Month: December 2003

Gaddafi made the decision as the coalition invaded Iraq. Hmmm. Maybe Howard Dean would have sent Warren Christopher instead.

BAATHIST BROADCASTING CORPORATION: An internal BBC email tells its reporters not to refer to Saddam as a dictator. From the Daily Telegraph’s London Spy column:

“An email has been circulated telling us not to refer to Saddam as a dictator,” I’m told. “Instead, we are supposed to describe him as the former leader of Iraq. Apparently, because his presidency was endorsed in a referendum, he was technically elected. Hence the word dictator is banned. It’s all rather ridiculous.” The Beeb insists that the email merely restates existing guidelines. “We wanted to remind journalists whose work is seen and heard internationally of the need to use neutral language,” says a spokesman.

Just when you think they couldn’t get any worse, the BBC goes and does something like this. Under these guidelines, would Hitler have ever been called a “dictator”? He was originally elected in a freer election than Saddam, after all.

AMERICA AND MODERNITY: Mike Elliott, in a wise piece, points out the distinction.

INEVITABLE, I SUPPOSE: Mac Eye for the Windows Guy. How gay is Apple.

SONTAG AWARD NOMINEE: “The US is about to hold another election that will be largely bought and sold by business and oil interests. Think of the corruption that US and UK conservatives carelessly unleashed upon the former Soviet Union in the name of extreme free market ideology.” – Polly Toynbee, the Guardian. You can “unleash” corruption?

BEGALA AWARD NOMINEE: “I am also well aware that historically there have been many Americans who were both good Republicans and good Christians, Abraham Lincoln perhaps most preeminently. But the Republican Party in its current incarnation is racist (racism being the clear premise of its “Southern strategy,” pursued so singlemindedly since the days of the ineffable Richard Nixon) and the enemy of the poor. To be these things – to be against the poor and the marginalized – is, in my reading of the New Testament, to be specifically anti-Christian.” – Thomas Cahill, alienating an awful lot of potential readers.

“My grandfather emigrated to the United States from Greece in about 1905, at the age of 10 – alone on a ship going to meet his father and brother (coming in through Ellis Island, and looking, I’m sure, quite like the young Vito Corleone in New York Harbour in the “Godfather” flashback scenes – though his future was more peaceful).
Before settling down, to become a railroad worker and early union organizer, he spent a couple of years (from age 15) “hobo-ing” around the western United States. He was very adamant that this was an honorable pastime. A hobo, he said, is not a bum. He goes from place to place and looks for honest work to earn his food and a place to sleep – he is NOT looking for a hand-out.
This is probably not an important distinction for those who are homeless anymore, but when I read your use of the word “hobo” to describe Saddam Hussein, I couldn’t help but remember my grandfather, and I thought “Saddam should be so lucky as to be a hobo – he could wish for so much dignity.” My grandfather achieved a third grade education and spent his life as a mechanic. He raised four sons, three of whom were old enough to volunteer for WWII. The four earned two Master’s and two Ph.D.’s, and produced 15 grandchildren who have done no less. One of the more than 15 great-grandchildren is in the Naval Academy, and one is a Marine. This is the legacy of a hobo. Saddam, master of the palaces and father of the lion-cubs, is just a bum.” – more feedback on the Letters Page.

MY MAN, DENNIS: He used to be too snarky for my taste. But his chutzpah in talking openly about the defense of civilization has won me over. He’s the kind of conservative who doesn’t think the world will end if two guys want to commit to one another for life but who thinks our own world might very well end if we don’t get a grip on Islamist terrorists with WMDs. In other words, he has the right priorities. I should have linked to this already, but better late than never. Money quote: “I will say this, I feel more politically engaged than I’ve ever felt in my life because I do think we live in dangerous times, and anybody who looks at the world and says this is the time to be a wuss – I can’t buy that anymore.” Amen.

HELL ON EARTH: Just when you thought Malaysia couldn’t get scarier, they propose mass chopping off of foreskins. It will apparently bring people together. Couldn’t they just hold hands?

ANGELS DROOPS: The most brilliant, ground-breaking, revolutionary work of art since, er, Frank Rich started writing for the New York Times slipped again in the ratings last week. Its first audience of 4.2 million slipped to 2.9 million for the finale, according to Hollywood Reporter. A reader’s defense of ‘Angels’ can be read here.

DEAN UNDER FIRE: Now, the center-left Spinsanity is having a whack. The best Dean critique i’ve read so far is this devastating editorial in the Washington Post from yesterday. A couple of days ago, Joe Klein told me he thought Dean had peaked. Maybe. But it’s one hell of a peak.

