Mickey Kaus, Andrew Sullivan, and Charles Krauthammer:

The Axis of Envy.

Vice President Dick Cheney, he of the “secret location,” today called for a preemptive attack on Iraq, stating there is “no doubt” Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction and is preparing to use them against the U.S. and its allies, according to a late afternoon report from Dana Milbank of the Washington Post (“Cheney Argues for Preemptive Strike on Iraq”).

“The vice president’s remarks, to a Veterans of Foreign Wars meeting in Nashville, served as the Bush administration’s answer to criticism that it had failed to make its case for the removal of the Iraqi dictator,” writes Milbank. “Cheney’s detailed articulation of the menace posed by Hussein came after two prominent advisers to the first President Bush -- James Baker and Brent Scowcroft -- raised concerns about an American attack on Iraq without international support.”

(That’s odd. We though Lt. Gen. Scowcroft was also an adviser to the second President George Bush, chairing as he does, the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, which may or may not be comprised of Scowcroft and the 14 other individuals appointed to the board and named publicly by the second President Bush on Oct. 5, 2001. More recently, however, Scowcroft has decided the membership of the PFIAB should be a state secret, and the board’s web site states the panel is comprised of 16 members, one more than it did on Oct. 5, 2001.)

Says Vice President Cheney: “Some concede that Saddam is evil, power hungry, and a menace, but that until he crosses the threshold of actually possessing nuclear weapons, we should rule out any preemptive action. That logic seems to me to be deeply flawed.”

According to the vice president, in what strikes us as a bizarre non sequitur, waiting for Iraq to pose a more immediate threat would make it “even harder for us to gather friends and allies to oppose him.”

How’s that again? Wouldn’t an immediate threat scare the behoosis out of everyone, making the formation of a coalition against Hussein easier to establish and maintain? Talk about flawed logic.

Advocates of an attack on Iraq “interpreted Cheney's remarks, more forceful and detailed than any yet offered by a senior official, as a virtual battle cry,” reports Milbank.

Helpfully, Milbank turns to that most reliable of reliable sources when it comes to waging war, well, anywhere, William “Bill” Kristol (son of neoconservative movement founder Irving Kristol), the chicken-hawk publisher of the consistently unreadable Weekly Standard and former advisor to former Vice President Dan Quayle.

“The debate in the administration is over,” Kristol the Lesser triumphantly declared, gleefully adding, “The time for action grows near.”

Milbank’s article cites no one other than Kristol in reaction to the vice president’s speech. That’s the liberal media at work.

Smarter Andrew Sullivan helpfully reminds all of us of the Dec. 14, 2001, pronouncement, issued with great certitude, of noted military strategist Andrew Sullivan von Clausewitz that U.S. military forces had “of course” captured Osama bin Laden.

I guess if you’re going to be wrong, be wrong early. Very early.

And be sure to check the archives of “The Daily Dish” now, before the entry under discussion disappears.

From: Tim Francis-Wright
Sent: August 26, 2002
To: RittenReview
Subject: The Dogs of War

Alas, Katherine Harris needs to brush up on her Shakespeare.

Her quote about unleashing “the dogs of war” comes from the bard’s Julius Caesar. The words are those of Marcus Antonius, who hopes Caesar’s spirit:

“Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice
Cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war,
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial.”

Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene 1

Let’s ignore for the moment that Al Gore did not plunge the country into civil war. Regardless, when Harris paraphrases Shakespeare, she links Gore with Marc Antony and implicitly links herself with the conspirators against Caesar, namely Marcus Brutus & Co.

Now, why she would want to do that?

Sincerely,
Tim Francis-Wright
Bear-Left

Former Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris writes in her upcoming book that Al Gore could have been granted a statewide recount if he hadn’t decided to “unleash the dogs of war.”

Harris’s upcoming “memoir,” entitled Center of the Storm, is slated for an October release, just weeks before voters in her congressional district decide whether to ship her off to Congress or send her into oblivion.

The book runs to an unbelievable 289 pages, according to galley proofs obtained from the publisher by Bill Cotterell of the Tallahassee Democrat (“Harris Derides Critics in Book”). Triple-spacing, perhaps?

A sample of Harris’s insightful review and analysis of the post-election controversy: “Regardless of what course of action we chose, we knew we had landed in a no-win situation. Before I made my first public statement, we all knew that my office would come under fire.”

“When the Gore campaign began to unleash the dogs of war upon me during the difficult recount controversy, I was not inordinately surprised,” Harris writes, adding that Gore’s “aggressive tactics” may have spoiled an opportunity for a full recount.

As best we can tell, the “dogs of war” include “the media,” particularly unnamed editors who pressured unnamed reporters to slant their stories against Harris, President George W. Bush, and Gov. Jeb Bush (R-Fla.); David Letterman; Jay Leno; the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, particularly Chairwoman Mary Frances Berry; Democratic Party activists; and editorial cartoonists.

Harris dresses up her argument with a tortured legal analysis but it really seems to boil down to one word: Spite.

Attention Rep. Jim Greenwood (R-Pa.): “If Martha Stewart’s television empire is to crumble because of insider trading allegations, so far only a few cracks are visible.”

That determination comes from David Bauder in a fair and balanced report in today’s edition of the New York Daily News (“Martha Still ‘Living’ Large”).

“King World, the company that syndicates ‘Martha Stewart Living,’ reports no fallout from the scandal that has put Stewart on the front pages of many newspapers this summer,” reports Bauder.

The flagship television program airs five times a week in 158 different television markets. Other programs produced by Stewart’s company appear almost every day of the week HGTV and The Food Network.

According to King World spokesman Arthur Sando, “No advertisers have backed out of the show, and no stations have stopped airing it,” writes Bauder.

“Martha Stewart Living” gets good, but not great ratings, Bauder reports, and its popularity probably peaked four years ago. Since then, the show’s popularity has declined, but “ratings haven’t budged since the scandal broke,” the Daily News reports.

In addition, executives at HGTV and The Food Network report Stewart’s legal woes have not affected comments received from viewers, according to Bauder’s report.

Damn those facts! They keep getting in Rep. Greenwood’s way.

“Steve Forbes now confronts the biggest challenge to the family business since the Depression. Forbes, which became one of the richest magazines in America by serving as a totem for conspicuous wealth, is a little short these days,” reports David Carr in a lengthy piece in today’s New York Times (“Now Steve is Running to Revive Forbes”).

“It has fallen to third in ad pages in its category, after leading Fortune and Business Week for most of the 1990’s, according to the Publisher’s Information Bureau. It has lost almost half its advertising pages the last two years, and newsstand sales, a measure of current consumer interest, were down almost 14 percent in the first six months of this year compared with the corresponding period last year,” according to the Times.

“The Forbes dynasty, composed of four sons and a daughter of Malcolm S. Forbes, is hardly bereft, but there are significant signs of stress,” reports Carr. “The company’s generous 401k plan, which had provided a 2-for-1 match for employees, was discontinued earlier this year, and some of the family’s lavish collections -- including Lincoln’s final address as president -- have been auctioned in the last year, raising $30 million.”

In addition, according to the Times, “Senior management has taken a significant pay cut, and the company has engaged in modest layoffs, a rare event at Forbes.”

Forbes maintains the magazine’s privately held parent company, Forbes Inc., is acting out of prudence, not panic. Carr quotes Forbes: “Everything that we have been doing in the last year is in response to an environment, a falloff that hasn’t been seen since the 30’s. No one is immune. We write about that all the time.”

Does Rep. Jim Greenwood (R-Pa.) have any more of those hand baskets?

If you’re the type of person who persists in stereotyping Italian-Americans, pay a visit to The Road to Surfdom, where Tim Dunlop, who I believe hails from what was once strictly a penal colony, suggests that his unpaid ISP bill will soon result in a visit from “Guido and Knuckles,” two ethnic gentlemen who not only will expect immediate payment but an additional gratuity as well.

Clever. Oh so clever.

No longer in this culture do civilized people “Gyp” their customers, “Jew down” merchants, accuse friends of “being Scotch with the liquor,” or “nigger-lip” cigarettes. Polish jokes are a relic of the past, as are such terms as “gook,” “chink,” “spic,” and “JAP,” the latter a reference to Jewish American Princesses (and princes).

Others, however, endure. The greasy daigo, wop, guinea Guido stereotype lives on. Robustly so, even amongst otherwise intelligent people.

For this I say, “Thanks, Hollywood.” Go ahead, collect a few hundred million more off the backs and image of millions of honest and hard-working Italian-Americans. Why not? Nobody’s going to call on you to account for your disgraceful behavior. Least of all your relatives, friends, and colleagues.

When the going gets tough and the economy takes a downturn, blame it on the unions.

Yes, the unions, even though organized labor represents only one in 10 workers in the private sector.

“As organized labor asserts itself, potential strikes threaten, in turn, to further undermine the U.S. recovery,” writes Laurent Belsie in the August 22 issue of the Christian Science Monitor (“Labor More Militant as Economy Teeters”).

Belsie’s remark can only be described as astonishing (or perhaps nauseating) given what we have learned of rampant malfeasance in the executive and managerial offices of American corporations over the past five, ten years. Moreover, Belsie might want to consider that should any possible strikes actually occur, their ability to “undermine” the economic recovery, such as it is, will be temporary and extremely limited.

This is 2002, not 1952, for crying out loud. Blaming the unions is sheer stupidity.

The article concludes with this observation, apparently written with a straight face: “One of the few encouraging signs for the union movement comes from a survey of unionized employers. As of last year, nearly 6 in 10 expected to negotiate at least a 3 percent first-year pay increase in new labor contracts for 2002.”

How generous.

The latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reveals that in the 12 months ending July 2002, the consumer price index (CPI) has increased 1.5 percent and the core rate, which excludes food and energy, has climbed 2.2 percent.

So are these 60 percent of unionized workers getting a fair deal? It’s hard to tell. Yes, the 3 percent increase more than makes up for the officially sanctioned rate of inflation at the consumer level over the past 12 months, but many of these workers have gone several years without any pay increase whatsoever.

But is it a boondoggle?

Hardly.

The average American unionized worker makes $718 a week ($17.95 an hour), according to data collected by the AFL-CIO. That hourly wage may initially sound high, but it translates into just $37,336 annually, assuming full-year employment. If a family of four is living on it, their pretax income amounts to $9,334 per person.

And at the low end, unionized workers in the services sector earn $426 a week ($10.65 an hour), or $22,152 annually, assuming full-year employment, or $5,538 per person for a family of four. (How such families maintain anything resembling a normal existence is beyond me. By the grace of God I earned $10 an hour at jobs I held during college and graduate school nearly 20 years ago.)

And what about the other 40 percent of unionized workers? What are the odds most of them will get no increase in pay whatsoever? Quite high, I would wager.

And what of non-unionized workers, workers who already are paid considerably less than their organized counterparts? Does anyone really expect Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest employer, to initiate an across-the-board 3, 4, or 5 percent wage increase for its entirely non-unionized workforce? I don’t.

Wake up, people. You’re being screwed big time from every which way including up. And not just working-class Americans, but the middle class as well.

On some level you know this and yet you do nothing. Or worse, you cast your votes for the likes of President George W. Bush and other Republicans who care not one whit about your well being.

Remember that “tax rebate” you received? You know, that check for $300 or $600 that arrived in the mail last year? Well, that was a bribe, and for many taxpayers, that will be a fair estimation of the benefits they will derive from the Republican tax cut enacted last year.

I hope you enjoyed it (actually some surveys indicate most Americans “saved” it or used it to pay down debt) because for the next God knows how many decades you’re going to be paying for the biggest giveaway of all time: the reduction and eventual elimination of the estate tax, a multi-billion-dollar windfall that will benefit a grand total of 10,000 American families.

I’m willing to bet yours isn’t one of them. Why do you sit there and take it?

I’m sure it’s no surprise that I’m outraged and sickened by the antics recently encouraged by WNEW (102.7 FM, New York) radio dee-jerks “Opie and Anthony.”

The incident at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, a church revered by Catholics and treasured by non-Catholics throughout America and indeed worldwide, is easily the most despicable episode of schlock-radio juvenilia about which I ever have heard. (However, I will concede that, not being even an rare listener of such programs, I’m sure I’ve missed dozens of examples of such stupidity over the last few decades.)

Opie and Anthony, known off the air as Greg Hughes and Anthony Cumia, respectively, have been shown the door by WNEW management as a result of the latest incident. This marks the second time these professional adolescents have lost their on-air posts, the previous termination of the team having occurred just four years ago in Boston.

Susan of Easy Bake Coven grasps much of my reaction to this lurid incident: “Haven’t these shock jocks around the country taken some things a little too far? When Howard Stern soared in popularity, everyone started imitating him and radio entertainment became shock for shock’s sake. When you stop to think, ‘What outrageous thing can I do today for ratings?’ Then you’ve gone way too far and totally lack originality.”

Yet there’s more to it than that.

The major media have covered heavily the stunt spurred on by Hughes and Cumia. Yet all too often the articles have been accompanied by the journalistic equivalent of a wink, a grin, a smirk, or a sneer.

In addition, the reaction of the editorial boards of the major newspapers to this outrage has been virtually uniform, and uniformly deafening, in its silence. And Viacom Inc., the parent of WNEW’s owner, Infinity Broadcasting, headed by Sumner Redstone, has yet to publish an apology, as best we can determine.

Prof. John T. McGreevy of Harvard University, writing in the Journal of American History five years ago (“Thinking on One’s Own: Catholicism in the American Intellectual Imagination, 1928-1960,” June 1997, pp. 97-131), succinctly outlined the hostility -- and that’s the only word for it -- of prominent American intellectuals toward Catholicism.

It is plainly self-evident, even more than 40 years after the end-point of McGreevy’s study of anti-Catholicism, that such sentiment is alive and well among the American intelligentsia. (“Intelligentsia” here refers to the editorial boards of major newspapers, not to Opie and Anthony.)

It’s still respectable -- still “cool” -- to mock Catholics. As far as I’m concerned, that says more about the mockers than the mocked.

Rep. James C. “Jim” Greenwood (R-Pa.) has been out making quite a name for himself lately, appearing on more news programs and talk shows on television and radio since Johnnie Cochran reached his peak defending two-time killer and habitual woman-beater O.J. Simpson.

Rep. Greenwood is the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, the only congressional panel that has concerned itself with allegations of insider trading by Martha Stewart, chairman and chief executive officer of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Ltd. He is quickly proving himself capable of operating on roughly the same plane as the aforementioned Cochran.

The investigation of possible violations of federal insider trading laws, of course, lies in the hands of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice. It is not properly the province of congressional committees. According to the Energy and Commerce Committee itself, Rep. Greenwood’s subcommittee’s jurisdiction is as follows: “Responsibility for oversight of agencies, departments, and programs within the jurisdiction of the full committee, and for conducting investigations within such jurisdiction.”

