From the WSJ Opinion Archives
This Explains Everything
"The rebellion against Mr. Lieberman was actually an uprising by that rare phenomenon, irate moderates."--editorial, New York Times, Aug. 9
"With a careful, thoroughly grounded opinion, one judge in Michigan has done what 535 members of Congress have so abysmally failed to do. She has reasserted the rule of law over a lawless administration."--editorial, New York Times, Aug. 18
"One of the biggest tragedies of the Bush administration's gross mishandling of the occupation of Iraq--the lack of basic security and jobs, the shame and horror of Abu Ghraib, the thousands of civilian deaths--is that the rest of Iraq will likely not take the time to mourn the victims of Anfal."--editorial, New York Times, Aug. 22
"This is a mysterious universe, and the more we know about it the more mysterious it seems."--editorial, New York Times, Aug. 23
Very
Interesting
"The federal judge who ruled last week that President Bush's eavesdropping
program was unconstitutional is a trustee and an officer of a group that has
given at least $125,000 to the American Civil Liberties Union in Michigan, a
watchdog group said Tuesday," reports the New York Times:
The group, Judicial Watch, a conservative organization here that found the connection, said the link posed a possible conflict for the judge, Anna Taylor Diggs, and called for further investigation. . . .
The Web site for the group that supported the A.C.L.U., the Community Foundation for Southeastern Michigan in Detroit, lists Judge Taylor as its secretary and a trustee. It indicates that trustees make all financing decisions for the organization, whose assets exceed $350 million and which gives grants for a variety of community projects. . . .
The executive director of the Michigan A.C.L.U., Kary Moss, said her group had received four grants totaling $125,000 from the foundation since 1999. They were a $20,000 grant in 1999 for an educational program on the Bill of Rights, $60,000 in 2000, along with the N.A.A.C.P. and other groups for education on racial profiling, $20,000 in 2002 for work on racial profiling and $25,000 in 2002 for a lawyer to work on gay rights.
The ACLU is the lead plaintiff in the case and provided legal counsel to the other plaintiffs. Yet the legal ethicists the Times interviews don't seem overly concerned. One of them, Stephen Gillers of New York University, "said he did not think there were grounds for Judge Taylor to remove herself from the case":
"The question is whether her impartiality might reasonably be questioned," Professor Gillers said, "and the fact that she sits on the board of a group that gives money to the plaintiff for an otherwise unrelated endeavor would not in my mind raise reasonable questions about her partiality on the issue of warrantless wiretapping."
It seems to us that Gillers's impartiality might reasonably be questioned. In 2004 he wrote an article for The Nation, a left-wing magazine, in which he denounced Justice Antonin Scalia for going on a hunting trip with Vice President Cheney while Cheney v. U.S. District Court, a case involving the Office of the Vice President, was before the Supreme Court:
Scalia's opinion also claims that the appeal is not really about Cheney, who is sued only in his "official capacity," but about the power of the Vice President and the meaning of complex statutes. Ignored is the fact that rejection of the appeal can hurt Cheney politically in an election year if the secret records reveal a pro-industry bias in Cheney's leadership of the study group. That may also explain why Cheney stonewalled the nonpartisan General Accounting Office when it asked him for the same information.
An opposing argument could reveal these and other flaws in Scalia's logic and might well persuade a disinterested judge to reach a contrary conclusion. Judges have been disqualified for much less.
In the event, the court ruled in the vice president's favor, 7-2.
In a way Gillers is right to downplay the importance of the revelation about Taylor. Conflict-of-interest rules deal with appearances, and appearances are subjective, colored by the observer's political biases--which is why Gillers can be aghast at Scalia's friendship with Cheney but unbothered by Taylor's doling out cash to an ideological advocacy group and then ruling in its favor.
The real evidence that Taylor isn't impartial is her decision itself, which is about as careful and thoroughly grounded as a New York Times editorial, and which reaches the utterly ludicrous conclusion that the First Amendment guarantees Americans the right to engage in private communications with enemy agents during wartime. This would be no less a travesty if Taylor had never heard of the Community Foundation for Southeastern Michigan.
