• 26 May ' 02:35

  • Obstetrician:

  • 

    One Taliban Bullet, Two Lives Lost

  • 

    Obama to Step Up Bain Ads

  • U.N.: Iran Nuclear Fuel Hits Higher Grade

  • 

    Spain Pours Billions Into Lender Bankia

  • 

    Spain Pours Billions Into Lender Bankia

    Spain will pump $24 billion into troubled lender Bankia, effectively nationalizing the country's third-largest bank. Meanwhile, S&P downgraded it and four other Spanish banks.

  • 

    Facebook Flop Puts Banker on the Spot

    Michael Grimes has helped keep Morgan Stanley near the top of the IPO heap. Now, the investment banker is getting a chunk of the blame for Facebook's post-IPO performance.

  • 

    One Taliban Bullet, Two Lives Lost

    U.S. Army medic Keith "Doc" Benson in Afghanistan couldn't save the life of Staff Sgt. Daniel Quintana, a popular soldier known as Sgt. Q. The sergeant's death haunted him. A few months later, the 27-year-old Doc Benson took his own life.

  • 

    J.P. Morgan Plans Risk-Panel Shift

    The board of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. is expected to shake up its risk-policy committee in the wake of more than $2 billion in trading losses.

  • The History Boys

  • Advice for a New President

  • Jenkins: Guess What? Facebook Is Speculative

  • What Monday Means

  • The Reagan Memo

  • Missing Body Is Big Mystery In Patz Case

  • 904 comments

  • 606 comments

  • 283 comments

  • 252 comments

  • Opinion: Michael W. McConnell: The Liberal Legal Meltdown Over ObamaCare244 comments

  • 

    Devils Beat Rangers to Win Series

  • 

    Why We Lie

  • 

    The World's Greatest Backyard

  • 

    What Workers Lose by Staying Put

  • 

    The Internet's Longest Tubes

  • Opinion: Runnin' Utes

    3:53

  • Opinion: Will the Tea Party Lose in Texas?

    4:26

  • Opinion: Can Democracy Prevail in Egypt?

    3:52

  • 189 Recommendations
  • 150 Recommendations
  • 122 Recommendations
  • 112 Recommendations

  • “Liberals believe their own...;”

    - Jonathan Murray105 Recommendations

  • 1993 Recommendations
  • 1590 Recommendations
  • 1480 Recommendations
  • 1470 Recommendations
  • 1240 Recommendations

  • The History Boys

  • Advice for a New President

  • Jenkins: Guess What? Facebook Is Speculative

  • What Monday Means

  • The Reagan Memo

  • 

    Devils Beat Rangers to Win Series

  • 

    Why We Lie

  • 

    The World's Greatest Backyard

  • 

    What Workers Lose by Staying Put

  • 

    The Internet's Longest Tubes

  Permalink  |  View Entire Page

• 25 May ' 19:49

  James Taranto on bean counting.

  Mitt Romney made a campaign appearance yesterday at a charter school in inner-city Philadelphia, but he received a hostile reception on the streets nearby, the Washington Post reports:

  Researchers couldn't give a precise reason for it but suggest that the increase [sic] risk of a heart attack may be from a guilty conscious [sic], stress of keeping an affair a secret and the demands of a young lover.

  • 

    Tom Manion: Why They Serve—'If Not Me, Then Who?'

    After more than a decade of war, remarkable men and women are still stepping forward.

  • Tom Manion: Why They Serve—'If Not Me, Then Who?'

  • Opinion: Tom Manion: Why They Serve—'If Not Me, Then Who?'

  • SpaceX Capsule Docks at Space Station

  • 795 comments

  • 597 comments

  • Opinion: Prostate Testing and the Death Panel248 comments

  Question of the Day

  Has the plethora of other viewing devices diminished your interest in a large-screen TV?

  1. No, still enjoy mine
  2. No, still want to buy one
  3. Have one but am watching more on other devices
  4. Yes, don't want one any more
  5. Never wanted one to begin with

  View Results »

  • 1920 Recommendations
  • 1836 Recommendations
  • 1714 Recommendations
  • 1637 Recommendations
  • 1335 Recommendations

  • Tom Manion: Why They Serve—'If Not Me, Then Who?'

  Permalink  |  View Entire Page

• 25 May ' 13:32

  • Updated May 25, 2012, 4:25 p.m. ET

  Bean and Nothingness

  An essay on the phenomenological ontology of racial preferences.

  (Best of the tube tonight: Catch us tonight on "Lou Dobbs Tonight," 7 and 10 p.m. ET on Fox Business.) You can tell that the scandal over Elizabeth Warren's unsubstantiated claim of American Indian heritage isn't fading away, because even the liberal Boston Globe is devoting investigative resources to it. "Warren has said she was unaware that Harvard Law School had been promoting her purported Native American heritage until she read about it in a newspaper several weeks ago," the Globe notes. But it turns out that in its annual bean-counting reports, Harvard officially claimed her as a twofer:

  For at least six straight years during Warren's tenure, Harvard University reported in federally mandated diversity statistics that it had a Native American woman in its senior ranks at the law school. According to both Harvard officials and federal guidelines, those statistics are almost always based on the way employees describe themselves.

  Meanwhile, Politico reports that an "exasperated" Warren "told reporters Thursday that she's certain about her Native American roots 'because my mother told me so.' " She added: "This is how I live. My mother, my grandmother, my family. This is my family. Scott Brown has launched attacks on my family. I am not backing off from my family."

  Wikipedia.org/photo illustration by James Taranto

  Fade to white

  So it seems the bean-counters in Cambridge and Washington relied on Warren's own self-definition (bean for itself), which she adopted from her mother (bean for others). But does that mean that all human beans are entitled to classify themselves however they want? Can a white bean pass itself off as a red bean with impunity?

  Apparently not. Another set of bean-counting rules suggests that existence (bean in itself) precedes essence. "Both Harvard's guidelines and federal regulations for the statistics lay out a specific definition of Native American that Warren does not meet," the Globe reports.

  Harvard "defines Native American as 'a person having origins in any of the original peoples of North America and who maintains cultural identification through tribal affiliation or community recognition,' " the Globe adds. The university "notes that this definition is consistent with federal regulations." Warren "has not proven she has a Native American ancestor . . . and she has no official tribal affiliation."

  Podcast

  James Taranto on bean-counting.

  Why not remove all subjectivity from the bean-counting process and base it on pure facticity? That is, require that anyone seeking either to study or to work at a university submit to genetic testing to determine his precise racial background. That way preferences could be administered with scientific precision, measuring exactly how much diversity the applicant would bring to the student body or faculty.

  We'll admit it sounds absurd. It is absurd. But no more so than the system that gave us Elizabeth Warren, the "native American woman."

  Not in My Back Yard Mitt Romney made a campaign appearance yesterday at a charter school in inner-city Pennsylvania, but he received a hostile reception on the streets nearby, the Washington Post reports:

  Residents, some of them organized by Obama's campaign, stood on their porches and gathered at a sidewalk corner to shout angrily at Romney. Some held signs saying, "We are the 99%." One man's placard trumpeted an often-referenced Romney gaffe: "I am not concerned about the very poor."

  Madaline G. Dunn, 78, who said she has lived here for 50 years and volunteers at the school, said she is "personally offended" that Romney would visit her neighborhood.

  "It's not appreciated here," she said. "It is absolutely denigrating for him to come in here and speak his garbage."

  Mayor Michael Nutter addressed the protesters. "You want to have an urban experience?" the mayor said. "You want to have a West Philly experience? Then come out here and talk to somebody in West Philly." Inside the school, Romney was doing just that.

  Has anyone heard of a presidential campaign organizing protests against its opponent, as the Obama campaign is reported to have done here? It's a new one on us.

  And the hostile tone of the Obama-organized protesters is reminiscent of the false media caricature of the Tea Party. Imagine if an Obama opponent showed up outside one of his campaign appearances and told a reporter: "It is absolutely denigrating for him to come in here and speak his garbage." The civility police would be demanding that Romney disassociate himself from such hate. In this case, the Obama campaign actually is associated with it.

  The Dream and the Nightmare The New York Times's Charles Blow engages in a bit of social liberal triumphalism, similar to that silly Michael Lind piece we dissected Wednesday. Blow likes charts, and this is based on two of them, what his headline calls "G.O.P. Nightmare Charts." In truth, the GOP doesn't need to lose any sleep over them.

  The first chart is based on the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. Respondents were read a list of groups and asked: "When it comes to (READ ITEM), which party do you feel is most [sic] attuned and sensitive to issues that affect this group?" As Blow explains:

  The chart illustrates just how narrow Republican support is. Respondents viewed Republicans as more sensitive to religious conservatives, people in the military and small business owners. That's not enough for a winning coalition. For everyone else--including the middle class, young adults and Hispanics--Democrats won out. Democrats even scored higher than Republicans among some groups that conventional wisdom associates with supporting Republicans, like retirees and stay-at-home moms. (I wish that the pollsters had also asked about men and racial groups, but unfortunately they did not.)

  In truth, the answers to these questions--with the possible exception of the one asking about "you and your family"--tell nothing about "how narrow Republican support" is. They measure not support for the parties but perceptions of the parties' support for various groups.

  The difference is easily demonstrated by looking at the groups at the extremes: Respondents chose Republicans, by 60% to 9%, as the party more attuned to "religious conservatives" and Democrats, by 63% to 5%, as the party more attuned to "gays and lesbians." Many in the majority in each case prefer the party that is less attuned to the group in question.

  That the Democratic Party is seen as more "attuned" to identifiable groups is hardly a surprise. The Dems far more than the Republicans have long tended to approach politics as a matter of building coalitions among disparate interests. Although that sometimes wins elections, it is far from clear that it is superior to a more unifying approach.

  The second chart comes from a Gallup poll that asks this question: "I'm going to read you a list of issues. Regardless of whether or not you think it should be legal, for each one, please tell me whether you personally believe that in general it is morally acceptable or morally wrong."

  Result: For all but a handful of issues (capital punishment, wearing fur and medical testing on animals), Democrats and independents were more likely than Republicans to say "morally acceptable." Among most of the others, Republicans were the least accepting, although some were more accepted by Democrats than independents and some vice versa.

  "This does not bode well for Republicans," Blow writes. As a nation, "we are slowly becoming less religious, more diverse and increasingly open-minded. That is completely at odds with today's Republican Party."

  But this is absurdly overwrought. Moral fashions change, and not always in one direction. One could easily have constructed a list of issues on which Democrats are more moralistic than Republicans. Moreover, is it really politically helpful to Democrats that they are more likely to find adultery morally acceptable (8%) than are Republicans (3%)?

