From http://OpinionJournal.com

Best of the Web Today - January 22, 2002
By JAMES TARANTO
Whitewashing Ramsey Clark  http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/01/21/attacks.detention.ap/index.html

LBJ attorney general-cum-lunatic Ramsey Clark is pursuing a frivolous lawsuit on behalf of the terrorist prisoners at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. The case--which demands that a federal judge in Los Angeles assert his jurisdiction over Gitmo, which is in Cuba--isn't worthy of comment.

What we're wondering, though, is why do the media--this CNN report is just one example--invariably refer to Clark as a "civil rights advocate"? He is nothing of the sort. As we  documented last October  http://opinionjournal.com/best/?id=95001248#ramsey , Clark is the founder of something called the  International Acition Center  http://www.iacenter.org/ , a far-left outfit that makes common cause with just about every one of America's enemies (none of which, as it happens, have much respect for civil rights). Clark should be described as an "anti-American advocate," not a "civil rights advocate." The former may sound harsh, but the latter is a lie.

Guardian Angels  http://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?f=/stories/20020122/1202600.html

Remember  last week  http://opinionjournal.com/best/?id=95001731#hrw  when the sob sisters at Human Rights Watch were complaining that shaving terrorist prisoners to prevent head lice was an affront to Islam? Canada's National Post reports that "the Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners held at the U.S. military base here on Cuba's southern coast are being guarded partly by female Military Police officers, a shocking role reversal for Afghan fighters unaccustomed to taking orders from women." We're all for this--in fact, if we had our druthers, all the guards would be women--but will Human Rights Watch object to this imposition on the prisoners' religion?

Skeeters in Reuterville  http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20020122/ts/attack_military_detainees_dc_2.html

Reuters, the wire service that thinks al Qaeda may be an organization of "freedom fighters," reports on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's comments that the Gitmo prisoners aren't being mistreated. Reuters faults him because "he did not mention the disease-carrying mosquitoes on the Caribbean island." But hey, isn't one man's pest another's pet?

You Don't Say  http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/22/opinion/22TUE2.html

An editorial in today's New York Times (link requires registration) observes that "members of Al Qaeda military brigades . . . would have a hard time proving their organization's respect for the rules of war."

Our Friends the Pakistanis  http://headlines.sify.com/496news1.html

The American Center in Calcutta, which sits 500 yards from the U.S. Consulate in that Indian city, has been attacked, probably by Pakistani-backed terrorists. Gunmen "sprayed bullets indiscriminately" this morning, killing four policemen and fleeing. Agence France-Presse reports that "a Dubai-based criminal with links to Pakistani intelligence has said his outfit was responsible for Tuesday's shooting . . . and has threatened more attacks," according to an Indian Home Ministry official.

Our Friends the Pakistanis--II  http://www.newyorker.com/FACT/?020128fa_FACT

The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh reports on that Pakistani airlift from besieged Kunduz back in November. Hersh quotes Indian intelligence sources as saying that between 4,000 and 5,000 enemy men were unaccounted for when Kunduz fell. "None of the American intelligence officials I spoke with were able to say with certainty how many Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters were flown to safety, or may have escaped from Kunduz by other means."

Arafat's Soldiers Shoot Jewish Pedestrians  http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2002/01/22/LatestNews/LatestNews.42122.html

Tanzim, the military wing of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Yasser Arafat's Fatah organization, has claimed responsibility for a gunman's attack in Jerusalem that wounded at least 30 pedestrians. "I saw him shoot two women and they fell," one witness tells the Jerusalem Post. Such heroes these Palestinians are.

Anthrax Lead Comes to Naught  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15970-2002Jan21.html

The Washington Post reports that "the anthrax spores that went missing from the Army's top biological warfare laboratory in 1991 had been sterilized and could not have played a role in last fall's terrorism attacks."

Somali Folly--II  http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/africa/01/22/blackhawk.screening/index.html

Yesterday  we noted  http://opinionjournal.com/best/?id=95001757#somali  that Somali-American leaders are calling for a boycott of " Black Hawk Down  http://www.spe.sony.com/movies/blackhawkdown/ " on the grounds that it depicts Somalis as "savages." CNN reports that a bootleg copy of the movie was screened in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, and the Somalis in the audience acted like, well, savages:

*** QUOTE ***

Audience members seemed to take delight in scenes of U.S. defeat. Each time an American chopper went down in the film, the audience cheered. Every time an American serviceman was killed, the audience cheered some more.

