Reno's Idea of a Threat

Janet Reno is the Democratic Party's nominee for governor of Florida. In this race, her order that heavily armed paramilitary agents snatch Elian Gonzalez at gunpoint from his Miami relatives may turn out to be an albatross. But there are other ugly events hanging around her neck as well. Consider her priorities back in the spring of 1993.

On February 26, a rented Ford Econoline van loaded with 1,500 pounds of homemade explosives pulled into the parking garage under the World Trade Center. Eyad Ismoil, a 21-year-old Palestinian, was the driver. The bomb went off at 12:18 p.m., blasting a five-floor deep crater into the garage. The explosion crippled the Twin Towers: no lights, no heat, no elevators, no fire alarms, no sprinklers, no public address system, no power to the police and fire command stations. Within three minutes, smoke had reached the 33rd floor. The massive blast displaced 6,800 tons of material and flooded the World Trade complex with 2 million gallons of water and sewage. The body count: six dead and more than 1,000 injured. Ismoil and company had aimed to kill 35,000 by bringing the tower down. 

That same day in Washington, Janet Reno was focused on the failure of an obscure religious community in Texas to obtain gun permits. 

Two days later, while New Yorkers were still digging for bodies, Reno and her agents dispatched National Guard helicopters to raid the Branch Davidians in Waco. Their crime? Illegal possession of firearms. 

After seven weeks of slipshod negotiating and bizarre strategies like depriving the Davidians of sleep by blasting recordings of the screams of rabbits being slaughtered, Attorney General Reno finalized her plan for a raid using Army Special Forces advisers, heavy weapons, and CS gas. Bill Clinton signed off on it. At 6:02 a.m. on April 19 tanks began ramming holes into the compound and spraying gas. By the end of the day, amid an assault by tanks, planes, flame-throwers, and snipers, 74 men, women, and children had been burned to death in a firestorm. This included 12 children younger than five years of age. 

Janet Reno, in short, executed the largest law enforcement killing of civilians in U.S. history. None of the victims had ever bombed an American building, or attacked anyone.

Why Reno's misplaced focus at the very moment when the seriousness of Islamic foreign terror had just become thunderingly clear? Because for the Left, few things are as scary and unacceptable as a rural gang of armed religious white males. When it came to foreign terrorists, Reno and Clinton always seemed to have another pardon to grant, another pain to feel. President Clinton never visited the WTC site. He and Reno actually discouraged Americans from "overreacting" to the bombing.

Janet Reno's Justice Department, which attacked religious dissidents in Texas and right-wing Cuban exiles in Miami with a vengeance, didn't find bloodthirsty terror important enough to act against. The information which recently led President Bush to shut down Middle East "charities" that paid annuities to the families of suicide bombers was actually recorded by Janet Reno's FBI back in 1993. Yet during her watch, FBI agents were prevented from opening either criminal or national security cases--because that would have involved "profiling" Arabs.

America wasted eight years under Janet Reno and her boss by not going after the real nuts in the world. Will Floridians want to hand her the levers of power again?

—TAE contributing writer Ralph Reiland is the Simon professor at Robert Morris University. 

Dad gets a Hip Replacement

Father's Day will be here in a trice, and there is a good chance that the nation's liberal press will take the occasion to deliver another of its periodic batterings of the nuclear family. Consider last year's offering in the New York Times.

The paper's homage to dads took the form of three autobiographical essays. The first was by a single father. The second was by a married man who went on and on along the lines of: "In no way, shape, or form am I suggesting that membership in a nuclear family demonstrates moral superiority to those who, through choice or circumstances, have opted for other familial configurations. Far from it. In many cases, nuclear families have retained their monadic status simply because...the children are not strong enough to force one or more parents to clear out." What that means is not entirely clear, but the general message seems to be that if you have to be a throwback to another era, at least acknowledge that you're dated.

