Category: Old Dish

One of the truly odd facets of the contemporary Catholic church is that while insisting that divorced and remarried Catholics can have no meaningful access to the sacraments and cannot receive absolution, there is an escape clause: annulment. This is usually reserved for Kennedys and other prominent or wealthy Catholics, but is occasionally granted others. In my view, it’s a humane option, if granted on the merits – and it shows how exceptions to firm rules have always been allowed in Catholicism (unless you’re gay, that is, when no exceptions are ever allowed.) Now Newt Gingrich is trying the Kennedy gambit. Figures, doesn’t it?

THE NEW YORK TIMES AND FORTUYN’S MURDERER: Pim Fortuyn may still be an odious rightist, but his assassin, a left-wing environmental extremist, is still merely a “champion” of animal rights, according to the New York Times. High up in this breath-taking Marlise Simons piece, there’s an attempt to argue that the enviro-group to which Fortuyn’s murderer is “exclusively” a litigious group. Then in the last paragraph, we find that the assassin might be linked to another murder of an environmental official, and that he was not simply a member of the group but a co-founder, and that one of his colleagues called him a “fanatic.” Still, Simons’ left-liberal blinders stay firmly on. Here’s the jaw-dropping sentence: “The news prompted an outpouring of furious e-mails and telephone threats against other environmental groups, whose members fear that a broader hate campaign may be building up.” This is the first use of the term ‘hate’ in the Times’ coverage of this event. And it’s used to describe those appalled at the use of political violence – not the practitioners of violence themselves. What a monstrous moral inversion. Let’s see: a extremist enviro-maniac murders an openly gay, libertarian supporter of Israel. And it’s the victim who’s a fascist?

ADDENDUM:Mickey Kaus emails to say that the idea of incorporating his blog into Slate was not a Jake Weisberg innovation entirely, but had first been raised as an idea by Mike Kinsley. Whoever dreamed it up, good luck with it.

This is the kind of bold initiative I want to see more of from the Bush administration. Publicly-funded single-sex schools are an excellent way both to encourage excellence in environments where both girls and boys can do better, and also to increase parental choice. The usual “civil rights” groups are whining, of course. They should be ignored. This is an especially important move for boys – who are currently lagging behind girls in many educational skills, and too often subjected to anti-male curricula. I’m biased, of course. I went to a public co-ed elementary school and a public single-sex high school. Of course I turned into a raving homosexual, but most of my peers didn’t. (And, no, I didn’t go to one of those private all-boy schools which make American Catholic churches look like repositories of sexual restraint). All in all, this is a bold and smart move. I just hope they don’t cave into the “feminist” establishment and back down.

STEVEN ERLANGER’S SMEAR: Truly amazing that Howell Raines’ New York Times has yet to weigh in editorially about the assassination of an openly gay political leader in Holland. What’s keeping them from commenting – either in editorial columns or op-eds? Beats me, although the obvious answer is that they don’t have a clue what to say. The Times was no better than most other mainstream media outlets in brazenly misrepresenting Pim Fortuyn’s politics, and having stoked the animosity that ultimately felled Fortuyn, they might well be a little leery of jumping in. Here’s how the Times’ Steven Erlanger’s explained the Fortuyn phenomenon a mere day before he was murdered by a member of the far left:

Exploiting a general disappointment with Europe’s mainstream politicians, evident in the lower voter turnout, Mr. Le Pen and others who have modernized their fascism, like Jörg Haider of Austria and Pim Fortuyn of the Netherlands, have made extraordinary showings in percentage terms.

It’s perfectly fair to say that populist displeasure at the dictatorial remoteness of the EU played a part in support for Haider, Le Pen and Fortuyn, but describing the colorful professor Pim as a modernizer of fascism is sloppy, false and defamatory. I discovered this appalling quote from an excellent article by Dutch journalist, Diederik van Hoogstraten, just posted on Salon (subscribers only, alas). Here’s the money quote, though:

Calling Fortuyn a neo-fascist is in line with seeing every voter for Le Pen or Berlusconi as a dumb xenophobe. The European left, in power but out of touch, has done exactly that for years. But the issues that Fortuyn and other addressed, have needed urgent attention from the social-democrats in office. To call those who planned to vote for him a bunch of fascists is, to say the least, strange, as many of them had voted for leftist parties in prior elections. It’s safe to say that the ruling class of today helped create the electoral base for populists whom they still do not know how to fight.

