Month: May 2002

“To discover to the world something which deeply concerns it, and of which it was previously ignorant; to prove to it that it had been mistaken on some vital point of temporal or spiritual interest, is as important a service as a human being can render to his fellow creatures . . . That the authors of such splendid benefits should be requited by martyrdom; that their reward should be to be dealt with as the vilest of criminals, is not, upon this theory, a deplorable error and misfortune for which humanity should mourn in sackcloth and ashes, but the normal and justifiable state of things. The propounder of a new truth, according to this doctrine, should stand . . . with a halter round his neck, to be instantly tightened if the public assembly did not, upon hearing his reasons, then and there adopt his proposition. People who defend this mode of treating benefactors, cannot be supposed to set much value on the benefit; and I believe this view of the subject is mostly confined to the sort of persons who think that new truths may have been desirable once, but that we have had enough of them now.” – John Stuart Mill, “On Liberty.”

RUMMY VERSUS PENTAGON PORK: Now here’s a battle worth fighting. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s sensible attempt to retire the Crusader artillery system is being stymied by insubordinate Pentagon hacks and Congressional Republicans. I differ with many of my libertarian friends in believing in an interventionist foreign policy and a big defense budget. (Bigger than that now envisaged by the Congress. Empires aren’t cheap.) By far the best argument against this position is that the Pentagon wastes money, doesn’t focus resources on where they are needed, is slow to modernize, reluctant to downsize when necessary, and so on. Rumsfeld’s laudable early attempts to reform this monster went awry. Now, with money flowing more freely, he has a stronger hand to reform where it’s necessary. The battle over Crusader is a critical test of whether he will succeed. I’m glad the Washington Post is weighing in on his side. More need to.

WHAT’S IN A LABEL? The New York Times, which has only recently stopped calling Pim Fortuyn an extremist, had the following to say today about the political assassination of a would-be prime minister of Holland: “Dutch political leaders decided today to go ahead with the general elections next week, even after the killing of Pim Fortuyn, a right-wing politician who had stood a chance to become the country’s next prime minister. The police confirmed today that they were holding the assassination suspect, a 32-year-old Dutch environmental activist.” Notice how a socially libertarian maverick is “right-wing” but an ideological assassin is just an “environmental activist.” Even the Dutch police have described the murderer as an enviro-radical. But extremes, in the Time’s p.c. world, only exist on the right. The subtle marginalization of Fortuyn continues, even in death. I would simply ask you to imagine: if this gay man were a liberal and had been killed by a fascist, do you think this story would be treated by the New York Times the same way?

LEAVE US ALONE: “There are many frustrated people in the sciences who are shaking their heads at the amount of time that must be wasted defending their work against his poorly analyzed arguments. Lomborg has no credentials to back up his arguments. Lomborg is an Associate Professor of statistics in a history department, has never published a paper in a peer-reviewed journal, nor has he subjected this book to peer review. His startling lack of ecological knowledge isn’t hidden by his nearly 3000 footnotes to this work. Those that insist Lomborg’s book be characterized as a polemic rather than analysis, and [ask that he] please move on to subjects in which he has training and can discuss with authority, are belittled by him — a tactic used by the right. We know his agenda and we wish the hype would go away so we can return to important work.” – an environmental scientist wishes Bjorn Lomborg would just shut up. This and other viewpoints in Day 2 of the debate about “The Skeptical Environmentalist,” in the Book Club.

