Month: April 2002

Several of you have emailed me to say that I was unfair to the New York Times. There was indeed a wave of criticism of Bush’s Middle East policy over the weekend and the previous week. And sure enough, there was – in the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, and andrewsullivan.com, for example. But that wasn’t the point of the Times piece. The point of the Times’s piece was that the criticism was aimed at Bush’s apparent stand-offishness and inattention to the problem. The implication was that Bush’s mistake was not to continue Clinton’s policy of constant hands-on meddling. But the criticism from the right has been precisely the opposite – that Cheney’s trip was too involved, that it was too defensive, that the administration was too equivocal in is support of Israel against terror, that it was micro-managing too much. All that makes the Times’ spin even more disingenous. At least it does to my mind.

According to this story, Paul Krugman wouldn’t even applaud military officials at the Gridiron dinner and noticeably refused to take part in the ‘non-partisan’ spirit of the occasion, refusing to applaud or laugh at any non-Democrats, even when they were making fun of themselves. “People are free to be partisan in their columns,” a White House official comments, “but if you’re going to accept an invitation for an event that honors the president and keeps a non-partisan tone, it’s not too much to think Mr. Krugman, having accepted the invitation, could have acted in the spirit of the dinner.” On this point, you can perhaps sympathize with Krugman. After all, when there are confirmed plutocrats, insistent liars and corporate puppets running the country, they don’t deserve any applause, do they? But my question is: what is this defender of ordinary people, this scourge of the establishment, this brave voice for truth against the lies of Washington, this lone crusader against corporate power-mongers (except when they offer him sweetheart deals) – what’s he doing at this hideous, insider, log-rolling establishment love-fest in the first place?

The Boston Globe’s “media columnist,” Alex Beam, weighs in against blogs today, as predicted. He’s snide, he lacks substance, and he’s gullible! He cites Bjorn Staerk’s April Fool blog – about converting to the far left – as if it were legit. One thing about those newspaper guys. They sure do have a good nose for b.s. Hey, Beam, you got an editor? Beam also informed all the bloggers in advance that he was writing a hatchet piece. James Lileks got the following missive: “James, weren’t you once a talented humor writer? Why are you churning out this web dreck?” I got an even blunter email, which I won’t reproduce since it was a private correspondence. Of course, it’s all flattering, really. He clearly reads bloggers. How many bloggers or their readers have ever read him?

KAUS ON KRUGMAN: Mickey relents and sees what others are seeing: that Paul Krugman once “had a beautiful mind.” Now he rants on about “powerful forces” controlling politics, the Heritage Foundation running the country, Coors beer and Richard Mellon Scaife conspiring to rob old people of their livelihoods, and the complete health of our social security system. The grassy knoll beckons, Paul.

WHAT’S LEFT? My take on what’s happened to the American left. Yes, I know that giving any attention to Michael Moore seems foolish. I would ignore him – but he’s at the top of the best-seller lists. He represents something – a small but dedicated constituency of the embittered and the unthinking that increasingly dictates what remains of a left-wing agenda. In contrast, I’m in awe of Michael Walzer as a thinker with integrity and a decent commitment to left-wing politics. Which makes his gloom about the crisis on the left that much more convincing to me.

It’s been such a wonderful Easter weekend I found it hard to sit down and think, let alone, write about the Middle East. I guess two points strike me: I was really cheered by president Bush’s statement about Israel’s need for self-defense, and about Yassir Arafat’s fundamental responsibility for each day’s unfolding horrors. I was rattled recently by what seemed like equivocation emerging from the White House. I should have trusted the president more. Secondly, this is indeed a war, as prime minister Sharon has said. Yassir Arafat is part of a nexus of terror that has links to Baghdad, is armed by the Iranian dictators, fomented by the Syrians, and financed by the Saudis. Tom Friedman is absolutely right that if the strategy of suicide bombing is allowed to work in Israel, it is only a matter of time before it is deployed in America. And, as Friedman notes, it is not some ad hoc strategy concocted by the Palestinians. It is a conscious, premeditated war-plan devised and supported by almost every Arab state. Yesterday, a Palestinian spokesman made the following statement:

“Our heroes will penetrate your streets, your cities. You will not enjoy security and peace unless our people enjoy peace and freedom… This aggression is by an American decision, and American weapons. America now is the one providing cover for terrorism and supporting terrorism.”

