From the WSJ Opinion Archives
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'Drop
Out of School'
Last April a man who seemed to have been mentally ill went on a rampage at Virginia
Polytechnic Institute and State University. Cho Seung-hui used firearms to murder
32 people before killing himself--and somehow he managed to do it even though
Virginia Tech is a "gun-free school."
Or was that because it's a gun-free school? As we noted at the time, a shooting five years earlier at another Virginia institution, the Appalachian School of Law, was stopped when an armed student confronted the gunman. Appalachian, a private school, is not "gun free."
From these two incidents it is reasonable to believe that campus gun bans are more effective in preventing defensive than aggressive use of guns--a view that is gaining adherents on campus, Fox News reports:
College students across the country have been strapping empty holsters around their waists this week to protest laws that prohibit concealed weapons on campus, citing concerns over campus shootings.
"People who would otherwise be able to defend themselves are left defenseless when on campus," said Ethan Bratt, a graduate student wearing an empty holster this week on the campus of Seattle Pacific University.
Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, a group of college students, parents and citizens who organized after the deadly shootings at Virginia Tech University in April, launched the protest. . . .
But others believe college is no place for firearms.
"You don't like the fact that you can't have a gun on your college campus? Drop out of school," said Peter Hamm, a spokesman for the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
"Drop out of school." Hamm's advice certainly reflects the degree of maturity and thoughtfulness we've come to expect from the Brady Center.
The
Right Stuff?
A reader calls our attention to the CIA Web site's description of the job of
operations officer. These officers "serve on the front lines of the human
intelligence collection business by clandestinely recruiting and handling sources
of foreign intelligence":
It takes special skills and professional discipline to establish strong human relationships that result in high-value intelligence from clandestine sources. An Operations Officer must be able to deal with fast-moving, ambiguous and unstructured situations. This requires physical and psychological health, energy, intuition and "street sense." . . .
Because Operations Officers have demanding responsibilities, it is essential that they be physically and psychologically healthy, energetic, and able to cope with stress.
Compare this with Valerie Plame's description of her own life, which we quoted yesterday from her new book, "Fair Game":
Joe [Wilson, her hubby] is a formidable opponent in any circumstance, and I felt I was always on the losing side, unable to make my case coherently because so much emotion was involved and so much at stake personally. When communication nearly halted entirely, it became obvious that our marriage was in deep trouble. We retreated further into our shells and each began to contemplate life without the other.
Does it sound as if she has the discipline to establish strong human relationships; the capacity to deal with fast-moving, ambiguous and unstructured situations; and the ability to cope with stress?
Delusions
of Competence?
Conventional wisdom has it that the Democrats are almost assured of winning
the presidency next year; after all, the Bush administration is unpopular and
widely viewed as incompetent. Of course, conventional wisdom isn't always the
most reliable guide, having expected Democratic victories in all recent elections
except perhaps 1984 and 1992.
And if this election is about competence, two of the leading Republicans would seem to have a big edge over prohibitive Democratic favorite Hillary Clinton. Rudy Giuliani governed a city people thought was ungovernable and helped to revive it when it was thought to be in decay. Mitt Romney turned around the 2002 Olympics after a very successful career in the private sector. By contrast, what has Mrs. Clinton ever managed?
It's a rhetorical question, but the New York Times gamely tries to answer it in an article titled "The Evolution of Hillary Clinton as Manager":
When asked about her as a manager, people who have worked for Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic senator from New York, described her as "organized," "methodical" and "disciplined." They also note that those words were never applied to her husband, Bill Clinton. . . .
Mrs. Clinton has never led a large enterprise, a point her Republican rival Rudolph W. Giuliani has made in recent days. She has overseen a Senate office (staff of 55), a first lady's office (staff of 25), an ill-fated "health-care task force" ( involving 511 people), a presidential campaign (staff of more than 500)--and attended many, many meetings ("I've decided to declare meetings as my major," Mrs. Clinton wrote jokingly in a letter in her college days).
Of course, even Barack Obama has overseen a Senate office and a presidential campaign, and nobody says that qualifies him to be president. Even the Times's description of the health-care task force, though vague, is damning:
When Mrs. Clinton was first lady, her ill-fated effort to overhaul the nation's health care system was clearly a political defeat, but it also involved management missteps for which she drew wide criticism.
"There was a level of perfectionism there," said John B. Breaux, a former senator from Louisiana.
