Category: Old Dish

Taking me to task on my disapproval of Tim Noah and my confidence that one state’s legal gay marriage will not inevitably (or even probably) lead to national gay marriage. There’s also a devastating critique of Howell Raines’ attack on the integrity of the New York Times. Check them out. No squeamishness about intra-mural criticism here.

The MSNBC commentator, Jill Nelson, has just responded to my criticism of her statement that “As far as I’m concerned it’s equally disrespectful and abusive to have women prancing around a stage in bathing suits for cash or walking the streets shrouded in burkas in order to survive.” Here’s her letter, and my response:

Andrew Sullivan’s quote from my MSNBC.com column is taken out of context and serves to distort my position in order to further his own. This is both a cheap shot and bad journalism.

How “out of context”? The quote was consonant with the entire article’s equation of Western treatment of women and extreme Islam’s social and cultural enslavement of them. And what context would in any way affect the fatuousness of Nelson’s statement? Nelson doesn’t say. In any case, when you provide a link to the original article, you can hardly be accused of disguising the context.

It’s also inaccurate, manipulative and, in the current political and judicial climate in America, dangerous to say there is a “weird overlap” between my beliefs and those of violent radical Muslims. As for characterizing this 50-year-old African-American woman as among those who “hate free societies,” that simply shows Sullivan’s ignorance and arrogance, characteristics typical of those who feed daily at the trough of white male privilege.

Dangerous? What is Nelson suggesting? That any criticism of her moral equivalence amounts to inciting violence against her? If that’s the case, we’d barely have free speech at all. And the fact that I use the term “weird overlap” and later “bizarre moral equivalence” is precisely because I hold out hope that feminists of most kinds would resist this kind of moral idiocy. Then we have the first of several personal insults. I am arrogant and ignorant. I feed daily at “the trough of white male privilege.” There is no response to this, any more than there can be a response to any simple insult. But it’s telling how swiftly Nelson stoops to this gambit. I never personally insulted her. I just attacked her opinions.

Sullivan’s suggestion that I playa-hate Western societies where women “choose how they want to present themselves,” demonstrates no understanding of women’s roles in Western culture, contempt for feminists, and, possibly worst of all, that he has no women friends. If he had any, he’d know how difficult it is to find one woman in America who actually believes that the way she chooses to “present” herself is determined absent historical, cultural and political conditioning, expectations and constraints.

What world does Nelson live in? I count myself a feminist; and there are legions of feminists who don’t believe that a woman who chooses to enter a beauty contest is as oppressed as one who is forced to wear a burka from head to foot just to leave the house. “Difficult to find one woman in America” who would agree with me? Is she kidding? I’d say a huge majority of American women would agree with me. My point, after all, is not that Western women don’t live under some cultural and social constraints. My point is that this cannot be equated with the way they are treated in, say, Saudi Arabia.

As I made clear in my column, religious zealots make the world a terrifying place for all of us, particularly women, even as they profess to protect us, whether they’re Muslims fighting Christians in Nigeria or antiabortion Christians attacking women and bombing clinics in America. The simplistic “You’re either for me or agin me” calculations of an Andrew Sullivan or a George W. Bush — or an Osama bin Laden, come to think of it — only serve to make the world a more dangerous place than it already is. Now that’s saying something.

So now I’m as bad as Osama bin Laden. Because I distinguish between his view of women and the views governing the Miss World contest! And this is an argument? Nelson is also presumably unaware of my many, long-standing battles with Christian fundamentalists on a whole battery of questions. But when all you’re trying to do is insult someone, listening to their arguments is superfluous.

