A Quiet Compliment: TNR is surely no great friend to this administration, but there is no denying the tone of this editorial on the Sharon/Bush Washington summit.

Sharon now envisions a Jewish state living alongside a viable Palestinian one. Whether the ultimate peace between the two proves robust will depend on Palestinians' renunciation of their romance with terrorism. Bush understands this, too. He has freed himself from the rancorous attitude toward Israel displayed by his father and his secretary of state, James Baker, and he has disallowed any Palestinian fantasy, couched in the cunning slogan about a "right of return," of overturning the demographic realities of Israel. Yet Sharon or his successors should likewise not succumb to visions of a chintzy and hobbled Palestine, even when they are making, as they are now, unilateral and unreciprocated concessions. They must not claim a dunam more than is required for the safety of Israel. Someday, perhaps sooner than later, a Palestinian leadership whom reasonable people can trust will emerge and come to the negotiating table without illusions.

It's clear, I think, to a non-partisan observer that the only real movement on the Israel-Palestine issue since the false promise of Oslo has been under Bush, not Clinton -- who famously made this "his issue" to the extent that Howard Dean ridiculously suggested him as a regional envoy. TNR, setting aside its cross-aisle differences with Bush, says so:

The establishment opposition to Sharon's war against terrorist leaders, and to the fence that will certainly stop most of their terrorist followers, is by now sheer ritual. Its relevance has collapsed under pressure from reality, under pressure from this American president.

This may ironically become Bush's biggest contribution (pending an Iraqi outcome) to the war on terror: a decision not to fetishize the Palestinian question.

More: Mark Steyn chips in at the Jerusalem Post (registration required):

Ariel Sharon has decided that one cannot negotiate with a void, a nullity – and even sentimental European Yasserphiles might, in their more honest moments, acknowledge that the only way the Palestinians are ever going to get a state is if they're cut out of the process. So the Israelis are building their wall, and what's left over on the other side will either be a new state, the present decayed Arafatist squat, or an ever more frustrated self-detonation academy. But it will be up to the Palestinians to choose because they'll be the ones living with the consequences.

Proving that he, too, reads FauxPolitik, Steyn goes on to look at the tea leaves of the Palestinian bosses. He concludes just what Razor did:

Poor Rantissi, killed this weekend, seems unlikely to get the glowing send-off from European obituarists they gave to his predecessor, the "revered quadriplegic spiritual leader," Sheikh Yassin. Already, bigshot terrorists in Gaza are said to be reconsidering their applications for next month's vacancy.

Symptoms: Looking back at what I wrote yesterday, it's obvious that I'll take any opportunity to haver on about anything but politics. So let me apologize for the generally poor quality of the political blogging from my end lately. I can't gather myself to give a rat's ass right now. Maybe as the conventions come and go and it all begins to mean something . . . maybe.

Bear with me. I'm not going to post on the "issues" unless I have something serious to say. But the day-to-day polling, sniping, spinning -- I give up.

In a presidential election year, the party out of power should not have their nomination locked up before Memorial Day, at the very earliest. It makes the campaign a horrible extended bore, like algebra class with lesson plans by Bob Shrum, and makes us despise the challenger even more than we might otherwise (though, with Kerry, this may be technically impossible).

Maybe I'll get the bee in my bonnet again soon. I don't doubt it. But I realized this morning -- riding in the car; gentle rain on the windshield; Joe Jackson's live, a capella version of "Is She Really Going out with Him?" on the CD player -- I'm just too damn happy for this right now.

Never think about politics when you're not feeling thoroughly cynical. You might start believing in something.

Contrarian: My apologies, Razor, if I got to sounding high & mighty about it. But it certainly is true that pre-emptive defensiveness is one of the habits our generation has bequeathed to music appreciation: e.g., "I know it's cheesy, but I really like the new Go-Go's tune." It's first cousin to the habit of trying to co-opt supposedly cheesy (but really f*cking great) songs by feigning an ironic appreciation. It's obviously a pose; everybody knows you're really listening to K.C.'s "Sound Your Funky Horn" or "Boogie Shoes" because the band could lay down a serious dance riff, not because it's a winking put-down of disco. After all, nobody tries to co-opt anachronistic music that sucks. Note that Burger King isn't using Roger Williams's version of "Windmills of Your Mind" in its commercials. (I love Rog, and his music doesn't suck, but you get my point. It's not ear candy.)

If I had a complaint about the music industry today, it wouldn't be the prevalence of manufactured boy bands, teen divas, or other mass-produced disposability; it would be that the greater share of the mass production goes into image, not music.

The mass production is certainly not new. It's what Motown was all about, after all, and Phil Spector. Songwriting teams like Goffin & King, Holland/Dozier/Holland, and Mann & Weil turned out song after song, and producers like Spector or major label A&R men found the right voices for them. And it wasn't just for drecky, flavor-of-the-moment bands. Barely an artist drifted through the 50s or 60s without performing a song by Lieber & Stoller, from kandy-koated spins like "Poison Ivy" or "Love Potion No. 9" (which influenced Spector) to wittily introspective or cynical ballads like "Is That All There Is?" (an obvious influence on Randy Newman). In a bit of turnabout, the singer/image didn't matter much before. Goffin & King were certain enough that "Locomotion" was a hit record that they gave it to their teenaged babysitter, billed as "Little Eva," to take onto the charts. (Similarly, Paul McCartney wrote and then recorded a demo of "Come and Get It" for Badfinger. "Record it just like the demo," he told them, "and you'll get a #1 hit." They did, and they did.) Certainly Phil Spector and Berry Gordy had no qualms about cutting free a singer who got too big for them, since they knew they could make hits with the next voice. (Marvin Gaye was perhaps an exception, but he still had to browbeat Gordy into What's Goin' On.)

I've wandered afield, I know. Sorry. I just think that if you have to make excuses for liking certain songs, you need to grow a backbone. And while it's nice to listen to serious music, the latest rage (White Stripes, Strokes, Wilco are three recently) isn't really any closer to it than the Spice Girls. I mean, it's not Shostakovich.

Eno - he's a uniter, not a divider: Don't get all contrarian on us regarding Green's "bad song" list. I will certainly admit that one man's fave is another's most-hated, but there has to be some agreement that songs like Europe's "The Final Countdown" is simply awful - even if everyone was listening to it for about 5 minutes.

Yes, I owned "No Jacket Required" and that was a good album. It's just the crap he put out afterwards that tarnished his once good name. ABBA was also a great group that put out some of the catchiest and most melodious songs ever made. Some, however, were among the most dreck-filled as well.

Your point about "Mercy Street" v. "Don't Lose My Number" (which had a pretty funny video for its day) is well taken - catchy pop song versus self-important dirge. Still, I like them both about the same.

Noam Scheiber Reality Check: Scheiber wonders about the WashPost poll that shows Bush steady to gaining on most issues, including national security. Why, he wonders, is Bush not taking a hit in the midst of Dick Clarke/al-Sadr/Falluja/etc.:

My own feeling is that all of this will eventually (and, if the news on Iraq and 9/11 gets much worse, pretty soon) reach a kind of critical mass, at which point public opinion will come crashing down on Bush. But, who knows? Maybe the cynical Republican bet is basically right: Maybe most Americans are conditioned, in a kind of Pavlovian way, to associate any discussion of war or terror with good feelings for Bush, and either just ignore or fail to assimilate the details of the discussion...

Well, just look at Noam's subsequent post, referring to Bush's supposed November oil-price deal with Prince Bandar:

. . . how nice is it to hear John Kerry say stuff like this?

"I can guarantee you that, if president, I understand not just how we do that but also how we need to end this sweetheart relationship with a bunch of Arab countries that still allow money to move to Hamas and Hezbollah and the Al-Aqsa brigades," he said. "We a need a president to stand up and lead the world to a more responsible place to create an entity to make peace within the Middle East."

You've got all the clues, Noam. Figure it out. (Big hint: Read that Kerry quote again. What the hell does it mean?)

Kerry's Plan: Here's a great TNR editorial on Kerry's decision to run against Bush on the economy, and his thus-far shortsighted execution of that plan:

During the primaries, Kerry focused on job creation. More recently, he needled the administration over rising gas prices. Then, this week, his campaign unveiled an attempt to unify these complaints: a so-called misery index--which combined jobs and gas prices with factors like the rise in college tuition, health care costs, and personal bankruptcies, along with the stagnation in personal incomes--to indict Bush for the country's worst economic stretch in three decades.

. . . as the jobs report showed, focusing on short-term indicators makes you look pretty silly whenever one of them improves, even if only temporarily. Moreover, many of the negative outcomes Kerry decries aren't really Bush's fault. Job growth, for example, has been slow mostly because unprecedented productivity growth (generally a good thing) has made it unnecessary to hire new employees even as the economy expands.

But the biggest problem is that, by concentrating on a grab bag of disparate indicators assembled only because they're all negative, Kerry is missing an opportunity to focus attention, broadly but clearly, on the ongoing pattern of fiscal recklessness and economic injustice that has consistently characterized the administration's policies.

Of course, I disagree with a lot of the editorial's assertions (e.g., the tax cuts were a sop to the rich, the Medicare reform was a sop to big pharm), but the theme is certainly correct. Bush is vulnerable, even as the economy improves. About all you can say Bush stands for, economically, is lower taxes. Now, I'm not opposed to that (though I think it could be done a hell of a lot more effectively) but it's not a whole lot to run on.

