Category: Old Dish

Some statistics on the D.C. Police Force’s record in solving crimes. In 1999, according to a superb investigation by the Washington Post (which proved an exception to the usual rule in criticizing a mainly black police force two years ago), nearly two-thirds of murders remained unsolved after a year. Bottom-line: if you want to murder someone, you are twice as likely to get away with it in D.C. as you are likely to get caught. I quote from the Post: “A year-long Washington Post investigation has found fundamental flaws in D.C. homicide cases: poor supervision of detectives scattered in districts across the city, hundreds of missing and incomplete case files, and dozens of cases closed without arrests under unclear circumstances. The disarray has persisted despite repeated promises of fixes, a precipitously dropping homicide rate and the arrival two years ago of a police chief brought in to reform a troubled department.” And missing person cases are some of the hardest to solve of all. So be prepared for this trauma never to find a resolution. Can Fox News keep riding Chandra’s presumably dead body through 2002?

Michael Portillo is now out of the running for leader of the Conservative Party. He came third in the latest ballot of Tory MPs – leaving big-government Europhile Ken Clarke and hardline rightist Iain Duncan Smith as the two candidates to face the Tory activist electorate. The final result won’t emerge till September 12. Portillo lost because, in the final analysis, his social liberalism was too much for the party to stomach. Homophobia thrived. Duncan Smith’s supporters argued that Tories wanted a “family man” and a “normal” person to head the party. The Daily Telegraph described Portillo as “actorly.” Portillo’s open-minded stand on marijuana legalization and same-sex marriage was used against him. So now the Tories have a choice between one man – Duncan Smith – who makes William Hague look charismatic and liberal, and Ken Clarke – an avuncular, reassuring figure who is an enthusiast for British membership of the euro, the one issue on which the Tories still have an advantage over Labour. The fact that Clarke won over the more conservative-leaning parliamentary party shows that the Tories, as ever, don’t give a damn what they really stand for if they can get elected. But Clarke’s emergence could either be an amazingly counter-intuitive way to get the party’s European divisions behind it – or, in the nightmare scenario, split the party and destroy it for a generation. Much now depends on how Clarke handles this amazing victory. But William Hague is looking better with each passing day.

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “Couldn’t agree with you more on your comments regarding the Times being on the “razor’s edge of credibility.” I would label myself as a fiscally conservative, culturally moderate, Southern White Male. I’m comforted and encouraged by what seems to me to be George W. Bush’s over-arching decency, and shudder deeply at the thought of Al Gore in the White House.
I’ve lived in Westchester, New York for the last 5 years, and have subscribed to the NYT for that entire time; it has always seemed an “important” paper to me, perhaps THE important US paper–and, even when I disagreed with it, I at least felt challenged by the thought and hard work that had obviously gone into the editorial product. I’ve tried to never be a knee-jerk conservative, I don’t mind having my beliefs challenged, and I always felt I could at least count on the Times for a well-done, coherent and . . . responsible statement of its beliefs and positions.
Not anymore. The current editorial page seems mindless, knee-jerk (Bush “bad,” anti-Bush “good), and frankly contortionist in its efforts to slant everything . . . EVERYTHING . . . against Bush and all Republicans. And, more than ever, this slant has moved full-scale into its reporting. It’s no longer even camouflaged. It’s sad . . . but will almost certainly mean good things for other honest, balanced voices, as interested citizens like me look for meaningful, useful content and comment about the things that interest us.”

Of course she is. You thought that only Gary Condit’s privacy was going to appease the press-wolves? According to Josh Marshall in Salon, Lisa DePaulo, a talented muck-raker, is working on a story for Talk magazine, Tina Brown’s latest (and awful) vehicle. Now Levy’s sex life will be fodder – and if she had an active one, look out for the Kudlows to trash her as well. Better still for the press: If she’s dead, she can’t sue!

