From the WSJ Opinion Archives
Dems
in Disarray
The Chicago Tribune brings a useful reality check on the politics of Iraq:
Sen. Barack Obama said Monday that the Democratic Party was unlikely to reconcile its differences and reach a unified strategy for Iraq, conceding: "The politics and the policy of this may not match perfectly."
As Democrats work to win control of Congress in the 2006 elections, Obama (D-Ill.) said a cacophony of views over the Iraq war threatens to divide the party once again.
"It is arguable that the best politics going into '06 would be a clear succinct message: 'Let's bring our troops home,' " Obama said. "It's certainly easier to communicate and I think would probably have some pretty strong resonance with the American people right now, but whether that's the best policy right now, I don't feel comfortable saying it is."
On the other hand, San Antonio's WOAI-AM reports that party chairman Howard Dean is embracing defeat:
Saying the "idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong," Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean predicted today that the Democratic Party will come together on a proposal to withdraw National Guard and Reserve troops immediately, and all US forces within two years. . . .
"I've seen this before in my life. This is the same situation we had in Vietnam. Everybody then kept saying, 'just another year, just stay the course, we'll have a victory.' Well, we didn't have a victory, and this policy cost the lives of an additional 25,000 troops because we were too stubborn to recognize what was happening."
An e-mail from John Kerry's* "campaign" that popped into our e-mailbox this morning struck a decidedly different tone. It declared, "Each move they make we'll meet head on. We'll act quickly, decisively, and we won't yield an inch." Needless to say, Kerry referred not to America's enemies but to Republican fund-raising efforts.
It's important to keep in mind what is behind all the talk about Vietnam. The outcome of that war was a defeat for America, but it was a triumph for those who wanted America to withdraw. It was bad for the Democratic Party, which has lost elections far more often than not since splintering over the war in 1968, but it was a triumph for those Democrats who advocate a form of isolationism based on the premise that America is morally tainted. Those folks are still around, as New York's Daily News reports:
Anti-war activists furious with Sen. Hillary Clinton are vowing to bird-dog her everywhere she goes, starting with a swanky Manhattan fund-raiser tonight.
Clinton's letter last week clarifying her position on Iraq--which included rejecting a timetable for withdrawal--fanned the anger of some war opponents, who decided to launch a campaign against New York's junior senator.
"We're calling it Bird-Dog Hillary," said Medea Benjamin of the peace group Codepink.
The left-wing isolationists reached their apogee with the nomination of George McGovern in 1972, the same year the Democratic Party, at the presidential level, reached its nadir. Since then, they have won elections only when foreign policy receded as an issue: after the withdrawal from Vietnam (1976) and after the Cold War was won (1992 and 1996). Democrats, in short, thrive on the illusion of peace. That's why they're increasingly rooting openly for defeat in Iraq: They hope that a relatively quiet few years will follow, which would be good for their short-term political fortunes.
Presumably the reality of peace would suit Democratic interests as well as the illusion. That is, as with the Cold War, a clear victory would help the Democrats politically by neutralizing the issue of their foreign-policy fecklessness. Too bad the party's small but noisy anti-American base makes it untenable for the party's pols to take an unambiguously pro-American position.
* The haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way alleges that U.S. troops are "terrorizing kids and children" in Iraq. But he supports the troops!
Lowell
Life
A qualification is in order to the conclusion of our preceding item: except
Joe
Lieberman. But let's face it: The Nutmeg State's junior senator is never
going to become president, not as a Democrat anyway. The Associated Press reports
that the erstwhile Republican whom Lieberman unseated 17 years ago is speaking
out from beyond the political grave:
Former Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. said today that Sen. Joe Lieberman deserves a stiff challenge in next year's re-election campaign, though he said he would not take up a grudge match against the Democrat who ousted him from the U.S. Senate in 1988.
Speaking at a luncheon of the Rotary Club of Hartford, Weicker took numerous swings at Lieberman and President Bush over the Iraq war.
"I have seen this country propagandized into war," Weicker said. "It's now a second wave of propagandizing, with the president taking the stump, joined by persons like Senator Joe Lieberman."
Left-wing extremists consider Lieberman a traitor to their party, but on many matters not related to national security he is a fairly reliable partisan. Before joining the compromise on judicial filibusters, for instance, he didn't dissent from a single filibuster; and he voted against Clarence Thomas's confirmation in 1991. Weicker, by contrast, was a reliable vote against his party: He voted against not only Robert Bork but William Rehnquist. The 1988 Connecticut Senate race is no doubt one most Republicans are grateful to have lost.
