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This is your link. Posted 11:20 PM | [Link] TOOGOOD TOO BAD: [Rod Dreher] Live on CNN tonight, I caught the press conference, if you can call it that, given by Madelyne Toogood, the 26-year-old leading contender for the Joan Crawford Mother of the Year Award. This whole story stinks. The awful woman deserves to be slapped around by the legal system for the walloping she gave her four-year-old the other day, which was caught on video. That said, I think she was right tonight when she wailed that the child, who has been placed in foster care, shouldn't be made to suffer for her mother's sins. The little girl must be traumatized enough by what's already happened; couldn't the authorities have placed her with members of Toogood's extended family? How is the child's interest protected by having to live with total strangers for the time being? Furthermore, why the hell is this a national story? Posted 11:20 PM | [Link] THAT DIVINE MR. BLAIR [Andrew Stuttaford] In a post on Friday, I commented that Britain's Tories were not yet ready to classify Tony Blair as a god. Other Britons may not be so sure. One reader writes quoting a Reuters report: "Children Confuse Prime Minister With God" (Reuters, October 28, 1999), in which Tony Blair was described by a seven-year-old respondent as having "grey long hair, curly with a grey beard, a grey-like dressy thing and he does miracles." Posted 9:40 PM | [Link] NO NEED TO READ THIS BOOK [Andrew Stuttaford] Creepy Eric Hobsbawm, the English historian who spent a lifetime toadying to Communist orthodoxy until formally - if not intellectually - quitting the party in 1986, has just published his autobiography, which is reviewed in today's Financial Times. The reviewer, A.C. Grayling, is not slow to bring the reader's attention to the intellectual and moral sewer in which this 'historian' has chosen to spend his life. Hobsbawm tries to explain this by claiming that he "belonged to the generation tied by an almost unbreakable umbilical cord to the hope of the world revolution." It's not difficult to imagine the tremor of excitement with which that rotten man, still seemingly possessed by dreams of millennial slaughter, wrote down those words. Grayling, fortunately is more skeptical, noting that "the Communist experiment was (and where it continues, remains) a wretched disaster unforgivable on human rights, and no excuse will do." Quite right. The reviewer then goes on to note that, "as Hobsbawm's absorbing book...shows, the desire for peace and justice that motivates every sincere votary of the Left was his own too, and loyalty to that aspect of things deserves praise." Quite wrong. That wasn't loyalty, it was fanaticism. As for the notion that "every sincere votary of the Left" is motivated by a desire for "peace and justice" , that seems, shall we say, little more than delusional. Turning to Hobsbawm himself, a lifelong entanglement with the totalitarian Left would suggest that the only "peace and justice" he had to offer was the peace of the mass grave and the justice of the show trial. Posted 9:10 PM | [Link] WE KNEW IT ALL ALONG [Jonah Goldberg] Biggest fines ever for campaign finance violations. I particularly like the part which notes that the fines would be bigger except that too many of the corporations Clinton took money from were dummy fronts for Chinese contributions. Posted 3:33 PM | [Link] MORE MAIL [Jonah Goldberg] From a proud mom: "Appropos of nothing. My 13 year old son was working on a school project yesterday and asked -"Why did the French give us the Statue of Liberty as a gift, and I can't tell the teacher it's because we saved their butts in two World Wars." Posted 2:10 PM | [Link] OH NO! THIS GERMAN DOESN'T LIKE ME [Jonah Goldberg] From a German reader in regard to yesterday's column: Actually, dear Jonah, we Germans do not only dislike Americans like you, we even think you are neofascist shitheads. Posted 11:47 AM | [Link] AND THE NOMINATION GOES TO...: [Rod Dreher] K-Lo naturellement. America needs its own Iron Lady. Posted 12:03 AM | [Link]
RICH... [Jonah Goldberg] Don't you think someone from National Review should run for president? Posted 5:57 PM | [Link] AN E-MAIL: [Rich Lowry] “Dear Mr. Lowry: The heck with the Minnesota Twins; what about the Kansas City Royals? I don't believe I have ever read a comment by you about the Royals. This willful ignorance by a major, conservative website of a slighted, small-market baseball team is now leading directly to hate crimes such as the shocking incident that took place last night in Comiskey Park. This is unconscionable! I demand a full frontal apology, an immediate end to the hate that consumes large-market baseball fans and hence unfairly targets small-market baseball teams, and, of course, reparations. Lots of 'em. Just send me a check and I'll end my proposed boycott of the New York Yankees website. While you're at it, give Jonah a big fat raise.” Posted 5:09 PM | [Link] GERMANY Vs. AMERICA [Jonah Goldberg] Doesn't anybody find it funny that in Germany Iraq is the number one issue, soundly trumping the economy -- even though they'd play a very minor role if they did participate in any invasion. But in the United States, where American troops would lead the battle and America would pay the lion's share in blood and treasure, the Democrats think the war shouldn't trump the economy as a campaign issue? Posted 5:04 PM | [Link] SO MAYBE I POSTED THAT GFILE NOTICE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Posted 4:50 PM | [Link] BY THE WAY I DIDN'T POST THAT GFILE NOTICE [Jonah Goldberg] Posted 4:49 PM | [Link] TWO CHEERS FOR DOMES: [Rich Lowry] I know domes have no character, but what they lack in character, they make up in NOISE: recall the 1995 Yankee-Mariners series in the (blown to smithereens) Kingdom, and ah, the racket and roars of the 1991 Twins-Braves World Series that will be duplicated this year, at least in the play-offs. (Dear Twins fans: I’ve mentioned the Twins, OK? So now you can stop feeling so slighted!) Posted 4:21 PM | [Link] SPEAKING OF…: [Rich Lowry] …Rumsfeld, his condemnation of inspections has been really sweeping. I wish the administration would just say, “We have Iraq’s final offer on the table. It’s doesn’t offer unconditional access, and is built on a lie—that Iraq doesn’t have any chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons programs—so the era of endless cat-and-mouse games has now ended. The only way for Iraq to avert war is for Saddam to relinquish power.” Posted 4:20 PM | [Link] A WORRISOME SIGN: [Rich Lowry] It appears that the negotiations over the UN resolution are being left to the “perm reps” in New York, with the British doing the heavy-lifting. Potentially bad news. Nothing should be left to the career UN-niks. During the last Gulf War, James Baker personally negotiated the resolution with other foreign ministers. Something similar should happen here (I nominate Don Rumsfeld for the job). Posted 4:19 PM | [Link] A STATEMENT FROM HAGEL: [Ramesh Ponnuru] A few days ago, I ran an item about the complaints that President Bush was asking for an October vote on Iraq for political reasons. I called Sen. Hagel's office to get his take, since he's been a prominent Republican critic of the president, but didn't get an answer in time to post it. (I didn't give them tons of time to get back to me.) Here it is, for the record: “I don't think that's the case. This president, this Congress, every responsible elected official knows that Saddam Hussein is a threat. This president I think made a very