From the WSJ Opinion Archives

by JAMES TARANTO
Monday, June 26, 2006 3:25 P.M. EDT

Billionaire Boys Club
"Warren Buffett, the chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., will give most of his $44 billion in Berkshire stock to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, entrusting his philanthropic legacy to the only person richer than him," Bloomberg reports.

You can see why Buffett would want to give his billions to charity. The federal death tax is currently being phased out, but it will reappear in 2011 unless Congress acts--which means that if Buffett lives that long, the government will confiscate 55% of his assets upon his death.

But wait. Buffett is, as a New York Sun editorial notes, "an avowed supporter of the estate tax." As we noted in 2001, so is Bill Gates Sr., the Microsoft founder's old man, who is an executive of the Bill and Melinda Foundation.

As the Sun notes:

Mr. Buffett could have let the government take its share of his estate after he dies. But just as Mr. Buffett has accumulated his vast wealth without paying much personal income tax, he has found a way to avoid the tax man in this maneuver as well, even writing in his letter to Bill and Melinda Gates that a condition of the gift is that the foundation "must continue to satisfy legal requirements qualifying my gifts as charitable and not subject to gift or other taxes."

On the estate tax, watch what Mr. Buffett does, not what he says. The Gates Foundation isn't the only recipient of his largesse--three foundations headed by Mr. Buffett's three children, Susan, Howard, and Peter, will get hundreds of millions of dollars. Tax documents show that in 2004, Peter Buffett and his wife Jennifer each took a $40,000 a year salary for what they reported was 30 hours a week each of work on the foundation.

When billionaires back the death tax, keep in mind that they have no intention of actually paying it. They are being "generous" with other people's money. This is the way in which the superrich wage class warfare against the merely affluent.

Sincere, Though Not Necessarily Honest
We had to chuckle at this exchange on "Meet the Press" yesterday, between host Tim Russert and Sen. Russ Feingold, co-sponsor with John Kerry* of last week's failed cut-and-run resolution:

Russert: The Washington Post asked the American people about your censure resolution, whether it is something that you believe is right or whether you're using it for political advantage. And this is how the American people came down on that question: Believe it is right, 35 percent; using for political advantage, 56 percent. You, you cited the American people's view towards the war. Do you agree with that analysis?

Feingold: Well, of course I don't agree that I'm doing it for political purposes. . . . As to my motives, Tim, I came here to Washington to stand up for the Constitution and for the Bill of Rights.

The funny thing about this is that although Feingold's views are wrongheaded and often illogical, it's hard to gainsay his sincerity. This, after all, is the only senator to vote against the USA Patriot Act in 2001, when political opposition to the war on terror was limited to fringe figures like Michael Moore and Susan Sontag. It may be that by teaming up with the manifestly phony Kerry, Feingold has tainted his own reputation for integrity.

That integrity, it should be noted, has its limits. National Review's Jim Geraghty catches Feingold in a highly misleading statement. Feingold to Russert:

You know, Tim, today it was announced that a guy named Hassan Dahir Aweys is now the head of the government that has taken over in Mogadishu in Somalia. He is on the State Department's terrorist list. He is known as an al Qaeda operative, or somebody that is connected with al Qaeda. While we were asleep at the switch, while we were bogged down in Iraq, while we were all focused on Iraq as the be all and end all of our American foreign policy, we are losing the battle to al Qaeda because we're not paying attention. I asked Ambassador [Henry] Crumpton [the State Department's counterterrorism coordinator] at a hearing the other day, how many people in our federal government are working full time on the problem in Somalia? He said one full-time person.

Geraghty unearthed the transcript of the Fegingold-Crumpton exchange, and it turns out Feingold's account of it is Clintonian--i.e., true, but only literally so:

Feingold: How many people does the State Department have working on Somalia full-time? I just want the full-time figure.

Crumpton: Yes, sir. There is one dedicated Foreign Service officer in Nairobi that looks at Somalia, but there are a multitude of others, not just in the State Department but across the U.S. government, that work the issue.

Feingold also had this to say about why he wants to cut and run from Iraq:

My guess is that when the so-called American occupation, which the terrorists like to call it, ends, that the interest of the international terrorist community in Iraq is not so focused there anymore. It would allow us to pursue them and be on the offensive.

We're on the defensive in many of the places in the world. We're on the defensive in Afghanistan right now in some ways. And President [Hamid] Karzai said that he's very concerned. He said it just yesterday, apparently. He's very concerned that our strategy in the fight against terrorism isn't working. He's concerned that we're not dealing with the financing of terrorists. We're not dealing with the--with the recruitment of terrorists.

