Month: September 2004

Peter Bergen is by no means a Bush-supporter. He’s an excellent reporter, did pioneering work on al Qaeda and (full disclosure) was at Oxford when I was and is an old friend. He’s a soft-lefty, but very trust-worthy. His endorsement of what is happening in Afghanistan is good enough for me. Good for Shipley for running it. I was also heartened by Allawi’s interview in the NYT today: he says much of Iraq is ready for elections. Sure, he has an interest in optimism. But I don’t get the impression he’s a complete bull-shitter either. Two points for optimism in the war. Now back to Fallujah …

THOSE BLACK GAY REPUBLICAN(S): Wonkette has the goods on their Bush endorsement. The spokesman (and possibly only member), Don Sneed, believes “that God’s existence can be proven through a number that shares the name of his video, “The God Num-ber: Mathematical and Scientific Proof of the Exist-ence of God.” A press release states:

Sneed has developed an associated scientific theorem: “Definity-Uninity-Infinity” that substantiates the identification of the specific number that represents God. The theorem has been registered with the United States Copyright Office and has been issued a certificate as an original work. “‘Definity-Uninity-Infinity’ sets forth a new, more realistic and sensible view of the innate structure and order of the Universe,” Sneed states, “and is created, sustained and controlled by God – then, now and forever.” The viewer is able to easily understand Sneed’s mathematical and scientific proof of God’s existence.

Mr Rove, your attempt to build a new gay base for the GOP is already gathering steam.

I don’t have much of an idea about what it would look like, what it would do or even who’d be in it. In my informal chats in DC since I got back, no one else does either. I assume Powell and Rumsfeld are gone; but I can’t say I have a clue who would replace them. Rice? Hadley? Armitage? Bush never fires people and we have very little evidence of him replacing anyone. So it’s tricky. I’d say Ashcroft stays; along with Rove and Card. But that’s total guesswork. As for policy … I’d love it if he made a real push for a flat tax, or social security privatization (or whatever euphemism they’re going to come up with for it), but I don’t believe he’ll do anything that ambitious (or conservative). Second terms are not good opportunities to do that, especially since his first two years will be consumed with trying to find a way out of the morass in Iraq he has created these past eighteen months or so. Iran? I have zero confidence the administration will do anything that different from a hypothetical Kerry administration. NoKo? Ditto. Tax cuts? Bush can hold the line, since the true fiscal calamity won’t happen till after he’s left, and then he can blame his successors. Socially? With the war working everyone’s nerves, he’ll shift even more to his base. More anti-gay stuff, I presume; more government funds for fundies; a right-turn on immigration maybe. Excited yet? Me too.

BUSH’S SPEECH: I didn’t have time to fisk the U.N. speech, but John Addis has, and finds it far superior to Kerry’s latest offering.

DERBYSHIRE AWARD NOMINEE: “Two million people who fought in World War II and lived through the Great Depression die every year. That generation has been an exception in US history, because it has defended anti-American policies. They voted for the creation of the welfare state and for obligatory military service. They are the Democratic base, and they are dying.” – Grover Norquist to the Spanish paper, El Mundo.

In that KUOW interview, Lewis Lapham was asked about blogs. This is what he said: “I don’t know enough about blogs. I don’t scan the Internet. I guess as a source for clues and leads for a newspaper … they might prove useful. But … I’m sure there are a lot of them that are simply the equivalent of scratching your name on the men’s room wall at the Blue Moon Bar.” Figures, no?

Karl Rove’s closest adviser on how to appeal to conservative Catholics quit his campaign advisory role a while back, after a previous instance of sexual harassment came to light. Now he’s quitting the hard-right Catholic magazine, Crisis, after pressure from columnists and the magazine’s board. Money quote:

In addition, specific accusations of more recent sexual misconduct had come to the board’s attention, one scholar said. “This was not about one incident 10 years ago,” he said. “It’s surprising it was held down as long as it was. I haven’t gone out of my way to track Deal Hudson’s improprieties – I could be doing nothing else. But you began to wonder after a while if they are true.”

None of this would be salient, in my view, if Hudson hadn’t gone out of his way to deny any right to privacy for public figures, hadn’t campaigned furiously against gay rights, and wasn’t an adamant defender of the strictest Catholic teachings about sex. It confirms my own anecdotal experience, however: some who are the most obsessed with others’ sex lives often have issues themselves. Speaking of which …

DEFENSIVE CROUCH: Paul Crouch is a big deal in the evangelical world. He’s the president and on-air star of Trinity Broadcasting Network, the world’s largest “Christian” broadcaster, and he’s also gay, according to a man who says he slept with him, Enoch Lonnie Ford. Ford claims he was sexually harassed by Crouch and was paid off for keeping quiet in 1998. That deal has now apparently unraveled. More details are emerging in the LA Times:

After checking out of the hotel, Ford said, Crouch took him to a TBN-owned cabin near Lake Arrowhead. It was there, Ford said, that Crouch first had sex with him. “I did it because I didn’t know if this man is going to throw me straight out of that cabin,” Ford said. “And I didn’t want to lose my job. I was going to be in trouble if I said no.”
The next morning, Ford said, Crouch read a Bible passage to him in an attempt to reassure him about the night before. The passage, Proverbs 6:16-19, details seven “detestable” attitudes and acts in God’s eyes.
Ford said Crouch told him that because homosexuality wasn’t listed, the Lord wasn’t worried about what they had done. Still, Ford said, Crouch warned him to keep the encounter quiet “because people wouldn’t understand.”

