Apparently, rumors of the demise of AnnCoulter.org were exaggerated.

The ultra-vanity site (IMAGES!) of right-wing “manly woman” Ann Coulter was only temporarily offline this afternoon.

We’re pleased, believe it or not.

Why should the Democratic Party be deprived of its best weapon during the upcoming mid-term elections?

Our favorite Coulterisms from this week’s promotional activities:

I thought I was here to talk about my book.

I thought I was here to talk about my book.

I thought I was here to talk about my book.

I thought I was here to talk about my book.

My book has 35 pages of footnotes!

Is that your question? . . . What is your question? . . . Are you finished with your question? . . . Do you have a question? . . . Can I answer your question? . . . Are you going to ask me a question? . . . Can I make up a question? . . .

AnnCoulter.org is either dead or wounded.

“A Slander on France,” François Bujon de l’Estang, the Washington Post, June 22.
“Affirmative Action Reaction,” Eric Alterman, The Nation, July 1.
“Arafat is Only Interested in Saving Himself,” Edward Said, The Independent, June 20.
“Bad for Business,” William Greider, The Nation, July 1.
“City's Culture Brings Talent, Then Companies,” Neil Irwin, the Washington Post, June 27.
“Doonesburied,” Jesse Walker, Reason, July 2002.
“Fighting the Gay Right,” Richard Goldstein, The Nation, July 1.
“George W.’s Bloody Folly,” Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian, June 26.
“Give Us Answers -- Not Make-Up,” Yoel Marcus, Ha’aretz Daily, June 29.
“Is Andy Card an Idiot?”, Timothy Noah, Slate, June 6.
“Mrs. Hughes Takes Her Leave,” Ron Suskind, Esquire, July 2002.
“One-Sided Offer That Will Change Nothing,” Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian, June 25.
“Right-Wing Black List,” Sam Tanenhaus, Slate, June 20.
“Should Estate Tax Repeal Be a Top Priority?”, Gene Sperling, Bloomberg News, June 29.
“The Inherited Wealth Lobby,” E.J. Dionne Jr., the Washington Post, June 14.
“The White Van: Were Israelis Detained on Sept. 11?”, Chris Isham, John Miller, Glenn Silber, and Chris Vlasto, ABC News, June 21.
“True Confessions,” Jane Mayer, the New York Review of Books, June 27.
“U.S. Probes 350 Reported Bias Crimes,” Christopher Newton, the Washington Post, June 25.
“What About Bob?”, by Jason Zengerle, the New Republic Online, June 17.
“Who’s Afraid of Cornel West,” Eric Alterman, The Nation, July 15.
“You Must Be a Fag,” Mark Morford, SF Gate, June 14.

Look, we’re normally not in the habit of comparing measurements, but as Andrew Sullivan brought it up today by whipping out the tape measure to brag about his “32-inch waist,” we thought we would add, for purposes of further elevating political discourse in this country, that our editor’s waist measures 28 inches.

And, since Sullivan’s physician is our editor’s former physician, he can check.

Oh . . . and so, frankly, can we.

Was that the final straw we just saw over at “The Daily Dish”?

We republish:

“GOD’S GIFT TO REPUBLICANS: The pledge ruling won’t last. But it’s a great political issue for Republicans. Notice how the most liberal judges are the oldest. Notice also how [Sen.] Tom Daschle [D-S.D.] immediately ran for cover. This is the issue [President George W.] Bush’s dad rode to the White House. His son must be loving it.”

The only word for Andrew Sullivan’s latest outburst is sad.

Not only is this paragraph brazenly partisan, revealing Sullivan for the Bush administration toady he claims not to be, but the analysis upon which it relies is simplistic, faulty, illogical, and plainly wrong.

One can only wonder about a man who watches with glee as both patriotism and religious faith are debased to serve the aims of not just one thoroughly inadequate president, but two.

Perhaps the greatest victory won by American conservatives in the past 20 years has been to make the Big Lie stick. The Big Lie we’re referring to is that which holds that this country’s media is defined by a persistent and pervasive liberal bias. Frankly, we have difficulty imagining the wing nuts actually believe their rants about this purported injustice, as the premise is laughable on its face.

Even more amusing is when some thoroughly uninteresting scribbler -- let’s say, oh, Norah Vincent -- complains that conservatives have no voice in the American media and proceeds to write those words not in an obscure, small-circulation outlet like Human Events or Southern Partisan, but during a regular appearance in the Los Angeles Times, the country’s fourth-largest newspaper. Vincent, we can only suppose, is pursuing the time-honored strategy of “boring from within.”

Bernard Goldberg has turned the media’s alleged “liberal bias” into a veritable cottage industry. And Ann Coulter, who apparently labors down a rabbit hole, has written an entire book on the delusion -- a volume we can’t wait to get our hands on, in a revolting kind of way. [Ed.: In the meantime, Scoobie Davis has written a devastating critique of Coulter’s self-referentially entitled Slander that readers may peruse at their leisure.]

But moving on the higher forms of life . . . Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today has an essay in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram [Ed.: No, we don’t know how it ended up there either.] that speaks the truth to the Big Lie currently being peddled by Vincent, Coulter, Goldberg, and the rest of hallucinating right wing.

Sanders’s essay, “Corporations Have Chokehold on U.S. Media,” makes several important points that rarely find an outlet beyond a few “little magazines” of the American left. His language is a bit more Nation-esque than what we would use, but Sanders’s arguments are persuasive nonetheless.

“One of our best-kept secrets is the degree to which a handful of huge corporations control the flow of information in the United States,” he begins. “Whether it is television, radio, newspapers, magazines, books or the Internet, a few giant conglomerates are determining what we see, hear and read.”

Beyond the concentration of ownership of media outlets in the hands of a shrinking (sometimes foreign) few, Sanders rightly laments the narrow fare offered to American audiences.

“The essential problem with television is not just a right-wing bias in news and programming, or the transformation of politics and government into entertainment and sensationalism,” he writes. “It’s that the most important issues facing the middle-class and working people of our country are rarely discussed. The average American does not see his or her reality reflected on the television screen.”

And radio? Forget it.

“If television largely ignores the reality of life for the majority of Americans, corporate radio is just plain overt in its right-wing bias,” Sanders observes in a breathtaking understatement. He adds:

“In a nation that cast a few million more votes for Al Gore and Ralph Nader than for George W. Bush and Pat Buchanan, there are dozens of right-wing talk show programs.

“Rush Limbaugh, G. Gordon Liddy, Bob Grant, Sean Hannity, Alan Keyes, Armstrong Williams, Howie Carr, Oliver North, Michael Savage, Michael Reagan, Pat Robertson, Laura Schlessinger -- these are only a few of the voices that day after day pound a right-wing drumbeat into the heartland of this country. And from a leftish perspective there is -- well, no one.”

Conservatives get away with the Big Lie because it hangs in the air unchallenged: Who among the dirty dozen cited in the previous paragraph would allow Sanders to make his argument -- uninterrupted and treated with respect and civility -- on his or her program? Who among the dirty dozen could present a coherent argument -- rather than a collection of shouted shopworn slogans -- that would refute Sanders?

We’re waiting.

Armed with her latest tome, ironically entitled Slander, Ann Coulter is hitting the airwaves this week with her one-woman crusade against the omnipotent and omnipresent “liberal media.”

We hope Coulter has recovered from yesterday’s verbal fisticuffs with left-wing revolutionary Katie Couric because she will need all the strength she can muster to withstand the vicious assaults she’s sure to receive from the tough gang of mostly super hostile, bleeding-heart radio and television personalities she’s scheduled to face today:

1:00 p.m.: The Dennis Prager Show

3:00 p.m.: The Howie Carr Show, WRKO, Boston, Mass.

5:00 p.m.: The Big Story with John Gibson, Fox News

7:30 p.m.: CNN Crossfire with James Carville and Tucker Carlson

Check Local Listings: The Laura Ingraham Show

Yesterday we made the observation that coverage of the insider trading allegations in the stock of ImClone Systems Inc. had devoted far more attention to Martha Stewart than to Sam Waksal, the biotechnology firm’s founder and former chief executive officer, who was arrested June 12 on federal securities charges for tipping off family members and friends about an impending adverse decision by the Food and Drug Administration.

Now we come to find that prosecutors are taking the same tack.

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Charles Gasparino and Jerry Markon report federal prosecutors have expanded their investigation of Stewart “beyond insider trading to include possible obstruction of justice and making false statements.” [Ed.: Link requires registration and/or subscription.]

The latest controversy concerns whether Stewart, or her broker, Peter Bacanovic of Merrill Lynch & Co., or his assistant, Douglas Faneuil, or all three, lied to investigators about the much-discussed purported prior agreement between Stewart and Bacanovic that Stewart’s ImClone holdings be sold when the price of the stock fell below $60, an event that occurred on Dec. 27, the day before the FDA’s decision was made public.

But here’s the surprising -- and disturbing -- twist to the story: “[F]ederal prosecutors are now boring in on Ms. Stewart . . . and Mr. Bacanovic . . . so intently that the broader investigation of Mr. Waksal and his family members who sold stock is on hold.” [Ed.: Emphasis added.]

This is strange.

Waksal has been arrested and his daughter, Aliza Waksal, and father, Jack Waksal, reportedly took in several million dollars by dumping shares of ImClone stock after getting the heads up from the former CEO that the FDA would soon announce its rejection of ImClone’s cancer treatment Erbitux, which the agency did on Dec. 28.

But instead of investigating the Waksals, and who knows how many other people they might have contacted before Dec. 28, prosecutors have assigned a higher priority to going after Stewart in an effort to determine whether or not the notorious “control freak” allowed a standing order to sell 4,000 shares sit in a computer at Merrill Lynch ready to fire automatically if the price of the stock fell below $60, even if she were on vacation.

As we have said from the beginning, we could be completely misguided in our interpretation of events. But we have emphasized that our comments are simply that, an interpretation, one that offers an alternative scenario to that which so much of the media has adopted as gospel truth in this matter.

Nonetheless, it strikes us as odd that an obstruction charge based on little more than the word of a 26-year-old sales assistant with limited experience working with his broker’s clientele would take priority over one of the most flagrant violations of insider trading laws in recent memory.

Waksal, after all, not only sought to sell some of his own shares of ImClone, but when objections to that maneuver were raised by the firm’s attorneys, he attempted to transfer the shares to his daughter so that she could complete the transaction on his behalf. And Waksal provided material non-public information not only this daughter, but his other daughter and his father, and an as yet undetermined number of relatives and friends -- a list of which should be fairly easy to reconstruct by taking a look at his telephone records and some brokerage order tickets.

Faneuil changes his story

The widened probe apparently was sparked by statements Faneuil made to prosecutors this week According to the Journal, Faneuil, who has worked at Merrill Lynch for less than a year, has retracted his previous account of the Stewart transaction. (By our reading of today’s article, it’s clear that Faneuil or his attorney is the source for the story.)

Faneuil now says he misled lawyers at Merrill Lynch and the Securities and Exchange Commission when he supported Stewart and Bacanovic’s account of the trigger for the sale of ImClone stock. Faneuil, according to the Journal, told Merrill Lynch attorneys that he was not aware of such an arrangement. That statement is not in and of itself damaging, but Faneuil also reportedly said “he concocted his initial account after being pressured by Mr. Bacanovic.”

That could prove to be a major blow to Stewart if it is proved to be true -- what we know of his story now cannot be corroborated by anyone -- and if it can be determined that Bacanovic and Stewart came up with their stories in collusion with each other. On the other hand, if Stewart and Bacanovic can produce the notes they each claim to have about a prior agreement (their accounts of the notes vary as to the time of the conversation) it would suggest that Bacanovic simply didn’t tell his assistant about the agreement but later sought support that would back him up.

In today’s Journal, Gasparino casts doubt on the ability of Bacanovic and Stewart to depend on a verbal agreement to protect themselves. “Merrill [Lynch] officials say they believe Mr. Faneuil would have known about the arrangement if one had existed,” Gasparino reports. By way of explanation, Gasparino offers, “[V]erbal stop-loss agreements are uncommon on Wall Street to avoid confusion; most brokers officially log such arrangements into the firm’s computer system to keep a detailed record of the trade.”

However, Gasparino, appearing this morning on CNBC’s “Morning Call,” equivocated on this very point, calling verbal agreements “a gray area” in the securities trading business.

Faneuil is to meet with prosecutors again, possibly today, to discuss the matter, according to the Journal.

It’s in Bacanovic’s hands

In order to charge Stewart with insider trading, prosecutors would have to show that Stewart’s sale was sparked by knowledge of specific details regarding the FDA’s unannounced adverse decision, rather than rumors in the market, vague comments from her broker, or the observations of the biotechnology analyst at Merrill Lynch.

The only person who can provide that information is Peter Bacanovic. He and Stewart reportedly spoke on the phone for 11 minutes on the morning of Dec. 27. We have not heard nor been given reason to believe the conversation was recorded, but notes may have been taken by either or both parties.

Martha Stewart and Peter Bacanovic

Summing up, then, that call is the crux of the matter. The conversation could have taken any number of directions:

Bacanovic told Stewart ImClone shares looked like they might decline and he sought confirmation that she wished to sell at the predetermined trigger of $60.

Bacanovic told Stewart he thought ImClone shares were about to fall because there already were large sell orders in the market.

Bacanovic told Stewart ImClone shares were about to fall because there were large sell orders in the market including a large block from Aliza Waksal.

Bacanovic told Stewart he thought ImClone shares were about to fall because Sam and/or Aliza Waksal told him the FDA was preparing to reject the firm’s application for Erbitux.

The common link between all of these scenarios is that the determination of Stewart’s guilt or innocence depends largely on Bacanovic’s account of the conversation.

Two things of note happened after the call. First, Bacanovic directed Faneuil to place the order to sell Stewart’s shares, mentioning or not mentioning the prior agreement with his client. Second, Stewart called Sam Waksal, leaving a message, “Something’s going on at ImClone and I want to know what it is.” Waksal did not return the call.

We may be placing far too much emphasis on that remark, but if Stewart were seeking Waksal’s advice why did she call him after she gave the go-ahead for the transaction? And if she had been tipped off to the FDA’s decision, why would she ask Waksal what was happening at ImClone?

Call us confused.

Appearing yesterday on the CBS program “The Early Show,” Stewart said she believes the entire matter will be resolved “very soon” and added that she expects to be “exonerated of any ridiculousness.”

In her inimitable manner, Stewart, while determinedly chopping cabbage with a very large knife, deflected continued attention to the subject by saying, “I want to focus on my salad.” Until we read or hear something more substantial than that which has been presented so far, we suggest prosecutors and reporters do the same.

Now that we’ve learned the former managers of WorldCom Inc. engaged in what may turn out to be the largest case of accounting fraud in history, placing the future of the firm in jeopardy, we thought it would be interesting to take a look at the board of directors, the illustrious group of men and women elected by shareholders to oversee management’s performance.

Our quick take on the board: A disaster in the making.

The board includes far too many WorldCom insiders and executives of firms acquired under the direction of former chief executive officer Bernard J. (Bernie) Ebbers.

The independent directors included a law professor, a former hotel-industry executive, two investors of some sort, and Gordon Macklin, a former president of the National Association of Securities Dealers Inc. (NASD) and former chairman of Hambrecht & Quist.

According to the company’s latest proxy statement, the board includes:

James C. Allen, a director of WorldCom since March 1998. Allen is currently an investment director and member of the general partner of Meritage Private Equity Fund, a venture capital fund. Allen was vice chairman and chief executive officer of Brooks Fiber Properties from 1993 to 1998, when it was acquired by WorldCom, and president and chief operating officer of Brooks Telecommunications Corp. from April 1993 until it merged with Brooks Fiber Properties in 1996.

Judith Areen, a director of WorldCom since September 1998. Areen has served as executive vice president for law center affairs and dean of the Georgetown University Law Center since 1989. She has been a law professor at Georgetown since 1976.

Carl J. Aycock, a director of WorldCom since 1983. Aycock was secretary of WorldCom from 1987 to 1995 and was secretary and chief financial officer of Master Corp., a motel management and ownership company, from 1989 until 1992. Since 1992 Aycock has been self employed as a financial administrator.

Max E. Bobbitt, a director of WorldCom since 1992. Bobbitt has been a telecommunications consultant from 1998 to the present. Bobbitt was president and CEO of Metromedia China Corp. from 1997 to 1998 and president and CEO of Asian American Telecommunications Corp. from 1996 to 1997, when it was acquired by Metromedia China.

Francesco Galesi, a director of WorldCom since 1992. Galesi is chairman and CEO of the Galesi Group, which includes companies engaged in real estate, telecommunications, and oil and gas exploration and production.

Stiles A. Kellett, a director of WorldCom since 1981. Kellett has been chairman of Kellett Investment Corp. since 1995.

Gordon S. Macklin, a director of WorldCom since September 1998. Macklin has been a corporate financial advisor since 1992. From 1987 through 1992, he was chairman of Hambrecht & Quist Group, an investment banking and venture capital firm. Before that, Macklin was president of the National Association of Securities Dealers Inc. from 1970 to 1987. He was also chairman of the National Clearing Corp. from 1970 to 1975 and was a partner and member of the executive committee of McDonald & Co. Securities Inc., where he was employed from 1950 to 1970.

Bert C. Roberts, chairman of the board and a director of WorldCom since September 1998. Roberts was chairman of the board of MCI Communications Corp. from 1992 to 1998, CEO of MCI from 1991 to November 1996, president and chief operating officer of MCI from 1985 to 1992, president of MCI Telecommunications Corp., a subsidiary of MCI, from 1983 to 1992.

John W. Sidgmore, vice chairman of the board and a director of WorldCom since late 1996. Sidgmore was chief operations officer of WorldCom from 1996 to 1998 and previously held executive positions with MFS Communications Co. and UUNet Technologies Inc. He is currently CEO of WorldCom.

Also on the board of directors of WorldCom, until they were separately fired this year:

Bernard J. Ebbers, a director of WorldCom since 1983. Ebbers was president and CEO of WorldCom from 1985 to 2002.

Scott D. Sullivan, a director of WorldCom since 1996. Sullivan was chief financial officer, treasurer, and secretary of WorldCom from 1994 to 2002.

Although we haven’t pulled out the tape measure, it’s a safe bet the column inches devoted to Martha Stewart’s December trades in the common stock of ImClone Systems Inc. have exceeded by a factor of at least five those given to the actions of company founder and former chief executive officer Sam Waksal.

And Waksal has been arrested on federal insider trading charges involving ImClone!

As we wrote yesterday, we believe the facts so far presented in the media, some of which have come from investigators in the House of Representatives, regarding the Dec. 27 sale of ImClone stock by Stewart, chairman and chief executive officer of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc., will amount to nothing.

But, having made so a fuss, diving into the “story” with furious overkill, the media last night found itself moving into “maintenance mode,” the period just after a non-story peaks during which reporters, seeking to save face, attempt to keep the issue alive by reporting and exaggerating even the most inconsequential news.

Today’s reports in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post, to name just a few offenders, clearly fall into this category. And yesterday’s piece in the Post by histrionics-prone Christopher Byron, author of the monumentally unsuccessful Martha Inc., bordered on hysteria. That Byron stands to gain financially -- despite his book’s failure -- from any controversy surrounding Stewart is a fact the paper’s editors either failed to notice or thought readers need not be made aware.

Appearing today on the CBS television program “The Early Show,” Stewart said she hopes the controversy surrounding her sale of just under 4,000 shares of ImClone Systems will be resolved “very soon,” adding the she fully expects to be “exonerated of any ridiculousness.” Stewart has maintained her innocence since the matter first reached the media earlier this month.

Hays grasps at straws

Constance Hays, writing in today’s Times (“Panel Focuses on Martha Stewart Call”), quotes Ken Johnson, a spokesman for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is investigating several trades in ImClone Systems stock, as stating that the committee “is focusing on a call made to Martha Stewart by her stockbroker on Dec. 27…in which the broker left a message saying that the price of ImClone was about to fall.”

An assistant in Stewart’s New York office, according to Hays, noted the call in Stewart’s phone log. It reportedly reads, “Peter Bacanovic thinks ImClone is going to start trading downward.” The time of the call from Bacanovic was not written down, but Stewart’s lawyers said it was between 10:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m., Hays reports. As has been reported, Bacanovic counts not only Stewart among his clients but also Waksal and his two daughters.

