Rachel's Revenge

By JAMES TARANTO

A Palestinian Arab from eastern Jerusalem "went on a deadly rampage" through Israel's capital with a bulldozer, the New York Times reports:

At least three people were killed in the path of the lurching vehicle, and more than 40 were wounded, Israeli officials said. . . .

Three Palestinian groups claimed responsibility including Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, a group affiliated with the mainstream Fatah movement led by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. But it was not clear if any of the claims were credible. . . .

Witnesses said they saw the Caterpillar end loader set off close to midday from a building site at one of the busiest intersections in the predominantly Jewish, western half of the city, between the central bus station and the popular Mahane Yehuda market. The hulking vehicle turned into Jaffa Road, a main artery that runs through the city's commercial downtown area, immediately slicing through the drivers' cabin of a small white van and flipping a silver Chevrolet on its side.

Continuing along Jaffa Road, the driver used the end loader's massive serrated scoop to overturn a bus from the Egged public transport company and leave a swath of tangled wreckage about 300 yards long, mowing into several other cars and colliding with a second bus.

The police believed the driver may have intended to plow his vehicle into the crowded market.

News reports suggest that the terrorist was a construction worker who hijacked the bulldozer he had been hired to drive. He was shot dead by an Israeli policeman.

Where would anyone come up with the twisted idea of using a tool of construction as a weapon of murder? We actually may have an answer to that. On March 16, 2003, as we noted the following day, the Israel Defense Forces were carrying out an operation in Rafah, Gaza, to fill in tunnels used by Palestinian terror groups to smuggle weapons in from Egypt. A misguided 23-year-old American named Rachel Corrie, as a "protest" against Israel's self-defense, interposed herself between an IDF bulldozer and a tunnel. Tragically, the soldier driving the bulldozer did not see Corrie, and she was literally crushed.

Anti-Israel activists accused the soldier of deliberately running Corrie over. They might have thought they were merely slandering the Jewish state. It is possible that in the process they were giving ideas to future terrorists.

Stay Away From Palestinian Rams
"Palestinian Rams Tractor Into Traffic, Killing 3"--headline, New York Times, July 3

The Campaign and the Smears
James Kirchick of The New Republic has a piece on Politico.com that is drawing a lot of attention. Titled "Who's Smearing Whom?," it argues that Barack Obama's campaign is presenting a false narrative:

Writers Evan Thomas and Richard Wolfe concluded that the 2008 presidential election will be no different. "It is a sure bet that the GOP will try to paint Obama as 'the other'--as a haughty black intellectual who has Muslim roots (Obama is a Christian) and hangs around with America-haters."

But has it been a "sure bet?"

Not really. Thus far, no one with any serious affiliation to John McCain's campaign has resorted to the alleged "scare" tactics in which Republicans--and, apparently, only Republicans--have been perfecting since Richard Nixon was first elected. On the contrary, if the past few months have showed us anything, it's that the Obama campaign is the one dealing in crude smears.

There have been only two incidents in which people officially associated with McCain have done anything approaching what Thomas and Wolfe predicted those dastardly, conniving Republicans would inevitably do.

Kirchick is right as far as he goes. But things get a bit more complicated. Whatever its source, there is a lot of dubious or false information about Obama floating around; quite a bit of it has crossed our desk. We have no reason to think that the McCain campaign or the Republican Party has been actively spreading this stuff, and we do have reason to think that people close to the Clintons have been doing so.

The Washington Post reports from Findlay, Ohio--a Republican stronghold--that people there are inclined to believe many of the tales about Obama:

A swing voter who entered this election leaning Democratic, [Jim Peterman] faces a decision that is no longer so simple as a choice between Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain, he said. First, he must pick the version of Obama on which he will stake his vote.

Does he choose to trust a TV commercial in which Obama talks about his "love of country"? Or his neighbor of 40 years, Don LeMaster, a Navy veteran who heard from a friend in Toledo that Obama refuses to wear an American-flag pin? . . .

When people on College Street started hearing rumors about Obama--who looked different from other politicians and often talked about change--they easily believed the nasty stories about an outsider.

