From the WSJ Opinion Archives

by JAMES TARANTO
Friday, March 2, 2007 12:40 P.M. EST

Getting Wasted
John McCain said a stupid and offensive thing about Iraq the other night, as the Associated Press reports:

On Wednesday night, McCain said on CBS' "Late Show With David Letterman": "Americans are very frustrated, and they have every right to be. We've wasted a lot of our most precious treasure, which is American lives."

McCain quickly apologized:

"I should have used the word, sacrificed, as I have in the past," the Arizona senator said after Democrats demanded he apologize as Sen. Barack Obama did when the White House hopeful recently made the same observation.

"No one appreciates and honors more than I do the selfless patriotism of American servicemen and women in the Iraq War," McCain, a former Vietnam prisoner of war, said in a statement.

What's odd about this is that waste and sacrifice are opposites. To sacrifice is to give up something of value to oneself for the sake of something more valuable that transcends the self. To waste is to give up something of value for the sake of something of lesser or no value. A sacrifice is an unselfish act; a waste is an act of misdirected selfishness.

If a young man goes out, gets drunk, gets behind the wheel of his car, crashes and dies, it is fair to say he has wasted his life. That's quite different from a young man who loses his life in the course of doing dangerous work in the service of his country.

Liberal blogger Greg Sargent complains of a double standard:

A number of bloggers today have pointed out that the conservative outrage machine has been silent about this--even as it went into overdrive in response to Obama.

But here's another thing to look at. How many stand-alone stories by the big news orgs will we see about McCain's screw-up? How many times do you suppose mainstream media commentators will refer to McCain's fumble as a "mistake," a "gaffe," or any similar such term?

But there is a difference. Here is what Obama said:

We ended up launching a war that should have never been authorized, and should have never been waged, and to which we now have spent $400 billion, and have seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted.

Here is how he explained it:

What I meant to say was those sacrifices have not been honored by the same attention to strategy, diplomacy and honesty on the part of civilian leadership that would give them a clear mission.

Obama's initial statement was crystal clear; his "explanation" was a cloud of smoke. Obviously he meant what he said in the first place. He also belongs to a party that has adopted a policy of near-total cynicism when it comes to matters of war, as evidenced by this comment from a colleague of his in today's New York Times:

"It's still George Bush's war," said Senator Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, "but we run the risk of gaining some ownership of it if we don't make it absolutely clear that we are the party that wants to get out of there."

McCain's choice of words may reflect a reckless streak, and it certainly gives us pause at the thought of his becoming president. But here is the difference: McCain's statement tells us something worrying about his personal character; Obama's tells us something terrifying about his ideological character.

That Was Fast

  • "Democrats May Cut Bush Military Budget"--headline, Associated Press, March 1, 2:32 p.m. EST

  • "Democrats Nix Idea of Military Budget Cuts"--headline, Associated Press, March 1, 3:07 p.m. EST

ABC: Anything but Careful
Michael S. Malone, who writes a column called "Silicon Insider" for ABC News's Web site, blames Matt Drudge for this week's stock-market decline:

It seems that former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan gave a speech in Hong Kong on Sunday in which he said, reasonably, that this being one of the longest economic expansions in recent years inevitably certain countervailing forces were growing that would inevitably lead us into the next recession. In particular, said Greenspan, U.S. profit margins were beginning to stabilize, and that was a classic indicator of an economy that had peaked--suggesting the beginning of a recession in late 2007, perhaps 2008.

Not exactly earth-shattering. A lot of people are saying the same thing--heck, you read the same thing here a couple weeks ago. Greenspan wasn't saying anything shocking; on the contrary, he was being his typical prudent and opaque self. You can turn on any cable financial show right now and hear a lot more apocalyptic predictions.

Indeed, the story was so unthrilling that it appears only AP covered it--and, contrary to its current reputation, actually managed to write a balanced and objective story. And, as you might expect, it produced little more than a shrug from the financial markets.

But that's when Drudge stepped in. For no obvious reason, he decided to link to the two day old AP story. He then attached one of his classic scare headlines: "Greenspan warns of likely U.S. recession." Personally, I love stuff like that--it harkens back to the good old days of newspapering and the vastly underrated age of yellow journalism--and if the viewer chose to read the term 'imminent' into Drudge's words, and then link through to the AP story . . . well, bully for Matt. That's his job, and he does it better than anybody.

Just one problem, there, Mike: the "classic scare headline" was the AP's!

What's Arabic for 'Chutzpah'?
"[Abu] Abir [spokesman for a 'Palestinian militant group'] blamed the Jewish state for the desecration of the Gaza synagogues by Palestinian Arabs, claiming the decision to leave the structures intact was part of an Israeli conspiracy. Israel 'left the synagogues behind so the world would see the Palestinians destroying them,' Mr. Abir said."--New York Sun, Feb. 27

There Goes the Neighborhood
In the Castro street neighborhood of San Francisco, "heterosexuals are moving in," and some homosexuals are alarmed, reports the San Francisco Chronicle:

Some gay and lesbian residents of the Castro are worried that the culture and history of their world-famous neighborhood could be lost in the process, and they have started a campaign to preserve its character. The city, meanwhile, is spending $100,000 on a plan aimed at keeping the area's gay identity intact.

Heterosexuals "are welcome as long as they understand this is our community," said Adam Light, a leader in the Castro Coalition, a group formed eight months ago to address the shifts in the neighborhood in recent years.

