Category: Old Dish

“On the eve of our great national birthday party and in the aftermath of Sept. 11, when millions of us turned to God and prayed for forgiveness of individual and corporate sins and asked for His protection against future attacks, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has inflicted on this nation what many will conclude is a greater injury than that caused by the terrorists.” – Cal Thomas, Washington Times.

CEO GREED: I’m with Gregg Easterbrook on pursuing the malfeasant CEOs who have essentially robbed shareholders while paying themselves exorbitant sums. Those of us who believe in free markets as the least worst way of organizing economies should be particularly incensed at this duplicity and larceny. But one reason for some restraint on the hype is precisely because so many liberals want to use these crimes as a rationale for enhancing government power over the economy, returning to the failed redistributionism and dirigisme of the past, and junking much of the free market gains of the last two decades. Gregg also fails to talk about bubble psychology as an essential context for these crimes. Such psychology excuses nothing. But it does help us understand why the last two years were particularly bad. On a minor note, am I the only one to object to setnences like the following: “Has conservatism reached the point that any development that transfers money to white male CEOs is deemed acceptable?” Why the “white male” interpolation? It’s factually accurate in the vast number of cases, but their gender and race is surely irrelevant to these CEO crimes. Can you imagine the New Republic publishing a similar phrase about “black males” in the context of, say, urban crime? Silly question.

THIS GUY’S SHIT DOESN’T STINK: In fact, it’s art. And worth more per ounce than gold. I kid you not. At least the artist, who died young, had a sense of irony about it. He wrote a friend, “I should like all artists to sell their fingerprints, or else stage competitions to see who can draw the longest line or sell their shit in tins. If collectors really want something intimate, really personal to the artist, there’s the artist’s own shit. That is really his.”

FISH’S REAL AGENDA: Here’s a good trip through a few of Stanley Fish’s more troubling statements. Here’s his defense of free speech:

‘Free Speech’ is just the name we give to verbal behavior that serves the substantive agendas we wish to advance…. Free speech, in short, is not an independent value but a political prize, and if that prize has been captured by a politics opposed to yours, it can no longer be invoked in ways that further your purposes, for it is now an obstacle to those purposes…. [S]o long as so-called free speech principles have been fashioned by your enemy . . . , contest their relevance to the issue at hand; but if you manage to refashion them in line with your purposes, urge them with a vengeance.

Now I know what Richard Goldstein has been reading.

RAINES WATCH: Even I was a little taken aback by the headline on Darcey Frey’s New York Times Magazine piece this weekend. It was: “The Bush administration is setting its oil-hungry sights on pristine wilderness areas beyond the Arctic refuge, some in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains.” Well, I guess they’re not even pretending any more.

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS: The weirdest use of the “What Would Jesus Do?” vulgarity just surfaced. And some thought minor abuse was just a Catholic problem.

STRAIGHT GUYS IN DENIAL: According to the Associated Press’s John Solomon, retiring Senator Fred Thompson is a real hottie. “Divorced since the mid-1980s,” Solomon wrotes, “Thompson has been one of Washington’s most eligible bachelors.” Check out the photo of the 59-year-old with his 35 year-old bride. What’s the betting that John Solomon is straight too?

“It’s also true that Clinton’s association with the boom years – and the way in which they clearly helped many middle class Americans – has deflected a coherent left-wing attack on the legacy of the 1990s. After the crash of 1987, the Democrats and liberals made every effort to portray the 1980s as a decade of greed, fomented by selfish Republicans. But that is politically much harder to do with the 1990s. It was an era when the Democrats finally managed to persuade Americans that they could manage the economy. Today, the Democrats don’t have any deep incentive to alter that perception. That’s why they want to link the current corporate excess with a Republican administration – a strategy undermined solely by the facts.” For more of this article, just posted, click here.