effective presentation last week to the United Nations. He talked about the fact that this was not a U.S. vs. Iraq issue, this is a United Nations vs. Iraq issue. This brutal dictator has been in violations of United Nations Resolutions for ten years. We are going to have to deal with this, but I don't think President Bush is saying we are going to war tomorrow or even before an election.” Posted 3:54 PM | [Link] THE TRUMAN SHOW: [Rich Lowry] Bush has a chance to be the Harry Truman of our era, a president looked down upon by the smart set who, through his courage and gut instinct, forges a new international order. And this could be his NSC-68. Posted 3:52 PM | [Link] THE GFILE IS UP!!! THE GFILE IS UP!!!! Posted 3:36 PM | [Link] ATTACKING THE VICAR [Andrew Stuttaford] Britain's dispiriting Conservative party has, once again, shot itself in a foot by now riddled with bullets. This report from the London Guardian notes how a senior Tory has attacked a comedian's portrayal of Tony Blair as 'blasphemous'. The problem is not, apparently, Blair (even the supine Tories wouldn't go so far as to give him divine status) but the way in which the prime minister is being portrayed as the 'Vicar of St. Albion'. Now, I haven't seen the routine in question, but over the past few years the often hilarious 'Vicar' (whether on TV or as a weekly feature in the magazine Private Eye) has offered a more effective critique of Mr. Blair than anything that the Tories have ever managed to cobble together. In it, Blair is portrayed as a relentlessly sermonizing 'progressive' parson Apparently not. Posted 3:34 PM | [Link] AGAINST INSPECTIONS: [Ramesh Ponnuru] Brink Lindsey's take. Posted 3:13 PM | [Link] MOUSSAOUI'S HATE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] From the AP: PARIS - The older brother of Zacarias Moussaoui blamed "merchants of hate" — extremist Muslims — for his sibling's plight and appealed Friday for him to abandon the path that put him in jail, awaiting trial for his alleged role in the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Posted 3:05 PM | [Link] RE: STRAY NON-IRAQ THOUGHT I [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Wow, that was stray, Rich. Posted 2:59 PM | [Link] ARMEY IN RETREAT: [Ramesh Ponnuru] On "Hardball" last night, Dick Armey backed away from his earlier statements about Iraq. Matthews: "Mr. Armey, Mr. Leader, do you still take that position that we should not participate in an unprovoked attack on another country, i.e. Iraq?" Armey: "Let me say first of all Chris that the President has been so great, not only in addressing the world, but sharing information with those of us here in Congress. I have to tell you Chris, I am much more well-informed about Iraq and how insidious they are today than when that statement was made. . . . [M]y awareness level regarding how serious Saddam is as a threat not only to the United States but to other, and perhaps more immediately, other precious nations in his region, is much more well-informed than at the time I made that statement." Posted 2:55 PM | [Link] STRAY NON-IRAQ THOUGHT II: [Rich Lowry] My prediction: the A’s go to the World Series. It just feels that way… Posted 2:53 PM | [Link] STRAY NON-IRAQ THOUGHT I: [Rich Lowry] I was reminded yesterday that the best part of McDonald’s is breakfast. The pancakes are so good they taste like cup cakes. Posted 2:52 PM | [Link] STRAY IRAQ THOUGHT II: [Rich Lowry] Another thing: the problem is not that Saddam hasn’t complied with inspections. It goes much deeper than that: he basically can’t be trusted with control of a relatively advanced country with significant industrial capacity, because that capacity can be turned to nefarious weapons purposes almost at any time, whether he temporarily complies with inspections or not. So, either we raze Iraq’s industry to the ground (which is not an option), or we get rid of Saddam. I want to get rid of Saddam. Posted 2:51 PM | [Link] STRAY IRAQ THOUGHT I: [Rich Lowry] Here’s an absurd aspect of the current debate: some of the war skeptics are now urging massive, ginned-up militarized inspections for Iraq that would constitute a huge violation of Iraq sovereignty. If you put this violation of Iraqi sovereignty together with the other massive one—the no-fly zones over the north and the south—Iraq begins not to look like a sovereign country anymore. In fact, the only piece of Iraqi sovereignty we deem fit to respect is whatever piece of land Saddam Hussein has his feet on on any given moment. This seems very odd: we’re basically creating a quasi protectorate of Iraq, while leaving in power the dictator that’s creating the problem in the first place. Let’s get rid of Saddam, and then restore Iraq as a sovereign country, without no-fly zones and without inspections (or economic sanctions either). Posted 2:50 PM | [Link] WELCOME HYPOCRISY [Roger Clegg] In the Maryland governor’s race, there has been friction between Republican candidate Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., and the Baltimore-based NAACP. It began, predictably enough, with Ehrlich questioning the NAACP’s ability to be the impartial sponsor of a debate between him and Democrat nominee Kathleen Kennedy Townsend; NAACP president Kweisi Mfume demanded that Ehrlich apologize for calling into question his organization’s nonpartisanship. But then it got more interesting. A week ago, Ehrlich “propos[ed] a face-off about African-American issues,” according to the Baltimore Sun, and this week Mfume had this remarkable response: “The NAACP finds it offensive that anyone running for governor would propose having a debate solely on black issues. It’s an insult. We don’t act alike. We don’t look alike. We don’t think alike. You don’t see an attempt to put on a white issues debate.” Such a debate, said Mfume, “sets social progress back” because it assumes that whites and blacks care about different issues. Truer words were never spoken, and Mr. Mfume is to be applauded for speaking them. But does he believe them? Even if you believe, against all evidence, that the NAACP is nonpartisan—would Mr. Mfume have gotten so exercised if Ms. Townsend had proposed such a debate?—it can’t be denied that its whole approach assumes, albeit quite wrongly, that black interests are monolithic and that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People can and does advance the interests of all colored people. To give just one example, the NAACP issues an annual report card on “key civil rights votes” taken in Congress, yet includes votes that have nothing to do with civil rights (like supporting needle-exchange programs and opposing tax cuts) and on which there is, to put it charitably, no African American unanimity (like opposing federal funding for school vouchers). Still, hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue, and it will be fun to quote Mr. Mfume’s words back to him in the future. Posted 2:30 PM | [Link] MAMA FRED ROCKS: [Rod Dreher] What a kick to have my pal Frederica Mathewes-Green in NRO today. Maybe you don't know this, but she's a convert to Eastern Orthodoxy (she and her husband, Fr. Gregory Mathewes-Green, were previously Episcopalians), and wrote beautifully of her faith journey in Facing East, and its sequel, At The Corner of East and Now. She's a hardcore crunchy-conservative, so you just know I'm thrilled to have the company around here. Posted 1:54 PM | [Link] YASSER'S YURT: [Rod Dreher] The NYPost's Uri Dan is a close personal friend of Ariel Sharon's, so when he reports something like this, it's particularly credible. Dan says that the