The Dish

I’ve noticed recently a rhetorical device employed by “news analysts,” like Patrick Tyler of the New York Times, to spin the news their way. That’s the use of the term “many.” Take this sentence in Tyler’s “news analysis” of the British government’s damning dossier of Saddam’s evasion of U.N. resolutions aimed at restricting his nuclear, chemical and biological offensive capability:

Although many Americans, and far more Europeans, will not see this as adequate cause to go to war – if President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair choose that option – the report appears clearly intended to make a strong case for the urgent return of inspectors to Iraq and for the necessary pressure to force Iraqi cooperation with their work.

This is clearly factually accurate, but it’s also misleading. According to current polls, around 70 percent of Americans find Saddam’s weaponry a threat to themselves and to the region – enough to support a war if necessary to disarm him. Does 30 percent constitute “many”? Sure. But wouldn’t it be more accurate to say: “Although a minority of Americans – but a majority of Europeans – will not see this as adequate cause to go to war …”? Nice try, Tyler. But we’re onto you.

Well, I guess it had to happen sometime. It made some weird whirring sounds then kaput. Amazingly, in this tiny town, there’s a full-time Mac repair specialist who’s coming over tomorrow morning to fix it. I’m writing this at a friend’s house, and it would be a little rude to stay here till 2 am, as is my wont, so I’m outta here soon. I’ll try and post a couple of items, but check in later for more.

This is news. Newly elected German chancellors invariably go to Paris for their first foreign trip. Schroder has gone to London. On the day that the Blair government has further seized the initiative with its damning report on Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, Britain is slowly becoming the pivot for the post-9/11 diplomatic world. One thing seems clear to me: the notion of a single European foreign policy is now well and truly dead.

Well, they don’t exactly say he’s not being cynical. They just say he isn’t as cynical as the other Democrats in Congress. As president Clinton once said, “That’s goooooood.” Who’s writing this new blog anyway? Rising star Noam Scheiber? Whoever it is, s/he’s a natural. Welcome to blogland, my fellow hacks.

I wonder what Al Gore’s champions in the 2000 race who belong to the Scoop Jackson wing of the Democratic party must think now. Gore unveiled himself in the 2000 campaign as a left-liberal on domestic matters – favoring race-baiting, corporation-bashing and pseudo-populism. But his neo-liberal supporters still supported him. They argued that he was still a foreign policy hawk, that he favored strong American action in the Balkans, that he backed the first Gulf War, that he was pro-Israel to the core. Now we know he was faking that as well. His comments on the war do not surprise me. They don’t make Gore an isolationist, or a reluctant warrior on terror, or any other kind of ideologue. They just show that he is a pure opportunist, with no consistency in his political views on foreign or domestic policy. He’ll say whatever he thinks will get him power or attention or votes. How else to explain his sudden U-turn on Iraq? Two years ago, he was demanding that Saddam must go. Seven months ago, he was calling for a “final reckoning” with Iraq, a state that was a “virulent threat in a class by itself.” Now, with Saddam far closer to weapons of mass destruction, Gore is happy to see Saddam stay in place. Even the New York Times, in a piece written to soften the hard edges of Gore’s attack on Bush, conceded that “his appearance here suggested a shift in positioning by Mr. Gore, who has for 10 years portrayed himself as a moderate, particularly when it comes to issues of foreign policy.” You can say that again.

COALITION CANT: In the text of the speech, I am unable to find any constructive suggestion made by Gore as to how to tackle Saddam’s threats. All he does is reiterate the idea that we need an international coalition, and that we need to be committed to Iraq after the war is over. Well: duh. Did he know of Condi Rice’s recent commitment to democracy in a post-war Iraq? As to the coalition argument, Gore, of course, spent eight years assembling a wonderful international coalition on Iraq, which agreed enthusiastically to do nothing effective at all. Now he wants us to wait even further, claiming that the administration has abandoned Afghanistan, while vast sums of U.S. money are being expended on rebuilding the country. And then he reiterates the bizarre notion that undermining one of the chief sponsors of terrorism in the world will somehow hurt the war against terrorism. Huh? Perhaps his lamest line was accusing the administration of dividing the country by hewing to a foreign policy of the “far right.” In fact, of course, Bush is merely seeking to enforce the U.N. resolutions the Clinton-Gore administration allowed to become a mockery. And most Americans back him.