"I think Obama would be a disaster, and there's a lot of reasons," said Pollard, explaining the rumors he had heard about the candidate from friends he goes camping with. "I understand he's from Africa, and that the first thing he's going to do if he gets into office is bring his family over here, illegally. He's got that racist [pastor] who practically raised him, and then there's the Muslim thing. He's just not presidential material, if you ask me."

The locals in Findlay were not pleased to be made fools of in the national press, as the local paper, the Courier, makes clear in a news story and an editorial. For our part, we can't fault the Post for its reporting, but we do wonder: Has it ever occurred to a reporter at the Post or a similar newspaper to go to a Democratic stronghold--say, the Upper West Side of Manhattan--and report on the crazy things people there believe about George W. Bush?

It is also worth noting that the Obama campaign does not necessarily have an interest in separating fact from fiction. Reread that passage from the Post piece, and you'll notice that two of the "rumors" it cites are true: Obama did refuse to wear an American flag pin, and he did have a racist pastor. Obviously Obama would rather have you think of him as the victim of a smear campaign than focus on those things about him that are both damaging and true.

Accountability Journalism
Here is the beginning of an Associated Press story about the presumptive Republican presidential nominee:

John McCain has changed his mind about the president's tax cuts and drilling for oil off the U.S. coast, . . .

The subject of the article, headlined "McCain to Talk Free Trade in Latin America," comes at the end of the sentence:

. . . but the Republican presidential hopeful says his advocacy of free trade is unyielding.

In a story about a subject on which McCain has been steadfast, the AP begins by referring gratuitously to other subjects on which he has not. Would the wire service give Barack Obama the same treatment?

Here's another dispatch in which the AP starts with a bunch of throat-clearing complaining before getting to the good news that is the real story:

No matter who is elected president in November, his foreign policy team will have to deal with one of the most frustrating realities in Iraq: the slow pace with which the government in Baghdad operates.

Iraq's political and military success is considered vital to U.S. interests, whether troops stay or go. And while the Iraqi government has made measurable progress in recent months, the pace at which it's done so has been achingly slow.

The White House sees the progress in a particularly positive light, declaring in a new assessment to Congress that Iraq's efforts on 15 of 18 benchmarks are "satisfactory"--almost twice of what it determined to be the case a year ago.

Oddly, the headline isn't negative or even neutral: "New Iraq Report: 15 of 18 Benchmarks Satisfactory."

Clarification, Please
"Some Houston residents are upset after Korans were left on the doorsteps of hundreds of homes in their neighborhood as part of a campaign to educate people about Islam," FoxNews.com reports:

Residents of Braes Timbers in southwest Houston began finding the holy books two weeks ago, MyFOXHouston.com reported. The Korans came with a note saying they had been left by the Book of Signs Foundation, which claims to have distributed 30,000 free copies of the texts to residents throughout the city.

"If we went into a Muslim country and left a Bible, we would be in prison and then decapitated a few years later," Sue Ann Pieri, a resident who chose not to destroy the book, as other neighbors did, told MyFOXHouston.com.

The foundation, which left the books on doormats or hanging from doorknobs, said in a note accompanying the Koran that "rather than judging Islam and Muslims by the actions of a few, we want our fellow citizens to judge us by the book that influences and guides the lives of over 1 billion Muslims."

It strikes us that Pieri and her neighbors are being small-minded here. True, many Muslim countries are intolerant of other faiths, but that neither justifies nor necessitates intolerance here.

At the same time, this has us a bit confused about the rules. Non-Muslim U.S. servicemen at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have to wear gloves before handling Korans, on the theory that an infidel's touch would desecrate them. How come that doesn't apply to Korans left on Houstonians' doorsteps?

He Held the Cigarette in One Hand, a Machine Gun in the Other, and Planted One Foot on Either Side of the State Line
"Police and FBI agents captured an ex-convict suspected of killing eight people in two states as he smoked a cigarette outside of a southwestern Illinois bar Tuesday night."--Associated Press, July 1

First He'll Have to Make a Case That Rocks Are Alive to Begin With
"Rothbury Hopes to Make a Case for Rock Immortality"--headline, Detroit News, July 2

Sting Meets Obi-Wan Kenobi
"Police Plan Show of Force for Uptown's July 4 Celebration"--headline, Charlotte Observer, July 2

Where's the American Library Association When You Need It?
"Mayor Seeks to Suppress Texts"--headline, Detroit News, July 2

