Our Friend Al Gore
The man who came within a hair's breadth of the presidency in 2000 is denouncing his own government on foreign soil, the Associated Press reports:

Former Vice President Al Gore told a mainly Saudi audience on Sunday that the U.S. government committed "terrible abuses" against Arabs after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and that most Americans did not support such treatment.

Gore said Arabs had been "indiscriminately rounded up" and held in "unforgivable" conditions. The former vice president said the Bush administration was playing into al-Qaida's hands by routinely blocking Saudi visa applications.

"The thoughtless way in which visas are now handled, that is a mistake," Gore said during the Jiddah Economic Forum. "The worst thing we can possibly do is to cut off the channels of friendship and mutual understanding between Saudi Arabia and the United States."

There is a comical element to this, as Glenn Reynolds notes: "Only Al Gore could come up with the idea of criticizing Bush for not sucking up to the Saudis enough. Sigh."

Heh. Indeed. But blogger "TigerHawk" makes some serious points:

This is asinine both substantively and procedurally.

Substantively, the idea that cracking down on Saudi visa applications is "playing into al Qaeda's hands" is laughable. Had we scrutinized Saudi visas a little more carefully in 2001, thousands of Americans who died on September 11 that year might well have lived. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on that day were Saudi nationals. If we had denied some or all of them visas, exactly how would that have "played into al Qaeda's hands"? . . .

Procedurally, Gore's speech is repugnant. It is one thing to say such things to an American audience in an effort to change our policy. . . . It is, however, another thing entirely to travel to a foreign country that features pivotally in the war of our generation for the purpose of denouncing American policies in front of the affected foreign audience. It is especially problematic to mess with Saudi political opinions, which are subject to intensive influence and coercion by internal actors and the United States, al Qaeda, and Iran, among other powers. Supposing that some Saudis were inclined to be angry over the American visa policy, won't they be more angry after Al Gore has told them that they're being humiliated? How is that helpful?

Finally, Gore's outrage at the American treatment of Arab and Muslim captives may be genuine, and it may even be worthy of expression in the United States, where we aspire to do better than press accounts suggest we have done. But whatever nasty things we have done in exceptional cases in time of war, they pale in comparison to the standard operating procedure in Saudi Arabia. So this is what Gore has done: he has traveled to Jiddah to explain to the elites of an ugly and tyrannical regime that the big problem in the world isn't the oppression of Arabs by Arabs throughout the Middle East and North Africa, but the mistreatment of a few hundred Arabs in the United States. This is like visiting Moscow in 1970 and denouncing the United States in front of a bunch of Communist Party deputies for the killings at Kent State. . . .

There is simply no defense for what Gore has done here, for he is deliberately undermining the United States during a time of war, in a part of the world crucial to our success in that war, in front of an audience that does not vote in American elections. Gore's speech is both destructive and disloyal, not because of its content--which is as silly as it is subversive--but because of its location and its intended audience.

The only consolation is that Gore likely would have done a lot more damage had he spent four years in the White House. And given the precedent set by Jimmy Carter, it isn't hard to imagine Gore as an embittered one-term ex-president giving the same speech in Jeddah.

Frau Clinton für Präsidenten!
On the other hand, another AP dispatch tells a story from Jeddah that is purely amusing. It seems that 997 days before the 2008 election, Hillary Clinton has picked up an endorsement--but one that she may not want:

Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, a fierce critic of the Bush administration, said Saturday that he's pulling for U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to win the White House.

"I'd be very pleased if Hillary Clinton would become the next American president," Schroeder said to applause from a largely Saudi audience at the Jeddah Economic Forum, which opened here Saturday. "But don't quote me too loud. I hope I'm not harming her by saying that."

Schroeder made the statement during a discussion of global women leaders at a gender-segregated theater where a plastic barrier separated women from men.

So here we have a founding member of the "axis of weasels" endorsing Frau Clinton and drawing cheers from a segregated Saudi audience. It would be hard for Republicans to write a better campaign commercial.

