Year: 2003

This one isn’t ironic. Promise. This mega-meta-posting by Mickey (“‘Free Weintraub’ update, updated:”) strikes me as an early classic of blog lit. It’s funny, on-the-money, locked in a web world of its own, making waves, and endless in a call-waiting, can’t-stop-reading kind of way. When someone does a dissertation on blog-writing, they need to use this as an ur-post. (Of course if Mickey’s post is meta, this post is meta-meta. But not so mega. I should go to bed now, shouldn’t I?))

CONTRA MARSHALL: I’m with Glenn Reynolds in his recent and unusual spanking of Josh Marshall. It’s not illegitimate to cite a Democratic Congressman’s view that the relentlessly negative media spin on Iraq is making our job over there far harder than it might otherwise be. That’s the truth. The only hope the Baathists have is that we will give up and do a Somalia. Moreover, disunity at home gives the Saddamites and other terrorists hope and prolongs the conflict. I can’t see how anyone can seriously want that – not even Howard Dean. In fact, one of the good things about Dean’s campaign has been his clear statement that we need the Iraqi liberation to work. But sadly it’s no surprise that many in this country and abroad want the liberation to fail. They think it’s more important for the U.S. to get a bloody nose than that the Iraqi people get a successful transition to democracy. I can see no other rationale behind the French arguments to hand over power immediately to an interim government that is not capable of running the place. And the obscene “Bring The Troops Home” rhetoric of A.N.S.W.E.R. revals again that their major motivating factor is opposition to U.S. power rather than concern for Iraqi democracy or human rights. We have to do better than this. What troubles me about the Democrats’ current rhetoric is not that there shouldn’t be good criticisms of what we’re doing over there; but that those criticisms should be aimed at getting the process to succeed. Right now, it seems designed purely for domestic political points: the domestic politics of Vietnam without Vietnam. So what is new? For what it’s worth, I was equally disgusted by the oportunism of many Republicans when the Clinton administration needed support for the effort against totalitarian genocide in the Balkans. It was cheap then. With far higher stakes, it’s even cheaper now.

Yesterday, I wrote: “Clark’s previous remark that he’d be a Republican if Karl Rove had returned his calls is just a metaphor, or a fabrication, or a dream, or something.” Well, Clark claimed that “something” was a joke; and that he was misinterpreted. I take the point and should have mentioned this interpretation at the time. I was a little flip. But don’t get me wrong: I don’t believe Clark for a minute about this incident. One thing we know about him is that he’s phenomenally ambitious and extremely prickly. It doesn’t surprise me a bit that he might have wanted to join the Bush team and was pissed when they didn’t want him. Howard Fineman’s sources, moreover, didn’t just make their point by citing the “joke.” They say Clark went on at length about his sense of grievance with the Republican establishment. The point about Clark’s flakiness stands. And it’s not improbable. He’s not exactly a partisan Dem, is he? He voted for Reagan and Nixon. And he was dissed by the Clinton administration. What better revenge than returning in glory to help run a war? Look, he was a Rhodes Scholar. They suck upwards and kick downwards. The hilarious thing about all this is how eager otherwise sane people are to defend Clark. His record in public life is spotty and maverick. His campaign so far has been a complete mess. Maybe he’ll recover. Maybe under all this wild-eyed ego-centrism, there’s a future leader waiting to be born. I’m not going to write him off yet. But he strikes me as an obviously inferior candidate to several of the others. I’d go for Edwards, Kerry, Lieberman or Dean before this nut.

NIT-PICKING ARNOLD: Okay, so here’s a pathetic example of irrelevant gotcha journalism designed to infuriate all those public interest types who want us to focus on the ishoos. How tall is Arnold? Gregg Easterbrook joins the debate, following the Chicago Reader. The official website says AS is 6’2″. Others differ. Most think he’s much smaller. So do I. I met him once (it was at an event where a lot of young men were wearing make-up and dresses) and he was, if memory serves, shorter than me and I’m around 5’9″ in the mornings. But I don’t entirely trust my memory about all that. The other reason for thinking he’s shorter is that it’s very hard for someone at 6’2″ to have gotten as huge as the big guy back when he was lifting serious weights. It helps to be a little on the short, boxy side for bodybuilding. So is he fibbing? And if it’s kosher, by some luminaries, for women to euphemize their age, can men lie about their height?

My email server was having a cow for a few weeks and none of my outgoing emails was delivered. D’oh! But they were all sent this morning. So if you get a crazy email from yours truly out of the blue, it’s delayed. Sorry. Better late than never.

MATH AND ME: Blooper on the FMA post. A reader sets me, er, straight:

I enjoy reading your column (even though I usually disagree with you), but I think you may have gotten this line wrong:

“And Republicans oppose the FMA by a 58 to 38 percent margin.”
Reading the original article, it looks to me like the FMA is opposed 58 to 38 percent among Republicans who think same-sex marriage should be illegal. If you read the paragraphs above the second table (from which you pulled the 58/38 number), it says things like “only 23 percent of older Americans who oppose such marriages say it’s worth amending the Constitution to do so” (emphasis added). Twenty-three percent in favor of FMA among older Americans matches up numerically with the second table. Also, the second table is titled “The Constitution: Amended if Same Sex Marriage Banned” (emphasis added), which also suggests the second table only represents anti-gay marriage folks.

