By clicking here. (Thanks to OxBlog for the link).

Ramesh - I hadn't seen that. Foxman's being absurd. Frankly, I've often found the way the ADL deals with these things to be a bit embarrassing. Does Foxman really think a Senior Editor at the New Republic(!) is somehow holding back a more forthright apology for sinister reasons? If the ADL did anything to foment a climate at ESPN or Disney which resulted in this decision, he should apologize to Easterbrook. Indeed, creating a climate where offending Jews automatically results in your termination will do far more to hurt Jews in this country than anything which might have resulted from Easterbrook's original comments.

The Times version of my column says "On second thoughts" not "On second thought."

Is the plural "thoughts" A) a typo B) the way the British say it or C) is the way everyone says it except me because I'm an ignoramous.

I await Mr. Stuttaford's help.

My column is up today, but it remains well-hidden by the high financial barrier they put up around it. The first half is recap about Rush. Here's how it ends:

On second thoughts, maybe it's silly to think Limbaugh hatred actually has much to do with what he says. After all, compared with his many copycats, Limbaugh's rhetoric is fairly tame. No, the reason Limbaugh infuriated so many is that people listened to him. He was an alternative information source to what was until recently a liberal media monopoly. For all the excitement about the internet challenging "Big Media" in America, AM talk radio beat it to the punch by more than a decade.

Indeed, despite studies that show talk radio listeners - some 70 million Americans - are more informed and affluent than non-listeners, elite journalists sniff at talk radio as if it's no more reliable than the gossip scribbled above the urinal.

NBC's Bob Faw once pondered whether "talk radio is not democracy in action, but democracy run amok".

Whether Limbaugh recovers, physically or professionally, is still an unknown. And he's certainly got bigger problems than the cackling of his enemies. But that cackling seems a bit forced, like that of an outnumbered soldier who's delighted to learn an enemy general has been wounded even as his own position has been overrun.

I'm almost sorry Easterbrook apologized the way he did. Or at least I'm sorry it got so much play (I saw mention of it on Fox News tonight) -- because I have no doubt it was an innocent miscommunication. I criticized his comments about Jewish movie producers, but I never thought for a moment he meant anything truly sinister. Rather, I was just surprised that a guy who's always come across as such a decent and, more relevant, clear writer seemed to get tongue-tied. I have no idea if the story has legs but, even though he has spoken ill of NRO (for which he shall be punished), I have no doubt that his apology is sincere and his biggest and only mistake was writing something that was uncharacteristically vague where clarity was required.

A loyal reader, Jeremy Yoder, designed this. Me likey. In fact, it gives me an idea. For the foreseeable future -- or until I discover that for reasons I can't see right now -- I will post a link to all tasteful, cool and favorable to NRO-related logos, animations, videos etc. The reward is the link and the subsequent thousands of visitors plus our admiration, our discussion in the Corner and maybe just maybe some sort of symbolic prize. Maybe we will even end up using the best entry ourselves and the quasi legal status of this whole proposition will result in lawsuits all over the place.

Sound like fun?

So: all of you web folks out there who want to get noticed or who are just bored, let's see what you can do. Put "cool stuff" in the header and send it to me or K-Lo (man, I hope Kathryn likes this idea).

I have been in contact with an officer in the Thai army that has provided myself and others with some information regarding this practice (though perhaps not this particular instance) via Thai military operating with the Coalition in Iraq.

While the jist of the story is correct, important and relevant details are left out. It seems that Iraqi "resistance" fighters are using orchards and such as cover to launch attacks on Coalition forces traveling on roads passing near the trees. American commanders are reluctant to destroy private property, so they offer the orchard owners a choice. They may provide information on the attackers themselves and allow American forces to pursue and destroy them, clearly the desirable option, or have the orchards near the road destroyed, thus making it more difficult for the resistance to find cover from which to launch attacks.

If the owner is unable or unwilling to help, the Americans have little choice but to destroy the orchards. If the owners are unable to provide the information requested, this is certainly sad, but ultimately necessary. Mercian forces must be allowed to defend themselves and make their environment safer. Clearly some Iraqis may walk away from such experiences feeling that they have been blackmailed and subjected to collective punishment, but that's not the whole -or real- story.

You might point out that "Rich Lowry's LEGACY" has some great anagrams, like
A SLY, WRY CIRCLE HOG
WHO'S A GIRLY CYCLER?
A WRY, CHIC, GORY SELL
A COY CLERGY WHIRLS
CHEWS A LYRIC GLORY
WHY CLOG A SLY CRIER?
SHOWY CRY? RIG A CELL!
A SCREW? CRY, "GO HILLY!"
SO GREW A CHILLY CRY
LEG WHILRS, A COY CRY
and several featuring CIGAR.

