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Take Me to Your Litre

By JAMES TARANTO
July 25, 2008

Best of the Tube Tonight
We're scheduled to appear on "Lou Dobbs Tonight" this evening as part of a political roundtable. The program airs from 7 to 8 p.m. EDT on CNN, with a repeat showing at 4 a.m. tomorrow. Watch us in the second half hour.

Take Me to Your Litre
The single most disturbing thing we have heard about Barack Obama is this paragraph from a report in the German tabloid Bild, describing the candidate's workout in a Berlin hotel gym:

He goes and picks up a pair of 16 kilo weights and starts curling them with his left and right arms, 30 repetitions on each side. Then, amazingly, he picks up the 32 kilo weights! Very slowly he lifts them, first 10 curls with his right, then 10 with his left. He breathes deeply in and out and takes a sip of water from his 0,5 litre Evian bottle.

This shows just how far to the left the Democratic Party has lurched since 2004. Back then, the party decisively rejected Howard Dean, an advocate of the metric system, in favor of the "electable" John Kerry*, who kept any pro-metric sympathies to himself. Now the Dems have nominated someone who actually uses the metric system.

Adherents to the metric cult like to rave about how easy it is to multiply by 10. It's a familiar enough refrain: "We were only following orders [of magnitude]." A blog post by John Rosenthal of World Politics Review casts further light on this theme. Most news reports put the attendance at Obama's big Berlin rally last night at 200,000. According to Rosenthal, however, "the estimates given by German public television ZDF actually during the event, however, were as many as 10 times lower"--which is to say, one-tenth as high:

ZDF began its special "Obama in Berlin" coverage [German video] at 6:45 p.m. Central European Time: only 15 minutes before the candidate's speech was scheduled to start. At the time, ZDF reporter Susanne Gelhard was out and about on the so-called "Fan Mile" between the Victory Column and the Brandenburg Gate. "The expectations were highly varied," she said in her live report, "from a few thousand up to a million. Those were the estimates. But, now, several tens of thousands have turned out." Barely five minutes before the speech was supposed to start, ZDF Berlin studio chief Peter Frey added, "We do estimate that 20,000 [literally, "a couple of ten thousand"] people have turned out."

What accounts for the discrepancy? Maybe when Obama himself showed up, the reporters mistook him for a zero.

* The haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam.

Your Actions Are Lacking, Nothing Is Clear
True to form, Barack Obama's Berlin speech (words here) was uplifting and vague, "a tone poem to American and European ideals and shared history," as the New York Times pretentiously puts it. The reaction of Der Spiegel's Gerhard Spörl suggests that the German media are even more im Tank für Obama than our own:

Anyone who saw Barack Obama at Berlin's Siegessäule on Thursday could recognize that this man will become the 44th president of the United States. He is more than ambitious--he wants to lay claim to become the president of the world.

It was a ton to absorb--and what a stupendous ride through world history: the story of his own family, the Berlin Airlift, terrorists, poorly secured nuclear material, the polar caps, World War II, America's errors, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, freedom. It's amazing anyone could pack such a potpourri of issues into the space of a speech that lasted less than 30 minutes.

This underscores what bothers us about the whole spectacle. If Obama had waited six months and delivered this speech as president, we might have objected to some of its substance (if any). But we'd say it is bad form for him to give a speech overseas that his audience will interpret, as Spörl did, as coming from the next president of the United States. If he becomes president, Obama will have earned the right to speak on behalf of America. We the people are entitled to have our say first.

Curiously, Obama in his speech denied that it was a campaign rally:

Tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for president, but as a citizen--a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world.

Yet the Associated Press reports that Obama "scrapped plans to visit wounded members of the armed forces in Germany as part of his overseas trip, a decision his campaign said was made because the Democratic presidential candidate thought it would be inappropriate on a campaign-funded journey."

The speech also had a weird science-fiction quality to it. No fewer than six times, he addressed his audience as "People of the world." He also said--we kid you not--"This is the moment when we must come together to save this planet." Maybe he really is another Jimmy Carter.

Or as the New York Times Calls It, Afghanistan in the Prussian Free State
"Obama Presses Europe on Afghanistan in Berlin"--headline, Reuters, July 24

Eustace Tilley Republicans
The Associated Press reports on what may be the oddest poll result of this election year. Suddenly Republicans love The New Yorker:

Among those who had seen it, nearly two of three Democrats said it wasn't right for the liberal-leaning publication to use the cartoon for its July 21 cover, roughly the same number of Republicans who said it was OK, according to a poll by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.

Seven in 10 Democrats said the cover was offensive and just over half called it racist--sentiments with which majorities of Republicans disagreed. Only about a fifth of Democrats thought it was clever or funny, as did larger minorities from the GOP.

Somewhere beneath Dubuque, an old lady is turning.

The Old-Style Candidate

• "Pardon Me, Your Slip Is Not Showing: Petticoats Head for Extinction in Today's Immodest Era; Transparent Looks for Fall"--headline and subheadline, The Wall Street Journal, July 24

• "McCain's Age Sharpens Focus on Slips"--headline, Financial Times, July 24

Dumb but Equal
When we saw the Associated Press headline--"Math Study Finds Girls Are Just as Good as Boys"--our first thought was: Talk about setting a low bar! When we read the article, it turned out to be worse than we'd imagined:

[Janet] Hyde and her colleagues looked at annual math tests required by the No Child Left Behind education law in 2002. . . .

