Category: The Dish

A reader writes:

I am sure Hitchens shares your disillusionment about the failings of the Bush Administration in the War on Terror (I read recently that Hitch is involved in a FISA request with the ACLU to determine if foreign journalists were targeted by the NSA).  Obviously, being an atheist, Hitchens disagrees with the religious right in this country.  I am sure he is very critical of the tactical and moral errors of the Administration (although comparing Bush to Stalin is a bit much).  But as annoying as fundamentalist Christians can be, they are nothing compared to the threat of fundamentalist Islam. No other major society has embraced the dark virtue of jihad and death as a virtue. Christian martyrs willingly go to their deaths rather than deny their faith. Islamic martyrs seek to take out as many "unbelievers" and "apostates" as they can (which is why the thought of the Iranians mullahs getting nukes is beyond disturbing).

At least George Bush gets the big issue–that we have to fight this.  Fighting, even if you are not fighting well, is better than giving in.  The Democrats still don’t get it.  For all of W’s and the Administration’s failings on the war on terror, they are hands down better than Al Gore and Kerry would have been.

History will judge, I guess.

So we have new threats and some kind of offer of a "truce"? I’d like to think it’s a sign of the pressure he’s under. The latest attack on his henchmen seems to have been pretty successful, and one of the real achievements of this administration has been its determination to take out the old al Qaeda leadership. Except Osama, of course.

Thanks for all your emails suggesting small changes to the site. One suggestion we’ve already implemented: there are now 25 separate posts available for reading at one time, rather than a mere ten. We’re working on the rest. Thanks for the input. More is always welcome. This is your site as much as mine – and I regularly get all my best news and opinion tips from readers. Email away.

The people speak.

Was he responsible for all of Western civilization? Alan Wolfe begs to differ.

I was interviewed by truthy icon, Stephen Colbert, Tuesday night. You can see the clip here.

One thing I learned from studying the Third Reich in college: If a genocidal maniac attains power, it’s always worth noting what he has said and taking him at his word. There’s a tendency in the West not to believe the worst about our enemies. Hitler wasn’t really going to kill all the Jews. Mao couldn’t be massacring and starving millions, could he? Stalin meant well, no? Democracies, because we create cultures of reason and toleration, find it hard to get our heads around people who really do believe some crackpot theory. Take a look at this  helpful essay about Islamist views of the Apocalypse. There are obvious parallels with our own religious far right – in fact, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s views are almost a negative image of Tim LaHaye’s. What’s also interesting is how modern a lot of this is. The new Christian dispensationalists who are anticipating the Rapture and the slaughter of all infidels in the End-Time are far more numerous and influential today than in the past. The latest Islamist apocalyptic ravings also have a new component: fanatical anti-Semitism, which has been around in the Muslim past but has never been as central to Islamist ideolog as than today. Money quote:

"Most scenarios start with the Arab-Israel conflict, as the basis for the end-time events, though some start with the Gulf War (1990-91). At some time in the near future a demonic being, called the Dajal (the Muslim Antichrist), will gain control over most of the world, with the exception of certain Muslim countries (the lists of these vary, but are usually the most anti-western ones). This being will be a Jew and will control by means of a world-embracing conspiracy, after the fashion of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. In general, apocalyptic believers state that this being, if not physically present in the world today, malevolently influences the course of events preparatory to his eventual revelation. An apocalyptic war is postulated between the Dajal, who will lead the west and Israel, against the Muslims."

Now remember that someone who fervently believes in all of this, someone who has vowed to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, is on the verge of gaining the technology to detonate nukes. We can assume rationality on the part of the Iranian mullahs. But if we do, we are being irrational ourselves. They want the nukes because they expect the apocalypse. It’s time we took their views seriously.

The fiance and I were watching the DVD version of Steve Carell’s charming comedy, "The 40 Year-Old Virgin," the other night. There’s a couple of classic scenes in it – one where two black guys try to out-negro each other; and one where two straight guys playing video games try and out-straight each other. Both scenes rested on ethnic or sexual stereotypes, both were un-PC, but both were also completely inoffensive in today’s cultural climate. The scenes weren’t regurgitating the warmed over prejudices of the past, like a Jay Leno monologue or Adam Sandler’s appalling "The Longest Yard." They were playing with them. The writers and actors trusted the audience to be in on the joke, and to realize that the fun they were poking was sharp but not designed to wound. I’d put "South Park" firmly in the post-PC category, as well as Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Dan Savage. When Colbert asked me in all seriousness on his show last Tuesday, "When did you choose to be gay?" no one believed for a second that he was anti-gay. Everyone in the twenty-something audience laughed. This is all a great development, and a generational one – a sign that the humor-free PC ’90s have melted into something much funnier, much more honest, and yet also inclusive. The other key figure, I think, is Dave Chapelle, a comic genius who has somehow managed to create comedy that is ferociously close to the edge politically and in clumsier hands could be discounted as bigoted or dealing in the crudest of stereotypes. And yet, we’re all in on the joke – black and white, male and female, straight and gay, stoner or crackhead. To my mind, it’s just a sign of how vibrant American popular culture still is, how the doom-mongers are often wrong, and how a multicultural society can indeed find a way to talk about its internal differences without cloying sensitivity or crude prejudice. Two cheers?

My new Time magazine essay on our new King George can be read here. My Times of London column on Paul Bremer’s new book on his time in Iraq, and what we learn from Fred Barnes’ new biography of W, can also be read here.

A reader writes:

"One of the best books I‚Äôve read recently was Hitchen‚Äôs Why Orwell Matters.  We all know the story of Orwell‚Äôs involvement in the Spanish Civil War and his eventual disillusionment with the cause ‚Äì namely because of Stalin‚Äôs people wanting him dead.  Sometimes in life you find yourself doing the right thing with the wrong people.  I wonder at what point Hitchens is going to realize that the company he keeps is no longer worth it."

I’ve been wondering that myself for quite a while now.