Taranto Vaporizes the Opposition

The excellent James Taranto of Opinion Journal's Best of the Web lays down two blistering riffs in his most recent edition of the consistently invaluable "Best of the Web".



He first pummels Ted Turner senseless (whoops, I guess that's redundant!) over Turner's incessant use of Hitler analogies. He then unleashes the dogs of war on certain Democratic Senators possessed of antediluvian ideas and painfully low reserves of intellectual honesty. You know, the ones who voted against the eminently qualified Condi Rice for "lying". Mmm hmmm, that's right, the same "lying" engaged in by Bill Clinton, Madeline Albright, and scores of governments and intelligence organizations throughout the world: that Saddam Hussein was working on WMD's and represented a threat to the U.S.



I guess it's safe to assume that, according to these shining wits (phrase to be read as a Spoonerism), the world would be better off with Hussein, the terrorist training center at Salman Pak, Abu Abbas, Abu Nidal, Al Qaeda affiliate Ansar al Islam, Hussein's ongoing nuclear research program under Obeidi, Uday's rape rooms, the mass graves, the anthrax, the tons of high explosives, all co-existing as the utterly corrupt UN sanctions machine ground to a halt. Yep... that makes sense... if you're Barbara Boxer or Ted Kennedy.



In any event, consider this the "Best of Best of the Web".

"Ted Turner called Fox a propaganda tool of the Bush administration and indirectly compared Fox News Channel's popularity to Adolf Hitler's popular election to run Germany before World War II," reports Broadcasting & Cable magazine: Fox wasn't laughing, however. "Ted is understandably bitter having lost his ratings, his network, and now his mind," said a Fox News spokesperson. "We wish him well." Sounds to us as though Fox was laughing. In any case, one is inclined to dismiss this as mere Angry Left bombast--but it's worth noting that unlike Fox, CNN, the network Turner founded, has a record of collaboration with genocidal dictatorship. In April 2003, just after the liberation of Baghdad, CNN's Eason Jordan described the network's relationship with Saddam Hussein's regime: I knew that CNN could not report that Saddam Hussein's eldest son, Uday, told me in 1995 that he intended to assassinate two of his brothers-in-law who had defected and also the man giving them asylum, King Hussein of Jordan. If we had gone with the story, I was sure he would have responded by killing the Iraqi translator who was the only other participant in the meeting. After all, secret police thugs brutalized even senior officials of the Information Ministry, just to keep them in line (one such official has long been missing all his fingernails). . . . I came to know several Iraqi officials well enough that they confided in me that Saddam Hussein was a maniac who had to be removed. One Foreign Ministry officer told me of a colleague who, finding out his brother had been executed by the regime, was forced, as a test of loyalty, to write a letter of congratulations on the act to Saddam Hussein. An aide to Uday once told me why he had no front teeth: henchmen had ripped them out with pliers and told him never to wear dentures, so he would always remember the price to be paid for upsetting his boss. Again, we could not broadcast anything these men said to us. ...This is not to say CNN is, or was, pro-Saddam; the question of access versus truth poses genuine moral dilemmas. But given the degree to which his own network covered up the atrocities of a fascist dictator, Turner ought to be more restrained in throwing around the H-word.

Taranto on the Dems and Condi...

What was that all about? The Senate has confirmed Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state by a vote of 85-13. But a small group of Democrats, led by Angry Left heartthrob Barbara Boxer, insisted on staging a mock kerfuffle first. Even though the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had already approved Rice 16-2, with only Boxer and John Kerry* dissenting, the Dems insisted on delaying her confirmation for a week and holding a nine-hour "debate," which took place yesterday. "My vote against this nominee is my statement that this administration's lies must stop now," said Sen. Mark Dayton of Minnesota. This is the same Mark Dayton who fled the capital in October, citing terrorism fears, but returned as soon as George W. Bush was safely re-elected. Ted Kennedy said that the liberation of Iraq was "a catastrophic failure, a continuing quagmire." Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment. Another Rice foe, Robert Byrd, denounced "the Administration's unconstitutional doctrine of pre-emptive war, its bullying policies of unilateralism, and its callous rejection of our long-standing allies." Byrd also accused Rice of employing "overblown rhetoric." Mark Steyn has a nice riff on Byrd: Byrd, the former Klu [sic] Klux Klan Kleagle, is taking a stand over states' rights, or his rights over State, or some such. Whatever the reason, the sight of an old Klansman blocking a little colored girl from Birmingham from getting into her office contributed to the general retro vibe that hangs around the Democratic Party these days...

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