From the WSJ Opinion Archives
Dems:
Hear No Evil
John Schmidt, who served as an assistant attorney general during the Clinton
administration, weighs in with a Chicago Tribune op-ed on the wiretapping kerfuffle:
President Bush's post- Sept. 11, 2001, authorization to the National Security Agency to carry out electronic surveillance into private phone calls and e-mails is consistent with court decisions and with the positions of the Justice Department under prior presidents. . . .
In the Supreme Court's 1972 Keith decision holding that the president does not have inherent authority to order wiretapping without warrants to combat domestic threats, the court said explicitly that it was not questioning the president's authority to take such action in response to threats from abroad.
Four federal courts of appeal subsequently faced the issue squarely and held that the president has inherent authority to authorize wiretapping for foreign intelligence purposes without judicial warrant.
In the most recent judicial statement on the issue, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, composed of three federal appellate court judges, said in 2002 that "All the . . . courts to have decided the issue held that the president did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence . . . We take for granted that the president does have that authority."
The New York Times reports on one of those cases:
A Federal appeals court has ruled that the National Security Agency may lawfully intercept messages between United States citizens and people overseas, even if there is no cause to believe the Americans are foreign agents, and then provide summaries of these messages to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
This article appeared Nov. 7, 1982, and is reprinted by Newsbusters.org. But last week the Times was shocked, shocked to learn that the NSA was spying on al Qaeda. The Drudge Report notes that both President Carter and President Clinton signed executive orders providing for warrantless searches.
This is looking increasingly like another effort by hostile journalists to gin up a fake scandal and discredit the administration. And once again, Democrats are falling for it. From the Associated Press:
Domestic spying authorized by the White House "doesn't uphold our Constitution" and President Bush offered a "lame" defense in recent public appearances, Sen. John Kerry[*] said Tuesday.
The [haughty, French-looking] Massachusetts Democrat, who [by the way served in Vietnam and] lost to Bush in the 2004 presidential election, also said the alleged White House leak of a CIA agent's identity was more serious than the media's disclosure of the spying program.
This is proof, as if any were needed, that Kerry is not serious. Remember that in January 2004, Kerry described the war against terror as "primarily an intelligence and law-enforcement operation" rather than a military one. If he is to be believed--admittedly, a big "if"--a President Kerry would have been more concerned with terrorists' "rights" than with gathering intelligence to prevent terror attacks.
Some Democrats, less hinged than Kerry, are even using the I-word, presumably in part because they're still sore over Bill Clinton's impeachment. Almost every Democrat opposed Clinton's impeachment, which we guess tells us something about their view of proper presidential conduct: Self-serving lies under oath are no big deal, but protecting Americans from terrorist attacks is unforgivable.
* In lieu of the footnote, see bracketed material in second paragraph of block quote, infra (or since you're here now, should it be supra?)
Patriot
Games
Senate Democrats, who were for the USA Patriot Act before they were against
it, are now for it again, sort of. After filibustering its renewal last week
(with help from a handful of Republicans from states terrorists probably wouldn't
bother targeting), the Dems have now agreed to a compromise of sorts, Reuters
reports from Washington:
U.S. Senate leaders reached a bipartisan agreement on Wednesday to extend for six months key provisions of the anti-terrorism USA Patriot Act set to expire in 10 days.
The accord, to be voted on later on Wednesday, would provide time for Congress to try to resolve differences over safeguards for civil liberties before making most of the provisions the Bush administration deems necessary for its war on terror permanent.
Hmm, this means the act will expire at the end of June, so the debate on renewal will take place in the spring--which is probably late enough to make it a 2006 election issue. Will the Democrats make their opposition to the Patriot Act a central campaign issue? Probably not, but the Republicans will.
Miss
America
The Web site of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid features this letter to "friends":
Energy is critically important to our future and our national security. Recently, my Democratic colleagues and I introduced Energy Independence 2020, our plan to secure 's energy future. We are passionate about this because we need to move beyond an energy policy that only benefits special interests, together we can do better.
Our country needs a fresh start, and this plan will make more clean, more green, and more secure. Developing new energy sources is one of our most important national goals. I am proud that Nevada has been a leader in renewable energy technology and environmentally friendly policies. I will continue to ensure that this trend continues and that we realize these goals.