WHAT ABOUT KASHMIR? The Euro-elites, represented by the insufferable Chris Patten, are appalled that their visceral hostility to Israel might be deemed by Americans to be linked to anti-Semitism. A reader sends the following analogy along to add perspective:

One comparison I sometimes suggest to Europeans is this. The situation in Kashmir has some parallels to the Middle East. A minority is having its hopes for self-determination postponed. In fact, India goes even further than Israel, by ruling out Kashmiri statehood a priori. India claims to be under periodic terrorist attack, and responds with massive force. Lightly armed men from Kashmir and beyond go up against heavily armed and highly trained Indian troops, not to mention Indian tanks, artillery and aircraft.
It’s certainly a mess, and far too many civilians have been killed, either accidentally or through criminal negligence. But where are the protests against India in Europe? Where are the daily editorials? Where are the organized letter-writing campaigns by European liberals? Where are the demonstrations against Indian representative offices? Where are the calls by the EU to boycott Indian trade?
Even-handed criticism is fine, but when Europeans and their media reserve their ire for one country and one race – perhaps especially given their own history – then they run the risk of the accusations of anti-semitism that they are earning.

Couldn’t put it better myself.

THE SMEARING OF FORTUYN, CTD: Check out this description of him in today’s Daily Telegraph – from a former Tory cabinet minister, no less: “Britain has been fortunate to avoid the rise of extreme Right-wing, hateful politicians like Jean-Marie Le Pen and Pim Fortuyn, the Dutchman who was murdered in Hilversum.” Then I received this email today from Germany, where at least one guy is able to see clearly:

Predictably, Fortuyn is much vilified our press. “Rechtspopulist” (right-wing populist) seems to be his first name, “ausländerfeindlich” (hostile to foreigners) his job description. The newspapers work really hard to get that across. But an article, written after his death, in the online edition of Der Spiegel really goes over the top – our most “respectable” weekly newsmag, by the way. In “The voice of the hidden racism” Fortuyn is repeatedly called a “Rechtsextremist” (right-wing extremist), the word is usually reserved for Neonazis, not politicians of the right. He is credited with bringing the Netherland’s “latent racism” to the surface, but somehow it all fails to shock. The authors must have felt this, too. What to do? Well, according to this article, Fortuyn wanted to “drastically cut back support for sick and disabled people”. The article says nothing else. What a nasty man! Then I remembered The Economist had a survey about the Netherlands in a recent issue. I quote: “….the biggest blemish of all on the Dutch employment record: its absurdly generous disability scheme known as the WAO. Nearly a million people qualify for this, out of a total working population of around 7m, and the
number is still rising. Taken at face value, that 15% rate would suggest that disability in the Netherlands is half as prevalent again as it is in comparable countries…” And later “In effect, the WAO has been used to mop up disguised unemployment” I could not verify that Fortuyn merely wanted to reform this bizarre scheme, but the info makes a big difference, doesn’t it? In the foreign press section they quote the “Aftonbladet”, a Stockholm Newspaper, with the words: “The brown parties of Europe have a new martyr.” Perhaps, if it wasn’t for our so very balanced media, they might never have noticed that Fortuyn was one of them?

Speaking of which, check out this prophetic piece about the smearing of Fortuyn by Dave Kopel in last weekend’s Rocky Mountain News. He nails it.

WHAT THEY THINK OF AMERICA: A stimulating batch of essays worth perusing from the British literary journal, Granta. (I’ve only skimmed so if there’s a Sontagian moment or so, forgive me.) I was particularly buoyed by an essay by Ivan Klima from the Czech Republic. Here’s the blunt truth:

For more than a century now there has existed a sort of American dream. For some it means boundless affluence, for others freedom. I am not a devotee of hypermarkets or of grandiose mansions containing dozens of rooms for just two or three people and a few pedigree dogs and cats. I’ve never yearned for more than one car or a private plane, jet-engined or otherwise. I have an aversion to profligacy, but I don’t share the view that there is an indirect relationship between America’s affluence and Third World poverty. Without idealizing the policies of the big monopolies (either American or European), I am convinced that America’s wealth, which derives from the work of many generations, is chiefly the result of the creative activity of free citizens. The Americans are not to blame for Third World poverty, which is mostly due to the circumstances in the Third World and the demoralizing lack of freedom that most of the people there endure.

