QUOTE OF THE DAY

“I honestly couldn’t stop laughing when I saw the news (thanks to Matt Drudge) that Bill O’Reilly, one of Fox TV’s biggest conservative stars, was being accused of making lurid phone sex calls to his woman producer. It was just too hilarious to believe. O’Reilly is such a blowhard. He’s bizarrely arrogant and politically all over the map. I never watch him since he talks right over his guests — he’s a boorish host. That show is such a waste of time, unless you have low testosterone and want to get jacked up by a squinty-eyed dork pretending he’s John Wayne.
I think that, in uncertain times, people like the sound of confidence, even when that confidence is mimed, which is the case with Bush as well as O’Reilly. Unlike Rush or Hannity, O’Reilly doesn’t really have core values. And now we know why! Thanks to the wonders of the Web, we have learned that O’Reilly’s fantasy life is a high-school orgy of loofah gloves and tropical palms. It’s pitiful, in a way — O’Reilly needs phone sex because he’s trapped by his Catholic code. He’s in psychosexual paralysis — he doesn’t have the confidence in his low-down desires that Clinton does!” – Camille Paglia, Salon. By the way, she’s strongly pro-Kerry in this election.

ARE THEY BREAKING YET?

Mystery pollster looks at the tea-leaves. My hunch is that Osama will nudge them to break toward Bush. Or is the cycle so fast now that Osama will be over by Monday? Nah.

BROOKS ON OSAMA: It’s more elegantly put than Bill O’Reilly, but it’s the same message. This, according to David, is a symbolic election. Who “gets” the existential battle beneath this war? Vote for him. But the more important question, it seems to me, is a calmer, graver one: who will do the most damage to Osama bin Laden and his enablers and accomplices in the next four years? Can we afford four years like the last one in Iraq? Can we afford a future international isolation far more profound than the past two years? Can we afford re-electing an administration that adamantly and fiercely resists any responsibility for any errors? I think we have learned that this administration is accountable to nothing, except the threat of lost power. Once that threat is removed, we will have no more leverage. That may be the case next Wednesday. And Osama just did his own little bit to make sure it is.

ME ON THE COUCH: It is, I suppose, flattering to have not simply my arguments in this election dissected, but my motives as well. Did I turn against Bush because of the war failures? Or because of the FMA? Or because of the spending? Am I a traitor or a thinker? Am I deluded or are my critics? Well, the great thing about a blog is that if you really care that much, you can see all the evidence splayed out in front of you. When someone writes daily, hourly, as I do, you don’t just make arguments or points. You’re showing the whole inglorious sausage-making of the intellectual process. I think that’s a good thing. This notion that writers somehow exist in a purely rational world outside of human emotion, passion, sensibility and bias is a silly one. We can struggle against these factors; but they can never be abolished. Read your Montaigne.

ALL OF THE ABOVE: I’ve made countless arguments about Bush’s spending record and his war conduct – from long before the FMA endorsement. I’ve been very candid, however, in saying that Bush’s opposition to a cause – equal marriage rights – I have devoted my adult life to is bound to have affected my preferences. I guess if you think the case for Bush’s incompetence is completely baseless or overblown, then it seems as if the only reason for backing Kerry is the FMA. Ditto if you simply don’t think of the FMA in the same dire terms that I do, or believe gay equality is a petty or objectionable cause, and not the moral imperative I do. If the view of the writer is of any interest here – move over, Derrida – then my best shot at self-analysis is that my main reason for backing Kerry is that I sincerely think that rewarding incompetence is not a good idea in wartime, and that Kerry is better suited to winning the next stage of the war than Bush is. But obviously, Bush’s hostility to gay equality, and the cynical manner in which he and his party have exploited this issue, has had a huge impact as well. It’s all of the above. And the point of a blog like this is not to persuade everyone I’m right; but simply to show how one person can grapple with a variety of factors – personal, intellectual, historical, political – in coming to a simple conclusion. You may disagree with my conclusion. But it seems unfair to me to call it a dishonest one.

SO HE’S ALIVE II

Some of you have had the opposite reaction to the OBL tape. Here’s a typical email:

Kerry’s sharpest critique is that we have not done enough kill or capture bin Laden. Seeing bin Laden alive and well reinforces–to me at least–that the president has not done his job. Because I had no reason to believe that bin Laden was dead before this video, seeing him now doesn’t make me more afraid of him or of an attack. And rather that making me recall good feelings about the president in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, I am filled with renewed emotions of disappointment in him. Remember: Bush is the one that said he wanted bin Laden “dead or alive” and that he “can ran but not hide.” We now know for sure he failed on both counts.

Who knows how this will impact the race? Although I suspect it will help Bush a lot, my hope is that it will have no effect either way. I don’t want that murderous bastard to have any say on what this democracy decides. I just hope that whoever gets elected next Tuesday manages to find and kill him. Soon.

