by JAMES TARANTO
Friday, July 21, 2006 2:08 P.M. EDT

The Angry Left's Newest Recruit
"It appears that Saddam Hussein may be inching toward the Democratic Presidential primary in 2008," writes a blogger called "The Influence Peddler." We're pretty sure TIP has his tongue planted in his cheek--Saddam strikes us as more of a third-party type of guy--but the erstwhile dictator is sounding an awful lot like a left-wing Democrat, as the New York Times reports:

Saddam Hussein's defense lawyers on Thursday released a letter Mr. Hussein recently wrote in prison that tries to convince the American people that the United States should leave Iraq because President Bush misled them into a deadly quagmire.

The 5,000-word letter is a rambling treatise outlining what Mr. Hussein asserts are the false reasons the Bush administration used to justify the war in Iraq, from illicit weapons to links with Al Qaeda. Mr. Hussein said he had written it at the behest of Ramsey Clark, the former United States attorney general who serves on his defense team.

Mr. Hussein blames Iran and pro-Israel interests for helping lead the Americans into war. He invokes the specter of the Vietnam War . . .

Ramsey Clark, the man with the behest, actually is a Democrat, or was: He served as Lyndon Johnson's attorney general (1967-69) and was the 1974 Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Chuck Schumer†.

Advocates of U.S. withdrawal, meanwhile, can find some cheer in this report from London's Daily Telegraph:

The people of Iceland are about to join one of the world's smallest clubs--those nations without armed forces on their territory to defend their borders.

The United States, which had assured Iceland's defence for decades, stunned the country in March when it announced that it would be closing its bases on the island, withdrawing its F-15 fighters and thousands of servicemen in the space of just six months. . . .

The United States is still legally pledged to defend Iceland from attack, but it now insists that it can do this from a distance.

This is the John Murtha strategy for Iraq. And the moment Iraq is as stable and peaceful as Iceland is today, we'll gladly join the call.

† A dagger of the mind, a false creation, proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain.

'Some Blogger or Counterculture Ideologue'
An interesting bit of press history appears on the op-ed page of today's Washington Post. Michael Berlin, who formerly covered the U.N. for the Post, explains how he and other reporters "got hold of a dynamite news story" in 1979: that Canadian diplomats in Tehran were sheltering several Americans from the then-new terror regime in Iran, which was holding several dozen Americans hostage.

The reporters withheld the story, for the obvious reason that it "could put the lives of the fugitive Americans and their Canadian hosts in danger," until January 1980, when the Americans escaped Iran with the help of the CIA. Berlin writes:

Do I regret not getting my scoop on the hostage story? Not a bit. Over the years, I've run into dozens of reporters who had a piece of the story before it broke, including those who covered the State Department for The Washington Post, and they all felt the same way.

The Canada-hostage story proves that reporters and news organizations can be trusted, en masse, to make the right call on security information they uncover. And neither Iranian officials nor Iranian news media got wind of it.

Do I think that a thousand reporters could be trusted today to make the same call that we did in 1979? I wonder. Even back then, there was the fear that some rogue reporter would ignore the pleas and go with the story. In today's journalism world, I fear that some blogger or counterculture ideologue using journalism as a political tool rather than as a mechanism for dispensing straight information, would make the wrong call. I hope I'm wrong about that.

But as we noted in May, the publisher of the New York Times is a counterculture ideologue. Does anyone really have confidence that he and his staffers are not "using journalism as a political tool"?

'Un-Christian'
The other day Pat Buchanan published a despicable attack on Israel:

What Israel is doing is imposing deliberate suffering on civilians, collective punishment on innocent people, to force them to do something they are powerless to do: disarm the gunmen among them. Such a policy violates international law and comports neither with our values nor our interests. It is un-American and un-Christian.

Some observers are amused that Buchanan is accusing a Jewish state of being "un-Christian." (Glenn Reynolds: "Well, duh.") But we're with John Podhoretz: This is anti-Semitism. Buchanan is clever enough that he is not unwittingly applying an inapplicable standard; rather, he is accusing the Jews of not being Christians, thereby attempting to turn Christians against Jews.

For evidence of Buchanan's cleverness, consider his statement that Israel "is imposing deliberate suffering on civilians." This is artfully worded indeed. The implication is that Israel is targeting civilians, which is false, but this is only an implication. Buchanan's actual words are consistent with the truth, which is that Israel is targeting Hezbollah with the knowledge that some civilian casualties are inevitable, given that (as Buchanan fails to acknowledge) terrorist groups deliberately put civilians in harm's way in the hope that civilized countries like Israel will either be restrained from attacking or will be blamed for the civilian casualties.

