by JAMES TARANTO
Thursday, September 14, 2006 3:19 P.M. EDT

Roll the Tape
We've got another new WSJ.com video. In this one we talk about our recent visit to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with host Ed Crane. It's a preview of our Weekend Interview with Adm. Harry Harris, commander of the detention camp. Check back here Saturday, or in The Wall Street Journal, for it.

Big Win for the GOP Establishment
Sen. Lincoln Chafee's primary victory this week was a defeat for conservatives but a victory for the Republican Party. The obvious reason is that in heavily Democratic Rhode Island, Chafee has a much better chance of defeating Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse than his more conservative opponent, Steve Laffey, would have. (Are we the only one to think there's a separation-of-powers problem with sending Whitehouse to the Senate?)

"But the big news here is the success of the Republican turnout machine," writes Michael Barone of U.S. News & World Report:

The National Republican Senatorial Committee ran tough ads against Laffey--hitting him for being lax on immigration, for example--and the Republican National Committee sent in hundreds of operatives to turn out the vote for Chafee. Many conservatives are angry about this, of course, but whatever you think about it, it seemed to work.

The Republicans are counting on a big turnout effort to stave off disaster in November, and their Rhode Island success is an indication that they may have reason for confidence.

Of course, it's one thing for the Republican establishment to crush a grass-roots revolt, quite another to defeat the Democratic establishment. But they did it in 2004, at a time when the conventional wisdom still held, as former Enron adviser Paul Krugman put it on Election Day, that the Dems are "the side that benefits from large turnout." And contrast Rhode Island with next-door Connecticut, where the Democratic establishment couldn't save itself from Sen. Joe Lieberman's defeat at the hands of Angry Left tribune Ned Lamont.

The might of the Republican establishment is a mixed blessing, and perhaps on balance a curse, for principled conservatives. An entrenched establishment tends to produce corruption and complacency; eventually, as the Democrats found in 1994, it becomes vulnerable to a more nimble opposition. The questions for this year and beyond are whether the Republicans have reached that point yet, and whether the Democrats have overcome their own sclerosis.

The Great Unraveling
The Examiner reports from Keene, N.H., on a John Kerry* campaign rally. Seriously, this article was published today, not in 2003 or '04! Reverting to 1971 form, he is lashing out at fellow Vietnam veterans:

Asked if he dreads the prospect of being "Swift-Boated" all over again, Kerry counters that he would relish such a fight.

"I'm prepared to kick their ass from one end of America to the other," he declares. "I am so confident of my abilities to address that and to demolish it and to even turn it into a positive."

The Swift Boat Veterans do not seem bowed by the threat of a Kerry keister kicking:

Kerry's tough talk triggers laughter from John O'Neill, a fellow Vietnam veteran who helped found Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth and wrote a blistering 2004 book on Kerry, "Unfit for Command."

"Well, he's got eight times as much time to prepare for us as he spent in Vietnam," says O'Neill, referring to Kerry's short tour of duty.

Heck, after President Kerry finishes off the Swift Boat veterans, maybe he can go back to Vietnam and finally vanquish Charlie.

* "They gave me a hat. I have the hat to this day. I have the hat."

Gore and Kerry Drop to Nos. 2 and 3
"Conn. Mom Breaks Record for Biggest Baby"--headline, FoxNews.com, Sept. 14

'I Know What I Said, but Someone Has to Clean Up After Fido!'
"Despite Pledges, Congress Clings to Pet Projects"--headline, New York Times, Sept. 14

Proof That Gun Control Works
"A man with a black trench coat whose shooting rampage in a Montreal college killed one person and wounded 19 others before he was slain by police said on a blog in his name that he liked to play a role-playing Internet game about the Columbine shootings," the Associated Press reports from Quebec's largest city:

Six shooting victims remained in critical condition, including two in extremely critical condition. . . .

Canada's worst mass shooting took place in Montreal when gunman Marc Lepine, 25, killed 14 women at the Ecole Polytechnic on Dec. 6, 1989, before shooting himself.

That shooting spurred efforts for new gun laws achieved mainly as the results of efforts by survivors and relatives of Lepine's victims.

The Web site of WFIE-TV in Evansville, Ind., notes another Montreal mass murder: "In 1992 a Concordia University professor shot and killed four colleagues."

Those new gun laws certainly worked out well, didn't they?

