Author: Andrew Sullivan

From my correspondent who keeps his eye on the French media:

The evening news on the popular French TV station TF1 led with Bush’s visit to Iraq today, and its Baghdad reporter referred to the “anti-American resistance” in explaining why the trip was so dangerous. http://www.tf1.fr (streaming video under “20h” at lower right of “News” box). Evidently, this term is catching on as the French expression for those who hope to drive the Americans out and bring Saddam back to power. You know, like the French resistance that fought so bravely against their Nazi occupiers in the last war.
I believe this expression is pretty new. I googled “resistance anti-Americaine” (both with and without the accent mark on “resistance” and with and without the hyphen) and turned up essentially nothing except an old Vietnam reference and a November 13 article in the Nouvelle Observateur entitled “Iraq with the Anti-American Guerillas,” which textually refers only to the “resistance” in careful quotation marks.

Well, that’s why I’ve always put the term “French Resistance” in quotation marks as well. Meanwhile, French reporters have photo evidence of the recent Baathist attack on a DHL plane. The French had been hanging with the Saddamites for a few days before the attack. No word on whether the missiles were also made in France.

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “As a fellow immigrant, I savored your musings about how Americans “resolve the nationalist dilemma.” May I add one little point beyond primary colors: This is the only country whose national anthem begins with a question and ends with a question. No bombast, no exhortation, no boast, none of the usual stuff of most national anthems, just questions. It must mean something, no?”

CANADA’S SANTORUM: Once again, the issue of homosexuality splits the conservative coalition. This time, in Canada.

Not only will the former Republican Massachusetts governor, Bill Weld, support the Supreme Judicial Court’s ruling on ending discrimination in marriage, he says he plans to officiate at a wedding as soon as he can. That’s a visual: a Republican former governor marrying two people of the same sex. I’m also really heartened that, from the article at least, my own private discussions with Weld helped persuade him of the justice and importance of this. Weld was a great governor, a great Republican, and a great American.

THE TORIES SNEAK AHEAD: It’s only a poll; and it’s only a small lead, but the British Tories are now ahead of Blair’s Labour Party. I’d say this paradoxically strengthens Blair’s hand against the lefties in his party. They can’t afford to wreck his policies for much longer without risking their own seats.

Mickey informs me that the Senator from Massachusetts didn’t even vote on the Medicare bill. After all his harrumphing about the horrors of the legislation, he couldn’t even put himself on the record. Kerry is emerging as the worst of all the viable Democratic candidates. He has the backbone of Clinton and the charm of Gore.

“SACRIFICE”: I don’t disagree with Tom Friedman’s basic analysis of what is now going on in Iraq. If Mosul is turning against us, we truly are in trouble. And the resistance of Ayatollah Sistani to the current transition process is the first real sign that, on top of Saddam’s resistance, we are also about to witness the long-predicted power-struggle between Kurds, Shia and Sunni. It’s going to get tougher still. I don’t buy the argument that the administration never warned of a long and difficult post-war in Iraq, because the record shows it did. Whether it did enough – in emphasis – is debatable. But what I really don’t buy is Friedman’s argument that, somehow, “sacrifice” is a prerequisite for a successful occupation in Iraq. I wish he’d spell out what he means by “sacrifice.” For most anti-war liberals, it means rescinding tax cuts. But they didn’t want the tax cuts in the first place. And, oddly enough, the 8.2 percent third quarter growth rate – fueled in part by the tax relief – does help us in Iraq, not least because it suggests Bush will be re-elected, and so long-term American resolve in Iraq is more credible. And, in any case, there is real sacrifice. Who does Friedman think is paying the bills for the war and occupation? The cost to this country – in terms of current and future fiscal health – is real, and will affect everyone. And that is not to speak of the costs in human lives and injuries. Maybe I’m missing Tom’s point here. But this call for “sacrifice” sounds noble, but, upon inspection, seems like a convenient but empty way to support Bush’s policies, while attacking Bush as president. How about Friedman making the real sacrifice – on the op-ed page of the NYT no less – and confessing that, on foreign policy, he’s now closer to the Bush administration than to any of the current Democratic candidates?