Finally, I’m offended and bored by Sullivan and all the other willfully oblivious white guys who thought they were immune from the world’s terrors – and worse, believe they had a divine right to be – until Sept. 11. Now, having experienced the terror that much of the world lives with every day, they respond by swinging their dicks around and threatening – with bombs or bombast – those who do not view the world as they do. Talk about cultural relativism, p.c. journalism, and decadent machismo! But then, what’s new? In spite of all the rhetoric about how the terrorist attacks “changed us,” the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Threatening? Whom have I threatened? All I’ve done is make an argument in a liberal publication. But this is too much for her victimized sensibility. Notice the racism again – “willfully oblivious white guys.” Notice also the sexism: “swinging their dicks around.” Can you imagine the fuss if some right-wing nut started complaining about women waving their privates around? Notice the thinly veiled homophobia: “he has no women friends.” If you want proof of the idea that the bile of the far left has become in some respects indistinguishable from that of the far right, just read this letter again. And notice also how little she has to say and how diligently she has learned to hate.

Why not appoint an ombusman from outside the New York Times to respond on a weekly basis on the editorial page to criticisms of the Times’ coverage? It’s what the Washington Post does. My suggestion: ask Jack Shafer. He’s sympathetic to Raines but no fool. The Times has got to stop acting like the Vatican and open itself up to scrutiny and debate. Hey, Pinch. Shut me and all the other critics up, for Pete’s sake. And do your paper a favor as well.

Is she a babe or what? And I say that from a position of complete disinterest.

The New York Times is going to run the previously censored columns on the Augusta controversy. A great victory for freedom of debate and good journalism. Unanswered questions: who made the call? Where does this leave Gerald Boyd’s memo? Is Raines secure?
P.S. Hilarious blooper in Newsweek’s headline: “Anderson and Arafat pieces on Augusta will be published this weekend.” Arafat?? I think they mean Araton. If it had been Arafat, Raines would have run the piece in an heartbeat.

The fish rots from the head down.

GAY MARRIAGE COMES TO BRITAIN: Well, they’re not going to call it marriage. But everything but the m-word seems now in the cards in Britain. What’s truly striking is that the brightest Thatcherite in the Tory party, Oliver Letwin, has also said that the Conservatives will back the move:

“Whilst we attach a huge importance to the institution of marriage we do recognise that gay couples suffer from some serious particular grievances,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “If what the government is coming forward with is indeed a set of practical steps to address a set of practical problems that affect people, then we will welcome them.” He denied that it would undermine the “special” status of marriage, insisting there was nobody in his party who saw a contradiction between believing in marriage and accepting that gay people have concrete grievances about their current legal status.

Contrast this with the hysterical response from some on the American far right, and you see the difference between conservatism and reaction. Rather than even go slow on this sensible reform, some American rightists want to meddle with the Constitution itself to stop this even being discussed.

The Iraqi deadline is fast approaching and it’s worth trying to figure out what could happen in the next few days. Saddam’s current ploy is to welcome inspectors as a way to prove he has no weapons of mass destruction. Without taking experts out of the country and interrogating them, the inspectors almost certainly won’t find any. That’s surely why the December 8 deadline is so important. It’s the first clear trip-wire for war. What if Saddam produces a list of mainly civilian-use technology and the Bush administration declares that it knows it’s incomplete. What then? The administration has long argued that the point of the U.N. inspections is not to find well-hidden weapons but to provide Saddam a mechanism by which to disarm completely. If his December 8 declaration is a lie, then Saddam is clearly violating the terms of the 1991 truce and the U.N.’s last chance option. So we declare war. We could be on a direct war-path by next week. In fact, I think it’s highly likely we will be. And then the counter-strikes in Northern Lebanon and throughout the West may well be ramped up. This is the calm before the storm. As snow blankets much of us, we should savor it while we can.

