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The Wall Street Journal <http://s.wsj.net/img/wsj_print.gif> BEST OF THE WEB TODAY MAY 9, 2011 The bin Laden Book Club An ex-president gets an endorsement he probably doesn't want. * By JAMES TARANTO The <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/08/world/asia/08binladen.html?pagewanted=all> New York Times, reporting on the intelligence haul from Osama bin Laden's house, paints a picture of the mass murderer's politics: In October, . . . Bin Laden issued two audio statements urging help for victims of floods in Pakistan. "We are in need of a big change in the method of relief work because the number of victims is great due to climate changes in modern times," he said. In 2007, he complained that Democratic control of Congress had not ended the war in Iraq, a fact he attributed to the pernicious influence of "big corporations." In other messages he commented on the writings of Noam Chomsky, the leftist professor at M.I.T., and praised former President Jimmy Carter's book supporting Palestinian rights. So he was a global warmist who opposed the Iraq war, hated big corporations, was a fan of Noam Chomsky and thought Jimmy Carter was right on Israel. On the other hand, we understand he was more conservative on social issues. The feeling isn't mutual. Carter probably will not be including a posthumous bin Laden blurb on the next edition of his book. The <http://www.ajc.com/news/carter-calls-on-gsu-938738.html?cxtype=rss_news_128746> Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that in a commencement address at Georgia State University Saturday, the ex-president "made a brief reference to last week's killing of Osama bin Laden. It is 'imperative that America remains vigilant against threats from terrorists,' he said. 'I'm particularly proud as a Navy man of the Navy SEALs.' " As for Chomsky, the loony-left linguist weighs in at the website of a magazine called <http://www.guernicamag.com/blog/2652/noam_chomsky_my_reaction_to_os/> Guernica, denouncing the terrorist's killing as "planned assassination, multiply violating elementary norms of international law." He says bin Laden should have been accorded all the rights of criminal suspects and adds, "I stress 'suspects,' " by which he means he thinks al Qaeda carried out the 9/11 attacks "like . . . I won the Boston Marathon." He adds: "We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush's compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed bin Laden's." You can see why bin Laden thought he had found a kindred spirit. <http://bit.ly/m54THc> Generation Gap In response to our Friday item on young people celebrating Osama bin Laden's death, reader Dan Martin makes a good point: The Associated Press should investigate the demographic cohort that is fighting the wars. They might learn that soldiers tend to be the same age as college students. Perhaps the students are expressing gratitude to their family members, friends, neighbors, and acquaintances who have freely chosen to bear arms in their defense. If there were a draft, and the exuberance of the students was displayed in an antiwar or antidraft rally, perhaps the tone of the AP piece would be something other than condescending. Bret Popper reinforces the point: I had liberal friends posting on Facebook about the "idiot drunken college students" almost immediately. People our age cannot fathom how the younger generation perceives 9/11. Yet this is the generation that accepted the solemn duty of fighting terror, and have made the sacrifice of serving in the wars that followed. Most (maybe all) have had friends fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, some never coming back. So perhaps a little celebration from these young adults shouldn't be so unexpected. This leads us to a political thought. We've long been inclined to dismiss Barack Obama's strong 2008 performance among young voters as a one-off, an image-driven fad. We figured Obama wouldn't duplicate his success with this demographic in 2012 because the reality of his presidency is much less appealing than the fantasy of the campaign. But perhaps it will turn out that killing bin Laden was just the ticket for getting the youngsters interested again. <http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view/20110507duty_calls_at_home_partisan_routines_also_our_enemy/> 'We Need to Shut Up and Move On,' He Explained Now that Osama bin Laden is defunct, John Kerry, the haughty, French-looking former junior senator from Massachusetts, who by the way served in Vietnam, thinks it's time to raise taxes. Here he is in an op-ed from Saturday's Boston Herald: At home, we have big decisions on energy, education, infrastructure, research, deficits and entitlements that will decide whether America will keep leading the world. These decisions can bolster our economic recovery and create jobs of the future, but only if Congress gets serious about