For excellent treatment of the Fortuyn affair, and how it has shown up the mainstream media’s biases, check out the Independent Gay Forum website. Paul Varnell’s piece is particularly fine. Reason’s Charles Paul Freund also has an excellent dissection of how the media cannot deal with unconventional politics. I like this point:

For now, appeals to diversity, gender equality, etc., are reserved for groups that, in contemporary journalistic discourse, are given “oppressed” status. When such groups use these appeals, or when these appeals are used on their behalf, it’s legitimate. But when the same appeals are used to argue against the apparent interests of such groups, it’s a category violation. In other words, you can’t allow the villain any of the good lines without either raising the status of the villain or lowering the status of the lines, and that in the end that is one of the most revealing aspects of the Fortuyn story.

For a classic example of how mainstream American gay organizations have responded, check out the website of the Human Rights Campaign. They say … nothing. And why would they? Whenever anything serious happens in the gay rights movement, such as the military battle or the marriage struggle or a prominent assassination, these groups are always, always, AWOL.

ET TU, MICKEY? Mickey Kaus, pioneering blogger, has now defected to the mainstream. It’s a sad day for the blogosphere. His blog will now be incorporated into Slate, which is very smart for Slate (and another sign that Jake Weisberg knows what he’s doing). In my opinion, most online magazines will in the not-so-distant future become agglomerations of bloggers. Their most popular features are already drifting in that direction. What they will eventually become will be more like talk-radio stations, where a handful of provocative bloggers will create a branded talk environment, rather like the blogosphere itself, but with a few editors picking which people to include. The interesting question will be: how is that different from a reader’s “favorites list” – except some editor muckety muck picks the links and you don’t? The only difference will be having to access these blogs via a magazine portal, presumably. Conceptually speaking, that’s a thin reed on which to hang what we once called a magazine, much thinner than a bunch of pages of dead wood. But, hey, good luck to them. It’s worth a shot and proof that Jake is thinking about the medium more deeply than Mike seemed able to. And knowing Mickey, he won’t be likely to cave into groupthink. Also knowing Mickey, of course, this relationship will probably last about eight minutes.

FROM DR STRANGELOVE TO MR EX-GREEN:“Many viewed [Lomborg’s skeptical predecessors] Herman Kahn and Julian Simon as “American rightwing ideological economists,” as Lomborg admits he once viewed Simon. (Kahn may have partially inspired the title character of “Dr. Strangelove,” to give a sense of how he was regarded.) Thus, the left wing could dismiss their views as inherently without merit and unworthy of response or consideration. Censorship via silence. But Lomborg was a progressive Social Democrat and member of Greenpeace from politically-correct Denmark. For Lomborg to change his mind and to reject publicly the “Litany” made him not merely an adversary but a heretic and apostate. The only appropriate response was burning at the stake. Fortunately, literal burnings are rare in the Western World, but as the fanaticism, hate, and violence of the New Left (as seen in the streets of Seattle and repeatedly in Washington DC), raving fanaticism is by no means a thing of the past.” This and many other reactions to Bjorn Lomborg’s “The Skeptical Environmentalist,” in today’s Book Club discussion.

EUCLID UPDATE:Well, she’s put on about five pounds, hasn’t pooped in the apartment for a week, and this evening secured a place on my bed. As I prepare to crash now, there are two beagles occupying my futon. But the best news is that Dusty tried to play with Euclid tonight. She wasn’t that successful. Euclid seemed a little intimidated and kept wandering over to me, as I wrote the Dish, for some sort of approval. Eventually, she picked up a small toy Dusty had tossed in her direction and walked off with it. A start, I suppose. But for a week’s convalesence, the progress has been pretty remarkable. Thanks for all the inquiring emails. I hav
e a feeling I can’t give this little thing away now.

