Don’t Know Much About Geography

Daily Best of the Web   —   Posted on March 31, 2010

The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.

Don’t Know Much About Geography
“U.S. Wants Canada to Stay in Afghanistan”–headline, Associated Press, March 29

See No Evil (Except on the Other Side)

• “Albermarle County GOP’s [Republican] Headquarters Vandalized”–headline, WBDJ-TV Web site (Roanoke, Va.), March 26
• “Brick Smashes Michigan GOP [Republican] Office Window”–headline, Associated Press, March 29
• “Norman Leboon, Accused of Threatening to Kill [Republican] Rep. Eric Cantor, Donated to Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign”–headline, OpenSecrets.org, March 29
• “The danger of political violence in this country comes overwhelmingly from one direction–the right, not the left.”–Eugene Robinson, Washington Post, March 30

A Turkey of an Interview
“The Turkish man who shot Pope John Paul II says Pope Benedict XVI should resign over the Catholic Church’s handling of clerical sex abuse cases,” the Associated Press reports from Ankara:

Mehmet Ali Agca, who emerged from prison in January nearly 29 years after wounding Pope John Paul II in Rome, has declared himself a messenger from God.

Agca told journalists in Istanbul on Monday that “I want the pope to resign not arrested,” as he waved a Turkish newspaper reporting calls for the arrest of the pope. The press conference marked his first public comments since his release.

There are questions about Agca’s mental health.

So Agca may be clinically insane, “has declared himself a messenger from God” and thus is insane by any everyday definition, and is a murderer (he killed Abdi Ipekçi, a left-wing Turkish journalist, two years before attempting to assassinate the pope).

Why in the world does the AP or any other news organization think his views on anything are newsworthy?

For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.