It does no harm to keep reminding ourselves of the nature of the Islamism that now seeks to destroy the West.

”The Anglo-Spanish Brains nursery and primary school looked an unlikely al-Qa'eda target yesterday, yet Spanish police said it had been marked for destruction by the terrorist cell responsible for the Madrid commuter train atrocity.”

Targeting a nursery school? Holy warriors indeed.

Every now and again there’s a story in the press that's a reminder that the heart of this country is still in the right place:

"PLATTSMOUTH, Neb. -- Some Americans this Fourth of July plan to get a bang out of blowing Osama bin Laden's head off. The bin Laden Noggin, a cone-shaped pyrotechnic device with a cartoon of bin Laden's face, has been a hot seller at some fireworks stores around the country. When lit, the bin Laden cone erupts in blood-red flames and screeches for 60 seconds. Two shots blow his head off..."

Of course, there’s always a catch, and in this case it comes in the form of one Lisa Myer, who was reported as having had the following to say (yes, yes, we all know what’s coming next..., wait for it, wait for it):

"What are we trying to teach our children?"

Ah, the children. Of course.

Well, Ms. Myer, it teaches them that Americans are inclined to wish for the death of those who would destroy them – and that they will celebrate those moments when they occur.

Got a problem with that, Lisa?

The status of Estonia’s Russian minority continues to cause problems within the now liberated Baltic state. Here the Independent takes a look at the case of an ethnic-Russian schoolteacher dismissed for his inadequate grasp of Estonian. Language rights in Estonia are a complex controversy, but these remarks from Tass should not be allowed to pass without further comment:

“The Russian news agency Itar-Tass said this was the first time that a Russian-speaking teacher had been sacked for having poor skills in the Estonian language, and poured scorn on the move. Russia's Foreign Ministry is also likely to wade in. Ethnic Russians make up almost a third of tiny Estonia's population of 1.5 million, and the agency said that Narva was an overwhelmingly Russian-speaking town. "The population of Estonia's third largest town [Narva] is 96 per cent Russian," it said. "It's extremely rare to hear Estonian spoken there."

Well, there’s a reason that Narva (a bleak, still heavily sovietized place when I visited in the mid-90s) is “96% Russian”. In 1944 Stalin’s forces flattened the place, pulverizing a city that had been one of the jewels of Baltic Europe. That wasn’t enough, of course. They then supervised the murder and deportation of a large number of the city’s surviving inhabitants, banned others from returning, repopulated the place with Russians, and transferred some of its surrounding territory to Russia, where it still remains today.

Perhaps that is something that Tass would like to mention next time they take up this story.

Jack Ryan, the GOP candidate hounded out off the Illinois senatorial race for, well, nothing, has been making the media rounds to discuss the disaster that befell his campaign. Regardless of the unfairness of his treatment at the hands of both the Chicago Tribune and the Republican Party, there’s another important point to be made. Interviewed on ABC by the always excellent John Stossel, Ryan had this to say about the degree of intrusion into his private life with which he has had to contend:

"I can't tell you how many calls I got in the last two weeks from people who said, 'I always thought about maybe going into public service. But not now, not, not after I've seen what's happened to you.' And so this cannot be the right standard now for entering into American politics…"

Ryan’s right to raise this. I suspect that this country loses the benefit of countless excellent candidates who don’t relish the prospect of a prurient press or priggish rivals rooting through their lives for some sexual peccadillo, or, heaven forbid, some slip into sin, which would somehow be used to discredit their campaign. In the absence of illegality or truly grotesque hypocrisy (a little hypocrisy, remember, is no bad thing: it helps the world go round), the sex lives of politicians should remain the concern of them and their families. It’s nobody else’s business, and, yes, the return of privacy might even help the rest of us out.

After all, who wants to be governed by an eternity of Jimmy Carters?

What a sense of justice and maybe even satisfcation it must give Saddam's Iraqi victims--especially for those with missing ears, hands and/or fingers--to see Saddam Hussein in the dock just like any other felon, to see him being tried by Iraqis not by a panel of Nuremberg judges. This is the first time we have seen a longtime dictator in a courtroom to face criminal charges. The history of other recent tyrants looks like:
Hitler= committed suicide.
Stalin==died in bed.
Mao Zedong=died in bed.
Mussolini=was lynched.
Pol Pot==died in bed.
Idi Amin= died in bed.
Slobodan Milosevic==alive and on trial.

Here and here.

Kerry's stance is remarkable, given that President Bush's own brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush strongly favored giving illegal aliens driver's licenses because "once they're here, what do you do? Do you say that they're lepers to society? That they don't exist? It seems that a policy that ignores them is a policy of denial."

The politics of this issue strongly favor Kerry's view, not Jeb Bush's. Former California Governor Gray Davis lost his office in part because of his endorsement of driver's licenses for illegal aliens.

Is Kerry planning to run to the right of President Bush on issues like language and illegal immigration? Perhaps, especially if Kerry chooses Iowa's Governor Tom Vilsack as his running mate.

From a reader (who's right about Lars):

...a local conservative radio talk show host, Lars Larson (larslarson.com). It was to a couple of thousand MM like minded people who were in his Portland audience. Entire audience heard Lars' recorded cell phone greeting give out his home phone number - he and his wife then started getting death threats at home. Nice crowd. Doesn't excuse what Dobson did but MM better not bitch....

[Name withheld]
Portland

P.S. Keep an eye out on Lars, could be another Rush.

From a reader:

Jonah,

And don't forget - Just recently some immigration group, I believe, showed up at Karl Roves house to protest. In some corners it was praised for its guerrilla tatics in protest politics.

James Dobson's Focus on the Family has apparently sent
out an email giving its members Michael Moore's home address. I think this is a terrible move, simply on principle. There are other addresses to send Moore mail. Why legitimate this sort of thing?

