Month: April 2002

D’oh! Here I am at Slate’s Washington offices, finding out about a Freudian typo in my post last night. When I said “homocide bomber,” I was not actually outing a bunch of Palestinians. I meant to write “homicide bomber.” By the way, Jack Shafer is unrecognizable. I remember him when he was a long-haired, constantly stoned hipster. Alas, the hair is short and the shirt tucked in. Maybe he will get the job, after all.

That’s my read on the Pope’s unprecedented decision to summon all 13 American cardinals to Rome to address the current crisis. When a problem is this big, the leaders must take some responsibility. Law is the obvious candidate for removal. No, he won’t be fired. He may even hang on for months. But at some point soon, someone else will be given de facto authority over his diocese and some sinecure will be arranged to allow him to serve God in another capacity. He still obviously doesn’t get what’s gone wrong, which means he is what has gone wrong. My other fearless prediction: Vatican spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, won’t survive much longer than Law. Theologizing in public is not part of his job description. Rome, I think, may finally be getting it. A national formal policy on sexual abuse will have to be imposed; a fuller investigation will be needed; more priests will be removed. Why is the crisis this deep? Because it wounds both wings of the American Church. It wounds the conservatives, because their church is clearly run by many people who do not believe for a minute in the sexual teachings of the church, and who have batted an eyelid at sexual abuse. It wounds the liberals, because it exposes the hypocrisy and dysfunction at the heart of the hierarchy, and shows how hard it will be to get grown-ups with even vaguely healthy sexualities in leadership in the future. And neither wing can stay in the church if either resolves the problem. If liberals succeed in bringing women, married priests and open gays with partners into the priesthood, it’s hard to see how traditionalists could stay. But if the conservatives purge every gay priest, ramp up teachings against sex without procreation even further, and do so with the credibility of the current leadership, then the exodus from the pews will be massive. Given the likelihood of schism under either scenario, there will be an attempt to keep the status quo – with some amendments on sexual abuse policy. Which means, barring spectacular spiritual leadership, more of the same. In other words, the current system favors a slow death over a wrenching cure – of either prescription. Not pretty at all.

BEGALA AWARD NOMINEE: “Larry Summers strikes me as the Ariel Sharon of American higher education. He struck me very much as a bull in a china shop, and as a bully, in a very delicate and dangerous situation.” – Cornel West, as quoted in the New York Times. Does that make West Arafat?

KRISTOF’S PUZZLEMENT: Nick Kristof, who wants us to sue Saddam Hussein, keeps scratching his head at Arab double-standards with regard to Israel. As he puts it,

Some 1,600 Palestinians have been killed since the latest round of violence erupted in the fall of 2000. In contrast, two million Sudanese have died in the ongoing civil war here, with barely anyone noticing. Likewise, Syria blithely killed about 20,000 people in crushing an abortive uprising in the city of Hama in 1982. And Saddam Hussein, who has killed more Arabs than Ariel Sharon and all his Israeli predecessors put together, is somehow a hero for much of the Arab world.

In a word, Nick, duh. Welcome, however belatedly, to reality. Kristof them rightly outlines the sense of Arab shame that fuels their rage at defeat or humiliation at the hands of the “other.” But what he doesn’t mention is something gob-smackingly obvious: anti-Semitism. If you’re a raving anti-semitic paranoiac, defeat at the hands of the Americans is one thing; but defeat at the hands of the Jews is beyond endurance. This is the pathology without which nothing that is now happening in the Arab world can be understood. I don’t know how to cure a culture of such a sickness, but I do know that in the past, only decisive and comprehensive military defeat did the trick.

DERBYSHIRE AWARD NOMINEE: “The Geoghan documents were his Hiroshima, the Shanley files his Nagasaki. But Bernard Cardinal Law did not follow the script and surrender.” – National Review Online’s Rod Dreher, with his usual gift for understatement.

OFF THE FENCE ON THE FENCE: Richard Cohen jumps on the Barak fence-building bandwagon. (How’s that for mixed metaphors? I’m beginning to sound like Tom Friedman). Uh oh. Perhaps it’s time for me to think about this one even further.

