Month: November 2003

This is an odd omission.

Okay, if you don’t like f–words, don’t go here. If you feel like some da-da Gen-Y relief from world politics, enjoy.

An English friend saw this announcement today:

Hereditary Peers By-Election Result
Nominations for the by-election to replace Lord Milner of Leeds closed on 24 October.
11 candidates registered to stand for election, as follows:

Lord Biddulph
The Earl of Carlisle
Lord Clifford of Chudleigh
Lord Grantchester
Lord Hacking
Viscount Hanworth
Lord HolmPatrick
The Earl of Kimberley
Lord Monkswell
Viscount Samuel
Lord Vaux of Harrowden

The result was announced by the Clerk of the Parliaments in the House at 3 pm on Thursday 30 October 2003.
Three votes were cast. Lord Grantchester received two first-preference votes and Viscount Hanworth one. Lord Grantchester was therefore the successful candidate.

Yep. There’ll always be an England.

KRUGMAN NEVER FAILS: With his unerring instinct for the deceptive cheap shot, Paul Krugman disinters the Dowdified quote from Congressman George Nethercutt. You can read the context of this doctored quote here. Here’s how Paul Krugman puts it:

Some Americans may share the views of the Republican congressman who said that progress in Iraq was “a better and more important story than losing a couple of soldiers every day.” (Support the troops!) But whether or not you think troop losses are important, there’s growing evidence that our Iraq strategy is unsustainable.

Here’s the original quote in full: “So the story is better than we might be led to believe – I’m – just – indicting the news people – but it’s a bigger and better and more important story than losing a couple of soldiers every day which, which, heaven forbid, is awful.” Does that sound like someone not supporting the troops or, in MoDo’s words, putting the casual back into casualty? Or does it sound like the Dowds and Krugmans distorting the truth again for cheap partisan advantage?

I keep getting emails like the following:

“If any of the Democrats want to win, they will need to get my vote. I understand that this sort of statement will ring of self-grandeur in such a way that it may dissuade you from reading further, but consider this:
Unlike in your email of the day, I knew no one who died in September 11th. But nonetheless, I consider myself in many ways a “September 11th Republican.” That is, before September 11th, I was a passionate Democrat. I voted for Clinton twice, campaigned on behalf of Al Gore (despite the fact that the man had no personal charisma). And in my heart, I guess I sort of want to be a Democrat, primarily because all of my friends are, and I want them to like me. And I want to think of myself as a caring humanitarian (which embodies liberalism at its best) rather than a calculated realist. But I can’t. Not after September 11th. Not with the raving lunacy that has captured the Democratic party. Not when National Security is considered dispensable, if considered at all. Not when the Democrats fault George Bush for creating French obstruction. Not when the Democrats secretly applaud American deaths because it proves George Bush is “wrong.” Not for a party that hates the South, the West, anything not New York (I’m from New York, so I can say that) or San Francisco, or anyone who feels proud flying the American flag. And above all else, not for a party that panders to the protesters who waive signs blaming “the Zionists” for the world’s ills. No. This former Democrat, this September 11th Republican, will vote for George Bush.”

Now I’m not sure how widespread this feeling is, but I have little doubt that the key issue in the next election will be a relatively simple one: do you approve or disapprove of the transformation of American foreign policy in the wake of 9/11? Iraq will be factored into that, but I don’t think trouble there will necessarily sink the president for one simple reason. The issue next November will not be: were we wrong to go after Saddam? It will be: what would either candidate do now? How do we maintain pressure on the threats that beset us? Do we decide that Bush’s policy is fundamentally mistaken, that we are not as much at risk as we thought, that we can return to what John Kerry has called a “law enforcement” approach to terror, rather than outright warfare against both terrorism and its sponsoring states? Or do we stick with the guy who led us in those terrible post-9/11 months and won our trust at the time? Maybe memories will have faded by then – but I still think they won’t have faded enough for a Dean-style isolationism or Kerry-style legalism to do well. This presidential election will be the first since 9/11. It will be about 9/11. And it will be critical.

Thanks to Jonah, I got to see these album covers. Priceless.

