From http://OpinionJournal.com

Best of the Web Today - January 9, 2002
By JAMES TARANTO
Plane Down  http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/01/09/gen.war.against.terror/index.html

"A U.S. Marine Corps KC-130 refueling jet crashed Wednesday near the western Pakistan city of Quetta," CNN reports. There was no sign of enemy fire, and there's no word on casualties. Reportedly, seven Marines were aboard and the plane was en route from Islamabad, the Pakistani capital.

Springtime for Osama  http://www.nationalpost.com/commentary/columnists/story.html?f=/stories/20020107/1053525.html

When the Afghan campaign started back in October, naysayers argued that victory would come slowly if ever. America couldn't defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda without sending in a massive contingent of ground troops; we would have to stop fighting for Ramadan, lest we inflame the Muslim "street"; and once Ramadan was over, the brutal Afghan winter wouldn't be far behind, rendering further operations impossible until things thawed out in, oh, around April or May.

Every aspect of this scenario turned out to be wrong--including the weather forecast.  The Weather Channel  http://www.weather.com/maps/geography/africaandmiddleeast/afghanistanforecast_large.html  has a map to prove it. As Mark Steyn observes in Monday's National Post:

*** QUOTE ***

Yesterday, it was 55 and clear in Kandahar and Herat. Ghurian checked in at 55, with 62 predicted for tomorrow. Fifty-seven and sunny in Bost and Laskar, with 64 expected on Thursday. In Kabul, it was 55, though with the windchill factored in it was only--let me see now--54. . . .

So where did this "brutal Afghan winter" business come from? It came, pre-eminently, from spokespersons from the relief agencies. There are some special-interest groups--the National Rifle Association, Right To Life--whose press releases get dismissed by the media as propaganda, and others--environmental groups, for example--whose every claim is taken at face value. Into this last happy category fall the "humanitarian lobby."

*** END QUOTE ***

Next headline to watch for: "Global Warming Blamed for Hot Afghan Winter."

Our Friends the Afghans  http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/central/01/09/ret.afghanistan.campaign/index.html

Officials of the new Afghan government say that seven top Taliban officials, including the "justice minister," were freed after surrendering in Kandahar. A Foreign Ministry spokesman "conceded the seven may have fled the country and said the interim government is investigating who let them go and why," CNN reports.

More al Qaeda Prisoners  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16596-2002Jan8.html

American forces have captured two senior al Qaeda fighters near Tora Bora, the Washington Post reports. "While declining to identify the men, Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters they were considered important enough to be transferred to a detention facility in the southern city of Kandahar, where U.S. authorities have been interrogating suspected al Qaeda and Taliban members."

Meanwhile,  CNN  http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/central/01/08/ret.afghan.attacks/index.html  reports that  Ibn Al-Shaykh al-Libi  http://www.fbi.gov/mostwant/terrorists/teralliby.htm , the most senior Qaeda man captured so far, has been "most cooperative." Also cooperative, according to a  Tehelka.com  http://www.tehelka.com/channels/currentaffairs/2002/jan/8/ca010802karachi.htm  report: Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the erstwhile Taliban ambassador to Pakistan.

The CNN report adds that Gen. Myers says, in CNN's words, that "U.S. officials believe they have thwarted some terrorist attacks with intelligence gathered during the military campaign in Afghanistan," though Myers didn't get specific.

Osama's Strategist  http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-010902zubeida.story

The Los Angeles Times reports that America is "pursuing one man as intensely as Osama bin Laden himself--an elusive Palestinian who [officials] believe has been entrusted with keeping the terrorist organization's global network of cells alive and operational":

*** QUOTE ***

Authorities are also aggressively pursuing the theory that Abu Zubeida, whose real name is Zain AlAbidin Mohammed Husain, is the "operational link" connecting Bin Laden and others who conceived the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks with the hijackers who carried them out.

