WSJ Ed Page Roundup

The Wall Street Journal carries several excellent pieces on its editorial pages this morning. Jonathan Stevenson, Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval War College writes about the Bin Laden tape (subscription required):

...it is tempting to dismiss bin Laden's offer as a haughty act of desperation, or an effort to buy time, as terrorist cease-fire proposals often are. A more nuanced extension of this logic would be that he is explicitly dialing back his ambition of a global caliphate and would now settle for a limited U.S. stand-down, which could help render his demands moderate enough to become subject to at least tacit accommodation. Such thinking would be wishful, and not much more. Even if he really wanted to work toward coexistence, he wouldn't be able to deliver his end of the bargain precisely because he no longer enjoys close operational control over most of those he inspires. His word could be countermanded by Zarqawi, by a Moroccan in Spain, or by a British Pakistani. Quite simply, bin Laden's ideology and résumé have become bigger than the man himself. [emphasis added]

As we wrote last week, the goal is and always has been the return of the 9th century Caliphate. What Bin Laden thinks doesn't matter so much as the fact that radical movements only tend to get more radical over time. (Witness for example, the Democratic party which, as Bill Bennett is pointing on his show right now, honestly believes that it has not been shrill enough in its opposition to the president. Guess I'll be going long on tin foil for some time to come...) And speaking of dangerous nut cases, Melanie Kirkpatrick writes about Kim Jong-il's trip to China (subscription required):

...every indication that North Korea is liberalizing is countered by evidence of precisely the opposite. Last fall, the government banned the private farmers' markets that fed much of the urban population. Shortly before Kim's journey, Pyongyang announced the end of international food aid that had been feeding up to a third of the people. It evicted the World Food Program and told European aid groups to get out by spring. Now, Pyongyang will have to find other sources to avoid shortages. Two million died in the famine of the late 1990s. And that's where China and, especially, South Korea come in. Pyongyang blithely takes their food aid, which has few or no conditions attached. The U.N., by contrast, requires in-country monitors to confirm that aid was delivered to the starving civilians for whom it was intended. [emphasis added]

Score that as a rare piece of positive news on the First Street Mafia (aka, the UN).

Shelby Steele positively sparkles in this must-read piece (free at OpinionJournal) demolishing Hillary's plantation remark and highlighting a fundamental strategic problem Democrats face:

[Her remark] came from a corruption in post-'60s liberalism and Democratic politics that profoundly insults blacks. Mrs. Clinton came to Al Sharpton's MLK celebration looking for an easy harvest of black votes... Mrs. Clinton's real insult to blacks--one far uglier than her plantation metaphor--is to value them only for their sense of grievance... Once black grievance is morphed into liberal power, it need never be honored... It is hard to fully respect one's suckers...

Precisely because Republicans cannot easily pander to black grievance, they have no need to value blacks only for their sense of grievance. Unlike Democrats, they can celebrate what is positive and constructive in minority life without losing power. The dilemma for Democrats, liberals and the civil rights establishment is that they become redundant and lose power the instant blacks move beyond grievance and begin to succeed by dint of their own hard work...

No other potential Republican candidate could--to borrow an old Marxist phrase--better "heighten the contradictions" of modern liberalism and Democratic power than [Condi] Rice. The more ugly her persecution by the civil rights establishment and the left, the more she would give liberalism the look of communism in its last days--an ideology long since hollowed of its idealism and left with nothing save its meanness and repressiveness. Who can say what Ms. Rice will do. But history is calling her, or someone like her. She is the object of a deep longing in America for race to be finally handled, not by political idealisms, but by the classic principles of freedom and fairness.
[emphasis added]

Those are just a few of the insightful gems that are making me a bigger Steele fan with every new piece of his I read. Take a look.

Finally, for those who (like me) tend to fall into a complete stupor at most analysis of Supreme Court goings-on, there is this insightful piece by James Taranto (free at OpinionJournal) on the unanimous Planned Parenthood vs. Ayotte non-decision decision last week. Taranto notes that it was necessary to insulate the court (and the country) from the scorched-earth politics that would be likely once either Stevens or Ginsburg retires if a split decision had been rendered in this case. At least somebody is thinking ahead...