by JAMES TARANTO
Friday, July 8, 2005 3:58 P.M. EDT

Root, Root, Root for the Bomb Team
So what does the New York Times have to say about yesterday's terrorist murders in London of more than 50 people at last count? Here's a quote from the paper's lead editorial of today:

That fear has already led to questions about why the British security agencies did not anticipate the attacks, why the wealthy nations have not done enough about the root causes of terrorism and why Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden continue to function after almost four years of the so-called war on terrorism. Many will wonder why the United States is mired in Iraq while Al Qaeda's leader still roams free.

There are no easy answers to these questions.

That's right, the Times is complaining that "wealthy nations have not done enough about the root causes of terrorism"! Now granted, one can talk of the root causes of terrorism without slipping into liberal weeniedom. This column has long endorsed the theory that terrorism springs from the tyrannical and fanatical political culture that prevails in most of the Arab and Muslim worlds. The Bush administration subscribes to this theory too, which is why it has embarked upon a strategy of democratization, a key element of which was regime change in Iraq.

Do the editorialists at the Times disagree with this theory? No, apparently they are completely oblivious to it. First they complain about the failure to deal with "root causes," then they scratch their collective head over why we're "mired in Iraq."

So what does the Times think are the "root causes" of terrorism? Well, the paper addresses that question in another editorial:

As the leaders of the richest nations carry on their annual conference despite the bombings in London, they have a chance to embrace what should be an essential element of any long-term global strategy against terrorism. By adopting a coherent plan to tackle the extreme poverty of Africa, the leaders of the G-8 countries will also take on the civil wars, governmental breakdowns and illicit financial flows of one of the world's most troubled regions.

The idea that poverty in Africa contributes to terrorism is not as ridiculous as it sounds. As the Times notes:

American military forces fought what may have been their first encounter with the new international terrorism in the streets of Mogadishu, Somalia, a dozen years ago. . . . Failed states that cannot provide jobs and food for their people, that have lost chunks of territory to warlords, and that can no longer track or control their borders send an invitation to terrorists.

It's worth noting that a dozen years ago, when President Clinton decided to pull out of Somalia, a Times editorial praised this "wise stand-down." In any case, we don't disagree with the Times that misrule in Africa is a moral outrage and in some cases a security threat. But how dense do you have to be not to acknowledge that the same is true to an even greater degree in the heart of the Middle East, the place where terrorists actually come from?

At least the Times doesn't go so far as to say terrorism is America's fault. Others do. Here's columnist Derrick Z. Jackson of the Boston Globe:

The world, of course, shares the sympathies of Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York, who said the London bombings were a ''despicable, cowardly act." Yet every invoking of the innocents also reminds us of our despicable, cowardly killing of innocent Iraqi civilians. . . .

The innocents in the so-called war on terror are always ''our" citizens or the citizens of our allies. The only innocent Iraqis are those killed by ''insurgents." Our soldiers clearly did not intend to kill innocents. But this posturing of America as the great innocent, when everyone knows we kill innocents ourselves, is likely only to make us look more like the devil in the eyes of a suicide bomber.

And here's someone with the unlikely name of Jann Wenner, on the Huffington Post:

If the London bombings are the work of an Al Qaeda offshoot, then you have to fairly say, in the same way we condemn other's [sic] terror, this is in part the result of Bush's War on Iraq.

To Jackson, there is no moral distinction between deliberately targeting civilians and accidentally killing civilians in a war of liberation. To Wenner, it is America's fault that terrorists deliberately target civilians. And note that the Times and Jackson both sneer at the "so-called war" on terrorism.

This has been a brief tour of the mindset of some American liberals. Folks, Karl Rove is not making this stuff up.

One liberal who makes sense, though, is Slate's William Saletan:

Bin Laden's whole game plan is to turn the people of the democratic world against their governments. He thinks democracies are weak because their people, who are more easily frightened than their governments, can bring those governments down. He doesn't understand that this flexibility--and this trust--are why democracies will live, while he will die. Many of us didn't vote for Bush's government or Blair's. But we're loyal to them, in part because we were given a voice in choosing them. And if we don't like our governments, we can vote them out. We can't vote out terrorists. We can only kill them.

America needs more voices like this on the left.

'It Must Be Won'
For a counterpoint to the preceding item, check out this op-ed piece from today:

Words of condemnation and solidarity are fine and great in their symbolic value, but they are not enough unless backed by practical measures in cooperation with Britain and the rest of the civilized world to defeat the evil forces of terrorism.