So even in Afghanistan, which was, of course, an intervention that I supported, we don't have our eye on the ball, and we need to win that battle. You notice I've never called for leaving Afghanistan. I've never called for a timetable to leave Afghanistan. That is a situation that we have got to prevail in, and we have lost ground in Afghanistan because our resources have been diverted to Iraq. That is well known, that our ability to succeed in Afghanistan has been hampered by the bad decision to go into Iraq.

If cutting and running is the way to beat terrorism in Iraq, why is staying and fighting the way to beat terrorism in Afghanistan? Maybe there's an answer, but so far as we know Feingold has not offered it. In his mind, it seems to be enough that he supported the liberation of Afghanistan but opposed the liberation of Iraq. Such a stubborn refusal to change direction is not real leadership.

* "I fear that in the run-up to the 2004 election, the administration is considering what is tantamount to a cut-and-run strategy. Their sudden embrace of accelerated Iraqification and American troop withdrawal dates, without adequate stability, is an invitation to failure. The hard work of rebuilding Iraq must not be dictated by the schedule of the next American election."--Dec. 3, 2003

You Don't Say
"Politics at Play in Dems' Iraq Maneuvering"--headline, Associated Press, June 24

The Dangers of Silence
The Associated Press reports that some European Muslims object to the idea that they should oppose terrorism:

Why, many Muslims ask, should they have to speak out against, or apologize for, actions of radicals who do not represent them--people they do not even regard as true Muslims?

Many find the very idea of being asked or expected to denounce such acts "extremely offensive and insulting," said Khurshid Drabu, a senior member of the Muslim Council of Britain.

"I'm British," said Tuhina Ahmed, 24, a British-born Muslim in London whose family came from Gujarat in India. "I could have been blown up as well." Why, she asked, should she have to make a public statement to prove her objection to terrorism?

The answer, of course, is that terrorists say they are acting in the name of Islam, and if these assertions go unchallenged by Muslims, Europeans are more likely to conclude that Islam is the enemy.

A new Pew Center poll suggests that large numbers of Muslims, both in Europe and elsewhere, are at war with reality:

In one of the survey's most striking findings, majorities in Indonesia, Turkey, Egypt, and Jordan say that they do not believe groups of Arabs carried out the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The percentage of Turks expressing disbelief that Arabs carried out the 9/11 attacks has increased from 43% in a 2002 Gallup survey to 59% currently. And this attitude is not limited to Muslims in predominantly Muslim countries--56% of British Muslims say they do not believe Arabs carried out the terror attacks against the U.S., compared with just 17% who do.

Pluralities of Muslims in Germany (44% to 35%) and Spain (35% to 33%) also said Arabs did not carry out the 9/11 attacks. In France, 48% said yes and 46% said no.

'Now Go Away, or I Shall Taunt You a Second Time!'
"Taliban Audiotape Mocks Afghan Government"--headline, New York Times, June 26

Arafat's Heirs: We'll Gas Jews
"The Aksa Martyrs Brigades announced on Sunday that its members have succeeded in manufacturing chemical and biological weapons," reports the Jerusalem Post:

In a leaflet distributed in the Gaza Strip, the group, which belongs to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah Party, said the weapons were the result of a three-year effort.

According to the statement, the first of its kind, the group has managed to manufacture and develop at least 20 different types of biological and chemical weapons.

The group said its members would not hesitate to add the new weapons to Kassam rockets that are being fired at Israeli communities almost every day. It also threatened to use the weapons against IDF soldiers if Israel carried out its threats to invade the Gaza Strip.

Abbas is the successor to Yasser Arafat. Arafat won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.

Meanwhile, the Financial Times reports that Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert "authorised a 'broad and ongoing' operation against Palestinian militants on Monday as security forces massed along the border with the Gaza Strip"--this in response to the abduction of an Israeli soldier and the killing of two others in a Palestinian attack on the border.

'You Take Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday . . .'
"Fatah, Hamas Compromise on Attacks"--headline, United Press International, June 24

Hot Enough for You?
Parade magazine, the Sunday newspaper supplement, has joined the global-warming alarmists with a cover story titled "Why You Can't Ignore the Changing Climate." Author Eugene Linden writes:

From the Fertile Crescent to the Yucatan peninsula, past civilizations made the fatal mistake of assuming that good weather would continue. An abrupt shift to drought in Mesopotamia 4,200 years ago probably spelled the doom of the Akkadian culture, which united city-states into the first known empire. Others see the fingerprints of climate in the collapse of the Mayans around 900 A.D., the disappearance of the Anasazi from the American Southwest a few centuries later and the end of Norse expansion into the New World in the 14th century. A recurrent pattern of history has been for civilizations to take root and flourish while the weather is good, only to fall when the weather suddenly changes.