Cubs - OUT

Red Sox - OUT

Must find something to do in evenings now.

......I know, read an autographed copy of Legacy. Problem solved. I'm ordering now.

Jonathan Rauch: "Only four candidates have a shot next year. They are President Bush, retired Gen. Wesley Clark, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, and Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina. The rest are history. Sorry, Dick. Sorry, John. Sorry, Dennis, Joe, Carol, and Al. Turn off the lights behind you. . . .

"With only one exception since the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, no one has been elected president who took more than 14 years to climb from his first major elective office to election as either president or vice president.

"George W. Bush took six years. Bill Clinton, 14. George H.W. Bush, 14 (to the vice presidency). Ronald Reagan, 14. Jimmy Carter, six. Richard Nixon, six (to vice president). John Kennedy, 14. Dwight Eisenhower, zero. Harry Truman, 10 (to vice president). Franklin Roosevelt, four. Herbert Hoover, zero. Calvin Coolidge, four. Warren Harding, six. Woodrow Wilson, two. William Howard Taft, zero. Theodore Roosevelt, two (to vice president). The one exception: Lyndon Johnson's 23 years from his first House victory to the vice presidency."

The whole thing is worth reading.

Dean suggested his sound judgment extended to his long support for the Boston Red Sox over his native New York Yankees. The issue is of some moment in New Hampshire, which holds the first primary.

Right on the Red Sox, right on Iraq? "I'm insufferably right," he said, laughing. "The motto of my campaign is: 'I told you so.' "

Rich Lowry
National Review
215 Lexington Avenue
4th Floor
New York, NY 10016

Much is being made of this but perhaps you need to step back an think a minute. The location in question are groves of trees that border a road that comes off a bridge.... in plain English, a ideal ambush site. You have no place to hide coming off the bridge and the bad guys can hide in the trees and them melt away. There had in fact been several ambushes at the site, because the road network almost mandated the use of the road. The farmers in question were given the chance to give the ambushers up and didn't. The local commander has a responsibility to protect his troops. Since the farmers refused to cooperate, they paid the price. Sucks to be them I suppose, but better a thousand fruit trees than one GI life, IMHO. The only reason this get any traction at all is because there are trees involved, shows how turned around we have become when a few trees are more important the lives of our soldiers.

Everyone does it. Smart, thoughtful, well-read people don't understand the most controversial Supreme Court decision of the last generation. Take Gregg Easterbrook, for example, who is arguing that a ban on partial-birth abortion might not be an assault on Roe since Roe allows abortion to be banned in the third trimester. Easterbrook gets a few things wrong in this argument, including what Roe did. Here's the truth of the matter:

1) A ban on partial-birth abortion would not be an assault on Roe because Roe did not touch Texas's ban on partial-birth abortion.

2) Partial-birth abortions do not take place exclusively in the third trimester.

3) Roe has to be read in light of Doe v. Bolton, handed down the same day, which makes it clear that any third-term restrictions have to include an exception for "health" defined to include "physical, emotional, psychological, [or] familial health." Just try prosecuting someone for committing a third-trimester abortion under that standard.

As a side note, I think it's silly for Easterbrook to insist that third-trimester abortions are "unambiguously wrong" but that earlier abortions can be called wrong only on the basis of religious faith. He says that "some feel" that they can call first- and second-trimester abortions wrong "based on faith," but that's an impermissible basis for public policy. Fine, but some think that they can judge those abortions wrong based on reason. They may be wrong, but you can't prove it by pretending that they don't exist.

Tim - That really is outrageous. That report says that some 850K kids are homeschooled. But that's a 2001 number. Considering the explosive growth in the field it wouldn't shock me if the number's at 1 million by now. Assuming that's the case for the purposes of easier calculations for the mathematically impaired (me), if CBS found even 100 cases -- which I sincerely doubt they could -- that would be a .0001% rate of abuse. I'd hazard to guess that the rate of child molesters currently employed for CBS is higher than that.

UPDATE Yes, my math was wrong. I was doing the math with a baby on my lap. Sorry. It's .01% which might in fact be higher than the rate of child molesters at CBS. My apologies.

Enough already about enticing Red Sox and Yankees fans to purchase Rich's book. How about promoting "Legacy" as a tonic to cheer the millions of despondent Cubs fans out there? Not only are Chicagoans cursed with 95 years and counting of failure on the baseball diamond, they're plagued with Mayor Daley's political machine and Jesse Jackson, too. Or don't folks in the Great American Heartland matter to you blue-state denizens?

Reviewer: A reader from Woodbridge, Va.

There's no better book on the Clinton presidency than this one by National Review editor Rich Lowry, an outstanding writer and smart political analyst. Conservatives have written a lot about Clinton, but Legacy may in fact provide the last word. And don't you love that red-letter "A" on the front cover?