  Similarly, does it make any difference that Republicans are less likely to find gambling morally acceptable (57%) than are Democrats (67%)? Gambling is frequently a political issue, but not one that polarizes the parties.

  On the issue that is most polarizing, abortion, only 52% of Democrats said it was morally acceptable, against 40% of independents and 22% of Republicans. That does put the views of independents closer to those of Democrats in the poll. But the poll also found that 51% of respondents thought abortion was "morally wrong" (Gallup does not break this down by party). The Democrats pro-abortion moralism puts them at odds with the majority.

  His Greatest Shortcoming Is That He Works Too Hard "President Obama has been keeping some long days lately, often due to fund-raising events for his reelection campaign. It raises the question of whether he is tiring himself out for his day job as the nation's CEO, chief diplomat, and commander in chief."--headline, Boston Globe website, May 24

  Two Former Enron Advisers in One!

  • "The alleged productivity surge never actually happened."--Paul Krugman, New York Times, May 25
  • "There have been significant productivity gains these past three decades."--Krugman, same column

  The Secret to Safe Sex "A study by the University of Florence shows that 'sudden coital death' is more common in men who are engaging in extramarital sex than men who have sex with their spouse," the Scripps News Service reports:

  Researchers couldn't give a precise reason for it but suggest that the increase risk of a heart attack may be from a guilty conscious [sic], stress of keeping an affair a secret and the demands of a young lover.

  "It is possible that a secret sexual encounter in an unfamiliar setting may significantly increase blood pressure and heart rate, leading to increased oxygen demand," researcher Dr. Alessandra Fisher told The Daily Mail.

  So remember, if you want to be safe, never have sex with somebody who causes your heart to beat faster.

  "President Barack Obama delivered his harshest rebuttal yet to rival Mitt Romney on Thursday, dismissing his challenger's claims as 'a cowpie of distortions' while seeking to rekindle the all-but-faded Iowa magic that launched him in 2008."--Associated Press, May 24

  Homer Nods Three corrections to yesterday's column:

  The Wavy Gravy porcine pet that made a mock presidential run was called Pigasus, not Pegasus.

  Eight, not seven, sitting presidents have received less than 60% in primaries. In 1952, Harry S. Truman lost to Estes Kefauver in New Hampshire, 55% to 44%. Soon after, Truman announced he would not seek re-election, although he had drafted his withdrawal speech a month earlier.

  And the referendum on Maryland's same-sex-marriage law is not a certainty; opponents are still collecting signatures. We've rewritten yesterday's column to correct this last mistake.

  Out on a Limb

  • "Israel Can't Solve Africa's Problems"--headline, Commentary
  • " 'Poverty is bad for kids,' said Harvard Kennedy School professor Kathryn Edin, who studies poverty policy. 'It just makes everything a struggle.' "--Los Angeles Times, May 24
  • "Dickerson: Election Still About the Economy"--headline, CBSNews.com, May 25

  We Blame George W. Bush "Still at It: Gore Blames 'Dirty Energy and Dirty Money' for 'Dirty Weather,' 'Extreme Climate Events' "--headline, DailyCaller.com, May 25

  To Serve Man "Tucker Carlson: Reporters Have 'Slavish, Dog-Like Loyalty' to Obama"--headline, RawStory.com, May 25

  With DNC in Mind, City Bans Carrying Urine, Feces "On Campaign Trail, Team Obama Is Slinging Bull"--headline, Washington Examiner website, May 25

  Is Our Children Learning? "Colleen F: 'The larger the class is, the easier students get distracted and do not pay attention.' "--tweet, @BarackObama, May 25

  Life Imitates Monty Python

  • New Mother: "Is it a boy or a girl?" Obstretrician: "I think it's a bit early to start imposing roles on it, don't you?"--from "The Meaning of Life," 1983
  • " 'Do you know what the gender is?' is the question people most frequently ask expecting parents, including me. Usually, I give the conventional response: 'No, we are waiting to be surprised.' But occasionally I offer up one of my two real answers, 'We don't know the sex or the gender' or 'I don't really believe in gender anyway.' ""--Salamishah Tillet, TheNation.com, May 24, 2012

  What About the Ninth Amendment? "Cook County Looks at Naming Rights to Raise Money"--headline, Chicago Tribune website, May 24

  Making Them Listen Is Another Story "Device May Let Humans Talk to Dolphins"--headline, PawNation.com, May 25

  News From Around the Solar System

  • "Scotland's Weather: Even Elephants Can't Take Heat as the Mercury Soars"--headline, Scotsman, May 24
  • "Venus Gets Patent in South Africa for Antibiotic Product"--headline, Press Trust of India, May 22
  • "Scorched Earth Over Oilsands"--headline, QMI Agency (Canada), May 22
  • "Mars Breaks Ground on New Facility in Tennessee"--headline, Tennessean, May 22
  • "Jupiter's Chatfeild-Roberts Sticks With US but Stays Shy of Europe"--headline, Citywire.co.uk, May 22
  • "Saturn Valley: Farewell Hannibal"--headline, Hannibal (Mo.) Courier-Post, May 18
  • "TFC Toys Project Uranus Reveal New Image of First Team Figure"--headline, Tformers.com, May 17
  • "Neptune, the Only Krill Oil Manufacturer Certified as 'Friend of the Sea' "--headline, Neptune Technologies & Bioressources Inc. press release, May 22
  • "Woodside's Massive Pluto Project Produces First Gas"--headline, Agence France-Presse, April 29

  "Decision Time on Site for Giant Radio Telescope"--headline, Aviation Week website, May 24

  • "Conservatives Used to Care About Community. What Happened?"--headline, Washington Post, May 25
  • "Ever Wondered What Happened to the Prop Oval Office From the Film 'JFK'?"--headline, The American Spectator website, May 25
  • "How Low Will Tom Friedman Go?"--headline, Jerusalem Post website, May 23

  Answers to Questions Nobody Is Asking "Chris Matthews: I Felt Thrill Going up My Leg From Obama Because 'I Love the Country' "--headline, DailyCaller.com, May 24

  "Lindt Loses Chocolate Bunny Trademark Case"--headline, Daily Telegraph (London), May 25

  "Newt Gingrich Finally Reveals His Favorite Snake"--headline, BuzzFeed.com, May 24

  "A User's Guide to Smoking Pot With Barack Obama"--headline, BuzzFeed.com, May 25

  Bottom Story of the Day "Lease Accounting Breakthrough Could Come in June"--headline, WorldLeasingNews.com, May 25

  No Offense Intended In our closing item yesterday, we had a laugh at the expense of a woman in a news story who "spoke on the condition of anonymity because of her religious beliefs." Reader Nick Klein points out that was insensitive of us:

  It is very likely the woman who spoke on condition of anonymity was either Amish or old-order Mennonite. Many of them are forbidden to have their photos taken or names publicized.

  I loved the humor that accompanied the article, but I wanted to set the record straight.

  Goodness, now we feel bad. Madam, in case you're reading this, we apologize.

  (Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Anthony Parisi, Rebecca Billings, Adam Phillips, Jeffrey Shapiro, Michele Schiesser, Miguel Rakiewicz, Jeff McKee, T. Young, Rick Walsh, Chris Papouras, Tom Tuttle, Daniel Lepanto, Clifford Crouch, Taylor Dinerman, Levi Pearson, Jeffrey Segal, Jeryl Bier, Eric Jensen, Daniel Lippman, John Bobek, Mark Nicholas, Harris Perry, David Hallstrom, Jonathan Spetner, John Williamson, Richard Williams, Zack Russ, Bryan Fischer, Monty Krieger, Ethel Fenig, Jim Beach, Bruce Goldman, Hillel Markowitz and Greg Stanford. If you have a tip, write us at

  • 

    Subscriber ContentRead Preview

    Was wird aus Armanis Imperium?

  • Privater Shuttle SpaceX dockt an Raumstation an

  • Reebok lässt die Muskeln spielen

  • Subscriber ContentRead Preview

    USDA Cracks Down When Mortgages Go Bad

  • Subscriber ContentRead Preview

    

    Bankia Says Spain to Inject $24 Billion

    Spain is prepared to provide $24 billion to Bankia, the troubled lender said. Meanwhile, S&P downgraded five Spanish banks.

  • 

    Astronauts Capture SpaceX Capsule

    Astronauts captured SpaceX's Dragon capsule ahead of an historic docking Friday, making it the first commercial vessel to visit the international space station.

  • Subscriber ContentRead Preview

    Higher Enrichment Levels at Iran Site

    The U.N.atomic agency has found traces of uranium enriched at an Iranian site to a level that is slightly closer to the threshold needed to arm nuclear missiles.

  • 

    Photos of the Day: May 25

    In today's pictures, a solemn display in Boston, a watermelon competition in China, a gigantic photo of Queen Elizabeth in London, and more.

  • Opinion: Noonan: Mitt Romney's Moment

  • Single and Stepping Off the Fast Track

  • Opinion: Tom Manion: Why They Serve—'If Not Me Then Who?'

  • Breeders of Rare Woolly Pooch Want Dog to Have Its Day

  • Opinion: Noonan: Mitt Romney's Moment

  • Subscriber ContentRead Preview

    Opinion: Vulture Capitalism? Try Obama's Version

  • Ferrari Crash Caught on Video

  • Grown-Up Guide to Summer Movies

  • Opinion: Noonan: Mitt Romney's Moment781 comments

  • 592 comments

  • 422 comments

  • 348 comments

  • 

    Men Are From Cab, Women Are From Moscato?

  • 

    A Grown-Up's Guide to Summer Movies

  • 

    USDA Cracks Down When Mortgages Go Bad

  • 181 Recommendations
  • 143 Recommendations
  • 119 Recommendations
  • 104 Recommendations

  • 1907 Recommendations
  • 1833 Recommendations
  • 1710 Recommendations
  • 1634 Recommendations
  • 1331 Recommendations

  • 

    Men Are From Cab, Women Are From Moscato?

  • 

    A Grown-Up's Guide to Summer Movies

  • Subscriber ContentRead Preview

    

    USDA Cracks Down When Mortgages Go Bad

  Permalink  |  View Entire Page

• 25 May ' 06:09

  • 

    Das doppelte Spiel der Banken beim Facebook-Debüt

  • Vatikan entlässt Chefbankier

  • Erste Ergebnisse sehen Muslimbruder in Kairo vorn

  • 

    J.P. Morgan Unit Made Risky Bets on Firms

  • 

    USDA Is Tough Collector When Mortgages Go Bad

  • 

    Employee Messes Up. Time to Unleash Claw?