At this point, it’s worth recalling that the two leading spokesmen for the “ex-gay” movement have also been exposed as subsequently seeking gay sex, and that Pat Robertson’s congressman, Ed Schrock, who wanted to make the military’s anti-gay discrimination even more stringent, was also gay.

Do we simply vote for the guy we most think we resemble? An interesting pop-quiz/political survey. Takes 15 minutes. Take a procrastination break.

“Alan (caller to Seattle’s KUOW): I am not afraid to speak out until I am shot down in the streets because I am a patriot … The president of the United States should be held before the court of international law for treason along with his administration.
Lewis Lapham: I agree with everything Alan just said… Good for Alan.” You can hear the radio show here. Hat tip: Polipundit.

Jimmy Swaggart’s apology for saying he’d kill a gay man who looked at him the wrong way:

Swaggart said he has jokingly used the expression “killing someone and telling God he died” thousands of times, about all sorts of people. He said the expression is figurative and not meant to harm. “It’s a humorous statement that doesn’t mean anything. You can’t lie to God — it’s ridiculous,” Swaggart told The Associated Press. “If it’s an insult, I certainly didn’t think it was, but if they are offended, then I certainly offer an apology.”

If it’s an insult? Ask Matthew Shepard and countless others who are indeed dead because someone took Swaggart’s advice. I’m not going to belabor the point because most evangelical Christians do not share Swaggart’s violent hatred. But isn’t it amazing that someone allegedly representing the Gospels of Jesus Christ would advocate murdering an already despised minority? It seems to me that a central tenet of Jesus’ message was that it is precisely the outcasts of society who are worth treasuring and loving. Yet it is a central tenet of the Christian right that the marginalized be marginalized and discriminated against still further. That is one of the many reasons they are neither Christian nor right.

An interesting development from Stratfor (subscribers only):

More than 1,000 of the some 20,000 Syrian troops based in Lebanon began dismantling their bases near Beirut to redeploy closer to the Syrian border or to leave the country altogether, a Lebanese official said Sept. 21. The official, who declined to be named, said Syrian troops have started moving from hilltop positions south of Beirut in the towns of Aramoun, Chuweifat, Damour, Doha and Khaldeh. The second phase of the operation involves a shift of troops from eastern and northern areas to the eastern part of Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley or to the border. The redeployment is scheduled for completion in a few days.
With this massive redeployment, Syrian President Bashar al Assad is indicating to Israel and the United States that he is ready to strike a deal that could lead to the complete withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon.
This could signal Damascus’ willingness to stand down from its non-cooperative stance toward the United States — yet another example of the immense geopolitical shift in the region resulting from the U.S. ouster of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq.

The best news I’ve heard in a long time.

Here’s a copy of the RNC mailing that was sent out in West Virginia, in which not voting for Bush means that the Bible will be “banned” and gays will be married. This RNC mailing has the word “Arkansas” on it, which implies that this kind of hate-mongering demagoguery may be in several states. Ed Gillespie says he doesn’t know about it. RNC fliers in two states and he doesn’t know about it? If not, why not? And is he trying to stop these lies from getting out there? Yeah, right.

That’s the essential question about Iraq. I’m not there. I can only read as much as I can and try and make sense of it. I sure hope the president’s boundless optimism is right, but it was a little worrying to hear his response to criticism yesterday. Here’s one:

Later, asked by reporters about calls from GOP Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) and Chuck Hagel (Neb.) for a more candid assessment about the Iraq situation, Bush replied that both men “want me elected as president. We agree that the world is better off with Saddam Hussein sitting in a prison cell. And that stands in stark contrast to the statement my opponent made yesterday, when he said that the world was better off with Saddam in power.” Kerry has said he would not have waged war in Iraq if he had been president but has asserted that “the world is better off” without Hussein in power.

So his main concern is not whether those senators are right, but whether they are voting for him. That seems consonant with his general approach. And then he distorts his opponent’s position. The Washington Post then notes the following:

Bush also played down the significance of a CIA report forecasting more difficulty in Iraq. “The CIA laid out several scenarios and said life could be lousy, life could be okay, life could be better, and they were just guessing as to what the conditions might be like,” he said. The confidential August report to policymakers, according to an administration official who described it yesterday, outlined three scenarios over the next 18 months: a period of “tenuous stability,” a time of “further fragmentation and extremism” or a period of “trending to civil war.”

It seems he reads this CIA report the way he read previous assessments of Iraq’s WMDs: he reads what he wants to read. Look, this war has to succeed; and if this president is re-elected in November, we will all have to do whatever we can to make sure he does. But it is not crazy now to ask whether he has enough of a grip on the situation to carry us forward. His comments yesterday suggest that the cocoon is intact. Which is more worrying than any news from Iraq.

NOW, BASRA: The British army’s smart tactics once made Basra a success story of the liberation. But now, apparently, the city is teetering on the brink:

Last month, the British Army fired 100,000 rounds of ammunition in southern Iraq. The base in al-Ammara sustained more than 400 direct mortar hits. The British battalion there counted some 853 separate attacks of different kinds: mortars, roadside bombs, rockets and machine-gun fire… A vicious campaign of intimidation doesn’t help matters. Last month, five cleaning ladies at a British base were murdered on their way to work. Two local translators disappeared. Their severed heads were found outside the front gate. But perhaps the most worrying development of the August fighting was that none of Basra’s 25,000 police officers came to the aid of the British soldiers. Some even helped the gunmen. I met one of the senior civilian political advisors to the military command. Every time he came to Basra things seemed a “step change worse”, he said.

Yes, this is the BBC. But the report provides some good news, and seems pretty balanced to me. I link. You decide.