'We
Get a Lot of Smiles and Waves'
"Military Stryker vehicles saturating Baghdad's most dangerous neighborhoods
have been credited with what Iraqi authorities say is a 30 percent drop in violence
in the city since the deployment of 5,000 additional U.S. troops to the region,"
ABC News reports from the Iraqi capital:
While U.S. figures show a 22 percent drop in violence, either way, its good news for the troops.
"It's been great. We get a lot of smiles and waves," said Lt. Patrick Paterson of the 114th Cavalry.
One of the most dramatic changes has occurred in the Dora neighborhood. In July up to 20 people were killed in the area every day. As part of this new military effort, U.S. and Iraqi troops have been searching thousands of buildings in an effort to stop car bombs. . . .
And there are signs it's working. During 14 days of patrols in Dora, there has been just one killing.
We look forward to hearing Rep. John Murtha, the Democrats' leading military strategist, explain how this could be better done from Okinawa.
Spot
the Idiot
"George W. Bush sounds increasingly like your average defiant teenager,"
observes Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi. "The teenager won't clean
his room, and the president won't leave Iraq."
Blogger Dean Barnett responds: "The teenager is usually receiving orders to clean his room. Who exactly is playing that role in Vennochi's scenario? (Although, I must admit, the image of liberal America as an annoying nag does resonate.) More importantly, is not equating Iraq with an untidy teenager's haven more than slightly disrespectful to the tens of thousands who have died there?"
Palestinian
War on America?
The Associated Press brings some distressing news from Gaza:
A previously unknown Palestinian group released the first video Wednesday of two kidnapped Fox News journalists and demanded that Muslim prisoners in U.S. jails be released within 72 hours in exchange for the men, a Palestinian news agency reported.
In the video, Steve Centanni, 60, of the San Francisco area, and cameraman Olaf Wiig, 36, of New Zealand, appeared to be in good health, seated on the floor in sweat suits against a black background. No armed men were shown. . . .
The news agency, Ramattan, reported that the Palestinian group, the Holy Jihad Brigades, had demanded in a statement that Muslim prisoners in U.S. jails be released within three days in exchange for Centanni and Wiig. . . .
"We are going to exchange the Muslim female and male prisoners in American jails in return for the prisoners that we have. We are going to give you 72 hours beginning midnight tonight to take your decision," Ramattan quoted the statement as saying.
If this is genuine--if, that is, Palestinian terrorists are taking American hostages and demanding the release of criminals in American prisons--it becomes harder to argue that the U.S. and Israel don't face a common enemy.
Hell?
Bah! Oz!
An Iran-based Hezbollah Web site posted what it claimed was a photo of an Israeli
warship it had blown up last month. Andrew Bolt of the Melbourne, Australia,
Herald Sun notes that the image (our own embellished version of which is shown
alongside) actually depicts the deliberate sinking in 1998 of the HMAS Torrens,
a destroyer-escort decommissioned from the Royal Austrlian Navy.
Asks Bolt: "Should we now think that we were in fact attacked by Hezbollah--or is this just the latest proof that Hezbollah will lie and lie again for propaganda gain?"
Das
Boot der Juden
"Israel signed a contract with Germany last month to buy two Dolphin-class
submarines that will, according to foreign reports, provide superior second-strike
nuclear capabilities," the Jerusalem Post reported yesterday. Blogger TigerHawk
observes:
I, for one, find it fascinating that this deal was announced the day after Iran rejected the West's demand that it stop enriching uranium. This deal had obviously been under discussion for some time, but the timing of its announcement is hard to put down to bureaucratic chance. Germany is sending a signal.
Meanwhile, Iran's Mehr "news" agency has the regime's side of a story we noted yesterday:
On Tuesday, local police and judiciary officials cleverly foiled an attempt by the Romanian oil firm Grup Servicii Petroliere (GSP) to steal the Iranian Orizon drilling rig stationed on the Kish Island, an informed source told the Mehr News Agency (MNA) here Tuesday.
On August 13, in a piracy act the GSP firm kidnapped two representatives of PetroIran on Fortuna drilling rig, beat them and then kicked them out of Iran's waters in the Persian Gulf.
The GSP company enjoys the backing of the Alfajr Lel Aqarat Company from the United Arab Emirates which is run by an influential sheikh and an Iranian-born manager.