Israelis are not going to exile Arafat or shoot him, but rather bulldoze parts of his compound until he's left ruling over a little more than a couple of rooms and a john. Which is more than he deserves, certainly. Posted 1:46 PM | [Link] BUSH AS HITLER, U.S. VERSION: [Mike Potemra] Cartoonist Ward Sutton makes the comparison, in a cartoon that runs in the current Village Voice. He has Hitler saying to Bush: "My big moment came when a prominent building--an icon of my nation, really--was destroyed. I used the event as just cause for limiting civil rights. My popularity grew. Great minds were disgusted and horrified." Sutton is a bright guy; I must confess the Reichstag-fire analogy had never occurred to me. But there are two important points to be made about this: Number One, thank God we live in a country where dissent--no matter how offensive--is not punished. Just imagine what would happen to an Iraqi cartoonist who compared Saddam to Hitler (or, to be perhaps more precise, a cartoonist who did not compare Saddam to Hitler). And Number Two, the imputation of Hitlerian malevolence to a president who is fighting a just war, in the cause of world peace, against a proven mass murderer, . . . is simply absurd. And--while reasonable people can disagree on particular civil-liberties restrictions in the war on terrorism--Sutton's Reichstag analogy also fails. It was clear that Hitler wanted to destroy civil liberties, and used the Reichstag fire as a pretext. If Sutton has any evidence that President Bush wants to roll back civil liberties for the sake of doing so, I would love to see that evidence. In the meantime, let us rejoice in the fact that, even in the middle of a war against desperate enemies, we remain the freest country on the face of the earth. Posted 12:11 PM | [Link] THE GERMANS, AGAIN [Andrew Stuttaford] The German justice minister, Herta Daubler-Gmelin, is saying that Bush is using Iraq "to divert attention from domestic difficulties." This, she says, is "a popular method. Hitler has done it before." In an unrelated development, opinion polls are reporting that Herta's boss, German chancellor Schroeder, has pulled ahead of his conservative challenger. A few weeks ago, Schroeder, who has presided over a crumbling economy, looked set to lose. How has Schroeder managed to "divert attention from domestic difficulties"? By focussing on (his opposition to) war in Iraq. Posted 12:10 PM | [Link] WHAT WAS THAT YOU SAID ABOUT CANADA'S DREAMY HEALTH-CARE SYSTEM? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Long waits. Unhappy patients. Posted 9:49 AM | [Link] BREAKING NEWS! [Kathryn Jean Lopez] From the Associated Press: Charles Schumer admits that "senators regularly vote against each other's nominees for purely political reasons, instead of looking for the best nominee." Posted 9:46 AM | [Link] STATE DEPARTMENT STEREOTYPING [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Martin Kramer questions the State view of Muslims in the U.S. Posted 9:43 AM | [Link] OH, GOODNESS! [Kathryn Jean Lopez] The game/reality-TV shows get worse and worse. Posted 9:40 AM | [Link] KRAUTHAMMER IS EXCELLENT (AGAIN) [Jonah Goldberg] In today's Washington Post he articulates something that's been bugging me for a while: the Democrats are in favor of using military force in inverse proportion to the degree of national interest at stake. They generally opposed the Persian Gulf War but favored a bunch of "humanitarian" adventures in Haiti, Bosnia, Somalia etc. I don't have a huge axe to grind with supporting those efforts but it is deeply weird to oppose war in Iraq but favor war in Yugoslavia. Milosovic is certainly no worse, no more criminal in a purely humantarian sense than Saddam, but Saddam is also a threat to our national interest and so therefor Democrats are relucatant to go after him. As Krauthammer notes, the Democrats only agreed to do it after the UN said it was okay. If the question is one of fighting to defend the interests of the US, Democrats ask "important questions," but if it's about fighting to defend the honor of the UN, then, well then it's go-time. Posted 9:30 AM | [Link] I SHOULD HAVE MENTIONED.... [Jonah Goldberg] That James Gregory (Inspector Lugar) played General Ursus in "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" where he declared "The only good human is a dead human!" Posted 9:20 AM | [Link] "WHAT WOMEN WANT" [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Guys, hold the door, whatever the feminists say. Posted 9:19 AM | [Link] OPERATION: ISOLATE ARAFAT [Kathryn Jean Lopez] A proven stop-the-bombings strategy. Posted 9:17 AM | [Link] AL QAEDA WITH EYES ON WHITE HOUSE AT LARGE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Posted 5:36 AM | [Link] RE: RE: WHAT'S HAPPENING!! [Kathryn Jean Lopez] You always have to take the bait, dontcha? Posted 5:36 AM | [Link] PEGGY NOONAN SALUTES EUNICE STONE: [Rod Dreher] You can read today's entire Peggy Noonan column here. Here's an excerpt. Peggy's talking about the situation down South with the three Muslim medical students: "Later, a sister of one of the young men went on CNN to declare that this was the South, and you know how the South is: 'It has a reputation of racism.' I thought, as I watched this: It has a reputation for patriotism, too. It's why Southern men and women join the armed forces in such high numbers, and why, if the sister were ever attacked by a terrorist, they'd risk their lives to save her sorry, sanctimonious little ... Well, as I watched I got a little mad." Me too, sister, me too. Posted 1:32 AM | [Link] CAN YOUR BACKWARDS ISLAMOFASCIST COUNTRY DO THIS?: [Rod Dreher] Behold, you mortals, science has now given us a way to get messed up while being true-blue to Dr. Atkins. Posted 12:36 AM | [Link] This is your link. Posted 12:27 AM | [Link] RE: WHAT'S HAPPENING: [Rod Dreher] Oh, you had to bring up What's Happening!!, didn't you? You had to remind me, you minx, of how I've never quite recovered from the passing of Shirley Hemphill. And now I'll be up all night obsessing over the cross-cultural weirdness of that Very Special Episode when Rerun got caught bootlegging a Doobie Brothers concert. Has any black person ever voluntarily attended a Doobie Brothers performance? I mean, really. Posted 12:27 AM | [Link]
GO, BUSH! [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Fred Barnes: "WE HAVE JUST WITNESSED one of the swiftest and most effective exercises of presidential power ever." Posted 11:08 PM | [Link] DERB... [Kathryn Jean Lopez] ...I take all the blame. Your words provided ample images. Posted 11:08 PM | [Link] DISAPPOINTED [John Derbyshire] When submitting today's column, I challenged the webbies to come up with a suitable top-of-the-page graphic. I am sorry to see that their imaginations failed them. Posted 11:07 PM | [Link] WAS THERE AN HHS WHEN WE WERE KIDS? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] NIH NEWS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Thursday, September 19, 2002 NINE HOURS OF SLEEP KEY TO "BACK TO SCHOOL" SUCCESS "National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and Garfield launch "How I Get a Heap of Sleep" contest to help focus kids and parents on importance of adequate sleep" As children and parents prepare for the new school year, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) encourages them to put adequate nighttime sleep on the "back to school" list, along with pencils, binders and backpacks. According to the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research (NCSDR) at NHLBI, children need at least nine hours of sleep each night on a regular basis for their health, safety, and best performance in school and other activities. Inadequate sleep in children can lead to attention difficulties, easy frustration, and difficulty controlling emotions. "Adequate nighttime sleep is just as important as healthy eating and exercise for children's development," said NHLBI Director Claude Lenfant, M.D. "The start of the new school year is a great time to establish a good night's sleep as a lifelong habit." To ensure parents and their children get a strong start this school year, the NHLBI and NCSDR are launching a "How I Get a Heap of Sleep" contest with Paws, Inc., the creative studio behind Garfield the Cat and NHLBI's partner in the "Sleep Well. Do Well. Star Sleeper Campaign." The Campaign's goal is to educate children ages 7-11 – their parents, teachers, and health care providers -- about the importance of adequate nighttime sleep. Posted 10:56 PM | [Link] CHILL, DREHERSTER [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Um, Rod, my sense of humor died with What’s Happening!!. Oh, wait, what’s that about Buffalo? A war? Oh, yes, we’re at war. I had almost forgotten. Posted 9:42 PM | [Link] GREETINGS FROM BUFFALO: [Rod Dreher] Here, a young Muslim man demonstrates that, yes indeedy, Islam means peace. Posted 9:04 PM | [Link] MAYBE TOMORROW CAN BE SENSE OF HUMOR DAY ON NRO: [Rod Dreher] Um, Kathryn, I wasn't attacking Bailey & Maserati. It was a roundabout way of making fun of Potemra and myself for being such Seventies-era TV-heads. Believe me, nobody had to browbeat me to memorize anything about bad '70s TV. It's a lonely pastime, curating this wealth of useless knowledge. I'll look over at my wife and say, "This just in: Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead" -- and she thinks I'm speaking in tongues. You twentysomethings don't know what you missed... Posted 9:00 PM | [Link] TV DAY ON NRO [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Rod, You can be blocked from The Corner, you know. And, a word in defense of Bailey and Maserati: Maybe their parents didn't browbeat them into memorizing the scripts of myriad TV shows. Just because your parents did, don't take it out on them. Posted 7:52 PM | [Link] DER, DIE, DAS: [Rod Dreher] From the Cape Fear episode of The Simpsons, here's an excerpt for Sideshow Bob's testimony before the parole board, trying to win his freedom after having been imprisoned for attempting to murder Bart Simpson: Lawyer: Well, what about that tattoo on your chest? Doesn't it say, 'Die Bart die'? Posted 7:17 PM | [Link] LENNY AND KARL (FROM THE SIMPSONS) ON THE KRAUTS [Jonah Goldberg] Karl: Yeah, you know, those Germans aren't so bad. Len: Sure they made mistakes in the past, but aah, that's why pencils have erasers! -- Episode 8F09, ``Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk'' Posted 4:35 PM | [Link] A WONK?: [Ramesh Ponnuru] Is that all I am to you, Rod? I was about to post my own theory about the theme of sexual dominance in the theme song to "Charles in Charge." But now I'll wait until I have something snappy to say about medical savings accounts. Posted 2:29 PM | [Link] LILEKS ON IRAQI INSPECTIONS: [Rod Dreher] Lileks explains why the idea of resuming weapons inspections in Iraq doesn't give him much comfort. (Click the "skip right to here" link on Lileks' Bleat). Posted 2:24 PM | [Link] RAMESH! HELP!: [Rod Dreher] Fonzie ... LaWanda Page ... Quinn Martin ... Tawny Kitaen. Ramesh, please post something policy-wonkish, to raise the intellectual level of the Corner today. I am powerless before my addictions. Posted 1:56 PM | [Link] BEATEN BY TAWNY KITAEN ... [Mike Potemra] This is a story that will occasion mixed emotions in anyone who enjoyed Whitesnake videos in the 1980s. Posted 12:20 PM | [Link] GERMANS: NOTHING IF NOT CONSISTENT: [Rod Dreher] Amazing information in Safire today. He claims Rudolf Scharping, ex-German defense minister, addressed a group of Americans recently, and told them that he explained to a meeting of Chancellor Gerhard Schroder's cabinet why Germany is so opposed to American action against Iraq. Scharping reportedly said that it's because America only wants to go after Iraq to -- wait for it -- please the Jews. Posted 12:12 PM | [Link] ONE MORE THING: [Rod Dreher] I'm not a fan of Christian contemporary music, but if anything will change that, it's a radio show called Soul Power Hour on KVSS, a Catholic radio station in Omaha. You can tune in over the Internet on Saturday nights at 9 Central/10 Eastern. Someone sent me a copy of the Soul Power Hour broadcast the week of September 11, and it turned out to just an extraordinary mix of Christian and secular (e.g., Springsteen, Paul Simon) rock and pop, all thematically appropriate to the 9/11 commemoration. The show also featured skillfully edited excerpts from post-9/11 public commentary by President Bush, and clips from news broadcasts over the past year. It was a very moving but entirely non-schmaltzy program, quite professionally done, and even worthy of national attention, if you ask me. Until I listened to Soul Power Hour, I hadn't realized how good CCM music had become over the past decade. Anyway, don't you love how the Internet makes treasures of local radio available to a nationwide, even worldwide, audience? Posted 11:33 AM | [Link] HEY, THERE'S AN IDEA: [Rod Dreher] Maserati & Bailey -- would it be more of a Tenspeed & Brownshoe, or Bridget Loves Bernie? And do you know that my wife was on the playground the other day with Boy, and she met a kid named -- I kid you not -- Mannix. Think of the great boys' names you could cull from Quinn Martin Productions: Barnaby Jones, Frank Cannon, uh, uh... . OK, back to work. Posted 11:20 AM | [Link] RE: "HAPPY DAYS": [Rod Dreher] Oh, Jonah, we have the same problem at NRO World Headquarters. Yesterday, Potemra and I were happily recalling the greatness of LaWanda Page, and indeed of Sanford & Son -- and then we were asked by the whippersnappery Maserati and Bailey please to explain what is this Fred G. Sanford. Not only had they never seen the indisputably classic "Whopper-Chopper" episode of Sanford & Son, they had never seen Sanford & Son at all! So that essay I was planning on the bourgeois totalitarianism of Charles in Charge -- witness the theme song: "Charles in charge of our days and our nights/Charles in charge of our wrongs and our rights/I want Charles in charge of me" -- will be wasted on these callow youth, who were reading books when they ought to have been watching TV. Kids these days, I swear. Posted 11:15 AM | [Link] THE BEST INSPECTOR [Jonah Goldberg] Rod, the lady from Sanford and Son was real loss. But I am far more aggrieved by the demise of James Gregory, the actor who played Inspector Lugar on the inestimable Barney Miller. He also played the henpecked Senator in the Manchurian Candidate. Sanford and Son was good but it can't hold a candle to Barney Miller. Posted 11:12 AM | [Link] ANOTHER SUICIDE BOMBER IN ISRAEL Posted 9:28 AM | [Link] THE LIBERTARIAN DODGE [Jonah Goldberg] Now, I promised various parties that I would refrain from engaging in more libertoid-baiting in my column. But I would like to make one point. As I've written before, libertarians are brilliant at making their philosophy sound simple, straightforward and consistent. But once you criticize them they insist that you've misconstrued or misunderstood their philosophy. Last night, virtually every libertarian I talked to told me in one way or another that I was criticizing the wrong the libertarians. When they’re proselytizing, they