From the WSJ Opinion Archives

by JAMES TARANTO
Tuesday, July 24, 2007 3:11 P.M. EDT

Culture of Corruption
Imagine if top aides to President Bush ordered the FBI to produce damaging but false information about Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader. Now that would be a scandal. And that is what is happening in New York state, as the New York Post reports:

Gov. [Eliot] Spitzer suspended a top aide and reassigned another yesterday after Attorney General Andrew Cuomo released a bombshell report concluding they conspired with the State Police to damage Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno by cooking up a plot claiming he misused state aircraft.

Spitzer, who had recently insisted that neither his staff nor the State Police had acted improperly, said communications director Darren Dopp was suspended without pay for an "indefinite period" of at least 30 days.

William Howard, the governor's assistant secretary for homeland security, will be reassigned to a position outside of the governor's staff.

Cuomo's report also recommended disciplinary action be considered against acting State Police Superintendent Preston Felton, but none was taken.

The scathing, 53-page report detailed a months-long scheme in which Dopp, Howard, and Felton--at times with the partial knowledge of Spitzer chief of staff Richard Baum--used the State Police to gather and create misleading and inaccurate records on Bruno's use of state aircraft to travel from Albany to Manhattan in hopes of showing he was using the flights strictly for political purposes, a possibly illegal action. . . .

The report confirmed a week's worth of investigative stories in The Post beginning July 5 that found aides to Spitzer, including Dopp, used the State Police as, in effect, a spy agency as part of a broad conspiracy aimed at destroying Bruno.

For what it's worth, Spitzer is a Democrat and Bruno is a Republican. The New York Times, in covering the report, described Spitzer as " a former prosecutor who came into office less than seven months ago with a reputation for integrity and who promised to bring a new ethical climate to Albany."

The ethical climate he brought to Albany is new, all right. But if he had an undeserved "reputation for integrity" before becoming governor, perhaps that is because of the friendly coverage he received from such news organizations as the Times. The Post's scoop and its consequences are an object lesson in the importance of an independent press in holding public officials accountable.

You Got Me Walkin', Talkin' and Squawkin'
The more we watch Barack Obama and John Edwards, the more Hillary Clinton looks like the unchallengeable bigfoot among the Democratic candidates. TownHall.com reports on a preposterous promise Obama made over the weekend to a union convention:

"I stood on the picket line and marched with workers at the Congress Hotel in Chicago last week," Obama said. "I had marched with them four years earlier and I told them when I left that if they were still fighting four years from now, I'd be back on that picket line as president of the United States and we'll get the Congress Hotel organized."

It wouldn't be the first case in which a picket line was manned by people who don't belong to the union. The Washington Post reports on another such example:

The picketers marching in a circle in front of a downtown Washington office building chanting about low wages do not seem fully focused on their message.

Many have arrived with large suitcases or bags holding their belongings, which they keep in sight. Several are smoking cigarettes. One works a crossword puzzle. Another bangs a tambourine, while several drum on large white buckets. Some of the men walking the line call out to passing women, "Hey, baby." A few picketers gyrate and dance while chanting: "What do we want? Fair wages. When do we want them? Now."

Although their placards identify the picketers as being with the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters, they are not union members.

They're hired feet, or, as the union calls them, temporary workers, paid $8 an hour to picket. Many were recruited from homeless shelters or transitional houses.

So Obama is promising that as president he will serve as a hired foot--a job a street vagrant can do. Does he have the foggiest clue what the president actually does?

Perhaps not. National Review's Byron York reports on more Obama confusion:

Obama's closest political adviser, David Axelrod, wants you to know that Obama did not say what he appeared to say at Monday night's Democratic debate here in Charleston [S.C.]. A questioner, speaking via debate sponsor YouTube, asked whether, in the spirit of "bold leadership," the candidates would "meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration . . . with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries." Obama had a ready answer.

"I would," he said without hesitation. . . . Obama seemed to commit himself to talks with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bashar al-Assad, Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, and Kim Jong Il--separately, without precondition. He even said it was "a disgrace that we have not spoken to them." But after the debate, speaking to reporters in the spin room, Axelrod claimed Obama didn't mean any such meetings would actually take place.