MORSE’S BLIND-SPOT: Jennifer Roback Morse has a beautiful little essay in the current National Review Online. It’s about her marriage, what marriage is, and her own experience of infertility, adoption, childbirth and all sorts of complicated, conflicted experiences to be had in the modern world. It’s a subtle piece, so I won’t try to summarize it, but one of its points is that marriage is about letting go of control, of letting another person’s life become your own, of building a little platoon of intimacy that is deeper than any single or particular end – a baby, a home, a career. What I simply don’t understand is why a woman as obviously as sensitive and humane as Morse nevertheless believes that excluding loving gay couples from such an experience is not only a good thing but a vital thing for people already in such marriages. Are gay people not also human? Can they not also put a joint life before personal gratification? Why does Morse simply assume that homosexuality is about “self-centeredness”? Morse doesn’t actually provide any such arguments. She just seems to take it for granted that this is a zero-sum game, that including gay people in the profound experience of self-giving is somehow destructive of her own relationship. I don’t get it. I don’t see it. And her utter indifference to the actual lives, loves and relationships of gay people – does she know any, I wonder? – undermines her otherwise compelling moral sense. That’s a shame. Gay and straight people have a common ground of understanding when it comes to marriage: we are all human. We all need and benefit from the experience of love and self-giving. It ennobles, sanctifies, elevates. Why does someone like Morse insist that gay people cannot be a part of this?

Time to dust off this old award. Here’s how Canada’s National Post describes the CBC’s coverage of the capture of Saddam:

To summarize, here are the impressions a casual viewer might have taken from Monday night’s CBC news: (1) Iraqis still love Saddam, and so his capture has only enraged them; (2) Despite Mr. Bush’s “gloating,” things will get worse; (3) Saddam’s trial will be a propaganda trick engineered to re-elect a Republican president; (4) To the extent Saddam did anything bad, America was the real villain; and (5) Saddam’s capture is meaningless anyway because Osama is still on the loose.

Sounds familiar. Did the BBC train these guys?

Bush is back at 63 percent, and Dean is faltering. This will fade, of course. But maybe Dean has peaked. Bush-hater Jon Chait at The New Republic starts an anti-Dean blog. Last time I checked, Chait was supporting Clark. Money quote:

Earlier this year I wrote a piece for TNR that defended hatred of President Bush. (I argued that hating Bush may lead to irrationality–rooting against the capture of Saddam Hussein, or, say, nominating Howard Dean–but it’s not irrational in and of itself.) But recently I’m finding that Dean hatred is crowding out Bush hatred in my mental space. It’s not that I think Dean would be a worse president than Bush–he’d probably be better, although that’s extremely faint praise given that Bush is the worst president of the last 80 years. Bush is like the next-door neighbor who lets his dog poop on your lawn and his kid shoot bb’s at your house and who says something irritating to you every day on his way to work. Dean, on the other hand, is like the ne’er-do-well who’s dating your daughter. You realize the neighbor is a worse person than the boyfriend, but the boyfriend (and the frightening prospect that he’ll become your son-in-law) consumes more of your attention.

The beginning of deep Democratic panic.

Dan Drezner shows, by comparison, how weak the Democratic attacks on George W. Bush’s foreign policy have been.

BAIT AND SWITCH WATCH:

“Saddam Hussein has long been an obsession for the world, and particularly the United States. Yet Iraq was so cut off from the outside that it was impossible for anyone – including, it seems, American intelligence officials – to get a clear picture of who he really was… George W. Bush’s Saddam Hussein was both vicious and efficient – a combination that made him a clear and imminent threat to international security. He not only had the will to harm his neighbors and the United States, he had the means. He was rapidly expanding an arsenal of biological and chemical weapons while steadily moving closer to becoming a nuclear power. He was so clever and well organized that he might surprise the world with nuclear weapons at any time. And although his regime was a secular one, it was so single-minded in its anti-Americanism that it was undoubtedly working with the radical Islamist terrorists of Al Qaeda.” – New York Times editorial, December 17, 2003.

“Mr. Bush’s blunt assessment of the Iraqi threat and the need for a firm, united response by the United Nations were well put. Iraq, with its storehouses of biological toxins, its advanced nuclear weapons program, its defiance of international sanctions and its ambitiously malignant dictator, is precisely the kind of threat that the United Nations was established to deal with. Betting on the good faith of Saddam Hussein or trusting that the problem will fade away is unrealistic. As Mr. Bush said, after a decade of Iraqi defiance the U.N. faces a defining moment and a test of its purpose and resolve.” – New York Times editorial, September 13, 2002.

