by JAMES TARANTO
Wednesday, August 16, 2006 3:34 P.M. EDT

Tortured Logic
An editorial in London's left-wing Guardian raises a question about last week's foiled terror plot that some will find troubling:

Rashid Rauf, a British citizen said to be a prime source of information leading to last week's arrests, has been held without access to full consular or legal assistance. Disturbing reports in Pakistani papers that he had "broken" under interrogation have been echoed by local human rights bodies. The Guardian has quoted one, Asma Jehangir, of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, who has no doubt about the meaning of broken. "I don't deduce, I know--torture," she said. "There is simply no doubt about that, no doubt at all."

A caveat is in order here. When Jehangir says "I know" Rauf was tortured, she doesn't seem to be speaking literally; rather, she means, "I am making an educated guess in which I have a great deal of confidence."

That said, the claim of torture seems at least plausible, and the Guardian offers it in the course of a hand-wringing editorial worrying that "actions abroad" may "pollute British justice." In other words, it is possible that thousands of air passengers were saved from murder because British officials acted on information the Pakistanis obtained using brutal methods that would not have been acceptable in Britain or the U.S.

Assuming for the sake of argument that this is so, should those thousands of innocents have been sacrificed so as to spare the British government whatever moral taint came with the Pakistani information? The Guardian doesn't put the question so starkly, but it answers in the affirmative:

This battle must be won within the law. Anything else is not just a form of defeat but will in the end fuel the flames of the terror it aims to overcome.

It strikes us that the murders of thousands of civilians would be a far worse "form of defeat" than the moral compromise in which the British government is alleged to have engaged. Further, the claim that such a compromise "will in the end fuel the flames of the terror it aims to overcome" strikes us, as an empirical matter, as highly dubious. But these are questions about which reasonable people can differ, and over which reasonable people are necessarily going to have to argue.

It is a question that Time magazine blogger Andrew Sullivan, an emotional opponent not only of torture but of any form of aggressive interrogation, evidently finds extremely discomfiting, for his response is to suggest that the plot may not have been real after all:

I'd be interested in the number of plotters who had passports. How could they even stage a dummy-run with no passports? And what bomb-making materials did they actually have? These seem like legitimate questions to me; the British authorities have produced no evidence so far. If the only evidence they have was from torturing someone in Pakistan, then they have nothing that can stand up in anything like a court.

I wonder if this story is going to get more interesting. I wonder if Lieberman's defeat, the resilience of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the emergence of a Hezbollah-style government in Iraq had any bearing on the decision by Bush and Blair to pre-empt the British police and order this alleged plot disabled. I wish I didn't find these questions popping into my head. But the alternative is to trust the Bush administration.

Been there. Done that. Learned my lesson.

(In the same post, he calls our friend Karol Sheinin "deranged," much to her amusement.)

To be sure, Sullivan is highly idiosyncratic, less an indication of the political climate than a localized severe weather condition unto himself. But such paranoid speculation is common on the Angry Left blogs, and, as we noted last week, it has made its way into comparatively mainstream left-liberal discourse as well.

Here is the problem: "Don't trust the Bush administration" is not much of antiterror strategy. For the long term--i.e., Jan. 20, 2009, and beyond--it is not a strategy for anything, for on that day the Bush administration will end. If the administration's critics do have better ideas about how to win the war against our terrorist enemies, they do the country a disservice by presenting them in an unappealing package of partisan hatred and paranoia.

Two Papers in One!--II

• "The rebellion against Mr. Lieberman was actually an uprising by that rare phenomenon, irate moderates."--editorial, New York Times, Aug. 9
  
  
• "As the newly proclaimed Democratic nominee, Mr. Lamont is moving to adopt a general election strategy that attracts more moderate voters, who are crucial to victory in Connecticut elections."--news story, New York Times, Aug. 16

Two Candidates in One!

• "When it comes to universal health care for everybody in this country as a basic right, that's a principle of the Democratic Party that Sen. Lieberman has never quite embraced. He's come up with tax incentives for businesses to see if they might be a little more inclined to insure their people. So he generally has not embraced a lot of the Democratic goals and certainly the Democratic methods to achieving where we want to go."--Ned Lamont, in an interview with yours truly, The Wall Street Journal, May 13
  
  
• " I believe in an employer-based health-care system that covers everyone, and providing tax benefits to small businesses so they can provide insurance without risking bankruptcy."--Ned Lamont, op-ed piece, The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 16

(Hat tip: Steve Spruiell.)

