Month: June 2004

Not much change in Canada. All that hyperventilation about a political earthquake turned out to be … well, hyperventilation. David Frum exhales here.

“Many think it not only inevitable but entirely proper that liberty give way to security in times of national crisis–that, at the extremes of military exigency, inter arma silent leges. Whatever the general merits of the view that war silences law or modulates its voice, that view has no place in the interpretation and application of a Constitution designed precisely to confront war and, in a manner that accords with democratic principles, to accommodate it.” – Antonin Scalia, eviscerating the Bush administration’s detention of terror suspects without charges or trials.

QUOTE FOR THE DAY II: “With the benefit of minute hindsight, Saddam Hussein wasn’t the kind of extra-territorial menace that was assumed by the administration one year ago. If I knew then what I know now about what kind of situation we would be in, I would have opposed the war.” – William F. Buckley Jr., in the New York Times.

IRAQIS GOVERN THEMSELVES: There will be plenty of cavilling that the new Iraqi government has to rely on Coalition forces. Well, what was the alternative ever going to be? There will also be complaints that, without elections, the current government is only a puppet-regime. But again: what is the alternative? Allawi is right to want elections sooner rather than later – however imperfect they might be. And the possibility of martial law is also something that should not be ruled out – if it is the only means to give ordinary Iraqis some sense that order is returning. No, this is not yet democracy. But even now, it is far more democratic than anything in Saddam’s police state; and soon, the insurgents will be revealed more clearly as would-be thugs and theocrats. There are many pitfalls ahead. But, despite all the errors, this is clearly progress of a sort. And if we care about winning the wider war, we owe this experiment our total support – whatever position we took on the war itself. Critics should take out their anger or criticism on the president and prime minister, if they so wish. They should wish the Iraqis the best. And that goes for Mr Chirac and Herr Schroder as well.

AMERICANS GOVERN THEMSELVES: As usual, the best expert commentary on the rulings yesterday can be found on the Volokh blog. Eugene Volokh provides a terse overview. He also notes the extreme differences between Justices Thomas and Scalia on this matter. Always in lock-step, huh? By the way, you can read the opinions directly here.

Here’s William Raspberry on some liberals’ embrace of Michael Moore:

But why did the mostly liberal crowd at last week’s Washington premiere — people who like to think of themselves as thoughtful and fair-minded — applaud so unrestrainedly?
They applauded, I suspect, for much the same reason so many members of the black Christian middle-class applaud the harangues of Black Muslim minister Louis Farrakhan. Some of his facts may be wrong and some of his connections strained, but his attitude is right. What’s more, he’ll say in plain language what nice, educated people cannot bring themselves to say: The man is a devil.

Moore as Farrakhan. Yep, that’s about right. And Raspberry thinks of this as a good thing? My fisking of his column can be found here.

MOORE AND GIBSON: Some more thoughts on the Gibson/Moore parallels. It occurred to me as I witnessed the unanimity in the audience watching “Fahrenheit 9/11” that I had been in a similar situation before. Yes – this was exactly what it felt like at an early showing of Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ.” Both movies were designed for people who already held – as theological certitude – the basic line of the work. Both used the most egregious devices of propaganda to reinforce this point. Gibson used extreme and constant violence – as if to say that recoiling from that horror was proof that his vision of Christianity was correct. The loving camera shots of pure pornographic pain and gore were devices to end thought, short-cut any audience autonomy, and reinforce orthodoxy. And that was Moore’s device as well. The long views of the faces of various villains; the camera edits to create menace; the emotional manipulation of a bereaved mother; the swelling, ominous orchestral swoops. All we didn’t have was a Pieta scene. One was designed for the unthinking hordes of the far right; the other for the unthinking hordes of the far left. Both were deeply depressing indicators of how far our culture has curdled into unthought and emotional extremism. Neither sought to convert or explain or persuade. Both were designed to bludgeon the viewer into ideological conformity. And if you resist? You are a heretic or a dupe. Whatever happened to “intelligent viewer”?

Try not to gag as you read the Chicago Tribune’s pompous defense of outing seamy details of Jack Ryan’s sex life. (The site is registered, alas. But it’s free.) The argument is: all court records should be open to the public, even divorces; there could have been something in those files that voters might consider pertinent to Ryan’s ability to serve in public office; and, “because we could.” Here’s a particularly loathesome sentiment:

Voters need information about the views, background and character of the people they elect to office. Voters can’t make informed decisions about a candidate’s positions or character without such information.
That’s why, as part of their coverage of candidates for political office, reporters seek a wide range of documents and opinions to help voters understand the candidates.
Case in point: the once-sealed divorce files of former Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Blair Hull. After the Tribune reported that Hull’s ex-wife had sought an order of protection against him during their divorce proceedings, Hull relented to the release of his divorce documents.
Many voters took into account the revelations in those documents that his ex-wife said he had struck her and threatened her. Hull was leading the field before he released the file. He finished third in the primary in March.

