Year: 2003

Claudia Rossett outlines the horrors of Kim Jong Il’s totalitarian concentration camps:

The report presents the grim individual stories of 30 defectors interviewed by Mr. Hawk in-depth, and culled from these, to further clarify the customs of the camps, is a long list of the tortures described. “Worst of all,” as the report puts it, is a roster of stories detailing the routine murder of babies born to prisoners, as told by eight separate eyewitnesses. One common denominator is that when pregnant women are forcibly repatriated after fleeing to China, it is policy to murder their newborns, because they might have been fathered by Chinese men. One account describes babies tossed on the ground to die, with their mothers forced to watch. In another interview, a former prisoner, a 66-year-old grandmother, identified as “Detainee #24” to protect relatives still perhaps alive in North Korea, describes being assigned to help in the delivery of babies who were thrown immediately into a plastic-lined box to die in bulk lots. The report notes: “The interviewer had difficulty finding words to describe the sadness in this grandmother’s eyes and the anguish on her face as she recounted her experience as a midwife at the detention center in South Sinuiju”–one of the sites shown in detail in the accompanying satellite photos.

One of the lessons I drew from Iraq is that, when push comes to shove, there are some regimes that, regardless of any other factors, should be destroyed, if we can, purely because of their unmitigated evil. North Korea is one of them. Yes, I know that its ambiguous nuclear capacity makes military action all but impossible. But the horrors of its system beggar belief. I’m suspicious of any and all attempts to placate Pyongyang. But I don’t have any brighter ideas either. You can download the report on NoKo’s gulag here. I found reading it to be a horrifying and shaming experience.

FRUM ON GAYS: You can judge for yourself whether his response to my response adds up. But let me puzzle the final point he makes. I asked why he seems to offer no positive measures for gay people in their relationships, why he is opposed to civil unions and marriage, and why the needs of gay citizens seem irrelevant to him. He replied:

3. This call for ‘asides’ to ‘nod toward’ gay concerns surprises me. It would seem to me impertinent and improper to start administering pats on the head to people who have their own lives to lead and their own choices to make. My vision of a good society is that of the Prophet Micah: “But they shall sit every man under his vine and fig tree, and none shall make them afraid.” Every man – and woman too.

What does he mean? No one is asking him to provide marital advice to gay people. I was asking why a social conservative – defined as someone who believes that laws and morals shape behavior and that the state has a role in encouraging socially beneficial behavior and discouraging bad – should have no public policy toward a group of its citizens. If Frum is genuinely saying he doesn’t believe government should be doing such a thing, then fine. But why is he encouraging civil marriage for straights? Indeed, why have civil marriage at all? But here’s one thing Frum has now done: established that he will never criticize gay culture in the future. That would surely be “impertinent.”

“I just want to repeat something somebody said earlier, which I thought was brilliant, which is what they do in Hollywood is they soften up their subject like Ronald Reagan. They show some nice pictures. They say some nice things about them that they can’t deny saying nice about them. They do it to soften them up, and they’ll put the dagger in. And this is what they did in the movie “Nixon.” They softened him up in a sentimental way and then stuck the knife right in: he’s a drunk; he’s a bum; he’s a bad guy, a crook. That’s what they always do out there. There is a prejudice that they don’t know out there in Hollywood. And I think in this kind of case it’s too bad you can’t sue the bastards. Because what is happening here is clearly, these are late hits.” – Chris Matthews, Hardball, October 21. The notion that Reagan was homophobic – peddled in the biopic – is not substantiated by any historians or contemporary sources. As Martin Anderson said on the same show:

What Lou says is absolutely correct. I remember once in early 1980 on the campaign plane with the issue about what do we do about gay groups that want to see him and demanding things. And he sat us down and he said, “Now, look. First of all,” he said, “I know a lot of gays. I was in Hollywood.” And then he reminded us, “You know how many of them there are?” And then he said, “Look, leave them alone.” And that was his policy.

Yes, he should have said more about AIDS. He shouldn’t be let off the hook. But to cast him as a homophobe lets real homophobes off the hook.

THE PALESTINIANS: A new poll suggests that a majority wants to keep fighting Israel even if there’s a political settlement and a Palestinian state. Just as discouraging:

Ninety-six percent of Israeli Jews say the people who piloted the planes on September 11 were terrorists, while 37 percent of Palestinians share that view. Slightly more than one in four – 26 percent – of Palestinians believe Israelis planned the 9-11 attacks.
Forty-two percent of Palestinians and 61 percent of Israeli-Arabs stated that they support the people who are attacking Americans in Iraq. Zero percent of Israeli Jews said they did.

More grist for Sharon, I’d say. And, of course, Arafat.

An interesting study on how long people read blogs. The average length of time anyone spends on a blog is around 96 seconds. I’m not included in the list because I’m not on the site-meter. But my own stats monitor shows my readers hang out for on average 2 – 3 minutes. Maybe I write more. Or maybe they read more slowly.

