From the WSJ Opinion Archives
Best
of the Tube Tonight
We're scheduled to appear yet 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.
We Have Two Winners
Congratulations to Joshua Davey and Brian Kalt, each of whom correctly answered
9 of the 10 questions in our exceptionally difficult presidential trivia quiz.
We've posted the answers here,
and you can read the questions here.
The question both Davey and Kalt failed to answer--and, indeed, that no one
answered--was No. 8.
Naming the Enemy
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales visited our offices at The Wall Street Journal
yesterday to discuss terrorism and other matters. At one point the discussion
turned into something resembling a comedy sketch.
Gonzales said that the Justice Department was concerned with the problem of "radicalization" in American prisons, and a colleague of ours asked if he was referring to Islamic radicalization. Gonzales declined to characterize it in this way, noting that we are not at war with Islam. Our colleague persisted, and the attorney general allowed that "some" of the radicals are Muslim.
We asked if he could give us percentages, and he demurred. Then another colleague asked, "The ones who aren't Muslims--what are they?" Again, he didn't have an answer.
Are there non-Muslim radical groups active in U.S. prisons whose ideology the attorney general cannot remember? We suppose anything's possible, but it seems more likely that he was evading the obvious.
There is, of course, a good reason for such evasion. We aren't at war with Islam, and declaring war on a religion whose adherents number about one-fifth of the world's population would be boneheaded in the extreme. (Ralph Peters eloquently answers anti-Muslim bigots in today's New York Post.)
At the same time, there is a reason that the illegal combatants at Guantanamo are provided with Korans and arrows pointing to Mecca rather than with Bibles or tzitzit. Islam is not our enemy, but our enemies are Muslim; and Islam as they understand it is the ideology that drives them to make war on us.
Indulge us in a little experiment: Try not to think of a giraffe. Didn't work, did it? Likewise, strained efforts to avoid characterizing the enemy as Muslim only reinforce the misconception that our war is against Islam.
Before the Gonzales meeting, we attended a Hudson Institute lunch for former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu (the New York Sun was there as well), who put the matter very clearly. The enemy, he said, is "militant Islam," which is at war not only with Christians and Jews but with other Muslims whom the militants deem insufficiently pious.
In Netanyahu's formulation, then, the civilized world, including much of the Muslim world, is defending itself against an aggressor that is Muslim but does not represent all Muslims. And as he noted, although we are not waging a religious war, the enemy is.
Whereas the Israelis have been engaged with this problem for decades, we Americans were not nearly so focused on it until half a decade ago. Thus it isn't surprising that leaders in Jerusalem would have a more sophisticated outlook than their counterparts in Washington. But the latter clearly could stand to learn from the former.
Is
Siam a Miasma?
Leonard Pitts, a columnist for the Miami Herald, thinks he has a clever response
to those who compare the war on terror to World War II:
On Dec. 7, 1941, Japan launched a sneak attack that devastated the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. And the United States rose in righteous fury, immediately declaring war on Thailand. Because, you know, it was in the same part of the world as Japan and the people kind of looked alike and besides, those Thais had been getting a little uppity and were due for a smackdown.
Which is not the way it happened, of course, but if Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wants to use World War II allusions to describe the War on Terror, I submit that my fantasy comes a lot closer to the truth than his. Rumsfeld's fantasy, if you missed it, was shared in a recent speech before the American Legion in Salt Lake City. There, the Sec Def said that critics of the war in Iraq--a designation that now includes most Americans--are like those who thought they could avoid fighting by negotiating with, or ''appeasing,'' the Nazis in the days before World War II.
Now, as it happens, America declared war on Germany and Italy, on Dec. 11, 1941, four days after Pearl Harbor, even though those countries had never attacked us. What's more, as blogger Honza Prchal notes, Thailand was a Japanese ally. It declared war on the U.S. and Britain on Jan. 25, 1942.
This list shows that although the U.S. never got around to declaring war on Thailand, allies Australia, Britain, New Zealand and South Africa all did. Further, in addition to Japan, which had attacked us, and Germany and Italy, which had not, the U.S. also declared war on the Axis states of Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania, on June 5, 1942.
