From the WSJ Opinion Archives

by JAMES TARANTO
Monday, August 12, 2002 2:58 P.M. EDT

Coloring the Obits
Columnist Michelle Malkin scooped the world last week when she reported the death of Patrick Chavis. A former Los Angeles physician, Chavis was a footnote in legal history: He was one of five black applicants admitted to the University of California, Davis, despite having lower test scores and college grades than Alan Bakke, who was white. Bakke sued and won, giving his name to a landmark Supreme Court case. Chavis died July 23 when he was shot during a robbery at a Foster's Freeze store in Hawthorne, Calif.

After medical school, Chavis went on to become an obstetrician/gynecologist in inner-city Compton, Calif. In 1995 journalist Nicholas Lemann glowingly profiled Chavis for the New York Times magazine, contrasting his career serving the poor with Bakke's undistinguished (in Lemann's opinion) occupation as a Minnesota anesthesiologist. Lemann argued that the Chavis-Bakke contrast illustrated the social benefits of racial preferences. Leftish politicians Tom Hayden and Ted Kennedy picked up the theme.

In 1997, however, things fell apart for Chavis, who had changed specialties to plastic surgery and liposuction. As Malkin recounts:

An administrative law judge found Chavis guilty of gross negligence and incompetence in the treatment of three patients. Yolanda Mukhalian lost 70 percent of her blood after Chavis hid her in his home for 40 hours following a bungled liposuction; she miraculously survived. The other survivor, Valerie Lawrence, also experienced severe bleeding following the surgery; after Lawrence's sister took her to a hospital emergency room, Chavis barged in and discharged his suffering patient--still hooked up to her IV and catheter--and also stashed her in his home.

Tammaria Cotton bled to death and suffered full cardiac arrest after Chavis performed fly-by-night liposuction on her and then disappeared.

In 1998, the Medical Board of California suspended Chavis' license, warning of his "inability to perform some of the most basic duties required of a physician." In a statement filed by a psychiatrist, the state demonstrated Chavis' "poor impulse control and insensitivity to patients' pain." A tape recording of "horrific screaming" by patients in Chavis' office revealed the doctor responding callously: "Don't talk to the doctor while he is working" and "Liar, liar, pants on fire."

The New York Times never reported any of this, but the Boston Globe's Jeff Jacoby wrote a column noting that these events had, to put it mildly, called into question the premise of Lemann's piece. In his book "Coloring the News," William McGowan made the Times' evasion of Chavis's decline Exhibit A of his thesis, namely that the press is strongly biased in favor of preference and other "liberal" positions on racial matters.

Bolstering McGowan's argument further, the Times has not run an obituary for Chavis. Nor, as far as we can tell, has any other paper but the Washington Post, which finally published one today. And the way the Post's Richard Pearson sums up the antipreference argument shows precisely the bias to which McGowan refers:

Dr. Chavis's career was . . . taken up by opponents of affirmative action in their belief that it illustrated the policy's moral and intellectual failure. Others contended that although Dr. Chavis deserved to be criticized for his actions, those actions did not prove anything about affirmative action. These commentators pointed out that there was no statistical correlation between affirmative action admissions to medical school and later malpractice charges.

This precisely inverts what happened. It was the backers of racial preferences who had used the Chavis case to support their case. The critics did not argue that Chavis was a typical product of race-based admissions policies, only that Lemann & Co., having lived by the anecdote, should die by it too.

Complaining Without Context
Today's New York Times carries an op-ed piece by one Azzam Al-Araj, a Palestinian Arab who lives in Tulkarm, describing his difficulty in getting to a conference in Toledo, Spain. "I left my home in Tulkarm on Monday, June 17, at 5:30 in the morning with the intention of taking a flight on June 22 from Amman, Jordan, to Madrid," he writes. "I left early to ensure I would be able to get out of town." He goes on to describe his difficulties in doing so, while obscuring the reasons why travel is difficult in the disputed territories. Let's go through his account day by day:

Monday, June 17
Al-Araj: "As I was leaving, I heard that the army had decided to return."

The context: "A suicide bomber detonated a large bomb near a Border Police patrol outside the Israeli Arab village of Mardza early Monday, killing himself but causing no other casualties," Ha'aretz reported. "The Qatar-based Arabic news channel Al Jazeera reported Monday that the bomber, a 16-year-old from Jenin, was infected with the HIV virus. Soon after the explosion, Haifa police went on special alert after they received a 'hot and precise' warning that a terrorist planned to strike at an area of restaurants or another densely-populated region in the northern city."

