by JAMES TARANTO
Tuesday, May 31, 2005 3:52 P.M. EDT

Ich Bin ein Republican?
Sunday was the 88th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's birth. We now know that Kennedy was a very sickly man, so it seems unlikely he would still be alive even if Lee Oswald had missed. But because he was murdered at age 46, his image is forever youthful, and as long as his contemporaries are still around, they will ponder where he would stand if he were alive.

Ted Sorensen, a Kennedy aide, did just that in a Saturday op-ed for the Boston Globe. "Were he still alive, I have no doubt that, with his customary idealism and commitment to country, he would still be offering advice to our current leaders in Washington," Sorensen writes, then picks out some quotes from JFK speeches that Sorensen sees as relevant to various political leaders today. What caught our eye was the list of people Sorensen imagines his ex-boss advising:

• George W. Bush (twice)
• Dick Cheney
• Condoleezza Rice
• John Bolton
• Donald Rumsfeld
• Tom DeLay
• Bill Frist
• Scott McClellan
• Pat Robertson
• Karen Hughes

By our count that's 10 Republicans and no Democrats. Sorensen means all the quotes to be critical of today's GOP, and of course Republicans play this game too, by contrasting JFK's support for lower taxes, a strong defense and an idealistic foreign policy with today's Democrats' aversion to any conflict except war against the American taxpayer.

Of course, when Republicans do this, they are claiming that today's Democrats do not live up to the standard of their own party's past. Democrats do the same thing when they contrast today's Republicans with Lincoln, Eisenhower or (this doesn't happen that often yet) Reagan.

But why would Ted Sorensen use President Kennedy's rhetoric to criticize today's Republicans, rather than ponder what the last non-Southern Democrat to win the presidency would have to say to his party today? He must think that today's Democrats fall so far short of the JFK standard that Kennedy himself would by now have switched to the GOP.

Can Old Europe Learn New Tricks?
In a Sunday plebiscite, French voters said non to the European Constitution, which the New York Times calls "a document similar in some ways to the Constitution that binds the United States." Also dissimilar in some ways; for instance, it comprises 448 articles, 441 more than the U.S. Constitution. "The decision of France inevitably creates a difficult situation for the defense of our interests in Europe," said President Jacques Chirac, the haughty, Massachusetts-looking Paris Gaullist, who by the way served Saddam.

The rejection came despite electoral shenanigans like those that helped Al Gore lose Missouri by only 3.3%, reports the New York Post:

In a tactic reminiscent of alleged fraud in St. Louis, Mo. during the 2000 election, Chirac and his advisers held open the polls in Paris for two hours beyond the 8 p.m. closing time, hoping for a last-minute pool of support that would put them over the top.

Before those last-minute votes were counted, the French Interior Ministry tally showed the "No" vote winning a staggering 57 percent. The final count, released later, brought the nationwide rejection down to 54.87 percent, a respectable landslide.

The New York Sun reports that Francoise Le Bail, spokeswoman for the president of the European commission, "suggested that improvements in the E.U.'s communications apparatus could have swung the vote the other way, and the European project needed to be 'explained more clearly to citizens.' " Hmm, does that Lakoff character speak French?

Analysts attribute the defeat to a combination of substantive reasons: fear that the constitution would make France more capitalistic, hostility toward more-industrious Eastern European workers, unease about the prospect of Turkey joining the European Union. But maybe the most constructive way of looking at it is that the French are simply expressing a desire to have a say in the way they are governed. As Mark Steyn notes:

A couple of days before Sunday's referendum on the European constitution, Jean-Claude Juncker, the "president" of the European Union, let French and Dutch voters [the Dutch vote tomorrow] know how much he values their opinion:

"If at the end of the ratification process, we do not manage to solve the problems, the countries that would have said 'No,' would have to ask themselves the question again," "President" Juncker told the Belgian newspaper Le Soir.

Got that? You have the right to vote, but only if you give the answer your rulers want you to give. But don't worry, if you don't, we'll treat you like a particularly backward nursery school and keep asking the question until you get the answer right. Even America's bossiest nanny-state Democrats don't usually express their contempt for the will of the people quite so crudely.

Even the French are unwilling to surrender to that. Meanwhile, Agence France-Presse reports that "the Franco-German axis . . . faced an uncertain future" after the vote. Germany has already ratified the constitution without a referendum. Also contributing to the uncertainty of the axis's future is German domestic politics. The Scotsman notes that the opposition Christian Democrats have chosen Angela Merkel as their candidate for chancellor in September's election. As London's Sunday Telegraph notes, Merkel, who is from East Germany, has more of a New Europe sensibility than Gerhard Schroeder, the anti-American incumbent:

Her dour childhood as a reluctant Communist sheds new light on why, unlike Mr Schröder, Mrs Merkel backed the US-led invasion of Iraq. "I know what it is when you don't have freedom," she said recently. "In the West, freedom is taken for granted. Fighting for it is not as necessary as it was for us."

Both the French and German economies are in deep trouble, and neither the non vote nor the prospect of a ja to Merkel promises to change that. But it does seem as though the anti-American "axis of weasels" is becoming a thing of the past.

Reuterville ♥ Dominique
France has a new prime minister, Dominique de Villepin. An "eloquent" speaker, sometime "poet" and "dashing" diplomat, Villepin will bring "panache" to the prime minister's office, Reuters reports--in just those words, minus the scare quotes:

An eloquent speaker, sometime poet and dashing diplomat, Villepin will bring panache to the prime minister's office.

So according to the folks at Reuters, it's debatable whether Osama bin Laden is a terrorist, but de Villepin's eloquence, dashingness and panache-bringing are established "fact."