Working backward, we find that House Rule 10, Clause 1 states the Energy and Commerce Committee’s jurisdiction encompasses: “Biomedical research and development. Consumer affairs and consumer protection. Health and health facilities (except health care supported by payroll deductions). Interstate energy compacts. Interstate and foreign commerce generally. Exploration, production, storage, supply, marketing, pricing, and regulation of energy resources, including all fossil fuels, solar energy, and other unconventional or renewable energy resources. Conservation of energy resources. Energy information generally. The generation and marketing of power (except by federally chartered or Federal regional power marketing authorities); reliability and interstate transmission of, and ratemaking for, all power; and siting of generation facilities (except the installation of interconnections between Government waterpower projects). General management of the Department of Energy and management and all functions of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. National energy policy generally. Public health and quarantine. Regulation of the domestic nuclear energy industry, including regulation of research and development reactors and nuclear regulatory research. Regulation of interstate and foreign communications. Travel and tourism. The committee shall have the same jurisdiction with respect to regulation of nuclear facilities and of use of nuclear energy as it has with respect to regulation of nonnuclear facilities and of use of nonnuclear energy.”

That’s quite a range of responsibilities, but insider trading is not specifically mentioned nor are securities transactions generally, except perhaps under the catch-all phrases “interstate and foreign commerce generally” and “regulation of interstate and foreign communications.” Perhaps Rep. Greenwood is relying on the fact that Stewart was in Texas, her broker Peter Bacanovic was in Florida, and her broker’s assistant Douglas Faneuil was in New York. It’s a stretch nonetheless.

But it doesn’t matter, really. Committee and subcommittee chairmen typically have been given great latitude to determine what is and is not within their panels’ boundaries. Taking advantage of that tradition, Rep. Greenwood has for months been on a one-man mission/publicity tour intended to determine once and for all what happened when Stewart instigated one of the greatest threats to our entire financial system by selling fewer than 4,000 shares of ImClone Systems Inc.

“Greenwood is skeptical of Stewart’s defense,” reports Peter Nicholas in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer. “He is also impatient with her refusal to come in voluntarily for what he calls a ‘chat’ with committee investigators.”

The real kicker is this: Rep. Greenwood cannot even issue a subpoena compelling Stewart to appear before his subcommittee. That directive can come only from House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.), reports Nicholas.

In the Inquirer article, Rep. Greenwood chimes in with this howler: “Advertisers from the magazine are falling off . . . . She’s going to hell in a handbasket [sic].”

Now, Rep. Greenwood is, as they say, entitled to his own opinions, but he’s not entitled to his own facts.

Page counts count

The latest issue of Martha Stewart Living, dated September 2002, just happens to be on the desk right here.

Let’s see how quickly Stewart is headed to hell in said certain-to-be-tasteful hand basket.

Total page count: 316, including cover pages.

Advertising page count: 181 ½ pages, the vast majority of which are either spreads or full-page ads. The count includes partials and house ads, but excludes inserts.

Advertising inserts: 5, one of which runs 6 pages and one 4 pages.

Editorial page count: 134 ½.

Ad/Edit Ratio: 57/43.

[Rep. Greenwood is free to contact us if he doesn’t understand the publishing industry terminology used here.]

Anyone in the magazine business will tell you these are impressive, even enviable figures, particularly given the persistent softness in the advertising market that accompanied and outlived last year’s recession and the impact of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Now, how about a comparison?

In our library we happen to have a copy of the September 2001 issue of Martha Stewart Living, published exactly one year earlier.

Let’s look at the numbers again.

Total page count: 284, including cover pages.

Advertising page count: 174 pages, again the vast majority are either spreads or full-page ads. The count includes partials and house ads, but not inserts.

Advertising inserts: 3, two of which are 2-page inserts and one is an 8-page insert.

Editorial page count: 110.

Ad/Edit Ratio: 61/39

Well, by golly, Rep. Greenwood is correct: Martha Stewart Living lost 7 ½ pages of advertising between September 2001 and September 2002, a decline of 4 percent.

But let’s put that number in perspective. If the advertising page count at Martha Stewart Living were to continue to decline at a 4 percent annual rate, the September issue of the magazine will be virtually advertisement free in 2202, exactly 200 years from now.

“Going to hell in a hand basket!”

Who would have thought the journey would take two centuries?

“Imagine losing 8,659 pounds,” squeals the headline of a brief piece in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer (second item).

“That’s how much lard 7,235 Philadelphia police officers shed in a recent Weight Watchers competition with 2,389 city firefighters, who lost a total of 3,192 pounds,” reports Clea Benson.

Wow! That’s a lot of weight! It adds up to 11,851 pounds. That’s nearly six tons! Impressive!

Hold on a second . . .

By my math, the members of Philly’s police force lost a grand total of 1.20 pounds each.

And the members the city’s fire department lost a grand total of 1.33 pounds each.

Some competition. Knock yourselves out, guys.

“‘How could anyone be so cruel?’

“That question torments a dozen women from Arizona to New Jersey -- and maybe many more,” reports Marie McCullough in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer. “Each was using the Internet to search for a daughter she reluctantly gave up for adoption years ago. Each received e-mails from a woman posing as her long-lost daughter. And each was hurt when she opened her heart to the mystery woman.”

Whether the “mystery woman” is merely cruel, severely demented, or just plain has too much time on her hands is not clear. Read on and then hop over to the Inquirer for the full treatment (“A Cyber Scammer Preys on Mothers in Torment”).

“The ‘daughter[,]’ who called them Mom, e-mailed photographs showing a family resemblance, and had such a sweet voice began to manipulate them with tales of woe, playing on their deepest maternal regrets, guilt and fears -- and then vanished into cyberspace.

“After two years, the con artist does not seem to be tiring of the heart-wrenching ruse. She doesn’t seem to be out for money. She has passed up gifts, plane tickets and cash, according to seven birth mothers interviewed for this article. But, precisely because she has committed no clear-cut crimes, her victims are frustrated in their efforts to identify and stop her.

“Indeed, cyber torment seems to be such a bizarre, vague Internet abuse that there is practically nothing to stop it.”

We would appreciate comments and observations from psychiatrists and psychologists regarding the illness that drives the mystery woman to perform such senseless acts of cruelty.

We don’t know what he’s eating, drinking, or taking, if anything, but Hesiod Theogeny of Counterspin Central has been on a manic tear lately, one that has left us breathless.

There are very few webloggers out there who within the space of a week or ten days ever have published so much original, newsworthy, thoughtful, groundbreaking, and provocative commentary as has Hesiod.

We stand in awe of his recent output, which, collectively, puts us to shame.

Nonetheless, he deserves the praise, and much more, and we urge all of our readers to make the pilgrimage to his platinum-class weblog.

It truly is among the best of the best.

Catch this!

Martin Peretz and the rest of the thorougayghly predictable gang at the increasingly tired New Republic have suddenly discovered a very small section of the Palestinian populace with whom they are willing to display the slightest degree of sympathy, even publicly: gay Palestinians.

The focus of TNR’s compassion, naturally, doesn’t extend to the Palestianian people as a whole, though of course we applaud TNR, unlike many of its ideological allies, for not putting scare quotes around the word Palestinians. Yet we emphasize that TNR’s sudden interest in the residents of the West Bank and Gaza extends only to a small group that happens to coincide with a vocal minority here in the U.S.

TNR’s venom regarding the plight of homosexuals in the region is directed solely at cases of mistreatment of gay men (lesbians go unmentioned, of course) by Palestinian authorities, all of which are presented anectodally.

What TNR fails to mention is the not-so-different treatment of gay men in, among many other countries, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, China, South Korea, India, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Cuba, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Pakistan, most of Africa and the Middle East, as well as parts of Russia, the Ukraine, the Republic of China, Mexico, Turkey, Colombia, Peru, and the Bahamas.

And of course TNR leaves unmentioned the rabidly deranged and disturbed remarks of the leaders of the major Orthodox Jewish parties in Israel, many of whom participate in the current government or have been coalition members in the past, who do not share the magazine’s limited concern with the well-being of gays, whether Jewish or Palestianian. Nor does Peretz’s most useful wedding gift make note of similar hateful anti-gay comments made by Orthodox and Conservative Jewish leaders -- and editors of, and writers in, “mainstream” Jewish publications -- here in the U.S.

Funny, that.

Somehow the whole thing smells sleazy and opportunistic to us.

Caryl Rivers: “Back in the 1970s, when some of us were marching for women’s rights, smashing down doors once bolted shut, we probably didn’t expect that one of the women who’d march in behind us would be Ann Coulter. She’s cute, blonde, mini-skirted, mean as a warthog, and somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan.”

CUTE?!?!?

Get real.

Eschaton briefs us on the 33 teams that constitute today’s Republican Party.

Which team gets Andrew Sullivan?

Don’t tell us he’ll be the last player picked. Such a tired old stereotype.

By the way, doesn’t “Stock Car Team” sound condescending on its face?

Learn more than you ever wanted to know about the editor of The Rittenhouse Review in an interview with Brian Linse published yesterday at The Lefty Directory. Well, except much of anything personal about him.

Nonetheless, it was a rough session. Linse pulled Capozzola's fingernails off, burned his palms with an open flame, forced him to read Human Events out loud, showed him photos of mini-skirt-clad, bleach-blonde pundettes Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham, played tapes Peggy Noonan's columns for The Wall Street Journal at high screech for hours on end, showed him videos of Matt Drudge in flagrante, and forced him to make a donation to the re-election campaign of Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.) after Barr already had lost the primary!

President George Bush today met with Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Chief of Staff Andrew Card, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers.

Speculation that the meeting was called to discuss a possible attack on Iraq apparently was seriously misguided.

Aides took pains to portray the meeting “as simply a high-level huddle on the future needs of the military, with no space on the agenda for war planning,” according to a report from MSNBC.com.

“I know there’s this intense speculation, a churning, a frenzy, . . . but the subject didn’t come up,” Bush said.

It didn’t?

Not at all?

Why not?

How stupid do these people think we are?

Wow. Eric Alterman gets an awful lot of truly vicious e-mail.

Much of it, or at least much of the recent barrage of nastygrams headed Alterman’s way, is, sadly, part of a well-orchestrated campaign of intimidation and abuse, a campaign he has done nothing to deserve.

Compared with the barrage of moronic and invective-filled messages filling Alterman’s in-box, our generally steady trickle of hate mail, even with its occasional flare-ups, seems inconsequential.

However, the effect is still the same: Hate mail, provided it doesn’t include credible threats of physical harm and does not breach the line of harassment, has no effect -- none whatsoever -- on writers with strong opinions.

Frankly, we can’t imagine what Alterman’s foes thought they might accomplish through their juvenile crusade, except possibly embarrassing themselves.

Tapped gives Camille Paglia a well-deserved slap.

Eschaton points out the obvious folly of this summer’s most popular Republican sport: Norman Mineta bashing.

Slacktivist takes on the bogus polls (“Your opinion counts!”) that accompany interest-group solicitations.

Talking Points Memo, the real one, managed by Joshua Marshall, dissects the Republicans’ lame remaining argument about the budget deficit.

Chilicheeze has been libeled in a manner that is not too different from our experience, though his libeler is anonymous.

We recently learned that someone named Mike, scribbling with a broken crayon during what must have been a wrenching fit of hysteria, has decided that we at The Rittenhouse Review are “idiotarians,” albeit “mild” ones.

There are several criteria that must be met in order to meet Mike’s definition of “idiotarian.”

Let’s go through them one by one to see how we measure up.

Idiotarians “[b]elieve that September 11 was the United States’ fault.”

Response: Never thought it, never said it, never wrote it.

Idiotarians “believe Israel is always wrong.”

Response: Never thought it, never said it, never wrote it.

Idiotarians believe “Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are nice guys who are just misunderstood.”

Response: Never thought it, never said it, never wrote it.

Idiotarians “use . . . a strange vocabulary, similar to English but different, as outlined below”:

“Activist: Someone who has a strong belief about the current situation, and who works with others to advance his or her viewpoint, and who expresses his or her feelings about current events, as long as those feelings are against the U[.]S[.], Israel, or the war.”

Response: We are not activists. In fact we once wrote that we that protests were too often “pushy and whiney.”

“Warmonger: Someone who has a strong belief about the current situation, and who works with others to advance his or her viewpoint, and who expresses his or her feelings about current events, as long as those feelings are in favor the U[.]S[.], Israel, or the war.”

Response: We have used the term “warblogger” several times. If we used the term “warmonger” it would have been in reference to a narrow group of individuals including Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz. We stand by that characterization of these wise and capable civil servants.

”Militant: A misunderstood and sensitive Palestinian person who only wants peace for his people, and who works for peace by killing as many Israelis as he can.”

Response: Actually, we would define a “militant” as a person with a combative character in the service of a particular cause. Mike fits that description as well as we do.

“Terrorist: Ariel Sharon, or George W. Bush[.]”

Response: Never thought it, never said it, never wrote it.

“War criminal: See terrorist. Please note that war criminals and terrorists can only be American or Israeli.”

Response: Never thought it, never said it, never wrote it.

“Sovereignty: Good if we are talking about Iraq’s, bad if we are talking about America’s.”

Response: Never thought it, never said it, never wrote it.

“Improved Security: Strip-searching an [sic] 90-year-old grandma at the airport or banning plastic knives.”

Response: Never thought it, never said it, never wrote it.

“Profiling: Taking any conscious action based on the fact that all 19 Sept. 11 hijackers were young Arab men.”

Response: Never thought it, never said it, never wrote it.

“Racism: See profiling.”

Response: Never thought it, never said it, never wrote it.

“Palestinian Nationalism: A good thing, since those people deserve a homeland.”

Response: Agreed.

“Zionism: A bad thing, since those people do not deserve a homeland.”

Response: Never thought it, never said it, never wrote it. In fact we have written the exact opposite several times.

“Legitimate [R]esistance to Occupation: Blowing up teenagers at a disco, or bombing a pizza parlor filled with families.”

Response: Never thought it, never said it, never wrote it. In fact we have written the exact opposite several times.

“Afghanistan: A country in Asia that the United States deliberately went into and dropped daisy cutters on all the population centers intentionally killing over 580 million starving children and widows.”

Response: Never thought it, never said it, never wrote it. In fact, we supported the initial efforts of the Bush administration to break the Al Qaeda network and to dismantle the Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan.

“Human Rights Violation: Taking enemy combatants and providing them with three full meals a day, shelter, the ability to worship freely, and proper sanitation.”

Response: Never thought it, never said it, never wrote it.

“Yassir Arafat: The freely elected and legitimate President of the Palestinian people[.]”

Response: Sometimes it’s necessary to deal with “the facts on the ground.”

“Saddam Hussein: The freely elected and legitimate President of the Iraqi people[.]”

Response: Never thought it, never said it, never wrote it.

“Oil: A substance which [sic] explains all U[.]S[.] interaction wit [sic] the Middle East, except for Israel, which is explained by the fact that Jews secretly control the U[.]S[.] government, media, and [H]ollywood.”