The Corner really does get results: This morning I noticed that the C3PO figurine had 8,XXX hits, and this afternoon it has over 12,000. I looked at a few of the seller's other available items for comparison, including one that has about 10 hours to go, and none had more than 118 hits.

You know he's scratching his considerable belly right now, wondering why a closed item that sold for only $4.24 (US) is getting so many hits. I know Mr. Lowry's book is selling pretty good on its own merits, and with no small amount of nag... er reminding by thine own self, but this might be what he needs to take it over the top.

Earlier today I said that we would be able to tell which candidate in the Louisiana governor's race thinks he's behind when we see the first negative ad. It's up--and the ad is for the Democrats. The first half of the radio ad reads as follows: "We have to choose a new governor for Louisiana and it is very important that we look past the tv commercials, and into the lives and characters of the candidates. The closer you examine the records, the better Kathleen Babineaux Blanco looks. She understands real people because she is one of us. She had a full life before she ever ran for public office--teaching school, raising six children, and starting her own small business. She understands struggle and that the problems that the governor must deal with all have human faces. She knows that people aren't statistics or numbers, and you don't crunch people, you help them." This is an attempt to convert Bobby Jindal's strengths into weaknesses: Okay, so he knows more facts than me and has accomplished an awful lot for someone so young. But that just means he's not like us and doesn't understand our problems. (I'm mediocre--just like you.) He may have saved the health department from bankruptcy, but he did so by not caring for people.

The ad continues: "Now Kathleen is in the fight of her political life against the hand-picked candidate of the right-wing Republicans, backed by Mike Foster, the Republican White House, and their millions of dollars. They are confident they will win, because they hope that we won't vote. So let's show that they are wrong, and get organized to win. Kathleen Blanco needs our help, because her fight is our fight too. Paid for by Kathleen Babineaux Blanco." Did I mention that these ads are mainly on black radio?

Republicans may be tempted to attack the "real people" line as an attack on Jindal's ethnicity. The Jindal campaign itself won't take the bait, but its allies might. The last thing Bobby Jindal needs is to make the campaign a referendum on race.

The election is November 15.

If the Red Sox beat the Yankees later today, I promise to buy Legacy on Amazon not later than noon tomorrow. It will comfort me to know that I have softened the blow for a Yankees fan. But I lie...(on the latter point only).

Go Sox!

If you set it to music, it must be true!

I'm only slightly kidding. I bet young kids are more inclined to believe propaganda if it's in music video format than if it's written out.

The Schiavo case has drawn attention only because her family is in profound disagreement about the care she should receive. If futile care theory takes hold, we may see fewer such cases, if only because the unilateral refusal of treatment will quietly take place without anyone speaking up for the patient.

The sad truth is, many practitioners of bioethics, medicine, and law no longer believe that people like Terri Schiavo are fully human. As a consequence, these patients are being systematically stripped of their fundamental right to life and, perhaps worse, are increasingly looked upon as mere natural resources whose bodies can be plundered for the benefit of others. If it is true that a nation is judged by the way it treats its most vulnerable citizens, a lot is riding on the Schiavo case.

Memo to all: Put a shirt on before you sell your action figures.

I wanted to buy Legacy. I really did. I was looking forward to reading it.

But there have just been too many Yankee references for this Red Sox fan to willfully put money into a Yankee fan's pocket.

You see, we hate the Yankees. But even more than the Yankees, we hate the Yankee fans. Their attitude of smug self-superiority is among the most grating things on the face of the earth. Stressing the Yankee fandom of an author is a good way to kill book sales in Red Sox Nation...

Has come to the defense of the Crimson. Most emails are like this:

Thanks for the link to that laughable Harvard Crimson editorial. In addition to the "usual cliches" you point out, did you note the head-spinning twists of logic in the last two graphs? Specifically...

"States that harbor terrorists are not terrorists: if they were—or if the Bush administration followed that doctrine impeccably—the U.S. would have ousted the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat for allowing terrorists to remain active there." This is followed JUST ONE SENTENCE LATER with: "Everywhere around the world, but especially in that volatile region, foreign policy decisions must be made on a case by case basis."

Well, which is it, boys and girls? Are you calling for the U.S. to be "impeccably" consistent -- or to make decisions on a "case by case" basis? Is this what passes for clear thinking at Harvard?

(I won't even go into the harrumphing falsehood in the first sentence, since anyone who isn't handicapped by a Harvard educaiton can surely understand that states that harbor terrorists really ARE terrorists!)

Thanks for the link -- it's always amusing to see what self-important children can come up with.
[Name withheld]

From a reader:

I loved your Simpsons recall story idea. You missed a key aspect. The Mexican Bumble Bee must play the role of Cruz Bustamonte. "No es bueno."

