The Week.

-- Smith College -- the historic women's institution -- has amended its student constitution to exclude the pronouns "she" and "her." Why? As a news story explained, "a growing number of students identify themselves as transgender, and say they feel uncomfortable with female pronouns." Chimed in the school's director of institutional diversity (yes), "Smith College is a college for women, and within that there is a place for all kinds of women."

-- The above is not a joke.

-- Where are the weapons of mass destruction? We told the U.N. the Iraqis were building them, yet we have found next to nothing. A few empty mobile trailers; some rounded-up scientists -- what gives? Everyone should bear in mind the following points. Iraq had a nuclear reactor, until the Israelis bombed it. It used poison gas on Iran, and on its own Kurds. It played with U.N. weapons inspectors, then threw them out. How come? South Africa dismantled its advanced-weapons programs, and let the world know -- because it did not aspire to conquer Namibia. Veterans of the Iraqi weapons programs are potential criminals, which discourages them from talking now, and which would have encouraged them to destroy or smuggle out their handiwork once the war began. The major point, though, is that in a world of deceit and terror, of hidden contacts and outlaw networks, ambiguity about WMDs is not an acceptable posture. Civilization is not hasty; the United States and its allies let Iraq play out its string for twelve years. But nations do not have Miranda rights. If they do not come clean, they run the risk of being forcibly subdued.

-- What purpose do the terror alerts and their mysteriously shifting colors serve? They remind us that al-Qaeda, though down, is not out; the spastically evil will continue to twitch until the whole brood is hunted down. Let the hunting continue. The terror alerts are also a crude way, in a secret war, of sharing information with the public. Increased numbers of cops or soldiers at airports, bridges, and tunnels cannot be concealed. Their presence, in the face of official silence, would give rise to rumors and urban legends. Raising the alert level to orange lets the public know that the government knows, and the government acknowledge that the public notices.

-- The major improvement in the life of Iraqis was the fall of Saddam Hussein. Any government was better than his, even no government. But two months later, their condition has begun to improve yet again. The United Nations, after spiteful French dithering, has lifted its embargo and recognized the Anglo-American occupation. Retired general Jay Garner has been replaced by L. Paul Bremer III, a Reaganite diplomat. Garner was seen as having easygoing virtues, but the situation required more, which Bremer has been brought in to supply. In the Wall Street Journal, Donald Rumsfeld outlined core principles for a free Iraq. The United States has asserted authority, making clear that it will stay as long as it must. It is serious about security: U.S. troops in Baghdad will be patrolling the streets, and Bernard Kerik, former NYPD commissioner, will revamp the Iraqi police. America will establish justice, rooting Baathists out of their jobs, trying war criminals, and adjudicating property claims. The oil industry should be run transparently, and for the benefit of Iraqis (how about monthly dividend checks to every citizen?). Rumsfeld mentioned minority rights in passing, which must be stressed, especially religious rights. He might have mentioned the rights of women. Once these parameters are in place, Iraqis can take up partisan politics, without the risk of holding one vote, one time. Iraq is a wealthy, fertile country with demographic checks and balances; America is right to help these promising conditions bear fruit.

-- The terrorist bombings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, killed 34 people, nine of them Americans. The bombings directed jihadist violence, in part, at the Saudis, who hitherto ignored the problem that they themselves have fostered (the interior minister, a 71-year-old prince, blamed 9/11 on "Jews"). As al-Qaeda, blunted in its international outreach, fouls its own nest, some Saudis will be forced to reexamine that stance. The masterminds of this operation, meanwhile, appear to have been mid-level Qaeda operatives, promoted by the recent rash of vacancies in their ranks, living in Iran. Like the Saudis, the Iranians deny that there is any Qaeda presence in their country. Unlike Saudi Arabia, Iran is a nominal democracy, but popular disgust with the regime is effectively blocked. A new factor in the calculations of both regimes is the American presence in an Iraq that will be brought to a semblance of decent government. The threat, and the allure, should give them pause.

