Vice President Dick Cheney (L) speaks as Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) looks on at the U.S. Capitol April 24, 2007 in Washington DC. Cheney called Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s call for a pullout of troops in Iraq "unfortunate," "uninformed" and "misleading." By Mark Wilson/Getty.
Longtime readers will know how impressed I was with Pat Tillman’s decision to forgo a lucrative sports career for service to his country. We all were. It is an appropriate but awful coda to this war that his sacrifice was rewarded with goverment mendacity. They lie to the bereaved families of heroes. Can you imagine what they have been telling the rest of us?
"Halberstam was an exceptional and relentless journalist — had more reporters been as questioning early in the Iraq War as Halberstam was in Vietnam, we might not be in our current quagmire — but his strength and beauty, what really set him apart, was that he wrote about everything, absolutely everything. Because everything interested him. He wrote about the Vietnam War, Bobby Kennedy, the Blazers, the media, the Japanese car industry, the 1949 pennant race, Bill Walton, the 1960s civil rights movement, Michael Jordan, 1950s popular culture, Bobby Knight, the 9/11 firefighters, the Korean War, the 1964 World Series … about the only thing he missed was Madonna," – Jim Caple, ESPN.
Here’s a great interview with a friend whom I also greatly admire as a writer and thinker: Jon Rauch. This exchange helps explain why he’s been on my favorites’ list for a very long time:
Reason: Let’s talk about your politics. At various points, you’ve described yourself as libertarianish but not libertarian. A few years back in an essay for reason, you called yourself "a soft communitarian." How do identify yourself or characterize yourself politically and how does that guide or affect or influence or get in the way of your work?
Rauch: Well, it doesn’t get in the way because I spend no time thinking about how I categorize myself politically. I don’t even bother.
Reason: Isn’t that strange in your line of work? Most people in your position have a political identity which is not only fully articulated but is very central to who they are.
Rauch: Now, that’s strange. Why would anyone want a political identity? I understand an ethnic identity, a cultural identity, a [sexual] identity, but why would anyone want a political identity?
Reason: As the editor of political magazine–of a libertarian magazine–I have no fucking idea why anyone would want such a thing.
Rauch: I hope that was on the record. Put that in there. I’m completely mystified by the mindset that judges one’s moral character in life by how well you fit in some political party or other. It makes no sense to me at all.
Reason: Many people would say that it is part of a cultural identity–of being on a certain team, or being a certain type of person.
Rauch: I think that’s right. There is the team aspect and there is also the member of the club aspect.
Reason: Do you vote?
Rauch: Oh, yeah.
Reason: Do you vote Democratic or Republican? Do you vote on candidate-by-candidate basis or something like that?
Rauch: I don’t tell my vote, my specific vote, but over time, my votes have been pretty much esoteric, like my writing. I feel very much emotionally like part of the marginalized middle. That isn’t to say that all my views are wishy-washy and that I’m halfway between Republicans and Democrats, but I do feel myself to be one of these independent voters who is kind of left behind by a political system biased in favor of people who fit into neat boxes and have extreme views. And I vote like an independent.
A product whose moment has arrived. Caffeinated spiders, however, catch fewer flies.
How can one not regret the coarseness of the rhetorical blast that just came from the lips of Archbishop Angelo Amato? He directly equated suicide bombing with civil unions or civil marriage for gay couples. Yes: the human desire to seek out one other person and commit to him or her for a lifetime is "terrorism with a human face" and "equally repugnant" as the acts of al Qaeda. The comparison is such a ludicrously cruel, absurd and demeaning one it doesn’t even rise to the level of rational debate. But here is an authoritative church leader calling gay couples the moral equivalent of mass-murderers of innocents. All one can say is that this is not the language of Jesus, and it is not the language of the Gospels. It is, in fact, hate speech. It will persuade no one. Even if one were to believe that abortion is as morally repugnant as murder, how can the same rubric be applied to gay couples who are intending to do nothing but look after one another under the law? How can attempts to find meaningful civil protections for their relationships be regarded as "evil"? Misguided for some, perhaps. Unwise for others. But evil? "Equally repugnant" as the acts of suicide bombers? From a bishop of the church? The mind reels.