Determined to create a comprehensive "process," Mrs. Clinton allowed the project to become unwieldy--convening a "task force" that included 412 government employees, 82 "special" or temporary staff members and 17 consultants who helped produce a 1,342-page document.
Mrs. Clinton concedes she made numerous mistakes in the effort.
"I'm very interested in how you reach and implement decisions in a very efficient way," she said. "Certainly, there was a lot of pressure on us to do things that, now in retrospect, I don't think were in the best interests of the overall plan."
But it's not as damning as this 2003 post from economist/blogger Brad DeLong, a liberal who worked on the task force:
My two cents' worth--and I think it is the two cents' worth of everybody who worked for the Clinton Administration health care reform effort of 1993-1994--is that Hillary Rodham Clinton needs to be kept very far away from the White House for the rest of her life. Heading up health-care reform was the only major administrative job she has ever tried to do. And she was a complete flop at it. She had neither the grasp of policy substance, the managerial skills, nor the political smarts to do the job she was then given. And she wasn't smart enough to realize that she was in over her head and had to get out of the Health Care Czar role quickly. . . .
Hillary Rodham Clinton has already flopped as a senior administrative official in the executive branch--the equivalent of an Undersecretary. Perhaps she will make a good senator. But there is no reason to think that she would be anything but an abysmal president.
The overall tone of the Times story is much less hard-hitting than this--indeed, we would go so far as to describe it as positive. It's a bit reminiscent of the early coverage of the John Kerry campaign, which painted him as a war hero. Lulled into complacency by this simplistic puffery, the Kerry campaign had no idea how to respond when the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth exposed the complexity of Kerry's actual Vietnam record. It's quite possible something similar will happen to Mrs. Clinton by next summer.
Just
a Stumble
Sen. Joe Biden visited the Washington Post editorial board this week, and the
Post reports he did not exactly cover himself in glory:
Biden also stumbled through a discourse on race and education, leaving the impression that he believes one reason that so many District of Columbia schools fail is the city's high minority population. His campaign quickly issued a statement saying he meant to indicate that the disadvantages were based on economic status, not race.
After a lengthy critique of Bush administration education policies, Biden attempted to explain why some schools perform better than others--in Iowa, for instance, compared with the District. "There's less than 1 percent of the population of Iowa that is African American. There is probably less than 4 or 5 percent that are minorities. What is in Washington? So look, it goes back to what you start off with, what you're dealing with," Biden said. He went on to discuss the importance of parental involvement in reading to children and how "half this education gap exists before the kid steps foot in the classroom."
The Biden campaign moved quickly to clarify the senator's remarks in a statement: "This was not a race-based distinction, but a discussion of the problems kids face who don't have the same socio-economic support system (and all that implies--nutrition, pre K, etc.) entering grade school and the impact of those disadvantages on outcomes."
Now, we don't think Biden's comments were terribly invidious, and it is true that he has a tendency toward linguistic imprecision. But if a Republican candidate said the same thing, would the Post be as charitable?
'Revolutionaries
Never Retire'
Ricardo Alarcon, the president of communist Cuba's "legislature,"
says he doesn't know if the late Fidel Castro will "run" for "re-election"
next year, Reuters "reports":
"I cannot predict whether he is going to be available to be president of the state, but I also cannot say whether I will keep being a lawmaker," Alarcon said during a news conference on a visit to Quito.
"Revolutionaries never retire," he said.
That isn't true, of course: George Washington retired. It would be more accurate to say that dictators and thugs never retire--at least not voluntarily.
Reliable
Sources
Comedy Central host Stephen Colbert is "running for president." It's
a joke, of course, but the Politico's Kenneth Vogel notes that it could trigger
"strict election law provisions," so the network's lawyers are taking
it "very seriously":
A Comedy Central spokesperson, who declined to be named, would not answer questions about whether the network plans to promote Colbert's candidacy, how much the network spends to produce the show or whether it paid staff and lawyers working to get Colbert on South Carolina's ballots.
Usually reporters at least get some information out of their sources in exchange for anonymity. Vogel is a cheap date.
Homer
Nods
Former Enron adviser Paul Krugman's estimate of losses from the housing bubble
was off by one order of magnitude, not two as we said in an item yesterday (since
corrected). That means we too were off by one order of magnitude. We're as bad
at economics as Krugman is!