THE FRUITS OF AIDS ACTIVISM: Congrats to all the activists pummeling the drug companies for high-priced HIV drugs. The latest data show a 33 percent decline in new HIV drugs in the research and development pipeline since 1997. “We have lost the battle with the activists, and now the market is less profitable. The result is that we are spending less R&D time on anti-retrovirals. Why bother to innovate these products when any advance will not be profitable?” one drug company honcho tells TechCentralStation. There may be other reasons for the decline – a saturated market, a better winnowing out process for failing drugs – but the impact of the assault on the drug industry is almost certainly part of the picture. Now watch the mainstream media ignore this. Far better to run a fatuous piece by Bill Clinton on World AIDS Day than confront the real threat to drug innovation so critical to halt a fast-mutating virus.

GETTING IT:“I appreciate your attention to the tax haven absurdity in the Homeland Security Bill. One gripe: I wish you would stop using the phrase, so and so “gets it,” when they agree with you. The phrase implies some higher plane of knowledge that a select few attain when they tap into your opinions, or at least a point of view that you agree with. Those who disagree with you don’t just then disagree; they don’t get it; don’t understand; they’re stuck in the cave. It sounds a tad arrogant. Can’t one get it – and disagree?” – from the Letters Page today.

WHAT THE BRITS BAN: Here’s what happens when you don’t have a First Amendment. You not only get hauled into jail for insulting someone’s religion, you can’t even run TV commercials making fun of George Bush! An ad which portrayed the allegedly dumb president trying to put a video-cassette into a toaster was ruled too cruel. You could broadcast it on a regular, approved show – but not in an ad. Go figure.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “Tolerant, but not stupid! Look, just because you have to tolerate something doesn’t mean you have to approve of it! …”Tolerate” means you’re just putting up with it! You tolerate a crying child sitting next to you on the airplane or, or you tolerate a bad cold. It can still piss you off! ” – Mr. Garrison, South Park. More words of non-lefty wisdom from South Park can be found here. Warning: lots of naughty words but no “horrific, deplorable violence.”

KURTZ’S BAIT AND SWITCH: Stanley Kurtz is still insisting that the minute one state legalizes equal marriage rights for gays and straights, gay marriage will be nationalized. He therefore argues that we need to take the drastic step of barring gays from marriage in the U.S. Constitution itself. That’s how urgent he thinks this matter is; that’s how big a threat to the entire fabric of our society this is; that’s how likely such a nationalization is. I disagree – as do the vast majority of Constitutional scholars. In his first piece, Kurtz propagated the idea that the Full Faith and Credit Clause will mandate such a nationalization. Presented with legal evidence that shows that that clause has never succeeded in nationalizing one state’s marriages and that it is extremely unlikely to be successful in doing so in the future, he has now wisely reverted to another argument. This time, he argues that same-sex marriage may one day be nationalized the way inter-racial marriage eventually was – not by full faith and credit but by an equal protection argument. In fact, he now believes that equal protection arguments are far more likely to nationalize same-sex marriage than Full Faith and Credit. Well, I’m glad he’s acknowledged that the scare tactics by the far right on Full Faith and Credit are just that. That was the point of my post earlier this week; and he has essentially conceded the point.

EQUAL PROTECTION: As to equal protection, you could indeed argue that granting a very basic civil right to a majority and denying it to a minority is an obvious case of inequality. Perhaps one day in the distant future, SCOTUS will see this. I certainly hope so. But is it likely now? Or immediately? Or even soon? One should recall that it’s still constitutional in some states to single out gays in the privacy of their own homes and arrest them for sexual acts that, when performed by hetersoexuals, are entirely legal. (With any luck, SCOTUS is going to end that blatant injustice soon. And Kurtz, to his great credit, supports such a move.) But it’s a huge leap from there to the Court’s mandating gay marriage across the country on the grounds of equal protection. I don’t know many scholars or legal observers who expect SCOTUS to take such a drastic meaure any time in the distant future. Of course, it’s possible (whereas using Full Faith and Credit is almost certainly impossible). But it’s extremely unlikely. Remember it took well over a century for the Court to rule on inter-racial marriages in this way. The relevant question is whether it is so likely in the short term that we have to take the drastic step of amending the Constitution of the United States itself to prevent such a thing from happening. That’s where Kurtz and I disagree. I believe individual states should be able to decide for themselves. I believe that state courts – where marriage questions rightly belong – should also rule on a state-by-state basis. I think that when that happens, other states should have the chance to recognize or not recognize such out-of-state marriages acording to their own laws, constitutions and public policy. I hope that when that process unfolds, and marriage is seen to be profoundly strengthened (rather than weakened) by including everyone in its reach, fears will give way to evidence and we’ll eventually have marriage rights for all. It will take time and persuasion and argument and experience, but that’s the genius of a federal system, a system Kurtz wants to upend. I want that slow federal process to take place. Kurtz wants to pre-empt it now by writing an anti-gay plank into the Constitution of the United States. He wants to prevent the process even starting. I think that’s unconservative, anti-federal, extremist and deeply divisive. W
hich is as good a description of some elements of the far right (and the far left) in this country as you can find.

