Month: August 2006

by Ana Marie Cox

Surely I can’t be the only person who notices that when George Bush is trying to make a point, HE STARTS TO KIND OF SHOUT. AND PUNCUATE. THE WORDS. WITH PAUSES. He’ll start off basically normal  then, when he gets to a talking point he’ll go all Steve Carrel in Ron Burgandy: "LOUD NOISES!" It’s as though he thinks that the reason the press corps doesn’t agree with his relatively rosy take on Iraq is because they can’t hear him.

This morning’s press conference was notable for both the President’s volume and a certain schizophrenia — Bush rarely tries as hard to get a laugh as he did this morning, even, in desperation, making jokes about dancing with Helen Thomas. (ew.) I’m surprised the DNC hasn’t already made an ad out of his shocking concession that Democrats who oppose his policies are just as patriotic as he is. And then, just to keep things interesting, he started channeling Lou Reed: "Sometimes I‚Äôm frustrated. I‚Äôm rarely surprised. Sometimes I‚Äôm happy. The war is not a time of joy. These aren‚Äôt joyous times. These are challenging times. These are difficult times." I believe the next verse is "I thought of you as my mountaintop/I thought of you was my peak/I thought of you as everything/I had but couldn’t keep."

The White House has yet to post a transcript, so I’m going to hold off on further analysis but those interested in WH trivia might be curious to know that the the lighthearted joshing at the end of the conference was in reference to the relocation of the briefing room out of the White House proper. Reporters  asked the President when they’d be allowed back; he said he didn’t know and Cox’s Ken Herman said he believed that decision would be made by "commanders on the ground." I didn’t catch who said "there is no timetable for withdrawal."

by David Weigel

Buried in a New York Times story on John McCain’s efforts to reach out to Bush supporters is this list of his intellectual advisers.

His growing kitchen cabinet spans an array of issues and backgrounds, and includes James Jay Baker, a former lobbyist for the National Rifle Association; Niall Ferguson, a historian at Harvard; and Barry McCaffrey,  who was the drug czar under President Bill Clinton.

Yes, Niall Ferguson. The brilliant financial historian turned foaming-at-the-mouth "national greatness conservative." The "John McCain and Joe Lieberman will break the logjam of American democracy" argument too easily writes off the fact that both men are far more hawkish than the mainstream voter. McCain, in particular, is a class-A neoconservative and more hawkish than Bush. A president with Niall Ferguson on his shoulder is a president who’ll stretch our military even thinner across the globe.

by David Weigel

Yes, "Armor of God" PJs, inspired by Ephesians 6:10-18. It’s a wonder how goofy you can dress your kids when you’re homeschooling them.

The whole Armor of God Pajama set will help your children to depend on God to protect them from their fears, doubts, and uncertainties at night so their sleep can be restful and peaceful.

Wouldn’t Batman PJs have a similar impact, without the Christianist* "please beat me up" overtones? The Anna and Samuel dolls are cute enough, though.

Via Kathy Shaidle.

*I am under contract to use this term at least twice a day.

Southeast London, England, 4 pm.

by Michael J. Totten

TEL AVIV – There’s a lot of loose talk in the United States about tomorrow, August 22, Iran’s supposed Armageddon Day for Jerusalem.

Last month Farid Ghadry, president of the Reform Party of Syria, wrote a short article on the Media Line Web site that got this talk started. ‚ÄúThe night of August 21 is a very, very important night in Shia’a Islam. What Iran’s Ahmadinajead is promising the world by August 22 is the light in the sky over the Aqsa Mosque that took place the night before. That is his answer to the package of incentives the international community offered Iran on June 6.‚Äù

Robert Spencer, who founded the Jihad Watch blog, asks a bit breathlessly in the right-wing Human Events journal: “Will Western powers heed Farid Ghadry’s words and move to stop Iran before it is too late?”

Princeton University Professor Bernard Lewis gave this story a bit of heft by writing about it in the Wall Street Journal. August 22, he said, “might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary of the world. It is far from certain that Mr. Ahmadinejad plans any such cataclysmic events precisely for Aug. 22. But it would be wise to bear the possibility in mind.”

Israel-based DEBKAfile gets more specific. Their sources have reportedly found that “information rated ‘highly credible’ has reached US undercover agencies of a secret report presented to Iran’s supreme ruler Ali Khamenei by Abdollah Shabhazi, one of the heads of the Supreme National Security Council. He claims to expose a mega-terror plot against Jerusalem scheduled for August 22, which aims at killing large numbers of Jews, Arabs and Christians.”

DEBKAfile revels in making predictions and getting ahead of the news cycle, so to speak. It’s never a good idea to put too much stock in what they report. As far as I can tell, they are the only Israelis even talking about the possibility of anything happening on August 22. They report that the Israeli authorities aren’t taking this seriously, and they’re right about that much at least.