THE HIDDEN LAW: Excellent piece, as usual, by Jonah Goldberg – even though he calls me “daffy” – in National Review Online. The critical issue for Jonah seems to be that violation of privacy is legit in matters of adulterous affairs, if the news happens to come out incidentally and inexorably in the course of some other run of events – e.g. your lover goes missing, your girlfriend gets pregnant and has a baby, your S&M game goes wrong and someone gets a black eye or something worse. Once that has happened, and the intern is out of the bag, or sling, or whatever, it is the duty of one and all to condemn the offender in order to uphold social mores. Okay, Jonah. I’m with you so far (except I seem to recall a Gospel passage about casting the first stone, and so on, but never mind). I can almost see why, in the Condit case, the revelation of his adultery with Chandra Levy is not an invasion of privacy per se, because it is pertinent to her whereabouts (although quite how, exactly, I’m not so sure). So I’m not a privacy absolutist, as Jonah says. What concerns me is how this revelation can then be leveraged by the press – in aid of social mores and, er, sales – to go on a fishing expedition about everything else in Condit’s life. This is the same evil as that perpetrated by sexual harassment law. If a single case of such behavior is alleged in court, then every other possible detail of someone’s private life is fair game for legal and media discovery. We soon launch something close to an inquisition into the most intimate matters. This is not merely unseemly. It is dangerous. Even sleazeballs deserve a zone of privacy. And without some kind of durable public-private distinction, even for cads, liberal democracy becomes increasingly untenable.

STEM CELLS: I’ve just finished a first draft of my TRB this week on stem cell human embryo research. Thanks for all your input. I realize, having thought pretty hard about this, that I have few doubts that all such research is morally unconscionable. Don’t write me though until you’ve read the piece. Please. But one point I couldn’t cram into the 1200 words I’m allowed is the following. I believe as a matter of simple logic – not merely religious faith – that the only non-arbitrary moment at which a human being becomes a human being is at the moment of conception. That’s why I cannot ultimately support experimenting on such human beings. But how then do I justify my middle-of-the-road stance on abortion, which is to keep it legal in the first trimester? The answer, I guess, is my political and moral respect for a woman’s dominion over her own body. A woman’s right to determine her own body’s fate is a bulwark of her freedom from coercive state power – and that freedom seems to me only outweighed by the obvious humanity of an unborn child after the first trimester. I know that’s an arbitrary stage of fetal development as well. But it’s as good as any basis I can think of for a compromise. I know this isn’t a perfect solution, but using the power of government to control a woman’s body in the early stages of pregnancy when good people sincerely differ about the moral status of a fetus is anathema to me. But in the stem cell issue, that question never really arises. These embryos are in no-one’s body. Their right to exist doesn’t have to be balanced by the countervailing right of the mother to be left alone. That’s why I think we’re right to be tougher on abusing extremely young humans in the laboratory than in the womb. At least that’s where my thinking is at right now.

“Thanks for pointing out the profile of Julia Kristeva in the NYT. I spent a while in grad school studying French philosophers and psychoanalysts, as well as other figures (mis-)appropriated by the academic left like Arendt and Freud. What the American university (and the British, too, if my experience at Sussex can be generalized) has done to their work has been grossly unfair. Some examples: Arendt is among the most pointed critics of communism and boldest theoretician of freedom (and constantly critical of feminism and identity politics in their ’60s guise). Freud was deeply attached to conservative, bourgeois values and affirms exactly the sort of thesis you suggest in your piece about rioting and the gratification of human urges. Derrida has spent much of the last decade taking religion much more seriously than it will ever be taken in the NYT (a theological debate I saw between him and the Catholic theologian Jean-Luc Marion was breathtaking). And Lacan famously said of the rioters in Paris ’68, “All they want is a new master.” The left, of course, benefits from its blindness to that which doesn’t fit neatly into its world-view, but the right shoots itself in the foot by holding up these figures as straw men for what’s wrong with the American university. In fact, there is enough in these figures to create a dynamic, intellectual base to the right if it’d stop badmouthing and start reading.”