Out of the Closet: On cheesy music, that is. Note VodkaPundit's "50 Bad Songs I Shouldn't Like But Do Anyway" post. What? Bad songs? You know that for me, the post would just be called "50 Great Songs." Here are some of my picks:

"Rio" by Duran Duran
"Saturday Night" by Bay City Rollers
"Sugar, Sugar" by the Archies
"Walk Away, Renee" by Left Banke
"Hawaiian Wedding Song (This is the Moment)" by Elvis Presley
"All Through the Night" by Cyndi Lauper
"Sara Smile" by Hall & Oates
"Keep Yourself Alive" by Queen
"Disco Inferno" by the Trammps
"Get Closer" performed by R.B Hudmon
"Baby, I Love Your Way" performed by Walter Jackson
"Total Eclipse of the Heart" by Bonnie Tyler (by the killer Jim Steinman)
"Afternoon Delight" by Starland Vocal Band
"Dancing Queen" by ABBA
"Right on Track" by Breakfast Club
"Over My Head" by Fleetwood Mac
"Brilliant Disguise" by Bruce Springsteen

I could go on. There's this strange sort of embarrassment that totally escapes me, the need to denigrate a song before complimenting it. For example, Dr. Vodka notes Jon Astley's "Jane's Getting Serious." But it's not a bad song that he shouldn't like. It's a great song, and we should all like it, goddammit, without shame. Ditto "I Touch Myself." And for god's sake, don't try to tell me you didn't own No Jacket Required. That record sold enough copies for everyone to have three. Did it hold up particularly well over time? No. But neither did Peter Gabriel's contemporary (and pretty lackluster) "So," although the latter is still taken seriously. I'm opposed on principle to being ashamed of what I like to hear. Life's too short. But if I had to play it by the general rules, I'd be a hell of a lot more embarrassed to admit to liking "Mercy Street" than "Don't Lose My Number," which at least has the benefit of a ripping good solo by Daryl Stuermer, a ridiculously underrated studio master.

The (High) Times, they are a-changing: "Less dope, more reality" - that's the new unofficial editorial motto at the just-turned-thirty "High Times" periodical.

More interesting is the dilemma the magazine faces with its spin-off "Grow America" (dedicated to growing pot, and pot recipes, among other things) in accepting ads from companies offering to sell buds to readers. It seems that the pictures of the alleged buds aren't of the variety that will actually get you high (although the product you buy presumably will). Also, learn about "pot porn". Gosh, I feel so funny all of a sudden...and hungry.

Radley may have already posted this: I don't remember, but if he hasn't he will wished he had. I bring you the worst album covers of all time.

Eligible for the Draft? And I don't mean Maurice Clarett. (Well, given the news, maybe I do.) Professional contrarian Chuck Hagel is coming around to the idea of conscription:

"Why shouldn't we ask all of our citizens to bear some responsibility and pay some price?" Hagel said, arguing that restoring compulsory military service would force "our citizens to understand the intensity and depth of challenges we face."

I'm not interested in the draft as a tool of social or educational policy. Our armed forces should staff and equip to win wars, not to help our citizens understand this or that.

There's the other issue, that of troop levels in Iraq, to address. I think that our needs there can be met quickly and maintained well though some simple steps:

1. Europe can defend itself. Our deployment there is a cold war relic that adds precisely dick-o to the security of this country. That frees up in the neighborhood of 120,000 troops.

2. South Korea is bolstered against another run across the DMZ. But why would the Norks be so dead set on nukes if they were willing to take the South conventionally? Alternatively, once they have the nukes, what's the point of having conventional forces next door anyway? Besides, South Korea is less and less friendly to us as it pursues its "sunshine" policy with the North. Why should we be more concerned than they? Screw 'em. That brings home another roughly 40,000.

3. All reports say that national guard recruiting numbers are way up, and regular military retention and re-enlistment looks strong. Why not consider expanding a bit? Take on another, say, 50,000 recruits.

A conscription call seems ridiculous at this point, when 200,000 new or redeployed troops seems a reasonable goal without the draft.

Claude Rains: A brief, improbable tribute here, in the context of a greatest movie characters list at Premiere magazine.

More importantly, this list, like all things in Hollywood, is haunted by the specter of Claude Rains. Bogart's Rick is of course included, but at this point in history, is it not clear that Casablanca is Captain Rennault's movie? When was the last time you heard anybody, even as a joke, do the All the Gin Joints or Hill of Beans speeches? Yet it's probably been less than a week since you've heard an allusion to The Usual Suspects or a reference to somebody's being Shocked, Shocked. I can't think of a single Rains movie—The Adventures of Robin Hood, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Notorious, The Wolf Man, Lawrence of Arabia—where he doesn't steal every scene he's in. Rains even has a leading role—The Invisible Man—for which he could be legitimately included. My point is not that Claude Rains is underrated, though he probably is. It's that these lists are always about the Greatest, the Biggest, the Best, etc., when the incidental stuff is almost always the most enjoyable thing about a movie.

It's always nice when Claude gets press. And the point about the incidentals is right on too. See Notting Hill, for example, a bit of execrable dreck, momentarily enlivened by Rhys Ifans's hilarious portrayal of a slovenly and bizarre Welsh flatmate. He gets my vote for best character in a losing cause.

White Castle: Heh. That's one place where you kind of need that question. I pity the bastard who tries to make a meal of a burger there.

"Have you dined with us before? No? Then you'll want to know that one of our Slyders couldn't keep an aphid satisfied through a Simpson's episode."

Speaking of which, I'll have to find a detour on my travels this summer to hit a Sonic Drive-In. Have you tried this? Flyer took me out last year, when I ventured out of New England (motto: "Refusing to move on from the unimaginative standards of boiled British cuisine since 1620"), for a SuperSonic and a strawberry limeade. It makes Burger King seem like a ridiculous relic of hamburger days long passed, like an Amish buggy being passed on I-78 by a Ferrari.

A Small Point, Perhaps: In a fine review of Peter Singer's President of Good and Evil (a highbrow anti-Bush screed), Michael Lind makes this opening remark about George W. Bush:

As US president, George W Bush has proved to be doctrinaire, rather than a pragmatist, so the idea of subjecting his world-view to a philosophic critique is a promising one.

I hear this quite a bit, though I confess I don't know what it means. Firstly, let's put aside the fact that doctrinaire is a loaded word. It means "principled," which is the word Lind would use when speaking of a steadfast liberal. No, using the word doctrinaire instead means adhering to principles that the speaker or writer finds distasteful. Once you change the wording, repose the premise: "Is Bush principled or pragmatic?"

With that out of the way, this becomes more like the ridiculous old charge tha Bush is ultra-conservative, or some such formulation (right-winger, hyper-partisan, etc.). I think I could make a decent case that Bush is very pragmatic. I won't go too deep into it, but I'll give a couple of examples.

- On tax cuts, Bush said he thought a guiding principle should be capping personal income tax rates at 33%. He settled for 36%.

- On CFR, Bush insisted during the campaign that McCain-Feingold violated the first amendment. I don't recall him vetoing, though.

- On foreign affairs, Bush ran against interventionism and "nation-building," only to undertake the biggest exercises in both in a generation.

- Bush ran as a free-trader, but bowed to protectionism to the benefit of regions that, conveniently, looked important maintaining incumbency.

- More recently, Bush opposed the 9/11 commission, and opposed, on principle, sworn testimony by his NSA. But he cut a deal, and Condi Rice went before the panel, left hand on the bible, right hand in the air.

I know quite a few conservatives who would call Bush neither "principled" nor "conservative."

As for the substance of the review, it's worth a read. Lind's critique of Singer is correct, and more powerful coming from the left. As for Singer himself, I find him provocative and interesting, and I don't dismiss him as "that guy with the sheep-f*cking hangup." He's a sharp fellow (whose brain doesn't seem to comprehend politics or policy) who holds some fairly libertarian-friendly positions, though he's clearly not a libertarian. (He is, I gather, a utilitarian, so he takes freedom as a means, not an end. Perhaps Lind might call him a "non-doctrinaire" libertarian.)

Get out of Dodge: To be clear: I would raise interest rates to reflect the growing realization by the private sector that some inflation is going to be necessary to allow some expansion. I think that a mild one- or two-time raise this year, up to a point, point-and-a-half would be reasonable. You expect some market contraction in the realm of 10-15% perhaps, but unless a free-fall is imminent, no reason to back off I'd say.

That said, if you do go to White Castle, have you dined with them before?

The Nut-Cutting Skies: Good article by Irwin Stelzer on the state of the airline industry. The no-frills carriers are using profit margins to add . . . frills. The big guys, even after winning back some business from their post-9/11 nadir, still wouldn't know a profit margin if it sat in on a board meeting.

Nice Dodge: Thanks for the lecture, E.F. Hutton. Jesus, you talk like you're running for office. While you raise some worthy points for consideration, you still manage to duck my question almost entirely. Yes, I too see a hike in the fed rate as inevitable. (I think, in fact, that we'll see a few, since Greenspan is nothing if not incremental.) It's also inevitable that I will need dinner at some point tonight. Since my son is sick, and my wife will likely not have much time to cook, she may ask me what the hell I'm going to make her for dinner. I honestly don't think I'd get away with, "Ah, my dear, but I do recognize the inevitability of dinner. And trends suggest that it will become necessary in the foreseeable future. I suggest you observe the cattle futures market. An uptick in near-term prices may be a leading indicator that I have dispatched to White Castle for a sack o' burgers."

