From the WSJ Opinion Archives
I'm
Not Being Defensive!
If an exchange between Rudy Giuliani and top Democrats is a preview of next
year's general election campaign, Republicans have reason to be a lot more confident
than they have been these past few months. Fox News Channel's Brit Hume reports:
Washington woke up [Wednesday] to morning headlines that Rudy Giuliani predicted a "new 9-11" if a Democrat wins the presidency in 2008. Barack Obama responded that Giuliani has "taken the politics of fear to a new low." John Edwards said Giuliani's comments were "divisive and plain wrong." And Hillary Clinton called it "political rhetoric" that would not lessen the threat of terrorism.
The problem is Giuliani never said what the headlines claimed. It all started with a story in The Politico newspaper, which contained not a single quote to support its lead and headline. But it got picked up elsewhere nonetheless.
What Giuliani actually did say is what he has been saying for weeks, that Democrats would play defense instead of offense in the War on Terror, the same approach tried back before 9/11.
Late yesterday afternoon the Democratic National Committee sent an email bearing the signature of chairman Howard Dean (reproduced at Little Green Footballs), in which he misquotes Giuliani outright:
Rudy Giuliani should be ashamed.
The former New York City Mayor is politicizing September 11th in his 2008 presidential bid. Here's what he said at a recent campaign stop in New Hampshire:
"If a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001... Never ever again will this country ever be on defense waiting for (terrorists) to attack us if I have anything to say about it. And make no mistake, the Democrats want to put us back on defense!"
I won't let this wannabe Republican nominee get away with remarks like these.
In fact, the first sentence in the Giuliani "quote" was not something Giuliani said but something Roger Simon of The Politico wrote. The Democrat-friendly New York Times is more careful, but it manages to take Giuliani's words out of context:
In his two months on the campaign trail, the central animating theme of Rudolph W. Giuliani's presidential campaign has been that his performance as New York mayor on Sept. 11, 2001, makes him the best candidate to keep the United States safe from terrorists.
But when Mr. Giuliani broadened that message here on Tuesday night, saying that Democrats "do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us" and that if they were elected the United States would suffer "more losses," the response from his Democratic rivals was swift and pointed.
Rush Limbaugh has the actual "more losses" quote, and, contrary to the impression the Times gives, it is substantive and not pointedly partisan:
The question is going to be, "How long does it take, and how many losses do we have along the way?" And I truly believe if we go back on defense for a period of time, we can ultimately have more losses and it's going to go on much longer. The power of our ideas is so great we'll eventually prevail. The real question is, "How do we get there?" Do we get there in a way in which it is as expeditious as possible and with as little loss of life as possible, or do we get there in some circuitous fashion.
This is just the latest example of one of the oddest rituals of American politics: Democrats try to smear Republicans as mean and dirty by falsely accusing them of saying terrible things about Democrats. The classic example, to which we devoted a 2004 essay, is the plaint: Stop questioning my patriotism! As we wrote then:
Democrats themselves raised the issue of patriotism by defensively denying that they lacked it. A cardinal rule of political communication is never to repeat an accusation in the course of denying it ("I am not a crook"). These candidates "repeated" a charge no one had even made.
It's happening again. Now the claim that "if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11" is part of the political debate--thanks to the chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
The Giuliani kerfuffle is an especially lovely example of the self-defeating nature of this Democratic tactic, if one can call it that. Giuliani's criticism of Democrats was that their approach to terrorism is to go "on defense," and the Democrats responded by getting all defensive. Kind of proves his point, doesn't it?
Dean:
Don't Cover Us!
This is making us nostalgic for 2003. Howard Dean was in the news again yesterday,
this time for urging his fellow politicians to stay out of the news. The Associated
Press reports:
During the Mortgage Bankers Association conference, a banker expressed frustration with candidates who only talk in sound bites and wondered how that could be changed. Howard Dean, once a presidential candidate, offered a simple solution.
"I suggest you have candidates in to meetings like this and bar the press," Dean said. . . .
"The media has been reduced to info-tainment," Dean said. "Info-tainment sells, the problem is they reach the lowest common denominator instead of forcing a little education down our throats, which we are probably in need of from time to time."
National Press Club President Jerry Zremski lashed out at Dean for suggesting barring the media.
"Has Dean read the First Amendment? The Founding Fathers knew that a free press is central to the free flow of information to the citizenry--and that the free flow of information is the very foundation of a democracy. Repressing media is a tactic one expects from totalitarian regimes, not democracies," Zremski said.