Bacanovic and his sales assistant Douglas Faneuil were placed on paid suspension by Merrill Lynch & Co. following an internal investigation that found discrepancies related to “factual issues regarding a client transaction.”

Citing “a person close to the investigation,” the Times reports that the transaction in question is Stewart’s sale of ImClone shares, not those of the Waksal family members. Moreover, the source maintains, Merrill’s “findings seem to contradict” Stewart’s assertion that she had a standing order with Bacanovic to sell ImClone if it fell below $60, which it did on Dec. 27, the day before ImClone announced that the Food and Drug Administration rejected its application for approval of Erbitux, a treatment for certain forms of cancer.

Hays and the investigators appear to be reaching rather hard with the following:

“The wording of the message could raise further doubt on whether Ms. Stewart and her broker had agreed in advance to sell her ImClone shares when the stock hit $60….The message from Mr. Bacanovic did not refer to the stock hitting Ms. Stewart’s target but rather that the broker felt it was going down, something it had already been doing for weeks. Moreover, if the call from Mr. Bacanovic came between 10 and 11 a.m., it would have been soon after Dr. Waksal’s daughter Aliza had sold all her shares, according to the criminal complaint filed against Dr. Waksal by the United States attorney in New York.”

Hays quotes Johnson as saying, “It’s another strange coincidence in a story filled with strange coincidences.”

Speculation is a one-way street

So again we have speculation headed exclusively in one direction, against Stewart, a conclusion completely un- warranted by the facts at hand. Bacanovic, who has a fiduciary relationship toward Stewart, attempts to reach his client to inform her that one of her stocks may be headed into a decline, and Hays leaps to the assumption that Bacanovic’s intention was to tell Stewart that his call was prompted by material non-public information, i.e., from a member of the Waksal family. This despite no supporting evidence whatsoever, and even less evidence that Stewart would have acted on this kind of advice had Bacanovic provided it to her.

Peter Bacanovic

Now, it’s fair to assume that Bacanovic was fairly busy on Dec. 27, what with the Waksals badgering him to sell their stock and, presumably, fielding calls from any number of other clients and colleagues who -- watching the stock sag on heavier-than-normal volume -- knew that the Waksals were Bacanovic’s clients and that he had worked for ImClone for two years in the 1990s.

Thus, it’s a safe bet that Bacanovic didn’t feel he had a great deal of time to chat with Stewart’s assistant. Moreover, the topic under discussion was obviously a personal financial matter, suggesting an element of discretion was appropriate.

In addition, Bacanovic certainly knew as well as anyone that Stewart is difficult to reach on the phone given the tight schedule she maintains even when not working. There is no reason to believe Bacanovic expected to reach Stewart immediately. By the time the two did talk, several hours later based on the time line provided, the stock had declined precipitously on Dec. 27, sparked in large part by Aliza Waksal having dumped her shares and aided by cautious remarks about ImClone from Merrill Lynch’s own biotechnology industry analyst.

Hays seems to think she is onto something when she points out that ImClone’s stock had been declining “for weeks.” Yes, it had, and Stewart may already have been aware of this, and may already have conveyed her concerns to Bacanovic, who as we know has said he and Stewart spoke in mid-December, the time period upon which Hays puts so much attention.

In her own report Hays says Congressional investigators expect to meet with Bacanovic later this week, but adds, “It is unclear whether he will do so.” Why Hays declined to speculate on this aspect of the story -- the logical direction being fairly obvious in our minds (Hint: It has something to do with the Fifth Amendment.) -- we cannot explain.

“YESTERDAY’S speech left much to be desired. Mr. Bush does not seem to expect anything immediately from the Israelis, and he appeared to rule out much improvement in the lives of Palestinians until Yasir Arafat is ousted….

“[M]aking Mr. Arafat’s fate the be-all and end-all of the Mideast peace process makes him look far too significant, and makes it all the harder for the Palestinians themselves to show him the door….Mr. Bush seemed to be telling Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that he is free to reoccupy the entire West Bank until a new, democratic Palestine emerges. How the Palestinians can be expected to carry out elections or reform themselves while in a total lockdown by the Israeli military remains something of a mystery.

“In broad terms, Mr. Bush told Israel the right things….But the president set no timetable. This means that settler leaders and military hard-liners, including those in the government, may take this waiting period to grab all they can and establish ‘facts on the ground.’” -- Editorial, New York Times

“AFTER months of fits and starts, President Bush yesterday distilled his Middle East policy to a simple proposition: Peace depends almost entirely on the Palestinians.

“Bush made no mention of an international conference. He did not repeat his demand for an immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces, which shortly before Bush spoke announced they were headed into Gaza….

“[W]hile Bush suggested a three-year timetable for the establishment of a Palestinian state, the clock doesn’t start ticking until Palestinians elect new leaders and build new political, economic and security institutions. And Bush made the creation of a Palestinian state conditional to a series of tough yardsticks that could be impossible to achieve….

“[I]n other ways, the speech represented a purposeful abandonment of neutrality by the administration, which now has largely adopted the stance of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that Arafat is no longer relevant to the peace process, and that security and political reform must precede negotiations about a Palestinian state….

“[B]y writing Arafat out of the picture, Bush may have left Arafat no incentive to cooperate -- and Bush has yet to explain whom the United States or Israel would negotiate with in the coming months. Currently, there is no functioning Palestinian government that can stop the terrorist attacks or replace the Israeli army, and there is no leadership that has the authority or respect to negotiate with Israel.” -- Glenn Kessler, Washington Post

“BEYOND Washington’s focus on the removal of Mr. Arafat, the U.S. president’s vision went no further last night than a vague promise of a provisional Palestinian state, to be redeemed within three years -- by which time Mr. Bush may no longer be in the White House.

“He held out no details on the borders of the state that will emerge three years from now, the location of its capital, or the future of millions of Palestinian refugees -- all vital concerns for the people of the West Bank and Gaza.

“Mr. Bush also freed Mr. Sharon of his few remaining constraints. While Israel does not yet have licence to expel Mr. Arafat -- as Mr. Sharon’s hardline allies demand -- after last night’s speech that day may not be far off.

“In addition, Mr. Sharon was handed additional pretexts to delay a withdrawal from Palestinian lands, or the reopening of negotiations with the Palestinians. As Mr Bush made clear, Mr. Sharon is now within his rights to demand not only an end to Palestinian violence, but a total overhaul of the judiciary in the West Bank or Gaza, before embarking on peace talks.” -- Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian

“GEORGE BUSH finally gave his long-awaited speech on the Israel-Palestinian conflict last night. The document had created acrimonious divisions between the administration’s hawks and the State Department. The hawks won.

“There was little in the speech that looked like a remedy to a conflict that has claimed more than 2,000 lives, and appears to be getting steadily worse….

“There was little to suggest this speech will make much difference to the nightmare on the ground. Mr. Bush talked of the need for Israel to withdraw to the positions before the start of the intifada in late September. But the withdrawal should be made ‘as we make progress toward security.’ One suicide bomber attack would allow Israel to argue that progress has not been made.

“Israeli settlement activity in the occupied territories must end but this should be ‘consistent with the recommendations of the Mitchell report,’ he said. This, too, ensures that Israel can stall -- as it long ago re-cast the recommendations to include a timeline….

“Exactly where the new leaders will come from is not clear. Elections today would deliver a strong showing for Hamas, classed by the U.S. as terrorist.” -- Phil Reeves, The Independent

“TRANSLATION: Yasser Arafat and his blood-drenched henchmen must go. Indeed, Bush's speech was a barely camouflaged call for a coup d’etat against the PLO leader [sic], and his replacement by a leadership ‘not compromised by terror.’

“Which likely also explains Israel’s new, aggressive campaign to destroy the Hamas infrastructure and its latest military offensive, which has once again penned Arafat in his compound -- and which Bush endorsed.” -- Editorial, New York Post

One of the biggest stories of the past two weeks has Martha Stewart, invariably termed “the doyenne of domesticity” or some other such nonsense, embroiled in an insider trading scandal at ImClone Systems Inc., a biotechnology firm that was headed by her friend Sam Waksal until he was arrested on insider trading charges on June 12.

This is the stuff tabloid editors dream of, and true to form, the New York Post and the Daily News (New York), among others, have been reporting even the most minor bits of new information while tracking and tailing Stewart’s every move. The Wall Street Journal also have been actively covering the story, albeit with considerable restraint. Stewart has strongly denied any wrongdoing.

There is scant evidence so far that would lead a reasonable person to reach the conclusion that Stewart’s sale of fewer than 5,000 shares of ImClone Systems on Dec. 27, 2001, was based on material non-public information, that being the basic definition of insider trading.

The facts so far

Let’s look at what we know. According to published reports, Stewart purchased 4,910 shares of ImClone on the open market at some unknown date “several years ago,” in a transaction that may represent a goodwill gesture (toward her friend Waksal) as much as it did an investment in the true sense of the term.

Stewart pared her holdings in ImClone in late October 2001 -- two months before the date in question -- when Bristol Myers-Squibb Co. conducted a tender offer for 20 percent of the outstanding shares of ImClone, a firm with which the beleaguered pharmaceutical company had signed a strategic agreement.

Stewart’s participation in the tender offer establishes an intent to sell that clearly precedes any exchange of information, by anyone, about the Food and Drug Administration’s pending decision regarding Erbitux, ImClone’s as yet unapproved cancer treatment.

Because the tender offer was oversubscribed, Stewart, like every other ImClone investor involved in the transaction, was able to sell only 20 percent of her stake in ImClone, or roughly 982 shares. Thereafter, in November according to Stewart, or in mid-December according to Peter Bacanovic, her broker at Merrill Lynch & Co., and never according to the Journal’s account of Bacanovic’s assistant Douglas Faneuil, Stewart placed a “stop-loss” order, apparently informally (that is, not in writing), directing that her shares be sold when the price of ImClone dropped below $60.

And indeed, Stewart’s remaining 3,928 shares were sold on Dec. 27, the first day on which the price of ImClone dipped below $60 since Nov. 12. (Both Bacanovic and Faneuil have been placed on leave from Merrill Lynch.)

We do not know, yet at least, the price at which Stewart purchased the shares of ImClone. However, Stewart tendered her shares to Bristol Myers at $70, implying that this price represented, to Stewart, an acceptable return on her initial investment. Thus, it doesn’t require too great a leap to conclude that four to six weeks later Stewart came to the conclusion that $60 also provided an acceptable return, taking into account the potential gain sacrificed when the volatile stock traded above that price and its recent decline.

Stewart’s reported proceeds from the December transaction totaled $227,824 before taxes. This is not an inconsequential sum of money, but we find it extremely difficult to believe that this is an amount for which Stewart would risk her career and her company, though certainly other people of similar means have done similar things.

A reasonable explanation

So what happened? We know only what is in the public record, which we note is growing by the day. However, we think there are many perfectly reasonable scenarios that could account for Stewart’s trade, though one could be forgiven for not knowing this given the newspaper coverage of the matter so far.

We outline one such scenario below:

After the Bristol Myers tender offer, during which she was unable to sell all of her ImClone shares as desired, Stewart instructed Bacanovic to sell her remaining holdings when the stock dropped below $60.

This apparently was not done in writing (though Stewart says she has written notes to this effect), nor was it in some way entered into Merrill Lynch’s records so that the trade would be made in Bacanovic’s absence or in the event he wasn’t watching the stock carefully. This would suggest that the directive from Stewart was issued in an off-hand way, as in, “Well, Peter, I think we should sell the stock if it drops below $60.” The $60 price target being almost 15 percent below what Stewart anticipated getting for all of her shares in the tender offer. To us, that represents a perfectly reasonable strategy for Stewart to employ for downside protection.

On the first day the stock dipped below $60, Bacanovic saw the trade or had his attention directed to it by an automated alert system, by Faneuil, or by someone else, possibly a member of the Waksal family. (Waksal and his daughter Aliza Waksal are among Bacanovic’s clients and Bacanovic previously worked for ImClone.)

Shortly thereafter, Bacanovic called Stewart to confirm that she wished to sell the shares, a call that would appear to confirm that the stop-loss order was not in writing or otherwise on file at Merrill Lynch. It would also demonstrate responsibility on Bacanovic’s part in the event that Stewart’s directive was in fact issued in an offhand manner.

After receiving confirmation from Stewart, Bacanovic placed the order to sell Stewart’s shares. Stewart, traveling in Texas at the time, subsequently called Waksal, and left a message saying, “Something’s going on at ImClone,” or words to that effect.

To us this is an entirely plausible chain of events, particularly if we consider what Bacanovic may have said to Stewart during their telephone conversation. Keep in mind that the dialogue below is entirely fictional and hypothetical, Noonanesque if you will.

Bacanovic: “Martha, I’m glad you called. ImClone has dropped below 60. You asked me to sell your shares when it crossed that level. I just wanted to confirm that you still would like to do that.”

Stewart: “Oh, it did? Well, what do you think? I noticed the stock has been declining for the past three weeks.”

Bacanovic: “Yes, it has. Down from 75 to 65. But the stock really has been sinking like a stone today. And on very heavy volume.”

Stewart: “Is there any news out on ImClone?”

Bacanovic: “Nothing on the wire so far.” (Or, alternatively, “Nothing on the wire so far, but the FDA’s decision on Erbitux could be announced at any time.” Or, alternatively, but we think unlikely, “Nothing on the wire but I heard from a source at ImClone that the FDA is going to reject the Erbitux application.”)

Stewart: “What does your analyst say?”

Bacanovic: “Eric Hecht says there’s speculation in the market that the FDA won’t approve Erbitux. The stock’s performance in the last few weeks seems to be signaling that.”

Stewart: “Any signs buyers are coming in to support the stock?”

Bacanovic: “No. The spread points to more weakness.”

Stewart: “Okay. Well…Let’s dump it.”

Even if we assume the stop-loss order is an invention at which both Stewart and Bacanovic independently arrived, one could just as easily presume -- and we emphasize this is not an accusation, only a hypothesis -- that Bacanovic, a scheming parvenu (at least according to the papers), sought to place himself in Stewart’s good graces by getting her out of ImClone in front of disastrous news about which he previously had been informed. If so, Stewart’s only offense was being taken by a less than entirely honest stockbroker, a type hardly unknown in the industry.

The call to Waksal

Stewart’s Dec. 27 telephone call to Waksal is telling. First, we note that Stewart called Waksal at 1:41 p.m., after giving Bacanovic the order to sell the stock. We have to assume this is true as Stewart surely is aware that the timing of events could readily be established through phone records, thereby eliminating any reason to lie.

Second, Stewart was telling Waksal something was going on at ImClone, not vice versa. This strikes us as the type of exchange two friendly CEOs might have with each other. Again, Noonanesquely entering Stewart’s brain, we hear: “Hmm. I wonder what’s going on at ImClone. I should call Sam. I’m sure he’s aware the stock is tanking. Maybe he could use some support. I’ve probably panicked. I hope he doesn’t take this personally.”

Much has been made of the fact that Waksal didn’t take Stewart’s call since he was in the office -- “writing letters” -- that day, the suggestion being that Stewart’s account of an unanswered phone call is implausible. Hardly. Waksal may have alerted others to the adverse decision coming from the FDA, and yes, it’s conceivable that he told Stewart this on Dec. 27 (or to Bacanovic who told Stewart). But it is at least equally plausible that Waksal, not knowing Stewart already had sold her shares, declined to take the call from his friend for fear of drawing her into the sordid mess he had created.

We are also confused by the unwillingness or inability of some commentators to recall that Stewart once worked as a stockbroker at the now departed Paine Webber, a position at which she presumably would have picked up the basic underpinnings of what constitutes insider trading.

Moreover, Stewart’s firm, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc., is a publicly traded corporation listed on the New York Stock Exchange. In exchange for her services, Stewart earned nearly $3 million last year, and Stewart owns 63 percent of the firm’s outstanding Class A shares and 100 percent of its Class B shares, giving her not only substantial paper wealth but 94 percent of the voting power concerning company affairs.

The notion that Stewart, having created this company and attained this position, was either unaware of securities law on this matter or willfully disregarded such law -- thereby jeopardizing herself and her eponymous firm -- is difficult for us to accept.

We emphasize that we have outlined only one of many alternative scenarios in the Stewart-ImClone matter and we concur that there many more that could be written casting Stewart in a bad light. Moreover, we concede that we may be thoroughly misguided in our hypothesis. Our point here is to demonstrate that rushing to judgment about Stewart’s actions in this matter is pointless and unfair, not least of all because insider trading, when it does occur, is extremely difficult to prove.

Until we see or hear more convincing evidence, we’re behind Stewart.

For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me. (Job 3:25, KJV)

Ann Coulter has launched her long-awaited eponymous vanity web site, AnnCoulter.org. It’s worth a look and is certain to get the middle-aged frat boys of right-wing talk radio salivating, perspiring, breathing heavily, and who knows what else. (Readers may wish to stick with FM today.)

Coulter’s timing is fortuitous and not a matter of happenstance: Her second book is due out tomorrow. This week, then, we will be treated to the bizarre sight of yet another conservative pundit ranting and raving about the media’s egregious “liberal bias,” all the while appearing as a guest of same, and laughing all the way to the bank.

As one would expect, the home page at AnnCoulter.org has her latest column, something about President Bush and his fetishes, as best we could make out, though, to be honest, we weren’t really paying that much attention.

But the good stuff, or the “goods,” as it were, is on the inside. Coulter’s hard-core fans will be delighted to find not one, but two photo galleries, “images” she unselfconsciously calls them, photographs certain to disprove, once and for all, that Coulter’s success as a right-wing pundit (she prefers the term “public intellectual”) has anything to due with her carefully cultivated “babe” image.

More interesting, though, is that Coulter carries the fetish theme she tackled on the home page into her galleries.

See Ann model black vinyl!

See Ann in pumps!

See Ann shoot!

See Ann work the dunes at dusk!

See Ann get drunk!

See Ann battle anorexia! (Noteworthy: The dress in this photograph appears to have a stain on it.)

Naturally, the site is blatantly promotional.

“[B]uy Ann’s new book”!

“Read the book jacket”!

See and hear Ann take on the “liberal media” (beginning with the home-field advantage): “Sean Hannity”! “Hannity & Colmes”! “Politically Incorrect”! With the obligatory “Today Show” appearance and promises of “more events to be added.”

God help us, every one.

Forbes last week published the magazine’s annual Celebrity Top 100, a list that purportedly “combines earnings with media exposure to calculate the relative status of a vast array of stars.”

In the number-one spot, Britney Spears, a woman who until today we couldn’t pick from a lineup if our lives depended on it.

We’re “out of it,” as they say. We’ve lost our touch with the popular culture.

But, no matter, we’re content to leave the really important and complicated stuff like that to Lloyd Grove.

Be sure to stop by Washington Life for a classic shot of sartorially challenged Washington Post gossip columnist Lloyd Grove sporting his finest at the National Gallery of Art’s Summer Celebration last September. (Or just look at it here.)

Lloyd Grove and Amy Holmes

Donations to Grove’s painfully deficient necktie collection may be sent to:

Mr. Lloyd Grove
Washington Post Co.
1150 15th St., N.W.
Washington, D.C., 20071

You could qualify for a tax deduction. Please consult your tax adviser.

The Rittenhouse Review yesterday, Friday, June 21, 2002, received an e-mail from Lloyd Grove, the Washington Post’s unabashedly partisan gossip columnist.

Graciously, Grove informed us that his missive was “on the record ONLY if published in full.”

Thus, we herewith publish, unadulterated and in its entirety -- Who would want to miss a word? -- Grove’s correspondence:

“with all those [sic]s, you remind me of my 6th grade grammar teacher, mrs. mcintyre. anyhow, thanks for the plug.”

Copy editors of the world, unite!

Lloyd Grove, the Washington Post’s resident gossip, last week tried to get the fur flying when, venturing far outside his area of expertise, he wrote a few strident and partisan paragraphs about an error The Rittenhouse Review made while discussing an article in the June issue of Commentary magazine.