Abu Zubeida, thought to be about 30, could well be at Bin Laden's side as he tries to elude a global dragnet. But unlike Bin Laden and his aide Ayman Zawahiri, whose movements are limited by their high profiles, Abu Zubeida may have slipped out of Afghanistan and into Pakistan or almost anywhere else to activate new plots and try to regroup Al Qaeda forces, authorities fear.

Abu Zubeida's role makes him a higher priority than even Zawahiri, who authorities say is more of a theoretician. Since the reported death in November of Mohammed Atef, Abu Zubeida is believed to have taken on the added role of Al Qaeda's chief military strategist, according to U.S. officials and counterterrorism experts.

*** END QUOTE ***

Where's Osama?  http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=08012002-104005-7340r

"We believe he is still alive but has probably slipped out of Afghanistan into Pakistan," UPI quotes Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, as saying. The  Financial Times  http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT3LK5Y58WC  reports that the U.S. military has gained Pakistani approval to pursue the enemy into Pakistan, "a substantial concession by the country's military forces, which have maintained extensive patrols of the 1,500-mile frontier."  Rediff.com  http://www.rediff.com/us/2002/jan/09ny1.htm , meanwhile, quotes an unnamed "top Indian official" as saying that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence may be sheltering the al Qaeda boss.

Impatient Patient  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16459-2002Jan8.html

Remember those hospitalized Arab prisoners who were threatening to blow themselves up at a hospital in Kandahar? One of them made good on the threat, possibly to avoid starvation:

*** QUOTE ***

The local Afghan commander at the scene and other knowledgeable officials said U.S. Special Forces had ordered the starving out of the Arab patients, who had rendered themselves unapproachable by strapping explosives to their bodies.

"This was the commander of the Americans' order, not to give them any food," said Hafiz Ulah, the anti-Taliban commander overseeing the standoff. "The only reason this man could be trying to escape was hunger."

At the U.S. military base outside Kandahar, a Marine spokesman said he had no information about whether Special Forces in the area had ordered such a tactic.

The siege has brought sharp criticism from the senior Red Cross official here, who meets regularly with the Special Forces commanders who by several accounts ordered the siege.

"Understanding that it's a difficult situation, for sure--a military situation--basic humanitarian principles should be observed," said Gian-Battista Bacchetta, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross delegation here. "You can't starve people out."

*** END QUOTE ***

Tell ya what, Gian-Battista: Why don't you feed them?

Great Moments in Non-Western Civilization  http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/01/09/wsaud09.xml

Our friends the Saudis have demolished an Ottoman fortress in Mecca that dates from 1780, London's Daily Telegraph reports: "The Ajyad fortress, which stood on the Bulbul hill overlooking the Grand Mosque in Mecca, was bulldozed a week ago to make way for a major housing project, which includes a luxury hotel."

Turkish officials liken the demolition to the Taliban's infamous destruction last year of the Buddha statues at Bamiyan. Says Turkey's Culture Minister Istemihan Talay: "It has once again become clear that the source of the Taliban mentality is Saudi Arabia." Indeed.

Yasser, He Did It  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16937-2002Jan8.html

Columnist Michael Kelly has a useful summary of the facts about the arms-smuggling ship Israel seized last week: "The evidence is close to overwhelming that the Karine A mission was financed and organized at the highest levels of the Palestinian Authority, most likely sanctioned by Arafat himself--and that Arafat allowed the mission to proceed after he called for cessation of all armed actions against Israel on Dec. 16."

Homer Simpson, Terrorist?  http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=topnews&StoryID=502776

A laid-off worker at a nuclear plant allegedly made terrorist threats against the facility, the San Onofre plant in San Juan Capastrano, Calif. The unnamed man who allegedly made the undisclosed threats is behind bars.