CHOMSKY AND BRITISH FASCISTS: Odd little catch by blogger Travelling Shoes. Who should turn up on a list of people beloved of the British Fascist Party but, er, Noam Chomsky? He’s got the right attitude toward the Jews, you see. Here’s their encomium to him on a website dedicated to the British fascist of the 1930s, Oswald Mosley.

SHARANSKY’S HALF A POINT: In an interview with Fox News, former Soviet dissident and now Israeli politician, Natan Sharansky, bracingly defends Israel’s military tactics on the West Bank. Here’s his argument:

The army spent two weeks in Jenin rooting out the terrorists, and then there was a pause in the operation. What was that pause used for? We found that it was used to booby trap buildings, and to prepare a terrorist network that resulted in the loss of 13 soldiers. We made a decision not to use bombs in the Jenin operation, not to use warplanes, but to go house to house, to avoid civilian casualties. As a result of that decision, which was made by the army and also by the cabinet, we created the situation where a terror network could be installed, and it ended up costing many more Israeli lives and also the lives of more Palestinian civilians. Now I ask you to compare that decision and the principles on which it was based to two recent wars – the war of the United States in Afghanistan, and the European war in Yugoslavia. Which culture stuck to its principles of human rights being the most important value? And yet from whom do we hear the loudest criticism? From those same Americans and Europeans.

Sharansky, it seems to me, is over-stating his case. The Americans and Europeans went to great lengths to avoid unnecessary civilian casualties in bombing both Serbia and Afghanistan. And in the first case, the intervention was in defense of the rights of a minority facing genocide; in the second, it was a matter of pure self-defense – two unimpeachable war rationales. Still, the door-to-door searching of the IDF, in difficult terrain, with snipers always around, does not seem to me to be an exercise in unthinking brutality. That makes sense. What doesn’t make moral sense to me is the bull-dozing of houses, the humiliation of Palestinian civilians, and the brandishing of victory. Read this piece in today’s Daily Telegraph, hardly a paper viscerally hostile to Israeli, and you’ll see what I mean. I agree with Paul Wolfowitz who said yesterday, “Innocent Palestinians are suffering and dying in great numbers as well. It is critical that we re
cognize and acknowledge that fact.” (The boos that greeted those remarks were disgraceful.) I understand the emotions behind Israel’s need to defeat terror and show resolve. But some of the excess is misguided and wrong – in terms of Israel’s image, morality, and simple political sense.

“Many of my male and female friends have also noted the unappealing appearance of an uncircumcised penis. Not the most crucial matter, perhaps, but worthy of consideration.” This and other expressions of dissent on the Letters Page.

FORCE AND FRAUD: A Machiavellian defense of the Bush administration’s toing and froing in Israel and the Middle East.

MUCH ADO ABOUT MUCH ADO: No, I won’t be in tights, regardless of the New Yorker headline. But if you want to find out more about the production, when it opens, where it is, how to buy tickets, etc, then click here.

Is for the continuance of suicide bombing. This piece reporting on the latest announcements from the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, makes it perfectly clear that Arafat sees no reason to surrender the one weapon – however grotesque – that still gives him leverage. None of this is particularly bad news, however, for the war on terror. Having Arafat more clearly seen by the world as an enthusiast for terrorism – especially the current brutal, suicidal form – can only help our case in the end. Having Israel continue its incursion into the West Bank can likewise only help intelligence efforts with regard to the terrorist network, sponsored by Iraq, Iran and Syria. The current round of largely meaningless diplomacy achieves what the Bush administration needs it to achieve: nothing. I just hope none of this has in any way delayed or hampered the military planning for Iraq. First things first. If and when Arafat sees his paymasters are under dire threat, he may change his tune. Until then, the art of pursuing the impossible while hoping for stalemate is the order of the day. Colin Powell looks like he’s following instructions quite nicely, thank you. Oh and can we please retire immediately the term ‘homocide bomber?’ It’s largely superfluous and omits the key, if horrifying, element of the new terrorism: the use of young, impressionable men and women as human bombs. If we don’t like ‘suicide bombers,’ how about ‘suicide killers?’