-- Morocco has been one of the more active bases for al-Qaeda, and the five bombs that shattered the peace in Casablanca bear its hallmarks. Forty-one people died, including 14 of the men who actually carried and exploded the bombs. Morocco is by and large a country anxious to introduce its own style of modernization. The spirit of live-and-let- live might one day evolve into something like democracy. Morocco was once home to almost 300,000 Jews, and today the regime is quite proud to proclaim that it gives protection to a Jewish population of 5,000 -- the last such community in the Arab world. Attacking three separate institutions within this community, the bombers evidently hoped to destroy all vestiges of tolerance. Making a simple mistake, they timed the outrage on the Sabbath, a day when there were no Jews out and about to be killed, only Muslims who happened to be passing by. Hundreds of thousands of Moroccans took to the streets in a demonstration that these Muslims at least are well aware that whatever injury Islamist hatred does to others, it does more to themselves.

-- The White House is reportedly planning to seek a tax cut every year President Bush is in office. Much of the press is outraged, and so are we. Only once a year? Slackers.

-- The price of getting Sen. Ben Nelson, Nebraska Democrat, to provide the final vote for President Bush's tax cut was Republican acquiescence in $20 billion in federal aid to state governments. The money is ill spent. The states are in the bind they are in today -- they face a combined deficit of $85 billion -- because they have been spending too much. They need to cut back, not get federal subsidies for their overspending. Federal aid has already contributed to the problem. Consider Medicaid, which is supposed to provide health insurance for the poor. The program gives states more money the more they spend. In boom times, state officials will therefore offer more services to more people (including the not-so-poor). The state can offer a dollar of medical benefits to its voters for less than a dollar in taxes; the taxpayers of other states make up the difference. When the economy sours, there are no equivalent cutbacks: No official is eager to eliminate a dollar of benefits when it saves him only a fraction of a dollar. Between 1994 and 2000, New Mexico's Medicaid spending grew by 58 percent -- even though its poverty rate was falling. The state's governor, Democrat Bill Richardson, has been among the loudest of those clamoring for a federal bailout. A better solution would be to end this dysfunctional relationship between the federal governments and the states, in which the feds first bribe the states to overspend and then bail them out. The result is more government spending than the citizens of any state would want if they were paying for it directly.

-- In many jurisdictions in this country, a man who kills a pregnant woman and her unborn child can be punished for only one murder. In the aftermath of the murder of Laci Peterson and her unborn son Conner, several states are debating whether to enact "unborn victims of violence" laws. The federal government may pass a law, as well, to cover those murders already in its jurisdiction. At the request of Mrs. Peterson's family, the federal bill is being called "Laci and Conner's Law." The abortion lobby says the measure is an assault on their favorite right. But most people are not so ideologically committed to abortion: In a recent poll, 84 percent of registered voters agree that a double-homicide charge is appropriate in the Peterson case. Common sense would suggest that the killing of a pregnant woman is a crime with two casualties. The law should recognize that.

-- Washington rumor has either Chief Justice William Rehnquist or Justice Sandra Day O'Connor -- or both -- retiring this summer. The White House seems worried about the prospect. If President Bush makes good on his campaign promise to appoint "strict constructionists" to the Supreme Court, he is guaranteed to have a bitter fight on his hands. If there are two vacancies, Bush may be tempted to reduce the rancor by nominating one judicial conservative and one liberal. But that would be an invitation for the Democrats to feign open-mindedness about Bush nominees by letting the liberal sail to confirmation and blocking the conservative as an extremist. And there is really no reason for Republicans to shrink from a fight. The public is not afraid of conservative judges. Democratic obstruction of Bush's judicial nominees helped a lot of Republicans get elected last November. It's largely because voters have not been paying attention that Democrats have been able to persist in their obstruction nonetheless. If the debate concerned the Supreme Court, they would be paying more. It is, of course, perilous to depend on the eloquence of Senate Republicans to make the case for a conservative nominee; so Bush should choose nominees -- say, Justice Antonin Scalia for chief justice, and Judge J. Michael Luttig for associate justice -- who can be their own best advocates. Getting the right justices is important: Bush's nominees will be issuing rulings, for good or ill, when veterans of the Iraq war are collecting their military pensions.