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
  
  
• "I went back and reread the whole New Testament the other day. Nowhere in the three-year ministry of Jesus Christ did I find a suggestion at all, ever, anywhere, in any way whatsoever, that you ought to take the money from the poor, the opportunities from the poor and give them to the rich people."--John Kerry*

* The haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way promised 121 days ago to release his military records.

What Would the Times Do Without Constitutional Experts?
Actually, the New York Times does lack constitutional experts, and what it is doing is engaging in a smear campaign against Justice Janice Rogers Brown of the California Supreme Court. As we noted Friday, the Times cited Brown's dissent in a case called Aguilar v. Avis, which upheld prior restraint of speech in a workplace discrimination case, to imply that she is some sort of right-wing crackpot. This is an excerpt from a September 1999 San Francisco Chronicle story describing the case:

A crucial one-vote margin came last month in a major case involving racial discrimination and free-speech rights, a blockbuster ruling that splintered the court into five warring camps.

The justices stunned constitutional experts by ruling that a judge can ban racial slurs in the workplace, despite assertions that it violates the First Amendment.

In a decision written by [Chief Justice Ronald] George, the court said that a San Francisco judge could legally prevent an Avis Rent A Car employee from subjecting Latino workers to constant racial slurs.

Three of the justices said the ban was justified as a preventive measure, because a jury had already found the employee had harassed Latino workers. A fourth justice agreed with the result but came up with different reasoning.

Three other justices--two of the most liberal members and the most outspoken conservative--unleashed blistering dissents, saying that speech--no matter how unpopular--cannot be censored.

How can dissent from a decision that "stunned constitutional experts" turn in a few years into a view that's totally "out of the mainstream"? The answer lies in the total lack of intellectual integrity on the part of those who are attacking President Bush's judicial nominees, including the editorialists at the Times.

Yasser Arafat Could Not Be Reached for Comment

"King Fahd of Saudi Arabia Reported Dead"--headline, United Press International, May 27

"Saudi's King Remains Stable in Hospital Today"--headline, Houston Chronicle, May 28

Does This Mean the Wedding Is on Hold?
"White House at Odds With Senate Over China"--headline, WebProNews.com, May 27

And Not a Moment Too Soon
"Army Wants Soldiers to Get Used to Guns"--headline, State (Columbia, S.C.), May 31

What Would We Do Without Experts?
"Experts Say Wormholes, Time Machines Unreliable"--headline, Space.com, May 27

But Mars Is Chilling Out
"Venus Upset by 15-Year-Old Bulgarian"--headline, FoxSports.com, May 28

It's a Miracle She Survived Without Them
"Alzheimer Victim Sold 11 Organs"--headline, Associated Press, May 27

That's Gotta Hurt
"Study Links Plastics to Small Genitals"--headline, FoxNews.com, May 27

'I Asked, "Are You Game?" She Said, "Yes," So I Shot Her.'
"Brazilian Killers Blame Game for Murders"--headline, Associated Press, May 31

Studies Are a Girl's Best Friend
"Compliments Make a Woman Feel Better, Study Concludes"--headline, Knight Ridder Tribune, May 29

What Would Experts Do Without Wolves?
"Wolves Teach Experts About Global Warming"--headline, USA Today, May 31

How to Earn Your Pee h.D.
Olga Gershenson, a professor of Judaic and Near Eastern studies at the the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and Barbara Penner, a professor of architecture at University College London, have issued a "call for papers":

We invite contributions for the edited collection Toilet Papers: The Gendered Construction of Public Toilets.

Public toilets are amenities with a functional, even a civic, purpose. Yet they also act as the unconscious of public spaces. They can be a haven: a place to regain composure, to "check one's face," or to have a private chat. But they are also sexually-charged and transgressive spaces that shelter illicit sexual practices and act as a cultural repository for taboos and fantasies.

This collection will work from the premise that public toilets, far from being banal or simply functional, are highly charged spaces, shaped by notions of propriety, hygiene and the binary gender division. Indeed, public toilets are among the very few openly segregated spaces in contemporary Western culture, and the physical differences between "gentlemen" and "ladies" remains central to (and is further naturalized by) their design. As such, they provide a fertile ground for critical work interrogating how conventional assumptions about the body, sexuality, privacy, and technology can be formed in public space and inscribed through design.

We welcome papers which explore the cultural meanings, histories, and ideologies of the public toilet as a gendered space. Any subject is appropriate: toilet design and signage, toilet humour and euphemisms, personal narratives and legal cases, as well as art sited in public toilets. We invite submissions in the format of traditional academic papers of no more than 7000 words (including footnotes).

Who knew "toilet humor" qualified as scholarship? In that spirit, we'd like to point out that some of the most innovative work on this subject comes out of Queens College, which is located in Flushing.

Hat tip: Roger Kimball.

(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Marc Young, David Shapiro, C.E. Dobkin, Bob Katzin, Rob Schaaf, Ron Ackert, Dane Summers, Sam Wakim, Jean-Pierre Desmoulins, Michael Segal, Brent Silver, Tom Linehan, Jack Kraft, Leonora LaMantia, Arnold Nelson, Ed Lasky, Gretchen Chellson, Dan O'Shea, Max Lebediuk, John Williamson, David Beebe, Rochi Ebner, Allen O'Donnell, Rod Pennington, Jim Orheim, Dennis Powell, Charlie Gaylord, Hans Bader, Arvind Kumar, Michael Hopkovitz, Mike Cakora, Jim Howie, Bill Jones, Robin Carroll, Jim Sharp, John Murray, Cliff Addy, Thomas Ferguson, George Lear and Mark Davies. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

Today on OpinionJournal:

• Review & Outlook: The French vote down the EU constitution.
• Brendan Miniter: The moderation that makes McCain a Senate powerhouse will keep him out of the White House.
• Michael Phillips: A close look at one of our bravest in Iraq.