So taking a wife to a sex club is now equivalent to beating her? You’ll notice not one word in the editorial about something called privacy. The very concept doesn’t exist for the Trib editors. Well, one response to this would be to investigate the private married lives of journalists and editors at the Chicago Tribune. Readers could call them up and ask them about their sex lives. They hold a public trust. Shouldn’t the public have a right to know if the editor or reporter had some difficulties in his marriage years ago? The next time the Trib’s editor appears in public for questioning, he should be asked whether he has ever committed adultery. Why not? The stunning aspect of the Tribune’s self-defense is that it admits that it was on a fishing expedition. They had no reason to believe that there was anything in a sealed divorce document that could be in any way related to someone’s ability to hold public office – except, of course, something privately embarrassing. Well, they got their scalp. On to the next one.

THE TRANSCRIPT: Part of it now exists on the web. Fisk away.

The Republican governor of the most populous state in the country says he doesn’t care “one way or the other” on the legality of marriage rights for gay couples. You think he’d be able to say that at the Convention? Meanwhile, Bush’s Vatican lobbying seems to have paid off. And Presbyterians move in the opposite direction.

The view from one of my windows on my Provincetown wharf has been particularly stunning this summer. As I sit here typing, the water encroaches into the great coil of the harbor – always a different color, depending on the time of day, the tide and the weather. In front of me is a patch of reclaimed beach, an up-turned kayak in the dune grass, Poor Richard’s Landing – another old wharf building – behind it. And in the middle, a patch of bare sand that has become an impromptu wedding place. I’ve witnessed three weddings there in four weeks – all between two women, some with kids, some formal, some New Agey. It seems quite routine now, but it was only ten years ago that I sat down on this very beach to figure out “Virtually Normal” and came to the conclusion that civil marriage was the lodestar of homosexual equality. Now it happens when I’m not looking, or when I’m napping, or walking the beagle. And life goes on. And the tide comes in again.

More evidence that the GOP cannot be trusted with your money. Subsidies for tobacco and rum?

It’s been extremely difficult to get a full transcript of the Michael Moore movie. So here’s a thought: why doesn’t some enterprising blogger take a tape recorder to a screening, transcribe the narrative, and post it? Then it’s a fiskathon. On your marks, get set …

John Kerry will be the next victim. It’s no use complaining. Every intimate detail of his first marriage will soon be dissected on the web and elsewhere. And liberal papers, having delighted in exposing the consensual adult sex of Jack Ryan, will not be able to resist. Get ready.

Well, I broke down and went to see the Michael Moore movie. I was expecting to be outraged, offended, maddened, etc etc. No one told me I’d be bored. The devices were so tired, the analysis worthy of something by an intern in the Nation online, the sad attempts to blame everything on Bush so strained and over-wrought even the most credulous of conspiracists would have a hard time giving them the time of day. This won the top Cannes prize? Only hatred of America can explain that. The one thing that did interest me was part of Moore’s technique. Much of the movie focused on various objects of hatred: Bush, Cheney, Bush pere, et al. The camera lingered for ever on their facial tics, it used off-camera moments where anyone looks awkward and dumb, it moved in with grainy precision in order to help the audience sustain and nurture its hatred. It was like the “1984” hate sessions. Cheap shots would be an inadequate description. This was tedious propaganda, using the most ancient of devices, and reflective of a pathology that can only be described as unhinged. (In that respect, eerily similar to Mel Gibson’s recent piece of hackneyed, manipulative pornography.) I’d address the arguments, if there were any. There weren’t. There was just a transparently failed attempt to construct conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory on the flimsiest of circumstantial evidence, and when the entire framework was teetering into absurdity, the occasional necessary lie. I left before the end. A bar in Ptown on a Sunday night was more interesting.

WHAT NATURAL LAW IS: Garry Wills had, as usual, an interesting piece in the NYT yesterday. It’s indisputable, I think, that there is no Biblical treatment of the question of when a fetus becomes a human person; and equally indisputable that, within the Church itself, there have been many different views throughout history. But Wills’ most interesting point is about “natural law.” This tradition of reasoning, essentially pioneered by Aquinas, and resting on Aristotle, posits that there are some truths that are available to anyone who looks at nature with an open mind. (And this reasoning is self-evident to non-blievers as well.) But, of course, what was available to Aquinas, let alone Aristotle, was a deeply inadequate biology. A new natural law would try to absorb all that science has since told us about fetal development, heterosexual intercourse, evolutionary biology, other species, etc. But the Church does not always spend enough time absorbing scientific developments – especially when they conflict with established dogma. Case in point: there’s an obvious distinction between personhood and life – as Wills points out. Sperm is life, but it is not a person; fertilized eggs are routinely aborted naturally (is nature murderous?); miscarriages are a sad but permanent part of our biology; intuitively the abortion of a two week old fetus does not seem to us as equivalent to the abortion of one at six months; and so on. To my mind, life and personhood are so important as values that considering conception as their mutual origin is the safest moral option. But I wouldn’t insist on baptizing or formally burying a miscarried fetus. And I can see perfectly well how others might disagree on when personhood begins; indeed, how the Church itself once disagreed. This makes the issue not one of theological certitude but of moral judgment. And that’s why I believe that in the political realm, keeping abortion legal in the first trimester differs from condoning it. It’s a balance between women’s control of their own bodies, the prudential difficulties of making abortion illegal, the allowance of a free people to make such moral judgments for themselves, and the need to retain respect for human life – even if it is not indisputable that a person is at stake. If I were a public official, that judgment alone would make me ineligible for the sacraments. And that shows how rigid the Church has now become.