This is the only question worth asking about the chemical warheads discovered by U.N. inspectors in Iraq. The U.N. resolution is quite clear. If Saddam did not specifically declare the existence of these missile warheads capable of delivering chemical weapons, then this entire charade is now over. I presume the administration is downplaying this find so that it can continue to build up forces for an attack, and so that it can also guide inspectors to more substantive finds. But if there was no accounting of these missiles, as the U.N. inspectors have argued, the line has surely been crossed. There can be no further excuses. Saddam had one absolutely last chance and he lied. If we do not go to war now, then Bush, in turn, will have been shown to have lied in his countless statements declaring zero tolerance for future violations. The timing can be calibrated. But the removal of Saddam – by force if necessary – seems to me now to be necessary, urgent, inevitable.
THE VATICAN STRIKES BACK: In advance of what I predict will be a purging of all gay priests and seminarians from the Catholic church, the men who now control the Vatican (it’s not clear if John Paul II is one of them) are now moving toward a tighter control of the Catholic press. No Catholic publication will henceforth be allowed to publish a variety of viewpoints on such critical matters as church governance, women priests, clerical celibacy or gay priests. Equally, no Catholic politician will be allowed to deviate from Vatican orthodoxy. At least that’s the clear inference of this latest 17-page document from Cardinal Ratzinger’s department. I wonder if this is in part a response to the Jesuit magazine America’s recent special issue defending the dignity and worth of homosexual priests. I’m beginning to think we’ll soon find that the late twentieth century was an historical aberration in Roman Catholicism. It’s back to the nineteenth, pronto.
POSEUR ALERT: “No one has inspired more blacks for hope in America than I have.” – Jesse Jackson, MSNBC.
SONTAG AWARD NOMINEE: “There is on the one hand the America of the New Deal, of Jimmy Carter, and even, more or less, of George Herbert Bush [sic] … But there exists today as well … a second America… a troubled and disturbing America, where pluralism is above all a mask for special interests, a Christian America (Ashcroft), bursting with revolvers (Cheney), arrogant (Rumsfeld), imperial (William Kristol), racist (Trent Lott), opportunist (Condi Rice), partisan (Karl Rove), the America of spying and denunciation (Poindexter), of conspiracy (Elliot Abrams) … of a rotten Enron-style capitalism, of the unlimited death penalty – the America, in a word, of George W. Bush. This symbolically Texan and overweeningly aggressive America wants war, cheap oil, and, incidentally, the crushing and total humiliation of the Palestinians: in a word imperial domination in its purest form. A short-sighted nationalism and capitalism, which scorn the have-nots, are its raison d’xeatre … Europe, sooner or later, will have to separate itself from the new America … The fact that America, the eldest daughter of the Enlightenment, has become ‘a threat to itself and the entire world,’ as Anatol Lieven explained a few weeks ago in an article for The London Review of Books, is a very worrisome reversal of affairs.” – Patrice Higgonet, professor of French history at Harvard University, quoted in the French paper, Liberation, January 3.
EVEN BETTER PUT: “Florida’s programs, and the principles that they advance, are more than just “another” way of accomplishing true diversity. They provide a better way. Florida’s plan is better in that it no longer accepts the lack of quality in the public schools that serve our underprivileged children; better because it recognizes the need to provide mentoring, tutoring, and other extra attention to those underprivileged children and their teachers; better because it encourages all students regardless of race or economic status to aspire to post-secondary education; better because it no longer accepts a separate standard on the basis of race; better because it focuses on providing all races with the opportunity to meet common standards; and finally, better because it looks forward to a day when racial classifications and separate standards are no longer deemed necessary by anyone.” – from the amicus brief to the Michigan affirmative action case, submitted by governor Jeb Bush of Florida.
EMAIL OF THE DAY: “I praised Susan Sontag in two of my books, and her decline pains me. Now she says Europe was her “California” and she grew up dreaming of being European? Impossible. She knows that in Europe she can only be a Jew. A Jew can become a Californian, but not French: when push comes to shove, you are only “the Jew Sontag.” Only in America can she be a full cultural citizen; or even just “Susan,” an individual who likes photos and French philosophy, and who was, in her youth, more beautiful than you young people can imagine – Wynona Ryder with a brain. The Dark Lady of New York’s sonnets. If America loses that power she so hates, her life won’t be worth a franc anywhere in the world. Wherever America’s power ebbs today, her life is already in danger. Even she, if she thinks of it, would have to grudgingly agree. I respected her once. She does have a mind. In the late sixties, a New York intellectual of my generation read the provocative, high-strung essays in Against Interpretation; paused to look at her face on the cover; and thought: Perfect. If you don’t understand that, Mr. Sullivan, you can’t understand the grief over her now.”
The Dish 