The Dish

The terrorists who say they killed my husband may have taken his life, but they did not take his spirit. Danny is my life. They may have taken my life, but they did not take my spirit… My other hope now–in my seventh month of pregnancy–is that I will be able to tell our son that his father carried the flag to end terrorism, raising an unprecedented demand among people from all countries not for revenge but for the values we all share: love, compassion, friendship and citizenship far transcending the so-called clash of civilizations.” – Mariane Pearl, Daniel’s wife, in a deeply moving statement in the Wall Street Journal.

I spoke too soon. My next review installment of Chapters 3 through 7 will be posted first thing Monday morning. I got delayed with other deadlines.

It’s always good to check in on the Christian Broadcasting Network’s prayer check-list each week. The Almighty needs direction, of course, especially when there’s legislation pending in the Congress. Among this week’s approved petitions is the following suggested prayer:

That President Bush and Congress would have wisdom in relation to pending Campaign Finance legislation. Pray that provisions would be provided in the bill that would allow for distribution of voter guides and the airing of pro-life commercials.

Maybe they should simply pay Ralph Reed for the account. He has a direct line to God, doesn’t he? Or was that Ken Lay?

HEADS UP: I’ll be standing in for Daniel Schorr on NPR’s Weekend Edition tomorrow morning, live at 9am EST.

My report from Blair’s Britain – posted opposite..

Most days, I get an email from an economist, urging me to keep the heat on the shrill screeds of Paul “Enron” Krugman. Here’s a typical one:

It might be worth pointing to today’s Krugman column as an example of how intellectually slack this once able economist has become. He completely mischaracterizes “line 47” (the rate reduction credit on the 2001 Form 1040) as some sort of snatching away of the $300/$600 tax credit we all received last fall. In fact, it is an opportunity for those who did not receive a check they should have received to claim the credit. And the $300 was not, in any case, an “advance on future tax cuts”, it was the immediate implementation of the 2001 tax cut retroactive to the beginning of 2001. Doesn’t this guy check his facts anymore? I met Krugman once circa 1994 when he was still a working economist. At that time, most economists thought of him as a highly skilled trade theorist whose work had been mischaracterized by those more intellectually sloppy than him (he had written some papers showing how free trade was not desirable in some limited circumstances, and the anti-trade lobby had used it as ammunition against free trade generally). Economics is a profession where rigor is usually prized above ‘money calls’ (not that good economists don’t get money calls too sometimes), and Krugman was on everybody’s short list of future Nobel Laureates. It’s rather sad to see him trading on a stale reputation.

Here’s another more succinct synopsis:

Please keep pounding on Krugman. I have known Paul for 25 years and once regarded him as one of the better, if not best, international economic theorists in the world. Alas his sojourn into being an op/ed columnist has totally perverted him.

I wonder if this is the consensus now among professional or academic economists. There’s always an element of resentment toward fellow academics who make it into the mainstream and get “money calls,” but the constant chorus I keep getting from professionals suggests the Krugman credibility problem is now much deeper than that.

In his battle with the Weekly Standard, the pious, publicly-funded leftist starts to lose it.

THE ANTI-WAR LEFT IN ACTION: A useful first-hand account from FrontPage magazine. My favorite Begala-ism: “Now we know that [Bush] has a problem with Saddam Hussein. We know that. We know that he’s got to take revenge for what Saddam did to his daddy.” Maxine Waters, of course.

WHY I’M WRONG ABOUT CFR: Your letters will follow. Here’s Wally Olson’s take.

The disgusting murder of Daniel Pearl is another reminder of the barbarism we are now fighting. Its grotesque brutality, its shameless spectacle and its media manipulation are straight out of the pagan warrior handbook, as Robert Kaplan would describe it. We have every reason to be outraged, as well as saddened. But we have to remind ourselves that these are the risks of war against such an enemy. So far, the United States has survived this conflict with amazingly few casualties in the foreign arena. One is too many, of course. But I feel worried by the idea, buried in today’s Washington Post story that the administration might be considering a “new policy to take action to help free any American held hostage overseas, instead of just those who are U.S. officials. Options could include military strikes or direct contact with kidnappers, but not negotiations over demands, officials said.” This strikes me as unwise. Responding to every kidnapping of a U.S. citizen could become a permanent endeavor. Such a zero-tolerance policy, however laudable in principle, might even encourage such kidnappings, if they are seen as a way to distract and manipulate American public opinion and to yank the chain of the American government. We shouldn’t rise to this bait. The Pearl murder is surely a moment for anger but also for steady nerves. I can’t imagine the much-liked reporter would have wanted his legacy to be anything else.

POSEUR ALERT: “I think it will take years before we can repair the damage done by that statement,” – former president Jimmy Carter, on president Bush’s “axis of evil” phrase. What is Carter thinking? For a former president to criticize a current president so harshly while the country is at war is breath-taking enough. But who on earth does Jimmy Carter mean by “we” in that sentence? “We” as in craven appeasers of dictatorships, pathetic ditherers in international affairs, and sanctimonious prigs, perhaps? OK, I take his point.

SWIFT’S ABDICATION: The Boston Herald’s Margery Eagan masterfully dismembers the arrogance and illogic of the Massachusetts governor.

CLASSIC NOONAN: “As a communicator [Rumsfeld is] clear as clean water. He seems ingenuous. He talks with his hands. He’s thought it through and knows a lot and tells you what he knows. At first you sense his candor and clarity and enjoy it without realizing it. Then you realize you must be enjoying it because you’re still listening. Then you sense that his candor and clarity are in the service of intelligence and clean intentions. You find yourself following what he says, following the logic and the argument. Which makes you ultimately lean toward following him.” – Peggy Noonan, getting under Rummy’s skin, Wall Street Journal, today.

BOOK CLUB: Bob Kaplan recommends further reading; you keep at him. Later today: my take on Chapters III – VII.

“They’re one of the most dedicated couples in the penguin enclosure,” said Angie Pelekedis, a spokesman for the New York Aquarium, on Coney Island. “They sleep in the same nest. They even have sex, though I don’t know how successful that is.” This from the Telegraph’s story on the emergence of a gay penguin couple in New York. What’s interesting is that it seems to be far more than mere opportunistic homosexuality – which is so common in the animal kingdom. It’s actual coupling – and another nail in the coffin of the natural law argument that homosexuality is somehow unnatural. Only if you define nature as unnatural does the argument make any sense, given what we now know about humans and animals in the 21st century.

Why does the veep keep on lying about the GAO’s requests? Cheney continues saying they want the details of his notes. But the GAO has long since abandoned such a demand. The always-resourceful Byron York rightly sees danger ahead for the administration.

Frank Gaffney roughly sums up my position on disinformation campaigns in National Review Online. We need them – sparingly. And it may be that Rummy has conceded too much to the forces determined to neuter the war on terrorism.