March 30, 2006
American Reporter Kidnapped in Baghdad Is Released
By KIRK SEMPLE and JOHN O'NEIL
BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 30 — Jill Carroll, the American reporter who was kidnapped in Baghdad nearly three months ago, was released today.

Ms. Carroll, whose abduction generated international attention, said in an interview shown on Baghdad television that her captors "never hit me and never even threatened to hit me."

Asked what message she wanted to send to the United States, she said firmly, "I was treated very well, it's important for people to know that.

Wearing gray Arabic robes, tucking her hair up under a gray and green headdress, Ms. Carroll said that she was told this morning that she was going to be free "and that is what happened."

"They didn't tell me what was going on," she said.

She appeared strong and confident and waited patiently for the interviewer to ask his questions before answering, sometimes asking for clarification. She said that she did not know where she had been held, adding that her room had a window but that it was obscured, and that she had been allowed to walk to a shower nearby. She had been able to watch television once and had seen a newspaper once, she said, but was not aware if there were any negotiations.

"All I can say right now is I am very happy," Ms. Carroll said. "I am happy to be free and I want to be with my family."

Ms. Carroll was dropped off today at the headquarters of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a predominantly Sunni group, in western Baghdad.

Dr. Tariq Al-Hashemi, the party's general secretary, said in a news conference that Ms. Carroll walked in to the office dressed in Islamic garb and handed officials there a paper written in Arabic.

"The message said, 'This is the kidnapped American journalist and we ask you to take her to an official party,' " Mr. Al-Hashemi said.

Mr. Al-Hashemi said that Ms. Carroll had interviewed party leaders before, but that he had no idea why she was delivered to their office. He said his group had joined in the condemnation of the kidnapping.

Party officials contacted American authorities, who whisked her to the heavily fortified Green Zone.

Richard Bergenheim, the editor of The Christian Science Monitor, for which Ms. Carroll was reporting at the time of her kidnapping, said that there had been "absolutely no negotiations for her release" and had never been any contact with her captors.

David Cook, an editor in the Washington bureau of The Christian Science Monitor, said that Ms. Carroll had called her father this morning to tell him she was safe.

Ms. Carroll, 28, was abducted Jan. 7 in western Baghdad. Her intepreter, Allan Enwiyah, 32, was shot dead at the scene.

In the weeks afterward, her captors released three videotapes, which showed her in increasing distress. The kidnappers, who called themselves the Vengeance Brigade, issued a statement through a Kuwaiti television station in February demanding that the Americans and Iraqis release all imprisoned women by Feb. 26 or she would be killed. While several female prisoners were released shortly before then, Iraqi and American officials insisted that it was not because of the demand, and a few other female prisoners remained in jail.

That kidnapper's deadline passed, and there was no further word of Ms. Carroll.

On Feb. 28, Iraq's interior minister told ABC News that Ms. Carroll was still alive, that he knew who had kidnapped her and that he believed she would be released soon.

Ms. Carroll was kidnapped less than 300 yards from the office of Adnan Dulaimi, a prominent Sunni Arab politician, whom Ms. Carroll had been intending to interview that morning. In an interview with The New York Times on Wednesday, Mr. Dulaimi repeatedly expressed concerns about Ms. Carroll. In recent months, he made public appeals for her release.

Many other Iraqi politicians, along with as well as Ms. Carroll's family members had made repeated appeals for her freedom. Her twin sister, Katie, said in a statement read on the Al-Arabiya network that "I've been living a nightmare, worrying if she is hurt or ill."

Kidnappings in Iraq are increasingly common, and thousands of Iraqis are believed to have been taken, most simply for ransom. More than 200 foreigners have been abducted, and several American captives have been killed.

But no kidnapping drew the kind of attention that Ms. Carroll's did. In addition to the fact that she was the only American woman to be abducted, her youth and what her family described as her desire to publicize the hardships facing the Iraqi people. Her plight also hit home for the journalists in Iraq who covered it.

Mr. Bergenheim, the Monitor editor, took note of the wider problem during a press conference outside the paper's Boston headquarters, saying that "the world doesn't hear the voice" of kidnapped Iraqis.

"We can't imagine what it would be like to live in a city where 30 or 40 people a day are being kidnapped," he said, and he hoped that the effort to free Ms. Carroll had led to a greater awareness of the suffering caused by such crimes.

