Here and There, Feb. 22

The San Francisco Chronicle is not reporting the remarks made by Congressman Tom Lantos in Germany earlier this week. Lantos, who represents some of San Francisco's southern neighborhoods and suburbs, is also the ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee. Speaking at a German-American economic conference in Bonn, Lantos expressed his strong support for German-American business ties. He also had sharp criticism for the French and German governments' Iraq policy, which he characterized as "misguided", and singled out Chirac for making "sick anti-American tirades". He reminded his audience that the NATO alliance is not a "one-way street", that the United States "has done more for Europe than Hussein has"; and that "certain European leaders need to re-learn the lessons of the 20th century" that a policy of appeasement and rapprochement with dictators doesn't accomplish anything. (Lantos, you may recall, was born in Hungary and fought both the Nazis and the Communists before immigrating to the US in 1947).

One would think that the Chronicle would want to report on one of its hometown Congressmen's public statements on the current trans-Atlantic crisis. Then again, the Chronicle editors are fervently anti-Bush and reflexively blame the President for every disagreement with other countries. I can see how the Chronicle might bury a story about a leading Democrat saying that the difficulties with France and Germany are not the President's fault, but, well, France and Germany's fault. So I didn't read about this in the Chronicle. I read it in Der Spiegel, which also tends to be critical of Bush, but at least its coverage is more comprehensive than that of Lantos' hometown Chronicle.

And speaking of those who prefer to appease violence: The University of California-Berkeley has chosen not to punish the anti-Israel rioters who bit a policeman and used force to prevent students from entering classrooms last April. Instead, the university has allowed the rioters to stay in school under a "confidential settlement". Whatever the terms of the "settlement", the consequences to the rioters do not appear to be very serious

[the rioters] were delighted with the outcome. They had faced the prospect of hearings on disruption charges, with a possible suspension of up to one year.

"None of us are going to have to take any forced absence from school," said Hoang Phan, a member of Students for Justice in Palestine. "We're all more than happy with this settlement."

One would have expected that any settlement would at the very least have required the rioters to publicly express remorse for their unlawful behavior and to encourage other students to eschew such violent modes of protest. But the university didn't demand even this much. One can expect this non-punishment to only encourage more student protesters to riot, destroy property, injure police officers and intimidate those students who actually want to get an education. Chancellor Berdahl should be ashamed of himself.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at February 22, 2003 05:08 PM