Scrapbook
Scrapbook Bin Laden's Weak Horse The new bin Laden video has been so thoroughly chewed over by the commentariat that The Scrapbook has only a couple of points to make. First, the tape was much...
...It forced an exquisitely tortuous choice on the bin Laden sympathizers and America haters...
...It's my pleasure if my program is responsible for more than 50 percent of anti-Americanism in Egypt," Qandil said...
...Now, hewing to the diversity dogma of publisher Mark Silver-man and the Gannett Corp., it announces feebly, "Affirmative action is not a perfect solution...
...Does Jack Kemp, who as recently as his Dec...
...The State Department's Near East Bureau and the office of Policy Planning . . . do Secretary Powell a disservice when they generate analyses of the Middle East depicting the United States forever on the seesaw of the Arab street...
...Cause for pride...
...It's the educrat's worst nightmare: hard-working kids achieving without high spending...
...This finding hasn't discouraged the teachers' unions and other lobbyists for higher education spending, though it does tend to annoy them whenever the subject is raised...
...The report was from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development...
...It is shameful that the strongest nation in the world should be presenting this tape as proof...
...First, the tape was much more effective at strengthening the convictions of those who had already grasped bin Laden's depravity than at changing the minds of the deluded...
...If we are to protect ourselves and our friends in the Middle East, who are many, we have to rebuild the awe which we have lost through nearly a decade of retreat...
...Actually, as far as we can determine, even Iraqi intelligence doesn't seem to think destroying a Radio Free Europe transmitter is a "legitimate" thing to be doing...
...When publisher Silverman "reassigned" Bray, he assured The Weekly Standard's Claudia Winkler (see "Jackasses Release Bray," May 15, 2000) that the paper's editorial page would not be departing from its proud conservative traditions...
...We don't need any more bin Laden tapes...
...Last week Ritter added to this shameful record, arguing that the Iraqi dictator would be justified in working with an osama bin Laden operative to blow up a Radio Free Europe facility in the Czech Republic for broadcasting news Saddam disapproves of...
...The fact that my views are identical with my audience's is God's greatest gift to me...
...For years, under editorial page editor Tom Bray, the News had published legally informed, coherent arguments for colorblind admissions to the University of Michigan...
...It suggests that students here are forced to work harder to achieve their grades because of lack of investment...
...But the OECD sounded a disapproving note," said the paper, "pointing out that education spending in the Republic [of Ireland] is significantly lower than in many developed states...
...10 editorial isn't even honest...
...Reading Without Money Everyone who cares to know has known for years that money spent on education does not correlate with results...
...A year and a half later, the page is all changed, changed utterly...
...Second, even as the tape showed the limits of "evidence" in changing the hearts and minds of the delusional, bin Laden himself seemed to confirm that the best American PR comes not from Madison Avenue but from the Pentagon...
...We suspect this argument will become a popular European import on these shores...
...Something to bear in mind the next time you hear someone extolling the virtues of Al Jazeera...
...government...
...Creeping Gannettization Another milestone to be noted in the Gannettization of a fine, formerly conservative editorial page: The Detroit News did an about-face last week and threw out principle for P.C...
...7 briefing for the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine in Washington, D.C., Ritter addressed the subject of meetings between an Iraqi spy and Mohamed Atta in Prague: "What it appears transpired was that the Iraqi intelligence officer . . . spoke with Mohamed Atta at length about an attack, but it was an attack on a radio transmission tower of Radio Free Europe in Prague, Czechoslovakia...
...They had to declare their party loyalty: sane or demented...
...At a Dec...
...Our Egyptian Allies The Associated Press last week reported on the "cat-and-mouse game" Egypt's most popular television commentator, Hamdi Qandil, is playing with censors at government-run Egyptian TV...
...When people see a "strong horse and a weak horse," said bin Laden, "by nature they will like the strong horse...
...The American horse is getting stronger every day...
...For proof, he said, "I would invite you to take a look at our editorial page in six months...
...Or, as Reuel Marc Gerecht put it in a prescient piece for this magazine ("Liberate Iraq," May 14, 2001): Unfortunately, the Arab Middle East easily takes solace in a ruthless despot who can intimidate America...
...Can't have that...
...It asks readers to believe simultaneously that affirmative action at Michigan gives only "a slight advantage, based on skin color" to students who still must "meet a high academic threshold"—and that virtually no minority students would attend the university without it...
...To end racial preferences, the piece asserts, would mean "forcing the university to turn back the clock three decades to a nearly all-white campus...
...Mohamed Atta's father in Egypt said, "It's a forgery, of course...
...No, cause for alarm...
...But it works...
...If you're the Iraqi government and you're looking at the Iraqi National Congress, they are a legitimate enemy...
...arms inspector to apologist for Saddam Hussein was ably chronicled in these pages several weeks back by Stephen F. Hayes...
...6 syndicated column was still citing Rit-ter as a disinterested, authoritative expert on Iraq...
...For instance, when Qandil said that American food drops in Afghanistan are intended to "fatten them up before they slaughter them," it took him two tries to get it past the government censor...
...In Europe, they take a more brazen approach...
...Does anyone besides Scott Ritter think international law would countenance such an outrage...
...Sufficient reason, if one were needed, to stop listening to his ravings...
...This is unsurprising...
...The Dec...
...If you are inclined to believe that the Mossad engineered the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, then you will find it easy to believe that the Mossad can create propaganda videos starring an osama bin Laden look-alike...
...The United States must not try to win a popularity contest in the Arab world—the very act of doing so will make us appear weak...
...5 issue of the Irish Times, reporting that Irish students rank second highest for reading and fifth for math among 32 industrial European countries...
...Saddam Hussein's American Apologist Scott Ritter's descent from U.N...
...A number of people on this planet, after all, still believe the Apollo moon landings were filmed in Hollywood...
...Mostly, though, they just pretend not to know about the disconnect between education spending and academic results...
...Perhaps more surprising, especially to its American fan club, was the decision by Qatar-based satellite TV channel Al Jazeera to go with a report from "researcher" Hani Subai in London, declaring the video to have been "fabricated...
...The operative words in that guarantee turned out to be "six months...
...Nonetheless—or, rather, for this very reason—the release of the tape was a huge success for the U.S...
...Eagle-eyed Mark Gauvreau Judge forwarded to us a story in the Dec...
...Indeed," Ritter added, "you could make the case that the Radio Free Europe transmission tower, under international law, is a legitimate target...
...pragmatism on the subject of racial preferences at public universities...
Vol. 7 • December 2001 • No. 15
