Month: October 2004

Okay, so I know the piece was supposed to scare the living daylights out of anyone not already enrolled in Liberty University, but I was a little alarmed nonetheless. The good news is that Bush seems genuine about tax reform and social security privatization in his second term. Here’s hoping. The bad news is that he thinks he’s Moses. But what Suskind does innovatively capture is an evolution in Bush over the past four years. Remember the open-minded, engaged, querulous figure from 2000? We got a glimpse of him in the third debate, which may account for his blip upwards in the polls. But what you get increasingly from the president is an arrogance and contempt for critics that is bordering on dangerous. You saw this in the first debate when Bush looked genuinely shocked to hear anyone voicing criticism of his policies in his presence. That obviously hadn’t happened in a very long time. You see this in the thuggish ways in which opponents are removed from campaign events, jailed and fired from their jobs. You realize eventually that Bush’s cabinet is actually a royal court, in which criticism is simply treachery. In the broader political world, you’re either with this president in everything he does or you are a traitor, an unbeliever, a leftist, and an enabler of terror. That’s how Bush sees the world. And he wonders why has left this country even more divided than when he found it.

WEAKNESS AND DOGMA: This insularity, of course, is not a sign of strength, but of weakness. So there are no deficits; or they do not matter. There has been no increase in domestic spending because the president’s plans say so. There was no insurgency in Iraq, just a fgew ‘dead-enders’, And on and on. The reason Bush cannot name a mistake he has made is not because he is smart enough not to admit error in public. It’s because he doesn’t believe he has ever made a mistake. If you are God’s instrument, how could you? And notice the only mistake that came to his mind: he allowed a few non-believers into his inner circle. You can be sure that won’t happen again. I cannot be the only person of a conservative disposition in politics to be alarmed at this kind of blindness in a president. Most people become tempered by experience; they learn from their mistakes; they adapt and reflect and adjust. Not this president. If he is as sealed off from reality now, what will he be like if he’s re-elected handily?

THE STEWART INTERVIEW: Here’s the Crossfire interview with Jon Stewart. He’s so right.

Suddenly, there’s a big hole in theories of global warming – and it all has to do with a non-existent hockey stick.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Neoconservatives used to give two cheers for capitalism; now four or five seem hardly sufficient. They once promoted a hard realism in foreign policy, to counteract the pacifist idealism they saw among Democrats in the Seventies; now they flirt with an eschatological faith in America’s mission civilisatrice, to be fulfilled by military means. They once offered a complex view of bourgeois culture in its relation to economic and political life; now they are in the grip of an apocalyptic vision of post-Sixties America that prevents them from contributing anything constructive to our culture. How these eschatological and apocalyptic ideas about America can exist in the same breast, without some effort at reconciliation, remains a mystery to every outsider who glances at a neoconservative magazine today. They appeal, though, to political Straussians, whose hearts beat arhythmically to both Sousa’s [Stars and Stripes Forever] and Wagner’s [Gotterdammerung].” – Mark Lilla, in the second of two brilliant essays in the New York Review of Books. Lilla is a big defender of Leo Strauss’ life and thought, which makes his critique of what has become of “Straussianism,” especially in its current Washington life-form, all the more damning.

GALLUP: No, I don’t believe it. A reader reminds me that on October 26, 2000, Gallup reported that Bush was ahead of Gore by 13 percent among likely voters. Gore, of course, was slightly ahead on election day. I do think, however, that Bush seems to be gaining slightly. He did better in the third debate – by seeming far more comfortable with himself – than some realized. And the Mary Cheney flap must help him.

It must be great. I’m going tonight.

A terrific onslaught on the late French philosopher of nothingness.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “The Republican leaderships in both houses of Congress brought this amendment to the floor. Anyone watching the debate would cringe at the dehumanizing and painful things said by Republican sponsors of the proposal about gay people.
All of the Cheneys have sat back as senators and members of Congress who stood up for their position against the constitutional amendment were attacked in campaigns across the country. In Texas, North Dakota, South Carolina, Oklahoma, North Carolina and elsewhere, Republican candidates are using the gay issue against Democrats who have done nothing more than vote to protect the notion of fairness and equality in our Constitution.
Where is the outrage of Dick and Lynne Cheney over this?” – Hilary Rosen, in the Washington Post today.

