From the WSJ Opinion Archives
Clinton:
Media Have Liberal Bias
"Former President Clinton, defending his senator-wife's statements on abortion,
said Wednesday that Democrats are held to a double standard," the Associated
Press reports from Washington:
He contended that Republicans have defined the abortion debate in a way that boxes in Democrats.
"So for example, if you're a Democrat and you have sort of normal impulses, you're a sellout, like when Hillary said abortion is a tragedy for virtually everybody who undergoes it, we ought to do all we can to reduce abortion," Clinton said.
"All of a sudden," he continued, the media began asking, " 'Is she selling out? Is she abandoning her principles?' But if John McCain, who's pro-life, works with Hillary on global warming, he's a man of principle moving to the middle."
"It's nuts," the former president said.
Clinton is absolutely right: The media cheer when a Republican moves to the left and boo when a Democrat moves to the right. For an even more extreme example, compare their treatment of Jim Jeffords and Zell Miller.
Conservatives have been complaining about liberal media bias for decades. Now they've found an unlikely ally in Bill Clinton.
This
Seems to Settle It
Unless we're missing something, Joe Wilson has disproved his own accusation
that someone in the Bush administration violated the Intelligence Identities
Protection Act, USA Today reports:
The alleged crime at the heart of a controversy that has consumed official Washington--the "outing" of a CIA officer--may not have been a crime at all under federal law, little-noticed details in a book by the agent's husband suggest.
In The Politics of Truth, former ambassador Joseph Wilson writes that he and his future wife both returned from overseas assignments in June 1997. Neither spouse, a reading of the book indicates, was again stationed overseas. They appear to have remained in Washington, D.C., where they married and became parents of twins.
This meant that Plame would have been stationed in the U.S. for six years before Bob Novak published his column citing her two years ago today. As USA Today notes:
The column's date is important because the law against unmasking the identities of U.S. spies says a "covert agent" must have been on an overseas assignment "within the last five years." The assignment also must be long-term, not a short trip or temporary post, two experts on the law say.
All the Democrats who are braying for Karl Rove's head can't be very confident that he's committed a crime. If they were, they would wait for an indictment, which would be a genuine embarrassment to the administration.
Metaphor
Alert
From a Reuters dispatch:
"What this thing has been for the past two years has been a cover-up, a cover-up of the . . . web of lies that underpin the justification for going to war in Iraq," said Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, a career foreign service officer who served in the Clinton White House.
"And to a certain extent, this cover-up is becoming unraveled. That's why you see the White House stonewalling," Wilson told NBC's "Today" show.
The Reuters item begins by describing Wilson as "the husband of a CIA agent whose identity was revealed illegally." Apparently the guys at Reuters, who still haven't been able to determine if 9/11 was an act of terrorism, already know how the investigation is going to turn out.
'Sassy'
Suicide Bombers
Yesterday's London Guardian carried a rather troubling piece by Dilpazier Aslam,
a "Guardian trainee journalist" who is Muslim. It amounts to an apology
for terrorism:
If I'm asked about 7/7, I--a Yorkshire lad, born and bred--will respond first by giving an out-clause to being labelled a terrorist lover. I think what happened in London was a sad day and not the way to express your political anger.
Then there's the "but." If, as police announced yesterday, four men (at least three from Yorkshire) blew themselves up in the name of Islam, then please let us do ourselves a favour and not act shocked. . . .
Shocked would also be to suggest that the bombings happened through no responsibility of our own. OK, the streets of London were filled with anti-war marchers, so why punish the average Londoner? But the argument that this was an essentially US-led war does not pass muster. In the Muslim world, the pond that divides Britain and America is a shallow one. . . .
The Muslim community is no monolithic whole. Yet there are some common features. Second- and third-generation Muslims are without the don't-rock-the-boat attitude that restricted our forefathers. We're much sassier with our opinions, not caring if the boat rocks or not.
These are very unwise things to say. If Britain suffers more Islamist terror, articles like Aslam's are more likely to persuade Englishmen to curtail the civil liberties of their Muslim neighbors than to offer them sympathy.
