Month: June 2004

The vice-president’s direct attack on the New York Times’ portrayal of the 9/11 Commission report was a zinger. On balance, i think Cheney is right. The links between al Qaeda and Saddam may not have amounted to a formal alliance, but they existed all right, as the Commission conceded. The NYT itself reported that “The report said that despite evidence of repeated contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda in the 90’s, ‘they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship.'” But if there were “repeated contacts” between al Qaeda and Iraq, how can it be true that, as the headline put it, that “Panel Finds No Qaeda-Iraq Tie”? Headlines truncate things, of course. But Cheney is dead-on in describing this headline as misleading. Here’s Tom Kean, the chairman of the Commision: “What we have found is, were there contacts between al-Qaeda and Iraq? Yes. Some of them were shadowy – but they were there.” Here’s Lee Hamilton:

“I must say I have trouble understanding the flack over this. The Vice President is saying, I think, that there were connections between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s government. We don’t disagree with that. What we have said is what the governor just said, we don’t have any evidence of a cooperative, or a corroborative relationship between Saddam Hussein’s government and these al Qaeda operatives with regard to the attacks on the United States. So it seems to me the sharp differences that the press has drawn, the media has drawn, are not that apparent to me.”

The NYT had the gall to demand that Bush and Cheney apologize. In fact, it’s the NYT that needs to apologize.

THE DEEPER POINT: But it’s also true, it seems to me, that even if there were no contacts, Saddam was still a clear and present danger after 9/11 precisely because of his record with WMDs and links with terror groups. One recalls that Saddam’s official press was one of the few to openly celebrate the 9/11 attacks against the “Great Satan.” Bush made the right decision – the only decision a responsible president could have made at the time. What frustrates about Cheney, however, is his inability to concede that the intelligence he used about WMDs was embarrassingly wrong. Here’s the exchange with Gloria Borger:

BORGER: In hindsight, Mr. Vice President, are you disappointed in the quality of the intelligence that you received before launching an attack against Iraq? Vice Pres. CHENEY: I can’t say that, Gloria. I think the decision we made was exactly the right one.

He can’t say it. The vice-president would have more credibility when he’s right if he could also concede when he’s been wrong.

“I represent only my own views. As for the Republican establishment, I couldn’t be less interested. Neither party seems to take its own ideas very seriously. I’m still conservative, though, which is one of the reasons I often have trouble defending Bush. ” – Tucker Carlson, another dissident.

QUOTE FOR THE DAY II: “It’s been 29 days since the institution of marriage has supposedly been rocked and torn apart here in Massachusetts by gay people marrying and I’m happy and relieved to report that my wife and I are still married with no plans to divorce. Unfortunately, it appears that “they” got to Rush Limbaugh.” – Greg Roach, looking to see if the sky is falling in Massachusetts.

When I read Paul Berman’s masterful book, Terror and Liberalism, I found myself drifting more toward the liberal internationalist defense of the Iraq war, rather than the WMD/security argument. Unlike some conservatives who support the Gulf war, I also supported the Clinton war to liberate Kosovo. The mass graves and unspeakable horrorswe discovered in the liberation only confirmed my view that this war was a moral and vital enterprise. If I sound more chastened these days, it is not because I have come to doubt this. It is because, like others, I have become distressed by the way in which the administration has conducted the struggle. I tried for a long time to overlook the obvious failures, mistakes, stupidities and rigidities which have characterized the mission. But in the end, it became impossible. Abu Ghraib – in its cruelty and incompetence – was devastating. And the news since has convinced me that this was not a one-off exception to the rule, but the result of policy-making at the top that deliberately blurred the lines between tough interrogation and abuse and torture. No, Rumsfeld didn’t sign off explicitly on those abuses (apart from hooding and the menacing use of dogs). But he did sign off on hiding some prisoners from the Red Cross for reasons that are still unclear. I refuse to believe that in fighting demons, you have to become one. In this respect, Berman makes me feel less alone.