A helpful Fortuyn quote from fellow-blogger, Joe Katzman. See if you think this makes him a member of the “far-right” as even Drudge described him yesterday:

“Large groups in the community are lagging behind in social and cultural terms. These groups often originate from countries which did not participate in the Judeo-Christian-humanist developments which have been taking place in Europe for centuries. These shortfalls in development are highly regrettable, as they result in a divide in society and form a threat to the functioning of our large cities.
“This must be tackled vigorously, on the one hand by paying extra attention to housing, schools and cultural education for these groups, but on the other by requiring these groups to make a maximum effort themselves. Cultural developments which are diametrically opposed to the desired integration and emancipation, such as arranged marriages, honour revenge and female circumcision, must be fought by means of legislation and public information. Discrimination against women in fundamentalist Islamic circles is particularly unacceptable.
“In a democratic society like ours, all citizens have the same rights and obligations, irrespective of race, gender, beliefs and nature. There is a division of Church and State in the Netherlands, and therefore also of mosque and state. Thanks to the division of powers (the executive, legislative and judiciary powers), citizens can develop themselves in relative freedom. Our hard-fought freedoms are worth protecting against increasing fundamentalism. We must carry out a study into whether the introduction of a social and military service for boys and girls of eighteen years of age or older can contribute to integration.”

I guess in a society in which a New York Times columnist can compare George W. Bush to Le Pen, such exaggerations are to be expected. But that doesn’t make them any truer.

THE EURO-ELITE RESPONDS: This astonishing quote via Reuters tells you much about what the Euro-elites really feel about a political assassination:

Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel, referring to Le Pen’s success in France, said the political atmosphere in Europe was “already very delicate.”
“This on top, is of course, very dangerous.”
“Democratic parties have to campaign in a very cautious way, and in a balanced and serene way to try to orientate the debate toward democratic values,” Michel told VRT television.

Yes, this is the continent that gave us fascism. And yes, it could happen again, if political violence is responded to in this craven way.

From the invaluable journalist Rex Wockner, the following quotes from Dutch gay leaders:

“It still feels totally unthinkable, and it feels like our democracy and our way of life have been deeply wounded,” veteran Dutch gay activist Grada Schadee said May 7.
“I was much against his political ideas but I deeply respected him on his openness [as a gay man]. He was so sharp in his debating techniques. He was serious yet also caused much laughter with the public.”
“The whole country is in shock,” said Alex Kröner, publisher of the Amsterdam magazine Gay & Night. “He won one-third of the votes in [the] Rotterdam [local elections] and they expected that he would show at least 20 to 25 percent nationally. People are bringing flowers to his house and where the shooting was and also in Amsterdam at the national square.”
“It’s difficult to generalize,” said Gay & Night Editor Hans Verhoeven. “You either loved him or you hated him. One of the things that was important, he was very openly gay. He talked on public radio about his visits to dark rooms [gay bar backrooms] and he told about the rent boys [hustlers] he employed at his home. He was very open and that was, strangely enough, accepted by the whole society and made him an example for gay people, not only about being out but about how to explore your gay life.
“The general feeling here is one of disbelief. It is the first time since 1672 that we had a political assassination,” Verhoeven said.

The latest information is that his assassin worked for an enviro-leftist organization. That makes me all the gladder to have selected Bjorn Lomborg as our author for this month. Another gay contrarian, he has experienced the same kind of enviro-leftist intolerance that Fortuyn apparently did – although, mercifully, to a far lesser degree.

Perceptive blogger analysis of how the Times, while being ostensibly even-handed, tips the scales against Fortuyn’s political identity.

DREHER ON FORTUYN: Excellent column by Rod Dreher on the meaning of Fortuyn’s assassination. I’m amazed at how obtuse much of the media is being about this story. In my view, in the context of European politics, the European debates about immigration, multiculturalism, the EU, free speech, and terrorism, this event is truly profound. Why is this story therefore being buried in the major papers? Because it flies against the preconceptions of most American editors, who don’t seem to have a clue about what’s really happening over there? OKay, guys, here’s a pull-quote from Dreher for you:

A woman who answered the phone at Fortuyn campaign headquarters last night said things were too chaotic there, and that no one would be able to speak to the foreign press until today. Through her tears, she said, “It’s unbelievable that someone gets killed only for saying what they believe.”