(Thanks to a diligent reader.)

“I shouldn’t take it personally. Because what (the Bush) administration was attempting to do was turn back the progress of the entire 20th century. They were not just after Bill Clinton – they wanted to undo Jimmy Carter, Lyndon Johnson, John Kennedy, Harry Truman, Franklin Roosevelt. They were on their way to Teddy Roosevelt. It was a bipartisan right-wing extreme agenda.” – Senator Hillary Clinton, earlier this week. More Sid, alas.

GALLOWAY AWARD NOMINEE: “With no weapons, no ties, and no truth, the capture of Saddam was merely the most massive and irresponsible police raid in modern times. We broke in without a search warrant.” – Derrick Z. Jackson, making a strong, late entry, in the Boston Globe.

QUEERER EYE: What Carson might have done a few centuries ago. And, if you haven’t already seen it, today.

THE MIKE KELLY AWARD: Here are the details for a new award in honor of a great journalist.

Mark Steyn discovers a new ideology. If this doesn’t make you laugh, then go read Eric Alterman.

Most of the gay groups have gone ballistic over president Bush’s Clintonian statements last night on the Federal Marriage Amendment. I guess I should be clear. I don’t believe basic issues of civil rights should be resolved by Clinton-like, almost-impenetrable phrases designed to appease all parties. But I am relieved that the president has essentially refused to endorse the religious right’s current effort to amend the Constitution. David Frum agrees with my analysis. But his arguments are revealing:

The longer we wait, however, the more likely it is that the ultimate result will be unfavorable. As for the US Supreme Court, nobody should feel any confidence about what it will do. The current court is highly unlikely to go as far as the Massachusetts court and discover a right of same-sex marriage in the US Constitution. But if offered an opportunity to over-rule the Defense of Marriage Act on highly technical grounds that did not involve same-sex marriage as such – well, I strongly suspect that Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Kennedy, and Souter would accept, and Justice O’Connor might well follow.
The best argument against the Federal Marriage Amendment is that it might well lose, after which conservatives would be worse off than ever. And so it would be, if the Amendment were to lose badly. But if it were to lose narrowly, the FMA could nonetheless shock some reason into the courts.

When David is arguing in such defeatist terms, you know they’re up against it. But hitching the Constitution to a position that is fast losing popular support seems to me to be an abuse of that document. It should be amended only when there’s an overwhelming consensus on a strictly Constitutional matter – not when the country is deeply split on a social and cultural issue. Then he suggests trying to amend the constitution even if it’s doomed to failure. How’s that for abuse of a sacred document? The gay issue does strange things to presidents. Clinton said all the right things – and then enacted and supported some of the most anti-gay measures ever (DOMA, “Don’t ask, Don’t Tell”). Bush still cannot even say the words ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’ but hasn’t done anything that damaging to gay men and women; and, by his ambivalence, might help kill an anti-gay Constitutional amendment. Go figure.

GIMLI GETS IT: If you want an antidote to Viggo Mortensen on the meaning of Tolkien, check out this interview with John Rhys-Davis, who plays Gimli. I saw Mortensen on TV the other night saying that the “Lord of The Rings” was all about bringing people together, eschewing violence, promoting peace, etc etc. Poor guy. Cute, but dumb as a post. Rhys-Davies is smarter:

“I’m burying my career so substantially in these interviews that it’s painful. But I think that there are some questions that demand honest answers. I think that Tolkien says that some generations will be challenged. And if they do not rise to meet that challenge, they will lose their civilization. That does have a real resonance with me… What is unconscionable is that too many of your fellow journalists do not understand how precarious Western civilization is and what a jewel it is.
How did we get the sort of real democracy, how did we get the level of tolerance that allows me to propound something that may be completely alien to you around this table, and yet you will take it and you will think about it and you’ll say no you’re wrong because of this and this and this. And I’ll listen and I’ll say, “Well, actually, maybe I am wrong because of this and this.”
[He points at a female reporter and adopts an authoritarian voice, to play a militant-Islam character:] ‘You should not be in this room. Because your husband or your father is not here to guide you. You could only be here in this room with these strange men for immoral purposes.’
I mean … the abolition of slavery comes from Western democracy. True Democracy comes from our Greco-Judeo-Christian-Western experience. If we lose these things, then this is a catastrophe for the world.

