From http://OpinionJournal.com

Best of the Web Today - January 7, 2002
By JAMES TARANTO
The Clinton Legacy  http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/article/0,,9004-2001601261,00.html

"Bill Clinton turned down at least three offers involving foreign governments to help to seize Osama Bin Laden," the Sunday Times of London reports (link requires registration). Two of the offers--from the Sudanese government and Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz--have already been reported. The Times adds:

*** QUOTE ***

A third more mysterious offer to help came from the intelligence services of Saudi Arabia, then led by Prince Turki al-Faisal, according to Washington sources. Details of the offer are still unclear although, by one account, Turki offered to help to place a tracking device in the luggage of Bin Laden's mother, who was seeking to make a trip to Afghanistan to see her son. The CIA did not take up the offer.

Richard Shelby, the leading Republican on the Senate intelligence committee, said he was aware of a Saudi offer to help although, under rules protecting classified information, he was unable to discuss the details of any offer. Commenting generally, he said: "I don't believe that the fight against terrorism was the number one goal of the Clinton administration. I believe there were some lost opportunities."

*** END QUOTE ***

The Times also reports that "according to a witness, Clinton told a dinner companion" shortly after Sept 11 "that the decision to let Bin Laden go was probably 'the biggest mistake of my presidency.' " The man does have a capacity for understatement, at least where his own failures are concerned.

A Bush Misstep?  http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/01/07/war07.xml

London's Daily Telegraph reports that "the limitations of American military strategy in Afghanistan were made plain" when U.S. officials conceded Osama bin Laden appears to have escaped to Pakistan. By not sending in a large ground force, the Telegraph argues, the U.S. minimized American casualties, "but the cost has been a failure to round up Taliban and al-Qa'eda leaders."

Osama's Better Fifth  http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/38227.htm

Bin Laden's "favorite wife"--he has four of them--was "reportedly captured in Yemen . . ., firming up investigators' suspicions the terror chief may be living there," the New York Post reports. Yemeni authorities are holding Amal Ahmed Al-Sadah under house arrest, and the Post suggests their captive is quite captivating: "Bin Laden is supposedly smitten with his 20-something wife, who has olive skin, high cheekbones, long dark hair and almond eyes."

Born to Be Wild  http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1743000/1743813.stm

The BBC reports top Talib Mullah Mohammad Omar "has escaped from his hideout in southern Afghanistan on a motorbike, according to an Afghan official." Can we look forward to special-forces raids on Kandahar biker bars?

Have You Seen Me?  http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20020107/wl/attack_afghan_usa_boy_dc_1.html

A 14-year-old boy suspected of killing Sgt. First Class Nathan Ross Chapman--the first American soldier killed by "hostile fire" in Afghanistan--is on the run. Consequently, Reuters reports, "Afghan tribal elders postponed Monday a meeting in eastern Khost" to decide whether to turn him over to American forces. Four other men are also suspected in the shooting.

The Ones That Didn't Get Away  http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/nyt/20020105/ts/u_s_captures_a_top_trainer_for_al_qaeda_1.html

Despite the elusiveness of bin Laden and Mullah Omar, not all the evildoers are slipping through America's fingers. Among those being held prisoner, the New York Times notes, are Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a Libyan who served as "one of Osama bin Laden's top paramilitary trainers," and Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban's former ambassador to Islamabad. Both were captured by Pakistan and turned over to U.S. forces.

Terrorist Wannabe   http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20020106/us/plane_crash.html

Charles Bishop, 15-year-old Florida boy taking flight lessons, stole a small plane in St. Petersburg and flew it into the Bank of America building in downtown Tampa. Bishop died, but only one office was severely damaged, and no one was injured.

Although Bishop does not appear to have been a bona fide terrorist, police tell the Associated Press they found a suicide note expressing sympathy for Osama bin Laden and support for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks." Police chief Bernie Holder observed: "From his actions we can assume he was a very troubled young man." Hey, that's some fine detective work.

The  Tampa Tribune  http://www.tampatrib.com/MGA7N2RT5WC.html  reports police are looking into whether Bishop may have been of Arab descent; the paper notes that "according to public records, the family name was once Bishara." Ira Stoll's  Smartertimes.com  http://www.smartertimes.com/archive/2002/01/020107.html  notes that an Arab Israeli member of the Knesset, Azri Bishara, was stripped of his parliamentary immunity in November so that he can be prosecuted for incitement against Israel. Glenn Reynolds's  Instapundit.com  http://instapundit.blogspot.com/2002_01_06_instapundit_archive.html#8482907  adds that Bishara "was also RFK assassin  Sirhan Sirhan  http://www.geocities.com/verisimus101/rfk/sirhan.htm 's middle name." But what does Reynolds mean, "was"? Did Sirhan change his name?

'Foot Soldier'   http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/01/06/MN222117.DTL

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that U.S. and British intelligence officials are exploring the possibility that alleged shoe bomber Richard Reid may have been conducting "a 'trial run' for future, simultaneous attacks against passenger jets to be carried out by supporters of Osama bin Laden." Winning the Tasteless Pun of the Day Award, the Chronicle says Reid may have been "a 'foot soldier' sent to check the destructive power of shoe bombs against civilian targets."