Stop the Presses: It Was Homicide!--II
Yesterday's
item on Fox News's ridiculous use of the term "homicide bomber"
brought the predictable responses, such as this one from reader Steven Ashwill:
Could it be that Fox is referring to the people these fanatics are killing? After all they are murdering innocent people. Personally I think that it is better to point out that these zealots are doing more than blowing themselves up.
But in fact, that is not what Fox is doing. The Fox report we published made the following claims:
- The London bombings "could be the first homicide attacks in Western
Europe." This would mean the 3/11 Madrid bombings, which killed some
200, were not "homicide bombings" by Fox's definition.
- "Police had previously indicated there was no evidence of homicide bombings, suggesting instead that timers were used." In Fox's view, scores of dead Londoners are not evidence of "homicide bombings."
These statements make sense only if Fox is defining homicide to mean "suicide."
We wonder what the Fox folks would make of this headline, over at Expatica.com: "Amsterdam Teen Arrested as Self-Made Bomb Is Found." If someone who kills himself with a bomb is a "homicide bomber," what do you call a bomb that makes itself?
Oh, and Fox's confusion seems to run from cradle to grave. Consider this passage from a story on Karl Rove and the Plame kerfuffle: "Those who have observed Rove for years say opponents give the Denver-born Utah native more credit than he deserves." Rove was born in both Colorado and Utah? Maybe he should change his name to Renate.
Yesterday's item also prompted this reply from reader Morgan Fairlamb:
I had to laugh when reading "Hitler committed homicide by shooting himself in his bunker." I was trying to envision what his bunker looked like after he shot himself in it and how bad his bunker was wounded? Did he have problems sitting down after the shooting? . . .
Perhaps you meant "shot himself while in his bunker." Although I have to admit the alternatives are funnier.
This is just silly; our statement was in no way ambiguous. There is no body part called a bunker, so it's clear that the reference was to Hitler's location at the time of his felo-de-se. Now, if he'd shot himself in the temple . . .
It
Ain't Rocket Science
"The lobotomy, once a widely used method for treating mental illness, epilepsy
and even chronic headaches, is generating fresh controversy 30 years after doctors
stopped performing the procedure now viewed as barbaric," reports the Associated
Press:
Lobotomy was pioneered in 1936 by Portuguese neurologist Egas Moniz, who operated on people with severe psychiatric illnesses, particularly agitation and depression. . . . Moniz, already widely respected for inventing an early brain-imaging method, gave sketchy reports that many patients benefited and was awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1949. . . .
Modern views of lobotomy have led to a call to pull Moniz's Nobel prize.
"How can anyone trust the Nobel Committee when they won't admit to such a terrible mistake?" asks Christine Johnson, a Levittown, N.Y., medical librarian who started a campaign to have the prize revoked.
But the Nobel Committee does not revoke prizes, unfortunately for Johnson and fortunately for Moniz and Yasser Arafat.
Arafat won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.
Arafat, now in stable condition after dying in a Paris hospital, is said to have been a teetotaler. For our part, we'd rather have a bottle in front of us than a frontal lobotomy.
The
World's Greatest Deliberative Body
Massachusetts Democrats are in a dither over an article Sen. Rick Santorum wrote
three years ago for a Web site called Catholic
Online. Here's the offending passage from the piece on the church's sex-abuse
scandals:
It is startling that those in the media and academia appear most disturbed by this aberrant behavior, since they have zealously promoted moral relativism by sanctioning "private" moral matters such as alternative lifestyles. Priests, like all of us, are affected by culture. When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm.
Here's the Washington Post account of the Democrats' response:
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) led a phalanx of Massachusetts politicians yesterday in demanding that the third-ranking Republican in the Senate, Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, apologize for blaming the Catholic Church's sex abuse scandal on "liberalism" in Boston.
In an indignant, unusually personal speech on the Senate floor, Kennedy said that "Boston-bashing might be in vogue with some Republicans, but Rick Santorum's statements are beyond the pale."