-- Social-conservative organizations such as the Family Research Council, upset about President Bush's record on gay issues, are raising the possibility that their constituents may not turn out to vote for Bush next year. Their complaint is not that the president has endorsed federal gay-rights laws or waffled on gay marriage; he has done neither. It is chiefly that he was tepid in his support for Sen. Rick Santorum when his remarks about gay rights were under attack, and that RNC chairman Marc Racicot met with a left-wing gay group and made conciliatory noises. This is not much of an indictment, particularly in light of the president's record on partial-birth abortion, judicial appointments, hate crimes, cloning, abstinence programs, and, well, pretty much every other social-conservative issue under the sun. All the evidence we have suggests that rank-and-file social conservatives are looking at the big picture, which makes them enthusiastic about this president. Maybe their Washington representatives will come around too.

-- Foundations are tax-exempt, and the reason for this exemption is that they do good works (at least putatively good works) rather than merely seeking a return on their investments. Federal law stipulates that foundations have to give away at least 5 percent of their money each year. The charitable-giving bill in the House, sponsored by Republican Roy Blunt and Democrat Harold Ford, would eliminate a loophole in the law that lets foundations claim their administrative expenses as giving. If it passes, foundations would actually have to give 5 percent of their assets away. The foundation world is outraged by this proposal, claiming that it would endanger their ability to last in perpetuity. (Funny, but this concern for institutional immortality does not seem to bother the foundations when it comes to small businesses threatened by the estate tax.) Some Republicans seem suspicious of the proposal, regarding it as a regulatory intrusion on the foundations. It is better seen as a clarification of the purpose of the government's favorable tax treatment of them. Too many foundations seem to have concluded that it is better to receive than to give -- but if they want to receive tax breaks, they can reasonably be asked to do some giving.

-- Poor Tom Daschle. Calling on reporter Linda Scott at a press conference, he said, "Yes, Evelyn?" Who was Evelyn? Evelyn Thomas, another black female journalist who covers Congress. According to the New York Post, both women have been covering Tom Daschle for years. Linda Scott shot back at him, "It's Linda, and I know we don't look alike." Daschle later called her to apologize. The mistake was fairly human. But if a right-wing Republican had made that gaffe, he would, of course, have been denounced as a Klansman (or worse -- if there is worse). Instead, hardly a whimper, about the Democratic Senate leader. That's okay. But maybe they'll remember for next time?

-- Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania voted to shrink President Bush's first tax cut, supports human cloning, and is often allied with organized labor. Pat Toomey, a congressmen who is challenging Specter in the Republican primary, voted to enlarge Bush's tax cut, wants to ban cloning, and is a crusader for free-market Social Security reform. Specter votes with the American Conservative Union 47 percent of the time -- less than half as often as Toomey does. So you would expect conservatives to be lining up behind Toomey. For the most part, they are. But the head of the American Conservative Union, David Keene, has written a column endorsing Specter. Keene's justification is that Specter has voted with conservatives and that he is "honest," "decent," and likable. Keene is entitled to his somewhat idiosyncratic take on Specter's affability. But plenty of liberal Democrats are good company, and one assumes that Keene would not endorse their reelection for that reason. Keene works for a lobbying firm that does a lot of business before the Senate Appropriations Committee, of which Specter is a powerful member. One would like to think that this interest has not clouded his judgment.

-- The 2004 presidential campaign looks likely to continue this nation's long slide away from informed discussion of real political issues and toward sentimental posturing, demands for the soothing of hurt collective feelings, and the courting of "identity" interest groups -- aggregates of voters to whom no national or international issue can compare in importance with their own private inclinations. In this context, note the emergence of 30-year-old Chrissy Gephardt, daughter of Democratic presidential candidate Dick Gephardt. This young lady has -- "after months of therapy," naturally -- decided that she is a lesbian. She wants us to know all about it, of course. More: She has quit her job -- "social worker," naturally again -- and is setting out on the campaign trail to drum up support for her dad from voters who, primo, are of the same inclination as herself, and secondo, believe that having a president with a lesbian daughter is much more important than that boring stuff about war and economics. Why don't we just elect Oprah and be done with it?

