Year: 2003

Yes, we’re still at war. And Libya is also part of it.

DE-MYSTIFYING STEROIDS: Here’s an interesting take on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s possible ascension to the governor’s office in California: he’ll be the first major political figure who has won an election, despite having said he long used a Schedule 3 controlled substance, i.e. steroids. AS’s apparent good health and long years of a great-looking physique certainly suggest that the puritanical attempt to ban these substances is another example of the government over-stepping its limits. The evidence that responsible steroid use is bad for your health is, in fact, pretty flimsy. In some cases, testosterone is a godsend. My own doctor-monitored testosterone-use has shown absolutely no damage to any of my bodily functions, and helped reverse HIV-related fat-redistribution, wasting and exhaustion. But I’m not convinced that much higher doses of T do much harm either. To get to his previous size, Arnold must have done a lot, as he has conceded. And he seems fine (Gilson debunks some of the rumors about his health) and the public doesn’t care. Another example of our anti-drug laws being more about hysteria than science, let alone the freedom of any adult to do what he wants with his own body. The public is right about this one. The laws should adjust.

For all the retroactive nay-saying, Tony Blair turns the tables on his critics with this part of his speech yesterday to the Labour Party Conference:

Imagine you are PM. And you receive this intelligence. And not just about Iraq. But about the whole murky trade in WMD. And one thing we know. Not from intelligence. But from historical fact. That Saddam’s regime has not just developed but used such weapons gassing thousands of his own people. And has lied about it consistently, concealing it for years even under the noses of the UN Inspectors. And I see the terrorism and the trade in WMD growing. And I look at Saddam’s country and I see its people in torment ground underfoot by his and his sons’ brutality and wickedness. So what do I do? Say “I’ve got the intelligence but I’ve a hunch its wrong?” Leave Saddam in place but now with the world’s democracies humiliated and him emboldened? You see, I believe the security threat of the 21st century is not countries waging conventional war. I believe that in today’s interdependent world the threat is chaos. It is fanaticism defeating reason. Suppose the terrorists repeated September 11th or worse. Suppose they got hold of a chemical or biological or nuclear dirty bomb; and if they could, they would. What then?

Bush should, in my view, say something similar at some point. I know that any concession with regard to fallible pre-war intelligence can lead to the anti-war hysterics piling on and the Democratic opportunists playing clairvoyants. But the point of concession is to say that he took the right decision, even if the intelligence turned out to be flawed, and may have to make a similar decision again. The threat has not gone away. It’s a complicated war and not susceptible to swift or easy fixes. But it’s still a war we have to fight. Or perish.

THAT LAURA-CHIRAC CAPTION: From a younger reader: “Depend Undergarments Give You the Confidence to Be You – Even in the Most Uncomfortable Situations.” From an eagle: “Jacques Chirac, in a rare and surprising move, kisses a woman’s hand instead of a tyrant’s ass.” My favorite: “I wish we’d lost Florida.”

A graph to make Robert Fisk depressed. But what I’d really like to see is a graph that can tell us how many attacks are occurring, whether they result in casualties or not. I’ve heard contradictory reports on those numbers; and they’d be just as informative.

TACKLING THE DEEPER CLOSET: An inspiring first-person account of homophobia in sports – locker-rooms, bars, stadiums, and newsrooms.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “As an American I understand that Islam is not the enemy. But what about as a gay man? Have we forgotten that there is no sect of Islam worth considering that even tolerates homosexuality, and in countries where Islam predominates, punishment can be anything from imprisonment to torture to disfigurement to death. Islam may not be the enemy of my country, but I’d be hard-pressed to find a bigger enemy of gay people. Islam is perpetrating a massive, egregious assault on human rights — and what does the Human Rights Campaign have to say?” – David Lee, co-creator of TV’s Frasier, accepting an award at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s Leadership Awards Sept. 28 in Los Angeles, reported by Rex Wockner.

Here’s the Von Dutch website – the one marketing white trash aesthetic. Somehow I ond’ think those cuts and bruises on the model’s face came about in a bar-brawl. But I like the clothes anyhoo. So sue me.

THAT CHIRAC-LAURA PHOTO: I’m still a little mesmerized by it. Her expression is priceless. One reader suggests a good caption: “I thought it was the princess who was supposed to kiss the frog.” Any other suggestions?

Jack pixels the calmest and most plausible analysis of the Wilson/Plame affair. Interesting point:

Can we really imagine that Wilson’s wife used her name, Valerie Plame, to go undercover for the CIA? Children and dogs have Web pages that identify their interests and accomplishments. You’d imagine that an “energy analyst at a private firm” would have left some sort of HTML trail for Google to pick up. Unless reporters and investigators ferret out any new information, the Justice Department is not likely to find that any lasting harm was done to national security. Instead of prosecuting, Tenet might have his druthers this time and fire whoever leaked the information from the CIA and recommend the president do the same at the White House.

I’m not downplaying the gravity of this Wilson/Plame affair. I’ve already said that if someone leaked the name of an undercover agent, he/she should be fired and prosecuted. If true, it’s appalling. I’m just mystified by many details, I’m suspicious of multiple agendas swirling around, and think we know very little that’s categorical at this stage. This isn’t like the Trent Lott affair, when all the facts were available from day one. It’s murkier and, I’ll bet, will get murkier still. So let’s wait and see what comes out. Okay?

My version of the real Reagan is, of course, alarmingly close to Phil Hartman’s classic SNL skit, in which the Gipper puts on a doddering-old-fool act and then switches into Russian the minute the door is closed. Here’s an audio link, sent by a reader. Enjoy.

