by JAMES TARANTO
Monday, July 23, 2001 1:03 P.M. EDT

The Medium Is the Message
We usually like the Fox News Channel, but when we saw a preview for this weekend's "Judith Regan Tonight," we had an urge to pelt our television with rotten fruit. Here's how Fox's Web site describes Regan's lineup of guests:

A panel of criminal profilers, attorneys and a psychic come together to share some insight on the Chandra Levy case.

Excuse us, a "psychic"? That's right, one of Regan's guests was James Van Praagh, a so-called spiritual medium (though to judge by the picture on his Web site, we'd say he's a small rather than a medium). As the Skeptic's Dictionary explains, Van Praagh says he talks to the dead--and the dead talk back:

According to Van Praagh, all the billions and billions and billions of dead people are just waiting for someone to give him their names. That's all it takes. Give Van Praagh a name, any name, and he will claim that some dead person going by that name is contacting him in words, fragments of sentences, or that he can feel their presence in a specific location.

By providing a forum for such occult claptrap, Fox manages to insult anyone who believes in God, science or both. And this is hardly an isolated incident. Fox has put at least three other "psychics" on the air in the past two weeks alone.

On July 12 Paula Zahn interviewed "spiritual medium Rosemary Altea" about the Chandra case. There was a fig leaf of a rationale for this interview, in the form of a report that Chandra's desperate parents had "authorized a close friend to seek a psychic's help in finding their daughter." But Zahn showed not the slightest hint of skepticism, even prefacing one of her questions with the preposterously respectful observation that "I know it's unprofessional for you to try to analyze another psychic's work."

Zahn is a repeat offender. On July 17 she interviewed "world-renowned psychic Sylvia Browne." Here's an excerpt:

BROWNE: This girl--I am sorry to tell you this, but this girl is not alive.

ZAHN: How do you know that, Sylvia? Has this been something that you've been spending time . . .

BROWNE: Well, Paula, you know . . .

ZAHN: . . . thinking about and analyzing?

BROWNE: No, no. No. Paula, you know, you can either be one place or the other. If you're not here, you've got to be there.

ZAHN: And why are you so convinced she's there?

BROWNE: Because I'm a psychic.

And on July 18 Bill O'Reilly interviewed "handwriting expert and psychic Paula Roberts," who purports to identify "personality types" by looking at people's signatures. O'Reilly prefaced the interview by declaring: "I'm skeptical here. I don't know if you can tell anybody what their real character is by their handwriting." But then he lobbed a softball that would have made Larry King blush: "You disagree, correct?" For the rest of the segment O'Reilly--normally a swaggering skeptic who calls his program "the no-spin zone"--was so ovine in his credulity that we expected him to sprout wool.

Fox News employs a lot of journalists whose work we admire. Are Jim Angle, David Asman, Fred Barnes, Carl Cameron, Rita Cosby, Brit Hume, Mort Kondracke and Tony Snow proud to show their faces on a network that routinely gives free airtime to salesmen of occultist snake oil? And what does Steven Milloy, who writes a weekly column on "junk science" for the Fox Web site, think of all this?

Most important, does Roger Ailes care if people take Fox seriously as a news organization? Or is he content to continue presiding over the Psychic Friends Network?

But Can They Read a Fox's Mind?
Just how bad is it? Fox has lowered itself to the level of the New York Times. Yesterday that once-serious newspaper published an article (link requires registration) on "animal psychics." No joke:

Dr. Dolittle is not the only one talking to the animals these days. A small but growing number of psychic consultants, billing themselves as animal communicators, are offering to discuss telepathically with pets any issues going down at home (for fees of $40 to $150, charged to their two-legged companions, of course). In most cases, neither meetings nor house calls are required. To go to work, all the communicator generally needs to know is the pet's name, age, approximate breed and favorite hangout. Many work almost exclusively by phone. The "communication" they say they receive from cats, dogs and even goldfish comes as an image, sensation or emotion. It sounds a bit like a PalmPilot with a point of view.

