Between Jon Chait and Charles Krauthammer, the case seems to me almost irrefutable.
THAT NUKE DEAL: Yes, the Bush-Putin agreement sounds fine, I guess. But I differ with Mike Kelly’s positive assessment today. When you look at the fine print, you find that very few nuclear weapons will be destroyed – they’ll simply be deactivated and stored. Can you imagine a worse scenario for the terrorist-filled world we live in? A reader worries about the consequences of this half-assed pact:
Bush is missing a huge opportunity to get rid of nukes and keep them out of terrorists’ hands. This agreement allows the US to back out and avoid the ceiling they’ve set – some have said there is game afoot where the US is tacitly encouraging the Russians to MIRV, (meaning put multiple warheads on missiles) in order to use that as pretext later to back out of the ceiling. And 10 years is a needlessly long amount of time to get to those levels. It could be done in 10 months. More importantly, this agreement does not deal with tactical nuclear weapons. The Russians have upwards of 12,000 of those nasty things sitting in warehouses where terrorists might steal them. Finally, if the Russians follow the U.S. in storing most of their nukes, and the Bush administration refuses to increase for Nunn-Lugar (cooperative threat reduction) we could wind up with more nuclear weapons under shoddy protection, which terrorists could steal. Under that scenario, this agreement would badly reduce our security. This agreement ought to be a first step in an ongoing process of arms control work between the US and Russia. We could probably get the Russians to scrap most of their tactical nukes if we took our (roughly 200) tactical nukes out of Europe – where they serve no utility, unless you believe they are there to deter an invasion of our new NATO mates, like Latvia. And this agreement must be accompanied by far greater efforts to ensure the security of nukes, and fissile materials in Russia. I worry that the hawks will not take that threat seriously until a tactical nuke or dirty bomb goes off in an American city.
I worry too. That blather about wrapping up the Cold War is not as important as winning the current one. And on that point, I’m not sure this deal helps us very much at all.
DEEPER THEMES: What lies behind the environmentalist movement? A culture of victimology, in which people want to blame the environment for their physical or personal woes? Spiritual and religious decline? Scientific hubris? An earnest desire to save the planet? Readers chime in on the Book Club page. Next up: send your questions to Bjorn. He’s been flying from Denver to Chile and now to Denmark – hence his absence so far. But he’ll be responding soon.
MICKEY, COME OVER TO APPLE: Now here’s a journalistic test-case for Slate. Mickey Kaus’s use of Windows XP has been a disaster. It keeps crashing! Can Mickey do what I did and convert to Apple? Or is Bill Gates another Howell Raines? (Update: Since I’ve used my Powerbook, I’ve had zero crashes. My only problem was using AOL in London. But that is AOL’s fault for not adapting to Apple overseas. Otherwise, my Mac is a dream.) So come on, Mickster. Pull a Sully! (Mickey also has some thoughts about the Raines business.)
SOME STRAY THOUGHTS: About the Raines business. It’s a shame he canned me, but I want to reiterate that I’m not whining. I’ve made criticisms of the Times and they don’t have to publish people who criticize them. But I would like to point out that I have written many positive things about the Times as well – and often link to Times stories that I find excellent or important. In the last few weeks, I have highly recommended two pieces in the Times Magazine, for example, and have done so with many, many other pieces. I also assigned a book by a New York Times reporter, Frank Bruni, for the Book Club. I might add that when you write a blog about media, politics, culture and whatever, it is simply impossible not to include criticism of the most powerful and influential newspaper in the world, especially when it has embarked on a new era of crusading left-liberal journalism. Moreover, no one has ever said my own work for the Times is at issue. Two recent cover-stories for the New York Times Magazine, for example, were selected for the Best American Essays of 2000 and the Best American Science Writing of 2001. My last big essay, This Is A Religious War, was one of the most discussed articles of last year. I still have great respect for the paper, and will continue to praise and criticize it in the future. The only thing that worries me is the signal this sends to writers in less established positions than me. It says: don’t criticize us or we’ll use it against you. That’s chilling for open discourse, bad for journalism, and worrying for all the usual democratic reasons. But it’s definitely revealing about the thinking behind the current Times management. Diversity in all things – but thought.
HAROLD AND MAUDE ONLINE: On the web, there’s space for everything.
HOME NEWS: Don’t get mad at me but I found a new home for Euclid. Her new owners are a great couple who have been wanting a dog for a while. They met her a week ago and again yesterday and have the time and energy for her. She stayed in the crate I found for her to make the transition easier. I’m sorry, but one beagle was enough for me. The couple live in the District and we’ll stay in touch but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I had a tough time saying goodbye. But I think it’s best for Euclid, which is the main thing. Thanks for all your interest.