The Cheneys didn’t respond to Jim DeMint’s gay-baiting in South Carolina, or Alan Keyes’ direct insult of their own daughter in Illinois. They have not voiced objections tio a single right-wing piece of homophobia in this campaign or the anti-gay RNC flier in Arkansas and West Virginia. But they are outraged that Kerry mentioned the simple fact of their daughter’s openly gay identity. What complete b.s. In the short run, this hurts Kerry. Prevailing disapproval of homosexuality means that most people regard mentioning anybody’s lesbianism as an insult and inappropriate. But long-term, the Republican bluff has been called. The GOP is run, in part, by gay men and women, its families are full of gay people, and yet it is institutionally opposed to even the most basic protections for gay couples. You can keep up a policy based on rank hypocrisy for only so long. And then it tumbles like a house of cards. Kerry just pulled one card from out of the bottom of the heap. Watch the edifice of double standards slowly implode. Gay people and their supporters will no longer acquiesce in this charade. Why on earth should we?

Are the polls missing something big? Mystery Pollster doesn’t think so – yet.

There’s no question that the emergence of a nuclear Iran in the next year or so will be one of the most important foreign policy challenges either Bush or Kerry will have to face. Our options are limited. We can’t invade another country; surgical bombing will almost certainly miss its target; so we are left with sanctions and/or incentives. What are the differences between Bush and Kerry? In a word: attitude. Check out this piece today about yet another European initiative to try and get Iran to behave. John Bolton acquiesces in the new Euro-plan, but essentially disses it at the same time. Money quote:

A European envoy said Mr. Bolton had been unable to disguise his apparent disdain for the European proposal and spoke with “the minimum courtesy imaginable” in a way that “bordered on the unacceptable.” But he said Mr. Bolton nonetheless agreed tacitly to let the Europeans go ahead with their initiative. Mr. Bolton would not comment. “They didn’t jump on the train physically,” a European official said, describing the American attitude. “But there was nobody who told us, don’t go ahead.”
An administration official, amplifying the American attitude, said: “They didn’t ask for our approval, and we didn’t offer it. But everyone came out of the meeting understanding that we’re not objecting to it or blocking it either. They said they really wanted to do it. We said, it sounds like you’re going to do it anyway, so go ahead.”

I sympathize with Bolton. But why the undiplomatic huff? If we want to get eventual UN disapproval of Iran, we’ll need the Europeans. Why diss them now? If we’re going to acquiesce in something, what purpose does it serve to piss them off in the short term? The truth is: there’s little practical difference between what Bush and Kerry will actually do about Iran. But Bush will continue to do it in a way that needlessly alienates people whose help we could do with. That’s the choice we face.

Finally someone laments what a godawful embarrassment Crossfire is. Transcript from Wonkette:

Tucker Carlson: You always scold people like this at dinner at your house?
Jon Stewart: If they have a show that’s as stupid as this one.
Tucker: You know, you’re not as fun as you are on your tv show.
Jon: You know what, you’re just as big a dick as you are on your tv show.

Ouch.

Ryan Lizza follows another candidate.

One of my favorite bloggers, Dan Drezner, is leaning toward Kerry. He’s a hawk like me, and a conservative on many issues. He makes a good case. But don’t miss the counter-argument from a retired diplomat at the end.

Here’s an email that may help explain some of the mutual incomprehension now floating around:

While I’m sure some of the anger over Kerry’s mention of Mary Cheney stems from the bigotry you’ve described, that being gay is something unmentionable, I think the other issue here is generational.
For many people of a certain age (take your pick – 45? 50? older?) they were taught that you weren’t supposed to discuss politics or religion with strangers, much less yours or their sexuality. To mention a third party’s sexuality, someone neither of you know, in a conversation when it would be unnecessary to do so, would be at best guache, and at worst obnoxious.
Like it or not, for the “old school” among us, one’s sexual identity is intensely private stuff, something only the individual and their loved ones have the right to bring up, even when “everyone” knows about it. They recoiled from Kerry’s casual mention in the same way they would recoil from a neighbor casually mentioning something intimate about another neighbor down the street in a conversational tangent.
I think this isn’t the case with many people 40 or younger, who view sexuality as more mundane and matter of fact, akin to skin color. People can come to their own judgments about which way is better, but I’ve little doubt that this gulf in perceptions about social etiquette exists.

That’s probably true. I’ve lived my entire adult life as openly gay. Maybe I’m out of touch with the way others – especially older then me – feel about the propriety of mentioning it in public. But that doesn’t mean they’re right and I’m wrong. It just means we come to the problem with vastly different experiences. And of course, I am right; and they’re wrong. But we should probably close this discussion, don’t you think?