Old CW: Bush’s Whitewater. New CW: the Dems’ Ken Starr. My CW: we don’t know enough yet to know. But right now, I agree with David Brooks that this looks like an Agatha Christie mystery without a body. The most damning quote from the Post piece is the following: “Some Democratic lawmakers believe they can attack the White House coming and going: If anything was done to help a political intimate, Bush can be filleted for breaking his promise to restore honor and integrity to the White House. If nothing was done in response to the calls, some Democrats plan to argue the administration should have done something to protect shareholders and employees.” So what on earth was the Bush administration supposed to do? Look, my internal jury is out on whether there is a political – rather than a business – scandal here. But if it looks as if the Democrats are trying to get Bush whatever he did, then my bet is that it will backfire. And badly.
ENRON II: For a brief synopsis of what the “scandal” involves, take a look at both Safire and Herbert in the Times today. Herbert tries to do the usual number on Bush but even he has to concede that the Congressional Democrats are knee-deep in Enron contacts as well, not to speak of Robert Rubin. Safire, who has some cred in attacking Bush for various alleged improprieties, admits he sees no political scandal here. He’s right, it seems to me, to focus on Arthur Andersen instead.
AND HE SCREWED UP IRAQ AS WELL: On the plane back from Chicago, I read a pretty devastating piece from one Robert Baer in the new Vanity Fair. Baer is a former CIA man in Iraq, who watched as the Clinton administration, in the person of Tony Lake, pulled the rug from under what might have been a successful coup against Saddam in 1995. Baer has a book on the subject coming out, called, appropriately enough, “See No Evil.” If it’s as good as the extract, it will be well worth reading for students of the Clinton foreign policy legacy.
BY THE WAY: I was lucky enough this weekend to see “In The Bedroom,” the new movie with Sissy Spacek and Tom Wilkinson. It’s a reminder of when Hollywood used to make real, complex movies for grown-ups. Gut-wrenching, subtly acted, and hauntingly directed.
TRANSSEXUALS AND MARRIAGE: This story from Kansas is fascinating in its own right, but it also points to something really important. The basic story is a familiar one: old guy with money marries younger woman. Old guy dies. Heir accuses the new wife of gold-digging and wants her share of the loot. The twist is that the wife was born a man, and had a sex change operation. The son claims this invalidates the marriage. I support the woman, natch, but primarily because the marriage was legal when entered into, consensual, and valid. Changing the rules retroactively seems unfair. But in some ways, it would be more interesting if the courts struck down the marriage as invalid. Why? In the words of the New York Times, “Since marriage is seen as a fundamental right, several legal experts said that if transsexuals like Mrs. Gardiner were barred from marrying men, they would probably be allowed to marry women.” This line of argument suggests indeed that denying a human being any right to marry violates one of the core rights guaranteed by the Constitution. Maybe this case will help straight people realize that this is the position in which all gay people now live. Yes, I could marry a woman, but it would not be emotionally, spiritually, sexually meaningful for either of us. It would not be a marriage in any valid sense of the word. But I’m also barred from marrying a man, since this too, in the eyes of the law as it stands, does not constitute a marriage. The plight of this unusual transsexual is therefore the plight of all gay people today – denied one of the most fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution, a right absolutely inextricable from any meaningful “pursuit of happiness.” Perhaps it takes a case like this to get that point across.
THE CRIMSON BASHES WEST: There’s hope yet for Harvard. Here’s a brave young senior pointing out the lack of imperial clothing. I have great respect for Generations Y and Z. They seem less susceptible to cant than their boomer parents.
MEDIA BIAS WATCH I: I offer as evidence this little piece by Katharine Seelye in the New York Times Sunday. This is not an op-ed. But it assumes several things: a) that the conventional left-liberal approach to environmental policy is correct; b) that there is no reason for the Bush administration to pursue a marginally different environmental agenda than Clinton, except to cater to business interests; and c) that, if the administration does do some pro-environmental things, it cannot possibly do them except out of naked political calculus, rather than the merits of the case. Again, the article does not argue these things. It assumes them. It makes little mention of the many pro-environmental measures enacted by the administration, like tighter lead-fuel emissions standards, gives no context (i.e. the Clinton administration standards) in order to judge the new administration, and every single quote is from someone hostile to Bush. The picture used is of Bush with a chainsaw. No mention of his environmentally-friendly ranch, of course. If you think I’m exaggerating, check the piece out yourself. With few changes, it could have been written by a staff-member at the DNC. Seelye at one point condescends to the Bushies, saying, they “seemed finally to comprehend the depth of their problem when the public erupted over their pronouncements on arsenic.” I wonder how long it will take Katharine Seelye to comprehend the depth of her problem as well.
MEDIA BIAS WATCH II: “Meanwhile, conservative editorialists mocked what the writer Stuart Taylor, in Slate magazine, called a ‘feast of victimology.'” – Kate Zernike, New York Times, Sunday. Notice that the editorialists are ‘conservative’ but Stu Taylor is just a writer. In fact, Taylor is broadly speaking a liberal writer, which adds considerable heft to his judgment. So why was his credential omitted and the editorialists’ included? Readers are invited to send in examples of precisely this trope, in which conservatives are identified and liberals described as just ‘writers’, ‘experts,’ or ‘professors.’ (To be fair to Zernike, the piece itself seemed to me, apart from this lapse, admirably even-handed.)
EXPLAINING MBEKI: I found my boss’s column on Thabo Mbeki’s politics very, very helpful in understanding why he seems intent on letting his own countrymen die of a treatable disease. It doesn’t exculpate Mbeki’s criminal negligence, but it does help explain it.
GOOD FOR KELLER: “I wish I could summon up tributes to these men, if only for the contrarian
pleasure of defying the liberal tradition of these pages. But alas, it has to be said that each of them has impoverished our precious political culture.” – Bill Keller, New York Times, admitting that the Times’ op-ed page is skewed left. Now that wasn’t too hard, was it? Now just enjoy being an out-of-the-closet liberal newspaper.
THE OTHER KANDAHAR: Pederasty returns now the mullahs have been ejected. I should add I find this abuse of teenagers morally repugnant – not because they’re male, but because they’re boys.
I LOVE McFLURRYS MYSELF: But, sadly, I’m not alone.
The Dish 