Author: Andrew Sullivan

Check out a superb and judicious piece by Ron Bailey on the ad hominem trashing of Bjorn Lomberg, the author of the riveting book, “The Skeptical Environmentalist.” It’s almost a case-study in how the left is often way too defensive and hostile about critiques of liberal orthodoxy. Real liberals welcome criticism. Phony ones want to shut it down. The piece is on TechCentralStation.com, a great site for those interested, as I am, in the interaction of politics and technology – perhaps the cutting edge of the next generation’s cultural and political debate.

SCIENCE AGAIN: Speaking of science, I’m really proud to have been included in this year’s “Best American Science Writing 2001,” edited by Timothy Ferris. My piece on testosterone – hammered but not disproven by hard-left feminists – is included. But there are some other great pieces in there – from Malcolm Gladwell, Stephen Hall and Joel Achenbach – and even a poem from john Updike. A great Christmas gift (and I get no royalties from recommending it.)

ANTI-ASHCROFT SPIN: Typically sharp item by Mickey Kaus on the Washington Post’s front-page piece, citing old FBI hands’ trashing of Ashcroft’s detention of terrorist suspects. When Mickey’s on, he’s on.

“How does it feel to the rest of the world to see the care lavished on the parings of American bodies in death, such as no complete third world body ever receives in life? What do they think in the Indian town where 20,000 died in an earthquake earlier this year? I couldn’t remember Bhuj’s name, perhaps because it disappeared off our TV screens within a week. Here’s a consumer’s guide to our hierarchy of death. If you want yours to signify in the media and public debate, and your relatives to be decently compensated, make sure you a) are white, and b) a westerner, c) die quickly, dramatically, and spectacularly (not slowly of a disease of poverty or occupational illness), and that d) your death is witnessed by millions, preferably on television; e) if possible, own a mobile.” – Anne Karpf in the Guardian, complaining about the efforts to identify the dead at Ground Zero.

A terrific op-ed by Rush today in – yes – the Washington Post. I know, I know, it’s partisan, but it’s also extremely smart and very telling. I’m particularly happy to see the crack at Pat Leahy. The dumbest thing ever said about Limbaugh is that he’s dumb. (Memo to Rush: you’re made for weblogging. Join the gang.) But what’s more interesting to me is the media story here. Fred Hiatt’s op-ed page is really sharp these days – in sad contrast with the monochrome New York Times page where even Safire is anti-Bush. What’s different is that Hiatt isn’t afraid of actual conservatives – not conservatives only when they bash other conservatives – but the real variety. At the same time, the New York Observer is reporting on Conrad Black setting up a new rival to the Times in New York City. You know what this is all about? Diversity. Real diversity. And about time too.

In defense of Gore, Potter, Sirhan and … asbestos.

“This “war against terrorism” is in fact an open declaration of war against the peoples of the developing world; initially the peoples of the Middle East and Africa, and ultimately the peoples of South and Central America and the Caribbean, all Asia, the South Pacific and the islands of the Seas – – some four-fifths of humanity. It is a desperate attempt to meet and overcome this developing world’s growing challenge to the continuation of four centuries of European and American hegemonic domination, exploitation, suppression, insult and injury by its executors in America and Europe. In pursuit of this objective the events of September 11 are being used to justify the imposition of a wide range of military and socio-political measures gravely endangering democracy as we know it; measures that have as their objective the emergence of an authoritarian, military/corporate state in the U.S.A. This gives rise to serious question as to who really planned and executed the September 11 events.” – David Graham du Bois, BlackElectorate.com.

COHEN’S CHUTZPAH: “We were lax, lazy and self-indulgent. We’ve underfunded our military, police firefighters, nurses, doctors … people who drive our ambulances,” – William Cohen, former Clinton Defense Secretary, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “Underfunded our military?” What you mean “we”, Mr. Pentagon?

BUDDHISTS FOR WAR: Check out a highly informative piece on how many serious Buddhists in America are responding to the morality of fighting against terrorism. It’s in the invaluable website, beliefnet.com. My favorite quote: “When necessary, kill, but only out of wisdom and compassion.” That’s from the abbott of Zen Mountain monastery. Then there’s this passage: “Scholar Andrew Olendzki, Ph.D., of the Barre Center for Buddhist studies cites numerous stories to illustrate the point. In one past life, the Buddha is said to have killed a man who was about to murder 500 others. In another, the Buddha said that if, in order to save a choking boy, he had to cause injury he would do so. ‘My sense is the Buddha accepted that a certain amount of violence is built into the world situations,’ Olendzki says.”