A New York Post story today reveals that Gary Condit went regularly to a spa in Washington D.C., where he used an alias to protect his privacy. Ha! We now know the alias and the spa. That’ll teach him to have a private life. The story also tells us – completely gratuitously – that Condit’s first wife was pregnant when they were married. Thanks for letting us know. All of this is completely relevant to Chandra Levy’s disappearance, right? Of course not. With each passing day, this “no unpublished thought” story has a mob-like feel to it. I think it may be shaping up to be a classic contemporary case of media degeneracy. Accordingly, I’m working on an essay detailing these abuses of privacy. If you find any other aspects of Condit’s life that can have no conceivable relevance to Levy’s disappearance, and which have appeared in any media above the level of the National Enquirer, please send them in. It’s time to fight back.

CATCH 22: And yes, I know I just retailed the very same privacy-violating stories, violating Condit’s privacy even further. But that’s the catch, isn’t it? Privacy violators can normally expect to remain free from criticism because those who feel most appalled by their tactics cannot respond without fanning the flames. That’s why there is something truly sadistic and cowardly about this kind of journalism. (And having experienced something even more unjustified than what has happened to Condit, I cannot help but react viscerally. In some ways, I wish more journalists could have experienced what I did – it might make them less blithe in their incursions into people’s privacy.) Condit cannot and should not respond to every crazy accusation now leveled against him. But his silence only attracts more bullies. Yes, I know he erred gravely in not being forthcoming immediately to the police. That’s a very serious matter. But so far, that’s his only proven lapse. By all means, criticize him for it. Even call for him to resign, as The New Republic. and its new found allies, Bob Barr and Trent Lott, have. The rest is mere gossip. Focus on the real story. And leave the rest of the man’s life alone.

THE REAL CHANDRA LEVY STORY: Of course, the one story the liberal press won’t touch is the D.C. Police Department. (They won’t touch it because the force is mainly black and you’re not allowed to criticize mainly black institutions.) As soon as this event occurred in D.C. it became a pretty sure bet that this disappearance would never be solved. Why would it? When was the last time a tough murder case was solved in D.C.? The DCPD’s success rate at resolving murders is about as good as the English at winning Wimbledon. There are 140 other missing persons in D.C. this year – and none will be found. The only reason they are going through the motions this time is because this is a national story, Levy is white, a Congressman is involved. If none of those applies, D.C. is a pretty good place to kill someone and get away with it. My bet is that we will never know the answer. And that no-one in the major media will cast a spotlight on the shambles that is the D.C. Police Department.

And Joe Lelyveld as well. All that money, months of investigation, a dozen reporters assigned fulltime to the case … and all they got was this lousy non-story. Bottom line: there was no electoral fraud in Florida; there was “no support for the suspicions of Democrats that the Bush campaign had organized an effort to solicit late votes”; the Bush people were no more aggressive in getting their military ballots counted in Florida than the Gore team was in getting recounts in favored counties; the Bushies’ military ballot success would have made no difference to the final result. Surely an A12 story. Perhaps Joe Lelyveld was trying to make this his breathless, show-stopping finale. But he has such a glittering career, it would have been better for him to have given this non-event the placement it deserved, rather than fronting it all over the front page and yards and yards within. The Times is now surely on a knife-edge of credibility. It’s still the best paper in the world – and I’m proud to contribute to its magazine. But if it keeps blaring non-stories like this to appease its leftist Manhattan base, and maintains its close to unanimous chorus of editorial and op-ed hostility to president Bush, it will become less authoritative. People like me who care about it and groan about some of its obvious news bias will simply stop reading it. Or, worse, we’ll start assuming it’s propaganda until proven otherwise.

