From the WSJ Opinion Archives

by JAMES TARANTO
Friday, August 25, 2006 3:23 P.M. EDT

Best of the Tube Tonight
We're scheduled to appear again tonight on CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight" as part of a "political roundtable." The program airs today at 6 p.m. EDT, with a repeat showing at 4 a.m. tomorrow, and we're told we'll be on in the second half-hour.

The Boy, the Bomb and the Beeb
The BBC's Martin Asser reports from Bint Jbeil, Lebanon, on the aftermath of the Israel-Hezbollah war:

When Um Ali Mihdi returned to her home in the southern Lebanese city of Bint Jbeil two days ago, she found a 1,000lb (450kg) Israeli bomb lying unexploded in her living room.

The shell is huge, bigger than the young boy pushed forward to stand reluctantly next to it while we get our cameras out and record the scene for posterity.

"So the BBC forces a child to stand next to an unexploded shell so they can have a good picture," observes the New York Sun's Daniel Freedman. "And if the shell, God forbid, had exploded right then, who do you think would have got the blame?"

It's actually not clear who forced the boy toward the bomb. The sentence is written--sorry, Asser wrote the sentence--in the passive voice, so the pusher might have been Asser or his cameraman, or it might have been the boy's mother, or a Hezbollah operative. Whoever it was, though, showed a shocking disregard for the child's life, in the service of either propaganda or sensationalism; and Asser and the BBC were at least complicit.

Did Hezbollah Win?--II
Yesterday we questioned the conventional view that Hezbollah was the victor in its war with Israel. Others are raising similar questions, including Amir Taheri in today's Wall Street Journal:

The way much of the Western media tells the story, Hezbollah won a great victory against Israel and the U.S., healed the Sunni-Shiite rift, and boosted the Iranian mullahs' claim to leadership of the Muslim world. . . . In Lebanon, the Middle East and the broader Muslim space, however, the picture is rather different.

That's the summary; read the whole thing for his arguments. Here's Lebanese editor Michael Young, writing at Reason Online:

Perhaps a victory it is, but in that case Hezbollah's victory is no different than most other Arab victories in recent decades: the "victory" of October 1973, where Egypt and Syria managed to cross into Israeli-held land, their land, only to be later saved from a thrashing by timely United Nations intervention; the "victory" of 1982, where Palestinian groups were ultimately expelled from West Beirut, but were proud to have stayed in the fight for three months; the Iraqi "victory" of 1991, where Saddam Hussein brought disaster on his country but still held on to power.

Now we have the Hezbollah "victory" of 2006: the Israelis bumbled and blundered, but still managed to create a million refugees, to kill over 1,000 people, and to kick Lebanon's economy back several years. One dreads to imagine what Hezbollah would recognize as a military loss.

Someone was way ahead of us in disputing the notion that Hezbollah won. "If I were Hezbollah I'd be claiming victory, too," President Bush said, though he acknowledged that "it will take time for people to see the truth." He said this last Monday, Aug. 14. Never will you catch us claiming to be smarter than George W. Bush.

Jim Zogby, Call Your Office
Hezbollah's conquest of Lebanese hearts and minds has probably been overstated, too, as evidenced by a report from Marwaheen, a Sunni village, in today's New York Times:

Criticism of Hezbollah is rare in southern Lebanon, where the group exercises significant influence and economic power. Villages like Marwaheen--which largely supports the Future Movement of Saad Hariri, son of the assassinated former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri--often miss out on Hezbollah's largess but pay the price for its politics.

"There is no way for us to stop them," said Ibrahim, who lost several relatives in the attack and who asked that his last name not be used for fear of retribution. "These are not people you can say no to." . . .

Residents said Hezbollah was using them as human shields. "One man in this village was able to turn all our lives upside down for just a bit of money," Ibrahim said. When the villagers left, he said, the fighters did too, as evidenced by the limited damage done to the town.

"We want the army and the United Nations to come in here and protect us," he said. "Israel is our enemy, but the problem is that Hezbollah gave them an excuse to come in and kill our children."

This reminds us of the following exchange between CNN's Anderson Cooper and Jim Zogby of the Arab American Institute, which we noted two weeks ago:

Cooper: Jim, though, I mean, does Hezbollah bear any of the responsibility for any of the civilian casualties?

Zogby: I've said from the beginning that their behavior was reckless and provocative. But Israel bears the responsibility. It's like saying what Mort [Zuckerman] is saying and what those who want to make that case is saying, the girl who wore the short skirt deserved to get raped--

It would seem that by Zogby's lights, Ibraham, an Arab Muslim, "is saying, the girl who wore the short skirt deserved to get raped."

Terrorists Denounce Terrorists
"Palestinian officials on Thursday denounced a militant group that has demanded the release of all Muslims imprisoned by the United States in exchange for two kidnapped Fox journalists," the Associated Press reports from Jerusalem:

Khaled Abu Hilal, a spokesman for the Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry, said the kidnapping of Fox correspondent Steve Centanni, of Washington, D.C., and cameraman Olaf Wiig, of New Zealand, was harming Palestinian interests.