DESTRUCTIVE ENGAGEMENT: But, as befitting a man whose administration slept while al Qaeda’s threat grew, Gore seems more concerned with what Germany and France think than with any threat to this country or elsewhere from Saddam’s potential nukes and poison gas. He says we now live in a “reign of fear.” Because of the continuing threat of terrorism? Because of Saddam’s nukes? Nope. Because of the Bush administration, a statement of moral equivalence that I’m genuinely shocked to hear from his lips. (He also slipped in a sly analogy to the Soviet Union’s “pre-emptive” invasion of Afghanistan. So Gore thinks Bush is the equivalent of the Soviet Union?) He says we have “squandered” the good will generated by the attacks of September 11. Really? A liberated Afghanistan, where women can now learn to read, where a fledgling free society is taking shape? No major successful terrorist attack on the homeland since the anthrax attacks of last fall? Growing support among Arab nations and at the U.N. for enforcing U.N. resolutions that Gore’s own administration let languish? Signs that Arafat may soon be sidelined on the West Bank? Squandered? The only thing that’s been truly squandered is what’s left of Gore’s integrity. At least Lieberman has been consistent. I must say, as a former Gore-supporter who was appalled by his campaign lurch to the left, that there are few judgment calls I’m prouder of than having picked Bush over Gore two years ago. Now I’m beginning to think we dodged a major catastrophe in world events.

BOOK CLUB: The first installment of our discussion of Michael Ledeen’s “War Against The Terror-Masters” begins today. Why Iraq before Iran is my opening salvo. Send in your emails to join the debate.

THE REAL DIVERSIONS: In the last week or so, a new slurry of phony arguments has emerged against the war with Iraq. The increasingly unhinged MoDo just asserted that a war against Iraq is actually a function of a “culture war” that Rumsfeld and Cheney are engineering to get back at their Vietnam era peacenik peers. Paul Krugman today takes up what’s left of his column (once he’s addressed the errors he’s made in other recent columns) to another argument. “In the end, 19th-century imperialism was a diversion,” he writes. “It’s hard not to suspect that the Bush doctrine is also a diversion – a diversion from the real issues of dysfunctional security agencies, a sinking economy, a devastated budget and a tattered relationship with our allies.” Leave aside these weird and cynical accusations for a second. What’s amazing about Krugman and Dowd and others is how uninterested they are in the actual matter at hand. Does Saddam Hussein have or is he close to having weapons of mass destruction? And if he is close to gaining them, what should we do about it? As David Brooks has pointed out with regard to the anti-war movement as a whole, to write about the budget or the culture war or “imperialism” without addressing this basic question is simply an abdication of seriousness. (Well, I guess Dowd left that aspiration behind years ago.) These commentators are constantly claiming that the Bush administration is using the war as a diversion. But in fact, it is these anti-war types who are engaging in a desperate series of diversions, distractions, irrelevancies, smears and fantasies in order to avoid the grave matter in front of us. When, one wonders, will they grow up?

DERSHOWITZ VERSUS HANSON: A telling campus fight is brewing over the attempt to divest Harvard from Israel. Alan Dershowitz calls on the master of Winthrop House to debate him. Check out his Crimson op-ed.

AT LAST: Some good news: chest hair is back.

Funny, isn’t it, that the New York Times would run a piece about how weblogs can lead to friction between bloggers and their mainstream media outlets, without mentioning yours truly. Since I’m the blogger who was canned by Howell Raines for stuff on my website, and since that story was picked up all over the place, shouldn’t there have been some reference to it somewhere? Oh, never mind.

Dave Barry is funny as hell but he’s also one of the best political commentators around. He completely gets the speciousness of the war on tobacco. Here’s his latest. I can’t think of a better summary of what we’re dealing with:

Before we get to the latest wacky hijinks, let’s review how the War On Tobacco works. The underlying principle, of course, is: Tobacco Is Bad. It kills many people, and it causes many others to smell like ashtrays in a poorly janitored bus station.
So a while ago, politicians from a bunch of states were scratching their heads, trying to figure out what to do about the tobacco problem. One option, of course, was to say: ”Hey, if people want to be stupid, it’s none of our business.” But of course that was out of the question. Politicians believe EVERYTHING is their business, which is why – to pick one of many examples – most states have elaborate regulations governing who may, and who may not, give manicures.
Another option was to simply make selling cigarettes illegal, just like other evil activities, such as selling heroin, or giving unlicensed manicures, or operating lotteries (except, of course, for lotteries operated by states). But the politicians immediately saw a major flaw with this approach: It did not provide any way for money to be funneled to politicians.
And so they went with option three, which was to file lawsuits against the tobacco companies. The underlying moral principle of these lawsuits was: “You are knowingly selling a product that kills tens of thousands of our citizens each year. We want a piece of that action!”

Does anyone do this better?

COME AND GET US: One reader writes to say that the New York Times Magazine’s gentle treatment of left-wing, terrorist-supporting Lynne Stewart reminded him of this Onion story.