WHOSE QUESTIONS?: “A precise death toll could not be determined, but the apparently large number of Taliban deaths, compared with the reported killing of about 40 Northern Alliance fighters, raised questions here about whether the violence was less an uprising than a massacre orchestrated by alliance troops.” – Keith Richburg, Washington Post, November 27. You’d think 40 dead prison guards would be a hefty enough number to give credence to the notion that this wasn’t a slaughter, but a nasty, if one-sided, battle. So why this interpretation? Richburg should at least tell us who’s casting suspicions on the Alliance so we can judge for ourselves.

MONKEY-FISHING?: James Taranto of OpinionJournal.com thinks I’ve been snookered by a site, usQueers.com, that’s supposed to be a parody. And USQueers.com does have its fair share of campy excess. But James is wrong. The site I’m worried about is serious, extensive, and the owner of it is real. He’s one Allan Ross, who told CNSNews.com that he was indeed unironic: “In a phone interview, Ross said he stands behind the content of his web site. But he added: ‘It’s certainly open to legal change if somebody points out that you’re crossing the line here and legally you’re saying, go out and do this, because we don’t want anybody to go out and do this. The whole idea here was to say that they deserve to die for what they’ve done. I’m not standing behind calling for the death or murder or anything like that of anybody on this list at all. Or anybody listed on our web site. We do not call to murder anybody or hurt them or even touch them,’ Ross said.” So why then, one wonders, is the early and horrible death of named individuals called for on the site “by any means”? Then see what you make of this. Earlier this year, the following incident occurred at First Southern Baptist Church in San Diego. One Allan Ross had to be subdued by San Diego police for attacking a Baptist minister, David Powell. According to the Baptist News, “Powell said Ross initially asked to speak with the pastor … Powell agreed to contact [Pastor] Lewis from the church office in the adjacent main building. As they were walking toward the office, Powell recounted that Ross revealed a jagged bottom of a glass bottle. ‘I will hurt you if I have to,’ Powell quoted Ross as saying. Powell said Ross also threatened to cut the artery in his neck and take his own life.” According to the Baptist Press, Ross then took Powell hostage until he called the media, wanting to broadcast an anti-Baptist message. Ross was eventually overpowered by police. This article from the Catholic World News identifies this criminal with the same Allan Ross of the usQueers.com site. And on the site itself is this statement: “B. Allan Ross, was arrested for three felony violations he allegedly committed at the First Southern Baptist Church of San Diego, including the two most likely to be pursued in court – kidnapping and holding the church’s janitor hostage.”

LAVENDAR FASCISM: So am I over-reacting? Sure, Ross represents a minuscule portion of gay culture. Sure, his site is fringe and obscure. And sure, Ross may well be a bit unhinged. But none of this makes his specific threats against named individuals any less real. In fact, it makes them more real. I guess it’s having been subjected to death-threats from far left gay activists myself that makes me realize these people are for real. (Last summer, a legit gay website, Datalounge.com, having fomented a vicious witch-hunt against me last spring, broadcast a specific threat to have my own “skull cracked open” in Provincetown. It took a week to get the owners to take the threat off the site, and they refused to apologize. They still won’t disown the death-threat.) The truth is these extremists are not parodists. And they’re not monkey-fishers. They’re dangerous cranks, who get a pass from the liberal gay establishment, so long as they keep terrorizing straights or non-p.c. gays. Again, I support their right to free speech. I don’t believe their site should be censored or shut down. But they are the gay equivalent of the anti-abortion murderers and the Klan. It’s time we said so – don’t you think, Mr Taranto? Or do we have to wait for the unthinkable to happen before we speak up?

Dan Kennedy of the Boston Phoenix takes another wack at LA Times columnist Robert Scheer, one of the most dishonest writers in the American journalism. I know some of you think I worry too much about Scheer’s lies, smears and propaganda, but he is so persistent in them – and in a major national newspaper – that I make no apologies.

FUERTHER MORE: Yes, I know Fuerth comes out for taking out Saddam at some time. But that’s the essence of New Democrat foreign policy: Talk tough; do nothing serious. Simply put, I don’t believe the spin. I think Fuerth and Gore support military action in the abstract and for domestic political reasons, but would never actually carry it out. Fuerth’s job is not to find reasons for intervention, but excuses for restraint. Gore at this moment would be paralyzed by the complexity of it all, a Hamlet-like response that simply puzzles the will and loses the name of action.

