by JAMES TARANTO
Friday, February 8, 2002 3:23 P.M. EST

Great Moments in Public Education
The short Associated Press item that appeared atop yesterday's New York Times "National Briefing" (link requires registration) was easy to miss, but it's actually quite shocking:

The Los Angeles school district has halted distribution of a book about the Koran because its foreword calls Jews illiterates who reject knowledge. Nearly 300 copies of the book, "The Meaning of the Holy Quran," donated by the Omar Ibn Al Khattab Foundation, were removed on Tuesday for further review. "We're going to talk to the foundation members and determine exactly why the commentary's there and whether there is research to support it," said Jim Konantz, a district official.

Now, it's dispiriting but not surprising that multicultural blind spots would prevent public educators from noticing Muslim anti-Semitism in the first place. But read that Konantz quote carefully. Is he really suggesting that there may be "research" to "support" this slander?

Cheney Gets Tough
Vice President Dick Cheney plans to travel to Israel and eight Arab countries, mostly in the Persian Gulf. At a press conference yesterday, President Bush explained the purpose of the trip:

I'm sending the vice president because, one, he is a key player in our administration and I want to get feedback from . . . world leaders.

I want them to see firsthand, as well, our strong intent to fight terror. There's nothing like looking somebody in the eye and letting them know that when we say we're going to fight terror, we mean it. And there's nothing like people getting a sense of the determination of this government.

There's a lot of folks who might have predicted that, over time, we would grow weary and we'd get tired and we'd, kind of, get faint of heart. The vice president can deliver the message to many important world leaders that our government is absolutely committed to fighting terror, and we expect people to join us in doing so.

As I said, either you're with us, or you're against us. And we fully understand that in order to be effective in our fight against terror that we need others to join us.

Israel's Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer says Cheney is particularly tough on Yasser Arafat. The BBC quotes Ben-Eliezer as telling an Israel paper: "The vice president told me: "As far as I am concerned, you can even hang him,' " referring to the Palestinian strongman.

Who Buked 'Em in the First Place?
"Europe's Parliament delivered an implicit rebuke to Israel and the United States yesterday by inviting Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, to address the assembly," London's Daily Telegraph reports. Some rebuke! They also invited Israel's Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, and it's unlikely Arafat will be able to make it anyway, seeing as how the Israelis have him cornered in Ramallah.

The Telegraph adds that "senior officials at the [British] Foreign Office, once a bastion of 'Arabists', now openly express dismay at Mr Arafat's 'catastrophic failure of leadership.' " Arafat still has strong support in France, though. Maybe Cheney ought to go to Paris and stare some people down.

Our Friends the Saudis
Osama bin Jafar Faqih, the Saudi trade minister, is siding with Iran's mad mullahs against America. "Not only do the threats of Bush against Iran not damage relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, but they strengthen ties between the two countries," Agence France-Presse quotes Faqih as saying. It's not surprising that Saudi Arabia would side with the Iranian tyrants; a free Iran across the Persian Gulf would make the repressive Saudi regime look that much worse by comparison.

Faqih also said, referring to the Sept. 11 atrocities, that "the United States and the West have not provided any proof of involvement of Saudi nationals in these events." Guess he hasn't heard the news.

The Absconder Apprehension Initiative
As part of the law-enforcement effort against terrorism, federal agents are to begin arresting illegal immigrants who have ignored deportation orders, the Washington Post reports. There are some 314,000 such "absconders," and the focus will initially be on the 6,000 or so who come from countries that are al Qaeda strongholds. "Yesterday, officials said the arrests will begin next week with a group of fewer than 1,000 illegal immigrants, most from the Middle East and Pakistan, who are believed to be the most dangerous because they are convicted felons." Surprise, surprise:

The absconder program's initial focus on Middle Eastern nationals has renewed complaints from Arab American and civil liberties groups that the Bush administration is practicing racial profiling in its war on terrorism.

Khalil E. Jahshan, vice president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee here, said yesterday that information in the special terrorism database could be used to unfairly smear the reputations of innocent individuals.

