Month: April 2007

The paranoia among many Muslims with respect to American foreign policy is not, I think, fair. Nor do I think Bush intended Iraq to end up compounding the problem rather than alleviating it. But the consequence is real and measurable, in terms of global Muslim opinion. And occupying a Muslim country indefinitely doesn’t help.

Bush didn’t know he was killed by Americans either, according to the White House.

Or scholar, depending on your point of view.

A reader writes:

In his speech yesterday Rudy Giuliani got one thing right: "The Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us."

Whereas your lambasting of Bush’s post-9/11 blunders and executive overreach comes from an understanding of how critical it is to win the whole wider war against Islamist extremism, do not for a second assume the average Democrat shares your concerns.

Every one of my moderately liberal Democrat friends dismiss the Islamist war on the West. To them it’s "not really a war" at all, just manipulative right wing fear-mongering and jingoism "like the Cold War." Relentless violence by Muslim extremists around the world accounts for nothing but evidence that the US needs to mind its own business, maybe sign Kyoto and raise the minimum wage while it’s at it. They seem to have zero grasp that we have real enemies with agendas of their own, that we can lose.

And I cannot think of a single Democratic politician who has made a speech about the Islamist jihadist threat in-and-of-itself, unless it is to criticize Bush’s response to it. What’s the Democrats’ big signature issue right now? Global warming. You seem to regularly underestimate the level of denial at the heart of contemporary liberalism, its need to remain comfortable with it’s own fantasies. Today’s Democratic Party today is not Truman’s. They don’t get the existential threat posed by jihadists because they don’t want to get it.

I expect another depressing choice in 2008 like we had in 2004: between a tough, stupid, overbearing and ham-fisted Republican, or a squishy, naïve, apologetic and distracted Democrat.

Well: I hope not. I did find the silly whining about Giuliani’s bluster somewhat lame. But I guess I don’t believe that a Democratic president tasked with protecting this country will somehow go soft on terror. It makes no sense. The threat is real, and the minute after his or her first security briefing, a Democratic president would see that. Tony Blair did. He’s a Clinton Democrat with a British accent (and further to the left than most Democrats on issues like healthcare). For all my dislike of Senator Clinton, I don’t for a minute doubt she’d be vigilant against terror. It was her state that was attacked, remember. Obama? I’d like a more robust and positive vision for how we defeat al Qaeda. But he has been proven right about Iraq. We’d be more secure now if we’d followed his advice. We can and should debate tactics in the war. And we should absolutely demand positive policies for winning the war from the Dems. But after the mess Bush has made of the war thus far, I don’t see why all the defensiveness should be coming from the Dems. Maybe it’s telling that it still is.

A reader writes:

In your "Carbon Off-Sets and Hollywood" post today, you said you have never driven in your life. I’m part of that club (well, I’ve driven, just never had a license nor owned a car). I was just wondering why you don’t drive/haven’t driven? Is this a personal choice?

It’s a choice the way so many things in life are. I was a nerdy and reclusive teen who had no social life because of repressed homosexuality. I didn’t need to go anywhere that needed a car, and the train station was a twenty-minute walk. I took public buses to high school, or a friend’s dad drove me and my brother. At Oxford, there was no reason to have one. We all walked or biked everywhere. Ditto Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Washington DC, let aone Provincetown. So I never bothered to even learn, let alone get a license. I wouldn’t know what to do in front of a steering wheel. So it’s no grand political statement – just the culmination of a lifetime’s small habits.

Forced to defend it, I’d simply say: For short journeys, I bike everywhere. New York is reachable by train. Everything else can be reached by plane. My other half drives me and the dogs to Provincetown each summer, but before we met, I put the beagle on an airplane. That’s it, really. I have no kids, and live in an urban neighborhood where the cost and hassle of a car vastly outweigh the pluses. I certainly don’t begrudge people their cars. It’s a free country. Many people need them. I’m lucky and I’m happy I don’t.

Objects in rear-view mirror may be closer than they appear.

Kevin Drum makes a good point.

From Bill Buckley to this:

The debate deepens:

Your reader may be right about the word’s origin, but Homer didn’t trade the dental plan or anything else for a keg of beer. The other workers were going to before Homer realized that without a dental plan he’d have to pay for Lisa’s braces, which led to him becoming the union rep.

In your face, condescending "Simpson’s I.Q." guy.

Here’s the Wiki link.