John Conyers may be the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee -- point man in the effort to protect Bill Clinton as much as possible from the impeachment process -- but that doesn't mean he can't find time in his busy schedule to help Saddam Hussein, too.
On Tuesday, Oct. 6, Conyers will play host to an "ad-hoc congressional hearing" (i.e., provide a propaganda platform) at which the National Iraq Network, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, and other inveterate Iraq-defenders will bemoan "the plight of the Iraqi people." Suffice it to say, they do not mean to call attention to the depredations of Saddam Hussein and his thugs, but to agitate for an end to the post-Gulf War U.N. sanctions -- as if those sanctions were not already collapsing thanks to the Clinton administration's lack of resolve.
Meantime, the prospect of a tougher U.S. Iraq policy has come under attack from Jude Wanniski -- the onetime close adviser to Jack Kemp and other prominent Republicans. In recent years, as THE SCRAPBOOK has periodically chronicled, Wanniski has made himself into a sort of disciple of Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan. And as a byproduct of his conversion from supply-side publicist to Farrakhan evangelist, Wanniski seems to have become infected with the minister's characteristic thuggishness.
Farrakhan once threatened Washington Post editor Milton Coleman with physical harm. Now Wanniski threatens former Reagan administration defense official Richard Perle -- for being a menace to Saddam Hussein's interests.
Here are a few choice excerpts from Wanniski's Sept. 29 memo to Perle: "I'm prompted to write this note of caution having spotted the following item in . . . the Forward, the Jewish weekly." The Forward had reported a recent meeting of Perle, former CIA director R. James Woolsey, and congressional staffers at which a discussion took place of American backing for a plan to liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussein. Continues Wanniski: "You really have to be more carefull, Dick. The Iraqis read the Forward. And the Iraqi Ambassador to the United States, Nizar Hamdoon, knows you are maniacally bent on instigating a war between the NATO powers and Baghdad."
Where would Hamdoon get such an idea about Perle, who is nowadays a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a venerable Washington think tank? Writes Wanniski: "I've talked to Hamdoon about you and he knows you would like to get the Baghdad regime kicked out of the United Nations so that it has no voice in the United States." Wanniski ends with a bad parody of a Mafioso offering disingenuous concern to someone he is about to have rubbed out: "Richard, we have been shoulder-to-shoulder in the Cold wars since we met in 1969. You know I respect your great intelligence. But you should know that there are a few of us out here who know all about your diabolical schemes to foment conflict for the sake of conflict. We are keeping our eye on you."
Whew. THE SCRAPBOOK may start checking under its car in the morning before putting the key in the ignition.