From the WSJ Opinion Archives
Roly
Poly Fish Heads
Oh boy, a feeding frenzy! The speculation, and later revelation, that Karl Rove
was a source who blew the whistle on Joe Wilson's Niger chicanery has revived
the Valerie Plame kerfuffle. Just when you thought things couldn't get sillier,
they do, as the Angry Left's excitement has bubbled up into the mainstream media.
The lead story in today's New York Times is headlined "At White House, a Day of Silence on Rove's Role in C.I.A. Leak." As the Mediacrity blog notes, this is "too cute," given that the Times has dispatched one of its own reporters to jail so that it can keep silent about what it knows about Rove or some other source.
Of course, there is a difference: The Times is keeping silent because the public has a right to know.
Yesterday's White House press briefing featured a similarly hilarious question from ABC News's Terry Moran to press secretary Scott McClellan:
Now that Rove has essentially been caught red-handed peddling this information, all of a sudden you have respect for the sanctity of the criminal investigation?
The information that Rove has been "caught red-handed peddling" is that Wilson's wife, Plame, engineered his trip to Niger. Wilson denied this when it became public two years ago this week, but it turned out that Rove was telling the truth and Wilson was not. In other words, here we have Moran, a reporter, attacking the White House for providing accurate information to reporters! This is journalism at its best?
We're too weary of the subject to review once more why there's nothing to the "scandal"; read John Podhoretz if you need a refresher. In any case, people who think in clichés keep asserting that "there's blood in the water," meaning Rove's. Those of us who have actually gone fishing know chum when we see it.
We
Hope He Used Tongs
"Spokesman Holds Tongue During Intense Grilling"--headline, Washington
Post, July 12
Voice
of Treason
A Midwestern governor is accusing a dissenting legislator of "treason"
and demanding that he be removed from office. The state is Michigan; the governor,
Jennifer Granholm, is a Democrat; and the legislator, Rick Baxter, is a Republican.
At issue is a "Cross Country" column Baxter co-wrote with think-tanker
Gary Wolfram that appeared Thursday in The
Wall Street Journal. Baxter and Wolfram criticized Granholm for proposing
to bulk up the Wolverine State's already hefty tax burden.
Granholm was born in Canada; she did not breathe the sweet air of freedom until she was 4, when her parents moved to California. This column strongly disagrees with the nativist argument that immigrants cannot adapt to America's democratic culture, but perhaps we'll have to make an exception for Canadians.
BBC
No Evil
"The BBC has re-edited some of its coverage of the London Underground and
bus bombings to avoid labelling the perpetrators as 'terrorists,' "
London's Daily Telegraph reports:
Early reporting of the attacks on the BBC's website spoke of terrorists but the same coverage was changed to describe the attackers simply as "bombers."
The BBC's guidelines state that its credibility is undermined by the "careless use of words which carry emotional or value judgments."
Consequently, "the word 'terrorist' itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding" and its use should be "avoided," the guidelines say.
A blogger called Gene has some specific examples. This sort of thing actually poses a problem for American liberals, though obviously they aren't responsible for the Beeb's actions. But can they credibly deny that they share something of this apologetic mindset?
Weasel
Watch
Four days after the terror attack on London, the Financial Times reports, Paris's
Mayor Bertrand Delanoë "delivered a stinging attack on British tactics
in the competition to host the 2012 Olympic Games, accusing the UK prime minister
and his London bid team of 'not respecting the rules.' "
Oh well, another fine French whine. But this is actually good news for the Brits, who won't have to endure the silly argument that they "squandered the world's sympathy" after being attacked.
New
York's War on Terror
In the wake of the London attack, NY1, a New York cable news station, reports
on some security measures under consideration around here:
[Metropolitan Transportation Authority] board members will discuss a plan later this month to wire underground stations for cell phone use, allowing passengers and security personnel to communicate effectively in the event of an emergency. . . .
Meanwhile, cell phone service remains suspended inside the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels after it was cut over the weekend as an anti-terror precaution. Both tunnels are run by the Port Authority.
Living in New York, which went for John Kerry* over George W. Bush by more than 18%, we sure are glad the people here are so much smarter than in the red states.
* The haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam.
The
EU's War on Terror
"European Union states that have not adopted EU rules aimed at reducing
noise in crowded cities will face court action if they fail to act soon, the
bloc's executive said," Reuters reports:
The European Commission said it was initiating legal action against 11 states which had failed to incorporate the rules into national noise pollution legislation, which should have been done by July 2004.
The states are Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal and Britain.
No doubt the threat of a fine will prevent future incidents of loudness like those in London last week.
Don't
Want No Court People
In response to the Associated Press's reference to Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the
"tiniest justice," which we noted
yesterday, blogger John Kranz poses an interesting question: "If Justice
Ginsberg should retire, would President Bush be compelled to nominate another
short person to her seat?"
Actually, Bush may be disinclined anyway to choose altitudinous attorneys for the high court. He has said he wants to appoint justices like Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. The physical stature of sitting justices is shrouded in secrecy; as Roger Clegg noted in National Review Online in 2001, "the public-affairs officer with whom I spoke at the Court informed me in no uncertain terms that neither the weight nor even the height of the justices is publicly available."
As luck would have it, though, this columnist stands 5-foot-10, which is roughly the average American male height, and we have been photographed with both Scalia and Thomas. The pictures make clear that we are somewhat taller than both of these justices, which means that--well, to put it in a positive way, neither can be accused of having his head in the clouds.