Response: Never thought it, never said it, never wrote it.

So you see, Mike’s little diatribe is nothing more than a lame, wilted, and dirty tissue of lies. We line up on just two, perhaps two and a half, of the -- more reasonable -- attributes of “idiotarian,” which is perhaps what makes us “mild idiotarians.” Alas, another libel to add to the list.

[Post-publication addendum: Isn’t it weird, or lame, or perhaps totally within character, that brainless warblogger Mikey Silverman found the courage to devote more than 400 words to a pathetic attempt to eviscerate me as an “idiotarian” that my response to him -- “We’re ‘Idiotarians’! Ad hominem 101” -- left Mr. Little Penis cowering in submissive silence?]

Lizzie Grubman, the disgraced New York publicist, is finally going to jail.

The New York Post reports Grubman has accepted a plea bargain that calls for her to spend up to 90 days in the Suffolk County DWI facility in Yaphank, N.Y.

Grubman had faced the prospect of up to seven years in prison if found guilty on 24 counts of vehicular assault and fleeing the scene of an accident, the “accident” being Grubman’s malicious backhauling into a crowd of people at Conscience Point Inn, a nightclub in Southampton, N.Y., on July 7, 2001.

Once she has completed her term, which could be reduced to 60 days on good behavior, Grubman will be on probation for at least three years. She also has been slapped with dozens of civil lawsuits as a result of the crash.

While in Yaphank, “Grubman will be forced to get up at the crack of dawn to do physical exercise, make her bed and perform maintenance tasks. The rest of the day is spent doing homework, more physical exercise, meeting with counselors -- and listening to lectures given by victims [of drunk driving incidents],” the Post reports.

But before getting to Yaphank, Grubman will undergo two days of processing, a set of procedures that “include being placed in a maximum-security cell in Riverhead, [N.Y.], with other inmates, where she’ll undergo physical and mental exams -- and be issued a green prison uniform,” according to the Post.

Grubman is scheduled to surrender Friday before Suffolk County Judge Michael Mullen.

Hey, at least she got to spend another summer in the Hamptons.

Here’s a letter just in from a, well, “reader,” an obvious sophisticate from southern New Jersey, home of such magnet destinations as Trenton, Camden, and Atlantic City.

It’s an interesting message, but bitterly disappointing to us given that we thought our audience was far more intelligent than this. Regardless, we offer the correspondence for your consideration.

From: Scott Welsh [sswenviron@comcast.net]
To: RittenReview@earthlink.net
Subject: You are a joke
Sent: Monday, 08/19/02 9:00 p.m.

“You are the loser I see as I get off the Speedline in that filthy city.

“You are the one [sic; “The one”? Just us? Just me?] that [sic] has ensured the [D]emocrats stay in charge and keep the city in abject poverty.

“You are the one [sic; “The one”? Just us? Just me?] who reelected a mayor who bombed his own race, people he governed, and city [sic] and then ensured the scam continued by having a crony get the rebuilding work.

“You are the one [sic; “The one”? Just us? Just me?] who backs the convention center union idiots and believes that the way they run the center is the way the country should be run. Do you know how many businesses were displaced because of that s***-**** convention center?

“You are also a part of the Street ‘we are in charge’ mentality.

“Enjoy the erosion of a once great city...Just stay the hell out of south Jersey.”

That’s all Mr. Welsh had to say. It’s all very strange, really, particularly since at the present time we don’t even work out of Philadelphia, the city to which his misguided rant refers.

Below we offer some translations and other comments to help our readers make sense of Mr. Welsh’s tirade.

TRANSLATIONS & OTHER ASSISTANCE:

“Speedline”: PATCO, or the Port Authority Transit Corp., which operates a heavily subsidized railway that transports residents of persistently economically depressed southern New Jersey into the city of Philadelphia at below-market rates.

“That filthy city”: Philadelphia.

“[A] mayor who bombed his own race”: W. Wilson Goode, mayor of Philadelphia, 1984-1992. The reference being to Mayor Goode’s 1985 decision to destroy the headquarters of MOVE, a bizarre cult that had been terrorizing its neighbors for years. At the time our editor, the oldest member of our staff, was 23 years old and living in Washington, D.C.

“Street”: Current Philadelphia Mayor John F. Street. “You are also a part of the Street ‘we are in charge’ mentality.” Wrong. We have nothing to do with Mayor Street. Nobody here voted for Mayor Street. Nobody here is particularly fond of Mayor Street.

“Enjoy the erosion of a once great city”: Actually, many parts of Philadelphia are doing quite well. In fact, the city has a greater density of full-time residents in the core downtown area than any city in the country. And this erosion, we are expected to presume, has absolutely nothing to do with decades of flight to the suburbs.

“You are the one who backs the convention center union idiots and believes that the way they run the center is the way the country should be run. Do you know how many businesses were displaced because of that s***-**** convention center?” A complete and absolute lie. Simple as that. We have expressed our opinions to the contrary at our site |||trr|||.

“Just stay the hell out of south Jersey”: Hey, no problem, pal.

“Pope John Paul II, wrapping up an emotional homecoming that has revived him and his fellow Poles, asked Monday for the physical and spiritual strength to continue his pontificate ‘to the end.’ Once again dismissing speculation that he has any intention of resigning, the 82-year-old pope, visiting his native Poland for perhaps the last time, said it was in God’s hands how long his life and his pontifical ministry lasted,” reports Keith Miller of MSNBC.com “(Pope Bids Farewell to Polish Faithful”).

“‘I hate to go’ were the final words the aged pope uttered to the adoring crowd gathered for his poignant departure after a four-day trip. . . . Clerics and politicians lined up to invite the pontiff to return for a 10th visit,” writes Miller. “But the pope asked to be remembered in prayers after his death and urged his countryfolk to acknowledge he may not live that long.”

“Earlier he spoke at a place that was instrumental in forming his religious mission, the Baroque hilltop Kalwaria sanctuary outside Krakow where his father took him as a boy in the 1930s to pray after the death of his mother. ‘Most Holy Mother, Our Lady of Calvary, obtain also for me strength in body and spirit that I may carry out to the end the mission given me,’ the frail pontiff prayed,” according to MSNBC’s report.

“The pope is revered by Poles as a father figure who inspired the resistance to communism and has steadied them during painful economic changes since they won freedom in 1989. On Sunday he lifted national spirits at an open-air Mass [in Krakow] for 3 million people, the largest crowd ever to see him in Poland,” Miller writes.

“On the final day of his ninth return to his homeland, papal concern for the future of his native land was at the fore. Democracy has brought excessive secularization, the pope has warned, and a society suffering more than 17 percent joblessness, social unrest and deep pessimism needs God’s help,” reports Miller.

Let’s see, now.

A man of faith, love, hope, and conviction tirelessly supervises his flock, the largest single organized religious body in the world, for nearly a quarter-century.

He is the first non-Italian pope in more than 450 years.

He overcomes a dramatic assassination attempt three years into his pontificate and later meets with the deranged gunman to express his forgiveness.

He authorizes the first catechism in English since the 16th century.

He authors numerous profound encyclicals and groundbreaking documents, including, among others, the 1983 Code of Canon Law for the Latin Rite, the 1990 Code of Canons for the Eastern Churches, the Apostolic Exhortation Resulting from the 1985 Extraordinary Synod on the Second Vatican Council, the Redeemer of Man (Redemptor hominis), the Father who is Rich in Mercy (Dives in misericordia), the Holy Spirit who is Lord and Giver of Life (Dominum et vivificantem), Mary Mother of the Redeemer (Mater Redemptoris), Splendor of Truth (Veritatis splendor), Gospel of Life (Evangelium vitae), the Moral Dimensions of Human Work (Laborem exercens), On Social Concerns (Sollicitudo rei socialis), That They May Be One (Ut unum sint), Commemorating Saints Cyril and Methodius -- Apostles to the Slavs (Slavorum apostolic), and Mission of the Redeemer (Redemptoris missio).

He writes a dozen or more learned apostolic letters and other documents, including. Among others, The Mystery and Worship of the Holy Eucharist (Dominicae cenae), Correcting Abuses of the Holy Eucharist (Inaestimabile donum), St. Joseph as Custodian of the Redeemer (Redemptor custos), the Dignity of Women (Mulieris dignitatem), Celebration of the Mass According to the Missal of 1962 (Ecclesia dei), and On Keeping Sunday Holy (Apostolos suos).

He plays a critical role in undermining communism in Poland.

He works closely with western leaders to help facilitate the demise of the Soviet Union and its Eastern European empire.

He displays a consistent, unwavering, and heart-felt concern for the poor, and unequivocally and vociferously supports social justice not only in the Third World but in the developed world, in the heart of Europe and even in the United States, where he chastises greed, selfishness, intolerance, and the indignity of the lives of the poor.

He holds a doctorate in philosophy.

He is fluent in eight different languages.

He is a best-selling author.

He is named Time magazine’s Man of the Year in 1994.

He visits more than 125 countries and his very presence draws millions almost everywhere he goes.

Approaching death he canonizes two of the most worthy of the blesseds, now known as St. Pio of Pieltricina and St. Juan Domingo, traveling all the way to Mexico for the latter event.

Nearing death he travels to Canada for World Youth Day, an event of such significance and filled with so much activity that it lasts a week.

Is there another religious figure alive today whose accomplishments even approach those of John Paul II? To ask the question is to answer it.

And yet they ask, “What kind of crazy religion is this?”

Mine.

-- J.M.C.

“A 10-year-old girl was shot and killed by a stray bullet after gang members looking for free food and beer crashed a baby’s christening party at a church,” reports the Associated Press.

The girl, Maleny Mendez, was shot at approximately 1 a.m. Sunday as an argument between guests and party-crashers escalated into violence outside St. Paul's Lutheran Church in the Parkchester section of the Bronx.

“Another party guest, a 28-year-old man, was shot three times in the neck and remained in critical condition Monday, police said,” A.P. reports.

According to police, about a dozen men, described as members of a Mexican gang, burst into the party, held in a meeting hall at St. Paul’s, took over the deejay’s microphone and eventually got into an argument with the now-deceased 28-year-old man.

“The girl was wounded as she, her mother and sister left the party. She died at Jacobi Hospital a short time later,” the article concludes.

One wonders how Miss Mendez would have fared had she been packing heat herself.

Of course, there are other questions: Why was the deejay not armed?

And where was the pastor? Could this tragedy have been prevented had he been carrying a semi-automatic in his jacket that evening?

And the newly christened child, could not a small, pearl-handled revolver have been stowed under the christening garment for added protection?

Or would so much more firepower have raised the death toll of this already heartbreaking event?

[Staff: Please prepare for hate mail overflow.]

We’re not quite sure what to make of this incoherent set of remarks, recently posted by Andrew Sullivan at the “Daily Dish”:

“In her inimitable style, Camille Paglia set about answering your questions but managed to produce 1[,]500 words for the first one. So here’s our second Camille installment. She’s indicated that perhaps later this year, we might send her some questions again. Here’s the question and answer. As to [sic] me, I’m still in the hammock, having a wonderful August. See you after Labor Day.”

As best we can determine, this means “The Lucy & Ethel Show” has been cancelled after just two episodes.

Readers will find a quirky but admiring tribute to one of the best actresses of all time, Patricia Neal, in the latest issue of the New York Observer, “A Different Breed of Celebrity,” by Ronda Kaysen.

Kaysen is an usher at the Gramercy Theater, where celebrities apparently expect, and get, special treatment, including the best seats in the house, on a recent night was told by an excited colleague, “Patricia Neal needs to be reseated.”

“I didn’t know who Patricia Neal was, but I didn’t let on,” writes Kaysen. “I can recognize Reese Witherspoon when I see her, and Laura Linney’s not too hard to pick out of a crowd, either. If I don’t recognize the celebrity, usually the name rings a bell. I know I’m supposed to know who they are,” she continues.

“But Patricia Neal meant nothing to me. My only excuse is that I’m 25 -- I was born after her career had come and gone. . . . And then she came into the lobby herself. . . . But I still didn’t recognize her,” Kaysen notes.

Neal, who of all celebrities deserves a good seat, got one.

Kaysen humbly adds, “It wasn’t until later that evening, after I took the train home and searched for her name on the Internet, that I knew the full extent of my gaffe.”

We’re not sure it was a gaffe, but we can understand Kaysen’s embarrassment.

As Kaysen sums it up: “Patricia Neal was an Academy Award-winning actress, Gary Cooper’s mistress and Roald Dahl’s wife. She was the husky-voiced seductress who starred opposite Paul Newman in ‘Hud.’”

And more. To this list of accomplishments (and that’s the right word: judging by the historical record, being married to Dahl was no picnic), we would add that Neal, with the help of Cooper and director King Vidor turned Ayn Rand’s tiresome, overwrought, and sophomoric novel, The Fountainhead, into an on-screen masterpiece.

And Neal’s has been a life full of tragedy, one that puts to shame the whiney complaints of so many contemporary actors and actresses.

“Her 6-month-old son was struck by a car while in his stroller, then she lost a 7-year-old daughter to measles,” writes Kaysen. “Three years later, she suffered a series of massive strokes at the age of 39. Reported dead in Variety, she clung to life in a hospital bed -- three months pregnant. She went on to be a leading force for stroke victims, founding the Patricia Neal Rehabilitation Center, the first of its kind in the country.”

”Perhaps even more impressive,” adds Kaysen, “she went back to acting, and received an Academy Award nomination for her role in ‘The Subject Was Roses.’ In short, Patricia Neal wasn’t just a celebrity . . . she was someone who’d overcome real adversity and made a significant contribution to the world.” [Emphasis added. Past tense in original.]

Indeed.

Believe it nor not, particularly those readers who continually cast the most malevolent of aspersions upon The Rittenhouse Review, especially when the subject at hand is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we present the information below without blaming any particular party for the serious problem addressed.

Instead, we blame virtually everyone involved. Moreover, we hope, but doubt, that everyone involved will be ashamed by the tragic issue we bring to your attention.

“Malnutrition and poverty are rising in Palestinian areas, affecting hundreds of children as overall access to health and medical facilities diminishes in the West Bank and Gaza. A seven-week Israeli clampdown in Palestinian areas -- combined with a spike in Palestinian suicide bombings and economic mismanagement -- is driving up unemployment and causing shortages of high-protein foods and infant formula,” that according to a piece by Sudarsan Raghavan in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer.

Who’s to blame? Everyone, at least by our reading of Raghavan’s account (“Malnutrition Rising Among Palestinians”).

“Most Palestinians view the crackdown [that began in June] as a collective punishment that will breed more hatred and violence. Yet some believe corruption within Yasir Arafat’s Palestinian Authority is contributing to the crisis. And others . . . are starting to blame Palestinian militants who provoke Israeli crackdowns, expressing a view rarely heard publicly here,” write Raghavan.

“I blame them, I blame them, I blame them,” says Shihada Ashish, a resident of Gaza. “The whole world will be better off without them.”

