Month: July 2003

“Good evening. Reports that the former Italian leader Benito Mussolini is “dead” and “hanging” “upside down” at a petrol station were received with scepticism in Rome today. Our “reporter” – whoops, scrub the inverted commas round “reporter”, the scare-quotes key on the typewriter’s jammed again. Anyway our reporter Andrew “Gilligan” is “on” the scene “in” Milan. Andrew…

Andrew Gilligan: I’m leaning on a lamp post at the corner of the street in case a certain little duce swings by, and I don’t see any dead dictators, John. But then the Allies have a history of making these premature announcements…

He’s just above your head, Andrew. I know you don’t like to do wide shots, but, if the camera pulls back, I think you’ll find that’s definitely a finger tickling the back of your ear…

AG: Well, there you are. He’s not hanging from a petrol station, is he? He’s hanging from a rope attached to a girder on the forecourt of a petrol station. We’ve become all too familiar with the Allies playing fast and loose with the facts.” I’m still laughing.

His hopes for recession seem to be receding.

They don’t want their reporter Andrew Gilligan’s parliamentary testimony published. It could be too damning. Their official argument? Gilligan is “under stress” and it could affect his health. So a journalist backed by the biggest media entity in Europe who has accused the government of lying is too fragile to have his own public comments published. What a crock. A parliamentary committee member comments: “There appear to be compassionate grounds not to publish the evidence. We’re in a situation here where if we publish the evidence and something happens to Mr Gilligan we’d be in a very difficult situation.” In my opinion, the BBC is going down. But there are plenty of twists to come in this tale, I’m sure.

WEPs: As most people know, we don’t really have a problem in this country with Christians believing that there is no real distinction between religion and politics. Except for one group: white evangelical protestants, who see no reason not to use politics to reflect their sometimes literalist Biblical views. A new poll finds exactly that:

In other findings on religion and politics, the poll found that 48 percent of white evangelical Protestants said their religious beliefs frequently affected their voting, compared with 10 percent of white mainline Protestants, 12 percent of white non-Hispanic Catholics and 12 percent of Hispanic Catholics.

That’s quite some discrepancy. And it suggests a theocratic alliance between WEPs and Catholic Hispanics may well not come to fruition.

A BBC RANT: This time against its soccer coverage. I loved this guy’s attitude:

It’s insane but we live in a country where it’s illegal to watch – or even own – a television unless you pay the BBC money.
You can’t argue about it.
You can’t demand money back for all the years they paid Sid Little’s wages. You can’t demand a rebate because you don’t want to see the bloody Proms or because Peter Sissons has a pointy head or because you think Andrew ‘sexed up’ Gilligan is a liar.
You just have to pay. No arguing.
-The BBC can and does put people in jail for not paying them money to watch TV. Even if they don’t watch the BBC much, or even at all.
-You wouldn’t think that watching TV is a crime punishable by imprisonment would you? But it is.
-Once the BBC has our money, they spend a lot of it pompously telling us how we should ‘get a different perspective’.
Of course, every weekend millions of us get a different perspective not by watching Jim Davidson on the Generation Game but by taking ecstasy and other mind-bending intoxicants, which is frankly the only way to endure much of the BBC’s output.

Amen, brother. But when does the revolution begin?

CNN CORRECTS: The media giant sends the following message: “It is entirely untrue that CNN declined to air a video tape purporting to show an attack by agents of the Iranian regime on students in their dormitory. CNN was never offered such a tape, does not know if such a tape exists, does not have an office in Iran and never has.”