Get it now?

As I feared and suspected, the murder of Fortuyn appears, according to Dutch police, to have come from the far left. So this is quite possibly an assassination of an openly gay man by the extreme left, because he held contrarian but completely defensible views. The vicious rhetoric spouted against him by leftist, liberal and even moderate politicians and journalists no doubt contributed to this outcome. I guess I see this a little personally. But no one should doubt that the far left, just as much as the far right, is now among the most intolerant forces in our society. They do everything they can to shut down the views of others, marginalize, blacklist or simply intimidate them. When all else fails, something like this horrific murder happens. I wonder how many leading European liberals, who are so quick to draw connections between speech and action when it comes to traditional hate-crimes, will now ponder whether their own rhetorical extremism has to be tempered somewhat. Here’s a classic of the genre, from the comment section on the BBC website:

Anyone deserving the name libertarian does not restrict people’s liberty to live where they want. It’s good to see people taking direct action against the far right. If Hitler or Mussolini had been killed in the twenties, when they were still ‘respectable’ and adored by such UK papers as the Daily Mail, who knows how many lives would have been saved?
Matt, a libertarian socialist, UK

Charming, huh? And what many leftist activists actually believe.

AN EMAIL FROM HOLLAND: One among many, but this time from a very different perspective:

A very good thing to dedicate some space on andrewsullivan.com to the news regarding the assassination of Pim Fortuyn. My thanks.
One important point which has not been made is that Pim, as a debater, was a man who opened himself completely, making himself maximally vulnerable to attacks (during a political debate or during interviews)
It is, even when writing from the Netherlands, difficult to describe the feelings this assassination has released. Most – well thinking – people are against his views, but have great admiration for the way he represents his views and the greatest respect for his drive and his dedication.
This is what makes him very very different in our view from e.g. JFK, we were promised a completely new, honest and open way of politics – in a Dutch fashion of course. Which has now been replaced by a great uncertainty about the honesty & effectiveness of the upcoming elections. The removal of this hope has released a sadness which is difficult to describe, but felt by his opponents and his followers alike. This was a man without personal defences. Who – in my opinion – deserves more attention to his honesty and drive than to his (often) misunderstood (extreme) right wing ideas.

The situation in the Netherlands is so fraught right now that any prediction is risky. But doesn’t it make sense that the murder of Pim Fortuyn could propel his party and its allies to even bigger gains than were deemed possible yesterday? For an anti-crime figure to be gunned down in the street, after the government refused to give him adequate police protection, is hardly a reason to vote for the failed old politicians. The London Times’ Michael Gove has the best analysis I’ve read so far. Check it out. An important passage:

Fortuyn and his allies developed a critique of the establishment notably different from those pioneered by the politicians with whom he has been compared, Jörg Haider and Jean-Marie Le Pen. Fortuyn was uncompromisingly neo-liberal. An advocate of laxer rules on euthanasia, greater drugs liberalisation, more use of the private sector in healthcare and tax cuts, he was very far from Le Pen’s hearthland politics of Vichyiste nostalgia. He may have been a “cultural protectionist” like Le Pen. But the culture he wished to protect was the Dutch libertarianism so familiar to many Britons from their weekends in Amsterdam, so congenial to him as a gay man, and so threatened, he claimed, by the incursions of Islam.

Amen. Fortuyn was not a threat to liberalism. His assassination is. What Fortuyn dared to say is that Islam itself, when converted into a political agenda, is a direct threat to the values and tolerance that are the signal achievements of the West. This is not racism; it is a cultural fact. Islam deserves respect as a great religion, but its attitudes toward women, toward homosexuals, toward the freedoms and privacy and social experimentation that are one of the guiding triumphs of Western culture, is a danger to liberal democracy and a free society. Fortuyn was brave enough to say this. One way to respect his legacy and defy the violence that felled him is to follow his example and keep stating what we know to be true.

