The Week - News Briefs

National Review, Dec 3, 2001

-- Former president Clinton is advertising for interns. Well, President Bush did tell us to go on with our normal lives.

--The American Airlines flight that crashed after taking off from JFK in New York seems to have been the victim of mechanical failure, rather than terrorism. Small comfort to the passengers, almost all recent immigrants visiting relatives in the Dominican Republic, or to the Rockaway neighborhood where the plane crashed, home to so many casualties-firemen, policemen, Wall Street workers-of September 11. Pray for the newly afflicted, for the repeat sufferers, and for the tough battered city that is home to all of them.

-- Osama bin Laden claims he has nuclear weapons but-in a sudden burst of fondness for the civilized rules of warfare-would use them only to retaliate against an American chemical or biological attack. He's probably lying on both counts. But the U.S. should work urgently against the day when the caveman might be able to attain such weapons. While President Bush stares deeply into Vladimir Putin's soulful eyes, he should demand that he stop Russia's proliferation of missile and nuclear technology to Iran, Iraq, and other rogues, and secure Russia's "loose nukes." The administration, meanwhile, should help send Pakistan's nuclear weapons and material, like Dick Cheney, to an "undisclosed, secure location." As for bin Laden's boast, we should act as though it were true, and add it to the reasons to annihilate him and his allies as soon as possible.

-- In his interview with the journalist from the Pakistani newspaper Dawn (assuming it is authentic), Osama bin Laden used a lot of fancy footwork to almost take credit for his attack on the United States. "America and its allies are massacring us in Palestine, Chechnya, Kashmir, and Iraq. The Muslims have the right to attack America in reprisal. . . . We are carrying on the mission of our Prophet, Muhammed . . ." How will these semi-confessions affect the millions of Muslims in the Middle East, and elsewhere, who insist that Israel was responsible for the attacks? Not at all: They will continue to believe 1) that the Jews did it because they are evil, and 2) that Osama bin Laden did it because he is righteous. In the politics of fear and wish, the villains and the saviors are equally omnipotent; the childish spectator believes in both with equal fervor.

-- Republicans have no shortage of excuses for the defeat of their gubernatorial candidates in Virginia and New Jersey: In the former, Mark Earley's campaign was invisible for much of the summer; in the latter, the September attacks made it hard for Bret Schundler to get his message out; the president was too busy to help either one. Much of this is true. But the Republican parties of both states also doomed the campaigns. The Republican establishment in New Jersey stiffed Schundler because he's a conservative reformer. Republican legislators in Virginia kept the Republican governor from delivering on his popular campaign pledge to end the state's car tax, and failed to pass a budget. The post-election spin is, as always, that Republican candidates lose because they are too conservative. But in these cases, Republicans lost because their colleagues were not conservative, or competent, enough.

-- Michael Bloomberg, who won New York's mayoral race, was pushed into the end zone by the endorsement of hero-mayor Rudy Giuliani, and by the passivity of Al Sharpton. The Rev declined to campaign for Democrat Mark Green. In a contentious Democratic run-off, Green supporters pointed out that Fernando Ferrer would give Sharpton the keys to City Hall: reasonably enough, since Sharpton backed Ferrer with just such hopes in mind. But Green, after profiting from the tactic, had to disavow it in the general election, because the rules of New York City politicking hold that criticizing any black leader, for any reason, is racist (Giuliani broke those rules, but he was an anomaly). Bloomberg said one perfect thing in his victory speech: "New York is alive and well and open for business." He promised not to raise taxes, and one hopes his business instincts will hold him to his pledge and indeed move him to cut taxes. He will have to develop good instincts for dealing with race hustlers, though. He shook hands with a grinning Sharpton after his victory. Better count your fingers, Mr. Mayor.

-- In the home stretch of the race, Green ran ads accusing Bloomberg of having told a pregnant female employee to "kill it, kill it" (meaning, her unborn child). The alleged quote surfaced in a sexual-harassment suit brought by the employee, and Bloomberg vehemently denied saying it. Why? And why should Green be angry if he had? Both men are down- the-line supporters of abortion-late-term, partial-birth, without parental consent, whatever. Why should one citizen fear to offer another the consolations of the law? Are we living in a theocracy or something?

-- After nearly a year of work, several of the nation's top media organizations, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal, have finished their recount of the Florida results. And the winner is . . . George W. Bush! The media chad- counters found that Bush would have won even if the Supreme Court had not intervened to stop the examination of so-called undervotes that Al Gore so desperately wanted. That's nice, but it's old news: The Miami Herald and USA Today published a definitive undervote recount months ago. As it turns out, the only news in the new recount is the claim that Gore "might" have won if a statewide recount of both undervotes and overvotes had been conducted. Unfortunately for Democrats, that was something Gore did not want, that his lawyer specifically rejected in court, and for which there was no provision in Florida law. The media recount almost disappeared amid real news about war, terrorism, and plane crashes. But no doubt President Bush, busy as he is, appreciates the fact that the Times, the Post, and the Journal have said he may remain in the White House.