BG: Taranto is a Prick!
BY JAMES TARANTO
Monday, April 11, 2005 2:46 p.m.

Trickery Dickory Dock
John Kerry, the haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam*, showed up yesterday at a Boston event, where he was "using crutches as he recovers from knee surgery," reports the Associated Press. He was also using emotional crutches as he recovers from last year's election:
"Last year too many people were denied their right to vote, too many who tried to vote were intimidated," the Massachusetts senator said at an event sponsored by the state League of Women Voters. . . .
Kerry also cited examples Sunday of how people were duped into not voting.
"Leaflets are handed out saying Democrats vote on Wednesday, Republicans vote on Tuesday. People are told in telephone calls that if you've ever had a parking ticket, you're not allowed to vote," he said.
Where did Kerry come up with that idea about leaflets saying "Democrats on Wednesday"? Probably from this story, which appeared a week before the election:
With the knowledge that the minority vote will be crucial in the upcoming presidential election, Republican Party officials are urging blacks, Hispanics, and other minorities to make their presence felt at the polls on Wednesday, Nov. 3. . . .
"You can't walk through a black neighborhood here in Miami without seeing our 'Don't Forget Big Wednesday!' message up on a billboard, tacked to a phone booth, or taped to a bus shelter," Monreal added. "The Republican Party has spared no expense in this endeavor."
Before Kerry embarrasses himself further, someone ought to take him aside and explain to him that the Onion is a satirical publication--as is ScrappleFace.com , which came up with the idea first.
* And who by the way promised 71 days ago to release his military records.
Facts Be Damned, I Want a Pulitzer!
Los Angeles Times media columnist Tim Rutten weighs in with a Saturday column bewailing the paucity of Pulitzer Prizes for Iraq reporting:
Three years into the occupation of Iraq by the United States and its allies, this most intensely covered of wars has produced just one Pulitzer Prize for print reporting, three for photojournalism and none for commentary or editorial writing.
"Three years into the occupation of Iraq"? Actually, Iraq has been formally free of occupation since last June, when the coalition turned over sovereignty to the interim government. One could argue that the presence of foreign troops in defense of a friendly regime amounts to a sort of de facto occupation, though by this definition Germany and Japan have been under U.S. occupation for almost 60 years.
In any case, Rutten's column ran on April 9, the second anniversary of Baghdad's fall, so it was not three years into the "occupation," however defined. You'd think someone complaining about the absence of award-winning reporting from Iraq would bother getting the most basic facts straight.
What a Difference a Year Makes
"The U.S. military campaign across Iraq this week infuriated Arabs in the region and brought strident calls for Muslim solidarity against the American-led occupation," reports the April 10 Washington Post:
Throughout the week, Arabic-language television networks have repeatedly aired images of U.S. tanks rumbling through Fallujah, a mosque damaged by a U.S. bomb and the corpses of Iraqis killed in the heaviest fighting in almost a year.
Arab commentators have compared the U.S. offensive to Israel's tactics against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, reinforcing long-standing Arab fears that the United States has no intention of leaving the region.
Leading Arab newspapers and clerics have praised Iraqi insurgents and the emerging anti-U.S. alliance among Sunni and Shiite Muslims as a turning point in the fight against the occupation.
Don't worry, it's not as bad as it sounds. That's because this article appeared in the Post on April 10, 2004, on the occasion of the first anniversary of the liberation of Baghdad. The second anniversary, by contrast, has even the Shiite "insurgents" expressing their anti-Americanism the way anti-American Americans do, by taking to the streets in protest. From yesterday's Post :
Tens of thousands of Shiite Muslims loyal to the militant cleric Moqtada Sadr on Saturday surged into the Baghdad square where the statue of Saddam Hussein was toppled two years ago, demanding a timetable for the U.S. military's withdrawal from Iraq, release of their leaders jailed by American forces and a speedy trial for Hussein. . . .