MORE ON GIMME CAPS: An emailer adds some detail to fashion anthropology:

Certainly many people wore the foam and the mesh, but people seem to be confusing how it made its way into popular culture (MTV and MTV2 especially). The foam and mesh cap entered popular culture via San Francisco indie rock bands with origins in the central valley. Many of the people in the Central Valley are the descendants of the “Okies” and “Arkies” who fled to California during the depression, and they dominate cultural life in the Central Valley (certainly among the White population). The band Joaquina (name of a small town in the central valley) even had a 1998 album called “the Foam and the Mesh.” The most popular of these bands is named “Grandaddy” and they are from Modesto, CA. Most of the bands moved from the central valley into the Bay area in the mid 1990s in the wake of Pavement’s (from Stockton) fame. They dominate the Bay area music scene now, and Grandaddy is very popular in England. The hipsters picked up on it. Check out SF’s Future Farmer Records. Note the rocket tractor at http://www.futurefarmer.com. There is even a minor trend to name one’s band after small towns in the Central Valley (see Earlimart).

Do my readers know everything? Except what Valerie Plame’s actual job was/is.

The AP makes sure it doesn’t actually accuse anyone of, er, you know, anti-Semitism or anything. Just because vandals spray-painted anti-Jewish slogans on Rosh-Hashanah, well, it could be anything, you know … Where does the AP think it’s publishing? In France?

THE CASE OF CHRIS HEDGES: Chris Hedges is the New York Times reporter who has claimed to document appalling human rights abuses commtted by the Israeli military, most famously in a magical-realist piece he wrote for Harpers. A critic parses all the various permutations of Hedges’ story, as it was written, discussed and explained by the reporter. There are, let’s say, some discrepancies.

SO, JONAH …: How about a date?

At the NYT, David Brooks writes about Paul Krugman.

Well, I sat down yesterday afternoon and tried – no, really tried – to understand what this whole Wilson-Plame “scandal” is about. Here’s my first stab: Joseph Wilson, for some reason, was picked to go investigate claims that Saddam had tried to purchase uranium from Niger. He came back and said – he didn’t write anything down, apparently – that there was no evidence that such a transaction had occurred. When the Bush administration cited British sources for uranium from Africa (not specifically Niger), Wilson got his panties in a twist and wrote an op-ed for the NYT accusing the Bushies of distorting intelligence to wage war. Subsequently, somebody in the government – either at the White House or elsewhere – was talking on the phone to Robert Novak, anti-war columnist, and told him that Wilson’s wife was a CIA operative. Novak’s disclosure set Wilson off again, and he accused the administration of trying to wreck his wife’s career out of spite at his dissent, and subsequently blamed Karl Rove personally. A few lefty writers made something of this on the web. Then it died down. Then over the weekend, news broke that George Tenet was ticked off about the affair and an “administration official” (CIA?) told the Washington Post that two government sources had actually cold-called six hacks and “outed” Wilson’s wife around the same time as Novak’s conversation. Then last night, Novak said that Plame wasn’t an undercover CIA agent after all; and that no-one in the government had tried to call him with that information. The Post, in contrast, has reported baldly that Plame “is a case officer in the CIA’s clandestine service and works as an analyst on weapons of mass destruction.” That’s about it. Okay, so there are nuances that I’ve missed, but that’s the best I could do.

WHAT IS HER JOB?: So, first off, is Plame or is she not an under-cover CIA agent? The original “leaker,” Robert Novak, says no. The Post says yes. And why would CIA complain if it weren’t true? Surely this is findoutable. If she is not undercover, someone at the CIA can easily provide her job description and clear all this up. If she is undercover, then we really do need to know who tried to “out” her to the six journalists. One possibility is that she once was undercover and now no longer is – which still makes the outing illegal but less dangerous, less vindictive and more baffling. Novak, meanwhile, has blown a hole through his part of the story by saying last night that

“Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this. In July I was interviewing a senior administration official on Ambassador Wilson’s report when he told me the trip was inspired by his wife, a CIA employee working on weapons of mass destruction. Another senior official told me the same thing. As a professional journalist with 46 years experience in Washington I do not reveal confidential sources. When I called the CIA in July to confirm Mrs. Wilson’s involvement in the mission for her husband – he is a former Clinton administration official – they asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else. According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operator, and not in charge of undercover operatives.”

So, according to Novak, there really isn’t a story here. It seems to me that until we know exactly what Plame’s job is, there’s not much point in speculating further. If she’s just an analyst and this is widely known, then the White House calls are slimy (and still baffling to me) but not worthy of major investigation. (I have a hunch she is no longer under-cover and now simply consults.)

ONE MORE THING: If none of the six journalists published Plame’s name and we do not know the context in which her name was raised, and Novak denies it, how do we know at all that this was an effort to punish Wilson and/or Plame? Do we believe the “revenge” motive provided by the government source over the weekend – or are his motives merely inter-agency in-fighting? In Novak’s column, there’s no direct negative slant on Plame at all. And there’s no source provided for her identity. Here’s the money quote:

Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson’s wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. “I will not answer any question about my wife,” Wilson told me.

Notice that Novak doesn’t write that the two SAO’s told him about Plame’s identity. They just indicated that it was her suggestion that Wilson be used. The CIA subsequently asked him to withhold her name. Now if she knows her stuff, and isn’t undercover, why is this damning at all? Beats me. Or are they trying a weak argument that he’s an incompetent or worse who got the assignment for nepotistic reasons? Who knows? I have many more questions than answers. And since I’m not part of the Krugmanian Bush-Is-Hitler/Nixon/Saddam crowd, I’ll leave the hyper-ventilating to Josh Marshall until we know more. (Useful summary: The Rant.)