Posted 5/31/2003 10:43:34 PM by Edward Driscoll
THIS MIGHT BE INTERESTING: Robert McNamara is the latest subject of a documentary by Errol Morris. Roger Ebert writes:

When Errol Morris first showed Robert McNamara the Interro-tron, the former defense secretary balked. "What's THAT?" he asked the famed documentarian. Morris explained that his device linked two video cameras and two video screens so that he and his subjects can look each other in the eye while talking. In most video interviews, the subject is looking to the side of the camera. With the Interrotron, he is looking straight down the barrel--making eye contact with the viewer. McNamara had agreed to a one-hour interview with Morris, whose subjects over the years have included the metaphysician Stephen Hawking, as well as lion tamers, pet cemetery operators, electric chair inventors, Death Row inmates, wild turkey hunters in Florida, a student of the naked mole rat and an autistic woman who designed most of the cattle chutes in America. Morris knew within the first five minutes, he says, that he wanted to do a feature film about McNamara. Eventually McNamara grew to accept the Interro-tron, and in Morris' startling and persuasive new film, "The Fog of War," he looks us straight in the eye as he re-evaluates his role in the Vietnam War. It is an extraordinary performance, from a man who at 85 still skis and climbs mountains, and takes no guff from Morris. He talks about his realization that the war was unwinnable, about a private memo to President Lyndon B. Johnson, about whether he resigned or LBJ fired him. "When I raised that question with Kay Graham, publisher of the Washington Post," he recalls, "she told me, 'Of course you were fired.' " Morris is one of the most distinctive filmmakers in America, a man who combines documentary subjects with haunting, rhythmic graphics and, in his later films, otherworldly scores by Philip Glass. "A Fog of War" is a presentation of a man's thoughts, memories and conscience, all woven together into a tapestry of realism and regret.

I don't know how well an interviewer Morris is, but McNamara would certainly be a fascinating subject. He and Johnson cocked up the Vietnam war so badly, that they tarnished America's military reputation for decades. It was only with Desert Storm that the American military's reputation was restored, and only because the American military completely rethought and revised its tactics, not the least of which was insisting that commanders in the field not be second guessed by the White House during a battle, unlike McNamara and Johnson, who were naive enough to believe that as fluid as war as Vietnam could be controlled on a daily basis from 10,000 or so miles away in Washington DC.

Posted 5/31/2003 02:19:18 PM by Edward Driscoll
"WEIRD PLACES": Peter Kilborn of the New York Times makes a revealing Freudian Rainesian slip, perhaps second only to Howell Raines' own classic "better and, more importantly, more diverse" quip. Orrin Judd has the details, and some thoughts.

Posted 5/31/2003 11:14:47 AM by Edward Driscoll
"ALL WILL BE REVEALED": My review of the new Led Zeppelin DVD is online at Blogcritics.

Posted 5/31/2003 10:29:48 AM by Edward Driscoll
ANDREW SULLIVAN and a reader thoroughly deconstruct the Bush "dry drunk" meme that seems to have (temporarily at least) replaced the "he's a dummy", and the chickenhawk riffs. By the way, do the folks on the left really want to use this attack? It may very well make it that much tougher for somebody who actually did inhale (or worse) in his past to actually get into office in the future.

Posted 5/30/2003 01:04:12 PM by Edward Driscoll
DON'T BOGART THE REMOTE, YASSER: More than you ever want to know about Yasser Arafat's sleeping habits, via Ben Domenech.

Posted 5/30/2003 12:29:18 PM by Edward Driscoll
DID THE PC MOVEMENT KILL COMEDY IN HOLLYWOOD? That's the subtext that I'm drawing from the post in NRO's The Corner. Orrin Judd has a theory that all comedy is conservative. I agree with that to a certain extent, but it's definitely true that at some point on the leftward curve, humor seems to be anathema--there's just too many shibboleths that risk offending. With the PC movement allowing anyone and everyone to claim victimhood, it's got to be tougher to write a funny script in Hollywood. And increasingly, Hollywood's obsessions (anti-war, vegetarianism, Scientology, an obsession with race, rococo sexual politics and of course, bashing anyone whose politics are to the right of Jerry Brown) aren't playing well out in the heartland. Perhaps that explains why Mel Brooks' Broadway version of The Producers was set in the past, and the Austin Powers movies makes fun of the '60s and '70s--humor was allowed back then. Or why My Big Fat Greek Wedding, about a traditional Greek family whose daughter is marrying a spineless WASP who believes in many of those same Hollywood trends I just mentioned) was such a hit.