*** END QUOTE ***

Some of the Somali filmgoers didn't agree with the Somali-American complaints. "As you can see, Somalis are brave fighters," one man told CNN. "If the Americans come back to fight us, we shall defeat them again."

The Bush Black Sheep  http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=12207

Jimmy Carter had brother Billy; Ronald Reagan had Patti and the ballet-dancing son; Bill Clinton had brother Roger and brothers-in-law Hugh and Tony. With a Bush back in the White House, it seemed, we'd be spared the embarrassing presidential relations--and for the first year we were. (We don't count Jenna and Barbara's tippling troubles as an embarrassment; trying a drink is a perfectly wholesome, even if not strictly legal, thing for a teenager to do.)

Alas, President Bush's brother Neil, who you may dimly remember as a figure in a failed savings-and-loan a decade or so ago, has emerged to embarrass the man in the White House. The Arab News reports Neil was in Saudi Arabia yesterday, urging Arabs to undertake "a sustained lobbying and PR effort" to counter "the US media campaign against the interests of Arabs and Muslims." Neil also identified himself as part of the root-cause crowd: "There could be economic disparities, social unrest or unemployment causing growing dissatisfaction in the region. But I have been told that the bigger issue is the resolving of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." Oh brother.

If Only We Had Ways of Making Him Not Talk  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/01/22/ED5329.DTL

Alan Dershowitz has been urging the legalization of torture as a means of extracting information from terror suspects. In a San Francisco Chronicle op-ed, he says judges should be able to issue "torture warrants":

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The suspect would be given immunity from prosecution based on information elicited by the torture. The warrant would limit the torture to nonlethal means, such as sterile needles, being inserted beneath the nails to cause excruciating pain without endangering life.

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Some people have expressed surprise that this generally liberal law prof should be endorsing such a plan. But any of us who've endured a Dershowitz TV appearance know that he not only approves of torture, he's quite good at inflicting it himself.

Rappers for America  http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/story/0,3604,637224,00.html

London's Guardian reports that rap music--once a genre whose politics consisted mostly of violent opposition to authority--has become patriotic in the wake of Sept. 11. Early-'90s rapper MC Hammer once favored bland, apolitical lyrics, but no more:

*** QUOTE ***

A former marine, Hammer poses in front of the stars and stripes on the cover of his comeback album, Active Duty, and has been popping up on US television to fly the proverbial flag in his new, and bogus, role of unofficial spokesperson for hip-hop.

Marxist duo the Coup have not been so fortunate. Since hitting the headlines last September, when they had to withdraw unintentionally prophetic album artwork depicting the twin towers exploding, they have become the music industry's loudest dissenters. They announced that anybody wearing the flag, which they described as "violent gang colours", would not be admitted to their shows. Predictably, they have not had quite as many invitations to appear on TV as Hammer, and they recently accused magazines such as Rolling Stone of diluting their statements to make them more palatable.

Crucially, though, the Coup and the handful of other anti-war rappers sell relatively little, and to a predominately white, liberal fanbase, a sub-genre known as backpacker hip-hop.

*** END QUOTE ***

'Groundhog Day': The Remake  http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,62-2002032543,00.html

In an interview with the Times of London, film director Robert Altman sounds off on politics:

*** QUOTE ***

"This present government in America I just find disgusting, the idea that George Bush could run a baseball team successfully--he can't even speak! I just find him an embarrassment. I was over here when the election was on and I couldn't believe it--and I'm 76 years old. Then when the Supreme Court came in and turned out to be a totally political animal, the last shred of any naivety that was left in me has gone. When I see an American flag flying, it's a joke."