"This whole path the government is taking is clearly a case of racial profiling," Jahshan said. "It's clearly a case of selective enforcement. . . . These half-baked methods seem totally isolated from a whole tradition of respect for civil liberties and civil rights in this country."

Does anyone have any patience left for such idiocy? Even those absconders who aren't terrorists are illegally in America in the first place. It is preposterous to demand that those who come from countries that incubate terror be treated the same way as Mexican gardeners.

Cross-Eyed at the Red Cross
"The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Friday it considered Taliban and al Qaeda fighters held by U.S. forces to be prisoners of war, despite Washington's refusal to accept that," Reuters reports. As we explained last week, al Qaeda members are POWs under the Geneva Convention only if they are "conduct their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war." If the folks who run the ICRC really thinks hijacking airplanes, slamming them into buildings and murdering innocent civilians are consistent with "the laws and customs of war," it's time America gave them the heave-ho.

Our Friends the French Canadians
It seems the Gilles Duceppe, leader of the Canadian opposition party Bloc Québécois, think that, as the National Post puts it, "it was wrong for Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan to hand over three suspected al-Qaeda terrorists to U.S. authorities last month." Cheers to Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, who denounced the Bloc-heads as "defenders of the terrorists."

Secrets of Long Life
"The Crusades still are bitterly remembered here," CNN's Martin Savidge reports from Kandahar, Afghanistan. "The slaughter of thousands in the name of God to free the Holy Land of 'heathens.' The events of a thousand years ago helped to sow the seeds of today."

Actually, the Crusades continued until the 14th century--but still, that would mean anyone who "remembers" them would have to be more than 600 years old. Either Kandahar yogurt contains some sort of miracle elixir of youth or, more likely, some wily Afghans managed to snooker poor Martin Savidge into thinking they were born more than six centuries ago.

Nobody's Hero
The Sacramento Bee reports on a sad but perhaps inevitable part of any war: fabricated heroism. Justin McCauley, 21-year-old a naval aviation ordnanceman, falsely claimed to be a Navy SEAL and was the subject of a Jan. 20 Bee profile. He was exposed by what the Bee calls "a watchdog group of retired Navy SEALs."

The Bee called McCauley, who offered this excuse: "I wasn't in [SEAL] training for more than a week, but my mom didn't know that I had dropped training, and I didn't want to let her down. So I just kind of went along with it." The Bee reports, however, that he never even entered SEAL training.

Sue York City
Some 1,300 people have filed claims saying they may sue New York City for a total of $7.18 billion over injuries caused by "alleged negligence of the city during the recovery and cleanup" after Sept. 11, the Associated Press reports. "The vast majority are from firefighters who say the city gave them inadequate respiratory protection at the smoldering trade center site."

Stupidity Watch
In a letter to the editor of the New York Times (link requires registration), David Dow, a University of Houston law professor, complains that Attorney General John Ashcroft "expressed little sympathy for [Marin mujahid John Walker] Lindh because he had allied himself with an organization that rejects American cultural and political values":

That the nation's chief law enforcement officer would imply that an American citizen can be mistreated because that citizen rejects certain values is stunning, and reflects a basic misunderstanding of the function of constitutional rights. They are needed precisely to protect those with unpopular viewpoints. As Robert H. Jackson, the Supreme Court justice, observed during World War II, the right to disagree is not limited to things that "do not matter much"; the right to differ includes the right to reject values that "touch the heart of the existing order."

Good heavens, is Dow really so daft that, to employ an analogy, he can't understand the difference between an American joining a neo-Nazi group today (which is legal but repugnant) and joining the Nazi party in 1942 (which would have been treason)?

Bloomberg News reports that police in countries from Pakistan to Italy are raiding militant mosques. "The raids and searches have in some cases yielded weapons and documents, and have led to arrests of suspected terrorists." But George Joffe, a Middle Eastern scholar at Cambridge University's Center for International Studies, objects that, as Bloomberg puts it, "young Muslims may be moved to join a jihad, or holy war, against the West if their teachers are silenced." Joffee himself says, "We're breeding new 'freedom fighters.' We're actually creating them." Is he suggesting the police planted those weapons in those mosques?