BOOK CLUB: My take on Bjorn Lomborg’s dense, but largely persuasive book, “The Skeptical Environmentalist,” is now posted. Over to you. A week of debate will follow.

SATEL’S STRAW MAN?: “Every physician I have known in this hotbed of political correctness (Manhattan) begins her/his admission note mentioning the race of the patient immediately following their age. We were all taught in medical school that certain groups are at risk for certain conditions (i.e. smokers and lung cancer; old people and Alzheimer’s; women with multiple partners and cervical cancer, etc.), and considering this is not age discrimination, lifestyle discrimination, or discrimination against smokers. By using the term “Racial Profiling” and setting up the “Politically Correct” medical establishment as a strawman, it certainly is not surprising that Dr. Satel had an easy time making herself appear to be enlightened.” – this and an obit of Peter Bauer, emotional intimacy, and John Rawls – all on the Letters Page.

‘REACTIONARY’ FORTUYN: Check out this Guardian profile of Pim Fortuyn. The Euro-left keeps describing him as a ‘reactionary.’ This profile says: “He succeeded in blending liberal and reactionary ideas in a quite unique fashion.” Now scour the piece for anything that could be called ‘reactionary.’ It’s this kind of condescending blindness that gave Fortuyn an opening. Check out this passage from the New York Times today:

During a recent interview, Mr. Fortuyn talked freely on a wide range of subjects, including his homosexuality, the ingrained bureaucracy, the liberal Dutch social policies dealing with abortion, same-sex marriages and tolerance of soft-drugs, and the need to denounce the self-satisfied political class. During the interview he was asked why he was so critical of Muslim immigrants. He said he found it shameful that foreign Islamic clergy here used offensive language against gays in this country, and that Muslim men tried to impose medieval rural customs in the Netherlands. “How can you respect a culture if the woman has to walk several steps behind her man, has to stay in the kitchen and keep her mouth shut,” he said.

I couldn’t agree more. We’re often asked by some Islamists to respect others’ cultures, even when we find much in them to be dismayed by. Fair enough. But is it too much to ask that they also respect ours? Especially when they live in the West?

KRUGMAN NAILS IT: For once, I agree with him. The shameless, unjustified, vast hand-out to rich corporate farmers – that’s money taken from you and me, guys – is one of the worst fiscal decisions to come out of Washington in the last couple of years. It’s corporate welfare, backed by greedy Democrats and a spineless president, who recently seems like the kind of guy who never saw a big government spending bill he didn’t want to sign. Krugman is also sharp about divorce and illegitimacy and crime rates in the “heartland.” And no, I haven’t gone completely nuts. The evidence for Middle America’s dependency on the public teat is irrefutable.

SONTAG AWARD NOMINEE: “Ariel Sharon has arrived in Washington, carrying with him The Arafat Dossier – a 91-page report allegedly documenting the Palestinian leader’s intimate involvement in “terrorism” against Israel. For good measure, the dossier accuses all the usual suspects of helping Yasser Arafat in his terrorism: Iran, Iraq, Syria and Hizbullah, plus – interestingly – Saudi Arabia, the European Union and even elements in the United States. Whether the documents actually prove any of these things is beside the point; the point is to generate headlines in the US that will excite Republican Congressmen of the sort who last week proposed the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.” – Brian Whitaker, the Guardian (where else?), May 6.