Hey,
It Worked for the Pilgrims
"Iraqis Try to Defuse Tension With Turkey"--headline, Associated Press,
Oct. 26
Is
This Like Bringing Coals to Newcastle?
"Bush Visits California Wildfire Victims"--headline, Associated Press,
Oct. 25
Has
the Surgeon General Been Wrong All These Years?
"Studies Show Higher Death Rates From Smoke Unlikely"--headline, USA
Today, Oct. 25
That
Explains Maureen Dowd
"Neanderthals Described as Red-Haired"--headline, ABCNews.com, Oct. 25
Finally,
We Can Sleep in Peace
"UN Issues 'Final Wake-Up Call' on Population and Environment"--headline,
New York Times (Paris edition), Oct. 25
He
Should've Asked for Directions
"Lost Star in Drink-Driving Incident"--headline, BBC Web site, Oct. 26
'If
Only I Could Remember Where I Put My Helmet . . .'
"Baby Seats Recalled Due to Head Injuries"--headline, Reuters, Oct. 25
'Quit
Stabbing Me! I Beg You!'
"Man Pleads in Knife Fight"--headline, Flint (Mich.) Journal, Oct. 25
News You Can Use
- "Don't Be a Victim of Pharmacy Errors"--headline, CNN.com,
Oct. 25
- "Bacteria Is Everywhere; Best Defense Is Washing Your Hands"--headline, Dayton Daily News, Oct. 26
Bottom Stories of the Day
- "Sean Penn Loses Trailer in Malibu Fire"--headline, TMZ.com,
Oct. 23
- "Ban Proposes Bigger UN Budget to Meet Challenges"--headline,
Reuters,
Oct. 25
- "Paris Hilton's Charity Mission to Rwanda Postponed"--headline,
Associated
Press, Oct. 26
- "Final Forum Reveals Nothing New"--headline, St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, Oct. 26
The
World's Smallest Violin
Think you've
got problems? Let Ken Ilgunas offer you some perspective. Ken's got problems,
and the Buffalo News has generously offered him space to tell the world about
them:
I am 24, live with my parents, can't find work and am floundering in a sea of debt five figures high. I think of myself as ambitious, independent and hardworking. Now I'm dependent, unemployed and sleeping under the same Super Mario ceiling fan that I did when I was 7.
How did this happen? I did what every upstanding citizen is supposed to do. I went to college. . . .Upon graduating, I was helplessly launched headfirst into the "real world," equipped with a degree in history and $32,000 in student loans. Before ricocheting back home, I would learn two important lessons: 1) There are no well-paying--let alone paying--jobs for history majors. 2) The real world is really tough.
At one point, Ken was so "desperate" that he even considered working for a bank or an insurance company! "I had hit an all-time low. Could I surrender my soul for health coverage and a steady income? Could I sacrifice my ideals by falling into line?" Our hero stood firm:
My loan payments can't wait much longer, and soon I must leave home to find work that doesn't compromise my integrity. Although I sometimes wonder what it would be like if I had declared as an accounting major and got a cushy job punching numbers somewhere, I'll take my history major, my debt and my mom's cooking any day of the week.
Of course, if he had majored in economics, he might understand that government subsidies are a reason college costs are so high. Anyway, he can always take the Brady Center approach: You don't like debt? Drop out of school.
(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Andrew Payne, Dan O'Shea, Michael Segal, Ed Lasky, Bruce Goldman, Dennis Cariello, Mark Nicholas, Paul Nelson, Elizabeth Hayes, Kyle Kyllan, Lindsay Osbon, Mike Hanley, Mark Holtzman, Joel Wetrosky, Don Williams, Tim Willis, Scott Miller, Chris Engel, Keith Rayburn, Steve Karass, Joel Goldberg and Ed Jordan. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Review & Outlook: Trillion-dollar baby: Charlie Rangel's very revealing tax increase.
- Peggy Noonan: The New Republic's editors seem to have mistaken Vietnam movies for real life.
- John Fund: Who is Mike Huckabee?
- The Journal Editorial Report: Tune in this weekend for an interview with Garry Kasparov and a discussion of Giuliani and the religious right.
And on the Taste page:
- Hugo Restall: In middle age, I finally took up smoking--and I'm glad I did.
- Rod Dreher: A new governor offers hope for disaffected Louisiana expats.
- Naomi Riley: Rank and file evangelicals aren't moving left or right.
