Month: June 2005

In Canada, they just celebrated their first military same-sex wedding between a sergeant and a warrant officer in the Canadian military. A twofer! The ceremony was held in the chapel at Nova Scotia’s Greenwood airbase. Meanwhile, Frum’s sloppy stats on marriage in Canada get a fisking here.

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “I like your take on MJ, mostly. However, I had some issues with what you say about the race angle. Here’s the money quote:

“The case is also subtly about race, another taboo. The key fact about Michael Jackson is that he is the first true black celebrity in America who has literally turned himself into a Caucasian. African-American culture has long been obsessed with varying degrees of blackness. Light-colored men and women have historically enjoyed social status in African-American society and we have learned from the exhaustive biographies of Jackson that his father ridiculed him in his youth for having a flat nose and stereotypical black features. Jackson’s response? To take the valuation of lighter skin to its logical conclusion.”

I think you’re off base to say ‘A-A culture has long been obsessed with varying degrees of blackness,’ if you mean by this statement that this obsession is exclusively, mostly, or even historically a black pathology. Maybe you didn’t mean to imply this, but such an implication can easily be drawn from your statement. Colorism / Racism is most definitively not a product of black obsession; it is historically a product of white supremacy and white privilege. It seems like you are “blaming the victim,” if this is your implication. That black people (e.g., Joe Jackson, MJ’s father) have bought into the sick racist ideology that equates the tone of one’s skin – it’s relative lightness – with self-worth is a survival technique that was and still is encouraged by the dominant white culture. Internalized racism operates analogously to internalized homophobia: an attempt to change what is immutably natural is a desperate, pathetic and destructive byproduct of the hatred (e.g., homophobia; racism) that society constructs. In some ways, the ridicule of MJ’s father is not all that different from the parents who send their gay kids to those reparative camps, in the hopes that they will be reformed and converted into heterosexuals: both of these responses are symptoms of deeper social ills (hatred of gays and African Americans) which are the real obsessions that we need to expose. Which again proves that the struggle for a young person to appropriate and accept his or her identity (particularly race and sexual orientation) is a terribly complicated and fragile project in American society, given our legacy of racism and homophobia.”

Marty Lederman examines the legal arguments behind the interrogation of Mohammed al-Qahtani at Gitmo, as reported in Time. The techniques used against Qahtani clearly violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice, as government lawyers pointed out at the time. So how did the military get around the law? The April 4, 2003 DoD Working Group Report states that

“[D]efenses relating to Commander-in-Chief authority, necessity and self-defense or defense of others may be available to individuals whose actions would otherwise constitute these crimes, and the extent of availability of those defenses will be fact-specific … Where the Commander-in-Chief authority is being relied upon, a Presidential written directive would serve to memorialize this authority.”

The entire structure of permissible violations of American law, the UCMJ, and Geneva seems therefore to have been made legally possible solely by the president’s invocation of his wartime authority as commander-in-chief, as crafted in now-infamous Justice Department memos. In other words, the entire abuse scandal may be rooted directly in decisions made in the Oval Office. Marty has more questions, but his analysis, as always, is a must-read.

I found myself watching the Sean Hannity “interview” of vice-president Dick Cheney last night on Fox. I must say I have chortled through quite a few Larry King-style, fawning interviews by liberal journalists of liberal politicians in my time – all under the rubric of “objectivity.” But I don’t think I have ever witnessed a more fawning, sycophantic and simply rigged interview than that between Hannity and Cheney. In fact, the whole conceit that this was an actual interview is preposterous, along with the notion that Hannity is in any way a journalist. The first instinct of an actual journalist is to ask the tough questions even of someone you admire – perhaps especially of someone you admire. Hannity’s instinct is the exact opposite: ingratiation of his interview subject and his audience. The transcript reveals no distinction of any meaningful kind between the interviewer and interviewee. Here, for example, are a selection of statements made during the half hour. See if you can tell whether Hannity or Cheney said which:

a) “The world’s much better off and much safer today because Saddam Hussein’s in prison, will soon go on trial in Iraq, and the 25 million people in Iraq, as well as in Afghanistan, have been liberated. Those are all major achievements.”

b) “We just had elections in Iraq. The security forces are growing in Iraq. There’s still an insurgency, but there’s a lot of progress.”

c): “We’ve got millions of people here illegally… It adds significant cost to local communities who have to provide educational services or health services.”

d) “People express their concern about the vulnerability and susceptibility of our borders.”

e) “The Koran had not been flushed down the toilet, and the – Newsweek had to withdraw its comment. It’s important that they be careful and exercise a sense of responsibility here, because lives are at stake.”

d) “When Newsweek puts out reports that the Koran was flushed down the toilet, and then later they have to retract a story like that. The impact it has on people worldwide and those people that are looking for reasons to hate the United States or justify, perhaps, actions against our troops.”

f) “Two hundred and fourteen years, we’ve never had a judge that would have otherwise been approved by the Senate filibustered.”

g) “We need to restore the traditional practice of the last 214 years.”

