From the WSJ Opinion Archives
Mission
Accomplished
"Think of what happened 20 minutes ago in the United States Senate,"
declared Searchlight's dim bulb to a Democratic audience in December. "We
killed the Patriot Act."
It turned out to be Harry Reid's "mission accomplished" moment. Yesterday the Patriot Act sprang back to life as the Senate voted 89-10 to reauthorize it. The dissenting votes, all Democrats except nominal independent Jim Jeffords, came mostly from states like Iowa, Vermont and West Virginia, which have few A-list terror targets. Among those voting for the Patriot Act: Harry Reid.
Another pro-Patriot Democrat turned out to be ultraliberal Barbara Boxer of California. This Angry Left heartthrob is causing heartache for Daily Kos diarist "awater":
I feel so betrayed by her and by the Democratic party in general on this issue that I don't quite know what to do. Why should I even live in this country anymore when those that say they are here to fight for the good--just sell out because they are afraid of appearing to be "soft on terror"? What is the point of voting or being here at all?
No, awater, don't do it! You have so much to live for! Like Russ Feingold, and Pat Leahy, and John Kerry* . . . Oh, wait. Sorry. You're right:
On top of this betrayal, there is John Kerry who also voted in support of the Patriot Act. A man that had the incredibly bad taste to ask for donations on this site a day or so go--to then go forward and vote for the Patriot Act--Skull and Bones indeed.
Indeed. But buck up! It turns out Kerry voted against the Patriot Act before he voted for it.
* "A whole bunch of folks in America are concerned about the way the Patriot Act has been applied. . . . People's rights have been abused. . . . Now, I voted for the Patriot Act. . . . Now that's not a flip-flop."--Oct. 8, 2004
No
Thanks for the Tip
National Review's Jim Geraghty argues that America is at a "tipping point"
in public attitudes toward Arabs and Muslims:
In the USA Today poll, when asked, "Which comes closer to your view about Arab and Muslim countries that are allies of the United States?" 45 percent of respondents said, "trust the same as any other ally"; 51 percent said they trust these countries "less than other allies."
That's a remarkably honest poll result. Let's face it, Americans have been told since kindergarten not to judge ethnic and religious groups differently from one another; now slightly more than half are willing to come out and say, "you know, I just don't trust those guys as much as I trust others."
Welcome to Post-Tipping Point politics. There is no upside to doing the right thing--which is to emphasize, as one blogger put it, that there is a difference between Dubai and Damascus. There is tremendous political upside to doing the wrong thing, boldly declaring, "I don't care what the Muslim world thinks, I'm not allowing any Arab country running ports here in America! I don't care how much President Bush claims these guys are our allies, I don't trust them, and I'm not going to hand them the keys to the vital entries to our country!" . . .
The interesting thing is the post-Tipping Point view on the Muslim world is alien to Bush; I suspect he would find it abhorrent. Unfortunately, that puts him out of step with a large chunk of the public--a vocal, angry chunk that is likely to have plenty of politicians courting it.
Courting these voters will mean supporting proposals that are supported by wide swaths of the American people, but are largely considered nonstarters in Washington circles: much tougher immigration restrictions, including patrolling the Mexican border; racial profiling of airline passengers instead of confiscating grandma's tweezers; drastically reducing or eliminating entry visas to residents of Muslim or Arab countries; and taking a much tougher line with Saudi Arabia and coping with the consequences of that stance. . . .
It would be ugly. Picture Ann Coulter's "ragheads" commentary, Michael Savage's trademark hyperbole, Lou Dobbs' "the corporate fatcats are selling us all out in the name of profits!" table-pounding rhetoric rolled into one campaign aimed at playing to those worst instincts--"we're tired of sorting out the good Muslims from the bad Muslims and the good Arabs from the bad. From now on, we're treating 'em all as potential threats."
We've argued that such an attitude is likely to prevail if there is another terrorist attack in America on the scale of 9/11. But it's possible that wouldn't even be necessary. Already, as the Newark Star-Ledger reports, one of the U.S. Senate's most liberal members is literally demonizing Arabs:
An Arab-American civil rights group [Wednesday] accused Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) of making racist comments about Arabs during a New Jersey rally this week when he condemned the takeover of U.S. port operations by an United Arab Emirates-owned company. . . .
"We wouldn't transfer the title to the devil; we're not going to transfer it to Dubai," Lautenberg said.
We have long suspected that liberals are more prejudiced than conservatives, as evidenced, for instance, by the glee with which they attack black conservatives on racial grounds. This sort of thing certainly bolsters our suspicion.