*** END QUOTE ***

Altman adds: "If you asked would I live in London the rest of my life, yeah, I'd be very happy to stay here. There's nothing in America that I would miss at all." Hmm,  haven't we heard this before?  http://www.salon.com/people/feature/2000/09/20/starexile/index.html

Stupidity Watch

Ah, what a bountiful harvest of imbecility we have today. First off is  Sandy Tolan  http://www.usatoday.com/news/comment/2002/01/20/ncguest1.htm , an "independent journalist and radio documentary producer" who penned a USA Today column denouncing the media for being too patriotic. She's critical of journalists who think the Pentagon would tell the truth, but she's all for dubious sources--as long as they're anti-American:

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Take the case of civilian deaths from the bombings in Afghanistan. A careful reading of American newspapers finds repeated instances in which dozens, even hundreds, of civilians have been killed by U.S. bombs. A University of New Hampshire professor, culling reports from the front, estimates the total death toll at more than 4,000. If true, this exceeds the number killed here on Sept. 11.

Yet, the stories coming from Afghanistan are largely of liberation and chaotic joy. The bombings are often covered as "collateral" damage that "happens in war." Other times, Pentagon denials coming out of Washington are given equal credibility with eyewitness reports from anti-Taliban villagers on the ground; the story dissolves into a false balance of he-said, she-said. Unlike in Europe, the U.S. press rarely focuses on the growing rage over bombs falling on civilians. It's as if such rage doesn't exist.

But how else do we explain that, in early December, the British journalist Robert Fisk was nearly beaten to death by bombed-out Afghan refugees just inside the Pakistani border? Their fury led Fisk to conclude, in a courageous piece filed shortly after escaping with his life, that had he been in their position, "I would have done just what they did. I would have attacked Robert Fisk. Or any other Westerner I could find."

*** END QUOTE ***

The New Hampshire " study  http://www.cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm " she cites is pure junk science; it bases its conclusions on such sources of "information" as the pro-Islamist al-Jazeera news network. (In any case, even honest efforts to count large numbers of casualties are difficult; remember when 7,000 people had died at the World Trade Center?) As for Fisk, she accepts at face value this notoriously anti-American writer's ideologically self-serving interpretation of his beating, which, as  we noted  http://opinionjournal.com/best/?id=95001580#fisk , sounded to us like a simple robbery attempt.

Speaking of  Robert Fisk  http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=115680 , here's a whopper from his latest column in the Independent:

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Minus the torture, the United States is now doing what most Arab regimes have been doing for decades: arresting their brutal "Islamist" enemies, holding them incommunicado, chained and hooded, while preparing unfair trials.

*** END QUOTE ***

Yeah, well, minus the brains, this Fisk is a regular Einstein, isn't he?

In London's Evening Standard,  A.N. Wilson  http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/dynamic/news/top_story.html?in_review_id=490218&in_review_text_id=447954  weighs in with what starts out as a rant against the "inhumane" treatment of the Gitmo prisoners and turns into a rant against anything and everything American:

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These stories and pictures horrify us, but they should not surprise us. The Bush administration, and its European defenders, are not concerned to spread abroad Christianity, or the enlightenment virtues of the American founding fathers. They are not Jeffersons or Benjamin Franklins concerned with liberty or human dignity. They are the most merciless exponents of world capitalism, with the determination to have a McDonald's and a Starbucks (with all that this "globalised" economy implies) in every country on earth. They are the forces of Big Money, not the representatives of Good Ol' Uncle Sam.

*** END QUOTE ***

The new-economy mag Fast Company features an interview with  William Ian Miller  http://www.fastcompany.com/online/55/courage.html , author of a book on courage. Only neither Miller nor interviewer Harriet Rubin seems to have a clue as to what courage is. "If I had a wish," says Miller, "it would be never to be scared, never to feel the shame of being scared." In truth, courage consists not in the absence of fear--fear in the face of danger is a natural and healthy instinct--but in the overcoming of fear. It turns out, though, that Miller has a political agenda:

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It's terrible how little courage our leaders have. Rudy Giuliani did the right thing on September 11. He stood out like a sore thumb. Where was the president? He was in Nebraska--and his people were putting out false reports that he was under threat. Giuliani manifested courage. He put his body on the line, even though he could have been killed in the collapse of WTC Tower 2. . . . Tony Blair is doing more to deal with terrorism than our own president.

*** END QUOTE ***

Well, cheers for Rudy and Tony, but it's ridiculous to downplay the efforts of President Bush, who is unquestionably the leader of the war. Moreover, Miller seems unaware that Air Force One went to Nebraska at the urging of the Secret Service, and it was Bush who insisted on returning to Washington on the night of Sept. 11.
 