One last thing. A couple of readers have called me to task for praising Limbaugh's statement admitting to his drug use. I do think it was very good statement. But, it really isn't the case that Limbaugh has come clean and admitted it in the purest sense. He only admitted it after he was caught. That's a distinction worth recognizing.

I guess my hopes of guest-hosting on his show are fading away.

I don't mind the editorialists at the Harvard Crimson voicing their views on foreign policy. But this is really unimpressive stuff. It drips with all of the usual cliches. I particularly like them referring to "Syrian senior officials" as if they were straight-shooters, honestly expressing their concerns about Syrian-Israeli relations.

I assume this idea has been floated by a gazillion bloggers already, but I haven’t seen it and I kept meaning to bring it up. Doesn’t Arnold Schwarzenegger’s victory all but assure that Rainier Wolfcastle will challenge Mayor Quimby in a recall election?

Two good emails:

Easterbrook (who I also like, though he despises my favorite football team) also makes this very silly point: “Scream was the favorite movie of the Columbine killers.”

Well, considering that it made an enormous amount of money, I would wager that it is also the favorite movie of a heckuva lot of other folks who were teenagers in the 90s. But doesn’t that mean we should have a lot more Columbines? And if anything, Scream’s gore (remember that final stab-fest?) was far more realistic than Tarantino’s samurai shtick, where blood spews like pressurized Kool-Aid from sword-severed limbs.

And Kill Bill is awesome. Go see it.

I think the point he was trying to make in the last paragraph was related to the point in an earlier paragraph -- that gratuitous killing of innocents American movies, which now circulate widely in the Third World, either inflames or affirms Islamic militants. I think his last paragraph is a suggestion that Jews, above others, should be sensitive to that, since they are the Number 1 target of choice for Islamists.

I'm not sure it's a valid point, but it appears to me that that was the reason for the inclusion of the language about Jewish producers. You're right, though. The first time you read through, it is jarring.

From a reader:

Jonah,
You missed the best part. At the "bottom" under sizes, it warns:

"This product is designed to fit juniors. It fits snug, sizes run small."

What more can be said about this family values package. "Hey Doc/Gov, check out my twin 9-yr old daughters in their official Dean '04 thongs!"

Blah

[Name withheld]

From a reader:

Jonah -

I agree with your point that US citizens are US citizens, and the can of whoop ass should be opened regardless of a murdered American's religious affiliation - but I don't think it is fair to attribute the increased US reaction to this latest bombing to what we do when non-Jewish Americans are killed in Israel. This was presumably a targeted attack, and that is the reason for the bigger reaction. If the US citizens killed in this latest bombing were Jewish, I suspect our reaction would be the same.

Best regards,

[Name withheld]

CBS via "60 Minutes II" is moving what they (and Drudge) seem to think is a big story about Greg Thielmann, a career State Department guy. Thielman says of Colin Powell's UN appearance “…I think my conclusion [about Powell’s speech] now is that it’s probably one of the low points in his long distinguished service to the nation,” says Thielmann. No doubt we'll be hearing what a brave whistle blower this guy is.

That's cool. Except his act is hardly new. A full year ago yesterday US News reported,

"In terms of the lives of America's sons and daughters, Saddam does not pop up to me as the greatest threat," says Greg Thielmann, who just retired from running the proliferation office at the State Department's intelligence bureau.

Last may Nicholas Kristoff wrote in the New York Times:

"The Al Qaeda connection and nuclear weapons issue were the only two ways that you could link Iraq to an imminent security threat to the U.S.," notes Greg Thielmann, who retired in September after 25 years in the State Department, the last four in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. "And the administration was grossly distorting the intelligence on both things."

And since then he's been popping up on PBS' Frontline and other spots on the "no war" circuit.

That's cool, I'm even sure he's sincere in what he's saying. But can we stop dusting off old anti-war bureaucrats who surely had their say and were overruled when it mattered? And can we stop treating them like they've got blockbuster revelations? I'm sure every war in American history had its skeptics within the government. But this guy is just repeating what he's been saying all along.

Dear Jonah, One could make a strong case that the three most intelligent presidents were (1) Madison, the genius behind "The Federalist", without doubt intellectually superior to the clever tinkerer Jefferson; (2) John Quincy Adams, a child prodigy and adult polymath; and (3) Hoover, who succeeded brilliantly at everything he tried in his pre-presidential career. All, of course, were failures as president. Best regards, Jim Christiansen

From a reader:

The beauty of the internet is that we now have access to one another's knowledge and experience in a way unprecedented, hitherto unforeseeable, in human history. Blegging is a gorgeous application of the power of this tool, second only to the way the internet advances the cause of democracy, defeating those who would isolate and enslave their people.