THE OLD NEW GORE: How obtuse is Al Gore? It takes amazing cojones after one of the most execrable campaigns in modern times to get back in the ring with the aplomb he demonstrated in Florida. But his timing is exquisite as usual. When 80 percent of Democrats believe he shoujld refrain from direct attacks on a war-time president, Gore gives a shrill, McAuliffe-like partisan address. No doubt, the need to appeal to his party base skews Gore to the left. But I think it’s worth considering that this is where Gore now is. His long years preparing for coronation were peppered with moderate stances – on economics, race, foreign policy, even the environment, where, despite his New Age book, his record as veep was barely distinguishable from a moderate Republican’s. But since the 2000 convention, Gore has come out as an unreconstructed leftist. He backs strong affirmative action, he describes American economic issues in purely left-populist terms, he is a captive of liberal interest groups, backing the agenda of the NAACP, NARAL and the no-enemies-to-the-left gay rights group, the Human Rights Campaign. This is the real Gore, on the assumption that such a creature exists independent of bare-knuckled ambition. Fair enough. Let him run from the Left. But what this merely proves is that those of us who supported Gore for years as a moderate Democrat were essentially manipulated and lied to. Hence our hostility today. If this “new Gore” is the real Gore, what does that say about the Gore of the 1980s and 1990s? At least Richard Nixon had a modicum of political talent. And at least Bill Clinton rarely governed from the old left.

BACK TO BARAK: His plan still makes the most sense. Fight terror, never negotiate with terror, and build a wall. If Bush is smart, he’ll put whatever weight the U.S. still has in this matter behind the Barak agenda. And let the Arab dictators deal with the aftermath.

UNRAVELING BENEDICK: It’s been a grueling weekend of tech rehearsals, i.e. standing around waiting for production people to cue the sounds and lights. Two twelve hour days of almost continuous grind. Nevertheless, all the gaps give you a chance to hammer the lines into your head and also think some more about your character. I’m glad to say I haven’t seen any productions of “Much Ado About Nothing.” I rented the movie in good faith but never got past the first scene. Kenneth Branagh, alas, drives me up the wall. I’d also never read the play thorougly before I signed up for the Washington Shakespeare Company production, so I started trying to figure out Benedick from scratch. He is known, of course, as a classic romantic character, whose tempestuous and often very acerbic relationship with Beatrice is a deliciously arch and adult mirror to Romeo and Juliet. In most readings, Benedick’s heterosexuality is therefore a given. But the script is far more ambiguous. He is a ‘confirmed bachelor,’ unmarried into middle age, he harbors an attitude toward women that is alternately sexually forward “as being a professed tyrant to their sex,” and dismissive, vowing never to contaminate his life with marriage. Beatrice, who knows him well, makes obvious and crude references to his homosexual leanings in the very first scene of the play. He is “a man to a man,” someone who variably has a new young male companion on his shoulder. Throughout the play, his excessive and rhetorical hostility to the whole idea of marriage is exactly the kind of smoke-screen a homosexual passing as a heterosexual deploys to disguise his true feelings. Indeed, the whole armor of emotional protection that guards Benedick throughout the play is uncannily reminiscent of the contortions gay people have performed for centuries to survive with a modicum of dignity in a heterosexually-dominated world.

BUT IS HE GAY? Yet at the same time, thinking of Benedick as a contemporary gay man is as flawed as seeing him as a classically uncomplicated straight guy. His emotional conflicts, while more comprehensible if seen through the prism of his homosexual orientation, are also intelligible without it. Maybe he’s just scared of intimacy, as most men – gay or straight – are. He clearly loves Beatrice, who is, after all, a woman (and a terrifically funny and sexy one too). Yet he is more comfortable expressing this love in verbal combat than physical proximity. He’s terrified of commitment – but in a way that surpasses the entire issue of orientation. He’s also created by a man who lived in an era where the very rigid concepts of ‘gay’ and ‘straight’ didn’t explicitly exist. What I’m finding, of course, is that, by acting him, I have to make up my mind about his fundamental orientation, and yet find a way to express the sexual ambiguity and emotional complexity that Shakespeare clearly wanted his audience to reflect upon. In the end, what Shakespeare’s comedy has helped me understand is how humanity ultimately transcends gay or straight. The questions of love and sex, marriage and freedom, commitment and relationship, go beyond sexual orientation. I’ve long believed this in the abstract. But acting this part has helped me internalize it again in a whole new way – and, when all is said and done, to find it, as Shakespeare obviously did, one of God’s deepest and funniest jokes.