You and your hobby horse: Well, let's look at the indicators. Freddie Mac shows an up-tick in lending rates of about a half a point in the last month alone (from roughly 5.4 to 5.9). Treasuries are up the same amount in roughly the same time frame. The CPI is on the rise and employment continues to improve, oh and retail sales are up. That all points to moving the bar upward on short-term rates by the Fed.

Interestingly, inflation can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Lenders tend to raise their rates when they think that inflation is on the come. This is known as the "Fisher effect" and an article published just yesterday explains it fairly well:

This is because lenders demand compensation for the fact that the future interest and principal they receive will not be worth as much as the money they lend, in terms of the goods and services it would purchase.

So, I see a raise-hike as an inevitability, for me the question is really how many times will the Fed raise it? Some are saying a one-time raise of a half or a full point will be okay and not cause much shrinkage. Indeed, history suggests that the market will continue to expand after an initial, mild hike. However, if we see three or four jumps throughout the year, then you may see a mad rush out of equities.

The crystal ball question is whether we are in a long-term expansion phase, or just a hiccup, in what is otherwise a flat period. If I had to give a prediction, I would say to watch the housing market. There is no question that mortgage applications are on their way down, but again, this is in comparison to a huge boom. If the bubble bursts, I'd wager the recovery ends. If people lose faith in their ability to fix their expenditures through re-financing, or in their ability to be flexible and move, you may see a return to savings and therefore less spending, which forces companies to get tight, sell less, earn less, and their bankers get nervous. Fun, eh?

The Money Game: Stephen Green had an interesting post a couple of days ago regarding commodity prices as a barometer for inflationary pressure. My question is, what would you do if you were sitting in Alan Greenspan's chair? Do you keep interest rates low to keep from smothering the recovery in its cradle, and just hope that inflation doesn't get out of control? Or do you start ticking up interest rates and hope that the growth momentum of the last several quarters (which has, after all, been very strong) will withstand a little belt-tightening?

One of my big hobbyhorses on this blog, at least economically, is the business cycle and the vacation it took in the 90s. In other words, the combination of ridiculously low unemployment and ridiculously low inflation (plus a booming stock market) was an anomaly. Growth, especially with strong employment, tends to be inflationary. So, just as we may be seeing the return of historically normal "full" employment figures, are we going to see the return of inflation?

I'm not certain, but I think I'd stand pat on interest rates right now.

Razor?

The Perils of Benevolence: Roger Kimball manages to wring a fine essay out of a subject that we all thought had descended into self-parody long about 1991: political correctness. In the process, he makes an indelible point, neatly summed up in the subtitle of the essay, "the perils of benevolence." The great danger of the political moralists (be they secular or religious) is that any action can be countenanced in the pursuit of their right-thinking utopia. This is why the new left doesn't recoil in horror from the kind of newspeak and banishment of ideas being practiced today. They can't be wrong, can they? After all, "they mean well."

This was inevitable: Recently, I wrote a scathingly funny satire piece about the new Hamas leader (al-Rantisi) wanting to celebrate his recent succession to power with Arafat, and how Arafat had to come up with excuses not to meet al-Rantisi - for obvious reasons.

Well, since al-Rantisi only lasted about a month, Hamas has figured it's perhaps better not to publicly name a new leader. This unfortunately prevents me from writing yet another Onion-like article on the next-in-line's decision to market an Apache gunship detection service.

Fear not dear reader(s), soon I'll have another great idea to have you rolling in your Aeron chairs. Fear not.

New Site: This seems like a good idea: a website set up jointly by TNR and National Review at which their writers can debate issues publically. I think the folks at NR are some of the sharpest on the right, just as TNR's are some of the sharpest on the left. It will make for some good, though probably wonky, reading.

Unfortunately, as with anything TNR touches, the name is awful.

PR Nightmare: McDonald's CEO Jim Cantalupo has died. Preliminary reports suggest a heart attack. He was 60 years old. Ironically, he had been the guiding force behind the company's attempts to banish the heart-attack-on-a-bun public perception that has dogged the home of the Big Mac, though others have suggested him as an archetype of kowtowing to the nanny state and the class-action policymakers.

Catchy: Cleveland, eh? I suppose it beats the Pittsburgh of eastern PA. However, I'm all for mirth (is that spicy?). I like my food hot. You know, not temperature hot, but spiciness hot. I mean, I like my food to be temperature hot too, unless it's ice cream, and in that case, not so much.

The Big Lie: Grass is not green. The sky is not blue. Water is not wet. And a senator would never, ever use his seniority and influence in that august body to punish another politician for supporting the senator's opponent.

A Lehigh County commissioner Thursday accused an aide to U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter of playing politics over public rail projects . . .

The dust-up came as Roman endorsed Specter's foe, U.S. Rep. Pat Toomey of the Lehigh Valley, in the April 27 Republican primary.

Roman said he phoned Baker Green on April 7 to discuss the possible restoration of passenger rail service between Philadelphia and Bethlehem and touching on other area rail proposals.

Baker Green supported the concept, Roman said -- until he confirmed his support for Toomey.

I hate politicians. I hate them even more when they pretend that they aren't politicians.

(Via NRO's Corner.)

More Waitron: The dictionary is (rightly) a descriptive reference. It simply demonstrates that the term is current. It does not excuse this term from being a vulgarism.

Sometime in the not-too-distant, I will come to your city, the Cleveland of the eastern seaboard, and take you to Brittingham's for a Guinness and the deviled kidney. There will be mirth.

Waitron: Dude, it's like an english word, you know.

Actually, I've gotten that quiz in three independent and well-respected (for their food) restaurants in Philly. I eschew the chains when possible - I have an aversion to flare. An Olive Garden was put in across the street (I've already vented my spleen on that atrocity) and I have almost completed building my fire bomb. My kids love Mouse Pizza because there are so many birthday parties there. The soggy cardboard with cheese is just an added bonus.

I concur with your Schmitter choice, although it's been a while, I must confess. As for fish, yes it's an institution, but there is so much more of late that it doesn't hold the monopoly. Fortunately both versions of Bookbinders closed down ("Old, Original" and the spin-off). Unfortunately, one is coming back.

Waitron? Waitron? First, there's no need for that kind of language. "Server" is pretty bad, too, by the way -- as in, "I'll be your server tonight." If it's a her, it's a waitress; a him, a waiter.

Second, where did you go that you got the prerequisites quiz? I've never heard of that one. Sounds like an Outback/Applebees/Fridays/Bennigans kind of thing to me. You need a big, corporate chain like that to get the sort of mindset that surveys customers.

Third, I have taken the lad to what he calls "Mouse Pizza" (I ask for "extra mouse") exactly once. It was a disaster. Having weaned pretty much directly onto wood-fired thin-crust, the cheese-flavored salt and tomato-colored sugar syrup on the pizza were not a hit with him.

Anyhoo, when you're all grown up and ready, go here for fish, here for Schmitters, and here for steak-and-kidney pie. Leave Outback for a special occasion.

Why? Do I get frequent flyer miles?: Been to a restaurant lately (and for Eno, Chuck E. Cheese doesn't count), where the waitron asks you "Have you dined with us before?" I have to bite my tongue each time from responding: "Well, just tell me if it works any differently from me looking at menu, telling you what I want, you bring it, I eat it, I pay, I leave. If not, then I'm good." Of course, I prefer no saliva in my soup (other than my own) so I keep my trap shut.

Still, I keep waiting for a revolutionary concept in the restaurant business that would indeed require a set of detailed instructions before dining. Like: "One of your meals will be poisonous. You should know this before digging in. Bon appetit!"

Father Lasch: Wow. From that article I glean that the man must have been a truly wonderful, progressive and genuine man. That parish, although apparently wealthy by itself, was all the more enriched by his stewardship. He will be sorely missed, I'm sure.

Cost Basis: I can think of two organizations that would be quite interested in learning more about Kerry's art sale. One, the IRS. As most people know, when you sell an asset, your gain is the sale price less what you got it for, or your cost basis. Yes, I'm sure there are various loopholes you can find to adjust this calculus, but the basic tenet holds true. So, if his wife transferred 1/2 of her interest to her husband, was it a gift or was it for some valid consideration? If a gift, it certainly would have shown up on her tax return. If a sale, then again, it would have been income to her. The question is when.

Similarly, any lender of Kerry's might like to know more about this. Assuming Kerry has a debt-load (which we know he has at least one mortgage), typically bankers require personal financial statements. Did he disclose the painting as an asset at that time? If so, he could be out of formula on his debt obligations. This is all speculation, and I'm sure he has smart enough people around him to keep him out of trouble, but those types of information would have to be consistent, and by themselves, would show how, when and for what price he acquired and then sold his interest.

The above being fascinating to all, I'm sure...

One Priest: For what it's worth, this story was brought to my attention. The story of a priest, Kenneth Lasch, who sailed into the prevailing winds on sex abuse.