Ms. Carroll, who grew up in Michigan and speaks some Arabic, had been reporting in the Middle East since late 2002, mostly in Iraq.

Her father, Jim, released a statement saying, "We are thrilled and relieved at the safe return of my daughter, Jill."

"We want to thank the thousands of people that prayed and especially the people at The Christian Science Monitor who did so much to keep her alive," the statement said. Ms. Carroll, a freelance writer, had been reporting for the Monitor at the time of her abduction.

Mr. Bergenheim also praised the efforts of people inside Iraq and throughout the world. "The chorus of Muslim leaders condemning this kidnapping was larger and louder than has been heard for some time," he said.

The American ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said in a televised briefing that he had met with Ms. Carroll, whom he described as being in "good health and great spirits."

He took the occasion to praise Iraqi leaders for working for her release, and the Islamic party for its role after she was freed.

"We are going to work as hard as we can to help her get home as soon as possible," he said.

Speaking in Berlin a a meeting on the Iranian nuclear program, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed "great delight and great relief" at the release of Ms. Carroll, news services reported.

Kirk Semple reported from Baghdad for this article and John O'Neil reported from New York. Ali Adeeb contributed reporting from Baghdad and Christine Hauser and Carla Baranauckas contributed reporting from New York.

White women will always get priority.

I was really bothered by the priority with which she was treated. People watching the news in the last three months might think that she was the only hostage in Iraq. It might have been because she's a pretty young white girl, it might have been because the media paid more attention because she was one of their own. There are people that have been held captive for months and years now and I found the coverage and the pleas for Carroll a bit entitled and distasteful.

Did this get any coverage? 2 Canadians and a Briton released

quite a bit, actually.

Would it have been if the American hadn't been found dead, or was not involved at all?

sure, why not.

Well, because they were Canadian.

we love Canadians, don't we?

we love Canadians, don't we?

Only when they're beautiful women who paint their bodies in the image of the Maple Leaf flag... And Sask, of course... And Terrence & Phillip occasionally.

In a videotape posted Thursday on the Internet, made before her release, Ms. Carroll denounced the American presence in Iraq and praised the insurgents fighting here. In the video, Ms. Carroll smiled, laughed once and gestured in a seemingly relaxed manner, saying she felt guilty about being released while so many Iraqis were still suffering.

Ms. Carroll, apparently knowing she would be released, denounced what she described as the "lies" told by the American government and predicted that the insurgents would defeat the Americans in Iraq. "I feel guilty. I also feel that it just shows that the mujahedeen are good people fighting an honorable fight, a good fight. While the Americans are here, the occupying forces, you know, treating the people in a very, very bad way. So I can't be happy totally for my freedom because there are people still suffering in prisons, in very difficult situations."

Ms. Carroll was seated in front of a white background, where she answered questions put to her in accented English by a man standing offscreen. The video was distributed by SITE, a Washington, D.C.-based group that tracks jihadist Web sites.

These kind words for her captors were a sharp contrast to her demeanor on the videotapes made shortly after her kidnapping, in which she appeared distraught, weeping and terrified. Ms. Carroll's seeming sympathy for her captors suggested either that she was pretending in hopes of gaining her release or that, after suffering weeks of extreme duress, she had fallen under the sway of her kidnappers.

Richard Bergenheim, the editor of The Christian Science Monitor, said in an interview with MSNBC today that Ms. Carroll was told by her kidnappers that "if she did a good job" on the videos they made during her captivity, she would be released.

March 31, 2006
Freed Reporter Recovering in Iraq
By EDWARD WONG and KIRK SEMPLE
BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 31 — Jill Carroll, the abducted American reporter who was released on Thursday after three months in captivity, was relaxed today and recovering in a secure area of the Iraqi capital, said a colleague who had talked to her.

"She's in good spirits; I've spoken to her," said Scott Peterson, a reporter in Baghdad for the Christian Science Monitor, the main news organization for which Ms. Carroll worked as a freelance writer before her kidnapping. "She's doing well and keeping it all together, and enjoying very much breathing the fresh air."