No prizes for correct answers. You can figure it out from the transcript. This is a free country, and Sean Hannity and Fox News can broadcast what they want. Fox is far more entertaining than the other cable news channels and I can see its appeal, and the need for a less liberal network. But this was not journalism. It was propaganda, cloyingly arranged between interviewer and interviewee, based on talking points adhered to by both sides, and broadcast as if it were a real interview. I worry that viewers actually begin to believe that this is journalism, that asking questions designed to help the interviewer better make his case, in fact often supplementing his answers to improve their rhetorical power, is somehow what real journalists do. It isn’t. I wish I could provide a better kicker for this blog item than Sean Hannity did. But I can’t. So here’s his sign-off: “Lynne, I was too tough on him.”

Another Greg Djerejian take-down.

LIBERATING STRAIGHT CAMP: Protesters have arrived at the “Love In Action” camp, designed to sequester gay kids and re-program them. Stories are being written, exposing this form of psychological child abuse. Young Zach’s blog made this happen.

A case of the importance of “reasonable doubt.” I’ve said my piece. Now I’m merely looking forward to watching Nancy Grace tonight, and to see that smug, self-righteous sneer get wiped off her face.

It’s imminent! My take on the case here.

GITMO AND PERSPECTIVE: As Cheney and Rumsfeld dig in further, Fred Hiatt gets it exactly right. Meanwhile, Anonymous Liberal tries to reach the right balance on Iraq.

BLAIR VERSUS BUSH: The honeymoon is over. Novak is, of course, over the top, but the truth is that Blair is deadly serious about aid to Africa and resuscitating Kyoto. He’s working on Putin, already has Europe in his pocket on this one, and is shoring up his standing at home by taking on the French on the EU rebate. I wonder if the president knows what’s coming at Gleneagles.

REFLECTIONS ON “LOVE IN ACTION”: A reader was moved by the story below on a young teen sent to an evangelical “straight camp” where he will be tormented for his sexual orientation and has allegedly been told by his supervisor that suicide would be preferable to leaving the camp to be proud and gay. He sent me the following poem by A. E. Housman, of whom Auden once said that he “kept his tears in a drawer.” It says a lot about the vast, unnecessary pain we inflict on gay kids and teens, and the cruelty that still exists and still legislates and still threatens:

Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists?
And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists?
And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air?
Oh they’re taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.

‘Tis a shame to human nature, such a head of hair as his;
In the good old time ’twas hanging for the colour that it is;
Though hanging isn’t bad enough and flaying would be fair
For the nameless and abominable colour of his hair.

Oh a deal of pains he’s taken and a pretty price he’s paid
To hide his poll or dye it of a mentionable shade;
But they’ve pulled the beggar’s hat off for the world to see and stare,
And they’re taking him to justice for the colour of his hair.

Now ’tis oakum for his fingers and the treadmill for his feet,
And the quarry-gang on Portland in the cold and in the heat,
And between his spells of labour in the time he has to spare
He can curse the God that made him for the colour of his hair.

BURGER BLOG: Rare and yet well done.

That’s the acronym the lefty blogosphere now uses for the Downing Street Memo. Kinsley’s right, though, as usual. All the memo shows is one individual’s take on what was going on in Washington. It was also my take and the take of lots of journalists and observers. It proves nothing but that senior figures in Downing Street believed that the war was inevitable, unsellable to the British public and that there was almost no post-war planning. I guess it is slightly amazing that any senior government official can get three things right. But I’m underwhelmed.

What the Michael Jackson case tells us about the sorry state of our culture. My take, now posted.

Time’s inside account of the attempt to interrogate a high-level Qaeda detainee is interesting. It may well be that the important interrogations were indeed professionally handled and that abuse was kept to a minimum, although some of the techniques are still offensive. Perhaps the real story of the last couple of years is how these techniques filtered down the ranks, how unprofessional individuals got the message from above that the gloves were off and went further, with far less significant figures. I know we’re supposed to treat all detainee affidavits as suspect (and with good reason) but some have corroborating evidence, like this story about a possible minor dragged into Gitmo:

The details of M.C.’s accusations are contained in a 17-page account prepared by Mr. Stafford Smith, in which the prisoner said that he was suspended from hooks in the ceiling for hours at a time with his feet barely missing the floor, and that he was beaten during those sessions. M.C. said a special unit known as the Immediate Reaction Force had knocked out one of his teeth and later an interrogator burned him with a cigarette. Mr. Stafford Smith said he saw the missing tooth and the burn scar. Some of M.C.’s descriptions match accounts given not only by other detainees, but also by former guards and interrogators who have been interviewed by The New York Times.
He describes being shackled close to the floor in an interrogation room for hours with music blaring and lights in his face. He also said he was shown a room with pictures of naked women and adult videos and told he could have access if he cooperated. His description fits the account of former guards who described such a room and said it was nicknamed “the love shack.”

There are simply too many corroborated details in these detainee accounts to let them be dismissed out of hand as enemy propaganda. Here’s another gut-wrenching one. We need an independent inquiry into all detainee abuse, clear new rules for interrogation that abide by U.S. law, and the closure of Gitmo itself. It is becoming the enemy’s propaganda jewel.

“But justices declined to address a separate issue: whether American citizens arrested on U.S. soil can be designated “enemy combatants” and held without trial.” – from the Associated Press today.

CRYSTAL SMILES: One blogger has already created an image for an ad campaign directed against crystal meth targeted at gay men. Effective.