Kathryn: Steve Moore has taken only two positions recently that I've disagreed with--wanting to make Iraq pay for its own reconstruction, and now this recall proposal. Both are pretty consistent with Moore's record. He's always opposed most government spending, and he's got a populist streak. I don't think that his position on the recall is inconsistent with his support for term limits, either. Term limits obviously are "undemocratic" at one level, but from a different perspective can be seen as democracy-enhancing.

I don't even disagree with Moore's idea that all states should have recalls and referenda. They may not be the ideal set-up, but in case people haven't noticed our current system of government is pretty far away from the Federalist Papers. It's not clear to me that referenda, given that system, really carry us further away. My main concern about a recall is that it not be used too frequently. Having elections for House members every two years seems about right.

Calpundit doesn't like Rush Limbaugh and he doesn't like "blegging" (a word coined by John Derbyshire, btw, meaning to ask-- or beg -- blog readers for help ). Both are certainly defensible positions. I think the blegging around here can get pretty thick at times (and I can be a major culprit I know). But I think Calpundit's getting himself overly worked-up.

First of all, if there's a blogger out there who doesn't get information. tips, insights from readers, I'll bet you he's a terrible blogger. In fact, bloggers brag about the interactive and synergistic nature of the blogosphere all of the time. But for some reason, Calpundit seems to think that the interaction must be passive and unsolicited? Why? That seems pretty arbitrary. Perhaps he's just being opportunistic and going after conservatives for something that doesn't actually bother him in principle? Sounds pretty hacky to me.

As for my specific bleg, asking readers for tips on particularly egregious Rush-bashing, So what? Sure I do my own research. But I'm also a deadline columnist. Nexis searches turned up thousands of mentions of Limbaugh. I'd seen many good examples and had many others emailed to me unsolicited. But I wanted more so as to be thorough. Calpundit calls this hackdom and accuses me of not thinking it was true that Rush had been ganged-up on. That's B.S. If I had a researcher and asked him or her the same question it wouldn't indicate that I'm a hack, would it? Well, sometimes I rely on Corner readers for the same thing -- especially when I can't catch every TV radio show, let alone every columnist . But more often, I rely on them to tell me when I'm all wet or don't know what I'm talking about. There's no reason to assume that I rely on them to tell me what to write. And, frankly, I resent the charge of hackdom from Calpundit -- a generally intellectually honest guy. I think I deserve a bit more credit and I know our readers do.

Before I get 500 emails like this one, let me say I know Hoover and TR were smart. Of course, it's not clear that TR was all that conservative. He certainly thought he was smart enough to fix a lot of things. But, nevertheless, he was a hoss:

Mr. Goldberg,

On the point of "who is the smartest President" you mentioned the assumption
that he is probably a more liberal President. While the intellectual strength of men like Clinton and Carter is fairly certain, I think you leave out a few notable Republicans.

Herbert Hoover was perhaps the world's most noted engineer who coordinated
Far East mining concerns and created a supply chain management system to
feed Europe after WWI.

The case can be made that Teddy Roosevelt had the most active and wide-ranging intellectual capacity. Check out the range of books he wrote: http://www.theodoreroosevelt.org/research/biblioworks.htm. I know of know other President who was published so much, and most of his books have nothing to do with politics.

thanks,

Jason A. Greer

Rick, everyone -- What I'd like to know is, Who was the smartest president? I mean raw computing power, not wisest or most enlightened. I do think that many of the smartest presidents -- again, in the narrow doing-long-division-quickly sense -- were liberal. I assume that if all the Presidents took, say, the IQ test advertised on this site, that Wilson, Carter and Clinton would rank very high. Jefferson would too, but I leave it to others to answer whether he was a liberal.

I don't think this is necessarily a point of pride for liberals either. Intellectuals tend to believe that their intellect can "solve" problems simply through brute reasoning. And, of course, that's folly. I've always thought that many of Clinton's problems -- and certainly Carter's -- stemmed from an arrogance of the intellect which held that simply because one is smart one must also be right. Which is nonsense, of course. Hey, maybe Rich addresses that point in Legacy?

The 1995 case involved a divorced husband seeking unsupervised visits with his daughter. He claimed his ex-wife was preventing their child from learning English. The 2003 case also involved visitation rights, only this time it was the father who wished to speak more Spanish to his daughter than his ex-wife preferred.

Divorce, not language choice in the home, is the real basis of both disputes. (Full disclosure: I am divorced, but my divorce was friendly and involved no children. Still nothing I'm proud of.)

Given our current legal regimen of easy divorce but strict child support laws, divorced (and divorcing) parents are all too often tempted to engage in scorched-earth tactics. The parent who wins child custody by any means, far or foul, wins big economically. And some divorced parents will argue about child visitation for years, if only to further "punish" their ex-spouse.