As has been reported, TRR apologized for the error as soon as it became apparent, the mistake was duly and prominently noted at this site, and the original article was retracted. The error, as we wrote then, while regrettable, was made in good faith, based as it was on three different sources. Nonetheless, we have come to learn that Grove is characterizing the mistake in e-mail to TRR readers as “a doozey.”

The editor of TRR has telephoned Lloyd Grove five times in an effort to discuss his June 14 column and to offer Grove the opportunity to comment on apparent discrepancies in his account. None of those calls has been returned.

Grove did, however, send TRR one e-mail message, prominently labeled “OFF THE RECORD AND NOT FOR PUBLICATION,” thereby preventing us from sharing with readers the lame remarks Grove offered in his defense.

Grove’s Friday Chats

In the course of research for a possible article about Grove, TRR this week happened upon the transcripts of the gossip’s weekly “chat” with readers of his column.

Now, we’re as surprised as you are to learn that there are indeed people willing to “listen” to Grove expound on the various and sundry for an entire hour, but we’re willing to concede that everyone has his guilty pleasures.

Since Grove refuses to speak with us, we decided we would “catch up” with Grove through the transcripts of his program. These precious gems are available on their very own page at the Post’s web site, going back to April 5. (We presume earlier transcripts are available somewhere, certain as they are to be a valuable resource for future historians documenting the complete and utter debasement of the American political culture around the turn of the century.)

As most of the chatter is worthless jetsam and flotsam, with Grove making desperate and pitiable attempts at humor, we decided to limit the pain of TRR’s readers by beginning our acquaintance with a fairly recent performance, that of May 31. Join us now as we meet the inimitable Lloyd Grove in his own element.

The May 31 Chat

For his sake, we hope Grove’s May 31 “appearance” was a fleeting dud. Surely there is not a single editor at the Post who believes this chat was worth the time, money, and effort that went into it.

We quickly learn that Grove is meeting and greeting his fans not from the offices of the Washington Post, but instead from in front of his PC at home. Upon learning this we mustered all the strength we could not to derive a mental image of the scene chez Grove that fine morning. Valiantly, we press on.

Shortly thereafter we are struck by ready evidence of Grove’s erudition. For example, he manages to employ the term “learned pensees” while discussing his hate mail. No matter that he means -- we think -- “learned pensés,” or more properly, “learned penseurs,” we admire the effort.

On matters pertaining most strictly to his profession as a gossip, Grove surprised us by revealing he hasn’t a clue what’s going on in the Lizzie “Mow the Trash Down” Grubman case in East Hampton, N.Y., perhaps the best thing to happen to the gossip business in years.

Despite this knowledge gap, we learn Grove is a veritable Renaissance man, able to expound upon virtually any subject that arises from the dim-witted do-nothings that constitute his audience.

Thus, in the same program we find Lloyd Grove, Fashion Maven: “I would never say that Harrison [Ford] is having a mid-life crisis of thermonuclear dimensions and I think the earring looks cute.”

Then Lloyd Grove, Sports Prognosticator: “My intrepid producer Eleanor…advises me for some reason not to pick France. But despite the recent state [sic] of French bashing from everyone from Howard Stern to President Bush, I can’t get over my deep love of everything French. Vive la France! (Oh, they lost?)”

And even Lloyd Grove, Budding Economist: “Somebody should an expose [sic] of this secretive economic cabal,” he said in response to an inquiry from an unusually misguided fan about, of all things, the Consumer Confidence Index. True to form, Grove reveals he has no idea who compiles and publishes the monthly report and then throws in a meaningless aside about Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan.

Much to our amazement, Grove apparently was a bit of a rake in his day, shuttling as he did, between his childhood homes in Greenwich, Conn., and Los Angeles -- bi-coastal! This emerges after a chat participant asks Grove whether he has the inside scoop about the Clinton family’s alleged problems with alcohol. Tossing in a gratuitous swipe at the former President’s daughter, Chelsea Clinton, Grove writes:

“I’ve been reading as well about Chelsea’s alleged drunken misadventures in Europe. I have to say that when I was her age -- if any tabloid reporters had been paying attention -- it would have made for some rather ugly double-truck spreads.”

Our assumption is that Grove is referring to youthful mornings spent praying to the porcelain god. That’s our Lloyd Grove, party animal!

Moving on to political gossip, Grove admitted, “Neither of the Clintons seem [sic] to want to touch me with a barge pole, let alone sit down for an interview with me,” an understatement that we assure him encompasses far more people than former President Bill Clinton and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).

Former Vice President Al Gore comes in for criticism as well. A reader draws attention to the vast disparity of wealth in this country, a gap once personified by the now all-but-forgotten master of greed, Walt Disney Co. chief executive officer Michael Eisner, by observing, “These folks make up a sliver of one percent of the US population, but own and control almost everything. The next world war will be a class war, not anything to do with terrorists. And the super duper rich, well, they should worry.”

Presumably looking for yucks, Grove responded, “I hope this is not Al Gore test-marketing some new Bob Shrum populism for 2004. In fact, I’m sure it isn’t. Might be possible house [sic] candidate Karenna.”

Grove’s cluelessness pops up again when asked what happened to long-time PBS television personality Mark Russell. Remarked Grove: “He’s a Washington political satirist who makes up funny lyrics to old standards and then belts them out while standing at the keyboard -- usually in buffalo [sic], where he tapes a show for PBS. or [sic] has taped. don’t [sic] know if it’s still on the air.”

Here’s a tip, Grove. Next time you peek at your column in print, turn a few pages forward to the TV listings in the same section. You’ll find ample evidence that Russell is still among the quick.

Finally, we found an explanation -- sort of -- for the bizarre potpourri style of Grove’s semi-weekly column: “Well, I write about a lot of stuff that could appear in any and every section of the newspaper....I like to do a whole bunch of different things in the column and keep you guessing.”

That’s right, Grove keeps us guessing. As if he weren’t as thoroughly predictable as his newfound political allies.

One of the unfortunate consequences of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 and the continuing Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that public debate about the Middle East has been enlarged to such a degree that it now encompasses viewpoints previously regarded as beyond the pale and has created a place at the table for observers and commentators whose previous work on the subject has been discredited.

Such is the case with Joan Peters, author of From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict.

The perpetration of a fraud

Peters’s book, published by Harper & Row to great acclaim in 1984, put forward the preposterous claim that Palestine was virtually devoid of Arabs when Jews began aggressively settling in the area in the mid-20th century. Peters asserted, to the delight of the American intelligentsia, that Palestinian political, territorial, and historical claims to the land that is now Israel are based on a collection of myths. Any Arabs that were in the area in 1948 were drawn there, according to Peters, by the economic activity fostered by Jewish immigration.

In the face of massive evidence to the contrary, Peters argued that Palestinian Jews are the only continuous residents of Palestine. “Contrary to Arab propaganda, Arabs or Arabic-speaking migrants were wandering in search of subsistence all over the Middle East,” Peters wrote. She added, “The land of ‘Palestine’ proper had been laid waste, causing peasants to flee. Jews and ‘Zionism’ never left the Holy Land, even after the Roman conquest in A.D. 70.”

And in a wholly unoriginal conclusion, Peters believes the Arab states are using the Palestinian refugees to promote their own political agenda. She trots out the old sawhorse that the “refugee problem” [Ed.: Her scare quotes, not ours.] was created by Arabs as a public relations weapon to justify “annihilating Israel.”

Peters exposed

Among those praising the book upon its publication were Barbara Tuchman (who called the notion of the Palestinian people “a fairy tale”), Theodore H. White, and Martin Peretz, among many others. Positive reviews were published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the New Republic, and Commentary, among many other newspapers, magazines, and journals, and Peters received the National Jewish Book Award for her work.

However, not long after being showered with congratulations, Peters, who is not a historian and who had not previously written anything more substantive than articles for general interest magazines, watched as critics and historians meticulously documented her distortions, exaggerations, selective omissions, falsehoods, and general mendacity. Critical and highly detailed analyses of From Time Immemorial were soon published in The Nation, In These Times, the New York Review of Books, the London Review of Books, and London’s Observer. The issuance of the book in paperback in 1986 had the same effect, albeit with an interesting twist.

By 1986, the criticism was merciless and broad-based. In one of the most widely discussed “second-look” reviews, Yehoshua Porath, the Israeli historian, writing in the New York Review of Books, attacked the book with unusual ferocity. His conclusion warrants repeating at length:

I am reluctant to bore the reader and myself with further examples of Mrs. Peters's highly tendentious use -- or neglect -- of the available source material. Much more important is her misunderstanding of basic historical processes and her failure to appreciate the central importance of natural population increase as compared to migratory movements. Readers of her book should be warned not to accept its factual claims without checking their sources. Judging by the interest that the book aroused and the prestige of some who have endorsed it, I thought it would present some new interpretation of the historical facts. I found none. Everyone familiar with the writing of the extreme nationalists of Zeev Jabotinsky’s Revisionist party (the forerunner of the Herut party) would immediately recognize the tired and discredited arguments in Mrs. Peters’s book. I had mistakenly thought them long forgotten. It is a pity that they have been given new life.

Other critics on the second go-around included Anthony Lewis of the New York Times; Jesse Zel Zurie, writing in Jewish World; and Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg.

If Peters expected her allies to offer a strong defense, she was sorely mistaken. Several reviewers who initially praised From Time Immemorial distanced themselves from the book after other writers did the requisite legwork exposing her fraud.

Daniel Pipes, now a ubiquitous talking head, initially gave From Time Immemorial a glowing review in Commentary. In fact, Pipes bought Peters’s arguments by way of the proverbial hook, line, and sinker. “[T]he ‘Palestinian problem’ lacks firm grounding. Many of those who now consider themselves Palestinian refugees were either immigrants themselves before 1948 or the children of immigrants,” Pipes wrote. “This historical fact reduces their claim to the land of Israel; it also reinforces the point that the real problem in the Middle East has little to do with Palestinian-Arab rights.”

Two years later, however, while continuing to express support for the central premise of Peters’s work, Pipes sharply criticized her methodology and scholarly abilities in an exchange published in the New York Review of Books in 1986. In that piece Pipes discovered faults and errors in From Time Immemorial that earlier escaped him entirely or that apparently appeared magically in the paperback version of the book:

From Time Immemorial quotes carelessly, uses statistics sloppily, and ignores inconvenient facts. Much of the book is irrelevant to Miss Peters’s central thesis. The author’s linguistic and scholarly abilities are open to question. Excessive use of quotation marks, eccentric footnotes, and a polemical, somewhat hysterical undertone mar the book. In short, From Time Immemorial stands out as an appallingly crafted book.

Similarly, Ronald Sanders, who gave the book a favorable assessment in the New Republic in 1984, retreated in the same NYRB exchange:

Mrs. Peters has brought this upon herself to a large extent, for, as I wrote in my review of the book in [t]he New Republic of April 23, 1984, “many of its valuable points are buried in passages of furious argumentative overkill,” and too much of its more than 600 pages is given over to very conventional polemics. Since then, some patient researchers have found numerous examples of sloppiness in her scholarship and an occasional tendency not to grasp the correct meaning of a context from which she has extracted a quotation. All in all, her book is marked -- and marred -- by an over-eagerness to score a huge and definitive polemical triumph, which has caused her too often to leave prudence and responsibility behind.

By 1986, Peters’s defenders were few and far between. True to form, Commentary, in a obvious display of damage control, published an article by polemicists Erich and Rael Jean Isaacs, “Whose Palestine?” The Isaacs did their best to shore up what remained of the book’s reputation -- and that of Peters.

The Isaacs had their work cut out for them and it shows. Yet, assigned the task of salvaging Peters and her severely flawed study, even the Isaacs aren’t willing to swallow each and every bit of her tendentiousness. They criticize Peters’s “ability to evaluate evidence,” her “grandiose claims of ‘proof,’” and her “carelessness.” And the dreaded Norman Finkelstein earns two backhanded compliments from the Isaacs, including this one: “Even some of Finkelstein’s specific criticisms, setting aside his accusations of deliberate deception, are well taken.” The Isaacs’ criticism surely stung:

[D]espite all the faults of Miss Peters’s critics, her book does indeed deserve some of the criticism it has received. Her handling of materials, particularly in the central section dealing with demographic issues, is flawed. . . .

But perhaps the most serious problem with Miss Peters’s book is not any of the errors picked up by Finkelstein but her apparent inability to use judiciously the material at her disposal. At times she goes so far as to ignore evidence that does not bear out a specific point she wants to make even when that evidence actually strengthens her case.

Paul Blair demolishes Peters

More recently, Capitalism Magazine in April published a devastating and meticulously documented six-part analysis of the book by Paul Blair. Blair minces no words in his conclusions, which warrant extensive quotation:

From Time Immemorial is work of propaganda, with all the bad connotations that term carries. Peters’[s] case rests upon distortion and fabrication. Time and again, she misconstrues sources in a tendentious manner. She cribs uncritically from partisan works. She conceals crucial calculations, and draws hard conclusions from tenuous evidence. She speculates wildly and without ground. She exaggerates figures and selects numbers to suit her thesis. She adduces evidence that in no way supports her claims, sometimes even omitting “inconvenient” portions of the citation. She invents contradictions in sources she wishes to discredit by quoting them out of context. She “forgets” undesirable numbers in her calculations. She ignores sources that cast doubt on her conclusions, even when she herself uses those sources for other purposes. She makes baseless insinuations and misleading claims.

Peters’[s] distortions apply, not simply to minor issues, but to the central pieces of evidence for the principal contentions of her book. Her claim that the majority of Arabs in pre-state Israel were recent arrivals is false, as is her related assertion about the vast majority of Palestinian refugees. Her contention that Arab immigrants were filling the places Jews had cleared for other Jews is untrue. Her view that the League of Nations Mandate was intended to make Palestine into a Jewish state has no valid basis, nor is it true that the British created the Transjordan in violation of the Mandate. Peters’[s] claim of a nineteenth-century Jewish majority is misleading at best; her thesis that the first Jewish settlements lured significant numbers of Arabs into Palestine is fiction.

As with all successful disinformation, the distortions are placed within a wider context of truth; not everything Peters says is a lie. Palestine was in fact sparsely populated when Jewish colonization began. Arab nationalism did not yet exist, let alone Palestinian nationalism. When the British took over they unjustly restricted Jewish immigration into Palestine while Arabs immigrated into the territory. After the Arab violence of the late 1930s, British appeasement slowed Jewish immigration to a trickle. Ultimately, Jews who sought to escape the Holocaust were turned away from the Jewish National Home, even while “emergency arrangements” were taken to bring in Arab immigrant laborers. Had Peters let the facts speak for themselves, she would have had a dramatic, compelling story to tell.

But Peters wishes to do more; she wants to destroy, definitively, the claims of Palestinian nationalism -- and she wishes to do so without rejecting Jewish nationalism. Thus her focus on demography; the essence of her case is: “The Arabs are latecomers to Palestine and so have less right to be there than the Jews.” But torture the numbers as she will, she cannot escape the fact that the Arabs in Palestine in the late nineteenth century outnumbered the Jews. Hence, she contends that those Arabs had no national “identity,” that they considered themselves Ottoman subjects or Southern Syrians, but certainly not Palestinians. And if today’s Arabs wish to live in a Palestinian state, they should move to Jordan. . . .

Peters’[s] book does not simply distort the facts, then; it is a philosophically repugnant enterprise from the start. Ethnic nationalism has produced most of the wars in the last half century; Arab opposition to Israel rests largely on the same foundation. The doctrine of ethnic self-determination has no valid intellectual basis; given the bloodshed it has caused it deserves not respect but unequivocal repudiation.

There is only one conclusion at which a reasonable observer of the Peters controversy can arrive: From Time Immemorial has been utterly and thoroughly discredited. After the critiques of 1986 Peters herself virtually disappeared from public view for more than 15 years. Yet the legend lives on.

A documentary in the works

Given the tortured history of From Time Immemorial, the remaining die-hard defenders of Peters, or at least those willing to go public, have been left with precious few arguments to bolster a book that is virtually in tatters. But that doesn’t stop them from trying, usually through sheer force of will.

We find ourselves baffled by those who continue to heap praise upon the book, a group that includes Benjamin Netanyahu, whose vanity web site normally gives From Time Immemorial a prominent place on the home page; Mona Charen, a nationally syndicated columnist, who recently published a fawning tribute to the discredited study; John Derbyshire, the virulently hostile contributing editor of National Review; Bridges for Peace, which includes the book among its “Recommended Reading”; the Israel Report, whish last year published a softball interview with Peters; and WorldNetDaily (WND), which last month published a deceitful article about the book.

Charen's April piece not only defended the book but promoted it. Concerned about the “myths” surrounding Middle East history, Charen -- with a straight face -- called From Time Immemorial “meticulously researched” and recommended it as “a one-stop shopping book [that] puts [Arab] myths to rest.” Whether Charen is completely unaware of the book’s history or is simply suppressing it, we are not certain.

Imagine our shock, then, upon learning that From Time Immemorial will be the subject of a documentary film project titled “The Myth,” produced by Isidore Rosmarin. A veteran television producer who has produced segments for “60 Minutes” and “Dateline,” Rosmarin told WND Peters’s book changed his entire view of the Middle East.

Art Moore, writing for WND on May 20, quoted Rosmarin: “I used to consider myself pretty well-versed in current events and the broad strokes of what goes on in various parts of the world. I didn’t have a clue about the truth of the situation until this book. Somebody handed it to me, and I read it, and it knocked my socks off.”

Rosmarin’s proposed documentary is “in the research stage,” and the project needs funding to move on to the anticipated six-month production schedule. The producer hopes “The Myth” will be shown on broadcast and cable television, as well as at schools, college campuses, libraries, and local civic groups.

It is clear from the WND article that no mention will be made of the controversy surrounding From Time Immemorial and the book’s inaccuracies, nor will the film make room for those whose interpretation of the source material on which Peters relied differ from hers.

WND has behaved like one of Peters’s co-conspirators, evidenced by Moore’s begrudging acknowledgement that From Time Immemorial was on the receiving end of some poor reviews. He claims, all evidence to the contrary, that the negative reactions “largely have come from left-leaning scholars,” including Finkelstein, willfully overlooking the trashing Peters received on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as the harsh criticism of the book in Israel. It appears Moore would have readers believe Finkelstein is Peters’s only critic.

The partisan historian

A consultant on the project, William Helmreich, professor of sociology and Judaic studies at City College and the City University of New York, emphasizes the film will not be “propaganda”:

The purpose is to present facts. That facts happen to swing one way or another does not make it a propaganda film. If we did a factual film about the Nazis, they wouldn’t end up being portrayed in a positive way. There is right and there is wrong. Not everything is relative. And the curse of relativism is one that has spread from the campuses of America to the government as well.

Moore makes clear that Helmreich has swallowed Peters’s claims writ large, and the professor certainly has a fixed view of the history of the Middle East. “I think that for too long the Bush administration -- as had been the case with previous administrations -- has pursued a policy of ‘You’re right and you’re right, you’re wrong and you’re wrong, you give a little, and you give a little,’” he told WND. “I think the purpose of the documentary is to demonstrate that if any wrong has been perpetrated it has been upon the Israelis and not upon the Palestinians.”

Helmreich, acting in a distinctly unscholarly manner, also fails to acknowledge the blistering criticism of Peters’s work. Along with grossly distorting the Palestinians’ historical claims, Helmreich speaks as if From Time Immemorial has satisfied every question regarding the history of Palestine:

I think that if the book is properly represented in this film, the issue of who really was on this land, and in what proportion, will be greatly clarified. Right now it’s as if the Israelis came to a land where millions of Palestinians were sitting, they were the interlopers, and they threw them off the land.

Peters rehabilitated

For her part, Peters hasn’t tempered her extremism during the past 18 years. The U.S., according to the writer, must abandon the notion that the support of Arab nations is required for its well being, the benefits to Israel of a disinterested American foreign policy completely escaping her.

Speaking about the Arabs, Peters says, through a haze of irrelevant hallucination:

They are a small part of the Muslim world, and by kowtowing to their impossibly monstrous demands we are leaving out all the millions of Indonesian and Malaysian Muslims and others who are not Arab. We need not be dictated to by monsters who keep their own people as human bombs instead of rehabilitating them, as they have had so many chances to do.