Exactly. That is what I believe my generation has been called to protect – and this extraordinary, and deeply Catholic, movie couldn’t have come at a better time.

The documents found in Saddam’s hide-away seem to convey important information about the network of Baathist insurgency. That’s fascinating news. Already, key figures in the network are being apprehended and the intelligence gains are considerable. The two previous alternatives – that Saddam was conducting the terrorist resistance or out of the loop – can now cede to a third: that he was the rallying point for resisters, and well informed about their operations. We’ll know in the next couple of months if that violent opposition to a democratic transition is demoralized by this capture. Certainly this piece of news suggests that optimism is not crazy.

BUSH HAS IT BOTH WAYS: Those people who believe this president cannot speak in coherent sentences don’t realize how clever his alleged incoherence is. Here’s what the news story I’ve just read says about the president’s position on a constitutional amendment to ban gays from any civil benefits for their relationships:

Bush has condemned the [Massachusetts] ruling before, citing his support for a federal definition of marriage as a solely man-woman union. On Tuesday, he criticized it as “a very activist court in making the decision it made.” “The court, I thought, overreached its bounds as a court,” Bush said. “It did the job of the Legislature.” Previously, though Bush has said he would support whatever is “legally necessary to defend the sanctity of marriage,” he and his advisers have shied away from specifically endorsing a constitutional amendment asserting that definition. But on Tuesday, the president waded deeper into the topic, saying state rulings such as the one in Massachusetts and a couple of other states “undermine the sanctity of marriage” and could mean that “we may need a constitutional amendment.”
“If necessary, I will support a constitutional amendment which would honor marriage between a man and a woman, codify that,” he said. “The position of this administration is that whatever legal arrangements people want to make, they’re allowed to make, so long as it’s embraced by the state or at the state level.”

Let’s unpack that statement. It gives something to the religious right, who want to bar recognition of any gay relationships in the constitution. But it’s all couched in the conditional tense. “We may need a Constitutional Amendment.” “If necessary, I will support …” That’s not an endorsement of the FMA now. What would transform the “may’s” into “do’s”? Dunno. The actual existence of gay civil marriages in Massachusetts? Maybe. Then, he seems to reiterate the Cheney position: “The position of this administration is that whatever legal arrangements people want to make, they’re allowed to make, so long as it’s embraced by the state or at the state level.” Does that mean marriage? Or civil unions? Or domestic partnerships? Or just ad hoc and fragile legal contracts? I don’t know. All in all: a carefully tailored piece of obfuscation. It seems to me that, from this statement, we neither have an unconditional endorsement of the FMA nor an uncategorical defense of states’ rights with regard to marriage. Bush wants to have it both ways. Or am I misreading this? I have a head cold and a fever so I’m headed back to bed. That means I reserve the right to re-think this in the morning.

Monday, president Bush touted his alleged fiscal conservatism. If he’s fiscally conservative, I don’t know what fiscally liberal would look like. Here’s what he said:

“I want to remind you of a fact that I think you’ll find interesting – or maybe you won’t find interesting, but I find it interesting – that non-military, non-homeland security discretionary spending was at 15 percent – increase from year to year was at 15 percent prior to our arrival, then it was at 6 percent, 5 percent and 3 percent. So we’re working with Congress to hold the line on spending. And we do have a plan to cut the deficit in half.”

Here’s a link to a Cato Institute study on federal non-defense non-homeland security discretionary spending over the last few years. Here’s Heritage’s account of how Bush’s touted “3 percent” for 2004 is actually 9 percent. Here’s a graph detailing Bush’s massive increases in domestic spending. Note that these studies are from groups favorably disposed to the administration. There are a few options here. Either I’ve missed something or the president a) doesn’t know what he’s talking about or b) he’s lying. Let’s hope I’ve missed something, shall we?

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “Evil, that is, has every advantage but one–it is inferior in imagination. Good can imagine the possibility of becoming evil–hence the refusal of Gandalf and Aragorn to use the Ring–but Evil, defiantly chosen, can no longer imagine anything but itself. Sauron cannot imagine any motives except lust for domination and fear so that, when he has learned that his enemies have the Ring, the thought that they might try to destroy it never enters his head, and his eye is kept toward Gondor and away from Mordor and the Mount of Doom.” – W. H. Auden, reviewing Tolkien’s masterpiece, from the New York Times, January 1956.

BAATHIST BROADCASTING COROPRATION WATCH: Glenn Reynolds has the scoop on how the Beeb managed to quash the Iraqi foreign minister’s criticism of the U.N. They would, wouldn’t they?