by JAMES TARANTO
Monday, January 8, 2007 2:06 P.M. EST

Judge This Book by Its Author's Cover
Scooter Libby is set to go on trial soon for charges tangentially related to the Valerie Plame kerfuffle. Meanwhile, Plame is looking to cash in on her career as a "secret agent," but is running into resistance:

A CIA panel has told former officer Valerie Plame she can't write about her undercover work for the agency, a position that may threaten a lucrative book project with her publisher. . . .

Plame recently hired a lawyer to challenge the CIA Publications Review Board, which must clear writings by former employees. The panel refused Plame permission to even mention that she worked for the CIA because she served as a "nonofficial cover" officer (or NOC) posing as a private businesswoman, according to an adviser to Plame, who asked not to be identified discussing a sensitive issue. "She believes this will effectively gut the book," said the adviser. Larry Johnson, a former colleague, said the agency's action seems punitive, given that other ex-CIA undercover officers have published books. But even Plame's friends acknowledge that few NOCs have done so.

A few years back almost everyone on the left, from the lowliest blogger to the mighty New York Times, was acting as if the mere fact of Plame's employment with the CIA was a huge secret, the breaching of which was a terrible affront to national security. Now she wants to write a "lucrative book" about "her undercover work for the agency"--a book that presumably will include more than one sentence, and thus will go into some detail about what she did there.

Where's the outrage? Browsing the Times editorial page and the Angry Left blogs--Daily Kos, Atrios, Puffington Host and most especially Talking Points Memo--we couldn't find any mention of the big-bucks book deal.

It is sad to realize that many of those who once treated Plame as a put-upon patriot did so merely out of partisanship, not love of country.

Israel's Sacrifices
Our Friday item about Wesley Clark brought this response from Hershel Ginsburg, an Israeli reader:

I read your posting on Clark's comments to the Huffington Post (or Puffington Host) and the comments of the "progressive" and "enlightened" anti-Semites cheering on Clark's anti-Semitic diatribe and was blown away.

Set aside Clark's coming out of his bigotry closet (where are all those who jumped on Senator George Allen's comments?); set aside Huffington's publishing this stuff (would she also publish some other failed politician's diatribe calling all Muslims terrorists?); what blew me away was the statement by one of the "talkbackers" saying it was time for "Jewish mothers, instead of American mothers, to mourn the loss of their sons for a while."

I will give him the benefit of the doubt. This turkey must have been busy hiding his head from the Thanksgiving hatchet to be totally ignorant of the losses in both military and civilian lives (and many times as many injured) just during these past six years of the Oslo Accords war and the Lebanese War of this past summer--about 1,200 or so. If the U.S. had suffered proportionally similar losses, the total would be over 50,000 dead and several times that in injuries. So believe me, we Israelis have mourned more than our share of dead, and will continue to do so.

For the record, I write this as the father of a reserve combat medic in the Israel Defense Forces, who served three years in regular IDF service (as a draftee, not a volunteer) and saw some of his buddies killed including a fellow medic who literally died in my son's hands as he was struggling to save his life from a sniper bullet. My son also served in Lebanon this past summer as a reservist. And indeed all my kids had the distinct "pleasure" of burying someone they knew who was a victim of Palestinian terrorism during the Oslo war.

Furthermore, Israel always has and always preferred to deal with its own security problems on its own at the risk of its own soldiers' lives but gets condemned when others just can't see what we see. The best example was the 1981 bombing of the Iraqi reactor at Osirak. It took 10 years until others, including the U.S., (although I don't know if the lefties ever "got it") recognized the necessity of bombing Saddam Hussein's French-built reactor.

During the 1991 Gulf War, when Saddam was raining missiles on Tel Aviv, Israelis wanted to retaliate, but Prime Minister Yitzchak Shamir, in a very controversial (here in Israel) move, gave in to American entreaties not to fight back and let the coalition do the work. There are many here who still think that was a grave mistake.

Now Israel is faced with a worse situation with Iran and Mad Mahmoud, who explicitly states he wants to wipe Israel off of the map and is backed by the "moderate" Hashemi Rafsanjani, who muses about Iran absorbing a 50% loss of its population as the bearable price for wiping out Israel in a nuclear exchange. On the one hand we have been waiting for the all-powerful and all-wise "international community" to work its magic and impose meaningful sanctions on Iran. To date, that is still a joke. So now we are facing a threat against our existence on the one hand, and grave warnings on the other hand from the "progressive" types not to expect the U.S. to do the job but not to do it ourselves either lest it upset the Muslim street. In the end we will have to deal with Iran ourselves and bear the consequences because ain't no one else going to do it.

And so this turkey says that its time for Jewish mothers to mourn the loss of our sons? Man, we wrote the book on it.