And Peters, who apparently hasn’t read a newspaper recently, believes U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, which is based on a two-state solution, is predicated on Arab myths. In an interview with WND’s Moore, Peters asserted, “The problem is truth has taken a back seat, and all of the bogus claims of the Arabs have destroyed the context. It would be like the Germans saying the Jews had killed 6 million Germans during World War II.”

Peters seems completely unaffected by the controversy surrounding her book and disingenuously pretends no questions ever were raised about her shoddy scholarship and erroneous conclusions. She boasts that From Time Immemorial was a bestseller in Israel and takes pride in having taught Israelis a great deal about their own history. “Many (Israelis) were very shocked at this book,” she told WND. “There were a lot of things they said they didn’t know and some things they were sure of, and the documented evidence gave them proof.”

In a grotesque outcome that reflects poorly upon our culture’s collective memory -- and we are talking about memories that in this instance need go back not even 20 years -- Moore reports that Peters “has been in high demand for speaking engagements since Sept. 11 and [that] she is getting an ‘amazingly wonderful, overwhelmingly positive’ response from audiences.”

Still prone to self-aggrandizement, Peters says she hopes “The Myth” will be “a clone of me and my book.” She adds, hinting at the obloquy with which she is regarded among serious academicians, “There are a lot of colleges and other places that won’t have me, but will have a film.”

And so a spectacular fraud, which until very recently was relegated to the dust bin of the study of the history of the Middle East is to be rehabilitated. This development is frightening in its broader implications: The upcoming film, likely to be viewed by thousands of people who never would have made it past page 30 of From Time Immemorial, will find an audience of well intentioned individuals to whom the controversy described here might as well be medieval history.

The likelihood that the book’s remaining defenders -- whether they support Peters in all her erroneous details or simply in her misguided central thesis -- will be called to account for the deceit of From Time Immemorial is, sad to say, minimal. Indeed, we face the prospect of a new generation falling victim to Peters’s lies, an outcome that carries with it devastating implications for American foreign policy in the region. About this, no doubt, Peters will be well pleased.

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the foiled attempted attack on, presumably, the White House, how can we as a free society reconcile the need for security with the demands, requirements, and strictures of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution?

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

In the real world, this is a serious and complicated issue discussed with all due consideration given to the intent of the authors of the Bill of Rights, the nature of a free society, and an honest assessment of changing threats to the security of that society.

But over at AndrewSullivan.com, which lately has taken on all the trappings of a monarchy well past its prime, it’s a far more simple matter.

Today Andrew Sullivan turns his attention to the Fourth Amendment in response to the coincidence of yesterday’s tragic bus bombing in Israel and an editorial in the pages of the New York Times, regarding a Supreme Court case that expanded the boundaries of the police to search bus riders without informing them they had the right to refuse to undergo this measure.

In the editorial, the Times said:

In the Fourth Amendment, the founders guaranteed us the right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures....Yesterday the court decided a case about passengers on a Greyhound bus who were not told they had the right to refuse to be searched. By a 6-to-3 vote it upheld the search, a decision we believe is mistaken.

The bus in yesterday's case had made a scheduled stop in Tallahassee, Fla. When the driver disembarked, three policemen boarded. One took the driver's seat while the other two moved down the narrow aisle, asking to check the passengers' luggage and persons....

The passengers were not legally required to permit the search -- if they had said no, the police would have had to leave them alone. The question is, was the situation on the bus sufficiently coercive that the passengers would reasonably have thought they had to cooperate? If so, the Fourth Amendment would have required the police to inform the passengers that they had the right to refuse.

The test, the court has held, is whether a reasonable person would have felt free “to ignore the police presence and go about his business.” . . .

It would have been hard for the passengers on the Greyhound bus to ignore the police, and under the circumstances, the police should have conveyed through words what the physical layout did not -- that the passengers were free to tell them no....

As long as the “war on terror” rages, there will be pressure to do away with the fine points of Fourth Amendment law. But with the Bush administration increasingly intent on engaging in domestic spying, often with little or no judicial oversight, we need those protections now more than ever.

The editorial is thoughtful, coherent, intelligent, even persuasive, and unusually thorough given it runs to just more than 400 words.

But Sullivan will have none of it. The whole of his argument is this:

CONNECT THE DOTS: Why does reading this story make my saying anything about this editorial seem somewhat superfluous?

Superfluous?

su·per·flu·ous (soo-pûr' floo-es) adj.

Being beyond what is required or sufficient.

No need to engages the Times in a thoughtful debate. Don’t bother to challenge the editors’ judgment. Forget about presenting a contrary argument. Just dismiss it with a wave of the hand.

But if there’s no need to debate the meaning and proper interpretation of the Fourth Amendment, why keep it in the Bill of Rights at all? It’s just getting in the way of the government’s (so far unproved) ability to find terrorists in our midst.

The Fourth Amendment: superfluous. The mind reels.

We are continuously amazed at how willing our self-styled conservatives are to toss aside the constitutional bases of the freedom Americans enjoy, freedom they enjoy not because they’re carefree, self-centered, or reckless, but because this freedom is a right granted them by both God and man.

Amy Fisher, the fabled “Long Island Lolita” who ten years ago last month shot Mary Joe Buttafucco, wife of Fisher’s boyfriend Joey Buttafucco, has taken a job as a columnist for the New Island Ear, according to a report by Leo Standora in today’s New York Daily News.

Robbie Woliver, editor the free, 40,000-circulation paper, says he discovered Fisher is “a natural writer.” Reacting to Fisher’s first assignment, Woliver said, “We were very surprised. We got a very witty, very insightful story from her.”

Fisher’s column doesn’t appear on the New Island Ear’s web site this week, an omission we hope will not be permanent.

Most recently in the news as a possible celebrity-boxing opponent for pugilistic former figure skater Tanya Harding, Fisher is now 28 years old and has a 14-month-old son, Brett Fisher.

No word yet on whether Fisher has applied for membership in the National Society of Newspaper Columnists.

Throw enough chum over the side of the boat and even the muddiest bottom feeder will take the bait.

As evidence, we offer the following excerpt from the unintentionally hilarious tract, “A Few Degrees Warmer for Bush: President Cheered At Commencement,” by Dana Milbank in Saturday’s Washington Post:

“The president who spoke here [Ohio State University] today was not the same president who spoke in New Haven a year ago. Bush aide John Bridgeland told reporters this morning that the president's speech, serious and grave, was inspired by the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville, Adam Smith, George Eliot, Emily Dickinson, William Wordsworth, Pope John Paul II, Aristotle, Benjamin Rush, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Cicero -- although the president mentioned none of them by name. The former C student, Bridgeland said, ‘actually discussed Nicomachean ethics’ [sic] in the Oval Office, not to mention the Patrick Henry-James Madison debate.”

A confession: Even we had to look up Nicomachean Ethics.

Are there no editors at the Post on weekends?

We are normally the last to receive the humorous e-mails that travel across the country with surprising speed and repetition. And we normally don’t share those we receive with others, assuming as we do that everyone we know already has seen them.

We are making an exception today with a list that arrived from a reader in Connecticut.

The Wall Street Journal is read by people who run the country.

The New York Times is read by people who think they run the country.

The Washington Post is read by people who want to run the country.

USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don’t really understand the Washington Post. They do, however, like bright colors and their smog statistics shown in pie charts.

The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn’t mind running the country, if they could spare the time, and if they didn’t have to leave L.A. or drive on the freeway in the rain to do it.

The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and they did a far superior job of it, thank you very much.

The New York Daily News is read by people who aren’t too sure who’s running the country, and don’t really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.

The New York Post is read by people who don’t care who’s running the country either, as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated and/or while wearing a bunny suit.

The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren’t sure there is a country or that anyone is running it; but whoever it is, they oppose all they stand for.

The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores.

The Washington Times is read by arch-conservative white folks who don’t think there are any other kinds of folks in this country besides arch-conservative white folks.

The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.

“I am a nationally known public figure -- author of books that have been best-sellers and nominated for a national book award, a Fox News contributor and one of America’s 100 leading ‘public intellectuals’ according to a recent study of the subject....,” writes David Horowitz, the “editor-in-chief of FrontPage- Magazine.com and president of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture.”

Lisa B. Edwards this evening sent a kind note our way in which she disclaims leading a double life as neoconservative hack and movie critic, um, extraordinaire John Podhoretz (Who could blame her?) and rejects the notion that she is, as we had characterized her, “mysterious.”

As Mrs. Edwards’s message, reprinted in part below, was written with a refreshing sense of humor, we must conclude that she is, indeed, not a neocon.

In fact, we find ourselves so taken by Mrs. Edwards’s disarming charm that if she keeps this up we may have to name her as one of the “Women We Admire.”

From: Edwards, Lisa B.
To: RittenReview@earthlink.net
Cc:
Subject: This must be my 15 minutes……..

Dearest James,

Thanks for giving me the best laugh I've had in a long time!

There are two things that I definitely am not: 1) mysterious and 2) John Podhoretz.

Truthfully, I was just trying to do a good deed by informing you of your error. I had no idea I'd end up in the middle of all this intrigue….

Lisa

Our apologies, Lisa, if that’s really your name, -- Hey, just kidding! -- for casting aspersions on your good name. Thanks for visiting our little site and please accept our best wishes for a happy and successful year.

Eschaton today issued a friendly challenge to the site’s readers asking them to name “prominent liberal gay journalist-pundits who ever write on issues related to the gay/lesbian community.”

The voice of Eschaton adds, “I'll settle for semi-prominent, but they need at least some outlet in the mainstream media.”

And so one of the web’s best commentators launches a search for the Holy Grail.

We can only think of two writers who might quality as “prominent liberal gay journalist-pundits who…write on issues related to the gay/lesbian community”: Michelangelo Signorile and Michael Musto.

The only problem is that both Signorile and Musto write for publications that are widely considered to be part of the “alternative” media, viz., the New York Press and the Village Voice, respectively.

And so Eschaton strikes another blow at the myth of the “liberal media.”

By all means, jump over to Eschaton if you have any suggestions. And no, we don’t know if he’s giving away prizes.

Gossip columnist Lloyd Grove today chips in his two cents -- at most -- on the recent flurry of attention The Rittenhouse Review received, along with Tapped and Eschaton, as a result of a small error, since retracted and corrected, regarding a presumed, but actually non-existent, familial relationship between American Enterprise Institute resident scholar Joshua Muravchik and neoconservative crank Midge Decter.

Flattered as we are to see TRR mentioned in the pages of the Washington Post, albeit in the section of the paper that once was called “the Ladies’ Page,” we wonder what led Grove to believe he had a story worth running.

Having spent a good part of the morning pondering this question, and discussing the matter with colleagues, we are left at the conclusion that Grove’s sole purpose in raising the matter was to gratuitously spank Tapped, a weblog published by the American Prospect, a magazine of the liberal persuasion that no doubt irks the increasingly -- and inappropriately -- ideological Grove.

More to the point, the Post’s gossip maven has been misinformed about at least one aspect of the story.

Grove writes, “On Tuesday, the younger Podhoretz e-mailed the Rittenhouse Review that the nepotism charge was false and persuaded the [sic] National Review’s Rod Dreher to say so on the magazine’s Web site.”

As it happens we did see the brief note that Rod “I’m-More-Catholic-Than-You-Are” Dreher published at the endless yammering section of National Review Online, so very cleverly named “The Corner.”

Naturally, we can’t comment on whether Dreher is in the habit of publishing what in Grove’s gossip business are called “plants” on behalf of his colleagues and friends.

We can, however, inform Grove, as well as TRR’s loyal readers, that we did not receive an e-mail from John Podhoretz on Tuesday, June 11. In fact, TRR has never received an e-mail message -- not one -- from Podhoretz the lesser.

In fact, TRR received only one e-mail about the Muravchik-Decter matter before Tapped sent us its agitated messages.

And that e-mail came from one Mrs. Lisa B. Edwards.

Mrs. Edwards’s e-mail, which came from a Yahoo Mail address, reads, in its entirety:

You’ve been misinformed. Muravchik and Midge Decter are not related.

Lisa

Mrs. Edwards sent her message to TRR on Monday, June 10, at 4:15 p.m.

As Mrs. Edwards’s note consisted solely of an assertion, with no explanation or means of verification, it was neither useful nor helpful in our effort to resolve the confusion surrounding the non-relationship between Muravchik and Decter.

It would have made no sense for Podhoretz to have sent a message to TRR informing us “the nepotism charge was false” on Tuesday, June 11, as we published our retraction and apology at 6:52 a.m. that day.

That means one of three things:

1. Grove made up the story about Podhoretz claiming to have sent an e-mail to TRR.

2. Podhoretz lied to Grove, or perhaps was confused, about having sent an e-mail to TRR.

3. Podhoretz sent an e-mail to TRR under the pseudonym “Mrs. Lisa B. Edwards” not on Tuesday, June 11, but on Monday, June 10.

Frankly, any of these three explanations is at least plausible to us, though certainly the third is most intriguing. Podhoretz the lesser, as TRR readers know, has in the past operated under the pseudonym Tiffany Midgeson, the false surname derived from his proved filial relationship to mother Midge Decter. As to the origin of Podhoretz’s adopted first name we haven’t a clue.

For the record, Grove did not confirm that TRR received an e-mail from Podhoretz and two telephone messages left today on Grove’s voice-mail system at the Post by TRR’s editor remain unanswered.

From: Lisa Edwards [mailto:lisa_b_edwards@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, June 10, 2002 4:15 PM
To: RittenReview@earthlink.net
Subject: Joshua Muravchik’s book

You’ve been misinformed. Muravchik and Midge Decter are not related.

Lisa

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Rittenhouse Review [rittenreview@earthlink.net]
To: Lisa Edwards
Cc:
Subject: RE: Joshua Muravchik’s book

Miss Edwards:

Thank you for taking the time to write to The Rittenhouse Review.

We appreciate your comment regarding Mr. Muravchik and Ms. Decter.

Unfortunately, since your e-mail included only an assertion, an assertion unaccompanied by either an explanation or a means of verifying the claim, it was not useful in our effort to resolve the confusion over the matter.

Rather surprisingly, yours was the only message we received concerning Mr. Muravchik and Ms. Decter before we were contacted by Tapped. I say surprisingly because gossip columnist Lloyd Grove of the Washington Post today published a piece in which he asserts that “the younger Podhoretz e-mailed the Rittenhouse Review that the nepotism charge was false.”

I wonder how Grove came upon that misinformation.

Again, thanks for writing...and for reading.

Best regards,

James M. Capozzola, Editor
The Rittenhouse Review
http://rittenhouse.blogspot.com

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Lisa Edwards [mailto:lisa_b_edwards@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, June 10, 2002 4:15 PM
To: RittenReview@earthlink.net
Subject: Joshua Muravchik’s book

If you are seriously interested in resolving the Decter-Muravchik nepotism claim, I suppose you could always contact Joshua personally. Since the basis of your writer’s critique of Midge’s favorable review of Joshua’s book is that she gave him high marks because she’s his aunt, you really should be falling all over yourselves to get this resolved. I hope my comments served one useful purpose - that of alerting you to a possible error. I regret that I am unable to provide verification for my information.

I don’t know anyone from the Washington Post as I am a mere unix sys-admin from Charlotte, NC and not a journalist. I happen to be a huge fan of blogs - even if I disagree with the viewpoint.

Maybe Pod’s email went astray............

Thanks for reading and good luck resolving this issue.

Mrs. Edwards

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Rittenhouse Review [rittenreview@earthlink.net]
To: Lisa Edwards
Cc:
Subject: RE: Joshua Muravchik’s book

Mrs. Edwards:

You must be behind in your reading.

We have had extensive correspondence with Mr. Muravchik in recent days as has been documented at The Rittenhouse Review.

Moreover, the matter has been resolved without our having had to fall all over ourselves.

Best regards,

James M. Capozzola, Editor
The Rittenhouse Review
http://rittenhouse.blogspot.com

The only major fault we have with David Brock’s brilliant new book, Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative, is that it doesn’t have an index.

It is a void that has proved frustrating at those moments when we have needed to find Brock’s arch, witty, and often devastating observations of the almost uniformly creepy people who comprised his former world.

Interestingly enough, this also was the major criticism we had 12 years ago when Pat Hackett published The Warhol Diaries, though at 1,000 or so pages, our experience with Andy Warhol’s posthumously published oevre bordered on the maddening rather than the merely irritating.

Imagine, then, how pleased we were today to find the Brock Index Project on the web. Despite being a bit jumbled in its current form (to be improved in the future, according to the site) and in need of greater detail, the Index is truly a godsend.

Wondering where Brock reveals John Podhoretz’s drag name, “Tiffany Midgeson”? Turn to page 42.

Can’t recall the name of the gay bar at which Matt Drudge went into a jealous fit? Check out page 283.

Need to refresh your memory about Laura Ingraham’s homicidal tendencies? Page 236.

Unsure whether or not Ann Coulter is an anti-Semite? Open to page 182.

Looking for confirmation of Gary Aldrich’s complete ignorance of the basic ethics of journalism? That’s on page 265.

Searching for evidence of Lucianne Goldberg’s deranged and projected sexual fantasies? You want page 309.

We are forever indebted to the Brock Index Project’s noble compilers.

We’ve never considered ourselves big fans of Arianna Huffington, but we must say we’ve been impressed by her willingness in recent months to cast a critical eye -- and pen -- on the unrestrained greed and corruption that became so pervasive in the highest ranks of American corporations at the turn of the century. Upton Sinclair she’s not, but given the media’s propensity to provide support and succor to financial and corporate celebrities, no matter their incompetence, she’s a veritable breath of fresh air.

Most investors, pundits, and columnists have been asking why former Tyco International Inc. chief executive officer Dennis Kozloski would go to extraordinary -- indeed, criminal -- lengths to avoid paying $1 million in sales taxes on purchases of $13 million of second- and third-rate paintings given the compensation he had been pulling down at Tyco, including $125 million in 2001 alone.

The salon-ruling ex-wife of a former Republican congressman from California, Huffington asks not, “Why did he do it?”, but instead, “Why is anyone surprised?”

Huffington is absolutely on target. As she explains in her nationally syndicated column today, entitled “Tyco Chief's Art of Putting Himself First”:

“The alleged behavior that has him facing prison is exactly the behavior that was the hallmark of his run as Tyco’s swashbuckling, take-no-prisoners CEO….This, after all, is the same guy who, in 1997, moved his company’s nominal headquarters to Bermuda to -- you got it -- avoid paying taxes on billions in overseas earnings. Apparently, life imitates business when it comes to the art of cutting corners.”

To avoid New York City’s 8.25 percent sales tax, Kozloski initially had the paintings, ultimately destined for his $18 million Fifth Avenue apartment, shipped to Tyco’s New Hampshire executive offices.

Later, becoming more aggressive, Kozloski had empty crates shipped to New Hampshire and the paintings shipped to New York. Kozloski’s trusted dealers, who we already know were ripping him off [Ed.: See “The Fleecing of Dennis Kozloski,” June 13, below.], apparently were more than happy to participate in the scheme.

Even more shamelessly, some of Kozlowski’s purchases were financed by no-interest loans originally intended to support employee purchases of Tyco stock.

While this was going on, Kozloski was being lauded in the financial media and cheered by Wall Street analysts who bought his strategy of “growth-through-acquisitions-but-don’t-forget-to-write-everything-off-so-amortization-charges-don’t-kill-earnings-and-be-sure-to-create-reserves-larger-than-needed-to-create-pools-of-funny-money-to-smooth-future-earnings.”

Tyco’s virtually indecipherable financial statements proved to be no obstacle to sell-side industry analysts who helped to push the stock to outrageously overpriced levels. Analysts from such prestigious brokerage firms as Goldman Sachs & Co., Merrill Lynch & Co., and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. thought nothing of applying an above-market multiple on the earnings of an illogical, even nonsensical, conglomerate with a seemingly insatiable need for capital that had its hand in such disparate and unrelated businesses as electronic components, medical equipment and supplies, and burglar alarms.