Adam Kushner skewers Wesley Clark for the following outburst:

How do you think I could have succeeded in the military if everybody didn’t like me? It’s impossible… Do you realize I was the first person promoted to full colonel in my entire year group of 2,000 officers? I was the only one selected. Do you realize that? … Do you realize I was the only one of my West Point class picked to command a brigade when I was picked? … I was the first person picked for brigadier general. You have to balance this out. … A lot of people love me.

Sally Field, anyone? Before the Oscar.

Doonesbury becomes outraged about alleged sexual misbehavior.

Porphyrogenitus gets to the bottom of it.

Classic little throw-away in a New Yorker essay this week:

The other day at the Pierre Hotel, Mikhail Gorbachev, the man who ended the Cold War, was in an elevator…”

Yes, and the United States had nothing to do with it.

A very striking finding in a recent poll on Democratic party activists in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Given a list of issues and asked to say which ones they cared about most, almost none said terrorism. In Iowa a full one percent said they wre concerned about terrorism – less than three years since 9/11. The base wanted a candidate with credibility on national security – but didn’t seem to care about the issue as such. A combination of cynicism and amnesia. I’m not a Republican. But polls like these make me realize I’m even less of a Democrat.

THE GEPHARDT BOOMLET: He’s the candidate Karl Rove has always said was the most under-rated. But now there seems to be a genuine Gephardt boomlet. Some of it may be due to press boredom at the possibility of a Dean walk-over. But there are other factors. It seems that Dean has peaked in Iowa and that Gephardt is making inroads. The WaPo picks up the story here, and touts Gephardt’s labor roots, Midwest clout and hawkishness. Some Congressional candidates in marginal seats are getting nervous about a left-liberal national campaign. And the “theme story” is a contest between the “wine track” and the “beer track” among Democratic voters. It does seem to me that the class divide within the Democratic party is a pretty major fissure and could widen under a Dean insurgency. At the same time, Gephardt still strikes me as a terrible candidate. He seems too political, too Washington, too familiar and not distinctive enough to become president. Another veep potential? Dean will need someone from the South or the Midwest to avoid the “Starbucks candidate” label, and maybe Gephardt could assist. But what all this speculation amounts to, I think, is that it still looks very tough for any of the current crop of Dems to win against Bush. Gephardt’s real strength is that he hasn’t gone wobbly on terrorism. But that’s a weakness with the Democratic base, of course, which puts him back almost where he started.

BARBOUR HANGS TOUGH: He condemns some of his supporters’ “indefensible” racism, but stays chummy nonetheless.

Some video of a recent rally at Rutgers. Illuminating. (Hat-tip: Jonah).

THE REAGAN PIC: My view: judging by the script, a depressing attempt by one bitter faction to malign a former president. The misguided notion that he was an anti-gay fanatic who rejoiced at the AIDS epidemic has become a staple of left-liberal discourse; but the best students of the period accuse him of negligence not malice. There’s a difference. Virginia gets it just about right.

THE MULLAHS RESPOND: More evidence that the Nobel Committee did right. And here’s more evidence of some slender but real measures of progress in the Middle East.

“As I read your editorial in the Sunday New York Times, I could hardly contain my emotions. You see, Michael & I were the subjects. Our wedding was a simple but glorious event. Never could we have imagined what has come because of it. Neither of us will ever regret getting married. We have received nothing but positive support (much of it from total strangers) since this entire story erupted.
We both want to thank you for your eloquently written editorial. You have expressed how we both feel. Having had a door unceremoniously slammed in our faces, we will move on to a home that has greater compassion for all humanity. We will continue to believe that our marriage demands respect and to stand up for our civil right to marry.
– Robert Voorheis & Michael Sabatino.” Thanks for the literally hundreds of emails following my NYT piece on the Church. I wish I could respond personally to each; and I’ve tried. But here’s a general thank-you for the concern, intelligence and empathy of your missives. There’s more feedback on many other issues on the Letters Page.

MAHATHIR AND KRUGMAN: The ADL objects to his glibness. A reader makes a sharp point:

How is it, I wonder, that one can identify anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism (both of which have existed in the Islamic world for decades and centuries, respectively) along with the brand spanking new phenomenon of Islamic political self-criticism, and draw the conclusion that the former was caused by the 25 month old policies of an administration, while completely ignoring those same, new policies as a possible cause of the new phenomenon?
I don’t know which is more astounding – the level of Krugman’s intellectual dishonesty, or the fact that he no longer even seems to care to hide it.

I’d say the way in which Krugman’s blind hatred of the president has made him immune even to the real sources of bigotry.

EURO-ANTI-SEMITISM WATCH: This time, a very disturbing report from Sweden.

BLOGGING DOWN UNDER: The new medium picks up momentum.