"Cut out the baby talk!" is a common demand cats make of their owners, Ms. Lozito said.

Not a bad piece of advice for the Times, actually.

Party Animal
"Cocoa Fernandez is a Palm Beach County Republican who received her first voter registration card in the mail Friday," Knight Ridder reports. "She would have preferred a belly rub. Cocoa Fernandez is a 12-year-old Standard Poodle." The county election supervisor, Theresa LePore--who last year ended up in the Democratic doghouse over the "butterfly ballot"--plans to report Cocoa's owner, 62-year-old Wendy Albert, to prosecutors for filing a false registration. But Albert doesn't admit having registered the pooch, saying only that "someone--she won't say who--registered the pet to see how difficult it would be to get a voting card."

American Values--II
Remember Andrew Burnett, the dog tosser who got three years in prison? It turns out a dog is worth three kittens. The Associated Press reports Skipper Arthur Cohn, an Everett, Wash., man who "killed a kitten during a drunken rage," has been sentenced to a year in prison after pleading guilty to felony animal cruelty. We calculated last month that a dog is also worth three interns, which means one intern is the equivalent of one kitten. So what's with this Chandra Levy case? Why all the fuss over a lost kitten?

A story from the Memphis Commercial Appeal leaves us confused as to whether a fireman is worth two kittens or a kitten is worth two firemen. After a January accident in West Memphis, Ark., 19-year-old Emily Fletcher "pleaded guilty in February to the drunken-driving negligent homicide of Melvin Guy, 50, a decorated Vietnam combat veteran and West Memphis's first black firefighter." Fletcher's sentence was two years in prison--the equivalent of two kitten-killing terms--but the Commercial Appeal reports the Arkansas Post Prison Transfer Board says it'll parole her in August, 188 days, or just over half a year, into her term.

Fletcher lives in Cordova, Tenn., and Arkansas officials have now acknowledged that they "made a mistake" in not seeking the revocation of her Tennessee drivers license. Boy, those Arkansans aren't too swift, are they? We sure hope one is never elected president.

The Mystery of the Minister's Daughter
One of the strangest aspects of the Gary Condit saga has been the story of Otis Thomas, the Pentecostal minister who last week recanted his claim that seven years ago his then 18-year-old daughter had an affair with Condit. The Washington Post reports Chandra Levy's mother stands by her story that Thomas told her about the purported affair before Chandra disappeared:

"The conversation between Mr. Thomas and Mrs. Levy took place just as it was reported, and Mrs. Levy had no reason to doubt whether he was telling the truth," family spokesman Mike Frisby said today. "When I spoke to her this morning, she even recalled that Mr. Thomas had tears in his eyes when he told the story. . . . I don't believe the Levys, who are only interested in finding their daughter, would pressure anybody to say something that wasn't true."

New York's Daily News reports that "privately, some investigators said they thought Thomas was recanting to protect his daughter, who has refused to speak to the FBI for more than two months, allegedly out of fear." This is certainly a plausible explanation. In any case, it's hard for us to fathom why a man would make up a scurrilous story like this about his own daughter. Then again, people are strange, and Thomas, like Condit, finds himself with what we've termed the David Brock problem: Having admitted a lie, truthfully or not, he has squandered his credibility.

Hit and Run
Speaking of David Brock, it turns out there's a connection between that ex-journalist and the Condit scandal, a connection by the name of Marina "Home Run" Ein. The January 2000 issue of Boston Magazine carried a profile by Brock of Michael Kelly, who'd just been named editor of The Atlantic Monthly. The feckless flack shows up in the very first paragraph:

I telephoned Kelly's office at The National Journal, the small-circulation D.C. weekly for policy wonks that he edits, to request an interview for a piece about what his tenure might mean for the venerable Boston institution. Within hours, I saw first-hand what Kelly's D.C. publicist, Marina Ein, had casually described to me, in a conversation just before I called Kelly personally, as his "temper."