quote Murray Rothbard, Von Mises, Reason magazine and even Harry Browne. But, then, if you invoke any of those to criticize libertarianism, they insist that Von Mises, Rothbard, Reason and Browne are unrepresentative of libertarianism. Worse, everybody claims that they have the official or "real" definition of libertarianism – and these definitions are often wildly at odds with each other. For an allegedly simple and straightforward philosophy, it’s awfully complicated and dodgey when on the defensive. Posted 8:51 AM | [Link] "ALL-AMERICAN" TERRORISTS Everything you don't give a damn about re: those Buffalo al Qeada guys. ("One was voted the friendliest in his high school class.") Posted 8:39 AM | [Link] BTW [Kathryn Jean Lopez] As several Corner-reader Rockefeller Center workers reported late yesterday, "Tumbling Woman" is gone from there. Posted 8:35 AM | [Link] CREATIVITY IN TERRORISM [Kathryn Jean Lopez] FBI warns that al Qaeda will hit differently next time. Posted 8:31 AM | [Link] I AM ALIVE [Jonah Goldberg] The debate went ok. It was a bit odd in the sense that neither of us are the sort of conservative/libertarian that we're angry at. The fun part was when the youths fed us booze in some wood-paneled Yalie parlor. Lots of screaming about the drug war. The scary part was when I discovered that pretty much all of the people I was arguing with were born at the tail end of the first Reagan Administration. Most of them never even saw Happy Days on when it was on network television. Posted 8:29 AM | [Link] ONE GUESS WHO SAID THIS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] "Even if Iraq managed to hide these weapons, what they are now hiding is harmless goo." Posted 8:25 AM | [Link] WHY DOES GEORGE TENET STILL HAVE HIS JOB? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Five CIA analysts were assigned to al Qaeda watch pre-9/11. As Bill Gertz chronicles in his book, Breakdown, back in February Tenet challenged Congress to examine the Agency's "record on terrorism." Tenet had no regrets, no doubt the central agency of U.S. intelligence did what they could. In fact, he even bragged that the CIA had prevented a Millennium attacks. Of course, that was an alert customs agent, not the CIA. Accountability, anyone? Posted 8:18 AM | [Link] ANTI-ISRAELI CHIC [Kathryn Jean Lopez] More bad catwalk politics. Posted 5:39 AM | [Link] ONE YEAR?! [Kathryn Jean Lopez] United Nations idiocy. Posted 5:36 AM | [Link] IS AH-NALD SELLING SIMON SHORT? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] The Terminator could still run for California governor this election, Mickey Kaus says. Posted 12:37 AM | [Link] PRISON HOUSE OF NATIONS [Andrew Stuttaford] Brussels as Roach Motel? According to this report in the Daily Telegraph, there are plans afoot to make sure that EU member states can check in, but not check out. Posted 12:19 AM | [Link] OUR BEST WISHES... [Kathryn Jean Lopez] ...to Ann Veneman, Ag secretary, who announced Wednesday that she has breast cancer. Posted 12:19 AM | [Link]
DON'T ANTI-SEMITES EVER GET TIRED OF THIS SAME NONSENSE? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] From an Arabic (state controlled) Saudi daily, Al-Jazirah; a columnist writes: Christian Europe showed enmity toward the Jews when it transpired that their rabbis craftily hunt anyone walking alone, [tempting] him to enter their house of worship. Then they take his blood to use for baked goods for their holidays, as part of their ritual. Often this deed was uncovered even in the Arab and Islamic countries that protected them – as Ahmad Abd Al-Ghafur wrote, pointing out the events geographically and historically, in his book The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, because anyone hunted by them disappears forever. When these incidents proliferated, the security apparatuses began to follow them, until they caught their rabbis committing the crime. Translation, as is often the case, is provided by the indispensible MEMRI. Posted 8:37 PM | [Link] UNBELIEVABLE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Oxygen is getting a decent review over at UPI. I really cannot be convinced this is possible. (My limited experience with the chick cable network, here.) Posted 8:28 PM | [Link] JONAH... [Kathryn Jean Lopez] ...swears to me that there will be a G-FILE if we manage a few dozen subscriptions tonight. Evidently he's racked up a bit of an expense bill and the suits are making him pay up. Some of you write me and say, "Sorry, K-Lo, I already subscribe." But don't you have friends, family, enemies? Anyone can--and dare I say, should--read NR. I am really turning into a 24/7 flack, dudes. That's what you get having a "24 hour" site feature. Posted 8:25 PM | [Link] GET 4 FREE ISSUES OF NATIONAL REVIEW! That's right: We'll send you 4 FREE issues of National Review at absolutely no risk to you. If you're impressed by National Review's superior writing style, analysis, and wit, we'll send you the next 12 issues — for a total of 16 in all! — for only $19.95. Click here for details. Posted 8:22 PM | [Link] HELP WANTED [Roger Clegg] A consortium of left-wing civil rights organizations—including the ACLU, NAACP, and People for the American Way—is advertising for a Campaign Director to lead their drive for guaranteeing voting rights to felons. They’re planning to ratchet up their efforts soon: “A Strategic Plan is under development. Once finalized and adopted later this year, the Plan will set out a multi-faceted, multi-year initiative to remove voting barriers and increase political participation among citizens with felony convictions in several key states.” One of the key requirements for the position? “A high degree of personal and professional integrity.” Posted 8:21 PM | [Link] THE ARAB NEWS HAS A U.N.-LIKE FAITH IN IRAQ [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Posted 8:21 PM | [Link] CRAB-EATING CONSERVATIVES: [Melissa Seckora] Join America's Future Foundation and a whole slew of crab-eating "classical liberals" (including me) at the 8th Annual AFF Crabfest, Saturday, September 26, from 2-8, if you're in the Washington, D.C., area. Posted 6:03 PM | [Link] THE EMPRESS OF AIR: [Ramesh Ponnuru] "[T]he Bushies have gotten a taste of empire building in Afghanistan and they like it. Karl Rove is building a Republican empire. Richard Perle, Dick Wolfowitz and Scooter Libby are building an ideological empire. Dick Cheney is building a unilateral empire. And Donald Rumsfeld is building a military empire." Boy, that Maureen Dowd can sure write! Anyone have any idea what it means? What's a "unilateral empire," for instance? Perhaps more to the point, what's a non-unilateral empire? What's the difference between what Cheney is trying to do and what Rumsfeld is? And who is this Dick Wolfowitz character--Paul's brother? Posted 4:29 PM | [Link] MME. HOULLEBECQ: [Rod Dreher] Don't miss the fascinating detail in that story to which Prof. Dr. Stuttaford linked: accused Muslim-hating novelist Houellebecq's mother is a convert to Islam. Posted 4:13 PM | [Link] HOORAY FOR EUNICE STONE: [Rod Dreher] Tammy Bruce thinks Eunice Stone is a good American, and that those three medical students are a bunch of whiners. Posted 3:39 PM | [Link] SERIOUSLY, FOLKS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] There will be a G-File tomorrow. (Well, assuming Rich Lowry is willing to vouch for him when the Amtrak goons come calling.) Posted 3:21 PM | [Link] FLYING MONKEYS: SIT DOWN [Kathryn Jean Lopez] The esteemed Jonah Goldberg has called from an Amtrak train. Expecting to send his column from there, he has just made the discovery that Amtrak, is, indeed, not worth its ticket price. There's no way for him to get his wisdom to NRO from the D.C.