Ms. Carroll stayed in the heavily fortified Green Zone on Thursday night and underwent health checks. The Green Zone, on the west bank of the Tigris River, houses the American embassy and the headquarters of the Iraqi government, and it is where foreign hostages have often been brought following their releases. Those newly freed are usually debriefed by American or foreign officials before being flown out of the country.

Few details emerged today of why her captors had set her free, though the shadowy group holding her, the Revenge Brigade, had said in an Internet video that the American government had agreed to some of its conditions. The group had demanded that the United States release all Iraqi women from its prisons. In late January, the American command announced that it had freed five Iraqi female detainees, but said that the release had nothing to do with the kidnappers' demands.

In a news conference on Thursday afternoon, the American ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, said no American officials in Iraq "entered into any arrangements with anyone" to secure Ms. Carroll's release. Four other Iraqi women were still being held in American detention centers, American officials said. Editors at The Christian Science Monitor also said they had conducted no negotiations with her kidnappers.

The evening before Ms. Carroll was released, her twin sister, Katie, had made a plea for Jill's freedom on Al Arabiya, a popular Middle Eastern satellite network.

Ms. Carroll, 28, was dropped off in a Sunni Arab neighborhood in western Baghdad at midday on Thursday and walked into the nearby offices of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni political group, dressed in a light-green head scarf and gray dress. From there, she was whisked to the Green Zone at the urging of Mr. Peterson, according to the Christian Science Monitor.

"I was treated very well; it's important people know that," Ms. Carroll said in an interview with an Iraqi, conducted in the Sunni party's offices and shown on television later in the day. "They never threatened me in any way."

"All I can say right now is I am very happy," said Ms. Carroll, who in the earlier insurgent video praised her captors and the insurgents fighting the Americans. "I am happy to be free and I want to be with my family."

Ms. Carroll was kidnapped at gunpoint on Jan. 7 as she left the offices of a prominent Sunni politician. Her kidnappers had threatened to kill her. In videotapes released during her captivity, Ms. Carroll wept and pleaded for her freedom. In the interview shown Thursday, she said she was never told why she was being held. The kidnappers shot to death Ms. Carroll's Iraqi interpreter as the abduction unfolded. "They didn't tell me what was going on," she said.

Ms. Carroll, who grew up in Michigan and graduated from the University of Massachusetts, was part of a small corps of intrepid young freelance reporters in Baghdad. She had learned more Arabic than many and had cultivated a keen interest in Iraqi society.

In a videotape posted Thursday on the Internet, made before her release, Ms. Carroll denounced the American presence in Iraq and praised the insurgents fighting here. In the video, Ms. Carroll smiled, laughed once and gestured in a seemingly relaxed manner, saying she felt guilty about being released while so many Iraqis were still suffering.

Ms. Carroll, apparently knowing she would be released, denounced what she described as the "lies" told by the American government and predicted that the insurgents would defeat the Americans in Iraq. "I feel guilty. I also feel that it just shows that the mujahedeen are good people fighting an honorable fight, a good fight. While the Americans are here, the occupying forces, you know, treating the people in a very, very bad way. So I can't be happy totally for my freedom because there are people still suffering in prisons, in very difficult situations."

Ms. Carroll was seated in front of a white background, where she answered questions put to her in accented English by a man standing offscreen. The video was distributed by SITE, a Washington, D.C.-based group that tracks jihadist Web sites.

These kind words for her captors were a sharp contrast to her demeanor on the videotapes made shortly after her kidnapping, in which she appeared distraught, weeping and terrified. Ms. Carroll's seeming sympathy for her captors suggested either that she was pretending in hopes of gaining her release or that, after suffering weeks of extreme duress, she had fallen under the sway of her kidnappers.

Richard Bergenheim, the editor of The Christian Science Monitor, said in an interview with MSNBC today that Ms. Carroll was told by her kidnappers that "if she did a good job" on the videos they made during her captivity, she would be released.

She has told family members and friends that she made "dozens" of videotaped appeals, and was very surprised to learned that only three had been released, he said.

The light-green head scarf that Ms. Carroll was wearing at the time of her release, and the head scarf she wore in most of the videos shown during her captivity, is the typical dress for Iraqi women. Ms. Carroll was wearing one at the time of her abduction, in large part to conceal her identity as an American reporter on Baghdad's chaotic streets.