The final essay began with the author learning from his girlfriend of six months that she was, as people used to say, in the family way. "The last thing either of us thought about was marriage," he explains. He is suspicious, he admits, that she might still run off with her ex. She thinks he might leave town on an assignment and never come back. Nonetheless, they decide to have the baby.

This is as close as the Times comes to a happy family ending: "While I was watching Harper roll over and sit up and crawl for the first time, his mother and I were also still learning to be a couple. We were testing the boundaries of our worlds, learning what it means to come home." The motto seems to be, Ask not what you can do for your kid; ask what he can do for your relationship. Brings a whole new meaning to fatherhood. Which is presumably what the Times editors had in mind. 

—Naomi Schaefer is a TAE contributing writer.

Cloning is Cloning is Cloning

From remarks by President Bush about human cloning legislation, April 10, 2002:

In the current debate over human cloning, two terms are being used: reproductive cloning and research cloning. Reproductive cloning involves creating a cloned embryo and implanting it into a woman with the goal of creating a child. Research cloning involves the creation of cloned human embryos which are then destroyed to derive stem cells.

I believe all human cloning is wrong, and both forms of cloning ought to be banned, for the following reasons. First, anything other than a total ban on human cloning would contradict the most fundamental principle of medical ethics: that no human life should be exploited or extinguished for the benefit of another. 

Secondly, anything other than a total ban on human cloning would be virtually impossible to enforce. Cloned human embryos created for research would be widely available in laboratories and embryo farms. Once cloned embryos were available, implantation would take place. Even strict policing would not prevent this.

Third, even if research cloning were medically effective--the benefits of re-search cloning are highly speculative--every person would need an embryonic clone of his own, to provide the designer tissues. This would create a massive national market for eggs and egg donors, and exploitation of women's bodies that we cannot and must not allow. 

Good Riddance to Another Bit of the '60s

From a recent speech in New York City by TAE contributing writer Frederick Turner, a professor at the University of Texas, Dallas:

After Vietnam, America brushed the uncomfortable need for warriors and warrior emotions under the carpet. Our military were treated like an inferior caste, untouchables who did our dirty work and were expected to keep it quiet. Now, with the insane vision still before our eyes of the two great trade towers flaming like gigantic roman candles, and the spiritual shriek of thousands of humans blazing in the pyre, we can no longer hide from ourselves the hells and heavens of war. If we do not recognize the heroism of the soldier, we will again be attacked by those who see our "peacefulness" as cowardice. Only if our idealism burns hotter than that of our enemies will we prevail over them. As Rudyard Kipling put it, speaking of elite disdain for the British "Tommy" (or common soldier) in an earlier era:

Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy
     that, an' "Tommy, how's yer soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when
     the drums begin to roll--
The drums begin to roll, my boys,
     the drums begin to roll,
O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when
     the drums begin to roll....
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that,
     an' "Chuck 'im out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when
     the guns begin to shoot.

Bad Idea

The Education Reform Act passed recently by Congress and President Bush tripped over political correctness in its failure to fix one longstanding disaster in education law--1975's Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). IDEA's goal is noble: to guarantee the right to "a free and appropriate education in the least restrictive environment" for every child no matter what the child's physical, emotional, or mental disability. But in practice this law has made it virtually impossible to remove chronically disruptive and dangerously violent children from the classroom. Special Education classes today contain not only physically handicapped children but also many with vague "learning disabilities." Significant numbers are chronic disrupters, or even dangerous. 

A central Florida boy who had repeatedly threatened to kill his assistant principal could only be suspended for a maximum of ten days. School officials in Orange County, California could not remove a child who hits, kicks, and bites his teachers and classmates; a federal court ruled that school officials must honor the demand of the child's father that he stay in class. A North Carolina student broke her teacher's arm--and could only be suspended for two days. An Oklahoma City student stabbed a principal with a nail and was suspended for three days. 