MORE ON JENKINS: The more I read about the guy in charge of NPR’s foreign coverage, the worse it gets. I’d forgotten that the man who found no evidence to link Osama bin Laden to terrorism also vowed last October to “smoke out” any American troops in Afghanistan, regardless of the implications for their security. Here’s what Jenkins said, according to NPR’s review of the comment:

“The game of reporting is to smoke ’em out,” Jenkins says. Asked whether his team would report the presence of an American commando unit it found in, say, a northern Pakistan village, he doesn’t exhibit any of the hesitation of his news-business colleagues, who stress they try to factor security issues into their coverage decisions. “You report it,” Jenkins says. “I don’t represent the government. I represent history, information, what happened.”

Jenkins is also close to Robert Fisk (surprise!) who penned this account of arriving at the scene of the Sabra and Chatilla massacre:

And as I walked through the carnage on 18 September – the last day of the three-day massacre – with Loren Jenkins of The Washington Post, a fierce, tough, Colorado reporter, I remember how he stopped in shock and disgust. And then, with as much energy as his lungs could summon in the sweet, foul air, he shouted, “SHARON!” so loudly that the name echoed off the crumpled walls above the bodies. “He’s responsible for this fucking mess,” Jenkins roared. And that, just over four months later – in more diplomatic words and in a report in which the murderers were called “soldiers” – was what the Israeli commission of enquiry decided. Sharon, who was minister of defence, bore “personal responsibility”, the Kahan commission stated, and recommended his removal from office. Sharon resigned.

Now the responsibility for those awful three days in Lebanon should indeed weigh heavily on Ariel Sharon. But Jenkin’s visceral hatred for the man – before any serious attempt to investigate the matter – is indicative, I think, of where he’s coming from. Now I know I’ll be accused of being a McCarthyite for pointing any of this out. But when a journalist on the public payroll is so evidently biased against Israel and the United States and has made flimsy excuses for Osama bin Laden, isn’t it worth subjecting NPR’s alleged objectivity to scrutiny? Do they really think we can’t see through this stuff?

My take on Bush and Blair.

Yes, I wrote that. God, I’m sorry.

Schroder, alas, clinged on to power last night, but only by a whisker. His razor-thin victory is still a victory, but might, with any luck, temper his posturing on Iraq in the coming months. Maybe he’ll recall the following recent quotes from leading German figures about the danger of a re-armed Saddam. Rantingscreeds blogger has tracked them down. Here’s former defense minister, Rudolf Scharping:

I would like to state the central issues once again. First, there is only one individual who bears the responsibility for the current confrontation with the United Nations, and that is Saddam Hussein. Second, he has to see to it that Iraq satisfies all the UN resolutions. Third, every possible political effort has to be made to arrive at a peaceful solution. Fourth, the danger posed by Iraqi weapons of mass destruction is a matter that no one can view with indifference, and that is the case for all the other states in the region, especially Israel, as well as for the Europeans and the Americans. That is why Iraq should stop refusing to cooperate, and if all the political efforts that are being made do not result in success, a military operation cannot and should not be ruled out in this case. The United States and Great Britain can absolutely count on German solidarity.

And then there’s former foreign minister, Klaus Kinkel, of the Free Democrats:

Incidentally, I believe that we Germans in particular have good reason to work toward preventing a dictator from causing something terrible yet again. There was one dictator who was stopped too late. This one has to be stopped in good time… We are maintaining intensive contact with the United States and with our partners and friends in the EU. However, our experience of Saddam Hussein to date, and I believe that this is also of key importance, shows that, unfortunately, he is only prepared to observe UN Security Council resolution when he is under pressure. The international community cannot simply accept always being made a fool of. That is why the military option must remain available. He who wants a peaceful solution in particular cannot waver in this regard.

Those quotes are from February 1998. Four and a half years later, the SPD and the German government are refusing to support military action against Saddam, even if the U.N. mandates it.

WHO SAYS THE ARAB WORLD CAN’T BE FEMINIST? I loved this woman-fights-back story from, of all places, Jordan.

BRODER ON THE DEMS: It’s rare that this genteel op-ed uniter sticks the boot in. His simple argument is that the Democrats have no principled position on the the two most important issues to the president: the war and the tax-cut. They won’t actually oppose either, because they fear the political consequences. Yet they carp and obstruct and criticize – without offering any serious credible alternative. Until they tell us why Saddam is not a threat meriting war or that they will repeal the Bush tax cut, they should be treated with the contempt Broder says they deserve.