The  Boston Globe  http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/006/nation/Bomb_probe_eyes_Pakistan_links+.shtml , meanwhile, reports that the Reid probe has led investigators to Sheik Mubarik Ali Gilani, "one of Pakistan's most secretive and controversial spiritual leaders, a man who over the past 15 years has brought more than 100 US citizens, mostly African-Americans, to Pakistan for religious and military training."

A Day in the Wife of a Terrorist  http://www.msnbc.com/news/682878.asp

Newsweek devotes a cover story to April Ray, "a suburban Dallas housewife" whose husband, Wadih El-Hage, is serving a life sentence in connection with the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa:

*** QUOTE ***

Ray says she is struggling to make ends meet, living off donations from the mosque and welfare. Her children miss their father (whom they call "Bubba"); they cry for no reason and cling to her. But she is defiant. Like many true believers, she won't accept that bin Laden ordered the September 11 attacks. She suspects they were plotted by the CIA or Israeli intelligence. She is opposed to killing civilians, but if the jihad against the enemies and corrupters of Islam goes on, and her 15-year-old son . . . wants to fight, then she'd consider letting him join when he comes of age. She says she puts her faith in the will of Allah. "As Muslims, we accept death," she says. "We know it's part of life." But just in case, she says she wants to buy a gun.

*** END QUOTE ***

About bin Laden, Ray says: "He was a great boss. He's not the monster people make him out to be."

Arafat's Arms--II  http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20020107/ts/israel_palestinians_2516.html

"The Palestinian captain of a ship seized by Israel with 50 tons of offensive weapons on board said in jailhouse interviews Monday that the shipment was intended for the Palestinians and that he got his smuggling instructions from a Palestinian Authority official," the Associated Press reports. The Jerusalem Post reports that  Egyptians  http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2002/01/07/News/News.41234.html ,  Jordanians  http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2002/01/07/LatestNews/LatestNews.41266.html  and  Palestinians  http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2002/01/07/News/News.41235.html  have all expressed dismay about the smuggling operation.

A Principal of Principle  http://slate.msn.com/?id=2060439

Slate's Timothy Noah notes that the Associated Press has issued a correction of a weeks-old dispatch--which we noted way back on  Dec. 13  http://opinionjournal.com/best/?id=95001592#hottub --that wrongly reported Marcie Miller, principal of Marin mujahid John Walker's high school, said she was proud of Walker. Noah quotes from the correction:

*** QUOTE ***

"The only thing Miller initially had to say about Lindh--who attended Tamiscal [High School] for a year and a half before taking an equivalency exam and leaving at the age of 16--was that teachers had called him 'a gifted writer of poetry.'

" 'I never met John, so I never would have said that I am proud of him,' she said.

"In fact, Lindh's decision to volunteer for Osama bin Laden's cause is 'opposed to everything I've devoted my life to,' Miller said. 'My brother is a Gulf War hero, I come from an extremely patriotic family, my father's a veteran and I find this appalling, that I'm being cast as a villain who's proud of anything John Walker Lindh has done since he left our school in January of 1998.' . . . Miller said the last time she made headlines was when she brought a junior Reserve Officer Training Corps program into another alternative school, and was 'criticized for being an arch-conservative.' "

*** END QUOTE ***

The guys at  Salon  http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2002/01/04/ap_correction/index_np.html?x  actually had this story before Noah did, but they didn't make the article available to their approximately six billion nonsubscribers. Guess they didn't want to embarrass the AP.

Stupidity Watch  http://www.upc-online.org/011226vegan_voice_singer.html

Is there intelligent life in solar system Vega? Apparently not, to judge by this letter to the Vegan Voice by one Karen Davis, president of something called United Poultry Concerns:

*** QUOTE ***

While I would not dream of using arguments to diminish the horror of the September 11 attack for thousands of people, I would also suggest that the people who died in the attack did not suffer more terrible deaths than animals in slaughterhouses suffer every day. Moreover, the survivors of the September 11 attack and their loved ones have an array of consolations--patriotism, the satisfaction of U.S. retaliation, religious faith, TV ads calling them heroes, etc--that the chickens, whose lives are continuously painful and miserable, including being condemned to live in human-imposed circumstances that are inimical and alien to them as chickens, do not have available. They suffer raw, without the palliatives. Doubtless the majority, if not every single one, of the people who suffered and/or died as a result of the September 11 attack ate, and if they are now alive continue to eat, chickens. . . .

In conclusion, I think it is speciesist to think that the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center was a greater tragedy than what millions of chickens endured that day and what they endure every day because they cannot defend themselves against the concerted human appetites arrayed against them.

*** END QUOTE ***

Somehow after reading this, we've got a hankering for some McNuggets.

