Category: Old Dish

“Rolling Stone: Have you seen “Fahrenheit 9/11”?

Clinton: I have.

Rolling Stone: What did you think?

Clinton: I think every American ought to see it. As far as I know, there are no factual errors in it, but it may connect the dots a little too close — about the Saudis and the Bushes, and the terror and all. I’d like to see it again before making a judgment about whether I think it’s totally fair.” – from Rolling Stone’s interview with the former president.

WHAT CLINTON GOT RIGHT: I have to say, though, that part of Clinton’s analysis of the past two years is spot on. Here’s where I thought he got it right:

RS: I’m interested that you expressed a cautious admiration for [the Bush administration’s] political skill. Any other places where you looked and said, “Boy, that’s good”?

Clinton: Well, no. I would say, though — you know, one of the great things in politics that you have to know is when not to play a card — because you might win a hand and lose the match. And that’s the mistake, I think, they made in 2002. President Bush would have been far better off in his reelection if he’d let the natural rhythm of 2002 unfold and let the Democrats pick up a few seats. We would have held the Senate and maybe increased our margin by one or two; the House would be very close. But it would have compelled him to take a more moderate position.

That’s why I think the Dems may do better this year than expected, both in the Congress and the presidential race. Usually, discontent with a president is vented in mid-term elections – especially the kind of discontent fostered by something like the 2000 recount. But that didn’t happen. In fact, there’s been no electoral venting at Bush yet. Just as Clinton was paradoxically saved by the 1994 Republican victory, Bush may be damned by the 2002 results – and the Rove-orchestrated hubris they spawned.

Steve Chapman has a superb essay on Slate, delineating the GOP’s long slide away from Goldwater’s embrace of states’ rights. The FMA is the worst example, but there are many others. Chapman gives one reason for the change:

[W]hat alienated Republicans from federalism? It’s not simple hypocrisy. True, their sympathy for states’ rights was partly the product of a historical accident. From the New Deal onward, state governments were generally less activist than the federal government, where the legislature was under almost unbroken Democratic control for half a century. So, conservatives preferred to keep decision-making in places where they could prevail. But their fondness for states’ rights also stemmed from conservatives’ sincere distrust of government power and their belief that one crucial way to constrain it was to diffuse it among 50 capitals instead of channeling it all into one.
That perspective lost much of its appeal once the GOP found it could not only elect presidents with reasonable consistency but also dominate Congress as well. Virtue is harder to practice once temptation is beckoning.

I think that’s true. But I also believe the fusion of Republicanism with fundamentalist Christianity is also antithetical to the federalist impulse. If you believe you are right, and you believe that God is behind you, it becomes much harder to allow others to try other things or experiment or differ. That doesn’t just apply to people, but to states as well. Today’s Republicans, when it comes to something like, say, medical marijuana, cannot get past their visceral hostility to individuals’ experiencing pleasure or even medical help not licensed by their God. So they seek to ban it – quick. If that means violating states’ rights, so be it. Religious zeal as well as hypocrisy and opportunism are the factors here. None is conducive to the tolerant spirit of principled conservatism.

QUOTE OF THE DAY II: “American policy in Iraq since the fall of Baghdad has been incompetent. Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, used too few troops to secure the borders or to capture the stockpiles of weaponry. Disbanding Iraq’s security forces was a foreseeable error. Backing Ahmed Chalabi for president flew in the face of wise counsel. The blitz on Falluja was a military and diplomatic catastrophe. The rather good interim government of Iraq that took power last week emerged in spite of, not because of, the United States…
I begin to think the West can purge itself of American misdemeanours only by some symbolic sacrifice. Rumsfeld would have done nicely had the president dismissed him over the Abu Ghraib horrors. He signally failed to do it. Now only the defeat of the Republican administration will suffice.
Senator John Kerry does not impress. Whereas the president has difficulty in stringing two words together, the Democratic candidate can say nothing in fewer than four long sentences, which is worse. The main charge against Kerry – a telling one -is that he is inconsistent. But is Bush less so? Was not this president elected on a platform of disengagement and did he not go on to fight two foreign wars? Did he set out for battle despising the UN and America’s former allies in “old Europe”, and does he not now grub about for their moral and practical support? … For America to brush away its recent disgraces, the electorate will have to bin this administration. I never expected to say this to my American friends: vote Democrat.” – Michael Portillo, one of the leading lights of the British Conservative party, and a staunch pro-American, in the Times of London, July 4.

