From the WSJ Opinion Archives
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Life Imitates Protest Music
- Look outside the window, there's a woman being grabbed
They've dragged her to the bushes and now she's being stabbed
Maybe we should call the cops and try to stop the pain
But Monopoly is so much fun, I'd hate to blow the game
And I'm sure it wouldn't interest anybody
Outside of a small circle of friends.
--from "Outside of a Small Circle of Friends" by Phil Ochs (1967)
- "Many acknowledged that Iraq could first plunge into vicious sectarian fighting. . . . Yet they flatly rejected the use of U.S. troops to stop the killing. 'I wouldn't be surprised if it's horrendous,' said House Appropriations Committee Chairman David R. Obey, a Wisconsin Democrat who has helped lead the drive against the war. 'The only hope for the Iraqis is their own damned government, and there's slim hope for that.' "--Baltimore Sun, July 18, 2007
Oh
How Complicated!
"The U.S. command said Wednesday the highest-ranking Iraqi in the leadership
of al-Qaida in Iraq has been arrested, adding that information from him indicates
the group's foreign-based leadership wields considerable influence over the
Iraqi chapter," the Associated Press reports.
That's al Qaeda in Iraq or, as the New York Times calls it, al Qaeda Which Has Nothing to Do With Iraq in Mesopotamia Which Also Has Nothing to Do With Iraq Even Though It's Another Name for Iraq Which Has Nothing to Do With al Qaeda, a Homegrown Iraqi Group That Has Nothing to Do With Iraq Even Though It Is Mostly Iraqi, Albeit With Some Foreign Involvement Which Has Nothing to Do With Iraq.
From the AP report, it sounds as if the highest-ranking Iraqi member of al Qaeda in Iraq is just a glorified secretary:
Khaled Abdul-Fattah Dawoud Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, also known as Abu Shahid, was captured in Mosul on July 4, said Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, a military spokesman.
"Al-Mashhadani is believed to be the most senior Iraqi in the al-Qaida in Iraq network," Bergner said. He said al-Mashhadani was a close associate of Abu Ayub al-Masri, the Egyptian-born head of al-Qaida in Iraq.
Bergner said al-Mashhadani served as an intermediary between al-Masri and Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri.
"In fact, communication between the senior al-Qaida leadership and al-Masri frequently went through al-Mashhadani," Bergner said.
So how does the New York Times--or maybe we should call it the New Amsterdam Times, since it insists on calling Iraq "Mesopotamia"--report this? So far, not at all. There's no mention of the al-Mashhadani capture on the paper's Web site, even though other news organizations had the story before 8 a.m. Eastern Time.
They
Might as Well Have Added, 'Despite Our Best Efforts'
"Several years of headlines about possible torture of U.S. detainees, treatment
of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention center and international anger
over the Iraq war has not dented the pride of Americans."--Reuters, July 18
Younger
Senators: Stay the Course
"Kerry: 60+ Senators Support Change of Course in Iraq"--headline,
Hill, July 17
It's
Still Between the Near East and the Far East
"Middle East Unmoved by Bush Summit Plan"--headline, Guardian (London),
July 17
A
River in Egypt
"A Muslim civil rights group [yesterday] blamed Bush administration policies
for promoting 'Islamophobia' and said the 'war on terror' won't stop terrorists,"
the Washington Times reports:
"The new perception is that the United States has entered a war with Islam itself," said Parvez Ahmed, chairman of the national board of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). . . .
Mr. Ahmed, who spoke at CAIR symposium at the National Press Club, said the war against terrorists is driven by an "irrational" fear that the Bush administration has inculcated in the American public. The chance of being killed in a terrorist attack, he said, is 1 in 80,000 over a lifetime.
"It is important to bear in mind that terrorists cannot destroy America," he said. . . .
The Bush Administration's policies in Iraq has driven a deep wedge between Muslim's [sic] and non-Muslim people in the United States, he said.
"Policies driven by fear will be naturally irrational. Thus in this state of irrationality the Bush administration often through their surrogates have resorted to fear-mongering. This has unleashed a vicious cycle [sic], one in which fear leads to bad policies and bad policies lead to more fear.
"The popular discourse in America today remains mired in stereotypical denouncements about Islam. As a result Muslims and their faith remained misunderstood, feared and shunned."
The truth be told, the Bush administration has bent over backward to avoid stereotypes and to encourage goodwill toward Muslims. By contrast, Ahmed himself, by the example he sets, is perpetuating the nasty stereotype that Muslims are eager to excuse or minimize terrorism.
The civil liberties of American Muslims are in no immediate danger. But that could change if, Allah forbid, there were another terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11. If Ahmed is really concerned about "Muslim civil rights," he should be doing everything in his power to persuade Americans that he is on their side.
'The
Narrative Was Right, but the Facts Were Wrong'
Rachel Smolkin of the American Journalism Review, in a post-mortem on the Duke
rape hoax and journalists' credulity in reporting it, relays a damning quote:
Perhaps the most complex lessons about the media coverage of the Duke case involve issues of narrative. Unquestionably, the media too readily ran with a simplistic storyline, sacrificing a search for truth. Not only were the accused innocent of rape, the allegations of racial taunts that received so much media attention appear to have been exaggerated.
"We fell into a stereotype of the Duke lacrosse players," says Newsweek's Evan Thomas. "It's complicated because there is a strong stereotype [that] lacrosse players can be loutish, and there's evidence to back that up. There's even some evidence that that the Duke lacrosse players were loutish, and we were too quick to connect those dots."