Check out Al Gore’s closest foreign policy adviser in the Washington Post today. It’s a classic. Saddam is a real threat; he endangers America and the Middle East. There is every reason to take him on urgently. But … not now. The reason? “U.S. forces will need to be rested after the campaign in Afghanistan.” Puh-leeze. Russia (with whom we have now created a strong alliance) and France – yes, France! – might complain. There’s a worry about “the Arab street.” Has Fuerth learned nothing from the past two months? And there is this classic piece of equivocation: “We certainly ought to cooperate with the Iraqi National Congress, but not be swept up in romanticism about its ability to operate effectively inside Iraq.” This, of course, is exactly what they once said about the Northern Alliance. So where should our next priority in the war against terrorism be? Er, well, somewhere other than Iraq. Where? Fuerth bravely posits “other parts of the world.” Gee, thanks, Leon. This piece is so profoundly incoherent, yet so spun in liberal diplo-speak, you can almost imagine Gore listening to a briefing along those lines, nodding his head, pulling on his beard, and saying, “Fascinating, Leon, fascinating.” And then he would conduct a seminar. Thank God he lost.

Encouraging news that the Harry Potter flick, one of the most pedestrian I have sat through in ages, saw its audience drop 36 percent in its second weekend. It’s still breaking every record in sight, but American movie-goers’ tastes haven’t gone completely wacko. I haven’t read the books which many, many people have told me are excellent (so please save your emails in that regard). But the movie was a terrible waste of time. The main protagonists were bad child actors, which is almost but not entirely a superfluous phrase. The rest was special effects and absurd little cameo performances by some great British stage stars. There was no plot; no structure; no memorable dialogue; no-one you could even vaguely care about. I can see why some kids would like it. But the night I saw it, grown women were shrieking “Harry! Harry!” as the movie started. I don’t know how to explain this phenomenon. Are they just desperate for relief? Or have they lost their minds? Maybe you can help.

WHAT HUMAN CLONING?: I’m a little confused about all the stories on human cloning in the press. For all the fuss, no-one has been cloned; even an embryo hasn’t been cloned; the experiments were not a success; the company that conducted them has run out of money. This is a story? The prize for not buying this savvy piece of media-manipulation goes to the New York Times, which runs a good piece today on the limits of the non-breakthrough. For the record, I’m against human cloning. But I’m also against media hype.

LETTERS: They’re back! Two Buddhists for war; a marine writes; why Powell’s military acumen is over-rated, etc.

ASBESTOS: Several of you have taken me to task for posting a piece on a rabidly anti-enviro website (check the Letters for an excellent rebuttal). I take the point. I’m not pro-asbestos. It kills people. I’m also not anti-environment. I was just passing on a reasonably interesting observation about the WTC. There’s always a danger on a site like this of linking to stuff you can’t completely vet or that might merely give some people more traffic than they deserve. The same argument goes for the usqueers.com site mentioned below. But my web philosophy is not to be risk averse, and to link to stuff that raises difficult or interesting questions, even when I disagree. Just keep me on my toes, will you?

THE RFK CONNECTION: A reader alerts me to an interesting quote buried deep in the Wall Street Journal’s Monday edition. It’s a wiretapped quote from the blind Sheik Omar who was discussing whether Islamic law would allow a bombing of the F.B.I.’s New York offices. “Slow down; slow down a bit,” the spiritual leader says. “The one who killed Kennedy was trained for three years.” Hmmm. Which Kennedy? Trained by whom?

“The war on terrorism has certainly raised our awareness of the ways in which women’s bodies are controlled by a repressive regime in a far away land, but what about the constraints on women’s bodies here at home, right here in America? … Whether it’s the dark, sad eyes of a woman in purdah or the anxious darkly circled eyes of a girl with anorexia nervosa, the woman trapped inside needs to be liberated from cultural confines in whatever form they take. The burka and the bikini represent opposite ends of the political spectrum but each can exert a noose-like grip on the psyche and physical health of girls and women.” – Joan Jacobs Brumberg and Jacquelyn Jackson, Boston Globe. Has it occurred to these writers that there is a difference between behaviors which are a function of free choice and behaviors that are mandated by law?

