The Week

National Review, March 24, 2003

-- Michael Moore's Stupid White Men won Great Britain's Book of the Year prize, thus proving its point.

-- The arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in Pakistan was a blow to al-Qaeda. Mohammed, a high-level planner and coordinator, helped mastermind 9/11, the attack on the U.S.S. Cole, and the bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania; he was at work on some other grand scheme, intimations of which caused the government to raise the country's alert level in February. Mohammed's captors -- Pakistani intelligence, working with the FBI -- also seized a mass of documents, computers, cell phones, and audiotapes that will provide many another lead. Mohammed's arrest shows that, whatever Maureen Dowd or Howard Dean says, the United States is capable of waging silent war against terrorists and conventional war against rogue states at the same time. It also shows that the two wars are integrally related: Imagine Saddam Hussein's anthrax falling into the hands of such a beauty. Those of Mohammed's comrades whom he does not rat out will continue to mount terror operations; but their goal of regional or worldwide destabilization will fail, because they are ultimately as desperate as they are wicked. After we have extracted all the useful information from Mohammed that we can, he faces a long-delayed appointment with justice.

-- We are starting almost to feel sorry for Dick Gephardt. The congressman has been a reliable ally of the labor unions for decades. He is calling for a global minimum wage, which should be music to the union leaders' ears (if to no one else's). But the unions are hanging back because they think he cannot win. And one reason they think this is that the wider Left is shunning Gephardt in favor of antiwar candidates such as Howard Dean and even Dennis Kucinich. Supporting Bush on Iraq may turn out to have been a major political mistake for Gephardt. If his campaign fizzles, it will be evidence that opposition to the war is now the Left's ruling passion.

-- Joe Lieberman has a problem. He's a pretty sensible guy, for a Democrat, and he supports Bush on the war -- sort of. But, before red-hot Democratic audiences, he has to be a dope. So here's how he talks in front of the DNC: "By pulling out of the Kyoto global-warming treaty, arms-control treaties, and other international pacts, and by issuing an unnecessary and divisive policy of military preemption, George W. Bush has separated us from most of the rest of the world and weakened our alliances . . ." Oh? So Lieberman thinks that the United States should enter the Kyoto treaty? Let him, as president, deal with the economic wreckage. Does Lieberman really believe that Bush blundered in withdrawing from the ABM treaty, a straitjacket signed 30 years ago with a superpower that no longer exists? And does Lieberman now oppose a policy of preemption? He voted to give Bush the authority to confront Saddam Hussein. Does he truly believe that the U.S. should wait until Saddam strikes before removing him? Apparently, to campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination is to check your brain at the door.

-- "Why not let this process continue to work instead of waging a war preemptively outside the purview of the United Nations?" "We are wrecking coalitions, relationships, and alliances so we can get a two-week start on going to war alone?" "We are making progress with Saddam." "America must balance its determination with patience and not be seen as in a rush to war." The first and third comments -- made by Howard Dean -- are the kind of thing that is earning him a reputation as a spokesman for the Democratic Left. The second and fourth comments -- made by Sen. Chuck Hagel -- are the kind of thing that is earning him a reputation as a thoughtful Republican. As far as we can tell, the only real difference in their positions is this: Dean hopes that liberals will remember his record on Iraq in 2004; Hagel hopes that conservatives will forget his in 2008.

-- Would Carol Moseley Braun's campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination cut into his support, the Rev. Al Sharpton was asked. He waved the question away with a question of his own: Would Joe Lieberman's campaign cut into his Jewish support? This is the big difference between Sharpton and every recent man of the Left, black or white: charm. Rev. Al can both laugh and make others laugh, often at himself. The bigot and the idealist are equally foreign to him; the man is a performer. This quality has been bewitching New York City journalists for 15 years; it is the reason why he keeps moving on, despite poisonous utterances and the disasters that often ensue. There is always a new audience, even though he died at Freddie's Fashion Mart.

-- The weeks come and go, and still there's no end to the Democratic filibuster of the appeals-court nomination of Miguel Estrada. And with each passing day, Democrats reveal the essential dishonesty of their opposition. For weeks they claimed they could not support Estrada because he had not answered questions about his legal views. Then the White House gave them an offer: Send in written questions about anything you want, and Estrada will answer them within a couple of days. And what happened then? Not a single Democratic senator -- even those who had complained most loudly about unanswered questions -- bothered to ask Estrada a single question. Excuse our cynicism, but might that suggest Democrats have all along been involved in a crass political ploy? Republicans have been right to stand up to the filibuster, and should keep fighting. Even if the nomination ultimately fails, the GOP will likely win in the long run if Republicans can, as they did in 2002, make Democrats pay a political price for their obstructionism.