From http://OpinionJournal.com

Best of the Web Today - January 17, 2002
By JAMES TARANTO
Bob Herbert's Flaming Pajamas  http://nytimes.com/2002/01/17/opinion/17HERB.html

New York Times columnist Bob Herbert (link requires registration) continues to fan the smoldering wreckage of Enron in hopes of igniting a political scandal. Last week, as  we noted  http://opinionjournal.com/best/?id=95001707#enron , he unsuccessfully tried to suggest that Enron had purchased influence from the Bush administration. Now, in a column taking aim at Sen. Phil Gramm and his wife, Wendy, he has discovered a new problem:

*** QUOTE ***

That problem is the obsession with deregulation that has had such a hold on the Republican Party and corporate America. . . . Who's left to look out for the small fry? If the deregulation zealots had their way, we'd be left with tainted food, unsafe cars, bridges collapsing into rivers, children's pajamas bursting into flames and a host of corporations far more rapacious and unscrupulous than they are now.

*** END QUOTE ***

Herbert asserts, though he fails to demonstrate, that deregulation, sought by Enron and instituted by Republican "zealots," led to the company's downfall. Even if he were right, this would amount to a pretty convincing case there there's no political scandal here. Herbert is accusing Republicans merely of supporting policies with which he disagrees. There's nothing corrupt about that.

In any case, today's  Bob Novak  http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/rn20020117.shtml  column gives the lie to Herbert's simpleminded view:

*** QUOTE ***

[Enron CEO Ken] Lay has been painted as a heartless advocate of free market economics when he actually was working behind the scenes for control of energy emissions, establishing alliances with the most radical environmentalist pressure groups. Just as Enron pushed electrical deregulation to make billions in energy trades, Lay wanted restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions under the Kyoto agreement to artificially create a market for CO2 "credits" to be purchased to burn coal. Enron was not about ideology and certainly not partisanship, but was using governmental contacts to maximize profits.

*** END QUOTE ***

Novak reports that Lay enlisted former senator Tim Wirth, a Colorado Democrat, to lobby Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill in favor of the Kyoto treaty--another example of the ineffectiveness of Enron's efforts to purchase influence in the Bush administration.

There's nothing particularly unusual about a company favoring regulation; a business enterprise is, by definition, not "about ideology" but about making a profit. Regulations often create business opportunities (as Kyoto would have for Enron) or act as a barrier to entry for potential competitors (since a big established company is more easily able to absorb the costs of regulation than a small upstart).

Herbert seems to understand none of this. His comic-book view of the world--in which white-hatted government regulators "look out for small fry" and battle evil corporate predators who hate all regulation--is so childlike, we can't help but hope his pajamas don't burst into flames amid his heated rhetoric.

We Don't Need No Education  http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/17/business/17BUSH.html

The Times also reports (link requires registration) that Democrats are complaining of a "significant conflict of interest," in the words of one Dem consultant, because White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey, who received a $50,000 consulting fee from Enron before joining the administration, conducted a study for the White House, beginning in mid-October, on the effects of a prospective Enron collapse on the overall economy. The most amusing part of this story, though, is the final two paragraphs:

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Paul Krugman, an editorial columnist for The New York Times, said he was also paid $50,000 to serve on an Enron advisory board in 1999. He disclosed his connection in a Jan. 24, 2001,  column  http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/24/opinion/24KRUG.html  about Enron.

"This was an advisory panel that had no function that I was aware of," Mr. Krugman said today. "My later interpretation is that it was all part of the way they built an image. All in all, I was just another brick in the wall."

*** END QUOTE ***

Krugman, who is also an economics professor at a university  in or near Texas  http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=95001404#krugman , quit his Enron gig when he joined the Times.

The New Generation Gap  http://www.sptimes.com/2002/01/16/TampaBay/Students_support_Al_A.shtml

The University of South Florida recently fired Sami Al-Arian, a tenured Palestinian Arab computer-science professor who has become notorious for anti-Israel comments and who has been investigated for, though never charged with, links to terror organizations. Last week the  statewide faculty union  http://tampatrib.com/FloridaMetro/MGAEUJDKBWC.html  followed suit early this week.

