From the WSJ Opinion Archives
Researching
Roberts's Kids
On Monday we
noted that a poster on the Angry Left Daily Kos site was urging opposition
"research" on Judge John Roberts's 4-year-old son, Jack. If the Drudge
Report is right, a major newspaper is heeding that call:
The New York Times is looking into the adoption records of the children of Supreme Court Nominee John G. Roberts, the Drudge Report has learned.
The Times has investigative reporter Glen Justice hot on the case to investigate the status of adoption records of Judge Roberts' two young children, Josie age 5 and Jack age 4, a top source reveals.
Judge Roberts and his wife Jane adopted the children when they each were infants. Both children were adopted from Latin America. A Times insider claims the look into the adoption papers are part of the paper's "standard background check."
And it's very important to investigate every aspect of a prospective Supreme Court justice's life. After all, he may threaten the right to privacy!
Spot the Ditz
Last night, in a Jim Angle report on the Roberts nomination, Fox News's "Special
Report With Brit Hume" played a comment from Debra Ness, who heads an outfit
called the National
Partnership for Women and Families:
Angle: But skeptics of judicial restraint think Roberts is too careful. They say the court has long played a key role in defining rights legislatures did not, such as freedom from discrimination based on color and age, among other things.
Ness: The right of women to vote, the right to privacy, all of these are rights that Americans hold dear, but some might argue are not rights that can be easily found in the Constitution.
We spent hours searching, but we finally did locate the right of women to vote in the Constitution. Hint: It's between the 18th Amendment and the 20th.
What
a Gentleman!
"I will let Hillary make the decision whether to vote for [John Roberts]."--Bill
Clinton, husband of Sen. Hillary Clinton (D., N.Y.), quoted by Bloomberg
News, Aug. 3
Hackett
the Tiger
"In nearly the biggest political upset in recent history, Democrat Paul
Hackett came within just a few thousand votes of defeating Republican Jean Schmidt
in Ohio's Second Congressional District," boasts a press release from the
Democratic Congressional campaign Committee. The Second Congressional District
is in the Cincinnati area, where people have some experience with "near
upsets." After all, the Bengals went to the Super Bowl in 1989,
and danged if they didn't cover the spread!
ScrappleFace.com has an amusing take:
"It feels so good to almost win," said DNC chairman Howard Dean. "We now believe we can rally our base around the hope of down-to-the-wire losses in traditionally Republican districts coast-to-coast."
We had some preliminary thoughts on the race yesterday, but the more we hear about it, the more we think the Democrats are deluding themselves into believing, as the DCCC press release puts it, that the race is "an early sign of wide spread discontent with the Republican Congress around the country."
For one thing, it seems as though there are actually two Paul Hacketts. One is the Angry Left Bush hater, quoted this morning by the Media Research Center's Tim Graham on National Review Online:
And to the chicken-hawks out there that think that what I say about this administration is not representative to some large degree in the military, I say that this was only a shot over the bow. You had better wake up and smell the coffee, because we are minting young Democrats day by day in Iraq, and maybe it didn't happen in this election, but it's going to happen in many elections in the future.
The other is the one who appeared in this advertisement (link in WMV form), which opens with a clip of President Bush before switching to Hackett:
Bush: There is no higher calling than service in our armed forces.
Hackett: I agreed with that, and that's what led me to serve and fight with my Marines in Iraq. Those words are a part of me.
These young men and women--they get it. We're gonna help these people [Iraqis]. We're all over there because we think America is worth fighting for.
You take responsibility for your actions. I think Washington, D.C., needs more of that type of leadership. I'm Paul Hackett, I approved this message, and I respectfully ask for your vote on Aug. 2.
The ad does not mention that Hackett is a Democrat, and it leaves the viewer with the impression that he supports Bush and the war. At the same time, Republicans in Ohio have problems that are specific to the state, as blogger Mickey Chandler notes:
[The district] was, for the first time in forty years, vulernable [sic] to [GOP] loss thanks to Ohio's "Coingate" scandal. This is the biggest difference in the district between Rob Portman getting more than 70%, President Bush getting more than 60% of the vote in recent elections and [Tuesday's] vote. Even though the links between Ms. Schmidt and [Coingate personage Tom] Noe are of the brother's-friend's-sister's-husband's-cousin's-great-aunt-twice-removed variety, Hackett was able to play up the scandal surrounding the Republicans in Ohio's state house and her supposed links to it--something made all the stronger by the fact that she was a state rep at the time.