It’s been a big week at the New York Times. My sources tell me morale is at or about bottom as Howell Raines continues his manic attempt to corral news stories and now columns to reflect a party line. The Times has now run over 40 stories or columns on the Augusta National Golf Club non-story, all parroting the same line. The resignation of one out of around 300 club members made it to the front page of a national newspaper. The Times has now spiked two dissenting columns and, according to the columnists, the reason was their dissent from the official position. Even a Raines defender, Jack Shafer, has given up, while Raines’ critics, ahem, are feeling vindicated. Perhaps sensing how much damage has been done to the Times’ reputation, Gerald Boyd, Howell Raines’ underling, sent out this priceless leaked memo yesterday. Boyd is unapologetic about the Times’ crazed fascination with the Augusta National Golf Club, comparing it in the same sentence with the need to report on Afghanistan: “There is only one word for our vigor in pursuing a story – whether in Afghanistan or Augusta. Call it journalism.” Boyd then denies that the two columns were spiked for ideological reasons. But his memo shows nothing of the kind. First off, Boyd concedes that David Anderson’s piece was spiked because it took on the position of the editorial page. But isn’t that exactly what the Times is accused of? Here’s the rationale:

One of the columns focused centrally on disputing The Times’s editorials about Augusta. Part of our strict separation between the news and editorial pages entails not attacking each other. Intramural quarreling of that kind is unseemly and self-absorbed. Discussion of editorials may arise when we report on an issue; fair enough. But we do not think they should be the issue.

Where to start with this? First off, a self-confident paper would be perfectly happy to have some internal debate. Second, if you really had to, you could ask the columnist to remove the direct reference to the Times editorial page and make his argument instead. But notice the slipperiness of this Boyd’s logic in any case. Intramural civility is the rule. Which means no open disagreement with the editorial page. Which is dictated by Raines. So “civility” is a euphemism for conformity – especially on contentious issues. And then notice how self-defeating it is. The fact is that the Times has become “the issue” – but not because of dissenting columnists but because of the ham-fisted way in which those columnists have been treated.

THE SELF-DEFEATING MEMO: Perhaps sensing the circularity of his “civility” argument, Boyd then says that Anderson had already written a column, “arguing on October 6 against pressuring the golf club to admit women,” and a second would be too much. But a look at the October 6 piece by Anderson reveals no such thing. The piece makes no such argument; and in fact, clearly steers clear of any argument at all. Sure, Anderson reports on locals’ views that they see nothing wrong with Augusta’s men-only policy. But he also reports on those who sharply disagree. Here’s the whole column so you can see what I mean or make your own mind up. In fact, it’s less a column than a report, and in much of its language, betrays a certain condescension to the club:

