AL GORE TAKES HIS STAND Last Thursday, Al Gore (who is not the president of the United States) showed up in Washington to criticize George W. Bush (who is) for--among other things--proceeding too forcefully and publicly with plans for a possible military overthrow of Saddam Hussein's Iraqi dictatorship. At a meeting in the Dirksen Senate Office Building with a group called "21st Century Democrats," Gore, who lost the November 2000 presidential election, accused Bush, who won it, of . . . Well, Gore's comments, to be properly appreciated, should be viewed in the full context of the many comments he's made on the subject throughout a long and varied and unusually slippery career. So we'll run the highlights in chronological order, and save the 21st Century Democrats for last. "It is doubtful that the conquest of Iraq is anything this nation would ever want to seek. Even if it were adopting that as a stated goal, it would be a terrible mistake, for reasons we can all certainly see clearly. . . . Doubtless, among the exiled Iraqis, one can find survivors who are people of virtue and wisdom, but it is hard to see how these individuals might come to power unless we were to install them, and that would require the conquest and occupation of Iraq, which is not in prospect and should not be in prospect." --January 30, 1991, on the Senate floor "I don't think we should have left Saddam's regime in place. . . . I think we made a tragic mistake in the days right after the war in deciding that the best way to maintain stability in Iraq was to leave the Baathist regime in power there. . . . We should have bent every policy--and we should do it now--to overthrow that regime and make sure that Saddam Hussein is removed from power." --September 19, 1991, on CNN's "Larry King Live" Saddam Hussein has "been in power for much longer than we would like," but "some of what is now underway with respect to Iraq in [the Clinton] administration is not something we can talk about in the public arena." --April 30, 2000, on CNN's "Late Edition" "I certainly question why we would be publicly blustering and announcing an invasion a year or two years in advance. . . . I do think the situation our country faces now is fundamentally different than what we faced on the eve of the Gulf War. If the rest of the world does not see what it regards as a sufficient provocation to justify an invasion by the United States, then the diplomatic cost would be extremely high." --July 25, 2002, addressing the 21st Century Democrats That certainly clears things up, doesn't it? THE YAHOO! KOWTOW Information that might "jeopardize state security and disrupt social stability, contravene laws and regulations and spread superstition and obscenity" will, effective Aug. 1, no longer be posted by major Internet portals in China, thanks to their participation in the voluntary Public Pledge on Self-Discipline for the China Internet Industry. Most notable among the self-censoring signatories of the pledge is U.S.-based Yahoo!, which maintains a Chinese-language website. It appears to be the only non-China-based company among the hundreds that have bowed to Beijing's pressure to uphold "the ethical norms of the socialist cultural civilization." But signing such a pact is only the most recent in a series of capitulations by Yahoo! and other American companies that have eroded hopes that widespread Internet access would be instrumental in bringing democracy to China, a trend reported on by Ethan Gutmann in these pages earlier this year ("Who Lost China's Internet?" Feb. 25, 2002). China's more than 38 million Internet users remain effectively isolated from information that might be a threat to the Chinese government, unless they choose to use one of the circuitous and illegal routes being shut down daily in the name of public safety. There are good odds that ingenious geeks will continue to outwit the Chinese bureaucracy and gain access to forbidden material for the enterprising Chinese user, but in the meantime Yahoo!China has chosen to be part of the problem, not the solution. A MOYERS MOMENT WEEKLY STANDARD readers will recall from Stephen F. Hayes's cover story ("PBS's Televangelist," Feb. 25, 2002) the walking conflict-of-interest that is Bill Moyers. His m.o. is simple. As head of the Florence and John Schumann Foundation, with assets of more than $90 million, Moyers is the Daddy Warbucks of dozens of organizations on the left. At the same time, from his prized perch on taxpayer-funded television, Moyers essentially conducts P.R. campaigns for many of the same groups he supports with his foundation. All of this would be unexceptional--a case of putting your mouth where your money is--were it not for the Tartuffean bravura with which Moyers scolds his political enemies for their conflicts. In mid-June, for instance, Moyers interviewed pollster Daniel Yankelovich, chairman of "the research organization" Public Agenda--a nonprofit organization, Moyers gushed, that "has long been at the forefront on social research on national issues, whose in- depth surveys capture the public's deeply held concerns and attitudes." Yankelovich claimed that Americans "don't feel that the people who are supposed to be looking out for their interests are exactly doing so--more looking out for their own interests," a favorite Moyers theme. "So when the watchdogs become lapdogs," asked Moyers, "there's nobody to bark for the people who have been exploited?" Yankelovich: "Yeah, and you know not only lapdogs, but become sort of interested in--their own doggie pursuits--interested in the interests of the insiders, in the interests of the institution rather than in the people the institutions are supposed to serve. Yeah, and, you know, conflict of interest. It's been meaningless the last couple of years in Wall Street and other places." Other places, perhaps, like Bill Moyers's Public Affairs Television, Inc., and Yankelovich's Public Agenda. What Moyers never mentions is that his wife, Judith Davison Moyers, is on the board of directors of Public Agenda. She is also the president of Public Affairs Television, Inc., the "private" production company that turns taxpayer dollars into "Now with Bill Moyers," the show that aired the interview. Not that there's anything wrong with that. We just thought we'd yap a little for the taxpayers who feel exploited. THE PEKING DUCK Congressional sources say that the Bush administration is preparing to oppose a provision in next year's defense authorization bill that would upgrade the U.S.-Taiwan defense relationship. Among other things, the bill requires the Pentagon to assist Taiwan's military with operational training and promotes efforts to establish interoperability between U.S. and Taiwan forces. Bob Stump, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, sponsored the provision on the reasonable grounds that, since President Bush said America would do whatever it takes to defend Taiwan from an attack, it makes sense to improve Taiwan's capabilities. Leading the charge against closer ties are Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly and NSC senior staffer James Moriarty. The provision itself is nearly identical to language in the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act (TSEA), a congressional proposal blocked by the Clinton White House in 2000. What's baffling to Taiwan's friends is that both Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld publicly supported TSEA's passage at the time. Given Assistant Secretary of Defense Peter Rodman's recent trip to Beijing to try to restart military-to-military exchanges, it appears the administration is bending over backwards not to ruffle China's feathers. But coming on the heels of the Pentagon's own report on China's military buildup, the administration just looks confused.