Another Hackett TV ad, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer, accused Schmidt of having "willingly supported tax increases proposed by [Republican Gov. Bob] Taft."
Hackett, in other words, came close to winning by pretending to be a supporter of President Bush and the war while attacking Schmidt as a tax hiker. Good for him, but as reader Larry Smiley asks, "If a Democrat has to hide what he believes to achieve near-success, how can this be a bellwether for Democratic causes nationwide?"
What
Would We Do Without Democratic Pollsters?
"Democratic Pollster: We Don't Stand for Anything"--headline, NewsMax.com,
Aug. 3
Aw,
Can't They Wait a While Longer?
"It is time for Democrats to stop moaning about John Roberts and John Bolton
and start doing something productive--such as figuring out how to win elections."--Joan
Vennochi, Boston Globe, Aug. 4
The
Partisan Press
Remember Judith Miller? She's the New York Times reporter who went to jail last
month (where she remains) for defying a court order to testify about her reporting
in connection with the Valerie Plame kerfuffle. She largely disappeared from
the news coverage of the case when journalists turned their attention to Karl
Rove, but yesterday she showed up in the trade publication Editor & Publisher:
The board of The American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) has voted unanimously to not endorse an earlier decision to give a Conscience in Media award to jailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller, E&P has learned. . . .
The earlier vote by its First Amendment committee had already prompted at least one member of that panel to quit her position.
Anita Bartholomew, a freelance journalist who has contributed to Reader's Digest, wrote in a resignation letter, "The First Amendment is designed to prevent government interference with a free press. Miller, by shielding a government official or officials who attempted to use the press to retaliate against a whistleblower, and scare off other would-be whistleblowers, has allied herself with government interference with, and censorship of, whistleblowers. When your source IS the government, and the government is attempting to use you to target a whistleblower, the notion of shielding a source must be reconsidered. To apply standard practices regarding sources to hiding wrongdoing at the highest levels of government perverts the intent of the First Amendment."
Other journalists have made the same point as Bartholomew, including, as we noted in February, Geneva Overholser on the pages of the New York Times (though at the time she wrote, the issue was whether Robert Novak, not Judy Miller, should give up his sources).
By taking this position, Bartholomew and Overholser are revealing themselves to be partisans rather than professionals. A journalist's ethical obligation to honor a promise of confidentiality does not apply only to "whistleblowers" at the expense of "the government"--and the characterization of Joe Wilson as a "whistleblower" is a matter of opinion.
On the evidence available so far, we'd say there's a better case that the sources who exposed Wilson's wife's involvement in his Niger junket are the real whistleblowers. But in any case professional ethics mean nothing if they are to be subordinate to a predetermined view of a still-unfolding story.
Marbella
Mourns
The Financial Times reports that Marbella, a resort town on Spain's Costa del
Sol, is in mourning for Saudi Arabia's King Fahd:
Fahd and his family were among the city's most illustrious holidaymakers, regularly spending summers in their palatial hillside villa. The Nahda Palace remains the focal point of an exclusive area dubbed the "Golden Mile."
Visits by the Saudi king, which had become less frequent in recent years because of his failing health, were an eagerly awaited event in the sun-soaked city of millionaires. With his thousands-strong entourage and considerable daily budget, the late king's presence in the city was good for local business. Locals and itinerants queued for hours outside the royal residence looking for summer jobs.
Meanwhile, the Arab News quotes from the first address to the nation by Fahd's successor, King Abdullah:
"I pledge to God, and then I pledge to you that I take the Holy Qur'an as my constitution, Islam as my program and to work for justice and serve all citizens without discrimination," he said in a speech broadcast on state television.