Honor Roll
The New Orleans Times-Picayune reported Aug. 6 that Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana would support Joe Lieberman's re-election bid even if he lost last week's primary, bringing to seven the tally of elected Democrats backing the man their party once called "the real vice president":

Senators:
   • Tom Carper (Del.)
   • Daniel Inouye (Hawaii)
   • Mary Landrieu (La.)
   • Ben Nelson (Neb.)
   • Mark Pryor (Ark.)
   • Ken Salazar (Colo.)

Representative:
   • Brad Sherman (Calif.)

Interestingly, the Senate roll includes all Democratic members of the "Gang of 14" (the group that signed the compromise on judicial filibusters) except Robert Byrd of West Virginia. Carper is the only non-Gangster on the list.

A Benign Cardinoma
A Maryland congressman has taken a bold political stand: He's against cancer. If that doesn't sound bold, read this, from the Baltimore Sun:

With a month to go before primary voters head to the polls to choose Senate nominees, Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin kicked off yesterday a weeklong effort to highlight his congressional record and vision on health care by making the mother of all campaign promises--to cure cancer. . . .

"We are going to lick cancer by 2015," Cardin told a group of 15 people at the HopeWell Cancer Support Center on Falls Road.

As John Seffrin of the American Cancer Society notes in an interview with the Gannett News Service, President Nixon declared "war on cancer" in 1971:

The war on cancer was a leap of faith. It was a bet on the fact that if we really garnered resources and did research and believed in the scientific method, we would get results--some time. But those results were slow in coming. Now, they're coming. . . . In my lifetime, cancer research has gone from a good bet to a sure bet.

So if cancer is on course to be "licked" by 2015--and we certainly hope it is, regardless of the outcome of the Maryland Senate race--Cardin seems to be running out in front of the parade and pretending to lead it.

Silliest Kerfuffle Ever
Could it be that the politics of racial offense are about to jump the shark? We don't know, but we certainly hope so. On yesterday's front page, the Washington Post broke an utterly absurd story about Virignia's Sen. George Allen, which it followed up today with another front-page story. From yesterday:

At a campaign rally in southwest Virginia on Friday, Allen repeatedly called a volunteer for Democrat James Webb "macaca." During the speech in Breaks, near the Kentucky border, Allen began by saying that he was "going to run this campaign on positive, constructive ideas" and then pointed at S.R. Sidarth in the crowd.

"This fellow here, over here with the yellow shirt, macaca, or whatever his name is. He's with my opponent. He's following us around everywhere. And it's just great," Allen said, as his supporters began to laugh. After saying that Webb was raising money in California with a "bunch of Hollywood movie moguls," Allen said, "Let's give a welcome to macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia." Allen then began talking about the "war on terror."

Depending on how it is spelled, the word macaca could mean either a monkey that inhabits the Eastern Hemisphere or a town in South Africa. In some European cultures, macaca is also considered a racial slur against African immigrants, according to several Web sites that track ethnic slurs. . . .

Steve Mukherjee, a spokesman for the Washington chapter of the Association of Indians in America, said Allen's comments were "hurtful," and he chided the senator for not being more sensitive.

"The world is so volatile and so delicate," Mukherjee said. "You have to be careful what you say and how you say it. The U.S. is no longer black and white."

Asked what macaca means, Mukherjee said: "What it means, I don't know. But it's going to cause him some grief."

As Wonkette notes, "either he was referring to Geordi LaForge, Sinead O'Connor, a town in South Africa, a Swahili or Bantu word, a crab-eating macaque, or the Portuguese translation of monkey. All just as plausible as the official explanation of Allen butchering the word 'mohawk' "--the last supposedly a reference to Sidarth's haircut, which we must say doesn't look like a mohawk to us.

But even if we accept the worst interpretation, how invidious can it be to refer to an Indian-American--a member of an ethnic group that has no appreciable history of oppression or discrimination--by a word that Europeans use to slur Africans? And consider this comment, reported in today's Post:

Mark Potok, director of the intelligence project for the Southern Poverty Law Center, based in Montgomery, Ala., said it was "simply impossible to believe" that Allen did not intend the comments as a racial insult.

"To me, it looks like yet another case of a politician pandering to the worst instincts in an all-white crowd," Potok said.

Who's racially stereotyping now?

Homer Nods
In yesterday's item on Fidel Castro, we erred in identifying Emperor Franz-Joseph of Austria-Hungary, who reigned 67 years, as history's longest-ruling monarch. In fact, France's Louis "Sun King" XIV, who ascended to the throne at 4, reigned until his death in 1715, just shy of his 75th birthday--a total of 71 years. (By some accounts Egypt's Pharoah Pepi reigned for 94 years in the 22nd and 23rd centuries B.C.)

