The Daily Telegraph reports on what might have been another attempted terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia:
The men, believed to be Moroccans, were held in Jeddah as they queued to board a flight to Sudan. They were apparently behaving suspiciously at passport clearance. When asked if they were travelling together, one said no and one said yes. Under interrogation, one of them said they had planned to crash the airliner into the National Commercial Bank, the only skyscraper in Jeddah, Saudi’s commercial capital.
The Telegraph cites “security sources” for its story. What might be happening is the reverse of what happened in the 1990s. In that decade, crackdowns on Islamist militants in the Middle East led them to export their terror abroad to the West. Now that the U.S. and its allies have fought back hard, these murderers may by default be turning their attention back to the Arab autocracies that helped spawn the terrorism in the first place. Could this finally force the Saudis to take the threat seriously? Could the murder of fellow Muslims and Arabs undermine al Qaeda’s appeal among disaffected young men in the region? Here’s hoping on both counts.
GREENSPAN’S WARNING: While the president and his party put another huge hole in this country’s future fiscal solvency, Alan Greenspan, that notorious leftist, testified in Congress yesterday. Here’s how the Financial Times put it:
Mr Greenspan also expressed concern about the effect of plans for further tax cuts and increases in government spending. He warned “deficits do matter” and expressed dismay at what he characterised as a breakdown in budget discipline in Washington. He reminded lawmakers the US government was facing a “significant” budget problem as the “baby boom” population ages and draws on more healthcare and retirement benefits. “I’d like to see that addressed more seriously than it is,” he said. “I must say the silence is deafening.”
Worth repeating that: deficits do matter. Then you read pieces like Bruce Bartlett’s at National Review Online. Money quote:
Voinovich and Snowe are responsible for the $350 billion cap. For some reason, they decided that this was the biggest tax cut we can afford – even though it represents a trivial sum over 10 years in an economy that will generate well more than $100 trillion over this period. Chafee is simply a Democrat in all but party registration. McCain, however, is a conservative from a conservative state. He said there should not be any tax cut as long as the nation was at war. Yet he continues to oppose even a $350 billion tax cut despite the end of war.
So the war is now over? Surprising to hear that from National Review. But look at the assumption in Bartlett’s piece: that it’s absurd for a conservative in a conservative state to actually worry about the government balancing its books! The bottom line is that the U.S. government is going to go seriously broke in a few years because of demographic pressure and entitlement growth. Yet the current administration is merrily adding to the national debt by not one but two big tax cuts, while pushing spending to heights unseen since LBJ opened the spigots. I’m sorry but we saw the consequences of that kind of combination in the 1980s and it took a decade to bring the budget back to balance. The fact that the Democrats are no better is not an argument. It makes Bush’s negligence even worse.
THE BOMB AT YALE: No clue yet who planted it. Here’s the Yale Daily News’ story.
THE SCANDAL OF ROBERT SCHEER: How does he get away with it? Stefan Sharkansky has the goods on the far-left Los Angeles Times columnist. Scheer makes Paul Krugman look honest. And Scheer’s latest recycling of the BBC’s smear about the rescue of Jessica Lynch merely adds to the picture of journalistic irresponsibility.
HOW THE WORLD CHANGES: A conservative deputy in Australia gives a moving speech about why he is bucking his party’s formal position and supports legal equality for gay citizens. He has a gay son. He sees him as a human being:
Mr Turner said many young men he had spoken to in recent years had explained that they were forced to leave their families and live in Sydney because their small towns did not offer the support or acceptance they so desperately sought. “My son has a partner, a business and a home in Orange. He is accepted by friends of my wife and I, and he is accepted by the vast majority of people in Orange who have a reasonable understanding of the issue,” he said.
One person at a time; one family at a time. That’s what it will take to change minds and hearts.
THE CLINTON WARS: “So yes, I hate the man. I admit it. I’m not proud of it. But whenever I admit my hatred for the guy, I’m reminded of a scene in the movie about Ted Bundy called “The Deliberate Stranger.” These two cops are being interviewed by a reporter after years of trying to catch Bundy. The reporter notes that it sounds like “you guys hate Ted.” One cop says, “I don’t hate him.” The other cop says, “I hate him.” The first says, “I lied. I hate him, too.”” – more honesty on the Letters Page.
The Dish 