A new poll shows that seven out of ten Europeans think that president Bush makes international decisions solely on the basis of U.S. interests. And we’re supposed to be upset about this? If I were Karl Rove, I’d be sending this poll out to every media outlet I could find.
YOU GO, DORIS: Feminist icon and novelist Doris Lessing has had it with contemporary feminism. She rightly believes it has degenerated, like the putrid remains of the civil rights movement, into cheer-leading, parochialism and bigotry. Its main focus? Hatred of men: “I find myself increasingly shocked at the unthinking and automatic rubbishing of men which is now so part of our culture that it is hardly even noticed,” Lessing vented at the Edinburgh Festival. “We have many wonderful, clever, powerful women everywhere, but what is happening to men? Why did this have to be at the cost of men?? I was in a class of nine- and 10-year-olds, girls and boys, and this young woman was telling these kids that the reason for wars was the innately violent nature of men. You could see the little girls, fat with complacency and conceit while the little boys sat there crumpled, apologizing for their existence, thinking this was going to be the pattern of their lives.” Amen, Doris. Good to see that Christina Hoff Sommers and Camille Paglia have some reinforcements. She says of modern feminism: “It has become a kind of religion that you can’t criticize because then you become a traitor to the great cause, which I am not.” The same could be said for many of the current movements to support minorities.
IRELAND AGAIN: I’m still amazed at how many readers still hold the view that the problem in Ireland is “British” occupation and that everything would be ok if they just left or conceded everything to the I.R.A. The main problem with this analysis, which still hovers behind some American coverage of the Irish conflict, is that it ignores the Republic. The last thing Dublin wants is a united Ireland in which the Republic is expected to deal with what would be a ferocious and well-armed Unionist insurgency in the North. Both London and Dublin want some kind of power-sharing in Ulster and both, unlike some opinion leaders in America, have few illusions about the IRA. Check out this editorial from the Dublin Irish Times on August 1, putting the onus for the failure of peace on the IRA. And check out a devastating report in the same paper of how the Good Friday Agreement led to no reduction in violence from either side, particularly the IRA. The “cease-fire” proclaimed for p.r. purposes was merely a cease-fire against obvious sectarian attacks. It certainly didn’t stop the ninety killings from both sides that followed the “peace” agreement.
UNCONSCIOUS MEDIA BIAS: Nice sentence in the New York Times today about the 1996 Immigration Act, one of the most disgraceful pieces of legislation in recent years: “”Before passage of a Republican-backed law five years ago, only an immigration judge could order the deportation of someone who arrived without valid travel documents. Now an immigration officer can exercise that power, called expedited removal, on the spot, a move intended to cut down on fraud.” Of course, this is accurate. But it is also accurate to point out that president Clinton signed the law and that it passed the Senate 97 – 3 and the House by 333 votes to 87. That looks pretty bipartisan to me. So why the completely arbitrary nailing of Republicans?
The Dish 