This is not, however, one of those cases in which we are simply going to acknowledge error graciously and move on to the next item. Instead, we shall make fun of the French for their poor knowledge of American presidential trivia. Agence France-Presse reports that Bill Clinton "will be 60 on Saturday":

"For most of my working life, I was the youngest person doing what I was doing. Then one day I woke up and I was the oldest person in every room," said Clinton, who was a youthful 44 when he was first elected president, in 1992. . . .

Clinton was the youngest US president to leave office, although he was not the youngest to enter the White House. That distinction belongs to his hero, John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963.

It is true that Clinton turns 60 on Saturday. But here's what AFP got wrong:

• Clinton was 46, not 44, when elected in 1992.
  
  
• Kennedy was not "the youngest to enter the White House." He was 43 when inaugurated; Theodore Roosevelt was 42. JFK was the youngest man elected president; TR took office on William McKinley's death and was 46 by the time he was re-elected in 1904.
  
  
• Clinton was not "the youngest US president to leave office." He was 54, older than Polk (53), Fillmore (53), Pierce (52), Cleveland 22 (51) and TR (50). That puts Clinton in sixth place, not counting the two presidents who died in office in their 40s: Garfield (49) and JFK (46).

Clinton is, however, the youngest of all presidents in the sense of being the most recently born. George W. Bush turned 60 July 6.

Giving Up the Fight
The Web site for Stephanie Studebaker, whose arrest on domestic violence charges we noted yesterday, earlier today carried an announcement that she was withdrawing from her race for Congress. The site seems to be down now--whether permanently, we're not sure, but it has been preserved for the time being in a Google cache, which reveals that her campaign slogan was "Fighting for Our Future." On the left is a group of links: "About Our Fight," "Fighting For," "Join the Fight," "Watch the Fight."

That last one turned out to be false advertising, though. We clicked through and just found a bunch of boring campaign pictures.

And They Worry About the NSA Violating Privacy?
"NASA to Search Attics for Missing Moon-Walk Tapes"--headline, Seattle Times, Aug. 16

A Really Bad Choice of Words
"An Alhambra Police Department sergeant was arrested Monday morning on suspicion of child molestation, officials said. . . . 'We are really at the infancy stage' of this investigation, said Lt. Art Lucas of the Sheriff's Special Victims Bureau."--San Gabriel Valley Tribune (West Covina, Calif.), Aug. 15

Great Moments in Law Enforcement
"The people that are being killed, the soaring murder rate is in places where there's violence."--Jefferson Parish, La., Sheriff Harry Lee, quoted by WWL-TV (New Orleans), Aug. 16

'Remember the Good Old Days, Before We Bought Delta?'
"Monsanto to Buy Delta and Pine"--headline, Reuters, Aug. 15

It Was Just Lumbering Along
"Woman Says Wild Board Chased Her on College Campus"--headline, Associated Press, Aug. 15

Bottom Story of the Day
"West Grace Gutter Pan Will Be Fixed"--headline, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Aug. 16

Mars and Venus, Sittin' in a Tree
K-I-S-S-I-N-G
First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage
Then Comes 2003 UB313 in a Baby Carriage
"Proposal Would Add Planets to Solar System"--headline, Associated Press, Aug. 16

(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Michael Segal, Michael DiResto, Rich Shipe, Ed Lasky, Morris Gavant, Russ Smith, Tomas Nally, Jerry Skurnik, Gary McCollin, Steven Kahan, Robin Carroll, Clifford Edwards, Dennis Ainger, Dave Olim, Bernard Hassan, Jim Paget, James Fox, John Steele Gordon, Jared Olar, Alan Guthrie, Grant Dorfman, William Schultz, Brian Kalt, Edward Gustafson, Alan Martin, Fred Furia, Dave Shimkin, Steven Shineman, Lily Wood, Jack Archer, Chris Fehr, Samuel Walker, Ian Ivey, Nick Jarmusz, Ethel Fenig, Joshua Scheiderer, Sid Knowles, Ross Firestone, John Sanders, David Bowman, Jeff Dobbs, Fred Mason, Keith Cummings and Don Bosch. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

Today on OpinionJournal:

• Ned Lamont: The Democrats mean business.
• Sally Pipes (from the Pacific Research Institute): Gov. Schwarzenegger tries to sell price controls.
• John Keegan: What went wrong in Iraq--and how to make it right.