  • 

    Is a Tariff Break an Earmark?

  • 

    Some Facebook Underwriters Helped Short Sellers

    As traders at Morgan Stanley were frantically trying to shore up Facebook's share price in the days after the company's IPO, other managers on the deal were helping short sellers bet that the newly minted stock would fall.

  • 

    Suspect Arrested in Patz Case

    Authorities arrested a man they said had confessed to the murder of Etan Patz, a 6-year-old boy who disappeared 33 years ago.

  • 

    New Signs of Global Slowdown

  • U.S. Stock Futures Flatten

    U.S. stock futures hovered near unchanged levels as encouraging German data gave way to caution ahead of consumer-sentiment data and the long weekend.

  • Noonan: Mitt Romney's Moment

  • Tom Manion: Why They Serve—'If Not Me Then Who?'

  • Michael W. McConnell: The Liberal Legal Meltdown Over ObamaCare

  • Deus ex Eurobonds

  • Our Man in Pakistan

  • A Run on Chocolate Chips at Trader Joe's

  • SpaceX Craft Rehearses Docking Moves

  • Will Truckers Ditch Diesel?

  • Facebook Shows There's a Sucker Born Every Minute

  • A Strange Breed Turns Heads in Manhattan

  • Why Facebook Is Almost as Greedy as Bernie Madoff

  • Cathay Pacific CEO: 2012 a Challenging Year

  • Suspect Arrested in Etan Patz Murder

  • 556 comments

  • 415 comments

  • 345 comments

  • Opinion: Catholics in Court290 comments

  • 281 comments

  • 

    Breeders of Rare Woolly Pooch Want Dog to Have Its Day

  • 

    Rewriting the Rules of Summer Fiction

  • 

    The Long, Arduous Road to Indy

  • 

    In First Showcase, Sanchez Upstages Tebow

  • 

    From Disability, High Comedy

  • Opinion: Romney's Reform School

    5:25

  • Opinion: Chicago Prosecutor Steps Down

    3:45

  • Opinion: Cuomo Facilitating Food Stamp Fraud?

    4:14

  • 170 Recommendations
  • 134 Recommendations
  • 115 Recommendations

  • “Chief Justice Roberts buckling?...;”

    - William Lovin101 Recommendations

  • “Thanks for this enlightening...;”

    - Mary Childs96 Recommendations

  • 1732 Recommendations
  • 1711 Recommendations
  • 1624 Recommendations
  • 1547 Recommendations
  • 1299 Recommendations

  • Noonan: Mitt Romney's Moment

  • Tom Manion: Why They Serve—'If Not Me Then Who?'

  • Michael W. McConnell: The Liberal Legal Meltdown Over ObamaCare

  • Deus ex Eurobonds

  • Our Man in Pakistan

  • 

    Breeders of Rare Woolly Pooch Want Dog to Have Its Day

  • 

    Rewriting the Rules of Summer Fiction

  • 

    The Long, Arduous Road to Indy

  • 

    In First Showcase, Sanchez Upstages Tebow

  • 

    From Disability, High Comedy

  Permalink  |  View Entire Page

• 24 May ' 17:09

  • Updated May 24, 2012, 4:49 p.m. ET

  The Ultimate Dark Horse

  Nobody is challenging Obama in the primaries--and doing surprisingly well.

  Nobody ran for president in 1988. No, we haven't forgotten George Bush and Michael Dukakis, or even Bob Dole, Al Gore, Ron Paul and the other also-rans. "The 'Nobody for President' campaign came to the White House" on Election Day, Reuters reported:

  The signs sprouting in the crowd were a little different from the usual campaign fare: "Nobody is Perfect," "Nobody Cares About the Homeless," and "Nobody Bakes Better Apple Pie than Mom."

  Bumper stickers were selling out fast. "U.S. Out of North America: Nobody for President in 1988" appeared to be the most popular.

  "Unfortunately . . . Nobody will get over 50 percent of the votes," said Hugh "Wavy Gravy" Romney, who once ran his pig, Pegasus, for president on the Yippie ticket. "I say unfortunately because we're trying to use humor to get 'None of the Above' on the ballot across the country."

  We know what you're thinking. No, Mr. Gravy is not related to Mitt Romney or Meat Loaf.

  Nobody is challenging Barack Obama in the Democratic primaries this year--and is doing surprisingly well. One of the reasons some commentators thought Obama would be a shoo-in for re-election is that like Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, he drew no serious primary opposition as an incumbent president. By contrast, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Bush père were challenged by Reagan, Ted Kennedy and Pat Buchanan respectively. Lyndon Johnson abandoned his 1968 re-election bid after Eugene McCarthy's surprisingly strong showing in New Hampshire and Robert F. Kennedy's late entry.

  The theory goes that presidents lose re-election when they have a strong primary opponent and win when they don't. This requires treating Buchanan as a "serious" opponent, even though he didn't win a single primary in 1992 and his best showing, in New Hampshire, was 37%.

  Writing at RealClearPolitics, the delightfully named Sean Trende reformulates the rule and carries it back a century: "There are only seven sitting presidents who have ever received less than 60 percent of the vote in any primary: Taft in '12; Coolidge, '24; Hoover, '32; LBJ, '68; Ford '76; Carter, '80; and Bush '92. All of these presidents, with the exception of Coolidge, were not re-elected." One of Coolidge's challengers, Robert LaFollette, ran a third-party challenge. He ended up with 16.5% of the nationwide popular vote and carried his home state, Wisconsin.

  

  Nobody can beat Obama, they said.

  Actually, there's an eighth sitting president who received less than 60% in a primary--in more than one, in fact. That would be Obama in '12, who, as Trende points out, received just 58.4% in Arkansas, 57.9% in Kentucky, 57.1% in Oklahoma and 59.4% in West Virginia. In Kentucky, his main opponent was "Uncommitted," another name for Nobody.

  If the Trende trend is predictive--admittedly, a big if--Obama is much likelier than not to lose in November. "I think we can reasonably begin to view this as a sort of organic primary challenge to Obama," Trende writes. "Obama's not likely to lose any states outright in the primaries; think of this more like Buchanan's run against George H.W. Bush in 1992."

  That reminded us of an op-ed we wrote last September for . Two men of the left, Ralph Nader and Cornel West, were trying to drum up support for a symbolic primary challenge to the president. Their idea was to assemble "a slate of six candidates," each "a field in which Obama has never clearly staked a progressive claim or where he has drifted toward the corporatist right."

  The goal would not be to unseat the president but to push him further to the left. We thought this had a chance of developing into a Buchananesque challenge. In the event, Obama lurched left without being pushed, or perhaps in response to the Nader-West nudge. The primary effort quickly fizzled.

  Or did it? We now have seen Obama held under 60% by a slate of three candidates--antiabortion extremist Randall Terry, federal prison inmate Keith Judd and Tennessee lawyer John Wolfe--not to mention Nobody. Unlike the recently re-elected presidents, Obama does not have the full support of his party.

  To be sure, it is not the left that is abandoning Obama but white working-class voters, a demographic group that has been moving toward the Republicans, and in a region that swung toward the GOP in 2008 in opposition to the nationwide trend. The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza observes that Obama's poor showings in these states "have drawn a collective eyeroll from Democrats--and many others who closely follow national politics--who ascribe the underperformance by the incumbent to a very simple thing: racism."

  Cillizza acknowledges that this theory is "almost entirely unprovable," but Slate's Dave Weigel doesn't. He cites exit-poll data from 2008 that found whites in Kentucky and West Virginia who answered in the affirmative when asked "Was race of candidate important to you?" went overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton, and more strongly than those who answered in the negative. Weigel's conclusion: "Long before they knew anything about how Obama would govern, or whether he'd make War on Coal, a sizable number of Appalachian whites grabbed anonymous exit poll forms and confirmed that they would vote against the guy because they didn't like his skin color."

  Weigel's conclusion is uncharitable and unwarranted, even a little bit racist. Does it apply in reverse--that is, would one say of blacks who voted for Obama and said the race of the candidate was important "confirmed that they would vote against the gal because they don't like her skin color"? Of course not. "Race" denotes much more than skin color, and "important" can mean something other than a crude aversion. (We developed this argument more fully in 2008, after the Pennsylvania primary.)

  When commentators were looking ahead to this year's election, they almost always assumed--correctly, as it turned out--that no serious politician would challenge Obama for the Democratic nomination. The usual explanation for this assumption was that a challenge to the first black president would tear apart the party's coalition by pitting black Democrats against mostly white left-wing progressives. (See this December 2010 column describing the tensions between blacks and progs.)

  By all accounts, progs and blacks are sticking with Obama. Yet the primaries in Arkansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma and West Virginia suggest that Obama is dividing his party anyway. No, he doesn't need any of those states to win, and he didn't carry them in 2008. But four states Obama did carry "have substantial populations in areas geographically and culturally similar to these 'problem areas': southwestern Pennsylvania, western Virginia and North Carolina, and southeastern Ohio." If Obama loses those four states plus Florida--about which more in the next item--he is a one-term president.

  And while lefty pols and pundits may take some comfort in attacking these Democratic voters as "racist," that doesn't seem a promising way of persuading them to vote for Obama--or to return to the party in future elections.

  The Sun Shines on Romney Are Democrats giving up on Florida already? Probably not, but Jamelle Bouie, filling in for lefty Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent, expects them to do just that. He proclaims himself "not too surprised by the outcome" of a recent Quinnipiac poll that found Mitt Romney leading President Obama in the Sunshine State, 47% to 41%.

  "Obama can win the presidency without Florida," Bouie insists:

  Because of its unique demographic profile--mostly white with a substantial portion of Republican-leaning Latinos--weakness there doesn't translate to other vote-rich states such as Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

  At first we thought this was fatuous, but we looked at the 2008 results, and it turns out Obama's margin in Florida, less than 3%, made it the third-closest of the states he carried (after North Carolina and Indiana). He's probably right to think Obama will not lose the election if he carries Florida.

  On the other hand, he's wrong to assert that if Romney wins the election without Florida, "he would be the first Republican to do so, ever." That would be Abe Lincoln, followed by Lincoln again (albeit with Florida not voting on account of the Civil War), Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, Taft, Harding and Coolidge. So Romney would be the 10th.

  John F. Kennedy won the presidency without Florida in 1960, as did Bill Clinton in 1992. If Obama does it this year, he'll be the third Democrat.