-- In the tradition of the Florida recount, the Torricelli-Lautenberg switcheroo, and the unprecedented Senate filibusters against judicial nominees, more than 50 Texas Democrats fled the state to prevent the legislature from considering a Republican redistricting plan. The state constitution makes redistricting a clear legislative responsibility, but the legislature had not approved a new plan following the 2000 census. A court-ordered redistricting plan did not accurately reflect the political balance of the state. Republicans have majorities in both chambers of the state legislature, hold all 29 statewide offices, and got 56 percent of the congressional vote last November -- yet the district lines result in their having only 15 of the state's 32 congressional seats. Rep. Tom DeLay led his party in seeking to right the balance. Democrats accuse him of ruthless partisanship -- as though they would meekly acquiesce if the tables were turned. Whether Republicans improperly recruited federal agencies to search for the missing lawmakers, as the Democrats also charge, should certainly be investigated. But the Democrats' undemocratic game of hide-and-seek deserves far more criticism than it has gotten.

-- Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has accepted the famous road map which is supposed to lead to the even more famous two-state solution of Israel alongside an independent Palestine. The moment has come, he says, to divide the land for the good of both peoples. That's a big concession, and a measure of President Bush's currently impressive standing in the Middle East. There's much to be said for a policy that prevents the United Nations, the European Union, and Russia from playing their usual spoiler's role. But a road map is unconnected to a steering wheel, and it will be hard to work up anything like a renewed peace process that leads, this time, to concrete achievements. Israel stands firm on one major issue: It cannot possibly commit national suicide by accepting that the Palestinians have the unconditional right of return to the country. Equally adamant, the Palestinians have so far refused to consider any compromise. The new Palestinian prime minister, Abu Mazen, makes a point of insisting that the right of return is absolute. That's the weapon with which he can blow everything up. And over his shoulder is Yasser Arafat, a man long accustomed to waving road maps with one hand, and releasing murder and mayhem with the other.

-- France finally allowed U.N. sanctions against Iraq to be lifted. Colin Powell said that it was "a step in the right direction" for relations between America and France, but that it does not "mean that the disagreements of the past are totally forgotten." The French government complains that the Bush administration is spreading lies about it to discredit it. But it is the French government's own recent behavior that has discredited it in the eyes of Americans. Whether and how to punish France for this behavior continues to provoke lively discussion in Washington. Too much discussion, in fact: At some point it begins to look like bluster. In any case, punishment should not be the point. France is not some wayward teenager who needs to be brought to his senses by a night in jail. A significant portion of the French elite seeks to undermine America's global position. Our goal should be to frustrate this design -- not least by doing what we can to prevent the emergence of a European superpower directed by that elite.

-- It often happens -- examples come easily to mind -- that the most capable and successful military commanders are not the ones blessed with the lightest touch in their personal dealings. Col. Tim Collins commands the 1st Battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment. He made a name for himself on the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom by giving an exceptionally stirring speech to the soldiers of his unit, reminding them that ruthlessness in battle must be followed by magnanimity in victory: "We go to liberate, not to conquer." Now he is in hot water for his rather forthright methods in extracting information from a captured Baathist thug named Ayab Yousif Nasir. Col. Collins had asked Nasir to hand over his guns; Nasir declared that he was awfully sorry, but he couldn't recall having any; the colonel knocked him upside the head with the butt of a service pistol; Nasir's memory miraculously returned; the guns were then produced and impounded. This story seems to have been passed on to the authorities by a major in the U.S. reserves, who was in a state of pique because Col. Collins had previously dressed him down for insubordination. A very small incident, you might think, in an ugly war. Not so: According to some elements of the press, including Reuters, Col. Collins's conduct towards Mr. Nasir (though not, or not yet, his carpeting of the American major) constitutes a war crime, a possible breach of the Geneva conventions. Col. Collins is described by his fellow officers as "a soldier's soldier." To further fill out the picture, we learn that he has a penchant for cigars. From high above, the shade of a certain WW2 general must be shaking its head sadly at this sorry little episode.

