incorporate this into his argument for world government.

If Mars Attacks, We're Ready
"U.S. Takes Back Authority Over Death Sentences for Aliens"--headline, Family News (Focus on the Family), March 11

This Just In
"Mental Decline Linked to Alzheimer's"--headline, Al-Jazeera Web site, March 9

I Am Woman, Hear Me Bore
The New York Times' Maureen Dowd urges newspapers to hire more female columnists. That's fine by us; we like female columnists, especially Peggy Noonan and Claudia Rosett. But Dowd gets ridiculous as she tries to paint herself as a victim of sexism:

While a man writing a column taking on the powerful may be seen as authoritative, a woman doing the same thing may be seen as castrating. If a man writes a scathing piece about men in power, it's seen as his job; a woman can be cast as an emasculating man-hater. I'm often asked how I can be so "mean"--a question that Tom Friedman, who writes plenty of tough columns, doesn't get.

Tough and mean, of course, are not synonyms; Dowd is often mean but seldom tough; and while Friedman may or may not be tough, we don't recall his ever being mean. All indications are that he was born to be mild.

People do call former Enron adviser Paul Krugman mean, and no one has ever accused him of being a woman. (Or perhaps we should say no one has ever accused the female sex of including Krugman in its ranks.) For that matter, some have called us mean, even though in reality we are a big teddy bear.

On the other side, we can think of plenty of female columnists who have seldom if ever faced the charge of meanness, among them Anne Applebaum of the Washington Post; her late colleagues Meg Greenfield and Marjorie Williams; erstwhile Timeswomen Gail Collins, Flora Lewis and Anna Quindlen; and The Wall Street Journal's Mary O'Grady.

These women all write or wrote serious, substantive columns, at least one of them (Quindlen) with a distinctively feminine voice. Dowd, by contrast--well, here's her own description:

When I need to work up my nerve to write a tough column, I try to think of myself as Emma Peel in a black leather catsuit, giving a kung fu kick to any diabolical mastermind who merits it.

There's no doubt that Dowd is a talented writer; she has style, wit and a fondness for the word kerfuffle. Once in a while she writes a truly excellent column, like this one from July 2001 in which she explained why the Gary Condit saga was a compelling story.

In that case, she was explaining why a seemingly trivial matter was important. Sadly, though, her usual stock in trade consists in trivializing important matters. We guess there's a market for this, or the Times wouldn't keep publishing her. But if Dowd isn't your cup of tea, that doesn't make you sexist. By playing the victim here, she actually reinforces old stereotypes of feminine weakness.

I Now Pronounce You Man, Wife and Fetus
From a New York Times report on the latest in maternity fashions:

Only a few years ago, women planning simultaneously for a wedding and a due date would beg designers and bridal stores for dresses that would camouflage their growing bellies and--if they told anyone at all--would insist on silence. These days, however, brides are not only not hiding their pregnancies, but they are showing them off, celebrating the upcoming birth in vows and toasts, wearing gowns that flatter their bump, and, in short, refusing to give up any elements of a traditional wedding just because there is a baby visibly on the way.

Some bridal gown manufacturers are rushing out maternity designs and officiants are blessing more and more unborn children.

"Unborn children"? No, no no, they're only fetuses! Have the antichoice fanatics taken over the New York Times too?

Burn, Baby, Burn
A San Francisco Chronicle editorial notes another fashion trend:

Several million teenage girls wear pajama pants to school every day.

Fashion is a sly thing. There is almost nothing functional about PJ bottoms. They're not warm, don't have pockets, and cotton flannel is about as durable as sandwich wrap.

Pajamas aren't particularly flattering, and bland checks or prints don't add much to the scenery. . . .

One fashion-world survey found that 3 of 4 teenage girls wore some form of "innerware'' such as PJs outside the house.

The Chronicle is making light of a very serious problem. As the New York Times' Bob Herbert noted three years ago:

If the deregulation zealots had their way, we'd be left with tainted food, unsafe cars, bridges collapsing into rivers, children's pajamas bursting into flames and a host of corporations far more rapacious and unscrupulous than they are now.

With the deregulation zealots safely ensconced in the White House, one shudders to think how many teenage girls will be consumed when their jammies burst into flames between now and 2009.

(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Don Beeth, Naftali Friedman, Sam Wakim, Aaron Ammerman, Michael Segal, Ed Lasky, Kevin Schmidt, Matt Cook, David Farkas, Bill Vis, Tom Kennedy, Bob Krumm, C.E. Dobkin, Jeff Spiegel, Alan Ridgeway, Michael Zukerman, Cesar Canizales, Thomas Dillon, Tim Graham, Michael Kingsley, Amy Ponomarev, Robert Duckett, Paul Stewart, Skip King, Ethel Fenig, Rick Wahler, James Blau, David Shapero, Samuel Walker, N.W. Larkin, Roger Heinig, Steve Jacobs, Adam Hagopian, Harry Lewis, Cheryl Singletary and Rick Marsh. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

Today on OpinionJournal:

• Review & Outlook: A democratic Lebanon would be a blow to Syrian and Iranian terrorism.
• John Fund: What FDR really said about private Social Security accounts.
• Arthur Chrenkoff: A roundup of the past two weeks' good news from Iraq.