And Homer nods: Midnight in Tehran is 4:30 p.m. EDT, not 3:30 p.m. as we said yesterday (since corrected).
Still
Dead?
Reuters brings us an update from Havana:
Cuban leader Fidel Castro is relaxing for the first time in his life as he recovers from intestinal surgery free of his excessive workload, his older brother, Ramon Castro, said on Tuesday.
Castro handed over the reins of power to his younger sibling Raul Castro on July 31 after undergoing emergency surgery to stop intestinal bleeding attributed by the Cuban authorities to his workaholic pace.
"He is better. The problem was resolved quickly," Ramon Castro told Reuters. "He is relaxed, resting."
May he rest in peace!
Another
One Bites the Dust
Sen. Joe Lieberman, Rep. Joe Schwarz, Rep. Cynthia McKinney--and now you can
add Alaska's Gov. Frank Murkowski to the list. He lost his primary yesterday,
the Associated Press reports:
With 70 percent of precincts reporting, Sarah Palin, a former Wasilla mayor, won the GOP nod with 51 percent of the vote. Former state legislator John Binkley came in second with 30 percent. Murkowski polled just 19 percent. . . .
Palin will next face Tony Knowles, a former two-term governor, who handily won the Democratic primary with 73 percent of the vote. . . .
[Murkowski's] approval ratings have skidded over the past four years because of much-criticized decisions such as appointing his daughter to his U.S. Senate seat and purchasing a state jet after his request for the aircraft was denied by both the federal government and state Legislature.
In 2004 Murkowski's daughter nonetheless won re-election to a full term, beating none other than Tony Knowles.
We're not ready to proclaim an "anti-incumbent" trend, but two other U.S. Senate primaries bear watching: Rhode Island (Sept. 12), where liberal Republican Lincoln Chafee is being challenged by conservative populist Steve Laffey, and Hawaii (Sept. 23), where octogenerian liberal Daniel Akaka is getting a run for his money from moderate Rep. Ed Case. Kim Strassel and John Fund have more on the Ocean and Aloha states, respectively.
She
Accidentally Shot Him on Purpose
An editorial in the Portland Oregonian begins by retelling this sad story:
In 1963, a 17-year-old named Laura Welch was driving the family car with a friend when she sailed through a stop sign and rammed into a car driven by another teenager. The other driver, Michael Gordon, was a high school classmate and a good friend of Welch's. His neck was broken in the crash, and he died at the scene.
Welch was not charged with vehicular manslaughter, as she might have been in another time or place. Still, she had caused a death, and it felt "like the end of the world," Welch's friend later said. Welch had to find a way to go on, and she did. Today she is better known as a school librarian, mother of twins and the wife of President Bush.
The editorial isn't about Mrs. Bush, but about Kieya Walker, née Lori Lynn Hissner, who, as the Oregonian reported in a Sunday news story, works as a "classroom assistant" in a Portland elementary school. A controversy has arisen because of Hissner's past, which the Oregonian likens to Mrs. Bush's. Here is her story, as recounted on Sunday:
Kieya Walker had once been Lori Lynn Hissner, who, in 1988 at age 18 shot and killed her boyfriend, Robert Allen Pomerinke, as he slept. Convicted in Astoria of first-degree manslaughter and sentenced to 20 years in prison, Hissner served four years and five months before being paroled. She changed her name, married, moved to Portland and had two sons.
Under Oregon law, no one can work in a school who has been convicted of any of 38 crimes. Murder is among them, manslaughter not. The Oregonian thinks Hissner/Walker should keep her job:
Like many other people, Walker is a different person today, at 36, than she was half a lifetime ago at 18. It would be a terrible waste if her younger self were permitted to eclipse her maturity, and the good she can still do to repay her debt to society.
It may well be that she has reformed--but the Oregonian would have a stronger case if it didn't rest on a false analogy between a terrible accident and a deliberate act of homicide.
Do
a Good Turn Daily
"A troop of Boy Scouts on a camping trip saved an 18-month-old girl who
had fallen in a river upstream from them and was floating face down, officials
said," the Associated Press reports from Omaha, Neb.:
The boys were swimming in the Platte River at Two Rivers State Recreation Area, about 20 miles west of Omaha, on Saturday when 11-year-old Christian Nanson spotted something floating in the water. It turned out to be a young girl.