WHAT BUSH HAS WROUGHT: Berman also worries in the new New Republic – rightly – about the future of interventionism in the wake of these scars on America’s reputation:

The U.S. failure in Somalia led to a different kind of U.S. failure in Rwanda. There will surely be Rwandas in the future–there is one right now in Darfur, Sudan (where the ethnic cleansers come out of the same mix of radical Islamism and Arab nationalism that has caused so much suffering in many other places, including our own places). Who in his right mind is going to call for U.S. intervention? Doubtless, in the future, when things are not so grim for us, some people will, in fact, call for U.S. interventions, and justly so. And yet, other people are going to say, Oh, right, and let’s put Donald Rumsfeld in charge. And this will be a devastating reply.

I fear he’s right. Was there an alternative? Of course there was:

We could have applied the lessons of Kosovo, which would have meant dispatching a suitable number of soldiers. We could have protected the government buildings and the National Museum, and we could have co-opted Saddam’s army–further lessons from Kosovo. We could have believed Saddam when he threatened to wage a guerrilla war in Baghdad. We could have prepared in advance to broadcast TV shows that Iraqis wanted to watch. We could have observed the Geneva Conventions. (What humiliation in having to write such a sentence!) We could have–but I will stop, in order to ask: What if, in mulling these thoughts, you find that angry emotions toward George W. Bush are seeping upward from your own patriotic gut? Here is the challenge: to rage at Saddam and other enemies, and, at the same time, to rage in a somewhat different register at Bush, and to keep those two responses in proper proportion to one another. That can be a difficult thing to do, requiring emotional balance, maturity, and analytic clarity–a huge effort.

That is what I have been trying to do on this blog, in real time, in imperfect ways. It must be possible to believe in this war but to be dismayed by the conduct of it. I still cannot believe that the U.S. now has a reputation for “disappearing” enemy combatants, for seeing inmates battered to death by flashlights in dark cells, for using “water-boarding” to coerce confessions, and any number of things that we do not know, and if the administration has its way, will never know. I cannot believe that the Justice Department prepared a memo in order to justify the use of any number of inhumane methods in contravention of U.S. law – and then denies any malfeasance at all. This isn’t the administration I once trusted and it isn’t the America I love.

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “I started reading your blog out of sheer curiousity. I just couldn’t quite figure out the quaint oxymoron: “conservative homosexual”. I was yet to find a conservative that can articulate his beliefs without falling back on historical prejudices ( racial, gender, socio-economic, and sexual orientation). You are clearly different. Your conservatism is rational and almost delightful – if I wasn’t such a radical left-winger, I would seriously reconsider some of my opinions. You’ve shown, in your own “wobbly” way, that there is something much more to conservatism than white, rich, and heterosexual priviledge.
I followed the link on your blog entry “Over at Lucianne” and I was shocked at the comments. These guys have NO respect for you or for your sexuality. I haven’t read such hateful rhetoric in a while. All the same, I am hardly surprised. It’s unfortunate that conservatism has been hijacked by bigots. It’s even more unfortunate that you still chose to camp out with those who would feed you to the dogs without a second thought. Please stay strong and don’t let those rabid, unthinking pseudo-conservatives get you down.” – more feedback on the Letters Page.

JUST FOR THE RECORD: A reader reminds me that I wrote in this blog on February 29 that Bush’s support for the FMA was a “deal-breaker” for me. Those are the exact words of my subsequent Advocate piece. I don’t blame Jonah for missing it. But it’s unfair to say I have in any way deceived anyone. I went through a period of turmoil after Bush’s endorsement of the FMA and wasn’t sure whom I could support. But on reflection, the FMA made it impossible for me to endorse Bush. There was no “extremely significant silence.” Just outrage and a period of reflection.