You'd think that this history would put things in some perspective, reminding us that weather and climate have never been constant and are beyond human control. Quite the contrary. As reader Gayle Trotter notes:

These ancient civilizations did not assume good weather would continue. In fact, they had elaborate religious rituals (sometimes involving human sacrifice and infanticide) to attempt to influence the weather. I would argue that our current environmental policy is about as effective at influencing the weather as their ancient religious ceremonies, and indeed, environmentalism has become a new religion in our age.

Sure enough, Linden advises that you can help stop "warming the globe" by engaging in various rituals: "buy a fuel-efficient car; take mass transit; and, when you can, bicycle or walk to work."

Meanwhile, Discovery News reports on a new study that suggests "a growing number of people are retaining the behaviors and attitudes associated with youth":

A "child-like flexibility of attitudes, behaviors and knowledge" is probably adaptive to the increased instability of the modern world, [British biologist Bruce] Charlton believes. Formal education now extends well past physical maturity, leaving students with minds that are, he said, "unfinished."

"The psychological neoteny effect of formal education is an accidental by-product -- the main role of education is to increase general, abstract intelligence and prepare for economic activity," he explained.

"But formal education requires a child-like stance of receptivity to new learning, and cognitive flexibility." . . .

"People such as academics, teachers, scientists and many other professionals are often strikingly immature outside of their strictly specialist competence in the sense of being unpredictable, unbalanced in priorities, and tending to overreact."

Which would explain global-warming alarmism, among other things.

Ivory Tower Suicide
A tragic follow-up to a January 2005 item: Back then we noted that one of the shrillest critics of Harvard president Larry Summers's commonplace statements about women in science and engineering was Denice Dee Denton, chancellor of the University of California at Santa Cruz, who was embroiled in a scandal involving her creation of a $192,000-a-year job for her lesbian partner, Gretchen Kalonji.

The San Jose Mercury News reports that Denton "apparently jumped to her death Saturday morning from the 44th floor of a San Francisco building where she shared an apartment with her partner."

Homer Nods
In his 1964 State of the Union Address, Lyndon Johnson said, "Unfortunately, many Americans live on the outskirts of hope--some because of their poverty, and some because of their color," not "theft color," as our item Friday (since corrected) quoted him.

The source of the error was the transcript of the speech on the Web site of the American Presidency Project, from which we cut-and-pasted; the typo does not appear in the version of the speech at the LBJ Library.

What Would Expats Do Without Experts?
"Few Expats Vote in Mexican Election, but Its [sic] a Start, Experts Say"--headline, Associated Press, June 24

You Only Live Twice
"Life Sentences Double in 10 Years as Judges Hand Down Longer Terms"--headline, Independent (London), June 24

Bet He Didn't Answer
"Newspaper Questions Man Executed in 1983 Slaying"--headline, Associated Press, June 25

But They Have to Save Lots More for Retirement
"HIV Drugs Have Given Americans 3 Million Years of Life"--headline, HealthDay.com, June 26

Here Comes Johnny Singing Oldies, Goldies
"Retirees Will Face Dire Straits"--headline, Newhouse News Service, June 23

Say What?
"Avalanche Ship Tanguay to Flames Early at Draft"--headline, Reuters, June 24

'Elizabeth, I'm Coming to Join You, Honey'
"Red Fox Spotted in Robinson"--headline, WTAE-TV Web site (Pittsburgh), June 26

That Explains the Long Face
"Possibly Drunk Pelican Hits Windshield"--headline, Associated Press, June 24

Today's Lesson: Gun Safety

"Bear Education Efforts Increased"--headline, Times (Trenton, N.J.), June 26

"Bruno the Celebrity Bear Shot Dead"--headline, CNN.com, June 26

Thanks for the Tip!--LXXXV
"Health Tip: Varicose Veins May Not Need Treatment"--headline, HealthDay.com, June 26

Bottom Stories of the Day

Hell With the Lid Off
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that the Jehovah's Witnesses are going door to door with more urgency than usual:

It's a scene that's playing out across the county and across the country as Jehovah's Witnesses, in an unprecedented effort, seek to invite as many people as they can to their annual convention.

The yearly gathering of Witnesses, a Christian faith founded in Pittsburgh 136 years ago, is a huge worship celebration. This year, it has special significance because Witnesses are seeking to get out the word to millions of households that Armageddon, or the end of the world, is imminent. Or, as the invitation says: Deliverance at Hand.

The signs are everywhere, Mr. Hickok said.

World wars have ruled the current generations. Fear is dominant, especially with the rise of terrorism. There is a breakdown in family structure. The magnitude and frequency of earthquakes is growing. There is an increase in pestilence, such as AIDS.

If deliverance is at hand, why are the Witnesses holding a "yearly" convention instead of a "final" one?

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