Huffington’s criticism is refreshingly merciless:

“Somewhere along the way, Kozlowski, the son of a New Jersey cop, began to see himself and the company he led as one and the same. Like so many other CEOs grabbing today’s headlines, Kozlowski adopted the outlook of France’s Louis XIV, who notoriously proclaimed: ‘L’etat, c’est moi’ -- ‘I am the state.’”

And relentless:

“If King Louis was Kozlowski’s historical ancestor, convicted felon Leona Helmsley -- who once declared that only the little people pay taxes -- was his spiritual godmother. Dennis the Public Menace’s progress from tax aversion to tax evasion began with his loophole-exploiting business practices and ended with his defrauding the public out of tax money.”

Huffington goes so far as to psychoanalyze this poster child for unrestrained greed and avarice:

“Last month, prosecutors breathing down his neck, Kozlowski gave the commencement address at New Hampshire’s St. Anselm College. Freud would have had a field day with his message to the Class of 2002. ‘You will be confronted,’ he warned them, ‘with questions every day that test your morals. Think carefully, and for your sake, do the right thing, not the easy thing.’ You could almost see Kozlowski’s superego and id duking it out under his mortarboard.”

But Huffington wins our highest praise for thinking the unthinkable, or at least what is surely unthinkable among her Republican friends:

“We’ve spawned a corporate culture that has made demigods out of those doing the easy thing. Turning it around will take more than noble commencement speeches. It will take throwing a few of those demigods in jail.”

Now if only we could convince Huffington to take aim at some of the purported geniuses of the last bull market. She could create a cottage industry for herself given the number of top executives from the 1990s whose “brilliance” had less to do with their alleged managerial talents and more to do with the raging bull-market bubble.

In case you’re reading, Ms. Huffington, our targets would include, among many others: Jack Welch of General Electric Co.; Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com Inc.; Carly Fiorina of Hewlett-Packard Co. and previously of Lucent Technologies Inc.; John Chambers of Cisco Systems Inc.; Jozef Straus of JSU Uniphase Inc.; Bernie Ebbers, formerly of WorldCom Inc.; Larry Ellison of Oracle Corp.; Kevin O’Connor of DoubleClick Inc.; and David Wetherell of CMGi Inc.

American Style magazine earlier this year asked its readers to provide a list of “their top choices for arts travel destinations based on the richness and variety of visual arts sites, activities and events.”

The results of the poll are in and American Style has published the 25 favorite destinations at the magazine’s web site. According to the editors, “[The readers’] selections underscore the diversity and excellence of arts offerings, from museums and galleries to open studios, craft shows and special arts events all across the country.”

That’s one way of looking at it, we suppose. But at the risk of sounding like Hilton Kramer, we believe the results of the poll provide just the latest evidence that not everyone is entitled to his opinion.

The readers’ top 25 destinations, provided below, include some genuine surprises, not only with respect to the communities selected, but also with regard to their ranking.

Thankfully, the editors of American Style helpfully provide a guide to the goings-on in each of the 25 cities and towns on the list as an aide to understand what thoughts are in the minds of those submitting ballots. From these brief entries it quickly becomes apparent that the magazine’s readers were encouraged to take an expansive view of what constitutes “the arts.”

Thus, Berkeley Springs, W.Va., comes in at number 12. Now with all due respect to the people of Berkeley Springs, which truly is a community of exceptional natural beauty, charm, and sophistication, the entry for the village makes clear that in the minds of the editors of American Style at least, flea markets and trinket shops contribute as much to the cultural fabric as a world-class art museum or symphony:

“Go to the heart of Berkeley Springs at Fairfax Street and art is around every corner. From handcrafted silks to oils and monograph prints, the city boasts a variety of art for all tastes and interests.

“The art community is closely knit under the guidance of the Morgan Arts Council (MAC). MAC provides public openings of galleries and studios, and art shoppers can see the artists at work while searching for new pieces to add to their collections. While visiting Berkeley Springs keep a Friday night open to check out the Ice House Gallery Walk -- you will begin your tour with a reception at Mountain Laurel, then proceed to the Ice House for a gala opening of a special art exhibit. The evening ends with a stop at Tari’s Café where you can enjoy a light meal or snack surrounded by the works of local artists.

“If you are going to be in Berkeley Springs in the fall, make a stop at the annual Apple Butter Festival during the first weekend of October. More than 200 vendors display their works, including traditional and contemporary crafts and antiques. But the festival is more than just an art show -- the entire town gets involved. Each of the galleries and boutiques hosts special events of their own.”

Like the endless lists of “The 50 Best Places to Live,” “The Top 40 Places to Raise Children,” and so forth, which seem always to be urging Americans to pick up and move to some reclaimed, mosquito-ridden, thoughtlessly developed swampland in South Carolina or Florida, the American Style list of leading arts destinations is little more than a tired ploy designed to stir up some “buzz” and sell magazines. Sadly, given the lack of originality endemic to the magazine business, we fear we will suffer these gimmicks in perpetuity.

For what it’s worth, the top 25 “arts destinations” selected by the readers of American Style are:

1. New York
2. Santa Fe/Taos
3. San Francisco/Berkeley
4. Pittsburgh
5. Chicago
6. Seattle
7. Washington, D.C.
8. Boston
9. Buffalo, N.Y.
10. Philadelphia
11. New Orleans
12. Berkeley Springs, W.Va.
13. Asheville, N.C.
14. Los Angeles
15. Phoenix/Scottsdale, Ariz.
16. Athens, Ga.
17. Portland, Ore.
18. Miami (with South Beach), Fla.
19. Saugatuck, Mich.
20. San Diego
21. New Hope and Lahaska, Pa.
22. Sedona, Ariz.
23. San Antonio
24. Carmel, Calif.
25. Baltimore

The Social Register, the 115-year-old black and orange telephone book for what remains of this country’s blue-blood aristocracy, is facing an uncertain future in the early years of the 21st century.

Since the late 1970s the Register has been published by the Forbes family firm, Forbes Inc., which has upset some of the wealthiest Americans living in grand style on Park Avenue along with more paupers than the book cares to admit whose only connection to the Register stems from family lines running back to Plymouth Rock.

According to an article by Frank DiGiacomo in the June 12 edition of the New York Observer -- “The Forbes Family is Scaling Back Social Register” -- Tom Jones, who managed the Register as director of special projects at Forbes, recently left the company. Jones’s position was an important one -- at least for those whom such things matter. It was he who, together with an advisory committee, decided which families and individuals would be listed in the book and which would not.

Denying he had been dismissed by Forbes, Jones, who is 57 years old, told the Observer that the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, together with his having reached “an advanced age and wanting a quieter life,” led him, and not the Forbes company, to decide to “tone down my responsibilities.”

With media companies enduring one of the worst slumps in decades, some industry leaders have questioned whether the Social Register, “which is aimed at a narrow, waning niche,” will remain viable given the Forbes company’s desire to enhance profitability.

Also working against the Register is the book’s longstanding exclusion of Italian-Americans, Polish-Americans, Greek-Americans, African-Americans, Hispanics, and Jews, and albeit to a lesser extent in recent years, Catholics of any ethnicity, including Irish- and German-Americans. There was a time not so long ago when a Protestant whose family was listed in the Register for many years could be abruptly dropped from the book simply for marrying a Catholic.

We have not yet heard whether the Forbes company has named a replacement for Jones, but the Observer reports there has been talk that the job was opened for either Sabina or Moira Forbes, daughters of Forbes chairman, Forbes magazine publisher, political dilettante, and flat-tax fanatic Malcolm S. “Steve” Forbes Jr., both of whom already in the employ of the family business.

When asked whether the Forbes filles were under consideration for the position, Christopher “Kip” Forbes, vice chairman of the family firm and younger brother of Forbes publisher and political dilettante Steve Forbes, responded: “Absolutely. As my father [Ed.: Malcolm S. Forbes Sr.] used to say, ‘At Forbes, we don’t preach nepotism, we practice it.’” Yes, indeed. Among much else we hear.

“Kip” Forbes maintains that the Register remains relevant even today: “Defining society and remembering what it was -- there has always been a demand for it. Its obituary has been written many times, and somehow it keeps rearing its head.”

Not altogether a surprising assessment given that “Kip” and the rest of his family are firmly entrenched in the book.

The most recent edition of the Social Register that we could find in TRR’s library is a bit dated, having been published in 1989. (There was a 1999 edition floating around here not too long ago.) Nonetheless, in that volume, we find quite a few members of the Forbes family, including “Kip” Forbes, his father, and his three brothers.

For those without ready access to the Register, we can at least offer the entries of select members of the Forbes family for our readers’ perusal. We’ll let the readers decide for themselves how relevant the volume is in 2002.

Forbes Mr. Malcolm S. [Now deceased.]
Ny.Ln.Rcn.Eh.StJ.Plg.P’41.
[Translation: Mr. Forbes at the time was a member of the following clubs and associations: New York Yacht, Links, Rittenhouse (Cincinnati), Essex Hunt, American Society of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, and The Pilgrims. Mr. Forbes was a 1941 graduate of Princeton University.]

Forbes Mr. & Mrs. Malcolm S. Jr. (Sabina C. Beekman)
Gr.Plg.P’70
[Translation: Mr. Forbes is a member of the following clubs and associations: Grolier and The Pilgrims. Mr. Forbes is a 1970 graduate of Princeton University.]
Juniors [i.e., children]: Miss Roberta A. and Miss Sabina A.
Residence: “Southdown,” Burnt Mills Rd., Bedminster, N.J. 07921
Telephone: (201) 234-2175

Forbes Mr. & Mrs. Timothy C. (Anne S. Harrison) Br’76
Residence: 366 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10013
Telephone: (212) 962-7623
[Translation: This is a scant listing. From it we surmise, but do not confirm, that Mrs. Timothy (Anne Harrison) Forbes is a 1976 graduate of Brown University; that Mr. Forbes did not graduate from college; that they have no children; and that they belong to no prominent clubs.]

Forbes Mr. & Mrs. Christopher (Baroness Astrid M. von Heyl) Forbes.
K.C.B.Eh.Gr.StJ.Plg.P’72.
[Translation: Mr. Forbes is a member of the following clubs and associations: The Knickerbocker, The Century Association, The Brook, Essex Hunt, Grolier, American Society of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, and The Pilgrims. Mr. Forbes is a 1972 graduate of Princeton University.]
Juniors [i.e., children]: Miss Charlotte A. M.
Residence: “Timberfield,” Far Hills, N.J. 07931
Telephone: (201) 234-1058

Forbes Mr. & Mrs. Robert L. (Raurell-Soto – Lydia S. Appel)
Eh.NCar’71
[Translation: Mr. Forbes is a 1971 graduate of the University of North Carolina. He is a member of the Essex Hunt Club.]
Juniors [i.e. Children]: Mr. Alberto M. Raurell-Soto
Residence: 211 Central Park West, New York, N.Y. 10024
Telephone: (212) 874-9213
Residence: “Timberfield,” Far Hills, N.J. 07931
Telephone: (210) 781-1893

The regime of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, fresh from its latest assault on Ramallah, yesterday began the process of creating a ghetto for Palestinians on the West Bank.

“The decision to build the fence came after Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, floated the idea of security zones in February,” according to an article without a byline in today’s National Post, “Work Begins on Sharon’s West Bank Wall.”

Sharon’s plan calls for the fence to protect Israeli from attacks allegedly arising from the West Bank. “The fence will also delineate the boundary between Israel and the Palestinian territories, which is at present unmarked,” notes the Post’s report.

“Israeli peaceniks [sic] say the barrier simply won't work -- it will be all too easily circumvented, like the vaunted Maginot Line that was supposed to render France impregnable to German invaders,” the Canadian paper says.

More important, certainly to Sharon, though not enough to get him to back away from his despicable project, “[h]ardline Jewish settlers fear they will find themselves abandoned on the wrong side of the fence.”

And certainly of no concern to the Israeli prime minister, “Palestinians, too, object to the barrier, seeing it as the final act of Israeli apartheid, transforming their territories into Bantustans.”

This clearly is a major project. “The continuous barrier will be comprised of a combination of fences and ditches, as well as walls in tense areas, all under the watchful eye of sophisticated electronic surveillance,” according to the Post, using language starkly reminiscent of the demilitarized zone separating South and North Korea and even the Berlin Wall.

The Post reminds readers that Israel already has built similar fences along its borders with Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, and adds that construction has begun on buffer zones to surround all of Jerusalem, the Israelis willfully and cavalierly ignoring years of internationally adopted resolutions and the longstanding position of the U.S.

“Although the fence will be located east of the Green Line -- Israel’s pre-1967 border -- it is not intended as a geopolitical boundary,” we read in the Post. “Rather, it will be a physical barrier, built to boost security and taking into account both the terrain and the needs of the IDF [Israeli Defense Force]….”

The Defense Ministry will expropriate whatever land is necessary to build the barrier, though, in a moment of uncharacteristic generosity, “landowners will be invited to discuss compensation for any land used.” That offer was rendered meaningless, however, when Amos Yaron, civilian director-general of the Defense Ministry, in the words of the Post, discouraged anyone from thinking about “getting rich from the land and the ministry won’t waste time on unnecessary disputes with the owners.”

As best we can determine, though we welcome edification on this matter, President George W. Bush did not raise the subject of fencing in the Palestinians during his meeting with Prime Minister Sharon on Tuesday. No surprise, that, considering Sharon was virtually running the show in Washington this week.

Anyone still operating under the assumption that the art business is a “gentleman’s world” should take a look at how art dealers treated former Tyco International Inc. chairman and chief executive officer Dennis Kozloski.

In today’s New York Post, Paul Tharp writes that Kozlowski, who recently became an active participant in the allegedly glamorous world of fine art, was “taken to the cleaners.”

“Kozlowski, described as culturally unsophisticated and obsessed by the bottom line,” reports Tharp, “paid almost twice the market values of some of the artworks involved in his tax-cheating scandal.”

As has been reported, Kozlowski was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury on charges he avoided paying $1 million in sales taxes on the purchase of six paintings.

Kozloski’s total outlay was more than $13 million, but the works he bought “tended to be overpriced,” art-world sources told Tharp.

The high-living former CEO bought “a rather routine” painting by Sir Alfred Munnings from an unidentified art dealer for $800,000. Sotheby’s sold the painting to the same dealer just months earlier for less than $500,000.

Kozloski bought a “lesser work” by Pierre Auguste Renoir, “Fleurs et fruits” -- estimated by Sotheby’s to be worth between $1 million and $1.5 million -- from European dealer Alex Apsis, for $3.95 million. Apsis had recently acquired the painting for $3.6 million.

“It’s hard to imagine that anyone knowledgeable [about Renoir] would pay that much for that particular work -- it’s very odd,” writes Tharp, quoting an appraiser familiar with the sale.

Finally, Kozloski purchased “a mundane landscape” by Gustav Caillebotte for $1.3 million, a 66 percent premium to the price the dealer paid to pick up the painting from Sotheby’s a few months earlier.

At the height of the price fixing scandal that tarnished the reputations of Sotheby’s and Christie’s, one wag, referring to the auction houses having ripped off art and antiques dealers, observed, “It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving bunch.”

Indeed. And ditto with respect to Kozloski.

We won’t say we feel Kozloski’s pain. Rather, we find it somehow comforting to know art dealers are conning Fifth Avenue as aggressively as plumbers and contractors have been cheating Main Street.

ConWebWatch today has published an all-too enlightening letter from Gary Aldrich in which the utterly discredited right-wing stooge yet again asserts -- and yet again without any supporting evidence whatsoever -- that David Brock’s latest book, Blinded by the Right, “is one lie after another.”

One pities Aldrich, wallowing as he does in a pigsty of illogic and idiocy.

A few quotes:

“[I]nstead of asking me to disprove anything he wrote, efforts should be made by somebody -- Brock -- you? anybody to prove anything that Brock wrote. After all, he’s the admitted liar.”

Here’s a howler to which Aldrich can’t even attach a single name:

“And you’re wrong about my book -- every major journalist in town has admitted I’ve been vindicated. Only the fringe loony left crowd maintains a position that my book is inaccurate.”

Now here comes the punch line:

“Or, you may be Gay. [Ed.: Note the capitalization.] I’ve noticed that Gays tend to defend each other regardless of the facts, and that may be because they think any attack launched against a fellow Gay is evidence of homophobia. Am I right?”

Aldrich follows up by diving head first into Matt Drudge’s lap:

“I couldn’t care less that Brock is Gay. But I do care that he’s a liar, and according to a recent Drudge and Washington Times piece [sic], he’s also emotionally overtaxed, enough to get hospital confinement [sic]. I’m not happy about his illness, but I think one must assume that a person who’s that sick cannot be taken seriously.”

Hop over to ConWebWatch for Terry Krepel’s response. It’s worth the trip.

Drudge’s Non-Scoop Poop

For our part, we would like to know whether Aldrich -- or Drudge -- actually read Brock’s book. We are inclined to believe they didn’t, opting for the easy and juvenile route of flipping through the pages looking for their names and leaving it there.

True, the level of animus with which Aldrich views Brock might lead one to assume that Aldrich did indeed read Chapter 14 of Blinded by the Right, “The Gary Aldrich Affair,” perhaps the most blistering pages of what is a thoroughly devastating book.

Then, just as we did when Drudge started his wildly unsuccessful smear campaign questioning Brock’s mental health, we were drawn back to the end of Chapter 15 where Brock himself writes:

“I was alone, consumed by my tortured thoughts of hopelessness and worthlessness. My mind turned several times over the holidays to slipping away from it all. I saw myself get up from the navy blue sofa, walk into the garage that was attached to the back of the house, close the door, climb into Andrew’s black Range Rover, rev the engine, and breathe in deeply. Maybe David Brock the road warrior of the right literally should be dead.”

Now, we don’t have a psychiatrist on staff here at TRR, but one is hardly required to reach the conclusion that Brock is in this passage discussing a severe bout of depression.

There it is -- Drudge’s big “scoop” -- on page 298 of Blinded by the Right.

It must have taken a major brainstorm for Drudge to speculate, based on this revelation, that Brock eventually sought medical treatment.

Nice job, Drudge.

What a fraud.

Today we learn that the former king of Afghanistan, Mohammad Zaher Shah, has decided not to seek the presidency of his beloved country.

At a news conference yesterday, Zaher Shah praised Hamid Karzai, chairman of the Afghani interim government, who enjoys the strong support of the Bush administration. Karzai is widely expected to win an easy victory in the upcoming elections.

“I’m appreciative of the service rendered by Hamid Karzai and fully support his candidacy as head of the transitional administration,” Zaher Shah said through his spokesman, according to a report in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer. Karzai returned the praise, calling the king “the father of this nation.”

The virtually certain leadership of Karzai creates an opportunity of historic proportions.

Forget about what a meaningful political role for Zaher Shah would have done to create stability in Afghanistan, particularly with respect to bringing support to a new government from the country’s ethnic Pashtuns.

Disregard the long-term foreign policy implications that will grow out of the perception that the U.S. hand-picked Afghanistan’s leadership.

Ignore Alexander Thier, spokesman for the International Crisis Group, an international humanitarian organization, who suggested American support for Karzai was heavy-handed, that the push to take Zaher Shah out of the running “will undermine what will happen in the loya jirga [Ed.: The Grand Assembly.] in the next few days,” and that Afghanis “are concerned that the outcome is preordained.”

The real crisis has nothing to do with foreign policy or international security. Rather, the most important issue is that which confronts the world of high fashion. And the most significant question in that rarefied community is this: How will designers respond to the challenge laid down by Tom Ford, who has indicated he draws inspiration for his men’s wear collection from Karzai?

Ford, the creative director and chief designer at the House of Gucci, in January described Karzai as “the chicest man on the planet today,” a man “whose look is very elegant and very proud.” (Photo gallery courtesy of the BBC.)

Ford, as sharp a businessman as he is a designer, has cornered the market on the diffusion of Afghan fashion, including that for karacul hats, a sort of fez made from aborted lamb fetuses.

We eagerly await the response from Armani, Prada, and Versace.

Today’s Slice-o-Life comes from Philadelphia where spectators attending a court hearing in the so-called Lex Street murders case broke into a street brawl in front of the city’s Criminal Justice Center.

The Philadelphia Inquirer takes us there:

“The crowd in Courtroom 305 sat in a hushed quiet yesterday for nearly three hours, each side looking for justice in the worst mass murder in Philadelphia history.