Responding for Kelly, Ein called Boston Magazine and tried to have me thrown off the story, citing "a myriad of conflicts," and characterizing me as someone who "may or may not have a political agenda, is a self-avowed hatchet man, [and] had personal relationships with people at The New Republic [from which Kelly had been fired in 1997] that could be contaminating." Ein further declared, "Kelly will not speak to David."

In the end Brock got the interview, and his article turned out to be pretty much of a hatchet job, though he did allow that Kelly "perhaps . . . has learned from his missteps and is imbued with the maturity that age sometimes brings." Ah yes, just like that wise old sage of a David Brock.

Political Gifts
Getting back to Condit, the Modesto Bee reports that he and his campaign staff "have used campaign funds to provide at least $49,000 worth of gifts since 1990, campaign reports show. In addition, more than $31,000 worth of flowers were given during the same period." It's not clear, though, "whether that generosity extended to friends [sic] such as Chandra Levy."

Condit Arrested
Police have made their first arrest in connection with the Chandra case. Broward County, Fla., sheriff's deputies picked up Darrell Condit, Gary's younger brother, Saturday for allegedly violating probation in a 1996 Key West drunk-driving conviction. Investigators want to interview Darrell to see if he has any connection with Chandra's disappearance. A sheriff's department spokeswoman tells the New York Post that the department was on alert because of "y'all media and all of the attention that media has given this case."

Darrell's lawyer, Jon Sale, tells the Associated Press that "his client doesn't know anything about Chandra Levy's disappearance and hasn't left Florida or spoken to the congressman for a year." Of course, if he hasn't left Florida, that means he was there when the Palm Beach poodle registered to vote.

A House Divided
Officially most of Condit's Democratic colleagues are standing behind him (albeit nervously), and most Republicans are keeping their own counsel. But cracks are beginning to appear. Rep. Porter Goss, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, tells the New York Post "it is a completely fair question" whether Condit should remain on the committee, whose members don't have to pass background examinations to have access to secret information.

Tom Daschle, however, is untroubled. On "Meet the Press," Tim Russert asked the Senate majority leader if Condit might not be vulnerable to blackmail. Daschle's response: "Well, he may be, but there are probably others that are subject to blackmail, as well." Gee, Tom, that's reassuring.

The Post's Page Six, meanwhile, reports that Rep. Anthony Weiner, a New York Democrat, was seen in a Capitol Hill bar cracking wise about his colleague's plight. "When a flag at half mast appeared on TV, Weiner quipped, 'The flag at half mast is for Gary Condit's political career.' Weiner then launched into a monologue about how much like the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal the Levy/Condit affair was and noted Condit 'has been hiding out in the Democratic cloakroom' on the [Capitol] floor and 'has lost a lot of weight.' "

And the Boston Globe editorial page has now joined Rep. Bob Barr in calling for a House Ethics Committee probe of Condit's conduct. On Friday Barr filed a formal ethics complaint, Roll Call reports.

Condit Case Watch Case Watch
Joshua Micah Marshall raises some interesting points about the revelation that Condit dumped a watch case hours before police searched his apartment:

First, Abbe Lowell clearly has little if any control over his client.

Secondly, who drove Condit to Alexandria? And did they know what he was going there to do? I suppose he could have taken the Metro (the DC subway) but that's a little hard to figure. The point is that it seems like someone near Condit was willing to help him dispose of evidence prior to the police search of his house. And it would seem worthwhile to find out who that person is--for pretty obvious reasons.

Thirdly, doesn't this stunt make you wonder just what universe Gary Condit is living in? . . . I mean, the guy's apartment is staked out 24-7 by the media. He's discussed relentlessly on cable and talk radio. His face is plastered everywhere. And it seems like a good plan to head out to the suburbs and toss a mysterious package in a trash can? It's not even so much that this inculpates him as it throws into question--and I say this in all seriousness--his very soundness of mind. I mean, just what was he thinking?