Cartoon Nation  http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/abc/20020122/ts/obesityblame020122_1.html

" The Simpsons  http://www.thesimpsons.com/index.html " has had a brilliant run, more than a dozen years, but we're ready to predict that it will end within a season or two. The problem is, real life has become so ridiculous, it's hard for a cartoon to be any funnier. A case in point: This past Sunday, "The Simpsons" aired a new episode in which Marge, shocked to learn that Springfield is the fattest town in America, hires a lawyer to sue "big sugar." Two days later (that is to say, today) ABC had a similar story--but this was an  ABC  http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/abc/20020122/ts/obesityblame020122_1.html   News  http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/abc/20020122/ts/obesityblame020122_1.html  story:

*** QUOTE ***

"There is a movement afoot to do something about the obesity problem, not just as a visual blight but to see it in terms of costs," says John Banzhaf, a George Washington University Law School professor.

Most public health experts agree that regulations or taxes would be better than legal action, but they are mindful that after years of going after Big Tobacco, anti-smoking forces only achieved success when plaintiffs and lawyers stepped in.

*** END QUOTE ***

We've had lawsuits against the tobacco industry and the gun industry, and it looks like the food industry is going to be next. What other ridiculous causes can the plaintiffs lawyers take up? If you have a suggestion, write us at  opinionjournal@wsj.com  mailto:opinionjournal@wsj.com . If it's witty enough, we'll use it--and who knows, maybe we'll come up with enough ideas to save "'The Simpsons."

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

"Homelessness Rising in Hawaii; Safety nets designed to help needy families buckle under the strain of isle economic woes"--headline and subheadline,  Honolulu Star-Bulletin  http://starbulletin.com/2002/01/20/news/story1.html , Jan. 20, 2002

*** END QUOTE ***

People's Republic of Massachusetts  http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/021/metro/For_some_a_word_weighs_heavily+.shtml

Boston's Mayor Thomas Menino has vetoed a measure passed by the City Council that would ban the word minority in all city business. The vote was unanimous, as presumably all votes will have to be if the council overrides the veto, since a nonunanimous measure would pass over the objections of a you-know-what. Hmm, votes were always unanimous in communist countries too. Now we know why they call it the "People's Republic of Massachusetts." The Boston Globe adds:

*** QUOTE ***

As Boston steps into the forefront of a growing debate over whether the word has the outdated ring of "Negro," "Oriental," "Spanish," and "Eskimo," there's discord over which replacement term to use.

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"Spanish" is outdated? So what do Bostonians call a visitor from Madrid?

Global Warming on the Rocks  http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/abc/20020118/ts/ice020117_1.html

The global-warming industry is desperately trying to spin itself out of the revelation that temperatures in Antarctica have actually been getting lower. ABC News quotes geologist Ian Joughin as saying: "There's no question that some parts of Antarctica are warming. But it could be this part of the ice sheet is not necessarily sensitive to global warming."

If this is true, scientists ought to be studying that ice to find out just what makes it "insensitive to global warming." This could have profound technological consequences. At the very least, heat-resistant ice would be a great boon to those of us who like to sip our scotch on the rocks slowly.

(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Marty Flusche, Damian Bennett, Mike Breeland, Marc Kliewer, Paul Music, S.E. Brenner, Raghu Desikan, Adam Brenner, C.E. Dobkin, Michael Segal, Jake Allen, Nathan Sales, Charles Wagner, Dawn Eden, Mark Morgan, Janice Lyons, Bob Krumm, Shawn Shuler, Terry Young, Doug Levene, Brian Otey, Jeffrey Bunch, Michael Moynihan, Robert Tumminello, Robert Eleazer, Steve Vaughn, G. Billings, Jim Twu, Rich Shepard, Geoffrey Hawkins and Tim Smith. If you have a tip, write us at  opinionjournal@wsj.com  mailto:opinionjournal@wsj.com , and please include the URL.)

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Also on OpinionJournal:
- Mark Lewis  http://opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=95001759 : Ambrose's plagiarism is no indictment of popular history (link requires registration).
- Tunku Varadarajan  http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/tvaradarajan/?id=95001760 : A looney-tune lawmaker goes daffy over bugs.
- Tom Bray  http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/tbray/?id=95001758 : Greens see red as visitors enjoy white powder in Yellowstone.
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