  Rainbow Coalition? Maryland will have a referendum on same-sex marriage this November. The state's legislature, the General Assembly, approved a law allowing same-sex couples to marry, but the voters will have a say before the law can take effect. A new survey from Public Policy Polling finds 57% of Marylanders favor the law, while only 37% oppose it. In early March, the figures were 52% for, 44% against.

  But as we noted May 14, a March Elon University poll in North Carolina found an even bigger majority in favor of same-sex marriage, 60% pro and 32% con. Earlier this month a constitutional amendment affirming the traditional definition of marriage passed, 61% to 39%.

  Maryland is a much more liberal state than North Carolina, which almost certainly means the PPP survey is more reliable than the Elon one. (If you want a laugh, check out the defensive comments Elon's John Robinson posted to a Greensboro News & Record column on the poll.) It wouldn't surprise us if the Old Line State turns out to be the first to approve same-sex marriage in a plebiscite.

  But here's a reason to think passage of the referendum is far from assured and is likely to be a close-run thing: "-The movement over the last two months can be explained almost entirely by a major shift in opinion about same-sex marriage among black voters." In March, they opposed the referendum, 56% to 39%. In May, they favored it, 55% to 36%.

  Mother Jones's Adam Serwer, while conceding that "these numbers are almost incredible," thinks President Obama has made a difference: "I'm generally very skeptical of the power of the bully pulpit, but I can't think of any other reason for this significant a shift than Obama's decision to come out in support of same-sex couples getting married. . . . Instead of black voters torpedoeing marriage equality in Maryland, as NOM had hoped, they now stand poised to secure it."

  That of course assumes that large numbers of blacks actually changed their minds as a result of Obama's flip-flop. But the Elon experience is unusual only in degree: Same-sex marriage has consistently done much worse at the ballot box than in opinion surveys. Why should we think that blacks would be any different in this regard? When asked by a pollster, some probably say they're for same-sex marriage because they don't want to oppose Obama. In November they'll be able to have it both ways by voting for Obama and against same-sex marriage.

  Metaphor Alert "The moment I knew I needed more sleep was four years ago, when I learned the value of sleep--the hard way. I'd just returned home after a week of taking my daughter on a tour of colleges, and the ground rule was no BlackBerry during the day, so I stayed up very late to catch up on work. Next thing I knew, I was laying on the floor, bloodied. I had passed out from exhaustion and banged my head on the way down. The result was a broken cheekbone and five stitches under my eyebrow. And it was also a wake-up call, leading me to renew my estranged relationship with sleep."--Arianna Huffington, Puffington Host, May 24

  The Other 7,999,850,000 of Us Will Die of Other Causes "Death Ray: Global Warming Will Kill Over 150,000 by 2099"--headline, Washington Examiner website, May 24

  Exactly How Far Back Do These Records Go? "President Obama has appointed more than 250 openly LGBT professionals to his administration—more than all previous U.S. presidents combined."--tweet, @BarackObama, May 24

  (Tough) "Dojo Dog: Where Martial Arts Meet Street Food Truck"--headline, San Jose Mercury News, March 23

  Know Who Else Had Five-Year Plans? "Obama: We Need Five More Years"--headline, Politico.com, May 24

  Even Worse Than the Republicans? "Bill Clinton's Glamorous Fundraiser Called 'Worst Party Ever' by Angry Guests"--headline, Daily Telegraph (London), May 23

  Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad "Labrador, Otter at Odds Over Closed GOP primary"--headline, Associated Press, May 21

  The Senior Vote Isn't What It Used to Be

  • "Most Call High School Off-Limits in Evaluating Candidate Character"--headline, ABCNews.com, May 23
  • "Republican Freshmen Thrive in Primaries"--headline, Politico.com, May 23

  The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations "AARP: Jon Huntsman's a Very Sexy Man"--headline, Politico.com, May 24

  Joe the Plumber "Poll: Biden's Favorability Rating Sinks"--headline, TheHill.com, May 23

  He's a Witch! "Donald Trump Floats Self as Vice President"--headline, BuzzFeed.com, May 24

  On the Road With Helen Thomas "Family Treated After Rabid Bat Enters W. Pa. Home"--headline, Associated Press, May 24

  To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before "DOJ Pressures University to Allow 38-Year Old Man Access to Women's Restrooms"--headline, DailyCaller.com, May 23

  I Guess She'll Die "Woman Accidentally Swallowed Toothbrush"--headline, KDFW-TV website (Dallas), May 21

  Hey, Kids! What Time Is It? "Now Is the Time to Tell Your Senator That Privacy Is Awesome and CISPA Is Not"--headline, TechDirt.com, May 23

  "Should We Care if Bill Clinton Posed With Porn Stars?"--headline, TheAtlanticWire.com, May 24

  Can Bites Dog--Now That Would Be News "Dog Bites Into Spray Can; Explosion Ignites Kitchen Fire"--headline, Yahoo! News, May 23

  "Drop Biden Into the Supreme Court"--headline, WhiteHouseDossier.com, May 22

  
  "Baseballs, Rocks, Another Gator Found in Belly of Hilton Head 13-Footer"--headline, Island Packet (Hilton Head, S.C.), May 23

  Too Much Information
  "Man Arrested After Cruiser Rear-Ended"--headline, Omaha World-Herald, May 24

  
  "Long-Lasting Birth Control Cuts Pregnancy Rate"--headline, The Wall Street Journal, May 24

  Breaking News From 1961
  "Hawaii Verifies Obama Birth; Arizona Says Case Closed"--headline, The Wall Street Journal, May 24

  News You Can Use
  "Depend on Facebook For Smutty Photos, Not Economic Prosperity"--headline, Puffington Host, May 23

  • "Rather: 2012 'Worst' Presidential Campaign"--headline, Politico.com, May 23
  • "Ashley Judd: Obama Is Devoted to Our Constitution"--headline, Washington Examiner website, May 24

  Reliable Sources
  From the Daily Item in Sunbury, Pa.:

  A neighbor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of her religious beliefs, said she had known [Earl] Beck for the past six years and that he "was a man of common sense," but was shocked after he gunned down his girlfriend of 30 years, then killed himself.

  Wait, she insisted on anonymity "because of her religious beliefs"? We don't know what religion that would be, but she'd better pray God isn't omniscient.

  (Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Hillel Markowitz, Stuart Sioussat, Jeryl Bier, Steve Thompson, Eric Jensen, Taylor Dinerman, David Gerstman, Richard Wong, Michele Schiesser, Zack Russ, John Bobek, Ed Dressel, Bruce Goldman, Mark Zoeller, Dard Hunter, Terry Holmes, Dave Mason, Kemper Ohlmeyer, Jeffrey Segal, Mark Kellner and Robert Gessner. If you have a tip, write us at

  • 

    China schießt im Solarstreit zurück

  • Telekom: Zur Strategie nicht Neues

  • Opposition pokert weiter über Fiskalpakt

  • 

    Some Big Firms Got Facebook Warning

  • 

    Merger Turbulence Hits Fliers

  • 

    Report: Support for Putin Is Dropping

  • 

    Romney Faces Latino Challenge

  • Signals Point to Slowdown Around Globe

    New signs of a global slowdown are darkening the economic outlook, with measures of business sentiment in Europe slipping and reports from manufacturers around the world turning down.

  • Senate Approves Broader FDA Fees

    The Senate expanded the system determining how much drug companies and medical-device makers pay the FDA to review their new products.

  • 

    Some Investors Get Defensive

    The S&P has declined 5.5% so far this month, but that masks a rise in sectors such as telecommunications and smaller losses in consumer staples and utilities.

  • 

    U.S. Stocks Close Higher

    U.S. stocks finished mostly higher after late-afternoon comments from the Italian premier boosted confidence that Greece would stay in the euro zone.

  • Rove: Romney's Roads to the White House

  • The Competition Versus Google

  • David Malpass: Greece's False Austerity

  • Romney on Vouchers

  • A Mess the 45th President Will Inherit

  • Facebook Shows There's a Sucker Born Every Minute

  • Rove: Romney's Roads to the White House

  • Space Capsule Reaches Milestone

  • Some Big Firms Got Facebook Warning

  • Opinion: Best of the Web Today: Obama's Permanent Emergency

  • A Run on Chocolate Chips at Trader Joe's

  • Will Truckers Ditch Diesel?

  • How Parents Enable Kids' Creativity

  • New Steak on the Block

  • Merger Turbulence Hits Fliers

  • United's Merger Turbulence Hits Elite Fliers

  • The Hottest New Cuts of Steak

  • Facebook IPO: Favoritism On Wall Street?

  • 705 comments

  • Rove: Romney's Roads to the White House473 comments

  • Opinion: How the Recovery Went Wrong403 comments

  • Hawaii Verifies Obama Birth; Arizona Says Case Closed329 comments

  • Obama, Romney Toe to Toe299 comments

  • 

    Phillip Phillips on New 'Idol' Title

  • 

    Merger Turbulence Hits Fliers

  • 

    The View From 240 Miles Above Earth

  • 

    The Other Sport Where Local Teams Tear Up the Field

  • 

    Africa Turmoil Cracks Cashew Market

  • Opinion: Did Facebook Mislead Investors?

    5:20

  • Opinion: Obama's Political Mission Accomplished

    3:52

  • Opinion: Fannie Med

    2:52

  Has the plethora of other viewing devices diminished your interest in a large-screen TV?

  1. No, still enjoy mine
  2. No, still want to buy one
  3. Have one but am watching more on other devices
  4. Yes, don't want one any more
  5. Never wanted one to begin with

  • 207 Recommendations
  • 164 Recommendations

  • “The public sector unions are a...;”

    - molly henick131 Recommendations

  • “"Barack Obama seems to...;”

    - Michael Carter119 Recommendations

  • “A mutually beneficial transactio...;”

    - Chris Henry114 Recommendations

  • 1826 Recommendations
  • 1737 Recommendations
  • 1621 Recommendations
  • William Encanta
    1505 Recommendations
  • 1271 Recommendations

  • Privatized in Space?

  • Has the plethora of other viewing devices diminished your interest in a large-screen TV?

  • 

    State of the Economy

    When Will High Tech Jobs begin To Grow Again?

  • Rove: Romney's Roads to the White House

  • The Competition Versus Google

  • David Malpass: Greece's False Austerity

  • Romney on Vouchers

  • A Mess the 45th President Will Inherit

  • 

    Phillip Phillips on New 'Idol' Title

  • 

    Merger Turbulence Hits Fliers

  • 

    The View From 240 Miles Above Earth

  • 

    The Other Sport Where Local Teams Tear Up the Field

  • 

    Africa Turmoil Cracks Cashew Market

  Permalink  |  View Entire Page

• 22 May ' 15:14

  • Updated May 22, 2012, 4:51 p.m. ET

  ObamaCare vs. the First Amendment

  Catholic institutions challenge the birth-control mandate in court.