Lasch, who first heard about the accusations [against his predecessor] from another priest in 1985, met privately with alleged victims and sought advice from a psychiatrist about pedophilia before taking the unusual step, in 1995, of laying out the matter to his entire congregation . . .

"I had no choice," Lasch said in an interview last week, recalling his decision to speak out long before the issue of priest sex abuse appeared on the national radar screen . . .

At about the same time, Lasch wrote to Bishop Frank Rodimer and urged him to convene a summit at which sex abusers, victims, lay people and even the media would be invited. Rodimer never responded to his letter, Lasch recalled last year.

Two years ago, when numerous reports surfaced of U.S. Catholic bishops hiding priests accused of abuse, Lasch was heralded as a visionary whose openness should serve as a model . . .

In response to the scandal, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops instituted a strict new policy on sex abuse, but Lasch said it didn't go far enough by failing to provide full accountability for past wrongs.

"I don't think we have to be afraid of the truth," Lasch said.

A nice counterpoint.

"I'll Show You How and Italian Dies!" Tim Blair reports murdered Italian hostage Fabrizio Quattrocchi's last words to his Iraqi captors. Adds Blair:

Puzzlingly, Al-Jazeera says that footage of Quattrocchi’s death is “too gruesome” to broadcast. Puzzling, because Al-Jazeera has never had problems before with screening gruesome footage. Maybe Al-Jazeera just can’t cope with Italian defiance.

Ah, it would be demoralizing for the "Arab street" to see and hear Fabrizio make his point. To paraphrase Sullivan today, "Vaffanculo!"

Meee-OW! Howard Dean on Maureen Dowd. Nice catch at Swamp City.

Is Full Disclosure Possible? Stephen Green looks at the minor flapdoodle over Theresa Heinz's refusal to make public her tax return. He asks, "what business is her tax returns of ours?"

Typically, I'd agree. In this case, though, Kerry's life is subsidized by his wife to such an extent that his own tax return is essentially meaningless gibberish without the Rosetta Stone of Heinz's return. Take, for example, the current story of the capital gain Kerry earned by selling his half interest in a million dollar painting (Theresa owns the other half). His flak, Mike Meehan, refused to say whether Kerry purchased his half. For argumentary purposes, this pretty much means he didn't pay for it. I'm not enough of an expert to know the legal requirements for establishing basis on art as an investment, nor do I know how Kerry and Heinz keep their records to establish how he might have paid for his half. But if you had to shift a half-million bucks in assets, simply declaring that your spouse (who conveniently makes a comparatively tiny salary) owns half of a million dollar painting is a great way to be able to do it.

She should show her hand.

The Human Mind: It's so funny to think of putting a hole in a shell to form a necklace or some decoration in terms of a "first", but really it's no less earth-shaking than the first step on the moon. To get to the moon, we first had to put our handprints on cave walls to tell a story about the moon god and its powers over us.

I was watching a bit of a show on PBS about Victorian England and the changes the Queen had to oversee in her country, including the change from agrarian peasants to urban cogs in the industrial wheel. While we Americans tend to credit Henry Ford with creating the assembly line, it was of course done earlier, and in England (perhaps earlier still elsewhere, but I can only watch so many shows - you don't expect me to pick up a book do you?). Anyway, I'm continually amazed by the first person who determined that it might be a better idea to have 100 people repeatedly build something, each doing one select part, than have that same 100 people each build a whole commodity.

Many of these "first-steppers" were visionaries without even realizing it - they just acted on an idea, and didn't worry about the odd looks and laughs of derision that came from the Establishment. This is why, when you examine history in a macro scale, societies that promote free-thinkers have always lept ahead of their more restrictive neighbors. And while countries like the U.S.S.R. and even North Korea have produced geniuses of art, science and industry, those individuals are the exception to the rule. But Oliver Stone still thinks Castro is a great guy, you know, because, well, they have very nice beaches in Cuba, I hear.

Brace Yourself: Somebody leaked a copy of Bob Woodward's new book, Plan of Attack. Shocking, I know. But before you pick yourself up off the floor, listen to what it reveals:

Woodward says Bush pulled Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld aside Nov. 21, 2001 ? when U.S. forces and allies were in control of about half of Afghanistan ? and asked him what kind of war plan he had on Iraq. When Rumsfeld said it was outdated, Bush told him to get started on a fresh one.

Oh, my. Shall I fetch the smelling salts? Wait till you hear that Bush told Rummy to keep it under his hat.

By the way, that rustling you hear from John Dingell's office is no doubt the sound that Articles of Impeachment make when they are fondled gratuitously.

This is Cool: A big discovery in South Africa tells us this:

Some 75,000 years ago, in a Stone Age cave overlooking the ocean, someone collected shells and bored holes in them, producing the oldest known evidence that humans had fashioned an ornament.

Discovery of the set of beads pushes back by some 30,000 years the first indications of the ability to make and use such symbolic materials.

The find, reported in Friday's issue of the journal Science, adds support to the idea that such symbolic thought developed very early among humans.

75,000 years is a split second in evolutionary terms, so I don't find it at all surprising that shared symbols -- the basis of language -- were pretty well developed. Whoever made the jewelry had the same kind of brain you have. It's easy to knock institutional memory and bureaucracy when you stand in the DMV; but that, in its rudimentary form of saving and sharing knowledge, is what brought us here from that cave overlooking the ocean in South Africa.

Interesting Gambit: Separate peaces in Europe have something of an infamous pedigree. Nevertheless, it doesn't hurt to offer one, I suppose.

More Ashcroft: Also in TNR, Jason Zengerle agrees with me that Ashcroft's performance before the 9/11 commission was pretty gutless.

Ashcroft went on the offensive in a way that no witness testifying to the Commission has before. The attorney general blamed the failure to prevent 9/11 on the "wall," a government-imposed legal barrier that prevented intelligence investigators from sharing information with criminal investigators . . . Ashcroft's testimony amounted to an attempt to blame his own failures on others--Clinton, Reno, and, most inappropriately, Gorelick.

Fair enough. But here's where I'll cut Ashcroft a tiny bit of slack. The commission evolved such that it is self-consciously pursuing an admission of guilt of any sort from the Bush administration. (Cf. the one-note samba at the press conference this week: "Mr. President, care to take some blame?") As others have noted, such an admission will not be played as forthright or courageous; instead, the one who breaks ranks will be the scapegoat. Secondarily, Ashcroft may not be blaming Gorelick so much as pointing to the absurdity of having a key architect of the "wall" policy (Zengerle's attempts to excuse her from that role fall short) asking why her successors were unable to see through that wall.

This is not a defense of Ashcroft in general. He was, in fact, prickly, defensive, and -- evidence suggests -- disingenuous before the commission. I don't see how one could expect any different, though, considering the atmosphere of televised public hearings in an election year. (Add in the fact that Gorelick has been one of the most prosecutorial members.)

These hearings are public for two reasons only. First, the Republicans thought they could score by keeping the subject in the news, parading members of the administration before the cameras, and talking up what they have done since 9/11 (and using the "we inherited this problem" excuse). Second, the Democrats thought they could score by publically whipping members of the administration. I mean, why else include Richard Ben Veniste? He's not exactly famous for thoughtful, evenhanded judiciousness. It's inconceivable that he could be anything other than an attack dog.

The damage is done. The report will be a whitewash, with a little bit of blame spread about in a politically acceptable way. But the very points made before the commission indicate that its recommendations will address what we should have done before 9/11. Not helpful, given that 9/11 already happened. Who is asking where the frontiers of asymetric threats are? Who is asking whether adapting to 9/11 means fighting the last war? It's clear that the terrorists deal in opportunity, not strategy. Where are the opportunities? We already know who dropped the ball before 9/11. I want to hear people like Ashcroft explain precisely how it is that they are not dropping it now.

Why Do I Bother? I should just automatically link to Robert Lane Greene's column in TNR. It's always sharp, always unconventional. In this article he proposes the possibility that other countries in the coalition could help us most by pulling their troops out of Iraq.

The massive American assault on Fallujah after four American contractors were killed there made clear that violence against Americans will carry a heavy price. It is difficult to imagine any of the foreign troop contingents in Iraq responding the same way. In most cases, there simply isn't the political will from home governments. Plus, their deployments are generally small, relatively lightly armed forces sent as symbolic political commitments; they were never intended for heavy fighting.

This is no slight to those countries. But since we're running the show, militarily, we have to face the fact that, for example, redeploying our troops to Kut to back up the Ukranian forces is an unecessary distraction. Greene continues:

But to balance the increased Americanization of the military effort, the strongest display of international political unity yet is required. A removal of foreign troops could be pitched as a redeployment of their assets--military, financial, and diplomatic--where they can be best used. Our allies can replace their military contribution in Iraq with an increased financial one. NATO members could shift troops to Bosnia and Kosovo, perhaps lightening the burden on Americans there. And our friends can support a stronger United Nations mandate for the occupation. This would mean America would have to grant the United Nations a true role in Iraqi politics; the world body, after all, is unwilling to serve as mere window-dressing at this point. But to maintain the coalition's unity, such a price is not only acceptable but necessary.

I agree with this in principle, but what the UN expects to do is beyond me. They showed their own risk aversion once before in a totally non-military role. So if Greene's thesis is correct (that we shouldn't shift responsibilities to any country, or organization, that can't or won't fulfill them), wouldn't that apply a fortiori to the UN?