THE LAW DEPOSITION: Read it here in excruciating detail. The Boston cardinal and protector of child-abusers must be hating this. Imagine the humiliation of actually being accountable to victims. My favorite quote from Law’s lawyer: “Well, first of all, let me take the first issue, the First Amendment. I suggest that we agree that I can have a continuing objection as to the First Amendment. I have raised the First Amendment as a defense and feel the inquiry into the internal workings of the Church is inappropriate.” How’s that for clerical privilege.

PRO-MILITARY P.C.: What on earth is wrong with a newspaper printing stories about how some horny American sailors all but rampaged through some Australian brothels when first given shore leave? No one disuptes the facts, but military families are upset. The Sun newspaper, of Bremerton, Washington, which reprinted the story, grovels to its outraged readers in an apology. Pathetic. These soldiers can defeat al Qaeda but they can’t deal with bad publicity? Here’s a tip: if you don’t want bad press, don’t go to brothels and so wear out the prostitutes that they have to shut the place down for a breather.

MORE FORTUYN SMEARS: This from the insufferably smug John Simpson, the BBC bigwig who earned ridicule in the Afghan war for claiming on BBC radio to have liberated Kabul. He throws around words like “hatred,” to describe Fortuyn’s politics. When Fortuyn loses his temper after Simpson compares him to Jean-Marie Le Pen, this merely confirms for Simpson that he is right. Here’s a lovely piece of liberal bigotry: “But in many ways – his avowed homosexuality apart – Fortuyn was an archetypical right-winger.” Has it occurred to Simpson that someone’s sexual orientation does not dictate a thinking person’s politics on matters such as taxes, immigration, or the role of government. Does he think “archetypal right-wingers” support same-sex marriage, legal cannabis, abortion on demand, and so on? Do you think Simpson would for one minute show the same condescending skepticism toward Fortuyn’s murderer, a mere environmental activist? When I read columns like this one, you can see where the anger that propelled Fortuyn to prominence comes from. I hope the Fortuyn list wins unprecedented support in the coming Dutch elections. (By the way, check out the photo. There’s a Fortuyn supporter holding up pictures of Martin Luther King Jr, John F Kennedy and Malcolm X. So much for would-be Hitlers.)

WHY I STILL LOVE TNR: Because a liberal pro-Gore magazine is still prepared to take on environmental irrationality. Gregg Easterbrook, a Lomborg in tweeds, has been on the case for years and years. Always worth reading, his evisceration of the American Prospect’s blather is, as always, informative and enjoyable.

EVERYONE’S A CRITIC, PART TROIS: Remember what I said about theater critics? All subjectivity, unreliable, undependable? I take it all back. What a wonderfully perceptive reviewer of acting Nelson Pressley is. Just kidding. He’s nice about me and my lovely, saintly, hilarious Beatrice, Brooke Butterworth, but he’s tough on the directorial concept of the show. All in all, completely fair criticism. But then I’m way biased aren’t I?

“To discover to the world something which deeply concerns it, and of which it was previously ignorant; to prove to it that it had been mistaken on some vital point of temporal or spiritual interest, is as important a service as a human being can render to his fellow creatures . . . That the authors of such splendid benefits should be requited by martyrdom; that their reward should be to be dealt with as the vilest of criminals, is not, upon this theory, a deplorable error and misfortune for which humanity should mourn in sackcloth and ashes, but the normal and justifiable state of things. The propounder of a new truth, according to this doctrine, should stand . . . with a halter round his neck, to be instantly tightened if the public assembly did not, upon hearing his reasons, then and there adopt his proposition. People who defend this mode of treating benefactors, cannot be supposed to set much value on the benefit; and I believe this view of the subject is mostly confined to the sort of persons who think that new truths may have been desirable once, but that we have had enough of them now.” – John Stuart Mill, “On Liberty.”

RUMMY VERSUS PENTAGON PORK: Now here’s a battle worth fighting. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s sensible attempt to retire the Crusader artillery system is being stymied by insubordinate Pentagon hacks and Congressional Republicans. I differ with many of my libertarian friends in believing in an interventionist foreign policy and a big defense budget. (Bigger than that now envisaged by the Congress. Empires aren’t cheap.) By far the best argument against this position is that the Pentagon wastes money, doesn’t focus resources on where they are needed, is slow to modernize, reluctant to downsize when necessary, and so on. Rumsfeld’s laudable early attempts to reform this monster went awry. Now, with money flowing more freely, he has a stronger hand to reform where it’s necessary. The battle over Crusader is a critical test of whether he will succeed. I’m glad the Washington Post is weighing in on his side. More need to.