“Once people were outside, the words turned bitter and the fists flew.

“And after spectators learned the four men charged in the Lex Street murders would remain jailed and that their case was delayed, the tension turned into a series of melees among family and friends of the seven victims and their alleged killers.

“Three people were detained by police for fighting but were later released.

“The action started as loud chatter and shouting in the hallway outside the courtroom as people waited for elevators. Threats were made. Fingers were jabbed in faces. Curse words were aimed like darts. And the men in blue quickly rushed in to try and bring calm. It didn’t work.

“When some young people gathered outside on Juniper Street near the first-floor lobby…tensions ruptured again and punches were thrown.

“‘Don’t let them lock me up’ said a bare-chested Terrance V. Sampson as he was whisked away by police officers and ushered back into the Criminal Justice Center…. ‘They got the wrong people,’ he said of the prosecution’s case.

“Others weren’t surprised at what happened. ‘I’m happy,’ said Tamia Pugh of the brawl. ‘I’m happy because they shouldn’t have been talking [nonsense].’ Pugh identified herself as a cousin of Calvin ‘CJ’ Helton Jr. Helton was one of the 10 people lined up and shot on the dining-room floor of a West Philadelphia crack house on Dec. 28, 2000. Seven, including Helton, were killed.

“In recent weeks, the case against the four men…seemed uncertain as reports emerged that prosecutors were considering withdrawing charges against them because of conflicting witness statements.

“So relatives of the accused killers -- some of them smiling and waving to family as they ate bread and chocolate-covered pretzels -- came to court thinking the four might walk out free men….

“After the brawlers simmered down, few people were talking, rendered quiet by Common Pleas Court Judge Gregory E. Smith’s admonishment about speaking to the media about the case.”

Some of the best commentary on the crisis of confidence in the U.S. equity markets has been appearing in Canada’s National Post. The paper’s string of thoughtful and provocative articles continues today with “Making the Market Safe for More Blodgets” by Steven Maich.

In this article Maich notes that the settlement Merrill Lynch & Co. reached with New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has been criticized for being likely to worsen the faults underlying Wall Street research it is intended to correct.

As widely reported, Merrill Lynch has promised to stop compensating analysts for bringing investment banking business to the firm and has instituted a simpler rating system -- “buy, sell, or hold” -- to be used in its equity analysts’ reports. Most important, the firm’s analysts will be paid partly based on the performance of the stocks they endorse.

The settlement’s critics, using former Internet industry analyst Henry Blodget as their foil, argue that Wall Street analysts would prosper just as well under the attorney general’s proposed rules.

One critic cited by Maich, Boston College Law Professor Lawrence Cunningham, maintains that the “buy, sell, hold” schema “is misleading in that [it] render[s] the complex as far too simple.” He adds that the technology and Internet bubble should have taught the folly of “trying to guess about how the mood swings of the market will treat various companies.”

Blodget ability to assess the market’s mood swings was the key to his success, the critics assert. “It wasn’t that his research was inaccurate, or that companies he touted failed to perform. Many of his key picks skyrocketed,” Maich writes. “When the Internet bull market was raging in the late 1990s, few analysts made more money for their clients than Henry Blodget did.”

Although Maich does not exactly say so, Blodget’s allegedly stellar stock-picking skills stemmed from little more than riding waves of upward momentum that took stocks such as Amazon.com, American Online, and Priceline.com to unjustifiable heights. Having regularly read Blodget’s reports during the period in question, we would agree. If Blodget had a solid grasp of accounting and financial statement analysis, it certainly wasn’t demonstrated in his written work. In our opinion, that was shameless self-aggrandizement (made all the worse by Blodget’s inability to decline interview opportunities) and not, in and of itself, scandalous behavior.

As Maich points out, “The trend was so impressive that pundits openly wondered whether Mr. Blodget was a whiz at recognizing great stocks, or if the market waited to pounce on his next recommendation, making every call a self-fulfilling prophecy.” No doubt the latter in our view. An equity analyst who gets on the squawk box to urge an army of institutional and retail salespeople as large as that of Merrill Lynch to buy a certain stock should be surprised if something other than an increase in the stock price occurred.

It was instead Blodget’s unwillingness to cut his ratings on stocks with poor fundamentals or stocks caught up in a tailspin of downward momentum, or both, that brought disastrous results to the portfolio of some Merrill Lynch clients. The main allegation critics present to Blodget is that he put the firm’s highest priority, namely, attracting and maintaining investment banking and corporate finance business, ahead of the interests of customers reading his reports or catching his sound bites on TV.

“Blodget’s calls usually ignored fundamental analysis of profit and future cash flow potential. His calls were about momentum, market sentiment and market share, all factors that can shift sharply and without warning,” writes Maich.

Frankly, that was a good part of what clients were paying him for. Analysts are expected to recommend stocks that will, not should, trade higher. The most respected analysts in the business do more than that, however. As Professor Cunningham maintains, “Analysts should be helping people understand the internal economics of business. What is the potential to produce additional revenues and profits? What do the margins look like? How able are they to withstand a decline in demand? Can it expand into other markets?”

Wall Street’s Dirty Little Secret

We fully agree with this assessment but would take the argument another step forward by emphasizing that Wall Street research reports in the past were not written or intended for the retail client, i.e., the individual investor.

In an interesting but unnoticed irony, investors who made early money or paper profits in high-flying Internet stocks saw their investments, if one could call them that, undermined by the Internet itself. Companies like Multex Inc. made brokerage reports more readily available to the retail investor, a practice soon adopted by the banks themselves, most of which began distributing their research reports to clients and non-clients either at no cost or for a comparatively modest fee.

However, Multex and the banks did not offer direct access to the analysts who wrote the reports. That remained the province of large institutional investors at investment management firms, pension funds, and insurance companies, those who were paying for the research through trading commissions with the banks and brokers. Analysts and portfolio managers at these firms, the so-called “buy side,” could pick up the phone, call the analyst, and take the discussion far deeper than the superficial level of “strong buy, buy, outperform, accumulate, hold, neutral, underperform, avoid, reduce, and sell.”

It is through conversations like these that a potential investor in a specific stock can sift through shades of meaning; obtain new or more detailed information, statistics, and data; argue a contrary position to determine the strength of the analysts’ convictions; and determine what the analyst truly thinks about the prospects of a specific stock.

And that is the dirty little secret of Wall Street research: Not that investment banking creates a conflict of interest with securities research, but that what an analyst writes in a report and what he or she actually believes can be two different things entirely.

Case in point: Our editor had occasion roughly 18 months ago, while working at Individual Investor magazine, to call upon an analyst at Prudential Securities (now Prudential Financial) to get him to state, for attribution, his opinion about a controversial stock on which he was carrying a “buy” rating. The analyst refused.

It took some prodding, but eventually the analyst conceded, in a moment of refreshing but off-the-record candor, that he did not wish his name to be associated with this particular stock. Among other things, the analyst confirmed our editor’s suspicions that the company’s financial statements were at best based on aggressive interpretations of accounting rules and at worst were deliberately misleading. Instead of talking up the stock, the analyst simply issued the requisite four reports a year summarizing the company’s financial performance during the preceding quarter.

For the record, the company in question subsequently changed its accounting practices and restated past results. Happily, Individual Investor did not recommend the stock, which was then trading for around $20. This morning the stock was quoted at just over $1.

We had planned to publish a piece today about Tucker Carlson’s pathetic performance on “Crossfire” last night, but we see that Media Whores Online already has published remarks that very much match our observations, albeit expressed with greater, shall we say, passion.

Carlson, who apparently has never heard of the Danforth Commission, was once again sputtering the usual party-line nonsense about the Waco Wackos. However, in marked contrast to Carlson’s previous paroxysm on the subject, left unchallenged by Dee Dee Myers, co-host Paul Begala last night called him on it with devastating precision.

Faced with the prospect of immediate humiliation on national television, Carlson fell back on an easy exit: “We need to do a show on this.” Right. Another hour on Waco. Will someone please tell Carlson it’s 2002?

The unofficial and rush transcript of yesterday’s program is available here at CNN.com.

Don’t miss the moment when Julian Epstein, former counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, chastises Carlson for engaging in his favorite pastime -- “to create straw men and then to have us knock them down.”

Epstein’s remark came, appropriately enough, after Carlson asserted “liberals” believe the big story yesterday wasn’t the arrest of suspected terrorist Jose Padilla (a.k.a. Abdullah Al Muhajir), but instead the purported violation of his civil rights.

“You make things up, Tucker. Nobody said that,” Epstein charged in a moment of brutal and withering honesty. Good show, mate.

Godfrey Sperling of the Christian Science Monitor, speculating upon the prospect of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) running for President in 2004, concludes that the former First Lady will be a candidate for the Democratic nomination in that year despite facing long odds and the ill wishes among the vast hordes of “Hillary-haters.”

In an essay published in the Monitor today -- “Why Hillary Clinton Will Run for President” -- Sperling draws parallels between Mrs. Clinton’s current political predicament and that of her husband in the months leading up to the start of the 1992 campaign. Sperling maintains that former President Bill Clinton initially opted in to the `92 race believing that no matter his performance, he would be in a better position to run in 1996 and that Mrs. Clinton views her own prospective candidacy in like manner.

Sperling cites surveys by John Zogby in which the pollster has found that Mrs. Clinton “always finishes a strong second to [former Vice President Al] Gore,” that is, ahead of Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.), and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). The outcome may be surprising given Mrs. Clinton’s high negative ratings, but Zogby points out that Clinton’s “strong negatives” reading reached 46 percent when she ran for the U.S. Senate in 2002, a race she won, and that “her negatives” are now “down in the mid-30s.”

More important, Sperling argues Mrs. Clinton believes her husband’s success vindicates the position she took in the second half of 1991 urging that the campaign move forward despite reports of marital infidelity.

“So it is that even if the sky may be dark for her prospects, I think Hillary will run. She’ll remember how Bill prevailed in the primary and the election after that early period when his prospects didn’t look at all good,” Sperling writes. “She will also figure that even if she loses, she can put herself in a good position for being the nominee in 2008, when the prospect for winning may be much better.”

The Rittenhouse Review on Friday, June 7, published a piece, “All in the Family,” written by me, in which Joshua Muravchik, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and Midge Decter, writer, were asserted to have a familial relationship, namely, that Muravchik is Decter’s nephew.

We have since learned that there is no such relationship.

This error resulted from my not double-checking the two sources upon which I relied for this information.

The first source was Jerry Sanders, who mentioned the purported relationship in his 1983 book, Peddlers of Crisis: The Committee on the Present Danger and the Politics of Containment.

This book was one of dozens of sources I consulted when writing my master’s thesis, “Neoconservative Anti-Communism and American Foreign Policy,” in 1989. Because the purported relationship was not relevant to my thesis and was not used in that study, I did not independently confirm the story at that time. Although I do not recall Sanders having published any other erroneous information, he apparently was mistaken in this regard.

Compounding the problem is that Sanders was cited as the source for the alleged relationship at the web site of The Public Eye, where I had again encountered this information while preparing the article for TRR. Clearly, I should not have accepted this assertion without independently verifying the information.

The second source upon which I relied was a research fellow at AEI, not Muravchik, obviously, who mistakenly confirmed the relationship in a conversation with me that occurred some 10 or 12 years ago. Given that this scholar had known both Muravchik and Decter for many years, it never occurred to me that my acquaintance would have been so badly misinformed or so cavalier with respect to the facts in this matter.

Last night a colleague of mine contacted a member in good standing of the Podhoretz family who said no such relationship exists.

Although I believe I acted in good faith, I should have independently confirmed this story. The painful lesson learned, or re-learned, here is that one cannot always rely upon other writers, or their publishers, to have confirmed every statement or assertion made in their work. I sincerely regret the error. -- J.M.C.

Whatever happened to Chechnya?

Not so very long ago, before they began calling upon the U.S. to wage war worldwide against scores of enemies both real and imagined, the unrelentingly militaristic neoconservative denizens of New York and Washington were up in arms over Chechnya.

As is customary when one of their number has an apoplectic fit of one kind or another, or simply decides the U.S. must, simply must, intervene in yet another Godforsaken scrap of land somewhere, the neoconservatives formed a committee, in this case, the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (ACPC).

All of the usual suspects signed on as “members,” including, among others:

Elliott Abrams, Kenneth Adelman, Richard V. Allen, John Brademas, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Richard Burt, Midge Decter (The right wing’s counterpart to Barbara Ehrenreich when it comes to signing petitions.), Sandra Feldman, Frank Gaffney, Alexander M. Haig Jr., Irving Louis Horowitz, Robert Kagan, Max M. Kampelman, William Kristol (A man who never saw a war he didn’t like, except for those in which he avoided service.), Michael A. Ledeen, Seymour M. Lipset (Still living?), Robert McFarlane, Joshua Muravchik, William Odom, P.J. O’Rourke (Now there’s one who adds intellectual gravitas to the venture.), Richard Perle, Richard Pipes, Norman Podhoretz, Arch Puddington, Caspar Weinberger, and R. James Woolsey.

Our only question after reading this list…Where the hell was Jeane Kirkpatrick when they were passing around the sign-up list?

Granted, there were a handful of new names in the bunch, including Geraldine Ferraro, Richard Gere (Go figure.), Thomas Kean, and William H. Taft IV (What would great-grandfather say?), but all in all it was a veritable reunion of the Committee on the Present Danger, except the gang is older and grayer now, and if one can imagine, crankier as well.

From the ACPC’s web site we learn that the committee, formed in February 2000, is a nonpartisan, non-profit, privately funded committee “dedicated to promoting a peaceful resolution of the war in Chechnya.” ACPC cooperates in its efforts to promote peace in Chechnya with Freedom House and the Jamestown Foundation “to raise awareness about the crisis among policymakers and the general public.”

The Jamestown Foundation outlines its concerns at the ACPC site:

“The war in Chechnya is a humanitarian tragedy, with 50,000 dead and hundreds of thousands homeless. In Russia the war inhibits the growth of civil liberties and democratic institutions. It constrains economic growth. The conflict threatens to spread into Georgia, where United States forces are now engaged as advisors.

“Coverage of the war in the Western press is sparse and sporadic, severely limited by Russian restrictions. The Jamestown Foundation intends to remedy this neglect by publishing new information and analysis and by opening its archives to the public.”

This is a reasonably accurate, albeit by now dated, assessment, though we point out that we know about as much about the war in Chechnya as we do about the war in Afghanistan, given that media coverage of both conflicts has been “severely limited” by Russian and American restrictions, respectively.

Frankly, the Jamestown Foundation’s concerns sound almost quaint in light of the fact that so many of the ACPC’s “members,” who were merely signatories really, have long since moved on to their first love, rallying Americans to support, slavishly and without reservation, the regime of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his thuggish military forces through any means necessary, including intimidation and coercion.

We would be hard pressed to determine the last time any of the ACPC’s signatories last uttered the word “Chechnya.” Indeed, the neoconservatives are using yet another vehicle, the Project for the New American Century (William Kristol, chairman), to force President George W. Bush to adopt a hard-line policy -- one that we believe does not serve the interests of American foreign policy -- in the Middle East. (See the group’s deranged April 3, 2002 letter to the President.) Clearly, for the neoconservatives the urgency of peace in Chechnya has receded.

Meanwhile, the ACPC continues to publish a newsletter, “Chechnya Weekly,” written by John Dunlop, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a generally wise man who nonetheless is mistakenly identified by the ACPC as a “Stanford University Russia Scholar.” A tad light on analysis, “Chechnya Weekly” consists of news articles collected from various media sources but primarily from the Moscow Times and the Associated Press.

As for the ACPC’s schedule of activities, well, let’s just say the pace appears to have eased a bit since the committee was formed. From the committee’s web site we learn of an “Upcoming!” event: Radio Free Europe will screen “Chechen Lullaby: Once Upon a Time There was Chechnya,” a film by Georgian film producer Nino Kirtadze, in two congressional office buildings on Friday, May 10.

Wait…That was last month. Never mind.

It’s all a bit sad, really. But didn’t anyone tell the foundation people that Israel is waging war again?

In a stunning retreat from what remains of corporate dignity these days, PwC Consulting said yesterday that the firm will rename itself “Monday” as it prepares to break away from its parent, the Big Five accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, through an initial public offering.

With this announcement, PwC joins rival Accènture, formerly known as Andersen Consulting, in an attempt to create an image differentiated from the battered -- or in the case of Arthur Andersen -- tattered, reputations of the Big Five accounting firms.

We had hoped that the age of just-too-clever corporate names went out with the crash of the Internet myth in 2000. Alas, no.

Not surprisingly, someone was paid for this latest disaster. In this case, an unknown sum was paid by PwC to “brand consultant” Wolff Olins, a London-based outfit with nearly 200 people on its payroll. Hey…Nice work if you can get it.

Corporate name changes tend to come in waves. During the 1980s it seemed every other company was in a mad rush to build a new identity around its ticker symbol. As that fad petered out, it eventually overlapped another wave of name changes during which seemingly random collections of letters were strung together to form meaningless names with no discernable connection to the firm’s business.

A few firms rode both waves. United Airlines Corp. in 1987 became Allegis Corp., after having acquired a chain of hotels and an auto rental agency, only to drop the name -- at the time widely considered ridiculous -- just a year later, when the firm changed its moniker to UAL Corp., UAL being the company’s symbol on the New York Stock Exchange.

Oddly enough, there is now another Allegis Corp. floating around out there, the name having been picked up or purchased by a privately held “e-business” consulting firm in Menlo Park, Calif. We’re wondering which “brand consultant” convinced the management team that the word Allegis captured the essence of an e-business consultant as well as it did a diversified travel company.

Such names changes can be fraught with risk. When Sperry and Boroughs -- two once legendary and then beleaguered computer makers -- merged in 1986 the new firm took the name Unisys Corp. (For “Unified Systems,” perhaps?) and barely has been heard from since.

We could be at the beginning of yet another wave.

Tricon Global Restaurants, itself the dopey corporate name taken by the parent company of Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut after the businesses were spun off by Pepsico (Tricon is derived from “three concepts,” one for each of the three restaurants), has changed its name to YUM! Brands, incorporating the firm’s too-precious ticker symbol, YUM.

And shareholders of Philip Morris Cos. in April gave the green light to changing the tobacco and food giant’s name to Altria. Something to do with reaching new heights, we think.

Law firms have joined the party, too, shelling out millions in an effort to create “brand names” for themselves. Thus, to cite just one egregious example, the venerable Philadelphia law firm Dechert, Price & Rhoads is now simply “Dechert.” We will miss the ubiquitous ampersands.

According to a report published on CNNfn.com today, PwC believes the name is a perfect fit. Says PwC Consulting chief executive officer Greg Brenneman, “The PricewaterhouseCoopers brand has given us a great heritage. Our new name -- Monday -- is exactly what we want it to be as we create our new business: a real word, concise, recognizable, global and the right fit for a company that works hard to deliver results.”

PwC Consulting spokeswoman Sehra Eusufzai could not comment on how the company came up with “Monday,” CNNfn reports. “Our brand positioning indicates real people, real business and real experience,” Eusufzai told the cable news network. “That's a central part of what we see this name standing for. Secondly [sic], with any new name introduction, there's bound to be a wide range of reactions, and over time it will come to mean what people want it to mean.”

Oh, we get it now. Let the customer decide what the firm stands for. That’s one helluva way to run a business.

We promise not to be too cynical, but we feel compelled to issue a warning on the present danger: former leftist radical and now conservative activist David Horowitz has his hat in hand seeking $180,000 to support his “Defense of Israel” campaign.

For those not familiar, Horowitz is the editor of FrontPageMag.com and “operator” of something called the Center for the Study of Popular Culture. (Operator is his word, not ours. Check the CSPC web site, which apparently is updated about once every two years.)

Herewith a few excerpts from Horowitz’s appeal:

“I’m asking you for your financial support of my Defense of Israel Campaign. I realize that if you care enough about defending Israel to back up your beliefs with a financial contribution, you would want your money to be spent in the most effective way possible.

