Month: January 2005

Did he deceive the Senate on Bush’s DUI conviction? Isikoff reports.

Here’s some encouraging news, from a website that monitors Iran’s democratic opposition:

Reports from across Iran are stating about the massive welcoming of President George W. Bush’s inaugural speech and his promise of helping to bring down the last outposts of tyranny.
Millions of Iranians have been reported as having stayed home, on Thursday night which is their usual W.end and outgoing night, in order to see or hear the Presidential speech and the comments made by the Los Angeles based Iranian satellite TV and radio networks, such as, NITV or KRSI.
The speech and its package of hope have been, since late yesterday night and this morning, the main topics of most Iranians’ conversations during their familial and friendly gatherings, in the collective taxis and buses, as well as, among groups of young Iranians who gather outside the cities on the Fridays.
Many were seen showing the ” V ” sign or their raised fists. Talks were focused on steps that need to be taken in order to use the first time ever favorable International condition.

My own view is that a successful democracy in Iraq, and more speeches like the Inaugural, may be just as effective as military threats in the next few years in bringing the mullahs to heel. The secularism of Iraq’s Shia is also a great source of pressure.

The final word in the torture debate rightly belongs to Marty Lederman, who patiently dissects Heather Mac Donald’s latest brief for the administration and shows it to be … well, make your own mind up.

“I don’t just see light at the end of the tunnel, I see light at the start and throughout the tunnel,” – Mohammed Hanash Abbas, an Iraqi in Baghdad. If they can hope, why can’t we?

AND AT MECCA: The chief Imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Sheikh Abdulrahman Al-Sudais, gives an annual sermon decrying extremism and terror. Money quote:

“Islam is the religion of moderation. There is no room for extremism in Islam,” he said. He called on Muslims to “protect non-Muslims in the Kingdom and not to attack them in the country or anywhere. Islam is a religion of peace that abhors attack on innocents.” Militants were using misguided interpretations of Islam to justify violence, he added. “Because Muslims have strayed from moderation, we are now suffering from this dangerous phenomenon of branding people infidels and inciting Muslims to rise against their leaders to cause instability,” Al-Sudais said. “The reason for this is a delinquent and void interpretation of Islam based on ignorance … faith does not mean killing Muslims or non-Muslims who live among us, it does not mean shedding blood, terrorizing or sending body parts flying.”

Is there some reason this didn’t get more play? It strikes me as important.

Critics of the president’s inaugural speech are, I think, misunderstanding it. It’s not a program; it’s not a New Year’s Resolution that will revolutionize America’s relationship with every major country. It was a thematic speech. That’s all. It’s an attempt to provide the president’s own melody to the chorus of his administration. A brief look at the Bush administration’s first four years does not reveal naive utopianism with regard to unfree countries. Fareed Zakaria usefully points this out:

The president said in his speech to the world’s democrats, ‘When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you.’ But when democratic Taiwan stood up to communist China last year, Bush publicly admonished it, siding with Beijing. When brave dissidents in Saudi Arabia were jailed for proposing the possibility of a constitutional monarchy in that country, the administration barely mentioned it. Crown Prince Abdullah, who rules one of the eight most repressive countries in the world (according to Freedom House), is one of a handful of leaders to have been invited to the president’s ranch in Crawford, Texas. (The elected leaders of, say, India, France, Turkey and Indonesia have never been accorded this courtesy.) The president has met with and given aid to Islam Karimov, the dictator of Uzbekistan, who presides over one of the nastiest regimes in the world today, far more repressive than Iran’s, to take just one example.

And grown-ups – even idealistic grown-ups – know this is inevitable. The problem with Bush is not his ideals. It’s his ability to put those ideals into practice. In the series of screw-ups that was the Iraq war, Bush would have done better to think less about the idea of liberty and more about the nuts and bolts of how to build a nation. Just one.

BLOGGING FOR FREEDOM: A blog that keeps up with bloggers in unfree countries. Check it out.

WHATEVER, HE SMILED: When a sister loses her brother to AIDS, a world cracks. And now, a blog can express the grief and peer forward in hope. Hang in there, Lizzie. Keep the faith. Do you know Leonard Cohen’s song, “The Anthem”? It helped me get through my own AIDS deaths.