Raghavan quotes Emad Sha’at, the Palestinian Authority’s director of international aid coordination, as saying, “Palestinians are partially to blame for the change of tactics that started the intifadah, that it was changed to a military intifadah. We maybe should have continued with a peaceful intifadah.”

The situation is, by all accounts, dire. “Last week, two surveys funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Atlanta-based CARE International found 22.5 percent of Palestinian children were malnourished -- on the same level as those in such poverty-ridden nations as Nigeria and Chad. Acute malnutrition is three times higher -- just above 13 percent -- in Gaza than in the West Bank.”

Israeli cooperation in meeting the needs of the local population is scattershot. According to the Inquirer, “Yitzhak Sever, head of the Israeli Health Ministry's International Affairs Department, told reporters last week that Israel had offered to help improve the diet of Palestinian children. ‘We were rejected,’ he said. ‘The Palestinians didn't want any cooperation.’”

Yet the Israeli government has done everything in its power to prevent overseas aid from reaching the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. No surprise, the Israelis blame the entire situation on the Palestinians, the Sharon regime’s constant creation of obstacles preventing access to Palestinian population centers apparently are regarded as inconsequential factors in the persistently increasing Palestinian rates of poverty, unemployment, hunger, starvation, and death.

Finally, the apparent lack of assistance from wealthy Arab states -- at least according to what we know from the Western media -- is heinously deplorable.

In the larger scheme of things, worldwide, the Palestinians truly have been made the lowest of the low.

Why so few Americans care is a question for the ages.

It’s hard to believe, but 25 years ago today Elvis Presley died at the tragically early age of 42. I was never a big fan of Presley, or even a small fan, but that doesn’t mean much because I listen to very little music of any kind. I remain, however, fascinated by his appeal, by the devotion of his legion of fans, particularly so long after his passing.

Admittedly, being a “dyed-in-the-wool” Northeasterner, the passion so often associated with being a Presley fan is something to which I find it difficult to relate. I would emphasize that the paragraphs reprinted below, taken from today’s Philadelphia Inquirer, are not intended to be insulting jabs at Presley’s fans, only observations of the emotional attachment so many Americans have to this, yes, great performer.

“A lot of the male acolytes hanging around Graceland this week are so passionate about Elvis that they’ve morphed into him. They’re not Elvis impersonators, exactly. They don’t sport the full Vegas regalia or do the macho strut. They’re more like Elvis hybrids. They wear their own clothes and walk their own way -- but, from the neck up, it’s the pompadour, the shades, and the sideburns.

“Raymond Hart wears the Elvis sideburns just long enough to hold down his job as general manager of a big hardware outlet in York, England. ‘So many people only see one side of the man,’ he says. ‘I mean, they take the bad stuff and make it bigger.’

“‘A lot of bad things happen in our own lives, with our families’ -- Hart’s wife is beside him, nodding sagely – ‘and imagine how we’d feel if some of those things got the kind of attention Elvis got. And he was under a lot of bad pressure.’

“That’s the official take on Elvis’[s] drug-related death spiral, that he was a victim of celebrity. ‘He was a prisoner of fame,’ says buddy Patty Parry, who recalls how Elvis watched lots of TV because he was wary of leaving the house. ‘It was a hard life.’”

The article in the Inquirer includes a particularly arresting tale from one of Presley’s guitarists: “‘There was a time Elvis damn near killed me,’ recalls John Wilkinson, Elvis’[s] rhythm guitarist. ‘This was in Las Vegas. He was one of the great practical jokers, although he didn't much like it when the jokes were on him.’

“‘Anyway, we were on stage. Elvis walks out, and I see he’s got something in his right hand. He looks at me. It was the look he'd get where you knew something bad was going to happen to you.

“‘I’m playing the lead-in to ‘That's All Right,’ key of A. And I see he’s got a water pistol. Doesn’t take a brain surgeon to know about water and electricity. The water hit me, and there was a blue arc that went between my fingertips and the guitar. Lucky I wasn’t hurt. I said, “Elvis, why’d you do that?” He said, “’Cause I have a water pistol and you don't!”’”

R.I.P., Mr. Presley

-- J.M.C.

Does Lloyd Grove have the easiest job in the world or what?

The Washington Post’s gossip, who writes a twice-a-week column, the incredibly misnamed “Reliable Source,” was out with one of his typical yawners yesterday, the only interesting feature of which is that it blatantly reveals how little effort Grove puts into his work.

Yesterday’s scribbling runs 842 words, excluding the byline, the headline, sub-headlines, and captions. Of these, 331 words -- 39 percent of the column -- were all but lifted from a story that ran on “Page Six” of Wednesday’s New York Post.

Not word-for-word, mind you, but it may as well have been. We invite you to compare the texts. Regardless, Grove’s lead story was not his own and as best we can determine, the scribe’s contribution to his readers’ understanding of the event under discussion amounted to a few telephone calls, only two of which are mentioned specifically.

Grove’s big “scoop,” which again, comes from the pages of the New York Post and not from original reporting, has an aide to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) briefly removing her blouse and revealing her bra at Rise, a bar in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in lower Manhattan, an act that led to her ejection from the cocktail lounge.

Here’s the sum of Grove’s reportage:

(1) Grove, or someone working for him, called the aide in question, Kara Hughes, once. Hughes did not return the call. That’s not too surprising, and arguably was unfair to Hughes. After all, when we sought a comment from Grove a while back we made four calls to him, none of which was, nor has been, returned even to this day.

(2) Grove, or someone working for him, called Sen. Clinton’s spokesman Philippe Reines, who responded, appropriately enough, “We don't comment on stories about staffers’ personal lives -- including mine.”

So that’s it, two phone calls, though Grove makes a vague reference to performing “some due diligence,” which could very well amount to nothing more than the two phone calls we just mentioned.

Other than serving as a gratuitous swipe at Sen. Clinton, what was the point of publishing this wholly unoriginal piece?

Just when you think he can’t go any lower, Grove finds another way to debase himself, pulling the reputation of the Post down with him.

It looks like former President Richard Nixon hated pretty much everybody, except perhaps bickering daughters Julie Eisenhower and Tricia Cox.

By now we’ve all heard snippets from the Watergate tapes in which he disparages blacks and Jews, but, speaking for ourselves, we only just today came across these lovely gems from a 1970 conversation between Nixon and his adviser, John Ehrlichman:

Nixon: “The Italians. We musn’t forget the Italians. Must do something for them. They’re not, we ah . . . they’re not like us. Difference is, the . . . They smell different, look different, act different. After all, you can’t blame them. Oh no . . . can’t do that. They’ve never had the things we’ve had.”

Ehrlichman: “That’s right.”

Nixon: “Of course, the trouble is . . . the trouble is you can’t find one that’s honest.”

We found these statements in a modest yet remarkably informative book, Five Centuries of Italian American History, by Richard A. Capozzola.

[Now, before everyone jumps on us for plugging yet another Capozzola, two days in a row no less, we’ll add that Richard Capozzola and Jim Capozzola, editor of The Rittenhouse Review, only became acquainted after the launch of this site. A family relationship between the two has not been established and is currently the subject of research on both sides.]

After having read this Nixonian dialogue, with which we were completely unfamiliar until now, we did what any good webloggers would do: We “Google’d” it. Guess how many citations we found? Two. Just two. And one of the two was written by the same Richard Capozzola.

It strikes us as more than a little odd that Nixon’s crass comments about Italian-Americans have been so casually overlooked. They would appear to be deeply held beliefs: Coming in 1970, they were made years before Nixon found enemies in the forms of Rep. Peter Rodino and Judge John Sirica.

Did not one single historian or hobbyist listening to the tapes recoil at this ugliness? Did not one of them think the remarks strange enough to warrant at least a passing mention? What are we missing here?

Just a quick quote:

“But the central point is that any campaign against Iraq, whatever the strategy, cost and risks, is certain to divert us for some indefinite period from our war on terrorism. Worse, there is a virtual consensus in the world against an attack on Iraq at this time. So long as that sentiment persists, it would require the U.S. to pursue a virtual go-it-alone strategy against Iraq, making any military operations correspondingly more difficult and expensive. The most serious cost, however, would be to the war on terrorism. Ignoring that clear sentiment would result in a serious degradation in international cooperation with us against terrorism. And make no mistake, we simply cannot win that war without enthusiastic international cooperation, especially on intelligence.”

Rep. Cynthia McKinney? Ramsey Clark? The editors of The Guardian?

No.

Brent Scowcroft.

Let’s guess the completely predictable reaction of the wing-nuts to certain recent, arguably intemperate, comments by the politically inclined and haphazardly coherent actress, Susan Sarandon.

According to a report from MSNBC.com, Sarandon, currently performing in Glasgow or Edinburgh or Leeds or some other godforsaken city on the primary British Isle, observed that in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, “the country united in a way that showed ‘America at its finest.’”

Within three weeks, however, according to the reasonably talented actress and consummate poseur, “a cut-out of John Wayne showed up and a jingoist kind of thing started taking over, and nobody could ask questions anymore.”

Continuing along the same vein, Sarandon, who is married to the hopelessly untalented and apparently unemployable Tim Robbins, added, “We’re not supposed to talk about how there might have been something leading up to this, that it could have been prevented, or that our actions have ramifications.”

Then, ratcheting up the rhetoric more than a few notches, Sarandon added, “We’re living in a lock-down in terms of information and a certain point of view, and if you challenge that point of view, you’re anti-American.”

Granted, we share Sarandon’s concerns, though we would like to think we could express them with greater sophistication.

Nonetheless, just watch. Within 24 to 48 hours, tops, the wing-nuts, the talk-radio hosts, and the White House will be up in arms over Sarandon’s purported disloyalty, anti-Americanism, and brazen left-wing inclinations.

Frankly, we have little tolerance for actors and actresses who believe their political views and opinions regarding American foreign policy are of interest, let alone consequence, to anyone other than themselves.

The very idea that Sarandon, Robbins, Barbra Steisand, Alec Baldwin, David Geffen, Leonardo DiCaprio, and the rest have any influence on public opinion, let alone public policy, is ludicrous on its face.

Thus, like any intelligent person, we pretty much ignore political observations and prognostications coming out of Hollywood.

The sad part is that these stars and starlets offer unthinking conservatives all the more straw men -- their favorite targets, after all -- to knock down with easy impunity.

It appears, appropriately enough, that the “girly boys” of National Review -- Rich Lowry, Jonah Goldberg, Rod Dreher, Byron York, and, presumably, Kathryn Jean Lopez -- have caved.

Hey, the words “girly boys” aren’t ours, they come from Ann Coulter, who after a well deserved hiatus, is returning to National Review Online, her future association with the loony bin known as Front Page Magazine, operated by ex-Stalinist and current-crybaby David Horowitz, being at this point unknown.

We’re surprised by the decision of the editors of National Review. It can’t be because Coulter has anything to contribute to political discourse in America. She certainly has no readily discernible positions on the major issues of the day, other than that she’s eager to destroy “Arabia” and seems to like guns an awful lot.

Of course it could be because Coulter has a best-selling book on the racks, the self-referentially entitled Slander, which, we were surprised to learn, is not an autobiography.

Perhaps Coulter has been rehired by National Review because the “girly boys” fear she might go postal on them -- a not entirely unrealistic concern, we think, given her clearly evident mental instability.

Ann Coulter Taking Aim at Jonah Goldberg

A promising young scholar, Dr. Christopher Capozzola (A.B., Harvard College; M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D., Columbia University), assistant professor of history at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is out with a thoughtful review of an exhibition of the works of the self-taught American painter Ralph Fasanella. The review, entitled “Bread and Roses,” appears in the Sept. 2 issue of In These Times.

A quick teaser:

“The idea of a painter walking around an art gallery wearing a gas station attendant’s shirt with the name ‘Ralph’ stitched above the pocket, spouting off lines like ‘the function of the artist is to disturb,’ is an old cliché -- and embarrassing to anyone but an art school sophomore. At first glance, it would seem that the painter Ralph Fasanella would fit right in among today’s urban hipsters. But Fasanella, who really was a gas station attendant and who really was named Ralph, ought to make such people squirm in their shirts.”

The exhibit is on display at the Mennello Museum of American Folk Art in Orlando, Fla., from Aug. 16 to Nov. 3, after which it will travel to the Ellis Island Immigration Museum in New York.

Dr. Capozzola’s review of the exhibition is not yet available on the web site of In These Times. We urge you to buy a copy of the magazine -- specifically the Sept. 2 issue -- at your local bookstore, newsstand, or food co-op.

[Full disclosure: Dr. Capozzola is a brother of the editor of The Rittenhouse Review.]

We didn’t spend too much time listening to or reading about the economic forum hosted by President Bush in Waco, Texas, yesterday.

From the first we learned of the event, we assumed it would be nothing more than a public relations session devoted to cheerleading, as if that would be enough to spark a stronger economic rebound.

Regardless, Eric Alterman neatly sums up the event for everyone.

Douglas J. Donohue is dead.

Donohue, 12, of Millsboro, Del., accidentally shot himself to death Monday morning while playing with a loaded handgun he found in his home, according to Delaware State Police, the News-Journal (Wilmington) reports today.

Donohue was baby-sitting his sisters when he found a loaded .25-caliber semi-automatic handgun in his parents’ bedroom, police said.

According to the News-Journal, “The boy began playing with the gun in the living room as his sisters, ages 9 and 10, looked on, police said. The boy pointed the gun at one of his sisters, but did not pull the trigger before sitting down in a recliner and removing two of the bullets in the gun, along with the magazine, police said.

“The boy mistakenly left one bullet in the chamber before pointing the gun at his face and pulling the trigger, police said. He died around 11:25 a.m., they said.

“His sisters were still in the room with him, said Cpl. Bruce Harris, a state police spokesman. After the shooting, they ran from the home to find a neighbor. . . .

“The boy’s parents, Fred and Julie Donohue, were at work at the time of the shooting and were interviewed by troopers Monday, along with their daughters, Harris said. The gun belonged to them, he said.

“Reached at her home Monday night, Julie Donohue said her family moved to the home on Winter Road last year and some boxes remained unpacked. She said she suspects the gun was in one of those boxes. . . .

“‘I didn’t even know where the damned thing was,’ she said.

“No charges were filed Monday and the investigation continues, Harris said.”

Take it away, Ann & Co.

If you have a couple of free minutes, stop by our second weblog, |||trr|||, the home of “The Lighter Side of The Rittenhouse Review.” The latest posts at |||trr||| include:

“Potentially Truly Great Awful Movie Alert”

“Baseball Legend, Crossword Godsend Passes On”

“Patio Man and the Kids’ Clothes”

“Like Father, Like Daughter?”

“The Worst State?”

“The Stinkymeat Project”

“Bonnie Fuller’s ‘Reign of Terror’”

“Living in the Wrong Country”

“Lame ‘Larry King Live’ Alert”

“Pretentiousness Watch”

“So Many Voices . . . So Little to Say”

“Macho, Macho Man!”