WHAT’S IN A LABEL? The New York Times, which has only recently stopped calling Pim Fortuyn an extremist, had the following to say today about the political assassination of a would-be prime minister of Holland: “Dutch political leaders decided today to go ahead with the general elections next week, even after the killing of Pim Fortuyn, a right-wing politician who had stood a chance to become the country’s next prime minister. The police confirmed today that they were holding the assassination suspect, a 32-year-old Dutch environmental activist.” Notice how a socially libertarian maverick is “right-wing” but an ideological assassin is just an “environmental activist.” Even the Dutch police have described the murderer as an enviro-radical. But extremes, in the Time’s p.c. world, only exist on the right. The subtle marginalization of Fortuyn continues, even in death. I would simply ask you to imagine: if this gay man were a liberal and had been killed by a fascist, do you think this story would be treated by the New York Times the same way?

LEAVE US ALONE: “There are many frustrated people in the sciences who are shaking their heads at the amount of time that must be wasted defending their work against his poorly analyzed arguments. Lomborg has no credentials to back up his arguments. Lomborg is an Associate Professor of statistics in a history department, has never published a paper in a peer-reviewed journal, nor has he subjected this book to peer review. His startling lack of ecological knowledge isn’t hidden by his nearly 3000 footnotes to this work. Those that insist Lomborg’s book be characterized as a polemic rather than analysis, and [ask that he] please move on to subjects in which he has training and can discuss with authority, are belittled by him — a tactic used by the right. We know his agenda and we wish the hype would go away so we can return to important work.” – an environmental scientist wishes Bjorn Lomborg would just shut up. This and other viewpoints in Day 2 of the debate about “The Skeptical Environmentalist,” in the Book Club.

WHAT ABOUT KASHMIR? The Euro-elites, represented by the insufferable Chris Patten, are appalled that their visceral hostility to Israel might be deemed by Americans to be linked to anti-Semitism. A reader sends the following analogy along to add perspective:

One comparison I sometimes suggest to Europeans is this. The situation in Kashmir has some parallels to the Middle East. A minority is having its hopes for self-determination postponed. In fact, India goes even further than Israel, by ruling out Kashmiri statehood a priori. India claims to be under periodic terrorist attack, and responds with massive force. Lightly armed men from Kashmir and beyond go up against heavily armed and highly trained Indian troops, not to mention Indian tanks, artillery and aircraft.
It’s certainly a mess, and far too many civilians have been killed, either accidentally or through criminal negligence. But where are the protests against India in Europe? Where are the daily editorials? Where are the organized letter-writing campaigns by European liberals? Where are the demonstrations against Indian representative offices? Where are the calls by the EU to boycott Indian trade?
Even-handed criticism is fine, but when Europeans and their media reserve their ire for one country and one race – perhaps especially given their own history – then they run the risk of the accusations of anti-semitism that they are earning.

Couldn’t put it better myself.

THE SMEARING OF FORTUYN, CTD: Check out this description of him in today’s Daily Telegraph – from a former Tory cabinet minister, no less: “Britain has been fortunate to avoid the rise of extreme Right-wing, hateful politicians like Jean-Marie Le Pen and Pim Fortuyn, the Dutchman who was murdered in Hilversum.” Then I received this email today from Germany, where at least one guy is able to see clearly:

Predictably, Fortuyn is much vilified our press. “Rechtspopulist” (right-wing populist) seems to be his first name, “ausländerfeindlich” (hostile to foreigners) his job description. The newspapers work really hard to get that across. But an article, written after his death, in the online edition of Der Spiegel really goes over the top – our most “respectable” weekly newsmag, by the way. In “The voice of the hidden racism” Fortuyn is repeatedly called a “Rechtsextremist” (right-wing extremist), the word is usually reserved for Neonazis, not politicians of the right. He is credited with bringing the Netherland’s “latent racism” to the surface, but somehow it all fails to shock. The authors must have felt this, too. What to do? Well, according to this article, Fortuyn wanted to “drastically cut back support for sick and disabled people”. The article says nothing else. What a nasty man! Then I remembered The Economist had a survey about the Netherlands in a recent issue. I quote: “….the biggest blemish of all on the Dutch employment record: its absurdly generous disability scheme known as the WAO. Nearly a million people qualify for this, out of a total working population of around 7m, and the
number is still rising. Taken at face value, that 15% rate would suggest that disability in the Netherlands is half as prevalent again as it is in comparable countries…” And later “In effect, the WAO has been used to mop up disguised unemployment” I could not verify that Fortuyn merely wanted to reform this bizarre scheme, but the info makes a big difference, doesn’t it? In the foreign press section they quote the “Aftonbladet”, a Stockholm Newspaper, with the words: “The brown parties of Europe have a new martyr.” Perhaps, if it wasn’t for our so very balanced media, they might never have noticed that Fortuyn was one of them?

Speaking of which, check out this prophetic piece about the smearing of Fortuyn by Dave Kopel in last weekend’s Rocky Mountain News. He nails it.

WHAT THEY THINK OF AMERICA: A stimulating batch of essays worth perusing from the British literary journal, Granta. (I’ve only skimmed so if there’s a Sontagian moment or so, forgive me.) I was particularly buoyed by an essay by Ivan Klima from the Czech Republic. Here’s the blunt truth:

For more than a century now there has existed a sort of American dream. For some it means boundless affluence, for others freedom. I am not a devotee of hypermarkets or of grandiose mansions containing dozens of rooms for just two or three people and a few pedigree dogs and cats. I’ve never yearned for more than one car or a private plane, jet-engined or otherwise. I have an aversion to profligacy, but I don’t share the view that there is an indirect relationship between America’s affluence and Third World poverty. Without idealizing the policies of the big monopolies (either American or European), I am convinced that America’s wealth, which derives from the work of many generations, is chiefly the result of the creative activity of free citizens. The Americans are not to blame for Third World poverty, which is mostly due to the circumstances in the Third World and the demoralizing lack of freedom that most of the people there endure.

A helpful Fortuyn quote from fellow-blogger, Joe Katzman. See if you think this makes him a member of the “far-right” as even Drudge described him yesterday:

“Large groups in the community are lagging behind in social and cultural terms. These groups often originate from countries which did not participate in the Judeo-Christian-humanist developments which have been taking place in Europe for centuries. These shortfalls in development are highly regrettable, as they result in a divide in society and form a threat to the functioning of our large cities.
“This must be tackled vigorously, on the one hand by paying extra attention to housing, schools and cultural education for these groups, but on the other by requiring these groups to make a maximum effort themselves. Cultural developments which are diametrically opposed to the desired integration and emancipation, such as arranged marriages, honour revenge and female circumcision, must be fought by means of legislation and public information. Discrimination against women in fundamentalist Islamic circles is particularly unacceptable.
“In a democratic society like ours, all citizens have the same rights and obligations, irrespective of race, gender, beliefs and nature. There is a division of Church and State in the Netherlands, and therefore also of mosque and state. Thanks to the division of powers (the executive, legislative and judiciary powers), citizens can develop themselves in relative freedom. Our hard-fought freedoms are worth protecting against increasing fundamentalism. We must carry out a study into whether the introduction of a social and military service for boys and girls of eighteen years of age or older can contribute to integration.”

I guess in a society in which a New York Times columnist can compare George W. Bush to Le Pen, such exaggerations are to be expected. But that doesn’t make them any truer.

THE EURO-ELITE RESPONDS: This astonishing quote via Reuters tells you much about what the Euro-elites really feel about a political assassination:

Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel, referring to Le Pen’s success in France, said the political atmosphere in Europe was “already very delicate.”
“This on top, is of course, very dangerous.”
“Democratic parties have to campaign in a very cautious way, and in a balanced and serene way to try to orientate the debate toward democratic values,” Michel told VRT television.

Yes, this is the continent that gave us fascism. And yes, it could happen again, if political violence is responded to in this craven way.