ANOTHER BUSH NOMINEE: This one believes that wives should be subservient to their husbands. Well, the Bible says so! And that’s how you interpret the Constitution, isn’t it? And if the Constitution suggests otherwise, you can always amend it or strip courts of the ability to review legislation. Today’s Santorumized GOP: gays in “conversion therapy,” women in the kitchen, blacks in the front row of the convention line-up.

The summer campaign I predicted last May has now been stepped up in the House. The bill that passed yesterday singles out gay citizens and denies them access to the federal courts to defend their right to marry. Does the Defense of Marriage Act violate the constitution? Then amend the constitution, most Republicans say. If you cannot amend the constitution, knee-cap the courts. And all this is defended with the rhetoric of a man like James Sensenbrenner, who declared, “Marriage is under attack!” By whom, sir? All gay people want is to join civil marriage, and be an equal part of their own families. To describe this deep human need, this conservative impulse, as an “attack” on an institution revered by many homosexuals and their families is itself a piece of callous demonization. And the precedent is chilling. If gays can be singled out and denied access to the courts, why not other minorities? Blacks? Hispanics? If the Republicans can do this to exclude gays from access to the courts, why couldn’t Democrats one day do it to prevent conservative Christians? I loved this quote from a news story:

The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said it could find no precedent for Congress passing a law to limit federal courts from ruling on the constitutionality of another law, although Democrats said opponents of civil rights legislation tried to do the same thing.

Yes, today’s Republicans are now the inheritors of those Democrats who did all they could to prevent African-Americans from winning their civil rights.

A QUESTION OF RESPECT: Here’s a simple question: Can you think of any other minority targeted by a single party for discrimination? Did the GOP cushion this by saying anything in defense of gay people or families? Did they signal that they could support, say, civil unions? Did they say this gag on the courts was sufficient and the FMA was now redundant? Nah – they promised to amend the Constitution as well, if they can. The only faintly civil impulse is the president’s declaration that the debate should be conducted with respect. I will grant the president the benefit of the doubt on this if and when he ever says the words “gay and lesbian citizens.” It is the first mark of respect to call people by their name. But he won’t. We are unmentionable to him – because if he ever named us, he would humanize us, and if he humanized us, it would become clear how divisive his policies are. I am amused by the fuss made by Bush’s refusal to visit the NAACP, and go to the Urban League instead. Isn’t it telling that no one even asks whether the president has met with any group representing millions of his fellow gay Americans? Think about that for a minute. It will tell you a lot about this president’s ability to be a uniter of this country. Some in the gay world have gone out on a very long limb to defend this president on the war, and even endorsed him when he promised to be inclusive. He has rewarded them with this kind of gambit. What are they supposed to do in return? Campaign for him?

Here’s a video of a 1903 cakewalk. The photograph was originally titled “An amusing cake walk, by a company of New York darkies who excel in this line of work.” Here’s a poster for such a thing, with the title: “Loony Coons.” Another one is called “Chocolate Drops.” There are others, including one called “Jolly Pickanninies.” I don’t think there’s much doubt, ahem, about the racist message.

A couple of knowledgeable readers have pointed out a wrinkle in the HIV super-infection study I cited earlier today. The study doesn’t provide any data on the viral loads of the HIV-positive individuals who did not experience super-infection or did not re-infect anyone else. It does suggest that very high levels of virus in the bloodstream (or semen) could make re-infection possible – that’s why the only case found was someone who had just sero-converted, when viral levels often go through the roof. But many healthy HIV-positive men have low viral loads – especially those on meds, who often have loads close to zero – and so, broadly speaking, my point holds. Two HIV-positive men with low viral loads are extremely unlikely to reinfect each other. That is a finding that should be explored in our attempt to find new ways to control the epidemic.

“The key question in this election is whether we want a wartime or a peacetime president. In this respect, the contest most closely resembles the Winston Churchill-Clement Atlee battle of 1945. With World War II just recently won in Europe but still raging in the Pacific, British voters opted to back a candidate they trusted on healthcare, jobs and social services rather than on Churchill whose wartime leadership they valued highly.
Events, more than anything else, will determine which issue has priority in our minds. The ironies abound.
If Bush succeeds too well in quelling international terrorism, he could do himself out of a job, encouraging voters to assign higher value to domestic and economic issues and hence to the Kerry candidacy.” – Dick Morris, today.