Rajasthan, India, 9.52 am.
For some doctors, it’s not that prominent a priority. For others, it is – and they can face jail. John Tierney reports.
If you think Stephen Colbert only skewers the right, check out his interview with Russell Simmons, whose new book, "Do You!", seemed to stump its author on last night’s show. The man even tried to bypass Colbert and spin his book directly to the camera. Bad idea, Mr Simmons. If you want evidence that some black millionaires are as arrogant and out of touch as, well, some white millionaires, look no further.
The interest in the candidacy of Barack Obama is at fever-pitch for a reason. The United States confronts a crisis in leadership, a paralysis not seen since the waning days of Jimmy Carter. Then the paralysis stemmed from almost pathological passivity; now it springs from almost pathological reliance on violence without order to impose values that can only be chosen. It is long past time to retire the idea that physical force alone – from bombs and bullets to torture – can solve the crisis of global Islamist terror, an ominously shifting climate, and the collapse of America’s moral standing in the world. Neither extreme of Carter-style passivity nor Bush-style aggression works; neither reflects the core character of America. And yet America remains the indispensable nation. Without America’s force, moral leadership, engagement and diplomacy, evil will win, as it is winning in Iraq and in so many places right now. The president, moreover, is partly responsible for the enemy’s success. He has divided a country when it desperately needs uniting; he has misused military power; he has permanently stained the moral tradition of this country by the indelible evil of torture. And in all this, he has made the United States far weaker than it was seven years ago. We can and should debate how this came to be the case – whether tragedy or accident or deceit or incompetence or arrogance or some hideous, toxic combination of them all. But the first thing we have to acknowledge in looking for a new leader is the bankruptcy of the current one.
Obama’s speech yesterday is his most detailed yet on foreign affairs. Read it. It is emphatically not isolationist; it is emphatically not against the use of military force when necessary; it is emphatically pro-military in its call for many more troops. On the critical issue of Iraq, Obama has taken a stand – a clear one for withdrawal, with the possibility of a strike-force over the horizon. This is a very difficult call, and the timing and execution of withdrawal will be dispositive. But one core strength of Obama’s candidacy is that he got this war right when many of us got it wrong. He deserves more of a listening than many of us do. If his speech yesterday was any indication, there will be much to chew on. I’m sorry to see no commitment to a carbon tax; I’m unsure of whether diplomacy can or will work with Pyongyang and Tehran. We will all have to listen and watch Obama closely these next few months in weighing his candidacy against others’.
But this much we can already say: Obama brings something no one else does to this moment. By replacing one of the most globally despised and domestically divisive presidents in American history with a young leader half-Kansan and half-Kenyan, America would be saying something to the world: Bush-Cheney is not who we are. America is not what it has come to appear to be. This country is among the most culturally and racially and religiously diverse on the planet. America has long been a powerful and vital beacon for human rights – not, as recently, the avatar of torture, rendition and executive tyranny. The simple existence of Obama as a new president in a new century would in itself enhance America’s soft power immeasurably, just as a clear decision to leave Iraq would provide much greater leverage for diplomacy and military force in a whole variety of new ways. Obama would mean the rebranding of America, after a disastrous eight years. His international heritage, his racial journey, his middle name: these are assets for this country, not liabilities.
This is the reason for his ascendancy. This is what the American people sense and the world awaits. This is what the Islamists fear. That last alone is reason to feel hope. Money quote:
We must [lead] not in the spirit of a patron, but the spirit of a partner – a partner that is mindful of its own imperfections. Extending an outstretched hand to these states must ultimately be more than just a matter of expedience or even charity. It must be about recognizing the inherent equality and worth of all people. And it’s about showing the world that America stands for something – that we can still lead…
[I]f the next President can restore the American people’s trust – if they know that he or she is acting with their best interests at heart, with prudence and wisdom and some measure of humility – then I believe the American people will be ready to see America lead again.
They will be ready to show the world that we are not a country that ships prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far off countries. That we are not a country that runs prisons which lock people away without ever telling them why they are there or what they are charged with. That we are not a country which preaches compassion and justice to others while we allow bodies to float down the streets of a major American city.
That is not who we are.
(Photo: Jeff Haynes/AFP/Getty.)
