by JAMES TARANTO
Tuesday, October 11, 2005 4:05 P.M. EDT

That Was Fast
"Liberal Hopes Ebb in Post-Storm Poverty Debate" reads a New York Times headline today. Jason DeParle reports:

As Hurricane Katrina put the issue of poverty onto the national agenda, many liberal advocates wondered whether the floods offered a glimmer of opportunity. The issues they most cared about--health care, housing, jobs, race--were suddenly staples of the news, with President Bush pledged to "bold action."

But what looked like a chance to talk up new programs is fast becoming a scramble to save the old ones. . . .

"We've had a stunning reversal in just a few weeks," said Robert Greenstein, director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal advocacy group in Washington. "We've gone from a situation in which we might have a long-overdue debate on deep poverty to the possibility, perhaps even the likelihood, that low-income people will be asked to bear the costs. I would find it unimaginable if it wasn't actually happening."

The Times quotes a couple of conservative antipoverty types, the Heritage Foundation's Stuart Butler and the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise's Robert Woodson. Butler identifies half the reason for the problem: that "the left has just talked up the old paradigm: 'let's expand what's failed before.' "

There's another part of the problem, though. Although the left is wedded to a failed ideology and the right has better antipoverty ideas, most conservatives view poverty as a fairly marginal issue. This makes political sense: The inner-city poor vote overwhelmingly Democratic, when they vote at all, so Republicans have little incentive to worry about how to improve their lives.

George W. Bush seems pretty clearly to be an exception to this; all indications are that he genuinely cares about the poor. And he did put forward some innovative ideas in the wake of Katrina. But there is a sense among political observers that the president is in a weak political position right now; if so, one would expect his poverty ideas to go by the boards.

Those who really care about the poor, then, should hope that the president recovers politically (or that his current supposed malaise is a case of wishful thinking on his opponents' part). The alternative is to wait for the left to free itself from its ideological straitjacket, and we wouldn't hold our breath for that.

She Ain't Hefty, She's My Sister
"First lady Laura Bush joined her husband in defending his nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday and said it was possible some critics were being sexist in their opposition to Harriet Miers," Reuters reports:

"That's possible, I think that's possible," Mrs. Bush said when asked on NBC's "Today Show" whether criticism that Miers lacked intellectual heft were sexist in nature. She said Miers' accomplishments as a lawyer were a role model to young women.

We guess we have to make a minimal concession here: It is possible that some critics are "sexist." The Boston Globe's Cathy Young offers one example:

Curiously, the nastiest gender-based swipe at Miers so far has come from a liberal feminist, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd. Dowd calls the women on the Bush team ''self-sacrificing, buttoned-up nannies serving as adoring work wives, catering to W's every political, legal, and ego-affirming need." So Bush's male friends are just cronies, but his female friends are described in blatantly sexist terms. Just imagine the reaction if a conservative male journalist wrote something like that about the women in a Democratic administration.

Wow, who knew Maureen Dowd was still a New York Times columnist?

Still, Dowd notwithstanding, the main reason people suspect Miers lacks "intellectual heft" is because her defenders, in and out of the White House, have essentially conceded the point. As we noted Friday and yesterday, they are promising that she will reliably vote with Chief Justice John Roberts. Blogger Steven Jens and numerous readers have argued that this is not meant to diminish Miers's intellect but merely to assert the similarity of her jurisprudential philosophy to Roberts's. Sorry, but this just strikes us as far-fetched--though of course if Miers, at her confirmation hearings, shows a Roberts-like depth of understanding of constitutional law, we will revise our opinion.

Miers may be very intelligent, but if so, her defenders ought to be able to make a convincing case. Instead we get things like this Houston Chronicle op-ed from Tom Uhler of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

I knew Harriet as another neighborhood kid in the '60s. She and her brothers grew up on our block on Preston Haven in North Dallas. She was actually one of the older kids when my brother and I came along, and even then, though she was most kind, she commanded respect, in a quiet way. It wasn't so much what she said, although she chose her words carefully; it was often what she didn't say. You got the message.

Although her brother, Jeb, now a doctor in Dallas, was sometimes a co-conspirator in our misadventures--smoking in the alley, playing near the Cotton Belt train tracks in defiance of our parents' orders--Harriet would never have any of it.

I wouldn't say I hung out with her--she was about seven years older and we were just punk kids. But I got to know her well enough, and she left a stamp.

In all honesty, folks, she was like one of those upright God-fearing characters in the books she'd take us to get at the mobile library when it came around. She was a beauty, too--kind of resembled Hailey [sic] Mills in those early movies, long blond hair, etc.

No one has denied that Miers is morally upright or "a beauty." People simply have their doubts as to whether her intellectual credentials are sufficient to make her a worthy Supreme Court nominee, to say nothing of the most qualified person for the job, as President Bush has asserted she is.

The pro-Miers response to this has been to assert that intellectual credentials don't matter or even that the lack of same is an advantage. This does appeal to a certain antielitist, or even anti-intellectual, strain in American politics. But there's nothing sexist about disagreeing. If Laura Bush has some evidence that Miers does possess intellectual heft, she would do better to come forward with it rather than insult the critics.