Posted 5/30/2003 11:11:59 AM by Edward Driscoll
DON'T BLAME THE COP IN NYC, CNSNews reports:

New York's finest have a message for city residents and visitors angry over a wave of misdemeanor criminal, traffic and parking citations issued under orders from City Hall: "Don't Blame the Cop!" Patrick J. Lynch, president of the New York City Patrolmen's Benevolent Association (PBA), said Thursday that Mayor Michael Bloomberg is changing the primary mission of the city's law enforcement officers. "City Hall is trying to turn us into a revenue-generating agency rather than a policing agency," Lynch told CNSNews.com Thursday. The PBA has launched a print and broadcast ad campaign called "Don't Blame the Cop!" to tell their side of the story. Lynch said the mayor's office has "put a quota on the number of summonses" police officers must issue and specifically instructed officers to write citations that will result in fines. "So they're telling us how many to give out and what types to give out," he explained. As an example, Lynch noted that, in the past, officers have been given the discretion to write safety violation notices to motorists with broken taillights or other vehicle equipment problems. "When you give out an equipment summons, the citizen can get it fixed, get it checked by a police officer, and there is no fine attached," Lynch explained. "So they'd rather us give out summonses that bring in the dollar bill rather than the summons that actually saves a life."

Is there anybody in New York who actually likes Bloomberg and his policies? Does he actually think they're improving the quality of life there? I wonder how all this will play out next year when the GOP's convention is in town.

Posted 5/30/2003 11:06:32 AM by Edward Driscoll
WELL, HER INITIALS SEEM APPROPRIATE: Why is Barbra Streisand suing an suing an environmentalist photographer for taking a photo of her house?

Singer/actress Barbra Streisand has filed a $50 million lawsuit against amateur photographer Kenneth Adelman for posting a photograph of her Malibu, Calif., estate on his website. The site features 12,000 other photos of the California coastline as part of a project to document coastal erosion for scientific and other researchers. Adelman's website, also contains photos of other houses along the coastline. He told CNSNews.com that Streisand was the only one who took legal action against him. Neither Streisand nor any other humans were caught in the photos. The lawsuit names Adelman, his web hosting service and Pictopia, a photography company that distributes his work. It claims the picture of Streisand's house violates her right of privacy and a state law enacted to curb paparazzi. The suit seeks to have the photo removed from the website and $50 million in damages.

The article says the photographer as and his wife spent the bulk of last year "photographing the entire California coastline from their private helicopter in public airspace from an elevation of 500 feet using a standard photo lens, not the telescopic kind of lens used frequently by paparazzi". So why is he being persecuted by Streisand, who in theory, should be a fan of coastal erosion studies.

Posted 5/29/2003 01:37:59 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE BILL SHOW: The great P.J. O'Rourke does one of the things which he does best: savage Bill Clinton:

Clinton understands what motivates the North Koreans. It's the same thing that motivates him, although North Korean revelations were explosive in more than the New York Post sense. Clinton explained matters to the audience: "Why were they building bombs? It's the only way anyone pays attention to them." Clinton proposed a new Marshall Plan for war-torn parts of the earth, such as the Middle East. It's an interesting idea, giving generous economic assistance to countries with the world's largest petroleum reserves. Plus, I thought, I did that this morning when I filled up the Suburban. Clinton said, "We spend less than one percent of our budget on direct foreign assistance." But he had a little lapse there and forgot to count the 17.8 percent that we spend guaranteeing, with our Army, Navy, and Air Force, the existence of live foreigners to assist. (Even if the foreigners with the best guarantees—NATO members—are the ones least in need of assistance.) Clinton said that we have to "build institutions of international cooperation." He noted several. The Kyoto treaty got applause. The World Court didn't. Even liberals fret about the idea of being pulled over by a World Cop for some World Driving Violation (not using the horn enough?) and then having to go before a World Traffic Magistrate and explain in Esperanto that they were rushing a sick gerbil to the pet hospital. Clinton praised "Powell and"—that tagalong—"the President" for going to the UN with their Iraqi-weapons-of-mass-destruction concerns. "If we have to take military action now, we'll have the world behind us," Clinton said, in the one newsworthy statement of the evening—although this did not make the papers the next day. "We'll get a lot of help." "To build the world we want," Clinton said, "we need people with the habits of mind and heart to do so." He cited Jimmy Carter, Kofi Annan, and Nelson Mandela, and modestly avoided mentioning himself. But what if people don't act like Jimmy Carter, Kofi Annan, and Nelson Mandela? What if people act like Winnie Mandela? Clinton didn't say. But in an April 2002 speech to the National Jewish Democratic Council, he proposed a U.S. intervention in the Israeli-Palestinian clash. His plan was a combination of prom-chaperone duty and Vietnam: "The United States must go there and put our arms around that thing like a wet blanket ... We have to cover this situation ... And we have to wade into it and stay there through disappointment and difficulty ..."