The Straight Dope?  http://slate.msn.com/?id=2060408

Remember when President Bush was dumb? Until Sept. 11 it was the most tiresome cliche going, but since then, in light of his excellent performance as a war leader, we've heard it from only the sourest of America-haters. Until now. Slate's Jacob Weisberg has made a manful effort to revive the Bush-is-stupid cliche and reconcile it with the president's outstanding performance. In brief, Weisberg concocts an argument that Bush is a great wartime leader because he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer. "In wartime," he writes, "certain qualities sometimes associated with high intelligence--fascination with detail, a tendency to self-reliance, an awareness of ambiguity--become greater obstacles to effective leadership."

Suffice it to say that we find this argument rather labored--so much so, in fact, that we couldn't help wondering if Weisberg has ulterior motives for putting it forward. As it happens, Weisberg has a direct financial interest in perpetuating the idea that Bush is a buffoon. He's the "editor" of two books of "Bushisms," and we'd venture to guess his royalty checks got mighty slim starting in September. (The second book, "More George W. Bushisms," was published on Christmas Day--just two weeks ago--and ranks a pathetic 54,797th in the  Amazon.com  http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743225198/qid=1010429038/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_67_2/002-8880124-6632852  sales rankings.)

Another possibility: Working for Slate, Weisberg has firsthand experience with the leadership of an ostentatiously brainy man. Could the subtext of this article be a criticism of Mike Kinsley?

'Not Over My Dead Body'  http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=topnews&StoryID=494344

Hey Jake, here's another "Bushism" for you: "Not over my dead body will they raise your taxes," he said in a Saturday speech. What does this mean? Is it the opposite of "over my dead body will they raise your taxes"--i.e., they will raise your taxes? Or does the "not" mean his opposition to higher taxes is even more emphatic--i.e., even if they kill me trying, they won't raise your taxes?

The answer, of course, is that it's a Zen koan, like "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" Those of us who have attained enlightenment know exactly what President Bush means.

Great Moments in Non-Western Civilization  http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20020101/wl/saudi_beheadings_1.html

Saudi Arabia has publicly beheaded three men for "for committing acts of sodomy and 'seducing young men,' " the Associated Press reports. Meanwhile, the  New York Times  http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/05/national/05SAUD.html  (link requires registration) reports the Justice Department is looking into whether Princess Buniah al-Saud, arrested in Florida last month on charges of beating her maid, "held the live-in Indonesian maid in conditions of involuntary servitude."

And in case you think we're picking on Arabs,  Reuters  http://sg.news.yahoo.com/reuters/asia-82056.html  reports a Chinese court has indicted Li Guangqiang on charges that could carry the death penalty. Li is charged with using "an evil cult to damage a law-based society"--specifically, with smuggling Bibles into China.

You Don't Say  http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1741000/1741336.stm
 
Between April and November 2001, the BBC reports, "the number of murders in the [London] Metropolitan Police area committed with a firearm soared by almost 90% over the same period a year earlier"--notwithstanding Britain's 1996 ban on handguns. Observes the BBC: "Although all privately-owned handguns in Britain are now officially illegal, the tightened rules seem to have had little impact in the criminal underworld."

Homelessness Rediscovery Watch

*** QUOTE ***

"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  http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/mhelprin/?id=65000507 , Oct. 31, 2000

"Homeless Shelters Feel Strain as Winter Deepens"--headline,  Minneapolis Star Tribune  http://www.startribune.com/stories/468/1003916.html , Jan. 2, 2002

"The New Homeless"--headline,  Worcester (Mass.) Telegram & Gazette  http://www.telegram.com/news/page_one/homeless6.html , Jan. 6, 2002

"Homelessness Surges on LI; Housing costs, weak economy blamed"--headline, Long Island, N.Y.,  Newsday  http://newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-lihome072539238jan07.story , Jan. 7, 2002

"Tipper Gore Hopes to Give Faces to Issue of Homelessness"--headline,  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette  http://www.postgazette.com/headlines/20020105tipper0105p3.asp , Jan. 5, 2002

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Geek Alert  http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=starwars05&date=20020105

On New Year's Day, the Seattle Times reports, 32-year-old John Guth and 24-year-old Jeff Tweiten were the first in line at the Cinerama theater to see " Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones  http://starwars.com/episode-ii/ ," the sequel to the prequel to the 1977 classic "Star Wars." Just one problem: "Episode II" doesn't open until May 16, and no one knows yet if it's even going to be playing at the Cinerama. Nonetheless, the pair plan to wait in line for 135 days.

What a tragic waste. One hundred thirty-five days is almost enough time to get a life.

(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Shelley Taylor, Michiel Visser, C.E. Dobkin, Ted Villa, Damian Bennett, Paul Music, S.E. Brenner, Raghu Desikan, David Merrill, Michael Segal, Nancy Revy, Aviva Ross, Janice Lyons, Tom Elia, Gregory Taylor, Jessica O'Connor, Lynette Aanerud, Janine Wenzig and Steve Baus. If you have a tip, write us at  Review & Outlook  mailto:opinionjournal@wsj.com : Will Larry Summers lead Harvard back to the real world? (link requires registration)
- Robert Bartley  http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/rbartley/?id=95001693 : In the 20th century, terrorism worked. Those days are over.
- Collin Levey  http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/clevey/?id=95001695 : Ringling Bros. takes on the anticircus geeks.
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