Imagine replacing "heterosexuals" in that latter paragraph with "blacks," "gays" or "Muslims." Yet there is no indication in the Chronicle story that Light's comment is in any way invidious. It's another example of the point we made yesterday that political correctness entails intolerance for some prejudices but impunity for others.

We also got a chuckle out of this quote:

"We need to find and attract new businesses to the neighborhood," said Paul Moffett, president of the Merchants of Upper Market and Castro. "They may not be gay-owned, but the bottom line is we want a vibrant, successful and healthy business community. Whether gay, Chinese, African American or owned by women, it doesn't matter."

We're not gay, Chinese, African-American or female. We feel excluded!

Maybe Al Gore Should Try This
"Snails Save Energy by Re-Using Mucus Trails"--headline, LiveScience.com, March 1

Say What?
"Hepatitis Scare Dogs Puck"--headline, Boston Herald, March 1

That Sounds Painful!
"Inspector General Says School That Uses Shock Therapy Overcharged"--headline, Associated Press, March 1

Unless You're Really Tall, in Which Case Stand Behind Them
"Robinson Urges Episcopalians to Stand by Gays"--headline, Washington Times, Feb. 28

And an 'F' for Editorial Effectiveness
"Del. Earns 'C' for Educational Effectivness [sic]"--headline, News Journal (Wilmington), Feb. 28

News You Can Use

Bottom Stories of the Day

  • "Humane Society's Dog Wash Event Hailed as Successful"--headline, Cayman Net News, March 2

  • "Canada Vies to Host 2011 Women's World Cup"--headline, CBC.ca, March 2

  • "North Side Neighborhood Gets New Mail Carriers"--headline, Chicago Tribune, March 1

  • "Liechtenstein: No Retaliation for Swiss 'Invasion' "--headline, Guardian (London), March 2

  • "Even Ignoring Paris Hilton Makes News"--headline, Associated Press, March 1

Cool Business Ideas
Our item yesterday on Al Gore's "carbon offset" scheme leads reader Tom Tyson to make the former vice president an offer:

I've recently been car shopping. My wife really likes the Toyota Prius, and it sure is a very nice car. I certainly don't object to getting better gas mileage. The only problem is that we can get a Matrix--another very nice car of similar size--for $5,000 less. If Al is interested, I'd be happy to sell him some carbon offsets for $5,000 and then go and buy the Prius!

Feel free to send Al my email address.

Mr. Gore, the ball is in your court. Reader Dan Carter takes the idea a step further:

With all of the concern about carbon "footprint" these days, I've decided to start my own carbon offset business to help the wealthy feel less guilty about their extravagance. Perhaps you would be kind enough to publicize my venture.

My business model is to don the hair shirt of self-denial in exchange for cash payment so that my clients can lead fuller, more enriching lives without worrying about carbon dioxide. And, just so there's no question about the validity of the offset, I'm not building wind farms or giving away fluorescent light bulbs. No, I'm offering to forgo real pleasures so that others may enjoy them.

A few examples from my brochure:

Want to fly to Paris in your Gulfstream? Hey, who doesn't--but the kind of CO2 emissions from a trip like that will come back to haunt you when global warming hits. But what if you persuaded someone else to cancel a similar trip? That's where I come in: For a modest fee of $10,000, I won't fly to Paris on a Gulfstream this spring, so your trip will be carbon-neutral, and you can stroll guilt-free along the Champs Elysées.

Though it's getting tougher and tougher to impress the ladies with a car these days, they still swoon for something really exclusive, like the $1.4 million Bugatti Veyron. But how can you sell your commitment to the Earth when you're behind the wheel of a 1,000-horsepower machine that, at its top speed of 230 mph, sucks up 26 gallons of gas in just 12 minutes? Easy. Let me do the conserving in a three-year-old Camry while you get busy in the Bugatti. For $70,000--just a 5% premium over sticker price--I won't buy a Veyron at any time in the next five years.

Household electrical usage is in the news this week after we learned that a prominent Democrat spends 10 times the U.S. average on his electric bill. Of course, more electricity means more fuel burned in a power plant and more CO2 spewed into the air, and that's just the kind of attention you don't need. So what are you going to do about that fabulous 2,500-square-foot addition you just got back from the architects? Quit fretting and tell the builder to get started! Your added carbon footprint will be neutralized because, for $25,000, I'll scratch my add-on plans for 10 years.

With some cooperation and ingenuity, we can be back in the Little Ice Age in no time!

This is such a great idea, it's almost too good to be true!

(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Charlie Gaylord, John Williamson, Daniel Goldstein, Greg Nelson, Robert Braham, Victor Ellis, Ray Girouard, Hampton Stevens, Mitchell Townsend, Robert Lesley, Dave Huber, Michele Schiesser, Jerry Rhoden, Ian Clark, Daniel Foty, Jeff Baird, Christopher Thompson, Doug Black, Brian O'Rourke, Monty Krieger and Kathleen Sullivan. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

Today on OpinionJournal:

  • Review & Outlook: The Bush administration's "confidence" game on North Korea.
  • Kim Strassel: The Democratic Party's honeymoon is over.
  • Peggy Noonan: John McCain has had quite a life. Will it be enough to carry him to the White House?
  • The Journal Editorial Report: Tune in this weekend for a discussion of stock-market turmoil and how the Dems are repaying Big Labor.

And on the Taste page:

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