Wisconsin Sports Report

During an already semi-legendary August 25 campaign appearance in Green Bay (see "The Battle for Wisconsin" by Stephen F. Hayes, Sept. 6), John Kerry--in full "I'm a regular-guy sports fan, just like you" mode--mentioned something about the hometown Packers football team and its stadium, Lambeau Field. Only Kerry called the place "Lambert Field." And he's been running 8 to 10 points behind President Bush in every Wisconsin preference poll since. Which is no small thing. Gore took the state four years ago. There are 10 electoral votes at issue, and Kerry probably can't afford to lose them.

Working to ensure that he does lose them, however, "Football Fans for Truth," tongue planted firmly in cheek, has now registered with the IRS as an independent "527 group," promising to alert America to the "terrible dangers posed by Kerry to the sports world." Football Fans for Truth director Jeff Larroca: "I shudder to think of this man throwing out first pitches for four years." Group chairman Dino Panagopoulos: "I mean, this is a person who probably prefers Astro-Turf to real grass." Besides which, the Football Fans for Truth website points out: "John Kerry throws a football like a girl."

Ouch.

The group's maiden publicity effort was due to be unveiled October 1, with the installation of a Green Bay billboard reading "Welcome to . . . 'Lambert Field'?--John Kerry, [8/25/2004]."

Memo to Senator Kerry: Perhaps you could make up for this boner by saying something nice about retired Packers hero-quarterback Bart Starrfish?

Who's on Second?

More than 200 of America's best-known CEOs, investment bankers, and business school deans think "America Needs New Leadership"--of the John Kerry variety--according to a full-page New York Times ad those muckety-mucks signed on behalf of the Democratic National Committee on September 23. And why exactly do they believe that America Needs New Leadership? "For three reasons," actually.

" First, balancing budgets and meeting the bottom line," a sentence fragment the DNC broadside follows up with two short paragraphs of explanation before coming to . . .

" Third, restoring America's respect abroad," another sentence fragment, followed by another pair of elaborative paragraphs, followed by . . .

Nothing except the signatories' names, oddly enough. The second reason why John Kerry should be president will have to remain a mystery for now.

Maybe America Needs New Leadership because the people currently directing our principal economic institutions have trouble counting to three?

This Just In

The Imam Muhammad ibn Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia--recently mentioned in these pages for its part in the dissemination of Wahhabi extremist dogma (see Stephen Schwartz's "Rewriting the Koran," Sept. 27)--is again in the news.

Last Thursday two important European dailies, Milan's Corriere della Sera and El Mundo in Madrid, published an unusual joint story about Rabei Osman Ahmed el Sayed, aka "Mohammad the Egyptian," who is awaiting extradition from Italy to Spain as the self-described mastermind of the Madrid commuter train bombings that killed 191 people back in March. This latest report suggests that Western counterterrorism officials have already identified Osman's up-the-chain immediate superior. Italian security police apparently have surveillance tapes of a May 26 conversation in which Osman admits that he planned the Madrid bombings while "working for" a certain Salman al-Awda.

Notwithstanding this piece of intelligence--and despite his past association with at least one of the 9/11 conspirators, for that matter--al-Awda, one of Saudi Arabia's most prominent Wahhabi clerics, is today alive and well and working as a professor at the Imam Muhammad ibn Saud University in Riyadh.

Unsubstantiated Unsubstantiation

According to the correction the New York Times ran six days later, its Thursday, September 23, story "about political advertising in the presidential campaign, including a commercial that accused John Kerry of having 'secretly met with the enemy' in Paris in the 1970s, misidentified the parties with whom Mr. Kerry said he had met at the Vietnam peace talks." And "the error was repeated in articles on Friday and Saturday." In fact, "the parties were the two Communist delegations--North Vietnam and the Vietcong's Provisional Revolutionary Government--with whom he discussed the status of war prisoners. He did not say he had met with 'both sides.'"

According to THE SCRAPBOOK, however, the Times correction itself misidentifies the nature of its error here--by omitting all mention of its context.

What reporter Katharine Q. Seelye wrote in the original story was this: "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, whose past accusations have frequently been unsubstantiated, says in a new commercial that Mr. Kerry went to Paris in the 1970s and 'secretly met with the enemy.'" Not so, Seelye's account then attempted to demonstrate; Kerry later testified that he'd met with "both sides."

The essential point being that Seelye and the Times had all but explicitly called the Swift boaters redbaiting liars--on the basis of a Swift boat charge that was actually true. If THE SCRAPBOOK ever made a mistake like this, it would print the requisite correction--and apologize, too. THE SCRAPBOOK regrets the Times's failure to do so.