As O'Rourke writes, Clinton "has an understanding of foreign policy's deep, broad, and murky waters. Former world leaders do. They acquire it suddenly upon leaving office." Read the whole thing.

Posted 5/29/2003 01:59:59 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE TAX REVOLT TURNS 25: June 6 will mark the 25th anniversary of California's Proposition 13. Michael J. New of the Cato Institute has some thoughts.

Posted 5/28/2003 10:06:57 PM by Edward Driscoll
INSTAPUNDIT IS BACK ONLINE.

Posted 5/28/2003 07:07:52 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE NEW LINEUP: Steven Den Beste looks back at a post he wrote in March of 2002 of who are allies would be in the war to liberate Iraq, and reassesses who's had our back--and who's been ready to put a switchblade into it. Den Beste also has a nifty analysis of General Tommy Franks' tactics in the run-up to the war.

Posted 5/28/2003 06:54:53 PM by Edward Driscoll
ANOTHER COMMENCEMENT SPEAKER HECKLED, this time at Smith College. Jonathan V. Last writes:

When the speaker took the podium, a handful of graduates walked out. Others turned their folding chairs around and sat with their backs to the stage for the entire address. So did a number of parents and guests. And that's when things got lively. As soon as the speaker began, a chorus of shouts and boos came from the back of the assemblage. The heckling continued until almost the seven-minute mark in the speech, when the speaker finally addressed the protesters and promised to meet with them afterwards if they would quiet down. Mercifully, they did. The speech went on for a few more minutes--nothing terribly controversial, the standard fare about reaching for your dreams and giving back to your community. Then, as the speaker mentioned the remarkable example of the passengers of Flight 93, a man rushed the stage carrying a sign proclaiming, "Another reason why they hate us." Police officers quickly surrounded him and escorted him out. A few moments later, another protester made a break for the stage wearing a gigantic papier-mâché mask that someone told me looked like a caricature of the speaker featuring a giant hooknose. Five cops rushed to intercept the papier-mâché kid and wrangle him or her out of the quad. By then the screams and catcalls had returned. One more protester was surrounded by police, after which it was relatively smooth sailing for the final few paragraphs of the speech.

Who was this rabidly pro-war speaker who was heckled by the idealist left-wing college students? Click on over and find out for yourself--I don't want to spoil the surprise.

Posted 5/28/2003 06:46:46 PM by Edward Driscoll
SURPRISE, SURPRISE: It turns out that al Jazeera, the Arab TV network, was on Saddam's payroll, writes Stephen F. Hayes. And in their own way, so was CNN, of course. The jury is still out as to exactly why the BBC was so biased towards the Baathists, however.

Posted 5/28/2003 05:53:57 PM by Edward Driscoll
BLOGCRITICS IS BACK ONLINE: Al Barger has a nice rebuttal to Maureen Dowd and her use of "psychobabble as a weapon". I still can't InstaPundit to open, although Glenn writes on his backup site that for some it's simply loading slowly.

Posted 5/28/2003 05:24:52 PM by Edward Driscoll
AMBULANCE CHASERS ARE FINALLY UNDER ATTACK THEMSELVES, says Ronald Bailey of Reason. Who knows--maybe someday we'll look back on their attempt to ban Oreos as their high water mark, the point at which the tide finally turned against them. Maybe.

