From the WSJ Opinion Archives

by JAMES TARANTO
Friday, August 3, 2001 2:13 P.M. EDT

'Bush at His Best'
The Washington Post has a behind-the-scenes account of how President Bush wooed Rep. Charlie Norwood on the Patients' Bill of Rights, which passed the House yesterday:

On July 26, President Bush sat in the Oval Office with Rep. Charles Whitlow Norwood Jr., laying it on thick.

Bush spent several minutes lavishly praising the Georgia Republican for his skill in leading a band of rebels that had outmaneuvered Bush the day before on a patients' bill of rights. But Bush soon dispensed with the pleasantries.

"So now that I've kissed your [rear end], what do I have to do to get a deal?" Bush asked, according to several sources familiar with the meeting.

It was Bush at his best--self-deprecating, folksy and direct.

Hillary Plays Hardball
New York's junior senator, fresh from her victory over cockfighting, is now threatening to restrict federal funding for Viagra, the New York Post reports. She argues that it's somehow "sexist" for Medicaid to cover medically indicated Viagra but not birth-control pills, and she says that if she doesn't get her way, "certain health-care services for the other gender ought to be looked at carefully . . . After all, we wouldn't need as much family planning if . . . No, I won't go there." Adds her colleague, Chuck Schumer: "I think what she's saying is, what's good for the goose is good for the gander." (Hey Chuck, the expression is "sauce for the goose.")

We're not sure why the federal government should be subsidizing Viagra, but the Post notes that "it was during Bill Clinton's presidency, infamous for the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal, that the feds in 1999 ordered New York and other states to cover Viagra under Medicaid." No word whether the Hillary measure would apply to the health benefits of ex-presidents.

We'll Tell You What Your Values Are
Last week we noted that the California Assembly had rejected an innocuous resolution honoring the Boy Scouts on their 85th anniversary, because Democrats object to the Scouts' constitutionally protected ban on open homosexuals. Now Assemblyman Tim Leslie, a Republican from Tahoe City, has posted on his Web site a transcript of the debate over the measure, including this fascinating statement from West Hollywood Democrat Paul Koretz:

It pains me greatly as a former Boy Scout to have to speak against this resolution. The Boys Scouts were a great experience for me. I learned many of the values that I have today. It's not an experience that I would have traded for anything.

But the fact is the Boy Scouts that I belonged to are not the Boy Scouts we deal with today. This organization is one, this organization is one that has taken a stand against the very types of values that they profess to teach by being an organization that supports discrimination based on sexual orientation, discrimination based on religious point of view. It's a very sad thing that on this occasion that this is the way this organization functions. Sadly, I couldn't send a child of mine, and I wouldn't recommend to children of my friends or my relatives membership in this very discriminatory organization. One hopes that perhaps 10 or 20 years down the road, when again we commemorate an additional number of years their being in existence, that they will once again be an organization that lives up and speaks for their own values. I ask sadly for a "no" vote.

What in the world does Koretz mean, "The Boy Scouts that I belonged to are not the Boy Scouts we deal with today"? Are we supposed to believe that in Koretz's day the Scouts were full of open homosexuals? That's preposterous. Society, not the Scouts, has changed, for both better and worse. America is much more tolerant of homosexuals than it used to be, but many gay-rights activists have repudiated America's pluralistic tradition--the very tradition that allowed them to gain acceptance. The jihad against the Boy Scouts is nothing but an effort to force the views of folks like Koretz down the throat of anyone who dares hold different beliefs.

Koretz's formulation is an especially arrogant one. The Boy Scouts were "a great experience" for him when he was growing up, but today's generation--or at least Koretz's friends' and relatives' kids--should be deprived of that experience for the sake of Koretz's political agenda. And as Koretz has it, it's not that the Boy Scouts disagree with him. No, they have "taken a stand against the very types of values that they profess to teach." Paul Koretz not only knows what he believes; he knows, better than you do, what you believe.

Home Schooling on the Rise
A new Department of Education report (link in PDF format) says that about 850,000 of the nation's 50 million schoolchildren are being taught at home rather than in schools, the Associated Press reports. That's up from a 1994 Census Bureau estimate of 360,000 and a 1996 Education Department estimate of 640,000. "Parents gave a wide variety of reasons for homeschooling their children," the report said, including "being able to give their child a better education at home, for religious reasons, and because of a poor learning environment at school."

The Upside of Liberal Media Bias
Conservatives "should spend a little less time getting hot under the collar about media bias," J. Peter Mulhern writes in a Washington Weekly article Mickey Kaus calls "one of the smartest op-ed pieces I've read recently." Mulhern says that "swimming against the current is not all bad. When you have to fight for every inch you are never in danger of overconfidence. When your enemies are constantly in your face they can never ambush you." The bias also has a bad effect on Democrats, whose view of reality is distorted because they actually believe what they read in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the rest of the "liberal cocoon," Mulhern says.

The Missionary Position
The New York Times (link requires registration), in one of its first editorials under the tenure of new editorial-page editor Gail Collins, calls on advocates of campaign-finance reform to do "missionary work" on behalf of the Shays-Meehan bill. Hey, hang on a second there, Gail. We thought religion had no place in politics.

Gov. Lott?
Veteran Mississippi journalist Bill Minor, writing in the Biloxi Sun Herald, reports Sen. Trent Lott may run for governor in 2003--especially if he loses his position as Senate Republican leader. "Thereupon Trent Lott would revert to merely being junior senator from Mississippi. For Trent Lott, after being in the heady stratosphere for the past six years, being junior anything would be unpalatable. Especially junior to Thad Cochran, over whom he has twice leap-frogged before."