John
Tyler, Look Out
"President Carter personally called Secretary of State Rice to try to convince
her to reverse her U.N. ambassador's position on changes to the U.N. Human Rights
Commission, the former president recalled yesterday in a talk," reports
the New York Sun:
Mr. Carter said he made a personal promise to ambassadors from Egypt, Pakistan, and Cuba on the U.N. change issue that was undermined by America's ambassador, John Bolton. "My hope is that when the vote is taken," he told the Council on Foreign Relations, "the other members will outvote the United States." . . .
The story, as Mr. Carter recalled, began with a recent dinner for 17 he attended in New York, where the guests included the president of the U.N. General Assembly, Jan Eliasson; an unidentified American representative, and other U.N. ambassadors from "powerful" countries at Turtle Bay, of which he mentioned only three: Cuba, Egypt, and Pakistan. The topic was the ongoing negotiations on an attempt to replace the widely discredited Geneva-based Human Rights Commission with a more accountable Human Rights Council.
"One of the things I assured them of was that the United States was not going to dominate all the other nations of the world in the Human Rights Council," Mr. Carter said. However, on the next day, Mr. Carter said, Mr. Bolton publicly "demanded" that the five permanent members of the Security Council will have permanent seats on the new council as well, "which subverted exactly what I have promised them," Mr. Carter said.
"So I called Condoleezza Rice and told her about the problem, and she said that that statement by our representative was not going to be honored," he said. But despite Mr. Carter's assessment that there are "a lot of people" in Washington who oppose Mr. Bolton on the Human Rights Council, Mr. Bolton's opposition to the proposed new structure became American policy.
Carter's working to subvert U.S. diplomacy is nothing new; but his apparent belief that he can speak on behalf of the country while doing so is rather stunning.
It must drive him crazy to know that John Tyler was a member of the Confederate Congress when he died in 1862; that makes it hard for Carter to surpass Tyler as the most anti-American ex-president in history. But we doubt he'll ever stop trying.
Emily
Litallah
The New York Times reports from Mumbai (Bombay), India, on a Muslim protest
against President Bush's visit:
The current protest, called by Muslim organizations and leftist political parties, was largely peaceful, but bristling with an anti-American rage that is not often displayed in India.
The demonstrators shouted slogans against Mr. Bush. In one section of the field, a crowd gathered to burn an American flag. The crowd began beating the flaming flag. Then a young man lifted a boy named Shoaib over the fire and instructed him to urinate on it. He did, bemused by all the attention. He said he was in third grade.
Uh, Shoaib, Islam is a religion of peace, not a religion of--oh, never mind.
Homeward
Bound
The New York Times reports that "the gender revolution at work"--that
is, the increase in the proportion of women working outside the home--"may
be over," a trend that offers some support to Phillip
Longman's thesis about the return of patriarchy:
Today, about 75 percent of women 25 to 54 years old are either working or actively seeking a job, up from around 40 percent in the late 1950's. That expansion helped fuel economic growth for decades.
But the previous trend flattened in the early 1990's. And since 2000, the participation rate for women has declined somewhat; it remains far below the 90 percent rate for men in the same age range.
There is one big exception to the trend: while the rate of labor participation leveled off for most groups of women, the percentage of single mothers in the work force jumped to more than 75 percent from 63 percent. That of high school dropouts rose to 53 percent from 48 percent.
Economists say that these women were pushed into work with the help of changes in government policy: the expansion of the earned-income tax credit and the overhaul of welfare in the mid-1990's, which replaced long-term entitlements with temporary aid.
An optimist might hold out hope that the second trend will eventually feed into the first--that is, that a reduction in single motherhood will follow as more women decide, to borrow a phrase from Maggie Gallagher, that they'd rather have a husband than a boss.
Zero-Tolerance
Watch
A student at TeWinkle
Middle School in Costa Mesa, Calif., started an invidious group on the MySpace.com
Web site, the Associated Press reports:
According to three parents of the suspended students, the invitation to join the boy's MySpace group gave no indication of the alleged threat. They said the MySpace social group name's was "I hate (girl's name)" and included an expletive and an anti-Semitic reference.
A later message to group members directed them to a nondescript folder, which included a posting that allegedly asked: "Who here in the (group name) wants to take a shotgun and blast her in the head over a thousand times?"
The AP says that "police are investigating the boy's comments about his classmate as a possible hate crime." The school district is also seeking to expel the boy. That's reasonable enough; it does sound like a genuine threat.
But of course that wasn't enough for school officials, who also suspended 20 students for two days simply because they saw the posting. Assistant superintendent Bob Metz "said the students' suspensions in mid-Febuary [sic] were appropriate because the incident involved student safety"--even though they logged in from home, after school hours.
Be Careful What You Wish For
"White House Hopeful Harry Browne Dies"--NewsMax.com, March 2
"Harry Browne, RIP"--Human Events, March 2
What Are We Doing Wrong?