“Best TV Lines Ever?”

“The Joy of Blair”

“Todd Oldham is Back”

“Ron Borges Libels Lance Armstrong”

“That Traficant’s a Funny Guy”

Welcome back to Journalism 101. Three days ago we announced a pop quiz on standards of journalistic integrity in which we asked readers to explain in no more than 500 words whether they would have published a report by an unidentified gossip columnist (“Gossip A”) had they been the columnist’s editor at the place of employment (“Newspaper X”). (For details about the quiz, direct yourselves here.)

Now, obviously, the correct answer to the hypothetical presented to the class is NO. As in, “No, I would not have published the piece written by Gossip A.” Although it is conceivable, albeit far-fetched, that a case could be made in favor of publishing Gossip A’s minor scribble, not one person submitting an essay could do so.

To be honest, this quiz was a give-away intended to help everyone raise his grade point average.

After all, proponents of publishing Gossip A’s column had virtually nothing to go on, what with the obvious political motives of at least two, and arguably all three of the gossips; the spotty track record of Gossip A and Gossip C (Gossip B being so insignificant a player in “the business” as to not warrant any concern); the blatant political agenda of the new girlfriend of Gossip A and her transparent influence on his writing since the relationship began; the apparently, to him at least, embarrassing lack of a girlfriend by Gossip C; the almost complete absence of any on-the-record sources; and the virtually irrefutable denial of the spokesman for the subjects of the gossips’ smear.

For the record, as responsible journalists often say, Gossip A from the original quiz is Lloyd Grove. His employer, “Newspaper X,” is the Washington Post. This is the article in question. Gossip B is Roger Friedman. His employer, “Web Site Y,” is FoxNews.com. And Gossip C is the psychologically tortured and sexually ambiguous Matt Drudge of the unselfconsciously eponymous Drudge Report, also known as “Web Site Z.”

It is so very sad to watch a complete meltdown take place in public view. Such things are more properly taken care of within the confines of a properly licensed and fully regulated mental institution. It makes everything safer, and, well, so much more pleasant, for everyone concerned.

[Ed.: Forgot the link.]

This just can’t be right. A one-hour radio show? Every morning? Every morning? Our society has descended to these depths?

The Perpetually Inebriated Lucianne Goldberg
Doing What We Think is Her Best Mae West Impersonation

Does anyone know whether Mickey Kaus and Andrew Sullivan are regulars on this stooge-fest? We would imagine they would feel quite comfortable in Bubbe Goldberg’s company.

Today we added a number of new sites to our list of “Better Blogs.” The newer sites, including some that were posted before today, are highlighted in bold text in the column at right.

We hope you will visit our latest additions and their latest editions.

The Israel army’s recent assassination of Salah Shehadeh by means of a one-ton bomb dropped in a crowded residential neighborhood in Gaza City, an action that produced substantial collateral damage, including the death of at least 15 innocent civilians, has proved difficult to defend even by the most ardent supporters of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the excessive force of the country’s military.

Let it not be said, however, that Martin Peretz couldn’t rise to the challenge, taking to the end page of the August 5 edition of his prized wedding gift, the New Republic, in an effort not only to justify the Israelis’ assault but to contend that the U.S. would have acted similarly, an argument he extends to the point of asserting Israel’s moral superiority over the U.S.

Noting the Bush administration’s half-hearted criticism of the attack, delivered by spokesman Ari Flesicher, (“this heavy-handed action does not contribute to peace”), Peretz writes: “It is true that Fleischer tried to draw a distinction between civilian casualties in the American-led war in Afghanistan and Israel’s bombing in Gaza. But, alas, this comparison does not redound in favor of the United States.”

Peretz cites a July 21 report in the New York Times in which it is asserted that the “American air campaign in Afghanistan, based on a high-tech, out-of-harm’s-way strategy, has produced a pattern of mistakes that have killed hundreds of Afghan civilians.”

The Times cites the U.S. bombing of a mosque last November during which 65 noncombatants were killed. Quoting the Times, Peretz adds: “[T]he evidence suggests that many civilians have been killed by air strikes hitting precisely the target they were aimed at . . . or because . . . Americans did not carefully differentiate between civilians and military targets.”

“If true, this is more than carelessness,” Peretz argues. “But let me pose a question,” the polemicist continues. “If we knew Mullah Omar and his men were riding in a convoy with women and children, would we refrain from bombing, even though noncombatants might be killed? I doubt it.” [Emphasis added.]

Is this how Peretz writes about his own country? Is he suggesting that the U.S. military’s operation in Afghanistan is being conducted in manner that lacks 100-percent moral rectitude? Is he accusing the U.S. military of acting with reckless disregard for innocent human lives? Is he suggesting the U.S. has committed war crimes? Is he seeking to undermine public support for the war on terrorism?

As usual, Peretz has much to answer for.

Max Sewicky makes quick work of Mary Matalin’s assertion lie on yesterday’s Today show that “every single economist agrees” that the 2001 recession would have been “longer and deeper” had it not been for the Bush administration’s tax cut and “stimulus package.”

But we’re still waiting for the administration’s point man on the economy, Karl Rove, to offer up an explanation for Matalin’s leak about the president’s agenda for establishing an economic and social utopia -- ensuring that “everyone who has a job wants one.” [Emphasis added.]

Welcome to Journalism 101. Today we’re having a pop quiz on standards of journalistic integrity.

Scenario: Gossip A from Newspaper X, where you work as an editor, picks up a story about a prominent politician and his wife put out by Gossip B, of Web Site Y, whose report cites only anonymous sources.

In an attempt to lend an aura of credibility to a second-hand story, Gossip A, who has submitted politically biased stories to you in the past, leans on a Gossip C, of Web Site Z, who has a decidedly mixed record of accuracy and reliability.

In Gossip A’s article, the politician’s spokesman provides convincing evidence that the story is made of whole cloth.

In opposition to that denial, Gossip A asserts contact with unnamed sources and then turns to Gossip B for a quote defending the original report, a quote in which Gossip B stands his ground but offers nothing else in his defense other than an unsubstantiated reconfiguration of the time line of events.

Your assignment: In an essay of up to 500 words, explain why you, as the editor of Gossip A’s newspaper, would or would not publish Gossip A’s story. Discuss and defend your position and base your defense on well-established standards of journalistic integrity.

It is not necessary for you to identify Gossips A, B, and C, Newspaper X, and Web Sites Y and Z. This information will be provided at the conclusion of the assignment.

[Ed.: Minor post-publication edits for purposes of clarity.]

Damn! Hesiod Theogeny, the voice behind Counterspin Central, is on a tear this week!

Chickenbloggers, be warned, he has your number.

We’re glad we’re on Hesiod’s good side. . . . Or at least we think we are. . . . We are, aren’t we?

Stop by and enjoy a good read. This guy knows his stuff.

Has Mickey Kaus, or “The Mickster,” as fellow far-right-winger Andrew Sullivan ingratiatingly calls him, gone completely off the deep end?

We vote YES. (See entry at 11:57 a.m. on August 8.)

We had no idea die Grüne were such a touchy bunch!

Based on the juvenile content and oh-so-wounded tone of many of the plaintive green-hued e-mails coming over the transom, we’d like to pass along a tip: If you people plan to play in the big leagues, you might want to grow, or otherwise acquire, thicker skins.

You might also give some thought to a basic political principle: Choose your targets carefully, particularly when you’re on the fringe.

Of course, we might be acting a bit condescending here, as it appears the Green Party has chosen its primary target -- Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) -- all too carefully.

Sen. Wellstone, despised by the Republican Party generally and the Bush administration in particular, looks vulnerable this year. One would think the Greens would go all out to ensure Sen. Wellstone’s re-election given the admirable record he has accumulated over the past 12 years, one that could serve as a template for Green Party campaign brochures.

But no. Sadly, it’s just that vulnerability that has attracted the narrow-minded and politically reckless Greens to launch their campaign against Sen. Wellstone, despite the Democrats’ precarious majority in the upper chamber.

Greenies: A Favorite of Dogs Everywhere

Let’s listen in on one of their strategy sessions, shall we?

“Dudes, let’s go for it. Let’s play the role of the spoiler.”

“But where, man? Where?”

“Like in Minnesota, dude. If we can beat Wellstone and throw the Senate back into the hands of the Republicans, then the Democrats will have to play ball with us. We’ll be players, man.”

“Dude, we can’t beat Wellstone!”

“Dude, I don’t mean beat beat, I mean just help make sure Wellstone loses. We gotta’ make sure the man falls.”

“Righteous sentiment, dude. Hell, there’s no difference between Republicans and the Republican-Democrats anyway, so why not screw them both?”

“Awesome analysis, my friend. To hell with all the crap the poor, the working class, and the middle class have to deal with. We’re on the edge of sparking a revolution, man!”

“Sparking a revolution! That’s like awesome, dude. You really mean it?”

“That’s what Ralph says. Who am I to question our revered leader?”

“But what if Coleman wins? Won’t the Democrats be ticked off at us? What if the Senate goes back to the Republicans? Won’t we be at least partly responsible?”

“Responsible? I don’t follow you, dude.”

“You know, like it’s partly our fault.”

“Who cares about ‘responsible’? This is bigger than us, dude. And in two years we’ll just pick a few more elections where we can help the right wing beat the not so right wing. Dude, this is what Ralph wants. Are you with us or against us?”

We’ll say it again, Greens. Get real!

Joshua Micah Marshall of Talking Points Memo has one of his reliably interesting, informative, and provocative articles coming out in the next issue of the Washington Monthly.

It’s a “must-read” and you can get an early look at it by heading here.

Teaser quote: “With their trademark bravado, the Bush administration recast warmed-over or failed initiatives as sure bets. And for a while, the media, the public, and even some Democrats bought in. Today, however, its signature domestic accomplishment -- the 2001 tax cut -- seems destined to yield dividends of deficits and political fallout for years to come. When you look past the promises and the tough talk and the spin, you see an administration whose major policy initiatives are stalled or postponed to some unspecified point in the future.”

By now most readers are aware of the controversy surrounding the assignment of Approaching the Qur’an: The Early Revelations as required reading for incoming freshmen at the University of North Carolina.

Apparently operating under the belief that the book, written by Michael A. Sells, professor of comparative religion at Haverford College, is a manual for terrorism, Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly recently had an on-air coronary during which he spewed forth some invective about forcing impressionable youngsters to study “our enemy’s religion.”

Naturally, a lawsuit has ensued, filed in federal court in North Carolina by something called the Family Policy Network, “a socially conservative Christian educational organization.”

Joe Glover, president of the FPN, contends it is unconstitutional for a public university to require students to study a particular religion, ignoring the obvious facts that the students aren’t be directed to study one specific religion and that they are being asked to read not the Qu’ran but a book about the Qu’ran.

Anyway, having said all that, we have another point to make.

“In response to the uproar, the university last month amended the assignment,” according to a report in the Philadelphia Inquirer. “Instead of writing a one-page paper about the book, students who object to the reading can skip it and take to campus Aug. 19 a one-page paper explaining their objections.”

What the hell is a “one-page paper”?!

Up to this point, you have read fewer than 250 words. Had this post been printed on paper, doubled-spaced, as is normally required of college papers, you would already be on the second page.

Fourth-graders, at least back in our day, wrote longer book reports on My Friend Flicka.

Knock yourselves out, kids, give it your all. But don’t save the writing assignment for the last minute. You will want to set aside plenty of time to work on that “paper.”

Such, apparently, is the state of higher education in America today. And yet on this particular controversy we expect Second Lady Lynne Cheney and über-proctor William Bennett will speak nary a word.

Mary Matalin, counselor to Vice President Dick Cheney, is on CNBC as we write this, lying through that tiny mouth of hers that never seems to open wider than one-eighth of an inch.

Two howlers:

First, according to Matalin, “every single economist agrees” that the recession of 2001 would have been “longer and deeper” were it not for the Bush administration’s tax cut and “stimulus package.”

Take it away Drs. Sewicky and DeLong.

The second howler is really more of a misstatement or an odd Freudian slip. Matalin maintains that the Bush administration is focused on jobs, “it’s all about jobs,” she says. Better yet, the administration wants to make sure “everyone who has a job wants one.”

And thus the pursuit of happiness takes on an entirely new meaning. And a great way to increase unemployment.

Please give serious consideration to making a contribution to the re-election campaign of Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.), a two-term U.S. senator facing opposition for a third term from no fewer than three candidates: Norm Coleman (Republican), Jim Moore (Independence Party), and Ed McGaa (Green Party).

Maintaining this seat for the Democrats is essential to the party retaining control of the U.S. Senate. Do not underestimate the importance of this race. Contributions to the Wellstone campaign can be made by visiting the Wellstone for Senate 2002 site.

Anything you can afford would be of great help: $10, $25, $50, $100, or more. Join us in making what was admittedly a more modest donation than we would have preferred to have made. If you can only afford $25 now, consider making another donation a few weeks from now as we intend to do.

Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.)

Sen. Wellstone is one of us. Let’s make sure Ralph Nader and his slavish followers, an odd assortment of weirdos who each day more and more resemble the zombie-like supporters of the psychotic Lyndon LaRouche, and who are the very same people who, in conjunction with the U.S. Supreme Court, ensured former Texas governor George W. Bush (R) would be installed as the nation’s president, don’t win another of their stupid “principled victories.”

These days, politics are for real. Not a game. Not a playground for a washed-up and overrated former consumer advocate who refuses to take even such basic steps as releasing his tax returns and his deluded mob of disheveled college-aged minions. It’s time to get real. And getting real has nothing whatsoever to do with the so-called Green Party.

Okay, maybe it isn’t really an “overlooked web site.” Maybe we were just slow in finding it. Regardless, Bitter Lemons, while a bit uneven at times, has proved to be a valuable stopping point on our daily trips across the web. At least they’re talking to each other rather than past each other.

As if we didn’t already have enough evidence that L. Dennis Kozlowski, the former chief executive of Tyco International Ltd. was headed for the history books, today’s Wall Street Journal seals his fate, earning the crooked honcho a special place in the corporate hall of shame.

“Tyco Spent Millions for Benefit of Kozlowski, Its Former CEO,” a page one masterpiece by Mark Maremont and Laurie P. Cohen, documents a pattern of “hubris and greed” that would put Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette to shame.

Kozlowski turned Tyco’s till into a personal slush fund, the article reveals, buying a $19 million mansion in Boca Raton, Fla., in 1998 with an interest free loan provided by Tyco that later was forgiven as part of a corporate “bonus program.” Even better for Kozlowski, the $13 million of taxes due on the forgiven loan were also paid by Tyco.

And that’s just the beginning. “All told, it appears that more than $135 million in Tyco funds went to benefit Kozlowski, largely in forgiven loans and company payments for real estate, charitable donations, and personal expenses,” according to the Journal.

Maremont and Cohen document a pattern of abuse that includes $25 million in loans forgiven in 1999; $11 million of antiques, art, and furnishings for Kozlowski’s New York apartment; and $18 million for the apartment itself.