It just goes to show you that those who forget history are doomed to write silly newspaper columns.
A
Sorry Man
The Washington Post reports that Richard Armitage regrets having leaked the
identity of sort-of-secret CIA employee Valerie Plame, consort of Angry Left
egomaniac Joe Wilson:
Armitage said he deeply regrets embarrassing [Colin] Powell, the State Department, his friends and family, and the Wilsons.
What about President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Scooter Libby and Karl Rove?
Laffey
for Senate
The Senate's most liberal Republican pulled a stunt yesterday that may backfire:
He prevailed upon Sen. Richard Lugar, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee,
to postpone the scheduled vote on the confirmation of U.N. Ambassador John Bolton,
the Associated Press reports:
Chafee . . . faces a difficult primary Tuesday against a conservative GOP challenger. Delaying the vote until later could spare Chafee from potentially alienating some GOP voters by supporting or opposing Bolton.
Seems to us this move is more likely to alienate Republicans, making them more likely to say, as Kim Strassel put it, "We might as well have a Democrat."
Chafee's objections turn out to be not to Bolton himself but to Israel. We've obtained a copy of the letter the senator sent Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in which he offers this complaint:
Phase one of that Road Map [to Mideast peace] states clearly that Israel will freeze all settlement activity. Yet, just this week, it is reported that 690 homes will be built in the West Bank settlements of Maale Adumim and Betar Illit. While the official US policy has been against settlement activity, no credible observer could think that the US could not do more to stop these new actions.
Interestingly, while Chafee can't abide Jews building houses, his letter has nothing to say about the Palestinian Arabs who've been firing rockets at Israeli civilians from Gaza--which would seem to be a much more serious departure from the "road map."
The
Swift Boat Entity--II
The Hartford Courant reports that independent Democrat Joe Lieberman is being
accused of "swift-boating" dependent Democrat Ned Lamont:
Standing with 11 Connecticut veterans, including retired National Guard Brig. Gen. James Throwe of South Windsor, [Lamont campaign chairman George] Jepsen called on the Lieberman campaign to renounce Vets for Freedom and stop "the swift-boating of Ned Lamont."
And in what does Vets for Freedom's "swift-boating" consist? A TV ad in which "four Connecticut veterans appear on the screen to thank Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman for his support of the war in Iraq." That's it!
Way
Worse Than 'Macaca'
The Associated Press reports on a shocking example of race-baiting in the Show
Me State:
GOP lawmakers on Thursday blasted Democratic Senate candidate Claire McCaskill for comments she made this week about President Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina.
During a meeting with Democratic political leaders in St. Louis on Wednesday, McCaskill remind [sic] people that, "George Bush let people die on rooftops in New Orleans because they were poor and because they were black."
The AP seems to have committed a very unfortunate editing error, too. Presumably the words "said she wanted to" or something along those lines were supposed to appear before "remind." After all, "remind" suggests that what follows is true. You can remind someone that the Union won the Civil War or that the Nazis murdered six million Jews, not that the communists put fluoride in our water or that the World Trade Center was brought down by Zionists acting under orders from Saddam Hussein.
Metaphor
Alert
"In what appears to be an offseason unparalleled in terms of quarterback
movement, the carousel of change has operated at warp-speed, spinning
out of control at times, and the volume on the calliope has
been cranked to the max. Most of the past several offseasons have included
a high-stakes game of quarterback musical chairs. But there might
not be enough overstuffed recliners in a La-Z-Boy warehouse to handle
what has transpired leaguewide since the end of the 2005 season."--Len
Pasquarelli, ESPN.com, Sept. 1
We
Hear It's 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, DC 20500
"Bush to Give Address Monday on 9/11 Anniversary"--headline, Reuters,
Sept. 8
Not Quite the Perfect Crime
The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports that police have charged radio personality
Vincent Marinello with the murder of his estranged wife, Liz. One clue:
On a piece of paper inside the FEMA trailer where he lived near his ruined Lakeview home, Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office detectives investigating the death of Liz Marinello found a to-do list of sorts with checks beside each entry: mustache and beard, bicycle, gun--even a reminder to throw away the weapon.
