Month: January 2006

I was interviewed by truthy icon, Stephen Colbert, Tuesday night. You can see the clip here.

One thing I learned from studying the Third Reich in college: If a genocidal maniac attains power, it’s always worth noting what he has said and taking him at his word. There’s a tendency in the West not to believe the worst about our enemies. Hitler wasn’t really going to kill all the Jews. Mao couldn’t be massacring and starving millions, could he? Stalin meant well, no? Democracies, because we create cultures of reason and toleration, find it hard to get our heads around people who really do believe some crackpot theory. Take a look at this  helpful essay about Islamist views of the Apocalypse. There are obvious parallels with our own religious far right – in fact, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s views are almost a negative image of Tim LaHaye’s. What’s also interesting is how modern a lot of this is. The new Christian dispensationalists who are anticipating the Rapture and the slaughter of all infidels in the End-Time are far more numerous and influential today than in the past. The latest Islamist apocalyptic ravings also have a new component: fanatical anti-Semitism, which has been around in the Muslim past but has never been as central to Islamist ideolog as than today. Money quote:

"Most scenarios start with the Arab-Israel conflict, as the basis for the end-time events, though some start with the Gulf War (1990-91). At some time in the near future a demonic being, called the Dajal (the Muslim Antichrist), will gain control over most of the world, with the exception of certain Muslim countries (the lists of these vary, but are usually the most anti-western ones). This being will be a Jew and will control by means of a world-embracing conspiracy, after the fashion of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. In general, apocalyptic believers state that this being, if not physically present in the world today, malevolently influences the course of events preparatory to his eventual revelation. An apocalyptic war is postulated between the Dajal, who will lead the west and Israel, against the Muslims."

Now remember that someone who fervently believes in all of this, someone who has vowed to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, is on the verge of gaining the technology to detonate nukes. We can assume rationality on the part of the Iranian mullahs. But if we do, we are being irrational ourselves. They want the nukes because they expect the apocalypse. It’s time we took their views seriously.

The fiance and I were watching the DVD version of Steve Carell’s charming comedy, "The 40 Year-Old Virgin," the other night. There’s a couple of classic scenes in it – one where two black guys try to out-negro each other; and one where two straight guys playing video games try and out-straight each other. Both scenes rested on ethnic or sexual stereotypes, both were un-PC, but both were also completely inoffensive in today’s cultural climate. The scenes weren’t regurgitating the warmed over prejudices of the past, like a Jay Leno monologue or Adam Sandler’s appalling "The Longest Yard." They were playing with them. The writers and actors trusted the audience to be in on the joke, and to realize that the fun they were poking was sharp but not designed to wound. I’d put "South Park" firmly in the post-PC category, as well as Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Dan Savage. When Colbert asked me in all seriousness on his show last Tuesday, "When did you choose to be gay?" no one believed for a second that he was anti-gay. Everyone in the twenty-something audience laughed. This is all a great development, and a generational one – a sign that the humor-free PC ’90s have melted into something much funnier, much more honest, and yet also inclusive. The other key figure, I think, is Dave Chapelle, a comic genius who has somehow managed to create comedy that is ferociously close to the edge politically and in clumsier hands could be discounted as bigoted or dealing in the crudest of stereotypes. And yet, we’re all in on the joke – black and white, male and female, straight and gay, stoner or crackhead. To my mind, it’s just a sign of how vibrant American popular culture still is, how the doom-mongers are often wrong, and how a multicultural society can indeed find a way to talk about its internal differences without cloying sensitivity or crude prejudice. Two cheers?

My new Time magazine essay on our new King George can be read here. My Times of London column on Paul Bremer’s new book on his time in Iraq, and what we learn from Fred Barnes’ new biography of W, can also be read here.

A reader writes:

"One of the best books I‚Äôve read recently was Hitchen‚Äôs Why Orwell Matters.  We all know the story of Orwell‚Äôs involvement in the Spanish Civil War and his eventual disillusionment with the cause ‚Äì namely because of Stalin‚Äôs people wanting him dead.  Sometimes in life you find yourself doing the right thing with the wrong people.  I wonder at what point Hitchens is going to realize that the company he keeps is no longer worth it."

I’ve been wondering that myself for quite a while now.

The view from some Turkish sixteen-year-olds. Yes, this is totally made up.

Dan Drezner is as cogent as ever.

I’ve had fewer emails like this one than I expected, but it’s worth airing the issue:

"For the most part, I agree with the emailer who was iffy on the redesign — though I have to say it’s great to finally read black type on a white background.  Also, I second the previous emailer’s concern about your site now being bought and paid for by Time magazine.  This is the equivalent of those organic, once-independent family farm operations that, once success descends, sell out to big conglomerates out to hedge their bets on the latest big thing.  Hope you keep your independence, Andrew, but this signals a bad, bad trend of MSM reaching into the blogosphere and making it its own."

I beg to differ. I can categorically tell you that the rules for my blogging are what they always have been. No one is pre-editing my posts; no one is looking over my shoulder. Time’s editors have never pressured me to write anything I don’t fully believe in print, and anyone who knows my past knows I’m not exactly renowned for currying favor with my bosses. I think what’s happening here is the opposite of what the reader thinks. Think of it as the blogosphere reaching out to the MSM and helping erase what is, in any case, a somewhat strained distinction. But this much I’ll ask you. If you think I’m going soft, let me know. As if I needed to tell you that.

Enough already.

I wrote too soon. Some conservatives are getting riled up by warrant-free wire-tapping. And they’re bigwigs in the conservative movement. Eventually, the deference breaks …