Month: May 2006

"An aggressively annoying new phrase in America’s political lexicon is "values voters." It is used proudly by social conservatives, and carelessly by the media to denote such conservatives. This phrase diminishes our understanding of politics. It also is arrogant on the part of social conservatives and insulting to everyone else because it implies that only social conservatives vote to advance their values and everyone else votes to … well, it is unclear what they supposedly think they are doing with their ballots," – George F. Will, today.

Will has one of the best records in punditry in recent years – his tenacious Toryism managing to resist some of the powerful Republican currents of our time. His rebuke of the "values voter" appropriation is overdue – and not far off my own revulsion at having the word "Christian" purloined for political purposes. Next up: the attempt by the Christianists to coopt the term "family." Something is growing out there in the culture, and it’s gaining strength.

A reader thinks we’re seeing the same phenomenon that occurred under a previous Bush administration:

You have lately been publishing a lot of emails of Republicans who have become disenchanted by – or enraged at – the Bush administration for its manifest failure to live up to the plainest conservative principles. These folks sound very much like those who in another era voted for Ross Perot and (possibly) handed the presidency to Bill Clinton.

With the GOP firmly in the hands of Christianist extremists, and with the Democrats still bickering, I wonder if the time might be ripe for another consequential third-party candidacy. Just look at the contortions that McCain is having to go through in order to make is candidacy palatable to the crowd that currently runs the Republican party; wouldn’t it be nice if McCain could run as an independent and not have to suck up to the Christianists?

Of course he can’t and he won’t, but…

The current Perotian cause is obviously fiscal balance. In many ways, the fiscal situation is much worse now than it was in the early 1990s. The new Medicare entitlement, the boomer retirement crisis, and the dawn of big government, big borrowing conservatism makes a Perot-style candidate very attractive. This time, of course, it would be better not have a complete nutcase.

Here he goes again.

Yay! Tom Cruise failed to prevent a free showing of South Park’s episode, "Trapped in the Closet", at the National Film Theatre in London on Monday. Still, they couldn’t charge for the screening; and the show still has not been shown on British television. It is also still not in rotation in the U.S. The power of the Super Adventure Club endures. But it’s a start. Surrender, Viacom!

Here’s a quote to get you sitting up straight:

"If I were at the CIA now and was asked to work on an National Intelligence Estimate [on Iraq], my first response would be, ‘How the f*** do I get out of this?’ The most courageous, honest person in the place would be reluctant to do it because every time someone says the emperor has no clothes he gets his head lopped off."

That’s a former "senior CIA official" talking to Ken Silverstein, in a new blog post. There seems to be a real crisis at the CIA, especially with respect to Iraq. Honest assessments of the situation are ignored and their authors punished. And so our intelligence on the ground has deteriorated to the point of useless. Money quote:

The New York Times and others have reported that in 2003, the CIA station chief in Baghdad authored several special field reports that offered extremely negative assessments of the situation on the ground in Iraq‚Äîassessments that later proved to be accurate. The field reports, known as "Aardwolfs," were angrily rejected by the White House. Their author ‚Äî who I’m told was a highly regarded agency veteran named Gerry Meyer ‚Äî was soon pushed out of the CIA, in part because his reporting angered the See No Evil crowd within the Bush administration. "He was a good guy," one recently retired CIA official said of Meyer, "well-wired in Baghdad, and he wrote a good report. But any time this administration gets bad news, they say the critics are assholes and defeatists, and off we go down the same path with more pressure on the accelerator."

This cannot be good news for the effort in Iraq. We need empirical clarity if we are to make good policy. But empiricism has been replaced by blind ideology. 

A reader comments:

I applaud your efforts to call out the Christianists. At the same time, I wonder why you don’t have more company in doing so. I want to draw a parallel between Islamism and Christianity that points to something I’ve never quite been able to understand: the apparent willingness of many Muslims and Christians to allow the appropriation of their religion’s public face by those who seem to constitute only a small fraction of believers.

Tom Friedman, among many others, has been correct to point out the hypocrisy of Muslim leaders who quickly condemn many American actions as anti-Muslim while barely uttering a word when Islamic terrorists bomb mosques and murder Muslims. Similarly, many Muslims are eager to point out the unfair perception that violence inheres in Islam, but it seems (to me) that Muslims are more vocal and more mobilized in denouncing the West for stigmatizing them as violent than they are in opposing actual violence carried out in the name of their faith.

An analogous observation can be made of American Christians. Many of my Christian friends hate – indeed, are offended by – the notion that as Christians people assume them to be intolerant, bigoted, and (worst of all) Republican. But how is it that Christians in the States have allowed American Christianity to be more commonly associated with intolerance than humility? If the perception has been allowed to slip so far, don’t all Christians deserve the blame? Isn’t their faith important enough to be defended from those who would, if you’ll pardon the term, hijack it?

Well, two points. The first is that the Christianists are not involved in anything like the extremism of the Islamists; and the Constitution protects us from full-bore theocracy. And so acquiescence among American Christians is far more defensible. Secondly, the Christianists have a lot of authority on their side. The Vatican has embraced the politicization of Christianity; and the Christianists in America have proven able to deliver votes to Karl Rove, thus cementing their own political power. Ordinary Christians, especially those whose faith is a little less dogmatic and a little more self-effacing than the Christianists’, can easily be intimidated into silence or acquiescence. But that silence is slowly ending. As the political project of the Christianists crumbles – as all such political projects inevitably do – we’ll see another cycle of withdrawal from politics and concentration on, you know, actual Christianity. That’s my hope, at least. And history gives it credence.

(Photo: Thomas Michael Alleman for Time.)

Frankie went to Hollywood and saw Al’s new movie. He’s a convert. Yes, I know he’s editor of TNR. But you have to suck up to Gore to get the job, not to keep it. (Unless you’re Mike Kelly, I suppose. Oh, well.) Foer’s for Gore. I’ll see the movie just as soon as I’ve read Ramesh’s book. Promise.

They refused to carry one magazine because it included the Muhammad cartoons. Will they now refuse to carry Harper’s? Let’s see, shall we?

Count ’em.

A reader writes:

I read a profile of O’Reilly in the New Yorker recently. The article indicated that people on the left side of the spectrum are increasingly reluctant to appear on the Factor, and that O’Reilly is having trouble booking the guests he would like to. This may be O’Reilly’s fault because he’s such a jerk, but apparently it’s not his preference to have a one-sided "intra-Republican" debates.
But my main point is that I truly believe that although Fox News in general is right-leaning, it does want to provide both sides of a debate, assuming that it can actually get persons from both sides of the debate to appear.

I was available. So, I’m sure, were actual Republicans who oppose the FMA. Besides, it’s now left-wing to believe in states’ rights? And leftist to want to stop meddling with the Constitution? Will someone please wake me when this nightmare is over?