“Lutheran Minister Arrested On Charges Of Boring Young Children
PERU, IL- St. Luke’s Lutheran Church was rocked by scandal Tuesday, when Rev. Bob Tillich, the church’s pastor of 12 years, was arrested on suspicion of boring as many as 23 children within the congregation. “Reverend Bob always seemed like the sweetest man,” parishioner Vera Crandall said following the arrest. “When my son said he made him watch three 1975 filmstrips about the suffering of Job, I was shocked.” In the wake of the arrest, seven former Sunday-school students, dating as far back as 1989, have stepped forward with charges that Tillich subjected them to inappropriately tedious parables.” – from – where else? – the Onion.

THE CURE FOR GAY PRIESTS: One wacky right-wing Catholic suggests the real problem is that straight Catholics haven’t been told firmly enough they need to stop using contraception:

The fact that this crisis for Catholicism revolves around sexual misconduct is not coincidental either. For too long Catholic pastors have given lip service to the more controversial Church teachings on sexual behavior while quietly tolerating the violation of those norms. Most prelates have chosen to ignore the abundant evidence that many Catholic married couples use contraceptives and that many Catholic priests are active homosexuals. The gross inconsistency between public teaching and private practice has given rise to a culture of hypocrisy and secret vice.

That’s a warning to the straight people struggling to make sense of the Church’s teachings on sexual morality: you’re next, guys. Even if we have to empty the pews completely to make our point.

I’ve not commented these last few days on the crisis on the West Bank and Israel for a pretty obvious reason. I’m not completely clear what I think. I’d like to argue that Sharon is totally right, that the incursion is essential to restrain terrorism, that the military strategy can work, that Arafat can and should be ignored, that the Bush administration has been foolish to tack against the Israeli anti-terror mission. In my gut, I believe all those things. At the same time, it also seems to me that the logic of these events leads inexorably to a regional war with unimaginable consequences – the use of weapons of mass destruction in several countries, including Israel. Under those circumstances, it is not crazy for Washington to intervene to attempt to restrain the violence. This won’t buy peace; but it could buy time. And some time could persuade the Israelis to do what they absolutely have to do to survive.

SO BUILD A FENCE: And what they have to do is construct a real barrier between Israel and the West Bank. The Forward recently ran an astute editorial that noted how all the suicide bombers have come from the West Bank, rather than Gaza. The reason? Gaza is cut off by a real, defensible barrier. Would-be terrorists can check into Gaza, but they can’t check out. If the same could be done with the West Bank, it’s possible terrorism could be reduced to much lower levels in Israel proper. Yes, there would still be the danger from some Israeli Arabs. But they are far less of a threat, and those who do use such violence should simply be imprisoned or deported. Such a fence would, however, mean ending the isolated settlements in the West Bank, consolidating those near the border, and establishing some kind of buffer. Perhaps the extent of the Palestinian terror network in the West Bank, and the horror of the suicide bombs in Israel will finally bring about a consensus in that country for abandoning the settlements. The benefit of such a unilateral withdrawal is also that Israel does not have to negotiate anything with a lying murderer like Arafat. Indeed, Israel should remain indifferent to what emerges in that neighborhood, as long as it is not used as a base for yet another Arab attack on Israel itself. Deterrence, vigilance, and the fence should make it feasible for Israel to survive in such a straitened form. And survival, right now, would be an achievement.

SCREWING THE SAUDIS: The flip-side of this, of course, should also be American unilateralism – in disentangling ourselves from the morally and politically crippling engagement with the majority of the Arab dictators. By far the most promising sign of the last couple of months has been the gradual transference of the U.S. military from the Saudi base to Qatar. David Ignatius has a good op-ed on the transition today. He’s way too optimistic about Qatar being a model for the future of the Arab world. But using Qatar as a genuinely reliable base in the region makes a hell of a lot more sense than our current arrangements – and is probably an essential prerequisite for the coming war against Saddam.