From the invaluable journalist Rex Wockner, the following quotes from Dutch gay leaders:

“It still feels totally unthinkable, and it feels like our democracy and our way of life have been deeply wounded,” veteran Dutch gay activist Grada Schadee said May 7.
“I was much against his political ideas but I deeply respected him on his openness [as a gay man]. He was so sharp in his debating techniques. He was serious yet also caused much laughter with the public.”
“The whole country is in shock,” said Alex Kröner, publisher of the Amsterdam magazine Gay & Night. “He won one-third of the votes in [the] Rotterdam [local elections] and they expected that he would show at least 20 to 25 percent nationally. People are bringing flowers to his house and where the shooting was and also in Amsterdam at the national square.”
“It’s difficult to generalize,” said Gay & Night Editor Hans Verhoeven. “You either loved him or you hated him. One of the things that was important, he was very openly gay. He talked on public radio about his visits to dark rooms [gay bar backrooms] and he told about the rent boys [hustlers] he employed at his home. He was very open and that was, strangely enough, accepted by the whole society and made him an example for gay people, not only about being out but about how to explore your gay life.
“The general feeling here is one of disbelief. It is the first time since 1672 that we had a political assassination,” Verhoeven said.

The latest information is that his assassin worked for an enviro-leftist organization. That makes me all the gladder to have selected Bjorn Lomborg as our author for this month. Another gay contrarian, he has experienced the same kind of enviro-leftist intolerance that Fortuyn apparently did – although, mercifully, to a far lesser degree.

Perceptive blogger analysis of how the Times, while being ostensibly even-handed, tips the scales against Fortuyn’s political identity.

DREHER ON FORTUYN: Excellent column by Rod Dreher on the meaning of Fortuyn’s assassination. I’m amazed at how obtuse much of the media is being about this story. In my view, in the context of European politics, the European debates about immigration, multiculturalism, the EU, free speech, and terrorism, this event is truly profound. Why is this story therefore being buried in the major papers? Because it flies against the preconceptions of most American editors, who don’t seem to have a clue about what’s really happening over there? OKay, guys, here’s a pull-quote from Dreher for you:

A woman who answered the phone at Fortuyn campaign headquarters last night said things were too chaotic there, and that no one would be able to speak to the foreign press until today. Through her tears, she said, “It’s unbelievable that someone gets killed only for saying what they believe.”

Get it now?

As I feared and suspected, the murder of Fortuyn appears, according to Dutch police, to have come from the far left. So this is quite possibly an assassination of an openly gay man by the extreme left, because he held contrarian but completely defensible views. The vicious rhetoric spouted against him by leftist, liberal and even moderate politicians and journalists no doubt contributed to this outcome. I guess I see this a little personally. But no one should doubt that the far left, just as much as the far right, is now among the most intolerant forces in our society. They do everything they can to shut down the views of others, marginalize, blacklist or simply intimidate them. When all else fails, something like this horrific murder happens. I wonder how many leading European liberals, who are so quick to draw connections between speech and action when it comes to traditional hate-crimes, will now ponder whether their own rhetorical extremism has to be tempered somewhat. Here’s a classic of the genre, from the comment section on the BBC website:

Anyone deserving the name libertarian does not restrict people’s liberty to live where they want. It’s good to see people taking direct action against the far right. If Hitler or Mussolini had been killed in the twenties, when they were still ‘respectable’ and adored by such UK papers as the Daily Mail, who knows how many lives would have been saved?
Matt, a libertarian socialist, UK

Charming, huh? And what many leftist activists actually believe.

AN EMAIL FROM HOLLAND: One among many, but this time from a very different perspective:

A very good thing to dedicate some space on andrewsullivan.com to the news regarding the assassination of Pim Fortuyn. My thanks.
One important point which has not been made is that Pim, as a debater, was a man who opened himself completely, making himself maximally vulnerable to attacks (during a political debate or during interviews)
It is, even when writing from the Netherlands, difficult to describe the feelings this assassination has released. Most – well thinking – people are against his views, but have great admiration for the way he represents his views and the greatest respect for his drive and his dedication.
This is what makes him very very different in our view from e.g. JFK, we were promised a completely new, honest and open way of politics – in a Dutch fashion of course. Which has now been replaced by a great uncertainty about the honesty & effectiveness of the upcoming elections. The removal of this hope has released a sadness which is difficult to describe, but felt by his opponents and his followers alike. This was a man without personal defences. Who – in my opinion – deserves more attention to his honesty and drive than to his (often) misunderstood (extreme) right wing ideas.

