by JAMES TARANTO
Tuesday, December 27, 2005 3:31 P.M. EST

It's Mao or Never
"The UMass Dartmouth student who claimed to have been visited by Homeland Security agents over his request for 'The Little Red Book' by Mao Zedong has admitted to making up the entire story," reports the Standard-Times of New Bedford, Mass.:

The 22-year-old student tearfully admitted he made the story up to his history professor, Dr. Brian Glyn Williams, and his parents, after being confronted with the inconsistencies in his account.

Among those who fell for the story, as we noted Friday, was Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, who cited it in a Boston Globe op-ed piece (though he claimed the book in question was "the official Chinese version of Mao Tse-tung's Communist Manifesto"). According to a Globe news story on the hoax, the Globe interviewed the shifty student--whose request for anonymity both papers have respected even though he lied to them--"but decided not to write a story about his assertion, because of doubts about its veracity."

Kennedy, meanwhile, apologized for slandering America's dedicated law-enforcement agents by portraying them as totalitarian thugs.

Ha ha, we fooled you! Here's the actual Kennedy response as reported by the Globe:

Laura Capps, a Kennedy spokeswoman, said last night that the senator cited ''public reports" in his opinion piece. Even if the assertion was a hoax, she said, it did not detract from Kennedy's broader point that the Bush administration has gone too far in engaging in surveillance.

This puts is in mind of a 1953 quote from science-fiction author Robert Heinlein:

I found in traveling around the world that a great many people . . ., apparently well educated and sophisticated, were convinced that the people of the United States were in the grip of terror and that free speech and free press no longer existed here. They believed that the United States was fomenting a third world war and would presently start it, with Armageddon consequences for everyone else, and that the government of the United States smashed without mercy anyone who dared to oppose even by oral protests this headlong rush toward disaster.

These people could "prove" their opinions by quoting any number of Americans and American newspapers and magazines. That they were able to quote such American sources proved just the opposite, namely that we do continue to enjoy free speech even to express arrant nonsense and unpopular opinion, escaped them completely.

The University of Massachusetts' Amherst campus is hosting a conference next October on "Rethinking Marxism." Indeed, anyone who has set foot on a college campus in the past 30 years knows that communist ideas are commonplace, as one might expect in institutions that are sheltered from reality. The Mao yarn was never believable in the slightest for anyone except someone like Ted Kennedy, who is only strengthened in his prejudices when the evidence for them is discredited.

Mary Jo Kopechne Could Not Be Reached for Comment
"Bridge Over Kennedy to Reopen"--headline, Chicago Tribune, Dec. 27

Unfrozen Caveman Leader

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I'm just a caveman. I fell on some ice and was later thawed by some of your scientists. Your world frightens and confuses me! . . . When I see my image on the security camera at the country club, I wonder, are they stealing my soul? I get so upset, I hop out of my Range Rover, and run across the fairway to the clubhouse, where I get Carlos to make me one of those martinis he's so famous for, to soothe my primitive caveman brain. But whatever world you're from, I do know one thing--in the 20 years from March 22, 1972, when he first ordered that extra nicotine be put into his product, until February 25, 1992, when he issued an interoffice memorandum stopping the addition of that nicotine, my client was legally insane."--Phil Hartman as "Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer," "Saturday Night Live," March 23, 1996

"Mr. President, maybe I didn't have the education of a lot of my friends. I was educated in a little school in Searchlight, Nev. We didn't have English class. Maybe my choice of words wasn't perfect. Maybe I should have said we killed the conference report. But the fact is, that is what we had done. People can try to change the words and the meaning of it all they want, but that is what happened. I may not have the ability to express myself like the folks who were educated in all these private schools and fancy schools, but I understand the Senate rules. Everyone knows that cloture was defeated, killed, whatever you want to call it. That means that cloture was defeated and that bill is still before the Senate."--Harry Reid as "Unfrozen Caveman Leader," "U.S. Senate," Dec. 19, 2005