But, I should add, Michael Moore has zero-point-zero grounds to complain. After all, he did set up a webcam aimed at my parents' bedroom during the Clinton troubles and promoted it in on television, in an effort to show the whole world where my mom lived and invade her privacy. (My mom turned things around and sold ad space in the window to the National Inquirer) If I recall correctly I appeared on some show with him in which he proceeded to make an idiot out of himself on some nonsensical constitutional point. Also, if I recall correctly, any number of liberals and journalists thought Moore's stunt was hilarious. So let's not hear too much piousness about Dobson & Co. from that quarter either.

Still, I think it's just wrong to divulge home addresses for the puprose of harassing public figures.

WITH APOLOGIES TO BOB DYLAN ON HIS 60TH

Come gather round faculty wherever you teach
And condemn what the universities around you do preach
Or accept it that soon you'll have no one to reach
Is your integrity worth saving
Then you'd better start speaking or you'll end up alone
For the times, they are a changing


Come teachers and scholars who never say a word
Open your eyes, look around at the absurd
And speak out now, while others do spin
And there's no telling who they'll be blaming
Where the winners claim that they did lose
For the times, they are a changing


Come administrators, board members, heed the call
See beyond your doorway, "tear down the wall"
Our standards are hurt, is there quality at all
The culture war is a raging; power point will not save
Your buildings will fall
For the times, they are a changing


Come mothers and fathers all over this land
Begin to question what you can't understand
Your sons and your daughter need your hand
Your new role needs to be engaging
Please get out of the old world and take a stand
For the times they are a changing


The line, it is drawn, the curse, it is cast
Political correctness must not last
Affirmative action will soon be the past
The censors are rapidly fading
The first one now will actually be chosen
For the times, they are a changing

Harvey Shulman

When it comes to constitutional interpretation, Thomas is concerned almost exclusively with the original meaning of the text at the time of the founding (and sometimes the original intentions of the founders as well) or the original meaning of an amendment; Scalia is more willing to reshape this meaning in light of what our "tradition" which means how the Constitution came to be viewed from then until now. For Scalia, tradition after ratification plays a much more important role, in operation sometimes appearing to trump his concern for original meaning. I think this is because he is trying to find more definite content than he thinks is in the text, and root this content somehow in history rather than in what he views as judicial fiat. Thomas (like Lincoln) is more inclined to read the original meaning of the Constitution in light of the prior Declaration of Independence than subsequent tradition, perhaps because of his sensitivity about slavery.

More importantly, because of his commitment to "the rule of law as the law of rules" Scalia is quite willing to leave whole passages of the Constitution unenforced by courts (whatever their original meaning) because they do not seem "rule-like" enough to constrain the decisions of judges, e.g. the Ninth Amendment and Privileges or Immunities Clause of the 14th. Scalia views the proper function of judging as strict order taking from the political branches and, where the orders are not specific enough, he would have judges ignore them and leave the protection of these liberties to the political process. Thomas is much more willing to judicially apply the more open-ended provisions, especially the Privileges or Immunities Clause, and protect unenumerated liberties from the political process. Indeed, he has said they should be protected on a par with enumerated rights.

I should add that, while neither takes exactly the same approach to interpretation as I would, Justice Thomas comes far closer than Justice Scalia so I am sensitive to the differences between them. I do not think even Supreme Court Justices should ignore provisions of the text because they fail to meet their vision of the "rule of law" any more than passages should be ignored for failing to measure up to a Justice's vision of "justice."

I'm getting lots of email like this:

I feel exactly the same way about my experience with comics growing up. I count at THE reason I am such an avid reader today. My concern is that I may not want to pass that experience on to my son (or daughter, but who are we kidding?). Have you checked out the standard Marvel titles today? The are chock full of the worst kind of relativism, political correctness, and left-wing values. There was always a strain of this when I was reading, especially in titles like X-Men and The New Mutants, but it is worse than anything I've seen. Moreover, they are coming close to porn these days. Characters in bed together, sex being a regular topic, etc. I guess I will start collecting the classic editions.

From a reader:

Jonah,

Could it be as simple as our president's mind not being trapped into
thinking only in cliches, while Maureen Dowd's is?

My friend John Podhoretz opens his review of Spider-Man II thus:

Calling the new Spider-Man film the best comic-book movie ever made — and it is, without a doubt, the best comic-book movie ever made — is a little like calling a Chicken McNugget the best processed fast-food poultry product ever produced. It's praise, but how substantial can the praise really be, given the source?

Movies and television shows based on comic books constitute the worst single genre in the history of filmed entertainment (with the exception of porn). Okay, maybe movies and TV shows made from video games are worse, but they've only been around a little while. There have been horrendous comic-book movies since Superman first emerged as the avatar of this new form of pop-culture junk in 1938.

Me: Now at first, I was mad. Hulk mad. Me smash puny movie man! mad. But then I did recall that the Hulk movie sucked so bad it nearly turned itself inside out from the sucking. And I calmed down to merely Doc Samson mad.

Still, John's gaze is way too sweeping (like, say, Cyclops without his ruby quartz visor). To say that Spider-Man II is the cinematic equivalent to a Chicken McNugget (his slandering of the super-tastey McNugget will have to wait for now) and that comic-book generated movies are the worst genre in filmed entertainment -- which presumably includes TV -- makes it sound as if there are never good comic book-based movies or TV shows—which I think is unfair. I certainly agree that there have been many, many disappointments in the comic-to-screen genre. But A) the genre is improving rapidly as Hollywood realizes that comics aren’t kiddy-fare and B) if we are going to measure genres by their worst examples, then all genres stink. Also, everyone knows that the worst genre in filmed entertainment is the after-school-special (Helen Hunt’s leap from her high school window in “Angel Dusted” notwithstanding). But, still,on reflection I can see that John has a point.

