Author: Andrew Sullivan

Frank Gaffney roughly sums up my position on disinformation campaigns in National Review Online. We need them – sparingly. And it may be that Rummy has conceded too much to the forces determined to neuter the war on terrorism.

Terrific profile of Bob Kaplan, our author-of-the-month in the Book Club, in the Washington Post this morning. Bob writes for the Book Club this morning as well. Check out the discussion.

“The most arresting statistic that Lomborg produces is this. It is well known that meeting the Kyoto treaty on carbon-dioxide reduction will delay global warming by six years at most by 2100. Yet the annual cost of that treaty, in each year of the century, will be the same as the cost – once – of installing clean drinking water and sanitation for every human being on the planet. Priorities, anyone?” – Matt Ridley, in an excellent summary of the environmental movement’s over-reaction to Bjorn Lomborg’s book, “The Skeptical Environmentalist.”

I don’t take the red-blooded conservative line on campaign finance reform – that it’s a terrible attack on free speech, party politics, apple pie, and so on. In fact, the more hysterical editorials like this one from National Review I read, the less worried I am. What anti-reform conservatives need to understand is that the current system – so beloved of their nemesis Bill Clinton – has led to a profound cynicism about government. People understandably believe – and the legislative process lends credence to the notion – that their representatives are bought and paid for. Not literally, in every case. I don’t buy the idea that every corporate donation corrupts everyone who receives it. But structurally, the corruption is clear, and loaded against ordinary citizens and in favor of unions and corporations. This cannot be good for the polity. I’m not exactly thrilled by the bill. I don’t like the ban on independent advertising in the last 60 days of a campaign. The prospect of more independent or free-lance campaigns funded from dubious sources is equally unlikely to elevate the republic. It could be God’s gift to groups like the NAACP, as this piece from The Hill points out. But I second Mickey Kaus’s belief that change itself is good thing – it disorients settled patterns of corruption; it blocks fixed channels of sleaze; it will make our political parties less like extensions of corporate lobbying budgets; it will make a Denise Rich or a David Geffen less influential in national party politics. It also makes complete political sense for Bush. The unconstitutional parts of the bill will almost certainly be voided by the Court; Bush himself is adept at raising hard-money; and his move to the center will be solidified. He should hold firm, ignore Rush and NRO, and sign a bill if one reaches him.

WEIRDNESS IN BEIJING: “Bush will stay in a hotel, and administration officials plan to follow measures similar to those they used at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Shanghai during the president’s trip in October, setting up tents in the hotel rooms to keep paperwork out of the range of cameras and playing country music during sensitive conversations.” – Washington Post today. Tents and country music? What is this – a jamboree?

TYSON IN D.C.: Yes, Mike Tyson is a clearly unhinged individual. And yes, in my view, boxing is simply unwatchable – a barbaric and almost indefensible phenomenon. But it’s a free country; and there’s no good reason why the D.C. city government should attempt to stop an event lots of people clearly enjoy and that the local boxing commission has approved. Besides, as the Washington Post shrewdly points out, Mayor Anthony Williams has a great deal to gain by supporting the brawl. It shores up his cred in the black male electorate, and it may bring badly needed revenue into the city. I’m bullish on D.C. generally these days. The huge increases in defense spending and continuing buoyancy of NIH funding will doubtless spill over in the coming years into a booming Washington economy. And before too long, the Tyson embarrassment will recede from memory.

SLOBO’S FANS: Guess who’s on the committee to defend Slobodan Milosevic? Just that old Ramsey Clark and Harold Pinter. So clarifying, isn’t it?

BOOK CLUB:Bob Kaplan defends undemocratic regimes and his record on the Balkans; you weigh in again.

HE’S BACK! The Germans see another Rambo on the horizon.

LETTERS: A grandmother grapples with Rosie; in defense of Scalia; a pro-choice NRA member writes in; and the trouble with Dick Riordan.

As of today, I’ll be changing the format slightly for the Book Club. Until now, I’ve been posting my thoughts and your thoughts and Bob Kaplan’s responses as they come in – just like the Dish – in reverse chronological order. If you’re following closely, it all makes sense, but if you’re just dropping by, it can seem a little confusing. So from now on, each day’s postings will be posted in chronological order – with the first posts of the morning staying at the top of the day’s page and the responses following below. It makes more sense for this kind of discussion. Sorry it took a couple of days to realize this, but, hey, we’re making it up as we go along. And thanks for the remarkable emails. At this level of debate, both Bob and I have our hands full. Keep reading, and keep ’em coming.

Your take on Winston’s pagan virtues – in the Book Club.

The Pentagon has clarified the meaning and intent of its new Office of Strategic Influence. It will not lie to the American public or even to the foreign public, but may spread misinformation ahead of military action to help keep the enemy off-guard. I see absolutely no problem with that. Those kinds of lies are often necessary to ensure the success of military strikes, and pose no threat to the credibility of the American government or the domestic press.

This piece from Canada’s Globe and Mail beggars belief. Elizabeth Wurtzel brings the 1990s to life – all over again.

The latest Book Club post – from me today.

“I love this country and I love the people in it. And I think that we’ve been through a very difficult time. And we’re going to identify where the real evil is, root it out, and make the country a better place.” – Michael Moore, describing the Bush administration, not terrorism, as the real evil, in an interview with Aaron Brown, CNN last night.

ROMANCE BLOSSOMS:“The newspaper column is pretty close to dead as a medium. There’s no newspaper columnist who can set the agenda the way that Walter Lippmann did or [James] Reston did. There’s only one destination columnist now, one whose column you look for, and that’s [New York Times columnist] Maureen Dowd. And she doesn’t write an agenda-setting column, delivering orders to the powers that be.” – Mike Kinsley, Chicago Tribune today.
“Calling Ari Fleischer ‘a great evasive bore,’ Michael Kinsley wrote: ‘Fleischer speaks a sort of imperial court English, in which any question, no matter how specific, is parried with general assurances that the emperor is keenly aware and deeply concerned and firmly resolved and infallibly right and the people are fully supportive and further information should be sought elsewhere.'” – Maureen Dowd, New York Times today.