The Dish

My old friend Annie Bardach – not exactly a conservative – essentially destroys the evil (yes, I mean evil) intentions and actions of Oliver Stone, in his dogged support of tyranny. Money quotes:

Anne-Louise Bardach: Did it strike you as interesting that at one point in the scene with the prisoners, Castro turned to the prisoners’ defense lawyers, who just happened to be there, and he says, “I urge you to do your best to reduce the sentences”?

Oliver Stone: I love that. I thought that was hilarious. Those guys just popped up.

ALB: Is there a show-trial element here?

OS: Yeah. I thought that was funny, I did-the prosecutor and Fidel admonishing them, to make sure they worked hard. There was that paternalism. I mean “father knows best,” as opposed to totalitarianism. It’s paternalism, that’s what I meant. It’s a Latin thing.

Just when you think Stone couldnt get more morally depraved, he says something like that. The man is laughing – laughing – at a gulag.

Don’t miss Paul Berman’s phenomenal op-ed in the Times today. It echoes, though with far more eloquence and credibility (since he is a man of the left) what I was urging last Sunday. It is the Democrats who must now come forward and make a deeper, important, liberal case for continuing this war and getting it right – especially in Iraq. This is far more important than scoring petty domestic points. Kerry has made a tentative start. He should hire Berman as an adviser and possible speech-writer. Now is the Democrats’ opportunity to re-establish their foreign policy credentials, go to Europe to explain why this is too important a matter to be reduced to Bush-hatred. Where are you, Senator Clinton? Your country – and the people of Iraq – need you now.

MEMO TO OSAMA: Re: the “truce.” Go fuck yourself.

Very few incidents have made me as angry as the disgraceful, foul and malicious attempt by the U.S. military to accuse Captain Janes J. Yee, the Muslim chaplain at Guantanamo Bay, of treason and espionage. They had no solid evidence, but, at the time, I worried that the story might be true. I feel terrible for leaping to that tentative conclusion. But it got worse. When the espionage charges fell apart, the military then tried to frame Yee for adultery and for downloading porn from the Internet, dragging his family into the entire affair. It recalled to me the way the military trashes and defames the lives of honorable gay servicemembers. Yesterday, all the charges were dropped. You might not have noticed because the story was buried in most newspapers, unlike the original charges. What I want to know is: who is going to be discharged for this horrendous miscarriage of justice? Who in the military will be held responsible? This incident is particularly noxious at a time when we need to reassure patriotic Muslim-Americans that they are not going to come under clouds of suspicion for their faith or their identity – especially Muslims who are actually serving this country in uniform. This story is a travesty of justice and fairness. And no one really seems to give a damn.

I’m unnerved by the presence of Iranians helping to broker some kind of deal with al Sadr, but heartened by the fact that the extremist revolt in Fallujah seems to have been quelled – largely by Marine force and by moderate Shiite realism. That’s a good combo. Brahimi also seems to have come up with a “sketch” for transition to sovereignty. We’ll see what that entails, but, according to Burns, it means an end to the U.S. sponsored Governing Council. Could this be the beginning of an Iran-friendly Shiite-dominated government? I certainly hope not. But this was encouraging:

Mr. Brahimi suggested that some of the Governing Council’s 25 members could be appointed to other government jobs, and that the transitional government might be formed from scratch, “led by a prime minister and comprising Iraqi men and women known for their honesty, integrity and competence.” Many Iraqis dismiss the council as unrepresentative, or too closely identified with the occupiers. Mr. Brahimi also spoke of holding “a large national conference,” possibly as early as July this year, to promote “national dialogue, consensus-building and national reconciliation,” and said it should elect a consultative assembly to work with the transitional government.

It seems clear to me that indigenous forces have to construct the new government. It is not a loss for the U.S. to cede control in this way. It is what we are looking for. If the U.N. can help, great. But if Iran assumes too powerful a role, then we should be extremely wary. Coalition forces are still the only reason the country isn’t in complete chaos. We should use that leverage. But subtly.