-- Venezuela is a country with great potential; it once had the highest per capita income in South America. Since President Hugo Chavez took office in 1999, however, the national economy has shrunk by about 20 percent. There's no reason to believe it will grow as long as Chavez -- who has described capitalism as "fascist neoliberalism" -- remains in power. Just as Fidel Castro relies on foreign money and expertise to generate the tourism that is his regime's only real source of cash, Chavez requires American investment and know-how to produce the oil that is Venezuela's single export. That's why Chavez recently ordered his U.S. ambassador, Bernardo Alvarez, to embark on a charm offensive in which, distressingly, Jack Kemp has offered introductions. The people of Venezuela would be best served if Alvarez were to go home and work for the first step toward his country's recovery: the resignation of Chavez and the restoration of a decent democracy, ASAP.

--Annika Sorenstam on the PGA Tour was a stunt, yes. But it was an interesting and defensible stunt -- better than Jesse Owens against a horse, say, or Bill Veeck's midget at the St. Louis Browns. Sorenstam is the best female golfer in the world, and one of the greatest female athletes ever. She is, in fact, the LPGA's Tiger Woods -- even more dominant there than he is on his own tour. At the Colonial tournament, in Houston, she put in a more-than-respectable showing -- but then said, "I'm not as tough as I thought. I have to go back to my tour, where I belong." The PGA Tour is, in part, entertainment, a traveling circus moving from town to town, giving pleasure to millions. The fans loved Annika, with every good reason. A habit of women in PGA Tour events would be a little strange; but Annika Sorenstam handled her one- off with grace.

-- It is hard to avoid the impression that we live in an age of rising anti-Semitism. Things are bad enough in the U.S., where it is now common to hear accusations that George W. Bush is being manipulated by a clique of Jewish (or "Sharonist," or "Zionist," or "neoconservative") advisers -- this in spite of the fact that Bush's cabinet is the first in decades to be perfectly Judenfrei. In continental Europe, home to a swelling population of immigrant Arabs and North Africans, things are much worse, with synagogue burnings and boycotts of Israeli produce the order of the day. Apparently this loathsome infection has now crossed the English Channel. Tam Dalyell is not merely a Member of Parliament; he has served in the House of Commons longer than anybody else, and so enjoys the honorary title Father of the House. Asked by Vanity Fair to contribute to an article about Tony Blair's 50th birthday, Dalyell delivered himself of the opinion that the prime minister was being "unduly influenced by a cabal of Jewish advisers." He named names: Blair's Middle East envoy Lord Levy, associate Peter Mandelson, and foreign secretary Jack Straw. The Father of the House further opined that George W. Bush's own Jewish manipulators had wrapped their sticky tentacles around Blair, too. "The time has come for candor," huffed the Honorable Member, striking the pose of he-who-dares-to-speak-aloud- what-all-others-merely-think. Very well, Mr. Dalyell, we'll be candid: You are a nasty old fool.

-- On May 18, at the Victory Christian Center Assembly of God in Frederick, Md., an arsonist doused a window and two doors in gasoline and set them on fire. The perpetrator -- a 25-year-old named Mark Fox - - was duly arrested, and investigators soon learned the motive for the attack: Fox had gotten angry while reading the Bible. The worshipers at Victory Christian Center are predominantly white; according to the Associated Press, Fox chose to target it because "he didn't want people to think he was mad at black people." At least the good people of Victory Christian Center can take comfort that they weren't the victims of a "hate crime."

-- Robert Dallek, a historian working on a biography of JFK, unsealed an oral history which revealed that Mimi Beardsley, a 19-year-old graduate of Miss Porter's School, had an affair with the president while working as a White House intern. The former Miss Beardsley, now a divorced grandmother, confirmed the story. Kennedy's reputation has been much dinged over the years; his tomcatting is certainly no secret. Two points from Dallek's discovery stand out. Jacqueline Kennedy, showing the White House to a reporter from Paris Match, pointed to another young thing and said, "This is the girl who supposedly is sleeping with my husband." The Frenchman was shocked. Kind of funny. Dallek said that Beardsley's "only skill was to provide sexual release" on presidential trips. "Sexual release" -- the term of art of "masseuses" and "masseurs" who advertise in the back pages of giveaway urban weeklies. Very sad.