Apparently there was no check next to "Destroy list."
There
Are Courses in That?
"Man Beats Wife After Violence Course"--headline, Associated Press,
Sept. 7
Maybe
They Should Take a Violence Course
"Police Guild Advertises for Tips in Beating"--headline, Seattle Times,
Sept. 7
We
Thought He'd Be Turning in His Grave
"Harvard Dead Defends Khatemi Invitation"--headline, Associated Press,
Sept. 7
The
Odyssey of Flight 33
"Global Warming Taking Earth Back to Dinosaur Era"--headline, Reuters,
Sept. 7
Bad
News for Evacuees With Two Left Feet
"Right Shoes May Be Key to Mass Evacuation"--Chicago Sun-Times, Sept. 8
'It's
OK, Honey, I Can Pick Up My Own Glasses'
"Car Crashes Into Hayward Optometrist's Office"--headline, KNTV Web
site (San Jose, Calif.), Sept. 6
And
You Thought 21% Interest Rates Were Bad
"Visa Applicants Asked About Sex-Trade"--headline, Jerusalem Post,
Sept. 8
Must've
Been One Hell of a Bounce
"Matadors Can't Climb Mountain, Fall to West Virginia"--headline,
GoMatadors.OnlineSports.com, Sept. 2
News
You Can Use
"Eyesight Crucial to Learning"--headline, Wausau (Wis.) Daily Herald,
Sept. 7
Thanks
for the Tip!--CII
"Health Tip: Eat Properly"--headline, HealthDay.com, Sept. 8
Bottom Stories of the Day
- "No Wedding Bells for Andie MacDowell"--headline, Asheville
(N.C.) Citizen-Times, Sept. 7
- "Ustecky Region Councillors Do Not Discuss Bus Transport in Region"--headline,
Financni
Noviny (Czech Republic), Sept. 6
- "Lauer Not Interested in Night Anchor Job"--headline, Associated
Press, Sept. 7
- "Sen. Biden Criticizes Bush, Has Own Plan"--headline, News Journal (Wilmington, Del.), Sept. 8
Nod
Homers
Yesterday we noted that David Broder, dean of Washington commentators, was calling
on partisan journalists to apologize for having slandered Karl Rove over the
Valerie Plame kerfuffle. "That would certainly be nice, but something tells
us we'll sooner see $1-a-gallon gas or the Red Sox win a World Series."
Several readers wrote to inform us that the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004. We didn't see the series that year, but we checked, and it turns out that our readers are technically correct.
(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Ed Lasky, Stephen Rosenbach, Mark Schulze, Ruth Papazian, Doug Levene, Peter Huntsman, Steve Hilton, Kevin Aylward, Terry Harris, Keith Phillips, Nick Olson, Jeff Dobbs, Merv Benson, Dan O'Shea, David Wright, John Rafter, Rick Knowles, Brian O'Rourke, Mark Van Der Molen, Steve Karass, Barak Moore, Bruce Chalupsky, Mary Pinkowish, Skip Gillikin, Jason Woodward, Robert Firriolo, Dave Huber, Jeff Lord, Jud Rogers, Kenneth Randall, Carla Blakely, Sean Carroll, Jack Archer, Mike Aiello, David Phelps, Charles Purnell, Liam Toomey, Mike Cercone and Ron Sackowitz. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Review & Outlook: What we learned from KSM and friends.
- Daniel Henninger: Ground Zero bears America's broken politics.
- Peggy Noonan: I just called to say I love you: The sounds of 9/11.
- The Journal Editorial Report: Tune in this weekend for a discussion of the war on terror five years after 9/11.
And on the Taste page:
- Review & Outlook: Is America safer today? The media don't seem interested.
- Tony & Tacky: A New York Times reporter discovers that L.L. Bean sells--gasp!--hunting gear.
- Brian Carney: Fact or fiction? On YouTube, we'll never know.
- Pia Catton: Sweet Sixteen parties have evolved into ego-feeding extravaganzas.
- Heather Wilhelm: The Presbyterian Church gets into the 9/11 conspiracy theory business.