ON THANKSGIVING: I really should sit down one day and re-write and expand this little piece I wrote seven years ago on why I am thankful for America. But it still conveys my essential feelings. Maybe an immigrant feels grateful on this day with more immediacy and awareness than others. But the joy of America is that even the distinction between immigrant and native-born is usually blurred. Anyway, here it is, republished again. Have a great and relaxing day. and thanks for both reading this site and for making it possible to keep on the web.

An interesting analysis of the effects of the November 20 al Qaeda bombings in Istanbul:

The bomb blasts of November 20, 2003 may have signaled Turkey’s Israelization. That is why people felt this different fear – and much higher levels of personal insecurity.

They knew that radical Islamic terrorists did not show any mercy, not even on a Ramadan day. These terrorists did not make any distinctions between Muslims and non-Muslims. Isn’t that the same fear they feel in Israel?

Day after day, whether there is a break of two days or a week-long interval, there is always at least an attempted suicide bomb attack – and the constant realization that the peaceful daily routine has been broken.

Isn’t this the fear of the people in Israel – when they go to a bazaar or a shopping center – that they worry whether they will see the end of the day alive?

Isn’t it one of the reasons why Jews in Israel have developed the custom of never leaving the home with a bad word to one another? They leave their home always with a kiss and a smile on their face – thinking it might be their last memory of their loved ones.

A recent editorial from the Guardian:

The challenge which the Chief Rabbi issued last year, remains as relevant today: why is the liberal left not sufficiently concerned about the growth of anti-semitism? On this year’s anti-war march in Paris, Jewish peace activists were beaten up by other demonstrators. There were less dramatic confrontations on London’s million-strong march. It did not matter to the attackers that Jewish writers and activists have been vocal against the Iraq war. Nor did the attackers care that many criticise the current Israeli government’s policies towards the Palestinians. Their victims were targets just because they are Jews.
Even the police are now being more proactive in pursuing people spreading virulent anti-semitic literature or inciting religious hatred. Could not the liberal left, which in an earlier era vigilantly sought to protect Jews from prejudice and bigotry, rediscover its old values?

Maybe the alarm many have been sounding will finally force a new reckoning.

Here’s a point I hadn’t thought of, but one that makes sense to me:

Allow me to make a radical suggestion here, which quite obviously I don’t think is radical at all. I submit that I believe that gay marriages, on average, are likely to be more stable and happy than straight marriages — that is to say, more likely to be “model” marriages in which the two partners are committed to each other in a loving fashion. And the reason for this, naturally enough, comes down to sex, as in, sex is not why gays and lesbians will get hitched.
Come on, you abstinence types. You know sex plays a significant role in marriage among the conservatively religious, who trend toward marrying younger than other groups. Indeed, it’s one of the selling points: You can have all the sex you want! And God approves! But I submit that someone who marries for access to sex — or has it in his or her unspoken top three reasons, as I strongly suspect any heterosexual human who reaches his or her early 20s as a virgin might — will find he or she has a weak pillar in the marriage after the first bloom of sexual activity wears off. And you know how humans are when it comes to sex. They’re all screwy for it. It makes them do things like have affairs and try to serve divorce papers on their wives in hospital recovery rooms and whatnot.
Now, take your gay couple. He and he (or she and she) don’t have the same hangups about sex and marriage, for the simple reason that gay people have never had the need or expectations regarding marriage and access to sex. They have ever had their sex independent of the marriage institution. So it would seem reasonable to suggest that if a gay couple decided to marry, the fevered idea of finally getting to have sex (and the irrationality such a desire can bring) would not be one of the major motivating factors. Instead the decision would be based on other more, shall we say, considered factors, like basic compatibility, shared life goals and expectations, and a genuine and well-regarded appreciation for the other, in the relationship and out of it.

At this point in time, I’d say this is true. It may change when the first generation of gay kids grows up assuming that they too can get married. Ending the denial of sex and all the delusion-inducing hysteria of romanticism are two of the worst foundations for a marriage. This generation of gays might be better able to resist them.