What Would We Do Without Some?
"On Podium, Some Say, Mrs. Clinton Is No Mr. Clinton"--headline, New York Times, Feb. 13

Sorry About That, Harry
"Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and injured a man during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas," the Associated Press reports:

Harry Whittington, 78, was "alert and doing fine" after Cheney sprayed him with shotgun pellets on Saturday while the two were hunting at the Armstrong Ranch in south Texas, said property owner Katharine Armstrong. . . .

"This is something that happens from time to time. You now, I've been peppered pretty well myself," said Armstrong.

Not surprisingly, tabloids are having fun with this. BIG SHOT blares the New York Post, DUCK! IT'S DICK the Daily News. Left-wing bloggers like the Daily Kos and Talking Points Memo are filled with gleeful conspiracy theories.

Whittington sounds like an interesting guy. The Austin American-Statesman reported last month that he has been involved in an eminent domain dispute with the city of Austin, which condemned a property his family owns to build a parking garage. Although the city has erected the garage, Whittington has been successful in court:

In June, the Third Court of Appeals agreed with Whittington that Austin failed to prove it needed the land for a public purpose.

In January 2005, a district judge ruled in Whittington's favor in a second lawsuit, saying Austin failed to condemn an alley on the block. That case is still pending in an appeals court.

The city faces a bevy of gloomy outcomes if it keeps losing, such as attempting to condemn the land again, demolishing the garage or giving Whittington a cut of the parking-garage profits. Both sides say they are willing to try to settle the case instead, yet neither seems willing to make the first move.

Whittington is always coy when asked how long he plans to fight, or exactly what he'll do with the land or garage if he wins them. At this point, he seems more invested in the battle itself.

"We're right on the law," he said. "And we're not in any hurry."

You've got to like someone who, at age 78, is confident in his ability to outwait his adversaries. May he recover quickly.

The Brady Bunch
The folks at the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence thought it was worth working Sunday to put out the following press release:

James and Sarah Brady made comments today related to Vice President Cheney's reportedly accidental shooting yesterday in Texas.

"Now I understand why Dick Cheney keeps asking me to go hunting with him," said Jim Brady. "I had a friend once who accidentally shot pellets into his dog--and I thought he was an idiot."

"I've thought Cheney was scary for a long time," Sarah Brady said. "Now I know I was right to be nervous."

A real class act, those Bradys.

Under New Ownership
Richard Chacón, ombudsman for the Boston Globe, addresses the charge that his paper has a double standard when it comes to images that offend religious believers:

Several readers, in demanding that the [Danish] Mohammed cartoons be printed, argued that publications in the Arab world frequently print images that are virulently anti-Jewish or anti-Christian. Others recalled the times when the Globe published ''Piss Christ," a photograph by Andres Serrano that showed a crucifix covered in urine that offended many Christians. That photo appeared three times in the Globe--in 1989, 1991, and 1992--all during a previous ownership and leadership.

Printing the Mohammed cartoons wouldn't balance any of these arguments, it would only add to the list of controversial journalistic decisions. More wrongs won't make the problem right.

That reference to "previous ownership" is curious. The Globe is now owned by the New York Times Co., which publishes another paper (you may have heard of it), the New York Times. Like the Globe (and like The Wall Street Journal, which publishes this Web site), the Times has decided against publishing the Danish cartoons.

So OK, the Globe's new owner has a policy of not showing images that are offensive to religious believers, whether Muslims or Christians or Jews, right? Well, not so fast. We're not sure if the Times has ever published an image of "Piss Christ," but a Factiva search shows that it has used the name of Andres Serrano's photo only four times, and never before 1998. Yet back in 1989, the pages of the Times were filled with vigorous defenses of Serrano's right to offend Christians on the taxpayer's dime. This is from of Tom Wicker's July 28, 1989, column:

No doubt Senator Jesse Helms's effort to legislate art, prohibit ''indecent'' depictions and protect religion will not survive final Congressional action. But the real purpose of the Senate's most persistent yahoo will have been served; the damage to Federal patronage of the arts will have been done. . . .