Sports of The Times; Augusta National’s Neighbors Wonder What All the Fussin’ Could Be About
AUGUSTA, Ga. — AT the leafy entrance to the Augusta National Golf Club, the green iron gate next to the sentry box is slammed shut, barring access to Magnolia Lane and the white plantation clubhouse above the course where the Masters is played every April. Along the property’s perimeter, green canvas covers the tournament’s parking-lot gates between the tall pine trees and thick bushes that tower above the traffic on Washington Road.
In the weeks before the club will reopen after its usual five-month summer nap, Augusta National resembles a Confederate Army camp under siege.
And it is. The attack is with words and threats from the Washington-based National Council of Women’s Organizations: Admit a woman as a member. But most of Augusta National’s neighbors here seem to wonder what all the fussin’ is about.
Its golf neighbor is the serene Augusta Country Club, where tall pines separate the fairway of its 388-yard par-4 ninth hole from Augusta National’s famous 12th hole down there in Amen Corner where Rae’s Creek flows.
During a recent Masters, as Tiger Woods was near the 12th green, a stray shot from that ninth fairway somehow landed harmlessly near him.
”I don’t know how that ball ever got through those trees,” Henry Marburger, the Augusta Country Club’s general manager, was saying Friday. ”It had to be a freak shot, an embarrassing shot. Whoever hit it never owned up to it.”
Of the Augusta Country Club’s 1,300 members, according to Marburger, 900 are golf members, including ”30 or 40” women and ”some African-American” members. About 25 are also Augusta National members.
”If you polled any group, the opinions would be mixed,” Marburger said, alluding to Augusta National’s controversy, ”but I’m sure more of our members would be pro-National. They like the National a great deal. It’s part of our society. And during the Masters many of our members are gallery marshals there. They look forward to that.”
Opened in 1899, the Country Club was ”the” golf course in Augusta long before the National opened in 1933. Bobby Jones often traveled 130 miles from his Atlanta home to play at the Augusta Country Club. In 1930, Jones, a career amateur, prepared for his Grand Slam by winning the Southeastern Open at the Augusta Country Club by 15 strokes over the best pros of that era.
”Bobby Jones was an honorary member here,” Marburger said.
In Augusta, where there’s a Bobby Jones Expressway, don’t expect much dissent at the Country Club for whatever happens at the National, which Jones founded. And among the National’s other neighbors, the businesses across Washington Road from the club entrance, dissent was the exception.
At the International House of Pancakes, the manager, Lynn Smith, a divorced mother of two, shook her head.
”I agree with what the National’s doing,” she said. ”It’s been like that forever, no women members. I’m a women’s libber, but it’s a man’s thing over there.”
At the Clubhouse, a green-and-white banquet-reception hall where corporate groups gather during the Masters, the owner, Terry Wick, shrugged. ”I don’t see where it’s an issue either way,” he said. ”I can see the women’s side of it, but why would you want to make it an issue?”
At the nondenominational Whole Life Ministries, the senior pastor, Dr. Sandra Kennedy, was in Atlanta, but its property manager, Howard Gaither, nodded.
”Our pastor is a woman,” he said, ”but from the few comments I’ve heard around here, it seems ridiculous for a woman to break into the club. It’ll take a miracle for a woman to be a member there. It’s a private club. They can do what they like.”
Like the Clubhouse, the Ministries’ income is improved by the Masters; it leases its 700-space parking lot the week of the Masters. Another neighbor, Windsor Jewelers, also does a brisk business during Masters Week.
”The National is a good, quiet neighbor,” Donald Thompson, Windsor’s owner, said. ”Everybody I’ve talked to here, the Augusta Women’s Club, the Junior League, they say they don’t want any men in their clubs either. Many of them play golf at the National anyway. Locally, we don’t see it as a big deal. If you don’t like what the National is doing, you don’t have to go to the Masters.”
But at the Food Lion, the local outlet for the South’s popular supermarket chain, a dissenting voice was heard.
”Pers
onally, I’m not for exclusion of any sort,” said Tony Clark, a 34-year-old African-American who is an assistant manager. ”It’s perceived here that the Masters takes over the city. It’s an intrusion that week for the people who live here.”
Clark remembered a customer, an elderly white woman, talking about William Johnson, known as Hootie, the Augusta National chairman.
”This lady hates the Masters,” Clark said. ”She told me: ‘Doesn’t he have a wife? What does his wife think about all this?’ ”
Mostly, or at least publicly, Augusta National’s neighbors were defending it along Washington Road. But neighbors usually stick together. Especially when heritage or dollars are involved.