The good thing about this misreading is that it strengthens your point. Since 73 percent of Republicans oppose gay marriage and 38 percent of them are in favor of FMA, this means that only 27 percent of all Republicans support FMA. It’s still higher than the 20 percent support from the general populace, but even I, a diehard Democrat, will admit that it’s impressive that so many Republicans are against FMA. What’s especially impressive is how many are willing to put the integrity of our Constitution over their own objections to gay marriage.

Sorry for the miscalculation.

A new poll from ABC News is the first to measure Americans’ support for amending the Constitution to ban gay marriage. Instead of asking a single question that conflates whether you are for or against equal marriage rights and the amendment issue, the ABC poll asked two separate questions: 1) Do you think it should be legal or illegal for homosexual couples to get married? and 2) Is it worth amending the U.S. Constitution to make it illegal for homosexual couples to get married, or not worth it? The results are that 55 percent want to keep gay marriage illegal, but of those, a majority (60 percent) oppose a constitutional amendment. If you add up those who think gay marriage should be legal (and therefore presumably oppose the FMA) and those who think it should be illegal but still oppose the FMA, you get 70 percent opposition to the FMA. When you count out the “don’t knows”, you get a paltry 20 percent who want to amend the Constitution to ban gays from the responsibilities of marriage. 20 percent for a Constitutional Amendment. That means no amendment. Even if the numbers were reversed – and 70 percent were in favor of the FMA – that would still be a thin reed on which to make such a drastic change. Other interesting aspects of the poll: the generation gap is massive. And Republicans oppose the FMA by a 58 to 38 percent margin. (Independents and Democrats are pretty much indistinguishable on the issue, another interesting find.) There’s also little difference between civil unions and marriages, in most people’s eyes. The only way the religious right will succeed with this radical step is by a hysterical and polarizing campaign. Even then, the odds are surely against them.

Hats off to Glenn for helping bring critical mass to the obvious truth that the reports coming out of Iraq are too one-sided, too patently political, and far too gloomy. Others are catching on. It’s impossible to know for sure from this distance, but the emails I’ve printed from soldiers, as well as despatches from some pro-war journalists, like Hitch in the current Vanity Fair, have kept me from panic. That’s not to say we shouldn’t hear the bad news. It’s just that it needs perspective. Tom Friedman has been splendid, I think, in getting exactly the right mix of optimism and concern. I noticed this aside in Danielle Pletka’s op-ed in the NYT today:

[T]he number of engagements in Iraq have declined from roughly 25 a day in July to about 15 a day today – and each lasts for an average of two or three minutes.

Finally some perspective on those almost daily troop deaths which every media outlet plasters on the front-page. Things are slowly improving! All the more reason to keep a steady course, perhaps move more quickly to devolve power in some areas, and remind Iraqis of the critical fact that we are not going to abandon them again. Not this time. And the French? Ignore them.

“Please tell me, Andrew: why are you keeping track of Bush hatred?-Are you on the administration’s payroll? Do you report those who are critical, make sure they don’t work in this town (America) ever again? There’s nothing lower than a lapdog anyway, but a lapdog for the moral cretins that are the Bushies is a gutter-level low. Disgusting and pathetic. Yes, many of us “hate” Bush and company, and for precisely the reasons Susan Lenfesty mentions. We are on a metaphorical flight into a metaphorical building – and yes, somebody besides Bush can analogize 9/11 (although Bush doesn’t analogize 9/11, he explicitly cites it, and for political gain).
It’s absolutely repulsive the way people like you lay curled at the feet of this wanna-be dictator (his own words, bespeaking dreams) and bark at the ones who question him and his policies. Don’t even begin to think that American casualties in Iraq keep any of them up at night. For these monsters, it’s a harvest of souls…or, monster food.”

ALRIGHTY THEN: This email is not atypical of many I get about Bush. (And, of course, I’ve been plenty critical of some aspects of this administration, especially on fiscal and cultural matters). I just don’t think Bush is maliciously intent on destroying the fabric of the country. In fact, I think the president has done a pretty good job of responding boldly to some of the gravest crises the country has ever faced. But the intensity of the desire to see him defeated – by whatever means and whoever benefits – is a real phenomenon. It’s stronger and more widespread than the antipathy to Clinton in, say, 1996. It will propel the coming electoral cycle. All the frustration that so many felt at the cultural realignment in the wake of 9/11 is going to come to a head. It was bad enough for some that this “moron” was elected. But that he presided over a real shift in the country’s mood – against apologizing for American power, against appeasement of Islamo-extremism – is still too much to contemplate with equanimity. This is payback time. Check out this Boston Herald story for some price quotes from the angry base.The worldview of some has been shaken. And they are determined to see it restored.

