From the WSJ Opinion Archives

by JAMES TARANTO
Thursday, January 25, 2007 3:28 P.M. EST

Today's Video on WSJ.com: John Fund on the State of the Union.

Supporting the Tropes
When the Democrats won their congressional majorities in November, we held out the hope that power would force them to behave responsibly vis-à-vis Iraq. Our reasoning was that if they used their power to bring about American defeat--say, by withholding money from troops in the field--they would be held accountable.

That premise seems to be holding up; the conclusion less so. Congressional Democrats so far show little sign that they are going to take more than symbolic action against the Iraq effort--but boy are they (joined by some Republicans) ever taking symbolic action! The Senate is currently considering competing "nonbinding resolutions" expressing opposition to the president's new Iraq strategy. On "Today" today, David Gregory asked Sen. Chuck Schumer about it:

Gregory: The vice president is dismissive of this effort yesterday saying it's not going to stop the president, and in fact he goes further, saying this will be detrimental to the troops on the ground.

Schumer: Absolutely not, and I think it's going to be shown, when this resolution comes up, and it is nonbinding, my guess is that not only are we going to get a vast majority of Democrats to vote for it in one form or another, but close to a majority of the Republicans. And that is going to shock even Vice President Cheney.

Gregory: But how can the public really buy [that] the Democrats support the troops but don't support the mission? How can you do both?

Schumer: Well, that's the difficulty. A resolution that says we're against this escalation, that's easy. The next step will be how do you put further pressure on the administration against the escalation but still supporting the troops who are there? And that's what we're figuring out right now.

Mark Finkelstein, blogging at the Media Research Center's NewsBusters.org, calls Schumer out:

The claim to support the troops is a sham. Supporting the troops is merely something to be figured out later. It's an afterthought, to be addressed after Democrats, with some Republican support, rush through a resolution telling our troops that the mission for which they are putting their lives on the line is not just meaningless but absolutely antithetical to our nation's interests.

Schumer, it should be noted, voted for the Iraq war in October 2002. So did five of the 12 Foreign Relations Committee members who backed the resolution yesterday: Joe Biden (D., Del.), Chris Dodd (D., Conn.), John Kerry (D., Mass.), Bill Nelson (D., Fla.) and Chuck Hagel (R., Neb.).

Kerry of course was planning a run for president back in 2002, and the war was popular, so a "yes" vote seemed politically wise. Then a few months later Howard Dean captured the imagination of the Democratic base, and in order to compete, Kerry flip-flopped, before the shooting had even begun.

In an email to supporters yesterday, Kerry had the gall to say, "As someone who voted for the resolution that gave the president the authority to go to war, I feel the weight of a personal responsibility to act"--which is to say, to push for a retreat. If Kerry has his way, then, someone will be the last man to die for his political mistake.

The Veterans Will Love This
The Web site for United for Peace and Justice, a self-styled "coalition of more than 1300 local and national groups throughout the United States who have joined together to protest the immoral and disastrous Iraq War and oppose our government's policy of permanent warfare and empire-building," announces this event for Saturday (scroll to bottom of page):

10am: Women Say Pull Out! Women's Convergence for DC Mobilization
Join Jane Fonda, Susan Sarandon, Congresswomen Maxine Waters and Lynn Woolsey, Rhea Perlman, Eve Ensler, Mimi Kennedy, Q'orianka Kilcher, the Co-founders of CODEPINK and many other amazing women. . . .

Where: Navy Memorial, 7th and Pennsylvania NW
When: Saturday, January 27, 2007 at 10am

Jane Fonda at the Navy Memorial. But they support the troops!

Unwelcome Mats
Dan Delbert, a Milwaukee radio host, is raising questions about the Discount-Mats.com story, which we noted yesterday (ellipsis in original):

All of the research I have done shows this to be a one or maybe two man operation. A search of the workers compensation database shows no company by that name listed. That means either they don't pay out over $500 a year to employees, or. . . they have no employees. I very much doubt the assertion that someone has been fired. The rest of the media has just accepted this story and moved on. I have placed calls today to both Faisal Khetani and Sajid Nasir (the person listed in the article as the vice-president of the company) and have yet to get a phone call back.