  Maybe the president can recast ObamaCare as a jobs program. So lengthy, complex and intrusive a law cannot help but create massive amounts of work for lawyers.

  Catholic institutions filed a series of lawsuits yesterday seeking to vindicate their rights under the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. At issue is the regulation mandating that all employer-provided insurance policies cover birth control, including sterilization procedures and abortifacient drugs, in violation of church teachings.

  Associated Press

  His eminence the plaintiff, Cardinal Dolan.

  In a March interview for The Wall Street Journal, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told this columnist that President Obama had reneged on assurances to "take the protection of the rights of conscience with the utmost seriousness," in Dolan's words. By refusing to grant a conscience exemption for religious employers, the administration set up a high-profile political clash over what its partisans term the Republican "war on women," though it would be more accurately described as a Democratic act of aggression against faithful Catholics.

  "The lawsuits have been filed in eight states and the District of Columbia by the Archdioceses of Washington and New York, the Michigan Catholic Conference, Catholic Charities in Illinois, Mississippi, Missouri and Indiana, health care agencies in New York and two dioceses in Texas," the reports. Another plaintiff is Notre Dame, "which in February had praised President Barack Obama for pledging to accommodate religious groups and find a way to soften the rule."

  New York Sun observes in an editorial that the controversy "has the potential to emerge as one of the great civil rights lawsuits of our time" and that "a much wider population than the millions of Catholics in this country has a stake in the outcome."

  It also has the potential to be rendered moot, in any one of three ways. First, if Republicans do well this November, Congress could repeal ObamaCare next year. Second, short of full repeal, a Romney administration could rescind the mandate or offer an exemption sufficient to satisfy the plaintiffs--though that might leave open the possibility of lawsuits from left-wing groups arguing that the ObamaCare statute, or some equal-protection theory, requires the imposition of the mandate.

  The third possibility is a U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down ObamaCare in its totality (the individual mandate as exceeding Congress's authority under the Constitution, the rest of the law as unworkable absent the mandate). As we noted in March, at oral arguments Justice Antonin Scalia seemed clearly sympathetic to this approach, and Justice Anthony Kennedy to be taking it seriously.

  Those arguments left the left in a state of high anxiety, and The Wall Street Journal notes in an editorial today that Democratic politicians and liberal journalists are "making one last attempt to intimidate the Justices," especially Chief Justice John Roberts:

  Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy recently took the extraordinary step of publicly lobbying the Chief Justice after oral argument but before its ruling. "I trust that he will be a Chief Justice for all of us and that he has a strong institutional sense of the proper role of the judicial branch," the Democrat declared on the Senate floor. "The conservative activism of recent years has not been good for the Court."

  He added that, "Given the ideological challenge to the Affordable Care Act and the extensive, supportive precedent, it would be extraordinary for the Supreme Court not to defer to Congress in this matter that so clearly affects interstate commerce."

  To summarize Leahy's message: If you don't uphold this law, passed on a party-line vote, my party will accuse you of partisanship. The intent is so transparent, and the argument so ridiculous, one is half-tempted to admire its sheer brazenness.

  The Capitalist vs. the Anticapitalist Barack Obama and Newt Gingrich have something in common beside the size of their egos. Like Gingrich, Obama is now coming under attack from members of his own party for running ads attacking Mitt Romney for having been a professional capitalist.

  Most famously, Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark, on Sunday "blasted the Obama campaign's targeting of [Romney's] venture capital firm as 'nauseating' and a 'distraction from the real issues,' " as Politico notes. Booker has backpedaled and, as the reports, now says he's " 'upset' by Republicans 'manipulating' his words." In other words, he's being quoted accurately and taking heat for it within his own party.

  But Booker is far from alone. The Romney campaign posted an ad featuring Booker's comments along with similar ones from Harold Ford Jr., a former Tennessee congressman, and Steve Rattner, an erstwhile Obama economic adviser, and proclaiming, "Even Obama's own supporters have had enough."

  Buzzfeed.com reports that Ed Rendell, the former Pennsylvania governor and Democratic National Committee chairman, calls Obama's Bain ads "very disappointing" and adds: "I think Bain is fair game, because Romney has made it fair game. But I think how you examine it, the tone, what you say, is important as well."

  Virginia's Sen. Mark Warner, a former venture capitalist, tells MSNBC "that Bain Capital was 'very successful' and 'did what they were supposed to do,' " the Washington Examiner reports.

  Most scathing is Artur Davis, a former congressman from Alabama and unsuccessful candidate for that state's governorship. Here's his contribution to a Politico forum:

  It's hard to imagine a more instructive couple of days for those who want to know where the Democratic Party's head is at: its only high-profile African American moderate [Booker] just got a brushback pitch for leaning in too close to the Independent thought zone; the Obama camp looks ominously like a cult of personality that tolerates no dissent; and the reelection campaign just doubled down on the European leftist notion that business is fair only when it operates in a sanitized, risk free manner.

  As for Booker, my hope is that the pushback won't turn him into just another faux centrist who won't risk offending his base. He already looks a little less brave and a lot more conventional after the forgive me video from the bunker he released on Sunday. In fairness, a public servant with his gifts and history with Obama deserved much better.

  Among these critics, only Warner and Booker are current elected officials, and Warner's criticisms were quite mild. One wonders, though, if there may be a wider discomfort in the party with Obama's attacks on capitalism--leaving open the possibility that a post-Obama Democratic Party will take a more moderate approach to economics.

  Perhaps the most interesting criticism of Obama comes from an admirer of the president whose own ideology is rather indistinct: David Brooks of the New York Times. Brooks defends private equity--the aspect of Bain Capital's work for which the Obama campaign is attacking Romney--as having "forced a renaissance that revived American capitalism":

  The large questions today are: Will the U.S. continue this process of rigorous creative destruction? More immediately, will the nation take the transformation of the private sector and extend it to the public sector? . . .

  The implicit argument of the Republican campaign is that Mitt Romney has the experience to extend this transformation into government.

  The Obama campaign seems to be drifting willy-nilly into the opposite camp, arguing that the pressures brought to bear by the capital markets over the past few decades were not a good thing, offering no comparably sized agenda to reform the public sector.

  In a country that desperately wants change, I have no idea why a party would not compete to be the party of change and transformation. For a candidate like Obama, who successfully ran an unconventional campaign that embodied and promised change, I have no idea why he would want to run a campaign this time that regurgitates the exact same ads and repeats the exact same arguments as so many Democratic campaigns from the ancient past.

  We tend to think Brooks overestimates both Romney and Obama. It would delight us if Romney turns out to be a radical reformer of government, à la Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin. But as yet the best we can say is that, in contrast to Obama, he isn't actively hostile to economic freedom--which, to be sure, would be a big improvement.

  As for Obama, can it really be true that Brooks has "no idea" why the re-election campaign is so backward-looking and unimaginative? Now that he's actually been in office for 3½ years, it's clear that's what Obama is all about. Ideologically he is an old-style progressive leftist, committed to expanding the size and scope of government. Politically, he is obligated to serve the interest groups that make up the Democratic coalition.

  He was able in 2008 to run "an unconventional campaign that embodied and promised change" only because the media and significant numbers of voters were dazzled by style and tuned out the substance. He was an inkblot; people saw in him what they wanted to see. Brooks is taking especially long to figure out it wasn't really there.

  Two Cillizzas in One!

  • "In Washington, there's an old cliche: A gaffe is when a politician is accidentally honest. That's what happened to Newark (N.J.) Mayor Cory Booker during an appearance on NBC's 'Meet the Press' on Sunday."--Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake, Washington Post website, May 21
  • "Newark Mayor Cory Booker clearly misspoke on NBC's 'Meet the Press' Sunday when he lumped attacks on former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney's record at Bain Capital into the same category as attacks on President Obama's connection to Rev. Jeremiah Wright."--Cillizza, Post website, May 22

  Worst Political Advice Ever Writing for the Daily Beast, Michael Medved advises the Romney campaign to throw money away buying ads in states that he has little or no chance of carrying. Seriously:

  Though the Romney campaign will naturally resist investing precious resources on lost-cause states with hugely expensive media markets (California, New York, and Illinois), they should overcome their reluctance.

  Why? "To prevent the very real chance that Mitt Romney will win the Electoral College even while losing the popular vote badly to Barack Obama."

  Medved's scenario is based on a scenario in which the election outcome is roughly the same as in 2008, except that Romney swings "as few as 650,000 votes to [John] McCain's totals in just six decisive states." In these circumstances, Obama would outpoll Romney nationwide by millions of votes even while losing the election.

  "It's easy to imagine the national levels of rage, and impossible not to envision the president of the United States lending his voice to the angry chorus," Medved writes:

  In the five weeks before Dec. 17, the day when electors formally assemble in their respective state capitals, the president could push electors to shift support to him--even if they defied state legislation requiring winner-take-all distribution of electoral votes to the victor in that state and ignored laws of 24 states threatening punishment to "faithless electors." The arguments would be fiery and, most likely, somewhat effective: insisting that basic fairness and democratic principle should trump any concern over the creaky, 19th-century relic known as the Electoral College.

  We certainly wouldn't put it past Obama to be a bad loser, but this is far-fetched on many grounds. For one, the speculation about faithless electors is silly. Regardless of the national popular vote, electors are partisans of the party that prevailed in their state; they have no incentive to switch.

  For another, presidential campaigns are national by nature, even though focused on particular states. If Romney wins, he will almost certainly improve on McCain's margins in most red states and cut into Obama's 2008 margins in most blue states as well as flipping some swing states. That's what Obama did in 2008 compared with 2004, which is why he managed to pick up some states (notably Indiana and North Carolina) that hadn't even been swing states four years earlier. (Oddly, Medved doesn't advise Romney to campaign hard in red states, even though a vote from a friendly state counts just as much toward a "popular-vote victory" as one from an unfriendly state.)

  If Romney were to follow Medved's advice and campaign in states he can't win or doesn't need, he would also increase the possibility of the outcome Medved fears in reverse--i.e., that Obama wins the election while Romney "wins the popular vote." Popular-vote divergence or not, Romney would probably be a more gracious loser than Obama. But one suspects that's not why either man is running for president.