Sadr's followers had predicted a million people would turn out, but the actual number, while substantial, fell short. The crowd appeared to be overwhelmingly Shiite, despite a call by a leading Sunni cleric in Baghdad for his followers to join protests.
Today's New York Times , meanwhile, reports that "senior commanders and Pentagon officials say" that the U.S. may be able to begin withdrawing some troops from Iraq within a year as the enemy weakens:
Attacks on allied forces have dropped to 30 to 40 a day, down from an average daily peak of 140 in the prelude to the Jan. 30 elections but still roughly at the levels of a year ago. Only about half the attacks cause casualties or damage, but on average one or more Americans die in Iraq every day, often from roadside bombs. Thirty-six American troops died there in March, the lowest monthly death toll since 21 died in February 2004.
The Washington Times reports that top terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi "is on the run in an undeveloped western border region where he was nearly caught in recent weeks." So says Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler of the First Marine Expeditionary Force, who adds: "He's going from brush pile to brush pile just like a wet rat."
Unpatriotic Dissent Watch
On Friday we noted a refreshing quote from 46-year-old "antiwar activist" Connie Harris, who was participating in an anti-Iraq "die-in" at Ohio University: "I was born in America, and I can honestly say I'm not proud to be an American." (In that item, since corrected, we misstated the name of the student newspaper. It is the Post, not the Ohio Daily.)
A reader calls our attention to another quote from an openly unpatriotic American, Robert Jensen, a journalism professor at the University of Texas, who at a March 19 "antiwar rally" in Austin declared: "These challenges can be condensed into a simple choice: We can be Americans, or we can be human beings."
Jensen also said: "Our immediate message is clear: U.S. out of Iraq now. The U.S. occupation of Iraq cannot bring security and democracy in Iraq. It is an impediment to security and democracy." This was just under seven weeks after the Iraqi elections--elections Jensen didn't even mention in his speech. Perhaps the news is slow to reach Texas' capital.
Metaphor Alert
From a column by Robert L. Jamieson Jr. in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ("intelligent as a post!"):
The Republican Red Scare is on the loose. Again.
The swirling forces of smear and sneer are now looking to a skeletal graybeard to legitimize their cause: Slade Gorton.
The former U.S. senator from Washington has slithered back into the politics pool. Gorton says King County "has the worst elections administration of any county in the United States." . . .
One would have hoped the éminence grise of Evergreen State politics would be above shooting hyperbole from the hip to stir up the masses. . . .
Gorton's splash was about partisan puffery, not a fleshing of meaningful facts.
Pretty much the whole article is like this, but respect for intellectual property prevents our giving you more than a taste.
Too Much Tolerance Watch
"A sixth-grader and two of his friends were suspended after being accused of using phony dollar bills made on a home computer to buy food in the school cafeteria," the Associated Press reports from West Seattle, Wash.:
On Monday, a cafeteria worker at James Madison Middle School found a dollar bill that didn't look or feel like the real thing. . . .
Seattle Police spokesman Sean Whitcomb said the boy made 20 fake dollar bills on his aunt's computer, brought them to school and shared them with his friends.
The King County Prosecutors' Office is reviewing the case and deciding whether to file charges. School officials suspended the three boys for several days.
So if you bring a penknife to school, you're liable to get expelled. Commit a federal felony, though, and "several days" suspension will suffice.
The Clinton Legacy
Do you know what the "down low" is? We sure didn't, but the Collegian, the world-famous student newspaper at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, gave us the lowdown:
The "down low," a term that is now being used to describe men who are in relationships with women, while secretly having sex with other men is a myth perpetuated by the media said a speaker at the University of Massachusetts Thursday evening.
Keith Boykin, a former Clinton aide and author of the book, "Beyond the Down Low: Sex, Lies and Denial in Black America," was the keynote speaker for the Stonewall Center's Gaypril events.
According to the Collegian, Boykin said, in the paper's words, that "men having sex with other men even while they are in relationships with women has been happening for a long time." But it is a myth perpetuated by the media.
