From the WSJ Opinion Archives
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Defense of Dicker
In an item yesterday, we faulted Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch for his
statement, in objecting to Saddam Hussein's execution, that "the test of
a government's commitment to human rights is measured by the way it treats its
worst offenders. History will judge these actions harshly." This prompted
a defense of Dicker from reader Bob Koelle:
I think you seriously mischaracterized Richard Dicker's remarks. What he said is common pabulum, but not inaccurate.
I don't think history will long remember how Saddam was executed. But Dicker's not making an inverse statement--the worse the criminal, the better the treatment he should receive. That's nonsense. He's talking about having a "floor" of acceptable behavior for everyone, regardless of how vile he is. For example, while one could be happy to see Timothy McVeigh walk to the gas chamber, it would be unseemly to have a jeering crowd throwing rotten fruit at him as he went.
That's not out of respect for McVeigh, but out of respect for the solemnity and seriousness of putting someone to death. Such solemnity and seriousness is also a protection for the executioners' souls. These events should not be fun, even if you believe in their necessity.
In Dicker's case, I suppose he wouldn't want anyone put to death. That amounts to the lowest common denominator that he would apply to anyone. Why do you suggest that he wants to elevate Saddam? Were you speaking tongue-in-cheek? I suppose his choice of pabulum was clumsy; replace the words "worst offender" with "most vulnerable" and it's more correct. Why not just attack his poor choice of verbiage than make an absurd claim of a "monstrous moral inversion"?
Up to a point, we agree. Opposition to capital punishment is a respectable point of view, if (in our opinion) a wrongheaded one. And it would have been better if Saddam had been put to death in a more solemn manner--although, as reader Carl Friddle writes, "if Iraq has not yet reached the pinnacle of human dignity, whose fault is that, exactly?"
It's also true that Dicker's statement would have made sense if he had said "most vulnerable" instead of "worst offenders," and, yes, it is true that prisoners of the state are vulnerable by virtue of others' having seized control over their lives (and notwithstanding the deservedness of this condition).
But there is a huge difference between "worst offenders" and "most vulnerable," even if the two categories overlap. "Worst offenders" excludes the very sick, the very old, infants, children and others who are unable to fend for themselves--unless they also happen to be mass murderers.
We assumed that Dicker chose his words advisedly. But does it reflect better upon him if he did not--if he can casually and unconsciously draw an equivalence between a mass murderer and society's "most vulnerable"? It seems to us that this would indicate at best an intellectual slovenliness that reflects a complete lack of seriousness about human rights.
Saddam
as Guinea Pig
In a Los Angeles Times op-ed, militant atheist Richard Dawkins objects to Saddam's
execution on the novel ground that it deprives the world of a guinea pig:
His mind would have been a unique resource for historical, political and psychological research: a resource that is now forever unavailable to scholars.
Imagine, in fancy, that some science fiction equivalent of Simon Wiesenthal built a time machine, travelled back to 1945 and returned to the present with a manacled Adolf Hitler. What should we do with him? Execute him? No, a thousand times no. Historians squabbling over exactly what happened in the Third Reich and the Second World War would never forgive us for destroying the central witness to all the inside stories, and one of the pivotal influences on twentieth century history. Psychologists, struggling to understand how an individual human being could be so evil and so devastatingly effective at persuading others to join him, would give their eye teeth for such a rich research subject. Kill Hitler? You would have to be mad to do so. Yet that is undoubtedly what we would have done if he hadn't killed himself in 1945. Saddam Hussein is not in the same league as Hitler but, nevertheless, in a small way his execution represents a wanton and vandalistic destruction of important research data.
One hopes that Dawkins will take a stand against those who are trying to prevent the U.S. from extracting information from al Qaeda enemy combatants--information that not only is of scientific interest but stands to save lives in the short term.
Moonbatta
Non Grata
Remember Cindy Sheehan? Neither do we, but the surprise is who else doesn't.
Fox News reports she showed up on Capitol Hill yesterday:
Iraq war protesters broke up a press conference by House Democrats on Wednesday with chants to bring American troops home from Iraq. . . .
