Author: Andrew Sullivan

Another indispensable piece from my colleague and friend Gregg Easterbrook at TNR Online. He highlights two competing plans for reducing pollution from some grandfathered pollution plants in the MidWest. Despite the predictable myopic chorus of criticism from the New York Times, the Democrats, and “environmental” groups, Bush has two plans to pick from to further clean up the environment: a bad Cheney plan and a good Whitman plan. Gregg makes a good place for Whitman’s plan and asks, plaintively, why liberals and environmentalists don’t seem to want to support it. In an election year, some Democrats seem to prefer dirtier air and a wedge issue to cleaner air and a more pro-environment Republican party.

THOSE PESKY LABELS: The spin on the College Freshman Survey that I cited on Monday helps reveal how useless many contemporary political labels are. The headline in many stories including this one was “College Freshmen More Liberal, Less Apathetic, poll finds.” But the key signifiers for this were three shifts: “For instance, a record percentage — 57.9 percent — think gay couples should have the legal right to marry. The highest portion in two decades — 32.2 percent — say the death penalty should be abolished. And more than one-third — the highest rate since 1980 — say marijuana should be legalized.” Now those are all positions I hold. So am I a liberal? I think you can make solid conservative arguments for all three. Growing numbers of conservatives support the first, the Pope backs the second and National Review supports the third. Isn’t the real swing toward a more libertarian politics?

SONTAG AWARD NOMINEE I: “The Pentagon’s release of deliberately provocative pictures of prisoners at Camp X-Ray on Cuba was meant to conceal [the] failure [of the war in Afghanistan] from the American public, who are being conditioned, along with the rest of us, to accept a permanent war footing similar to the paranoia that sustained and prolonged the Cold War.The threat of “terrorism”, some of it real, most of it invented, is the new Red Scare… There is terrible irony at work here. The humane response of people all over the world to the terrorism of September 11 has long been hijacked by those running a rapacious great power with a history of terrorism second to none. Global supremacy, not the defeat of terrorism, is the goal; only the politically blind believe otherwise.” – John Pilger, The Daily Mirror (London).

PARTNOY’S COMPLAINT: I’m not an expert in this and I’m not sure I understand all of it, but this testimony from Frank Partnoy makes more sense to me than some of the hot air now floating around about Enron. It deals with regulation of derivatives. A reader I trust on these matters brought it to my attention. Here’s the money quote:

“”In a nutshell, it appears that some Enron employees used dummy accounts and rigged valuation methodologies to create false profit and loss entries for the derivatives Enron traded. These false entries were systematic and occurred over several years, beginning as early as 1997. They included not only the more esoteric financial instruments Enron began trading recently – such as fiber-optic bandwidth and weather derivatives – but also Enron’s very profitable trading operations in natural gas derivatives. Enron derivatives traders faced intense pressure to meet quarterly earnings targets imposed directly by management and indirectly by securities analysts who covered Enron. To ensure that Enron met these estimates, some traders apparently hid losses and understated profits. Traders apparently manipulated the reporting of their “real” economic profits and losses in an attempt to fit the “imagined” accounting profits and losses that drove Enron management.”

It’s time to look beyond the name-calling and understand what went wrong here. This Senate testimony helped me.

SONTAG AWARD NOMINEE II: “The next night I had dinner with this magazines advice columnist, Cynthia O’Neil. She told me of the work of Harvard Psyciatrist, James Gilligan, who argues that a high percentage of violence can be traced to two things: shame and humiliation. This led to a discussion about anti-American Terrorists and the ways in which being humiliated and shamed by poverty, blight, and bombs contributed to Sept. 11th and it’s continuing legacy of violence” – Brendan Lemon, editor of Out magazine.

The development of Bush Republicanism took another step in this speech. It was in many ways a masterly transition. The president started soberly, talking, as he should have, about by far the most urgent task in front of us: the war on terrorism. Listening and looking at him, I felt even more securely than in the past, that he gets it. He understands that the danger is still enormous; that the risks still huge; the price of failure unthinkable. We needed to be reminded. Even those of us most intent on a thorough war on terror had felt our concentration lapse; our focus blur. Bush sharpened it – and us – again. I was struck by the phrase, ‘I will not wait on events.’ It was perhaps an unintentional rebuke to his predecessor and to his pre-9/11 self. But it was reassuring nonetheless. Also surprising and perhaps important: Iran was mentioned before Iraq. For those of you who remember, this is a re-emphasis I’ve been arguing for for a while. It was extremely encouraging to see it in the speech. That Iran-sponsored boat full of weapons for the PLO was arguably the dumbest initiative those clerical thugs have perpetrated in a very long time. This new emphasis also lies behind, I think, the new tough line with the Palestinians. An Iranian-backed client state on the West Bank has to be avoided. So we may have to deal with Iran if we are ever going to forge some kind of peace in Palestine. The president is obviously spending a lot of time with Paul Wolfowitz.

