by JAMES TARANTO
Monday, August 22, 2005 3:19 P.M. EDT

Don't Go Changing to Try and Please the Voters
"Sen. John F. Kerry[*] told state legislators Friday the Democratic Party doesn't need to undergo an extreme makeover," the Associated Press reports from Seattle:

"We have to go out and fight for the real issues that make a difference in the lives of the American people and we don't need some great lurch to the right or lurch to the left or redefinition of the Democratic Party," the Massachusetts Democrat said. "The last thing America needs is a second Republican Party."

There's just one problem: The un-made-over Democrats have been losing elections for almost 40 years. In the 90th Congress, just after the 1966 election, the Democrats held 64 seats in the Senate and 246 in the House. Since then they have lost a net 19 Senate and 43 House seats (counting both bodies' current Vermont independents as Democrats), and they have lost seven out of 10 presidential elections.

Yet Kerry may be right that the alternatives are worse than standing pat. A Democratic shift to the right risks inflaming the party's Angry Left base, while a shift to the left would surely cost the party whatever support it has left from normal people. The least bad approach for the Democrats may indeed be to go into a defensive crouch in the hope of cutting the party's losses and riding out the current period of Republican dominance.

* The haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam.

Side Splitting
"Democrats Split Over Position on Iraq War," reads a front-page headline in today's Washington Post. In the New York Times, a headline proclaims "Democrats Are Split on Questioning Roberts." It seems Splitsville is the new capital of donkeydom.

Of course, the two splits are different. On Iraq, the split is a matter of substance. Some Democrats want to cut and run, while others just want to bitch and moan.

On the Roberts nomination, by contrast, the dispute is over form: How much do the Democrats want to embarrass themselves by asking Judge Roberts ignorant and obnoxious questions prior to his inevitable confirmation? On the substance, as the Times piece makes clear, the party is united:

Asked about debates within the caucus, Mr. Schumer emphasized the unity on Judge Roberts's nomination. "Not a single person has said they are for him or against him," he said. "Everyone is in sync."

If the Democrats' unity holds up, Roberts will be confirmed by a vote of 55-0.

It's All Over but the Pouting
Left-wing fantasists are chalking up Sheehanoia as a great victory for their side. Here's one John Nichols in the Capital Times of Madison, Wis.:

The supporters of this war have run out of convincing lies and effective emotional appeals. Now they are reduced to attacking the grieving mothers of dead soldiers. Samuel Johnson suggested that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. But, with their attacks on Cindy Sheehan, the apologists for Bush's infamy have found a new and darker refuge.

The obvious rejoinder is that it takes a superabundance of chutzpah to employ a grieving mother as a human shield and then paint your opponents as the aggressors.

The more interesting point, though, is that Nichols's lament proves Sheehanoia a failure on its own terms. The crippled-vet ploy is a bluff aimed at suppressing debate; the idea is that no one will dare criticize a crippled vet (or a grieving mom), so he wins the argument by default. But as Nichols illustrates, when the bluff is called, the only thing behind it is self-pity.

Sheehanoia Imitates ScrappleFace

"Sheehan Gets Surprise Visit From Woodstock Artists"--headline, ScrappleFace.com, Aug. 17

"They Are Stardust, and in Texas: At the Crawford Protest Camp, Growing Echoes of Woodstock"--headline and subheadline, Washington Post, Aug. 22

Patriotism, Frisco Style
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has voted to shun the USS Iowa, a warship that participated in battles in World War II and Korea, the Associated Press reports:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a former San Francisco mayor, helped secure $3 million to tow the Iowa from Rhode Island to the Bay Area in 2001 in hopes of making touristy Fisherman's Wharf its new home.

But city supervisors voted 8-3 last month to oppose taking in the ship, citing local opposition to the Iraq war and the military's stance on gays, among other things.

"If I was going to commit any kind of money in recognition of war, then it should be toward peace, given what our war is in Iraq right now," Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi said.

Andrew Sullivan looks more prescient every day in his Sept. 16, 2001 observation that "the decadent Left in its enclaves on the coasts . . . may well mount what amounts to a fifth column."

Roe v. Gay
Blogger Eugene Volokh looks at a survey on changing attitudes toward homosexuality. Here are the percentages of Americans in various age groups who said homosexual relations were "always wrong" in 1973 and 2002:

Here's Volokh's analysis:

If you look at the 18-29 age range in 1973 and the 45-59 range in 2002, which represent pretty much the same people (18-29-year-olds in 1973 would be 47-58 in 2002), the percentages are statistically identical, 56% and 55%. If you look at 30-59-year-olds in 1973 and 60-and-over in 2002, which should also be pretty much the same people (since only a small fraction of the 60-plus in 1973 survive in 2002), the change is from 74-75% to 68%, a significant change but a relatively small one.