SO HE’S ALIVE

Bummer. I’d hoped he was buried under rubble. What to make of the rant? The parroting of idiotic Michael Moore points was a little pathetic for an alleged spiritual mastermind. And the re-calibration of the rationale for 9/11 – again retroactively talking of Palestinians – was the usual vile opportunism. But why release a tape just before the elections? The obvious impact will be to help Bush. Any reminder of the 9/11 attacks will provoke a national rallying to the commander-in-chief. The deep emotional bond so many of us formed with the president back then is Bush’s strongest weapon in this election, and OBL has just revived it. The real October Surprise turned out not to be OBL’s capture (sorry, Teresa!) but OBL’s resilience. I have a feeling that this will tip the election decisively toward the incumbent. A few hours ago, I thought Kerry was headed for victory. Now I think the opposite. I also have a sinking feeling that that was entirely bin Laden’s objective.

ARABS FOR BUSH: Some surprising supporters for the president amng Arab regimes. Money quote:

The Iraq quagmire may also explain why Hasan Rowhani and some other Iranian officials (though not, by any means, all of them) would like Bush to have a second term. So long as the US is bogged down in Iraq, it cannot seriously contemplate toppling the regime in Iran – or, for that matter, in Syria. Prospects for the US remaining bogged down look rather better under Bush than Kerry.

Not exactly on Karl Rove’s message, but good enough.

ELLIS ON BUSH: Yes, he’s biased. He’s Bush’s cousin! But he’s also smart, sane and a friend. Here’s John Ellis’ take on the election:

Someone asked me the other day why I supported President Bush, “aside from the family thing” as he put it. I said I was supporting him because I thought he understood The Issue at stake better than anyone alive. And because he cared about that issue completely. And that he was on the right side of that issue from day one and every day thereafter. And that he was devoted to committing this nation to a course of offensive engagement with the terror apparatus that might, just might, save us all here in the United States. The issue, of course, is the fight against Al Qaeda, its associates, enablers and like-mindeds.
The President Bush I read about in the papers and the newsweeklies and the blogs bears almost no resemblance to the President Bush I know and visit with from time to time. (I’ve never seen media as blatantly dishonest and biased as we have all seen this year.) The man I know is smart, extraordinarily disciplined, enormously hard-working, open to new ideas and approaches, decisive, shrewd and gifted with a keen sense of the possible. He is decent and honest and true, which cannot be said of many of his critics.
Has he made mistakes? Yes he has. Do they warrant his retirement? I don’t think so. Because over-riding everything is the issue and on this issue President Bush has been steadfast and strong and right as rain, while his opponent has rambled and waffled and weaseled every which way.
Our enemies will brace for four more years of hell if Bush is re-elected. They will celebrate if Senator Kerry wins.
Here’s to four more years of hell.

That last sentence might have been better formulated. But, look, this is not an easy call. As I’ve said before, it’s a choice between incompetence and irresolution. The question we have to ask is: can we afford four more years like the last one, when our enemies foiled us in Iraq, when our intelligence fell apart, when our moral standing was undermined, and when our president seemed unable even to recognize difficulties, let alone fix them? Kerry is a gamble we cannot know in advance. Bush is a gamble whose recent performance is execrable. I begrudge no one an honest decision, and I won’t be heartbroken by either result. (I just pray for a clear result, that’s all.) But those are the terms.

REPUBLICAN FAMILY VALUES

In Georgia, the head of the Christian Coalition is Sadie Fields, the major proponent of a state amendment that would deny gay couples any legal protections for their relationships. No big surprise that her daughter is gay, like so many offspring of the religious right. Until now, the daughter has kept silent. Until now. Money quote:

I was 24 years old when my mother, through a series of mishaps, found out I was gay. My mother came over to where I worked, screaming, and told me I was “dead” to the family. She called me “sick,” “crazy” and “of the devil.” She said that I would never see my family again.
For more than five years after that day, I heard nothing from my family. No birthday cards, no invitations to Christmas or Thanksgiving events. It wasn’t just the loss of my immediate family that was difficult, but the loss of my extended family as well. Since my mother refused to be in the same room with me, it forced my aunts and uncles to choose sides. I have not been to a family reunion in more than a decade.

There you have the anti-family agenda of the religious right. By next week, they will have passed bans on any protections for gay couples in eight states.

MORE ON AMMO

Another report on the widespread failure to secure munitions sites in Iraq:

Six months after the fall of Baghdad, a vast Iraqi weapons depot with tens of thousands of artillery rounds and other explosives remained unguarded, according to two U.S. aid workers who say they reported looting of the site to U.S. military officials.
The aid workers say they informed Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the highest ranking Army officer in Iraq in October 2003 but were told that the United States did not have enough troops to seal off the facility, which included more than 60 bunkers packed with munitions.
“We were outraged,” said Wes Hare, city manager of La Grande, who was working in Iraq as part of a rebuilding program. A colleague who also visited the depot, Jerry Kuhaida, said it appeared that the explosives at the Ukhaider Ammunition Storage Area had found their way to insurgents targeting U.S. forces.
“There’s no question in my mind that the stuff in Ukhaider was used by terrorists,” said Kuhaida.

This context is important. Al QaQaa is the tip of the ammo scandal. But if you didn’t believe there would be an insurgency, why would you guard these dumps? There weren’t enough troops to maintain order, let alone secure hundreds of sites. You can see the logic for the administration’s position. But after six months?