Posted 5/28/2003 04:19:54 PM by Edward Driscoll
TO ULTIMATELY EMERGE FROM THE WILDERNESS, Tony Blankley writes, the Democrats have three models to choose from: Robert Taft, Wendell Wilkie or Ronald Reagan. Who they choose to model their presidential candidates on will say much about their future.

Posted 5/28/2003 02:59:37 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE EIGHT YEAR ONE-TERMER: Earlier today (scroll down), I quoted Dick Morris, who said Bill Clinton "was a one-term president who lived in the White House for eight years". Clinton's inaction on terrorism during the second term will likely cost the Democrats the election in 2004, Donald Lambro writes:

The Democrats' biggest challenge in 2004: Convince independent and swing voters that their party can protect the United States. That's going to be a hard, if not impossible, sell. Polls show that Americans, by margins of 40 percent or more, trust President Bush and Republicans more than the Democrats to keep our nation safe from terrorism and other security threats. Yet the message coming from Democrats (including most of the party's presidential candidates) is one of weakness, timidity and ambivalence on the most politically pivotal issue of our times. Intense criticism is being heard lately from Democratic strategists and a few leaders — all of whom complain that the party's opposition to the war in Iraq and continuous attacks on Mr. Bush's handling of the war on terrorism is hurting Democrats. The gist of their ominous warning: If Democrats can't show that they're tougher than Mr. Bush on national security, the party faces the impossible in 2004.

Clinton could have eliminated this issue, but as Byron York wrote shortly after 9/11, the polling data just didn't support his doing the right thing:

So Clinton talked tough. But he did not act tough. Indeed, a review of his years in office shows that each time the president was confronted with a major terrorist attack — the February 26, 1993, bombing of the World Trade Center, the Khobar Towers attack, the August 7, 1998, bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the October 12, 2000, attack on the USS Cole — Clinton was preoccupied with his own political fortunes to an extent that precluded his giving serious and sustained attention to fighting terrorism.

In the short term, he survived. But Clinton's indecision--or rather, his decision to do nothing--has caught up with his would-be successors, as the buck did not stop on his desk.

Posted 5/28/2003 02:31:59 PM by Edward Driscoll
PRESIDENT BUSH SIGNS tax cut bill into law. As Lawrence Kudlow writes:

Tax cuts under John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton (during his second term) all produced faster economic growth, more jobs and higher tax revenues. Indeed, the Clinton 1997 capital-gains tax cut was the driving force for late-decade budget surpluses. Revenues in this period soared as profits accrued from stock market gains and stock options. It was a near-perfect illustration of the Laffer Curve, which says, in clear terms: Tax something more, get less of it; tax something less, get more of it. The less we penalize work and investment, the more work and investment there will be. This is Economic Behaviorism 101, and it's a simple science that too many members of the U.S. Congress and most state governments fail to comprehend. Or do they get it? The so-called sin taxes on alcohol, beer and tobacco suggest that liberal lawmakers just might understand the behavioral basics of taxation. In recent years, legislatures on every level have poured taxes on these products — especially tobacco, where the latest liberal mantra aims to save smokers from themselves. But doesn't this assume a behavioral change by smokers in response to the higher tax-cost of cigarettes? Sure does. So why wouldn't the same logic apply to taxes on investment? Of course it applies. If we tax investment more, we will get less investment. But if we tax investment less — including dividends, the centerpiece of the president's plan — we'll certainly get more investment. And that's exactly what the American economy thirsts for today.

Posted 5/28/2003 02:03:43 PM by Edward Driscoll
DEEP IN THE WHICHY THICKETS: Jonah Goldberg analyzes the recent Times article on (groan) "Hipublicans":