PULLING A CLINTON: Domestically, the president did something even sharper. He did to the Democrats what Clinton did to the Republicans. He co-opted large amounts of their agenda – some of it disingenuously, some of it genuinely. He tackled the gender gap masterfully. He did it visually by seeming to give nods to more women than men – introducing the Afghan woman minister, the grieving Spann widow, the heroic female flight attendants, the First Lady, and others. And he did so rhetorically, describing respect for women, for example, as a non-negotiable American principle. His outreach to Ted Kennedy will resonate with moderates; his emphasis on education neutralizes a strong Democratic issue; his calls for more spending on domestic programs, like the extension of unemployment benefits and a modest prescription drug program, can only further increase his bipartisan appeal. But where he went beyond Clinton was in not just co-opting the opposition’s most popular programs, but in also appealing to the McCain-Perot middle. He did this by Kennedy-esque calls for service to country, for volunteerism, and putting goals other than self at the center of our lives. I liked his comparison between two cultures: that of “If it feels good, do it,” and “Let’s Roll.” Notice that the sixties have not been replaced by some moralizing or constrictive social conservatism – but by a more neutral, uplifting spirit of action and service, a problem-solving ethic that is practical but also moral, and deeply American.

IN GOD HE TRUSTS: I can see how David Brooks will be heartened by this speech. It has a certain amount of TR in it; and it certainly moves distinctively away from Reaganite skepticism of government. All that is to the good. Skepticism of government and respect for government are two central conservative moods. In this time of national emergency, conservatives should emphasize the latter. But I was also struck by Bush’s appeal to the religious right. He appealed to their most important contribution to the debate – not their stigmatization of others, but their insistence on a moral center to our public life. Bush restated again and again the principle of the reality of evil. And he said at one point that we can only defeat evil with God on our side. This invocation of God – in a non-routine or formulaic way – was very striking. It will have resonated with many religious people in the country, but especially with the most devout. This faith and its surety in Bush will be enough to keep the social conservatives in his coalition, while allowing him to expand government in small but critical ways and broaden the Republican tent even wider. I’m sure with reflection, I’ll think of some caveats about this speech, but right now, I can’t see how he went wrong. I’d say his ratings would go up. But then, they can hardly go any higher. Perhaps the one thing to take from this speech is the most important one. The president has not let down his guard against the enemy. However great the temptation, neither should we.

I guess you all know I’m not a Puritan. So for all those of you who aren’t tee-total, here’s a drinking game to accompany tonight’s political spectacle. I won’t join in, since I’ve got to write something right after. On the other hand, that might make the Dish more interesting …

“Everyone ought to have a home to get away from.” It’s by Sinclair Lewis and I discovered it by reading John Updike’s typically serene review of a new Lewis biography in the New Yorker. I was also struck by this physical description of Lewis by Mary Hemingway: “His face was a piece of old liver, shot squarely with a #7 shot at twenty yards.” Insults have kind of degenerated over the years, haven’t they? Perhaps someone out there has some classic insults to put us moderns to shame. If so, let me know. This could be fun.

The Hotline this morning has the following sentence in it: “A spokesperson for Enron said she ‘recalled that the company did make a small contribution to the Houston chapter’ of Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH ‘two years ago.'” Hmmm. Another Krugman, perhaps?

USAToday weighs in.

“29 percent said Bush believed he would owe Enron executives special policy treatment in return for campaign contributions; 55 percent believe congressional Democrats felt that way.” – from USA Today?CNN/Gallup poll just released.

Here’s a classy and highly unbiased paragraph from the Chicago Tribune:

“Bellesiles first came under scrutiny from a non-academic quarter: the gun lobby and right-wingers. His findings were attacked in the National Review and other conservative publications, where he was accused of making up the data to fit an anti-gun bias. Liberal publications were equally strong in praise of his book. Garry Wills, writing in the New York Times, said: ‘Bellesiles has dispersed the darkness that covered the gun’s early history in America.’ The New York Review of Books gushed: ‘Bellesiles will have done us all a service if his book reduces the credibility of the fanatics who endow the Founding Fathers with posthumous membership in what has become a cult of the gun.'”

There’s hope yet, isn’t there?