-Boston line. In fact, he could barely talk to me (first time we have talked on the phone all year, for the record. I thought he was a telemarketer and swore at him before he identified himself): Seems there are draconian laws on the government-funded railroad, forbidding talking in designated cars. The police were after him last I heard. Should make for an interesting G-File, someday. Posted 3:19 PM | [Link] THE REAL ISSUE [Andrew Stuttaford] Rod, Quite right. It will indeed be a great day for American democracy when the "did you ever use marijuana?" question ceases to be part of our political life. It will be an even better day when marijuana use ceases to be a crime. Posted 2:48 PM | [Link] SHOW TRIAL UPDATE [Andrew Stuttaford] There's a good report on the trial of French dissident Michel Houellebeck in today's London Times. He is not, clearly, the nicest of guys, but this prosecution makes it clear that France has lost whatever right it once had to call itself a fully free country. Posted 2:45 PM | [Link] IF LOVIN' LAWANDA PAGE IS WRONG, I DON'T WANNA BE RIGHT: [Rod Dreher] Kevin Orlin Johnson, a Dallas writer who pens brilliant books on Catholic topics, is a fellow fan of Sanford & Son's LaWanda "Aunt Esther" Page, who died the other day. Kevin says he was surprised to see NRO note her passing, but apparently delighted: "She and I are from the same general area, you know -- she from East St. Louis, I from a lily-white bedroom-community sort of suburb north and east of there. But she was quite the celebrity in the area, long, long before Sanford. She started out as an exotic dancer. Her gimmick was that she'd drench herself in lighter fluid and have the house lights dimmed." Now reader, that's an image to cherish! Though truly, if Fred G. Sanford saw Aunt Esther naked and on fire, he'd clutch his heart and say, "Elizabeth, I'm comin' to join ya, honey!" Posted 2:43 PM | [Link] CHUCK HAGEL (R., FRANCE)—CLUELESS: [Rich Lowry] I wrote in a post last week how Hagel seemed to have lots of questions, but no answers on Iraq. He told David Broder as much in his column today: "Hagel, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, has explored the issue more deeply than many of his colleagues, but he confesses he cannot answer the questions he is raising. 'It is going to be pretty difficult for anyone to stand in the way of a vote [on a resolution authorizing action against Iraq] if the president wants a vote," Hagel said, "but we need some answers.'" Posted 2:42 PM | [Link] KINDER, GENTLER INSPECTIONS: [Rich Lowry] It’s important to realize that the current inspections regime, UNMOVIC, is the product of Iraq pressure on the U.N. to soften inspections and is distinct and different from UNSCOM. The WSJournal has Hans Blix explaining the difference in a news article today: “Mr. Blix, Unmovic's head, has made clear that while the mandate for thorough inspection remains the same, he won't try the abrasive challenges that Iraqis associate with Unscom. 'Unmovic is to be in Iraq to perform correct, effective inspection. It is not to be there to harass, humiliate or provoke,' the Swede said in a speech last year.” Posted 2:42 PM | [Link] NOT AGAIN [Melissa Seckora] More D.C. protesters. Posted 2:42 PM | [Link] MOM@HOME, FROM THE LEFT [Sarah Maserati] It seems there's a counterpart to Rod's "crunchy conservatism" on the left: "natural mothering." This review from the Claremont Review of Books discusses the phenomenon of women whose left-wing politics lead them to embrace stay-at-home motherhood and "reject the feminist model of putting women on an equal footing with men." Now that's food for thought! Posted 1:59 PM | [Link] AL QAEDA GETS YOU REAL ANGRY [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Rod, think people have lost their anger? This'll change things. Posted 1:44 PM | [Link] RE: POT BROWNIES: [Rod Dreher] It will be a great day for American democracy when this stupid "Did you ever use marijuana?" question ceases to be a part of our political life. I've never been a pot smoker, but it's very hard to get through an American college without knowing them, and spending time around recreational pot users at parties. I'd wager that most people I knew back then who smoked pot at parties quit doing so when they graduated, got jobs and started families. Within reason, I frankly don't care if a political candidate has in his past used pot, or any other illegal drug. I care how he's living his life now. I care what his ideas are. I care about how effective he'll be in advocating and legislating according to his principles. It's just a hunch, but I imagine that it won't be too much longer before past recreational drug use -- again, within reason; I'm not talking about people who have done jail time for it -- simply isn't an issue with American voters. Posted 1:10 PM | [Link] WORTH NOTING: [Rod Dreher] I meant to post this the other day, but got distracted. It's too important to let pass, though. In the reports from western New York, about the bust of the alleged al-Qaeda sleeper cell, I read that the FBI was crediting tipsters from within the local Muslim community there for giving them information that led to the arrest of the suspects. We will probably never know the names of these patriotic American Muslims, but it is important to take notice of the fact that they exist. Posted 1:00 PM | [Link] FRENCH "JUSTICE" [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Maurice Papon, 92, Nazi collaborator, responsible for over 1,600 murders, is freed from a French prison because of poor health. According to this JPost piece, "Last year, he wrote in a letter to France's justice minister that he felt neither 'regrets or remorse' for his acts." His lawyer tells reports: "He's going to rest, rebuild his health and spend time with family and friends." Seems like he should be awarded only as much mercy as he could spare for the 1600 he sent to be slaughtered. Needless to say, they did not spend their last says resting and catching up with family and friends. Posted 1:00 PM | [Link] "ENEMIES LIST" 2002 [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Stanley, no surprise, but CAIR's complaining about Campus Watch, using it as their latest excuse to attack Daniel Pipes. Posted 12:26 PM | [Link] NEW SUICIDE BOMBING IN ISRAEL[Kathryn Jean Lopez] One dead, three injured. Posted 11:21 AM | [Link] GONE TO POT [Andrew Stuttaford] Jonah, the strangest thing about that pot story is that this supposedly 'libertarian' candidate is apparently opposed to marijuana legalization. He may not have ever inhaled, but party members must have been smoking something when they picked him as their candidate. Posted 11:11 AM | [Link] EYES ON CAMPUSES [Stanley Kurtz] An important new organization announces its founding today. Campus Watch will now monitor and publicize the activities of scholars of the Middle East on American campuses. Campus watch understands that academic Middle Eastern studies in the United States is deeply biased against American interests. In hopes of bringing greater balance and fairness to the academy’s treatment of the Middle East, Campus Watch will make available to the public the details of that bias. For Campus Watch’s statement of purpose, go here, but the whole site is worth a look. And if you yourself have noted egregious examples of anti-American or pro-Islamist bias on campus, you can alert Campus Watch by clicking here. Posted 10:49 AM | [Link] POT BROWNIES [Melissa Seckora] If you want a good visual, watch I Love You, Alice B. Toklas," a great Peter Sellers flick from 1968. Posted 10:49 AM | [Link] DON'T BREAK OUT THE CHAMPAGNE YET [Kathryn Jean Lopez] From an AP story today: "We've got to be together in the United States supporting the diplomatic and military, if necessary, to solve this problem," House Speaker Dick Gephardt said after the meeting. Posted 10:05 AM | [Link] THERE'S WHAT IN THESE BROWNIES? [Jonah Goldberg] From this morning's Chicago Sun-Times (via the Hotline's Earlybird): Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Cal Skinner voluntarily walked into the "Past Marijuana Use Confessional" on Tuesday, but said not only did he not inhale--he didn't even know he was using pot until it was over. Posted 9:56 AM | [Link] RE: THAT SCULPTURE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] A lot of readers are disagreeing with my prior mention of the "woman hitting pavement" sculpture. Here's one: At first blush, I agreed with your assessment of the statue on display at Rockefeller Center. It is a grotesque depiction of the horrible events of Sept. 11. While I do not take too much issue with the whole "accurate depiction" reasoning, it's a somewhat random sculpture in Rockefeller Center, a year after. I more disagree with the venue than the scultpure itself. I also see a difference, when dealing with current events, between photos of people jumping from the WTC and other horrors that were inflicted on Americans by murderous Islamists and creating a representation through scultpure, which I think we could wait a bit for. We have photos, let's use them--lest people think this was an event of history, rather than the first battle in our current, ongoing, very real war. Posted 9:56 AM | [Link] FYI.... [Jonah Goldberg] I've got to get on a 1:00 O'Clock train to New Haven to debate Mike Lynch at Yale tonight (more libertarians versus conservatives stuff). That means I'm going to try to get G-File done very quickly before I leave. Which in turn means I can't hang around with you layabouts in the Corner all morning. Posted 8:48 AM | [Link] THIS IS WHAT YOU DO WHEN YOU WANT TO GUARANTEE PRESS ATTENTION FOR YOURSELF [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Sculpt a woman jumping from the WTC, hitting the pavement below. Of course, the truly demented decision was whoever signed off on it being displayed at Rockefeller Center. Posted 8:17 AM | [Link] HIDDEN TREASURE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] If you're like me, you probably miss most of the good stuff Bloomberg News has to offer. Andrew Ferguson's weekly column there is a treasure not to be missed. You can read his current and past columns here. Posted 8:01 AM | [Link] ARAB NEWS GOES TO THE U.S. ACADEMY [Kathryn Jean Lopez] The Saudi daily intereviews two American professors. Needless to say, neither supports the U.S. war effort vis-a-vis Iraq. Posted 7:50 AM | [Link] PETA COULD LOSE ITS TAX-EXEMPT STATUS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Lesson: Best not to hang with terrorists. Posted 7:30 AM | [Link] ARE YOU READY TO PAY FOR MONICA LEWINSKY? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Clintons seeking reimbursement. Just when my Clinton hating starts to die down...the NY Post comes up with something. Posted 6:06 AM | [Link] AL QAEDA MORE DANGEROUS THAN EVER? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Bill Gertz reports. Posted 6:04 AM | [Link] I WONDER IF THIS IS AN INDICATION OF WHAT AMERICANS THINK OF THE U.N. [Kathryn Jean Lopez] President Bush's approval rating is back at 70 percent. Posted 6:02 AM | [Link]
PICKERING, OWENS, . . . ESTRADA? [Jonathan Adler] Things may be looking up for 10th Circuit Judicial nominee Michael McConnell. A phalanx of liberal and centrist academics from prominent schools have lined up in support of his confirmation. It appears D.C. Circuit nominee Miguel Estrada, on the other hand, may face some obstacles on the road to confirmation. Next Tuesday, Senator Schumer is holding a subcommittee hearing on "The DC Circuit: The Importance of Balance on the Nation's Second Highest Court." Chances are, this hearing is designed to lay the predicate for opposing Estrada and Bush's other D.C. Circuit nominee, John Roberts. Among the witnesses expected at Schumer's hearing is former D.C. Circuit Chief Judge Abner Mikva. During his tenure as Chief Judge, the D.C. Circuit was filled with partisan rancor; one judge even threatened to punch Mikva in the nose. Once Mikva left, however, tensions on the Court cooled considerably, despite few other changes in personnel. Since leaving the bench, Mikva has served in the Clinton White House and spent a fair amount of time criticizing his former colleagues. Whatever one thinks of Mikva's career as a jurist, he is an odd choice to speak about the need for "balance" on the bench. Posted 10:59 PM | [Link] SPEAKING OF THE HIGHER THINGS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] ...good piece from Claudia Winkler. Posted 10:54 PM | [Link] NRO READERS … Mike Potemra] … continue to astonish me with wonderful theological reflections. A United Methodist woman from Indiana reports these sentiments from a recent sermon in her congregation: “We need to forgive because a) God, through Jesus Christ, has forgiven us, and b) the bitterness of unforgiveness hurts us more than the offender. Refusing to forgive is like taking rat poison and waiting for the rat to die.” I will remember—and cherish—the line about the rat poison; it captures so well the way fear and hatred eat away at the soul. There is a better way—and I am unhappy to the precise extent to which I do not follow that better way... Posted 10:12 PM | [Link] FRENCH FARCE [Andrew Stuttaford] Rod, as I recall, Voltaire had some pretty rough stuff to say about Islam. Doubtless, he too, would have faced prosecution in today's post-Enlightenment France. Posted 7:06 PM | [Link] THE FINAL WORD ON L'AFFAIRE BOB GREENE: [Rod Dreher] Seems to me that the Chicago Tribune's John Kass makes the most sense in his sober, pitiless take on what has befallen his colleague. For Kass, the key to this sordid mess is the unwritten contract a newspaper has with its readers, and how his former colleague Greene risked that for a little intergenerational rogering. Writes Kass: "She was in high school, brought to this newspaper by her parents. They trusted and respected him. They were in awe of him. And he did what he did with their daughter. I don't care about sex lives of reporters or politicians. That's not my business or yours either, as long as they're grown-ups and as long as they don't use the institutions they represent to close the deal. Her parents trusted the Tribune enough to bring their daughter here to interview a top columnist. A bit later, the columnist and the girl were in bed together.Years later, when she contacted him, he called on the FBI to investigate her. Make a legal argument if you wish. But he's lucky that some family member didn't grab him and punch his teeth out." Posted 5:34 PM | [Link] ANOTHER VIEW OF RAINES AND THE TIMES [The Hulk] "Hulk smash!" Posted 5:13 PM | [Link] HOWELL RAINES, SECRET HAWK: [Ramesh Ponnuru] The conservative critics are all wrong, argues Nicholas Confessore in The American Prospect: "What's striking about all this criticism is its superstitious quality. None of Raines' critics actually knows whether he opposes invading Iraq, because none of them has bothered to find out. Rather, when the Times' reporting sets back some conservative crusade, it's simply assumed to be the