A fascinating account of the personal hatred for Tony Blair that fueled the BBC’s campaign against the war to depose Saddam. This was a persopnal vendetta that deeply corrupted a news organization. Raines-level hysteria. Must-read.

WHO IS MARILYN MUSGRAVE? It’s a question worth asking, and I’ve been doing some research into her work as a legislator on Colorado. Her record is almost entirely devoted to an obsession with homosexuality. In 1998, the Denver Post reported the following: “Musgrave’s four years in the House have produced few dividends for her district. A region with intense school-finance and highway needs and a distressed agricultural base has bigger worries than gay marriage, the issue to which Musgrave has devoted much of her energy. Further, her abrasive tactics appear to have blocked her efforts in other, more constructive, areas.” Musgrave didn’t only promote several bills denying gay couples any recognition under the law under any name, she also voted against including them in anti-discrimination policies in employment. Her other obsession is the reintroduction of the military draft, and virulent opposition to any legal abortions, including those caused by rape or incest. Musgrave was the only member of the Colorado legislature to vote against a bill to create a registry of people convicted of domestic violence; and she voted against a bill allowing a woman to take three days of unpaid leave from work to seek protection from an abusive husband. She voted against a bill requiring schools to come up with a safety plan to combat bullying. She was one of only three state senators to vote against a bill barring female genital mutilation. This is the woman gently referred to by president Bush as “Marilyn” when endorsing her federal constitutional amendment to ban gay citizens from having the right to marry. That’s who she is. And she is what the Republican party, under George W. Bush, is slowly becoming. Unless others stop it.

Well, maybe it was late, maybe I was tired, but many of you had a very different take on Bush’s press conference yesterday. Here’s a typical email:

Did you watch a different press conference than I did? I mean, that the baseline is average means you’re going in the wrong direction. Bush looked tired, nervous, easily confused; he had troubling answers questions, he couldn’t address points, and at times he looked just purely uninformed. Two friends of mine, one conservative and one liberal, called me after the conference. The conservative said that “Bush looked like the first year (law student) who didn’t do his reading and just wouldn’t admit it to the [socratic] prof[essor].” The liberal said “The sad part about this is that conservatives are going to call it a strong performance. We now have a President whose not much different from a Special Ed student. We clap and cheer every time he has his shoes on the right feet.”

I mean, what standard are we going to hold our President to? Do you know the answer to any of these questions that we’re asked?

– What was the Administration’s biggest error in judgment (and what, if anything, is being done about it)?
– Why is Bush meeting with the 9/11 Commission with Cheney?
– What is going to happen on June 30th, who will be involved, and what then?

I mean, if a press conference is meant to actually inform people, then he did a poor job. This one clearly was just meant to up the votes; and I don’t think it did a good job of that either. How can reasonable and intelligent men justify that performance given that the President of the United States should be held to the standard of person capable of running the free world? If you can’t name 25 people that you know personally off the top of your head who could have exceeded the performance of Bush in that speech, then you need new friends. I can name 25; and most of them I would run very, very, fast towards Canada if they ever were handed the keys to the military.

But this was not a generals exam. It was a political event. the point of press conferences is not to naswer every question in full; some of those questions might not yet have answers; some of the answers may not be wise to state publicly yet. But impressions like these are inevitably subjective. I gave my honest assessment.

ONE MAN: Can make a difference. A very simple invention in Nigeria may transform part of that country’s economy and society: one pot placed within another. I don’t know why, but this is the kind of story you don’t read about in the papers, but it gives you hope for Africa.

BARRED FROM THE SCHOOL BOARD: The anti-gay backlash is in full swing in Iowa. And it’s in a gruesome phase in Durham, North Carolina.

Christian right leader, Randall Terry, has a troubled gay son. Dick Cheney has an untroubled gay daughter. Anti-gay crusader Pete Knight has a gay son. Charles Socarides, the chief proponent of reparative therapy for homosexuals, has a gay son. Phyllis Shlafly has a gay son. When will these people begin to understand that being gay is not a “choice”; it’s a fact of human nature?