On a personal note, we were vacationing in Israel when Hezbollah began the war last July, and as we passed through Tel Aviv before heading for home, we phoned a few of our older cousins to see if they wanted to get together. None of them felt up to going out, because all were worried about children or grandchildren who were in the military. Israel has always seemed to us to be a country very much like America, but here we were struck by the difference: In Israel, the threat of war is constant and nearby; and having loved ones in the military is the norm rather than the exception.

And of course there is a reason Israel must defend itself through military might and strong borders. This article from the Jerusalem Post underscores the problem:

Just two days after winning the Tiberias Marathon and speaking about how "people should live together in harmony," Kenyan-born runner Mushir Salem Jawher was stripped of his Bahraini citizenship Saturday for competing in Israel. . . .

Bahrain's Athletic Union said in a statement Saturday that it had received the news that a Bahraini national competed in Israel with "shock and regret."

"The union deeply regrets what the athlete has done," the statement said. A committee of sport and government authorities decided to strike Jawher's name off the sport union records and strip him of his Bahraini nationality, the statement said.

It said Jawher had entered Israel with his Kenyan passport and added that the runner's Bahraini citizenship was revoked because he had "violated the laws of Bahrain." . . .

Jawher was born in Kenya in 1978 and moved to Bahrain in 2003, according to the International Association of Athletics Federation.

This is just symbolism, but what it symbolizes is that most Arab and Muslim regimes regard Israel as a pariah state. How can you negotiate with someone who doesn't even acknowledge your right to exist?

No Perfection, No Justice
James Carroll of the Boston Globe tries to draw a parallel between Saddam Hussein's execution and the liberation of Iraq, both of which he deplores:

Capital punishment is to individuals what aggressive war is to nations. The 20th century, for all its brutality (or because of it), marked the watershed era when world opinion shifted against both. Once, princes exercised life-and-death power over subjects with unchallenged authority. Once, the only check on a state's freedom to attack another state was its power to do so.

These two absolutes of realpolitik have changed. From the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 to principles laid down at the Nuremberg tribunals to the United Nations itself, wars of aggression stand condemned. The force of state violence is to be exercised only in self-defense or in defense of a victim people, in circumstances defined by international agreement. Similarly, nation after nation has abolished the death penalty, understanding the absurdity of defending human life by destroying human life. If killing can ever be justified, individually or communally, it is only as an absolute last resort. In sum, an international moral consensus has taken shape against unnecessary violence, whether targeting a criminal or a rogue state.

Of course the Iraq war was in part "in defense of a victim people"; among the U.N. Security Council resolutions that constituted the casus belli was No. 688, condemning "the repression of the Iraqi civilian population." Carroll's objection is a procedural one, namely the lack of "international agreement." But whatever the benefits of such agreement, it seems obtuse to say that a humanitarian military intervention is immoral merely because the French or the Russian government does not support it.

Similarly, one can oppose the death penalty, or support the death penalty but criticize the manner of Saddam's execution, while also acknowledging that justice was done. This Carroll does not do. He calls the execution "an act of false justice" rather than of imperfect justice.

What Carroll is doing is making the perfect the enemy of the good--which, since the world is imperfect, frequently means taking the side of evil.

With 'Moderates' Like These . . .
The New York Times magazine interviews the Muslim formerly known as Cat Stevens:

For all your devotion to education and good deeds, government officials in various countries have tried to link you to extremist groups, including Hamas. What do you think of Hamas?

That's an extremely loaded question.

Can you try to answer it?

I have never supported a terrorist group or any group that did other than charity and good to humankind.

O.K., but many of us here in the States would like to see moderate Muslims make more of an effort to denounce the extremist fringe of the faith. Very few mainstream Muslims have publicly criticized their radical brethren.

If I am not an example of that, then tell me, Who is?

So would you say you have contempt for a terrorist group like Hamas?

I wouldn't put those words in my mouth. I wouldn't say anything on that issue. I'm here to talk about peace. I'm a man who does want peace for this world, and I don't think you will achieve that by putting people into corners and asking them very, very difficult questions about very contentious issues.

Stevens doesn't always beat around the bush like this. From the Times of May 23, 1989:

The musician known as Cat Stevens said in a British television program to be broadcast next week that rather than go to a demonstration to burn an effigy of the author Salman Rushdie, ''I would have hoped that it'd be the real thing.''

The singer, who adopted the name Yusuf Islam when he converted to Islam, made the remark during a panel discussion of British reactions to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's call for Mr. Rushdie to be killed for allegedly blaspheming Islam in his best-selling novel ''The Satanic Verses.'' He also said that if Mr. Rushdie turned up at his doorstep looking for help, ''I might ring somebody who might do more damage to him than he would like.''