Discount-Mats.com, meanwhile, is down, and it displays the following message:

Discount-Mats.com is Experiencing Technical Difficulties...

If you are inquiring about your order, please contact us via phone or email.

Thank you for your understanding & patience.

The page gives neither a phone number nor an email address, however, so if you're inquiring about your order, we guess you're out of luck.

The Eternal Plame
The Minneapolis Star Tribune weighs in on one of the pressing issues of the day:

The current edition of the Atlantic carries a photo of President Bush and the headline, "Why presidents lie, and why the worst lies are to themselves." It may not get at why, but the perjury trial of Lewis Libby getting underway in Washington is all about Bush administration lies on Iraq, and especially lies to itself. The trial offers an important window into how those lies were concocted and how the administration went after anyone who challenged them. . . .

Far more interesting than Libby's guilt or innocence is what will be revealed during the trial about how the administration lied itself into believing Saddam Hussein had an ongoing, vigorous nuclear weapons program.

Even Patrick Fitzgerald, the overzealous special prosecutor, said the trial won't be about the Iraq war, and he said this over a year ago, when he first obtained the indictment of Libby. The Strib guys remind us of those Japanese soldiers found on Pacific islands in the late 1940s who had no idea the war was over and their side lost.

A Reasonable Man
A nascent Islamist regime in Somalia was crushed recently by the legitimate government, with help from neighboring Ethiopia. Now the New York Times is urging the U.S. to "try to broker a political compromise between responsible leaders" of the Islamists and the Somali government:

If the transitional government is to survive, it will have to strike a deal with moderate Islamists. The person it needs to talk with is Sheik Sharif Ahmed, who is No. 2 in the movement and by most accounts a reasonable man.

Which accounts would those be? As Daniel Freedman of the New York Sun notes, the New York Times itself, on June 6, 2006, quoted the sheikh as follows: "Until we get the Islamic state, we will continue with the Islamic struggle in Somalia." Then there is this Agence France-Presse story, also from June 7:

Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, the chairperson of the Islamic courts that have battled warlords for four months, said the US would face a disaster similar to a botched 1993 intervention that left 18 US army officers and 300 Somalis dead.

"If US forces intervene directly against us in Mogadishu, then we are ready to teach them a lesson they will never forget and repeat their defeat in 1993," Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed [sic] told Saudi-owned daily Asharq al-Awsat.

He rebuffed US accusations that his group, which are militias affiliated with the country's 11 Islamic courts, may be linked to the al-Qaeda terror network. . . .

"We have no link to those being pursued by America, which is the biggest terrorist nation in the world despite its calls for democracy and respect for noble human values."

Reasonable indeed.

Thar She Blows
Echoing Jennifer Loven, "Gov. Kathleen Blanco angrily criticized President Bush on Wednesday for not mentioning 2005's destructive hurricanes in his State of the Union speech and said Louisiana is being shortchanged in federal recovery funding for political reasons," the Associated Press reports:

"I guess the pains of the hurricane are yesterday's news in Washington," Blanco said.

"But for us it's still very real, very real, and it's something that we live every single day," the governor said. "But we will continue to fight, and we will continue to come on, and we will effect a recovery."

Katrina may be old news, and Kathleen may soon be history. The India Post News Service reports that Rep. Bobby Jindal, who lost the governor's race to Blanco in 2003, is ahead of her in a new poll, 59% to 35%. The election is this November.

Two Papers in One!