The researchers found no difference in the scores of boys versus girls--not even in high school. Studies 20 years ago showed girls and boys did equally well on math in elementary school, but girls fell behind in high school.

"Girls have now achieved gender parity in performance on standardized math tests," Hyde said. . . .

As Hyde and her colleagues looked across the data for states' testing, they found something they didn't expect: In most states they reviewed, and at most grade levels, there weren't any questions that involved complex problem-solving, an ability needed to succeed in high levels of science and math. . . .

That might be a glaring omission, said Stephen Camarata, a Vanderbilt University professor who has researched the issue but was not involved in the study.

"We need to know that, if our measures aren't capturing some aspect of math that's important," Camarata said. "Then we can decide whether there's an actual male or female advantage."

Math, as Charles Murray explained in a 2005 Commentary essay, is "the most abstract field" in the sciences, and also the one in which the achievement gap between the sexes is greatest: "The number of great female mathematicians is approximately two (Emmy Noether definitely, Sonya Kovalevskaya maybe)."

Thus, as it turns out, the findings of the study are entirely consistent with the hypothesis that boys and men tend to be better at math than their female counterparts. No child left behind--equal ignorance for all!

If a Dog Lost a Human Tooth, That Would Be News
"Boy Loses Canine Tooth Biting Dog"--headline, Reuters, July 25

Then Falls on Track, Says, 'Live, From New York, It's "Saturday Night" '
"Chevy Chase Says Buses Beat Trains on Purple Line"--headline, WashingtonPost.com, July 25

World's Biggest Van
"Suspect Faces Trial in Double Homicide in Van"--headline, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 25

You Can Caw It / Another Lonely Day
"Crow: Not Working With Fleetwood Mac Anytime Soon"--headline,

Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control

• "Dwarf Pops Out of Suitcase at Airport Counter"--headline, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, July 24

• "Flesh-Eating Slug Invades Wales"--headline, ScienceBlogs.com, July 21

• "Russian Miners Too Terrified to Work After Bears Eat 2 Colleagues"--headline, FoxNews.com, July 24

• "Parrots Wreak Havoc on Church Steeple"--headline, Daily Telegraph (London), July 25

• "Krazy Kat Got Me Kommitted"--headline, New York Post, July 25

News You Can Use

• "Muslim Day at Six Flags a Time to Relax and Connect With Others"--headline, Chicago Tribune, July 25

• "Grab another beer guys, carbo-loading could lead to longer lives say scientists"--subheadline, Popular Science Web site, July 23

• "Offers of Illegal Cherry Pies Abroad Can Quickly Turn Into Human Trafficking Nightmare"--headline, Pravda, July 25

Bottom Stories of the Day

• "Naperville Parks Board Doesn't Explain Director's Leave"--headline, Daily Herald (suburban Chicago), July 25

• "Crowds Clear Out of Park After Concert"--headline, Advocate (Stamford, Conn.), July 25

• "Ferret Banned From Ottawa Buses; Disabled Owner Files Complaint"--headline, CBC.ca, July 23

• "Ukraine Breaks All the Records on Cabbage Export Volumes"--headline, Fruit-Inform.com, July 25

The Softball Diet
The late George Carlin had a classic routine in which he would compare baseball with football, the idea being that the former is a wimpier sport:

In football, the object is for the quarterback, otherwise known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy, in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use the shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack, which punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line.

In baseball, the object is to go home, and to be safe. I hope I'll be safe at home!

Even the food at baseball parks has gotten wimpier. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that the Mariners, who play--no joke--at Safeco field, have instituted a "peanut-controlled area night" for those suffering from food allergies.

The Los Angeles Times, meanwhile, reports that "vegetarian advocate" Johanna McCloy of Berkeley, Calif., has made it her mission "to add veggie dogs"--ersatz frankfurters made entirely of plant products--"to the menu at every major league ballpark." Shockingly, she "is halfway there," despite being prone to bursts of emotion:

"I'm pretty proud of it," notes McCloy, who says she cried in 2001 when she bit into the first veggie dog served at Dodger Stadium.

Finally, an answer to the age-old question: "Where the hell is the blue food?" We shudder to imagine McCloy's dysphoria if she ever got near a pigskin.

(See all of today's editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on Opinion Journal. Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Howie Epstein, Wendell Hubbard, Jane Vawter, Brian Rom, Ethel Fenig, Ed Lasky, John Williamson, Michael Hopkovitz, Stuart Creque, Lewis Sckolnick, Robert Laing, Dave Nemzek, Joseph Everard, Tom Kustner, Eli Bear, Michael Segal, Monty Krieger, Bruce Goldman, Steve Bunten, Chris Harrington, Brian Azman, David Paterson, Rory O'Callaghan, Joel Griffith, Matt Irving, Bryan Fischer, Scott Goldman, Doug Black, Mark Miller, Kyle Kyllan, Steven James, Aaron Zalewski, Phil Mullane, Daniel Foty, David Wesolowicz, Dennis Powell, Gene Shklar and John Sanders. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)