But he adds: "It was about race. Nifong's motivations clearly were rooted in his need to win black votes. There were tensions between town and gown, that part was true. The narrative was properly about race, sex and class. . . . We went a beat too fast in assuming that a rape took place. . . . We just got the facts wrong. The narrative was right, but the facts were wrong."
If the facts are wrong, though, why explore the narrative at all? Is it fair to use the Duke lacrosse players to tell a larger story of athletes run wild--a theme that appeared not only on sports pages but also was splashed, repeatedly, on the front pages of major newspapers and amplified on cable shoutfests? Says [KC] Johnson [an early skeptic of the case]: Once the facts are "proven not to be true, you certainly have to consider whether the narrative is relevant."
"The narrative was right, but the facts were wrong." This is reminiscent of the "fake but accurate" defense of CBS's Bush National Guard hoax. If Thomas were giving a plainer account of what happened, he would have said something like this: Our reporting was guided by our prejudices, and even though the story turned out to be false, we stand behind our prejudices.
Accountability
Journalism
Here's the latest example of the Associated Press's departure from its old-fashioned
just-the-facts style of journalism:
The Dow Jones industrial average swept past 14,000 for the first time Tuesday after a mostly tame inflation reading gave investors reason to extend an extraordinary--but perhaps questionable--Wall Street rally.
Does reporter Tim Paradis believe there are well-grounded suspicions that the rally is unsound--that is, that it is "questionable"? We don't know, because he says only that it is perhaps questionable.
Perhaps it is questionable, and perhaps it isn't. Paradis's characterization conveys nothing of substance; it is a mere innuendo, a suggestion that the rally isn't all it's cracked up to be. Would it have appeared in an AP dispatch on a stock market rally when Bill Clinton was president?
Trigger-Happy
DiFi
"Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee criticized the heavy sentence
two former Border Patrol agents received for non-fatally shooting an illegal
alien who smuggled drugs across the border," reports Amanda Carpenter of
TownHall.com. Carpenter describes a rather hair-raising exchange between Sen.
Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, and prosecutor Johnny Sutton:
Feinstein asked Sutton when agents should be able to fire weapons while pursuing a fleeing suspect. Sutton replied, "If a person does not pose a threat to them, they have to use other than deadly force."
"How do they do that?"
"They chase them off."
"And, if they try to chase them and chase fails, while they are still yelling 'Stop?' "
"That does not authorize them to shoot."
"So, in other words," Feinstein clarified, "any drug dealer on the border who doesn't obey a stop command and runs, cannot be shot?"
"Yes ma'am," Sutton replied. "Unless there are other circumstances, but just the fact they are running and they were a drug dealer is not enough."
"No wonder so much drugs are coming across the border," Feinstein said.
Sutton later said that if the laws were relaxed it would mean that "some [innocent] people are going to get gunned down execution-style by a cop."
One wonders if Feinstein would advocate letting cops shoot unarmed fleeing suspects on the streets of San Francisco or Los Angeles.
'10,
9, 8 . . . Uh, What Comes After 8?'
"Shuttle Crew Practice Countdown"--headline, CNN.com, July 17
Sounds
Like Cruel and Unusual Punishment
"U.S. Wants Ex-Panamanian Dictator Extradited to France"--headline,
CNN.com, July 17
A Tree-Way
Debate
"Cedar Hills to Debate Junipers"--headline, Salt Lake Tribune, July 17
News You Can Use
- "Buyers Turned Off by Houses That Stink"--headline, San
Jose Mercury News, July 12
- "130-Year-Old Outhouses Yield Treasures"--headline, Associated
Press, July 17
- "Good Neighbors Make Your Life Much Better"--headline, Winona (Minn.) Daily News, July 16
Bottom Stories of the Day
- "New York City Beaches Nothing Special, Survey Says"--headline,
Newsday
(Long Island, N.Y.), July 18
- "Rosie O'Donnell, Bill Maher Back Al Franken for Senate"--headline,
NewsMax.com,
July 17
- "Toronto's Population Ages"--headline, Toronto
Star, July 17
- "Steroids Found in Pro Wrestler's Body"--headline, Associated Press, July 18
It's
the Eponymy, Stupid
The Associated Press brings us the latest nudes from Fryeburg, Maine:
The episode unfolded Sunday night when a police officer stopped a Volvo for speeding and discovered that the driver was wearing no clothes.
Because the motorist said she needed to use the bathroom, the officer allowed her to follow his cruiser to a campground. Instead, her passenger took the wheel and led police on a chase that ended on Main Street in Fryeburg, police said.
Douglas H. Litchfield, 59, and Patricia Buck, 61, both of Harrison, were charged with drunken driving and driving to endanger, police said.
The pair said they had been in the woods and Buck's clothes had washed away in a stream, according to Fryeburg police administrator Ann Perante.
Her name was Buck and she was naked? That's pretty funny, though we hope Rep. Fortney Hillman Stark Jr. doesn't get any ideas.
(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Doug Levene, Bob O'Hara, Ed Lasky, Michael Segal, John Wiliamson, Chris Chorney, Steve Mann, John Cunningham, Christian Peck, Greg Lindenberg, William DeVinney, Barry Harris, Nicholas Kerr, Jared Silverman, Kibi Hofmann, Alan Jones, Lee Stokes, Jon Pinnell, Ian Marsh, Ray Hull, Carolyn Abbott, Michael Stevens, Alex Miller and Iris Engelson. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Michael Oren: Bush isn't selling out Israel or relaxing his call for Palestinian democracy.
- Theodore Dalrymple (from City Journal): Tony Blair's domestic legacy is of corruption and the erosion of liberty.
- Matthew Rees: Can China and India maintain their sizzling growth rates?
