From http://OpinionJournal.com

Best of the Web Today - January 14, 2002
By JAMES TARANTO
'A Significant Political Opportunity'  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40691-2002Jan13.html

Quoted in today's Washington Post, an unnamed "key Democratic strategist" has this to say about the Enron fiasco: "Democrats are very excited about this because this gives us a hook to bring this guy [President Bush] some accountability, plus there's no way it's not going to be a distraction for them. Privately, Democrats are almost unanimous in seeing this as a significant political opportunity. But we don't want to blow it."

Pardon us for spoiling the party, but there is a war on. It's not the most opportune of times to distract the president with a phony political scandal. Of course it's another matter if investigations turn up evidence of genuine wrongdoing by government officials, but if this strategist is to be believed, Democrats are happy to proceed in the absence of any such evidence.

And what exactly is the Bush administration alleged to have done? Here's Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, on yesterday's " Meet the Press  http://msnbc.com/news/686453.asp ": "If there was any, any involvement because of the incredible help the Bush campaign got from Enron here, it will be--I don't know that there has been--but it will be devastating." But on "Fox News Sunday," Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut echoed Rep. Henry Waxman, who, as we  noted Friday  http://opinionjournal.com/best/?id=95001718 , said it was a scandal that the administration refused to give Enron special treatment. Fox doesn't have a transcript on its Web site, so here's a  CNN report  http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/01/13/enron/index.html :

*** QUOTE ***

[Treasury Secretary Paul] O'Neill, a guest on "Fox News Sunday," defended the government's decision not to intervene as Enron's stock price collapsed. Lieberman called O'Neill's comments "outrageous" and promised an aggressive investigation of Enron's collapse.

*** END QUOTE ***

Before the Democrats start throwing around accusations, shouldn't they at least agree on what would constitute a scandal?

The President and the Pretzel  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41179-2002Jan14.html

Here's an early nominee for  bottom news story  http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=95001644#bottom  of 2002: President Bush was watching the Miami-Baltimore playoff game yesterday when, as Press Secretary Ari Fleischer explains, "he was eating a pretzel, and he said it felt like it did not go down right. He fainted. He woke up what he believes were a few seconds later." He scraped his cheek when he fell. The White House physician checked him out, and he's fine. The Dolphins, on the other hand, choked, losing to the Ravens 20-3.

Picking Up the Pieces  http://www.observer.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1501,631972,00.html

"American special forces searching the Tora Bora cave complex in eastern Afghanistan are collecting dismembered fingers and human organ tissue in an attempt to establish whether Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders were killed during last year's massive assault on the caves," reports London's Observer. The paper quotes an unnamed "intelligence source" as saying: "Just before the complex fell, I got a call from a friend involved in the operation. He told me: 'We really think we've got him. It's only a matter of time.' All the information we had at that time suggests he must be dead."

The paper's sources say their "most likely hypothesis" is that Osama has met Allah. The  Christian Science Monitor  http://csmonitor.com/2002/0114/p1s2-wosc.html , however, says that Afghan intelligence officials think he's in Pakistan.

How Omar Got Away  http://www.msnbc.com/news/686895.asp

Newsweek interviews Qari Saheb, who served as Mullah Mohammad Omar's personal driver, who explains how the top Talib escaped:

*** QUOTE ***

Saheb was with Omar at his compound in Kandahar last Oct. 7 when the first American bombs began to fall. According to Saheb, Omar initially spurned advisers who begged him to flee to safety. "Even if Bush shows up at my door, I will not leave," said Omar. His advisers told him that the Americans would use chemical weapons. Omar brandished a gas mask, but the aides warned him that the masks were good only for an hour. Knowing that the Americans would target his SUV, aides ushered Omar into a rickshaw. Pulled into the center of town, Omar shifted to a mud-covered truck and disappeared. He spent the next several days moving from house to house, sleeping in basements.

*** END QUOTE ***

Agence France-Presse  http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/140102/dlame31.asp  reports that "influential Pashtuns," including members of the interim Afghan government, are helping Omar evade arrest.

Osama's Unfunniest Home Videos--I  http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1758000/1758422.stm

A gun-toting toddler is among the stars of a new al Qaeda video obtained in Afghanistan and aired by the  Australian Broadcasting Corp.  http://abc.net.au/ra/newstories/RANewsStories_457534.htm  The BBC describes the scene:

*** QUOTE ***

One sequence shows a small boy--aged about two--holding a gun. A man's voice asks him in Arabic why he is carrying a gun. Is it to kill infidels, the voice inquires.

*** END QUOTE ***

The video also shows "fighters storming a building and taking hostages, barking commands at them in English and shooting one captive dead" and "an apparent assassination attack on a motorcade."