It was good to see the papers take Dick Cheney’s AEI speech yesterday seriously. They all but ignored Paul Wolfowitz’s superb briefing the day before. And what Cheney does is address something very fundamental to the argument. Here’s the money section:

The ability to criticize is one of the great strengths of our democracy, but those who do so have an obligation to answer this question: How could any responsible leader have ignored the Iraqi threat?
Last October, the director of Central Intelligence issued a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq’s continuing programs of weapons of mass destruction. That document contained the consensus judgments of the intelligence community, based upon the best information available about the Iraqi threat.
The NIE declared, quote, “We judge that Iraq has continued its weapons of mass destruction program in defiance of U.N. resolutions and restrictions. Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons, as well as missiles with ranges in excess of U.N. restrictions. If left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade,” end quote.
Those charged with the security of this nation could not read such an assessment and pretend that it did not exist. Ignoring such information or trying to wish it away would be irresponsible in the extreme.

How can one disagree? The problem with the critics is that they ignore the context and the impossibility of complete certainty in intelligence. But given that NIE assessment, given what we found out on September 11, what would we have expected the government to do? If they over-estimated the WMD capacity of Saddam, it was surely a better option than under-estimating it. Yes, war is and was a grave decision. But war against the monster in Baghdad was always far more morally defensible than war against almost any other regime on the planet. I have no problem whatever with tough criticism of the intelligence we had before the war, or the uses to which it was put. But I still have found no clear evidence that the administration acted in bad faith, or that the end-result is anything but a boon to our security, the security of the entire world, and to the poor Iraqi people, terrorized for generations. The president should get back on the offensive, and show how his opponents would have left this country more vulnerable than any responsible government can or should tolerate.

BROOKS TO THE NYT: A great move for the New York Times, although David will have to defend himself from becoming the tame establishment conservative. Still, it really does show someone there gets what has gone wrong. With David Shipley at the Op-Ed reins, we have a chance of a truly diverse editorial page for the first time in a very long while.

HRC DEFENDING BIGOTRY: Here’s the Human Rights Campaign’s Winnie Stachelberg’s response to a Democratic congressman calling another congresman a “fruitcake” and a “cocksucker”:

“I think Congressman Stark’s use of the word [fruitcake], he probably regrets having used it. I think he meant nothing by it, but I think in the 2003 context, it’s probably a poor choice of words. But it’s also important to note that Congressman Stark is one of the gay community’s staunchest allies.”

Translation: bigotry is fine if you vote our way. How will anyone take HRC seriously when they condemn Republican bigotry in the future?

… that makes infertility a condition for marriage:

The cite for this is W.R.S. Section 765.03 (1). Here is the text:
765.03 Who shall not marry; divorced persons. (1) No marriage shall be contracted
while either of the parties has a husband or wife living, nor between persons who are nearer of kin than 2nd cousins except that marriage may be contracted between first cousins where the female has attained the age of 55 years or where either party, at the time of application for a marriage license, submits an affidavit signed by a physician stating that either party is permanently sterile. Relationship under this section shall be computed by the rule of the civil law, whether the parties to the marriage are of the half or of the whole blood. A marriage may not be contracted if either party has such want of understanding as renders him or her incapable of assenting to marriage.

That’s from Wisconsin. So far, two states not only do not insist in procreation being a condition for marriage; they insist that it be a bar to marriage. So what is the point of civil marriage then in Arizona and Wisconsin? It is the emotional union of two people. As long as they’re straight.

THE END OF DRUG RESEARCH: The war against the pharmaceutical companies is only intensifying in this country. Here’s a case study of what happens when politicians pursue this cost-cutting agenda. In Germany, the drug research sector has now slid into second-class status. It will happen here. It is happening here.

A new record for the site: according to Alexa.com, this blog just reached its highest ever ranking on the web. Thanks again.

Here’s my take on George W. Bush’s dubious conservativsm. Or you can read George Will’s column this morning.