THE MUTILATION OF CHILDREN: I may be a broken record on this but the news today that circumcision may have a small effect in restraining transmission of the HPV virus strikes me as likely to be misused. The argument against the circumcision of infants is not that it might not conceivably have some future health-benefits. The argument against infant male genital mutilation is that it is the permanent, irreversible disfigurement of a person’s body without his consent. Unless such a move is necessary to protect a child’s life or essential health, it seems to me that it is a grotesque violation of a person’s right to control his own body. It matters not a jot why it is done. It simply should not be done – until the boy or man is able to give his informed consent. And to perform such an operation to protect the health of others is an even more unthinkable violation. It’s treating an individual entirely as a means rather than as an end. I’m at a loss why a culture such as ours that goes to great lengths to protect the dignity and safety of children (and rightly so) should look so blithely on this barbaric relic. Yes, I know there are religious justifications for it. But even so, religions should not be given ethical carte blanche over the bodies of children. Would we condone a religious ceremony that, say, permanently mutilated a child’s ear? Or tongue? Or scarred their body irreversibly? Of course not. So why do we barely object when people mutilate a child’s sexual organ?

SANCTIMONIOUS AND ARROGANT: “Just finished reading Father McCloskey’s “2030, Looking Backward” and his comments on “Meet The Press” from March 31. As a fellow Catholic, you shouldn’t be surprised. This is the kind of sanctimonious, arrogant triumphalism in which our church has specialized since at least the Middle Ages.” This is one reader’s view. Here’s another’s: “”Francoite!” what a wonderful term of approbation you have hurled. I suppose it is the analogue to calling some lefty a “Stalinist.” I am not a member of Opus Dei but did attend some of their prayer meetings here in the district when I was younger. What you have is earnest young men who wish to live a truly spiritual life in the truth of the Faith.” This and both sides on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the Letters Page.

ALTERMAN’S BLACKLIST: You may recall that Eric Alterman of the Nation recently listed a number of columnists he regards as reflexive lackeys of Israel and the Jews. In a revealing error, it turns out he named one woman, Cathy Young, who had never even written about the Middle East. Well, she was a Jew and conservative, so that was good enough for Alterman. (Yes, he was also the one complaining about bloggers’ making errors without editors.) Anyway, patiopundit has provided a very helpful hyperlinked version of the list, enabling you to read instantly the latest propaganda served up by the Elders of Zion, while young I.F. Alterman toils away as a beacon of independent thought at, er, the Nation. Enjoy.

ST-ST-ST-ST-ST-STOP!: A stutterer has been discriminated against as a driving instructor. Now there’s an ethical quandary. Would the ADA stop that here? It reminds me of the joke about the Jewish guy who applied for a job as a radio announcer. When he returned from the interview, he was asked if he got the job. “No,” he replied. “Why not?” asked his friend. “Anti-s-s-s-s-s-semitism.”

After humiliating myself a few times over, I thought it only fitting to link to this definitive explanation of why Norway awards the Peace Prize. Sorry again.

Stanley Kurtz answers Maureen Dowd’s call. Once again, Stanley unconsciously endorses the gay agenda. Hey, Stanley, we pansexual subversives been dating down for decades! No wonder we sometimes resemble bonobos. (Stray thought: are upper middle class down-daters better described as bobo-bonobos? Sorry. Couldn’t resist.)

MICKEY VERSUS REICH: My favorite long-running spat – the Benedick-Beatrice of the liberal intellectual world – is between Mickey Kaus and Bob Reich. I’m a Mickster-fan, but even his detractors will appreciate his latest dismemberment of the diminutive political hustler from Massachusetts.

I caved too soon. It turns out that in the early 1900s, the Nobel Peace prize was moved from Sweden to Norway. I was right the first time. Do I get flamed by Spinsanity for being overly concerned with correcting myself?