THE BAR LOWERS EVEN FURTHER: “Kausfiles’ goal is to have no unpublished thoughts on the Chandra Levy story.” – Mickey Kaus’s bid to violate anyone’s privacy – and indeed raise any Chandra scenario whatever – on the Internet. So why hasn’t Mickey named the ABC News reporter whose relationship with Condit was purely professional, according to her bosses? In his piece, Mickey also makes a weird mention of the likelihood of Chandra using a motorbike at the time she disappeared. (For those of you who, like me, remain befuddled by this leap of the imagination, it apparently explains why she left her purse behind, but kept her I.D. with her.) Huh? Is this some nudge-nudge wink-wink reference to a surreal story yanked a few days ago by Newsmax, linking Levy and Condit to all sorts of sado-masochistic, biker shenanigans? Ok, Mickey. If you really want no unpublished thoughts, can you be more explicit here? Or is this just a complete guess? After all, everyone knows that anyone into S&M sex is just a murderer waiting for his chance.

THOSE CHANDRA MAKE-OVER PICS: If Chandra is still alive and comes back from wherever she is unharmed, I hope she tells the DC Police Department what she thinks of those artists’ renditions of her with new hair and accessories. Blimey. She looks like Linda Tripp with an Afro. Come to think of it, there’s a drag-queen performing in Provincetown right now who’s the spitting image of this Chandra. Could I have a scoop on my hands? Headed out now on my motorbike (without my purse) to investigate …

SANITY ON RIOTING: The best little piece of analysis on rioting came my way this week via an email. (The best, that is, since The Onion’s spoof front-page of the L.A. Riots in 1991: “Rioters Demand Justice, Tape Decks.”) My friend Matthew Parris points out in the Times of London that rioting is fun; it resonates with a permanently violent and aggressive part of human nature, which only needs an excuse or an opportunity to be vented. Why are people rioting, every well-meaning person asks, and sets up a commission to investigate its causes, and seeks dialogue and ponders where this will all end up. Phooey, says Parris. This whole approach is typical of a modern mind that refuses to believe that there are any human problems that cannot be solved, any human crisis that cannot be alleviated, any human experience that cannot be turned into a problem begging for a solution. Maybe the problem is the point. Asking why people are rioting is a function of naiveté or utopianism. “You might as well look at a dinner table piled with food and surrounded by diners, and ask: “Why? What do they mean by this? What can we learn? What are they trying to say?” They do not mean anything; they are communicating nothing; we can learn from the rhythmical working of their jaws nothing. The consumption of food is explained by the human appetite for food.’ And rioting is explained by the human appetite for conflict. With a little bit of testosterone thrown in for good measure.

An amazing picture accompanies an interesting article on fetal surgery in the New York Times Magazine today. A tiny arm and hand of the unborn child reaches up toward a phsyician’s glove. The Times’ caption? “Dr. Joseph Bruner with Kelly Hasten’s uterus.” Talk about blinders.

WORSE THAN THE FRENCH: Satisfying article in the “Arts and Left-Wing Ideas” section of the New York Times yesterday. It features – guess what? – another glowing profile of a leftist academic. Only this time, she bites back! Julia Kristeva, a post-structuralist Freudian (ok, I’m trying to pin her down here), has long been an icon of the fascist academic left in the U.S. They have used Kristeva’s work to justify their racist, sexist and homophobic attacks on any minority individual who dares to actually think for herself. Now along comes Kristeva to say, to paraphrase Eliot, “that is not what I meant at all. That is not it at all.” Surveying the wreckage American liberal racists have wrought with her work, she now insists: “What is important is not to affirm the power and identity of groups, but to increase the freedom of individuals … To assume a group identity is a dead end. And if some people have interpreted French thinking to mean they should, they are totally wrong.” Amen, sister.

“At this point, there are so many pieces of the puzzle to fit together that it’s almost irresponsible not to speculate about this sort of scenario, along with all the others.” – my me-zine hero and friend, Mickey Kaus. All the others? So it’s ok to speculate about anything that might possibly, conceivably, potentially, have to do with Chandra Levy’s disappearance? Everyone Condit has ever slept with? Every dirty-talking phone-call he might ever have had? Every tryst he might have conducted? Every stain on any piece of clothing? OK, Mickey. Here’s a challenge. If it’s ok to speculate about any possible scenario, why haven’t you repeated the Newsmax story (almost immediately yanked from the wires) that linked Condit to bisexual orgies, Harley-Davidson rapes and murders, Haitian prostitutes, and on and on? Hey, it’s all speculation. It’s almost irresponsible not to publish them. Put your website where your mouth is. And why haven’t you published the name of the ABC News reporter? I would if I had the information reliably. Do you have a source?