“In your TNR post on Larry Summer’s most recent public skewering for speaking a likely truth, you wrote that ‘Summers is putting his finger on one of liberalism’s great contemporary problems: how to reconcile the moral equality of human beings and the political equality of citizens with increasingly accurate scientific discoveries of aspects of human life that reflect our innate, biological inequality.’ Lincoln addressed this directly in his Springfield address of June 26, 1857 when he said:

In some respects she [a black woman] certainly is not my equal; but in her natural right to eat the bread she earns with her own hands without asking leave of any one else, she is my equal, and the equal of all others.

and

I think the authors of that notable instrument [the Declaration] intended to include all men, but they did not intend to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness, in what respects they did consider all men created equal—equal in ‘certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’

Lincoln was addressing the widespread (and probably false) belief that variance in intelligence has a racial component, but the same reasoning can apply to the many other (probably true) biological differences we are discovering exist among human beings. That is, a Liberal would assert that, despite the obvious biological variation that exists among human beings, they share an essential equality that entitles them to equality in certain rights. This is, of course, exactly the idea you articulated in your TNR essay, but I thought you might enjoy finding its parent in Lincoln, if you weren’t already aware of it. I also think it’s interesting that Lincoln picked a black woman for his comparison, deliberately choosing the individual that the white men in his audience (the ones who could vote) would be least likely to see as their equal and least able to empathize with.” – More feedback on the Letters Page.

DOBSON VERSUS SPONGE-BOB: Why pile on? Here’s the best take. What’s interesting to me is that what Dobson is objecting to is not gay sex or gay relationships or gay identity, or any legislative or judicial proposal. What he objects to is tolerance of gay people, or teacjhing children that gay people deserve respect. That’s SpongeBob’s crime! Revealing, no? Now, recall that this man is the most powerful social conservative in Bush’s Republican party.

That VW ad is a hoax. A great one though. I thought no major corporation would have the balls to do it. Oh well.

Dan Savage’s Stranger in Seattle has a priceless Inauguration cover.

You expect the homophobic Weekly Standard to run tasteless cartoons about gay people, playing to stereotypes, ridiculing serious study of homosexual history. But the Nation? I’d say their cartoon of “Babe Lincoln” is worse than the Standard, and the responsibility doesn’t lie with the cartoonist, Robert Grossman (with whom, by the way, I worked happily for many years at The New Republic). It’s an editorial decision and the editors of that allegedly “progressive” magazine won’t offer anything but a weasel apology. Doug Ireland has the cartoon. Here are the complaints. More proof that prejudice knows no ideology.

An encouraging poll from Iraq revealing how determined most Iraqis still are to vote in the elections. Money quote:

“I think people will be shocked,” said an official of another international organization deeply involved in preparing Iraq’s nascent political class for the ballot. The official, who insisted that neither he nor his organization could be identified because of security concerns, said most Iraqis remain intent on exercising their right to elect a government after decades of dictatorships. “I think the real story of this election is what’s gone on beneath the radar,” the official said. “They may not know what they’re voting for. But I think they recognize it’s something called democracy.”

There are many reasons to be worried about Iraq – the dangers of a civil war, the remaining lack of reconstruction, the persistence of the insurgency, the failure to train a sufficient number of Iraqi troops, etc etc. Just read Juan Cole if you want to get the smart pessimist’s view. I’m not one to dismiss the problems, as some supporters of the war are. But I do believe one thing: given a chance, people vote for a sane future. The elections have the potential to be a catalyst for broader change. We have lost windows of opportunity before. Let’s not lose this one.

DOMA SAILS THROUGH: Here’s a significant legal development in the marriage battle. The Defense of Marriage Act easily survived its first Constitutional test. Money quote:

US District Judge James S. Moody disagreed. Moody, an appointee of former president Bill Clinton, sided with outgoing Attorney General John Ashcroft, who had argued in court filings that the government has a legitimate interest in permitting states to ban same-sex marriages, namely to encourage “stable relationships” to raise children with both biological parents. Moody ruled that the law was not discriminatory because it treats men and women equally, and that the government had argued compellingly in favor of allowing marriages to form only between men and women. Moody said he could not declare marriage a “fundamental right,” as lawyers for the women had urged him to do. Moody cited past legal cases as establishing states’ rights to regulate marriages. “The legislatures of individual states may decide to overturn its precedent and strike down” the law, Moody wrote. “But, until then, this court is constrained to hold [the law] and the Florida statutes . . . constitutionally valid.”

It’s the right decision. Civil marriage law should be left to the states, where it belongs. And the attempt by some gay activists to push this further and demand immediate national recognition of marriage rights is as strained constitutionally as it is foolish politically. What we need to do now is win the political and legislative fight in Massachusetts so that equality in marriage there can be seen as a democratic choice as much as a judicial decision. And we have to keep up the educational task of explaining why this reform makes sense. You can read a PDF of the judge’s decision here. (Meanwhile, Brazil also makes a move toward equal marriage rights. This truly is a global movement.)

HOW TO BEAT A CAR BOMBER: Volkswagon fights terror – with advertizing.

A BLOGGER ON HIS OWN: Here’s a profile of the ornery, independent, and often vicious blogger, Bob Somerby. I’m glad people like Somerby still exist. They are what the blogosphere is for.