First of all, lighten up, Zremski! This kind of pompous press puffery almost makes us sympathize with Dean.
We said almost. Actually, what Dean says makes no sense. If the problem is that the media "reach for the lowest common denominator," then why would the absence of the media make a difference in what the candidates say at "meetings like this"? It would seem what Dean is really saying is that the candidates can't resist playing to the media by themselves reaching for the lowest common denominator.
And as we saw in the preceding item, Dean is hardly above reaching for the lowest common denominator in an effort (however weak) to smear a political foe.
The Big
Lie
The Associated Press casually slips a falsehood into a story about congressional
efforts to investigate the administration:
By 21-10, the House oversight committee voted to issue a subpoena to Rice to compel her story on the Bush administration's claim, now discredited, that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa.
The New York Times, in a story posted on its Web site yesterday, similarly referred to the claim as "discredited," but this reference later was edited out. Reuters refers to the "administration's warnings, later proven false, that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger for nuclear arms."
In fact, the claim has not been disproved or discredited at all, as the nonpartisan Factcheck.org explained in 2004:
After nearly a six-month investigation, a special panel reported to the British Parliament July 14 that British intelligence had indeed concluded back in 2002 that Saddam Hussein was seeking to buy uranium. The review panel was headed by Lord Butler of Brockwell, who had been a cabinet secretary under five different Prime Ministers and who is currently master of University College, Oxford.
The Butler report said British intelligence had "credible" information--from several sources--that a 1999 visit by Iraqi officials to Niger was for the purpose of buying uranium:
Butler Report: It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999. The British Government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger's exports, the intelligence was credible.
The Butler Report affirmed what the British government had said about the Niger uranium story back in 2003, and specifically endorsed what [President] Bush said [in that year's State of the Union Address] as well.
The erstwhile Iraqi regime's quest for uranium appears to have been in vain. But the claim that Iraq didn't seek uranium is simply false. News organizations that repeat it are serving, wittingly or unwittingly, as propaganda outlets for those who oppose the U.S. war effort.
Why
They Want to Lose
Reader Ted Clayton takes issue with yesterday's item in which we characterized
Democratic antiwar "ideologues" as wanting "American defeat for
its own sake":
This is incoherent. If ideologues wanted American defeat for its own sake, they wouldn't have voted against the war, since the war was a necessary precondition for American defeat.
Touché. How about this: They believe American victory is undesirable and defeat is preferable.
Lynch
Mob
Remember Jessica Lynch? She was the U.S. soldier whose story of heroism in the
early days of the Iraq war turned into an embarrassment for the military, which
turned out to have made much of it up. Newsweek's Julie Scelfo has a telling
interview with Lynch--telling more for what it says about the media than about
her:
Scelfo: Who is to blame for spreading the misinformation?
Lynch: Well, I think really the military and the media. The military, for not setting the record straight and the media for spreading it, and not seeking the true facts. They just ran with it instead of waiting until the facts were straightened out.
Four questions later we get this:
Scelfo: You said during your testimony you weren't there for political reasons. But do you have an opinion about how the administration used your story and Tillman's story for political gain?
Lynch: I don't know because there's no way of knowing why this stuff was even created in the first place. Only the people who created it would have the answers.
In the first question Lynch blamed the military and the media for spreading the information. Note how Scelfo ignores her point about the media and asks a question whose premise is that the Bush administration has done wrong. Just who is out for "political gain" here?
The
Carbon Indulgence Scam
It's looking more and more like Enron. "Companies and individuals rushing
to go green have been spending millions on 'carbon credit' projects that yield
few if any environmental benefits," the Financial Times reports:
The growing political salience of environmental politics has sparked a "green gold rush," which has seen a dramatic expansion in the number of businesses offering both companies and individuals the chance to go "carbon neutral," offsetting their own energy use by buying carbon credits that cancel out their contribution to global warming.
The burgeoning regulated market for carbon credits is expected to more than double in size to about $68.2bn by 2010, with the unregulated voluntary sector rising to $4bn in the same period.
The FT investigation found:
• Widespread instances of people and organisations buying worthless credits that do not yield any reductions in carbon emissions.
• Industrial companies profiting from doing very little--or from gaining carbon credits on the basis of efficiency gains from which they have already benefited substantially.
• Brokers providing services of questionable or no value.
• A shortage of verification, making it difficult for buyers to assess the true value of carbon credits.
• Companies and individuals being charged over the odds for the private purchase of European Union carbon permits that have plummeted in value because they do not result in emissions cuts.
Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports:
Spinal Tap is back, and this time the band wants to help save the world from global warming.