He wanted ostensibly to show his anger at a photographic show by the late Robert Mapplethorpe and another photographic work by Andres Serrano, both of which received support from the National Endowment for the Arts. These works offended Senator Know-Nothing, although it's a good bet he has never seen them in the original.

Times editorials echoed the point. So here we had the Times mocking as a "Know-Nothing" a lawmaker who objected to government subsidies for an artwork whose very name the Times' editors viewed as too offensive to print.

The Times has published at least one artwork that many Christians found offensive: Chris Ofili's "Holy Virgin Mary," a collage of Jesus' mother "with cutouts from pornographic magazines and shellacked clumps of elephant dung." The Ofili work sparked a controversy in 1999, when New York's Mayor Rudy Giuliani sought (ultimately without success) to withhold city funding for the Brooklyn Museum, where it was on display.

Captions in the Factiva database suggest that photos of "Holy Virgin Mary" appeared at the time of the controversy, but one also appeared as recently as last Wednesday in an article about the Danish cartoon fracas--which did not include images of those cartoons. So it seems clear that the Times Co. does not have an across-the-board policy against publishing images offensive to believers.

There are some reasonable distinctions to be made between the newspaper's behavior vis-à-vis the Danish cartoons and the Christian-offending artworks. For one thing, the act of provocation in the former case consisted of publishing the cartoons in a newspaper. That means that an editor, in deciding whether to reprint them, is part of the story in a way that an editor dealing with a story about government subsidies for art is not. Indeed, we don't remember ever hearing anyone object to newspapers publishing images of "Piss Christ" or "Holy Virgin Mary" except in the context of objecting to the purported double standard.

And of course the nature of the response to the provocation is different. Christians never expressed their objections to these artworks by rioting, burning flags or threatening terrorism. Call it cowardice or prudence, but as a practical matter many editors are reluctant to pour fuel on the fire. Such combustion as there was over "Piss Christ" or "Holy Virgin Mary" never threatened to get out of control, so that editors felt no compulsion to be responsible.

In other words, American Christians object peacefully when the government subsidizes work they consider blasphemous, but they recognize that private individuals and institutions have a right to produce and display such work. By contrast, some Muslims in Europe and the Middle East respond violently to private expression that they regard as sacrilegious.

If newspaper editors defer to Muslim sensibilities out of sensitivity rather than fear, they ought to treat Christians with at least as much respect. But we're not holding our breath for Tom Wicker to apologize to Jesse Helms.

Joseph Conrad, Postmodernist

". . . The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretence but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea--something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to. . . ."--Marlowe in "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad, 1902 (closing ellipsis in original)

"One of those arguments goes this way: It is hypocritical for Muslims to protest cartoons caricaturing Muhammad when cartoons vilifying the symbols of Christianity and Judaism are found everywhere in the media of many Arab countries. After all, what's the difference? The difference is that those who draw and publish such cartoons in Arab countries believe in their content; they believe that Jews and Christians follow false religions and are proper objects of hatred and obloquy."--Stanley Fish, New York Times, Feb. 12, 2006

Zero-Tolerance Watch
"A 12-year-old Aurora [Ill.] boy who said he brought powdered sugar to school for a science project this week has been charged with a felony for possessing a look-alike drug," the Aurora Beacon-News reports:

The sixth-grade student at Waldo Middle School was also suspended for two weeks from school after showing the bag of powdered sugar to his friends.

The boy, who is not being identified because he is a juvenile, said he brought the bag to school to ask his science teacher if he could run an experiment using sugar.

Two other boys asked if the bag contained cocaine after he showed it to them in the bathroom Wednesday morning, the boy's mother said.

He joked that it was cocaine, before telling them, "just kidding," she said.