You want to know why, on some days in some ways, British journalism simply surpasses by a measure of light-years most of what you read in the American press? Read this wonderful obit in the Daily Telegraph of a largely failed journalist who drunk himself slowly to death in Soho. Here’s a classic passage:

His speciality was the extreme. In one drinking binge he went for nine days without food. At the height of his consumption, before he was frightened by epileptic fits into cutting back, he was managing two bottles of vodka a day. His face became in his own description that of a “rotten choirboy”. At lunchtime he would walk through the door of the Coach and Horses still trembling with hangover, his nose and ears blue whatever the weather. On one cold day he complained of the noise that the snow made as it landed on his bald head.

Jack Shafer pointed this out to me, for which I’m grateful. Graham Mason’s only real claim to fame was that he was Graham Mason. And some people obviously loved him. One anonymous person loved him enough to write an obit as inspired as this one.

BIBI IN D.C. Helpful blogger account of Binyamin Netanyahu’s talk last night at the American Enterprise Institute. He talks a lot of sense, it seems to me.

WAS MONTAIGNE A KINDA BLOGGER? Reflections on putting personal details into general commentary; a complaint about writers with diseases; the genius of Shakespeare; and the Bush family’s problem with oil. All this in the latest installment on the Letters Page.

SITE DU JOUR: andrewsullivan.com was named the left-wing French paper Liberation’s site of the day yesterday. Merci.

TAXCUTSFORTHERICH: That phrase, inserted almost automatically in much media coverage of the Bush tax cut, avoids one obvious fact. The wealthy now pay an astonishing proportion of this country’s tax take, and that proportion is growing at an alarming pace. In 1989, the top 5 percent paid 44 percent of federal taxes. Today, they pay 55 percent. Al Gore’s favorite “top one percent” now pay one third of all taxes, while accounting for only 19 percent of national taxable income. Bush’s tax cut – which will, in my mind, be remembered as second only to the war against terror as his greatest legacy – only arrests the pace at which this skewed and democratically dangerous imbalance accelerates. Yes, I know it partly reflects growing income inequality. But please don’t describe our current system as regressive. It’s the opposite. It’s downright punitive of success.

WOODWARD OR RICH? Who do you believe about the Bush administration’s openness to the press? The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward or the New York Times’ Frank Rich? Woodward gushed recently about the president’s handling of his job. Here’s a description of his take:

Prior to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Woodward planned to write a book about Mr. Bush’s first year in office. He had spoken to senior advisers but had not met the president until one day at a Connecticut university where Mr. Bush was speaking. Woodward was waiting offstage when Mr. Bush bounded toward him, filled with enthusiasm and adrenaline. When Woodward extended his hand and introduced himself, the president said: “Duhh! I know who you are.” A moment later, Mr. Bush squeezed Woodward’s head and called him “Woody.” “Nobody gives me the nickname, ‘Woody,’ ” Woodward said yesterday, as the audience chuckled. Later, after the terrorist attacks, Woodward and another reporter interviewed Mr. Bush in the Oval Office. The reporters had an hour to ask their questions. But Woodward said the president gave them 90 minutes, often speaking candidly about classified information and explaining the reasons behind some of his actions. “Certainly Richard Nixon would not have allowed reporters to question him like that. Bush’s father [former President George Bush] wouldn’t allow it. Clinton wouldn’t allow it. “As a journalist I like somebody who is straight and direct,” Woodward said.

Now here’s Rich, echoing the anti-Bush line sustained through even the most mundane of the Times’ news stories:

[T]here is still scant evidence to suggest that he condones the idea of a free press. Not since the Nixon years has an administration done as much to stymie reporters who specialize in the genre of investigative inquiry Mr. Pearl was pursuing when he was ambushed. Now as then, the administration is equally determined to thwart journalists whether they’re looking into a war abroad or into possible White House favors for a lavish campaign contributor who has fallen into legal peril (Ken Lay now, Robert Vesco then).

Maybe Frank Bruni could negotiate some via media between these two interpretations. But it certainly helps explain why the Times’ access to the Bush administration seems so constrained these days. Perhaps, it’s just projection.

BRAIN FART: Sorry, of course it’s Sweden that gives out the Nobel Prizes, not Norway. It’s just that some of the judges are from Norway and it was the Norwegian ones who have been recently regretting the Shimon Peres award.