HITLER IN ‘HOMES AND GARDENS’: A nostalgic look at the cult of celebrity and consumerism in 1938. And one weblogger’s subsequent lament.

MORE BBC SLEIGHT OF HAND: A reader points out another subtle elision in the BBC’s coverage of important events. The piece originally said: “A senior British intelligence official told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme defence correspondent Andrew Gilligan that the September dossier was rewritten at the behest of Downing Street to make it ‘sexier.'” That “senior British intelligence official” is now merely a “senior official.” Good that it’s now correct. Bad that you’d never know they’d ever made a mistake. The identity of the source was, of course, a critical issue in the war between the BBC and the Blair government.

He struck just the right tone for a Democrat yesterday:

“We have to prevail,” Mr. Gephardt told reporters. “We have to bring democracy to Iraq. We cannot fail. If you think Afghanistan was a terrorist training camp, you wait. If you leave Iraq, it will be a terrorist training camp the likes of which would make Afghanistan look simple. In our own deep self-interest, to prevent future acts of terrorism, we have to succeed.”
He, too, proceeded to criticize Mr. Bush. “We need a president who can get the world to work together with us to solve this problem,” Mr. Gephardt said.

Criticize the president but don’t junk the terror-war. This campaign may come down to Dean versus Gephardt.

THE WEEKLY FISK: Time to take on Andy Rooney.

THE HALLIBURTON CON: Just because the left wants to believe that Iraq is for sale to campaign contributors doesn’t mean it’s true. Dan Drezner investigates.

SONTAG AWARD NOMINEE: “Few can deny that Iraq under US occupation is in a much worse state than it was under Saddam Hussein.” – Tariq Ali, the Guardian. Tariq Ali now puts his full weight behind the murderers and terrorists in Iraq. So has ANSWER. How long before the rest of the anti-war left follows suit?

“While the majority of Americans may at present be walking around in a state of semi-hypnotic denial concerning the war in the Middle East and the role of Israel in all of it, the rest of the world most assuredly is not. Elsewhere, in nations not as infected with the corrupting influence of Zionist power, the people have maintained with perfect clarity their understanding of the picture posed by the connecting dots of political events. The rest of the world has been able to note names like Perle, Wolfowitz, Abrams, Sharon, and a whole host of others of similar stripe going back 50 years, and whose ethnic and religious loyalties are no mystery. The “elephant in the room” described recently by a Jewish reporter at the New York Times, the elephant which America seems unwilling or unable to recognize is clearly visible to the rest of the world community whom America seems to disregard. Therefore, when Bush & Co. start talking about “freedom, liberation, and the war on terror,” the rest of the world which has not swallowed the blue pill knows that the marionette dancing in Washington DC is directed by hands attached to the centers of power in Tel Aviv.” – Mark Glenn, in a commentary for Al Jazeerah. Thus Nazi-style anti-Semitism entrenches itself in the Arab media.

Another email sends chills down my spine:

I attended a doctor’s party the other night with my partner. A film-maker myself, I always find this other world interesting to say the least – another “bubble”.
I settled into a chat with a young doctor, born in the US of Egyptian parents. He was charming and very ‘LA’ – well-coiffured, soft-spoken and well-dressed. We chatted a while about his world in the forensics department at LAPD which I found interesting as a film-maker. We started chatting a little about the Middle East. I assumed he knew I was Jewish. And I thought, wow, what a great place America is – I can chat with an Egyptian as a Jew without any of the sorry overtones of the current crisis in the mid-East; Jew and Arab are bonded by our common Western upbringing.
I expressed reasons why I supported Israel, we both agreed Arafat was a bandit, but he explained why the Palestinian cause had such support in Arab countries. It was a very civil, pleasant conversation despite our differences…
And then it started coming out… I listened, because I wanted to hear what anti-Semitism was about, and also because I was in a situation where my partner’s professional colleagues were involved and I didn’t want to cause a scene… Clearly, this doctor was fooled by my South African accent, and didn’t conceive of the fact I could be Jewish.
The diatribe began with the stuff about how Jews truly control the American government and society – how policy in the mid-East was completely driven by Jewish American interests – this was the same man who had agreed with me moments before how many of the problems in the Mideast were the result of Islamic fundamentalism and corrupt Mideast governments. But, of course, the US intervenes there because of a Jewish plot. OK, my feathers were ruffling, but I realized what a great opportunity this was to be a fly on the wall of what people were saying when they didn’t know I was Jewish.
And then came the clincher… this educated doctor, a US citizen, told me in all seriousness how there was a detailed Jewish plot that if Al Gore had become president, he would have been assasinated so that Joseph Lieberman could assume the presidency of the United States. Since the Jews knew they would never get a Jewish president elected directly, the Lieberman VP bid was a Jewish conspiracy to gain control of the presidency by underhanded means.
I felt sick in the pit of my stomach. What was really worrying was he felt safe to say what he did in a gathering of middle class physicians in a wealthy neighborhood of Los Angeles.