"Boykin also stated that being on the down low was 'not a Black thing,' " citing the case of Jim McGreevey, former governor of New Jersey. But it is a myth perpetuated by the media.
"Another misconception that Boykin says King's book perpetuated, is that the down low is 'a gay thing,' " the paper reports. "Men who cheat on their girlfriends/wives with other women are on the down low too." But ladies, if you're afraid your boyfriend/husband is fooling around, don't worry. It is a myth perpetuated by the media!
Commie Comestibles
Another triumph in collegiate journalism is an article called "The Real Communists Party III." Jim Cavan, writing in the New Hampshire, the student newspaper at the University of New Hampshire, opines that health food is a commie plot:
If, for instance, a group of four people is confronted with a decision between eating at McDonald's or dining at the local organic sandwich shop, chances are good that in the decision-making process, arguments as to why McDonald's is an evil, unsustainable drug-peddler will tend to (hopefully) carry the day. However, four individuals deciding individually where to eat will tend to rely on their own past behaviors and present opinions and conviction, and will act without much self-critical thought.
From that day forward, the four involved in the collective decision-making process, with any luck, given the same or similar choice in restaurants, will choose the organic sandwich shop.
So, it is with the "communist" revolution: Our ability to create and maintain a more just, sustainable society depends on our ability to step outside our individual interests and figure out, through communicative action, what is objectively right.
Where we went to college there supposedly was an Ayn Rand club that would hold pizza parties. Everyone was required to have his own individual-size pizza, because the normal practice of sharing a large pie was "collectivist."
Lady Fingers
"The woman who claims she bit into a human finger while eating chili at a Wendy's restaurant has a history of filing lawsuits--including a claim against another fast-food restaurant," reports the Associated Press. It seems 39-year-old Anna Ayala "has been involved in at least half a dozen legal battles in the San Francisco Bay area," including a sexual-harassment case and a suit against a car dealer:
Speaking through the front door of her Las Vegas home Friday, Ayala claimed police are out to get her and were unnecessarily rough as they executed a search warrant at her home on Wednesday.
"Lies, lies, lies, that's all I am hearing," she said. "They should look at Wendy's. What are they hiding? Why are we being victimized again and again?"
Ayala acknowledged, however, that her family received a settlement for their medical expenses about a year ago after reporting that her daughter, Genesis, got sick from food at an El Pollo Loco restaurant in Las Vegas. She declined to provide any further details.
Apparently her sons, Leviticus and Deuteronomy, ate somewhere else. Oh, and Homer nods: Our item Friday on this subject stated there was "no word" if the chili finger had been checked for prints; in fact the article to which we linked said it had, and no match turned up.
What Would Fungi Do Without Experts?
"Expert: Airport Shoe Removal Invites Fungus"--headline, Arizona Daily Star (Tucson), April 9
Why Doesn't HER Give It Back Then?
"Woman Says ME Took Her Brother's Brain"--headline, Associated Press, April 8
This Just In
"More than three-quarters of Germans want the successor of Pope John Paul II to be less 'rigid' about sexual morality and end the Church's ban on contraception, according to a poll published Saturday," Deutsche Welle reports:
About 78 percent of those surveyed said they were in favor of the Catholic Church ending its ban on contraception, and 76 percent wanted the next pope to authorize the use of condoms as part of the fight against the spread of AIDS, the poll said.
In addition, 77 percent of respondents said they wanted to see the ordination of women as priests and 74 percent think that imposing celibacy and chastity on priests is no longer expedient.
So, the Germans think the Roman Catholic Church is too conservative? Isn't DW about 487 years late on this story? Coming next: Germany's low-carb weight-loss craze, the Diet of Worms!
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Today on OpinionJournal:
Review & Outlook : Do Dems want a U.N. ambassador who represents America or Kofi Annan?
John Fund : More funny business in the Washington governor's race. Will there be a new election this year?
Arthur Chrenkoff : A roundup of the past two weeks' good news from Iraq.
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