"He said that he would be willing to talk," Axelrod explained. "And what he meant was, as a government, he'd be willing and eager to initiate those kinds of talks, just as during the Cold War there were low-level discussions and mid-level discussions between us and the Soviet Union and so on. So he was not promising summits with all of those leaders."

By contrast, Mrs. Clinton said: "I will not promise to meet with the leaders of these countries during my first year. . . . I don't want to be used for propaganda purposes. I don't want to make a situation even worse." And unlike Obama, she didn't need a campaign worker to explain after the fact what she "really" meant.

Edwards is even harder than Obama to take seriously. The last question of the debate asked each candidate "to look at the candidate to your left and tell the audience one thing you like and one thing you dislike about that particular candidate." Mrs. Clinton was standing to Edwards's left, and here is what he said about her:

I admire what Senator Clinton has done for America, what her husband did for America. I'm not sure about that coat.

So Glenn Greenwald's exemplar of masculinity turns out to be a catty fashion critic.

Witness for the Defense
Remember Jim Ronca? He's the trial lawyer who, as we noted last week, Jennifer Hunter of he Chicago Sun-Times described as a "staunch Republican" disillusioned by President Bush--even though a search of campaign finance records showed that Ronca's political donations over the past four election cycles went 9 to 1 for Democrats--and his only GOP donations were to liberal Republicans in primary races against conservatives.

Today Hunter lets Ronca write her column for her. He offers this defense:

Let me assure you I am a lifelong Republican. I have been registered Republican since at least 1975 when my second cousin, Robert Butera, was the Republican leader of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and later Republican candidate for governor and recruited me to work for the Republican Caucus. During my tenure there I was one of the named plaintiffs in a suit against the Democratic governor filed by the Republican Caucus.

I have over the years supported numerous Republicans in Pennsylvania state races including Gov. [Dick] Thornburgh, (later attorney general of the United States), Gov. [Tom] Ridge (I distinctly remember being the host of a couple of fundraisers.) I have a picture of myself somewhere with Dan Quayle, when he was the vice presidential candidate and I attended a $1,000-a-plate fundraiser. I also supported Republican Supreme Court candidates (we elect our judges) and this very month attended meetings of the Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Association with a Republican Superior Court candidate as my guest. . . .

Even though I am a long-term Republican I am not a fool. Naturally I opposed candidates like George W. Bush and Rick Santorum who have vilified plaintiffs trial lawyers.

Seems to us Hunter should have described Ronca not as a staunch Republican but as a staunch trial lawyer.

Don't Forget Laos
In yesterday's item on John Kerry's denial of communist atrocities in Southeast Asia after the Vietnam War, we mentioned Vietnam itself and Cambodia. A 1978 article in Time describes what happened in Laos, which also fell:

By the regime's own reckoning 40,000 Laotians (out of a population of 3.4 million) have been herded off to "reeducation camps." . . .

But the regime's figures do not include 12,000 unfortunates who have been packed off to Phong Saly. There, no pretense at re-education is made. As one high Pathet Lao official told Australian Journalist John Everingham, who himself spent eight days in a Lao prison last year, "No one ever returns." . . .

The only prisoners known to have walked away from Phong Saly are five of a group of 15 Thai nationals released from Laotian jails last month as a gesture of reconciliation. They tell a grim tale of forced labor, undernourishment and disease. Said one: "We were so thin, so hungry that we even tried to roast toads. We pleaded for medicine, but the doctor wouldn't give us any. We thought we would die." Others told of three prisoners thrown into tiger cages for having killed and eaten a guard's dog; one Thai claimed that disease had killed at least 10% of the 600 or so inmates at his camp.

According to John Kerry, "it didn't happen."

Eat My Nuance
Speaking of Kerry, the Boston Globe did a silly feature asking 19 prominent Bostonians to name their favorite character from "The Simpsons," the movie version of which opens Friday. Kerry was among them, and he couldn't give a straight answer even to such a silly and trivial question:

"I could say my favorite character is Mr. Burns, because thanks to him even after Dick Cheney is out of office he will live on as a cartoon. But I'm actually a Bart fan, despite the fact Time named him one of the 100 most influential people, and I didn't make the list. He once mooned a doctor, indicating he has the same view toward our current health-care system most Americans do."

We're pretty sure that Burns/Cheney bit is a botched joke.