Tuesday and Wednesday, June 18 and 19
Al-Araj: "Unfortunately, the Israeli Army had closed the bridge to almost everybody. I parted company with the driver and spent two nights sleeping on the side of the road, waiting for the bridge to open."

The context: "Nineteen people were killed Tuesday in a Palestinian suicide bomb attack on a rush hour bus," CNN reported. "A Palestinian suicide bomber dashed to a bus stop at northern Jerusalem's French Hill intersection [Wednesday] night and blew himself up, killing at least seven people, including a five-year-old girl and an infant girl," the Jerusalem Post reported.

Thursday, June 20
Al-Araj: "On Thursday morning, it was announced that 250 people would be allowed through."

The context: By using the passive voice, Al-Araj leaves the impression that it was the Israelis who were preventing him from passing. More likely it was the Jordanians. The Jerusalem Post reported last week: "Whereas previously Jordan issued as many as 5000 'no objection' passes per day to Palestinians, most of whom possessed Jordanian passports, since June 12 they they have issued 1,200 per day, only 300 of which are honored, claim Palestinian Authority officials." In an effort to get the Palestinians through, Israel "has begun to facilitate talks between the Palestinians and the Jordanians," the Post adds.

"I am not going to describe in detail the killing of Palestinians, the stifling curfew, the malnutrition among Palestinian children, the house demolitions going on around me, or my wife's daily trauma when each member of my family leaves to go to work or class and she remains home to pray that we all return home safely," Al-Araj writes before launching into his tale of woe. He's not even going to mention Palestinian terrorism, which is the cause of his inconvenience.

Hate Gets Results
A task force at San Francisco State University has put forward recommendations to "improve relations between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli students." SFSU was the site of a May 7 melee in which, according to one account, the "pro-Palestinian" students chanted such things as "Death to Jews" and "Hitler should have finished the job." Among the recommendations, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, is the creation of "an Arab and Islamic studies program."

We Get Results (Sort Of)
Mercedes has responded to our Thursday item on its Web site map of the Middle East that does not label Israel. A representative of DaimlerChrysler e-mailed a colleague of ours the following "explanation": "Only the dealers/countries are mentioned that are organizational belonging to DaimlerChrysler Middle East or have an agreement for linking the websites, like Egypt." Indeed, not only Israel but Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan are unlabeled.

But when we originally noted the map, those three countries were labeled while Israel was not. Blogger Charles Johnson has a copy of the original map (it's the second map in the item, and Afghanistan is cropped out, but Iran and Iraq are both labeled). So while the company's answer is true, it is disingenuous. We'll certainly remember this the next time we're shopping for a car.

Hey! Jew! Get Off of My Cloud
"A pilot for a Delta Air Lines subsidiary would not fly Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Melchior from Cincinnati to Toronto because the pilot thought Melchior posed a security risk," the Associated Press reports. Melchior, who was being escorted by State Department officials, was forced to catch a later flight. A spokeswoman for the subsidiary, Comair, tells ABC News that "it was a procedural matter that involved securing the proper paperwork for a firearm," though she refuses to elaborate further.

Something similar happened back in December to an Arab-American Secret Service agent, prompting shrieks of outrage from the Council on American Islamic Relations and others. The sound you hear now is silence.

They Got Run Out of Iran
"Iran Is Said to Give Up al Qaeda Members" reads the headline in yesterday's Washington Post. The Islamic republic "has quietly detained and expelled . . . 16 al Qaeda fighters who sought refuge in the country after fleeing neighboring Afghanistan." Sounds great, huh? Just one problem: Iran sent the terrorists to Saudi Arabia! This is rather like reading a headline during World War II that says "Italy Is Said to Give Up Nazis" and then finding out it sent them to Germany.

Elsewhere, though, there is good news from Iran. The BBC reports that banned newspapers are now turning up on the Web. "The authorities will find it harder to police the internet effectively, although the new sites might have to relocate abroad to circumvent censorship." And London's Daily Telegraph reports that "garage rock is big in Tehran." And Amir Taheri writes in the Arab News that "a triple alliance is emerging to isolate Iran," with the navies of Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakstan conducting major military exercises in the Caspian Sea.

Iraq? No Phobia.
Those complacent souls now arguing that Saddam Hussein wouldn't do anything mean like develop weapons of mass destruction, and that in any case sending in U.N. inspectors would solve the problem, should read this BBC account from former inspector Terry Taylor:

We were trying to discover all the sites which had equipment which could be used to support a biological weapons programme, everything from dairy factories upwards. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. . . .