Impersonating a Cap  http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/38598.htm

"Money-grubbing street vendors" near ground zero are selling counterfeit merchandise bearing the logos of the New York City police and fire department, "sickening the families of the heroes who died there on Sept. 11 and even some of the tourists lining up for a glimpse of the devastation," the New York Post reports:

*** QUOTE ***

At least a half-dozen hucksters were pushing their wares yesterday, including one who set up on Broadway--directly across from the walkway that leads to the platform--and a cluster on Barclay Street. In addition to watercolors of the fallen skyscrapers, flag-themed scarves and postcard books for sale, there were hats, T-shirts and headbands with the logos of the Fire Department and Police Department.

But unlike the department-approved shops that sell licensed goods and funnel the proceeds back to charity, the ground zero hucksters and their bosses pocket the profits they make off the knockoffs.

*** END QUOTE ***

Police have arrested 115 vendors and issued 179 summonses, and they're "gearing up to start seizing counterfeit-logo merchandise from vendors in the next couple of weeks."

Sharf on the Scarf
About  yesterday's item  http://opinionjournal.com/best/?id=95001700#scarf  on the Muslim girl who was ordered to remove her headscarf at the airport in Baltimore, reader Joshua Sharf writes:

*** QUOTE ***

My wife and I are Orthodox Jews, and my wife keeps her hair covered in public. She will tuck her hair up, under either a hat and a half-wig (called a fall), or under a full wig (called a sheitl). The wig and half-wig need to be pinned on, and every time through airport security, even prior to Sept. 11, these pins would set off the metal detector. After refusing to remove her hat and wig in public, my wife was, is, and will be, escorted to a private room by security, where female guards examine her hair.

So, you guys are wrong in saying that the girl should have to take off her scarf in public. And the Council on American Islamic Relations is wrong in not suggesting this oft-used alternative.

*** END QUOTE ***

We actually saw someone from CAIR make this suggestion in a CNN segment earlier today, but the group's initial e-mail bulletin on the subject made no mention of this sensible alternative.

How the Democrats Have Changed  http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/020114/politics/14pol.htm

U.S. News & World Report's Michael Barone, one of the best political analysts around, discusses how the two parties have changed. While Republicans have rallied around President Bush, who has managed to marry "leave us alone" and "national greatness" conservatism, two types of Democrats have gone nearly extinct: "blame-America-first Democrats" and "new Democrats."

"The Democrats," Barone writes, "have become a party out of the New Deal era--patriotic on foreign policy, statist domestically." On foreign policy he's indisputably right: The Congressional Surrender Caucus has exactly one member, Rep. Barbara Lee of California.

There may be room for debate, however, on how uniformly statist the Dems are on economic policy. A "political memo" in today's  New York Times  http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/09/politics/09DEMS.html  (link requires registration) poses the question--also put forth in today's  Wall Street Journal editorial  http://opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=95001702  (link also requires registration): If Tom Daschle thinks President Bush's tax cuts were so bad, why isn't he calling for their repeal. The Times doesn't mean this as a rhetorical question:

*** QUOTE ***

Just listen to a few of the 12 Senate Democrats who voted for the cut.

Senator Zell Miller of Georgia is openly questioning the political smarts of his party leader and bristles at Mr. Daschle's charge that the tax cut probably likely worsened the recession.

"Maybe it's at a level that my brain can't reach," Mr. Miller said. "How do you have as one of your highest priorities to re-elect the moderate Democrats from South Dakota, Montana and Missouri on one hand, then on the other hand blame them for voting for a tax cut that he maintains has created this recession? Hello?"

Senators John B. Breaux of Louisiana and Dianne Feinstein of California have defended their votes on television talks shows.

And Senator Robert G. Torricelli of New Jersey said today that he might have reconsidered his vote for the tax cut last spring--had he known the country was about to face a terror strike, war and recession.

Even so, Mr. Torricelli said, "I think to advance changing the tax reduction legislation in the midst of recession isn't good economics and it's worse politics."