  • "Neither broken promises nor failed policies changed Mr. Bush's mind. So the nation has been saddled with tax cuts that have turned a budget surplus into a big deficit."--editorial, New York Times, Jan. 24

  • "The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted on Wednesday that the federal budget deficit would shrink again this year. . . . The agency predicted that the deficit for 2007 would decline to about $200 billion. It would be the third big annual decline in a row. . . . The decline of the deficit comes on the heels of unexpectedly large increases in tax revenue over the last two years."--news story, New York Times, Jan. 25

No One Can See Him, That's How Fast He's Running

First in War, First in Peace, First in Sensitivity Training
"Washington Enters Therapy After Gay Slur"--headline, Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne, Ind.), Jan. 25

'We Can Work It Out, We Can Work It Out'
"Song in Beijing to Boost Mood for Nuke Talks"--headline, Korea Times, Jan. 25

'He Didn't Tell Me My Finger Was Loaded!'
"Lawyers Point Fingers in Fatal Shooting"--headline, Denver Post, Jan. 25

They Can Put a Man on the Moon, but . . .
"Scientists Can't Get Sloth to Move"--headline, Associated Press, Jan. 24

Our Guess: Gravity
"Garner Tells How Ring Fell Into a Drain"--headline, Associated Press, Jan. 24

Or Maybe Not
"Future of Pfizer Plant Could Be Good or Bad"--headline, Ann Arbor (Mich.) News, Jan. 24

Oh No, He Was Right!

  • "The Police State Is Closer Than You Think"--headline, Paul Craig Roberts column, Antiwar.com, Oct. 8, 2005

  • "New Legislation Strives to Police State Ethics"--headline, Times Union (Albany, N.Y.), Jan. 25

News You Can Use

  • "NEW JERSEY: Don't Eat the Squirrels, State Warns"--headline, Courier News (Bridgewater, N.J.), Jan. 25

  • "Never Give an Iguana Viagra"--headline, Reuters, Jan. 25

Bottom Stories of the Day

  • "Boy, 6, Abruptly Leaves School Without Coat"--headline, KMBC-TV Web site (Kansas City), Jan. 23

  • "Police Won't Use $140 Million Radio System"--headline, New York Times, Jan. 25

  • "School District Wants Its Money"--headline, Chicago Sun-Times, Jan. 25

  • "Sarandon Bored by Bush's Iraq Pitch"--headline, Associated Press, Jan. 24

  • "Cheney: Hillary Wouldn't Make Good President"--headline, NewsMax.com, Jan. 24

The Word Police
Ken Corley, mayor of Brazoria, Texas, "wants offensive use of the 'n-word' to be punishable by a fine of up to $500 in his town," reports the Houston Chronicle:

"It's not a particular problem in Brazoria," Corley said, "but it's a national problem."

Corley said he got the idea while watching two black ministers talking on television about how offensive that word is. "I just think it would be great if this little town of Brazoria, with 2,800 people, leads the way in fighting against this offensive language," said Corley.

The report adds that "at least one legal expert said Monday that such an ordinance may not stand up in court." What would we do without at least one legal expert? And the mayor also says, in the Chronicle's words, that "the ordinance would allow the word to be used as a friendly greeting." With friends like these . . .

Meanwhile, Fox News reports that "one Wisconsin high school is catching flack for banning the use of the chant 'U-S-A' at athletic events." But before you question school officials' patriotism, read on:

Baraboo High School officials have banned the chant after hearing that it had a double meaning for some students, the Capitol Times in Madison, Wis., reported Tuesday.

Citing the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletics Association code, Baraboo administrators banned "U-S-A" after learning it meant "U Suck [explicative {sic}]" to some students.

But don't worry, it's still fine to say "U suck [expletive]" if you mean it as a friendly greeting.

(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Steven Getman, Raoul Deming, Pete Altobelli, Pam Hansell, Mike Hanley, Marc Young, David Gerstman, Brian Lee, Arnold Nelson, Rita Kropf, Marty Daks, Ethel Fenig, Don Hubschman, Joseph Tully, George Geddes, Scott Yates, John Neal, Dan O'Shea, Chris Fenwick, Matthew Davis, Ray Hull, Joseph Dispenza, Scott Hill, Joel Goldberg, Paul Wicht, Malcolm Hoar, Craig Hildreth, Robert Gessner, Jeff Baird, Mark Kirby, Robert Eleazer, Ray Burnham and John Lott. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

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