Timely Taxes Post: Residents of Massachusetts, facing the April 15th tax deadline, will appreciate this one. Viking Pundit notes that scrutinizing John Kerry's federal tax returns (just released) misses the "bigger story."

Massachusetts has an "optional tax rate" of 5.85% instead of the normal 5.3%; thus, if you are "blessed to be wealthy" you may feel compelled to voluntarily increase your tax burden to help out the state.

Raising taxes on Americans making more than $200,000 has been the cornerstone of John Kerry"s so-called economic policy. Does he practice the noblesse oblige he preaches or did he pay the lower tax rate? Let's see the MA state tax return, Senator.

Yes, let's.

Testimony: I did, however, listen to John Ashcroft testify before the 9/11 commission. I almost drove off the road when he made his implicit attack on Jamie Gorelick. I got a kick out of it, simply because Gorelick is representative of Clinton's horribly lightweight DOJ team. But it made Ashcroft look small, petty, and partisan. His message, after all, was quite forthrightly "Clinton's DOJ set us up for 9/11." I'm not sure what is going on here, but I have a couple theories:

1. Ashcroft, already a press punching bag, is willing to take the bullet on this and be the administration's designated recrimination pusher. Powell, Rumsfeld, Rice, and even Bush can be polite, sympatize with the previous administration, and claim to be not pointing fingers -- all while Ashcroft steps up to rhetorically indict the previous administration.

2. Ashcroft is going unilateral on this. He knows he's out of step with the Bush administration's no-blame front, but this is what he really believes, and he'll go down fighting.

Either one makes it seem unlikely he'll serve in a second term.

More: Easterbrook shares my annoyance when the AG is called "General Ashcroft." In the formulation "Attorney General," general is not a noun; it is an adjective. The Secretary General of the UN and the U.S. Surgeon General are also not generals. One is a secretary (albeit one who does not take Gregg -- get it, Easterbrook?), and the other is a surgeon (or at least typically a doctor). Addressing any of them as "General" is either pure affectation or pure idiocy. There is no third possibility.

More Speaking: I think Fred Barnes is right on the substance.

Bush left nothing to chance. Many viewers were unlikely to hang around for the full 62 minutes of the press conference. So he delivered his message right at the top and without interference from the reporters. We're not changing course in Iraq, he said. We're hanging in there. It was a message that no viewer could have missed and one that reporters have heard too often.

As I said, I didn't see him, so I can't really comment on the form. I'll leave that to you. Mr. Balko notwithstanding, though, I think America is used to Dubya English; in other words, I don't think it's as big a deal as the commentariat makes it out to be. If anything, it makes him colorful. Believe it or not, it will be a net plus against Kerry, who is typically required to wake his audiences up for applause lines.

If you call that speaking: I didn't have a problem with the "meat" of most of his answers. I think he defended his position adequately. However, the man simply cannot speak extemporaneously. It is simply unbelievable to me that his handlers didn't prepare him for the "Are you sorry?/What mistakes did you make?" questions. He literally had about 5 seconds of silence and ended up saying, essentially, "I'm sure I've made mistakes, but I just can't think of any right now." He even told one reporter he wished he had that question in advance.

There were several instances when you could actually see him looking (within his mind) for the talking points. When he did, he'd suddenly speed up and dole out the line. Again, this was about form, not substance - but whenever you see him "live" it's quite disconcerting. In fact, I think most of the lead personnel on W's administration are bad at communicating (Rice and Rummy come to mind).

I don't think the man needs to apologize in the sense that he messed up in any material way. Sure, it's ultimately the government's fault for not stopping the attacks, but to say that he is liable b/c he didn't forsee the hijackings and building-attacks is ludicrous. He also correctly noted that we weren't "on a war footing" - meaning we thought we were impervious to direct attack and that we were used to just reacting to attacks on us indirectly (a la Israel or the embassy bombings). Yes, the Cole should have been the one that woke us up, but to be fair, very few people (aside from Clarke, of course) were demanding that we invade that pile of rocks that is Afghanistan.

Bush is probably a better leader than Clinton was because he doesn't waffle and he has a very clear sense of where he wants to go (if you disagree, that's fine and you can be heard in November), but still, Clinton (like Reagan) always made you feel like he was paying attention to you, and even if his direction wasn't so clear, you could at least understand what he was trying to do. Anyway, D+ on clarity; B+ on direction.

Bush Speaks: I didn't see the president's remarks, and transcripts are notoriously unable to convey the . . . uh, peculiarities of his speaking style. Reactions out there indicate that either you like Bush's style or you don't. His answers were meatier this time, certainly better than those he gave on Meet the Press. Bush, like his father, can get the words right and still blow it with his body language or tone. And, honestly, the son is an improvement on the father here. Dubya is sloppier in his actual speech than has father, but he is a better total communicator. He doesn't telegraph his frustration or read his stage direction. Poppy was famous for both, and his own lapses of syntax would get him flustered. Dubya barely seems to notice his; it makes him look a bit careless, but it also makes him look comfortable.

The content of his answers was fine. It could all be explained a bit better, a bit more forcefully. But I'd say the people watching last night probably knew what he meant. I'd bet on a small bump in the polls.

Ahhh, the liberal arts: My alma mater, Bucknell University, in a stunning show of chutzpah, has quashed an invite one of the student GOP organizations gave to Pat Toomey, who is running to un-seat Arlen Specter in the race for a PA seat in the U.S. Senate, on the grounds, according to Bucknell's general counsel, that it doesn't allow for election-year stump-speeches on school property.

I applaud this strong stand against political cynicism, and think Bucknell made the right call in not sullying the academic world with the dirty politics that will no doubt creep into the "Bubble" along with Mr. Toomey and his polemics.

In fact, I intend to personally praise Bucknell's administration when I go up there for commencement this year. I will probably do it right after Ralph Nader's address to the graduating class.

Final on Stewart: I suppose I can't really say much more. To me, he's just not funny. I think his timing is awful -- like a caricature of a funny host.

How to do a successful news satire? It's not rocket science. Miller's HBO show was often hilarious, as were his SNL news bits. (Here, again, it was because he was always sarcastic rather than earnest.) "Not Necessarily the News" is another example. As for "the Daily," rag on Kilborn's vanity, sure, but he was funny. And the writers wrote good gags mocking his preening attitude. (And that added another level of satire, which I think the show played up for effect: Kilborn as the vain, handsome, but empty-headed anchor.) In other words, I think the Daily Show's format is fine; I just think its host is lame.

Your Letterman comparison is interesting. I was a huge Letterman fan in the NBC days. Once CBS rolled out the red carpet for him, made him sophisticated, he was done. (I think of the montage in "Singin' in the Rain" that shows Don and Cosmo's vaudeville act getting more and more sophisticated as they get more and more famous. It's the same act, they just slowly drain the fun out of it and do it in tuxedos.) Letterman was funny because he was the late-show guy; because his set was cheap and schlocky; because he wore crappy clothes and sneakers. (Have you noticed that wearing an expensive suit has made him any funnier?) His show was pure dada action (to wit: the brainlessly funny "thrill cam" effect) because he didn't have ratings to protect or a Tonight Show to compete with. He was competing against WPIX's Million Dollar Movie in New York (usually a heavily cut R-baby like "Road Warrior") and that was it.

It was a moment that won't come again, I think. Not on network TV, at least. They gave a total goofball a TV slot, some cheap furniture, and a smoking band and said, "Let's see what you can do."

Stewart vs. Kilborn: Funny how you and I disagree so much on the merits of Stewart's show when, generally speaking, you and I share very similar senses of humor. Probably the frat boy in me - a path in life you saw fit to eschew and mock.

Stewart's show plays to its audience which is analogous to David Letterman circa 1986 - going for the highbrow laugh in the lowbrow attire; meaning it's not just scatological humor (a la Stern), but more a nudge at society's foibles while we do it (it's just that Stewart is ostensibly political while Letterman was poking fun at mostly at our daily lives).

Kilborn was way too smug for his own good (Miller is the same). He couldn't read his lines without looking at his vanity mirror while he did it. Stewart is certainly self-aware, but he's much more willing to degrade his image while he does it (basically, he wanted to make fun of himself before someone else did it). Now, it's undoubtedly true that the Daily Show is self-aware; it's become the Institution that it used to mock. Still, while he may not be daring in the way Carlin, Bruce and Klein once were, you can't get a prime time show by being too shocking or controversial (see Maher - okay, he was just not that funny).

Agreeing with you, I guess I'd just ask how do you do a mock-news show and not rely on the convention of news coverage? And then, departing from your take, I haven't found that Stewart is presenting himself or his show as vital to our national discourse. I don't think he pretends to have the answers. Why can't you be silly in a sophisticated way?

Minority of One, No More! I had an odd feeling when I wrote this last month. Why am I the only one who finds Jon Stewart unfunny? I mean, honestly: Ever since he took over for the much-funnier Craig Kilborn, he's been the new Mary Jane of political wisecrackery -- and Kilborn has gone on to . . . hell, he's probably sacking groceries at the Piggly Wiggly.