I’m unabashed in my fondness for Ronald Reagan. He was way smarter than most people give him credit for; and subtler too. It doesn’t surprise me that he wrote letters as eloquent and funny and wise as the newly released ones can be. But I was struck by his candor about how damaging sexual shame and guilt can be. This passage is particularly embarrassing to the scolds who have come to monopolize much of the discussion of sex in conservative circles:

I have learned painfully that some “idealism” is in effect a flight from reality… To show you how “over idealistic” my training was – I awoke to the realization (almost too late) that even in marriage I had a little guilty feeling about sex, as though the whole thing was tinged with evil.
A very fine old gentleman started me out on the right track by interesting me in the practices of, or I should say, moral standards of, the primitive peoples never exposed to our civilization – such as the Polynesians. These peoples who are truly children of nature and thus of God, accept physical desire as a natural, normal appetite to be satisfied honestly and fearlessly with no surrounding aura of sin and sly whispers in the darkness . . .
I guess what I am trying to say is that I oppose the dogmas of some organized religions who accept marital relationship only as a “tolerated” sin for the purpose of conceiving children and who believe all children to be born in sin. My personal belief is that God couldn’t create evil so the desires he planted in us are good and the physical relationship between a man and woman is the highest form of companionship …

Notice how he embraces sex and pleasure within a semi-traditional framework of a second marriage. He’s a Californian Republican, not a Southern one. He is specifically challenging the doctrines of Saint Paul, daring to challenge the Bible itself. And he’s an antidote to the cramped, fearful and narrow notions of someone like Senator Santorum who has said that love has nothing to do with marriage. He reminds me of what I once found so attractive about a certain kind of open-hearted Republicanism, something that has gotten so lost among the paranoids and puritans that now sadly dominate the party. In the words of Neil Tennant: happiness is an option.

WHO IS ARAFAT?: A useful reminder.

More amusements from the web animation department.

HOW LOOPY IS CLARK? The answer, I fear, is that he’s Ross Perot without the emotional stability. So now his previous remark that he’d be a Republican if Karl Rove had returned his calls is just a metaphor, or a fabrication, or a dream, or something. Or maybe he called Rove on a cell-phone or an email. Will he respond to these discrepancies? He also got oddly chummy with a genocidal war criminal. But, hey, diplomacy is good. Still, he’s strong in the polls, whatever that means at this point, even to the point of besting Bush. If a wacky, unknown, fill-in-the-blanks general is running ahead of the president, you get a pretty good idea of how adrift the White House’s political operation now is.

I noticed this little nugget from the CNN poll results:

In May, soon after Bush announced that major combat operations had ended in Iraq, 41 percent of Americans said they thought the war was over. But now only one in 10 feel that way.

I’d say that this has a lot to do with the disillusionment. I don’t think most Americans feel the president lied his way into war. He didn’t. But his post-war strategy both in Iraq and at home has been dismal. Rummy’s intransigence over the need for real troop support after the war created a security vacuum from which Iraq is still reeling. Rove’s strategy of egregiously milking military victory for short-term political gain gave the impression that everything was over, done with, finished. So when conflict continued – as anyone who noticed the melting away of the Republican Guards would have predicted – it looked as if Bush was not in control. Subsequently, there hasn’t been a clear and positive account from the president of why Iraq is so vital. He needs to tell the country that we have accomplished two hugely important things: we have removed Saddam from power, liberating millions and ending a continuing threat to the West; and we have begun the difficult process of trying to turn the entire region around by attempting a democratic revolution in Iraq. This broader, positive goal of the war on terror has never been as front-and-center as it needs to be. It’s far more ambitious than anything the opposition favors; and it appeals to Americans’ sense of their own destiny and to the deeper security matters that are involved. Why hasn’t he trumpeted the Marshall Plan, rather than seem sheepishly apologetic about it? There is only one way we can lose this war now. And that is if the American people lose faith in it. That’s what many in the media are trying to accomplish. Many loathe the idea of fighting back aggressively, especially if it means offending the poohbahs at the U.N., the E.U. and so on. This is where the war gets tough. It’s time Bush got going on the hard domestic job of promoting it more persuasively.

BY THE WAY: Do most national polls have 48 percent Democrats, like the CNN/USA Today poll? It seems pretty loaded in that direction to me. Where are all the Independents?

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “I read Wiliam Safire’s piece, and while his assesments are solid in general I think he assumes to much complexity in Clintonian tactics. I don’t think that the Clinton machine is planning to muddy the waters for Hillary’s entry. They know that elections are too unpredictable to time multiple candidates entries and exits. One bad news cycle and your Byzantine plan goes to hell.
I think they have seen what others see: Dean won’t win against Bush, unless everything goes his way. The Clintons know that this rarely happens, and they are intimately familiar with the Whitehouse’s ability to control the news cycle. Clark can win if only some things go his way. He needs bad news in Iraq, something that can be counted on no matter how well things go there. If the economy is the issue, all they will say is that they are running a good teacher against a poor student. Few understand economics well enough to delve further.
Bill Clinton knows that his power is on the line. If Dean runs and the Dems lose, Clinton will be remembered for his history of personal success amidst party disaster. If Clark wins, he’s the Man from Hope who delivered the party from Bush and Ashcroft.-Hillary knows the wife of the Man from Hope is the heir apparent, so the whole family is on board.” – more reader insight on the Letters Page.

From the “issues” page on his website.