Now, does that read to you like a column “arguing against pressurizing the golf club to admit women”? A column that analogizes the club to a Confederate Army Camp? A column that ends by implying that defenders of the club are motivated by money? And yet this is the basis on which Boyd argues that Anderson’s “freedom to argue that way was not – is not – in question.” The truth is: Anderson’s freedom to argue that way is precisely what’s at question. And Raines knows it.

THE SECOND SPIN: The second spiked piece was turned down, according to Boyd, because its logic wasn’t sound enough. I will resist the temptation to point out that they publish Maureen Dowd twice a week, but this line is just as dubious. It’s impossible to know whether it has any validity without reading the drafts. But suffice to say that I’ve had plenty of editors in my time who have not seen the “logic” in an argument with which they disagree. And the way in which Boyd described Anderson’s October 6 column suggests the Times’ editors’ view of logic is somewhat subjective. Here’s the only way in which the Times can now prove to their readers that their columnists actually are free to argue what they believe: run the two columns and prove me wrong.

I spoke too soon. Read John DiIulio’s letter to Esquire about the Bush administration. If I were in the White House, I’d take large parts of it to heart. It’s sane, smart, generous when merited, no more than usually self-interested and at times very telling. There is a lack of a coherent, compelling social policy agenda in this administration. And some of this seems to come from an overly politicized and intellectually incurious management:

Every modern presidency moves on the fly, but, on social policy and related issues, the lack of even basic policy knowledge, and the only casual interest in knowing more, was somewhat breathtaking – discussions by fairly senior people who meant Medicaid but were talking Medicare; near-instant shifts from discussing any actual policy pros and cons to discussing political communications, media strategy, et cetera. Even quite junior staff would sometimes hear quite senior staff pooh-pooh any need to dig deeper for pertinent information on a given issue.

One exception was stem-cell research. But after that, the well runs dry. DiIulio is particularly shrewd about healthcare policy:

During the campaign, for instance, the president had mentioned Medicaid explicitly as one program on which Washington might well do more. I co-edited a whole (boring!) Brookings volume on Medicaid; some people inside thought that universal health care for children might be worth exploring, especially since, truth be told, the existing laws take us right up to that policy border. They could easily have gotten in behind some proposals to implement existing Medicaid provisions that benefit low-income children. They could have fashioned policies for the working poor. The list is long. Long, and fairly complicated, especially when – as they stipulated from the start – you want to spend little or no new public money on social welfare, and you have no real process for doing meaningful domestic policy analysis and deliberation. It’s easier in that case to forget Medicaid refinements and react to calls for a “PBOR,” patients’ bill of rights, or whatever else pops up.

The result is a slow drift toward socialized medicine, as dictated by the agenda of the Democrats. Ditto with education, where Teddy Kennedy has had more influence than any Republican, neocon or neolib. I understand why the war has usurped some of these priorities – and rightly so. But the lack of any substance behind the domestic agenda is a very worrying sign – and one reason, I think, that Bush’s re-elect numbers are so low. People like what he’s done but have no clear idea of what he wants to do domestically in the byears ahead. Reading DiIulio, I wonder if the president does either.

FISKING THE SOCIAL RIGHT: Stanley Kurtz gets the full treatment from young libertarian, Julian Sanchez.

No dissent allowed in the New York Times. Writers who don’t follow the party-line are purged. Now Pulitzer Prize winners are spiked; and sports columns killed, because they don’t conform to the views of the big guy. Howell Raines surely understands the spirit of open debate, doesn’t he?