Nanson and John Fitzgerald, 9, both member of an Omaha Scout troop, reached the girl and brought her to shore while others called for help on a cell phone, assistant scoutmaster Matt Fitzgerald told the Omaha World-Herald.
The ACLU describes the Boy Scouts as "an organization that will go the way of the Daughters of the American Revolution in losing its place in American life if it does not end its discriminatory practices."
'Racially
or Ethnically Specific'
Erin Aubry Kaplan of the Los Angeles Times takes Andrew Young to task for going
to work for Wal-Mart, a company whose "determination to keep unions away
that can be described as fascist" (which is true inasmuch as anything
can be described as fascist). But Kaplan defends the bigoted remarks that got
Young fired:
Young's comments were called racist, and I don't entirely agree. Certainly it's despicable to exploit racial and economic anxiety in order to convince the black media that Wal-Mart is a solution. Being racially or ethnically specific, however, is not the same as being racist.
"Racially or ethnically specific" is a marvelous euphemism for prejudiced. Kaplan does have a point, though: One can be prejudiced without being racist, if one understands racism to mean, as it originally did, a theory holding that some races are innately superior or inferior to others. This distinction has been blurred beyond recognition by those who profit by exaggerating the degree to which old-fashioned racism is a thing of the present.
Trinken
Macht Frei
It turns out the Indian restaurateurs we noted
yesterday aren't the first to try to open a Hitler-themed establishment.
PusanWeb.com has a photo
of the Hitler Techno Bar & Cocktail Show, an establishment that sat above
a 7-Eleven (with a "Merry Christmas banner"!) in Shinchon, South Korea,
in 2000. The PusanWeb folks interviewed the owner, a Mr. Hong, and here is the
"very paraphrased summary" they posted:
Q: Why did you choose Hitler as the theme for your bar?
A: I wanted to design a beer bar with something shocking that would attract the young generation. Beer got me thinking about Germany (the home of beer) which made me think of Hitler.
Q: What do you personally think of Hitler and his ideas?
A: Well, of course, I learned that he was a "bad guy" and did many bad things, but he is no different than Alexander the Great or Gengis Khan. They were all conquerors who killed many people and they are all "big men" in the sense of their notoriety living on long after they died.
Q: What do you want to say to [people] who are upset or angered by the idea of a Hitler Bar?
A: I sort of understand why they are upset, but not completely. The other day, two Canadians came in. They were very angry and yelled at me. I wanted to tell them that I'm not supporting Hitler's ideas, it's just a style of decoration I chose to appeal to the new generation. I didn't mean to create bad feelings with foreigners.
A July 2003 update reports that "after protests from near and far, the owners of the bar first renamed it to 'Ditler' and then to 'Ceasar.' "
Seoul-based blogger Michael Hurt has photos of two other Hitler-themed establishments, in Daejon and Pusan, along with an interesting but long disquisition on the connections between National Socialism and Korean nationalism.
Life Imitates 'The Simpsons'
"Lisa explains the Coriolis Effect to Bart, but he does not believe it, so he makes a collect call to Australia to ask them about which way their water drains. When Bart doesn't hang up, Australia owes $900. They want Bart to pay, but he insults them. Bart soon gets dozens of letters in the mail. Then Australia indicts him for fraud. America wants to send him to Australia to make an apology. The family is sent to Australia, where they start exploring the culture. Bart makes his apology, but they want to give the additional punishment of a boot to his ass. Bart and Homer escape the booting and they try to run back to the embassy. Bart agrees to have them do the booting anyway, but instead he moons Australia. The Simpson family leaves the outraged country in a helicopter."--"Bart vs. Australia" episode summary, "The Simpsons," aired Feb. 19, 1995
"A youth who burnt the Australian flag in a reprisal attack on the night of the Cronulla riot has been ordered by a magistrate to apologise in person to members of the Brighton-le-Sands RSL [Returned and Services League, a veterans organization] club. . . . The youth, who pleaded guilty to causing malicious damage, was caught on closed-circuit television when he climbed a flagpole at the RSL club and torched its flag on the night of December 11 last year. . . . The state president of the RSL, Don Rowe, said: 'The RSL believes it should be a criminal offence to burn the Australian flag, so in some ways he got off lightly. But it is an opportunity for the RSL to turn this into something positive. By listening to what diggers went through and hearing what the Australian flag means to them, he will appreciate what the flag means more than ever.' "--Sydney Morning Herald, Aug. 23, 2006
But
He Only Wore It Once!