This one speaks for itself. I think the guy, who’s from Tennessee, is onto something:

You would, I think, be amazed at how many people in Middle America (if the Middle Tennessee area counts as that–I think it does) are politically frustrated in much the same way you are. It’s not the ideologues–they’ve picked their sides–people who are both social and fiscal righties are for Bush; people who are both social and fiscal lefties are for Kerry. It’s the ones in the middle, people who might describe themselves as center-left or center-right, maybe they are fiscal conservatives but social moderates, for instance, who are as sorely frustrated as you seem to be.

I have talked to many people–professionals from all walks of life who have never missed an election before who are seriously thinking of just sitting this one out. They are not “undecided” as that terms is usually used (i.e., people who haven’t been paying enough attention to care and thus don’t know anything). They are undecided in the opposite way–they have been paying A LOT of attention and know pretty much everything…not much of it good.

Here’s what they want:

1. A President for whom the War on Terror is by far the top priority and who will execute it with cold efficiency and competence. They don’t mind if mistakes are made–they even expect them (omelet-making and all)–but by God they wnat someone to ‘fess up to them and make them right.

2. A President who doesn’t kowtow to every freaking interest group that beats down his door–unions, religious groups, activist groups, etc.

3. Along those same lines, they want a President who has goddamned opinions that are clear, forthright and his own. They don’t like Kerry because he really–when you get right down to it–has no principled opinions, and they don’t like Bush because listing to him talk wiothout a prepared text (and sometimes even with a prepared text) is pretty excruciating, especially for people in the so-called “creative class” with whom I’m largely dealing.

4. They don’t–as hard as it may be for people on both the social right and left to understand–give two sh*ts about abortion and homosexuality one way or other in the context of the presidential election. I talked to one person who said she wanted to go four years without a sitting president ever talking about these two topics one way or the the other. This was a very devout, adamantly pro-life woman. You know that Dennis Miller quote making the rounds, somthing about he doesn’t care if two guys get married, he does care about the terrorist who wants to blow up the place they’re getting married in? That’s EXACTLY how these people feel.

5. The biggest frustration among many of these people is that they feel like President Bush abused their trust. These are people who either voted for Gore or reluctantly pulled the lever for Bush, yet rallied around him after 9/11, often to their detriment, as their more lefty peers heavily criticized them for supporting him. They maintained that support and defended Bush to the hilt through much of last year, especially for the Iraq War, and especially after the capture of Saddam. Now they feel mildly betrayed…since they went out on a political limb for a man whom they feel took them for granted and seems to have no idea that that’s the case.

Yeah, there’s a lot that can happen between now and November, but right now there are a lot of people ready and willing to stay at home, a concept they wouldn’t have even pondered before in their lives.

More feedback on the Letters Page.

Here are some of the sentiments expressed by posters today on Lucianne Goldberg’s site. She is, in case you didn’t know, Jonah Goldberg’s mother, and monitors the site:

This must be a gay thing, something they discuss at the local bathhouse.

Yeah, I used to read Sullivan’s blog on a daily basis, until, I don’t know, maybe mid-winter last year. He was going wobbly on just about everything, so I removed him from my bookmarks, and haven’t thought about it since–simply don’t miss his commentary. I suspect his webstats show a major falloff in readership.

I don’t say good-bye, I say good riddance. Kudos to Kathryn Lopez for outing the traitor early on.

Long ago when Andrew Sullivan was in vogue and a rising star in ”conservative” circles, I said that we should not be giving him bandwidth nor touting him as a leader in conservative ranks. That opinion seems reasonable now, but it was not a popular opinion back then. Then again, I am one of those who think that homosexuality is not just immoral, but should also be illegal again. Not a popular opinion today either.

Sullivan said plainly at The Advocate but not on his own blog, that Bush’s positions on homosexuality are a deal-breaker for him (Sullivan). I still want to know why Andrew Sullivan thinks the Boy Scouts ought to allow homosexual scoutmasters. Boy Scouts range in age from 11-18. Even accepting that homosexuality & pederasty can sometimes be distinguished, still where, Andrew, is the bright line between them? You know, Andrew, that there is no such bright line.