USF students, however, see things differently. The USF student senate voted unanimously to support the firing. The St. Petersburg Times reports:

*** QUOTE ***

They said they want people to stop calling their school "Terrorism University," "Jihad U." and the "University of Suicidal Fanatics."

"What does this say about our school?" said student Kaylin Grey, who is applying for law school. "When I graduate, I want my degree to mean something."

*** END QUOTE ***

There's something to be said for the pro-Al-Arian position, repugnant though his views on the Middle East are. Professors shouldn't be fired for their political opinions; if they were, faculties would be even more uniformly left-liberal than they are today. But the student-faculty split at USF is fascinating. College students have been fighting political correctness on campus for well over a decade, but usually alone or in small groups, with outside support from conservative organizations and sometimes the ACLU. With war reminding young people of the importance of patriotism and national unity, we may be seeing the first stirrings of a nationwide anti-PC revolt.

Saudi Sob Stories  http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-000004452jan17.story

Austrians, as reader S.E. Brenner points out, sometimes make the risible and rather offensive claim that they were the Nazis' "first victims." Now the Saudis are up to something similar. Today's Los Angeles Times carries a dispatch from Riyadh entitled "Saudis Feel Unfairly Tarred With a Terrorist Brush." It quotes Saudis who don't believe that Saudi native Osama bin Laden was behind the attacks and who accuse the U.S. of failing to provide "proof" that 15 of the Sept. 11 hijackers were Saudi citizens.

And just in case the Nazi analogy seems strained, the Times also quotes Saudis who blame the Jews for everything: " 'All Saudis like Americans,' said Abdelaziz, a businessman who requested that his full name not be used. 'But as Arabs we do not like the American government. We believe it is controlled by the Zionists. The government works to destroy the Arabs. Is it true? I don't know; it is what we believe.' "

USA Today  http://www.usatoday.com/news/comment/2002/01/17/ncguest1.htm , meanwhile, lets a Saudi national and U.S. resident named Sulaiman Al-Hattlan take nearly 1,100 words to sound off on his "nightmare" flying from Riyadh back to Boston by way of Geneva and Frankfurt. Here's a sample:

*** QUOTE ***

I even imagined how humiliated I would be if the FBI arrested me at the airport, and I hoped, if that happened, my seatmates from the flight wouldn't see me being escorted by FBI agents. The worst part of this nightmare was that I had to convince myself that the FBI has the right to suspect that someone "like me" could be linked to terrorism. Consider the identifying characteristics of the 19 suspected hijackers of the four American airplanes on Sept. 11. Some of them looked just like me, and worst of all, several came from my province in the southwest of Saudi Arabia. . . .

On my Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Boston, I sat very quietly, reading the Financial Times, wondering whether reading the Times might cause suspicion. I made sure not to look around or try to use the bathroom. My usual excitement on airplanes was gone. I did not immediately talk to the passengers next to me, nor did I dare ask the flight attendant for a glass of water. Soon enough, I slept, or pretended to sleep. . . .

Though I always try to be polite, this time I felt I was trying too hard and smiling too much. Would that make someone think I am a terrorist? All of a sudden I asked myself why I should have to fear others, and myself, when I am fully certain that I have nothing to do with terrorism, except my terror of terrorism itself. I had failed to realize that I am, too, a victim of terrorism.

*** END QUOTE ***

The entire article is about Al-Hattlan's inner turmoil over the possibility that he might be embarrassed or humiliated by someone who takes him for a potential terrorist. There's not a word to suggest that anything of the sort actually happened. Well, gee, Sulaiman, flying is a little nerve-racking for all of us these days--and there are scarier things that can happen on an airplane than being eyed suspiciously by fellow passengers or even being hauled off by the FBI. Suck it up, buddy.

Arafat's Blood Libel  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/iapinfo/message/2584

The Islamic Association for Palestine reports that Nobel Peace Prize laureate Yasser Arafat "has accused the Israeli apartheid regime of murdering Palestinian children and youths and extricating their vital organs for organ transplants." Arafat told al-Jazeera television: "They murder our kids and use their organs as spare parts."

