The Week - September 11, 2001 terrorist attack death toll approaches 3,245 - this and other items are discussed

National Review, Dec 17, 2001

-- Colin Powell goes to war-against his domestic critics. In "The World According to Powell," by Bill Keller, in The New York Times Magazine, he and his friends defend everything he has done and not done. Psst, Mr. Secretary-do you know what Saddam Hussein has been saying about you?

-- New York City officials have been revising their estimates of how many thousands died in and around the World Trade Center on September 11; counting has been slow because the murderers left few bodies. The total death toll, including those killed at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania, now looks as though it could reach 3,245. To put that in perspective: It is more than all the deaths at Pearl Harbor; more than all the deaths at Saratoga, or the Battle of New Orleans; more than all who perished in the New York draft riots, or the Chicago Fire, or the San Francisco earthquake, or on the Titanic. Because of the courage of the rescue workers, the gallantry of the passengers of Flight 93, and the strength of the Promethean trade towers, the toll was not higher. Because of our just anger, the toll of our enemies will be much higher.

-- A group of six Republican and Democratic senators-plus Jim Jeffords, who for inscrutable purposes of his own continues to pretend he is not a Democrat-unveiled an economic-stimulus compromise. Some compromise: Their bill contains almost nothing that any supply-sider would consider helpful to the economy. It wouldn't cut capital-gains tax rates, repeal the alternative minimum tax, or bring the top income-tax rate down. It is a mishmash of tax credits, rebates, "targeted" (i.e., discriminatory) and temporary business tax cuts, and new spending. Few provisions would improve incentives to work, save, and invest, and some would weaken them. It serves neither the country's economic needs nor the president's political goals. In what has become a pattern for him, Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill nevertheless endorsed the bill as the basis for negotiation. But if this is what the final stimulus package will look like, the economy would be better off without it.

-- James Carville, Stanley Greenberg, and Bob Shrum aren't afraid of President Bush. In a recent memo, the Democratic strategists explain that the 2002 congressional elections will turn on domestic issues; Republican leadership on security questions will not matter as long as Democrats are viewed as patriotic. Besides, "voter doubts [about Bush] are close to the surface." They argue that the war is making Americans community-minded and thus friendly to big government; at the same time, it is making social liberalism look good in contrast with the Taliban. The obvious implication for the Republicans is that they should continue to press a domestic agenda while making the case for social conservatism. They might also pay attention to a cautionary note that the Democratic strategists sound. They think that Democrats can gain an advantage on the economy, but do not have it yet. Their polling finds voters to be skeptical of tax rebates, preferring policies that would promote investment. If Republican pols can't win an argument about that, they ought to quit their jobs.

-- A Worcester, Mass.-based company called Advanced Cell Technology claims to have cloned human embryos-the first time that has been done. Reports of this breakthrough have renewed congressional calls for a ban on cloning. But Congress has been divided on the scope of a ban: Many congressmen want to ban "reproductive cloning" while allowing "therapeutic cloning." In the latter case, a human embryo would be created but never implanted in any woman's womb; instead, it would be "harvested" for research and medical purposes and, in the process, destroyed. This kind of cloning is for some reason considered less troubling than reproductive cloning. But this is upside down. Therapeutic cloning involves creating a human embryo-which is to say, an embryonic human being-while planning to kill it. No medical breakthrough, however desired, can justify treating human life in this instrumental manner. Cloning should be banned comprehensively, and banned now, before what is naively called scientific "progress" can proceed further.

-- President Bush named the Department of Justice building after Robert F. Kennedy. What aspect of Kennedy's stint as attorney general did Bush wish to celebrate? Defending the civil rights of blacks in the South less zealously than the Eisenhower administration? Crusading against the mobsters who were the friends and patrons of his father and brother? Robert Kennedy made his mark, not as attorney general, but as a politician, and his record-as Michael Knox Beran has pointed out-is mixed, which is not unusual with people who are passionate and confused. The Kennedy family will certainly not thank Bush for his favor-they will view it as only one of the many little perks, along with drug habits and elective office, they are entitled to. A bad move.

-- The week of 9/11, Bush promised New York elected officials $20 billion. Now comes a flurry of press reports that New York won't collect. What is going on? Gov. George Pataki overreached, submitting a $54 billion claim larded with pork, much of it bound for upstate; he was properly slapped down. The $40 billion emergency appropriation voted by Congress, half of which was slated for disaster recovery in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, looks as if it will instead be eaten up (legitimately) by war expenses and (illegitimately) by expanding domestic programs. The White House assures anxious New Yorkers that the money will be there when they need it. Gentlemen, the need is now. This is not a city begging for help with its self-inflicted wounds; this is a city that took our largest hit of the war, and that must restore the infrastructure of its financial center. In a moment of tension and despair, President Bush gave noble assurances. He must cut through the politicking and the business-as-usual to back up his word.