Peter Berkowitz has taken up the cudgels against Stanley Fish. His basic argument is that Fish’s claim that post-modernism simply means taking into account different views of the world is extremely disingenuous. If that’s all the pomos want, what’s the big deal? But of course, that isn’t really the post-modern claim. The claim is that there is no such thing as truth, that all truths are equivalent, that believing one over another is essentially arbitrary or a function of power relations. Or, as Peter puts it:

[T]he guiding theme of postmodernism is that objectivity, especially in morals, is a sham–in other words, precisely the definition Fish was disavowing in the Times. Postmodernists take their lead from Nietzsche’s famous aphorism in Beyond Good and Evil, “There are no moral phenomena at all, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena.” They draw inspiration and sustenance from the many books of the French theorist Michel Foucault, who held that the quest for truth in the study of history is wrongheaded–that, instead, one should seek to grasp “how effects of truth are produced within discourses which in themselves are neither true nor false.” And they (the postmodernists) consider as one of their outstanding contemporaries Judith Butler, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, who asserts that “power pervades the very conceptual apparatus that seeks to negotiate its terms, including the subject position of the critic”; that “there is no ontologically intact reflexivity to the subject which is then placed within a cultural context”; and that “agency is always and only a political prerogative.”

This, of course, is also the objection to my politics of homosexuality. For pomos, homosexuality is not a stable part of the human condition, no more than liberal politics is an eternal answer to the vicissitudes of unruly human nature. All these phenomena are merely a function of social construction, of the concatenation of power and meaning that is all that passes for truth in our world. The only important thing to do is to redefine the meaning of this phenomenon in subversive ways – undermining the fight against evil by equating terrorism with democracy, making something eternal in human nature “queer”. In this sense, the battle against terror and the fight for civil rights are closely connected. They are both struggles in defense of human reason and morality against nihilism and brute force. And they require re-fighting in every generation. This generation, in particular, has its work cut out.

GOOD NEWS IN THE WAR I: We’re quietly building up the Qatar base. It’s increasingly clear that Qatar is the beginning of the end for our Saudi connection. And with any luck, the beginning of the end for Saddam as well.

GOOD NEWS IN THE WAR II: The Bush-Putin relationship, the most important right now in global politics, is beginning to pay more dividends. In the end, of course, it’s about oil. Another slow maneuver away from the Saudis.

THE BELL-RINGER OF NOTRE DAME: The term “hunchback” is now verboten. It could offend those with the condition known as “scoliosis.” So a British Theater company has changed the name of its upcoming production, despite the fact that the entire story is about how someone overcomes the handicap of being stigmatized. How can you overcome a stigma when it’s already been removed? Oh never mind.

THOSE TOLERANT MUSLIM STATES: In an inspiring move, a Pakistani player, Aisamul Haq Qureshi, teamed up with an Israeli to play tennis doubles at Wimbledon. The team did well – with the Pakistani doing better in a major tennis tournament than any of his countrymen before him. His Israeli partner had the right attitude: “I didn’t even think about Qureshi being a Muslim until I went home and found out it was big news in Israel, that a Jew was playing with a Muslim,” he said. “I just thought of him as another tennis player, a human being. Maybe if we get far here we’ll do some good because people will see Muslims and Jews can be friends.” Qureshi was similarly non-political. But what was his country’s official response? “Although he is playing in his private capacity, we officially condemn his playing with an Israeli player and an explanation has been sought from him,” Pakistan Sports Board director Brigadier Saulat Abbas told the BBC. “Since Pakistan has no links with Israel, Qureshi may face a ban.” Now say after me: Islam means peace.

THOSE WONDERFUL D.C. COPS: Now they’re being investigated for actually vandalizing the Chandra Levy crime scene. Thanks to Josh Marshall for finding that staggering news in the deep recesses of the Washington Post.

CELIBACY AND TRADITIONAL CATHOLICS: Don’t believe the theocon hype. Even traditional Catholics don’t buy the celibacy arguments for the priesthood. Here’s an email that captures the mood:

So I’m with my in-laws for a few days. My wife’s grandparents were straight off the boat from Italy. These people are all what I think of as “old school Catholics”. As an agnostic-leaning-toward-Catholic, I’m probably the fringe of this group. The rest of them were all raised in Catholic homes during the fifties or earlier. They went to old traditional Catholic schools, and can recite horror stories of nuns with rulers along with the best of them. They formed most of their theological opinions pre-Vatican II, is my guess.