A Convenient Fire  http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/160102/dlfor15.asp

"A 16-storey government ministry building reportedly containing sensitive records on extremist religious organisations was almost completely gutted in the Pakistani capital, police said Wednesday," Agence France-Presse reports from Islamabad. "Authorities said it appeared a fire, which started on the upper floors, was caused by a short circuit but were not ruling out other causes."

Too bad those Pakistani buildings aren't built from the same material they use to make Bob Herbert's regulated pajamas.

Our Friends the Pakinstanis  http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020117-32522280.htm

The Washington Times reports from Peshawar that "Pakistan has quietly shifted more than one-third of its troops from the western border with Afghanistan to the disputed Line of Control in Kashmir, sharply reducing its ability to capture Taliban and al Qaeda troops fleeing Afghanistan."

Our Friends the Indians  http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,49603,00.html

Wired.com reports that New Delhi's "exceptionally good relations" with Baghdad have "contributed to its becoming the largest exporter of electrical equipment to Iraq." Iraq buys the equipment from India under the United Nations' oil-for-food program. "Food here is not food alone but other things that the U.N. perceives as basic necessities," V.P. Mahendru of the Indian Electrical and Electronics Manufacturers' Association tells Wired.

Radio Daze  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58742-2002Jan16.html

Abdallah Higazy--the Egyptian student who claimed he knew nothing of the pilot radio found in his room safe at the Millenium Hilton, across the street from the World Trade Center--has been cleared of perjury charges. "Another hotel guest came forward . . . and told officials the radio belonged to him," the Associated Press reports.

Domestic Terror Bust  http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-011702sla.story

Four erstwhile members of the Symbionese Liberation Army, the 1970s terrorist group that kidnapped Patricia Hearst, have been arrested and charged with the 1975 murder of Myrna Opsahl, a church volunteer, in a 1975 Sacramento, Calif., bank robbery. One of the alleged murderers is Kathleen Soliah, a k a "Sara Jane Olson," who has already pleaded guilty in another terrorist attack. The Los Angeles Times reports: "The timing of the arrests provoked questions, coming just two days before Olson's sentencing on charges of planting a bomb under a Los Angeles police car in 1975. The bomb never exploded." The paper doesn't say who asked the questions the timing "provoked," nor does it say just what the questions were.

The  New York Times  http://nytimes.com/2002/01/17/national/17ARRE.html  (link requires registration) reports that one of the defendants, Bill Harris, was asked in an interview last year how he'd changed over the years. "I'm older, no longer self-destructive and unwilling to go to jail," he said. "We were a bunch of amateurs. I wish everyone would forget us." But Myrna Opsahl deserves justice, even justice delayed, just as  Medgar Evers  http://www.newstimes.com/archive97/dec2397/naa.htm  did.

Back to Normal--I  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58208-2002Jan16.html

The FBI is denying yesterday's New York Post report that it has taken over the investigation of Chandra Levy's disappearance from the Washington, D.C., police, the Washington Post reports. "There has been nothing new," a U.S. attorney's office spokeswoman tells the Washington Post. "I have no idea what the impetus for that story was." Maybe just an overeager effort on the tabloid's part to get back to normal four months after Sept. 11.

Back to Normal--II  http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/39265.htm

At least the New York Post has Monica Lewinsky. The tabloid reports she nearly broke down in front of reporters as she was promoting her new HBO documentary, "Monica in Black and White":

*** QUOTE ***

Lewinsky stumbled through a series of polite questions but came unglued when asked about the crude jokes that have dogged her for four years.

"There's a difference between a pleasant joke and a personal joke," Lewinsky told a gathering of TV critics.

"The ones that take my last name and equate them to [a sex act] that a lot of people in the world do, is a really cruel thing to do."

*** END QUOTE ***

Those coy brackets, by the way, are the Post's.

Back to Normal--III  http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/16/national/16PASS.html

At the New York Times (links require registration), they're definitely getting back to normal. Specifically, they've resumed their interwar-era habit of running frequent and odd reports related to homosexuality--though with a Sept. 11 twist. Today's Times has a feature on Mark Bingham, one of the heroes of Flight 93. Bingham, a 6-foot-5 rugby player and PR man, was gay, and his story is an inspiring one, as well as a withering rejoinder to Jerry Falwell, who famously blamed homosexuals (among others) for the Sept. 11 atrocities. The Times' take on Bingham, though, is a peculiar one. The headline says it all: "Passenger on Jet: Gay Hero or Hero Who Was Gay?" Apparently in some circles this is an important distinction.
 