But then he writes:

Comic books developed a bad reputation because of the violence they depicted, which was and is a silly reason to dislike them. Here's a better reason: They're a cultural embarrassment. They weren't when they were the province of powerless boys, but they have become a cultural embarrassment because the common culture has unthinkingly and stupidly accepted them as an art form. This was a natural outcome of the youth-worship that took over American culture in the 1960s, because if you're going to immature and illiterate energy in all its guises, why not go all the way into the most immature and illiterate of cultural forms?

Hulk-levels of madness returning….

Clearly Podhoretz has taken too many crazy pills. I know he’s heard this from plenty of others, but comic books can be, and often are, wondrous, amazing things. I don’t think they are high literature, but they are certainly far more elevating and cerebral than much of the sitcom prattle John and I both wasted so much time on in our respective childhoods. Any kid who turns off the TV to read a good comic book is doing himself a favor, in my view. In fact, I am eternally grateful for having been allowed to indulge my comic book habit as a child. In many respects it was comic books which made me a reader. Comics created my interests in all sorts of subjects. It strikes me as pointless to tell an “anti-comic-book snob” like John things he’s heard a million times before, especially when I’ve got other stuff to do (and John as a new dad probably does too). But I think he’s simply flat-out wrong (unless he’s only talking about readers of DC comics and then, well, I take it all back).

From the Boston Globe: "Addressing the suggestion that her fortune, estimated at as much as $1 billion, makes her out of touch with the voters who will decide whether to elect her husband, she said: 'It's so ludicrous that it makes you laugh.'"

I dunno, I'm no class warrior, but is there any other person in the world who thinks the idea that a billionaire heiress might be "out of touch" with voters is so crazy-kookey-wacky that they'd actually laugh? Seriously, is there a single person who'd even chuckle at the suggestion? One? Anybody?

Let freedom reign.Couldn't Karl Rove and his minions at least get that "ad-lib" right about freedom ringing?

Hey Kathrryn -- Could you or some other Cornerite of the Catholic persuasion explain how Church lawsuits work? I am very intrigued and want more details. What are the limits or boundaries for suits?

Mickey Kaus has more on Kerry's "affirmative amnesia strategy" (his words for my "shroud of forgetfulness" -- can you figure out which of us is the policy geek and which one is the Dungeons and Dragons geek?).

From Kaus:

Actually, the Kerry team appears to have gone beyond a mere passive hide-the-candidate strategy and taken it to the next level, pursuing a pro-active make-the-voters-forget-the-candidate strategy. In the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, "just 57 percent of the respondents say they know a lot or a fair amount about Kerry," reports NBC's Mark Murray. That's "a real drop from 68 percent in the NBC/Journal March survey." The voters actually know less about Kerry the more the campaign progresses. It's working! At this impressive rate of memory loss, most of the electorate won't even recognize Kerry's name on the Nov. 2 ballot. ... 11:38 P.M.

The best proof that all of the election year punditry has for the most part been a pregame show comes in the New York Times/CBS News poll which shows that 36 percent of those surveyed have no opinion on Kerry whatsoever. Most people aren't paying attention. Moreover, Kerry is cloaked in a shroud of forgetfulness. People hear him and then forget what he said almost immediately. As Howie Kurtz notes, this means the Bushies can still "identify" Kerry in the minds of the voters. So can, Kerry of course. But Kerry's been trying very hard at that for a long time and it hasn't worked too well.

At the suggestion of my dad, I've been skimming through No Greater Glory: The Four Immortal Chaplains and the Sinking of the Dorchester in World War II. (Full disclosure: It's written by his old friend Dan Kurzman). The book's about the famed four immortal chaplains (hence the title) who gave up their life vests when the Dorchester went down. It's a pretty gripping tale from WWII. As Rod noted a while back our military chaplaincy is a very special thing. I didn't realize how special.

My friends at Lucianne.com think I'm all wet in my syndicated column.

If the U.S. withdrew from Kyoto, what were all of those (28) State Department, EPA and other officials doing at the just-completed 16-25 June, "Subsidiary Body" negotiation in Bonn, in preparation for December's "COP-10" in Buenos Aires? In truth, the Bush Administration has withdrawn from neither the climate talks, nor the treaty. President Bush has instead merely continued the Clinton policy of refusing to send the signed Kyoto to the Senate for a vote. Formal rejection by the executive is achieved by renouncing the signature, as President Bush did in fact do regarding the International Criminal Court (Rome Statute). No such communication to the United Nations has issued regarding Kyoto, as is readily confirmed by the State Department's website. Until then, we're in.

Ferguson nails it.

From a reader:

Jonah,

At the local level (Township) I am a supporter of the Democrat Mayor. I have also attended local meetings of the Democrat Party to support there efforts. I know, don't think less of me.

Anyhow, I've been to the last four meetings, two a month, and while there were plenty of sessions fearing John Ashcroft, looking at close-up pictures of the President trying to discern the 666 tatoo on his scalp, and just recently, praising the eloquence and courage ( I am beginning to hate that word as much as I hate "For the Children") of Michael Moore, not one discussion has been on Senator Kerry. In fact, I am told that two people quit attending the meetings because they are Dean supporters.

For my part, I've fueled the fire by talking about how the administration has had UBL in custody for months and are waiting to announce his "capture" closer to the elections.

From a reader:

I have made it a habit to ask people that are out actively demonstrating against Bush or for Kerry one question - Name three things that would Kerry do better than Bush? The first two are almost always raise taxes on the rich and work with the United Nations. Most do not have a third item. So the way I understand a Kerry supporter is all they need to know about their candidate is that he will raise taxes and bend over for the French. I can not believe this will attract enough voters to win the election but I have been wrong before.

