Claudia Winkler

NO LESS SURREAL than the details of Saddam Hussein's hideaway--the copy of "Crime and Punishment," the Catholic image headed "God Bless Our Home," the can of 7-Up--were the photographs of reporters crawling all over the compound, inspecting it minutely, and even personally trying out the "spider hole." Whatever else it may prove to be, be the capture of Saddam is already a triumph of openness.

THERE'S NO GAINSAYING the quality of many of the people who are risking their lives to build the new Iraq. On that score, it was gratifying to learn that Rend Rahim Francke will represent the Iraqi Governing Council in Washington. A longtime supporter of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and one who pledges political allegiance only to the democratic center, Francke is discerning, judicious, determined, and brave.

IN THE TURBULENT and dangerous politics of Pakistan, credible public figures willing to stand up for pluralist democracy are no commonplace. So it was a privilege to meet with Afrasiab Khattak and Asfandyar Wali Khan--middle-aged men who between them have spent more than a decade in prison in the course of their careers opposing military dictatorships--on their recent stop in Washington.

IT'S WORTH RECYCLING John Burns's stunning denunciation of corruption in the media, already touted on Andrew Sullivan's indispensable blog on Tuesday and elsewhere since.

The scandal of some Western media's silence about the atrocities of Saddam Hussein's regime, of course, is old news.

THEY'VE DONE IT AGAIN. This time liberals have backed themselves into the position of defending library patrons' right to view pornography at federal expense.

They've landed there by way of excoriating the Children's Internet Protection Act, which the Supreme Court yesterday upheld 6-3. This law requires obscenity-blocking filters on computers in public libraries where the computers are paid for with federal grants or the Internet access is subsidized by Washington.

TEN MONTHS AGO, the man The Daily Standard called Egypt's Sakharov was sentenced to seven years in prison for his work promoting democracy. Last week, Saad Eddin Ibrahim passed through Washington a free man, and recounted his remarkable acquittal on appeal by Egypt's highest court.

It's a heartening story on several counts. The outcome is a new lease on life for one of the most articulate, tireless, and personable promoters of democracy in the Muslim world.

"TOO GOOD TO CHECK" is the technical term for a story like the censoring of "Guernica." Secretary of State Colin Powell, so the story goes, went to the United Nations to present the case for war against Iraq to the Security Council, then took questions from the press standing before a blue backdrop--a backdrop specially erected at the insistence of the warmongers to conceal a tapestry version of Picasso's great painting depicting the horrors of war.

The episode was a bonanza for antiwar, anti-Bush propagandists and those eager to believe them.

IN A NOBEL LECTURE YESTERDAY that is a familiar mixture of personal self-satisfaction and national self-abasement, Jimmy Carter names the greatest challenge in the world today, and it is us: the tragic failure of the wealthiest nations to cure the poverty of the poorest.

Implicitly, the second-greatest problem is also us: our failure to recognize that war is evil and to embrace "the premise that the United Nations is the best avenue for the maintenance of peace."

Let's start with the self

THE DAILY STANDARD welcomes letters to the editor. Letters will be edited for length and clarity and must include the writer's name, city, and state.

*1*

Beth Henary's Things Go Right in Texas does a great job of capturing what happened here in Texas during the 2002 election. As for that "latent Democratic base" of voters, I think they may be in more trouble than just having lost all the state wide races, and control of the legislature.

AS CONGRESS settles in to debate the confrontation with Iraq, one truly terrible policy option is off the table: Virtually no one is calling for a mere resumption of old-style U.N. weapons inspections as a way to contain Saddam Hussein. Suddenly, even outside the charmed circle of President Bush, his national security team, and their stalwart ally Tony Blair, "inspections" are now taken to mean inspections authorized by a tough new U.N. resolution demanding immediate compliance or else. From Senator Ted Kennedy to chief U.N.