Ignore the Orwellian newspeak. What matters is that these deranged Islamist murderers see Israel as target practise. This war in Israel is not some minor conflict related geographically to the war against terror. It is the same war. Its solution cannot be negotiated. It has to be won. Israel must now fight for survival, by rooting out the terrorist networks threatening the sole democracy in the Middle East, unilaterally retreating to more compact and defensible borders, constructing a wall that will more effectively keep Islamist terrorists out, and beginning a policy of deportations of any and all Israeli Arabs connected to terrorist groups. There is no other way. There is no-one but fanatics and murderers to negotiate with. You’ve got to kiss the settlements goodbye, wage a far more aggressive war against the Palestinian terrorists, and then consolidate defensible territory. We can and should hope for peace. But the only way to get there is through the thorough prosecution of this war. As Sharon tells Safire today: “All countries seeking peace should pray that the Israeli Defense Forces succeed in their mission, because only by uprooting and eradicating terror will we achieve a durable peace.” He’s right. Let us pray.

THE QUEEN MUM: It’s a little hard to feel enormous sorrow at the death of a royal at the grand old age of 101. Sympathy has better objects – some of the victims of more suicide bombings in Israel, for example. But the wife of King George VI nevertheless played a crucial role in steeling her then woefully unprepared husband to be king after the abdication of Edward VIII. It was a precarious time – of danger abroad, a deeply divided British establishment, and a looming war. She held the monarchy together, a feat which, in retrospect, turned out to be an important ingredient in enabling Britain to sustain itself under Hitler’s assault. My old editor, Bill Deedes, of the Daily Telegraph gets it just right in his paper today. And he’s one of the few journalists old enough to recall how many of her best friends this former queen lost – in the First World War!

BILL’S BACK: Like a belated belch from a bad meal, Newsweek is now featuring an interview with former president Bill Clinton. They chose that hard-as-nails unbiased reporter Jonathan Alter to do it. Was Joe Conason unavailable? But maybe Conason would have balked at questions like: “Why do you think the right wing was so obsessed with you?” and “Why do they still beat up on you when you’re not in power anymore?” (To be fair, Alter did ask some tougher questions as well.) The thing that struck me most about the interview is how utterly unchanged Clinton is. His life is still crammed with meaningless activity, his schedule constructed to avoid any moment of silent reflection. And then there’s the fathomless self-pity. He knew nothing, he says, about the dismally corrupt procedure of selling pardons in his last weeks. The only reason he wouldn’t pardon Marc Rich again was that the ‘politics’ was terrible. Er, Mr. President, has it occurred to you that it was simply wrong to pardon a fugitive criminal and tax-evader? Nah. Then there’s his Brock-Blumenthal notion of some “right-wing establishment,” that was out to get him. Let’s gladly concur that there were many unsavory characters on the right who often behaved disgracefully in trying to smear him. But an establishment? When Clinton took office, both Senate and House were controlled by his own party. Every major newspaper and media outlet had endorsed him. Wall Street loved him. Hollywood adored him. And he thinks the “establishment” was out to get him? The truth is: if there is such a thing as a “right-wing establishment,” Clinton created it, just as his malfeasance and corruption managed to turn even the New York Times editorial board against him.

THE CLINTON EXCEPTION: All these people – from Howell Raines to Mike Kelly – Clinton cannot forgive. But you know who he can understand? Osama bin Laden. Here’s the amazing quote:

There is one thing I wish I had been able to do. [In fall 2000] I had two options, OK? We knew more or less where [bin Laden] would spend the night. But keep in mind, we were told he was going to be at that training site [in August 1998] and he left a couple of hours before [the missiles hit]. So what did I have? A 40 percent chance of knowing we could have hit it. But there were a very large number of women and children in that compound and it’s almost like he was daring me to kill them. And we know at the same time he was training people to kill me. Which was fair enough-I was trying to get him. I felt it would hurt America’s interests if we killed a lot of Afghani women and children and didn’t even get him.

Those are my italics. Think about that for a minute. Here’s Osama bin Laden, an evil man, training people in a despicable distortion of Islam to murder innocents. He’s already killed Americans. He’s planning the WTC massacre. And Clinton thinks it’s “fair enough” for bin Laden to try and assassinate the president of the United States because the president “was trying to get him.” You want to know why I’m glad Clinton isn’t president right now? Statements like that.

THE REAL DRUG WAR: The Onion manages to penetrate to the truth – once again.

THE NEXT BOOK CLUB BOOK: Who wants to launch anything on April 1? The new book will be announced Wednesday. Check back in then.

BEGALA AWARD NOMINEE: “I’d venture, for a start, that Catholicism has caused more pedophilia than it has cured; in my opinion, the reason why this church is so dead set against abortion is so that its priests can have a ready stream of children to molest.” – Julie Burchill, The Guardian.

MORONIC CONVERGENCE:How’s this for an April Fool? The Guardian runs a story on a French book that is now soaring on the French bestseller lists. The book claims there was never a terrorist plane crash into the Pentagon. It was all made up by the U.S. government. American Airlines Flight 77 never took off and never crashed. Its missing passengers are presumably in some secure location. I hope this is an April Fool. But I have a sinking suspicion it isn’t.