The Washington Post reports that the watch box is among the topics police want to question Condit about in a fourth interview. "An FBI agent working on a profile of Chandra Levy would sit in on the meeting," the Post says. And Fox News Channel, citing a "law enforcement source," reports that "a 29-year-old San Francisco Bay Area woman, who worked for Condit as a staff assistant in 1994," gave Condit the watch "during a romantic relationship with the 53-year-old married congressman."

Chandra's Only Doctor
Newsweek notes that cops have been unable to turn up Chandra's medical records. "The only doctor they could find for Levy was her father, an oncologist who had prescribed her birth-control pills. When police went to Dr. Robert Levy, one source says, 'we were told there were no medical records.' "

Please Don't Make Me Speaker
Guess who's out campaigning for Republicans? House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt. The Des Moines Register reports Gephardt "hinted Saturday that tax increases will be on the horizon if Democrats gain control of the U.S. House in next year's elections."

Ms. PAC Man
Hillary Clinton's political action committee raised $662,325 in contributions in the first six months of the year, the Washington Post reports. Though the limit on individual contributions to such a PAC is $5,000, Walter Kaye, the retired insurance executive who fixed Hillary's husband up with Monica Lewinsky, "was listed as having given $10,000, twice the limit," the Post reports.

Is Hugh off the Hook?
Hillary's brother, Hugh Rodham, gets a clean ethical bill of health from the Florida bar. Well, more or less. The Bar's grievance committee rules that Rodham didn't violate ethics rules for lawyers by taking contingency fees to lobby his brother-in-law on behalf of pardon seekers. Rodham's lawyer, Andrew Berman, gives the Miami Herald a wonderfully Clintonian explanation of his client's victory: "What he did was not unethical for a lawyer to have done, because what he did was not the practice of law."

But Barry Rigby, in the Bar's letter explaining the disposition of the case, added that "if Mr. Rodham ultimately is found to have violated any laws with regard to these pardons, the Florida Bar will open a new file and seek discipline based on those findings."

Bull Moose--or Just Bull?
Newsweek reports that Sen. John McCain has taken an intense interest in the life of Theodore Roosevelt, the ex-president who bolted the Republican Party in 1912 and helped elect Democrat Woodrow Wilson. "He’s not reviving the Bull Moose Party just yet, but McCain's obsession with TR is beginning to have an impact at the Capitol," the magazine reports:

Chuck Hagel, the GOP Nebraska senator who's close to both McCain and Bush, was standing in a cornfield recently when he got a frantic call from a senior Bush aide on his mobile phone. The White House had heard that McCain was hosting Democrats at his Sedona ranch. Was he going independent? "Well, I just talked to him two hours ago," Hagel said. "How much trouble can a guy get into in two hours?" Hagel dialed Sedona, and before he could speak he heard McCain's voice pick up with the words: "No, I am not changing parties." The two shared a good laugh.

Ronnie White Redux?
Remember during the Ashcroft hearings how outraged Senate Democrats were that the attorney general-designate, while in the Senate, had blocked Judge Ronnie White's nomination to the federal bench? Ashcroft's campaign against White was supposed to have been particularly objectionable because White is black. "What happened to you," Ted Kennedy told White, "is the ugliest thing that's happened to any nominee in all my years in the United States Senate."

Now Kennedy is leading a Senate effort to obstruct a Bush nominee who happens to be black, columnist Michelle Malkin notes. That man is Gerald Reynolds, tapped by Bush to head the Office of Civil Rights at the Department of Education--and "Reynolds' great crime is thinking for himself," Malkin writes. In today's New York Post, Robert George says Reynolds may be the target of a new "high-tech lynching." "He should not be assassinated before he's even had the chance to defend himself," George writes.