Osama's Unfunniest Home Videos--II  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34200-2002Jan11.html

The Washington Post has details of what we assume was another tape, released by the Singapore government in the wake of the recent terror bust there:

*** QUOTE ***

The tape . . . features a man describing how explosives could be carried on a bicycle without arousing suspicion. The man--identified as Hashim bin Abas, 40, a "service engineer"--was among 15 suspected Islamic militants taken into custody in Singapore last month. . . .

According to the Singapore ministry [of home affairs], the alleged terrorist cell had two plans "ready for activation." One apparently involved blowing up the shuttle bus that carries U.S. military personnel between a naval base used by visiting warships and a train station, a scenario suggested in the videotape, which appears to have been made for reconnaissance purposes.

The tape depicts the station from various angles, then focuses on a bicycle bay located beneath the north end of the station and train tracks. Bicycles are shown with cargo boxes mounted in the back.

*** END QUOTE ***

The  Straits Times  http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/singapore/story/0,1870,95812,00.html  reports that the Muslim Student Society at the National University of Singapore is applauding the arrests. "It is a very sad state of affairs that even Singapore is not free of the global terror network that is seeding chaos throughout the world," Mohamed Nawab Mohamed Osman, the group's head, tells the paper.

Radio Silence  http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/8661.htm

Abdallah Higazy, a 30-year-old Egyptian man, has been charged with perjury in an odd case that could mean nothing--or a great deal. According to authorities, Higazy, a computer-science student at Polytechnic University in Brooklyn, checked into the Millenium [sic] Hilton, a luxury hotel across the street from the World Trade Center, Aug. 27 and said he planned to stay until Sept. 25. Reports the New York Post:

*** QUOTE ***

On Sept. 11, he was in the hotel room and immediately evacuated without his belongings after the attacks. . . . When hotel security eventually began clearing the rooms of personal belongings in October, an employee opened the safe in Higazy's room and found [a] pilot-to-pilot radio, a Koran, and a medallion.

The radio can be used by pilots in the air to communicate with each other or someone on the ground could use it to talk to pilots in flight. It could also be used to monitor pilots' conversations from the ground.

Higazy tried to retrieve his things in December, when FBI agents appeared and asked him about the radio. Although he admitted having some knowledge of communications equipment from being in the Egyptian Air Corps branch of that nation's army, the suspect denied the radio was his and said he'd never seen it before, authorities charge.

*** END QUOTE ***

The Queen's Flight  http://www.observer.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,631967,00.html

Remember Abu Qatada, the  terrorist welfare queen  Brits%20lose%20track%20of%20terrorist%20welfare%20queen%20(S.E.%20Brenner):%20http://opinionjournal.com/best/queen  known as Osama bin Laden's "Egyptian ambassador" who lost his bid to collect &pound;213 in benefits from the British government? British Police finally got around to raiding his home last week, and found he was gone.

Our Friends the Saudis  http://www.menewsline.com/stories/2002/january/01_14_2.html

The Middle East Newsline reports that "Saudi Arabia appears to be signalling to Iraq that it is prepared for a reconciliation."

Make It a Triple  http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=13012002-102158-9032r

UPI reports that "conviction is growing in diplomatic circles where attention must be paid to such developments that the world is witnessing the emergence of a new Triple Alliance in Eurasia"--between India, Israel and Turkey.  You heard it here first.  http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/tvaradarajan/?id=95001172

To Protect the Guilty  http://headlines.sify.com/476news2.html

Tehreek-i-Jafria Pakistan, an extremist political party banned by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is changing its name to Millat-e-Jafria Pakistan, Agence France-Presse reports.

'The Taliban Wing'  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64452-2002Jan4.html

A recent Washington Post article describes how Sayed Abdullah was brutalized by the Taliban, who falsely suspected he was Christian because he had two Bibles--one in English and one in the Dari language--in his personal library:

*** QUOTE ***

Several guards came in and forced Sayed face down on the table. They tied his hands and feet to its legs. Then they beat him with sticks and heavy plastic ropes, punching, pounding, whipping. Sayed says he endured two or three hours of it before he passed out. . . .

The Taliban guards again tied him on the table. This time, they poured water on his feet, then wound electrical wires around both of his big toes. The wires were attached to an old Soviet military field telephone. The guards turned the telephone's crank, sending a searing electrical current into Sayed's feet. It went on for more than an hour. He felt as if some powerful force was lifting him high off the table, then slamming him down again, over and over.

*** END QUOTE ***

There's more, but this gives a flavor of Abdullah's five-month ordeal. In Saturday's New York Times (link requires registration), columnist  Bill Keller  http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/12/opinion/12KELL.html  blasts Sens. Phil Gramm, Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond, who, he says, "have in common the fact that they harnessed their collective century of seniority to the Taliban wing of the American right." You know, the guys who torture people they suspect of being Christians.