"Is sex dirty? Only if it's done right."--Woody Allen, "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex," 1972
"Why We Have Sex: It's Cleansing"--headline, LiveScience.com, March 2
Let
Them Eat Bearer Bonds
"Food Not Only Way to Tackle Malnutrition, Says World Bank"--headline,
Sydney Morning Herald, March 4
Another Substance-Abuse Scandal?
"Wells Appears Ready for World Baseball Classic"--headline, Associated Press, Feb. 28
"Wells May Be Tested for Nitrates"--headline, Manitowoc (Wis.) Herald Times Reporter, March 3
Must
Be a Big Home
"Hundreds in Okla. Home After Fires Tamed"--headline, Associated Press,
March 2
Innovations
in Educational Architecture
"New Valley School Project Will Include Classrooms"--headline, Beach
Reporter (Hermosa Beach, Calif.), March 2
What
Would We Do Without Studies?
"Study: Bad Relationships Bad for Heart"--headline, CBSNews.com, March 3
Bottom
Story of the Day
"Here, Kitty Kitty! Scared cat has been stuck in tree for several days"--headline
and subheadline, Joplin (Mo.) Globe, March 3
Thank-You-Note-Gate!
Over at the Puffington Host, one Max Blumenthal--no relation to Sidney, we hope
for his sake--has uncovered a shocking scandal. It seems that Justice Samuel
Alito sent--you'd better sit down before we tell you this--a thank-you note
to a supporter of his confirmation. Blumenthal quotes from the smoking-gun missive
to James Dobson of Focus on the Family:
Dear Dr. Dobson:
This is just a short note to express my heartfelt thanks to you and the entire staff of Focus on the Family for your help and support during the past few challenging months.
I would also greatly appreciate it if you would convey my appreciation to the good people from all parts of the country who wrote to tell me that they were praying for me and for my family during this period.
The head of Americans United for Separation of Church and State says the letter is "grossly inappropriate," and lectures:
"Justice Alito should follow the commands of the Constitution, not the orders of Dobson and the Religious Right," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. "This note strongly suggests that Alito is carrying out a right-wing agenda instead of being a justice for all."
Now, Alito's defenders will doubtless point to Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution, which stipulates that federal judges "shall hold their offices during good behaviour." Surely, they will argue, sending a thank-you note qualifies as "good behaviour."
But the note isn't the point. This is a scandal that may reach the highest levels--higher even than the White House. Note that second paragraph of Alito's note thanking people who "were praying for me." The clear implication is that God intervened to ensure Alito's confirmation. And although that allegation has yet to be proved, there is strong circumstantial evidence, to wit, Alito's confirmation despite the best efforts of John Kerry***. If a dummy like George W. Bush can beat Kerry, God knows God can.
What did the Lord know and when did He know it? Even as reliable a conservative as Andrew Sullivan is worried:
First, Supreme Court Justices should be very careful associating with overtly political entities, and you don't get much more political than Dobson. Secondly, Dobson himself read it out loud on the air to brag of his influence on national affairs. Thirdly, there is more than just a hint of a constitutional quo for a political quid in the letter. That kind of horse-trading undermines the integrity of the court and the impartiality of the justices. Look: I endorsed Alito. But I hoped his jurisprudence would not amount to a carte blanche for whatever the Christianists [sic] demand. The letter suggests otherwise.
Luckily, there is a way Alito can defuse the scandal. All he has to do is send a note to Sullivan thanking him for his endorsement. Then, when he casts a vote against same-sex marriage, Sullivan's pet issue, it will be clear that there is in fact no quo.
*** Fop cit.
(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Stacy McCain, Chuck Opramolla, Tom Dziubek, Ed Lasky, Fred Siesel, Mark Coffey, Michael Segal, George Parry, John Benjamin, Tom Linehan, Douglas Welsh, John Robb, Mark Finkelstein, Jim Orheim, Kyle Kyllan, Kelly Fogarty, Joseph Tully, Ruth Papazian, Jim Lucas and Tal Karem. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Review & Outlook: American spooks don't want to release Saddam's secrets.
- Daniel Henninger: Has Washington gone insane?
- The Journal Editorial Report: Tune in this weekend for a discussion of Iraq, Iran and President Bush's South Asia visit.
And on the Taste page:
- Review & Outlook: A lawsuit over "The Da Vinci Code" could spell trouble for the publishing world.
- Tony & Tacky: Only in New York can you earn $100 for acting like a bum.
- Kim Strassel: Where have all the Hollywood hunks gone?
- Sam Schulman: Hey, parents, leave those kids alone!
- John Miller: Why it's OK to eat certain rodents during Lent.