We had some successes but it took four-and-a-half years to produce enough evidence to force the Iraqis to admit that they did indeed have a biological weapons programme. That just shows how difficult and challenging the task was, the enormous effort the Iraqis took in hiding this programme.

Taylor recounts having found a factory that was producing anthrax and botulinum toxin:

One of my final tasks in Iraq was blowing up that building.

We eventually cracked the case, but sadly by the time the inspectors were effectively thrown out in 1998, there were still important parts of the programme about which we needed to learn more.

Incidentally, there's an odd comment in the reader responses to the article. "This man Saddam is the same man that the US and UK gave all sort of weapons to destroy my country. Now you are trying to destroy him. What you people are after is oil," writes one Katighetchi from Canada. Saddam tried to destroy Canada? Sounds as though this Katighetchi has been watching too much "South Park."

When Saddam lobbed scud missiles at Israel during the Gulf War, Israel, acting at the behest of the U.S., didn't respond for fear that if it was drawn into the conflict it would upset the coalition, which included several Arab members. This time around, however, the Jerusalem Post reports that Israel is ready to respond if Saddam attacks. This may make an attack less likely; one Israel official tells the Post the Iraqi dictator "knows he has a lot to lose. He knows what Israel has."

Meanwhile, check out these photos of Saddam's well-gruntled military men, clad in suicide girdles, who obviously haven't received instruction in the safe handling of their rifles, and women marching with weapons that have no clips.

George Galloway, a far-left, pro-Saddam member of Britain's Parliament and columnist for the Daily Mail, has just returned from a visit with the Iraqi dictator, who likens himself to Winston Churchill: "Churchill and the British meant what they promised their would-be invaders. So do we," Galloway quotes Saddam as saying. "At the end, the Iraqi people do not love their country less than the British loved theirs."

Galloway says Saddam spends his time in a bunker "so deeply underground my ears were popping." While Churchill's Cabinet War Rooms were underground, we seem to recall another World War II leader who famously met his end in an underground bunker.

Going for the Gold
"Alex Averbukh brought Israel its first-ever gold medal in a major athletics tournament with a first-place finish in the pole vault in the European Athletics Championships Saturday night," the Jerusalem Post reports. Making his achievement even more poignant, he won the medal at the Olympic Stadium in Munich, the city where Palestinian terrorists massacred 11 Israeli athletes in 1972. Reuters calls these murderers "guerrillas"--terrorists is such a loaded word--but wire service's purported aversion to "emotive language" doesn't prevent it from referring to America as Israel's "guardian ally."

Saudi Seeks 'Final Solution'
Adel Al-Jubeir, the Saudi spokesman who's been all over American TV of late, had this exchange with NBC's Andrea Mitchell on yesterday's "Meet the Press":

Mitchell: How can you expect Israel to participate in security discussions again after the Hebrew University bombing?

Al-Jubeir: I think that we have to look beyond the violence. We have to look at the end result. There will be violence as we go through the process. Anyone who says it will not continue is not being realistic. We have to redouble our efforts in spite of it in order to find a final solution. We all agree what the final solution looks like in the settlement. It's withdrawal from the territories in exchange for peace and normal relations, and let's roll up our sleeves and work in that direction.

Given all the Muslim outrage last year over President Bush's referring to a "crusade" against terrorism, you'd think the Saudis would be more careful about using a phrase like "final solution." Though come to think of it, given what we hear in Saudi mosques and media, maybe Al-Jubeir's word choice was quite deliberate.

Appeasement Is No Protection
The Hebrew University bombing has claimed an eighth victim. Sixty-one-year-old Daphna Spruch succumbed to her wounds Saturday. The Jerusalem Post notes that she "never ignored the Arab-Israeli conflict. She could often be seen at left-wing demonstrations holding a sign saying 'end the occupation.' "

I Bet Your Life
"Atef Abeyat, who headed the Tanzim terrorists in Bethlehem until Israeli forces killed him ten months ago, murdered an IDF soldier merely because of a bet he made with other terrorists," Arutz Sheva reports:

A recently-arrested Tanzim terrorist told his investigators that about a year and a half ago, Abeyat was playing cards with some terrorist friends. During the course of the game, it was decided that the loser would kill an Israeli soldier. The loser was Abeyat, and he quickly set out, in accordance with his "obligation," to kill a soldier - Sgt. Danny Darai, 20, who was shot in his army base near Rachel's Tomb on April 2, 2001.

He Has Smaller Fat Ministers in Orbit Around Him
Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak is accusing Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of expansionism. But it's not what you think. "This fatso Sharon," the New York Times says Mubarak "is reported to have said" to Foreign Minister Shimon Peres. "I hear he eats an entire lamb for dinner. How can anyone fall asleep after that?"