From a reader in LA:

It's true. A canvasser for Kerry came to my door last night. I opened the door and before I could even say hello, he said, 'So are you on board to boot Bush out of office?' I talked to him for a few minutes, and even though he had a large Kerry sticker on his shirt, he never once mentioned the man's name.

As someone who was at the game last night, it's interesting to notice that the article fails to mention that the Vice President didn't get booed until after most of the fans cheered for him. As a frequent attendee at Yankee games, being a season ticket holder, I can speak from experience when I say that it's far easier to project more sound booing than clapping and cheering, not sure what the acoustical reasons are for this. Needless to say, the majority of the crowd was cheering first.

In hindsight, it may have had something to do with all those Boston fans being there, I'm sure that more than a few are Kerry supporters.

From the LA Times piece:

"I started writing the column after an e-mail exchange with [National Review writer and editor] Jonah Goldberg before the 2000 Democratic Convention," said Dunphy, who spoke to the paper on the understanding that his identity would remain confidential. "He invited me to record my thoughts for posting on their website. He told me I should keep it to about 1,000 words, but when I was done I had over 3,000. I sent it all and told them to use what they liked. They split it in two and ran the whole thing over two days -- and Jack Dunphy was born."

Me: I must say this leaves out a lot of cloak and dagger. The meetings in dank Chinese run opium dens. The dead drops. The beatings I had to take from rogue cops because I wouldn't give up Dunphy's i.d. But we'll just save all that for my memoirs.

And if the paper does do that, Kerry should resist them, all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary. It would make a point and show some courage, something that, by abandoning Ryan, the GOP has absolutely failed to do.

For the past four years, some of the most interesting and artful writing about the LAPD and American policing in general has been done by an LAPD officer who employs the pseudonym "Jack Dunphy" in a regular column for the online edition of the National Review, the country's oldest and most influential journal of conservative opinion.

Former Police Chief Bernard C. Parks, now a city councilman and mayoral candidate, was a frequent target of Dunphy's criticism and reportedly was not a fan. At one point, a number of aides unsuccessfully sought the writer's identity. Current Police Chief Bratton, by contrast, likes what he's read of Dunphy's work.

"I wish he'd come forward and identify himself, so I could throw him into my press office," he said Tuesday. Bratton called Dunphy's work "extraordinarily thoughtful" and praised the "research, writing and perspective" displayed in the column on Miller's arrest.

"My sense is that Dunphy reflects in a more articulate and thoughtful way the sentiments of the average L.A. cop," said Bratton. "Our average officer is a person trying to do good in neighborhoods that, unfortunately, are among the most dangerous in America for cops. They see a lot of bloodshed, they feel a lot of grief. Then, something like this incident happens and the people in those neighborhoods seem to turn on them and their leaders -- people like me and Mayor Hahn, who are supposed to protect cops -- take a stand that puts them in a quandary.

"Dunphy captures this from the cop's side and articulates their feelings in a way the average cop can't," Bratton said.

Will this be the real reason the American press turns on the new Iraqi leader?

For the sacking of Constantinople. I leave it to others around here to opine as to whether this was a good move.

May have been a deserter:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 29 — The American marine who is being threatened by his kidnappers with beheading had deserted the military because he was emotionally traumatized, and was abducted by his captors while trying to make his way home to his native Lebanon, a Marine officer said Tuesday.

The officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he believed that Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun was betrayed by Iraqis he befriended on his base and ended up in the hands of Islamic extremists.

The officer said Corporal Hassoun, a 24-year-old Marine linguist who was born in Lebanon, was shaken up after he saw one of his sergeants blown apart by a mortar shell.

"It was very disturbing to him," the officer said. "He wanted to go home and quit the game, but since he was relatively early in his deployment, that was not going to happen anytime soon. So he talked to some folks on base he befriended, because they were all fellow Muslims, and they helped sneak him off. Once off, instead of helping him get home, they turned him over to the bad guys."

Just a small observation. Increasingly, readers refer to posts in the Corner as "articles," "pieces," and "stories." If I had to guess I would say this tendency is slightly more common among liberal readers, but I think it only seems that way because strangers or non-regulars seem to do it more than our core audience. And occasional visitors tend to be liberals in my experience.

Regardless, I think it's interesting though I'm not sure exactly why. I fear that it's a sign that blog-readers increasingly don't read whole articles so they call blog posts articles. Maybe not. But it's definitely becoming a lot more common. Last week, for example, a reader sent a snarky email about how we'd run something like 60 "anti-Clinton articles" in a few days. I wrote back to ask whether he meant posts in the Corner and he said "Yeah, I don't read the articles." (By the way most of those "anti-Clinton articles" were simply posted reader emails).

I don't know if this is all that troubling, but I don't think it's a good sign.

This is the first time I've gotten one of these from someone claiming to be an American:

Dear Sir,

I am Captain Kobe smith of the United States of
America combatant Squad, Assigned to carry out
operation in Iraq. During our course of carrying out
search for the Saddam and his aids, we observed some
consignments loaded in a hidden zone.

We were then curious to know the contents,
fortunately, it was United Staes Of America
Dollars,being kept by Saddam Children. As a matter of
fact, I cannot ascertain the amount in each of then.

Nevertheless, we had to report to our Command Head
Quater, as it is the rules in the United States Army.
But before then, I and some of my colleagues smuggled
some boxes out for our personal used. We did that
without the intention of our superior Officers,
knowningfully well that if the should know, we MUST be
charged for Conspiracy and Stealing.

Presently, we have shipped the boxes out of Iraq,
looking for a trusted person who will Assist us to
Claim it and Invest on our behalf. We do not care the
type of business you may invest in, all we care for is
making sure that at the end of our assignment in Iraq,
we shall get our money.