“Here is what my Defense of Israel Campaign has been doing:

“I sent my booklet ‘Why Israel is the Victim’ to thousands of media outlets including newspapers, magazines, and talk show hosts. The booklet gives the facts on Israel that Americans need to know -- the wars the Arab states have waged continuously, their stated determination to destroy Israel, the falseness of their claims against Israel, and the double standards the world uses to judge Israel and the Arabs. And it includes maps that show dramatically the tiny piece of land Israel occupies, and how precarious its existence….

“I speak out on Israel in frequent op-ed pieces, appearances on TV and radio talk shows, and in speeches in front of organizations and college audiences.

“But we now need to take the campaign to a new level that will reach millions more Americans with the truth -- and show up the pro-Palestinian propaganda campaign for what it is. To do that, I need your help. Here is what we want to do:

“Distribute thousands more booklets nationwide to give many more Americans a factual basis for understanding why Israel must be defended. I want especially to reach politically active citizens, and college students whose impressionable minds are being poisoned by the anti-Israel attitudes of many academics.

“Run an advertisement I have created in newspapers and magazines, to reach millions more Americans with facts about Israel, and to offer the booklet. The ad is headlined, ‘5 Reasons America Must Support Israel.’ It gives essential facts in a clear, readable way. Expand my speaking engagements, media appearances, and writing to reach many more Americans. [Ed.: God help us, every one.]

“The critical job ahead is to show as many Americans as possible that the goal of Yasser Arafat and his supporters is to destroy Israel, not to live side by side with it -- and how vital Israel’s survival is to the survival of the United States and western civilization.”

According to the plea, Horowitz needs to raise the largest amount he has ever sought “at one time,” specifically, $180,000, within 30 days.

Aside from the assertion that Israel is the victim of a propaganda campaign and the reference to “the anti-Israel attitudes of many academics” (Hmm…Last we checked the proponents of divestment of Israel at Harvard University and M.I.T. were out-petitioned by an order of 12 to 1.), we find little in Horowitz’s manifesto to which we would object.

The problem lies in Horowitz himself.

When we envision the tireless and tactless Horowitz mounting yet another of his one-man crusades, we can’t help but think of Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the well-known proponent of “assisted suicide.” Despite our opposition to Kevorkian’s mission, we believe reasonable people may disagree on the subject. But even the most ardent supporters of “assisted suicide” must be embarrassed to have a nut like Kevorkian assuming so prominent a role on the issue’s behalf.

Given Horowitz’s propensity to bring any debate into the gutter, his incapacity to restrain his temper, and his inability to construct a few coherent paragraphs, let alone a sustained argument, we are tempted to think he is a mole for the Palestinian cause.

We wouldn’t wish Horowitz on anyone. Thus we extend our deepest sympathies to the state of Israel and the Israeli people. For their sake, we hope the Horowitz campaign is unsuccessful and that he recedes quickly into the background. Surely the Jews have suffered enough already.

“Mother of All Chick Flicks.”

Yes, that’s what we were thinking, but we weren’t about to say that and the words are not ours. They come from Katrina Onstad, reviewing the new film, “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood,” in today’s edition of the National Post.

Reviews of the film, which opens tonight, have been largely negative:

New York Times, Stephen Holden: “This big, blowzy movie, which opens today nationwide, is more concerned with sustaining a mood of cute chin-up sentimentality than with connecting its dramatic dots….For all its failed connections, ‘Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood’ is nurturing, in a gauzy, dithering way. Its upbeat attitude could be summed up in the title of another recent sudsfest cut from the same sopping piece of fabric: hope floats.”

Philadelphia Inquirer, Carrie Rickey: “Less successful in exploring the long-term effects of mental breakdown than in dispensing short-term comic pick-me-ups, ‘Ya-Ya’ wrings abundant laughter and tears.”

Chicago Tribune, Michael Wilmington: “It’s a likable movie with a great cast, and for about a half-hour or so, I was in its corner….But ‘Divine Secrets’ begins to lose its grip about halfway through, and it winds up closer to a second-string ‘Steel Magnolias’ or ‘Fried Green Tomatoes’ than anything by Tennessee Williams or [Eudora] Welty.” [Ed.: Our expectations weren’t that high.]

Salon.com, Stephanie Zacharek: Director Callie Khouri has an “agenda, which is to craft a facsimile of a real Southern family story but to make sure that we don’t miss the message: Women must stick together, through thick and thin. Women are strong. Southern women in particular, because of their sass and liveliness, can get away with a lot more bad behavior than the rest of us boring old folk, and it’s all OK. It all adds up to something heavily calculated to make us feel good. But it’s really just a beignet that doesn’t sit right.”

We’re not surprised. We have two firm rules that have served us well over the years:

1. No matter how tempting the film may appear, never pay to see a movie that is promoted with trailers that include a scene of three or more women sharing a bonding moment in their underwear. (See also “Practical Magic.”)

2. Avoid films and shows that are better known by abbreviated nicknames than their proper names. (I.e., “Ya-Ya” rather than “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.” See also “Angels in America.”)

Our rules have been validated once again. We’re staying home.

Possibly foreshadowing the fate of the Vatican treasures, the Church of England, facing a financial crisis, is -- literally -- selling the art off its walls.

“The Church of England is Contemplating Sacrilege,” by Simon Jenkins, appearing in today’s Times, is a fascinating look at British history, tradition, and culture, as well as the country’s regional and class disparities.

“The Church of England is so short of money that it is selling the Bishop of Durham’s Zurburáns,” writes Jenkins. “Estimated to fetch £20 million, these 12 Spanish masterpieces are expected to cover half the Church’s current account deficit for one year.”

The decision to sell the paintings to cover regular operating expenses is ominous. Jenkins worries, not without reason, that having burned through the cash from selling the Zurburáns, the Church will then turn to any number of other treasures in its possession as an all-too-easy source of funds.

A long and fascinating history enshrouds the Zurburáns. The paintings, eight-foot-high portrayals of Jacob and his 12 sons, were done by Francisco de Zurburán, a contemporary of Velázquez and El Greco. Thought to have been produced in the 1630s and intended for shipment to South America, the paintings likely were seized at sea by pirates and taken to England. Subsequently, they were purchased by the Bishop of Durham, Richard Trevor, for £124 in 1756.

Until now they have hung in the Long Dining Room at Bishop Auckland, the official residence of the Bishops of Durham. “They fill a room filtered with sombre northern light,” says Jenkins. “It is one of the most moving small galleries I have ever visited. The whole is vastly more than the sums of its parts.”

Jenkins highlights the regional tensions associated with the controversy, tensions that likely strike Americans as archaic, if not strange:

“Nothing better illustrates the contempt with which Metropolitan Britain holds the North than that a disposal of such masterpieces could be contemplated. Nobody would wrench them from a London wall. The Church Commissioners would regard it as sacrilege to sell Westminster Abbey’s Charter of Offa or the Lytlington Missal, or Henry Moore’s Virgin and Child from St Paul’s. I could list a hundred works in southern churches that would fetch excellent prices at Sotheby’s. To the Church, as to other public bodies, north of the Trent is peasant territory.”

British Charity Commission rules require the paintings be sold to the highest bidder, and that, Jenkins notes, is most likely to be a large, well-endowed museum. “Local museums such as the Bowes or Tyneside’s Laing Gallery could not afford these works,” Jenkins observes. “They would almost certainly go to a national museum at home or abroad….The North East would be stripped of one of its prize assets, and all for half a year’s deficit on current account.”

Lamenting the shabby physical -- and desperate financial -- condition of all too many churches in the North, Jenkins argues that funds now directing toward sustaining aged building and properties should have been sold years ago to support stronger, united churches. “Nowhere in Europe has such a proliferation of church buildings as Britain,” writes Jenkins, “many of them sad, gloomy structures, rarely used and blighting their surroundings.” The Zuburáns, he adds, could stay where they are through savings achieved through the consolidation of any number of dioceses in the Church of England, including several in the South.

Jenkins’s concluding observations are as touching as they are quixotic: “The Zurburáns remain the glory of the North. Like the apes of Gibraltar and the ravens of the Tower, they embody the spirit of place. Their departure would signal Northumberland’s demise. In the North they should stay.”

It has become abundantly, and painfully, clear that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has no intention of meeting with, let alone entering negotiations with, Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat. Unconstructive as that stance might be on its own, it is further compounded by Sharon’s inability -- or reluctance or disinclination -- to propose an alternative.

Oddly enough, the Palestinian Authority’s newly established constitution may just hold the key to solving this dilemma. John K. Cooley, former Mid-East correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor, writing in that paper today (“Palestinians Need Hanan Ashrawi”), suggests Sharon meet with Hanan Ashrawi, whom he proposes as Palestinian prime minister -- a new post in a new cabinet.

Arafat, as head of state, already has been urged by influential Palestinians to appoint Ashrawi to the position as head of the Palestinian government. Cooley argues Ashrawi could move the Palestinians toward democratic principles and clean up the corruption that lingers in some quarters of Arafat’s leadership.

She’s certainly qualified for the post. Educated at the American University of Beirut and with a doctorate (in comparative literature) from the University of Virginia, Ashrawi created and then ran the English department at the West Bank’s Bir Zeit University, later becoming dean of the faculty of arts. Not easily intimidated, “Ashrawi found herself physically barring her classrooms to raiding Israeli soldiers who sometimes came to beat and arrest her nationalist-minded Arab students,” Cooley reports.

This experience led Ashrawi to establish the Human Rights Action Project, a post from which she served as a critical point of contact between the Palestinians, Israeli, and foreign diplomats, academics, and journalists. Ashrawi was spokeswoman for the Palestinian delegation to the 1991 to 1993 peace talks, was a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, and served as minister of higher education and research in the Palestinian Authority from 1996 to 1998.

Ashwari is from Ramallah, which provides her with genuine bona fides among Palestinians in the West Bank, and is from a Christian family, thereby offering the Israelis a non-Arab negotiating partner.

Yes, Cooley recognizes Ashwari would face significant challenges. “She might face tough opposition from senior or Muslim Palestinians annoyed or envying the respect she commands among Westerners and Israelis -- or simply because she is a woman and a Christian,” he writes. He doesn’t mention that past statements by Ashwari aggravated the Israelis and made her persona non grata among many influential American Jews.

“But,” he says, “giving her a large share of responsibility for ending violence and moving to a peaceful, two-state system might prove the bold move that could help bring a longed-for peaceful closure.”

When we were in school there were a few professors whose course load included one that earned the appellation “easy ‘A’.” The easy-A courses were highly sought after by aspiring business majors, the less academically inclined athletes, lazy fine arts majors, and first-semester seniors searching for a quick pre-graduate school application boost to their grade point averages.

The easy-A professors might have been known among the student body for their sense of humor, daft opinions, scatterbrained personality traits, but they were rarely, if ever, genuinely respected.

Which takes us to Andrew Sullivan.

Sullivan, who protests the label “toady,” had this to say about President George W. Bush’s address to the nation last night:

“THE SPEECH: A B grade, I’d say. He’s still awful at these stand-ups in front of the camera. The phrases were a little wooden; and no president should start talking about how federal agencies interact. On the bright side, Bush didn’t seem defensive or political (although he’s being both those things, of course); the plan seems a no-brainer to your average guy; he’s still likable and real. But this is the last Karen Hughes guided speech. If Andy Card’s deranged mutterings to Esquire are any guide to his political skills, it’s all downhill from here.”

A “B”? Only a Harvard graduate would inflate last night’s string of sentences -- a “D-minus” speech from a “C-minus” President -- into a “speech” earning a “B.”

Even the reliably partisan John Podhoretz “got” the speech. Here’s Podhoretz in today’s New York Post:

“Last night, the president laid a rhetorical egg. His nationally televised address on his proposed Department of Homeland Security was a stinker.

“It was so poor, in fact, that Democrats who believe Bush’s historic announcement was ginned up rapidly to wrest national attention away from yesterday’s flashy Senate hearings on intelligence failures might actually have a point….

“[H]e did almost nothing to explain why the creation of a massive new Cabinet department with authority over 170,000 people was so vitally important to the American people, to homeland security -- or even to him.

“The only specific new task he mentioned for the department was to produce a daily terrorist threat assessment for him -- and this came after he had just told us that he gets a daily terrorist threat assessment already….

“It was not a performance worthy of this president -- though as a political gambit to change the subject from the Senate hearings, it sure did do the trick.”

We find ourselves in odd agreement with Podhoretz, though we would add one more point.

What to do with Ridge

The President’s sudden support of a Cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security -- as recently as Tuesday he opposed the idea -- may also have been the result of pressure from former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge, the current director of the office. In fact, we have a sneaking suspicion Ridge told President Bush he was thinking of walking, an outcome that would have caused the President a singificant loss of face.

Why would Ridge walk? First, out of boredom. The man took a job without an “in” box, one of the worst mistakes a politician can make. Without the authority to mobilize resources, plan policy, and prepare and administer a budget, Ridge had run out of busy work.

That leads to the second reason, status. Ridge, who certainly has further political aspirations, cannot have failed to recognize that his position -- what with the color-coded terrorist warnings (and less) -- undermined his prestige. Ridge undoubtedly worried about the creeping irrelevancy of the job.

We would hazard a bet that the less-than-flattering -- even embarrassing -- article in Monday’s Philadelphia Inquirer, “Ridge Struggles to Define His Role: As the status of his office sinks, he builds a base outside of D.C.,” may have been the spark Ridge needed to lobby the President for Cabinet-level status. Regardless, we continue to believe the position is a losing proposition. We predict Ridge will be gone within a year.

Richard Parsons, the new chief executive officer of AOL Time Warner Inc., traveled to Washington this week, pleading the case to conservatives that CNN isn’t just for liberals anymore.

According to a report in Roll Call by Susan Crabtree, “DeLay Sees Progress from CNN,” Parsons on June 4 “visited House and Senate leaders to introduce himself…and boost the embattled media conglomerate’s profile on Capitol Hill.”

Parsons’ pilgrimage is not the first by a representative for CNN. Last summer Walter Isaacson, chairman and chief executive officer of CNN News Group, met with congressional Republicans “in an effort to burnish the network’s image with conservative leaders and seek their advice on how to attract more right-leaning viewers.” Isaacson’s mission was regarded at the time as an effort to stave off the encroachment of blatantly partisan Fox News onto CNN’s previously well protected political-news turf.

Parsons’ courtesy calls evidently sowed some goodwill with House Majority Whip Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas). An unnamed Republican aide to the House leadership told Crabtree, “DeLay expressed appreciation that CNN has been willing to listen and improve its ideological balance. They definitely have been reaching out in an effort to improve and listen to both sides.”

Parsons reportedly agreed with DeLay’s assessment of CNN that the network’s programming had improved under Isaacson’s direction. “One aide seized on the comments as an admission that the network had previously reflected a liberal bias,” reports Crabtree. The fact that the aide was trafficking in an obvious non sequitir apparently escaped Crabtree’s grasp.

“Parsons also met with House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.), but the issue of CNN’s coverage did not come up,” Crabtree says, citing spokesman Erik Smith. Why would it have? Rep. Gephardt hasn’t made a career out of divining non-existent bias in the media, nor is he in the habit of brow-beating journalists, the preferred modus operandi of right-wing ideologues like DeLay.

Smith’s assessment of the increasingly unusual relationship between CNN and congressional conservatives is far more rational than that of the unnamed Republican staffer. “Republicans have been whining about this for years, and clearly it’s beginning to take its toll on some very rational people,” says Smith, for which read, CNN is caving.

Face time

Although DeLay himself has appeared on CNN “several times” since Sept. 11, “the combative conservative, who had suggested a GOP boycott of the network just last year, is not completely mollified,” Crabtree reports. DeLay’s complaint? CNN gives members of the Senate more “face time” than it does members of the House of Representatives, “a gripe he has with several networks.”

Perhaps someone should pull DeLay aside for a civics lesson. Just a quick ten-minute tutorial is enough to explain that, despite the Constitution having established that spending bills must originate in the House and that the House elects the President in the event of a tie in the Electoral College, the Senate is, in nearly every respect, the upper chamber. (See also: “Advice and consent,” treaty ratification, impeachment trials, higher age requirement, etc.) Politicians themselves know this, as evidenced by the longstanding aspirations of House members to join their colleagues on the north side of the Capitol.

As Gephardt aide Smith put it, “That’s completely understandable. Senators always get more airtime. Even Fox gives them more airtime, so I would suggest Mr. DeLay start there.”

Moreover, what difference, really, does this make? Although the Senate is controlled by the Democrats, their majority, 51-49, is as narrow as is mathematically possible, making it difficult to argue that giving more attention to Senators is per se unfair to Republicans. Of course, DeLay is just hiding behind this cover. What DeLay is doing when he accuses CNN of giving Senators more attention is that the network reserves more time for Democrats. Since that is DeLay’s complaint, why doesn’t he just say so?

Regardless, there is just no pleasing those Republicans who secretly enjoy walking around with permanent chips on their shoulders. Crabtree cites a Republican aide (also unnamed, possibly the same as the staff member cited earlier) who is still complaining: “What DeLay was mostly concerned about were some of the news shows. But a lot of the commentary shows still have a built-in bias…like ‘Capital Gang.’ And ‘Crossfire’ is really not that interesting anymore either.”

We wonder whether this unnamed and clearly adrift Republican aide finds “Crossfire” less interesting these days is because James Carville and Paul Begala so routinely rout counterparts Robert Novak and Tucker “I’m in way over my head” Carlson.

“Argentinians Say They Heard Terror Alert Weeks Before 9/11,” the Forward, May 31, 2002.

“Defense Secretary: The Peculiar Duplicity of Ari Fleischer,” by Jonathan Chait, the New Republic, May 30, 2002.

“Defining Abuse Down,” by Michelle Cottle, the New Republic, May 29, 2002.

“Hyping the Church and the Holocaust,” by Andy Lamey, National Post, June 4, 2002.

“Indicting Ashcroft,” by Bruno Shapiro, LA Weekly, May 31, 2002.

“The FBI’s Dangerous Drug-War Obsession,” by Arianna Huffington, Salon.com, June 5, 2002.

“Witch hunt on Wall Street?”, by Miro Cernetig, the National Post, June 1, 2002.

Stop by the Houston Press for a fun riff on the second-hand store opened in Houston last month by Linda Lay, the (second) wife of former Enron Corp. chairman Kenneth Lay.

The shop, named “Jus’ Stuff,” opened in mid-May and has been a big hit despite its high price points.

The Lays are using the store as a means to sell furnishings, clothing, jewelry, and accessories to lighten the load that resulted from maintaining at least four separate homes in Houston, Aspen, Colo., and elsewhere.

Other former Enron executives are also selling their wares through Jus’ Stuff, and daughter Robin Lay, we hear, is running the cash register.

Rumors that Andy Fastow is managing the books could not be confirmed.

Our thanks to the great people at BartCop.com for drawing our attention to one of the more creative and humorous sites spawned by the presidency of George W. Bush.

Although the name of the site, Too Stupid to be President, is a little harsh for our taste, the animated cartoons are pretty amusing.

Highly recommended.

Audio and Shockwave required for full enjoyment.

“So former Nixon White House Counsel John Dean is bringing out an electronic book -- that is, a book no one can be bothered to print on paper -- on the 30th anniversary of the Watergate break-in. Moreover, he has announced that he will name Deep Throat. This will be John’s third ‘naming’ of me. Well, everyone needs a hobby.”

The above is a snippet from the latest tract by Christopher Buckley, “Deep Throat Speaks,” published in today's edition of The Wall Street Journal. [Ed.: Link may require registration and/or subscription.]

In certain political circles, Christopher Buckley, son and only child of Mr. and Mrs. William F. (Patricia Taylor) Buckley Jr., is considered a comic genius. His appeal beyond the humorless confines of the offices of the editorial page of the Journal is inexplicable, particularly given that his mother Pat is three times as funny. Hell, even Bill can still make us laugh once in a while. More than 20 years after he began dabbling in humor, the lesser Buckley has yet to make us crack a smile.