Yasser, That's the Ticket  http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/jtaranto/?id=95001721

We got such an overwhelming number of responses to  Friday's invitation  http://opinionjournal.com/best/?id=95001718#explain  to explain the Palestinian arms shipment that we had to put them in a separate article. Click on the headline of this item to read it.

High Bias  http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0112/18/asb.00.html

Andrew Sullivan  http://andrewsullivan.com/  has been doing a brilliant job rebutting liberal media folks who pooh-pooh Bernard Goldberg's best-selling book, " Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News  http://www.bennettandcurran.com/cgi-bin/Shopper.exe?preadd=action&key=0895261901 ." We particularly like this exchange, which Sullivan found in the Dec. 18 transcript of CNN's "Newsnight With Aaron Brown":

*** QUOTE ***

Brown: Some conservatives jumped on [John] Walker, saying he is a product of cultural liberalism--the California kind--helping to turn an impressionable kid against his own country.

Joining us from Salinas, California, one of those conservatives, Shelby Steele of the Hoover Institution. Mr. Steele wrote a provocative article the other day in  The Wall Street Journal  http://opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=95001578 --a column in the Journal.

And here in New York, a columnist who thinks Mr. Steele is making an awfully broad generalization. Richard Cohen of the Washington Post. It's nice to have both of you here. Mr. Steele.

Steele: First of all, let me interrupt you just a minute.

Brown: OK.

Steele: Is Richard Cohen a liberal?

Brown: Yeah, Richard Cohen's a liberal. I think he would say that, wouldn't he? . . .

Cohen: On this issue.

Brown: On this issue. OK. Everyone is now branded, I guess.

Steele: OK. Great.

Brown: Now let me try . . .

Steele: If I'm going to be, everybody is going to be.

*** END QUOTE ***

Of course no one suggests Brown is deliberately being unfair, but this does seem to be an indisputable example of the kind of unthinking bias about which Goldberg writes.

Let It Slide?  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40795-2002Jan13.html

Speaking of the Marin mujahid, the Washington Post has another long profile of him that adds even more details about his liberal upbringing. A few tidbits: When the Lindhs (Walker's father's name) lived in ultraliberal Takoma Park, Md., before moving to Marin County, Calif., Walker's mother became "something of a local activist. Neighbors recall her waging a zealous campaign to have a metal slide at a local playground removed, saying it was too dangerous for children." Yemen, apparently, was not too dangerous for children.

In her activism, Walker's mother shamefully exploited her young daughter:

*** QUOTE ***

Marilyn Walker took their 9-year-old daughter, Naomi, to a small local demonstration denouncing U.S. bombing raids over Iraq. The Marin Independent Journal ran a photo of the girl standing amid a few dozen protesters waving signs at passing traffic that read, "Don't Kill Iraqi Kids."

*** END QUOTE ***

Our favorite detail from the story, though, is its description of Walker's high school, which "had a rare teaching philosophy: It held no classes."

Stupidity Watch  http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/12/opinion/L12TERR.html
 
In a letter to the editor of the New York Times (link requires registration), one John E. Colbert of Chicago opines: "In searching for the next targets, the United States should consider other terrorists closer to home: thousands of deaths occur each year from drunken driving, gun violence and lack of health care--to name just a few culprits that terrorize and kill Americans." Yeah, John, let's drop a few bombs on lack of health care.

Wobegon in Albany  http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyKey=74614

We can't help but admire the cruelty of the Albany (N.Y.) Times Union's editors, who printed a letter from one Charles Heinze that concludes as follows:

*** QUOTE ***

If we are looking for a place to start, let's start with what the average hourly pay is in America and see to it that this is the minimum wage for all full-time employees.

And before you say it can't be done, look at what welfare, and other public assistance including health care and having the thousands of not-for-profits cost us each year.

*** END QUOTE ***

A tip of the hat to whoever wrote the headline: "All Should Be Paid at Least the Average U.S. Salary." That "at least" is a stroke of genius.

Then and Mao  http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/01/13/wmao13.xml

London's Daily Telegraph reports on a "model Chinese village devoted to Maoist ideals":

*** QUOTE ***

Hoardings urge workers to "Put Mao Tse-tung thought in command of everything" and a deafening public address system regularly broadcasts rousing communist anthems. . . . Apartments come in only two sizes. Residents are bound by strict rules. The approval of a Communist Party committee is required for all marriages. A mass wedding is held once a year on New Year's Day. After childbirth women are sterilised. Wrongdoers are paraded through the village with their heads shaved. The village has acquired cult status among those who still pine for the certainties of the Mao era.