"All citizens without discrimination"--well, yeah, except women and anyone who chooses not to be Muslim.
ACLU
Defends Patriarchy
"The American Civil Liberties Union has sued a school district on behalf
of a 14-year-old rap music fan who was expelled after he posted lyrics on the
Internet in which, according to police, he threatened to shoot up his school
and named a potential victim," the Associated Press reports from Pittsburgh:
The ACLU said the songs by Anthony Latour, of Ellwood City, are protected speech, among other reasons, because they were composed at home and not brought to school. The suit says Latour's expulsion in May from the Riverside Beaver County School District violated his parents' right to control his upbringing.
"The school may not like Anthony's songs, but it is beyond their ability to dictate what he reads, writes or even raps at home," said Witold "Vic" Walczak, the ACLU of Pennsylvania's legal director. . . .
"It is our job, not that of school officials, to decide what music Anthony can compose and listen to in our home," Anthony's father, John Latour, said.
We tend to agree with the ACLU's position on this one, but we have to laugh at the idea that the group is an advocate of "his parents' right to control his upbringing." Would the ACLU support this principle if the Latours had a daughter and didn't want her to get an abortion? The question answers itself. Patriarchy is just fine, though, when the kid is a rapper or a husband wants to kill his disabled wife.
You
Don't Say
"Amphibious Vehicles May Not Be Suited for Deserts"--headline, Chicago
Sun-Times, Aug. 4
Hello,
Columbus
"The world's global. We can't fight it anymore."--Patrick Bauer, Democratic
leader of the Indiana House, on a visit to Japan, quoted in the Indianapolis
Star, Aug. 4
Usually
They're a Lot Older
"Scan Finds Mummy Between 4 and 6 Years Old"--headline, Associated
Press, Aug. 3
100%,
We're Guessing
"Fitness Level Predicts Likelihood of Death"--headline, WebMD.com,
Aug. 3
One
Nation Under Guard?
"Tragically, two years ago, we came to realize we had let our God down.
We became lost in our hubris and learned once more the terrible price that must
be paid for our failures."--Discovery astronaut Charles Camarda, on the
loss of the Columbia, as quoted by Reuters, Aug. 4
Why Titan Lacks Intelligent Life
"Official: Drinking Improves Thinking"--headline, Guardian (London), Aug. 4
"Scientists Deem Saturn Moon Titan Dry"--headline, Associated Press, Aug. 3
The
Kielbasa Browser
"Mozilla Creates Profit Arm: It Will Promote, Polish Products"--headline,
San Jose Mercury News, Aug. 3
Dog
du Jour
"South Korea's pioneering stem cell scientist has cloned a dog, smashing
another biological barrier and reigniting a fierce ethical debate--while producing
a perky, lovable puppy," the Associated Press reports:
The researchers, led by Hwang Woo-suk, insist they cloned an Afghan hound, a resplendent supermodel in a world of mutts, only to help investigate human disease, including the possibility of cloning stem cells for treatment purposes. . . .
The researchers nicknamed their canine creation Snuppy, for "Seoul National University puppy," a reference to Hwang's lab.
A cleverer name would have been Gaegogi.
(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Ruth Papazian, Doug Levene, M. Gilbertson, Tom Linehan, Stephan Thernstrom, Ron Ackert, Glenn Sheller, Bruce Goldman, Laurence Louden, Shelby Gubin, Finn McCool, Kasey Libby, Steve Fagel, Paul Woods, James Chase, Dave Vasquez, Tom Cunningham, Jim Orheim, Steve Roberts, John Williamson, Michael Segal, Tom Episcopio, Robert Elworth, Michael Lieber, Phil Buckleman, Daniel Foty, Tim Kauffman, Lee Stokes, Don Hubschman, Robert Gessner, Bob Krumm and Nelles Hamilton. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Robert Pollock: Why Manhattan's District Attorney Robert Morgenthau makes us feel safer.
- Peggy Noonan: West Virginia is almost heaven.
- Chris Lydgate: In Oregon, criminals run free while a prison stands empty.
- James Seaton: Is Theory going out of fashion in American universities?