Shove It, Ahmadinejad!
Last week Teresa Heinz Kerry, the outspoken ketchup heiress and philanthropist whose husband*, a haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, by the way served in Vietnam, weighed in in the Forward, a Jewish weekly, where she blasted President Bush for his "outrageous silence" after Iranian ruler Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied the Holocaust:

The Bush administration--which so often answers challenges with confrontational language--took this occasion to whisper. With the exception of America's ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, who denounced the remarks as "pernicious and unacceptable," the Bush administration explained those comments as if they had been uttered by a crazy relative--and then returned to its talking points on Iran's nuclear weapons program. . . . Not a single word of disapproval passed the president's lips.

Heinz Kerry's husband** happens to serve in the U.S. Senate, and he did issue a little-noticed statement denouncing Ahmadinejad. On the other hand, in last year's presidential debate he criticized President Bush for not providing the mad mullahs with nuclear fuel. And earlier this year, Mr. Heinz Kerry participated in a smear campaign and a filibuster against John Bolton, whom his better half now praises.

On the same day the Forward piece appeared, the New York Sun reported on more recent doings of Mr. Heinz Kerry's party in the Senate:

A Senate resolution condemning the president of Iran for anti-Semitic comments he made earlier this month is riling its Republican sponsors on Capitol Hill. They claim Senate Democrats forced them to strip language from the document expressing support for self-determination and a national referendum in the country.

Senator [Rick] Santorum, a Republican of Pennsylvania, drafted the resolution after a December 14 speech in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the Holocaust a "myth" and suggested Israel be relocated to Europe, Canada, or Alaska. In its original form, the statement condemned the remarks, demanded an apology, and supported efforts by "the people of Iran to exercise self-determination" and hold a national referendum with oversight by international observers.

When Mr. Santorum moved to introduce the resolution last Friday, Senator [Ron] Wyden, a Democrat of Oregon, registered an unusual objection. According to the Congressional Record, Mr. Wyden told Mr. Santorum on the Senate floor that he was objecting to the resolution because his Democratic colleagues in the Senate had asked him too [sic]. Mr. Wyden did not say who asked him to issue the objection.

"While I personally am vehemently opposed to the statements that have been made by the president of Iran," Mr. Wyden said, "I have been asked by the members on this side of the aisle to object, and I do so object."

Meanwhile, Tehran seems to be distancing itself from Ahmadinejad's comments. "An Iranian official on Friday called for the establishment of a committee to clarify the real extent of the Holocaust, the news agency Fars reported," according to Ha'aretz:

"Ahmadinejad wants European governments to allow Western scholars to publish their research on the Holocaust," Mohammad-Ali Ramin, head of the Society for defending the rights of Muslim minorities in the West, told Fars.

"Ahmadinejad should therefore propose establishment of an international committee for clarifying the real extent of the Holocaust," the official added.

Here's a thought: What if Ambassador Bolton were to propose a U.N. General Assembly resolution simply affirming that the Holocaust took place? It could be enlightening to let Iran and other Muslim nations go on record either acknowledging or denying it.

* John Kerry.

** Fop cit.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomber
A British religious leader has a strange idea about love, reports London's Daily Telegraph:

The new Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, exhorted the country to defeat terrorists by countering their vision of evil with a daring message of love. . . .

"The only way to overcome terrorism is to out-imagine it."

He said the challenge was to offer "a vision of wholeness in a compelling and imaginative way that is so persuasive that would-be bombers would come to see this as their own vision."

What is this "vision of wholeness" to which Sentamu refers? Is he proposing an attempt to convert would-be terrorists to Christianity? Not likely. Such an idea was too much even for National Review in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11. There is no way it would arise in the politically correct milieu of the Church of England.

Sentamu's idea, then, seems to be that terrorists can be defeated through mushy-headed moral equivalence. We must say, killing them still strikes us as more promising.