And what was the consensus opinion in this very Catholic group? “Priests should be able to marry.” “That’s a dumb rule.” “It’s not scripture.” And, in a really interesting twist on the old explanation for where the celibacy rule comes from: “It was put in place by one of the corrupt Popes so that when the priests died, the Church would inherit their property.” They’re also united in their scorn for the bishops who were accomplices to pedophilia. So even among this old school Catholic bunch who are otherwise representative of the worst of pre-sixties America (their blatant racism reminds me why conservatives have such a bad name among minorities), there’s a feeling that it’s time for some changes. I hope the Church is paying attention.

I hope so too.

It seems to me that Jeff Rosen gets it about right. The Supreme Court has made the perfectly sane decision that as long as the choice for religious education is the parent’s and not the state’s, then public money can be used for parochial schools. I’m vehemently opposed to more aggressive conservative funding directly for religious institutions, but I see nothing wrong with this. Given the appalling choices that many minority kids in big cities face, it also seems to me a powerful public interest to let them avail themselves of the best education they possibly can. The notion that kids are overwhelmed by the religious atmosphere of parochial schools is equally overblown. I went to a high-school that was state-funded in England, and whose official religion was Anglican. I went to Anglican services every morning, and the school assembly was actually held in the local church. But I can honestly say that nothing helped firm up my Catholicism more. This Supreme decision, especially in contrast with this week’s extremist ruling on the Pledge of Allegiance, strikes me as a very hopeful sign for the future of these issues. And for the hopes of a generation of kids. Now all we have to make sure is there there is an American Catholic church left to provide the education.

SOMEONE BLOGGED THE DEBATE: A relatively fair assessment, although in retrospect, I think I was too defensive and overly paranoid about the audience. And who says I’m “paunchy?” That’s a 32 inch waist, buddy.

“Yes, the “precogs” in Minority Report could see murders before they happened, but the bigger “theme” that Spielberg and the writers seemed to be aiming for was that the murderers-to-be also had a choice. Just like the Palestinians have a choice. And the Islamists. They can choose to sit at at a table and talk, negotiate and bargain (clearly anathema to Arafat), or they can choose to strap explosives to their bodies and violently kill innocent civilians (or fly planes into tall buildings for the same effect). Both may — or may not — produce the desired results, but it is that willingness to choose the more humane method that separates the civilized from the barbaric, the moral from the corrupt.” This, and more dissent on the Pledge of Allegiance and Palestine, an evisceration of Mary Eberstadt’s argument on pedophilia, a comparison between Arafat and Huge Chavez, and Bush’s Middle East speech seen in the Winthrop tradition. All on the smartest letters page on the web.

The pledge ruling won’t last. But it’s a great political issue for Republicans. Notice how the most liberal judges are the oldest. Notice also how Tom Daschle immediately ran for cover. This is the issue Bush’s dad rode to the White House. His son must be loving it.

EUROPEAN ANTI-SEMITISM: Abe Foxman is a bit of a hysteric, but this time he might be onto something. A survey of European attitudes toward Jews found some uncomfortable data:

Among the 2,500 people polled in late May and early June as part of our survey, 45 percent admitted to their perception that Jews are more loyal to Israel than their own country, while 30 percent agreed with the statement that Jews have too much power in the business world. Perhaps most telling, 62 percent said they believe the outbreak of anti-Semitic violence in Europe is the result of anti-Israel sentiment, not anti-Jewish feeling. The contrariness of their own attitudes suggests that Europeans are loath to admit that hatred of Jews is making a comeback.

Foxman is too blithe in dismissing the notion that disdain for Israel is the real reason for these attitudes. But he’s right to suspect that the extreme aversion to Israel is difficult to explain fully without assuming some anti-Semitic prejudice. More interesting, I’m beginning to pick up signs that American disdain at European anti-Semitism is provoking yet another backlash in the old continent. Each view may help reinforce the other, as Europeans assume that American support for Israel is a function of the Jewish lobby and Americans see that view as yet another sign of anti-Semitism. Not a virtuous cycle.