GORE LOSES IT: I’m no fan of cheesy soft-money gambits, but the notion that the sale of three photographs from the first year of president Bush is somehow vile and disgusting seems to me to be way over the top. The controversial photo is of Bush on the phone, for goodness’ sake. MoDo describes this banal little montage thus: “Bushies are using that dark and sacred day to divide and conquer.” Well, she would, wouldn’t she? Al Gore, who did far crasser things for soft-money and who worked for the sleaziest soft-money pol in recent history, had the following to say about it: “While most pictures are worth a thousand words, a photo that seeks to capitalize on one of the most tragic moments in our nation’s history is worth only one — disgraceful. I cannot imagine that the families of those who lost their lives on September 11th condone this — and neither should the president of the United States.” I’m sorry, but I fail to see how anyone can be appalled by the use of such an insipid photo. As part of a trio of images of Bush’s first year, it’s utterly inoffensive. In fact, since some kind of photo about the most important event in his presidency would surely be necessary, this strikes me as one of the most inoffensive imaginable. The morphing of Al Gore into Terry McAuliffe began in earnest during his appalling, principle-free, lame presidential campaign. It now appears to be complete.
A EULOGY FOR PIM: The most moving and intelligent Fortuyn remembrance I have yet read – by the superb novelist, Cees Nooteboom – is, alas, in French. If you can read French, it’s worth every word.
A SCANDAL ABOUT THE ABUSE OF POWER: An effective piece in the English Catholic newspaper, the Tablet, grapples with the idea that dysfunctional or disordered sexuality is the root of the current crisis in the Church. Harvard Jesuit James F. Keenan doesn’t deny the sexual dimension, but he sees it as secondary to a deeper issue:
The molestation and raping of children are not primarily sexual acts; they are violent acts of power. By these actions children are harmed, sometimes destroyed. These actions are about power. In fact, most of the scandalous actions of which we read are about power.
When the bishops moved these priests around and assigned them to new parishes and let them have access again to children, these were not sexual acts, but acts of power.
When the bishops and pastors denounced the parents and relatives who charged that priests had abused their children, these denunciations were acts, not of sex, but of power. When the cardinals tried to blame the media for unleashing a frenzy, these were not charges of sex, but of power…
We in the priesthood, from seminarians to the Pope himself, need to learn more about power, about sharing power and about accountability in the exercise of power. Certainly, we need to have a visitation of our seminaries – and of our rectories and our chanceries – conducted not by the Vatican but by competent lay people and priests. The aim should be to see whether we are learning about the extent of our power, of the uses of that power, and of our accountability to God and to the People of God. In the light of those lessons, assuredly, we would see the need to recognise the vocations of others.
He’s onto something.
SOWELL ON BAUER: A much-needed and much deserved obituary for Peter Bauer, the man who helped drag development economics into some sort of reality.
THE NEW YORK TIMES’ FORTUYN OP-ED: Yes, they deserve congratulations for finally bowing to reality. But there was more to that op-ed than met the eye. It was written by a leading member of the Dutch media establishment, the editor of NRC Handelsbad, a Netherlands counterpart to Howell Raines. And the author, Folkert Jensma, was a critical part of the vile smearing of Fortuyn that the New York Times was complicit in before his tragic assassination. Like the Times, Jensma made no concession that he had been wrong. A Dutch reader points out the following:
In an NRC Handelsblad editorial appearing on May 6, the day Fortuyn was killed–but written before the murder–the newspaper drew a stark parallel between the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, which the Dutch commemorate on 4 and 5 May, and Fortuyn’s policies. I quote:
“In the future, will prime minister Fortuyn stand on Dam square [site of the National Monument] with a wreath–the man who thinks Islam is ‘backward’ and people from Morocco and Turkey are not part of ‘modernity’? These days symbolize the reconstitution of the free Netherlands, where you can say what you want, believe what you want, regardless of skin color, race or nationality. It is the pride of the Netherlands that we do not regard one culture as better than the other. That we treat people equally in an open society. That we wish to keep xenophobes and racists at bay. It is a crying shame that, sixty years later, we have to remind a politician in our midst of this.”
Apparently Mr. Jensma has had a change of heart. Too bad he didn’t have it before May 6.
What I find interesting here is the conflation of two ideas: toleration and complete relativism. Of course, there should be absolute toleration of religion. Bu when one religion argues that women should not be allowed to vote, that gays should be stoned to death, and that freedom of the press is illicit if it contradicts Islamic law, then it is very important to point out that this is anathema to Western principles. As a culture, illiberal Islam is inferior to the free West, just as Communist Russia and Nazi Germany were. To say so is not to betray liberal democracy; it is to defend it.
IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW: ArabNews has a new guest columnist – waxing lyrical about the war-crimes of Israel in Jenin and elsewhere. Robert Fisk? Phil Reeves? Ted Rall? Nope. None other than David Duke. Clarifying, no?
The Dish 