To cite just the most recently published account of the ways and means of the quintessential lady who lunches, David Brock, writing in his bestseller Blinded by the Right, relays the details of a November 1996 election-night party he attended at the Buckleys’ Manhattan pied-à-terre:

“When...I arrived at the grand first-floor apartment that seemed to me to sit on an entire quarter city block, I recognized a mummified Pat Buckley, drink in hand, wandering through a wide entry hall as if she had no idea where she was....Not knowing what else to do, I introduced myself, and she said she knew exactly who I was. She had seen a review of Seduction [Ed.: The Seduction of Hillary Rodham.] in the Sunday New York Times a few weeks before....In a manner that suggested she was three sheets to the wind, Pat declaimed, ‘Well, you screwed that up!’” [Ed.: Page 278.]

Okay, strictly speaking it’s not all that funny, but were we forced to choose the Buckley with whom to spend a night on the town, we would choose Pat without hesitation, particularly if she can snag the family’s brown limousine for the night.

It was bound to happen to someone sooner or later. The Bush administration has chosen its fall guy. The apparent choice -- F.B.I. director Robert Mueller III -- is as unsurprising as it is misguided.

Joe Conason, in “Ashcroft’s Failures Deserve a Hearing” (New York Observer, June 5, 2002), makes a powerfully persuasive case that Attorney General John Ashcroft’s head deserves to roll first. “Attorney General John Ashcroft...,” concludes Conason, correctly, “may well be the single most culpable official still in government.”

The Bush administration has spent months assuring us that everything that could have been done to prevent the Al Qaeda-sponsored attacks on U.S. territory on Sept. 11, 2001, had been done. Moreover, key figures in the administration, most notably Vice President Richard Cheney, have thought nothing about questioning the motives and loyalty of those who dared suggest that we as a nation might benefit from a thorough examination of the miscommunication and inaction of a slew of federal agencies with national security responsibilities.

Ashcroft and his allies have three more whipping boys waiting in the wings. Former F.B.I. director Louis Freeh is an obvious target given that he was appointed by former President Bill Clinton, but he doesn't have a job to lose. Next up, then, C.I.A. director George Tenet. Tenet long has been a bête noire of the neoconservatives due to his opposition to a pardon for Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard. Third in line is counterterrorist chief Richard Clarke.

In a remarkable coincidence, one that surely will be suppressed by the more partisan Republicans in coming weeks, all three men were vocal advocates of devoting greater resources and attention to suspected terrorist threats during the months leading up to Sept. 11.

In contrast, Ashcroft repeatedly demonstrated -- until as recently as Sept. 10, 2001 -- that monitoring and evaluating potential terrorist threats in the U.S. would not rank among his top priorities. Ashcroft’s agenda instead emphasized “the war on drugs,” pornography, and assisted suicides, hearkening back to the glory days of former Attorney General Edwin Meese, a stance that has won him the eternal loyalty of the far right. Ashcroft enjoys a wide range of political allies within and without the Bush administration; Mueller can barely compete.

Conason argues, convincingly, that those asking for Mueller’s head on a platter should reread the New York Times of Feb. 28, 2002, in which there are considerable details about Ashcroft’s first budget proposal. Ashcroft submitted that proposal to the White House on Sept. 10, 2001, on which date Mueller had been director of the F.B.I. for a grand total of seven days.

Ashcroft’s Sept. 10, 2001, budget proposal sought to increase spending on 68 programs under his purview, “none of which,” according to the Times, “directly involved counterterrorism.” Conason, summarizes portion of the original article, adds:

”[Ashcroft] had rejected the F.B.I.’s request for funding to hire hundreds of new field agents, translators and intelligence analysts to improve the bureau’s capacity to detect foreign terror threats. Moreover, among his proposed cuts was a reduction of $65 million in a Clinton program that made grants to state and local authorities for radios, decontamination garb and other counterterror preparedness measures.”

Conason wisely reminds us that between Freeh’s departure from the bureau on June 25 and Mueller’s Sept. 4 oath of office, Ashcroft was “in a real sense...in charge of domestic security while warnings were ignored or misplaced and opportunities to prevent tragedy were lost.”

Ashcroft, lacking the decency to answer the most basic questions about his misguided priorities, persistent inaction, and blatant disorganization, instead has proposed putting more power and responsibilities into the hands of a Justice Department that already has proved to be woefully incompetent. As Conason puts it, “In a bureaucracy that was already inundated with information that couldn’t be sorted into the categories of useful and useless, [Ashcroft] proposes to collect still more.”

Heads will roll. The wrong heads, but they will roll.

While Larry Miller and Andrew Sullivan traffic in fantasies of terrorism in the French capital, Israel's ambassador to France, Elie Barnavi, is standing by his original take on recent events, namely, that the May 23 fire at the Israeli Embassy in Paris was the result of an accident.

In the latest issue of the Jerusalem Report we find an interview of Ambassador Barnavi by Nicholas Simon, “Brief Encounter with Elie Barnavi.” Unfortunately, Simon does not provide the date on which the interview occurred, but it is the latest mention of the fire we have encountered in the U.S. and foreign media.

Asked how the fire affected him, Ambassador Barnavi said, “I feel sadness for the loss of collective memory and the efforts and work of dozens of years; but at the same time, great relief that no lives were lost. I thank all the French politicians, police and rescue services, private citizens and institutions who offered help.”

Then, asked specifically, “Was it an accident, or could it have been arson?”, Barnavi responded, “The investigation is still going on, but the signs indicate it was an accident caused by a short circuit.” [Ed.: Emphasis added.]

And that one sentence is all he had to say. We have not clipped the quote.

One can't help but think Miller and Sullivan would be thrilled to learn the fire was caused by arson, particularly were it sparked by native Frenchmen. Such an outcome would enable both men to continue avoiding the troublesome issue of “French anti-Semitism” and face up to the likelihood that this alleged phenomenon reflects the actions not of the French themselves but of a small minority of the many Arab and North African Muslims who have made France their home.

Or perhaps Miller and Sullivan will make Ambassador Barnavi a participant in their daydreams, the sordid conspiracies that have captivated their imaginations. He was, after all, appointed to the French ambassadorship by that old softy, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

Time will tell.

It’s always a little surprising, a more than a bit amusing, to encounter a Brit posing as a gourmand in order to look down his nose on the purportedly uncivilized Americans.

Thus, we draw your attention to Matthew Engel of The Guardian, who today in “Raspberries to Strawberries” writes about the relative merits of American, British, and European fruit. Guess who wins.

The tirade comes from a man whose country’s culinary gifts to the world include spotted dick (a pudding-type gelatinous mass made with beef fat and raisins and sold in a can), kidney pie, deep-fried Mars bars (very popular in Scotland), and mushy peas (for those Brits with teeth so decayed that regular boiled peas pose too great a masticulatory challenge). Even that which is edible, Digestive Biscuits, for example, has a creepy air about it.

California strawberries, Engel maintains, taste like Polyfilla (that is to say, plastic). The state’s tomatoes “have the characteristics of cricket balls without the yumminess” (could be. . . we haven’t tasted cricket balls). And the Red Delicious apple has the “flavour of moist papier mache” (Engel means papier mâché, but no matter, we actually agree with him on this one.)

In a gracious, and therefore stunningly un-British and un-European aside, Engel concedes he’s talking about harvested fruits, not garden-cultivated delicacies:

“Not all the fruit is like this. There are roadside stalls in the countryside, and tucked-away farmers’ markets, and ‘specialty gourmet stores.’ But it is probably easier to score dope at Mormon Tabernacle choir practice. Also, the stuff is never cheap and quality is patchy.”

Oh, so there is good produce in America, after all. If Engel weren’t so typically British in his laziness, he would find himself with top-notch fruits and vegetables on his plate every day of the week.

“Leaving home, I expected a modicum of culinary deprivation,” writes Engel, who quickly notes the ready availability of Marmite (A yeast extraction. Think motor oil, with salt.) in the U.S., while lamenting the absence of orange squash.

But Engel, apparently without realizing it, proceeds to negate his entire diatribe about California fruit:

“I have come to believe that the British consumer has one unexpected advantage. Fruit ripens most deliciously when it ripens slowly, which will happen at the coldest edge of its climatic range. That’s why English strawberries knock the pants off Californian or Spanish.”

Slow ripening. Hmm. Is that the reason British berries allegedly taste better or is it because a Brit is more likely to encounter strawberries cultivated in modest quantities on small plots than that which is produced on the vast farms of Central and Southern California? The reason is, indeed, the latter, and Engel as much as said so two paragraphs earlier. Thus Engel is comparing, well, apples and oranges.

Those dreadful California farms may not generate the luscious produce of a lovingly tendered backyard garden -- and despite Engel's tantrum, virtually every American knows this -- but they are a means of feeding a hungry world. If Engel and his compatriots have a better suggestion for doing so, we’re all ears.

The honor code of the University of Virginia is once again mired in controversy.

Established in 1842, the honor code is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, still in use among American institutions of higher education. The honor code forbids lying, cheating, and stealing, and tolerating others who do, while the student is at U.Va., off grounds in the city of Charlottesville or Albemarle County, and, if beyond these confines, while otherwise representing the university.

Administered by the students and governed by the honor committee, the code’s most controversial feature is the single sanction -- expulsion -- available to the committee as punishment for those found guilty of violating the code.

U.Va. students agree to comply with the honor code upon applying to the university and then pledge their adherence to the code on all major assignments, including term papers, and examinations, which are often given in the absence of proctors.

How things work

"Honoring the Code," by Noel C. Paul in today's edition of The Christian Science Monitor provides a thorough examination of the history and administration of the honor code. According to Paul's report, the latest ruckus over the honor code arose after a massive scandal last year when more than 120 students were accused of plagiarism, all on the same term paper submitted in the same course at the end of the same semester.

The course, “How Things Work,” apparently had a reputation among U.Va. undergraduates as a easy mark for cheating, what with nearly 400 students taking the course each semester and the papers having been graded by several different graduate assistants. Learning this, Bloomfield created a computer program designed to detect similar phrases in his students’ term papers.

“Applying the program to 1,500 papers from four semesters of ‘How Things Work’ yielded startling results: More than 100 papers showed overlaps in sentences, paragraphs, and entire compositions,” writes Paul. “A refined search turned up a higher number of problematic papers later.”

“It was new to me that people were recycling papers,” says Bloomfield. “For me, it amounted to a failure of society to question what a degree means.”

With an astonishing 158 of his students facing honor code investigations in the 2001-2002 academic year, Bloomfield was relieved of his teaching responsibilities in the spring semester in order to testify in the proceedings. According to the Monitor, of the cases concluded so far, 93 students have been exonerated, 41 students have withdrawn or been expelled, and a degree was revoked from a student who already had graduated.

The relevance of a 19th century relic

The honor code was established in 1842, two years after Professor John Davis was shot to death on the Lawn amid a season of poor student-faculty relations. Most students and faculty members assumed -- or knew -- a student was responsible for Davis’s death, but the perpetrator refused to come forward, nor was he turned in by anyone else.

The majority of students cherish the code as a working system of justice that distinguishes U.Va. from other schools and creates an atmosphere of trust and respect. Others wonder whether the code, “conceived in the antebellum South,” is still relevant and workable today. And some students believe athletes and minorities are unfairly singled out, even monitored, by students with ulterior motives.

The code’s sole sanction has been controversial for decades and proposed changes that would expand the honor committee’s range of penalties have been voted down, usually by wide margins, each time they were presented to the student body (faculty members do not vote on proposed changes to the code). The latest vote, in February, asked students to authorize the penalty of suspension for accused students who confessed to their transgression. The proposed change was defeated by a two-to-one margin.

Although students are obligated to report apparent infractions of the code by their peers, as a practical matter many are reluctant to file reports because of the severity of the single sanction. Typically, only the most egregious violations are reported.

“Despite the turmoil, most people at the school believe the system might work best by being left alone,” writes Paul. “Few think that cheating happens here more than at other schools, and even critical students leave the university cherishing the honor code as though it were a foundational document of the nation itself.”

Let tradition and honor prevail

Although the Monitor’s report was thoughtful and comprehensive, we take issue with a few aspects of the article.

TRR’s editor maintains, without equivocation or hesitation, that the honor code appeared to be functioning properly and well during his studies at U.Va. No incident of cheating was observed and the security of one’s personal belongings was never in doubt. Now, this was some twenty years ago, and things very well may have changed since then, but there is a climate of trust at U.Va. that is almost immediately perceptible and greatly appreciated by the students.

Paul’s article places considerable emphasis on the challenges posed to the honor code by the increasing diversity of the student body. In our view, this is misguided.

He writes:

“If the values of U.Va.’s student body -- initially all-male and aristocratic -- were once relatively uniform, they are now varied. Today’s students bring to campus nuanced perspectives on crime and punishment, as well as on the credibility of accusers and the accused.

“Critics argue that the process of distinguishing dishonorable behavior has been complicated by the diversification of experiences, priorities, and values on campus.

“ ‘Students here cheat less, and take honor seriously,’ [student] Brandon Almond says. “But many people want to see the school’s good-old-boy network updated.”

Paul is dancing on the head of a multicultural pin here. His praise of the “varied values” and “nuanced perspectives” are as much excuses as they are explanations. And the notion that students from different backgrounds are unable to make the same judgments as to what is or is not “dishonorable behavior” is patronizing. Moreover, the suggestion that the honor code stands in the way of breaking through the “good-old-boy network” is absurd.

One could fairly assume that the larger number of students who are neither male nor aristocratic (nor “white,” a minor attribute implied but not mentioned) should lead to greater compliance with the honor code. Indeed, the “good-old-boy network” likely prevents many infractions being reported, as each protects his own in an atmosphere that is visibly clubby. The way to challenge this network would be to ensure compliance with the honor code from all students, and cross-cultural reports of genuine infractions, likely to be less onerous or feared from a social perspective, are one way to facilitate such change.

Moreover, Paul failed to recognize, let alone mention, the existence in the honor code of the toleration clause -- a student doesn’t lie, cheat, or steal “nor tolerate others who do.” The language makes clear that those who cheat and those who fail to report them are both violating the code in equal measure.

As a result, Paul cites one student, Anand Jain, who elected not to make an accusation of honor code violations he witnessed specifically because of the single sanction, without cognizance of the fact that Jain’s inaction was itself a violation of the honor code. Perhaps the student’s pity quote fit altogether too neatly into the article: “The way the system is now, faculty and students don’t want to deal with it. It’s easier to say that we live in an honorable society and leave it at that.”

We feel compelled to point out one glaring, though not particularly important, error in Paul’s article. He writes that while on the rooftop of Clemons Library one is afforded “a view of the Blue Ridge Mountains and Monticello, the hilltop home of the University’s founder, Thomas Jefferson.” Paul is confused. There is a stately residence, visible from the library’s roof, that is located on a hill to the west of the grounds, and another, visible from parts of the Lawn, that is to the south. But neither is Monticello. Alas, one simply cannot see Monticello from the grounds of the University of Virginia.

We remain among those alumni who continue to support and revere the honor code as it is now written and as such we urge the students at U.Va. to remain steadfast in their opposition to enacting changes that would undermine its integrity. We further urge students to live up to the demands of the honor code, not only by resisting the temptation to lie, cheat, or steal, but also by pledging to uphold the tolerance clause by not tolerating those students who commit such transgressions.

“Ozzy underwear, action figures or bandannas. Cigarette lighters, TV trays or beach towels with unprintable expletives. . . . They're all available now that the King Family of Raunch has signed a master licensing deal with Signatures Network in San Francisco.”

And so begins the story of Master of Rock’s master licensing agreement, or MLA, “Ozzy Goods to Hit #*! Shelves,” by Dan Cox, in today’s New York Post.

To the above list, according to Cox, we may add “backpacks, notebooks, caps, wallets, hosiery, loungewear, stickers, dart boards and action figures.”

Though it escaped our notice, Signatures Network, a San Francisco firm, has been marketing Ozzy merchandise for 20 years. Dell Furano, the company’s chief executive officer, says 55 licensing agreements covering more than 300 products already have been signed.

Furano tells the Post’s Cox he anticipates sales of Ozzy-related merchandise will reach $200 million this year, a level that, if achieved, would put another $10 million to $15 million into the Osbourne family coffers.

As for the underwear, rest assured it's not his, it just has Ozzy's name on it. We checked.

Is this a great country or what?

Henry Blodget is alive and well and living in New York, according to Fortune magazine’s Devin Leonard in a piece entitled “Blodget in Exile.”

Blodget, a former equity research analyst at Merrill Lynch & Co., grew famous -- and infamous -- for riding both sides of the Internet wave. Through seemingly constant appearances on CNBC and quotes in the pages of The Wall Street Journal, Blodget helped propel the stocks of low-concept fly-by-nights to stratospheric levels. And he continued to talk up the house’s stocks as they deflated, many to single-digit territory and some eventually into bankruptcy.

Blodget left Merrill Lynch in December 2001, but his name remains synonymous both with the firm (or at least its late 1990s excesses) and with the Internet craze itself. But Blodget’s past haunts him. Accused of publicly promoting stocks that he disparaging in private, Blodget won for himself the special ire of New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and an inquiry by the Securities and Exchange Commission, and became the focus of class action lawsuits filed by disgruntled Merrill Lynch clients.

The former analyst’s legal problems prevent him from talking with reporters: “The only time Blodget makes a public statement these days is when he gives a deposition,” writes Leonard. But those who know Blodget say he doesn’t appear to be particularly worried, is looking fit, living a more relaxed lifestyle, and writing a book -- his second, as it turns out.

Blodget’s editor, Jonathan Karp, says the book is about “coming of age in New York.” Karp has set his sites high: “It's our hope that this book will define an era, as other literary memoirs have done.”

Karp may be engaging in hyperbole, but then again, maybe not. It turns out Blodget long has had literary aspirations. He began his career with various low-level editorial positions and even traveled in literary circles (or at least sort of: Elizabeth Wurtzel, Larissa MacFarquhar). And Blodget wrote a book in the early 1990s, though it was never published. Unfortunately, Leonard doesn’t reveal what the book was about, or if it was any good.

Karp, who last we checked was a senior editor at Random House, could be just the man to help Blodget pull this off. Karp edited Kara Swisher’s outstanding work, AOL.com, as well as Susan Orlean’s The Orchid Thief and Faith of My Fathers by John McCain.

Blodget as Jack Kerouac. Who knew?

With all due respect to Esquire and the women they love, TRR herewith introduces a continuing series, “The Women We Admire.”

The first honoree is Marlene Ball, a real estate broker in Westchester County, N.Y., whose specialty is not sales of homes in the upper brackets but rentals for the middle and working classes.

We found Ball in a remarkable piece by Matthew Purdy -- "The Rent Is an Arm and a Leg" -- in today’s New York Times. A divorced mother of three daughters, Ball has sold her share of homes in Westchester, probably best known for such toney enclaves as Bedford, Bronxville, and Chappaqua, and where the median price for a home runs around $450,000. Westchester’s not-so-hidden secret is that despite such exclusivity, the county has one of the highest rates of homelessness in the U.S.

From the start of her real estate career Ball found herself working the county’s tight rental market because, as a single mother, she preferred the fast cash that comes from rental fees over the lugubrious payouts associated with home-sale commissions.

It’s not easy work. The National Low Income Housing Coalition, according to Purdy, estimates that a person earning the minimum wage would have to work almost 26 hours a day to afford a two-bedroom apartment in the county, a feat even the county’s hardest-driving, hardest-hearted entrepreneurs cannot possibly achieve.

And what is on the market is often barely livable. Westchester has its share of Tudor homes, large estates, and weekend country homes, but that is a world largely to the north of the older and less hospitable environs of large portions of Yonkers, Mount Vernon, White Plains, and Rye. In these cities and towns, among others, that one finds old, decaying, and vermin-infested housing stock; high crime rates; and deplorable schools.

Ball’s clientele says it all. It took nearly a year for Ball to find a place for a mother of two earning $30,000 a year, and that was only after the client, with Ball’s help, found a public subsidy to help pay the bill. Another client, a driver, needed four years to find his $650 a month studio. Square footage: 200 or 225 square feet, depending on who’s measuring.

Above all, we admire Ball’s spirit and attitude:

“High-end people -- how can I say it? -- don’t know what it’s like to be on the other end.”

“When you work with poor people, you wake up grateful.”

“[Open houses are] such a waste of time, to sit around drinking coffee and say ‘Oh, that’s such a nice outfit.’”

So here’s to you, Miss Ball. You’ve won our admiration and respect. A small prize, no doubt, but one that is richly deserved.