  Homer Nods "Pow Wow Chow," the cookbook to which Elizabeth Warren contributed possibly plagiarized recipes, was published in 1984, not 1994 as we said in an item yesterday (since corrected).

  Out on a Limb "Curvaceous Client Says Gloria Allred Only Fought for Publicity"--headline, FoxNews.com, May 22

  "Woman Blames Eclipse for S. San Francisco Crash"--headline, Associated Press, May 21

  Leave Elizabeth Warren Alone! "Indian politicians often seek emotive issues as a pretext for presenting themselves as stout defenders of their voters"--tweet, @TheEconomist, May 21

  The Lonely Lives of Democrats "Democrats Wait by Phone for President Obama"--headline, Politico.com, May 22

  Freedom's Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Lose "Joplin: Remember, Rejoice, Rebuild"--headline, WhiteHouse.gov, May 22

  Before He's Elected, He's Already Seeking Higher Office "Candidate: I'll Smoke a Joint on Hill"--headline, Politico.com, May 21

  Doesn't This Prove Their Point? "Some said I lacked 'gravitas,' which I've since decided is Latin for 'testicles.' "--Katie Couric, quoted by NewsBusters.org, May 21

  They Finally Got Around to Cleaning Out Helen Thomas's Old Desk "Oldest-Ever Pigment Found in Fossilized Ink Sacs"--headline, MSNBC.com, May 21

  Don't Listen to Them "Silence Overlooked as a Method of Communication Today, Say Speakers"--headline, Catholic News Service, May 21

  The Loved One "Scotty From Star Trek's Ashes to Be Blasted Into Space"--headline, Daily Telegraph (London), May 21

  Himmler Had Something Similar "Campers Have a Ball"--headline, Telegram (St. John's, Newfoundland), May 22

  
  "Will Donald Trump Give Keynote Speech at RNC Convention?"--headline, DailyCaller.com, May 21

  
  "Why I Support the Reelection of President Obama"--headline, RealClearPolitics.com, May 21

  
  "American Eagle Outfitters to Drop 77kids"--headline, Patch.com (Braintree, Mass.), May 22

  It's Always in the Last Place You Look

  • "Giant Gorilla Stolen From Car Dealer Lot May Have Been Found"--headline, Corpus Christi (Texas) Caller Times
  • "I Found Myself Abroad"--headline, Patch.com (Milford, Conn.), May 21

  News of the Tautological
  "Police Complaint Case Summaries Provide Scant Detail"--headline, Lawrence (Kan.) Journal World, May 21

  • "Food Catches Fire at Bill Miller's"--headline, San Antonio Express-News website, May 22
  • "Powell Not Ready to Endorse Obama for Re-Election"--headline, , May 22

  'Correct in a Mythical Sense'
  From one Bernie Quigley writing at TheHill.com comes the funniest defense we've seen yet of Elizabeth Warren, the Thirty-Second Indian:

  Elizabeth Warren might be excused for wanting to be Native American. She can claim an old American soul, going back generations in Oklahoma. In the heartland it is almost universal for those who have been there for a few generations to claim Indian blood; that is, to wish it were there even if it isn't. It is not so much a lie as it is the acculturation of personal and regional American myth; the fabric of old-soul American consciousness. "Our spirit will walk among you," said Chief Joseph. Indeed it does. . . .

  So Warren's claim to be "part Indian" is correct in mythical terms.

  "Correct in mythical terms" is the best excuse since "fake but accurate." Meanwhile, did you hear Warren has signed a contract for a new memoir? It's called "The Will to Powwow."

  (Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Paul Jones, Michele Schiesser, John Williamson, T. Young, Mark Zoeller, Rod Pennington, Eric Jensen, Ethel Fenig, David Gerstman, Zack Russ, Ed Lasky, Jeryl Bier, Neil Green, Russell Hilleke, George Mitchell, Merv Benson, Richard McMillan, Ralph Boeker, Eliezer Medwed, Lynn Bateman, Miguel Rakiewicz, Mark Finkelstein, Joseph Haggerty, Alex Hoyt, John Bobek, Richard Belzer, Leonard Peirce, Kris Tufts, Bill Hoyt and Robert Godwin. If you have a tip, write us at

  • 

    Apple-Chef Tim Cook ist der Spitzenverdiener

  • Der Computerhandel wird wieder menschlicher

  • Facebooks IPO wird zum Fiasko

  • 

  • Nasdaq: Would Have Scuttled Facebook IPO

    A Nasdaq official told customers that it would have pulled the plug on Facebook's initial public offering had it known the full extent of its technical problems.

  • Subscriber ContentRead Preview

    

    Papademos Says Greece Should Remain in Euro

    Greece's former Prime Minister Lucas Papademos on Tuesday warned that Greeks have no choice but to stick with a painful austerity program dictated by its lenders or face an exit from the euro zone that would devastate the economy, boost inflation and generate new social strains.

  • Subscriber ContentRead Preview

    

    Sony, Samsung Rein In TV Discounters

    Sony and Samsung Electronics are trying to force retailers to rein in discounts on televisions, a tactic aimed at preserving profit margins that may also help protect chains such as Best Buy and Target from cutthroat online competition.

  • 

    Where Best Buy Beats Amazon

    Real-Time Advice: Though its sales keep slipping, experts say the bricks-and-mortar electronics store offers better deals than online retailers for some purchases.

  • Facebook Slides Amid Roadshow Questions

  • Subscriber ContentRead Preview

    Facebook's Mobile Miscalculation

  • When Toddlers Zone Out With an iPad

  • Opinion: McGurn: The Dumbing Down of Joe Biden

  • When Toddlers Zone Out With an iPad

  • Subscriber ContentRead Preview

    Colleges Get Career-Minded

  • Opinion: Mary Ann Glendon: Why the Bishops Are Suing the U.S. Government

  • Australia: The Happiest Country

  • Who Are Happiest People in the World?

  • Opinion: Targeting John Roberts637 comments

  • 604 comments

  • 593 comments

  • 529 comments

  • 5.

    458 comments

  • 

    'As a Director, I've Never Had Star Power'

  • 

    Jobs Trickle Back to U.S.

  • 

    When Toddlers Zone Out With an iPad

  • 

  • 214 Recommendations
  • 165 Recommendations
  • 138 Recommendations

  • “Ms. Herring, you obviously...;”

    - Marshall Levy134 Recommendations
  • 128 Recommendations

  • 1872 Recommendations
  • 1863 Recommendations
  • 1516 Recommendations
  • 1504 Recommendations
  • 1251 Recommendations

  • What do you think of Dharun Ravi's 30-day sentence in the death of his Rutgers roomate?

  • 

    Libertarians

    Would Ron Paul fans vote for a ticket with him as VP?

  • 

    'As a Director, I've Never Had Star Power'

  • 

    Jobs Trickle Back to U.S.

  • 

    When Toddlers Zone Out With an iPad

  • 

    Facebook's Mobile Miscalculation

  Permalink  |  View Entire Page

• 22 May ' 03:51

  Boxers or Briefs?

  • 

    Facebooks Fehlstart weckt Kritik der Anleger

  • 

    J.P. Morgan's Losses Are Rivals' Boons

  • Facebook's Mobile Miscalculation

  • 

    Romney PAC Fundraiser's Fee: $3 Million

  • 

    Colleges Get Career-Minded

  • Investors Pummel Facebook

  • 

    Catholics Sue Over Health Mandate

    Dozens of Roman Catholic dioceses, schools—including the University of Notre Dame—and other institutions sued the Obama administration over a mandate requiring most employers to provide birth-control coverage.

  • 

    Jobs Trickle Back to U.S. Plants

    Manufacturers are returning some production to the U.S. from abroad. But the experience of Whirlpool and scores of other companies shows the moves aren't creating a huge number of jobs.

  • 

    Born in a U.S.A.-Made Crib

    Stanley Furniture is an oddity in an industry moving production abroad: it shifted its baby crib manufacturing back to the U.S. from China, capitalizing on Americans' willingness to pay more for perceived safety.

  • Targeting John Roberts

  • McGurn: The Dumbing Down of Joe Biden

  • Mary Ann Glendon: Why the Bishops Are Suing the U.S. Government

  • Cory Booker's Apostasy

  • The Megrahi Prognosis

  • Investors Pummel Facebook

  • Facebook Investor Q&A

  • Men Should Skip Common Prostate Test, Panel Says

  • Investors Pummel Facebook

  • Controlling Computers With Hand Motions

  • 556 comments

  • Investors Pummel Facebook518 comments

  • 450 comments

  • Catholics Sue Over Health Mandate298 comments

  • Gay-Bias Case Ends in 30-Day Term247 comments

  • 

    Study Links Pneumonia and Restless Sleep

  • 

    Berlin's New Airport Racks Up Delays Even Before It Opens

  • 

    Google Makes Space for City Tech School

  • Opinion: NATO's Afghan Aspirations

    3:46

  • Opinion: Targeting John Roberts

    4:46

  • Opinion: Will Regulators Unfriend Facebook?

    1:45

  • 188 Recommendations
  • 148 Recommendations
  • 127 Recommendations
  • 123 Recommendations
  • 113 Recommendations

  • 1705 Recommendations
  • 1634 Recommendations
  • 1500 Recommendations
  • 1386 Recommendations
  • 1115 Recommendations

  • 

    News - Greater New York

    What do you think of Dahrun Ravi's 30-day sentence in the death of his Rutgers roomate?

  • 

    Market View

    Warren Buffett doesn't see Apple and Google as "inevitable" winners. Do you?

  • Targeting John Roberts

  • McGurn: The Dumbing Down of Joe Biden

  • Mary Ann Glendon: Why the Bishops Are Suing the U.S. Government

  • Cory Booker's Apostasy

  • The Megrahi Prognosis

  • 

    Study Links Pneumonia and Restless Sleep

  • 

    Berlin's New Airport Racks Up Delays Even Before It Opens

  • 

    Google Makes Space for City Tech School

  Permalink  |  View Entire Page

• 21 May ' 17:03

  • Updated May 21, 2012, 3:36 p.m. ET

  Centrist Censor

  We've now been Schoen the true face of "campaign finance reform."

  Our friend Doug Schoen, the Democratic pollster, is a political centrist, ideologically much closer to the post-1994 Bill Clinton than to Barack Obama. That makes all the more troubling his advocacy of government censorship of political speech, the kind of expression that is at the core of First Amendment protection.