What Would We Do Without Blogs of Accused Killers?
"Blog of Accused Killer Reveals Dark Character"--headline, Globe and Mail (Toronto), Sept. 14

The Real American Threat
Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair is having political problems at home, but he has a message Europe would do well to listen to, the so-called news agency Reuters reports:

Blair launched a withering attack on Thursday on what he called "mad anti-Americanism" among European politicians.

Blair, U.S. President George W. Bush's closest ally in the so-called war on terror, said the world urgently needs the United States to help tackle the globe's most pressing problems.

"The danger is if they decide to pull up the drawbridge and disengage. We need them involved," Blair said, spelling out his political vision in a pamphlet published by The Foreign Policy Center think-tank.

"The strain of, frankly, anti-American feeling in parts of European politics is madness when set against the long-term interests of the world we believe in," he said.

This is spot on. The more isolationist America becomes, the more Europe will be left to fend for itself. Given the continent's weak militaries, greedy welfare states, lax attitudes toward crime, low native birthrates and exploding Muslim populations, it's hard to muster much confidence in Europe's ability to go it alone.

One man who seems to have a dim understanding of the need for American engagement is, believe it or not, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Reports Agence France-Presse:

Asked what Middle East leaders had told him about their views of the consequences of the US-led war in Iraq, he said: "Most of the leaders I spoke to felt that the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath have been a real disaster for them . . . They believe it has destabilized the region."

He added that many leaders wanted the Americans to stay in Iraq until the security situation improves, noting that "having created the problem they cannot walk away."

Walking away is precisely what the Murtha-Kerry wing of the Democratic Party wants to do. Let us hope their irresponsible unilateralism does not prevail.

Pelosing bin Ladin
"Republicans are taking aim at House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for saying that taking out Osama bin Laden would not 'make us any safer,' " reports the Air Force Times:

The rhetorical volley began when Pelosi, who stands to become Speaker of the House if the Democrats recapture that chamber in the November elections, commented Tuesday on the effort to capture or kill bin Laden.

"Even if he is caught tomorrow, it is five years too late," Pelosi was quoted as saying. "He has done more damage the longer he has been out there. But in fact, the damage that he has done is done. And even to capture him now, I don't think makes us any safer."

We're not sure why the Republicans aren't embracing Pelosi's comment. After all, if capturing bin Laden wouldn't make us any safer, that means President Bush has already succeeded in neutralizing the threat.

Were We Unfair?
Several readers thought we were, in our item yesterday about Dinesh D'Souza's forthcoming book. They make two points: First, D'Souza isn't advocating appeasement of terrorists but of "moderate Muslims" who might harbor anti-American attitudes owing to our permissive and vulgar culture. Second, it isn't clear from the book description what policies he recommends; and thus it's not clear he wants to curtail freedoms. These seem like reasonable objections. We'll have to wait and see what the book says.

The Telltale 'However'
Reuters reports on a survey of Britons that correlates their musical tastes with lifestyle choices (the first sentence below is very unclearly written but the point gets through anyway):

Almost 38 percent of hip hop devotees and 29 percent of dance music fans were more likely to have had more than one sexual partner in the last five years compared to just 1.5 percent of country music fans.

However they were also more likely to have broken the law, with more than 50 percent of both hip hop and dance music lovers admitting committing a criminal act.

You've got to love that "however," by which Reuters contrasts promiscuity with crime, suggesting it approves of the former but disapproves of the latter. Or is it the other way around?

Old Timers
"Neanderthals survived for thousands of years longer than scientists thought, with small lingering bands finding refuge in a massive cave near the southern tip of Spain, new research suggests," the Associated Press reports from New York:

The work contends that Neanderthals were using a cave in Gibraltar at least 2,000 years later than their presence had been firmly documented anywhere before, researchers said.

These guys lived to be more than 2,000? Wow, next to them Methuselah died tragically young.

The New York Times, a Correctional Institution
An "Editor's Note" in today's New York Times:

An article in Business Day on Friday reported that the Walton Family Foundation had made contributions to four conservative research groups whose analysts wrote articles favorable to Wal-Mart Stores for newspapers and journals around the country. The Times article said that the groups and their employees had consistently failed to disclose the donations, and it said in the first paragraph that the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research was one of them. But a Manhattan Institute author had told The Times that he had indeed disclosed contributions from the Walton Foundation in an article he wrote, a fact that should have been included in the Times article.

The article also reported that Tim Kane of the Heritage Foundation and Karl Zinsmeister, formerly of the American Enterprise Institute, were among those who wrote articles favorable to Wal-Mart after their foundations received a donation.