Bad Taste Watch
PoliticsNY.com notes a cartoon that appeared in the Concord (N.H.) Monitor. It depicts President Bush flying a plane labeled BUSH BUDGET and heading toward two skyscrapers, patterned after the World Trade Center. One tower is labeled SOCIAL, the other SECURITY.

Too Bad 'Stupidity Watch' Is Already Taken
Former Enron adviser Paul Krugman argues in his New York Times column (link requires registration) that it's bad to raise defense spending during wartime. "While there is much talk of hard choices, the administration seems loath to make any choices at all when it comes to defense spending," Krugman writes. "Do two competing contractors offer advanced fighters designed to fight a nonexistent next generation of MIG's? We'll take both."

Here's a report from Jane's Defence Weekly on the "nonexistent" next generation of MIGs.

Petering Out
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports on ABC anchorman Peter Jennings's visit to the Big Peach. Jennings seems to acknowledge that he is, as the AJC puts it, "tougher on the United States than rivals Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather":

If so, he attributes it to a global perspective he gained from many years of reporting in Europe and the Middle East.

"I tend to see the United States through a variety of prisms," he admitted. "I'm not one of those members of Congress or the leadership of the country who is proud not to have a passport, which I believe is utterly foolish.

"When people really decide they're going to get pissed off at me, they still, on rare occasions, send me bus money to go home to Canada." He chuckled. "I always try to give it to a charity of their choice."

This Crummy Outhouse Is for the Byrds
Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill had a tense confrontation with Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia yesterday. The Washington Post reports it turned into a game of one-downmanship:

"They're not CEO's of multi-billion-dollar corporations," Byrd said of the voters. "They can't just pick up the phone and call a Cabinet secretary. In time of need, they come to us, the people come to us," their members of Congress.

O'Neill said he objected to what he called Byrd's inference.

"I started my life in a house without water or electricity," said O'Neill, who grew up in a low-income St. Louis, Mo., household. "So I don't cede to you the high moral ground of not knowing what life is like in a ditch."

"Well, Mr. Secretary, I lived in a house without electricity too, no running water, no telephone, a little wooden outhouse," said Byrd, who was raised by his aunt and uncle in West Virginia's coal country.

It's a bit reminiscent of a Monty Python skit, "The Four Yorkshiremen":

Eric Idle: We used to live in this tiiiny old house, with greaaaaat big holes in the roof.

Graham Chapman: House? You were lucky to have a HOUSE! We used to live in one room, all hundred and twenty-six of us, no furniture. Half the floor was missing; we were all huddled together in one corner for fear of FALLING!

Terry Jones: You were lucky to have a ROOM! We used to have to live in a corridor!

Michael Palin: Ohhhh we used to DREAM of livin' in a corridor! Woulda' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woken up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House!? Hmph.

Idle: Well when I say "house" it was only a hole in the ground covered by a piece of tarpolin, but it was a house to US.

Chapman: We were evicted from our hole in the ground; we had to go and live in a lake!

Jones: You were lucky to have a LAKE! There were a hundred and sixty of us living in a small shoebox in the middle of the road.

Mormon Bashing
The Olympics open tonight in Salt Lake City, which happens to be the headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormons. "Utah and its Mormon denizens are absorbing a media beating that outweighs anything endured by past Olympic venues like Calgary or Nagano," the Washington Times reports:

Descriptions of Utah include "the strangest state in America," "puritanical," "a theocracy," "holier-than-thou Hicksville" and "Dullsville." A trip to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' President Gordon Hinckley's office is like "walking into a David Lynch movie," according to Time magazine. . . .

Most members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormons, are trying to maintain a sense of humor over the onslaught. . . . "We're just going to be who we are," Mr. Otterson said. "I think anyone who thinks we can control the media coverage is in never-never land. It's our intent to be welcoming and then hope that people have integrity."

More integrity, say, than an Australian reporter who asked two young Salt Lake City missionaries to tell her about the church, then poked cruel fun at one who was breathing with the help of an oxygen tank.