If you pay attention to Andrew Sullivan, you have too much time to waste. Nobody, even an obstensive conservative like Sullivan, should take pride in being a pervert.

Look. He’s a fag, a limey and he lives in P-Town. To me, that’s three strikes and you’re out.

When Andrew gets on a gay issue, his progesterone starts kicking in and he rants like a vindictive woman. “Hell hath no fury like a She-man scorned”

It is a sad thing to see the enemy win. I mean, I really feel for the guy. He knows right from wrong, thus his desire to be a conservative. But he’s had to surrender it and become anti-American, anti-Bush, anti-good, because of his deadly addiction to homosexuality. Over the months you could see him spiraling (many poster call it wobbling), losing to ground to the seductive, pleasurable evil consuming his soul. I grieve for this loss. He is now dead to us, and has thrown in with the enemy, rather than face down the incredibly difficult, painful choice of giving up homosexuality and joining the ranks of normals.

Some voices from the conservative movement. And people wonder why gay conservatives have a hard time feeling at home there.

FROM A READER: “Just to repeat, from a representative bloggee… Most of your dishees understand the crucial importance which gay marriage (and other gay issues) hold for you. We also know that you are not a single issue person, that you have a vast range of other interests close to your heart. It’s your blog, you get to choose the subjects. You can ignore people who say otherwise. Gay marriage is not personally significant for me, but I’m interested to hear what you say about it — it’s your party Andrew, and you get to pick the menu.
Conservatism, at its best, is about abstract principles neutrally applied, and unlocking the potential of each individual — Thatcherism came much closer to this than Bushism ever did — and if Bush is stigmatizing gays, then it is Bush who has abandoned conservatism in its purest form, not you.
The intellectual decay on the National Review should make those guys hang their heads in shame. The fine intellectual tradition of conservatism is nowhere in sight. Instead we get “I’m more conservative than thou;” “Vox populi, vox dei”; “I’m a bigot, and I shouldn’t have to explain;” and Stanley Kurtz’s 5th-grade social science.
I am fairly certain that you have turned on many, many more young people to conservatism than all the other leading conservatives combined.
As for the torture issue, I’ve yet to hear other conservatives say: “Yes, we have a problem, we have a serious breakdown of discipline, our human resource chain has been overstretched to breaking point, we’re subbing out core army functions to mediocre beltway bandit companies, and we’ve made our noble, worthy cause a thousand times more difficult to achieve.” You can make that point without raising the spectre of morals or ethics (although you can raise those too), and you’d still be a conservative.”

The story of the Iraqi terrorist who was ordered off the books by Rumsfeld and Tenet makes odd reading. The two reasons given for hiding this captive are a) to make sure his treatment wasn’t monitored by the Red Cross (but no one condoned abuse of prisoners, did they?) and b) to keep his location secret (Why? The military cannot keep its own inmate records secret?). Besides, the reason that the suspect was regarded as so important, apparently, was because he “possessed significant information about Ansar al Islam’s leadership structure, training and locations.” And yet – here’s the mind-blowing part – he was only interviewed once in “one cursory arrival interrogation”! Here’s a military desperately trying to get information on the insurgency; they go to extraordinary lengths to sequester a key informant; they do something that is “deceptive, contrary to Army doctrine, and in violation of international law,” according to the Taguba report; both Tenet and Rumsfeld sign off on this shady business; and then … nothing! It boggles the mind. Here we have two features of the Iraq occupation that we have slowly come to see close-up: the violation of settled military ethics and international law, authorized by the highest authorities, and complete incompetence. At least that’s the only rational explanation I can find for this story as it currently reads. Does Rumsfeld have a better explanation?