ASBESTOS AND THE WTC: An interesting article forwarded to me from a website called “Access To Energy” adds one more fact to the World Trade Center collapse. Apparently, in 1971, while the WTC was under construction, New York City banned the use of asbestos as a building material. The WTC was already under construction – but the floors above the 64th were yet to be built. It was those floors that didn’t have asbestos protection in the columns. ”If a fire breaks out above the 64th floor, that building will fall down,” argued Herbert Levine, an asbestos expert in the 1970s who wanted his firm to get the contract. I’m not qualified to judge the physics and chemistry of this, but the article is well worth a quick read – or filing under the header – Environmentalism’s Unintended Consequences.

MORE HATE FROM THE GAY LEFT: The far gay left is one of the most virulent hate-groups in the country. Tolerated by much of the gay media and beyond, their hate-filled and near-violent tactics are often ignored or tolerated by other gay men and women and liberal straights who should know better. Here’s a small taste of what some gay hate-groups are now up to. It’s a list of leading individuals the authors of the website “usqueers.com” want to see dead. The headline: “Wanted: To Experience A Horrible Death By Any Means Soon. Well-Known Het-Supremacists Deserve It As Their Reward.” Notice the phrase ‘By Any Means.” Are these people condoning murder? There then follows this statement:

“If a person on this list dies (preferably a horrible death), a line will be drawn through their name (and they will probably be added to our Good Riddance! list.) If a person on this list is merely wounded or debilitated in some way, we will change the color of their name to brown. NOTE: We’re just getting started on this list, but the type of information we will be listing here as it comes in includes anything such as Home Address, Home Phone, Office Address, Office Phone, Studio Address, Church Address, Girlfriend’s Address, Boyfriend’s Address, Favorite Hangouts (restaurants, etc.), Family Members, details about automobiles, just about anything which could be useful in spotting these dangerous het supremacists when they are wandering around loose. Organization information is also helpful, but mainly when it can be linked to specific het supremacists.”

They add a disingenuous disclaimer disavowing violence – but these are the very people who seize on even the slightest homophobic remark to argue that it leads to gay-bashing. Notice also their complete contempt for anyone’s privacy or personal dignity – a good indicator of a totalitarian mindset. Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for their free speech. And I’m no fan of many of the individuals they oppose. But this kind of extremist, personal rhetoric is simply disgusting. It’s equivalent to the hate-filled pro-lifers who discredit their cause by advocating the murder of abortionists. I don’t know where these people get their hatred from, but it is as real and as dangerous as any of the right-wing hate groups who also deserve censure. These people do as much damage to the cause of gay equality and civility as anyone on the far right. It’s time we stopped ignoring their evil.

Unsurprising pro-Powell spin by Bill Keller of the Times Magazine Sunday. I’ve never believed that Powell was shut out of the administration – he is much closer to Bush than many seem to think – but I don’t see, and am still not persuaded by Keller, that Powell is now in control of the administration’s foreign policy. Yes, he’s an important player in the diplomatic front for the war on terror, but haven’t the events of the last two weeks undermined him yet again? The campaign in Afghanistan must surely have strengthened the hands of Rumsfeld, Cheney and Wolfowitz – as the news that the administration is now extending its list of targets seems to suggest. Wouldn’t a profile of Rummy be more appropriate now? The most revealing tidbit of the piece, however, was the almost hysterical tone of the emails from former president Bush. It’s unarguable that Powell first opposed using force to repel Saddam from Kuwait, that he vastly over-estimated Iraq’s military capabilities, and that he betrayed the rebelling Iraqis by cutting the war short before Saddam had been toppled. So why does GHWB call Powell’s opposition to force “a grossly unfair, insupportable lie”? I guess it depends on exactly when Powell opposed force. Once ordered to deliver, I have no doubt that Powell did as he was told. But what about before? That’s the critical point, surely: not Powell’s military skills but his political and strategic judgement, which has been demonstrably wrong on every major foreign policy intervention in the last decade. But Powell, like many “moderate” Republicans, cannot bear to say he was once mistaken, and his real contempt seems to be for those within his own party who favor a more hard-headed approach to foreign affairs. Powell’s rolling of the eyes at Ronald Reagan’s legacy speaks volumes about Powell’s overweening arrogance, a quality not likely to be undermined by Keller’s source-pleasing Valentine. Too bad. And way too predictable.