A letter to the editor from Ibn Warraq in the Wall Street Journal (my apologies for reprinting whole, but it can only be accessed from behind the fire wall):

Edward Said Insulted Courageous Authors

In an Oct. 7 Letter attacking my criticism of the late Edward Said ("Orientalism," editorial page, Sept. 29), Hutham S. Olayan assures us that "Were he still with us, he [Said] would shred Ibn Warraq's flimsy pronouncements in the full light of day." However, my 17,000-word critique of Edward Said's works has been accessible [here] for more than a year. Said never bothered to reply; perhaps his shredder was out of order. We are also told that Said tried "to enoble rather than belittle individuals and whole peoples." On the contrary, Said stooped to name-calling and personal insults when he met anyone who dared criticize or disagree with him; he called the courageous Iraqi Kanan Makiya, author of "Cruelty and Silence," a "native informer," and Fouad Ajami, author of "The Arab Predicament," a "Western stooge," hardly enobling descriptions. Here is Said's characterization of all Europeans: "It is therefore correct that every European, in what he could say about the Orient, was consequently a racist, an imperialist, and almost totally ethnocentric." ("Orientalism," p. 204). In other words, not only is every European a racist, but he must necessarily be so. "All Europeans," as Damon Runyon would say, is a whole lot of people.

Finally, my pseudonym "Ibn Warraq" does not mean "son of paper" -- it means "son of a stationer, book-seller, paper-seller."

Ibn Warraq
Paris

Too much email on the Bambino to deal with in a timely fashion. From a reader:

Mr. Goldberg, In your Corner post today headed "The Curse of the Bambino" you wrote: "This is a myth Bostonians tell their kids because it sounds more chilling than: 'Frazee sold 15 players over the course of a couple of seasons in order to make money. One of them was Babe Ruth.'" Bostonians do not tell their kids about the Curse of the Bambino. Boston fans are some of the most knowledeable baseball fans in the game. It is a relatively new myth created by Boston Globe Columnist Dan Shaughnessy in order to sell books. He liked the idea because it created a thread he could use to connect several different moments in Red Sox history. The problem is, it didn't help with the good moments, so he just left those out. For some reason the national media, as well as some casual fans in Boston, have latched onto this myth. If you ask any serious fan of the Boston Red Sox about why they haven't won a World Series since 1918, he'll tell you about mismanagment, poor coaching decisions and a slew of other baseball related mistakes. What he won't mention is a Curse. And if you do, he'll nod, smile and stop talking, because he'll know that you have no serious interest in baseball or in the team he loves. Jesse Abelman PS Bill Simmons of ESPN has a very good article on the history of the curse myth, and why he hates it at this URL:

A 28-year-old man accused of stealing a man's penis through sorcery has been beaten to death in the West African country of Gambia, police say.

Andrew -- I can understand that you agree with Pinkerton when he says Rush should flip-flop on drug legalization (obviously I disagree). But surely you don't think Pinkerton's right when he suggests that such a reversal would improve his overall standing with Americans or with his fans, do you?

"...there's a better path for Limbaugh. He can build upon his own personal experiences to strike a signature blow for liberty. He can get back on the air and use his mega-microphone to proclaim that personal freedom means that people should have a right to pursue happiness in their own way, so long as they don't hurt others. He can say that he escaped from the coils of justice -- in truth, injustice -- because he had money and influence, but that others, not so rich, are rarely so lucky.

"That's a message that would resonate, I believe, with most Americans. We all have demons that we try to deal with as best we can. But surely the current anti-drug regime of cops, snitches, and jails are extra demons that none of us needs. And if Limbaugh made a brave live-and-let-live argument, based on painful lessons learned, he'd be a hero to millions more."

Yes, it would have been better (for all sorts of reasons) and far more praiseworthy if Limbaugh had come to such a conclusion before his current problems arose. But having the guts to say that he had been wrong about drugs in the past would be no small achievement. It would also be true.

I am not qualified to weigh in on this. But some of you might find it interesting. From a reader in response to today's column:

Frazee did not sell Ruth to finance No No Nanette. http://www.thebaseballpage.com/features/frazee/frazee_award1998.htm

This is a myth Bostonians tell their kids because it sounds more chilling than: "Frazee sold 15 players over the course of a couple of seasons in order to make money. One of them was Babe Ruth"

This ¾ century+ lie is told in order to further the ridiculous notion that the woes of the Red Sox and the sale of Babe Ruth are somehow related. It's called sports, some teams win and some teams lose, over and over, for extended periods of time. 75 years from now will anyone care that the Cincinnati Bengals have never won a Super Bowl? Will we talk of "The Curse of the Wychino?" (The curse that plagues any team that allows Sam Wyche to be a head coach)-

It's a weird one.