work of Raines' invisible hand. And instead of, say, picking up the phone and calling reporters and editors at the Times, these would-be media critics prefer a kind of phrenology, stroking the contours and bumps of a particular article -- verb choices, story placement, who gets quoted and how -- to arrive at an ill-informed picture of the reporting process." I can't speak for all the critics. But I can't say I particularly care what goes on inside the New York Times. Whether Raines orders his editors and reporters to look for anti-war angles doesn't matter. Maybe he really is a hawk (although I think it's fair to say there's evidence to suspect otherwise, e.g. his comments on the Lehrer show earlier this month about the alleged parallels between the Iraq debate and the early stages of the Vietnam war) and his newspaper just somehow keeps coming out with coverage slanted the other way. It's the results--including the verb choices and story placement--that count; and it's the results that are worth criticizing. Confessore makes only a passing, and rather bizarre, attempt to justify the Times's treatment of Henry Kissinger in mid-August, when he was made out to be making a break with the Bush administration: " Why would Kissinger have written his op-ed at all if not to challenge the Bush administration?" Um, maybe he made it to support the administration, albeit with caveats? Posted 4:54 PM | [Link] WHERE HAVE ALL THE IRAQ EXPERTS GONE? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Good stuff from Martin Kramer. Posted 3:14 PM | [Link] AMAZING GRACE Mike Potemra] A reader in Denver, Colorado, offers this marvelous reflection on God's grace: "What is it about human nature that makes us want to have to earn our own 'grace'? (If grace was something to be earned, of course, it would not be grace.) More to the point, perhaps, what is it that makes us think others should have to earn their grace? Therein, I believe, lies the rub. In our self-delusion, like the Pharisee thanking God that he is not like the tax collector, we think we're not all that bad and that other people are pretty bad. Therefore, it ought to be fairly easy for me to earn my grace, and other people should have to earn it. Like the prodigal's older brother, this false pride prevents us from accepting the grace we need and from rejoicing in the grace offered to others." Posted 2:56 PM | [Link] IGBY GOES DOWN…: [Rich Lowry] …is terrific, a little Y Tu Mama Tambien, a little Rushmore, a little The Royal Tanenbaums—altogether a dark, delightful, deep, and occasionally hilarious comedy/drama. Posted 2:46 PM | [Link] HOUELLEBECQ: THE NEW RUSHDIE: [Rod Dreher] Following up on Derb's item earlier, here's another take on the French novelist on trial there for insulting Islam. I am astonished this case hasn't got more press. Everyone who believes in free speech and a free press should be raising the roof on writer Michel Houellebecq's behalf. Now, Houellebecq sounds like an unpleasant man, but surely one must be free to criticize religion, even in terms religious believers find insulting. If the Muslims succeed in using the law to silence Houellebecq, do not think they will stop there. One of their complaints is that a character in a Houellebecq (pronounced "WELL-beck") novel experiences a "quiver of glee" every time a Palestinian terrorist is killed. Hell, I dance the tarantella with roses in my hair whenever I hear that the Israeli Defense Forces have sent one of those kaffiyehed Nazis to that dee-luxe apartment in the sky. Is France to declare this salutary feeling a thoughtcrime? If so, how will it be possible for any French citizen to speak out against the growing Islamicisation of their country? Perhaps the French should look to see what is done to those who criticize Islam in Islamic countries if they want to see their own future if things keep going this way. As should we all. Posted 2:42 PM | [Link] RE: AHEM [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Rod, that "ahem" will come back to haunt you unless you start monitoring The Corner like a hawk. Posted 2:29 PM | [Link] DETAILS, DETAILS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Not 24 hours after Kofi Annan get Iraq's "unconditional" invite to weapons inspectors, the Arab League's ambassador to London admits that the invitation will be limited to military bases. Can't wait for the rest of the details. Posted 2:28 PM | [Link] AHEM!: [Rod Dreher] Ramesh, yours truly had insomnia over the weekend, and blogged a Corner link to that Times story, and to rant about the anti-conservative bias in the Times headline -- this before Andrew Sullivan got to it. NRO never sleeps! Posted 2:25 PM | [Link] MENTAL HEALTH AT THE TIMES: [Ramesh Ponnuru] The New York Times Magazine ran a story over the weekend on how Senator Pete Domenici, New Mexico Republican, has become a "champion for the mentally ill" after learning from his daughter's experience with schizophrenia. There have been a few complaints about the story. Mickey Kaus rightly challenged the description of Domenici, on the cover, as a "hard-line conservative." Andrew Sullivan questioned the premise that conservatives should be assumed not to take mental illness seriously. But the real problem with the Times story, it seems to me, is not what it assumes about Domenici or about conservatives; it's what it assumes being a "champion for the mentally ill" means. What it means is, of course, favoring various government interventions that would allegedly help them--notwithstanding the fact that opponents of these interventions often believe that these policies would actually hurt them. I suspect that this sort of labeling--which identifies the left-liberal side of an argument with "environmental activists" or "advocates for the homeless" or what have you--does more damage to conservatives than our being labeled as "hard liners." Posted 2:15 PM | [Link] FISH-EYED FOOLS REJOICE: [Rod Dreher] LaWanda Page, who played Aunt Esther on Sanford & Son, has died. I loved Sanford & Son. I like to think I'm in touch with my inner Grady. Posted 2:06 PM | [Link] INCIDENT ON ALLIGATOR ALLEY [John Derbyshire] Just one personal point I'd like to make about the incident of the three Muslim med students, if nobody minds. Eunice Stone, the lady who shopped them, is a nurse. My late mother was a nurse, all her working life. I grew up around nurses. I know from nurses. Nurses are very observant--they're trained to be. And nurses are not stupid. Posted 1:59 PM | [Link] THE DERB PLAN [John Derbyshire] Can't we inspect and attack? I mean, the UN inspectors demand to be taken to grid reference 018439, stat. Iraqis: "Ah, that's not possible just at the moment." So we carpet-bomb that grid reference within the hour. Heck, we know there are no inspectors there. Posted 1:40 PM | [Link] FRONTLINE'S POPE, CONT'D [Jonah Goldberg] Rod, fair enough on your point about the last segment. I though that discussion was great too. I guess my objection is one of proportionality. I do not object to discussing the Holocaust and its relationship to this Pope or the Church generally. I think it's indispensable. But, it seemed to me at least, that the producers reveled in showing pictures of the Holocaust at the expense of intelligent analysis. Indeed, they chickened out almost entirely when it came to Pope Pius XII. The narrator says Pius believed "denouncing the Germans would risk more Jewish lives." This may or may not be true, but it hardly does justice to the controversy surrounding the Church during that period. 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