If you didn’t catch this amazing story of an Iraqi teen who risked his life to give intelligence to the marines, then do it now. Somehow, we have to provide this kid with security in the U.S. Make him a citizen?

Jonah Goldberg argues that worrying about Bush’s fiscal record when he’s fighting the war on terror may be legitimate but shouldn’t bar anyone from supporting Bush. He goes on, referring to yours truly:

A blog which soared with high-minded rhetoric about how the war on terror is the test for this generation and that Bush was the right man to lead that struggle, now day-after-day tries to whittle away at reasons to support Bush in the fall as if the war on terror were merely another issue which can be trumped by any other issue you happen to feel more passionate about. Maybe “fiscal conservatives” aren’t defined by their fiscal conservatism? Or maybe they think this election isn’t a choice about a single issue be it the deficit or, say, gay marriage? Maybe the election is about a choice between George W. Bush and the people he would appoint to staff his administration and the judicial branch and John F. Kerry and the people he would appoint and how those respective administrations would govern across a wide array of issues including first and foremost the war on terror? And maybe most conservatives find that a cost-benefit analysis on that question yields a fairly obvious answer.

Fairly obvious? But Jonah himself recently pondered the following observation: “While I still think it would be bad for America if Bush lost the election to Kerry – and terrible for Republicans – it’s less clear it would be bad for the conservative movement.” Hmmm. And why would he say something like that? Could it be that Bush has not governed as a conservative in critical ways – and hasn’t even governed competently in others? Let’s list a few: the WMD intelligence debacle – the worst blow to the credibility of the U.S. in a generation; Abu Ghraib – a devastating wound to to America’s moral standing in the world; the post-war chaos and incompetence in Iraq; an explosion in federal spending with no end in sight; no entitlement reform; a huge addition to fiscal insolvency with the Medicare drug entitlement; support for a constitutional amendment, shredding states’ rights; crusades against victimless crimes, like smoking pot and watching porn; the creeping fusion of religion and politics; the erosion of some critical civil liberties in the Patriot Act. I could go on. Is there any point at which a conservative might consider not voting for Bush? For the editor of National Review Online, the answer is indeed “fairly obvious.” But for people not institutionally related to the G.O.P., the only question is: where would that line be?

THE BEST RESPONSE: Here’s an email that says more eloquently than most why some fiscal conservatives might stay with Bush’s big government conservatism:

1) Kerry will probably be only slightly more fiscally conservative, and then only because the (presumably) Republican Congress will become seasonal budget hawks when a Dem. is in the White House.
2) Fiscal Conservatism pales in comparison to Getting The One Big Issue Right. In my opinion, Kerry will not take the fight to the enemy. It goes against the grain of his entire career. He learned at the knee of a Realist, and he is a Realist in his soul. And I think it’s a way of looking at the world that is inimical to security in a post 9/11 world.

That makes some sense. But I think there are enough Rubinites around Kerry to move him in a fiscally responsible direction even without the prodding of a Republican Congress. And, yes, the war. Obviously. But am I the only one who is far less enthusiastic about Bush’s war leadership now than I was a year ago? I supported the war in Afghanistan and Iraq; I support pre-emption as a policy; I believe in taking the fight to the Jihadists at every possible opportunity. But hasn’t the last year changed things somewhat? From the fall of Baghdad on, we have seen little but setbacks. Our goals in Iraq now are limited to making the place less dangerous and oppressive than it was under Saddam. If a Democrat had this record, do you think National Review would let it pass? Look, I am far from being persuaded that Kerry can do any better in the war. But I cannot support this president on the war as enthusiastically as I once did – because the mounting evidence suggests a much more mixed record.