Cindy Sheehan, an anti-war activist and mother of a soldier who died in Iraq, led the group to Capitol Hill to warn Democrats that party activists expect them to end the war in Iraq and confront the White House on a change in Iraq strategy.
"We didn't put you in power to work with the people that have been murdering hundreds of thousands of people since they have been in power," Sheehan said. "We put you in power to be opposition to them finally and we're the ones who put them in power."
The Sheehanoids managed to cow Rep. Rahm Emanuel into shutting down his press conference. And from the Angry Left bloggers who once cheered her on: silence. Browsing the homepages of the Daily Kos, Atrios, Talking Points Memo and the Puffington Host, we can't find a single mention of the erstwhile moonbat heartthrob.
It comes as a relief to realize that many of those who once treated Sheehan as a heroine did so merely out of partisanship, not hatred of country.
The
Color of Hate
LA Weekly has a fascinating story on an alleged hate crime in Long Beach, Calif.,
in which three young women were allegedly attacked and seriously wounded by
a dozen-strong mob shouting racial epithets. But the case has received little
media attention, outside the local Press-Telegram, apparently because the defendants
are black and their alleged victims white:
The racial controversies simmering just below the surface didn't hit national airwaves until November 29. That day, on National Public Radio's News & Notes, a show touting an "African-American perspective," Farai Chideya asked three prominent black guests whether, in fact, blacks can be blamed for hate crimes at all.
Said Chideya: ". . . some people say black folks cannot be racist because the root of the issue is power. So what do you make of this crime where you've got 12- to 17-year-olds and, you know, black people attacking whites? Is this a traditional hate crime? Should it be prosecuted as such? People in the community are kind of divided about that."
It's rather perverse to suggest that three young women being set upon by an angry mob are in a position of "power" merely by virtue of being persons of pallor. But here's an even more striking example of this racial double standard:
From the start of the trial, Press-Telegram reporter Tracy Manzer has offered a detailed picture of the courtroom, the families and the shackled teens in juvie-gray sweatshirts. She has veered into touchy racial territory, telling readers about Karl Rowe, a defendant's uncle and a fixture at the trial. In a self-published pamphlet, Rowe declared that " 'n----r' for the N word is different from 'n---a,' " insisting that the district attorney didn't understand that words like "nigga" and "white bitches" [the latter an epithet the defendants allegedly yelled at the victims] are acceptable in some urban enclaves.
They may be accepted in "some urban enclaves," but the word "nigger" in its original sense, and all that it implies, was once accepted in wide areas of the country. That it wasn't acceptable was the premise of the civil rights movement.
Have
Yourself a Kerry Little Christmas
"Nothing is ever simple when it comes to John Kerry[*],"
observes the Washington Post's Lois Romano (second item):
The senator from Massachusetts and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, sent out 75,000 Christmas cards with pictures of trees at each season. The Kerrys gushed over their "gratitude for the beauty of these trees and the life they represent."
But it didn't end there.
The card came in an odd-looking envelope, one of those with a return-mail flap and instructions to send it to . . . well, to a recycling company, so "it can be made into new carpet tile."
Carpet tile?
We want a "world without waste . . . where every product either returns safely to the soil or becomes a new product."
So the card instructs: "1. Remove this panel and insert it along with the card into the envelope. 2. Expose adhesive strip and fold the flap over to seal the envelope. 3. Drop this mailer into any U.S. mailbox."
Who else would send a Christmas card with a to-do list?
Putting aside the obvious point that many of these cards will end up in landfills despite the didactic directions, sending 75,000 cards would have cost more than $29,000 in domestic postage alone. If the Heinzes wanted to do something to benefit the environment, couldn't they have found a better way of spending this money?
* The haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, whose memory of being in Cambodia 38 Christmases ago is "seared--seared--into me," even though by all other accounts it is a fabulation.
Careful
What You Wish For
CNN reports on an odd jailhouse interview with Sara Jane Moore, the second woman
to fail to assassinate President Ford in California:
Once in prison, she said, she never wished for Ford's death, which might have helped her gain early parole.