The House of Representatives voted a year ago to give school systems more authority to remove violent youngsters from school and provide lessons at home. The Senate added a similar amendment to the Education Reform bill but conferees, kneeling before the wishes of disability-rights proponents, caved in and removed it. As a result, parents can block many efforts to move or reassign a violent or disruptive child.

Thanks to Congress' surrender to interest-group pressure, public schools are caught in an absurd dilemma: They have no authority to ensure a safe and productive learning environment. But they may be held liable for failing to do so.

—Tait Trussell is a contributor to the Orlando Sentinel.

Red Cross Blackened

The Orange County, California chapter of the American Red Cross canceled the appearance of a music group at a March event honoring New York 9/11 volunteers because the group planned to perform songs that include the words "prayer" and "God." 

"Somebody has gone a little overboard" at the Red Cross, said Cherilyn Bacon, director of First Act, a choral group made up of students from a nearby performing arts middle school. The group was invited to sing "Heroes' Trilogy," a special post-September 11 arrangement of "America the Beautiful," "Prayer of the Children," and Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA." 

First Act's rendition of "Declaration," a song that includes the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence, was also deemed inappropriate. Bacon says Patricia Johnson, a representative of the local Red Cross, told her that the Declaration is "a political document that...may offend." Lynn Howse, public affairs director in the Orange County Red Cross office, defended the decision. "We need to remain a neutral organization," she said. 

Cindy Boragno, mother of one of the performers, was stunned by the Red Cross's action. "What rot! This is outrageous," she said. "To think that the word 'God' cannot be used in a song." Student Malorie Bryant was disappointed at the withdrawal of the group's invitation. "We were so excited to finally be able to perform our special 'Heroes' tribute to the real heroes themselves." 

Surmised choral director Bacon: "By taking this 'neutral' position, the Red Cross has just offended most of America." 

—Journalist Ron Strom posted a longer version of this story on WorldNetDaily.com. 

Assaulted by TV

The longstanding argument over whether TV-watching can spur personal violence just got clearer. A detailed 17-year study of 707 randomly selected families found that people who watched more TV as teens and young adults showed increased rates of assault, fighting, robbery, and other aggressive acts in later years. Of 14-year-olds who watched less than an hour of television a day, 6 percent committed an aggressive act by the time they turned 22; that percentage jumped to 23 percent among those who watched one to two hours a day, and to 29 percent for those who watched three or more hours per day.

The study is the first long-term observation of the impact of TV on teens and young adults, rather than just on young children. "These researchers have shown that if you follow people from adolescence and early adulthood on, TV viewing predicts aggression," explains Brad Bushman, a psychologist at Iowa State University and 15-year veteran of media-aggression studies.

The study's lead author, Columbia University psychologist Jeffrey Johnson, points out that 60 percent of general TV programming involves violence, with an average hour of prime time showing three to five violent incidents. It has always seemed logical that witnessing violence regularly will have a desensitizing effect on people. With this latest research, the burden of proof now rests on those who choose offhandedly to dismiss TV's anti-social effects.

High Altitude Pressure

According to the Wall Street Journal, airlines are increasingly encountering obese passengers who cannot fit into plane seats without severely pushing into the passengers assigned to sit next to them. Traditionally, really fat customers were supposed to buy the adjoining seat they filled, but today's normal-sized fliers must more often simply endure their half-seat situation--because lawsuit-skittish airlines are reluctant to enforce the take-two-seats-buy-two-seats rule on what they call "customers of size." Walter Lindstrom, director of the Obesity Law and Advocacy Center argues that "if you buy a ticket on an airline, you're not buying a seat, you're buying passage--however many seats that means."

Medical Clown

Some moviegoers will remember Patch Adams from the 1998 Robin Williams film celebrating him. A Virginia doctor who made a name by providing free care to anyone who needed it, and "connecting" with his patients by dressing as a clown, the true-life Adams presents himself as a paragon of virtue within the greedy medical industry. 