HOW STRAIGHT IS YOUR BANANA?: Yes, the European Union is interested. Terrorism is ok, but make sure your cucumbers curve correctly, or Brussels will be knocking at the door.

LUNCH AT FRED’S: Had lunch yesterday with Peter Kaplan, an old friend and editor of the New York Observer. We ate at Fred’s on top of Barney’s. What a scene. Almost the reverse of this website: 85 percent female. The table next to us – three twentysomething women over vast bowls of salad – could have been straight out of “Clueless.” Then there were the faces. This is something you see in New York more than elsewhere: older women with faces that, despite obvious surgery, still look mature, but with haircuts that come straight from Mademoiselle magazine. They all look like Madeleine Albright with Paula Zahn’s locks. The contrast is not a good one. A wig might be better. Or some kind of fashionable hair-styling that isn’t so, well, adolescent. Okay, I know this sounds a little catty, but it still strikes me that aging gracefully makes you look a lot younger than the alternative. The male equivalent is cutting balding hair really short. It’s reverse psychology: but making less of less hair makes it look as if you have more. Or maybe I’m just deluding myself.

HOW PHILISTINE IS JOE CONASON?: It used to be that conservatives reveled in being known as the Stupid Party. But here comes Conason with a sentence like this: “But testing credulity to the utmost, [Bush’s] aides boldly mentioned Aristotle’s The Nicomachean Ethics, a long disquisition on virtue as dull as any book by William Bennett…” Let’s put this nicely. William Bennett is no Aristotle. And Joe Conason is no William Bennett.

PERSONAL ADS? Here’s an email suggesting a possible revenue stream:

As a single, female, hetero, center-right, DC-resident, post-grad degree (2), 31-35, visits site more than once a day (also actively proselytizes), I think your reader survey spells selective personals gold mine. Where the NY Review of Books classifieds inevitably disappoint, you could come through.

Hmmm.

BUSH HELPS GAY PARTNERS: In the first ever federal acknowledgment of gay married couples, president Bush approved death benefits for the spouses of firefighters and cops killed in the WTC massacre. Quietly and undemonstrably, the Bush administration has shown that it is not hostile to the dignity of gay people and their relationships. It’s particularly appropriate that the bill is named after Father Mychal Judge. I wish Bush would do more, but most of the current decisions – on marriage rights, for example – are in the hands of the states. The one political master-stroke Bush has not so far supported is endorsement of ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, a law that would simply add gays to the list of people (including Christians and Muslims) protected from being fired from their jobs for the fact of their orientation alone. I’m not a big fan of these non-discrimination laws, and I don’t think they’re anywhere near as important as marriage rights. But the anomaly of only gays being exempted from such federal protection is a completely incoherent one. Why should Jews be protected and gays not? Well over 80 percent of the public support such a law. And Bush could frame it simply as a tolerance issue – winning huge numbers of votes from gays, their families and supporters, as well as showing suburbanites that he really is a compassionate conservative. If Bush did this, he would decimate the dominance that Democrats now have over the gay vote. That’s why the far left and far right are queasy about such a possibility. And that’s partly why Bush should seize this opportunity if it comes down the pike.

So what? The point is that as a simple mobster, he has only his henchmen to answer to. As a mobster with an actual democratic base, he’ll have other pressures that can only lead to good. I’m an optimist on democracy. Even if the elected leader is a thug, he has legitimacy, he can be dealt with, we can negotiate. All this handwringing from the usual suspects is overblown. Democracy works. And may always surprise us. Remember what some thought would happen in Nicaragua under free elections? Besides, by demanding elections, Bush puts the US back on a clear pro-democracy path. That will help with Iran. And China.