The situation in the Netherlands is so fraught right now that any prediction is risky. But doesn’t it make sense that the murder of Pim Fortuyn could propel his party and its allies to even bigger gains than were deemed possible yesterday? For an anti-crime figure to be gunned down in the street, after the government refused to give him adequate police protection, is hardly a reason to vote for the failed old politicians. The London Times’ Michael Gove has the best analysis I’ve read so far. Check it out. An important passage:

Fortuyn and his allies developed a critique of the establishment notably different from those pioneered by the politicians with whom he has been compared, Jörg Haider and Jean-Marie Le Pen. Fortuyn was uncompromisingly neo-liberal. An advocate of laxer rules on euthanasia, greater drugs liberalisation, more use of the private sector in healthcare and tax cuts, he was very far from Le Pen’s hearthland politics of Vichyiste nostalgia. He may have been a “cultural protectionist” like Le Pen. But the culture he wished to protect was the Dutch libertarianism so familiar to many Britons from their weekends in Amsterdam, so congenial to him as a gay man, and so threatened, he claimed, by the incursions of Islam.

Amen. Fortuyn was not a threat to liberalism. His assassination is. What Fortuyn dared to say is that Islam itself, when converted into a political agenda, is a direct threat to the values and tolerance that are the signal achievements of the West. This is not racism; it is a cultural fact. Islam deserves respect as a great religion, but its attitudes toward women, toward homosexuals, toward the freedoms and privacy and social experimentation that are one of the guiding triumphs of Western culture, is a danger to liberal democracy and a free society. Fortuyn was brave enough to say this. One way to respect his legacy and defy the violence that felled him is to follow his example and keep stating what we know to be true.

BOOK CLUB: My take on Bjorn Lomborg’s dense, but largely persuasive book, “The Skeptical Environmentalist,” is now posted. Over to you. A week of debate will follow.

SATEL’S STRAW MAN?: “Every physician I have known in this hotbed of political correctness (Manhattan) begins her/his admission note mentioning the race of the patient immediately following their age. We were all taught in medical school that certain groups are at risk for certain conditions (i.e. smokers and lung cancer; old people and Alzheimer’s; women with multiple partners and cervical cancer, etc.), and considering this is not age discrimination, lifestyle discrimination, or discrimination against smokers. By using the term “Racial Profiling” and setting up the “Politically Correct” medical establishment as a strawman, it certainly is not surprising that Dr. Satel had an easy time making herself appear to be enlightened.” – this and an obit of Peter Bauer, emotional intimacy, and John Rawls – all on the Letters Page.

‘REACTIONARY’ FORTUYN: Check out this Guardian profile of Pim Fortuyn. The Euro-left keeps describing him as a ‘reactionary.’ This profile says: “He succeeded in blending liberal and reactionary ideas in a quite unique fashion.” Now scour the piece for anything that could be called ‘reactionary.’ It’s this kind of condescending blindness that gave Fortuyn an opening. Check out this passage from the New York Times today:

During a recent interview, Mr. Fortuyn talked freely on a wide range of subjects, including his homosexuality, the ingrained bureaucracy, the liberal Dutch social policies dealing with abortion, same-sex marriages and tolerance of soft-drugs, and the need to denounce the self-satisfied political class. During the interview he was asked why he was so critical of Muslim immigrants. He said he found it shameful that foreign Islamic clergy here used offensive language against gays in this country, and that Muslim men tried to impose medieval rural customs in the Netherlands. “How can you respect a culture if the woman has to walk several steps behind her man, has to stay in the kitchen and keep her mouth shut,” he said.

I couldn’t agree more. We’re often asked by some Islamists to respect others’ cultures, even when we find much in them to be dismayed by. Fair enough. But is it too much to ask that they also respect ours? Especially when they live in the West?