Dr. Alan Manevitz, a psychiatrist and trauma expert at New York Presbyterian Hospital, said it would not be surprising if she suffered from a degree of Stockholm syndrome, a condition in which hostages become sympathetic to their captors. The name comes from a bank robbery in Sweden in 1973 in which hostages were held in a vault for six days.

"It's a form of brainwashing in a deprived state where victims emotionally bond with the captors in order to survive," Dr. Manevitz said. He stressed that he did not know Ms. Carroll and could speak about the syndrome only in general terms. "People can feel helpless and hopeless, and any small act of kindness — not killing her, giving her food, letting her have a shower — can lead to bonding with the captor." The captor, he said, becomes both tormentor and savior.

Ms. Carroll's whereabouts had been unknown since her abduction, carried out by armed men who cut off her car down the street from the offices of Adnan Dulaimi, the Sunni politician. Ms. Carroll, an accomplished swimmer, broke free of her kidnappers and was chased down the street, according to witnesses. Her interpreter, Allan Enwiyah, 32, was shot dead as he tried to make a call on his cellphone, while her driver managed to run away.

Dozens of people are kidnapped on Baghdad's streets every day — most of them for ransom — and they are often sold while in captivity from one group to another. Though she made no mention of being traded from one group to another, it was unclear on Thursday whether Ms. Carroll had been released by the same men who had captured her. The motives of the group were unknown as well; some officials speculated that the kidnappers had originally grabbed Ms. Carroll in the hope of securing a ransom and began to demand the release of the Iraqi women after it seemed less probable to them that they would get money.

In the weeks after her kidnapping, Ms. Carroll's captors released three videotapes, which showed her in increasing distress. The kidnappers' deadline passed, and there was no further word of her. On Feb. 28, Iraq's interior minister told ABC News that Ms. Carroll was still alive, that he knew who had kidnapped her and that he believed she would be released soon.

In the United States, Ms. Carroll's family reacted joyously to word of her release, as did the editors of The Christian Science Monitor. "My cousin, Mary Beth Carroll — Jill's mother — and all of our family are delighted, thrilled and ecstatic that Jill has been released," Peter Alonzi said in a statement he read outside her home in Evanston, Ill. "My wish is that this joyous occasion will offer hope to all the mothers of Iraq whose children have been kidnapped. May they all be returned safely and swiftly to their mothers' arms.' "

Tariq al-Hashemi, the general secretary of the Iraqi Islamic Party, said at a news conference that Ms. Carroll walked into the office and handed officials a paper written in Arabic asking that the party help her.

Alaa Makki, another leader in the party, said Ms. Carroll seemed wary about talking about her captors.

"We asked her, 'Why did you come to the I.I.P.? Why did you choose the I.I.P.?' " he recalled. "She said, 'I really don't know.' "

He went on: "She said, 'I promised the kidnappers not to speak.' She was a little bit frightened. She was very careful. She didn't give much information."

In the interview shown on television on Thursday, Ms. Carroll said she had been almost entirely cut off from the outside world. She did not know where she had been held, and said her room had a window but that it was obscured. She was well fed and was permitted to take showers and go to the bathroom whenever she wanted. She was able to watch television and see a newspaper only once.

"I didn't really know what was going on in the outside world," she said.

Her release, she said, was as mysterious as her capture. "I don't know what happened," she said. "They just came to me and said, 'O.K., we're letting you go now.' "

Ms. Carroll is the only American woman to have been kidnapped in Iraq and, according to her family, was motivated by a desire to publicize the hardships facing the Iraqi people. Her story of pluck and empathy seemed to capture the public's imagination.

In addition, her plight struck close to home for many of the journalists here in Baghdad who covered it and for whom kidnapping has become one of the foremost threats.

Ms. Carroll traveled to the Middle East in 2002 with a dream of covering a war. In the American Journalism Review last year, she wrote that she moved to Jordan six months before the start of the war "to learn as much about the region as possible before the fighting began." She worked for a newspaper in Amman and took Arabic lessons.

Once in Baghdad, she began working for a number of publications, including The Christian Science Monitor. As conditions worsened for American and other Western reporters working in Iraq — and major news organizations began investing heavily in armed guards and armored cars — Ms. Carroll continued mostly on a shoestring budget. At the time of her kidnapping, she was traveling in an ordinary car, unprotected by guards.