The East Aurora School District issued a statement: "The dangers of illegal drugs and controlled substances are clear. Look-alike drugs and substances can cause that same level of danger because staff and students are not equipped to differentiate between the two." In this case, the kid seemed to have no problem differentiating, though perhaps the janitor was confused.

Good news from Brockton, Mass., where, the Associated Press reports, school officials have apologized to Berthena Dorinvil, mother of a 6-year-old boy who was accused of "sexual harassment." We noted the case last week.

Thanks for the Tip!--XLVII
"Health Tip: Some Medicines Are Easily Abused"--headline, HealthDayNews, Feb. 13

Bad Math or Bad Metaphor?
"It can be argued, as David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, pointed out, that [Sen. Chuck] Hagel has taken a more conservative position than the Bush administration every time he has broken with it on a major issue. Keene's outfit gave the senator a 100 percent rating for his votes in 2003. His lifetime rating for his first eight years in the Senate stood at 85 on the union's scorecard, which translates into baseball talk as better than a .300 batting average."--Joseph Lelyveld, New York Times magazine, Feb. 12

Didn't They Do This in '94?
"Texans Poised to Select Bush"--headline, Hartford Courant, Feb. 11

'I Wish My Brother George Was Here'
"Bugs Could Be Key to Kicking Oil Addiction"--headline, Associated Press, Feb. 12

Someone Call the Police So She Can Get Off Him!
"Sigourney Weaver on the Leading Killer of Women"--headline, ABCNews.com, Feb. 12

What Would We Do Without Spokesmen?
"Turkish Airlines flight 1 skidded off the runway at 9:20 p.m. as it was landing, said Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The flight was arriving from someplace in Turkey, he said."--Associated Press, Feb. 12

Bottom Story of the Day
"Merv Griffin Visits His High School in San Mateo, Calif."--headline, Associated Press, Feb. 11

The Black VIII Goes on the Red IX
An employee of the City of New York got the ax for playing solitaire on the job, the New York Times reports:

Edward Greenwood IX was fired Jan. 30 from his job as an assistant in the city's lobbying office in Albany, not long after the mayor spied the game on his computer screen during a Jan. 4 visit to the state capital. . . .

Mr. Greenwood said that he had left the solitaire game on his computer while going to pick up tickets for the mayor and other city officials to attend the governor's annual address to the state. When he returned, Mr. Greenwood said, the mayor had arrived and was posing for pictures with other office workers.

Mr. Greenwood said that he asked for a picture with the mayor, too, and that was when Mr. Bloomberg went into his office and saw the solitaire game.

"I don't have any real animosity towards the guy," he said. "He's the boss, so if this is the way he wants it handled, there's nothing I can do about it. But am I happy about it? No."

Maybe we're going soft in our old age, but this strikes us as excessively harsh. Anyway, what's the deal with that "IX"? The Times explains:

In the beginning there was Édouard-Etienne de Nevers, sieur de Brantigny, later known as Édouard Boisvert. He immigrated to Quebec from France and in 1654 settled along the St. Lawrence on a prime plot he bought for a cow and two barrels of pickled eel.

In the middle was Édouard Antoine Boisvert V, who moved down to Massachusetts and Anglicized the family name to Greenwood.

Today, history lives on near Albany, N.Y., where Edward Anthony Greenwood IX, late of the New York City Office of State Legislative Affairs, became nationally famous two days ago as the man who was fired after Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg spotted a game of solitaire on his computer screen. . . .

The executive director of the National Genealogical Society, Diane O'Connor, said she had never run across anyone higher than a V. "Off the top of my head," she said, "I would say that it is unusual."

You can tell Diane O'Connor is white, since she hasn't heard of Malcolm X.

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Today on OpinionJournal:

• Review & Outlook: A Republican congressman wants to make Uncle Sam the Donald Trump of New Orleans.
• John Fund: A moderate Texas Democrat faces a primary challenge from the left.
• The Journal Editorial Report: A transcript of the weekend's program on FOX News Channel.