"Court: Nader Must Pay for Election Suit"--headline, Associated Press,
Aug. 23
Le
Rubber Meets La Route
"France Campaign Trail Paved With Condoms"--headline, Associated Press,
Aug. 22
What
Would We Do Without Most?
"Poll: Most Think bin Laden Planning Another U.S. Attack"--headline,
CNN.com, Aug. 23
What Would
Elephants Do Without Studies?
"Elephants Do Run, Study Concludes"--headline, LiveScience.com, Aug. 22
What
Would We Do Witho8og;hvfzsedddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd
"Drowsiness at Work Can Hurt Productivity"--headline, Desert Sun (Palm
Springs, Calif.), Aug. 23
When
Good Chipmunks Go Bad
"Deputy Shoots Suspected Alvin Robbers"--headline, Facts (Clute, Texas),
Aug. 23
News You Can Use
- "Don't Marry Career Women"--headline, Forbes.com,
Aug. 22
- "Lightning Strike Can Wreck Instruments"--headline, Times
(London), Aug. 23
- "Gang-Like Violence Alarming, Even When Gangs Not Involved"--headline,
Union
Leader (Manchester, N.H.), Aug. 23
- "If Terrorists Strike, Clean Underwear a Must"--headline, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Aug. 23
Bottom Stories of the Day
- "City Has Plan for Shockoe Bottom"--headline, Richmond
Times-Dispatch, Aug. 23
- "Fletcher Courteous to Grayson at N. Ky. Event"--headline, Louisville
Courier-Journal, Aug. 23
- "Grinder Not Playing at State Fair Tonight"--headline, Detroit
Free Press, Aug. 23
- "Senator Jokes About House Painter"--headline, Associated
Press, Aug. 22
- "Sidewalk Fix List Sparks Town Debate"--headline, Newsday
(Long Island, N.Y.), Aug. 23
- "Biden Says Bush Is Erring on Iraq"--headline, News Journal (Wilmington, Del.), Aug. 23
Shouting
'Snake' in a Crowded Theater
"Two live diamondback rattlesnakes were released in an Arizona movie theater
during a showing of the new film 'Snakes on a Plane,' " reports the
Internet Broadcasting System:
Authorities said pranksters released the young venomous rattlesnakes in a dark theater at the AMC Desert Ridge near Tatum and Loop 101 in Phoenix.
The two snakes caused a panic in the dark theater, according to the report.
"That to me is very scary," herpetological association representative Tom Whiting said. "I would hate to be watching a movie about snakes and have a rattlesnake bite me."
Why couldn't they have been more considerate and released them in the theater showing "Barnyard: The Original Party Animal" instead?
(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Doug Levene, Ethel Fenig, Lewis Sckolnick, Ed Lasky, Dan O'Shea, Yehuda Hilewitz, Heather Robinson, Michael Segal, Scot Silverstein, Hal Kurtz, Rochi Ebner, Timothy Knowlton, Avram Shacham, Michael Hornback, Lars Larson, Chuck Opramolla, Nathan Bauman, Bill Shefski, C.E. Dobkin, William Katz, Jon Sanders, Mark Girshovich, Mary Ann Lomascolo, Scott Hill, Ron Ackert, Greg Lindenberg, Christine DeMuzio, Steve Edwards, Ed Sterrett, Steve Nash, Roy Cullinan, Bill Brigs, Hillel Cohen and Dave Huber. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Zalmay Khalilzad: Baghdad's rampant insecurity--and a detailed plan to combat it.
- Norman Podhoretz (from Commentary): The president's critics are wrong. That includes the neocons.
- Ned Crabb: How I lost my "motah." Don't tell anyone!
