Moammar Qaddafi: what got into him?

National Review, Jan 26, 2004 by Roman Genn

* Asked what his favorite book of the New Testament was, Howard Dean answered, Job, thus disproving the old saw that the devil can quote Scripture.

* Hot Howard Dean was asked by the Concord Monitor where Osama bin Laden should be tried, and whether he should be executed, and suddenly the peppery front-runner got cool and analytical. "I've resisted pronouncing a sentence before guilt is found," said Dean. "I still have this old-fashioned notion that even with people like Osama, who is very likely to be found guilty, we should do our best not to ... prejudge jury trials." What Dean should have said is that, for a range of offenses, from larceny to serial murder and treason, we have jury trials. For offenses of the magnitude of war, we wage war in return. In 2001 Congress authorized the executive to attack and topple the Afghan regime that Osama had colonized like a virus. Our soldiers, and the soldiers of our allies, hunt Osama's allies and minions to this day. When they find them, they don't serve warrants. Come on, Howard, connect with your emotions--pretend it's all about a bike path.

* Dean complained to DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe that his rivals for the nomination were criticizing him. "If we had strong leadership in the Democratic party, they would be calling those other candidates and saying, 'Hey, look, somebody's going to have to win here.'" One thinks back on recent primary battles--Bush vs. McCain, Gore vs. Bradley, Buchanan vs. everybody--and gapes. If Dean doesn't know that politics is a contact sport, perhaps he should stay cloistered in Vermont.

* The Democrats have picked up a particular trope: that if they were president, "somebody from Enron would be in jail right now." Kerry is saying it, Edwards is saying it. Do they know that they're running for president of the United States, not dictator of some police state, where they could pluck people from their homes and lock them away? Besides, someone from Enron is in jail: treasurer Ben Glisan Jr; and six others have pleaded guilty and are cooperating with the authorities. Oh, by the way, they also say (some variation of), "My first act as president will be to fire John Ashcroft." That's interesting to hear: because, so often, attorneys general are held over from one administration to another, especially when a different party takes power.

* Former Marine Corps general Anthony C. Zinni is a critic of the Iraq war. Saddam Hussein "was contained," Zinni told the Washington Post in a recent interview. "He had a deteriorated military. He wasn't a threat to the region." That is a view--a wrong one. But Zinni, who thinks it both right and obvious, must then explain why the Bush administration does not espouse it. "The more I saw, the more I thought that this was the product of the neocons who didn't understand the region ... Somehow, the neocons captured the president. They captured the vice president." But George W. Bush identified Iraq, along with Iran and North Korea, as a dangerous rogue state when he was campaigning for office in 1999 (then he thought their missile programs would be threats). So why does Zinni think Bush was "captured"? Could it be because Bush and Cheney are Chr******s, while neocons are J**s? Is Zinni d**b, or worse?

* Bob Kerrey--former (Democratic) senator from Nebraska, Vietnam veteran and amputee, and now president of New School University in New York (and member of the 9/11 Commission)--gave a fascinating interview to the New York Sun. Of the Iraq war, he said, "It breaks my heart whenever anybody dies, but we liberated 25 million people who were living under a dictator. It puts us on the side of democracy in the Arab world. Twenty years from now, we'll be hard-pressed to find anyone who says it wasn't worth the effort." He also opined that, instead of confiscating knives, airport security should be handing them out to people as they board planes--the better to thwart hijackers. Former Senator Kerrey is not the voice of the Democratic party, and not--very much not--to be confused with that current Senator Kerry.

* The Bush administration is putting out the word that its next budget will really be tough on domestic spending. We will believe it when the money's finished being spent. So far, the proposed cuts do not look promising. The administration's record on domestic spending--boosting it, and then fiddling with the numbers to take in gullible conservatives--has not inspired a great deal of trust. We will know Bush is serious about controlling spending and shrinking the federal government if he takes an axe to corporate welfare. The federal government spends billions guaranteeing corporations' overseas investments and helping them market their products abroad. We are all for American companies' success abroad, but it should be on their own dimes. If he chose to take on corporate welfare, Bush could get Congress to go along. "Spending cuts" that don't include corporate welfare, on the other hand, are likely to be boob bait for conservatives.