''I'd try to phone the Ayatollah Khomeini and tell him exactly where this man is,'' said Mr. Islam, who watched a preview of the program today and said in an interview that he stood by his comments.

If this is a "moderate" Muslim, what would he have to do to be an extremist?

The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations
A failed Harvard job-seeker has filed a federal complaint alleging she was passed over on account of race:

Lisa Bailey, who had worked as a temporary employee for five months, charged that she was denied a full-time position because of her bad credit record. Although the full-time job had nearly the same responsibilities as her current temporary position--which involved handling alumni donation checks--Harvard did not consult her credit record until she applied for the full-time position, according to her lawyer, Piper Hoffman.

But, Hoffman, a partner with the New York-based firm Outten & Golden, said there is more at stake in this case than the denial of Bailey for a full time position. Hoffman filed a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) claiming that the use of credit scores to determine employment eligibility is discriminatory against minorities because minorities are more likely to have credit problems.

In order to believe that this is discriminatory, you have to accept one of the following propositions:

• Credit reporting agencies, in violation of federal law and contrary to the financial interests of their clients, give lower credit scores to blacks than whites who are equally creditworthy.
  
  
• Notwithstanding both federal law and academia's commitment to "diversity," Harvard is using irrelevant employment criteria in an effort to avoid hiring blacks.

Does either of these sound even remotely plausible?

Great Orators of the Democratic Party

• "One man with courage makes a majority."--Andrew Jackson
  
  
• "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."--Franklin D. Roosevelt
  
  
• "The buck stops here."--Harry S. Truman
  
  
• "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."--John F. Kennedy
  
  
• "I am running for president. I'm going to be Joe Biden, and I'm going to try to be the best Biden I can be. If I can, I got a shot. If I can't, I lose."--Joe Biden

Deep Thoughts
"John Edwards may be running for president again in 2008, but his latest effort is hardly a repeat performance of the 2004 campaign that catapulted him to the Democratic vice presidential nomination," reports the Buffalo News:

The former North Carolina senator says circumstances have changed, America has changed, and he has changed.

"In 2004 I spent a lot of time thinking about how I could be the best candidate possible," he said in Buffalo Saturday. "Now I think about being the best president I could be." . . .

He has taken his campaign to the next level, he said, by moving beyond identifying problems to identifying solutions.

"My thinking as a leader has evolved," he said. "Identifying a problem is not good enough, but taking action to solve it is key. . . ."

Wow, this "solutions" thing is going to revolutionize politics! And you thought Edwards was just another pretty face.

Negroponte in Line for Promotion?
"Rice to Exit Early for NFL"--headline, State (Columbia, S.C.), Jan. 8

How Much Did They Pay for Those Estimates?
"Medicare Drug Program Costing Less Than Estimates, U.S. Says"--headline, New York Times, Jan. 7

'It Tasted Heavenly, but You Didn't Want to Watch It Being Made . . .'
"Denver Company Recalls Sausage"--headline, Denver Post, Jan. 5

News You Can Use

• "Dodging Traffic a Risky Undertaking"--headline, Argus Leader (Sioux Falls, S.D.), Jan. 6
  
  
• "Losing Job Will Make It Hard to Pay Off Mortgages"--headline, Daily Herald (suburban Chicago), Jan. 7

Bottom Stories of the Day

• "Chirac Blasts U.S.-Led Invasion of Iraq"--headline, Associated Press, Jan. 5
  
  
• "Barrymore Wants Everybody to Lighten Up"--headline, Associated Press, Jan. 5
  
  
• "Artist Hopes to Float Giant Banana Over Texas"--headline, Associated Press, Jan. 7
  
  
• "Democrats Consider Raising Taxes"--headline, Star Tribune (Minneapolis), Jan. 7
  
  
• "Canadian Actors Strike Set to Take Effect"--headline, Reuters/Hollywood Reporter, Jan. 8
  
  
• "Dog Bite Victim Won't Need Shots"--headline, WCAX-TV Web site (Burlington, Vt.), Jan. 7

A Sick Man
Louis Farrakhan is having health problems, the Associated Press reports from Chicago:

Farrakhan, 73, wrote in a Sept. 11 letter to followers that he was anemic and 20 pounds lighter because of complications from an ulcer in the anal area. He had surgery in 2000 for prostate cancer.

He turned leadership of the Nation of Islam over to an executive board while he recovered, saying the movement must prove that it "is more than the charisma, eloquence and personality" of one person.

To say nothing of his modesty!

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Today on OpinionJournal:

• Review & Outlook: The fastest way home from Iraq is a bolder strategy now.
• John Fund: Will President Bush emphasize sensible energy ideas, or trendy ones?
• The Journal Editorial Report: A transcript of the weekend's program on the FOX News Channel.