I REPRINT, YOU DECIDE: Two interesting responses to my tadpole analogy, which I now realize is full of holes. Interesting holes that I am working on filling for a column next week. These emails home in on the whole ‘potential life’ issue. They might help clarify things:

“Your analogy on stem cell research is interesting, but here is something that I have always thought about regarding human life.
My oldest daughter Erin is 11 years old. When she was in utero, the doctor thought we had lost her, but my wife had an ultrasound and it turned out Erin was still alive. If we had lost the baby, it would have been Erin we lost, not some mass of cells. Erin was always Erin, even before we knew her. In the same way, stem cell research will not be carried out on masses of cells. It will be carried out on Jim, Cathy, Janie, Tommy, and yes, Erin.”

“This is getting zen, baby. You really are making it too complicated. It is what it is in the moment. Otherwise you enter the realm of probability. If you eat fertilized eggs for your scrambled egg breakfast, are you getting the nutritional value of a chicken or an egg?
The frog is in the future. The (egg?) is in the past. The tadpole is in the moment. You are cutting off a probability for a frog, sure. The tadpole may well have died before it grew to frogdom, but you can make certain deductions about lake health using your big old brain. It doesn’t matter. You still killed a tadpole and would be tried under the green court of law for tadpole death not frog death.
If you kill a child, you cut off the potential adult, but you didn’t kill an adult, you killed a child. If you freeze a fertilized egg you are not freezing an adult or a child, you are freezing a fertilized egg.
My pro-life cousin got in vitro–twice. That means a few embryos were discarded. She doesn’t think of them as her lost children, trust me. She thinks of them as fertilized eggs. Well, she thinks of them not at allactually.
If those in vitro fertilized eggs had not existed, neither would her children. Their probability line would have been cut off. (You do realize that lots of fertilized eggs are naturally discarded by a woman’s body without implantation…Should we mount a campaign to save their lives????)”

I was struck by something in Josh Marshall’s typically good piece in Salon today. He details a complicated and not-too-interesting nugget in the Condit affair. It involves an ABC News reporter who interviewed Condit the day after Levy’s disappearance at my local coffee shop in Adams Morgan, D.C. There are some discrepancies between the timeline of those days proffered by Condit and what ABC News says it knows because of the timing of the interview. Josh also mentions that other news outlets have alleged that the reporter (unnamed) had an affair with Condit. ABC News insists that their relationship was purely professional – but won’t name the reporter. Why? If she is a reporter with nothing to hide and has relevant information that might help find Chandra Levy, why the sudden squeamishness about privacy? Once again, this gets it the wrong way round. If ABC News is right about their reporter’s relationship with Condit, this is one instance in which there are no real privacy considerations. As long as ABC News says there was no affair, then the reporter has nothing to be afraid of in disclosing her name. In fact, she has a duty to do so. I fear this is another instance of the media attacking others’ privacy while protecting their own. Typical that Salon didn’t have the guts to name her either. Who do they think they are? One rule for the media elite; another for their victims. And which media reporter will raise this question? None – so far. Thank God for me-zines. C’mon, Josh. If you know her name, tell us. Bypass Salon. They’re cowards. Use your own site.

“This year a new sedition act – disguised as “campaign-finance reform” – was passed by the Senate but, by a narrow margin, was at least temporarily beaten back yesterday on a procedural vote in the House of Representatives … Those who support the Sedition Act of 2001 may masquerade as good-government reformers, and they may use self-serving populist rhetoric to describe their intentions, but the truth is that their real beef is with representative government.” – Mark R. Levin, National Review Online.