Buchanan also fails to acknowledge that Israel's enemies do target civilians, as Voice of America notes:

Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav told VOA that among the rockets that have hit Haifa are some clearly designed to cause massive civilian casualties.

"The specialty of these rockets is that they contain thousands of metal bullets which are going to be spread around when the rocket hits the ground," he said. "In this respect, it has the same effect as the belt of a suicide bomber."

Would Pat Buchanan call this "Christian"?

In any case, Buchanan's effort to turn Christians against Jews won't work. Christian anti-Semitism has a long and ugly history, but it is largely a thing of the past, especially in this country. Anti-Semitism today is chiefly the province of the Muslim world and the secular, multicultural left.

Yesterday the House voted 410-8 in favor of a resolution "condemning the recent attacks against the State of Israel, holding terrorists and their state-sponsors accountable for such attacks, [and] supporting Israel's right to defend itself." Here's a list of the 12 congressmen who declined to support Israel:

Except Ron Paul, who was the Libertarian Party's presidential nominee in 1988 and who essentially opposes all foreign policy, all of these are liberal Democrats. Similarly, look at blogospheric reactions to Buchanan's screed, and you'll find that most of his defenders are on the left. They're welcome to him.

Terrorist Chickenhawk
Oh, this is good. From the Scotsman:

A radical Muslim cleric had his bid to evacuate Lebanon aboard a British ship rejected when officials blocked his return to the United Kingdom.

British authorities turned down a request from Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed for a one-month visa to Britain.

The preacher, who called for Muslims to rise up against Westerners, was frightened he would be bombed by the Israelis.

As we noted in 2002, Bakri, who fled Britian last August and was banned from returning to the country, describes himself as "the principal lecturer at the 'London School of Shari'ah.' " Bakri said back then that in waging jihad, "Muslims are forbidden from killing women, children, the elderly or trees unless killed accidentally and unavoidably because, for example, they are located amongst the enemy."

Great Moments in Journalism
From an Associated Press Washington dispatch:

"We'd love to have a cease-fire," White House spokesman Tony Snow said. "But Hezbollah has to be part of it. And at this point, there's no indication that Hezbollah intends to lay down arms."

The AP headline? "U.S. Opposed to Cease-Fire With Hezbollah."

You Don't Say
"Attacks Making Life Harder in Lebanon"--headline, Associated Press, July 20

'I Know I Put It Here Somewhere . . .'
"US Says Still Searching for Mideast Peace Plan"--headline, Reuters, July 21

It Can't Be Worse Than the Old Way
"UN to Hold 'Beauty Contest' to Pick New Secretary General"--headline, Independent (London), July 21

Payback for Impeachment?--III
Michael Crowley of the liberal New Republic offers more context on the odd claim, which we noted Tuesday and yesterday, that the Angry Left's anger at Joe Lieberman is sparked by lingering resentment of his preimpeachment criticism of Bill Clinton:

It's wrong to assume that Bill Clinton has harbored bitterness towards Lieberman all these years for his rebuke of Clinton over Lewinsky. In the days after the speech, Clinton himself declared, "Basically, I agree with what he said." And here's former Clinton lawyer Lanny Davis (also a close Lieberman friend) to the Washington Post magazine in 2003:

Lieberman enabled Democrats "to do a kind of pivot, to condemn Clinton's conduct without calling for his removal," Davis said. "I think now--and a lot of people around the Clinton White House thought--that Joe Lieberman saved Bill Clinton's presidency by giving that speech. . . ."

Reader Mike Marshall offers an interesting response to Duncan "Atrios" Black's comment that "one of Bill Clinton's oddest flaws is his willingness to forgive his enemies":

This line illustrates why the Angry Left can never win a mainstream election, but it has little to do with maturity. As much as they bluster about how they, and not the "religious right," are the real Christians (caring for the environment, for children, for the downtrodden, etc., ad nauseam), Angry Left sentiment like this demonstrates a complete lack of recognition of a principle that most Protestant churchgoers in America recognize as fundamental.

Clinton understood that. In fact, understanding Clinton's familiarity with Christian doctrine helps explain not only why he received cross-over appeal among the voting populace, but also why the public was willing to forget Clinton's (repeated) transgressions. The public saw Bill's "sin, penitence, and rededication" cycle playing out in the national media, recognized it as familiar to their own personal struggles and failings, and forgave him for his transgressions.

The Angry Left may see "willingness to forgive" as a flaw, but Clinton saw it for what it was--an opportunity to appeal to the demographic that elected him. Finally, when the Angry Left sees a person of faith commit a sin, their reaction is something akin to "You hypocrite!" Bill's reaction was always, "See? We're alike. I'm like you, and I understand you. Vote for me!" One has to give credit where it is due.