A high level source in the Israeli government who prefers to remain anonymous told me ‚ÄúI am not very much worried about it. I can‚Äôt see Iran doing something like this. They are supposed to give answers to the US about the nuclear program on that date. They will probably say they want nuclear power for legitimate reasons and will buy themselves another six, nine, or twelve months by doing so. Then, eventually, Iran will acquire nuclear weapons and Ahmadinejad will then say ‘Look, I already have it. Go on and do what you want to do.’‚Äù

Civilians in Israel aren’t taking August 22 seriously either.

Noah Pollak, Assistant Editor at Azure Magazine in Jerusalem, said ‚ÄúI haven’t heard anyone talking about it. In Israel, you get numb to rumors of terrorist attacks — if you actually keep track of the minutiae of anti-terror activity here, you’ll find that around a dozen suicide bombings are prevented per month. Even the Israeli press doesn’t report on such things very often.‚Äù Noah lives in Jerusalem, but he is not an Israeli. He‚Äôs American. He has been here long enough, though, to absorb the unflappable Israeli attitude. Instead of planning a road trip out of town tomorrow, he invited me to go on a walking tour of Jerusalem‚Äôs Old City with him.

Lee Smith is an American journalist who moved from Beirut to Jerusalem during the Lebanon war. He likewise invited me on a walking tour of the Old City on the ill-fated date. Americans may be the only ones in the world taking this seriously. But that’s only true of Americans far from the scene. In Israel, August 22 is Tuesday, not Doomsday.

by David Weigel

It’s easy to giggle at the stories about Africans ditching Western methods for witchdoctor quackery, until you read an item like this, from the Baltimore Sun.

The 35-year-old high school teacher named Bheki was lucky to be alive, thanks to the free antiretroviral pills that kept his HIV in check. He felt strong and had no side effects. Life was normal, as normal as it gets with an incurable disease.

Then in February, he ditched the pills and started taking a mystery potion sold here outside Durban. It is made by a former truck driver who says his late grandfather came to him in dreams with the recipe for an herbal drink that could reverse HIV’s march to full-blown AIDS and death. Eager to banish from his body the virus that stalks one in five South African adults, Bheki instead found himself sicker than ever. Three months later, he begged his doctor to put him back on antiretrovirals, only to find that he has built up a resistance that makes the pills less effective.

After more than a decade of AIDS, too many South Africans remain to be convinced that antivirals can be trusted; they trust the contents of a jug over the contents of an American bottle. The creator of the junk is unapologetic.

Zeblon Gwala, who makes uBhejane and whose supporters include the mayor of Durban, defends his product… "I never say it is a cure; my staff would never say that. I say uBhejane is healing people who [cannot work]. I’m waiting for the result from scientific people to say what uBhejane does, a cure or whatever."

Or whatever.

by David Weigel

What’s the biggest shock in this video? That George Allen cameoed as a Confederate officer in the 2003 dud "Gods and Generals"? That someone dug through all 300 hours of "Gods and Generals" to find George Allen’s cameo? That the Macaca story has been going on for seven days?

It’s a good find, but Allen’s star turn was widely reported at the time. The bigger scandal (and it wasn’t much of one) back in 2003 was the cameo of Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd (WV). Byrd leapt at the chance to play a Confederate general even though he’s supposed to embarrassed about starting his political career as a recruiter for the Ku Klux Klan. But Byrd’s appearence (discounting the beard) makes far more sense than Allen’s. Byrd, remember, is a slightly reformed Dixiecrat, born in 1917, sent to Congress in 1953, and an opponent of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Allen was born in 1952 and grew up in Southern California. It’s a perfect example of Allen’s bizzare fetish for the worst aspects of a culture he’s only tenuously connected to.

by Michael J. Totten

I visited Iraqi Kurdistan three times this year and wrote a feature article about the area for Reason magazine. They published it online today.

Two hours into my first tour of Erbil, my guide for the day taught me to feel lucky. “If we were doing this in Baghdad, we would be dead by now,” he said.

Our driver nodded vigorously.

“It’s that dangerous?” I asked.

“With your face,” my guide replied, “and with our Kurdish license plates on the car, we could not last two hours.”

So goes the capital of Iraq. But I was touring the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, where the war is already over.

There are no insurgents in Kurdistan. Nor are there any kidnappings. A hard internal border between the Kurds’ territory and the Arab-dominated center and south has been in place since the Kurdish uprising at the end of the 1991 Gulf War. Cars on the road heading north are stopped at a series of checkpoints. Questions are asked. ID cards are checked. Vehicles are searched and sometimes taken apart on the side of the road. Smugglers, insurgents, and terrorists who attempt to sneak into Kurdistan by crossing Iraq’s wilderness areas are ambushed by border patrols.

Read the rest over at Reason magazine…

Is Bush dumb? Joe Scarborough compiled some evidence.

Denver, Colorado, 4.45 pm.