To win the war against terror, and it must be won, we need to understand the terrorists' strategy and tactics. First they need a motive, second an operational capability to carry out attacks, and third an aim. The last is almost impossible to identify in the case of Al-Qaeda, since it is not clear what constitutes a strategic "victory" for them. . . . Al-Qaeda's terrorists have no respect for human life.

The author of this article was Adel Darwish, and the newspaper was the Arab News. What does it tell us that a Saudi newspaper has more moral clarity than the New York Times?

You Don't Say
"Attacks Underscore Difficulty of Thwarting Terrorist Groups"--headline, Knight Ridder, July 7

What Would We Do Without Bus Riders?
"Bus Riders: It Was Homicide Bomb"--headline, FoxNews.com, July 8

What Would Passengers Do Without Experts?
"Despite Attacks, Passengers Will Likely Keep Flying, Experts Say"--headline, Baltimore Sun, July 8

Metaphor Alert
"Critics like [Al] Franken say the Truth Tour is nothing more than propaganda from the well-oiled conservative media echo chamber. They call it a velvet-rope tour that aims to re-inflate sagging support for the Bush administration's Iraq policy."--San Francisco Chronicle, July 7

Muq the Knife
Here's an interesting slice of life from Iraq: Agence France-Presse reports that "Iraqi hearts are being won by blades and blood, but not of the violent kind." It seems Muqtada al-Sadr's Shiite militia is circumcising boys, filling a void left by Saddam Hussein's downfall:

The use of circumcision for social coupled with political ends is not new in Iraq--under Saddam Hussein's government, the procedure was provided free at offices of the ruling Baath Party on 17 July and 30 July every year to commemorate the party's rise to power.

Like the Baathists, the Sadrites are not charging for the service. They only take tips!

Justice Byrd?
Harry Reid must be jealous of Howard Dean. Every time the Democratic National Committee chairman says something foolish, it gets wide national attention, but the Senate minority leader's howlers don't get much attention outside this column, maybe because he doesn't howl them the way Dean does.

Anyway, Reid gave an interview the other day to a local Nevada paper, the Reno Gazette-Journal, and yielded a bounty of boners. Our favorite is this one, in connection with a suggestion he made before:

"I think it is a great idea," Reid said about the possibility of appointing a senator to the Supreme Court. "Some outstanding people have come from the Senate. The last was an ex-Ku Klux Klansman who turned out to be one of the greatest civil-rights jurists of all time."

Earlier Reid mentioned the names of four GOP senators (and pals of the plaintiff bar, as Walter Olson notes), but here he could have only one senator in mind. Apparently Reid thinks Justice Robert Byrd would be the next Hugo Black.

Reid also weighed in on the 2008 presidential campaign (the election is now just 1,215 days away):

"It is a wide-open field," Reid said. "The person who is leading at this stage is Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton, of course, has lots of money. She comes from a state with lots of people in it, but she still has a few ties to Arkansas. I think she is the person to beat, but that doesn't necessarily mean she is the best candidate."

Actually, this is true, so it's more of a gaffe than a howler. Why would Reid want to alienate the powerful junior senator from New York?

It's 4 O'clock. Do You Know Where Your Chief Justice Is?
For months now people have been predicting the imminent retirement of Chief Justice William Rehnquist. The latest is columnist Robert Novak, who reported in a column yesterday "word from court sources [is] that ailing Chief Justice William Rehnquist also will announce his retirement before the week is over."

Well, it could still happen, though we suspect Rehnquist is vain enough not to announce his retirement on a Friday evening, the worst time for making news. Still, no one will remember if Novak turns out to have gotten this wrong, whereas everyone remembers Bill Kristol's improbable but correct prediction that Justice Sandra Day O'Connor would retire first.

We suppose there's a lesson here for aspiring pundits: If you're going to make predictions, make unlikely ones. That way people will remember if you turn out to be right.

The other approach is to make predictions that can't possibly be wrong. With that in mind, we're going to go out on a limb and predict that Chief Justice Rehnquist will retire at some point, unless he dies first.

Another Day, Another O'Connor
A reader calls our attention to what may be a third Sandra O'Connor in the real estate business, this one in Ireland. (We noted the first two yesterday.) But this isn't as strange a coincidence as it seems. As the Web site notes:

Sandra & David at David O'Connor Auctioneering, Boyle, Co. Roscommon, guarantee a personal and indept [sic] service to all their customers.