And who are the terrorists Hamas is denouncing for "harming Palestinian interests"? The Jerusalem Post's Khaled Abu Toameh reports:

Some Hamas activists in Gaza City said they were convinced that one of Fatah's armed groups was holding the two.

"Fatah has many armed groups in the Gaza Strip," said a senior Hamas activist. "Some of these groups operate independently and are not in touch with their political leaders. Our sources have told us that the two foreign journalists are in their hands."

Another top Hamas activist told the Post that his movement's investigations have shown that the two journalists were initially kidnapped by members of one of the PA's security forces. "The kidnappers, who wanted to put pressure on the Palestinian leadership to pay them their salaries, later handed the two over to Fatah gunmen," he said. "They are now being held in one of the refugee camps near Gaza City."

Fatah, of course, is the "moderate" Palestinian faction that Yasser Arafat created before his condition stabilized.

Arafat won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.

The Girl Next Door
Blogger Howard Bashman points to a hilarious ruling (PDF) in Plame v. Libby, the civil suit in which "covert agent" Valerie Plame is accusing various White House officials of "revealing" her "secret identity." Plame filed a motion asking for an exemption from the usual rule that parties to a civil action include their "full residential address" in their filings. Judge John Bates laughed her out of court:

This Court does not readily grant relief from the ordinary application of such rules, nor does the Court believe that a plaintiff's mere invocation of privacy interests and public prominence, without more, warrants an exception to rules that apply to all other litigants. Moreover, the implicit premise of plaintiffs' motion--that their residential address is confidential--is questionable. In less than thirty minutes, the Court was able to ascertain plaintiffs' residential address from multiple publicly available sources, including a database of federal government records. Indeed, an attorney who filed this motion on plaintiffs' behalf has stated in a nationally circulated newspaper that he is plaintiffs' next-door neighbor, and the residential address of that attorney also is readily ascertainable.

Earlier this week the Associated Press reported that in June 2003, then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage met with the Washington Post's Bob Woodward. For reasons too tedious to explicate here, this lends plausibility to speculation that it was Armitage who first revealed Plame's identity to the press.

Have you heard any of the Angry Left Plame fetishists denounce Armitage as a "traitor"? Of course not, because Armitage is not a particularly partisan figure, and the Plame kerfuffle was never anything more than a partisan campaign to damage the White House.

The Swift Boat Entity
Yesterday's item on the reaction of John Kerry* to Herman Cain's column calling anti-Wal-Mart Democrats "Hezbocrats" prompted at least one reader to email us asking for a link to Cain's column: Here it is. Meanwhile, reader Michael Britton has an amusing analysis of Cain's neologism:

There doesn't seem to be much reason for Kerry to be getting his knickers in a twist over the term "Hezbocrat." After all, Hezbollah means "party of God," which, if the ollah part means God, implies that the hezb part means "party." The suffix -crat simply means "member of a ruling body," or "a participant in or supporter of a specified form of government." So, "Hezbocrat" would literally break down etymologically into "Party of the Ruling Body"--a moniker that Dems like Kerry could only wish for.

We must admit, we find "Hezbocrat" a rather clumsy term, but as we think about it, there is an odd parallel. Yesterday we were puzzled as to why Kerry was accusing Cain of "Swiftboating" the Wal-Mart foes--swiftboating usually understood to mean raising questions about a politician's military record.

Then we realized, the effort of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth was John Kerry's nakba (catastrophe). Now they have become an all-purpose scapegoat, to be blamed for any grievance. That is the same role the "Zionist entity" plays in Arab politics.

* C'mon, you can't expect us to have information on every obscure congressman out there!

Charley Reese Imitates Borat

"In my country there is problem
 And that problem is the Jew
 They take everybody money
 And never give it back

 Throw the Jew down the well
 So my country can be free
 You must grab him by his horns
 Then we have a big party"
     --Sacha Cohen as Borat, "Da Ali G Show," Aug. 1, 2004

"We have a Jewish problem. The government is totally paralyzed and is unwilling to issue even the mildest rebuke to Israel, no matter how outrageous its behavior. Why? Because the Jewish lobby is so powerful, American politicians are afraid of it. . . . The politicians need to learn how to say 'no' when our interests and Israel's interests conflict."--Charley Reese, syndicated column, Aug. 16, 2006

Great Moments in Public Education
"A Jefferson County [Colo.] geography teacher was placed on paid administrative [leave] on the second day of school for hanging several flags from other countries in his classroom," Denver's KMGH-TV reports.

The school district placed Eric Hamlin, a teacher at Carmody Middle School, "on administrative leave for insubordination, citing a Colorado law that makes it illegal to display foreign flags permanently in schools. . . . The school's principal escorted Hamlin out of class Wednesday morning after he refused to remove the flags of China and Mexico."