All of this adds up to the real secret of campus conservatism's modest success, as Colapinto suggests. The "establishment" on campuses is thoroughly liberal or left-wing, and college kids like to challenge the establishment. The condescension and astonishment we're all used to hearing from the Times has to do with the fact that even rich, spoiled, and successful liberals — like Howell Raines, to name just one — cannot fathom that liberalism is today the atrophied status quo, and that the one-time rebels are now the silly and pompous establishment they once believed they were rebelling against. This is simply a fact. Sure, there are college conservatives who are putzes and morons, but colleges are full of putzes and morons. That is the natural state of the universe and it would be foolish to say that conservatives don't get their natural distribution. But the difference between conservatism and liberalism, particularly on college campuses, is the difference between emotion and reason. Campus conservatives must question the conventional wisdom of the culture as well as the privileged testimony of the experts who run their classrooms and schools. You can't do this with emotion alone. But you can stifle this with emotion, which is what liberals do when they scream racism, sexism, homophobia, and the rest. Their shrieks are an attempt to stifle dissent. They say conservative ideas are "mean-spirited," as if that's the same thing as saying "you're wrong." I can call you uglier than a three-day-old tube steak. That's mean-spirited, but it's not necessarily wrong. That's why the closing paragraph of the article strikes such a hilarious note. Colapinto quotes two professors who fear the rise of conservatism will "stifle intellectual openness among students." Colapinto understands the irony of professors who, for argument's sake, have no problem with speech codes and the totalitarian language of American academia today, fretting that a few more students disagreeing with their professors might be a threat to intellectual openness. My guess is that the editors at the Times — and far too many of their readers — do not.

Or as I recently headlined a post, diversity for me, but not for thee. UPDATE: Meanwhile, alternative student newspapers are a growing campus phenomenon. Sheri Annis writes, "If only a small percentage of these young writers join the mainstream press, it could look very different a decade from now."

Posted 5/28/2003 11:36:54 AM by Edward Driscoll
CAN'T OPEN INSTAPUNDIT OR BLOGCRITICS? Glenn Reynolds, on his InstaBackup site, has the details as to why (apparently there was a a fire at Hosting Matters, the company that's his Web host), as does Across The Atlantic.com.

Posted 5/28/2003 11:26:07 AM by Edward Driscoll
DICK MORRIS WRITES, "A second term is a terrible thing for a president to waste. Sidney Blumenthal's new book makes clear how totally Bill Clinton wasted it. He was a one-term president who lived in the White House for eight years." If Morris doesn't totally cut Blumenthal's book to shreds, these articles pretty much finish the job.

Posted 5/28/2003 11:15:58 AM by Edward Driscoll
IT'S TWO, TWO, TWO TOPICS IN ONE: James Lileks not only deconstructs the techniques that make up the archetypal New York Times story, he explains how "Heienkein [sic]screwed the pooch several years ago when switched ad campaigns":

It decided it didn’t want to be a premium beer for people who had premium tastes, and instead it went for the Xtreme market. The brand had been nurtured for decades as a symbol of taste and refinement, and now it’s slacker-hooch? Great move. Putting out a can in the shape of a keg to cement the frat-boy connection - another great move. The ad reps should have gone to the store and looked who bought it: Dad. He thought he was an aesthete when he was in college, drinking Heneken while everyone else pounded down the Fox Deluxe and Walter and Falstaff and other iterations of the eau de dead mouse imbibables; now he’s the golf geek with madras shorts, white legs, dark socks and sandals. The guy who still has a reel-to-reel for his Gil Evans collection, the guy who wonders why Leroy Neiman doesn’t apppear in Playboy anymore, the guy who’s noted in his social circle for his ability to use the Internet, but who’s never used the right mouse button. No, he’s not hip. But he makes $174,000 a year. By all means, alienate him in an attempt to win over that lucrative Kinkos demographic!

Did Lileks actually ever meet my dad? He got several details about the old man (who started drinking Heineken when Lowenbrau began to be brewed in the US instead of being an import) dead-on. (Another nice touch: How many different ways did Lileks attempt to spell Hienekin, Heienkein, Heineken in his Bleat?)

Posted 5/28/2003 11:03:56 AM by Edward Driscoll
MAN BITES DOG ALERT: Los Angeles Times Editor John Carroll actually admits that his paper has a liberal bias, in a memo to his staff. Matt Welch has more on Reason's "Hit & Run " Weblog.

Posted 5/28/2003 10:32:07 AM by Edward Driscoll
NEXT THEY'LL TRY TO BAN OREOS: CNSNews.com writes that "a British legislator has proposed banning sport utility vehicles from congested city streets, and his comments prompted howls of protest from motoring groups." Geez--this from the country that brought you the Range Rover.

Posted 5/28/2003 09:35:04 AM by Edward Driscoll
MAUREEN DOWD'S HIDDEN CORRECTION, as spotted by Joanne Jacobs.