It's not even clear that this is a Sandra O'Connor, as opposed to some mononymous assistant, and if it is, it's probably her married name.

Joseph Duncan's Criminological Theories
We haven't really been following this horrific story, except inasmuch as it's unavoidable on the cable news networks. But now there's a new-media connection:

Convicted sex offender Joseph Edward Duncan III spent months on the Internet documenting his internal struggle over right vs. wrong. Then, four days before two Idaho children he is accused of kidnapping disappeared, he wrote: "The demons have taken over."

It was one of the last entries in Duncan's Weblog before the 42-year-old North Dakota man was arrested and charged this week with two kidnapping counts. Authorities believe he took 9-year-old Dylan Groene and 8-year-old Shasta Groene from their Idaho home shortly before their 13-year-old brother, mother and her boyfriend were bludgeoned to death May 15. Police say Duncan also is a suspect in the killings.

We checked out Duncan's blog, and it is as creepy as you'd expect. It also turns out Duncan has theories about crime and punishment, as evidenced by this Feb. 21 entry:

If you knew without doubt that closing 9 out of 10 prisons and releasing the 9 least violent out of 10 prisoners would reduce new crimes by more than half in less than 5 years, would you be for it?

In the real world, meanwhile, the number of people in prison keeps rising despite lower crime rates! The New York Times should look into this.

A Toast to Emanations and Penumbras!
"Man Sues for Right to Be Drunk"--headline, Associated Press, July 8

Coals Already en Route to Newcastle
"Rice Heading to China This Weekend"--headline, Washington Times, July 6

Everyone's a Critic
"Zsa Zsa Gabor Critical After Stroke"--headline, Australian, July 8

Just Like Francisco Franco
"Former County Commissioner, Local GOP Leader Still Dead at 82"--headline, Mobile (Ala.) Register, July 6

So Much for FDR
"Report of New Deal 'Simply Is Not True' "--headline, Miami Herald, July 8

You Shoulda Seen the One That Got Away
"Fish Receives Honors"--headline, Linton (Ind.) Daily Citizen, July 7

That Must've Been Painful for the Turkey
"450 Sheep Jump to Their Deaths in Turkey"--headline, Associated Press, July 8

High Environmental Steaks
Here's an interesting item from a blogger calling himself "The Evangelical Ecologist":

How much air pollution does a cow make?

The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District [link in PDF] says every cow makes 20.6 pounds of methane a year. If they stick with this number, dairies would become the largest source of volatile organic compound emissions in the San Joaquin Valley, near Los Angeles.

More than painting operations. More than chemical plants. Even more than cars and trucks.

This is another reason we're proud not to be a vegetarian. We have to eat those cows before the air gets any more polluted than it already is!

(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Rob Schaaf, Alex Makowski, James Croak, Michael Segal, Tom Linehan, Ed Lasky, Thomas Dillon, Michael Dowding, Ethel Fenig, Joel Goldberg, Bob Vorick, David Shapero, Charles Boersig, Douglas Levene, Ruth Papazian, Barak Moore, Paul Wood, Curtis Edmonds, Fabio Savoldelli, Kevin Schmidt, Chris Stetsko, E.B.S. Hirsch, Nathan Morgan, Allen O'Donnell, Kieran Mac Court, Dan O'Shea, Michael Napier, Kevin Patrick, Buddy Smith, Tim Corrigan, Mordecai Bobrowsky, W. Garner Robinson, John Kalitka, James Eckert, Kevin Littleton, Michael Kingsley, Matt Martini, Eric Ivers, Rick Reiss, Scott Ott and Curt Schmidt. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

Today on OpinionJournal:

• Review & Outlook: Will yesterday's savagery reunite the West against its common enemy?
• Daniel Henninger: Our politics fiddles while London burns.
• Tunku Varadarajan: The sign says "Take courage," and the Brits do.
• The Journal Editorial Report: Tune in this weekend for a discussion of the London attacks and CNOOC's bid to take over Unocal.

And on the Taste page:

• Review & Outlook: The family behind Wal-Mart has done great things for America.
• Tony & Tacky: A Wisconsin professor keeps drawing his salary from behind bars.
• Mark Oppenheimer: Egghead retirement communities give a new meaning to "permanent student."
• Lucette Lagnado: In the land of Izod--the Hamptons--trouble over a shul.