SHARING: We are ready to share 50% for us, 40% for you
and 10% for any expensive that may occur.

We ask that this Proposal must be kept secret due to
its nature.

If you are intersted kindly get back to me through my
email address:kobe_smith@masrawy.com

Everyone's having so much fun with Hillary's statement: "Many of you are well enough off that ... the tax cuts may have helped you," Sen. Clinton said. "We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."

Isn't this a classic example of the Washington gaffe, where someone accidentally tells the truth? I mean if Hillary Clinton's honest, what else is she going to say? Liberals believe as a matter of pride and principle that rich people should give more of their money "for the common good." That's the nature of the economic debate between liberals and conservatives -- how much of our money they're going to take for what they describe as the common good. I am offended by her formulation that the money is the government's "to give" and a bit baffled by what she could mean by "back on track." But Hillary was simply being honest about what she sees as the proper role of government. I wish more liberals were willing to say the obvious truth.

I think it is terrific that the New York Times, after weeks and weeks of op-eds by pro-life Catholics, made space this weekend for Garry Wills to give the other side of the story. Wills's piece on the abortion-communion controversy is also refreshing since he's not wasting time disputing the church's ability to act on the basis of its teachings; he thinks that the teaching against abortion is wrong and should be changed, and he explains his reasons for thinking that way.

While I believe that politicians who vote to expose young human beings to violence should not receive communion, for reasons that I've provided here and elsewhere, I have had one worry about the campaign to deny them communion: that it overstates the specifically Catholic dimension of opposition to abortion. Wills very cleverly exploits this weakness, noting correctly that the bishops have no special expertise in embryology.

But his argument is awfully weak at key places. "If natural law teaching were clear on the matter, a consensus would have been formed by those with natural reason." Here Wills seems to be suggesting that the existence of disagreement about the morality of abortion invalidates the claim that reason can arrive at the pro-life position. If that's what he's saying, it's a non sequitur. Sloppy expositions of natural-law theory have sometimes suggested that all people at some level understand what is right and wrong in all particulars; but that's bad natural-law theory, which should be rejected by those with natural reason.

Wills argues that the commandment not to kill "does not cover all human life": "My hair and fingernails, while growing, are alive with my own human life. Semen and ova have human life even before their juncture." Surely Wills can do better than this. His skin cells are alive and human; but they are not human lives. Wills wants to use his point about skin cells to establish the existence of a category of human organisms who are not persons and can thus licitly be destroyed. But the analogy can't do the work he wants it to do.

At the end of the day, Wills has not refuted the two key claims that those of us who think that politicians who vote for legal abortion should not receive communion have to make: that natural reason can establish the injustice of allowing the unborn to be killed with impunity, and that the bishops have a special responsibility to keep the flock from promoting injustice.

From the Iraqi blogger Omar at Iraq the Model: (Via Andrew Sullivan):

The hall was busy and everyone was chatting and laughing loud. They had Al-Jazeera on (something I never managed to convince them to stop doing). Then suddenly Mr. Bremer appeared on TV reading his last speech before he left Iraq. I approached the TV to listen carefully to the speech, as I expected it to be difficult in the midst of all that noise. To my surprise everyone stopped what they were doing and started watching as attentively as I was.

The speech was impressive and you could hear the sound of a needle if one had dropped it at that time. The most sensational moment was the end of the speech when Mr. Bremer used a famous Arab emotional poem. The poem was for a famous Arab poet who said it while leaving Baghdad. Al-Jazeera had put an interpreter who tried to translate even the Arabic poem which Mr. Bremer was telling in a fair Arabic! "Let this damned interpreter shut up. We want to hear what the man is saying." One of my colloquies shouted. The scene was very touching that the guy sitting next to me (who used to sympathize with Muqtada) said "He's going to make me cry!"

Then he finished his speech by saying in Arabic, "A'ash Al-Iraq, A'ash Al-Iraq, A'ash Al-Iraq"! (Long live Iraq, Long live Iraq, long live Iraq).

I was deeply moved by this great man’s words but I couldn't prevent myself from watching the effect of his words on my friends who some of them were anti-Americans and some were skeptic, although some of them have always shared my optimism. I found that they were touched even more deeply than I was. I turned to one friend who was a committed She'at and who distrusted America all the way. He looked as if he was bewitched, and I asked him, "So, what do you think of this man? Do you still consider him an invader?" My friend smiled, still touched and said, "Absolutely not! He brought tears to my eyes. God bless him."

Another friend approached me. This one was not religious but he was one of the conspiracy theory believers. He put his hands on my shoulders and said smiling, "I must admit that I'm beginning to believe in what you've been telling us for months and I’m beginning to have faith in America. I never thought that they will hand us sovereignty in time. These people have shown that they keep their promises."

Mickey Kaus has a laugh-out-loud summary of the latest Times-v-truth trainwreck.

That recorded phone call was illegal, according to my anonymous FCC expert guy:

Even though political calls are exempt, they are not exempt to cell phones if the call is pre-recorded (not a live person). See paragraph 165 We affirm that under the TCPA, it is unlawful to make any call using an automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded message to any wireless telephone number.[1]

[1] See 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(1), which provides that it is “unlawful for any person within the United States to make any call (other than a call made for emergency purposes or made with the prior express consent of the called party) using any automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice . . . to any telephone number assigned to a paging service, cellular telephone service, specialized mobile radio service, or other radio common carrier service, or any service for which the called party is charged for the call.”

http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-03-153A1.pdf

The Lincoln Tunnel is particularly lovely this time of year.

Iranians kicked out of the US for filming the Lincoln and Holland tunnels -- again! They claim they were simply visiting American tourist sites.

Ladies and gentlemen, in their need for hope, in their desire for peace, in their right to freedom, the peoples of the Middle East are exactly like you and me. Their birthright of freedom has been denied for too long. And we will do all in our power to help them find the blessings of liberty.