THE MARRIAGE THING: And yes, of course, the president’s support for the FMA has colored this. How could it not? If you had spent much of your life arguing a) that gay people deserve civil equality and b) that civil marriage is the fundamental mark of that equality, it would require Herculean masochism to endorse a president who wants to enshrine the denial of marriage to gays in the very Constitution itself. I could live with disagreement on the issue of marriage – but not the amendment. Pace Jonah, I have been quite clear in this blog that, in my judgment, no self-respecting gay person could vote for Bush; and I consider myself a self-respecting gay person. In my first response to the FMA, I wrote that “[t]his president has now made the Republican party an emblem of exclusion and division and intolerance. Gay people will now regard it as their enemy for generations – and rightly so.” I wrote in a fit of hyperbole on March 3 that Kerry “will get every gay vote and every vote from their families and friends.” Get the drift? No that doesn’t mean I cannot praise or respect other things the administration does. But it does mean I would lack integrity if I were to endorse the guy. Jonah says that “over the last year,” you wouldn’t get the impression that I had made up my mind against Bush. He’s right. My public piece wasn’t published till May 2004 – which leaves ten months for “thinking out loud.” And it’s still possible to think out loud about the candidates, even if you have ruled one out for support this fall (in my Advocate piece, I insisted I still supported the president’s war on terror). So it’s hardly an “extremely significant silence.” I’ve said as much to every interviewer who has asked – on television and radio – and many other people who have asked me privately. And besides, I wrote it for the Advocate – to the readership to whom I most owed an explanation for my endorsement of Bush in 2000. I don’t post my Advocate pieces as a rule on the website because I get enough emails decrying my discussion of gay issues, and the pieces are written for a specific audience. Besides, the arguments in the piece have been expressed before on this site many times (too many times for most people’s tastes). But it’s public; there’s no mystery; and the notion that if you write something for the gay press, you haven’t really written it is, as usual, insulting to gay people. Has this caused me heart-ache? No end. I do indeed feel betrayed, as do many other gay people who trusted this president and paid a price in many ways for supporting him. (I’ve certainly paid more of a price in my own social world for backing this president than Jonah ever has in his.) My only dilemma now is whether to support Kerry or sit this one out. It still is.

Eugene Volokh ruminates on what makes someone sexy. He quotes a female friend of his remarking on how women make much more of an effort to be attractive than men do:

I think it’s particularly true that most men can learn to be sexy, since women are more forgiving about looks, which are less changeable … Maybe it’s easier for women to cultivate appeal, since we’re sort of more raised with the idea of adapting ourselves, rather than just “being,” but men can do it.
But most men don’t really want to be sexy; they want sexy to be them. I don’t mean to man-bash, men are one of my favorite genders, but it’s such a waste of resources. Like you, I know tons of great women. They’re (list of all the good adjectives), and people want to be around them.
And I know a fair number of (good adjectives) single men, but [it’s generally] also clear why they’re single. They don’t listen, and won’t; they won’t get a real job; they’re boring but don’t want to acknowlege it or do anything about it. Hey, if that shirt was “in” when they were in high school, no need to see if any ads/mannequins/humans under 60 wear it today.

Much of this is true – but only for straight men. And that reveals the real source of male slovenliness: women. If women weren’t so damn forgiving of slobbiness, if they weren’t prepared to look for the diamond buried in the rough of a man’s beer-belly, men might have to shape up a little. The only reason gay men are – on the whole – better turned out than straight men is because they have to appeal to other shallow, beauty-obsessed males to get laid, find a mate, etc. The corollary, of course, are lesbians. Now there are many glamorous lesbiterians, but even the most enthusiastic Sapphic-lover will have to concede that many are not exactly, shall we say, stylish. The reason? They don’t have to be to attract other women; and since women find monogamy easier, they also slide into the I’m-married-so-what-the-hell-have-another-pretzel syndrome. When straight women really do insist on only dating hot guys, men will shape up. Until then, it’s hopeless.

Sadr folds up his tent; industrial production surges at a faster pace than anything in six years. Bush has coopted Kerry’s position on Iraq; and is busy swapping recipes with Jacques Chirac. (Yes, I got the nautical metaphor wrong first time.)