*** END QUOTE ***

Class of '48, Crass of '02  http://slate.msn.com/?id=2060364&entry=2060456

Erstwhile New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis emerges from retirement for a Slate "Kitchen Table" chat with National Journal's Stuart Taylor. One of the topics turns out to be Monday's  Wall Street Journal editorial  http://opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=95001694  on the contretemps between Harvard president Lawrence Summers and Afro-American studies poseur Cornel West. Lewis opines:

*** QUOTE ***

The extreme critics, like the Wall Street Journal, really pine for the days when there were few or no blacks at Harvard, when the undergraduates were largely stamped from the same upper-class and middle-class mold. That's the way it was when I was an undergraduate. Believe me, it is much better now. The students are far smarter and far more interesting. There are lots from outside the United States and quite a few with skin tones other than pink. I doubt that you, Stuart, would want to go back to the old days.

*** END QUOTE ***
 
The editorial from which Lewis draws this conclusion is in fact a rousing endorsement of diversity. It praises Summers for an inaugural speech that "embraced, with great warmth, the principle of inclusiveness in its description of Harvard as a place where men and women of all faiths, races and classes were welcome," that "addressed with passion the importance of equal opportunity," and that made clear that "able students should be welcome to all the university's professional schools, regardless of their financial circumstances." It criticizes only the use of "affirmative action"--that is, selective lowering of standards, based on race or ethnicity--as a means of promoting diversity.

How does Lewis come up with such a tendentious interpretation? Well, consider the era in which he came of age. He graduated form Harvard in 1948--six years before Brown v. Board of Education, 16 years before the Civil Rights Act, the year Strom Thurmond ran for president as a segregationist candidate, and 20 years before George Wallace's similar third-party campaign. When Lewis was a freshly minted Harvard graduate, and for at least two decades thereafter, it was true that many people who rejected the liberal view of racial matters did so for invidious reasons.

But the world has changed since 1948. Elite opinion is now unanimous, and popular opinion nearly so, that black Americans are entitled to equality. Today's racial conservatism holds that the government and other institutions should be colorblind--a liberal view by 1948 standards. Today's liberalism holds that remedial measures are necessary to compensate for past injustices. That's a defensible view, but one that should be defended on its own merits. Instead, people like Lewis invoke a moral authority that began to become obsolete sometime around 1970. Today's racial liberalism, they claim, is the legacy of yesteryear's, and those who oppose affirmative action are really segregationists at heart.

Aside from being dishonest and divisive, this approach promotes a view of black Americans that is patronizing at best. It's telling that Lewis, while praising the genuine scholars in Harvard's Afro-American studies department--Anthony Appiah, Henry Louis Gates and William Julius Wilson--demurs from expressing an opinion about West, saying only that he is "an original, and I do not want to get into the war over his work" and that Summers's criticism of him was politically ill-advised. Such delicacy toward West is striking by contrast with Lewis's smug denunciation of the Journal's editors.

Plagiarism Was My Idea!  http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/09/opinion/09BORO.html

In the New York Times (link requires registration), Andy Borowitz weighs in hilariously on Stephen Ambrose's alleged plagiarism:

*** QUOTE ***

Last week, several journalists accused me of plagiarizing entire passages in my most recent novel, "The Red Badge of Gatsby."

My accusers claim that in this book, my 27th in the last three years, I lifted sections from, among other sources, "A Tale of Two Cities," "War and Peace," "Pride and Prejudice," "Goldfinger," "Go, Dog. Go!" and the Lands' End holiday catalog.

Friends have urged me to follow the example of another celebrated author who recently responded to similar allegations with a public apology. I must remind them, however, that copying what other writers have already done is exactly what got me into this mess.

*** END QUOTE ***

Oh Deer  http://www.bowsite.org/bowsite/menu/NEWS/GETNEWS.CFM?ID=227

Bowsite.com, a specialty Web site for bow-hunting aficionados, reports on how a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals stunt backfired:

*** QUOTE ***

For safety's sake, hunters in Ohio are required by law to display at least 400 square inches of hunter's blaze orange on their person when in the woods. Capitalizing on the fact that hunters do not usually shoot orange, PETA recently bulk purchased blaze orange vests and have been affixing them to live-trapped deer in Youngstown suburbs. According to PETA spokesperson Katie Reese, a total of 405 vests were successfully put into circulation prior to this week, with additional specimens still being caught and vested.