*** END QUOTE ***

Alas, it's being razed to make way for a business park designed to attract foreign investors.

The Son Also Sets
Several readers wrote to inquire about our  Friday item  http://opinionjournal.com/best/?id=95001718#nimitz  on the curious death notice for Rear Adm. Chester W. Nimitz and his wife. No, this wasn't the Adm. Chester Nimitz who led the Pacific fleet during World War II; he died in 1966. It was his son. You can read the  U.S. Navy  http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq36-4.htm  biography of Nimitz Sr. or visit the  Nimitz Museum  http://www.nimitz-museum.org/nimitz_museum.asp  in Fredericksburg, Texas. And here's the  New York Times obit  http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/08/obituaries/08NIMI.html  of Nimitz Jr. (link requires registration). Our Friday item referred not to it but to a paid death notice.

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, Helpless, Hopeless; A surge in evictions across the country illustrates the depth of the economy's recession. Help is dwindling for those in trouble."--headline and subheadline, front page,  Los Angeles Times  http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-000002954jan12.story , Jan. 12, 2002

"Remember the Homeless at Home Too"--headline, op-ed page,  Los Angeles Times  http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-000002840jan12.story , Jan. 12, 2002

*** END QUOTE ***

Still Cold in Antarctica  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40974-2002Jan13.html

If you live in Antarctica, you've probably been waiting hopefully for years for "global warming" to kick in. Sorry, it's still cold. In fact, if you think it's gotten colder, you're not crazy. "Scientists working in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of east Antarctica have found temperatures dropping at a rate of 1.2 degrees Fahrenheit per decade since 1986, and have observed similar downward trends across the continent since 1978."

"I'd be very careful with this," Michael Oppenheimer, chief scientist for  Environmental Defense  http://environmentaldefense.org/ , tells the Washington Post. "My general view has been that there's simply not enough data to make a broad statement about all of Antarctica." But we can make broad statements about the whole world?

Next headline to watch for: "Homeless Antarcticans Hit Hardest by Cooling Trend."

A Drink You Can Eat  http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/nm/20020111/od/brew_dc_2.html

Reuters reports a South Korean brewer has come up with "chewable liquor"--"a gelatin form of its popular Paeksaejoo rice wine." This is supposed to be an innovation, but haven't the folks at Reuters heard of  Jell-O shots  http://www.outofthefryingpan.com/recipes/jello.shots.shtml ?

Our Ever-Expanding Rights  http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/49699_judo07.shtml

Last month the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported on one of the silliest lawsuits we've ever heard of. Fourteen-year-old judo champion Leilani Akiyama went to court, claiming that the practice of bowing before a judo match violated her rights:

*** QUOTE ***

Bowing in a private club is one thing, but the practice should not be mandatory in a public facility for a tournament, said Akiyama's attorney, Mark Fleming.

Bowing "takes away critical thinking," said John Holm, Akiyama's stepfather and judo instructor. "You think you're giving respect, but it's really a submissive act."

Holm, who teaches 35 students at his judo club in Renton, says the bowing largely stems from customs of Shinto, an ancient religion indigenous to Japan. Shinto is based on custom, reverence for ancestral traditions, and living and acting according to the guidance of the gods.

Akiyama's mother, Mariko, a native of Japan, is Buddhist and doesn't want her children to be forced to practice Shinto rituals, Holm said.

He also said some Muslim and Christian students in his class have the skills and would like to compete in regional and national competitions but will not because it offends their beliefs.

"Bowing is a prayer act, and Muslims can only pray to Allah," Holm said. "It's just unfair."

*** END QUOTE ***

Judge Robert Lasnik should take a bow; last week, in a show of good sense, he ruled against Akiyama.

(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Patricia Catto, Jim Baer, Terry Young, Zachary Emig, Shelley Taylor, Damian Bennett, C.E. Dobkin, Raghu Desikan, S.E. Brenner, Ron Stack, Paul Music, Lee Dodson, Bert Wolff, Michael Segal, Matthew Maguire, Jeff Tuccy, Paul Stoufflet, Linda Cooke, Jeff Maillian, Robert Butchko, Kevin Whited, Brian O'Donnell and Brian O'Rourke. If you have a tip, write us at  Review & Outlook  mailto:opinionjournal@wsj.com : Another Whitewater? Yippee!! (link requires registration)
- Robert Bartley  http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/rbartley/?id=95001724 : Bush may usher in a new political era.
- Nancy deWolf Smith  http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/nsmith/?id=95001722  visits Mullah Omar's house. (No, he isn't home.)
- James Taranto  http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/jtaranto/?id=95001721 : Our readers explain it all to Colin Powell.
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