Red Alert
Back in May we criticized Dave Zweifel, editor of the Madison, Wis., Capital Times, for comparing George W. Bush to Hitler. We thought Zweifel was being malicious, but maybe he just doesn't know any better. We lean toward the latter interpretation after reading an editorial in Friday's Capital Times cheering Milwaukee mayor John Norquist's letter (which he later disclaimed) praising communism. Zweifel's paper editorialized:

Few would claim that Soviet communism had any redeeming qualities but Norquist was right when he said Milwaukee shared "many things in common with the long history of the Communist Party and all those engaged in the fight for a decent life for working families."

Capitalism has not always been dominant in the city that has elected two Socialist mayors since 1910. . . . The Socialists' arrival at the Capitol sparked the most productive legislative session in Wisconsin history, resulting in the first worker's compensation plan; the first state income tax based on the ability to pay; and the Corrupt Practices Act, which limited candidate spending.

It was Milwaukee's labor unions that first turned to Berger's Social Democratic Party because he believed that big business should be controlled by workers. Thus it's no surprise that Communists who come to Milwaukee are likely to get a warm welcome as they ask, "Are we going to go the way Bush is pushing us or the way labor coalitions want to go?"

Who would equate Stalinists with social democrats? Well, paranoid right-wingers might--and so, it would seem, might dopey left-wing editors.

The Stream and the Nightmare
Alderman Irene Smith, who allegedly micturated into a wastebasket during a meeting of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen, may be in trouble with the law. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that her colleague Thomas Bauer "wants an investigation into whether Smith . . . violated a city ordinance." The law in question bars "public 'acts or representation of acts of urination.' " Bauer's theory, apparently, is that this includes acts of urination while representing the public.

Marriage Alliance Gets Divorced
The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations has withdrawn from the Marriage Coalition, a group that favors a constitutional amendment to protect against same-sex "marriage," because another coalition member, the American Muslim Council, reportedly supports the Hamas terrorist group. Evan Gahr raised the issue, as we noted Wednesday.

China's Internet Crackdown
Communist officials have ordered the closure of 2,000 of the country's Internet cafés and "suspended" another 6,000. "Ostensibly, the anti-net drive is a response to a wave of parental complaints that their children are accessing too much pornography," London's Independent reports. "But there are suspicions that the government has found an excuse to limit people's access to material it considers politically subversive."

Swimming With the Sharks
The New York Times reports (registration required for link) that owners of swimming holes in upstate New York are closing them to the public. "In these litigious times, they fear being sued":

In New York, landowners have become particularly wary of swimmers, largely because of a state law intended to promote recreational use of private properties. That law generally shields landowners from liability when someone is injured on their property while taking part in 18 activities, including hunting, hang gliding and riding a snowmobile. But swimming is not one of them. Though recreation groups have lobbied to expand the law to include swimming, these efforts have been blocked by the state's trial lawyers.

The Tipping Point--II
The family of Kevin Mackle, a 19-year-old Canadian who died when he tipped over a Coke machine, has started a new Web site, CokeMachineAccidents.com, to press their cause. As the National Post reported, the family is suing over their son's death.

But their Web site leaves out two important facts, both of which appear in the Post story: that Mackle was trying to "extract a free can" when he tipped the machine, and that before he got crushed he got smashed, having consumed enough beer to have "a blood-alcohol level slightly above the legal limit for driving." Kevin Mackle didn't deserve to die, but it's hard to avoid the conclusion that he was a victim of his own stupidity.

(Ira Stoll helps compile Best of the Web Today, and Brendan Miniter contributed to today's edition. Thanks to C.E. Dobkin, Brian Dawson, Stephen Slish and Matt Coldwell. If you have a tip, e-mail us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

Today on OpinionJournal:

• Review & Outlook: Clinton encouraged the protesters. Now one is dead.
• Robert L. Bartley: Bush must strip away illusions about Social Security.
• Richard Miniter: Science doesn't need subsidized embryos.
• Danielle Crittenden: Chapter 10 of "Amanda.Bright@home."

Plus: The Toronto Globe and Mail slams Crittenden's novel--but at least they spell her name right!