Jim Pinkerton has written a long column which reveals that he has a quintessential baby boomer's knowledge of 60s and 70s drug rockers. He's also written a column which, eventually, mentions that he thinks Rush Limbaugh should now favor the legalization of drugs. Now I know I'm in a minority here on the issue (National Review officially favors the end of the Drug War), but I must say that of this is the best argument the legalization crowd can make post-Rush, the drug war will be here for a long time. First of all, Pinkerton claims that somehow people will admire Rush if he comes out for legalization -- only after he gets caught. That Pinkerton believes this will let Limbaugh off the hook on the "conservative hypocrite" charge strikes me as bizarre.

Even more bizarre is his use of famous rock star heroin addicts as examples of how drug use isn't necessarily that destructive. Of course, he conveniently selects the rock star addicts who happen to be still alive. His column would read pretty poorly if he'd cited Jimmy Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Brian Jones, Sid Vicious, Janis Joplin or that guy from Blind Melon.

Moreover -- and this is an important point -- most drug addicts aren't rich rock stars. For a guy who claims to be such a policy maven, maybe Pinkerton should have spent less time rummaging through his albums and spent more addressing the fact that addiction for poor people is a different public policy problem than it is for rich people. That's unfair -- but it's also true. Limbaugh made serious mistakes, but he didn't need to mug anybody to feed his habit.

I'm not saying that the legalization argument doesn't have answers -- or responses -- to this point. I'm just saying Pinkerton's column isn't the place to look for them.

If you read my syndicated column in the Cincinnati Enquirer please let them know. Please, no spam campaigns or anything like that. But honest support would be appreciated.

I do have to agree that taking off Columbus day is pretty weak. Columbus Day has fallen behind Groundhog Day and Flag Day in terms of popularity. What will be next? Taking the day off to celebrate Cosmo's 4th birthday? Most of America (and all of Bermuda) worked yesterday. We NEED the Corner to help pull us through! I was happy to see that despite the day off and lack of posts, you STILL got in the plug for NR Digital!

The Making of a Sheik 1173.

All the Saud's Men

The Last Mullah

"The presumption is that everyone at Guantanamo ... went through some kind of background check," Mr. Schumer said on Sept. 24. "But it is baffling that a chaplain who spent time in Syria, a country on the terrorist watch-list, and was trained by a group with ties to terrorism, would be allowed to serve as a cleric to a bunch of Taliban and al Qaeda."

Is there a holiday that you NROers don't take off? Just because there's a word in the box on the calendar page does make it an automatic vacation day. I'm here working and I still take the time to read NRO. Please post your holiday schedule so I know when to take the day off in the future.

Congressman Kucinich is one of the few vegans in Congress, a dietary decision he credits not only with improving his health, but in deepening his belief in the sacredness of all species.

I support Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose, and will select Supreme Court justices who affirm this Constitutional right.

We all have our experiences of the delusional, the ranting madman on the sidewalk, the elderly relative lost in impossible reminiscence, and we know that we have to be compassionate, but sometimes it’s not easy. Here’s Will Hutton in today’s Observer :

“The European Union is a success. Its 25 members are discussing proposals for a new, carefully crafted constitution that will make it at once more governable and more democratic - a pipedream even 18 months ago. Its new currency reaches new highs against the dollar. It is about to take over peacekeeping in Bosnia from Nato. It is a fast-developing, positive and progressive force.”

The poor, poor fellow.

Rather unkindly, on the same web page the Observer has a link to a site to help voters to find out who their MEP (member of the European ‘parliament’) actually is .

The horror inflicted on Israel by suicide bombers is the stuff of nightmares – and it’s not difficult to sympathize with the impulse that leads that country to launch a raid on Syria. But was the acquiescent US response the right one? The Economist may not have all the right answers, but it’s asking some difficult questions.

It would be foolish to deny that there are links (and, presumably, close ones) between Palestinian terror groups and their wider Islamic terrorism. In fighting terror, the interests of Israel and the US often overlap – but, the Bush administration needs to recognize, not always so. The Syrian regime may be deeply unattractive (to put it mildly) and chances of any accord between it and Israel remain slim, but it’s possible to see how, given the right incentives (carrot as well as stick) that Damascus could be persuaded to put some distance between itself and the type of Islamic terrorists (apparently now going through that country on the way to Iraq) with whom it has strong ideological differences and who are, incidentally, much more of a direct threat to the US than their counterparts on the West Bank, in Gaza or southern Lebanon.

Seen from the perspective of Jerusalem, Israel’s action in Syria may be logically defensible, but (and I hope I’m wrong about this) from the point of view of US interests it may well have been counterproductive. Publicly humiliated by the raid (including, critically, in front of his own people), Assad may now find it even more difficult to come to some sort of accommodation with this country, an accommodation that could be very useful indeed in our war against terror.