Do you notice anything missing? Well, what does Reid mean by "our plan to secure 's energy future"? Shouldn't there be something before that apostrophe-S? And how about "this plan will make more clean, more green and more secure"? Make is a transitive verb; where's the direct object?
In both cases Reid has left out "America." We don't know what this means, but we're sure it has some deep psychological significance.
(Hat tip: blogger Robert Pearson.)
The
Least Popular President, Except for All The Others
Something is wrong with the arithmetic in this dispatch from Reuters:
President George W. Bush ranks as the least popular and most bellicose of the last ten U.S. presidents, according to a new survey.
Only nine percent of the 662 people polled picked Bush as their favorite among the last 10 presidents. John F. Kennedy topped that part of the survey, with 26 percent, closely followed by Bill Clinton (25 percent) and Ronald Reagan (23 percent).
So let's see if we have this straight: these four presidents combined account for 26% (JFK) plus 23% (Reagan) plus 25% (Clinton) plus 9% (Bush). That's a total of 83%.
Therefore a total of 17% of those surveyed picked one of the remaining six presidents--or, to put it another way, those six presidents scored an average of 2.83%. It's conceivable that one of the six bested Bush's 9%--but no more than one of them could have, which means Bush is at least the fifth most popular of the 10 most recent presidents.
Perhaps it's too much to expect wire-service reporters to have mastered simple arithmetic, but the errors always seem to go in one direction.
Spot
the Idiot
Sometimes it seems too easy to pick on Derrick Jackson, but he is a columnist
for a semirespectable newspaper, which unlike the New York Times insists on
making his stuff available free to all on the Internet, so we suppose we must.
Jackson is upset that President Bush talks of defending "our way of life"
against terrorists. Jackson doesn't approve of our way of life; and he has a
particular distaste for fancy electronic gadgets:
The wealthy spend virtually the same on entertainment as on food at home ($4,503). The biggest increases in entertainment spending were for televisions, radios, and sound equipment. Entertainment spending drops dramatically as you move down the quintiles, the quintiles more likely to produce our soldiers. . . .
No one has a problem with enjoying special treats with the family. But the invasion and occupation of Iraq is headed toward its third anniversary. To this day, Bush has not called for a national sacrifice to match the courage of the soldiers dying in Iraq. Not even giving up our plasma TV screens and our video games. He says our soldiers are protecting our way of life. We have yet to question whether it is a way of life worth living.
Actually, the electronics industry is a wonderful example of the egalitarian effects of the free market. We bought our first CD player in 1984 for $450; today you can purchase one for as little as $12. Is there a poor household in America that doesn't have a color television?
In any case, what in the world does Jackson's resentment of well-heeled early adopters have to do with Iraq?
Era
Dawns; Poor Hardest Hit
"People of the Future to Live High in the Sky With No Natural World Around
Them: The poor will live at cheap bottom levels suffering from sunshine shortage.
The rich may feel ill at ease due to their life in midair"--headline and
subheadline, Pravda, Dec. 20
City
1, Thugs 0
The Associated Press reports New York City's illegal transit strike is about
to end:
Striking bus and subway workers agreed Thursday to "take steps" to go back to work while their union and the transit authority resume negotiations, a mediator said.
The deal with the Transit Workers Union could pave the way for a resumption in service by Friday, if the union's executive board gives the final OK. The strike, the system's first in 25 years, halted service for millions.
We guess they have to "take steps" to get back to work, seeing as how the buses and trains aren't running! A report from NY1, the local cable news station, suggests that the nonworking workers aren't all that enthusiastic about the strike:
"First of all we want to apologize to the general public," added a third [striker]. "I mean this is something I hope the public understands what we're going through. We don't want to be out here. We are freezing, we know we're not going to get any money, but the fact of the matter is the future of our union is at stake here."
Meanwhile, workers walking off the job at the 14th Street and Eighth Avenue station in Chelsea told NY1 they didn't want to go on strike, but one worker said "sometimes you need to take a step backward to see where you're gong [sic]."
"It wasn't really a surprise. Wwe [sic] felt like we need to go on strike," said another worker. "The T[ransit] A[uthority] has been abusing us for quite some years now."
"Nobody wants to be on strike," added another. "We're going to have family members affected by the strike. Nobody wants to see the strike."