But even doctors who advertise themselves as choosing compassion and generosity over money and power must finance their activities. Adams travels the lecture circuit as a motivational speaker, accepting some 300 speaking arrangements annually at fees (according to a speakers bureau that sponsors him) of up to $20,000 per appearance. 

"The truth," he told students and faculty of the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Services, is that "our government doesn't give a crap about its people." Politicians are "owned" by corporations. President Bush in particular is "a liar, stupid, and a dangerous man." 

"Pharmaceuticals are made to make investors rich," he warned. Someone who invented a cure for AIDS should just give the drug to everyone who needs it, rather than selling it to a pharmaceutical company, he urged. Even government-provided universal health care wouldn't satisfy Adams, because in our capitalist nation it would still be overpriced, according to him.

It isn't that Adams is indifferent to financial considerations himself. He laments not having received any of the millions of dollars raked in by those who made the film about him. His attitude toward capitalism was best expressed by his answer to a student who asked how she could follow his lead and still pay back her educational loan. He suggested that she simply renege on it. 

Of course, if many students followed this advice, the pool of funds for educational loans would soon dry up. By the same token, American pharmaceutical companies, instead of being the world leaders in developing new medicines as they now are, would never develop another drug if medicines had to be given away. 

Most Americans don't see any inconsistency between taking one's profession seriously and trying to earn a respectable living. But then again, not many of us can command $20,000 for a speaking engagement, whether in a clown suit or not.

—David Schaefer is a professor at Holy Cross College.

China's Economic Facade

For some time, China has claimed an annual economic growth of at least 7 percent. But real life casts doubt on these figures. Visitors see scores of rural people camped out at railroad stations or on sidewalks with nothing to do. Block after block of abandoned construction projects in cities suggest a severe lack of funds. The recent proposal that stock be sold to raise money for the Three Gorges Dam public works project points at the same problem. Almost-daily protests by workers, many violent, are also a clue that all is not well in the land of the mandarins. 

Moreover, official figures don't make sense: How can energy use be falling in a booming economy? Why is unemployment rising, as government statistics show? (Imports continue to rise, however.) Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji recently told a television audience in his country that China's economy would have "collapsed" without the state stimulus spending currently taking Beijing's government debt to record levels. Given that Zhu Rongji is someone who chooses his words carefully, the term "collapse" is alarming. If the economy is burning up the track, why has state borrowing for pump priming been necessary?

The truth is, Western observers have been badly misled by Chinese statisticians. A shining exception is Professor Thomas Rawski of the University of Pittsburgh, who has made highly persuasive empirical presentations over the past year, including a recent one at the American Enterprise Institute, suggesting that China's economy may actually have been contracting rather than growing since 1998. 

China's actual unemployment rate may be four times the official rate of 4.5 percent, Rawski reports. Chinese debt is also far higher than official figures indicate, and, though almost entirely domestic (unlike the debt in Indonesia, which suddenly melted down a few years ago), possible default still poses profound threats to the economy as well as to social stability.

How could so many people miss trends this important? It is the chronic pathologies of China watchers--their groupthink, their wishful thinking, their fear of offending the Chinese, their willingness to swallow China's official numbers--that cause such blindness. 

While "economic reform" is constantly proclaimed, it's not practiced consistently. The only way China can create sufficient jobs is by adopting a free-market system. Such a system, however, leaves no room for a Communist Party. So the necessary economic reform is impossible without political change. 

After Mao's death, something had to be done to prevent the complete impoverishment of China--and it was. But it was done in a way that left the country's economy now utterly dysfunctional, bifurcated between capitalist and socialist production. Large state enterprises that manufacture goods people don't want and don't buy are kept afloat by "loans" (never repaid) from the massive savings the Chinese people entrust to the state-controlled banks. The rule of thumb: If your business is state-controlled and losing money, you qualify for big transfers. If your business is private and growing, you do not. That is a recipe for economic collapse. 

—University of Pennsylvania professor Arthur Waldron is director of Asian Studies at AEI.