Both those groups were called for comment for the Times article. Mr. Kane, who was not called, subsequently said that he did not know about the Walton Family Foundation contribution and that he had criticized Wal-Mart's call for a higher federal minimum wage in an article he wrote. The Times also did not ask Mr. Zinsmeister to comment, but he declined to do so when reached after the Times article was published. Both Mr. Kane and Mr. Zinsmeister should have been asked to comment before publication.

Do you get the feeling they just make this stuff up? So does John McWhorter, a Manhattan Institute fellow, who stands up for his tank in today's New York Sun:

The wording often used to describe my relationship with the Manhattan Institute suggests that there is some secret afoot. The Manhattan Institute is, we hear, my "patron"--a word that implies something below-ground, requiring smoking out. There is a similar air to the frequent wording that I am "supported by" the Manhattan Institute.

These terms would seem incommensurate with my regularly billing myself as I do at the end of this column. But to the extent that this is somehow considered insufficiently explicit, I might specify: I am "supported by" the Manhattan Institute just as a middle manager is "supported by" the company she works for. That is, the Manhattan Institute is not my "patron," they are my employer. They sign my paycheck, just as UC Berkeley used to. The Manhattan Institute is where I go to work. I have a card that buzzes me past the building's front desk. It's my job.

This brings us to another point. Last Friday I opened the Times to be greeted by a photo of me illustrating a story arguing that conservative think tanks instruct their writers to shill for corporations that give them contributions. My sin was saying on a radio show a year ago (in passing amidst a discussion of several issues) that Wal-Mart provides jobs for lower-income black people. . . . The notion that the Manhattan Institute sits its writers down and instructs us to speak in favor of corporations that give us money is fiction.

I had no idea Wal-Mart was one of our funders and have never been apprised of a list of such -- nor have any of my colleagues. Rather, naturally as someone employed by a free-market think tank, I do not see Wal-Mart as the scourge to humanity that it has become fashionable to claim. . . . I said Wal-Mart offers gainful employment to poor blacks because it is, quite simply, true, as plenty of black community representatives have been noting for years.

Full disclosure: This columnist (Taranto, that is, not McWhorter) was previously employed by both the Heritage Foundation (1988-90) and the Manhattan Institute (1991-96).

Homer Nods
Yes, we meant "barrel," not "gallon," in yesterday's item about OPEC. This is the kind of absentminded error we really hate to make, because there's nothing interesting about it and our box is inevitably filled with emails from readers calling attention to the error long after we've fixed it. Still, no matter how annoying the corrections are, we're grateful for them.

What Would We Do Without Experts?
"Experts: Effect of Cohabitation Ruling Remains Unclear"--headline, Associated Press, Sept. 14

What Would We Do Without Former Teachers?
"Former Teacher: Sex With Pupil 'Really Bad Choice' "--headline, CNN.com, Sept. 13

¿Qué Haríamos sin Estudios?
"Study Says English Is Alive, Well"--headline, Houston Chronicle, Sept. 14

The Wet Look
"Ex-CIA Official Plame Sues Armitage in Leak Suit"--headline, Reuters, Sept. 13

Why Would They Need Help Floundering?
"Efforts to Help Obese Children Floundering"--headline, MSNBC.com, Sept. 13

He Wants a Jury of His Deers?
"Defendant Seeks Delay Because Deer Season Could Reduce Jury Pool"--headline, WPTY-TV Web site (Memphis, Tenn.), Sept. 13

Try Explaining This to Nicodemus
"Rare White Buffalo Born to Wis. Farm for 3rd Time"--headline, WFRV-TV web site (Green Bay), Sept. 14

Bottom Stories of the Day

• "Giant Spider Invades Tallmadge Family's Porch"--headline, Associated Press, Sept. 13
  
  
• "Minister Advises Boy to Study"--headline, Mumbai (India) Mirror, Sept. 13
  
  
• "BMW Proves to Be Sustainable Business"--headline, Greenville (S.C.) News, Sept. 13

A Pantheon for Monotheists
We called yesterday for new conceptions of God, to add to the four cited in a Baylor University study, and you did not disappoint. Here's a full list. The first four are Baylor's, the next three are ours from yesterday, and the rest are new:

• Authoritarian God. Angry at earthly sin and willing to inflict divine retribution.
  