So the primary reason for the 18% change does not seem to be that adults are hearing more about gay rights claims, seeing more out-of-the-closet gays at work or in social circles, and thus changing their views. There seems to be a modest such effect among those who were over 30 in 1973, but only a modest one.

Rather, the main change is in the views of the new generations (the ones who are now 18-44). And this change started with those who came of age in the 1960s and early 1970s (note that the "always wrong" figure has declined only from 56% to 48% from 1973 to 2002), and therefore seems likely to have been caused by the Sexual Revolution, which predated 1973, more than by the gay rights movement.

This conclusion, although consistent with the data, strikes us as highly counterintuitive--especially if we construe "the gay rights movement" more broadly to encompass not just politics but culture. In the past 20 years or so, there has been an enormous cultural shift, from largely ignoring homosexuality to sympathizing with and even celebrating it.

Part of this was of course driven by pre-existing baby-boomer sympathy, and a large part by the AIDS epidemic, which made homosexuality impossible to ignore. But it's hard to believe that this would have no effect on those who were going through their formative years during this time. Yet that is what the numbers--identical for 18- to 29-year-olds and 30- to 44-year-olds--seem to say.

But there is another possibility. Maybe the pro-gay culture shift has influenced the younger cohort but another factor has pushed the numbers in the opposite direction, resulting in a wash. We are thinking, of course, of the Roe effect. The 18- to 29-year-old cohort in 2002 coincides almost perfectly with the group born after Roe v. Wade. If, as we have hypothesized, liberal women are more likely to have abortions, then the effect of Roe would be to make subsequent generations more conservative than they otherwise would be. Thus the effect of the court's diktat legalizing abortion nationwide might have been to retard the progress of gay rights.

Abortion Advocates Outsmart Selves
The Associated Press reports on the murder of 24-year-old LaToyia Figueroa; her boyfriend, Stephen Poaches, has been arrested as a suspect:

District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham said Poaches, 25, would be charged with two counts of murder and related offenses for the deaths of Figueroa and her fetus.

Why does the AP calls the younger alleged victim a "fetus" rather than a "baby" or an "unborn child," which would be normal usage given that there's no indication Figueroa didn't intend to carry the pregnancy to term? Well, of course the language is a sop to TWOROTDOLHFCOOTCOTM**, whose entire ideology depends on maintaining the distinction between a "fetus" and a "baby."

The problem is, if, as in the Figueroa case, killing a "fetus" is murder, how can one say abortion is just a choice?

** Those who oppose restrictions on the destruction of live human fetuses, conditional only on the consent of the mother.

This Describes Maureen Dowd, Too
"Though Henrietta says 'Meow' instead of most words, her friends in the Neighborhood usually understand what she is saying."--Henrietta Pussycat biography, "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" Web site

How Long Before They Surrender to Themselves?
"French Countryside Hit by a Massive Invasion of Frogs"--headline, Independent (London), Aug. 21

What Would We Do Without Police?
"Police Call Body in Harbor Suspicious"--headline, San Francisco Chronicle, Aug. 19

What Would We Do Without Studies?
"Brain Cancer Takes Longterm Toll on Children-Study"--headline, Reuters, Aug. 19

Thanks for the Tip!--III
"Health Tip: Tongue Piercing Has Its Risks"--headline, HealthDayNews, Aug. 16

So Does Death
"Disease Causes Eyelids to Close and Not Reopen"--headline, KSL-TV Web site (Salt Lake City), Aug. 19

Pubs Packed in England, Scotland
"Ireland Closed This Week"--headline, WNDU-TV Web site (South Bend, Ind.), Aug. 21

Boxers or Briefs?
"Amazon.com Starts Selling Digital 'Shorts' "--headline, Associated Press, Aug. 20

Red Alert
From Agence France-Presse:

China's rapidly widening income gap has reached dangerous levels, risking social instability by 2010 if the present trend continues, a government report warns.

"China's growing income gap is likely to trigger social instability after 2010 if the government finds no effective solutions to end the disparity," the Ministry of Labour and Social Security warned in the China Daily.

Su Hainan, president of the ministry's income research institute, found income disparity in China had reached the crucial "yellow" stage--the second most serious in a scale of four defined by the institute.

The situation would deteriorate to the most dangerous "red" stage in 2010 if no effective measures were taken within the next five years, he said.

"Income disparity"? If we didn't know better, we'd think the Chinese government was run by a bunch of communists.

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Today on OpinionJournal:

• Review & Outlook: Negotiating with Iran has failed. It's time for a new approach.
• John Fund: Look who is resurrecting Jim Crow for political gain.
• Manuel Miranda: Which Democratic senator is most likely to damage himself politically in the Roberts fight?