Anyway, comes now Lee Siegel, in TNR, who agrees with me that Stewart is insufferable

Lenny Bruce had a field day with Eisenhower, but no one would ever have identified him as a mainstream liberal. Nixon put comedy on steroids, but none of the comics who took him as their target, from George Carlin to Robert Klein, actually got indignant about his policies the way a smug Bill Maher gets indignant about Bush's policies. Indignation is to comedy what turning the lights on is to a party. Indignation implies earnest thoughts about a better world; but those comics of yore were wholly, unrelievedly negative--that's what made them so refreshing . . . So it's not just bizarre but disappointing to see Jon Stewart blazing the same trail.

I've made the same point about earnestness as a laugh-killer. I disagree, though, about the Daily Show format, which Siegel describes as

showing clips from the news in order to mock the conventional coverage of the news and get to the bottom of what's really going on in the world . . . too dependent on the thing it derided -- the comic equivalent of covering an old song

I think that's unfair to the format, and too kind to Stewart. As I've mentioned, his writers are pretty good, and the format is tried and true -- Dennis Miller rode it to a fistful of Emmys, having copped it from the "Weekend Update" he anchored at SNL. The problem is that "Weekend Update" was -- as Siegel hints -- using the format of the news as a springboard for the "Jane, you ignorant slut" moment. It didn't take the content seriously enough to be particularly political. It was social, not political, humor. The effect was doubled when politicians would show up to meet their SNL doppelganger: Bush and Dana Carvey; Janet Reno and Will Farrell; Bob Dole and Norm MacDonald. The pol didn't show up to get slobbered on by the host. He or she showed up ready for a beating.

My original complaint about Stewart was that "he can't seem to decide if he wants to be sophisticated or silly." I haven't seen the show in weeks, but I've no doubt it is only getting worse. Frankly, I can take a comedian who is occasionally too silly, too stupid -- as long as he or she makes me laugh along the way. It's the phony sophistication I can't stand, the attempt to "add to the national dialogue" or some equally bankrupt and unexamined high virtue. (Then there's the traditional mutual starf*cker love fest between liberal pols and celebs that makes the whole thing even more obscene.)

I haven't seen the Dennis Miller CNBC show. I love Miller, but I fear he's gone into the same unfunny territory.

Atonement? Last week's NYTM hit piece on Bush's New Source Review notwithstanding, the magazine shows some environmental awareness in publishing this piece on DDT.

Rachel Carson's work against DDT helped cause one of the worst environmental actions in the past 50 years. Because Carson saw a link between DDT and raptor birth rates, DDT became shorthand for the evils of chemicals, science, and ultimately mankind. Ironically, Carson's work also highlighted one of the most biting criticisms of the green movement: that treating environmental protection as anything more than a luxury commodity skews the cost-benefit analysis. Thus, evil DDT was banned, some unknown quantity of condors was preserved. At what cost?

Yet what really merits outrage about DDT today is not that South Africa still uses it, as do about five other countries for routine malaria control and about 10 more for emergencies. It is that dozens more do not. Malaria is a disease Westerners no longer have to think about. Independent malariologists believe it kills two million people a year, mainly children under 5 and 90 percent of them in Africa. Until it was overtaken by AIDS in 1999, it was Africa's leading killer. One in 20 African children dies of malaria, and many of those who survive are brain-damaged. Each year, 300 to 500 million people worldwide get malaria. During the rainy season in some parts of Africa, entire villages of people lie in bed, shivering with fever, too weak to stand or eat. Many spend a good part of the year incapacitated, which cripples African economies. A commission of the World Health Organization found that malaria alone shrinks the economy in countries where it is most endemic by 20 percent over 15 years. There is currently no vaccine. While travelers to malarial regions can take prophylactic medicines, these drugs are too toxic for long-term use for residents.

Yet DDT, the very insecticide that eradicated malaria in developed nations, has been essentially deactivated as a malaria-control tool today. The paradox is that sprayed in tiny quantities inside houses -- the only way anyone proposes to use it today -- DDT is most likely not harmful to people or the environment. Certainly, the possible harm from DDT is vastly outweighed by its ability to save children's lives.

It is an outrage, and also why I cannot respect either the modern environmental movement or the politicians (i.e., Democrats) it has bought.

It's Only Howard Stern, After All: Good point. First they came for all the men who liked fart noises and looking at boobs a lot. Then . . . well, then only women and homosexual men were left. Religious right men will likely try to deny the essential truth of this, but it's just silly, like clinging to creationism. If fart jokes weren't funny, Stern would still be playing records. Given the actual level of his talent outside the fart-joke arena, I doubt he'd even be in radio.

More: While I'm on the subject, I actually find it gross and creepy that Stern has to say "doody" instead of "shit" on the radio. In fact, it would be a victory for decency to let him say "shit" instead. Who honestly wants to hear a grown man say "doody"? It makes him sound like a pederast.

Stern: And doesn't it bother anyone that he's (well, his radio stations) being fined for something that was aired a year ago?? Doesn't this just have the whiff of ex post facto about it? What's worse, is that Clear Channel has all but admitted to that, isn't complaining about it, and in fact is punishing the victim.

Stern said on his show recently that the reason these things never get to a trial is because once the station indicates it wants to fight, all of a sudden, its parent company can't get any more licenses as their applications get put into "review" or "lost". It's insidious and completely foreign to this country's ideals, but hey, it's only Howard Stern, so why worry?

Is There Really Any Question? I was surprised to hear how this story is developing.

Facing his toughest political test, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told an anguished Japan on Friday he had no plans to pull troops from Iraq despite threats by kidnappers there to kill three Japanese civilian hostages.

Tearful families of the three pleaded for the government to rescue their loved ones, and the mother of 18-year-old Noriaki Imai urged the government to withdraw its non-combat troops.

Some analysts said mishandling of the crisis could even bring down the government, a prospect that worried financial markets. Stock prices fell across the board and the yen weakened.

This is terribly sad, and I feel awful for the families of these hostages. If it were a member of my family, I'm certain I would be shouting at the government to do anything -- whatever it takes -- to get my loved one home safely. But the government would need to ignore me, just as it should ignore these pleas. What surprises me is that so much emphasis is on Japanese PM Koizumi's "crisis" and the "choice" he must make (not to mention the impact on the Nikkei -- is that the crucial story here?).

Anyway, if there were a bold type, capital letters terrorism lesson of the last 30 years, it's this: Never, never, never negotiate. Never.

Tuxedo Junction: On the WSJ Taste page this week, tradition-minded musician Eric Felton looks at what passes for formal dress these days:

The Hollywood male hasn't always been that clueless--or so eager to abandon his role setting high style for middle America. Once upon a time, leading men knew clothes.

Take Cary Grant. Engaged to star in the Cole Porter biopic "Night and Day," the actor soon realized the script was a stinker. And so he focused his attention on what really mattered, nearly driving the director to quit with punctilious costume demands. At one point Grant brought production to a halt, standing on his God-given right to expose exactly one-eighth of an inch of shirt cuff beyond his tuxedo sleeve, not the sloppy quarter-inch the bumpkins over in wardrobe had given him. The movie may have been a disaster, but Cary Grant looked good.

His paradox conclusion, that the tuxedo is both aristocratic and democratic, is refreshingly true. Think of all those old rags-to-riches books and movies in which the main character can "blend" into high society by dint of knowing the true sartorial secrets. I always think of the socially climbing Monty Clift in "The Heiress." I love the scene where Ralph Richardson gives him a subtle sniff and remarks on the quality of his after shave. "That's a fine bay rum you're wearing," he says (or something like that). Who the hell would ever say that upon meeting a prospective son-in-law? But the point is, Clift has literally dressed himself for the part. And even if Richardson can see through the ersatz respectability, Olivia de Havilland is fooled.

As Usual: Jarvis remains the go-to guy for news & views on Howard Stern. It's getting bizzare:

You see, they just love it when they get the double play of sexual and excretory talk. They even got pissed (pardon me) because the show played fart sounds. Nevermind that every third grader in the world makes fart sounds for playground humor. It offends the FCC.

More: Here's Jarvis again:

Well, this isn't news: Clear Channel, which had "suspended" Howard Stern now officially fired him. No big deal. Except... Clear Channel acknowledges that it did so because of the government fines and government pressure. So this is direct government control of what appears on the air.

"Mr. Stern's show has created a great liability for us and other broadcasters who air it," said John Hogan, president and CEO of Clear Channel Radio, in a news release. "The Congress and the FCC are even beginning to look at revoking station licenses. That's a risk we're just not willing to take."

Even more bizarre is that the rest of the blog world has been pretty relaxed about this.

Still more: Andrew Stuttaford broke ranks yesterday on NRO's Corner to comment on DOJ's war on porn:

The war on terror is, not of course, a reason to suspend all other law enforcement activities, but, in a time of national emergency, this new effort by the Justice Department looks like a grotesque waste of time, money and manpower. It's also an insult to those Americans who would like to be treated like adults.

Whether it's porn or Stern, the issue is the same. At first I laughed at Stern's suggestion that this is the Bush administration's attempt to secure its base. That's silly, I thought. This is just one of those standard attempts by the would-be censors to retake some lost ground. I'm not so sure anymore. Bush is looking very vulnerable these days. Why wouldn't he try to lock down the religious right?