Fading Colors
"Four days after the city's transit strike ended, Mayor Michael Bloomberg was still coming under fire for his use of the word 'thuggishly' to describe the actions of the leaders of a union that is mostly minority," the Associated Press reports from New York:

"Michael Bloomberg, don't be nasty and mean," attorney Norman Siegel said Monday, standing on the steps of City Hall. "Be positive. Together, we can improve race relations in New York."

The civil rights attorney noted that more than 70 percent of the Transport Workers Union's 33,000 members are "of color." And while he didn't believe Bloomberg's use of the word was in itself racist, Siegel said, "The perception out there is that it is racist. And the reaction has enormous racial overtones."

We've been in New York long enough to remember when race relations actually were bad. During David Dinkins's mayoralty (1990-93), there were race riots somewhere in the city almost every summer. One can only laugh at the spectacle of a Jew from Brooklyn taking offense on behalf of black people at the use of a term that actually refers to criminals from India.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press notes that the union and its sympathizers have been trotting out civil rights rhetoric:

Some names mentioned during the past week's transit strike might have seemed out of place in the context of contract negotiations: Rosa Parks. Martin Luther King Jr. Eugene "Bull" Connor.

The Transport Workers Union and its supporters linked their labor woes to the civil rights struggle, an approach that people who study the labor movement say is being used more often as some unions see increasing minority membership.

But the strike ended because the union went bankrupt, and no one serious takes this racial demagoguery seriously. It is an indication, perhaps, that race in America is at long last approaching the finish line.

Homelessness Rediscovery Watch

"If George W. Bush becomes president, the armies of the homeless, hundreds of thousands strong, will once again be used to illustrate the opposition's arguments about welfare, the economy, and taxation."--Mark Helprin, Oct. 31, 2000

"Homeless for Over a Century, a Tribe Awaits U.S. Redemption"--headline, New York Times, Dec. 24, 2005

Isn't It Too Late by Then?
"Rail Operator Begs Motorists to Take Care After Death"--headline, New Zealand Herald, Dec. 24

What Would Most Kids Do Without Pediatricians?
"Most Kids Will Outgrow Bedwetting: Pediatricians"--headline, Reuters, Dec. 26

She Has Her Maternal Grandmother's White Hair
"Sheep Part of Ancestry of Association Leader"--headline, Billings (Mont.) Gazette, Dec. 27

Drunkenness, However, Has Been Known to Cure Work
"No Evidence That Hangover Cures Work"--headline, Daily Times (Lahore, Pakistan), Dec. 25

Time for a Tall, Tall, Tall Cold One
"People are more likely to pour extra alcohol into short, wide glasses than tall, narrow glasses, a study says," reports the BBC:

The US researchers from Cornell University asked 198 students and 86 bartenders to pour a shot of alcohol.

They found students poured 30% more into the short glasses, while bar workers faired [sic] only slightly better at 20%, the British Medical Journal said. . . .

Students . . . said they thought the tall glasses held more, suggesting they were trying to compensate for size when pouring into the short, wide glasses.

The lesson: If you want to stay sober, drink from one of these.

(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to David Babcock, Edward Friedman, John Campbell, Michael Segal, Greg Askins, Leonid Kontorovich, Hillel Markowitz, Anna Brown, Bernard Levine, Russ Faria, Mark Van Der Molen, Ross Friedman, Ethel Fenig, William Katz, Rosanne Klass, C.E. Dobkin, Steve Roberts, Merv Benson, Nicholas Kerr, Leonora LaMantia, David Cincotta, Lindsay Osbon, Jeff Tschida and Andrew Rustad. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

Today on OpinionJournal:

• James Bone: Why Kofi Annan called me an "overgrown schoolboy."
• Brendan Miniter: How the president, the Senate and the House can retake the initiative in Washington
• Jeffrey Hart: The making of the Conservative Mind.
• Tom Nolan: A novelist's flight from Cuba.