Kozlowski made donations estimated at $35 million to various charities using Tyco funds. Two large donations are particularly notable: Nearly $2 million to the Berwick Academy, a private school in Maine attended by his daughters, for an athletic center that bears the name not of Tyco but of Kozlowski; and $5 million to Seton Hall University, his alma mater, to build Kozlowski Hall.

It just goes on and on. Kozlowski put his doctor, his physical trainer, a chef, a masseur, and a yachting expert on Tyco’s payroll. The latter’s duties included helping Kozlowski build a 150-foot sailboat.

In mid-1997, when Tyco acquired ADT Ltd., Kozlowski, who three months earlier had publicly expressed his contempt and disdain for stock options as “a free ride . . . a way to earn megabucks in a bull market,” was granted 3.3 million options. “Mr. Kozlowski also pocketed $9.3 million in pay in the first three months after the ADT deal closed,” according to the Journal. “His pay rose to about $24 million in fiscal 1998 -- plus another $41 million in options gains. Tyco then added a rich retirement program for Mr. Kozlowski that currently guarantees him at least $4.1 million a year for life after age 65. A huge life-insurance policy was also executed for his benefit.”

The conclusion of Maremont and Cohen: “All told, Mr. Kozlowski reaped more than $400 million in salary, stock grants and gains from the sale of stock options during the past four years.”

The New York apartment, a Fifth Avenue duplex, was decorated by Wendy Valliere, a friend of Kozlowski and his second wife. “Her firm’s tab for furnishings and decoration totaled about $7.5 million, according to people familiar with the company,” write Maremont and Cohen. “Nearly $4 million was spent on other furnishings and art.”

Valliere, when contacted by the Journal, said the $7.5 million figure cited in the article is “too high,” but declined to provide an alternative figure. The job she did for the Kozlowskis, Valliere said, was “so mid-range compared to what a lot of people do.”

Perhaps, but there was nothing mid-range about L. Dennis Kozlowski did.

To The Rittenhouse Review:

My idea of a memorial to the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and elsewhere is similar but more grandiose than Gabriella De Ferrari’s proposed bench-making.

Congress should appropriate funds to build seven new high schools in each of the 435 congressional districts.

The federal government would provide the buildings, furniture, and supplies, making the schools turnkey operations.

Each school would be named for a victim of the terrorist attacks. We could let the terrorists know that for each person that is killed, another new school would open.

The more educated the population is the better off the whole country is. This is the best antidote to terror.

Peter Stanley

To The Rittenhouse Review:

Andrew Sullivan and Camille Paglia.

Words can’t begin to describe the magnitude of the joy with which this post fills me.

It's pretty damn big, though.

Anticipatorily . . .

Julia Mueller

As most of our readers know, The Rittenhouse Review, despite its center-liberal political and social orientation, is rather traditional with respect to the appropriate forum for the discussion of certain topics and the presentation of certain issues.

Call us uptight if you will, but we feel compelled to restrain from publishing on this site an interesting item we recently encountered, and thus refer our more mature readers instead to one of our affiliated web sites, |||trr|||, for a look at British Tory expatriate and American right-wing pundit Andrew Sullivan’s latest incarnation.

We’re not quite sure what to make of Sullivan’s latest display [Link may be temporarily out of service.] -- whether it’s a retrograde image donned in homage of the Village People or some Camille Paglia-inspired nouveau-butch look -- but we’re sure we don’t want to publish it here.

From a weblogger named or called “Junius”: “[A]s far as I can see, almost everything on the RR [The Rittenhouse Review] has the tone of an ex cathedra pronouncement. I find that decision about authorial voice a little strange for this medium.”

Apparently Junius is not a regular reader of Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish.

The “Word of the Week” included in right-wing linguist and military strategist Laura Ingraham’s latest e-mail blast is: prepotency.

Here’s how Ingraham presents the “Word of the Week”:

“prepotency \pree-POTE-n-see\ noun

“The quality or condition of having superior power, influence, or force; predominance.

“As in--

“The awesome prepotency of the American military will ultimately ensure that Saddam Hussein doesn’t have a chance of fending off an American invasion.”

What are the chances of such a fortuitous confluence of events?

Neither fire-breathing right-winger David Horowitz nor hand-wringing right-winger Andrew Sullivan will be spouting off publishing for at least the next several days.

Is there a meeting somewhere to which we weren’t invited?

Regardless, we’ll enjoy the respite while it lasts.

We’re scratching our heads wondering why a weblog called “Junius” (Sorry, no permalinks, you’re on your own.) jumped to the conclusion that this statement had anything whatsoever to do with his/her/their site.

Actually, as best we can determine after the fact, the inclusion of “Junius” on our list of “Better Blogs” was something more akin to a typographical error than anything else. Thus, removing the link, which, frankly, we cannot remember having done, would rank at about the same level of seriousness or severity.

We would be happy to see “Junius” join the list of links on our site, should it merit inclusion, and we expect to review the site, with which we are admittedly only vaguely familiar, over the next several weeks.

We never thought Paul O’Neill was a particularly good choice to head the Treasury Department and with each passing week we find our initial instincts vindicated. In fact, we believe the time has come for Secretary O’Neill to resign.

The Washington Post weighed in with a smart editorial on this topic on Thursday, August 1, entitled “Mr. O’Neill’s Gaffes.” Although the Post did not suggest O’Neill resign nor did it call for the White House to replace him, the editors may as well have done so, given the tone of their remarks, not one of which we can disagree with.

“On Fox News last Sunday, Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill declared that, by the president’s designation, he is the administration’s chief spokesman on the economy. It is not a role at which he excels,” the editors wrote, in a masterful understatement.

“In the very same program, Mr. O’Neill made comments that contributed to a fall of more than 5 percent in the value of Brazil’s currency the next day and triggered a formal protest from Brazil’s government,” the editors continued. “This was Mr. O’Neill’s second gaffe on Brazil in the space of five weeks. At the end of June, the treasury chief said he opposed fresh International Monetary Fund loans to Brazil because its problems were ‘political.’”

Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill

Then, after having upset the Brazilians, their neighbors, and the currency markets, O’Neill did virtually the same thing again. “After that remark, the Treasury issued a regretful statement expressing confidence in Brazil’s economic management. But the episode did not prevent Mr. O’Neill from jumping into more hot water last weekend,” write the Post editors. “Referring to Argentina and Uruguay as well as Brazil, the secretary said the challenge for these governments is to make sure that financial assistance ‘doesn’t just go out of the country to Swiss bank accounts.’”

It’s quite possible that Secretary O’Neill, who did an admirable job while at Alcoa Inc., simply lacks the diplomatic skills required for his position. But as the Post points out, the secretary apparently is clueless as to the significance of his position and the seriousness with which his remarks are viewed worldwide.

“[P]erhaps Mr. O’Neill hasn’t gotten used to the idea that, as Treasury secretary, his comments can move markets,” the editorial reads. “‘I’m constantly amazed that anybody cares what I do,’ he said the other day. If he’s not careful he’ll be out of a job, in which case his amazement will be ended.”

We have no reason to expect Secretary O’Neill to exercise discretion in his public remarks in the days, weeks, or months ahead. As a result, we believe his days in the administration are numbered, an idea with which we are well pleased.

Our nominee for his replacement?

Former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin.

“Nevada lawmakers capped pain-and-suffering awards at $350,000 in most lawsuits yesterday, part of an effort to end a health-care crisis triggered by soaring malpractice insurance rates. Gov. Kenny C. Guinn (R) said the legislation would help keep doctors in the state because insurance premiums would be expected to fall in a few years.” [Emphasis added.]

“When Benjamin Blutstein visited his parents’ home in Harrisburg a few weeks ago, the Hebrew University student left behind a book on their coffee table. The title: Understanding Islam,” begins a moving article in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer about the life of one of the American victims of this week’s bombing at the university’s Jerusalem campus.

“By most accounts, the younger Blutstein was a study in contrasts,” writes Ovetta Wiggins. “By day, he immersed himself in an intense Hebrew language course, learning to speak the language with a native fluency. By night, he spun hip-hop albums at a local nightclub owned by an Arab from Nazareth.”

Blutstein was one of seven people killed in the attack, which also wounded at least 80 others. Sometimes we need to be reminded there’s a person, a life behind each of those numbers.

To The Rittenhouse Review:

There is irony in Pat M. Holt’s call for a $1 million limit on executive compensation.

Section 162(m) of the Internal Revenue Code prohibits a public company from deducting any compensation of over $1 million to its chief executive officer or to the four other employees with the highest pay. Two exceptions are any pay based on commissions or any “performance-based” compensation.

This limit first affected U.S. corporations in 1994. Until then, compensation was deductible only to the extent that it was “reasonable.”

The burgeoning of stock options in the 1990s was an unintended consequence of this provision. As long as stock option plans were somehow based on the performance of the company, were approved by outside directors and the shareholders, there was no effective limit on executive pay.

All this occurred after Congress thought it had the problem solved.

Never underestimate the power of creative accountants and lawyers!

Signed,
Tim Francis-Wright
Bear-Left.com

Time for some serious damage control.

James K. Glassman and Kevin A. Hassett, writing in today’s Wall Street Journal (“Dow 36000 Revisited”), virtually negate whatever value their book, Dow 36000, might ever have had as economic prognostication or even as an intellectual exercise.

Glassman and Hassett today say:

“When our book, Dow 36,000, was published in September 1999, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 10318. The Dow closed yesterday at 8736. What went wrong? Actually, nothing. Despite its flamboyant title, Dow 36,000 was a book of sober explanation, not of wild prognostication. We calculated that 36000 was the point at which the 30 stocks that comprise the Dow Industrials would be fully valued, and we warned that ‘it is impossible to predict how long it will take.’”

We admit to having only skimmed a review copy of Dow 36000 prior to its publication three years ago, dismissing the book as yet another attempt to cash in on an overvalued equity market. But if the above paragraph constitutes an accurate summary of the Glassman-Hassett thesis, anyone who bought the book deserves a full refund because the explanation offered here includes nothing of any value whatsoever.

Apparently we are to believe it was the publisher’s fault, or perhaps the marketing department of the publishing company. A catchy title was needed to sell the book, and Glassman and Hassett here seem to imply they wouldn’t have chosen such an aggressive title. This doesn’t quite get them off the hook, but it is a very convenient argument.

Determining “full value” -- Is it worth it?

Glassman and Hassett, resident fellow and resident scholar, respectively, at the American Enterprise Institute, fail to explain what they mean by “full value.” That’s unfortunate, because as anyone who has valued equity securities knows, the calculation of a stock’s fair value to a particular investor (and they are not all alike) includes numerous factors, the most quantifiable of which are, among other things, the expected rate of return, the equity risk premium, the investment horizon (or time period the stock is expected to be held), and the discount rate (needed to calculate present value).

When will the 30 stocks in the Dow Industrials become “fully valued”? Who knows and who cares? What difference could that possibly make to an investor? The phrase “fully valued” seems to imply that there is a terminal point at which individual stocks achieve their full value, their complete potential as it were. The odds of this happening to all 30 Dow stocks at the same time are virtually nil.

And irrelevant. The investor cares only about the “fair” or “intrinsic” value of the security in light of current and anticipated economic conditions, interest rates, inflation, desired rate of return, and, to be blunt about it, his “cash out” date.

Stating the obvious . . .

According to today’s article, Glassman and Hassett argued that an investor with a “long-term” horizon (“at least five years and, better, 10 or more”) should invest primarily in stocks and equity mutual funds and avoid bonds. In addition, investors should “buy and hold, and not try to time the market.” Why? Because “[s]tocks will not go straight up, we warned.” And third, they argued, “stocks are undervalued relative to their long-run trend.”

The first two points are conventional wisdom. The third point sounds the most impressive but it is also the most obvious. Except during periods of mania such as we experienced roughly from 1998 to early 2000, the stocks of quality companies are almost always undervalued relative to the long-term trends of the stocks’ prices, i.e., to their long-term value.

After all, if an investor believes a share of Gillette Co. will be worth $150 in 20 years or so, why would he pay $150 to own a share of Gillette right now, particularly when a share can be had for $33? He wouldn’t, for the simple reason of what is called “the time value of money.” The investor, if he’s smart, would be willing to pay the present value of the stock 20 years out, factoring in his expectations of growth, interest rates, the equity risk premium, the value of dividends, the manner in which he invested his dividends, and so forth. Naturally that figure will be lower than the “long-run trend” of the stock’s price.

. . . And a weak conclusion

Sadly, Glassman and Hassett end their essay with a resounding thud: “No, the Dow is not at 36000 right now, and we didn’t say it would be. But there is little doubt that, as long as the U.S. economy remains sound, stock prices will rise to 36000 and beyond.”

Do they mean that if an investor buys the Dow 30 now and then holds these stocks for some unspecified period of time he will be handsomely rewarded because the index will eventually reach 36000?

No kidding! Really? Amazing!

This is a no-brainer. We just created -- in less than 10 minutes -- an Excel spreadsheet demonstrating that the Dow could reach 36000 in about 16 years assuming a 10 percent annual return, and in nearly 20 years assuming the S&P 500’s historical annual rate of return of 7.6 percent. And if we accept the 15.2 percent annual rate of return Glassman and Hassett refer to with respect to the 20 years ending in 2001 (and we shouldn’t), the Dow would reach 36000 in just over 10 years.

All Glassman and Hassett are saying is the same thing every two-bit broker says over a few cocktails: “In the long run, stocks always go up.” Every element of that seemingly profound statement is true. Pick almost any “long run” -- 10-, 20-, and certainly 30-year period -- and you will find that the major stock indexes (i.e., “stocks” as a group, rather than a particular stock) appreciated, usually substantially.

That’s our view and we’re giving it to you for free.

Further evidence that the proposals for a World Trade Center memorial continue their perpetual slide from dignity to absurdity comes from novelist Gabriella De Ferrari writing in today’s New York Times (“Solace in the Stars”).

De Ferrari’s idea came to her while flying into New York after a month in Tuscany, where the sun apparently shined upon her with stupefying intensity.

It takes some time for De Ferrari to present us with her suggestion. We must first wade through much chatter about skies and stars, attempts to wax poetic about an old carved wooden bench, and the obligatory quote from a foreign writer, in this case Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz.

De Ferrari comes down to this: “The city is now pondering what to build as a memorial to those killed on Sept. 11. Most of the talk is about a monument at the World Trade Center site. But perhaps the families of those who died may also find comfort in something smaller and more personal.”

The climax: “We could build each family a bench to be placed in a spot of their choosing for their own observatory, a place to meditate and think of those who died. Each bench would be a private shrine in a public universe, each star, at times visible and at times imagined, bringing thoughts of eternity that might help us confront what we have seen.”

Yes. And for pigeons to drop on and vagrants to sleep on. Sounds lovely.