DERB’S MARRIAGE: On another ironic note, I see that John Derbyshire says the main reason his own wife can live in the United States at all is because he married her. Good for him. But he must surely realize that if he were gay, he would never have been able to live with his spouse in the U.S. He wouldn’t have been able to bring him here at all. Doesn’t he see that as a major piece of unfairness? I know several gay men who, like Derbyshire, fell in love with someone in a foreign country and have been separated by thousands of miles as a result. It’s a source of immense pain and misery. Other countries – most of the civilized world, in fact – allows for gay citizens to sponsor their partners. Not here. So Happy Thanksgiving to the new Americans in Derbyshire’s household. And sympathy for those shut out of America and the person they love because of laws Derbyshire enthusiastically supports.

That disgusting cartoon showing Ariel Sharon literally eating a baby has now won the top prize from the British Political Cartoon Society.

“The FTAA Summit in Miami represents the official homecoming of the “war on terror”. The latest techniques honed in Iraq – from a Hollywoodised military to a militarised media – have now been used on a grand scale in a major US city.” – Naomi Klein, the Guardian.

As usual a great piece by Hitch on the latest al Qaeda bombings in Turkey:

I have not yet read any article explaining how the frustrations of the oppressed Muslims of the world are alleviated by this deed, or how the wickedness of American foreign policy has brought these chickens home to roost, or how such slaughters are symptoms of “despair.” Perhaps somebody is at work on such an article and hasn’t quite finished it yet. (I have noticed, though, a slight tendency on the part of this school to shut up, at least for the time being.)
There is a vulgar reason for this reticence. In recent attacks from those gangs who have been busily fusing Saddamism with Bin Ladenism-and who didn’t start this synthesis yesterday-it has been noticeable that Saudi citizens (the week before last), or Iraqi citizens (every day, but most conspicuously in the blasting of the Red Cross compound in Baghdad), or Indonesian citizens (in the bombing of the Marriott in Jakarta in August), or Moroccan citizens have been the chief or most numerous casualties. To this, one could add the Christian Arabs whose famous restaurant in Haifa was blown up, along with its owners, on Yom Kippur. I sometimes detect a strained note in the coverage of this. Why would the jihadists be so careless, so to speak? Have they no discrimination, no tact?

I know. Any day now, the hand-wringers may even be forced to concede that there’s a teensy bit of anti-Semitism in the violent brigades now murdering people across the globe. Just not yet.

QUOTE FOR THE DAY: “The enemies of free societies today are those who want to burden us down again with layer upon layer of regulations. We had that in communist times. But now if you look at all the new rules and regulations of EU membership, layered bureaucracy is staging a comeback.” – Czech president, Vaclav Klaus, on the corruption and inanity of the European Union.

FISKING THE AMENDMENT: Well, someone had to do it.

What is he? Baptist? Methodist? Jewish? Catholic? I’d say a beguiling mixture of them all. But the key tenet is separation of faith from politics:

We stopped going to Catholic Mass some years ago in the Army. We’d go to these Catholic churches, and when you’re Catholic, of course, going to church is a duty. But we’d walk out of the church and say ‘God,’ and we’d complain about the homily. One night I walked out of the church when the priest said that we should never have fought the Revolutionary war and every war was bad. It was 4th of July. It was an outrageously political statement. I just never felt right when people in the church would take these overtly political positions especially when I felt like I was a good Christian, I was serving my country, and I just didn’t feel like I deserved to be lambasted by the priest on the 4th of July.

It seems to me that there are two important things in a person of faith in political life. The first is that his faith be respected. The second is that he understands the civil-religious distinction. I fear George W. Bush doesn’t see that church and state truly are different things. I’m reassured that Wesley Clark gets it – for the sake of politics, but also, above all, for religion.

SOUTH PARK REPUBLICANS: An update from Brian Anderson. For the record, I think Brian is more right than wrong. The important thing is where the energy is in the culture. And there’s no question that an non-lefty perspective has gained enormous sway recently. But it’s also true that the left has also become energized during the war. I don’t know how you explain Dean’s surge or the popularity of Michael Moore or Paul Krugman without acknowledging that.