I take a backseat to no one in my respect and reverence for William F. Buckley. There are very few men of letters who emerged at the end of the 20th century who can make the claim that they A) largely succeeded in what they set out to do and B) that the world is better for it. Indeed, the public record in many ways makes such testimonials superfluous.

But many readers keep asking what I make of this nugget from the New York Times:

"With the benefit of minute hindsight, Saddam Hussein wasn't the kind of extra-territorial menace that was assumed by the administration one year ago," Mr. Buckley said. "If I knew then what I know now about what kind of situation we would be in, I would have opposed the war."

So here's what I think: I agree and I disagree. It is more than fair to say that if you thought the main reason to depose Saddam was to eliminate the threat of his Weapons of Mass Destruction to then say it wasn't worth it now that we believe with the benefit of hindsight that they weren't there. I think that is what Mr. Buckley is saying.

But this is also like saying, "If I knew then what I know now, I would have not ordered the fish." In other words, it seemed like the right decision at the time. Some think that, given new developments, this appearance was wrong and others do not. I still think the war was the right decision. Though, obviously, if we knew Saddam didn't have a major nuclear program the debate would have looked very different and the tactics available for toppling him would have been very, very different. But, ultimately, the "if I knew then what I know now" point is an academic one.

And once you concede that point we are back to the fundamental debate(s) about the war and reconstruction. Should post-9/11 America give tyrants like Saddam the benefit of the doubt in a climate of uncertainty? Was the WMD threat the only reason toppling Saddam was in our interest? Should opposition to the war justify obstruction of the reconstruction? Etc? Etc?

Here is the real scoop on the WFB/NR news today, from an NR press release:

Publisher Edward A. Capano Named Chief Executive Officer
of National Review; Rich Lowry Remains Journal's Editor

Board Overseeing Magazine to Be Headed by Thomas L. Rhodes

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(New York, June 29)--William F. Buckley Jr., Editor-at-large of National Review, will tonight relinquish ownership of the conservative opinion journal he founded 49 years ago. Edward A. Capano, National Review's Publisher, has been named the magazine's Chief Executive Officer.

Rich Lowry will remain National Review's Editor, and the board overseeing the magazine will be headed by Thomas Rhodes, who currently serves as National Review's President.

Mr. Capano has served in a variety of capacities at the magazine since 1960. Rich Lowry has been Editor since 1998; prior to which he served as the National Political Reporter. Mr. Rhodes has been the magazine's president since 1998.

Mr. Buckley's column will continue to be published in the magazine.

Mr. Buckley, 78, cited concerns about his own mortality as the primary reason for his divestiture. The transfer of ownership will take place tonight at a private dinner in New York City.

National Review is the nation's largest and most influential journal of opinion. It currently maintains a paid circulation base of 155,000 subscribers, and a readership of over 310,000.

To arrange an interview with Edward Capano, Thomas Rhodes, or Rich Lowry to discuss the future of National Review, please contact National Review Associate Publisher Jack Fowler at 212-679-7330.

Several readers have clarified. For example:

Calls from political organizations are not covered by the law. It's nice that politicians exclude themselves from the restrictions they put on "evil" businesses.

"Some calls, however, such as those from political organizations, solicitation calls on behalf of charities, and calls to conduct surveys, are not covered by the National Registry requirements. Consumers who sign up for the registry may still receive these calls."
-http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2003/06/donotcall.htm

ME: Of course, as a matter of principle it would in fact be worse if the government could block political speech because it's inconvenient.

Have you noticed how John Kerry's official logo, tagline, whatever is simply "John Kerry President"? It's not John Kerry for President. But "John Kerry President." Isn't this putting the cart before the horse a tad? If saying it made it so, why not declare himself "John Kerry Victor of the 2004 Presidential Race"? Or, "John Kerry Real Sex Machine"?

From a reader:

Any hubbub about receiving political phone calls on a cell phone that is listed on the national do not call registry?

I got an angry call from Al Gore last night urging me to press buttons on my phone against Bush. They called my Cell phone. Call showed up Unknown. And my phone number is on the national do not call registry!

Should something be made of this?

Considering how many Moore-lovers accused me of "elitism" for my column yesterday, I found David Brooks' column particularly enjoyable. An excerpt:

Like Ernest Hemingway, Moore does his boldest thinking while abroad. For example, it was during an interview with the British paper The Mirror that Moore unfurled what is perhaps the central insight of his oeuvre, that Americans are kind of crappy.

"They are possibly the dumbest people on the planet ... in thrall to conniving, thieving smug [pieces of the human anatomy]," Moore intoned. "We Americans suffer from an enforced ignorance. We don't know about anything that's happening outside our country. Our stupidity is embarrassing."

It transpires that Europeans are quite excited to hear this supple description of the American mind. And Moore has been kind enough to crisscross the continent, speaking to packed lecture halls, explicating the general vapidity and crassness of his countrymen. "That's why we're smiling all the time," he told a rapturous throng in Munich. "You can see us coming down the street. You know, 'Hey! Hi! How's it going?' We've got that big [expletive] grin on our face all the time because our brains aren't loaded down."

It should not be thought, however, that the plurality's evisceration of the Suspension [of Habeas Corpus] Clause augments, principlally, the power of Congress. As usual, the major effect of the constitutional improvisation is to inrease the power of the Court. Having found a congressional authorization where none clearly exists; and having discarded the categorical procedural protection of the Suspension Clause; the plurality then proceeds, under the guise of the Due Process Clause, to prescribe what procedural protections it thinks appropriate. . . . .