Bad News Beards
Al Gore, vacationing in Europe, has grown a beard, the New York Times reports (link requires registration and includes a photo of the hirsute ex-veep). This suggests to us that Gore won't run for president in 2004. After all, as this list notes, America hasn't had a bearded president since Benjamin Harrison, who left office in 1893. (Teddy Roosevelt and William Taft, alone among 20th-century chief executives, were mustachioed.)

The experience of Supreme Court nominees Robert Bork, Douglas Ginsburg and Clarence Thomas provide further evidence that facial hair is a political liability. The Senate rejected bewhiskered Bork by a 58-42 vote. Ginsburg withdrew his nomination before it even got to the Senate (and the last time we saw him, he was clean-shaven). Thomas eked through, winning confirmation by a 52-48 vote--but he had only a mustache.

Smart Kids, Foolish Ex-Presidents
Back in June we had some fun at the expense of Slate editor Michael Kinsley, the perennial smartest-kid-in-the-class who is somewhat lacking in street smarts. Kinsley's latest column reminds us that street smarts aren't everything. He brilliantly dissects the Ford-Carter election commission's complaint about media coverage of exit polls, making these excellent points:

1. If people have voted, they have voted. And if so many of them have voted before you do that the result is preordained when you enter the voting booth, that remains true whether or not the media report it.

2. Every voter is at the mercy of other voters. The chance of your vote determining the result is exactly the same whether you are the very first voter or the very last. That chance is virtually nil, even if you live in Palm Beach County. To the extent other things matter besides declaring the winner, such as the margin of victory or the size of the turnout, every vote matters equally no matter when it was cast.

3. Polls are conducted throughout the campaign, not just on Election Day. In most cases every voter who watches or reads the news knows the probable result before he or she enters the voting booth. The only difference between Election Day exit polls and earlier polls is that the exit polls are more likely to be accurate.

Chandra's Hopes
"In the weeks before she vanished, Chandra Levy was more and more intent on getting Rep. Gary Condit to leave his wife, according to a friend who spent hours strategizing with the love-struck intern," the New York Daily News reports, citing Lisa DePaulo's Talk magazine article. "She was not the type of woman who was going to be the little mistress waiting home on the couch," DePaulo quotes Bureau of Prisons spokesman Sven Jones as saying. Jones urged Chandra not to pursue Condit, but she told him, "I've invested too much in this," according to the report.

He'd Rather Talk to Rather
The New York Post reports that "Dan Rather has emerged as the leading candidate to land a blockbuster interview with Rep. Gary Condit." Hey, hang on a second there, Dan. Why would you want to interview Condit? Has he done something that's somehow newsworthy?

Who Represents Katrina?
Remember when left-wingers made fun of George W. Bush for not being able to name the leaders of places like India and Pakistan? Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, can't even name her own congressman. The following exchange occurred on yesterday's "Hardball" with host Chris Matthews and right-wing ex-Rep. Bob Dornan:

MATTHEWS: Who represents you in Congress right now?

VANDEN HEUVEL: I don't--but I don't know who represents this bill. That's the key thing. Who is sponsoring . . .

MATTHEWS: No, who represents you? Who represents you in New York?

DORNAN: Pop quiz. You better have an answer.

MATTHEWS: Who is your congressman who will introduce this bill?

VANDEN HEUVEL: But that's not--but that's not . . .

MATTHEWS: I'm just asking. I'm curious.

VANDEN HEUVEL: I mean, maybe--maybe it could come up in the Senate, as well, with Hillary Clinton and Schumer taking the lead, or Rangel taking the lead. But I think . . .

MATTHEWS: Do you live in Harlem?

VANDEN HEUVEL: . . . it should--but I think it should come out of--or Nadler, but it should come out of those who have cared about these issues, and maybe Condit could redeem himself.

You can see a partial clip of the exchange (in MPG form) here. And in case anyone's wondering, our congressman is Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat.

Zero-Tolerance Watch
The Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected an appeal from Ben Ratner, who as an eighth-grader at the Blue Ridge Middle School in Purcelleville, Va., took a knife away from a suicidal friend, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports (third item). The court found Ratner received "constitutionally sufficient, even if imperfect, process in the various notices and hearings."

The Toledo Blade reports that Rossford High School is banning cheerleaders from performing "mounts and other potentially dangerous acrobatic routines" because "the district's insurance carrier believes the routines are unsafe."

And the Baltimore Sun reports on a company that's cashing in on school-violence hysteria. Report-it.com allows kids to tattle anonymously on each other via the World Wide Web. Maryland's Anne Arundel school district is considering signing a contract with the program for $77,800 a year.

Stalking Feet
The New York Times reports (eighth item, link requires registration) that 25-year-old Brian Sorel of Bristol, Conn., "was arrested on Saturday and charged with voyeurism and disorderly conduct, after security guards said they caught him videotaping feet in the women's shoe department at a Kohl's store in Plainville."

OK, if the charges are true, Sorel is a bit of a weirdo. But is it really a crime to look at people's feet? Just to be safe, if we find ourselves in Connecticut, we'll make sure we don't look down.

(Ira Stoll helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to C.E. Dobkin, Brian O'Neel, Jim Orheim, Dave Anderson, Chip Reno and Blaise Rhodes. If you have a tip, e-mail us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

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