EVEN THE GUARDIAN: Well, actually, its sister Sunday paper, the Observer, concedes that the evidence is overwhelming that Saddam is desperately trying to build weapons of mass destruction. Here’s the money quote:

‘You can say many things about what Iraq is up to,’ said one diplomat familiar with the material. ‘You can argue about what weapons he has, if any, how many, and if they will ever work. You can argue about whether he will takes two months or 10 years to build or acquire a nuclear bomb. But what you cannot argue with is the evidence that that Saddam has set up his secret weapons procurement network once again. That is the real worry.’

Yep, sure is.

OSAMA’S SPIN-DOCTOR: A reader sends in the following story archived in Salon, a magazine which has its fair share of embarrassing Osama-bin-Laden-is-harmless stories from before September 11. But this one is a beaut. The author pours scorn on the notion that there was any evidence linking bin Laden to terrorism against the United States in the 1990s:

So far, for all of the accusations, no government, not even that of the United States, has established enough credible evidence against bin Laden to conclusively prove his direct participation in, much less leadership of, any of the ugly plots and acts he stands accused of. To date no formal request for his extradition has ever been made, either to the Sudanese government that once housed him or to his current hosts, Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders.

The piece reads like an exercise in spin-control for bin Laden and al Qaeda. The lame excuses for the Islamofascist go on and on:

When a car bomb exploded at a Saudi National Guard office in Riyadh in 1995, killing five Americans, and another blew up at the Khobar Towers Barracks in Dhahran a year later, killing another 19, bin Laden seemed the most likely suspect. But neither the FBI, the CIA nor the Saudi intelligence services has ever been able to establish bin Laden’s links to those crimes after years of trying. What evidence that has emerged from those ongoing investigations points the finger at dissident Saudi Shiites, perhaps with the logistic support of the Lebanese Hezbollah organization, or even Iran … Bin Laden may be a dangerous anti-American zealot with a mouth as big as his bankroll. But the evidence so far does not support him being a cerebral Islamic Dr. No moving an army of terrorist troops on a vast world chessboard to checkmate the United States.

Who wrote this? One Loren Jenkins. What does he do now? He’s NPR’s Senior Supervising Editor for foreign news, paid in part by you and me. And NPR is biased in its coverage of the Middle East? Naaah.

WRIGHT ONLINE: That awesome New Yorker profile of al Qaeda’s number 2 is now online. Endless, but unmissable.

HATE CRIME UPDATE: Perhaps goaded by this blog, the Los Angeles Times has now covered the Muslim anti-Jewish attack in West Hollywood last week. Here’s the piece.

HEY, ALTERMAN: I wonder if the story of Lynne Stewart worries him in any way. Here’s a former left-wing radical who has seamlessly shifted toward support of Islamist terror. She even allowed an attorney-client prison meeting to be turned into a means for terrorist Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian cleric who is a key figure in world-wide Islamist terror, to broadcast a message to his murderous supporters. I wonder if many on the far-left who have been at pains to deny that they could ever support terror will find it possible to defend this woman. It will be revealing who backs her and why.

ANGRY YOUNG MALE FOR B
USH: Here’s a letter worth passing on, helping explain why the Republicans have such lopsided majorities among young men (a demographic, I might add, that closely matches this website’s readership):

I’m a male under 44, and while I’ve been a Republican since I was 20, I didn’t support Bush until after the 2000 convention, and then only because I had to.
That has changed, and I support him completely today. It’s not lack of life experience, and I’ve known that the Democrats are an institutionalized Ponzi scheme for twenty years now. No, here’s why I support Bush: I grew up in the Middle of North Dakota, amid the missile silos, during the Cold War. The threat of senseless oblivion was all around me. My most fervent prayer was that my own kids wouldn’t have to grow up with that over their heads. I considered it a near-miracle that the Cold War, and that threat, ended right when my daughter was born, in 1991. The missile silos I grew up among have been decomissioned and blown up. I relaxed for a bit.
That ended September 11. Not only is oblivion from the blue a possibility again – it happened. And can happen again. And I know that Bush is the one who’s going to not only contain that threat, but uproot and burn it away. Yeesh, what if Gore had won? I’d expect to see a speech asking us all to learn how to co-exist with terror and come to terms with our own accountability for it. The reasons may be different – but I suspect a lot of us young (angry? white?) males have a similar feeling.

HITLER AND SADDAM:

“In targeting Iraq, the United States administration is acting on behalf of Zionism, which has been killing the heroic people of Palestine, destroying their property, murdering their children and seeking to impose their domination on the whole world, not only militarily, but also economically and politically.” – Saddam Hussein, in his letter last week to the U.N.

“…For while the Zionists try to make the rest of the world believe that the national consciousness of the Jew finds its satisfaction in the creation of a Palestinian state, the Jews again slyly dupe the dumb Goyim … all they want is a central organization for their international world swindle…”
– Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf.

I guess, according to some, Hitler was just an anti-Zionist.