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This column is adapted from the Best of the Web, which is issued daily at OpinionJournal.com. (C)2004 Dow Jones Company Inc.RETURN OF THE SAN FRANCISCO DEMOCRATS The Associated Press reports that a new Pew poll, conducted for the Council on Foreign Relations, finds that “concern about national security is dominating public attention in the final months of the presidential campaign”-as well it should in a time of war. But there’s a troubling finding on page 7 of the poll results (link in PDF): Asked, “Might U.S. wrongdoing have motivated [the] 9/11 attacks?” more than half of Democrats, 51%, said yes. (So did 17% of Republicans and 45% of independents.)“Somehow, they always blame America first,” Jeane Kirkpatrick said in her celebrated 1984 speech about the “San Francisco Democrats.” If John Kerry becomes president next January, we will be led by a man who belongs to a party in which the majority view is that Osama bin Laden’s terrorism is America’s fault.KEYES’S RIGHT TO RUN It appears we erred in yesterday’s item about Alan Keyes when we attributed Keyes’s ability to run for Senate in Illinois to lenient state residency requirements. In the 1995 case of U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down state laws limiting the number of terms members of Congress could serve, on the ground that, in the words of the case syllabus, “the Constitution prohibits States from imposing congressional qualifications additional to those specifically enumerated in its text.”Article I, Section 3, Clause 3 of the Constitution stipulates the qualifications for a senator: “No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen” (emphasis ours). Presumably this means that states cannot impose additional residency requirements.SECULARLISM AND SITZPINKELN Reader Reid Heller has an interesting theory as to the movement in Germany to force men to sit down while urinating, which we noted yesterday:In the historical books of the Hebrew Bible you will find in several locations the phrase mashtin b’kir (“urinates on the wall”). It is used as an idiom for men. (See I Samuel 25:34; I Kings 14:10, 16:11 and 21:21.) Since theHebrew idiom assumes a standing position, I interpret this pan-Europeanfashion in a more sinister light: The standing position must go because itis the last thread connecting the European Union to the biblical tradition.Yet oddly enough, last week we were in fiercely secular France, and the men’s rooms in every gas station and highway rest stop we visited had either Turkishstyle toilets or ordinary toilets without seats, so that standing was virtually de rigueur. In at least this respect, then, the French have not yet surrendered to the Germans-though of course the Germans were a lot more of a threat when they had a standing army.WHAT WOULD JESUS DO WITHOUT EXPERTS? “Experts Ask: How Would Jesus Vote?”-headline, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Aug. 18GUESS WE WON’T HAVE ONE THEN “Sex Change Can Cause Headache”-headline, Reuters, Aug. 18WHAT WOULD WE DO WITHOUT CANADIAN STUDIES? “How to Maximize Life Satisfaction: Canadian Study Shows Cheerfulness Helps, Depression Hurts”-headline and subheadline, WebMD Medical News, Aug. 18YOU DON’T SAY “A Beer Guy Can’t Go Wrong Having a Vacation That Starts and Ends With a Good Brew”-headline, Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times, Aug. 17BABY’S GONNA BUY ME A DIAMOND RING “Ring tones” for cellular telephones “have proved to be such a lucrative side business for cell phone companies that record labels in the United States have decided they want a piece of the revenue,” the New York Times reports. “Warner Brothers Records in the last few days began showing commercials on MTV and MTV2 for a set of voice-greeting ring tones recorded by members of the punk band Green Day”:Taste is not the first notion that springs to mind when sampling theGreen Day ring tones, which cost up to $2.49 each. They include the bandmembers belching and cursing, as well as offering witty ripostes. “Pick upthe phone!” demands Mike Dirnt, the band’s bassist, in one. “It’s yourmother. I know. She’s with me.”The Times reports that last year ring tones were a $3.1 billion business worldwide-but American consumers accounted for a scant $150 million. Which proves once again that Americans are the smartest people in the world.

Best of the Web

Best of the Web

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