  Schoen finds it "more than just disquieting" but "shameful and embarrassing" that, as the New York Times reported (and we noted) last week, Chicago Cubs part-owner Joe Ricketts considered funding an anti-Obama super PAC ad that would have reminded voters about the president's "spiritual mentor," Jeremiah Wright. Under political pressure, Obama in 2008 repudiated the America-hating pastor, whose views even the New York Times concedes are "clearly racist."

  "Speaking frankly," Schoen writes, "racially divisive negative advertisements of this sort do not belong in a presidential election. Whether one supports the president or not, he should be judged on his record, and an ad hominem attack of any sort should have no home in the public arena."

  He would like to use the power of the government to suppress this speech of which he disapproves, as he has made clear in other columns. His complaint about the Ricketts ad that wasn't shows just what a pernicious idea this is and why the Supreme Court was right to uphold free speech in the celebrated case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

  Schoen's objection to the Ricketts ad proposal is imprecise, to say the least. In particular, he doesn't quite seem to know the meaning of the phrase "ad hominem." The argumentum ad hominem--"argument to the man"--is high on any list of logical fallacies. It consists of citing irrelevant facts about a person's actions or character in an effort to undermine his position.

  An example that we noted last week is this passage by the New York Times's Frank Bruni, who objected to Rush Limbaugh's statement that President Obama "had decided to 'lead a war' on traditional marriage": "Seems to me Limbaugh started those hostilities long ago, if not with his first divorce then certainly with his second and third." Limbaugh's divorces are immaterial to the case for or against same-sex marriage, so that Bruni's argument was fallacious.

  Two points are often overlooked about ad hominem arguments. First, they are not always fallacious. Sometimes a fact about the man can discredit his position. If it turned out, for instance, that an opponent of same-sex marriage had quietly gone to New York and married a person of the same sex, that would undermine his position by calling its sincerity into question. If the head of an American auto maker turned out to drive a foreign car, that would be a legitimate reason to be suspicious of his claims about the superior quality of his company's products.

  Second, an ad hominem argument can be positive as well as negative. John Kerry's Vietnam Veterans Against the War, for instance, was founded entirely upon an ad hominem argument: that the members' antiwar position was credible because they had served in the war. There would have been little rhetorical advantage in forming a group called Postgraduate Potheads Against the War, although surely many people would have qualified for membership.

  Schoen's contention that "an ad hominem attack of any sort should have no home in the public arena" is bizarre in the context of a political campaign. Such a contest is a choice between men, not merely an abstract comparison of issue positions. Even to the extent that it is the latter, character is important: A voter has to judge, among other things, the sincerity of the candidates' convictions and their competence to carry out their promises.

  Every political campaign is an ad hominem argument--a claim that the man seeking the office is fit for it. Mitt Romney argues that his business experience qualifies him to make economic policy. The Obama campaign has responded with an ad hominem attack--an advertisement featuring workers who lost their jobs after a Bain Capital investment failed. This ad may be unfair and misleading, but even if it's completely truthful, it's still ad hominem.

  Barack Obama ran for president saying, as he put it in his 2008 convention speech, that he would realize "America's promise--the promise of a democracy where we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort." His connection with figures like Wright gave reason to doubt the sincerity of such professions. His actions as president have shown that such doubts were fully justified.

  

  Doug Schoen

  Inasmuch as Schoen is arguing that Obama's actions as president are more pertinent than those before he took office in reaching a judgment about his re-election, we tend to agree. It sounds as though the proposed Ricketts ad would have been a waste of money (especially now that the New York Times has demonstrated its willingness to propagate the message free of charge).

  But Schoen's appetite for government censorship of political speech based on his disapproval of its content, and his insouciance about even articulating a coherent standard to explain his disapproval, shows why it is so important to guard our First Amendment rights vigilantly. Schoen is in no sense a political extremist, yet he is eager to stifle dissent.

  Schoen makes one other argument that deserves a response:

  Perhaps this makes me a bit of an anachronism, but I still firmly believe that a presidential campaign is supposed to be a dialogue--or a battle--between the two campaigns and parties. Super PACs change the equation so that elections are reduced to a situation where candidates and their henchmen are responding to moves made by outside groups.

  The solution to this problem isn't more censorship, as Schoen argues, but less. The Supreme Court has held, wrongly in our view, that lawmakers have the authority to limit contributions to candidates and parties. But they have no obligation to do so. If Congress passed legislation abolishing all such limits, it would obviate much of the incentive to form super PACs. The censorship Schoen advocates is not even necessary to achieve his goal.

  Why Should Journalists Be Exempt? Here's a fun quiz. Read the following passage and guess if it's a fund-raising appeal from (a) the Obama campaign, (b) the Democratic National Committee or (c) a pro-Obama super PAC:

  Here's a scary thought for Democrats: It's entirely possible that former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee will outraise President Obama and the Democratic National Committee in the seven-month sprint to the general election.

  Naturally, it's a trick question. This is the lead paragraph from a Washington Post story by Chris Cillizza. Here's the closing paragraph:

  "It is entirely possible that Romney and the RNC could outraise the president and the DNC," acknowledged Steve Rosenthal, a veteran labor strategist. "When you add to that the avalanche of money pouring into the right-wing super PACs, and the fact that polls are already showing a close race in most of the battleground states, it creates a troublesome scenario. For Democratic donors, now is the time to step up."

  Apart from the quote marks, the whole story reads like a Democratic fund-raising letter.

  The , meanwhile, had a dispatch over the weekend titled "Is GOP Trying to Sabotage Economy to Hurt Obama?" The story treated this question in an "evenhanded" manner, quoting some people answering in the affirmative and some in the negative. But the fact that the AP views this as a serious question shows its partisan bias. Can you imagine the AP running a similar story in, say, 2006 titled "Are Democrats Trying to Sabotage Iraq War to Hurt Bush?"

  Now this columnist is in favor of free speech for all--for political candidates and donors as well as journalists, for all corporations and not just ones whose business is the news. Especially in light of the news media's increasingly brazen partisanship, it's hard for us to imagine how we'd defend the free speech of journalists if we didn't also do so for everyone else.

  Steal This Recipe The Elizabeth Warren story keeps getting better. In support of her claim to be 1/32nd "native American," Warren pointed to her contributions to a 1984 cookbook called "Pow Wow Chow." Now Breitbart.com, citing research by Boston radio host Howie Carr, reports that "Warren may have plagiarized at least three of the five recipes":

  Two of the possibly plagiarized recipes, said in the Pow Wow Chow cookbook to have been passed down through generations of Oklahoma Native American members of the Cherokee tribe, are described in a New York Times News Service story as originating at Le Pavilion, a fabulously expensive French restaurant in Manhattan. The dishes were said to be particular favorites of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and Cole Porter.

  The two recipes, "Cold Omelets with Crab Meat" and "Crab with Tomato Mayonnaise Dressing," appear in an article titled "Cold Omelets with Crab Meat," written by Pierre Franey of the New York Times News Service that was published in the August 22, 1979 edition of the Virgin Islands Daily News, a copy of which can be seen here.

  Ms. Warren's 1984 recipe for Crab with Tomato Mayonnaise Dressing is a word-for-word copy of Mr. Franey's 1979 recipe.

  Mrs. Warren's 1984 recipe for Cold Omelets with Crab Meat contains all four of the ingredients listed in Mr. Franey's 1979 recipe in the exact same portion but lists five additional ingredients. More significantly, her instructions are virtually a word for word copy of Mr. Franey's instructions from this 1979 article. Both instructions specify the use of a "seven inch Teflon pan."

  One assumes the Oklahoma Cherokees weren't eating locally caught crabs. The Boston Herald has good news for Sen. Scott Brown: "Bay State Democrats are standing by their woman, saying they're confident in embattled Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren . . . though critics say she'll arrive at her party's state convention next month battered."

  Breitbart notes that Barack Obama has a similar problem. The site quotes from the future president's 1995 autobiography, "Dreams From My Father":

  If asked, Toot [Obama's maternal grandmother, Madelyne Payne Dunham] would turn her head in profile to show off her beaked nose, which, along with a pair of jet-black eyes, was offered as proof of Cherokee blood.

  But an old, sepia toned photograph on the bookshelf spoke most eloquently of their [grandparents Stanley and Madelyne Dunham's] roots. It showed Toot's grandparents, of Scottish and English stock, standing in front of a ramshackle homestead, unsmiling and dressed in coarse wool, their eyes squinting at the sun baked flinty life that stretched before them…in their eyes one could see truths that I would have to learn later as facts…that while one of my great-great grandfathers, Christopher Columbus Clark, had been a decorated Union soldier, his wife's mother was rumored to have been a second cousin of Jefferson Davis . . . that although another distant ancestor had indeed been a full-blooded Cherokee, such lineage was a source of shame to Toot's mother [Leona McCurry Payne] who blanched whenever someone mentioned the subject and hoped to carry the secret to her grave.

  The report notes that "unlike Ms. Warren, no one has ever alleged that President Obama may have secured employment due to his claim of Native American ancestry."

  • "Broiling Mojave Spawns 'Angry Buddhist' "--headline, Jewish Daily Forward, May 18 issue
  • "Another Swiped Recipe, and Liberals Are in a Stew"--headline, Boston Herald, May 21

  Ideological Blinders The New York Times's Nicholas Kristof has a story that's interesting if true. "A generation ago," he writes, "tobacco companies were facing growing pressure to produce fire-safe cigarettes." Too many houses were burning down when smokers fell asleep and their butts set the furniture on fire. So Big Tobacco started a successful push for regulation requiring that furniture be treated with chemicals to make it fireproof.

  Some scientists now hypothesize that flames aren't the only thing these chemicals retard. One biologist tells Kristof "that some retardants were very similar to banned PCBs, which have been linked to everything from lower I.Q. to diabetes, and that it was reasonable to expect certain flame retardants to have similar consequences."

  So here's Kristof's conclusion:

  This campaign season, you'll hear fervent denunciations of "burdensome government regulation." When you do, think of the other side of the story: your home is filled with toxic flame retardants that serve no higher purpose than enriching three companies. The lesson is that we need not only safer couches but also a political system less distorted by toxic money.

  The guy is so blinded by ideology that he fails to notice he has just given an example of burdensome government regulation.