Why
Conservatives Are Smarter
Writing in the Jerusalem Post, Jonathan Rosenblum of Jewish Media Resources
ponders the careers of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice-designate Sam
Alito, and in the process makes an excellent point about Ivy League conservatives
and liberals:
Because of their minority status it is far more difficult for conservative students to entertain the illusion that all smart people think like them. They are exposed to many obviously bright young men and women whose opinions on almost every issue vary radically from their own. . . .
Being forced to recognize that there are different points of view helps make bright young conservatives such good debaters. They learn early on the limited persuasiveness of shouting at someone with whom they disagree, "You're an idiot." Of necessity they have to develop the ability to cast their arguments in ways that appeal to those starting from very different premises. . . .
Liberals can be wonderful people, and boon companions, but they often have a hard time dealing with people of opposing views--especially when they cannot dismiss them out of hand as idiots. Too often they have spent their entire adult lives surrounded almost entirely by those who think just like them, and it comes naturally to dismiss those of other views as intellectually or morally challenged.
This is true beyond the Ivy League, as we noted just after the 2004 election. With liberalism the dominant ideology in the news and entertainment media, it is virtually inescapable to any American who doesn't go to great lengths to insulate himself from it. Big-city liberals, by contrast, can easily filter out conservative ideas, and thus need contend only with their own prejudices. Thus conservatives are smarter than liberals--not necessarily in terms of native intelligence, but of understanding the world around them.
Dismissal
of Indictment = 'Widening Political Scandal'
"A Texas judge dismissed part of a criminal indictment against U.S. Rep.
Tom DeLay on Monday, but upheld other charges that will put the powerful Republican
lawmaker on trial for money laundering. . . . The charges are part
of a widening political scandal around DeLay."--Reuters, Dec. 5
Paper
Cuts
"MoveOn.org has launched a petition drive to protest job reductions at
the Los Angeles Times and three other Tribune Co. newspapers," the Times
itself reports. The petition
reads:
Don't cut newspaper staff at the Los Angeles Times. As corporate owners in Chicago reap large profits from the Times, there is no excuse for them to force our paper to abandon its responsibility to deliver strong watchdog journalism to the public.
We too do not like hearing about layoffs at newspapers, but this is for selfish reasons: We work for one of them and have an interest in the economic health of the sector. MoveOn's interests are ideological and partisan--and their protest suggests something about the ideological and partisan content of "watchdog journalism."
In
Which Culture Is It a Sign of Approbation?
"An angry crowd confronted Iraq's former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi at
a Shiite shrine south of Baghdad on Sunday. . . . Once Allawi and
his entourage were inside, the crowd grew to about 60 and as the group left,
they were showered with stones and shoes--a sign of contempt in Iraqi culture."--Associated
Press, Dec. 5
Moonbat Fun House
What do terrorists and "antiwar activists" have in common? Here's
one nonobvious thing: On Friday
and again yesterday
we noted the tendency of terror groups to use a variety of names in order to
create an illusion that they are more numerous than they are. Turns out left-wing
fringe groups do the same thing here in America. Consider this list of "groups":
- International Action Center
- People Judge Bush
- Troops Out Now!
- No Draft, No Way!
- People's Video Network
According to their Web sites, all of these groups are located in the same room, at 39 West 14th Street, #206, in New York City, and all share a phone number. According to this page, that room also is the headquarters of the Mumia Mobilization Office, which doesn't appear to have its own Web site. The International Action Center, run by crackpot (or, as the New York Times calls him, "contrarian") Ramsey Clark, seems to be the moonbat mother ship. Clark is off in Baghdad representing Saddam Hussein, which tells you something about what these "antiwar" "groups" actually stand for.
Faint
Praise Dept.
"Chomsky is much more a gentleman than Dershowitz."--Eric Alterman,
Dec. 5
You
Don't Say
"Nigerian E-Mail Scammers Feeding on Greed, Gullibility"--headline,
Globe and Mail (Toronto), Dec. 5
What
Would We Do Without Studies?
"Study Links Bake Sales, Weight Problems"--headline, Associated Press,
Dec. 5
An
Expert We Can Do Without
"Nationally known speaker Michael Fortino is facing an Arkansas judge on
Monday on charges of possessing child pornography. Fortino has a reputation
as an expert in time, stress and lifestyle management."--Internet Broadcasting
Systems, Dec. 5
News
You Can Use
"Learning to Be a Good Parent Can Stop Abuse"--headline, Honolulu
Advertiser, Dec. 5
That's
OK, We Prefer Tuna Fish
"Tenured Teachers Rarely Canned"--headline, Pantagraph (Bloomington,
Ill.), Dec. 6
It's
That Mick Jagger Ring Tone
"Cell Phone Users' Satisfaction Still Low"--headline, San Jose Mercury
News, Dec. 5
They
Might Want to Check Grant's Tomb
"Program for Ex-Convicts Loses US Grant"--headline, Boston Globe,
Dec. 6
Wouldn't
a Shirt Suffice?
