Month: October 2003

I can hardly believe I’m writing this (and maybe there’s a catch) but the Nobel Commitee seems to me to have done a great thing in awarding it to a pro-democratic Iranian woman. It’s a sign that the world understands the plight of people living under Islamist dictatorships and wants to support those who have made a difference in moving the Muslim world toward greater pluarlism and openness. Next year: George W. Bush?

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “I read with interest your post today, Fri 10th Oct, on the poll purporting to show that Fox News viewers are more likely to hold false beliefs. The poll and its associated reporting are evidence of leftist bias, but I disagree with you about how the poll is biased. Notice, all three questions have a false pro-war answer and a true anti-war answer, so that the results are obviously conflating being mis-informed with being pro-war. This is probably not even intentional on the poll authors’ part.

Imagine an opposite kind of poll asking, for example:

• Did President Bush claim before the war that the threat to the US from Iraq’s WMD was imminent?
• Do a majority of Iraqis support the US invasion?
• Did the US sell significant amounts of arms to Saddam Hussein?
• Was the toppling of the Saddam statue at the end of the war staged?

A poll asking these or similar questions would doubtless find that Fox News viewers have the most accurate grasp of reality and NPR listeners the least.”

This in an amazing op-ed in yesterday’s Austin-American Statesman:

After I returned from Bosnia, I visited the “museum” at Dachau. I saw the rebuilt barracks and new barbed wire, the meticulously restored crematoria and killing grounds. I knelt there in a field that had been used to dump the ashes of the victims of the Holocaust, and lit a candle for the souls who suffered there. I cried and prayed there, remembering what had been done, and thought upon the words “never again.” Somehow the thought of it made me cry more, because I couldn’t stop thinking about how long it took us to decide to stop the madness in Bosnia. How no one even tried to stop the killings in Cambodia, Kurdish Iraq and the Sudan. How we walked away from Somalia after the tragic sacrifice of American soldiers fighting to build a better world. It occurred to me how much we have forgotten and how empty those brave words had become.

We cannot save the world by ourselves. We cannot stop all the genocides and massacres. We cannot make sure that “never again” becomes a fulfilled promise rather than a hope. But we can return a little meaning to those words, stop some killings and end some suffering. I hope we do, and I would be proud to serve again in Iraq to do so.

But I won’t expect those who call for “peace” to help me.

Nope, the pacifists and anti-war crowd are on the side of the tyrants – now as so often before.

Here’s a more prosaic account of the extraordinary work that the U.S. armed services have been doing in Iraq. It’s from the CPA’s new official website. Yesterday, Paul Bremer gave a brief overview. (And, believe it or not, even the anti-war New York Times covered it.) My highlights:

Six months ago there were no police on duty in Iraq.

• Today there are over 40,000 police on duty, nearly 7,000 here in Baghdad alone.
• Last night Coalition Forces and Iraqi police conducted 1,731 joint patrols.
• Today nearly all of Iraq’s 400 courts are functioning.-
• Today, for the first time in over a generation, the Iraqi judiciary is fully independent.
• On Monday, October 6 power generation hit 4,518 megawatts-exceeding the pre-war average.
• Today all 22 universities and 43 technical institutes and colleges are open, as are nearly all primary and secondary schools.
• Many of you know that we announced our plan to rehabilitate one thousand schools by the time school started-well, by October 1 we had actually rehabbed over 1,500.

Six months ago teachers were paid as little as $5.33 per month.

• Today teachers earn from 12 to 25 times their former salaries.
• Today we have increased public health spending to over 26 times what it was under Saddam.
• Today all 240 hospitals and more than 1200 clinics are open.
• Today doctors’ salaries are at least eight times what they were under Saddam.
• Pharmaceutical distribution has gone from essentially nothing to 700 tons in May to a current total of 12,000 tons.
• Since liberation we have administered over 22 million vaccination doses to Iraq’s many children.

This is what some in this country want to stop. This is what would never have happened if we’d let Saddam Hussein stay in power. It’s simply beyond me how anyone can describe this war as about “oil” or about “imperialism” or about “greed” or “militarism.” It remains one of the most humanitarian acts in modern history. And, if successful, it could turn an entire region around – a region that has been the main source of real danger to itself and to the West in my lifetime. I’m banging on about this not simply because it’s by far the most important issue in our politics right now, but because a wilful and petty disinformation campaign is being waged to distort this achievement, undermine it, and reverse it. We mustn’t let that happen. We cannot let these people – and ourselves – down again. (Hat tip: Simmins blog.)

HOW THE ANTI-WAR LEFT SPINS: You might recall the recent news stories where various media outlets gleefully reported that Fox News viewers were more likely to believe facts about the Iraq war that were “demonstrably untrue.” When you look at the questions asked, you find one that simply says: “As you may know the Bush administration has said that Iraq played an important role in the September 11 attacks.” Huh? Unless you define “important role” as the part played by Saddam in the nexus of terrorists and terrorist-states that threaten the West, then this is untrue; or at least a matter of interpretation. The study strikes me in part as a test of whether the respondents have imbibed liberal propaganda. No wonder NPR listeners did so well.

The Orthodox church responds to a gay wedding.

THE REAL AGENDA: Focus on the Family is now not only concerned about gay weddings, but about straight civil ones as well. Every now and again, you get a glimpse of what they really want.

Great little nugget in ABC News’ insidery blog, The Note:

In our Bernie Goldberg thought of the day, imagine the howls of outrage from the Los Angeles Times and the dominant media if Karl Rove or some other Republican spent the last 72 hours of the campaign touting – usually on the record! – “internal” campaign polling purporting to show dramatic tightening in a race that was not supported by either pre-election public polling or the election results.
Here is the harsh-but-spot-on analysis of what happened from a Brilliant Democrat:

1. Optimism trumps pessimism.

2. Referendum on hated incumbent will produce defeat no matter how flawed challenger is (see: Florio versus Whitman, 1993)

3. Democratic Party does not have moral platform to attack sexually harassing candidates (notice absence of either Clinton during the final stretch, once the charges broke)

4. Was there a real difference between our tracking polls and the Republican tracking polls the final week post-LA Times allegations? If so, pollster problems in Democratic Party (so evident in 2002) seem to persist.

When was the last time a Democrat lost 30% of the African-American vote in any race, any time? This is some achievement for Mulholland, South, Doak et al.

Or maybe they just lied.

Irwin Stelzer picks apart the economic tea-leaves. Mostly good news. But who knows for sure?

They’re mad as hell and the canceled subs keep piling up.

The domestic media insurgency continues.

READERS RESPOND: At least a few readers have responded to my WSJ piece. I should add that my mentioning that 67 percent of the 18 – 29 age group in the USAToday poll thought same-sex marriage would benefit society was mistaken. It should be that 67 percent thought it would be harmless or a benefit to society. An innocent mistake, I assure you. And the point endures.

Americans’ job prospects are looking up.