  • "Bad Sex? Blame Your Mattress"--headline, Shine.yahoo.com
  • "Biden on West Virginians' Vote for felon Keith Judd: 'I Don't Blame People' for Frustration Over Economy"--headline,

  With DNC in Mind, City Bans Carrying Urine, Feces "Ashleigh Banfield on Obama Ad: 'We Don't Want This Crap on Television' "--headline, Puffington Host, May 16

  Obama's New Target: Persian Food "Tehran Police's New Target: Pet Dogs"--headline, YnetNews.com (Israel), May 21

  U.S. Colleges Denounce U.S. Values, Too "Chinese Communist Leaders Denounce U.S. Values but Send Children to U.S. Colleges"--headline, Washington Post, May 19

  There Goes the Neighborhood "UN Worries al-Qaida Is Moving Into Syria"--headline, DailyCaller.com, May 18

  Boxers of Briefs? "Goldman's Blunder Exposes Shorts"--headline, DailyCaller.com, May 18

  How Voluntary Could It Have Been if They Shot Them? "VA Offers Teens Shot to Volunteer for Summer"--headline, Johnson City (Tenn.) Press, May 20

  Shortest Books Ever Written "Why Soccer Is Better Than Football"--headline, The Wall Street Journal, May 18

  • "Gay Activists to Obama: What's Next?"--headline, Politico.com, May 20
  • "What's Wrong With Animal Incest?"--headline, RealClearScience.com, May 19

  • "Why Your Dental Plaque Is Valuable"--headline, CNN.com, May 20
  • "My Boobs Are off Limits"--headline, (Johnannesburg, South Africa), May 21

  "Obama on the High Wire"--headline, New York Times website, May 20

  Too Much Information "More Kentuckians Falling in Love With Alpacas"--headline, Lexington Herald-Leader, May 21

  "Opinion: Leaders Grasp Problems, Lack Answers"--headline, Deutsche Welle website, May 20

  • "Soap Lake Will Remain 'Soap Lake' "--headline, Seattle Times, May 19
  • "Ron Paul Endorsed by Jon Hansen After Paring Back 2012 Presidential Campaign"--headline, , May 19
  • "Seven Women Protest Rush for NOW's Big Day of Protest "--headline, DailyCaller.com
  • "Transgender Miss Universe Canada Contestant Loses"--headline, Associated Press, May 19

  Beggars Can't Be Choosers Since we started today's column by discussing a logical fallacy, let's conclude it with another one. On Friday we said that literary agent Miriam Goderich's explanation for the 1991 brochure claiming Barack Obama was born in Kenya "begs the question." This brought several emails from pedantic readers eager to tell us that "beg the question" does not mean simply "raise the question"--a common mistake--but has a specific meaning in logic.

  Guys, we know, and we used the term advisedly. Here's an explanation from BegTheQuestion.info:

  "Begging the question" is a form of logical fallacy in which a statement or claim is assumed to be true without evidence other than the statement or claim itself. When one begs the question, the initial assumption of a statement is treated as already proven without any logic to show why the statement is true in the first place.

  A simple example would be "I think he is unattractive because he is ugly." The adjective "ugly" does not explain why the subject is "unattractive"--they virtually amount to the same subjective meaning, and the proof is merely a restatement of the premise. The sentence has begged the question.

  Another way of putting it is that you beg the question when your response raises the same question that you were purporting to answer. The question that Goderich was implicitly answering was: Where did the error regarding Obama's birthplace come from? Her answer told us only that she failed to catch it--not where it came from. We were right to say she begged the question because she begged the question. Oops, there we go.

  (Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Dan Goldstein, Patrick Aber, Michele Schiesser, David Hallstrom, Don Stewart, Eric Jensen, Ethel Fenig, T. Young, Paul Dyck, Sean Kelly, Bruce Goldman, Ed Lasky, Miguel Rakiewicz, John Bobek, Richard Wong, Kris Tufts, Edward Himmelfarb, William Thode, Jeryl Bier, John Nehmer, Mark Reed, Daniel Foty, Bart Borkosky, Clifford Crouch, Bob Walsh, Jerry Skurnik, Eric Tull, Bob Booze, Arnold Nelson and Todd Lemmon. If you have a tip, write us at

  • 

    Europa braucht eine echte Finanzunion

  • Merkel steht unter Zugzwang

  • Von Islands Aufstieg kann die Eurozone nur träumen

  • Nasdaq's Facebook Problem

  • 

    Globalization Spurs Steel Mill

  • 

    Risk Manager's Past Scrutinized

  • CEO Pay Moves With Corporate Results

  • 

    Bankers Under Fire as Facebook Slips 11%

    Facebook shares skidded on their second day on the stock market, leaving some investors in the red and raising questions about whether the company and its lead banker, Morgan Stanley, botched the deal.

  • Men Should Skip Common Prostate Test, Panel Says

    Men shouldn't be screened for prostate cancer with a widely used blood test, a federal advisory panel recommended.

  • 

    Ex-Rutgers Student Sentenced to 30 Days

    A former Rutgers University student convicted of bias crimes for spying on his gay roommate was sentenced to 30 days in jail.

  • Benefits Denied for Twins Conceived After Father's Death

    The Supreme Court said a man's children who were born through artificial insemination after his death can't get Social Security survivor benefits.

  • Crovitz: Will Regulators Unfriend Facebook?

  • Bain Capitalism 101

  • Edward Lazear: Three Views of the 'Fiscal Cliff'

  • Who's Afraid of #CISPA?

  • Getting Even on Reliability

  • Bankers Under Fire as Facebook Slips 11%

  • Nasdaq's Facebook Problem

  • Opinion: Bain Capitalism 101

  • Subscriber ContentRead Preview

    Nasdaq Acknowledges Troubles With Facebook Deal

  • Subscriber ContentRead Preview

    Globalization Spurs Steel Mill

  • New York's Last Harbor Railway Chugs On as Alternative to Trucks

  • The Wonder That Tennis Forgot

  • Bankers Under Fire as Facebook Slips 11%

  • Volcano Erupts in Guatemala

  • Sail Away on a Train in New York Harbor

  • Obama's Place of Birth a Ballot Issue in Arizona510 comments

  • Opinion: Bain Capitalism 101353 comments

  • Bankers Under Fire as Facebook Slips 11%351 comments

  • 332 comments

  • NAACP Backs Same-Sex Marriage236 comments

  • 

    Gestures Control Computers

  • 

    Number of the Week: Student Loan Bubble

  • 

    New York's Last Harbor Railway Chugs On as Alternative to Trucks

  • 

    Globalization Spurs Steel Mill

  • 

    A Year Later in Joplin, Rebirthing Pains

  Do you agree with the Supreme Court's in-vitro conception benefits ruling?

  1. Yes
  2. No

  • 180 Recommendations
  • 143 Recommendations
  • 121 Recommendations
  • 120 Recommendations

  • “As a NYer, I never imagined a da...;”

    - SUZANNE BROWN108 Recommendations

  • 1928 Recommendations
  • 1733 Recommendations
  • 1726 Recommendations
  • 1481 Recommendations
  • 1395 Recommendations

  • Do you agree with the Supreme Court's ruling that children conceived after a parent's death should not receive survivor benefits?

  • 

    Question of the Day

    Where will Facebook shares end the week?

  • 

    Balancing the Federal Budget

    Whose Responsibility is It?

  • Crovitz: Will Regulators Unfriend Facebook?

  • Bain Capitalism 101

  • Edward Lazear: Three Views of the 'Fiscal Cliff'

  • Who's Afraid of #CISPA?

  • Getting Even on Reliability

  • 

    Gestures Control Computers

  • 

    Number of the Week: Student Loan Bubble

  • 

    New York's Last Harbor Railway Chugs On as Alternative to Trucks

  • 

    Globalization Spurs Steel Mill

  • 

    A Year Later in Joplin, Rebirthing Pains

  Permalink  |  View Entire Page

• 20 May ' 23:48

  • 104 Recommendations

  • 2055 Recommendations
  • 1581 Recommendations

  • 

    Question of the Day

    Whom should Mitt Romney pick as his running mate?

  Permalink  |  View Entire Page

• 20 May ' 13:14

  • 

    Kanada sucht Wachstumschancen in China

  • G8 finden keinen Konsens für Krisenpolitik

  • Auch China muss sich entschulden

  • Subscriber ContentRead Preview

    Iceland Looks to Recovery

  • 

    Lockerbie Bomber Dies

    Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi died, his brother said—nearly three years after the Scottish government discharged him from prison on the grounds that he had about three months to live.

  • 

    Chinese Activist's Departure Brings New Questions

    Chen Guangcheng's departure from China raises difficult questions ranging from the fate of his extended family and allies to his ability to spur change at home, even as he enjoyed his first taste of freedom in seven years following his arrival in the U.S.

  • Prosecutors Probe Italy Blast

    Prosecutors questioned several people in connection to a bombing outside a school in southern Italy that killed a 16-year-old girl and has raised public fears that the country could again fall victim to extremist violence of past decades.

  • Subscriber ContentRead Preview

    Europe's Banks Fear
    Flight of Deposits

    The European Continent's financial system remains vulnerable to the prospect that stampedes of customers could yank their deposits from institutions perceived as shaky.

  • Facebook Dashes Faith

  • Subscriber ContentRead Preview

    At Summit, a Struggle for Consensus

  • Subscriber ContentRead Preview

    Facebook's Zuckerberg Weds on Day After IPO

  • Five Risky Investments That Could Make Your Day

  • Their Sense of Belonging

  • Insider's Guide to Philadelphia

  • Opinion: Christopher Toner: What's at Stake in the Wisconsin Recall Election

  • Mark Zuckerberg Changes Status to 'Married'

  • Chinese Activist Cheered in New York

  • 574 comments

  • 494 comments

  • 454 comments

  • Opinion: The Saverin Lesson419 comments

  • Opinion: George W. Bush: The Arab Spring and American Ideals399 comments

  • 
  • 

    Facebook's Zuckerberg Weds on Day After IPO

  • 

    Getting Eclipsed This Weekend? Send Us Your Photos

  • 144 Recommendations
  • 125 Recommendations
  • 112 Recommendations
  • 109 Recommendations
  • 103 Recommendations

  • 2054 Recommendations
  • 1574 Recommendations
  • 1505 Recommendations
  • 1398 Recommendations
  • 1173 Recommendations

  • Iraq and Afghanistan

    Should the U.S. cut defense spending?

  • 

    Market View

    Warren Buffett doesn't see Apple and Google as "inevitable" winners. Do you?

  • 

    General Forum

    Should carried interest be taxed as ordinary income, not as capital gains?

  • 

    The New First Family of Real Estate

  • 

    Facebook's Zuckerberg Weds on Day After IPO

  • 

    Getting Eclipsed This Weekend? Send Us Your Photos

  Permalink  |  View Entire Page

Search the Site

Custom Search

Blog · Discussion Group · Webmaster Tools · Advertising · Privacy Policy · Terms of Service