There Was No Salesman, and the Farmer Didn't Have a Daughter. It Was Just a Joke.
"Correction: Midwest Flooding-Farmers Story"--headline, Associated Press. July 1

'Waiter, There's a Head in My Food!'
"Marks & Spencer Reports Sales Slump, Ousts Food Head"--headline, Bloomberg, July 2

Dude, USA Is No. 1!
"Report: U.S. Has Highest Rates of Cocaine, Marijuana Use"--headline, USA Today Web site, July 1

Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control

• "Earth's Core, Magnetic Field Changing Fast, Study Says"--headline, National Geographic News, June 30
• "Australian Crocs Hit by Cane Toad 'Wave of Death' "--headline, NewScientist.com, June 27
• "35,310 Lego Star Wars Clone Trooper Army Invades Earth"--headline, Gizmodo.com, June 30
• "Earth's Screams Recorded in Space"--headline, FoxNews.com, July 2
• "Cops: 3 Cars Stolen in 12 Days . . . by a 12-Year-Old!"--headline, WCBS-TV Web site (New York), July 1
• "French Man With Two Asses Surprises Swedish Officials"--headline, Local (Stockholm), June 30

News You Can Use

• "80 Per Cent of Men Face 'Female Sex Pests' "--headline, Daily Mail (London), July 2
• "Warm Glow From Magic Mushrooms Can Last for Months: Study"--headline, Agence France-Presse, July 2
• "Poisoning by Puffer Harder Than in 'Dr. No' "--headline, Chicago Sun-Times, July 2
• "Morbid Thoughts Whet the Appetite"--headline, University of Chicago Press Journals press release, June 27
• "Antifreeze Can Unfreeze Ice Cream, UW Scientist Finds"--headline, Capital Times (Madison, Wis.), July 2

Bottom Stories of the Day

• "Quayle Respects Obama, McCain Has Uphill Battle"--headline, Associated Press, July 1
• "Poll: Obama Beats McCain as Barbecue Guest"--headline, Associated Press, July 2
• "Congressman Edwards Coy About Obama VP Chances"--headline, Houston Chronicle, July 2
• "Barbra Streisand Backs Obama"--headline, Reuters, July 1

Poultry in Motion
Everything seemingly is spinning out of control, at least for Texans who like cookouts, reports Houston's KTRH-AM:

The price of food has forced many Houstonians to give up their plans for a barbecue on the Fourth of July.

"I think I'm just going to eat beans. I'm not going to eat barbecue this year, no meat," says one man who says beef has become too expensive.

How much has the price of meat risen? According to KTRH:

"Soda prices haven't gone up, beer prices have not gone up, hot dog and some processed food prices have not gone up," says Brooke Coleman, the Executive Director of the New Fuels Alliance and a contributor to the web site, foodpricetruth.org.

Coleman says the price of beef, chicken, pork and bread products will run about three percent more than in 2007.

Three percent? That means if you spent $50 last year on steaks for your family, you'd spend $51.50 this year. That hardly seems enough to justify going vegetarian. Coleman explains why meat is so pricey:

He blames transportation costs, saying the average chicken travels more than a thousand miles from farm to market.

In the old days, of course, chickens flew economy class, but then PETA complained that packing them in like that was inhumane.

(See all of today's editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on Opinion Journal. Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Michael Segal, Lawrence Weiss, Eli Bear, Michael Zukerman, Ami Avivi, Mordecai Bobrowsky, Martin Shimp, Yitzchak Dorfman, David Gerstman, Sam Moeller, Ezzie Goldish, George Mitchell, Alex Margolin, Monty Krieger, Nathan Wirtschafter, Ed Lasky, Terry Hinshaw, Bruce Goldman, Jon Bateman, Paul Sepe, Joel Fine, Joe Tenenbaum, Biff Gaut, Israel Pickholtz, Kyle Kyllan, Rod Pennington, Ronald Cansler, John Williamson, Curtis Krumel, Mark Finkelstein, Mark Nicholas, Paul Boyer, Brendan Schulman, Terry Holmes, Jim Orheim, Evan Slatis, Ray Hendel, Arlene Ross, Dan Magli, Bryan Fischer, Harding Rome, Scott Hill, Diane Shomper and Jared Jameson. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)