doing what's right for America. The government was brought to the brink of shutdown because the budget debate devolved into partisan finger pointing. Republicans began criticizing the president's budget--a detailed plan that reduces our deficit by $4 trillion in 12 years--before he had even announced it. We can do better, but only if politicians are willing to put aside the ideology and ask the wealthiest Americans and richest corporations to share in the responsibility, rather than just asking senior citizens to carry all the burden through radical changes to Medicare. Kerry then says: "I hope this week shook Washington out of predictable partisan routines," though his own op-ed shows that it did not. Kerry also appeared on CBS's "Face the Nation" yesterday, where he "said it is time to stop questioning the exact occurrences in Osama bin Laden's house before his death," <http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/08/shut-up-and-move-on-kerry-says/> CNN reports: "I thinks those SEALs did exactly what they should have done," the senator from Massachusetts and 2004 presidential nominee said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation." "And we need to shut up and move on about, you know, the realities of what happened in that building." We can't say we disagree with the substance of this particular Kerry utterance, but "We need to shut up and move on" is a loutish way of putting it. The list of awkward Kerry quotes has just grown one longer. <http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2011/05/gov_bobby_jindal_releases_his.html> Born in the USA "On June 10, 1971, Piyush Jindal was born at Woman's Hospital in Baton Rouge, a natural-born U.S. citizen, who like every other child born in America, could, constitutionally, grow up to be president," the Times-Picayune of New Orleans reports. Jindal, now known as "Bobby" after the youngest boy on "The Brady Bunch," is governor of Louisiana. The reason his birth just under 40 years ago is news is that he has publicly released a copy of his <http://media.nola.com/politics/photo/jindal-birth-certificatejpg-0f45528d3269cada.jpg> birth certificate. Apparently this is in response to an editorial in which the Baton Rouge Advocate objected to Jindal's having "said he would sign a bill filed in the Louisiana Legislature that would require candidates for federal office to provide a birth certificate in order to get on the ballot": "This is what is called in politics a 'dog whistle,'" The Advocate of Baton Rouge wrote in an editorial. "While there is no reason for the Louisiana Legislature to pass a birther bill, the pledge to sign the bill is a signal to the lunatic fringe that Jindal is sympathetic to them." The editorial concluded with the line: "Piyush Amrit Jindal is the last man in America who should give his blessing to a birther bill." But it turns out that Jindal has no middle name. Maybe if he asked nicely, President Obama would let him use his. Speaking of which, Obama really seems to have started a trend by releasing his birth certificate, doesn't he? <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/30/us/politics/30donate.html> The Art of Seduction "A group including former White House officials, union leaders and one of Hollywood's biggest producers have joined forces to start an outside effort to help President Obama and Congressional Democrats in 2012 by using the very sort of anonymous, unlimited donations from moneyed interests that the president has so deplored," the New York Times reported April 30: Co-founded by the former White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton and with seed money from the Service Employees International Union and the film producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, the group's entrée into the early 2012 contest all but ensures that the presidential race will be awash in cash from undisclosed corporate and labor sources with huge stakes in Washington policy making. At the heart of the effort, introduced Friday morning, are two groups: Priorities USA Action, which will engage directly in electioneering backed by donors who will have to be identified but can give unlimited amounts, and Priorities USA, which will advertise about related campaign issues using money from undisclosed sources. We'd meant to make note of this last week but got waylaid by the action in Abbottabad. But the Times weighed in yesterday with a hilarious <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/08/opinion/08sun1.html> editorial: Last year several pro-Republican advocacy groups degraded the Congressional elections by spending at least $138 million in secret donations on advertisements. The public did not know which lobbying interests gave money, or how much, or what they would demand in return. But the donations became a significant factor in the Republican gains in the House and the Senate. Now several prominent Democrats are abandoning the high ground