Although one must also say that Clinton's ability to forgive his enemies is limited. In a June 2004 interview with Katie Couric, described in the Age of Melbourne, Australia, Clinton denounced Ken Starr:

"I did a bad thing . . . in misleading everybody about it (the affair) and it's also true that what Starr did was wrong."

". . . If [I] hadn't done anything, would there have been an impeachment? Probably not," he said. "I hope nobody ever has to live day in and day out with a man who's got unlimited power trying to put you and your wife in jail. It's not an excuse for anything I did."

"No serious constitutional scholar or lawyer thought that anything that happened was a grounds for impeachment," he said. "They (the Starr prosecution team) did it, as they said, because they could. That's why I did it."

A bigger man might have acknowledged that Starr was just doing his job--a job created by ill-conceived post-Watergate "reform" legislation--and thus Clinton could take credit for ridding the country of the abomination that was the independent counsel statute.

Meanwhile, reader Jon Fulbright offers this take:

Did you ever think that all this hitherto unreported rage on the Democratic left at Joe Lieberman over his 1998 comments about Bill Clinton might have been the reason George W. Bush won Florida?

While nothing about Lieberman's actions was ever heard outwardly during the 2000 election--or for the next 5 1/2 years, for that matter--perhaps there was some undercurrent of seething resentment among liberal Democrats in South Florida over Al Gore's selection of the senator as his running mate, that it led those people to cast their ballots for Pat Buchanan as a protest vote over Joe's presence on the ticket.

Of course, after the results came in and there was only a 537-vote margin separating Bush and Gore, none of these people would actually admit to casting protest votes for Pat and foiling the Democrats' hopes for regaining the White House. But since they're saying their anger at Lieberman is based as much on 1998 as it is on 2003 and beyond, they must obviously have been carrying this rage into the voting booth with them in November 2000.

If this isn't enough to sate your Clinton nostalgia, check out this passage from an Associated Press dispatch on fund-raising efforts for Sen. Hillary Clinton's nascent presidential campaign:

The records also provided a tantalizing clue for would-be Clinton sleuths that she's serious about a White House run: two bills for unidentified campaign worker travel at the Hampton Inn in Des Moines, Iowa, the state with the first caucus in the presidential nomination process.

One bill for $182.25, was dated April 17; a second, for $145.77, was dated April 26.

Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said the receipts were nothing more than a clerical error, and that the amounts reflected hotel bills for trips to Albany, N.Y., and Austin, Texas. He said the paperwork would be corrected.

Nothing more than a clerical error. Yeah, that's the ticket! Or maybe part of a vast right-wing clerical conspiracy . . .

Maybe They Should Put In a Toilet at the Station House
"Neenah Police Look to End Public Urination"--headline, Oshkosh (Wis.) Northwestern, July 20

Noah's Waiting for the Second Woodpecker
"Woodpecker Halts Ark. Irrigation Project"--headline, Associated Press, July 20

Better Than an Actual Goose?
"Seattle Trying New Device for Goose Poop"--headline, Associated Press, July 20

Thanks for the Tip!--LXXXIX
"Health Tip: Coffee May Be a Healthy Way to Start Your Day"--headline, HealthDay, July 21

Bottom Story of the Day
"Charles Taylor Unhappy With Jail Conditions in Hague"--headline, Reuters, July 21

A Bridge Too Far
From a statement by Sen. Ted Kennedy on President Bush's veto of the bill to subsidize embryonic stem-cell research:

We will be back again and again and again until we end the cruel restrictions on lifesaving research that are denying hope to millions of American patients and their families.

And nobody is more of an expert when it comes to cruel restrictions on lifesaving.

(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Michael Segal, Brian Faughnan, Ethel Fenig, Jay Brinkmann, Tom Elia, Ed Lasky, Bob Vestal, Michael Zukerman, Rohci Ebner, Leonora LaMantia, Fred Siesel, Joe Fluet, Shawn DeMers, Samuel Walker, Michael Gallagher, Steve Prestegard, John Neal, Jim Moran, Joe Bacon, John Forsberg, Ruth Papazian, Dan O'Shea and James Hepworth. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

Today on OpinionJournal:

• Review & Outlook: The Taepodong Democrats are still against missile defense.
• Fouad Ajami: "The violence done to Lebanon shall overwhelm you."
• The Journal Editorial Report: Tune in this weekend for a discussion of the Israel-Hezbollah war.

And on the Taste page:

• Review & Outlook: Cervical cancer can now be prevented. So why isn't everyone cheering?
• Tony & Tacky: Is the ref blind? Only in one eye!
• Naomi Riley: The future will be different! So why study?
• Jennifer Graham: Is baby formula the next tobacco?
• Pamela Winnick: How faith saved an atheist.