Means and Ends: Boy, that got your dander up. I don't think we should revoke the probable cause restriction either. But the press and the public are gradually yielding to the belief that someone, somewhere, could have stopped this tragedy. On the right, that means "Clinton had eight years to respond; Bush only had 8 months." On the left, it means "Bush was demonstrably looking the wrong way for all of those 8 months."

As for intelligence, we knew about hijackings. And we knew about talk of private planes, packed with explosives, used as weapons. Contrary to Richard Ben Veniste's assertions, the link between the plane-bomb and the hijacked commercial flight was not seen in advance. Even Richard Clarke, the new Jesus of the Democrats, doesn't claim that he saw that one coming. I'm more interested in who dropped the ball on the WMD intel than who should get nailed for failing to accurately predict the future actions of al-Qaeda. That also will likely descend quickly into partisan sniping. But at least it will answer some questions. To paraphrase the SecDef (like him or not, it's true): September 11th was an unknown unknown. WMD was a known unknown. Someone deserves to dangle for the latter, not the former.

End meet the Means: Yes, the FBI Agent writes a memo protesting the 2001 decision in 2002. How brave of her; how prescient. Yes, let's do away with the probable cause test and replace it with the "probably" test: "If we rifle through this man's belongings we'll probably find something incriminating - whether it's bad porn, downloaded music, or plans to hijack airliners and ram them into tall buildings. Either way, justice is served."

Sure, it sucks that "the 20th hijacker" got away, but justifying searches on the basis that something (anything) is found is (to quote The Holy Grail) no way to wield supreme executive power. Why not do strip searches of people caught speeding - there's a strong likliehood that at least some of them are carrying illegal narcotics or firearms. Wouldn't that make us all safer if these people were caught? As the author admits, it took 40 years for the game of Russian Roulette to go wrong (or right as it were). In the meantime, had you been going double or nothing for that 40 years, I'd wager to think you'd have come out pretty nicely.

These "severe restrictions" placed on police are what separate our nation from a true police state. If you like the "safety" of living in places where police can barge into your homes, search your belongings, or imprison you, solely based on hunches, then may I suggest some fine destinations? Don't worry, the cattle prods are provided gratis, so you can leave yours at home.

It's equally as stupid to place any serious blame on Bush or his cabinet for failing to forsee 9/11. Yes, analysts had posited the use of jets as missles before, but like I've said before, they probably have scraps of intelligence on just about every kind of attack you can think of. That doesn't make it actionable - unless you want to live under the "probably" standard. In which case, don't come crying to me when you're jailed for that pirated cable which the police found after monitoring your electricity bills, figuring you must be growing pot. I mean, I know that's a ridculous example that would never happen, but still, you see my point.

Doctor Rice: I've caught only parts of Condoleeza's testimony today. She wasn't particularly strong in response to the questions I saw. I'm sympathetic to Rice's main thrust: I've written before that I'm not convinced that anything but blind luck could've foiled the 9/11 attacks.

That said, Rice crumbled before the questioning of Tim Roemer, who proceeded in the fashion of a prosecutor -- trying to cut off or talk over parts of the testimony that didn't fit his ends. Certainly the administration must have foreseen that Rice would get adversarial treatment. She seemed unprepared. She's smart and articulate, sure, but she seemed out of her league. While not particularly defensive, she did seem to be on the defensive a bit. It will be interesting to see how this plays. From what I saw (a lot less than other bloggers, I'm sure), she was not an obvious detriment to the administration, in that she looked forthright, competent, and smart; but nobody honest at the White House is calling this a home run.

Along those lines, there's more of interest here:

But the fact remains, America still might have managed to avoid September 11 by serendipity. This is one of the great untold stories of the tragedy -- a story that the press still hasn't gotten right today.

The stroke of luck came in August 2001 when the FBI arrested Zacarias Moussaoui in Minneapolis. Moussaoui, the "20th hijacker," had aroused suspicion because was attending flight school but didn't seem to have any interest in learning landing or take-offs -- he just wanted to fly the plane. He had an expired visa and ended up in custody. Also taken in custody was Moussaoui's computer, which we know today contained a host of e-mails that would have revealed the identity of his fellow conspirators and tipped off the plot to hijack airplanes.

As any police detective will tell you, this is how most cases get solved. Legwork and logic can carry you so far. A little bit of luck is always necessary. But chance only favors the prepared mind and America wasn't prepared.

The problem was the severe restrictions placed on police investigations since the 1960s. A search of personal property can only be executed with a warrant and warrants cannot be issued -- as the Fourth Amendment states -- except upon "probable cause." Just what constitutes "probable cause" has been the subject of endless argument between the police and the courts. In August 2001, however, the FBI in Washington played by the rules. When Minneapolis agents asked permission to open Moussaoui's hard drive, the top brass said there was no probable cause. "All you've got is a guy with an expired visa taking flight lessons," they said. "Where's the crime?"

Colleen Rowley, the Minneapolis FBI staff attorney who wanted to investigate, became Time magazine's "2002 Co-Person of the Year" (along with two other "Women Whistleblowers") because she wrote a May 2002 memo to FBI director Robert Mueller protesting the 2001 decision. As Heather Mac Donald pointed out at the time, only when the issue was framed as "courageous women versus stupid men" did the press suddenly take an interest in the situation. Yet the fight over "probable cause" had been plaguing law enforcement since the 1960s. After playing Russian roulette with crime for forty years, we had finally hit a loaded chamber.

I'm betting on an Italian resurgence anytime: Here's a nifty way to track the progress of WWII day-by-day. From 1939 to 1946. As you can tell by my lede, I haven't quite gotten to the end. Shhhh, don't spoil it for me.

Flyer Bait: It's Masters time again. Here's an interview with Arnie, focusing on his singular accomplishment this year of playing in 50 consecutive Masters tournaments. A lot of people have noted that Arnie hasn't done anything for the last twenty occasions but hold up traffic. (The last time he made the cut, in 1983, this year's amateur champion, Nick Flanagan, wasn't born yet.)

Does the fact that Arnie's firmly in the pantheon of golf excuse his annual embarrassment? I always thought that was what the Seniors' Tour was for, after all -- a place for old timers to get their kicks without having to cut muster with the current hothands. He'll be 75 this year, and to his credit he's admitted that it's time for him to go. Meanwhile, comparative whippersnapper Jack Nicklaus is playing again this year. He has a better record of making the cut as a senior than Arnold, but he's unlikely to top Arnold's 50 consecutive record. He wisely hung it up in 1998, only to return for embarrassment in 2003. Including this year, he only has 49 more tournaments to go to tie Arnold's record -- at which point Jack will be 174 years old, and Arnie will still be promising "one last year" to say goodbye.

Not exactly P.C., but: I don't know how terribly original this idea is, but wouldn't it be a good business plan to open up a shop say in Palestine or Iraq in which you sold U.S. flags, lighter fluid and matches? God, you'd be rich. "Come on down to Abdullah's Flag Burner! Your one stop shop for the destruction of symbols of western godlessness and oppression."

Better still, they have to pay with credit cards. You then feed the information to Bremer who arranges for Apaches to make "random" strikes on the purchasers' homes. I think I'm on to something. I really do.

A Line to be Cherished: From a Reason Magazine review of In Denial: Historians, Communism and Espionage ("an improbably riveting dispatch from the battlefields of historiography by scholars John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr," according to the piece):

The end of the Cold War has produced many such numbing silences. The speed with which the Soviet empire imploded and the economic ruin and popular revulsion that were revealed have made it clear that baby boomer intellectuals and journalists, viewing the world through the distorted lens of Vietnam, overwhelmingly got it wrong. Peasants ate less and were slaughtered more on the other side of the Iron Curtain; the jails were fuller; the KGB's list was a lot longer and a lot deadlier than Joe McCarthy's. A team of French historians calculated the worldwide death toll of communism during the 20th century at more than 93 million. When Hoover Institution historian Robert Conquest used newly available data from the Soviet Union to update The Great Terror, his account of Stalin?s murderous purges of the 1930s, his publishers asked for a new title. "How about I Told You So, You Fucking Fools?" Conquest suggested.

Whole thing here.

More: This is funny:

Ellen Schrecker has written several thousand times . . . that "McCarthyism did more damage to the Constitution than the American Communist Party ever did."

If that’s true, it’s not for want of trying by the CPUSA. If Franklin Roosevelt had died just nine or 10 months earlier, his third-term vice president, Communist sympathizer Henry Wallace, would have become president. Wallace once said that if he were president he would appoint Harry Dexter White treasury secretary and Laurence Duggan secretary of state. Both of them, we now know unambiguously from Venona cables, were Soviet spies.

Harry Truman, accidental savior of American democracy. No wonder his fellow Democrats cringed when they realized the Mizzooruh farm boy would be in line to succeed the ever more feeble Roosevelt.

Coming Up Roses? Steve Hayward, at the Ashbrook Center blog, slugs his jobs post "The Election May Be Over Today":

This morning's March jobs report is the worst possible news for Kerry. The consensus estimate was for 123,000 jobs; the wildest optimists thought it might be as high as 200,000. But the number is (drum roll please): 308,000. (And it is possible this might be revised upward in a few weeks.)

It's a good sign for Bush, to be sure. But Bush's campaign team has shown an uncanny ability to be handed first and goal, only to walk away with three points. Not a great winning strategy. If they can't go into the endzone (okay, I'll stop beating this metaphor) on 300,000 jobs -- in one month -- they don't deserve to win.

