I have barely offered a word about the Washington sniper story, because I can’t see much to say, except it’s appalling, and I hope they catch this monster soon. If you watch the television, you will have heard all that you need to. And much, much more. But I have to say I disagree with Howard Fineman’s notion that the president has been delinquent in not being more outspoken. One difference bwteen this president and the last is that Bush doesn’t feel the need to be the country’s permanent emotional counselor, or to involve himself in every issue or event. Yesterday he made brief but sensible comments and showed that the feds were doing what they could to help. Beyond that, this is a police job. Period. Then there’s this observation by Fineman:
The macro reason [for Bush’s reticence] I sense from talking with one of the president’s top political aides. Karl Rove & Co. sort of like the way things are going in the congressional races right now: All the Iraq talk has had the effect of fragmenting the electoral season’s thematics, with no single topic around which to unify the opposition to the president. His cautious political advisers don’t want to do anything to change that dynamic. Why risk getting more deeply involved in a case that might still take days, weeks or months to solve?
I guess there may be some people in the White House cynical enough to take this view. But Bush’s relative restraint signals to me rather that he has a good sense of the boundaries of his job, respects delegation to others, and doesn’t feel the need to mouth off constantly about something that needs patience and diligence rather than talk. I wish more of the media would follow his example.
SAFIRE GETS IT: “The world must not allow Iraq to gain the level of destructive power that appeasement and misplaced trust permitted North Korea to achieve.” Amen. I’d forgotten the damning Jimmy Carter quote of the time, likening his “breakthrough” with the murderers in Pyongyang as a “miracle.” Here’s what I want to know: why hasn’t anyone in the press asked Carter and Clinton what they now think of their legacy in North Korea? Why are these people never ever called to account?
ANIMAL FARM: I just re-read the Orwell classic on the plane to and from Ohio. I’m prepping for the NYU panel tonight. Two re-inforced impressions, which have certainly occurred to many others before. One key shift toward totalitarianism in the novel comes when the old hymn “Beasts of England” gets replaced by Napoleon (the chief pig and Stalin figure) to a more generic song praising “Animal Farm.” Orwell’s point, I think, is that patriotism is, for all its faults, far more humane and progressive than its opposite. Today’s left would do well to remember that, I think. I was also struck by the sense that the apotheosis of Animal Farm makes it no worse than its human-run neighbors. Orwell’s distrust of capitalism was as intense as his loathing of Stalinism. I think he was wrong there – and guilty of moral equivalence. But I also think that it does no justice to him, as Hitchens argues, to ignore this and co-opt him for the right – even the neo-liberal right of today. Just some random thoughts on the plane. I’ll be talking briefly tonight about how “Homage To Catalonia” was inspiration for my own far less accomplished writing about the AIDS epidemic.
RAINES AWARD NOMINEE: “The conflict in Israel has sparked serious debate and inflamed tension on America’s college campuses, and Harvard University is no exception. Tensions among faculty and students have reached new boiling points since over two hundred professors petitioned to have the university sever its financial ties to Israel. Pro-Israel groups have accused colleagues and schoolmates of anti-Semitism, and many agree that the freedom to speak out at Harvard is in jeopardy. Geneive Abdo reports. (7:19)” – NPR’s online synopsis of a Morning Edition segment.
SOUTH KOREA SHIFTS: More signs that Bush’s approach is gaining favor in the Korean peninsula.
YOUNGER SIBLING ISSUES: Is it blasphemous to find this somewhat amusing?
The Dish 