There is a certain harmony of approach in the plurality's making up for Congress's failure to invoke the Suspension Clause and its making up for the Executive's failure to apply what it says are needed procedures--an approach that reflects what might be called a Mr. Fix-it Mentality. The plurality seems to view it ias its mission to Make Everything Come Out Right, rather than merely to decree the consequences, as far as individual rights are concerned, of the other two branches' actions and omissions. Has the Legislature failed to suspend the writ in the current dire emeregency? Well, we will remedy that failure by prescribing reasonable conditions that a suspension should have included. And has the Executive failed to live up to those reasonable conditions? Well, we will ourselves make that failure good, so that this dangerous fellow (if he is dangerous) need not be set free. The problem with this approach is not only that it steps out of the courts' modest and limited role in a democratic society; but that by repeatedly doing what it thinks the political branches ought to do it encourages their lassitude and saps the vitality of government by the people.

Glory and honor to the U.S. and Allied men and women whose blood is irrigating the tree of freedom in this land; and their sacrifices, suffering, and toil is laying the foundation for a future renaissance of the Mesopotamian People. Hail soldiers of freedom and enlightenment. Do not be dismayed by the trouble and turbulence of the present, for the future generations will remember and appreciate.

And last but not least; Hail, Great El Bush, a leader not only of the U.S. but a true hero of mankind. And Hail Mr. Blair and the other Leaders of the Free World.

God Bless the New Republic of Iraq; God Bless America.

I'm not going to pretend that all of the pro-Moore email is like this. But these two represent the pro-Moore email of a certain subset nicely:

Deep down, I know you know you're a dick. A small, impotent dick that never touches a decent looking woman unless you pay for it.That's why you are so insecure, and this insecurity is evident in your ridiculous political views. Have a nice day, Dr. [Name Withheld] P.S. Bush the lying, Iraqi child killing/mutilating, #1 world terrorist is gone in November. His small dicked supporters will be very sad.

And...

[Subject] God Bless Michael Moore!

Mr Goldberg,

You are just jealous because Michael Moore has shown the truth about your sick immoral and ungodly Iraq War. May God richly bless Moore, a real American patriot not the sick Haliburton-Herutnik you and your friends at the "National Review" are, and may his cause come to save our country from its real enemies right at home.

Yours for John Kerry and his cause of righteousness,
[Name withheld]
Chicago, Illinois

At the suggestion of a reader, I looked up to see if Moore was lying about the film even playing in Fayetteville, North Carolina, the home of Fort Bragg. So I went to Fandango and looked it up. It is playing there. In one theater -- the no doubt enormous Cameo Art House Theatre. Moreover, it has one showing at 7:30. Maybe it played round the clock all weekend. But either way, it doesn't really sound like the troops are being brainswashed in huge numbers.

It's not like Moore was up against The Return of the King. From a reader:

I know Fahrenheit 9/11 was #1 in the box-office this weekend and for a "documentary" that's impressive. But will someone please bring up the fact that White Chicks gave this movie a run for it's money at the top spot. I've been telling all my friends who are so impressed by the success of this movie, that they should forget about #1 and the theater average for one second and realize that White Chicks was the second best movie in America for the weekend!!!

Fahrenheit or White Chicks? Have to love those choices.

From a reader in the Air Force:

Jonah,

Once again-exceptional article today. It's a challenge to attack the arguments of that hairy marshmallow of a man without sinking into obvious ad hominem attacks, but your article did an excellent job of doing so. Moore's assertion at cnn.com that his opus sold out at theaters near Fort Bragg and other military installations is very troubling to me. Unfortunately, many of our younger troops watching this movie are highly impressionable and unsophisticated about the framing of ideas, and will take this "documentary" at face value. These troops, almost all of whom served or will serve in the OEF/OIF campaigns, will begin to doubt the cause in which they are fighting. There is a dangerous precedent here. There is a Maslow's hierarchy at work in the mind of a fighting man: he will bitch about chow, he will bitch about living conditions, he will bitch about logistics, he will bitch about officers, he will bitch about the enemy, but if in his heart he dismisses the cause, his readiness is undermined.

This can be easily associated with Vietnam, upon which Moore is basing his theme of war profiteering. My belief is that our servicemen in Vietnam were well aware of the expressed sentiment by so many American cognoscenti that the war was senseless and "cooked up." Sensitivity to this must have affected the prosecution of the Vietnam war down to the individual fighter's level, as has been discussed in Mona Charen's superb book "Useful Idiots." The struggle for the hearts and minds of our young troops is doubly difficult when faced with the smirking cynicism of Moore-no doubt that the chubmeister retains his right to present his wrong ideas, but the treatment of his array of unconnected events undermines the national discourse. I couldn't label it treasonous, just irresponsible and lacking in merit....

All the best to you and yours,

Bill Clinton's blog? It seems seductively legit at first but it's not.

Several liberal readers have thrown the "Clinton Chronicles" in my face as an example of conservatives embracing lies for political expediency and hence holding a double standard toward Moore. The uniformity of the claim suggests some blog has made the point.

And, it would be a fair point except I never embraced any of that stuff and neither did NR. A google search of NRO shows only one article mentioning that "documentary" -- and it was one by Byron York mentioning it negatively. A Nexis search of the print National Review also finds the same thing. The Weekly Standard mocked "The Clinton Chronicles" once or twice and even ran a piece by David Brock (!) denouncing it. They also ran a piece by Byron chronicling how the conspiracy theorists of the "Clinton Chronicles" variety couldn't accept the Starr Report. I haven't checked out every columnist from George Will and Charles Krauthammer to Bill Buckley but something tells me there's no paydirt there either. Now, there no doubt were conservatives who touted the Clinton Chronicles, but what becomes very clear is that the video's prominence owed itself in no small degree to the efforts by James Carville and others to paint all conservative opponents of Clinton as conspiratorial crazies. This storyline was bought whole by much of the mainstream press. Meanwhile Michael Moore gets favorable interviews on "60 Minutes" and is promoted on the nightly news.

