Month: June 2003

A British documentary gets to the nub of the issue. The Guardian’s David Aaronovitch explains further:

Cruikshank also tackled George directly on events leading up to the looting. The Americans had said that the museum was a substantial point of Iraqi resistance, and this explained their reticence in occupying it. Not true, said George, a few militia-men had fired from the grounds and that was all. This, as Cruikshank heavily implied, was a lie. Not only were there firing positions in the grounds, but at the back of the museum there was a room that seemed to have been used as a military command post. And it was hardly credible that senior staff at the museum would not have known that. Cruikshank’s closing thought was to wonder whether the museum’s senior staff – all Ba’ath party appointees – could safely be left in post.
Furious, I conclude two things from all this. The first is the credulousness of many western academics and others who cannot conceive that a plausible and intelligent fellow-professional might have been an apparatchiks of a fascist regime and a propagandist for his own past. The second is that – these days – you cannot say anything too bad about the Yanks and not be believed.

Yep. And Wolfowitz said we did it for oil, didn’t he?

QUOTE FOR THE DAY: “Hillary said that when she first set eyes on Bill Clinton back in college he had a beard and he reminded her of a Viking – which is perfect because she reminded him of Iceland,” – Jay Leno, the Tonight Show.

THE BBC AND RADIOHEAD: How did Radiohead’s Thom Yorke come up with the title for their new CD, “Hail To The Thief”? By listening to our old favorite, the BBC, of course:

Rolling Stone: When did you first hear the phrase “hail to the thief,” and what made it appealing as an album title?
Thom Yorke: It was a formative moment – one evening on the radio, way before we were doing the record. The BBC was running stories about how the Florida vote had been rigged and how Bush was being called a thief. That line threw a switch in my head. I couldn’t get away from it. And the light – I was driving that evening with the radio on – was particularly weird. I had this tremendous feeling of foreboding, quite indescribable, really. To me, all the feelings on the record stem from that moment.

The BBC was running stories about how the Florida vote had been rigged. Well of course they were, weren’t they?

Rightwing news has provided the first real ratings chart for blogs. No measurement is perfect; and Alexa.com rankings have their flaws. But it’s interesting nonetheless. And equally interesting is that these top blogs are now easily in the same ballpark, according to Alexa, as most of the political opinion magazines online. (NRO is the blockbuster exception.)

A final tally on the alleged looting of the National Museum on Baghdad. Another embarrassment for the New York Times. Here’s Frank Rich in full Krugmanian cry:

“Is it merely the greatest cultural disaster of the last 500 years, as Paul Zimansky, a Boston University archaeologist, put it? Or should we listen to Eleanor Robson, of All Souls College, Oxford, who said, ‘You’d have to go back centuries, to the Mongol invasion of Baghdad in 1258, to find looting on this scale’?”

Ahem. My take on this now completely debunked hysteria can be found in Salon.

Another court backs equal marriage rights in Canada. Ontario, after British Columbia and Quebec, is the third Canadian province to guarantee equal rights to gays and lesbians. It’s also the most populous of all the Canadian provinces. More significantly, there will be no stay until the federal government figures out what to do. That means that in the next twenty-four hours, the first real, legal same-sex marriages in Western history will take place. They will be irreversible – facts on the ground. Opponents will have to base their arguments in future on actually tearing existing marriages apart. What a conservative idea!

Dick Morris thinks Al Sharpton might run as an independent when the Dems don’t nominate him:

It is only by demonstrating to the Democratic Party establishment that they cannot take the black vote for granted – and being the bearer of that message by an independent run in ’04 – that Sharpton can acquire the national stature he craves and the power he seeks. It doesn’t take a genius to see that the Democrats don’t have much chance anyway in 2004. Now would be the perfect time for Sharpton to demonstrate how badly they need him. Once Al runs as an independent, he’ll never have to do it again. He can name his price for not jumping ship a second time and not torpedoing Democratic chances of victory.

Intriguing idea. If Dick Morris had a better track record of predicting politics, I’d even be convinced.

Close to 500 of you signed up yesterday. Thanks so much. Our goal this week is to reach a total of 7,000 members altogether – a base that can assure the site’s survival and my actually getting a salary. We’re over 5,000 now – and gaining. If you’ve read the blog regularly for a while now, please think about contributing the $20. It adds up to less than a nickel a day if you’re a devoted reader. Essentially, we’re trying to create a model that’s subscription-based but still free to access. If you want to help this model work, find out how here. It’s simple, quick and vital for the site. And thanks again for all of you who have already contributed. You make this possible.

One thing the former president understands is power, and he knew full well that the resignation of Howell Raines at the NYT could hurt Democrats. The news might not be spun as ruthlessly as in the past; the campaign against the Bush administration under the guise of news coverage might not be as relentless; and so, apparently, Clinton intervened. This story, Clinton reminds us, wasn’t just about journalism. At a deeper level it was also about politics; and Clinton wanted to protect a huge victory that the left had won with Raines’ advancement. He lost. Journalism won.

“I think this is a deliberate, intentional destruction of the United States of America,” – Bill Moyers on the Bush administration, as quoted in the Nation.

FIRST THE NYT: Now the Sioux Falls Argus Leader. Bloggers subject their state paper to close scrutiny.

THE PRO-EURO NYT: In the middle of a completely competent piece about Britain’s debate over whether to join the euro currency, the NYT’s Alan Cowell writes the following sentence:

Ever since Mr. Blair took office six years ago, he and Mr. Brown have wrestled over the question of Britain joining the euro. It is a step that would at once dilute Britain’s control over its own economy and greatly enhance its political status and influence among the 15-nation European Union.

But there is no firm evidence at all that if Britain were to abandon its own currency and fiscal and monetary sovereignty, it would “greatly enhance its political status and influence among the 15-nation European Union.” That implies that London would somehow supplant or rival the Berlin-Paris axis at the center of the EU project if the pesky pound were just abolished, or that with ten new countries joining the EU, Britain would somehow have more clout than today. I guess it’s arguable, but it’s far from obvious. And once you take that argument away, what have you got? There’s no more reason for Britain to adopt the euro than for Canada to adopt the U.S. dollar. The latter isn’t even on the agenda. Why should the former?

A reader reminds me of the press baron, Lord Copper, in Evelyn Waugh’s “Scoop,” still one of the best ever portraits of journalism still around. The Lord, who owns the newspaper, The Beast, instructs his correspondents on his policy toward covering war:

With regard to Policy, I expect you already have your own views. I never hamper my correspondents in any way. What the British public wants first, last and all the time is News. Remember that the Patriots are in the right and are going to win. The Beast stands by them four-square. But they must win quickly. The British public has no interest in a war which drags on indecisively. A few sharp victories, some conspicuous acts of personal bravery on the Patriot side, and a colourful entry into the capital. That is the Beast Policy for the war.

If only he owned the New York Times. (His true heir, of course, does own Fox News Channel.)