Funny thing: Paul Wolfowitz has the same impression of slow but measurable progress in Iraq as most of the informal and private emails and reports. Sure, he’s biased. But he’s also a brilliant and sincere man who knows how important it is to make the resuscitation of Iraq a success. Here’s his assessment:

The entire south and north are impressively stable, and the center is getting better day-by-day. The public food distribution is up and running. There is no food crisis. I might point out we planned for a food crisis; fortunately, there isn’t one. Hospitals nationwide are open. Doctors and nurses are at work. Medical supply convoys are escorted to and from the warehouses. We planned for a health crisis; there isn’t one. Oil production has passed the 1 million barrels per day mark. We planned for the possibility of massive destruction of this resource of the Iraqi people; we didn’t have to do it.
The school year has been salvaged. Schools nationwide have reopened and final exams are complete. There are local town councils in most major cities and major districts of Baghdad, and they are functioning free from Ba’athist influence.

Some quagmire. He was particularly sharp onthe lack of internecine warfare. This anecdote amazed me:

We had a very moving meeting with the members of the town council and a few other independents that had been invited. When it came the turn of one old Arab to speak, in his black robes with the classic gold embroidery and a white kaffiyeh with a black band around his head, he began to talk about how “it wasn’t just the Kurds who were oppressed by Saddam; we were all oppressed by Saddam.” He thanked the president and the coalition forces for their liberation, and I thought, “Okay, and now comes ‘we Arabs deserve consideration as well.'” And the most extraordinary thing was, this old Arab said the Kurds were driven out of their homes, and they’re entitled to their homes back. I don’t know if that’s representative, but it was powerful.

He wasn’t Pollyannish, though. Our inability to get the entire electricity grid up and running is deeply problematic; so is the security problem with contract hits being assigned by Baathist remnants. But the big picture is astonishingly good under the circumstances. Wolfowitz was emphatic, as we should all be, about the amazing work of the troops out there, in difficult circumstances, under blistering sun and constant tension:

Everywhere I went, I found troops with heartwarming stories about the reception they had gotten from Iraqis and how wonderful it felt to get that kind of reception, and the sort of lingering doubt about “Don’t folks back home get it?” — and your colleagues might be able to help in that regard.
But the thing that came through over and over and over again is, “The worst thing for us is uncertainty. If you would tell us we’re going to be here for a year, we’ve got a job to do, it is a great job to do, it’s helping Iraqi people, it’s helping our country. We’d just like to have a date and work to a date.”

Sounds like he listened as well. I feel more optimistic by the day.

On the other hand, here’s a comment on the far-left Democratic Underground website that captures a certain view on the hard left:

Doesn’t a part of you wish that Queasy and Duh-day were alive?
I’ll admit they’re scum and rightfully so, but anything that lands as even more humiliation on W’s grotesque shrivelled face is that much the better.
It’s sad, really, that as despicable as they are, Saddam’s family seems to be the lesser of two evils when you compare them to the wretched little bastard occupying the White House and destroying America in the process…

Fifth column? Naaaah. Imagine being a Democratic candidate and having to find a way to appeal to these creeps. (Via Steve Den Beste).

HOW SOME LEFTISTS THINK II: Then there’s this lovely quibble from the Associated Press.

Another email from the proud parent of a marine:

My favorite story is about an amusement park that the coalition forces refurbished for the kids in the region. Like children anywhere, the kids were eager to try the rides, so the PTB decided to put one Marine in each car with the kids.-My son told me that he had his M-16 locked and loaded between his legs and then about a dozen little kids climbed in the car.-No problem, short ride? Not quite.-The ride started and the operators couldn’t shut it off.-20 minutes later, the wheel was still going around and around and around.– Moving on to the merry-go round, my son was ordered to ride guard on a horse.-They filled up the carousel with eager kids . . . and couldn’t get the ride started.-Rather than disappoint the kids, the Marines hooked up chains to the ride and ran around in circles pulling the merry-go-round. The kids were delighted and the Marines, wearing full body armor in 130 degree heat, got quite a workout.
Every package I send has, at my son’s request, candy for the kids.-He plays soccer with them and teases them like he would his own brother and sister.-In the process, he’s building some very positive relationships. The kids love the Marines.-And most of their parents do too. The mainstream press seems to focus on negativity.-There is much positive progress.

Glenn has some good news from Afghanistan as well.