KRUGMAN NAILS IT: For once, I agree with him. The shameless, unjustified, vast hand-out to rich corporate farmers – that’s money taken from you and me, guys – is one of the worst fiscal decisions to come out of Washington in the last couple of years. It’s corporate welfare, backed by greedy Democrats and a spineless president, who recently seems like the kind of guy who never saw a big government spending bill he didn’t want to sign. Krugman is also sharp about divorce and illegitimacy and crime rates in the “heartland.” And no, I haven’t gone completely nuts. The evidence for Middle America’s dependency on the public teat is irrefutable.

SONTAG AWARD NOMINEE: “Ariel Sharon has arrived in Washington, carrying with him The Arafat Dossier – a 91-page report allegedly documenting the Palestinian leader’s intimate involvement in “terrorism” against Israel. For good measure, the dossier accuses all the usual suspects of helping Yasser Arafat in his terrorism: Iran, Iraq, Syria and Hizbullah, plus – interestingly – Saudi Arabia, the European Union and even elements in the United States. Whether the documents actually prove any of these things is beside the point; the point is to generate headlines in the US that will excite Republican Congressmen of the sort who last week proposed the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.” – Brian Whitaker, the Guardian (where else?), May 6.

CHRIS PATTEN’S BLATHER: There are few more condescending, Eurocratic, arrogant fools among European elites than one Chris Patten. A former Tory, he now clings to the Conservative Party as a way to win further unelected office in the Brussels bureaucracy. His piece today in the Washington Post, designed to answer George Will’s recent column bemoaning the rise of European anti-Semitism, is chock full of prejudices. There’s the sad attempt to argue that America was soft on Nazism because Joe Kennedy once was. And there’s the belittling of anti-Semitic violence in Europe by the canard that it is balanced by anti-Islamic agitation. He also has the gall to associate himself with a democratic Europe, while he represents the least democratic institution on the continent, the European Commission, and is in the vanguard of further stripping democracy from the elected governments of EU member states. He seems appalled by the idea that the same Europe that gave us the Holocaust should now be seen as anti-Zionist or in some way hostile to Israel. Who does he think he’s kidding? Visceral loathing for Israel permeates the entire European establishment of which
he is an integral part. He brings up the issue of private American financial support for the IRA. He’s right that such support is vile. But the American government never sent millions of dollars direct to the IRA to foment terrorism against Britain. Yet the EU funnels vast sums to Yassir Arafat’s terrorist organizations, with no checks, no standards, no accountability. That money is used to kill Jews. And Chris Patten helps dispense it. And that’s largely all you need to know.

I learn from the usually reliable Rex Wockner that Dutch “[p]olice said they captured the suspected gunman, a ‘white man of Dutch nationality.’ He has refused to make a statement and his identity is unknown.” If this is a hit-job from the left, things could get really, really ugly in Europe. And some news reports indicate it already has.

Not very. Because he believed that large numbers of unassimilated immigrants, especially Islamic ones, could destabilize Dutch society, the mainstream media often talked of him as far-right. But he wanted current immigrants to stay and adopt national customs; his party had ethnic minority candidates; he was openly gay; he wanted smaller, more efficient government. He was no more “far-right” than Silvio Berlusconi or Iain Duncan-Smith. He was an admirer of Euroskeptic Margaret Thatcher. With regard to tackling the Brussels bureaucracy, he once said, “I will borrow that handbag from Margaret Thatcher, bang on the table and say I want my money back.” A man after my own heart, and as I assimilate the news of his death, my mood darkens. The world is not an easy place to espouse the mixture of ideas and views Fortuyn did. He did so with aplomb and humor. He was defiantly and proudly gay, but his appeal was far broader than that, and by reaching out to the center and right, he did much to help the integration of gay men and women into mainstream European politics. In this he was an ally, even an icon of sorts. And it’s chilling to think that this combination of ideas – if poised to reach political power – could be grist for assassination. In Holland, of all places. The enemies of liberalism are many – on the far right, the far left, and the Islamist fundamentalist orbit. For these reasons, Fortuyn should be hailed as another martyr for gay visibility, along with Harvey Milk. But what’s the betting that the gay left won’t go near this story? Here’s hoping they will.