Regardless, the analogy flops like a dead fish on the table since mainstream liberals are rushing to tout Fahrenheit 9/11 while few if any mainstream conservatives did the same with an equally careless piece of work. And, again, even if we had a double standard in this regard, citing a documentary you think was a bundle of lies to defend your own bundle of lies is pretty lame.

Many think it not only inevitable but entirely proper that liberty give way to security in times of national crisis-—that, at the extremes of military exigency, inter arma silent leges. Whatever the general merits of the view that war silences law or modulates its voice, that view has no place in the interpretation and application of a Constitution designed precisely to confront war and, in a manner that accords with democratic principles, to accommodate it.

As I suspected, I'm getting lots of email from people outraged that I won't see the movie. As I said in the column, that's fine. I simply refer them to all the liberals who've seen the film and who say the film is a crock.

But I am really stunned by is the way that David Edelstein, Nick Confessore, William Raspberry and numerous other liberals admit that A) the film is chock full of lies and cheap shots and B) It's great and they hope everyone sees it and that it changes the public's mind about the war. Isn't this shameful? What am I missing?

Couldn't a David Duke with talent make a hateful, racist film full of distortions and half truths about blacks or Jews which was the nevertheless brilliant filmmaking? What conservative would survive with his career intact if he said "Sure, all that stuff of about genetic inferiority and a Zionist plot was unfair. But Duke does make excellent points about the unintended consequences of affirmative action and people should see the film."

It's by no means a perfect analogy, but I am simply amazed by the willingness of so many honest liberals to embrace what they recognize as dishonest merely for the sake of zinging the other guy.

From a reader:

Jonah:

My local rag carries William Raspberry's syndicated column, and his
topic today was Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11.

He essentially admits that the film is, on the facts, a "crockumentary,"
but goes on to defend Moore for having the right "attitude" about
things. (Amazingly, he makes the same defense of Louis Farrakhan!)

I take this as an important admission. Haven't you (we) argued for years
that the Left is bereft of ideas and uninterested in facts, that it's
main preoccupation is with striking an emotional pose, adopting the
proper "attitude"?

Who, alas, was only shot in the hip:

ST. GEORGE, Utah (AP) — A man who took a baby hostage stabbed the infant during a standoff with police before officers shot and wounded the man in the hip.

The baby was flown to a Salt Lake City hospital Friday night with stab wounds to some internal organs, but was expected to live, St. George police spokesman Craig Harding said Saturday.

A reader asks: "I know (I think) what the word "lede" means as used by you this morning referring to a Reuters piece, but I was interested in the derivation of the word. I can't find it in any on-line dictionaries. Can you help?"

My understanding of the word is pretty simple. It means exactly what it sounds like, the opening line of an article. The reason many journalists spell it that way is that other, more accurate, spellings (i.e. lead) tend to be confusing when working out edits with editors. I've had some editors who hate this spelling, others who insist on it. That's all I know.

Here's their lede:

"The Supreme Court ruled Monday that an American captured overseas in President Bush's war on terrorism cannot be held indefinitely in a U.S. military jail without a chance to contest the detention."

Presumably Reuters will now be using such phrases as "President Bush's booming economy" and "President Bush's sunny day."

I try to keep the favorable email to a minimum in the corner, but this guy really touches all the bases:

Jonah,

No doubt you will have received somewhere in the area of eight billion e-mails about this topic by now. I rarely send e-mails to anyone I don't know, because it strikes me as odd, like thirteen year old girls sending letters to David Cassidy (or a more recent heart-throb). I did this one for two reasons: 1) No other pundit consistently writes my own views as often as yourself, as you echoed once again my views about Moore and his film and 2) I've seen The Bare Wench Project, and it involves a truly masterful dual-role performance by Lorissa McCombs. As pseudo-porn goes, it's as cheesily entertaining as it gets. Good to have you back writing G-Files, for the Bare Wench Project would never have been mentioned in one of your syndicateds. I'd also like to henceforth be known as your pseudo-porn guy (for better and worse).

[Name withheld, duh]

Josh Marshall gets oddly -- very oddly -- cloak and dagger about the story. If anyone knows what all that is about please let us know.

I see Kathryn beat me to it. One thing I am absolutely sure about. The press is vexed, mightily vexed. They won't say it, they can't. But a zillion muckety-mucks have gone to Iraq to be there for the handover and they got scooped. Plans have been trashed, egos bruised. It will be interesting to see how or if this gets translated into coverage.

The Iraqis are in charge. Sovereignty has been transferred two days early. It's a nice surprise but I don't know if the excuse that they want to avoid terrorist attacks sends the right message. Still: Amazing.

THEY'RE LYING -
WHILE THE GLOBE IS FRYING -
AND THE FISHES ARE DYING IN THE WORLD.
THEIR SOLUTION
FOR ALL OF THE POLLUTION:
IS JUST TO BEAR IT AND GRIN,
AND PRACTICE NOT BREATHING IN.
BUT THINGS ARE GONNA BE GREAT.
JUST WAIT -
WHEN THE WHITE HOUSE STATIONERY,
READS PRESIDENT JOHN KERRY -
WE'LL BE THE LUCKIEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD!

From a reader:

Jonah:

Last week Slate ran an "explainer" detailing the compelling legal reasons for the the unsealing of Jack Ryan's divorce file. As I recall, John Kerry's divorce from his first wife was also not "friendly" and the record of these proceedings is still under court
seal. Question: When will the Chicago Tribune be petitioning the Massachusetts court for release of the Kerry file?

Thanks to everyone who responded -- and there were lots of you. I've tried several of the suggested remedies and we'll see if they worked. Thanks again, particularly if I didn't respond to you directly.