Posted 5/28/2003 09:33:11 AM by Edward Driscoll
GALLING THE FRENCH: Donald Rumsfeld hits them where it hurts, according to Jed Babbin.

Posted 5/27/2003 09:19:26 PM by Edward Driscoll
WELL THIS CLEARS IT UP! Andrew Sullivan quotes from an exchange between Howie Kurtz and Lawrence O'Donnell, the creater of "Mr. Sterling," whom Kurtz describes as "the absurdly idealistic senator played by Josh Brolin" in the NBC TV series:

KURTZ: One thing these programs have in common, conservatives are practically invisible. President Bartlett in "The West Wing" is a Democrat. Martin Sheen, in fact, made anti-war ads before the invasion of Iraq. "Mr. Sterling" is a California liberal based loosely on Jerry Brown. Why aren't there any Republicans? O'DONNELL: You will never get that TV show. You'll never, ever get the Republican TV show. the Writers Guild of America, my union, is at a minimum, 99 percent leftist liberal and, like me, socialist. And we don't know how to write it. We don't.

Of course not. But I know someone who does...

Posted 5/27/2003 08:31:35 PM by Edward Driscoll
BEST. 404. EVER. (Link via Joanne Jacobs.)

Posted 5/27/2003 05:39:25 PM by Edward Driscoll
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Attention, Wachowski Brothers: put down the bong and step away from the script." --James Lileks plugs into the Matrix Reloaded and takes aim with deadly accuracy, as usual.

Posted 5/27/2003 04:27:31 PM by Edward Driscoll
IN THE LIGHT: The new Led Zeppelin DVD is just staggering. Expect a full review on Blogcritics in the not-too-distant future. If you don't have your copy yet, just click on the image below.

Posted 5/27/2003 04:26:19 PM by Edward Driscoll
DIVERSITY FOR ME, BUT NOT FOR THEE: College professor Mike S. Adams decided to conduct a little experiment in campus diversity and tolerance:

It all started when I noticed that a colleague of mine had a "Mondale/Ferraro '84" sticker on the filing cabinet in her office. I also noticed that another colleague had one posted on the front of his office desk. Remembering that the university has a provision specifically prohibiting faculty from using "University funds, services, supplies, vehicles, or other property to support or oppose the candidacy of any person for elective public office . . ." I decided to initiate my experiment. First, I placed a "Clinton/Gore '96" sticker prominently on my office door to see if anyone would take offense. After two years without any complaints, I decided to replace the sticker with one that said "George W. Bush for President." Within a few weeks I heard reports from two faculty members and one staff member saying that someone was preparing to file a complaint about the Bush sticker. Since the faculty handbook specifies "appropriate disciplinary action, including discharge from employment" as one possible consequence of violating the aforementioned rule, I decided it was time to let the faculty in on my little experiment. I did this by sending an e-mail to everyone in the building which began as follows: "You have all been involved in an experiment in tolerance which, unfortunately, some of you have failed . . ."

Which explains why movements such as this one are growing--and rapidly.

Posted 5/26/2003 09:21:39 PM by Edward Driscoll
UNDERPERFORMIN' NORMAN UPDATE: Speaking of smoking, what's Norman Mineta been puffing lately? Jeff Johnson of CNSNews.com writes:

Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta told the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the 9/11 Commission) Friday that, prior to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, aviation security officials had not considered that a hijacker might commandeer an airplane for any reason other than taking hostages. "I don't think we ever thought of an airplane being used as a missile," Mineta declared. But former Rep. Tim Roemer (D-Ind.), who now serves on the commission, challenged Mineta's claim. Roemer noted that there was consideration within intelligence agencies that terrorists might plan an attack such as the one carried out on 9/11. "Wouldn't you view it as a failure of our intelligence community not to tell the secretary of transportation that there was such a conceivable threat, that the people like the Coast Guard and the FAA should be thinking about?" Roemer asked. "We had no information of that nature at all," Mineta replied. "There was nothing in those intelligence reports that would have been specific to anything that happened on the 11th of September," Mineta said. "There was nothing in the preceding time period about aircraft being used as a weapon or of any other terrorist types of activities of that nature." But those statements directly contradict documentation compiled by aviation security analyst Andrew Thomas in his new book Aviation Insecurity: The New Challenges of Air Travel . "With all due respect to Secretary Mineta, either he's incredibly in denial or just simply not the sharpest tool in the woodshed," Thomas told CNSNews.com Friday. "There were clearly - well before 9/11, years before 9/11 - numerous instances where we knew of both al Qaeda and other terrorist groups threatening or actually putting into place the hijacking of commercial airliners and slamming them into targets on the ground." Al Qaeda started planning suicide hijackings years earlier Thomas details a 1995 warning from Philippine authorities to the FBI about a plot by the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, and an accomplice, Abdul Murad. * * * Thomas believes that the problem on Sept. 11, 2001, was not that the aviation security system failed, but rather that the aviation security system was - and still is - designed for failure. He recommends focusing on "bad people rather than bad things" through stricter access control and limited use of passenger profiling. "The need to look at certain passengers differently than others from a security perspective only makes sense," he wrote. "A World War II veteran simply does not pose the same level of potential threat as a young man traveling from a troubled country. "To try to argue this point," Thomas believes, "is silly."