and have decided to raise millions of their own secret dollars. The best part is the headline, "Democrats, Seduced by Secret Dollars." Now, this column does not share the Times's view that free speech belongs only to corporations that own newspapers. The Priorities USA effort is fine by us, although we're sure we disagree with them on most questions of substance. But note how the Times distinguishes between the two parties. Whereas Republicans "degrade" democracy by engaging in political speech in ways of which the Times disapproves, Democrats have been "seduced" into doing the same thing. Yes, the Times editors are naive enough to claim that the Dems were innocent until they were corrupted from without. Or maybe we should say they're cynical enough. <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/07/opinion/07blow.html> Metaphor Alert "Furthermore, the Supreme Court, by turning Lady Justice into a corporate concubine in the Citizens United ruling, has opened the floodgates of corporate spending on elections."--Charles Blow, New York Times, May 7 <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/05/opinion/05collins.html> View of the World From 8th Avenue "A lot of Americans go for years on end without ever setting foot in Indiana even though it is a fine state, full of lovely people and some first-class universities, not to mention the RV Hall of Fame, the world's largest ball of paint and the Dan Quayle museum."--Gail Collins, New York Times, May 5 Out on a Limb * "Al Qaeda Most Lethal Terror Group in the World, Study Finds"--headline, <http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/05/08/al-qaeda-lethal-terror-group-world-study-finds/> FoxNews.com, May 8 * "Obama's Prosperity Pledge Not Squaring With Reality"--headline, <http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/obamas-prosperity-pledge-not-squaring-with-reality/2011/04/28/AFEcjDBG_story.html> Washington Post, May 6 * "Obama: Bin Laden Likely Had Some Support in Pakistan"--headline, <http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/obama-bin-laden-likely-had-some-support-in-pakistan-1.360583> Reuters, May 8 Life Imitates the Onion * "Search for Wallet Self-Narrated"--headline, <http://www.theonion.com/articles/search-for-wallet-selfnarrated,1947/> Onion, April 26, 2008 * "Obama Still Searching for Significantly Lower Jobless Rate"--headline, <http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2011/05/06/136051997/obama-still-searching-for-lower-jobless-rate> NPR.org, May 6, 2011 <http://bit.ly/iTmR8B> With DNC in Mind, City Bans Carrying Urine, Feces "The Precarious Life of a Lefty Reliever"--headline, The Wall Street Journal, May 7 <http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2011/may/06/garry-wills-navy-seals-presidents-crack-team/> So Much for the War on Drugs "The President's Crack Team"--headline, New York Review of Books website, May 6 <http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/dayton-news/medical-condition-may-have-caused-car-to-crash-into-building-1154207.html> Wasn't It Covered by ObamaCar? "Medical Condition May Have Caused Car to Crash Into Building"--headline, Dayton Daily News, May 6 <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/06/doomsday-cranks-descend-o_n_858713.html> Al Gore's Comeback Tour "Doomsday Cranks Descend on Washington, Ironies Abound"--headline, Puffington Host, May 6 <http://www.wten.com/Global/story.asp?S=14595268> The 'Do Ride' List Would Be a Lot Shorter "Schumer Calls for 'Do Not Ride' List for Amtrak"--headline, Associated Press, May 8 <http://www.thenation.com/blog/160476/wisconsin-style-occupation-planned-california> Can Cheese Production Save the Golden State's Economy? "Wisconsin-Style Occupation Planned in California"--headline, The Nation website, May 6 <http://washingtonexaminer.com/sports/teams/redskins/2011/05/beck-answer-starting-qb> We Hope This Isn't Why He's Leaving Fox News "Is Beck the Answer at Starting QB?"--headline, Washington Examiner, May 8 <http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20110507/SPT/305070022/Animal-Kingdom-wins-Kentucky-Derby?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Sports> We Thought the Fungi Had a Chance This Year "Animal Kingdom Wins Kentucky Derby"--headline, Enquirer (Cincinnati), May 8 <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/07/world/europe/07iht-spain07.html> No One Expects an Apology for the Spanish Inquisition "In Majorca, Atoning for the Sins of 1691"--headline, New York Times, May 7 <http://www.canada.com/news/decision-canada/Canadian%20cities%20wrestle%20with%20regulating%20massage%20parlours/4745394/story.html> Something Tells Us This Won't End Happily "Canadian Cities Wrestle With Regulating Massage Parlors"--headline, PostMedia News, May 7 <http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/features/green/2011/05/poachers_reportedly_steal_a_th.html> We Prefer Them Stewed "Scientists Say a Third or More of Sanctuary Oysters Poached"--headline, Baltimore Sun website, May 9 <http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/47088-macadam-cage-fighting-to-stay-in-business.html> It's Been Struggling Since It Opened Its Doors "MacAdam Cage Fighting to Stay in Business"--headline, Publishers Weekly, May 9 <http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20453-easily-distracted-people-may-have-too-much-brain.html> We're Pretty Smart, but We Don't Have That Prob--Oh, Look! A Squirrel! "Easily Distracted People May Have Too Much Brain"--headline, NewScientist.com, May 6 Questions Nobody Is Asking * "Why Are Jews Considered Rich?"