By the time of her abduction, Ms. Carroll was a well-known face at the Hamra Hotel, the home of many Western reporters. She had grown close to Marla Ruzicka, an American aid worker, and when Ms. Ruzicka was killed in a suicide bombing in 2005, Ms. Carroll organized a memorial service for her at the Hamra.

In lighter moments, Ms. Carroll often got water polo matches going in the hotel's pool, where she usually emerged as the fiercest competitor.

Kirk Semple reported from Baghdad for this article, and Dexter Filkins from Kansas City, Mo. John O'Neil and Denise Grady contributed reporting from New York.

Also on the Internet video, Carroll is shown answering questions, presumably from her captors, and saying that Iraqi insurgents were ''only trying to defend their country ... to stop an illegal and dangerous and deadly occupation.''

''So I think people need to understand in America how difficult life is here for the normal, average Iraqis ... how terrifying it is for most people to live here every day because of the occupation,'' she said on the video.

Bergenheim said Friday that Carroll's parents, who spoke to her about the video, told him it was ''conducted under duress.''

''What emerged was that they actually started filming this tape the night before and then there was a power outage. Jill had been told the questions, asked to translate them from Arabic into English,'' he told ABC's ''Good Morning America.''

''When you're making a video and having to recite certain things with three men with machine guns standing over you, you're probably going to say exactly what you're told to say,'' Bergenheim added.

In the video, she said her captors, whom she called the mujahedeen, had treated her very well -- ''like a guest'' -- and that she thought the ''mujahedeen are the ones who will win in the end in this war.''

''No matter what Americans try to say is happening here or try to do with all their weapons, they aren't going to be able to stay here, they're not going to be able to stop the mujahedeen,'' she said. ''That's for sure.''

She defended the Iraqi people, and highlighted their current struggle.

''People don't have electricity. They don't have water,'' she said. ''Children don't have safe streets to walk in. Women and children are always in danger.''

She also called on President Bush to send American troops home.

''He knows this war is wrong,'' she said. ''He knows it was illegal from the very beginning. He knows that it was built on a mountain of lies. I think he needs to finally admit to the American people and make the troops go home.

''He needs to wake up,'' she said. ''The people in America need to wake up and tell him what he's done here is wrong.''

The U.S. Embassy spokeswoman in Baghdad declined to comment on the video, saying all queries regarding Carroll were being handled by her family and the Monitor.

Iraq's Interior Ministry said it had no information regarding Carroll's departure plans, which an Iraqi official said were being handled by the Americans.

Bergenheim said the 28-year-old Carroll is ''emotionally fragile'' after 82 days in captivity and will begin her journey home as soon as possible.

''Yesterday was way too soon. I think they're investigating whether she could leave today,'' he told NBC's ''Today'' show. ''But her family wants to make sure that she's strong enough, emotionally and otherwise, to take this step.''

I think it depends what she does. If she continues to speak out against the war, which she's in a prime position to do, there will be trouble. As long as she goes quietly I think it will slide by. The media is all revved up on immigration right now. And especially if we get a big indictment in the next week. I think Abramoff prosecutors are priming to turn Fifth Street and knock on Tom DeLay's door.

And especially if we get a big indictment in the next week. I think Abramoff prosecutors are priming to turn Fifth Street and knock on Tom DeLay's door.

I'm all for that.

New NY Times piece. Here's a choice excerpt...

I was really bothered by the priority with which she was treated. People watching the news in the last three months might think that she was the only hostage in Iraq.

During my last night in captivity, my captors forced me to participate in a propaganda video. They told me they would let me go if I cooperated. I was living in a threatening environment, under their control, and wanted to go home alive. I agreed.

Things that I was forced to say while captive are now being taken by some as an accurate reflection of my personal views. They are not. The people who kidnapped me and murdered Allan Enwiya are criminals, at best. They robbed Allan of his life and devastated his family. They put me, my family and my friends--and all those around the world, who have prayed so fervently for my release--through a horrific experience. I was, and remain, deeply angry with the people who did this.

I also gave a TV interview to the Iraqi Islamic Party shortly after my release. The party had promised me the interview would never be aired on television, and broke their word. At any rate, fearing retribution from my captors, I did not speak freely. Out of fear I said I wasn't threatened. In fact, I was threatened many times.