I’ve just watched the press conference later on C-SPAN. Not only was the transcript encouraging. I found the president clear, forceful, impassioned, determined, real. This was not an average performance. I found it Bush at his best. He needs to do it more.

The best news from Iraq is that the moderate Shiite establishment is actively trying to defuse the al Sadr rebellion. Here’s the money graf from Burns:

Mr. Adnan said that if the Americans agreed not to send forces into Najaf, and not to seek the immediate arrest of Mr. Sadr on the pending warrant, which charges him with complicity in the April 2003 murder of a rival cleric, Mr. Sadr would agree to dismantle his militia. The clerics at the meeting included the sons of three of Iraq’s most venerated grand ayatollahs, including Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who is regarded as the country’s most powerful religious figure.

Al Sadr is cornered. Better still, if this showdown forces the other Shiite figures into a more proactive and constructive role – as potential rulers of Iraq – then we will have found people to whom real power can be transferred. I’m still optimistic. Alas, I was giving a talk down here in Mississippi when the president was talking and so cannot write about his appearance or demeanor. I liked what he had to say, however. Better to have made a speech a month ago, taking responsibility for the lack of WMD stockpiles and reminding Americans that we still have a very long slog ahead of us in Iraq. But, unless I missed a truly bad performance, the transcript looks competent to me. Which is all we can expect from Bush in unscripted settings.

MORE ENCOURAGEMENT: Yes, I think John Kerry’s faith in the United Nations is misplaced. But I was struck by how grown-up his Washington Post op-ed was yesterday. Can you imagine him saying anything like that during the primary season? It was at least a relief that the Democrats are not going to use Iraq as a political football in the future quite as egregiously as they have so far. The most reassuring passage: “The president must rally the country around a clear and credible goal. The challenges are significant and the costs are high. But the stakes are too great to lose the support of the American people.” He sees why we cannot cut and run. What he doesn’t see, I fear, is the scope of the enemy represented in Iraq and looming in neighboring countries. The problem now, as Michael Ledeen has rightly insisted, is that you cannot deal with Iraq alone. Iran, in particular, is eager to intervene – and is meddling to prevent representative government from coming about in Iraq. We cannot challenge every regime at once, of course, but we do need to keep in mind that the conflict is regional, that other terror-masters are involved, and that stabilizing Iraq is the beginning, not the end, of a real strategy to roll back Islamist terror. I’m not sure that the president has fully embraced this analysis. But I am sure that Kerry hasn’t.

AND MORE: A heartening story of American Kurds thanking returning U.S. Soldiers. I’m also encouraged by the relatively mature way in which the West has responded to the hideous hostage-taking by various extremists in Iraq. This time, we seem to have taken this appalling tactic in stride and refused to accede to it in any way. Kudos to the Japanese in particular. I’m not saying, of course, that we shouldn’t be mortified by the cost to human life – and the families and friends of the captured. But I am saying that being able to withstand this attempted blackmail – and not succumb to media hype – will prevent further such kidnappings in the future. Maybe, in fact, al Jazeera has unwittingly helped us here. By broadcasting so much obvious propaganda on a daily basis, we are now inured to it, unshocked. Which means they lose.

My fisking of an egregious act of outing at the Washington Post.

DUPED BY THE ONION: An anti-gay group in Canada uses the Onion as a reliable source.

IN DEFENSE OF BUSH: Victor Davis Hanson makes an argument about how the current president has reversed over two decades of appeasement of Middle East terror. Money quote:

George W. Bush, impervious to such self-deception, has, in a mere two and a half years, reversed the perilous course of a quarter-century. Since September 11, he has removed the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, begun to challenge the Middle East through support for consensual government, isolated Yasser Arafat, pressured the Europeans on everything from anti-Semitism to their largesse to Hamas, removed American troops from Saudi Arabia, shut down fascistic Islamic “charities,” scattered al-Qaida, turned Pakistan from a de facto foe to a scrutinized neutral, rounded up terrorists in the United States, pressured Libya, Iran, and Pakistan to come clean on clandestine nuclear cheating, so far avoided another September 11 – and promises that he is not nearly done yet.

That record is far more impressive when you consider what came before him.