"Aniston's Attorney Threatens Suit Over Nude Pictures"--headline,
KFI-AM Web site (Los Angeles), Dec. 5
He
Does Weddings Too
"British Usher in Civil Gay Partnerships"--headline, Boston Globe,
Dec. 6
Has
Anyone Told the Shop Steward?
"Gay Britons Signing Up as Unions Become Legal"--headline, New York
Times, Dec. 6
Thanks
for the Tip!--XXII
"Health Tip: Double Vision Has Many Causes"--headline, HealthDayNews,
Dec. 6
Thanks
for the Tip!--XXII
"Health Tip: Double Vision Has Many Causes"--headline, HealthDayNews,
Dec. 6
Bottom
Story of the Day
"ABBA: We Will Never Re-Form"--headline, CNN.com, Dec. 5
Today
in History
From the report of the independent counsel investigating President Clinton,
this blast from the past:
On the morning of Saturday, December 6 [1997], Ms. Lewinsky went to the White House to deliver the letter and gifts to the President. The gifts included a sterling silver antique cigar holder, a tie, a mug, a "Hugs and Kisses" box, and an antique book about Theodore Roosevelt. Ms. Lewinsky planned to leave the parcel with Ms. Currie, who had told Ms. Lewinsky that the President would be busy with his lawyers and unable to see her.
Ms. Lewinsky arrived at the White House at approximately 10:00 a.m. She told the Secret Service uniformed officers at the Northwest Gate that she had gifts to drop off for the President, but that Ms. Currie did not know she was coming. Ms. Lewinsky and the officers made several calls in an attempt to locate Ms. Currie. The officers eventually invited Ms. Lewinsky inside the guard booth. When Ms. Currie learned that Ms. Lewinsky was at the Northwest Gate, she sent word that the President "already had a guest in the [O]val," so the officers should have Ms. Lewinsky wait there for about 40 minutes.
While Ms. Lewinsky was waiting, one officer mentioned that Eleanor Mondale was in the White House. Ms. Lewinsky correctly surmised that the President was meeting with Ms. Mondale, rather than his lawyers, and she was "livid."
Takes you back, doesn't it?
If
This Were True, Would Women Always Complain About How Cold It Is?
"The debate over climate change evolved into a battle of the sexes Monday
at the 11th annual United Nations Climate Change Conference in Montreal. The
spokesman for a feminist-based environmental group accused men of being the
biggest contributors to human-caused 'global warming' and lamented that women
are bearing the brunt of the negative climate consequences created by men."--CNSNews.com,
Dec. 6
The
Puck Stops Here
Yesterday we
noted one possible benefit of "global warming": that it could
eventually bring ice hockey to Florida. Increasing the heat on Canada may spur
the development of technology that would allow hockey to be played indoors,
thus permitting it to be played even in places that are too warm in the current,
unwarmed world.
Well, it turns out Florida already has a hockey team--sort of. The Florida Everblades are headquartered in Estero, Fla., which is on the Gulf Coast between Cape Coral and Naples. But because of the weather in Florida, they have to play nearly 5,000 miles away, in a German arena. So the next time you're gassing up your SUV, you can feel good knowing you're helping bring the Everblades home to the Everglades.
(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to John Hartness, Milo Grummons, Charlie Gaylord, M. Gilbertson, Cliff Thier, Ethel Fenig, Debbie Hughett, Rod Pennington, Thomas Dillon, Bill Vis, Dan O'Shea, Joe Seely, Monty Krieger, C.E. Dobkin, Jeff Meling, Jake Freivald, Allen O'Donnell, Vincent Flynn, Gregory Lehman, George Miller, Matthew McInteer, Oleg Atbashian, Jim Orheim, Judy Linett, John Forsberg, Roger Love, Leon Polyakov, Rhonda Cisneros, Jeannemarie Martell, Karen Brown, Karen Schulthes, Daniel Foty, Peter Nichols, Chris Nicastri, Jonathan Ross, Ruth Papazian, Ruth Papazian, Matt Knudson, Tomas Nally, Skip King, Leonora LaMantia, Douglas McPeek, Peter Huntsman, Steve Prestegard and Peter Guis. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Review & Outlook: Patrick Fitzgerald's modified limited hangout.
- Brendan Miniter: What's bad for General Motors is bad for the Pentagon too.
- Rick Wagoner: GM wants a level playing field, not a bailout.