CHRIS PATTEN’S BLATHER: There are few more condescending, Eurocratic, arrogant fools among European elites than one Chris Patten. A former Tory, he now clings to the Conservative Party as a way to win further unelected office in the Brussels bureaucracy. His piece today in the Washington Post, designed to answer George Will’s recent column bemoaning the rise of European anti-Semitism, is chock full of prejudices. There’s the sad attempt to argue that America was soft on Nazism because Joe Kennedy once was. And there’s the belittling of anti-Semitic violence in Europe by the canard that it is balanced by anti-Islamic agitation. He also has the gall to associate himself with a democratic Europe, while he represents the least democratic institution on the continent, the European Commission, and is in the vanguard of further stripping democracy from the elected governments of EU member states. He seems appalled by the idea that the same Europe that gave us the Holocaust should now be seen as anti-Zionist or in some way hostile to Israel. Who does he think he’s kidding? Visceral loathing for Israel permeates the entire European establishment of which
he is an integral part. He brings up the issue of private American financial support for the IRA. He’s right that such support is vile. But the American government never sent millions of dollars direct to the IRA to foment terrorism against Britain. Yet the EU funnels vast sums to Yassir Arafat’s terrorist organizations, with no checks, no standards, no accountability. That money is used to kill Jews. And Chris Patten helps dispense it. And that’s largely all you need to know.

I learn from the usually reliable Rex Wockner that Dutch “[p]olice said they captured the suspected gunman, a ‘white man of Dutch nationality.’ He has refused to make a statement and his identity is unknown.” If this is a hit-job from the left, things could get really, really ugly in Europe. And some news reports indicate it already has.

Not very. Because he believed that large numbers of unassimilated immigrants, especially Islamic ones, could destabilize Dutch society, the mainstream media often talked of him as far-right. But he wanted current immigrants to stay and adopt national customs; his party had ethnic minority candidates; he was openly gay; he wanted smaller, more efficient government. He was no more “far-right” than Silvio Berlusconi or Iain Duncan-Smith. He was an admirer of Euroskeptic Margaret Thatcher. With regard to tackling the Brussels bureaucracy, he once said, “I will borrow that handbag from Margaret Thatcher, bang on the table and say I want my money back.” A man after my own heart, and as I assimilate the news of his death, my mood darkens. The world is not an easy place to espouse the mixture of ideas and views Fortuyn did. He did so with aplomb and humor. He was defiantly and proudly gay, but his appeal was far broader than that, and by reaching out to the center and right, he did much to help the integration of gay men and women into mainstream European politics. In this he was an ally, even an icon of sorts. And it’s chilling to think that this combination of ideas – if poised to reach political power – could be grist for assassination. In Holland, of all places. The enemies of liberalism are many – on the far right, the far left, and the Islamist fundamentalist orbit. For these reasons, Fortuyn should be hailed as another martyr for gay visibility, along with Harvey Milk. But what’s the betting that the gay left won’t go near this story? Here’s hoping they will.

Horrifying news from the Netherlands. Pim Fortuyn, a brash, brave, outspoken libertarian-conservative gay man, has been killed by an assassin. I don’t agree with everything he stood for, but his ability to speak about issues others shy away from – like the sexist, homophobic bigotry of many Islamofascists and their supporters – was admirable. As an openly gay man proud to represent conservatism, he was a commendable figure, part of a new wave of gay voices threatening to both right and left. I have no idea who killed him. It could be a crank, or a radical leftist, or an Islamist terrorist, or a homophobic rightist, who knows. All that we do know now is that democracy has been attacked in Holland. And that a brave man, who dared to repesent a fresh combination of ideas and identities, is dead. May he rest in peace.

While the administration puts the final touches to another pointless gab-fest on the Middle East, our enemies regroup. We’re supposed to be shocked that Israel is now producing documentary evidence of Arafat’s direct link to the terrorist mass-murder of Israeli civilians. Forgive my comparative equanimity. Anyone truly shocked at proof that the Palestinian Authority has direct links to Iraq, Iran and Syria, and is a de facto terrorist organization needs help. Some of these issues can be challenged, but some cannot. Here’s one aspect no one can surely dispute:

Several of the [PA] documents are requests to Arafat for funding from local officials of his Fatah movement or one of its armed wings, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. One such request was made in April last year on behalf of 15 men, including five who Israel says took part in shooting attacks against Israelis near the West Bank town of Tulkarm, and one who helped kill two Israeli border guards last September. The request, from a local Fatah official, is for $2,000 for each of the men. Arafat authorized $800 for each, and signed the order, according to the documents. Palestinians had previously maintained the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades was more or less autonomous from Arafat and his top aides.