Other Massachusetts Democrats quickly piled on. Rep. Edward J. Markey said Santorum should apologize for maligning "the courageous Boston parishioners who finally stood up to decades of an international Catholic Church coverup."
Sen. John F. Kerry said the families of Massachusetts soldiers who have died in Iraq "know more about the mainstream American values of Massachusetts than Rick Santorum ever will."
Rep. Barney Frank called Santorum a "jerk."
Santorum's Boston comment was a bit of a cheap shot, and we can't blame the Bay State pols for defending their state. On the other hand, Ted Kennedy may not be the best spokesman for Massachusetts' moral rectitude, and John Kerry's comment seems especially maladroit, considering that he made a name for himself slandering American soldiers and that he voted against funding the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Poor
Barney Must Be Really Sick
"White House to Ask for Yet More Vet Care"--headline, Associated Press,
July 12
What
Would Catholics Do Without Cardinals?
"Cardinal Says Catholics Can Believe God Guided Evolution"--headline,
Associated Press, July 12
Plus
a New Deck of Cards
"Bridge Group Cites $1 Million Repair Estimate"--headline, Columbia
(Mo.) Daily Tribune, July 13
Not
Tonight, I Have a Phthalate
"Male Fertility Not Harmed by Phthalates--Study"--headline, Reuters,
July 13
Those
Who Can't Do
Check out "New Business Item 91" (penultimate item in above link)
from the annual meeting of the National Education Association, America's largest
teachers union, last week:
In the interest of member health and safety at NEA sponsored events; NEA will explore alternatives to using LATEX (natural rubber) products (such as latex balloons and gloves) during NEA sponsored events.
According to this page, lambskin is not as safe as latex, but "polyurethane is an option for people who are allergic to latex." This does make us wonder, though, just what goes on at those NEA conventions. It probably involves cucumbers.
Fun and Names
We'd like to tie up a few loose ends from items earlier this week, specifically:
- On Monday,
we noted that according to one reader, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's maiden
name was Day, which would mean her full unmarried name was Sandra Day Day.
- On Tuesday,
we noted that the Washington Post had left Sandra O'Connor off its list of
prospective names for the National Zoo's new panda cub.
- Yesterday we asked, "How come all these pandas have doubled names--Meimei, Hsing Hsing, Ling Ling, etc. etc.?"
You see where we're gong with this: There is a way the zookeepers can maintain the double-name tradition and still name the panda cub (assuming it's still alive) after Justice O'Connor (née Day Day).
Here's yet another twist: It turns out there was a character named "Day-Day Jones" in a pair of movies, "Next Friday" (2000) and "Friday After Next" (2002), both times played by Mike Epps. The screenwriters must've been judicial junkies, for they named the Epps character not only after Justice O'Connor but also after Judge Edith Jones of the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, who is often cited as a potential O'Connor replacement.
Also on most lists of possible justices is another Fifth Circuit judge, Edith Clement. If both Jones and Clement eventually end up on the high court, it will be the first time in history that the U.S. Supreme Court has two Ediths--and of course it will open up new frontiers in panda-naming.
Yet another possible O'Connor replacement is Justice Rebecca Kourlis (née Love) of the Colorado Supreme Court. Again there is a Hollywood connection, as she and Edith Jones were the subjects of a joint 1997 biopic.
(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to John Heghinian, Joe Eule, Michael Zukerman, C.E. Dobkin, Joe Fluet, Ed Lasky, Ethel Fenig, Aaron Ammerman, Ron Ackert, Jason Shanker, Michael Segal, Don Hubschman, Peter Pullen, Barak Moore, Logan Gage, Sheilah Miller, Kevin Patrick and Craig Loos. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Review & Outlook: Michigan's governor explodes after reading The Wall Street Journal.
- Mark Chapin Johnson: Michigan's governor explodes after reading The Wall Street Journal.
- Arnie Cooper: A child of the '60s visits Legoland.