We first noticed the resumption of the Times' gay coverage on Sunday, when the paper ran a piece entitled " Gay Muslims Face a Growing Challenge  http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/13/nyregion/13GAY.html ." Hmm, are they gay Muslims or Muslims who are gay?

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

"A Street to Call Home; Some homeless people call one spot their own, day in and day out"--headline and subheadline, Boston Globe, Jan. 16, 2002

"Denver Council Warned of Growing Hunger, Homelessness"--headline,  Denver Post  http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1002,53%257E337930,00.html , Jan. 16, 2002

"Shelter From Cold--and More: Busier Facilities Cite Economy, Limited Housing"--headline and subheadline,  Washington Post  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52774-2002Jan16.html , Jan. 17, 2002

*** END QUOTE ***

Not as Hungry as We Thought  http://www.thesmokinggun.com/doc_o_day/kerkorian3.shtml

Because of an error in the Reuters story we linked to, yesterday's item on Lisa Kirkorian's child-support request overstated the amount she was seeking for food by an order of magnitude. The correct sum is $10,220 a month--$4,300 for "food at home and household supplies" and $5,920 for "eating out"--not $102,000.

The Smoking Gun has the actual document itemizing Kirkorian's account of three-year-old Kira's monthly expenses. Among them is $945 for "telephone." Assuming $45 of that goes for local service, and Kira has a 10-cent-a-minute long-distance plan, this three-year-old is spending roughly 12 1/2 hours a day on the phone. Mrs. Kirkorian also requests $2,885 for "car lease payments (including license and registration fees). Kira apparently has two BMWs. She must need a backup in case of an accident--which is pretty likely when a three-year-old is driving!

Revenge of the Nerds

We heard from 32-year-old John Guth, who along with his sidekick Jeff Tweiten, 24, plans to wait in line for 135 days until the release of the new "Star Wars" movie. (We noted the story  last week  http://opinionjournal.com/best/?id=95001696#geek .) Guth writes:

*** QUOTE ***

It never ceases to amaze me how so many people make comments like: "What a tragic waste. One hundred thirty-five days is almost enough time to get a life," based out of pure ignorance, but the Wall Street Journal? Wow! Not sure which reporter over there made this comment but they obviously need some lessons on reporting facts not fiction. I thought reporters were supposed to get both sides of the story, but I guess the WSJ doesn't follow that journalistic policy.

FYI--if you consider giving thousands of dollars to children in orphanages a tragic waste of time, I feel for you. When this is all done with we anticipate over $25,000 to be raised for the needy kids in the Seattle area. Obviously whoever made such an ignorant comment works for a newspaper. Do you own your own company that you've built from the ground up? Well, I do. Both Jeff and I have lives, good ones that are very productive and how ignorant of the WSJ to assume otherwise. Shame on whoever made that statement.

*** END QUOTE ***

All we can say is, Obi-Wan Kenobi would never have written a letter like this. He'd have just stared intentely, said, "These aren't the droids you're looking for," and serenely moved on.

(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Steven Platzer, Richard Belzer, Jonathan Adler, James McLennan, C.E. Dobkin, Paul Music, Chris Hicks, S.E. Brenner, Wayne Robins, Raghu Desikan, Sheila Owen, Michael Moynihan, David Merrill, Jim Thayer, Brian Jones, Shlomo Gewirtz, Michiel Visser, Mario Fante, Mark Sullivan, Bruce Klink, Roger Bournival, Doug Allen, Rich Young, Kevin Kelly, John Romero, Ian Kilmon, Tony Bettinger, Craig Renner, Brett Heffington and Scott Criss. If you have a tip, write us at  Dana Dillon and Paolo Pasicolan  mailto:opinionjournal@wsj.com : The Southeast Asian jihad (link requires registration).
- Collin Levey  http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/clevey/?id=95001738  on the Marin mujahid.
- Claudia Rosett  http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/cRosett/?id=95001736 : The WTC site needs a memorial--but not a grandiose one.
- How Others See U.S.  http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/others/?id=95001735 : The world press on the pretzel incident.
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