by JAMES TARANTO
Friday, January 19, 2007 3:25 P.M. EST

Coffins Yes, Funerals No?
Blogger James Lileks has a powerful riff on media coverage of Iraq war casualties:

Last week a letter in the paper ran off the usual list of oppressions and deletions of basic liberties, including "the coffins we are not allowed to see." It reminded me of a conversation I had in Arizona with a Marine, whose family was also staying at my in-laws' house. . . . He had just returned from accompanying the body of a Marine back to his home town for a memorial. Lance Cpl. Nick Palmer, 19, was killed by a sniper in Fallujah. . . .

The networks may not have shown footage of the coffin as it arrived, but it certainly had the opportunity to show the funeral and the ceremony that preceded it. The Marine, who was Lance Cpl. Palmer's commanding officer, described the event: they arrived at night. Both sides of the street were filled with townspeople, gathered to greet the soldier. Every light in every window was on; every pole had a flag.

The church pews had no empty seats. "Amazing Grace" was played and the Purple Heart presented.

Everyone was allowed to see the coffin, and reflect on what it stood for.

The local TV station's website has a video interview with the parents, which manages to work in Vietnam in the first six seconds. If the TV station filmed the homecoming, it doesn't appear to be on the site. I can't think of any reason why they wouldn't have shown the homecoming, unless they regarded the interview with the grieving parents as the full measure they were required to give.

A common complaint from those hostile to President Bush is that the president does not attend funerals for fallen servicemen. This, the critics contend, shows that he doesn't care about their sacrifice--notwithstanding the many private meetings he holds at the White House with surviving family members.

We are persuaded by the counterargument that the president's presence would overshadow the funeral itself and the attendant security would pose logistical burdens on the mourners. Also, as a practical matter, the president could not attend more than a handful of funerals.

But as Lileks makes clear, the local media have no such excuse. It seems, however, that most news organizations are more interested in morbid symbols and statistics--the anonymous coffins being flown home, the latest "grim milestone" of the number killed in Iraq--than in what they died for. The assumption is that war is senseless, and only those facts that reinforce this assumption receive emphasis.

La Plaisanterie Bousillée
Remember back in the old days when people used to call John Kerry* "French-looking"? Bloomberg reports on a Frenchman who looks like Kerry right about now:

Socialist presidential candidate Segolene Royal suspended one of her spokesmen, Arnaud Montebourg, for a month after a televised gaffe when he joked about Francois Hollande, the party leader and her partner.

"The only fault" of Royal "is her companion," Montebourg said in a debate on Canal Plus late yesterday. His comments met with a shocked silence, after which he said they were intended as a joke. He offered to resign, said Royal press attaché Agnes Longueville, who confirmed his suspension.

Hollande, who is the father of Royal's four children, set back her campaign just as her main opponent, Nicolas Sarkozy, was picking up momentum. He advocated higher taxes on those earning more than 4,000 euros ($5,168) a month. Royal said she was not consulted on the proposal and has refused to endorse it.

It's one of the hazards of public life; you constantly have to worry that people will misinterpret what you say by taking it at face value and ignoring all the hidden meaning and nuance. Consider the plight of Sheik Feiz Mohammed, "a radical Australian cleric," who, as the Associated Press reports from Sydney, "urged children to become 'soldiers defending Islam' and sacrifice their lives for Allah":

"Teach them this: There is nothing more beloved to me than wanting to die as a mujahid," or holy warrior, the cleric said in the videos. "Put in their soft, tender hearts the zeal of jihad and a love of martyrdom." . . .

However, in an interview published Friday in The Australian newspaper, Mohammed said his words had been misconstrued.

"The jihad I speak of is not one of violence," he was quoted as saying. "It is one of personal struggle against things like mischievousness, temptation and personal harm."

If you struggle against mischievousness, uh, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq.

Matthew Stiddart does not claim he was misunderstood, but a judge suggests he rephrase a comment that landed him in hot water, reports London's Times:

[Stiddart] had been taken into custody by police officers who mistook him for a suspect in another case.

After two hours in a cell he demanded to see a doctor, complaining that his back hurt. But when Dr Imraan Jhetam arrived, Stiddart refused to be seen by him.

Exeter Crown Court heard that Stiddart, 36, swore and told him: "I want an English doctor, not a f***ing Paki."

Stiddart had opted for the case to be heard at Crown court, where he admitted a charge of racially aggravated intentional harassment, alarm or distress.

The judge, who thought the prosecution "a nonsense," had this advice for Stiddart: "Next time call him a fat bastard and don't say anything about his colour."

Come to think of it, this might have worked for Kerry:

You know, education--if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq. Just ask President Bush, the fat bastard!

If that doesn't make you laugh, you have no sense of humor.

* "J'ai le chapeau."

The World's Smallest Violin
"This legislation has been extremely difficult to deal with. It is difficult because it deals with our lives."--Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on ethics reform, quoted in the New York Times, Jan. 19

Classic Maureen Dowd--II
Remember that New York Times piece celebrating the decline of marriage, which we noted Tuesday? Gal Beckerman of the Columbia Journalism Review astutely critiques the paper on "diversity" grounds:

Apart from a tossed-off paragraph that reminds us that, buried within these statistics, seventy percent of African-American women are single, there is nothing to indicate how the epidemic of single parentage in the black community contributes to this statistic. We imagine--though aren't told--that many of these women are raising children alone and being dragged deeper into poverty because of their unmarried status.

