Monday morning roundup

Whatever else you think of the China-Tibet dynamic, it doesn't take much to distrust China with fresh water.

The wacamole of going after the supply side of narcotics has chased the production to Peru.

A letter to the editor points out what freedom of speech is not. Howard Kurtz has more:

Former CNN correspondent Jamie McIntyre wrote last week that "there's a big difference between asking tough questions and getting answers to tough questions. Anyone can ASK tough questions. But figuring out how to hold government officials accountable, by posing questions in such a way that they can't avoid answering them, is a much harder, and far more valuable journalistic exercise than just venting from a padded front seat in the White House briefing room. Helen Thomas' questions were not designed to probe weaknesses in the president's policies. They were just meant to provoke him."

Former Bush speechwriter David Frum said on his blog that "calling on Helen Thomas was a notorious method for a hard-pressed White House press secretary to EVADE tough questions from the rest of the press corps. A zany, out-of-left-field protest from Thomas would disrupt a flow of unwelcome queries, maybe spark a tension-breaking laugh, maybe change the subject altogether."

David Nesenoff, the Long Island rabbi who triggered Thomas's resignation by asking for her thoughts on Israel, says he has received death threats and more than 25,000 e-mails, many of them obscene and hate-filled. One called him a "dirty Jew," saying: "Hittler [sic] was right! Time for you to go back in the oven!"

and

Since Thomas was a columnist, she had every right to her opinions -- even if her view was that Jews should be banished from Israel. But she didn't have a perpetual right to a newspaper column or a White House pressroom seat. Hearst bears some responsibility for keeping Thomas on as her behavior grew more disturbing. It's not that a pro-Israel press corps drove her out; it's that Thomas could not defend her remarks, and indeed apologized for them.

I prepared to balk at Ross Douthat's column--on how Palin/Fiorina reflect the successes of feminism--but his points are neither remarkable nor objectionable. What I would object to is putting Nikki Haley in the same category as the other two, because she actually has substance. And let me venture a perhaps unfair guess: Palin and Fiorina would have been the first to mock her and her brothers at school.

Another letter to Carolyn on judging people for their (lowbrow) choices of entertainment.