-- The revelation about JFK's intern had an interesting effect on Susan Estrich. She sort of came clean on Bill Clinton. You remember Estrich: Harvard law professor, Dukakis campaign manager, now California left- liberal columnist. She recently wrote, "No one spent more time defending Bill Clinton than I did." But "in a constitutional crisis," you see, "there was no choice." However, "enough is enough. There's no excuse for a grown man to have an affair with an intern, whether his name is Bill Clinton or Jack Kennedy." So now she tells us -- when the times, evidently, are safe for the truth. A real profile in courage, this one.

-- When Liz Smith quotes Tina Brown, we listen. So here -- according to Liz -- is what Miz Brown had to say about Sidney Blumenthal's new book: "his erstwhile friend, Christopher Hitchens (boo, hiss!), plays the role of Whittaker Chambers." Hmm. We're not 100 percent sure, but we suspect that Brown means that as a bad thing. But we rather like the imputation that Blumenthal is Alger Hiss (speaking of hissing).

-- Can you imagine the Metropolitan Opera without Texaco? Well, you'll have to. Since 1940, the oil company has sponsored the opera company's Saturday-afternoon broadcasts. Thanks to these presentations, millions of people all over the world have learned about opera, and been enchanted by it. As familiar as the names "Verdi" and "Puccini" has been the slogan, "Texaco: Star of the American Road." But Texaco -- or rather, ChevronTexaco, in the way these things go these days -- has decided that it should no longer sponsor these broadcasts, owing to budget considerations. It's hard to fathom the logic of the decision. The opera broadcasts make Texaco (ChevronTexaco) known to practically every type of customer, or potential customer, at relatively little cost. They also generate untold goodwill. But this company, like all others, is entitled to its own decisions, based on its own interests. Perhaps we should only say thank you -- and hope that the Met quickly finds another sponsor. But it will be hard to separate opera from that Star. Oh, and by the way: Texaco's last broadcast, at the end of the next season, will be of Die G?tterd?mmerung -- The Twilight of the Gods. Figures.

-- The CBS movie Hitler played recently and deserves measured praise. It was well acted, and the recreation of 1920s Munich and Berlin was beautifully done. In general, it followed established history and was in that sense educational. What it perhaps could not communicate was the distinctive appeal of National Socialist ideology, which was very different from that of Marxism. Of the major figures of the period, Winston Churchill was almost alone in sensing this appeal, no doubt because of his own poetic imagination. Churchill knew that he was up against a unique amalgam. It combined modern techniques, emphasizing science, technology, Blitzkrieg, and a form of socialism (then considered "modern"), but with atavistic content in the ideology of the Volk, an extreme and mystical version of German nationalism. Churchill met this with his own myth, also pre-Enlightenment. He spoke of this ancient and glorious monarchy, this proud race, this vast Empire, this unconquerable island. . . . When the Luftwaffe could not control the Channel and the English beaches in the fall of 1940, Hitler lost his chance of winning the war. Contrary to claims made in large print by the movie -- no doubt intended to be reassuring -- Hitler was not a madman, but a fanatic, much more dangerous. The murderers of 9/11 were not mad but fanatical. Unlike Hitler, they have no chance of winning.

-- If country music had royalty, June Carter Cash would have been it -- born into the Carter family, which helped create country music in the 1920s; married (for the third time) to Johnny Cash. But her passing, at age 73, after a lifetime of performing, was not a weepfest or a publicity spectacle, because country has no royalty. Her funeral drew a large sober crowd of fans who came to hear Cash's peers bid farewell with songs like "Angel Band" and "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?" In the presence of Brother Death -- ever a subject of country music, along with love and regret -- they were all brothers. R.I.P.