More: How can we tell whether the Bush team is using this issue well? When this kind of stuff disappears:

In his story March 26 on the likelihood that National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice would testify again before the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, Adam Nagourney of The New York Times wrote: "With the economy faltering and Democrats so united, Mr. Bush's terrorism credentials are portrayed by his supporters as the strongest assets he had going against Mr. Kerry." (Emphasis added. Link via RCP.)

Meanwhile, Scott Ott's fertile imagination conjures this response from Kerry:

In the aftermath of news that 308,000 new jobs were created in March, Democrat presidential candidate John Forbes Kerry said today that "corporate fat-cats are padding their payrolls with unneeded workers to help George Bush win the election." . . . "One must ask oneself whether these new jobs are real," he said, "since it is common knowledge that companies don't add more employees during a recession, but only during a recovery or in good economic times, and the latter scenarios are simply unthinkable."

Is this parody, or is Ott swiping the Kerry team's talking points?

New Source Redux: I won't belabor this, since we've been over it before, but the NYT's feature magazine piece, on how Bush is bent on a "radical transformation of the nation's environmental laws, quietly and subtly, by means of regulatory changes and bureaucratic directives," is worth reading if only for the glaring bias.

Easterbrook has a good rebuttal here. He doesn't mention everything worth mentioning. (Like that freeing plants to perform some upgrades without New Source requirements kicking in could not only prove environmentally friendly, since old plants are intentionally left unmodernized due to the perverse incentives of New Source, it would also be more market friendly. Anytime you can get both, you're going to do better than the doomsayers project.) But he covers enough that I think he should write a definitive article on this subject. He's pecked at it on his blog for long enough.

Extrajudicial Killing: That euphemism comes under scrutiny in Jon Rauch's analysis of the tactics of the terror war:

The repercussions of Israel's "extrajudicial killing" (read: assassination) of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the founder and head of the Islamist militant organization Hamas, have only begun to be felt. In the immediate echoes of the explosion, however, came confirmation of two unpleasant truths. First, the war on terror really is a war, and not a police action. Second, America's terror war and Israel's are not separable, however much we might wish they were . . .

Last week, while Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was being fricasseed for hitting Yassin, the September 11 commission was grilling Clinton's former secretaries of State and Defense for missing bin Laden. Even by Washington's standards, the inconsistency was glaring. Whatever the tactical differences between the two cases, morally they are indistinguishable.

Read the rest.

Under God: An excellent essay by Leon Wieseltier in TNR takes on the Newdow case recently argued before the Supreme Court (transcript not up yet). He is unsparing in his treatment of those who would push ceremonial deism only as a means to keeping religion in the public sphere:

For the argument that a reference to God is not a reference to God is a sign that American religion is forgetting its reasons. The need of so many American believers to have government endorse their belief is thoroughly abject. How strong, and how wise, is a faith that needs to see God's name wherever it looks? (His name on nickels and dimes is rather damaging to His sublimity.)

But he's not ready to make either Newdow or atheism his god:

I do not mean to exaggerate the virtues of Michael Newdow: There was something too shiny about him, too dogmatic about his opposition to other people's dogmas. Atheists can be as mindless as theists. From his comments at the Supreme Court, there was no way to tell how thoughtful Newdow's arguments against theism are, or even what they are. And when Newdow insisted that there is some injury to him when his daughter "is asked every morning to say that her father is wrong" by praying in class, because "the government says there is a God and her dad says there isn't," he failed to grasp one of the ends of education, which is to make children unlike their parents.

There is much to disagree with in the article, from both sides. But Wieseltier has performed a valuable service. He has written something compelling about a wholly idiotic case. I had until now shrugged my shoulders and chuckled that the case would even be heard. There's an argument to be made here for the "hidden" law of society, which would say, yes, "under god" is silly, but it's enough to keep the religionists happy, so long as we never point out how meaningless it is. In other words, there is no merit, I think, to Newdow's case that incidental exposure to god is injurious. (Recall that one can opt out of the pledge.) Nor is there any merit, really, to keeping god in the pledge, or to keeping "In God We Trust" on our currency. But Newdow, like the religionists, wants the government to tell him that he's right, or at least as right as anybody else.

Peej: For you, Flyer. P.J. on Kerry.

Hoooooo Boy: This'll leave a scar. Al Gore meets Courtney Love:

''I'm a really big fan,'' gushed the vice president.

''Yeah, right. Name a song,'' scoffed Courtney. The panicked vice panderer floundered helplessly.

Via Tim Blair.

Hard Times: I just finished Howell Raines's apologia in this month's Atlantic (preview here). Although the piece runs on for page after page, here's all you need to know, according to Raines:

1. I was just about to save the Times. They're screwed now.

2. Cabals of neoconservatives in the newsroom! Honestly. (Howell seems confused here, using neoconservative to mean rascist social conservatives, which is not exactly what the term means. At least he doesn't use it, like Reenie Dowd, as a synonym for "Jews.")

3. Artie Sulzberger? Nice guy, but cheap as the day is long.

4. I should have caught Jayson Blair earlier, and I take responsibility, but you see, I was in the middle of saving the Times from decay and total failure at the time, so I was kinda busy.

5. I got fired for the Blair thing, but it was just an excuse. It was really because my brilliant plan to take the Times into the 21st century upset the hidebound bureaucracy.

To his credit, he makes some fair points. For example, it is odd that there is no NYT International Edition. But his "vision" seemed to be that the Times could be all things to all people. It should be the "paper of record" but still be a pleasure to read, introducing pop culture to the sophisticate world (the famous Britney Spears "exegesis" stands for this sort of journalism, I suppose), etc. It should also, by the way, do books better than the NYRB, finance better than the WSJ, and sports on par with Sports Illustrated. ("And character assassination as well as the NY Post!" he might well have added. In a guarded section, he is obviously talking about that great tabloid and Rupert Murdoch when he speaks of certain publications' "debased [] principles" and their "craven [] ownership.") This is a big vision even for a minor media empire with diverse publications and breadwinning perennials. (That evil neoconservative Rupert Murdoch's mini-empire comes to mind.) It's a foolish vision for a daily paper. Even more so right about the time that the bottom dropped out of the advertising market.

Then there is Raines's explanation of the Blair crisis. He never got the memos. (Including one, which screamed for higher review, from editor Jon Landman that said, "We have to stop Jayson from writing for The Times. Right now.") He didn't pay close enough attention to Blair's corrections, just his correction rate, which was not unusual. Even when the world comes crashing down, Raines still seems to be in a fantasy world. On his way to the meeting that effectively took his head off, Sulzberger asks how Raines is feeling.

"Calm," I said. "Completely calm." He looked at me with genuine alarm.

Later, hoping to reassure him, I said that I had been thinking about his question, and I had a more complete answer . . . "I feel interested," I said, adding that this was one of the most fascinating experiences I'd ever had.

I'm surprised Sulzberger didn't shoot him before the meeting. "Howell, you just brought the newspaper of record to its knees in a scandal that makes its reporters seem like liars and its management asleep at the switch. Our reputation is in tatters. How do you feel?"

Oh, calm. But interested, too!

The killing part was okay: You see, Muhammed didn't have a problem with the killing of innocent people. No, I mean, how could he? The Fallujah slayings were just the latest in a string of death for the Islamic extremists (see, Hamas, generally). But the mutilation of already dead bodies? Now, see, that's a problem.

Buying Some Safety: What gain for Spain to give Bush such a pain? Scant weeks after Spaniards elected an anti-terror-war socialist, who immediately reaffirmed his intent to pull Spanish troops off the U.S. team, more bombs appear. Gosh, what could those naughty terrorists want now?

Does al-Andalus ring any bells?

Memo to Europe: Jumping off the team doesn't cut much ice with religious fascists. Not when you have a secular government needing a dose of sharia, a free press needing a bit of from-the-top editorial control, and plenty women -- showing a very European bit of leg -- needing to be burqa'd for the sake of public order.

Jobsploitation: I just can't see myself voting for someone this desperate:

Kerry's ad, his first negative commercial of the general election, quotes the president's own advisers as saying "moving American jobs to low-cost countries" is good for the economy, and adds: "While jobs are leaving our country in record numbers, George Bush says sending jobs overseas 'makes sense' for America."

It's funny that Democrats who previously had either some shred of free-trade dignity or some scrap of intellectual honesty are so willing to take a pass on this (Bill Clinton and Robert Rubin come to mind, respectively).

Protectionism has never worked, except as a sop to union voters and nervous economic nellies. So far, Kerry hasn't proposed much more than a nebulous "plan to create 10 million new jobs." But if economic isolationism starts to sell with Democrats this year, Kerry may find himself having to propose something with teeth -- like some of the union talking points about "free but fair" trade agreements. (What the hell does that mean, "free but fair"? It's like saying Howard Dean is short, but in a tallish sort of way. As Jacob Sullum puts it in this article, "free trade is fair by definition.") And we already know that Bush is ready to lay down a tariff to shore up a state or two.

Neither one of these monkeys should be let within fifty feet of economic policy.

April 1st Edition, Not Up Yet: Am I the only one thinking that The Onion will lead with a 100% true, factual, and boring news story? Refresh. Refresh. Refresh. Refresh . . .