“More or less autonomous.” Lovely phrase that. The Washington Post also reports that

Israel offered other documents as evidence that Arafat’s top officials were actively involved in procuring mortars, artillery shells and antitank weapons, all of which are barred to the Palestinians. Under agreements with Israel, Arafat’s Palestinian Authority is allowed a limited number of sidearms and assault rifles but no heavy weapons.

Duh. My own view is that Arafat is a terrorist, a liar and impossible to deal with. But if dealing with him for a while can keep the other Arab despots quiet while we prepare to take out Saddam, I’m not so much of a purist to complain. I just hope to God no one in the Bush administration believes a word the guy says. Meanwhile, Time helpfully reminds us that time is running out if we hope to prevent an Iraqi use of weapons of mass destruction in the coming war. And Warren Buffett makes the obvious point that a nuclear dirty bomb exploding in New York or D.C. is a virtual certainty. I think he’s wrong in one respect. If we really want to stop such an eventuality, we can. If we keep dithering about Iraq, the “virtual” part of the certainty disappears.

RACE AND BIOLOGY: Terrific little piece by my friend Sally Satel in the New York Times magazine yesterday. (And yes, that stunning photo is really her. She’s way cute – and I say that with some objectivity.) Sally has the temerity to point out that there are actually some small, crude genetic markers that can be used to make rough and ready medical inferences about individuals depending on their race. Here’s what I found most illuminating:

What does it really mean, though, to say that 99.9 percent of our content is the same? In practical terms it means that the DNA of any two people will differ in one out of every 1,000 nucleotides, the building blocks of individual genes. With more than three billion nucleotides in the human genome, about three million nucleotides will differ among individuals. This is hardly a small change; after all, mutation of a single one can cause the gene within which it is embedded to produce an altered protein or enzyme. It may seem counterintuitive, but the 0.1 percent of human genetic variation is a medically meaningful fact.

Now, of course, almost all of us are mixture of races (and may that continue and intensify). And of course as a matter of moral and political equality, race should be utterly irrelevant. But that doesn’t mean that biological racial differences do not exist or cannot exist. That is simply an empirical question, to be empirically resolved, if useful (as it undoubtedly is in medicine). Alas, there are many forces and individuals that simply refuse even to look at data, evidence or even engage in a simple dialogue about these matters. All the more reason why Sally should be commended for speaking such sense – despite the ferocious hostility of some “liberals.” It shouldn’t take courage to say the obvious, but, alas, under today’s p.c. conditions, it sometimes does.

THE INDEPENDENT’S “REPORTING”: London’s Independent newspaper, as you might imagine, has been having a field day in the West Bank. Massacres, war crimes, you name it, were obviously being committed by the evil Israelis. Phil Reeves, a Fisk wannabe, sent home this despatch upon arriving in Jenin:

A monstrous war crime that Israel has tried to cover up for a fortnight has finally been exposed. …The sweet and ghastly reek of rotting human bodies is everywhere, evidence that it is a human tomb. The people, who spent days hiding in basements crowded into single rooms as the rockets pounded in, say there are hundreds of corpses, entombed beneath the dust, under a field of debris, criss-crossed with tank and bulldozer treadmarks.

He went on:

A quiet, sad-looking young man called Kamal Anis led us across the wasteland, littered now with detritus of what were once households, foam rubber, torn clothes, shoes, tin cans, children’s toys. He suddenly stopped. This was a mass grave, he said, pointing… A few days ago, we might not have believed Kamal Anis. But the descriptions given by the many other refugees who escaped from Jenin camp were understated, not, as many feared and Israel encouraged us to believe, exaggerations. Their stories had not prepared me for what I saw yesterday. I believe them now.