--headline, <http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4059299,00.html> YNetNews.com (Israel), May 6 * "Is Olympia Snowe Feeling the Heat?"--headline, <http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/54548.html> Politico.com, May 9 * "Did The Rock Really Hear About bin Laden's Death From His Navy Seal Cousin?"--headline, <http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/05/06/how-the-rock-heard-about-bin-ladens-death-before-you-did/> Time.com, May 6 * "Will Women Ever Outnumber Men Among the Ultra-Rich?"--headline, <http://bit.ly/kZmD9C> WSJ.com, May 9 * "Palin: The GOP's LeBron James?"--headline, <http://www.frumforum.com/palin-the-gops-lebron-james> FrumForum.com, May 6 * "Is This Canada's Most Beautiful Kitchen?"--headline, <http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/home-and-garden/architecture/dave-leblanc/is-this-canadas-most-beautiful-kitchen/article2011025/> Globe and Mail (Toronto), May 6 Answers to Questions Nobody Is Asking * "Why the 1970s Were the Best Time to Be a Mom"--headline, <http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/parenting/mothers-day/why-the-1970s-were-the-best-time-to-be-a-mom/article2011532/> Globe and Mail (Toronto), May 6 * "Why We Mix Up 'Osama' and 'Obama': A Linguistic Reason"--headline, <http://www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/05/why-we-mix-up-osama-and-obama-a-linguistic-reason/238433/> TheAtlantic.com, May 6 * "Why I Will Not Support Jon Huntsman. Ever."--headline, <http://www.redstate.com/erick/2011/05/09/why-i-will-not-support-jon-huntsman/> RedState.com, May 9 <http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2011/may/6/dog-bites-terrorist/> Bites Terrorize Dog--Now That Would Be News "ROBBINS: Dog Bites Terrorist"--headline, Washington Times website, May 6 News of the Tautological * "Independent RI Gov. Turns to Public for Support"--headline, <http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110507/ap_on_el_ge/us_chafee_s_independence> Associated Press, May 7 * "Revolving Door Spins at Gap"--headline, <http://bit.ly/lYpTzA> The Wall Street Journal, May 6 * "AP IMPACT: China's Spying Seeks Secret US Info"--headline, <http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_18016162> Associated Press, May 7 News You Can Use * "Don't Bring a Cat to Kill a Terrorist"--headline, <http://ricochet.com/main-feed/Don-t-Bring-a-Cat-to-Kill-a-Terrorist> Ricochet.com, May 6 * "8 Simple, Everyday Ways to Get a Brain Bleed"--headline, <http://consumerist.com/2011/05/8-simple-everyday-ways-to-get-a-brain-bleed.html> Consumerist.com, May 6 Bottom Stories of the Day * "Julia Roberts Named Clean Cookstove Ambassador"--headline, <http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpps/entertainment/julia-roberts-named-clean-cookstove-ambassador-dpgonc-20110506-kh_13091085> NewsCore, May 6 * "Krugman Lies and Distorts History to Blame Recession and Budget Deficit on Bush"--headline, <http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2011/05/09/krugman-lies-and-distorts-history-blame-recession-and-budget-deficits> NewsBusters.org, May 9 <http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/05/06/men-really-think-urinals/> Sigmund Freud, Call Your Office "Men envy women's restrooms," reports psychiatrist Keith Ablow at FoxNews.com: That's right: For all the women out there who have stood in a long line outside the ladies' room and looked jealously over at the men's room--with no wait at all--you are about to learn something about men's "rest room envy." Again and again over the years, and not in small numbers, men have confided to me that they find urinals anxiety-provoking--even humiliating. That's right. Urinals. It seems to us there's an obvious problem of selection bias here. As Ablow acknowledges, "I'm not talking about every man." His sample is limited to men who confide their micturition misgivings to a psychiatrist. Anyway, maybe Ablow ought to refer these guys to a lawyer. They could file a civil-rights lawsuit claiming that it's illegal discrimination to impose urinals on the gents and not the ladies. Though if we were the judge, we'd dismiss such a case on the ground that the plaintiffs lack standing. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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