A district spokesman tells the station: "Under state law, foreign flags can only be in the classroom because it's tied to the curriculum." And what subject does Hamlin teach?

Uh, world geography.

Time Enough at Last
Several readers responded to yesterday's correction of Wednesday's correction of Tuesday's item about Iran by expressing skepticism that the time-zone difference between New York and Tehran is a compound rather than integer number of hours. In fact, there are quite a few fractional time zones, including two that are a quarter hour different.

Here's something approaching a complete list, showing the difference between standard time in these zones and Greenwich Mean Time, which is Britain's standard time:

  • GMT - 9:30: Marquesas Islands
  • GMT - 3:30: Canada (Newfoundland)
  • GMT + 3:30: Iran
  • GMT + 4:30: Afghanistan
  • GMT + 5:30: India, Sri Lanka
  • GMT + 5:45: Nepal
  • GMT + 6:30: Burma
  • GMT + 9:30: Australia (Central Time, including Darwin and Adelaide)
  • GMT + 10:30: Lord Howe Island
  • GMT + 11:30: Norfolk Island
  • GMT + 12:45: New Zealand (Chatham Island)

Note: The Marquesas Islands are a French possession, and Lord Howe and Norfolk islands are Australian, all in the South Pacific.

Homer Nods
The distance between Baghdad and Frankfurt is 1,873 nautical miles, not 3,469 as an item yesterday stated (since corrected). The latter number is the equivalent in kilometers, so we blame the metric system for the error.

Charles Evans Hughes did carry New York in the 1916 presidential election, contrary to our chart Monday (since corrected).

Let's Dance!
Wordsmith.org's word for the day is tarantism:

tarantism (TAR-uhn-tiz-uhm) noun

An uncontrollable urge to dance.

[After Taranto, a town in southern Italy where this phenomenon was experienced during the 15-17th centuries. It's not clear whether tarantism was the symptom of a spider's bite or its cure, or it may have been just a pretext to dodge a prohibition against dancing. The names of the dance tarantella and the spider tarantula are both derived from the same place.]

Yes, so far as we know, there is a relation. Family lore has it that our ancestors were expelled from Spain during the Inquisition and made their way to southern Italy, where they picked up the name. In the 16th century they were kicked out of Italy too, finally settling in Turkey, whence our father came.

Dem Ditzes Were Underrepresented
"GOP Dips in Religion Poll"--headline, Associated Press, Aug. 24

Their Bark Is Worse Than Their Bribe
"Corruption Dogs Both Parties This Year"--headline, Associated Press, Aug. 24

Send Prozac
"Depression Strengthening in Caribbean"--headline, Associated Press, Aug. 25

Wake Up. Panic . Go to Drugstore.
"Chronology: The Morning-After Pill"--headline, Associated Press, Aug. 24

How Much Do You Have to Sell to Win?
"Hawking to Receive the Oldest Award in Science"--headline, Guardian (London), Aug. 24

The Trade-Ins
"NRI: British Indian in New Body to Promote Integration, Cohesion"--headline, Indo-Asian News Service, Aug. 24

And Lions and Bears, Oh My!
"Garland Keeps White Sox Close to Tigers"--headline, Reuters, Aug. 24

When Good Shadchanim Go Bad
"Cult Leader Gets Date With Executioner"--headline, CNN.com, Aug. 24

'I Was Just Debriefing My Client, Your Honor'
"Madison County Public Defender Accused of Sex With Female Inmate"--headline, Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, Miss.), Aug. 25

News You Can Use
"Be Ready to Flee Fire, Official Warns"--headline, Deseret News, Aug. 25

Bottom Stories of the Day

  • "Prosecutor: Elkins Not a Speed Trap"--headline, Morning News (Fayetteville, Ark.), Aug. 23

  • "Mexico Won't Investigate 3 Fishermen"--headline, Associated Press, Aug. 25

  • "Peru: Ex-President Not Dead, and Feeling Better"--headline, New York Times, Aug. 25

Let That Be Your Last Battlefield
We have never watched a "reality TV" show in our life, and our interest in the genre is only slightly greater than the damage to national security owing to the "outing" of Valerie Plame. Still, we got a kick out of what the Washington Post's Lisa de Moraes called "the stunning news . . . that CBS would divide contestants on the next 'Survivor' into four tribes based on race."

Especially amusing is this reaction, reported by the Associated Press:

"The idea of having a battle of the races is preposterous," [New York] City Councilman John Liu said Thursday. "How could anybody be so desperate for ratings?" . . .

Liu, who is Asian-American, said he was launching a campaign urging CBS to pull the show because it could encourage racial division and promote negative typecasts. He and a coalition of officials, including the council's black, Latino and Asian caucus, planned to rally at City Hall on Friday.

So "the council's black, Latino and Asian caucus" is upset over a plan to divide people up by race? Talk about the pot calling the kettle African-American!

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