SIGN OF THE TIMES: An email from a Jewish Democrat:

Boy how about that Bush speech? A lot of People in the Arab World probably needed a few crates of Rolaids. Bush is the man and at my family’s barbeque on Sunday, we Jewish Democrats were pretty glad to have a Republican Pres. on deck after 9/11 and the Mid East mess, especially crazy ass Rumsfeld and Cheney(G-d Bless ‘Em). Who would have thought that?

Well I had an inkling, buddy.

Depressing news from Salon here. Hard to see even a glimmer of hope. Maybe blogging really is the only viable form of Internet commentary in the future. But I hope not.

Your fun and games with the survey data have alas so slowed Surveymonkey’s server that the filter function has been temporarily suspended. It should be back later today. We just swamped ’em. So try back later, please.

I guess I should know by now that you guys are an intrepid bunch, but in a little less than 24 hours, no less than 8,000 of you have answered our reader survey (that’s as I write this at around 12.30 am EST). I’m incredibly grateful. It’s also really really interesting and at times surprising. In keeping with the general principle of blog transparency, here’s a link to the page that gives you the full results so far – constantly updated. Of course, this isn’t a random sample, but the size of it (slightly less than a half of our regular daily visitors) means it’s telling us something. Check out the filter on the site to see the fascinating intersections of various variables. Here’s what I found striking at first blush: Half of you are under 40 and only 20 percent are over 50 – with our biggest age group being 31 – 35. This is a really young group – much younger than the usual readers of political magazines and newspapers. Despite the youth of the sample, over half of you have post-graduate degrees. 60 percent of you visit at least once a day. You’re also overwhelmingly male (85 percent) and heterosexual (87 percent). This will drive Richard Goldstein and others nuts – but what it means to me is that most of you couldn’t care less what my sexual orientation is, you’re just interested in the content of the site. To my mind, that’s a huge cultural milestone – a model of a future in which sexual orientation becomes a non-issue.

THE POLITICS: The political spectrum is skewed right, as you’d expect, but 40 percent are independent, moderate, center-left or liberal. I realize I stupdily left out ‘libertarian’ in this category, thus ensuring that the touchiest group of individualists alive have bombarded me with emails. I’m sorry, guys. I’m very sympathetic, as you know. My mistake. I was also struck by the fact that California is our biggest state; and that we’re very blue-state heavy. I guess the site attracts blue-state dissidents or simple skeptics, or it reflects the often ignored fact that large numbers of people in the blue states are not knee-jerk liberals. There are many permutations I haven’t yet worked out: Are the gays wealthier than the straights? Are the women more liberal than the men? Are the married people more conservative? But you can figure all this out for yourself if you feel like finding out more about your fellow readers by clicking here. Given this enormous early response, we’re going to keep the survey running for just one more day so that we’re not too skewed toward our more loyal readers. Let me know if you find any more interesting nuggets in the data analysis. Given all the post-graduate degrees out there, you’re probably better at it than I am. It’s also revealing, it seems to me, as a snapshot of what the broader blogger readership is made up of (hint: way smart and clued in, Howell), and should lead to some interesting questions and debates. But that’s for the future. For now, once again: THANKS. With these demographics, there surely must be a sponsor out there willing to fund the site. And if you haven’t participated yet, you have 24 hours. Here’s the link for the survey itself.

THE TOBACCO LAWSUIT SCAM: What a wonderful merry-go-round is going on in North Carolina. Can we say unintended consequences of the punitive nanny-state?

THE NEW SCHOOL DEBATE: Norah Vincent and I will be dragged before the New School politburo on Thursday night to face socialist writer Richard Goldstein and professional far-left activist Carmen Vasquez. It’s at 8 pm at the Tishman auditorium at the New School at 66, W 12th Street in New York City. The “moderator” is the woman who runs the Gay Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, Joan Garry. Garry’s group, GLAAD, is credited in the acknowledgments of Goldstein’s book for helping him with ‘research,’ research that has now been shown to be simply wrong and (ironically enough) defamatory. Still, this is the left’s turf and it’s a little naive to expect neutrality. Wish us luck. And show up if you feel like it.