Instead the rest of the article is completely about those middle class white women who insist they have chosen to be without ball and chain. We meet Emily Zuzik, a 32-year-old musician and model who lives in the East Village of Manhattan, and Linda Barth, a 56-year-old magazine editor in Houston. We hear about how happy Sheila Jamison, who also lives in the East Village and works for a media company, is and about how Shelley Fidler, a public policy adviser at a law firm, has "sworn off marriage."

As far as we can tell, not only was there no socio-economic diversity among those interviewed for the piece, there was also no racial diversity. These other women, ignored entirely by the Times, might have told a story quite different than Shelley Fidler, who said, "The benefits [of singledom] were completely unforeseen for me. The free time, the amount of time I get to spend with friends, the time I have alone, which I value tremendously, the flexibility in terms of work, travel and cultural events." . . .

What's going on here? Maybe the Times . . . is just pandering to its imagined audience, among whom middle-class white woman living in the East Village of Manhattan must make up a large share. . . . If in the part of America where reporters live, being free from marriage is an unequivocally positive thing, this shouldn't mean--as this article leads us to believe--that this is the case for every woman in the country. For some, what the Times is describing as freedom feels, one can imagine, like a curse.

It also occurs to us, though, that the confirmed spinsters and gay divorcées the Times celebrates are far from the norm among middle-class white women. Only a bare majority of all women are single, according to the Times, and several factors skew this number:

• The Times relied on statistics that defined "women" as anyone 15 and older, but few 15- to 17-year-olds are married.
  
  
• As Beckerman notes, 70% of black women are single, which means that the rate of singledom among nonblacks (the great majority of whom are white) is correspondingly lower.
  
  
• The Times itself acknowledges that many older single women are single not by choice but because they have outlived their husbands (the reverse is far less common).

If the Times intends this story to appeal to middle-class white women, then, its audience is mostly married. Why would a married woman want to read a celebration of the unattached life? Because marriage, for all it has to offer, also demands a lot of compromise and toleration. The Times article offers a fantasy to married women who, even if generally happy, find some aspects of the conjugal life frustrating. It is a work of escapism, closer to a romance novel than to serious social-science journalism.

What Did Mrs. Gonzales Know and When Did She Know It?
"Attorney General Mum on Spy Program Court Orders"--headline, CNET News, Jan. 18

Just Like Arafat
"Castro Successors Keep Cuba on Stable Track"--headline, Reuters, Jan. 17

What Would We Do Without Moles?
"Alleged Canada Terror Leader Was 'Time-Bomb': Mole"--headline, Reuters, Jan. 18

What Would We Do Without Sheriffs?
"Sheriff: Crimes May Mar Image"--headline, Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, Miss.), Jan. 19

They're Called Boys
"Some Say It's OK for Girls to Go Wild"--headline, ABCNews.com, Jan. 17

World's Most Precocious 1-Year-Old
"Joanna Jhanda as a one year old girl, said she understands the need for a law, but it troubles her: 'There are certainly cases of extreme abuse,and those need to be addressed. I don't know if this law would help those children.' "--KIPX-TV Web site (San Francisco), Jan. 18

When I Dream About the Moonlight on the Wabash,
Then I Long for My Indiana Car
"Toyota Recalls Indiana-Made Vehicles"--headline, Indianapolis Star, Jan. 19

Bottom Stories of the Day

• "Wyoming Split on Daylight-Saving Time"--headline, Rocky Mountain News (Denver), Jan. 18
  
  
• "Ohio City's 'South Park' Could Be Renamed"--headline, Associated Press, Jan. 18
  
  
• "Cell Phone Didn't Ignite California Man"--headline, CNET News, Jan. 18
  
  
• "Former VP Mondale Criticizes Cheney"--headline, Associated Press, Jan. 19

Second-Degree Merde
"A retired French professor sent dog feces to her congresswoman's office after becoming angry with receiving too many mailings--and her lawyer says she had a constitutional right to do it," the Associated Press reports from Greeley, Colo.:

Kathleen Ensz faces a misdemeanor charge of "use of a noxious substance" after taking dog feces from her backyard, wrapping it in a political mailer from Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, and leaving the putrid package at the Republican's office, according to court documents.

Ensz, a Democrat, was angered by repeatedly receiving mailings from Musgrave. Her lawyer calls the poo delivery a form of free expression, protected by the First Amendment.

Somehow we imagine Chevy Chase as the prosecutor, explaining to the defendant, "It's freedom of expression. Expression. Not excretion."

"Oh, that's very different. Never mind."

(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Michael Morley, John Williamson, Mordecai Bobrowsky, Yehuda Hilewitz, Chris Junge, Ethel Fenig, Greg Lindenberg, Brian Jones, Pedro Diaz, Don Hubschman, Robert Lesley, Dan Powers, Gregg Geil, Todd Townsley, Brian Azman, David Englet, Ken Fallon, David Jackson, Evan Slatis, Andrew Robinson and Alan Utter. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

Today on OpinionJournal:

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• Peggy Noonan: Thoughts in advance of the State of the Union.
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• Naomi Riley: Why does Bush want his presidential library on a university campus?
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