  
• Distant God. A faceless, cosmic force that launched the world but leaves it alone.
  
  
• Benevolent God. Sets absolute standards for man, but is also forgiving--engaged but not so angry.
  
  
• Critical God. The classic bearded old man, judgmental but not going to intervene or punish.
  
  
• Totalitarian God. He is everywhere, and he is watching you.
  
  
• Multitasking God. Answers prayers by phone, fax and BlackBerry, all at the same time.
  
  
• Noncommittal God. Loves his children, but isn't "in love" with them.
  
  
• Passive-aggressive God. "Go ahead, sin if you want to. Don't worry about my wrath."
  
  
• Obsessive-compulsive God. Washes his hands of us hundreds of times a day.
  
  
• Narcissistic God. Worships himself.
  
  
• Codependent God. Enables us to sin so that we'll need him.
  
  
• Dyslexic God. "For he so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Puppy . . ."
  
  
• Hypothermic God. "Many are cold, but few are frozen."
  
  
• Hippocratic God. So powerful, he thinks he's a doctor.
  
  
• Jewish mother God. "My children--I gave them life, but do they pray?"
  
  
• Common-law God. Since the beginning of time has assumed sole responsibility for Godlike acts, but has not legally been established as "God."
  
  
• Customer service God. "Press 1 for the Father, 2 for the Son, 3 for the Holy Spirit."
  
  
• Unitarian God. Nice enough guy, but doesn't really seem to believe in himself.
  
  
• Progressive God. Has outgrown the simplistic belief in his own literal existence, considers himself spiritual but not religious.
  
  
• Liberal God. Commands man to "be fruitless and divide"; is completely self-absorbed yet doesn't believe in himself; wants you to stop sinning but doesn't have an alternative; can't stop yelling, "Satan lied, people died!"
  
  
• Peace activist God. He's sending you to hell, but he supports the sinners!
  
  
• Cindy Sheehan God. Wants George W. Bush to tell him what "noble cause" his Son died for.
  
  
• Darwinian God. Possessed of an exquisite set of irony, he has divided mankind into two groups: those who believe that the most powerful biological force is the tendency of a population to be dominated by its most quickly reproducing members, and those who are actually reproducing.
  
  
• Planned Parenthood God. One Child is enough.
  
  
• New York Times God. Is angry only when people question the accuracy of his publication or his wisdom in divulging secret plans devised in the hearts of men.
  
  
• Reuters God. "One God's terrorist is another's freedom fighter."
  
  
• Rush Limbaugh God. "Talent on loan from me."
  
  
• Hippie God. Must have been on something when he created the world.
  
  
• United Nations God. Reaffirming that you are a sinner, he calls upon you to repent and decides to remain actively seized of this matter. If you ignore his call to repent, he will call upon you to repent again.
  
  
• CIA God. Knows everything, but lacks the resources to process and analyze it.
  
  
• George W. Bush God. Responsible only for evil.
  
  
• Sports God. Similar to Distant God, but occasionally intervenes when a big play is needed.
  
  
• Hertz Rent-a-God. He puts you in the driver's seat.
  
  
• Avis Rent-a-God. He tries harder.
  
  
• Enterprise Rent-a-God. He'll pick you up.
  
  
• Visa God. He's everywhere you want him to be.
  
  
• MasterGod. Priceless.
  
  
• American Express God. Don't leave home without him.
  
  
• Budweiser God. This God's for you.
  
  
• Windows God. Plug and pray.
  
  
• Google God. For those who are always searching.
  
  
• Frugal God. Jesus saves.
  
  
• Chairman God. Sets the agenda, but doesn't get involved in day-to-day operations.
  
  
• Micromanager God. Not a sparrow falls but he needs a report on why, with guidance on what to do about it.
  
  
• Soccer God. How about a pray date with his Son?
  
  
• Schroedinger's God. Either exists or doesn't, and the act of looking changes the answer.

A few readers mentioned the 1977 film "Oh, God!" in which George Burns portrayed the Almighty as an avuncular old man. We would have liked to have seen Groucho Marx in the role: "Last night I smote a heathen in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I'll never know."

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Today on OpinionJournal:

• Review & Outlook: Why we might not break the next Khalid Sheikh Mohammad.
• Jim Petersen: The federal government stops paying its "property taxes."
• John Kerry*: Insure CIA agents against a reckless administration, not terrorists' lawsuits or my subpoenas.
• Barbara Rose: How I lost my leg in Tehran.