The Jerusalem Post has a fascinating story on the "very cordial ties" between Utah's tiny Jewish community and the Mormons:

Mormons call their state "Zion." The river that runs around Salt Lake City is the "Jordan." Their central building is the Temple, where only the most faithful may enter, dressed all in white like the Temple priests of old. Their Assembly Hall, home of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, boasts a large Star of David, explained by one church official as a conscious representation of the ingathering of the Jewish people in Israel, which the church supports as a necessary precursor to the Messianic era.

It's true that Utah is the only place in the world where Jews are called gentiles. But so is every other non-Mormon, so it's nothing to take personally.

Mormons consider themselves to be one of the Lost Tribes of Israel, and official church policy bans efforts to convert Jews. The Post tells the story of Rabbi Benny Zippel, an Orthodox Jew who put a menorah on public property, an action that usually draws objections from Reform Jews:

The director of a city park . . . invited Zippel to place Chabad's hanukkia on her property that December. Zippel ordered a large aluminum hanukkia with electric bulbs from a Chabad outlet in New Jersey, and the park put it up next to a Christmas tree. Zippel waited for the community reaction.

It came the next day--not from Jewish groups, but from the American Civil Liberties Union and a group called "The Society of Separatists." Both groups called the hanukkia unconstitutional, and told the city they wanted it down. Zippel showed up for a press conference at the hanukkia, armed with packages of Supreme Court documentation sent overnight to him by Lubavitch World Headquarters in Brooklyn.

"I went to the menora [hanukkia], and there were about 40 or 50 Mormons there, yelling at me that if I took it down, I was a wimp," Zippel recounts. "The Mormons thought that menora was the best thing in the world."

White as Snow?
In an article headlined "U.S. Team Lacks Racial Mix," John Crumpacker of the San Francisco Chronicle reports:

When the 19th Winter Olympics begin tonight with the Opening Ceremonies, the United States will march into Rice-Eccles Stadium with a record 211 athletes.

Of those Americans, 201 (more than 95 percent) are white, leaving a tiny minority of four black athletes, three Asians, one Hispanic and two of mixed race.

Hey Crumpacker, if you think this is bad, we've got a tip for you. Look into the Japanese team. We hear they're all Japanese!

'Gotta Keep My String Alive'
Reader John Romero pays tribute to three of our regular contributors:

Five a.m. in the city. C.E. Dobkin frantically scours the early edition headlines. Raghu Desikan punches a likely URL into his antique Mac. S.E. Brenner has already fired off her first item. Work, wives, kids, nothing matters more than their mutual obsession. Gotta make Best of the Web again today. Got a string going. Fifteen in a row for Dobs and Bren. Fourteen for Rags. Don't talk to me now. I'm busy.

Okay, maybe it's not exactly like that. But I'm close. You ever read the roll call at the end of Taranto's stuff? Those guys are always in there. Their names leap off the page and scream, "I did it again, you lackwit." Bulldogs, all three of them. Invariables in an offbeat world. Damned if they're not my heroes.

(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to C.E. Dobkin, Patricia Nunez, Damian Bennett, Raghu Desikan, Jim Orheim, Diane Ravitch, Richard East, Mark Lardas, Michael Mukavetz, Steven Platzer, Napoleon Cole, David Merrill, Shelley Taylor and Daniel Goldstein. S.E. Brenner has the day off. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

Today on OpinionJournal:

• Review & Outlook: Since when does Ralph Neas run the Judiciary Committee? (link requires registration)
• Daniel Henninger: Enron and the death of common sense.
• Peggy Noonan on why we talk about Reagan.

And on the Taste page:

• Review & Outlook: Hooray for politics at the Olympics!
• Tony & Tacky: Taking down signs of Enron.
• Eric Gibson: The Enronification of the Smithsonian.
• John Meroney: Hollywood celebrates its commies.
• Fred Barnes: Washington's Christian press corps.

Editor's note: OpinionJournal will be undergoing maintenance beginning Friday evening, during which the site will remain up but the above links may not work. If you're having trouble reading one of the articles, go to our home page or the Taste page, where you'll find temporary links.