Also, at least two false statements about me have been widely aired: That I refused to travel and cooperate with the US military and that I refused to discuss my captivity with US officials. Again, neither is true.

I want to be judged as a journalist, not as a hostage. I remain as committed as ever to fairness and accuracy--to discovering the truth--and so I will not engage in polemics. But let me be clear: I abhor all who kidnap and murder civilians, and my captors are clearly guilty of both crimes.

Now, I ask for the time to heal. This has been a taxing 12 weeks for me and my family. Please allow us some quiet time alone, together.

Hold that opinion
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | April 5, 2006

FOR OBVIOUS REASONS, journalism places a premium on speed. When news breaks on Tuesday, reporters spring into action to get the story into the paper on Wednesday -- and maybe even online or on the air by Tuesday night.

For reasons that are rather less obvious, opinion journalism -- the business not of reporting what happened, but of commenting on it -- also tends to place a premium on speed. When that story breaks on Tuesday, members of the pundits' guild spring into action as well. Editorial writers and columnists tell their readers what the news means. TV talking heads and radio pontificators pass judgment. Internet bloggers -- the commentariat's newest, increasingly influential players -- scramble to weigh in. And the more compelling or startling the news, the more immediate, and often the more adamant, the opinions expressed.

All of this is very democratic and robust; it certainly makes for a noisy and bustling marketplace of ideas. But does it make for a more thoughtful one?

I have always thought that racing to report a story makes a lot more sense than racing to express a point of view about it. No doubt there are some sages who don't need time to reflect -- or to wait for more facts, or to see how a story turns out -- in order to generate some well-chosen words of genuine wisdom and insight. My own experience is that judgment doesn't usually work that way. I find that thought and a bit of distance vastly improve the odds of coming up with something worth saying -- and that rushing to tell the world what to think of the latest headlines makes for shallow, half-baked, or unfair commentary.

Case in point: the release of Jill Carroll.

When the Christian Science Monitor reporter was set free in Baghdad last week, she insisted at first that her captors had not harmed her. ''I was treated very well; it's important people know that," she said in an interview conducted by the Iraqi Islamic Party, the Sunni organization into whose hands she was released. ''They never threatened me in any way."

On the same day, a videotape made before she was freed was posted on the Internet. In it, Carroll denounced the United States and praised the insurgents as ''good people fighting an honorable fight." Asked by the interviewer if she has ''a message for Mr. Bush," her answer was one-sided and hostile:

''Yeah, he needs to stop this war. He knows this war is wrong. He knows that it was illegal from the very beginning. He knows that it was built on a mountain of lies."

To some people hearing this, it was plain that Carroll was speaking under duress. ''Jill Carroll forced to make propaganda video as price of freedom," the Monitor headlined its story the next day. Anyone imagining that Carroll could have had any other motive, cautioned Ellen Knickmeyer of The Washington Post, ''should think about what they would do (after) three months with machine guns held to their heads."

But others, in their haste to express an opinion, pronounced Carroll guilty of collaboration.

''May as well just come right out and say she was a willing participant," one conservative blog announced. Declared another: ''She was anti-America when she went over there and I say the kidnapping was a put up deal from the get go." The executive producer of a prominent radio/television talk show described Carroll on the air as ''the kind of woman who would wear one of those suicide vests. You know, walk into the -- try and sneak into the Green Zone . . . She's like the Taliban Johnny or something."

At a popular site on the left, there was scorn for the ''totally inappropriate" assumptions that Carroll's warm words about her captors could be ''motivated by anything other than a desire to tell the truth."

Yet one day later, once she was safely out of Iraq, Carroll issued a statement repudiating the ''things that I was forced to say while captive." She bitterly labeled the men who kidnapped her and murdered her translator, Alan Enwiya, as ''criminals, at best." What she thought of the opinionated prodigies who couldn't wait to climb on their soapboxes and tell the world what to think about her, Carroll didn't say. Perhaps she was being polite. Perhaps, unlike them, she prefers to think before she vents.

With the swelling influence of the Internet and the blogosphere, the pressure to generate instant commentary is only going to grow more intense. But it is a deeply unhealthy impulse, and commentators -- in every medium -- should resist it. It's nice to be first. It's better to be right.

Jeff Jacoby's e-mail address is jacoby@globe.com.