Zero-Tolerance Watch
From the Oregonian:

The two boys tore down the hall of Patton Middle School after lunch, swatting the bottoms of girls as they ran--what some kids later said was a common form of greeting.

But bottom-slapping is against policy in McMinnville Public Schools. So a teacher's aide sent the gawky seventh-graders to the office, where the vice principal and a police officer stationed at the school soon interrogated them.

After hours of interviews with students the day of the February incident, the officer read the boys their Miranda rights and hauled them off in handcuffs to juvenile jail, where they spent the next five days.

Now, Cory Mashburn and Ryan Cornelison, both 13, face the prospect of 10 years in juvenile detention and a lifetime on the sex offender registry.

Granted, this behavior wasn't acceptable, and Cory and Ryan need to learn to respect the opposite sex. What does it say about the adults who run this school that they can't figure out a way of making that happen without sending 13-year-olds to jail?

Isn't That What Got Him in Trouble Before?
"Clinton Focuses on Female Bonding"--headline, USA Today, July 23

Because It's So Hard to Get Them to Reproduce on Their Own
"China Claims a First With Cloned Rabbit"--headline, Reuters, July 23

How'd They Know Which Was Which?
"Shark Attacks Lawyer Off Oahu"--headline, Seattle Times, July 22

Bad News for Piranhas
"Black Holes Devour Matter Like Piranhas"--headline, Space.com, July 24

Almost Certainly Money
"What Do Lamar County Schools Spend?"--headline, Paris (Texas) News, July 23

You Don't Say
"Car Linked to Pedestrian's I-65 Death"--headline, Indianapolis Star, July 24

The Rest of Us Face Eternity
"Driver Faces 7 Years in Death"--headline, Gloucester County (N.J.) Times, July 24

They Were Growing Daisies
"Deceased Farmers Got USDA Payments"--headline, Washington Post, July 23

Breaking News From 2349 B.C.
"Flooding in Britain, Texas and China"--headline, New York Times, July 23

News You Can Use

Bottom Stories of the Day

  • "Kelly Clarkson Apologizes to Clive Davis"--headline, Associated Press, July 23

  • "Sen. Boxer Going to Greenland"--headline, Orange County (Calif.) Register, July 23

  • "Belgian Leader Makes Anthem Gaffe"--headline, BBC Web site, July 23

  • "Ottawa Unveils New Organic Food Logo"--headline, CBC.ca, July 23

Have You Stopped Beating Your Head?
Is Barack Obama hardheaded enough to be president? A story in the Jakarta Post, about his childhood in the Indonesian capital, suggests that he may be:

The neighborhood kids played soccer and staged swordfights with bamboo in the middle of the street. They also staged fistfights, pitting boys of similar size against each other. Johnny Askiar's voice is still filled with wonder as he recalls the feeling of hitting Obama's skull.

"Barry's head was really hard," he says. "My hand would hurt when I hit it. It was like iron, that head."

A useful quality in a president, perhaps?

Perhaps. Although this story from the Reuters gives us pause:

Playing soccer, where the ball is often hit with the head, may be linked to long-term brain injury and memory problems later in life, says a new study.

Researchers found evidence of reduced gray matter in the brains of 10 male college soccer players, compared with 10 young men who had never played.

Among players in the study, reduced gray matter was seen in the anterior temporal cortex--which is consistent with effects from repeated knocks to the front of the head, John Adams and colleagues at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in Ohio report in the Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine.

If Hillary Clinton is looking for dirty tricks, allow us to suggest one: Ask Obama if he remembers playing soccer as a child in Jakarta. If he says yes, it will raise questions about his mental fitness. If he says no, it will also raise questions about his mental fitness!

(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Doug Levene, Mike Brookover, Daniel Goldstein, Dan O'Shea, Ed Lasky, Jeff Dobbs, James Chen, Paul Bogdanor, Bill O'Neill, Matt Tarasevich, Robert Lawrence, David Corcoran, Kevin Bloom, Don Hodun, Jerry Rhoden, George Struve, Michael Bell, David Monie, Alan Jones, Dave Nemzek, Anthony Bouton, Steve Karass, Bill Briggs, Mark Davies, Daniel Foty, Nick Grace and Heather Higgins. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

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