What a difference a week or so makes. In a subsequent piece in which Reeves details the lamentable attempt by the Israelis to defend their actions in Jenin, he bemoans the fact that the Israelis’ p.r.

efforts have been greatly helped by the Palestinian leadership, who instantly, and without proof, declared that a massacre had occurred in which as many as 500 died. Palestinian human-rights groups made matters worse by churning out wild, and clearly untrue, stories.

And the Independent made matters even still worse by uncritically reprinting such stories as news.

EVERYONE’S A CRITIC, PART DEUX: This has become too hilarious. The show started out with two brutal pans among the reviewers, one of whom actually advised his readers in a fit of pique (he had to wait in line for the bathroom) that there was “nothing in this production worth your time,” and that my performance was “one-note.” Two more followed. The Washington Blade’s reviewer wrote this weekend, “Regarding the repartee, Andrew Sullivan’s Benedick comes off more querulous than rapier. It’s in conveying the complexities of Benedick’s emotional journey that Sullivan is most impressive.” The Blade’s view of the entire show was that “most of the cast is very fine,” and that the production “honors the classic script, while being inventive and alive. Though not a thigh-slapping production, it’s fresh and delivered in high style.” The Washington Times gave us three out of fo
ur stars, calling the production “entertaining, outrageous and energetically acted… While others slink from the stage through trapdoors, Mr. Sullivan’s every step as Benedick is an act of power. He struts the stage like a stalking cat… Beatrice, drawn to Benedick’s sturdiness by her own inherent strength of character, is a treat. The sparks between these two are what shine most brightly in this play.” Now we’ve definitely gotten a lot better with more runs and I think we’re now doing the show as we should. But these reviews were written by reviewers who all came either to the same performance or on the same weekend. The joys of subjectivity. Next up: the Washington Post.

BEING JOHN MALKOVICH: Truly weird outburst from John Malkovich the other day. Asked at a debate at the Cambridge Union whom he’d like to fight to the death, Malkovich named anti-Zionist Scottish MP George Galloway, who never saw an Islamo-fascist terrorist he couldn’t sympathize with, and Robert Fisk, another fervently anti-Israeli fiction writer for the Independent. “I’d rather just shoot them,” Malkovich said. Malkovich, however, is no obvious Americanophile. He lives with his girlfriend and two children in the South of France in order to insulate his offspring from some of the puritanism he sees in American popular culture. Does this mean that Fisk and Galloway are even out of bounds for Francophile Hollywood exiles? Are these Saddam sympathizers so extreme in their pathological hatred of all things Israeli and American that even John Malkovich draws the line? Next up: Joe Conason offers mild criticism of David Brock.

ABSOLUTE ABSOLUTION: Some of you have complained that my whining about the Pope’s decision that people who are remarried Catholics or in committed gay relationships cannot be granted absolution was illogical. Since both post-divorce and gay relationships imply a continued commitment to what the Church regards as “sin,” why should the Church grant absolution to the impenitent? Fair enough. But my sole point was to contrast this with the extraordinary lengths to which the Church went to forgive, absolve. promote, enable, shelter child-abusers – as long as they were priests. The emphasis – and the timing of the subsequent statement – is surely off-base. And I dare say that most serious moral theologians (not to mention simple human beings) would regard the rape of a minor as a somewhat worse offense that a sincere attempt to re-marry after a failed first attempt. Not, apparently the Pope, in whom there is plenty else to admire. Wherein lies the diminution of his moral authority.

BOOK CLUB: I’m sorry to delay, but I need a little more time to finish “The Skeptical Environmentalist.” I’ve lost every weekend this month to the stage. But we’ll start the discussion in earnest tomorrow. Promise.