Category: Old Dish

“[T]he more Americans learn about the world of the madrassas; the six or seven varieties of Islamic female coverings; and the murderous gangs in Somalia, the Congo, and Rwanda – the more, not less, they are appalled by societies that are anti-Western. Indeed, we now know that advocacy for multiculturalism depends upon romance, ignorance, and isolation – studying about Islamic fundamentalism in tree-lined Marin County rather than in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia; role-playing in costumes at safe and upscale suburban schools rather than avoiding the lash under burqas in Kabul; or lecturing about religious diversity on ivied campuses rather than witnessing Buddhas blown up in Afghanistan.” – Victor Davis Hanson in another terrific essay in National Review Online.

Gregg Easterbrook demands: where’s my Enron bribe?

On celibacy, Orthodoxy, materialism and goyshekaps. Yes, goyshekaps.

Mickey Kaus thinks so. Special self-parody department of kausfiles.com! Meanwhile my beagle won’t get out of my bed.

ANOTHER REASON TO ADMIRE BUSH: Madeleine Albright takes on his foreign policy. He must be doing something right.

THE JOURNAL AND ETHICS: I get a dressing down from the Wall Street Journal today for my reporting on the Enron pundits. It seems I committed a mortal sin by thinking that the piece I wrote for the Journal on Talk magazine last week was for U.S. rights only. It was only the second time I’ve written for the Journal op-ed page; it was my mistake; I apologized profusely twice; recycling pieces for foreign papers is a completely legitimate source of income. I was even told by an editor there that the tiny matter was now closed. Yet they bring it up as some sort of sin that bars me from commenting on people who have earned up to $100,000 from a criminal corporate racket for work that barely existed or never materialized. It must be one of the pettiest quibbles I’ve ever seen an editorial resort to. In general, though, they have a decent point: disclosure for journalists is more important than the source of funding. But direct funding from corporations for vast amounts for little work is surely stretching this, and funding for direct advocacy just as worrisome. I don’t see why the Journal’s editors can’t see this. Although the Journal actually published columns written by someone directly paid by tobacco companies to write paid propaganda masquerading as journalism, they still think that’s fine as long as it’s disclosed. That’s where we differ. Let’s say journalists were simply paid by corporations directly to sell their products or spin their shares. Wouldn’t that taint the ethic of journalism – even if it was disclosed? If I’m wrong, what exactly is the difference between columns and ad copy? Or between journalism and p.r.? Are there no values apart from market values? That’s where I part company with my libertarian friends. I think there are some public virtues that cannot be reduced to money or disclosure. One of those virtues is an attempt by journalists to keep themselves as far as possible away from direct conflicts of interest, and where they are unavoidable, to disclose fully. Of course, this gets complicated and I don’t believe in policing this for minor infractions or unavoidable conflicts. But surely avoiding situations where vast amounts of cash are offered for little work by dubious corporations is a no-brainer. Seems pretty obvious to me.

GOD AND THE HOMOSEXUAL: If you’re a newcomer to the site from C-SPAN this morning and have emailed me to discuss the Church and homosexuality, I’m afraid it’s impossible for me to respond to the now hundreds of emails. But please take a look at the section on this site devoted to the issue, which may answer some of your questions. This piece may be helpful; and this interview is more eloquent than I was this morning.

JANUARY STATS: 221,000 unique visitors; 681,000 visits. Thanks so much. Make sure to check in on Monday. There’s a whole new section going up – an online book club. Don’t miss it.

I had to go to bed at an early hour last night, i.e. midnight, to get up in time for C-SPAN this morning. Check in later for more dish. Still, there’s plenty below.

Your take on the Catholic Church’s child-abuse problem, including a priest and a parishioner.

No wonder Rumsfeld is worried. And, once again, the Iranian connection is foremost.

CLASSIC INSULTS: Of course, you can’t beat Shakespeare. Here’s a classic from King Lear:

OSWALD What dost thou know me for?
KENT A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking knave, a whoreson, glass-gazing, super-serviceable finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd, in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch: one whom I will beat into clamorous whining, if thou deniest the least syllable of thy addition.

Now tell us what you really think.

BIAS WATCH: Who on earth wrote the headline for this AP story from Atlanta?
Update: they changed it. The original headline was: “Bush gets mixed reception at black school.”

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “No war ought ever to be undertaken but under circumstances which render all intercourse of courtesy between the combatants impossible. It is a bad thing that men should hate each other; but it is far worse that they should contract the habit of cutting one another’s throats without hatred. War is never lenient but where it is wanton; when men are compelled to fight in self-defence, they must hate and avenge: this may be bad; but it is human nature.” – Thomas B. Macaulay, “Milford’s History of Greece” 1824.

Well, it’s not exactly Starsky and Hutch, but Hitchens and I will be on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal tomorrow morning from 8 to 10am ET. God help me. I haven’t got up that early since around 1987.

APOLOGIES: I’m sorry for the lurid blue of the site this afternoon. Following Murphy’s law, I made a small formatting error, and then, before I could fix it, our server did something I don’t understand and I had to wait several hours before it was fixed. Grrr. On a happier note, 20,000 people came to the site yesterday, and made 38,000 visits. Thanks.

I knew David Brooks would like the State of the Union. In my opinion, he is wiping the floor with Joe Klein today in their riveting discussion about the war. Here’s a beaut from the Slate dialogue:

“Another nice thing about the State of the Union speech was the way it contradicted the polls-which indicated that Bush should focus on the economy. But if Bush wasn’t speaking softly and carrying a big stick, he was doing something more appropriate for the moment. He was behaving in a Churchillian manner. He was jolting the country out of a creeping illusion of normalcy. He was giving a blood, sweat, and tears booster shot. He was galvanizing the public because in times of conflict, national morale is the resource the nation must depend on. Actually, by the bloodthirsty standards of most war speeches, I thought his speech was restrained.”

Amen, David. Amen.

Interesting piece by Eric Boehlert in Salon today, arguing that I’m tougher on Paul Krugman than I am on the other Enron pundits because I have an ideological ax to grind. Well, of course, he’s right to some extent. I have long found Paul Krugman an insufferably pompous, shrill, Bush-bashing pseudo-populist and so it was particularly galling to see him neck-deep in corporate cash. But to say I let the others off is a little much. I exposed Bill Kristol’s money. Despite the fact that I work for the same paper and share many of his views, I also laid out in full Irwin Stelzer’s paper trail. Stelzer is also a close friend of Rupert Murdoch who owns the newspaper, the Sunday Times of London, that provides me with my largest source of income. I asked Peggy Noonan – facetiously – whether she had shredded her 1099s. The reason I was fair to Kudlow is because he was extremely forthcoming, honest and open about the whole thing – in extreme contrast to Krugman’s increasingly deranged spin. I helped pioneer the reporting of all this – and it has disproportionately affected the right. I confess to a little ideological schadenfreude with Krugman. But I don’t think it’s fair to say I gave everyone else a pass. How many other right-leaning pundits would finger four conservatives the way I did? I mean, I even beat Conason to the punch.