Norah Vincent is described by the Los Angeles Times -- a major voice of the “liberal media” that we have heard relentlessly seeks to silence conservative voices and yet for which Vincent writes a regular column -- as “a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a think tank set up after Sept. 11 to study terrorism.”

Now, Vincent’s contribution to our collective understanding of democracy and terrorism between Sept. 11 and today has been, well, nothing. And Vincent extends this curious phenomenon, one for which someone actually pays her money, with today’s column, “In a Clash of Cultures, We’ve Put God in the Middle,” a trite attempt at melding theology, politics, and foreign policy.

A brief excerpt (Bet you don’t make it to the end!):

“Where is God? . . . And so I repeat, where is God? Where is our God? And what is he? Is he just a euphemism for getting what we want, a capricious projection of our selfish wants, a good day for a rescue crew or, like the Islamist’s Allah, a convenience we invoke to sanction our victories? In these times, the answers to these questions matter more than ever because we are in a religious war with militant Islam, every bit as much as we are caught in a clash of civilizations, and God is in the middle of it.”

Here’s a go-nowhere idea from Pat M. Holt in today’s Christian Science Monitor: “Rein In the Pay of America’s CEOs.”

“Congress could . . . [change] the tax code to provide that no part of the compensation paid to any employee exceeding, say, $1 million a year, can be treated as a business expense and thereby qualify as tax deductible,” Holt writes. “This would not prevent a company from paying an executive more than $1 million; but if it did so, the excess over a million would come from profits and not operating expenses.”

It would appear that Holt, former chief of staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was either asleep or on the moon during last year’s debate over the Bush administration’s tax cut, the main purpose of which was to make life even easier for wealthy executives.

This -- a brief but valuable point -- comes from The Hamster:

“[I]t’s interesting to note that while the thesis of Ann Coulter’s book [Ed.: Slander] is that liberal name-calling contributes to the decline of political issue debate in this country, when have you ever heard people like Ann Coulter debate issues? What issues does Coulter push? She only attacks liberals. That’s all she does. She advocates no public policy issues. Same with Sean Hannity. [Neither] of these people get their kicks off of advocating an issue. They get their kicks of[f] of kicking people, more specifically liberals. Indeed, that’s the point of modern day conservatism.”

The Hamster posted these remarks, which actually are part of a larger argument we urge you to read, yesterday, July 31.

Normally we wouldn’t be particularly interested in reading an article in the Village Voice entitled “On Being Called a Commie” (by Richard Goldstein), but since the hyper-vigilant David Horowitz called us “commies” and “post-modern commies” recently, we figured we ought to at least take a look.

Federal prosecutors this morning arrested Scott Sullivan and David Myers, the former chief financial officer and controller, respectively, of now-bankrupt WorldCom Inc.

The two were arraigned in New York this morning and are expected to be charged with mail and securities fraud.

Although Sullivan and Myers turned themselves in, they were still forced to do “the perp walk” in front of photographers while handcuffed. CNBC played the film of that incident several times this morning.

Former Chief Executive Officer Bernard Ebbers has not been arrested but it’s likely Sullivan and Myers will provide sufficient evidence to prosecutors whether or not they enter plea bargains that include lesser sentences.

Meanwhile, CNBC “Squawk Box” reporter David Faber today raised an interesting question: “Where are the Enron arrests?”

Faber observed that arrests came relatively quickly after the public first learned of the various forms of malfeasance cases at WorldCom, ImClone Systems Inc., and Adelphia Communications Corp.

And yet there have been no arrests of any former Enron Corp. executives, the most likely candidates for which would be Andrew Fastow, Kenneth Lay, and Jeffrey Skilling.

In fact, according to Faber, former Enron Chairman Lay has been seen “playing golf on posh courses” around the country, locations he reaches by flying on his private jet.

We seem to recall the oh-so-lovely second Mrs. Lay appearing on national television tearfully lamenting that “it,” meaning all of their fortune, tied up in Enron stock, “was gone.”

Indeed, the rich are different. They’re shameless.

Below I have reprinted a letter I sent to New York Times columnist William Safire on February 21, 2002.

Mr. William Safire
New York Times
New York, N.Y.

Dear Mr. Safire:

In your Feb. 21, 2002 column you wrote, “Enron, which mostly embarrassed Republicans, has been wrung dry in the media; the sight of the tilted ‘E’ symbol elicits yawns from viewers.”

You don’t get out much do you, Mr. Safire?

The demise of Enron Corp. is a very important issue to those who are following it, and I include in that group a surprising number of middle-class and working-class people I have encountered over the last few months who are extremely distressed and concerned about the issues raised by this debacle.

Many people I have talked to -- family, friends, colleagues, and strangers -- know more than you might expect about Enron. Believe it or not, they understand what Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, Andy Fastow, and Mike Kopper [A list to which I would now add Tom White.] did and did not do at Enron, and why their actions or inactions were wrong.

They know how much Enron’s executives and board members profited even after it was clear within the Enron Tower that the ship was sinking.

They know how willingly the Street played along with the game for its own benefit.

They know how badly the media failed in its task of watching for wretched excess and holding accountable those responsible for this disaster.

They even knew enough to laugh at the second Mrs. Kenneth Lay’s pathetic, tearful plea for sympathy.

To cite just one example, two weeks ago in Philadelphia a cab driver raised the subject with me for no particular reason. Not because the radio was on and Enron was under discussion at the moment, but because he was genuinely incensed by the rapacious actions of the company’s executives and friends.

And almost every day I watch “ordinary” people on the trains and subways reading stories about Enron in the New York Post, the New York Daily News, Newsday, and the Philadelphia Daily News.

Perhaps you and your colleagues at the Times aren’t perturbed by any of this, but far more people than you think are watching and are well informed.

They are eager to see how politicians, regulators, and the securities industry respond. Rational or not, they may decide to hold their congressional representatives and senators responsible. That’s just the way the system works.

Yours truly,

James M. Capozzola

And this was seven months ago!

As an addendum I would like to add that a New York cab driver not long ago asked me to explain -- in more detail than I would ever have expected -- what WorldCom did wrong when preparing its bogus financial statements.

It's not often that I get the opportunity to discuss capitalized expenses, operating expenses, depreciation, the calculation of earnings per share, and the concept of the price/earnings ratio with foreign-born cabbies, but in this case I was more than happy to spend the quick -- though insufficient -- 20 minutes doing so.

And it was on his tab, as the conversation took place after he had accepted my payment.

Look who is opposed -- vociferously opposed -- to the Bush administration’s proposed TIPS program.

You go, girl!

To: The Rittenhouse Review

Michael Novak says the men and women who rescued the trapped coal miners were “people who understand instinctively what it is to sacrifice one’s own self-assertion to the urgent needs of the group, and to work as a high-spirited, attentive, docile, alert, and creative team.”

Fair enough. But he goes on to say this is “a remarkable display of classic conservative virtues.”

Really? This must be a definition of conservatism that I missed. It sounds a lot more like altruism.

The Rittenhouse Review notes the comic aspect of a scholar from the American Enterprise Institute waxing poetic about union coal miners. But the not-so-comic possibility is that this accident may have been the result of -- surprise! -- corporate greed, and as such reveals the philosophical barrenness of Novak’s position.

All of us were thrilled and emotional at the rescue of the miners. But only a conservative like Novak would suck on to it as if all heart-warming, down-home stories were naturally the property of the “family values” crowd.

I wonder if he noticed, as I did, the contrast between the heroic actions of the average men and women of the police and fire departments of New York City, and the managerial malfeasance, cover-ups, and buck passing that went on (and is still going on) in the executive suites of the Bush Administration, the FBI, the CIA, and the Justice Department. Sound familiar?

Conservatives love tradition; well, there’s a tradition for you: union members working to save their brothers from the actions of corporate malefactors and religious and social fundamentalists. It’s a classic virtue, all right, but not a conservative one.

Michael Barry
Boston, Mass.

[Ed.: The writer is a singer and songwriter. His web site can be found at http://www.supergenius.us/]

We are (fairly) regular readers of Ha’aretz Daily and highly recommend the newspaper to anyone searching for insight into, and a better understanding of, the government and politics of Israel. We also are (fairly) regular readers of the Jerusalem Post, which we also recommend, but the Post, which is better known and more widely read outside of Israel, sometimes seems to be trying just a bit too hard to put the country’s best face forward.

In recent weeks we have offered comments on a number of articles from Ha’aretz, but in the last two days the paper has published so many interesting and provocative articles that we simply can’t keep up. We prefer to draw readers’ attention to these articles rather than simply letting them lie by the wayside.

“Minister’s Aide Calls Hebron Riots a ‘Pogrom’”
By Amos Harel and Jonathan Lis
July 31, 2002

“Col. (res.) Moshe Givati, an adviser on settlement security for Public Security Minister Uzi Landau, yesterday termed the rioting that took place during the funeral of Elazar Leibowitz, ‘a pogrom against the Arabs of Hebron, with no provocation on the Palestinian side.’”

“In a Fit of Rage”
By Ze’ev Schiff
July 31, 2002

“Anyone who decides to drop a one-ton bomb in the heart of a densely-populated area in order to kill one murderer is undoubtedly very angry at the attacks carried out on Israeli civilians and very frustrated because of the way in which the war is being conducted. And, indeed, the Israel Defense Forces is angry in a way that it has never been angry before -- in any previous war. The result is that when the location of the head of the military wing of Hamas becomes known, the decision not to let him slip away is made, whatever the consequences.”

“Fear and Violence in Hebron”
By the Editors
July 31, 2001

“Four Israelis were murdered by Palestinian terrorists last Friday in the Hebron area, including three members of a single family. During the Sunday funeral of one of the victims, First Sergeant Elazar Leibovitz, Israelis, including Hebron settlers and their guests, ran riot, shooting, stabbing, stoning and destroying property. They killed a 14-year-old Palestinian girl, Nibin Jamjum, and wounded dozens, including Israeli police officers. Suspects were arrested but released by the court, which said they did not need to be held for the investigation.” [Ed.: Emphasis added.]

“The Two-Thirds Solution”
By Hannah Kim
July 31, 2002

“The treasury’s new budget proposal is a profound revolution that more than anything else is reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher’s revolution in the United Kingdom in the 1980s, which was dubbed the ‘the two-thirds policy.’ Like the Thatcherite model, Israel’s two-thirds policy first of all declares that one-third of the population is expendable. All the unemployed, the ‘social cases’ and the recipients of guaranteed income allowances are economically inefficient, so the state’s help should be reduced to the absolute minimum to relieve the more productive segments of society of the burden of supporting the weak. Until now, there has been an assumption in Israel that society in general has a responsibility for the weak among it. But now, every citizen will be judged by one simple economic test: either they belong to the parasitical third or to the productive two-thirds. Are you ‘efficient’ or ‘a burden’?”

“If There’s Smoke, There’s No Cease-Fire”
By Akiva Eldar
July 31, 2002

“Israel’s propaganda machine worked overtime this week and proved its efficacy. The prime minister, the foreign minister, intelligence officers, officials and spokesmen changed overnight from a fight for a cease-fire to a fight against a cease-fire initiative. For many months, they told the entire world that it’s a waste of paper to reach a cease-fire with the Palestinian Authority, explaining that Tanzim and Fatah leaders are in control of the street, along with Hamas. They claimed that with one hand, PA Chairman Yasser Arafat signs condemnations of terror and with the other signs fat checks that he shoves into the pockets of the terrorists. . . . But when a unilateral declaration for a cease-fire, an initiative that rose from the deepest of the grassroots of the Tanzim and Fatah, was presented to them, everyone made a mockery of it.”

“Backlash of a Boycott”
By Joseph Algazy
[Note: As previously stated, The Rittenhouse Review strongly opposes this boycott.]

“For more than a month, universities, lecturers and students worldwide have been enjoying their summer break, but the dismissals of Prof. Gideon Toury and Dr. Miriam Shlesinger from the editorial staffs of the journals The Translator and Translation Studies Abstracts, respectively, continue to send waves throughout the European and American academic world.

“The two were fired by the publisher of the two journals, Mona Baker, as part of her personal contribution to the academic boycott previously declared by European and American members of academe following recent IDF operations in Palestinian Authority areas. The boycott, and particularly the dismissals of the two Israeli researchers in the field of the science of translation, has kicked up a storm that shows no signs of abating. . . .

“The declaration of the academic boycott against Israel was greeted with much opposition in Israel, although it created a far greater wave of protest abroad. Only a handful of Israeli academics supported the boycott. . . .

“Academics in Israel, many of whom are known for their opposition to the government’s policy on the Palestinian issue, determined that the boycott was too sweeping, since it was not directed at research programs that serve government policy and would primarily affect the weaker elements in the academic establishment, such as doctoral students who need references and opinions from abroad, or students requiring scholarships and grants.”

“Israel Discounts Hamas-Tanzim Cease-Fire; Insists on ‘One Force’”
By Aluf Benn and Daniel Sobelman
July 31, 2002

“Amid conflicting reports of ongoing internal Palestinian efforts to reach a sweeping cease-fire announcement, high-ranking Israeli sources are saying that Israel rejects the contacts between the Palestinian Authority and various Palestinian groups. They insist that the Palestinians undertake broad security reforms and cease incitement before any dialogue with the other side can take place.”

It seems Massachusetts Republican gubernatorial candidate Mitt Romney has a few skeletons in his safety deposit box.

“‘We have watched, in horror’ the news of scandals and mismanagement, Romney said in a hastily-planned speech at the Boston Stock Exchange, where he called for the state pension fund to invest only in companies that meet strict ethical standards,” according to a report in today’s Boston Globe. “‘We, as beneficiaries and owners of stocks, have been suffering,’ he said. ‘I am appalled by the financial accounting irregularities and abuses of power which we’ve seen.’”

He should know. He saw it all up close as a member of the boards of directors at Marriott International Inc. and Staples Inc.

“[R]ecords show that as a member of corporate boards, Romney took part in some of the very practices he is now criticizing,” the Globe reports.

Counterspin offers a smart and brief look at how conservatives’ really feel about coal miners. It would appear that once the photo opportunities, or column opportunities, have passed, it’s back to business as usual: cutting funds to support mine safety programs.

Why am I not surprised to learn Jonah Goldberg has a frequent-buyer card at the Android’s Dungeon?

[Note: This post originally was published at TRR: The Lighter Side of Rittenhouse.]

Whenever an event or crisis occurs that involves danger, fear, manual labor, faith, and family, it’s time to duck for cover, preferably before the punditocracy -- left, right, and center -- gets its hands on the incident, overanalyzes its significance, and ruins the (preferably) happy conclusion for everyone.

Such is the case already with the dangerous and nerve-wracking rescue of nine Pennsylvania coal miners trapped underground for nearly four days. As best we can tell, the accident at the mine and the ultimate recovery of the miners drew the interest, sympathies, and prayers of a wide range of Americans. The success of the rescue effort, which required overcoming several heartbreaking set backs, was applauded by millions of Americans across the political and ideological spectrum.