“Wartime leaders have always faced the worst fear: defeat in battle. But in democracies at least, war-leaders also confront another danger: success. The qualities that make for great statesmanship in wartime – determination, a single focus on victory, a black-and-white conviction of who is friend and foe – can often seem crude or overbearing when peace comes around. The most dramatic example of this in Western history is, of course, Winston Churchill. It is no exaggeration to say that, without him, Britain may well have been destroyed by Hitler. He was the difference between victory and defeat. But almost the minute that victory was declared, the voters turned on their hero. He lost the post-war election. Even more striking, he lost it in one of the biggest electoral landslides in Britain’s parliamentary history. He wasn’t just defeated. He was buried…” – yours truly, Time, March 1, 2004.

More evidence that many parts of our agricultural industry – even with chickens now – is, with respect to treatment of animals, a moral disgrace. Money quote:

The group said its investigator also obtained eyewitness testimony about employees “ripping birds’ beaks off, spray-painting their faces, twisting their heads off, spitting tobacco into their mouths and eyes, and breaking them in half — all while the birds are still alive.”

Just incredible – but perhaps unavoidable in a food industry that often treats animals with contempt and cruelty. (If you care about these issues, can I recommend again Matthew Scully’s moving and important book, “Dominion.”)

MORE CAKEWALKING: A reader writes:

Thirty years ago in the small West Virginia town where my father grew up, I participated in what was billed as a “cakewalk.” The contestants simply walked around in a circle. One person standing just outside this circle was blindfolded and held a broom. At his whim he let the broom fall across the path of the circling contestants. If the broom fell behind you, you won the cake. Thus I have always assumed that a “cakewalk” referred to something accomplished by blind luck, without any element of skill. Perhaps this Appalachian contest, helps explain the etymology of the first definition of “cakewalk” provided by your reader.

I found this paragraph in the Washington Post account a little surreal:

The government source said the Archives employees were deferential toward Berger, given his prominence, but were worried when he returned to view more documents on Oct. 2. They devised a coding system and marked the documents they knew Berger was interested in canvassing, and watched him carefully. They knew he was interested in all the versions of the millennium review, some of which bore handwritten notes from Clinton-era officials who had reviewed them. At one point an Archives employee even handed Berger a coded draft and asked whether he was sure he had seen it.
At the end of the day, Archives employees determined that that draft and all four or five other versions of the millennium memo had disappeared from the files, this source said.

This suggests that Berger was trying to purloin potentially embarrassing data on his tenure. That’s astonishing. Meanwhile, the New York Times finally puts the story on A1 – but only as a device to finger the Bush administration. C’mon, Keller. You can do better.

More evidence of a “collaborative relationship.”

Who said the following: “This broad agenda we will carry into the new term comes from a basic conviction: Government should never try to control or dominate the lives of our citizens. Yet government can and should help citizens gain the tools to make their own choices and to improve their own lives.” It was Bush last night. It’s the exact formulation Bill Clinton used to use. Bush, however, has provided no firm details for his proposals for healthcare and education. We’ll see, I guess.

TEN YEARS OF BLAIR: It’s a decade and a day since Tony Blair became leader of the Labour Party in Britain and Oxblog gives him a worthy tribute:

He has reinvigorated centrism in Britain, as the DLC and similar organisations did for the United States. Again like his transatlantic partner [Clinton], Blair’s mark was to make many of the economic reforms of Thatcherism palatable to the left. As a result, the British economy has in our lives never been stronger. Whereas a quarter-century ago it had fallen past the Federal Republic of Germany and France, and was about to fall past Italy as well, it is now closing in on Germany for the European crown, and its per capita GDP mark it as the second richest country in Europe past Luxembourg.

I’d add, however, that this achievement is essentially parasitic. Thatcher restored Britain’s economy, and John Major made that transformation permanent. Blair merely made it palatable. He has failed to reform the public services in any fundamental way, and has an unfortunate authoritarian streak when it comes to civil liberties. Nevertheless, he has made Britain safe for capitalism, helped liberate the Iraqi and Afghan people from vile despotisms, made the Bank of England independent, and the Tory party close to redundant. I often post stories predicting his demise. But I’m confident he’ll win the next election easily.

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “You have the highest quality reader letters (blog, newspaper, or magazine) I have ever seen. I have to admit, I am sometimes so mystified by your vehemence about minor phenomena (such as Michael Moore) that I start to wonder If you are kind of nutty. (I’m a middle-aged liberal woman from Massachusetts, maybe that’s why I don’t get it?) Then the reader responses you choose to display redeem you.” Indeed they do. Thanks to Reihan Salam for selcting the best ones – and to all of you for writing in. There’s more here.

BLOGS AND POLITICS: Dan Drezner has now co-produced a paper on the subject. He is an academic, after all.