The New York Times reports union leaders and other rabble-rousers are trying to play the race card:
What may have begun inadvertently, when Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said on Tuesday that union leaders had "thuggishly turned their backs on New York City," took on a life of its own yesterday as minority leaders and union members attacked the mayor's conduct as objectionable, or worse. "There has been some offensive and insulting language used," said Roger Toussaint, the union leader. "This is regrettable and it is certainly unbecoming for the mayor of the city of New York to be using this type of language."
But others were more extreme in their response. Leroy Bright, 56, a black bus operator who is also a union organizer, saw racial coding in Mr. Bloomberg's choice of words. "The word thug is usually attributed to people of color whenever something negative takes place," he said, adding that the language was "unnecessarily hostile."
The Rev. Al Sharpton, who called an evening news conference to blast Mr. Bloomberg, said in an interview: "How did we become thugs? Because we strike over a pension?"
"I do not think the language would have been used in a union that was not as heavily populated by people of color," he added. "And whether he intentionally did it or not, he offended a lot of people of color and he ought to address that, and come to the bargaining table."
It says something encouraging about race relations in America, or at least in New York, that this kind of demagoguery makes Toussaint & Co. look more clownish than thuggish.
Another view on the illegal strike comes from Kenneth Coughlin (second letter):
I walked out into my Upper West Side neighborhood this morning and thought that I was dreaming. Few cars, many cyclists and pedestrians, no horns blaring, clean air for a change. The democratic mix of street users reminded me of European cities I have visited.
It is during extraordinary events like transit strikes or snowstorms that we realize how much the automobile degrades our environment. If we can limit driving during a strike, why not when the subways and buses are running?
So all we need to do to make New York more like those wonderful European cities is get rid of mass transit altogether!
Homelessness Rediscovery Watch
"If George W. Bush becomes president, the armies of the homeless, hundreds of thousands strong, will once again be used to illustrate the opposition's arguments about welfare, the economy, and taxation."--Mark Helprin, Oct. 31, 2000
"Transit Strike Leave NYC Homeless in Cold"--headline, Associated Press, Dec. 21, 2005
'Choice'
Has Its Limits
The Boston Herald reports that Bay State regulators are taking food out of the
mouths of infants:
Beginning soon, hospitals will no longer be allowed to give free infant formula to mothers taking new babies home. Regulators want to promote breast-feeding, even if it means making Massachusetts the first state to ban the popular freebie.
Every time anyone proposes some modest restriction on abortion, outraged feminists shriek that women are perfectly capable of making up their own minds and it's an insult to suggest otherwise. But if women get to decide whether their children live or die, why can't they be trusted to decide what to feed them?
Worthwhile
Canadian Initiative?
Anne Levinson, a former deputy mayor of Seattle, celebrates Christmas with a
sour little left-wing litany in the pages of the Seattle Times. The complaints
are mostly familiar: "pollution that contributes to global warming . . .
withholds desperately needed funding for AIDS treatment . . . defied
the will of the global community to go to war . . . I and other lesbians
and gay men wake up each day in this state and in this country of ours not having
such basic universal rights."
But this paragraph caught our attention:
The America I grew up loving used to stand as a symbol of hope, of equality, of liberty and justice, not only for the rest of the world, but for its own citizens. I love this country, but the America I live in today makes me long for unwavering and principled leaders who will stand up for their citizens the way Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin stood up earlier this year in the House of Commons to support civil-marriage equality for his country's citizens [i.e., for same-sex marriage].
Levinson is 47 or 48 years old (a search turned up an Aug. 12, 1997, story that said she was 39), which means she grew up in the 1960s and early 1970s. Is she really so divorced from reality that she thinks the country has become less tolerant of homosexuals since then?
The
Right to Swing
Speaking of Canada, that country is blazing new trails in jurisprudence, Reuters
reports from Ottawa:
Group sex between consenting adults is neither prostitution nor a threat to society, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on Wednesday, dismissing arguments that the sometimes raucous activities of so-called "swingers" clubs were dangerous.
Could it happen here? Who knows? In an observation widely attributed to Justice Anthony Kennedy, the U.S. Supreme Court has said, "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." Somehow the court has taken this to mean abortion and sodomy, so why not group sex? And they do say Kennedy is a "swing" justice.