Of course. But that's never stopped Mineta from trying.

Posted 5/26/2003 09:14:26 PM by Edward Driscoll
SMOKE GETS IN YOUR ETHICS: Robert W. Tracinski writes on "The Hazards of a Smoke-Free Environment":

Supporters of local tobacco bans have made their choice. Rather than attempting to protect people from an unwanted intrusion on their health, the tobacco bans are the unwanted intrusion. Loudly billed as measures that only affect "public places," they have actually targeted private places: restaurants, bars, nightclubs, shops, and offices - places whose owners are free to set anti-smoking rules or whose customers are free to go elsewhere if they don't like the smoke. Some local bans even harass smokers in places where their effect on others is obviously negligible, such as outdoor public parks. The decision to smoke, or to avoid "second-hand" smoke, is a question to be answered by each individual based on his own values and his own assessment of the risks. This is the same kind of decision free people make regarding every aspect of their lives: how much to spend or invest, whom to befriend or sleep with, whether to go to college or get a job, whether to get married or divorced, and so on. All of these decisions involve risks; some have demonstrably harmful consequences; most are controversial and invite disapproval from the neighbors. But the individual must be free to make these decisions. He must be free, because his life belongs to him, not to his neighbors, and only his own judgment can guide him through it. Yet when it comes to smoking, this freedom is under attack. Cigarette smokers are a numerical minority, practicing a habit considered annoying and unpleasant to the majority. So the majority has simply commandeered the power of government and used it to dictate their behavior. That is why these bans are far more threatening than the prospect of inhaling a few stray whiffs of tobacco while waiting for a table at your favorite restaurant. The anti-tobacco crusaders point in exaggerated alarm at those wisps of smoke while they unleash the systematic and unlimited intrusion of government into our lives.

Read the whole thing.

Posted 5/26/2003 09:10:53 PM by Edward Driscoll
MONA CHAREN ON JASON BLAIR, on the spiffy new Washington Times Website:

I don't believe for a minute that the New York Times is populated by racists making life bitter for black journalists. But if the accusation were lodged against the Bush administration or Citibank or Fox News, who doubts that the New York Times would believe it and broadcast it to the world? So how do you like them apples, Howell Raines? Much ink has been spilled over the question of whether Mr. Blair got special treatment because he was black. Columnist William Raspberry, among many others, has argued that many white journalists have committed similar transgressions. Very true. But there has never, to my knowledge, been a case in which a white reporter was repeatedly reprimanded for errors and mistakes but nonetheless promoted and given plum assignments. You need not be a mind reader to guess that editor Howell Raines is determined to see black reporters succeed — no matter what. I hate the condescension inherent in that liberal pose. There are hundreds of black journalists at the top of their field — Thomas Sowell, Gwen Ifill, Keith Richburg, to name just three. Black journalists (doctors, lawyers, accountants, educators, etc.) require nothing more than that we ignore their race. To treat them as hothouse flowers is so insulting. It is also unjust to others. Though the New York Times will be the last institution to understand this, the moral of the Jayson Blair story is simple: You do not put an end to racial injustice by reversing it.

This approach isn't likely to help either.

Posted 5/26/2003 07:23:54 PM by Edward Driscoll
I'M BACK, after a weekend jaunt to Seattle with my wife to visit some mutual friends. Watch for regular blogging to resume shortly.