It is an event that we all shared, not unlike the attacks on New York and Washington last September. But, as expected, there are some who feel compelled to call the event their own, evidence of their special virtue, and worse, to use a tragedy (or potential tragedy) to support their own political agenda.

Michael Novak discovers the working class

Michael Novak, who we thought was a bit better than this, today has an essay on National Review Online, brazenly entitled “The Conservative Capital of the World.” No, Novak isn’t talking about Lynchburg, Virginia Beach, or Vienna, Virginia, he’s talking about Somerset, Pa., the scene of the mine accident under discussion here, conveniently, for Novak at least, located not altogether far from the spot where United Airlines Flight 93 either crashed or was shot down on Sept. 11, 2001.

“[T]he four days from Wednesday, July 24, until the wee hours of Sunday morning, July 28, brought a new birth of respect for the phrases ‘middle America’ and ‘blue-collar workers,’” according to Novak. “They showed all of us the heroism, toughness, and mental inventiveness of the humble people of America who at work get dirt on their faces and calluses on their hands. What a people!”

Novak must have struggled greatly to craft that paragraph, searching for the words that would enable him to sound awed and respectful but not condescending. He failed. But we applaud the effort.

Indeed, we suspect Novak sees precious few working-class or blue-collar Americans as he goes about his daily business. As a senior scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, Novak thinks his deep thoughts -- and apparently his banal sentimentalities as well -- while ensconced in a nice office in a respectable yet undistinguished building at the corner of 17th and M Streets, N.W., in Washington, D.C., the most white-collar large city in America.

“From the cops and firemen at the World Trade Center to the miners and rescuers and families at Somerset this July, we have seen a beauty of the American soul that we of the highly educated elites know too little of, and from day to day too little admire,” Novak continues, rhapsodically, sounding a bit too much like American Stalinists of old who found delirium in their wholly misguided romantic fantasies about the working class.

To be fair, laboring amid the toiling masses of nearby Connecticut Avenue -- lawyers, lobbyists, accountants, lawyers, bankers, lobbyists, lawyers -- doesn’t bring Novak into contact with people engaged in manufacturing, mining, or construction, or to longshoremen, steelworkers, day laborers, and farm workers. And we’re quite sure such people aren’t regulars at the free lunches, cocktail hours, and dinners enjoyed by those of Novak’s standing in the think-tank community. As such, we concede that the daily rhythms of the lives of Somerset’s miners, their families, and friends -- together with their response to what appeared to be a near-certain tragedy -- were something quite new to this very privileged conservative.

Novak adopts a political agenda

Strangely, however, Novak goes a step farther, finding a political message in the events surrounding the Somerset mine crisis.

“The sense of community . . . was so powerful it could not be missed,” writes Novak. “These were people who understand instinctively what it is to sacrifice one’s own self-assertion to the urgent needs of the group, and to work as a high-spirited, attentive, docile, alert, and creative team. To hell with what liberals might say or do. They knew what they were doing, and they did things their way.” [Ed.: Emphasis added.]

What on earth is this supposed to mean? What would liberals have said or done differently? How does Novak know that the working-class -- and poor -- people about whom he is writing do not adhere to the basic tenets of American liberalism today? We don’t know, because Novak merely makes an assertion -- all well and good when preaching to the National Review choir, but not good enough when he must confront a skeptic.

Novak surprises us by descending into absurdity. “This operation was not politically correct. Not infrequently, it was not even grammatically correct. But in the universal language of the human spirit, it was not only correct but elegant,” Novak writes. [Ed.: Emphasis added.] What would have made the operation “politically correct”? And not grammatically correct! Who cares? Though, Mr. Safire, please call your office.

“Meanwhile, the cooperation and efficient teamwork of the rescuers up above was amazing to watch. Everybody seemed at attention, alert and quick to react,” writes the theologian. “Muscles must have ached with painful weariness as hour after hour passed, and one whole day of work faded into two -- some went forty-eight hours with barely two hours for sleep.”

Yes, manual labor is hard work and it is work that is too often neither respected nor appropriately compensated. Somehow we doubt the latter fact is of any concern to Novak and his colleagues at A.E.I.

“Competence, excellence, teamwork, the spirit of community, discipline, the willing acceptance of every nuance of command set forth by an intelligent, directing authority, compassion for one another, prayer, faith, trust, and pride in one another -- these precious dispositions were deployed hour after hour in a remarkable display of classic conservative virtues.” [Ed.: Emphasis added.]

So are we to believe that moderates and liberals do not value “competence, excellence, teamwork, the spirit of community, discipline, the willing acceptance of every nuance of command set forth by an intelligent, directing authority, compassion for one another, prayer, faith, trust, and pride in one another”?

This is a collection of lies, plain and simple. A familiar refrain of lies, to be sure, but lies all the same.

“For me, this event has been an especially emotional experience. But its validity reaches far beyond the small circle of my own humble family’s memories. It belongs to the ages,” concludes Novak.

Indeed it does, sir, to the ages, not to self-styled conservatives who ascribe inhuman and inhumane motives to the political enemies they so viciously and dishonestly attack, all the while comically and disingenuously portraying themselves as defenseless victims. It’s time to say, “Enough.”

Coming soon to a web site near you . . . “Two Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”

The slightly altered revival of the 1975 film stars former magazine editor turned amateur weblogger (and poorly reviewed community theater performer) Andrew Sullivan as Billy Bibbitt, characterized by one fan of the film as “[a] thirty-one year old man, still psychologically an adolescent, [and] still under the control of his mother. McMurphy finds a way to bring out his manhood. Later is driven to suicide by Nurse Ratched.”

Part-time art-school instructor Camille Paglia stars as Nurse Ratched, widely known as “Big Nurse, described as ‘enormous, capable of swelling up bigger and bigger to monstrous proportions.’ She is the ward superintendent, the ultimate authority demanding obedience and perfect order from everyone.”

There’s already a buzz about the film in an isolated corner of the web:

“CAMILLE, ME, AND YOU: The dialogue is continuing offline. It took [sic] a little longer than a week. I hope to post the interview starting next Monday. Thanks for your patience.”

(“Longer than a week”? Help us, O merciful God, please spare us your vengeance.)

Sullivan, a vocal proponent of Androgel, saw his latest column published in the New York Sun, a newspaper with a circulation not much larger than the readership of the page in front of you. Sullivan’s most recent original book, Virtually Normal, was published in 1996.

Paglia is a part-time instructor in the communications department of the University of the Arts. Her most recent original book, Sexual Personae, was published 12 years ago. The promised second volume, presumably equally unreadable, has yet to emerge, to no one’s particular dismay.

[Note: Edited post-publication to include photographs and character descriptions.]

[Note: A reader has informed us that while Paglia is a part-time instructor in the department of communication at the University of the Arts she also is university professor of humanities and media studies at the same institution. In our defense, a search of the school’s web site does not make this clear at all. Indeed, at said site Paglia continues to be referred to as a regular contributor to Salon, a gig that ended several years ago. We look forward to confirming Paglia’s status with the art school tomorrow during regular business hours.]

Prairie-style justice -- crowds running amok, seeking vigilante-style vengeance and apparently with no fear of accountability -- continues unabated on the West Bank this week.

In the latest incident a 14-year-old Palestinian girl was killed and an eight-year-old boy stabbed as an estimated 4,000 Hebron settlers attending the funeral of 21-year-old Elazar Leibovitz (killed during yet another ambush targeting Israelis last week) went on a rampage through the town, throwing rocks, shooting at and burning Palestinian buildings, and breaking into homes, according to a report by Amos Harel in today’s Ha’aretz Daily (“Hebron Settlers Riot, Kill Palestinian Girl, 14”).

“According to settlers, they were only protecting themselves against rock-throwing by Palestinians, who were placed under curfew by the authorities before the funeral to prevent friction,” according to Ha’aretz.

Others on the scene offered a far different account.

“Eyewitnesses, including foreign press photographers on the scene, reported that the incitement during the funeral march had quickly turned into rock-throwing and a rampage through the open market, where settlers overturned stalls and burned a house,” the report continues. “In the chaos, extensive shooting took place, with Israel Defense Forces troops, deployed in large numbers, firing into the air and settlers shooting at buildings. The IDF said no Palestinians had been shooting.”

Fatally shot in the head was Nizin Jamjoum, 14, who was on the balcony of her home. Her brother, Marwan Jamjoun, 26, was injured along with at least six other Palestinians, including eight-year-old Ahmed Natcha, “who was stabbed when a group of settlers broke into his home and smashed furniture.”

Israeli Settlers Throwing Stones and Shooting
at Palestinian Homes in Hebron Yesterday

“The Jewish Community Council in Hebron expressed regret over any injury to police,” Harel reports, the council apparently unfazed by the death and injuries to the local Palestinian population.

Michael Kleiner, a member of the Knesset from the Herut Party told the paper: “[I]f the government doesn’t achieve a quick military victory, more and more frustrated Jews will take matters into their own hands.”

Although the police have ordered an inquiry into why the rioting was not prevented and the IDF “is also investigating,” according to Harel, no mention was made of whether authorities are seeking the settlers responsible for killing Jamjoum or stabbing Natcha. And so far at least, no outrage over whether the Israeli government can control its people and prevent such attacks in the future.

“Nearly all the Palestinian civilians killed and wounded by the one-ton air force bomb used to assassinate Salah Shehadeh, head of Hamas’s military wing in the Gaza Strip, were killed in their apartments in two and three-story buildings,” writes Gideon Levy in today’s edition of Ha’aretz Daily (“Gaza Victims Lived in Flats, Not in Shacks”).

“Despite army claims the day after the bombing that most of those killed had resided in shacks built in the surroundings of the Shehadeh building, a visit to the site shows that all those killed lived in sturdy buildings and not in shacks,” Levy continues. “The only shack-like structure in the compound was a chicken coop.”

Can we put this official lie to rest now or will we have to debate its validity ad nauseum?

I’m not an attorney but Ron Borges of the Boston Globe and NBC Sports seems to be veering pretty damn close to libel when he says Lance Armstrong isn’t an athlete.

Lance Armstrong

“Someone postulated on National Public Radio a week or so ago that Lance Armstrong was the greatest athlete in the world. Greatest athlete in the world? I wonder if he’s an athlete at all,” writes Borges.

Is this some kind of joke? A desperate ploy for attention?

Here’s just a small taste of Borges’s idiotic observations: "Athletes, for my money, must do more with their bodies than pump their legs up and down. If that’s all it took, the Radio City Rockettes would have to be considered the greatest athletes of all time."

Stop by the excellent weblog Cooped-Up for a devastating critique of Borges and his spiteful and bilious views. And then follow the link to Borges if you think you can stand it.

[Republished from today’s edition of |||trr|||.]

I’m not an attorney but Ron Borges of the Boston Globe and NBC Sports seems to be veering pretty damn close to libel when he says Lance Armstrong isn’t an athlete.

Lance Armstrong

“Someone postulated on National Public Radio a week or so ago that Lance Armstrong was the greatest athlete in the world. Greatest athlete in the world? I wonder if he’s an athlete at all,” writes Borges.

Is this some kind of joke? A desperate ploy for attention?

Here’s just a small taste of Borges’s idiotic observations: "Athletes, for my money, must do more with their bodies than pump their legs up and down. If that’s all it took, the Radio City Rockettes would have to be considered the greatest athletes of all time."

Stop by the excellent weblog, Cooped-Up for a devastating critique of Borges and his spiteful and bilious views. And then follow the link to Borges if you think you can stand it.

[Note: This post originally was published at TRR: The Lighter Side of Rittenhouse.]

Who wouldn’t love Todd Oldham? He’s talented, smart, fun, funny, sweet, and cute, and he’s been missed . . . badly.

Todd Oldham

Although he has been working steadily on various projects over the years, Oldham’s profile, for a variety of reasons, has waned in recent years.

But now, it looks like Todd Oldham is back in a big way, with his own line of household designs at Target stores and at Target online.

The current collection is geared toward the “back-to-school” shopper. Much of it is bolder and brighter than that toward which I gravitate -- being a black-white-gray-navy-beige solids kind of guy -- but it’s original, inspired, and very cool. Take a look.

And by the way, my mother is still crazy about Oldham’s signature perfume.

Todd Oldham Fragrance

[Note: This post originally was published at TRR: The Lighter Side of Rittenhouse.]

Today we made some changes to the home page of The Rittenhouse Review and to our sibling site, |||trr|||, that we would like to explain to our readers.

We have been publishing the Review for more than three months, a period that while brief has been sufficient to generate numerous comments, both positive and negative, from regular readers and occasional visitors alike. These comments formed the basis of the changes implemented today, as well as several additional modifications that readers will notice over the next several weeks.

Fewer links . . .

Most noticeably, we have significantly scaled back the number of links to other sites, both in the sidebar and in the pages of the Review. This is the third time we have done so since launching the site.

From the beginning, the Review has provided links to sites that express views we share as well as those that diverge, often quite considerably, from our own. However, the large number of links has made the page “heavy” and some readers have complained of the time it takes to load the home page.

As a result, we have decided to be more selective in our links, thereby deleting several dozens, including the regional links for the Boston, New York, and Philadelphia areas, our geographic environs, the display of which was suspended approximately three weeks ago.

We expect to repeat the process of culling links two more times within the next four weeks. The links most likely to be deleted are those to sites of lower-than-average quality, minimal traffic or reader interest, and those that are veering toward or have adopted extremist or exceedingly intolerant viewpoints, or that have been discovered to be harboring, hosting, or promoting same.

. . . But Wide Variety Maintained

We believe our links continue to represent our desire to engage in debate, conversation, discussion, and argument with persons, publications, and organizations representing a wide variety of opinions. Thus, we emphasize that we are not engaging in an ideological crackdown. Yes, we have removed the links to such lightweights as Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, Debbie Schlussel, and Cal Thomas, along with several personalities we cannot take seriously, including Matt Drudge, Lucianne Goldberg, Alan Keyes, Rush Limbaugh, Laura Schlessinger, and Linda Tripp.

And yet, the links continue to include numerous conservative publications and columnists, the latter group including, among others, Pat Buchanan, Linda Chavez, Jonah Goldberg, Charles Krauthammer, Michelle Malkin, William Safire (though hanging by a thread), and George Will.

Perhaps violating the guidelines we have established, we have maintained links both to David Horowitz’s weblog and FrontPage Magazine, edited by Horowitz, because of our affiliation with Horowitz Watch, of course, but also out of our hope that Horowitz might someday return to the realm of civilized discourse.

We add that the absence of a particular individual, weblog, publication, or organization is not intended as a slight, but may instead simply reflect an oversight. We expect to continue to add and delete names as space permits, and as always, your opinions and suggestions are welcome. Please send them to us at RittenReview@earthlink.net.

Meanwhile, record traffic

The Review enjoyed two consecutive days of record traffic on Thursday and Friday, July 25 and 26. The response to this site has been greater than we ever could have expected. Thanks to everyone for your support.