Keep on Rolling
Is there a more tedious man alive than Keith Olbermann? As we noted Wednesday, the ABC radio sportscaster was among those who responded with sanctimonious outrage when Florida State University football coach Bobby Bowden adopted Flight 93 hero Todd Beamer's trademark line, "Let's roll," as his team's motto. The Todd Beamer Foundation gave its blessing to the FSU motto, but that wasn't good enough for Olbermann, who now reveals in Salon that Tampa Tribune sportswriter Martin Fennelly "revealed that after Bowden's introduction and explanation of the slogan the coach quipped, 'Any tears?' And then he chuckled. 'There was nervous laughter,' Fennelly added."

According to Olbermann, "Fennelly said he believed Bowden was trying to 'let a little air out of the room' to lighten the mood after addressing tragic if inspiring Beamer's story [sic]." Oh the humanity!

Blowing Up the ACLU
Now that the ACLU has been the victim of a terrorist bombing, will it develop a more balanced approach to the trade-off between civil liberties and national security? Probably not, for it wasn't that ACLU that was bombed but the Afghan Construction and Logistics Unit.

You Don't Say--I
"Chairman of Democrats Faults Bush as a Leader"--headline, New York Times, Aug. 11

And These Guys Wanted to Do the Recount
In the latest Florida election scandal, "Broward County election officials have thrown out part of a poll worker training video after Republicans complained about its portrayal of a white GOP voter berating a black election worker," the Associated Press reports:

The segment on belligerence, which was erased on Friday, showed the exchange between a white voter and a black poll worker.

"I'm voting Republican and do you want to know why? All Democrats are communists," the voter tells the poll worker.

"Sir, you are wrong, I'm a Democrat and I'm certainly not a communist," responds the poll worker.

"You're a Democrat? Then you're a communist just like the rest of them. You people shouldn't even be here," the voter says.

The video later made the point that poll workers should not argue with voters.

Shooting From the Hip
Within hours of Friday's sad revelation that actor and National Rifle Association top gun Charlton Heston has the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, Slate rushed out a tastelessly gleeful piece by assistant editor Bryan Curtis arguing that the state of California has the legal authority to confiscate his guns.

But blogger Eugene Volokh, a law professor at UCLA, says Curtis is wrong; under California law "an Alzheimer's patient will generally not be stripped of his right to own a gun unless he (1) is placed under a conservatorship, (2) communicates to a psychotherapist a serious threat of physical violence against an identifiable victim, or is (3) taken into custody by the government or assessed by the government on the grounds that the person is a threat to others or is gravely disabled, something that typically (to my knowledge) doesn't happen unless the person commits some act that is seen by government authorities as potentially dangerous."

You Don't Say--II
"There is also the possibility that if you drink a lot of water that happens to be polluted then of course you get more pollutants. Then there is the inconvenience of constant urination, the embarrassment of having to go to the bathroom all the time."--Heinz Valtin of Dartmouth Medical School on the consequences of excessive drinking, quoted by Reuters, Aug. 9

Look Who's Talking
Time now for the most ridiculous item of the day. Liberal journalist Josh Marshall runs a pretty good blog known as the Talking Points Memo. He's steamed at the Washington Post's Terry Neal, who recently started an online column of his own called Talking Points. Marshall has been blogging under the TPM name since November 2000, so he argues that he has a claim to the name.

But Marshall doesn't mention that Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly has a segment on his show with exactly the same name as Marshall's blog, Talking Points Memo. O'Reilly has been doing the segment since at least Dec. 28, 1998, the date of the earliest O'Reilly transcript in the Factiva database. It's ridiculous that Marshall attacks Neal but not O'Reilly, who stole Marshall's idea at least two years before Marshall even thought of it.

(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Aaron Gross, Robert Greenspan, Brent Finley, Daniel Goldstein, Michael Colson, Michael Segal, Nancy Ibrahim, Darren Gold, C.E. Dobkin, Carl Sherer, Yehuda Hilewitz, Rosanne Klass, Natalie Cohen, Peter Melvoin, Laurence Jarvik, Amit Kohn, Marie Bourgeois, Jerome Marcus, Frank Natoli, Jonathan Keiler, Robert LeChevalier, Damian Bennett, Jose Carbonell, S.E. Brenner, David Simon, Michiel Visser, Adam Muntner, Joel Engel, Stuart Schneiderman, Brian Rom, Randy Schwartz, Gershon Dubin, David Gerstman, Steve Zak, D. Gordon, Andrew Mackenzie and Mara Gold. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

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