It may be time for a tough conversation between Messrs Bush and Sharon.

The Economist also has a review (requires subscription) of John Clare, an English “peasant poet” from early 19th Century Northamptonshire (Derb country, I think: the county that is, not the century). John Clare was an interesting man, but more beguiling still is the entertainingly sinister name of the Doctor who admitted him to Northampton General Lunatic Asylum, one Fenwick Skrimshire.

Poor Clare didn’t end well, due, explained the sensible Dr Skrimshire to “years of addiction to poetical prosing.”

Fenwick Skrimshire! Whatever happened to names like that?

OK, I’m decades late in getting round to this, but (courtesy of a diehard liberal friend in Seattle), I’ve spent the last couple of days reading Joan Didion. It’s been a delight although she is not, it has to be said, uh, exactly conservative, but then, on the other hand there’s this (from the rather cheekily named White Album):

”There is one of those peculiar social secrets at work [on people’s response to the – then new – Getty museum] here. On the whole “the critics” subscribe to the romantic view of man’s possibilities, but “the public” does not. In the end the Getty stands above the Pacific Coast Highway as one of those odd monuments, a palpable contract between the very rich and the people who distrust them least.”

There’s something about those words that make me think about Arnold’s election.

These folks (“A Smoke-Free New York Works") have started putting out annoying advertisements in New York City. Now of course these ads are satire, but in their implications they are also spectacularly dishonest – people opposed to the anti-tobacco jihad always said that the early ‘reasonable’ measures taken to curb smoking were nothing more than the thin edge of the wedge – and they were right. The satire, however, has nothing on 'statistics' like the claim that secondhand smoke “takes the lives of 53,000 Americans each year”.

Let’s think about that for a second. It’s usually said that around 400,000 Americans die each year from smoking related causes. Are we really expected to believe that nearly one in eight of them will killed by secondhand smoke?

And then there is this claim:

”Studies in cities across the country demonstrate no effect on bar and restaurant revenue as a result of smoking bans. “

Well, some studies doubtless have. Others would not agree. Take this, for example:

”For example, California's smoking ban is the wall trophy for tobacco haters, but the political rampage was not without victims. More than 1,000 bars, taverns and "mom & pop" restaurants closed their doors, with thousands of servers losing their jobs.

“In Canada, a citywide ban in Ottawa has nearly destroyed all downtown bars and restaurants as patrons flock to the suburbs. In British Columbia, a disastrous experiment with a ban lasted only 80 days, but in that brief period, 910 workers were laid off, with multimillion-dollar losses in the hospitality and tourism industries.”

The organization behind A Smoke-free New York Works is the American Legacy Foundation, a propaganda mill funded by tobacco ‘settlement’ money and, thus, of course, something that owes its existence at least partly to complaints about misleading advertising.

Well, that's at least one tobacco industry tradition that they are keeping alive.

A post the other day on the faux folksiness of today’s politicians (triggered by all those shirtsleeves on display during the Democrats' debate in Arizona) produced this entertaining rant from a reader in Indiana:

“You struck a nerve on my pet peeve of modern Presidential campaigning: the "regular guy" photo op, where the candidate drives a fork lift truck at the factory five feet for the cameras in shirtsleeves to prove he's just a regular Joe, despite the fact that he was National Merit Scholar, Ivy League graduate, Rhodes Scholar, Fulbright Scholar, blah blah blah seriatim. Although he reads Plutarch in the original for recreation, he feels obliged to quote Toby Keith on the campaign trail. And oh God, the "what is your favorite rock ballad" question…

” My absolute favorite piece of Presidential photo journalism is the one of John F. Kennedy at an Indian reservation in 1960. He holds a war bonnet by the fingertips, as if the headpiece is coated with powdered sarin. He is looking daggers of high dudgeon off camera, undoubtedly at the advance man who set up this photo op. He does not put on the bonnet…

”And don't get me started on the obligatory Barbara Walters/Katie Couric crying jag interview (with the camera lens fogged up to imply softness), where the candidate must relive a traumatic moment from the past so he can tear up on camera, to prove what I don't know: Sensitivity? Depth? Courage? Courage today would see a candidate at a fundraiser, at a table, with a cigar in one hand, a bottle of champagne at the elbow, and a plate of veal parmigiana in front. JFK would do it and tell detractors to go to hell…”

That’s very well said, although I do seem to recall a photo of Calvin Coolidge, wonderfully gloomy in an Indian war bonnet. And as for today’s politicians, there’s one who would, I reckon, be more than happy to be photographed with a cigar, champagne and a veal cutlet.

Californians voted for him a few days ago.