Youngtown entrepreneur Guy Lockey, of Guy's Outdoors has spit in the face of PETA by offering rewards for the returned vests this week. Hunters who can successfully bag a vested deer can pay $5 for random and biggest animal awards. As of Tuesday, 308 of the vests had already been recorded as bagged with most of the hunters registering for Mr. Lockey's drawing.

It's so easy, you can see them coming a mile away" said one first year hunter after checking in his first spike buck.

*** END QUOTE ***

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

"Religious Centers Unprepared to Take In Homeless"--headline,  North (San Diego) County News  http://www.nctimes.net/news/2002/20020108/81522.html , Jan. 8, 2002

"Massachusetts Homeless Shelters Overflowing"--headline,  Providence (R.I.) Journal  http://www.projo.com/cgi-bin/story.pl/massachusetts/06813422.htm , Jan. 6, 2002

*** END QUOTE ***

Shales Deposit  http://www.emonline.com/shales/010702shales.html

In a column that doesn't appear in the Washington Post, Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales attempts a rant against Bernard Goldberg, author of " Bias: A CBS Insider Explains How the Media Distort the News  http://www.bennettandcurran.com/cgi-bin/Shopper.exe?preadd=action&key=0895261901 ." The piece, alas, doesn't rise to the level of a rant; it's more of a tantrum. But it is unintentionally hilarious in places. Here's our favorite:

*** QUOTE ***

Obviously hoping to follow in the footsteps of Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly, two intellectual giants by comparison, Goldberg has fashioned his rantings into a book succinctly titled "Bias," which, appropriately enough, won the dubious honor of a commendatory editorial from  The Wall Street Journal  http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=95001669 . And we all know how unbiased those Journal editorials are. Gosh it is soooo hard to figure out where they're coming from.

*** END QUOTE ***

Hey Tom, you silly goose, editorials are supposed to be biased!

(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Danielle Crittenden, Damian Bennett, Chuck Herrick, C.E. Dobkin, Raghu Desikan, Paul Music, S.E. Brenner, Jonathan Hawkins, Thomas Castle, Leslie Petersen, Frank Grant, Craig Turner, David Graf, Chris Hayes, Aaron Reeves, Jorge del Rio, David Merrill, Pete Peterson, Michael Moynihan, Napoleon Cole, Rob Harvie and Tobin Anthony. If you have a tip, write us at  Review & Outlook  mailto:opinionjournal@wsj.com : Why won't Daschle call for tax-cut repeal? (link requires registration)
- Pete du Pont  http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/pdupont/?id=95001701 : Time to go antiballistic.
- John Fund  http://opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=95001673 : Tom Daschle vs. energy independence.
_____
ADVERTISEMENT
Whether you're moving up, relocating, seeking a new neighborhood or merely curious about your current home's market value, you'll find answers at RealEstateJournal.com, a free site from The Wall Street Journal. It offers a complete online guide to buying, selling and maintaining a residential property, and includes 1.5 million active home listings, as well as content from many top real-estate information providers. Please take a minute to visit RealEstateJournal.com today.
http://RealEstateJournal.com

_____

From time to time Dow Jones may send you e-mails with information about new features and special offers for selected Dow Jones products. If you do not wish to receive these emails in the future, you may visit http://opinionjournal.com/forms/email_acct.html. You can also unsubscribe at the same link.

You can also review OpinionJournal's privacy policy at http://opinionjournal.com/about/privacy.html

If you have been forwarded this email and wish to subscribe visit http://opinionjournal.com/forms/get_email_page.html.

Copyright 2002 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.