It’s hilarious to hear the harrumphing and denials and shock from senior CNN honchos over the recent promo CNN aired for Paula Zahn. The promo for Zahn’s new “show” went as follows: “Where can you find a morning news anchor who’s provocative, super-smart and – oh – just a little sexy?” Apparently, the sound of a zipper being unfastened overlaid the voice-over. The higher-ups professed shock and horror, and maybe they were shocked and horrified. But wasn’t this the television version of a gaffe – that rare moment when networks say publicly what they mean privately? (Dammit, but I’ve just read her new column and Maureen Dowd beat me to the punch on this.) Television, after all, is a visual medium. The most powerful visual symbols are sexual. The notion that you can have successful television without sex is simply utopian. In a highly competitive environment, the premium on sexual imagery is going to be even higher. Hence the prominence of a Paula Zahn. The idea that Zahn has been hired for her crack-journalism skills is ludicrous. This is the woman who put psychics on her show to search for Chandra Levy. She makes Connie Chung look like Sandra Day O’Connor. Of course she’s on the air because she’s hot. When you’re catering to straight men, in particular, a cute face and decent boobs are a huge advantage in capturing and keeping your audience. The tele-bimboes may be competent at what they do – but if they weren’t sexy, they simply wouldn’t be there. Why can’t television executives just admit the obvious?
IRAN WATCH: A very useful piece from Yossi Klein Halevi on the terrorist threat still posed by Iran.
THE THINNEST OF REIDS: I’ve now read Bob Wright’s piece on the war in Slate a couple of times and I’m still befuddled. What is he trying to say? He now concedes that he was basically wrong in his early hyper-skepticism about the Afghanistan campaign:
“I’m not saying that the Persian Gulf War, on balance, wasn’t justified. And I’m not saying that the Afghanistan war won’t in the long run have been a plus. And I’m certainly not saying I didn’t get anything wrong about the war.”
So what is he saying? You try and figure it out. I think he’s saying that even if we did amazingly well in the war on terrorists and terrorist states, there will always be anger against us, and this anger could always find one or a few men to fight back. Sure, but who exactly is denying that fact? The conundrum of what to do with failed societies and failed states is not one that Wright or Charles Krauthammer or anyone I know has managed to solve. And the danger of technology in the wrong hands will always be a danger – and not simply from abroad. What if, say, young Charles Bishop had found some anthrax? I guess what I’m saying is that this problem is logically separate from the problem of this particular war, as is the irrational hatred of some for the U.S. around the world. Some cranks will hate us whatever we do. But that shouldn’t prevent us from defending ourselves and attacking those who wish us harm.
SO WHAT DOES BOB SUGGEST? : Beats me. Some kind of global government is his ultimate goal, though quite how or why that would solve this problem escapes me. The closest I can get to a concrete Wright proposal is the following paragraph:
“And here is the crucial point: Five or 10 or 15 years from now-thanks partly to the Bush administration’s refusal to earnestly seek an international regime for policing biological weapons-the Reids of the world could be much more highly leveraged. Three or four Richard Reids (or slightly more competent versions of him) might kill 10,000, 30,000, even 300,000 people.”
So the solution to global terrorism is an international regime for policing biological weapons? Like the great international regime that managed to contain Saddam Hussein’s nuclear-chemical-biological programs? And such a regime would not only prevent Iraq from unleashing terror but it would also contain the handful of truly determined lone terrorists, the deranged or evil or fanatic? C’mon, Bob. You’ve got to do better than that.
HEADS UP: The buzz at The New Republic is that Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, author of the stunning book, “Hitler’s Willing Executioners,” has an explosive piece on anti-Semitism and the Catholic Church in the upcoming issue. Stay tuned.
ORNAMENTALISM: Several acute readers corrected me on a remark I made about Avishai Margalit and Ian Buruma’s essay on “Occidentalism” in the New York Review of Books. I interpreted the following sentence as a rebuke to Edward Said: “But if one thing is clear in this murky war, it is that we should not counter Occidentalism with a nasty form of Orientalism. Once we fall for that temptation, the virus has infected us too.” In fact, it may be better read as a mild endorsement of Said’s theory of “Orientalism,” rather than a rebuttal. The broader argument, I’d still insist, is obviously counter to Said’s. Another reader suggests that the smartest Said rebuttal is, in fact, David Cannadine’s book on the British Empire, “Ornamentalism.” Cannadine suggests in the book that the British Empire, rather than being fixated on race, was actually based on class. English elites identified with, say, Indian elites more than they did with those lower down the totem pole. Worth checking out.
HOLY SHIT: Among all the whining special interest groups out there, the Catholic League is one of my least favorite. It’s a right-wing version of a left-wing victim group, eager to pounce upon perceived anti-Catholicism anywhere. So it’s always amusing when they trip up. Here’s a story that speaks for itself. American Catholics take offense at a Catalonian folk custom of placing defecating figurines in nativity scenes. The custom has absolutely nothing to do with anti-Catholicism, but the Catholic League has a cow anyway. Don’t they have anything better to do with their lives?
The Dish 