'The Greatest!'
Intrepid New York Times reporters Ralph Blumenthal and Simon Romero have gone digging into Harriet Miers's records and found evidence that she has--better sit down before you read this--"close ties to Bush":

You are the best governor ever - deserving of great respect," Harriet E. Miers wrote to George W. Bush days after his 51st birthday in July 1997. She also found him "cool," said he and his wife, Laura, were "the greatest!" and told him: "Keep up the great work. Texas is blessed."

Well, OK, maybe this isn't quite a bombshell after all, especially for those of us who've been reading Harriet Miers's Blog!!!

A Modest Proposal
Maybe Des Moines Register columnist Richard Doak is just being Swiftian, but he offers some advice to John Kerry* that we would love to see the haughty, French-looking, etc., etc., follow:

There is a significant public service Kerry could perform without running for office. He could sue the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth for libel.

If he won a verdict and big-money damages, it could send a message to advocacy groups in all future campaigns that they might pay dearly if they stray too far from the truth in their attacks. . . .

The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth was the group that, among other charges, asserted that Kerry did not deserve the combat medals he was awarded by the Navy in Vietnam. The available evidence indicated the Swift Boat assertions were false.

The trouble is, that "available evidence"--the official reports of the action that led to the medals--was largely provided by Kerry himself. It is very unlikely that Kerry could prove that the Swift Boat Veterans' charges were untrue, especially since he has acknowledged that some of them (regarding his first purple heart and his tale of spending Christmas in Cambodia) are true.

Although our view is that Kerry should be given the benefit of the doubt on the matters that remain in factual dispute, we have seen no convincing evidence to back up the assumption, commonly accepted in the media, that the Swift Boat Veterans unfairly maligned him. If Kerry wants to put this assumption to a test in court, then (to coin a phrase) bring it on.

* Two hundred fifty-four days and counting . . .

We Will Bury You (Eventually)
Remember Mikhail Gorbachev? Neither do we, but the Associated Press reports he has weighed in on a cutting-edge issue facing 21st-century Russia:

Former President Mikhail Gorbachev warned the Kremlin against quickly burying the embalmed body of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin, saying the nation isn't ready yet such a move, a news agency reported Tuesday.

Gorbachev, the last president of the Soviet Union before its 1991 collapse, said that Lenin's body eventually should be laid to rest at a proper moment in line with his own will, but added that "this moment has not come yet," the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

To put things in perspective, Lenin died on Jan. 21, 1924. This is about the time the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist was conceived. Rehnquist was born Oct. 1, 1924, lived a long and productive life, and has already beaten Lenin into the ground. C'mon Gorby, quit dawdling and grab a shovel already.

Homer Nods
An item yesterday on Unicef's Smurf snuff film stated that Belgians speak Belch. While this is the language of the French-speaking parts of Belgium, large parts of the country speak a variant of Dutch known as Phlegm. We regret the omission.

Not Too Brite--CXCVII
Reuters reports from Mexico City:

Long used to kidnappers and drug hitmen, Mexico's capital is now in fear of another type of criminal: a serial killer in women's clothes who strangles and batters old ladies in their homes.

Police believe a single murderer is responsible for the unusual killings of four elderly women in the city so far this year and may have committed some of 37 others since 2003.

Oddly Enough!

(For an explanation of the "Not Too Brite" series, click here.)

Just Like Beads Got Us Manhattan
"Rice Gets U.S. Use of Kyrgyzstan Air Base"--headline, Washington Post, Oct. 11

Breaking News From the Eighth Century
"Allegations of Vikings Sexual Misconduct Aboard Boats"--headline, Star Tribune (Minneapolis), Oct. 11

Women, Minorities Hardest Hit?
"World Helpless Against Assaults of Nature"--headline, Associated Press, Oct. 11

What Would Most in Nation Do Without Surveys?
"Survey Shows Most in Nation Don't Care About Iowa"--headline, Associated Press, Oct. 11

An Interesting Fashion Statement
"Court Nixes Full Appeal in BlackBerry Suit"--headline, Associated Press, Oct. 7

Isn't That Cheating?
"Limo Wins Chicago Marathon"--headline, News24.com (South Africa), Oct. 10

Plame Game?
"Leaks to Be Honored at Colorado Game"--headline, Austin American-Statesman, Oct. 10

Carpetbagger Curse
For the fifth time in as many years, the New York Yankees will not win the World Series. They were eliminated from the playoffs yesterday when they lost a five-game series to the Los Anaheim California Angels.

The Yanks' last world championship came in October 2000, just before Hillary Clinton, who falsely claimed to have been a lifelong Yankee fan, won a Senate seat. This is known as the "Carpetbagger Curse"--though at least it's not as bad as Boston's "Curse of the Bimbino." The Red Sox, also eliminated the other day, have won only one World Series in the rocky 21 years since Massachusetts elected John Kerry** to the Senate.

** Fop cit.

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Today on OpinionJournal:

• Review & Outlook: Karen Hughes's Mideast trip gets unfair reviews.
• Brendan Miniter: What the Miers fight means for future nominees, and for politics in Washington.
• Gabriel Schoenfeld: How to fix the CIA? "Get rid of the clowns."