"People kept saying he would have to die before I could be released, and I did not want my release from prison to be dependent on somebody, on something happening to somebody else, so I wanted him to live to be 100," she said.
Of course, Ford would have lived long and Moore wouldn't have gone to prison if she hadn't tried to kill him. We'll bet she's kicking herself for not thinking of that in time.
Homelessness Rediscovery Watch
"If George W. Bush becomes president, the armies of the homeless, hundreds of thousands strong, will once again be used to illustrate the opposition's arguments about welfare, the economy, and taxation."--Mark Helprin, Oct. 31, 2000
"Villepin Promises French Housing Right After Homeless Protests"--headline, Bloomberg, Jan. 3, 2007
When
Did They Criminalize Being an Inattentive Boyfriend?
"Police Search for Boyfriend Who Left Girls Alone"--headline, Atlanta
Journal-Constitution, Jan. 4
Isaac
Newton, Call the Coroner
"Coroner Says Student's Fall From Tower a Mystery"--headline, Chicago
Tribune, Jan. 4
What
Would a 'Sensible' School Shooting Look Like?
"Wash. School Shooting Called 'Senseless' "--headline, Associated
Press, Jan. 4
Bottom Stories of the Day
- "Colder, Wetter and Snowier Pattern by Mid January"--headline,
Chicago
Tribune, Jan. 4
- "Rapper Arrested on Assault Charge"--headline, Toronto
Sun, Jan. 4
- "Obama Not Speaking at Tech on Martin Luther King Day"--headline, Roanoke (Va.) Times, Jan. 4
And
Accessory Makes Three
Yesterday Arianna Puffington visited an afternoon tea in honor of Speaker Nancy
Pelosi, and she reports on the Democrats' efforts to combat the Roe effect:
Family was the leitmotif of the day. The new Speaker was introduced at the tea by her 8-year old granddaughter Madeline (her grandson had handled similar duties at a morning mass at Nancy's alma mater, Trinity University), and Elijah, the young son of Pelosi's chief of staff John Lawrence, entertained the crowd at the Mellon event with a well-sung rendition of "It's a Wonderful World."
Indeed, when I asked Heather Thomas, who had flown in from Los Angeles for the celebrations, to be on Fashion Watch for me, she replied: "That's easy, today's main accessory: children."
Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports from New Orleans on a survivor of Hurricane Katrina who has yet to be born:
The baby album for Rebekah Markham's soon-to-be-born child could include something extra special: photos of officers using flat-bottomed boats to rescue the youngster's frozen embryo from a sweltering hospital in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Markham is about to give birth via Caesarean section, nine months after being implanted with an embryo that nearly thawed when the flooded hospital lost electricity. . . .
"That is great! I'm going to call all our officers and tell them. They'll be pretty excited," said Lt. Eric Bumgarner, one of seven Illinois Conservation Police officers and three Louisiana state troopers who sloshed through floodwaters to remove the embryos. Bumgarner said he has often wondered what happened to the embryos: "One of these embryos could be the next president."
That seems unlikely, given that the embryo will be at least 33 years shy of the minimum age by Inauguration Day. Hardhearted sorts would argue that the Markhams are being selfish by wasting all those perfectly good stem cells on an accessory, but not us. Best of the Web wishes to mother and child.
(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Martin Shimp, Michael Schrage, Ethel Fenig, Robert Paci, Michael Nunnelley, Anne McCaughey, Lawrence Weiss, John Eremic, Tom Elia, Reuven Mermelstein, John Williamson, Grant Gandy, Mark Van Der Molen, Jerry Rhoden, Charlie Gaylord, Harry Kriz, Brendan Schulman, Peter Huntsman and Thomas Dillon. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Review & Outlook: Speaker Pelosi learned a few things from Tom DeLay.
- Felix Rohatyn: How Gerald Ford saved New York.
- Richard Woodward: Subtext message: The cellphone video of Saddam's execution.
