Scrapbook

...Scrapbook Cartesian Ethics On December 22, in an evening sleet storm at Villacoublay air base west of Paris, two French journalists, Georges Malbrunot of Le Figaro and Christian Chesnot of Radio France Internationale, were finally reunited with their families after spending 124 days as kidnapped hostages of an Iraqi jihadist group...

...Long silence.] That—that— they can capture them—negotiate— but not kill them...

...In that case you had a dissent written by Scalia and a dissent written by Thomas...

...Nick Berg...

...Asked whether he might support Thomas's elevation to the chief justiceship should William Rehnquist shortly retire, Reid told host Tim Russert, "I think [Thomas] has been an embarrassment to the Supreme Court...

...Hats off to OpinionJournal.com columnist James Taranto for having had the wit actually to look up the Hillside Dairy case...

...Except that we also credited Blumenthal as "Washington bureau chief of Salon," a job from which it seems he's just been fired...

...Then, "we told them that we'd understood them to be a 'resistance' from the moment there was an illegal occupation" of Iraq...

...Occupation or no occupation...

...POLLER: When they take hostages from countries who have troops in Iraq, would that be resistance...

...During their very first interrogation, Malbrunot remembered, he and Chesnot "immediately played the 'French journalist card,' while insisting on the fact that France is against the war...

...Correction Speaking of flatulence: Judging from initial reports last Thursday by New York Daily News gossip columnist Lloyd Grove and Boston Phoenix media critic Dan Kennedy, our magazine's then-still-current issue contained what suddenly became an imprecise description of former Clinton White House apparatchik Sidney Blumenthal's employment status...

...Which is really, really fine, come to think of it...

...Pause.] Taking hostages is a measure—it's—it's a method of terrorists...

...I think that his opinions are poorly written...

...Chesnot said very little to the army of attending reporters, and he's had very little to say in public ever since...

...Incoming Congressional Black Caucus chairman Mel Watt, to his credit, wondered aloud why Reid felt free to call the nation's most prominent black jurist a nitwit...

...Chesnot seemed especially shaken by the experience, during which at least three other people held hostage with him were beheaded...

...No fair, argued Hillside Dairy, Inc., a family-run milk-cow complex headquartered in—where else?—Harry Reid's Nevada...

...It was only privately, "to myself," that Malbrunot found himself fondly daydreaming about the United States Marines: "If only an American patrol would come through, take out this lovely bunch, and set us free...

...Georges Malbrunot, on the other hand, has proved himself quite the chatterbox...

...The Chinese proverb 'to take one's pants down before farting,' " Ms...

...Those methods are—uh—different...

...Lloyd Grove's version says that Blumenthal "has been relieved of his duties" at the online magazine by Salon chieftain David Talbot, who "was muted about the cause of Blumenthal's exit" (as was, for that matter, the "equally vague" Blumenthal...

...All of which is terribly important in its own right, don't get us wrong...

...Wu helpfully points out, "means to engage in an unnecessary act...

...Resistance is a sacred right, whether you are Islamist or nationalist, you are resistants...

...Here's an idea: How's about you come over here and explain that theory to Nick Berg's mom and dad, Frog boy...

...However, when you capture people from a country that has nothing to do with the situation, then your methods have nothing to do with the resistance...

...Justice Antonin Scalia, on the other hand . . . well, Reid had to admit that Scalia, whatever else one may say about him, is "one smart guy...

...To which bill of particulars The Scrapbook has a modest contribution of its own to add: The plaintiff-petitioners whom Justice Thomas would have ruled against in the Hillside case were out-of-state milk producers upset about protectionist regulatory practices by the state of California...

...You take the Hillside Dairy case...

...Specifically, last issue's installment of THE SCRAPBOOK identified Blumenthal as an "altogether unprofessional journalist" and a "notoriously malicious fable-spinner...

...Meantime, we're just looking for a half-decent excuse to share with you a genuinely magical quotation that Taipei Times staff reporter Debby Wu managed to include in her story...

...Which was fine, of course...

...And it seems he offered this in response: "The sovereignty of the ROC [Republic of China] is already something that is acknowledged by the Taiwanese public, and proposing this resolution is like taking one's pants down before farting...

...Reid swung with all his might: Oh, sure...

...Indeed, three weeks later, Reid stood by those comments in person, on CNN's Inside Politics...

...And ostentatiously French...

...The proposal in question would declare Taiwan an independent country neither governed by nor belonging to mainland China—a status alterable only by popular referendum...

...On the Villacoublay tarmac, for example, Malbrunot explained how the two men had sustained themselves through four straight months of mortal fear by remaining "humble...

...And next time The Scrapbook is feeling like a serious journalistic enterprise, maybe we'll offer up an appropriately serious comment on the subject...

...There—it's like looking at an 8th grade dissertation compared to somebody who just graduated from Harvard...

...Blumenthal, for example, will say only that "lots of changes happen when elections are over...

...Not French enough for you...

...Kennedy's Phoenix column has Blumenthal "leaving Salon" in a "parting that a source suggests may not be entirely happy," though Blumenthal and Talbot are "putting a good face" on the move...

...3) the Scalia dissent Reid cited by way of unflattering contrast is nonexistent—Scalia voted with the Hillside majority...

...POLLER: Whether or not...

...MALBRUNOT Still it's all the more reprehensible when it hits people who have nothing to do with the war...

...MALBRUNOT: Would that be resistance...

...Reid's Embarrassment Back in early December, Senate minority leader-in-waiting Harry Reid of Nevada raised a medium-sized stink—and many an eyebrow—by deriding Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas's intelligence on Meet the Press...

...And "Cartesian...

...That's easy to do...

...Turns out that: (1) the "poorly written" Thomas dissent in Hillside Dairy v. Lyons is only two sentences long...

...Reid stands by his comments," Reid's press lady told reporters at the time...

...Anchor Ed Henry threw Reid a curveball: "Could you name one of those [Thomas] opinions that you think is poorly written...

...MALBRUNOT: For us it is clear: People who combat an illegal occupation that results from an illegal war are resistants...

...Okay, then have a look at the following passage from an exclusive interview Mal-brunot has now granted Nidra Poller in the January 3 edition of the New York Sun: POLLER: Would you call the people who were holding you insurgents, or resistants...

...Sen...

...It seems she asked Chinese Nationalist party legislative caucus whip Huang Teh-fu to elaborate on his objections to the sovereignty bill...

...Or, put another way, "we gave them pledges to demonstrate that we weren't pro-American...

...Confucian Wisdom According to the January 5 edition of Taipei Times, Taiwan's largest and most prominent English-language daily, that country's governing Democratic Progressive party is having trouble moving a controversial "sovereignty resolution" through the legislature, where the two largest opposition parties both seem determined to block the measure...

...In context, the American proverb "lots of changes happen when elections are over" probably means something like "sooner or later, pretty much everybody winds up disliking me...

...Sen...

...2) those two sentences aren't poorly written at all...