The left-wing lurch of the New York Times increasingly means that the Washington Post is the paper of record for simple news coverage. This is a terrible shame. We need the Times’ high standards to be protected. But recall how the Times spun its political/Enron poll on Sunday. Now look how the Post reports very similar findings today. Night and day. Of course the big news is George W. Bush’s historically unprecedented ratings. If this was Bush 41, the numbers would have started cascading downward by now. They haven’t. What’s more, W has a 61 percent score on the critical question of understanding the problems of most people. That’s big news for compassionate conservatism. But more interesting is the way in which Republicans generally have picked up support. Republicans now have a 7 point advantage in Congressional races, compared with a 7 point deficit coming up to the last elections. They have their highest rating since 1981. That need not convert into electoral victory, but it’s clearly good news. Bush has creamed the Democrats on the budget and taxes and deficits. Tom Daschle has far lower positives than his party. The president isn’t likely to become complacent. He knows – perhaps better than his advisers – that his re-elect number still hasn’t cracked 50 percent. But the public is smart about Enron. They smell something highly unpleasant, but they aren’t hyper-ventilating and want simple, full disclosure. Cheney, in my opinion, should get off his high horse and get on with disclosing names and dates (without details of the content of discussion). As to the broader question of bias, it happens that I know Dana Milbank of the Post and Rick Berke of the Times. Rick is more liberal than Dana but Dana is no conservative. Still, Milbank kept his bias under control. He saw a good story in the data and reported it. Why can’t the Times?

THOSE ENRON ANALOGIES: We have a new game here. How can pundits link Bush to Enron without any actual evidence of wrong-doing? Here’s Richard Cohen’s effort (cribbed from Enron-funded pundit Paul Krugman): “It should not be surprising that Enronian Economics has taken over Washington. Both the Texas-based firm and the Texas-based president have so much in common.” Keep an eye on these strained analogies, would you? If you find any, let me know.

WHY MARRIAGE WON’T BE NATIONALIZED: One of the unfounded scare tactics of the anti-gay right has been the notion that civil marriage rights for gays in any one state will automatically mean their exportation across the country. Constitutional scholars know this is extremely unlikely. But here’s one of the first test cases that shows it. A Georgia court has denied a lesbian couple full visitation rights to the children of one of the mothers. If their civil union were a marriage, they would have such rights. They don’t. They should, in my opinion. But that’s for the voters and courts of Georgia to decide.

COLIN POWELL, LOYAL BUSHIE: This is a line I’ve been pushing for some time. The secretary of state, far from being some lone liberal dissenter, is a full administration participant in the war on terrorism. Michael Ledeen, who knows his Machiavelli, gets this exactly right in National Review Online. Eventually, the administration’s critics, instead of producing tortured interpretations of bad polls, will actually realize that this president is far sharper than most people think and begin to mount a credible opposition. Until then, Colin Powell will keep playing the part, absorbing criticism, deflecting animosity, and – oh so subtly – winning the game.

THE SWAMP OF BIGOTRY: You thought I was tough on Daniel Jonah Goldhagen’s anti-Catholic screed in the New Republic. Check out Michael Novak’s moving outrage on National Review Online. Here’s a sample: “‘The anti-Semitism of the intellectuals,’ Peter Vierek once shrewdly remarked, ‘is anti-Catholicism.’ In its January 21 issue, The New Republic has sunk into the swamp of bigotry as low as it could go. It gave 25 pages to Daniel Jonah Goldhagen so that he could offer Catholics a theological interpretation of what their faith entails, and hint broadly that the Church deserves destruction as an ally of the anti-Christ and enemy of humankind.” I’m not as forgiving of my own Church as Novak seems to be, but his points are telling nonetheless. He crystallizes part of my own sadness at the article – its mocking, disingenuous tone toward the very essence of the Catholic faith, i.e. the belief in Jesus as the Son of God. The idea that this is an inherently anti-Semitic idea is so extreme, so intolerant, so poisonous of any fruitful Catholic-Jewish dialogue that it is really hard to see how the essay could have been written out of anything but spite.

KUDLOW VERSUS KRUGMAN: One Enron pundit takes on another.

KLEIN ON THE NEW YORK TIMES: “The Times’ domestic policy “reporting”-on issues like health insurance, welfare reform, race, and religion-has long languished in a niche between the New Republic and The Nation; I don’t suspect that will change.” That’s from Joe Klein, a liberal Democrat with some centrist edges, certainly no member of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. And people wonder why “Bias” is at Number 1.

Great minds think alike. Mickey Kaus superbly skewers the propaganda masquerading as journalism under Rick Berke’s by-line. Must-read. Memo to Raines: you can’t get away with it any more. The bloggers are on your case. (One of the joys of blogging is that I can see that I beat Mickey to the punch on this by 4 hours and 15 minutes precisely. But there’s so much flim-flam in the Times story that the two pieces barely overlap.)