As Seth Lipsky points out in today's New York Sun, Bush essentially agrees with this sentiment:
"The Supreme Court, by its very nature, must be a conservative body; it is the conservator of our institutions, it protects the people against the errors of their legislative servants, it is the defender of the Constitution itself. To place upon the Supreme Bench judges who hold a different view of the function of the court, to supplant conservatism by radicalism, would be to undo the work of John Marshall and strip the Constitution of its defenses. It would introduce endless confusion where order has resigned [sic], it would tend to give force and effect to any whim or passion of the hour, to crown with success any transitory agitation engaged in by a part of the people, overriding the matured judgment of all the people as expressed in their fundamental law."
That was a New York Times editorial from 1916, opposing President Wilson's nomination of Louis Brandeis, but wouldn't it be something if Bush cut the court down to size both figuratively and literally?
Getting
Their Irish Up
"Democratic candidate for mayor C. Virginia Fields is apologizing for using
the term 'paddy wagon' in an interview with NY1 last week," the New York
news channel reports:
In Alabama on Friday, the Manhattan borough president talked about being arrested during a civil rights protest in 1963. In her comments, she described police vans as "paddy wagons"--a term that's considered offensive by some Irish-Americans. "Paddy" is a common Irish name and was used in the past as a pejorative to insult Irish people.
Well, that's nice, but when are these guys going to apologize?
Diagram
This Sentence
"LAPD Chief Backs Baby Shoot Cops"--headline, CBSNews.com, July 12
Not
to Mention Taking Dumb Surveys
"U.S. workers admit to wasting more than two hours each day at work surfing
the Internet, chatting with co-workers, running errands or making personal calls,
according to a survey by America Online and Salary.com."--Houston Chronicle,
July 12
What
Would Today's Overscheduled Kids Not Do Without Experts?
"Today's Overscheduled Kids Need Time to Do Nothing, Experts Say"--headline,
Knight Ridder Newspapers, July 12
What
Would Eating Disorder Experts Do Without 'Whippits'?
"Police: Eating Disorder Expert Collapses After Taking 'Whippits' "--headline,
Associated Press, July 12
'Dear
Disease, We're Thinking of You. Love, Experts'
"Experts to Discuss Dear Disease in Wis."--headline, Associated Press,
July 11
To
Get to the Other Side
"Mystery of Empty Chicken Sex Solved"--headline, LiveScience.com,
July 11
Band in Boston?
It appears we were too hasty in inferring
yesterday that New York's other senator, Charles Schumer, has accepted Jesus
as his personal savior. The red wristband Schumer, who is Jewish, wore on "Meet
the Press" turns out to have many possible meanings.
For one thing, it symbolizes several diseases: multiple sclerosis, diabetes and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, popularly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. It also has other medical-related meanings: Schumer could have been encouraging blood donation or protesting high medical malpractice costs in Arizona.
Red wristbands also are worn to support the troops and to memorialize Pat Tillman, who left pro football for the Army and was killed in action in Afghanistan. They can mean "freedom isn't free" or "listen to children." They can represent "Hope Courage Bravery Endurance" (though not proper punctuation) or a show of solidarity with "the artists and crafts people in developing nations."
Probably Schumer, a Democrat, doesn't mean his wristband to show support for Illinois Republicans, or, given that he is a New Yorker, for the Boston Red Sox. But maybe, just maybe, it's his subtle way of opposing a certain prominent "Yankee fan."
Name
That Panda!
The Washington Post on Sunday offered some suggested names for the National
Zoo's new panda cub. The Post avoided the obvious choices, like Sandra O'Connor
(pandas swing on trees; O'Connor, when she isn't teaching
fourth grade in Alaska, casts swing votes), and some of their choices were
truly inspired:
Parkay (Enough with all the comparisons to it being the size of a stick of butter. It's not butter, okay?)
That gives us a better idea. Given how unlikely it is that the cub will survive, why not name it Toast?
(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Ed Lasky, Lawrence Auster, David Darby, Jim Orheim, Mordecai Bobworsky, C.S. Barnett-Goldstein, Jack McHugh, Tom Blumer, Ethel Fenig, Ron Ackert, Monty Krieger, M. Gilbertson, Michael Segal, Benjamin Quinby, Drew Anderson, Abe Beyda, Bill McConaghy, Joe Christian, Heather Norris, James Linville, Rosanne Klass, Thomas Dillon, Mikael van Loon, Skip King, Daniel Goldstein, Matthew McInteer, Mark Lebediuk, Rene Lajous, Anne Schlesinger, Raghu Desikan, Harold Kurtz, E.L. Doctor, Shlomo Raziel, Paul Wood, John Williamson, Tony Gill, Brendan Schulman, Rod Pennington, Matt Kaufman, Dave Bosserman, Ruth Papazian, John Sanders, Kevin Patrick, Barak Moore, Don Surber, Sandra Zwerg, Pat Hayes, J. Stricker, Mike Ciara, Paul Heit, Vern Beachy, Terry Dexter, T. Steven Roosevelt, Phillip Richardson, Kimberly Shockley, Randy Lormand, James Reeves, Greg Prince, Ed Everts, David Hurwitz, Sam Freedenberg, Greg Terry, David Mazel, K.D. Clinch, George Menzie, Marlene Blume, Thomas Cosentino, Ray Hendel, Sean Mahar, Bill Gordon, Danny Tesvich, Jim Spilman, Linda Tonry, Dave Adlerstein and Roger Congdon. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Christopher Hitchens: Jefferson's ideas presaged the Bush doctrine.
- Brendan Miniter: President Bush taps the wrong Tennesseean to help reform Medicaid.
- John Fund: A new biography presents Arnold Schwarzenegger as disciplined, focused and optimistic.