The mock heavy metal group immortalized in the 1984 mockumentary, "This is Spinal Tap," will reunite for a performance at Wembley Stadium in London as part of the Live Earth concerts scheduled worldwide for July 7.
If global warming is a big enough problem to spur a reunion of a fake band, we all know just how seriously to take it.
Zero-Tolerance
Watch
Here's a disturbing story from the Chicago Tribune:
High school senior Allen Lee sat down with his creative writing class on Monday and penned an essay that so disturbed his teacher, school administrators and police that he was charged with disorderly conduct. . . .
Lee, an 18-year-old straight-A student at Cary-Grove High School, was arrested Tuesday near his home and charged with disorderly conduct for an essay police described as violently disturbing but not directed toward any specific person or location.
The youth's father said his son was not suspended or expelled but was forced to attend classes elsewhere for now. . . .
Cary Police Chief Ron Delelio said the charge was appropriate even though the essay was not published or posted for public viewing.
Disorderly conduct, which carries a penalty of 30 days in jail and a $1,500 fine, is filed for pranks such as pulling a fire alarm or dialing 911. But it can also apply when someone's writings can disturb an individual, Delelio said.
"The teacher was alarmed and disturbed by the content," he said.
The teacher seems to have brought this on herself; the Tribune notes that other students, in response to Lee's suspension, "posted on walls quotes from the English teacher in which she had encouraged students to express their emotions through writing."
But the real point is this: What in the hell are police doing arresting someone for a piece of writing merely because someone was "disturbed" by it? This is the most obvious violation of the right to free speech we've heard of in a long time.
Jonathan
Swift Meets Madison Avenue
"TV Ads Boost Eating of Obese Children by 130%"--headline, Scotsman,
April 25
Finally,
the Storekeeper Closed the Window!
"Pleasant Day in Store"--headline, Wausau (Wis.) Daily Herald, April 25
What
Would We Do Without Reports?
"N.O. Leadership Lacking, Report Says"--headline, Times-Picayune (New
Orleans), April 25
But
on Second Thought . . .
"Prior Injury Gloomier Than First Thought"--headline, FanNation.com,
April 24
News You Can Use
- "Being Smart Doesn't Make You Rich"--headline, WebMD.com,
April 25
- "You're Not Invincible, Pros Warn"--headline, Oregonian, April 26
Bottom Stories of the Day
- "Mountain Climber's Backpack Stolen"--headline, Tahoe
Daily Tribune (South Lake Tahoe, Calif.), April 25
- "Little Enthusiasm for School Takeover"--headline, Enquirer
(Cincinnati), April 25
- "Baldwin: 'If I Never Acted Again I Couldn't Care Less' "--headline, CNN.com, April 26
Stay
the Course!
Some say the war is already lost. Not Susan Estrich:
There is no question that there are many at CBS who feel no compunction about trashing their network's anchor publicly and privately.
And that's not fair. Or helpful. The transition . . . is a major one. It takes time for anyone to find their authentic voice, build credibility in a new role, develop the appropriate presence for the job. Being a constant target for columnists and colleagues does not make those difficult tasks any easier. Nor does the daily fixation with the ratings. . . .
Constant attention to how much the ratings have gone down under Couric is counterproductive to the task of raising them. If everyone is constantly telling you how disappointed people are with Katie, why would you tune in? . . . CBS needs to do more to address the backstabbing inside and the unrealistic expectations of instant success on the outside.
Sounds a little like Iraq, doesn't it? But of course the comparison is facile. All that's at stake in Iraq is the future of the world. Katie Couric's success at CBS, by contrast, is really important.
(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Michael Segal, Ethel Fenig, Michael Newton, Steve Prestegard, Reid Wilborn, Jim Orheim, Thomas Dillon, Jeff Meling, Andy Drake, Steve Rosenbach, Sam Rodman, Evan Slatis, Rosanne Klass, Scott Yates, Shaun Jennings, Wayne Dunham, John Hartness, Richard Riley, Adam Zylstra, Larry Hau, Jeff Baird, Bob Vorick, Jeff Techentin, Michael Stephens, Bill Heyman, John Sinnott, David Cincotta, John Nernoff, Andrew Robinson, Ken Fallon, Robert LaFleur, Marc Young and Don Hubschman. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Review & Outlook: Cancer and the candidates: What voters expect of would-be presidents.
- Daniel Henninger: Will the Virginia Tech massacre have a silver lining?
- Taylor Dinerman: Scientific heavyweight Stephen Hawking experiences weightlessness.