Homer Nods
Two small errors in Tuesday's column, both since corrected: We meant to say
Wile
E. Coyote was lupine, not "vulpine" ("canine" would
also have worked), and an article about an anti-Israel
Israeli came from Arutz Sheva, not Ha'aretz.
What
Would We Do Without Hot Air Balloon Experts?
"Hot Air Balloon Experts Say Safety Should Be First"--headline, KESQ-TV
Web site (Palm Springs, Calif.), Dec. 21
What
Would Teens Do Without Wisconsin Studies?
"Wisconsin Study: Teens Play It Safe but Still Take Risks"--headline,
WAOW-TV Web site (Wausau, Wis.), Dec. 21
Thanks
for the Tip!--XXVIII
"Health Tip: Teen Years Can Be Tough"--headline, HealthDayNews, Dec. 22
Give
Me the Bad News First, Doc
"Study: Impotence Can Warn of Heart Disease"--headline, Associated
Press, Dec. 22
If
They Don't Ail Him, What Does?
"Parole Board Denies Ailing Kevorkian"--headline, Associated Press,
Dec. 22
Shades
of 'Soylent Green'
"Films Show Terrorists as People"--headline, USA Today, Dec. 21
That's
One Talented Calf
"Moose Captured After Son Plays Saxophone"--headline, Associated Press,
Dec. 20
Next
They'll Count Moose With Saxophones
"India to Count Tigers With Computers"--headline, Reuters, Dec. 21
That
Explains Our Headache
"Researchers: Sweet Tooth May Be in Brain"--headline, Associated Press,
Dec. 20
Why
the British Are Unlucky in Love
"Fewer Teeth May Mean More Heart Woes"--headline, HealthDayNews, Dec. 22
The
First Thing We Do, Let's Kill All the Lawyers
"Lawyers: Don't Let Doctors Perform Executions"--headline, Atlanta
Journal-Constitution, Dec. 21
Able
Danger
"Former state Sen. Neil Bryant has withdrawn his name from consideration
for a state board appointment after apologizing for writing 'white/male' on
a form asking if he had a disability," the Oregonian reports from Salem:
Bryant said Tuesday that he told Gov. Ted Kulongoski last week that he had made the notation in an attempt to be humorous, but he wound up kicking himself.
"I sincerely and profoundly apologize for any discomfort I have caused," the Bend attorney wrote in a letter Thursday withdrawing his name. "No one is to blame but me." . . .
"I responded 'white/male,' " he explained in his letter to Kulongoski's office. "I did this to be humorous. I did not qualify for any affirmative action objectives on the form. I should have simply responded 'no.' " . . .
On Tuesday, Sen. Jackie Winters, R-Salem, said she was surprised because Bryant is viewed as a moderate Republican who is fair and balanced. Winters did not serve in the Legislature with Bryant and has not spoken with him about his wording on the form.
"I'm really speechless because you don't expect that kind of response," said Winters. "Certainly, it's not appropriate. It's not humorous."
We have to agree that Bryant should keep his day job; his joke really isn't funny. But all this censorious clucking over a lame but inoffensive attempt at humor is hilarious.
(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Ed Lasky, Bob Batts, Nicholas Penchuk, Sam Condic, M. Gilbertson, Chris Scibelli, Ron Ackert, Jerome Marcus, Edward Tannen, Paul Dyck, Jared Silverman, Ethel Fenig, Dan O'Shea, Evan Slatis, Richard Weins, Thomas Dillon, Ike Andrews, Brendan Schulman, C.E. Dobkin, Christopher Desmond, Jim Orheim, David Johns, Brian Crouch, Allen O'Donnell, Chris Nicastri, Skip King, Alex Duncan, Mitch Cobb, Ward Clark, Ted Bezat, Raymond Woodward, Aaron Spetner, Phil Hord, Bill Heyman, Ruth Papazian, Joseph Tully, Lauren Shniderman, Michael Segal, William Katz, Kevin Littleton, Skip Fendley, Dave Neidert, Greg Martine, Jonathan Lubar, Brad Dodds and Lars Larson. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Bret Stephens: The U.S. military wins hearts and minds in Pakistan.
- Peggy Noonan: The media may be biased, but even they support the troops.
- Ted Van Dyk: In Seattle, you can't hear those rails a-hummin'.
- John Whitehead: "It's now a war between us," Eliot Spitzer told me. "I will be coming after you."
