101st Fighting Keyboardists Eager to Deploy

You'd think that people would be happy for those two Fox News journalists who were released by their Gaza kidnappers after being forced to convert to Islam. David Warren of Real Clear Politics and Kathleen Parker of Town Hall both imagine themselves in that position and conclude, smugly, that they would have died for their faith rather than converting. As Warren says:

And the two Fox journalists, whom I will not stoop to name, begged for their lives even though, in retrospect, their lives probably weren't in danger. . . . Men without chests, men without character, men who don't think twice.

That's easy for him to say, without a gun pointed at his head. The biggest danger Warren probably faces is the possibility of tripping on a box of Star Wars action figures on the way to the donuts in the kitchen. And if you threatened to take away Kathleen Parker's nearest Starbucks she'd probably convert faster than you could say 'Kathleen Parker is a tremendous hypocrite.'

Two Martinis at the Ramsey Clark School of Iraq

Christopher Hitchens, the martini-slinging Brit import, writes in his latest piece about Richard Armitage and Valerie Plame that any irony observed in the apparent intention that Armitage held in leaking Plame's name was entirely the invention of the media. The intense inter-departmental war between the neo-cons in the Bush administration and various officials at State and the CIA, he posits, is the larger issue here. Put aside the tensions within this administration, and I think it is tough to argue that what many have thought most troubling about the Plame Affair is the political hardball played against Joseph Wilson in his Times op-ed for bringing public doubt to the reasons for invading Iraq. That intense hard line has done away with the public service of Colin Powell, Armitage, and George Tenet, as well as Valerie Plame.

Can I Have Some of That National Review Kool-Aid?

One has to admire Katherine Jean Lopez over at National Review for her candid and staunch defence of Mitt Romney as a viable GOP presidential candidate. Just get over the fact that he's a Mormon, she says, and try to ignore that he's from Massachusetts, and he'd easily be in the top three after the caucuses. And who are the top two, K-Lo? Barney Frank and Michael Jackson? I thought so.

Not that the general intellectual discourse over at the NRO is anything to admire. Jonah Goldberg barely lifts his stumpy fingers out of his bag of chocolate chip cookies to write about the latest Star Trek Fan Club news between panicky and delusional posts about how Howard Dean and George Soros run the Democratic Party. The whiplash from the Harriet Miers debacle is probably the most exercise he has ever seen.

That One Time I Googled 'I Box Mexicans for Peanuts'

Researchers at AOL recently published the search data of more than 650,000 AOL users. The New York Times was able to do a little bit of investigative reporting (I know! right?) and determine that AOL User No. 4417749 was 62-year-old Thelma Arnold. Aside from the obvious privacy catastrophe, the actual data is fascinating. The most depressing is probably AOL User No. 672368, whose searches over several weeks go something like this:

you're pregnant he doesn't want the baby

foods to eat when pregnant

abortion clinics charlotte nc

can christians be forgiven for abortion

Tell me about it, AOL User No. 672368.

Why the Ivy League Is Dead

Hemingway once wrote a short story whose protagonist graduated from a "nameless Ivy League school." Reading these words today, they have taken an almost meaningless quality. He might as well have written, "He attended one of those nameless Pac-10 schools." What does that even tell us? He could have gone to Washington State, where he might have majored in forestry. He is just as likely to have attended Stanford, which by overwhelming consensus is generally the better school.

Each version has a slightly different color to it, doesn't it? The Stanford grad might conjure a lanky Asian kid donning a sweater vest and slightly unkempt hair. Even if the Washington State grad is that same sweater vest-wearing Asian, he might not be as academically achieving, or maybe he was too attatched to his home state, or even unable to afford Stanford's tuition.

The Ivy League is a athletic term. In the past, it has been used to describe a set of eight schools whose membership in the sports league also meant a certain standard of academic excellence. These days, it doesn't really mean much more than an athletic league whose member teams are generally, and in aggregate, better than other schools in their respective, aggregate leagues. But again, these are academic distinctions in an athletic categorization.

But think about it. Ask a roomful of 100 people which school they think is better, Brown or Stanford (not a perfect measurement, I do concede), and I'm willing to bet that a majority will choose the latter. What about Northwestern and Dartmouth? Duke and UPenn? MIT and Barnard? My guess is that one side will not be a clear winner over the other.

My point is not that the term 'Ivy League' doesn't conjure up an image. It's that it shouldn't. Effectively, it is a meaningless phrase hopelessly clinging to some vague, antediluvian notion of superiority. And, as a Duke alumnus (full disclosure), I'm sick of it.

Entering FoxNewsLand

I consider myself as utilitarian as the next guy, but this recent hysterical rush to prove this "Qana was staged" talking-point would be just plain silly if the situation weren't quite so serious. OK, so Hezbollah is propping dead children in macabre photo-ops to wrench the maximum amount of tears from Lebanon-sympatheic lunatics? Riiigggghhhtt. And I'm Condoleezza Rice.

Lessons from Missourahh

Harry Truman once wrote,

"I believe that all men should be treated equally, as long as he is not a negro or a Chinaman."

Granted, his was a different time, but seriously? From a guy who dropped A-Bombs on some Asians? He WAS young when he wrote this (25 long and hot farming years) so maybe I'd cut him some slack. But if I could say stupid things until I'm 25 and still be elected Prez of the USA, then: I think Katherine Harris is really ugly. Yeah, I said it.