It’s real. Nazi ideology is alive and well and in the minds of many even in this country. Now just imagine what they’re saying in polite company in Paris.

Yep, they went in and changed the text which had said that “peace” had been declared in Iraq last April. It’s not my error. The Beeb is one of the few news organizations which simply rewrites posted copy without any indication that they have done so. Sometimes with simple typos etc. this makes sense. But in factual errors, it’s a form of deception, a rewriting of the record, with no accountability. It’s a sign, I think, of the general level of integrity at today’s BBC – i.e. frayed.

I found myself watching Jay Leno the other night. By and large, I’ve given up TV, don’t have cable and watch the box maybe once every couple of weeks or so (usually at the boyfriend’s). But it was late, I couldn’t sleep, so I found myself watching the cheesiest, crudest, lowest-common-denominator humor I’ve seen in a long while. It had Dolly Parton in the same joke as a couple of melons, for Pete’s sake. And that was a high point. But I still watched it over Letterman. The NYT today tries to explain why Leno is now so dominant. It’s relatively easy, I think: Leno is a conservative voice in an unsettled time. His hackneyed humor and old-as-the-hills jokes, and non-confrontational suck-ups with Hollywood-approved celebs are more comforting than Letterman’s snarling irony. More to the point: IRONY IS DEAD. It died years ago – even before 9/11. Letterman, much as I admire him, is a relic. It’s over, Dave. Over.

THE LEFT AND ANTI-SEMITISM: The latest example: a story in the left-wing Scottish paper, the Sunday Herald, implicating Israelis in the 9/11 attacks. This is not a fringe paper. Money quote:

THERE was ruin and terror in Manhattan, but, over the Hudson River in New Jersey, a handful of men were dancing. As the World Trade Centre burned and crumpled, the five men celebrated and filmed the worst atrocity ever committed on American soil as it played out before their eyes.
Who do you think they were? Palestinians? Saudis? Iraqis, even? Al-Qaeda, surely? Wrong on all counts. They were Israelis – and at least two of them were Israeli intelligence agents, working for Mossad, the equivalent of MI6 or the CIA.
Their discovery and arrest that morning is a matter of indisputable fact. To those who have investigated just what the Israelis were up to that day, the case raises one dreadful possibility: that Israeli intelligence had been shadowing the al-Qaeda hijackers as they moved from the Middle East through Europe and into America where they trained as pilots and prepared to suicide-bomb the symbolic heart of the United States. And the motive? To bind America in blood and mutual suffering to the Israeli cause.

It really is happening again. (While on the subject, check out Natan Sharansky’s take on anti-Semitism in the new Commentary.)

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “Whatever happened to the gender gap? I’ve always thought of my sister as a classic Democrat. Pro-abortion, actually cares about the poor and thinks that government aid is a good thing (Ah!) Voted for Clinton twice.
Problem for the Democrats is that she used to work on the 102nd floor of the World Trade center (North-south-I forget-It doesn’t matter, really-no one made it down from either) She left that job in 2000, but a lot of her friends and coworkers didn’t.
Needless to say, I haven’t heard her complain once about Bush, and definitely said “Thank God Gore lost”
She left her six-figure job to become a teacher (classic idealism). She discovered that the Democratic education machine seems to value bureaucratic jobs a lot more than results. When Edison took over her Philadelphia school, she was all for it.
I think she will vote Republican this time. I don’t know if its a national trend, but it may explain some of these numbers.”