« March 9, 2008 - March 15, 2008 | Main | March 23, 2008 - March 29, 2008 »
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Pray For Magdi Allam
22 Mar 2008 10:36 pm
Or at least hope in a non-religious way. For his freedom of conscience, he is now a marked man.
Faces Of The Day
22 Mar 2008 09:06 pm
A Tibetan Buddhist monk in-exile looks at photographs of alleged victims of a crackdown by Chinese authorities in Tibet, outside his Holiness the Dalai Lama's Palace Temple in Dharamsala on March 22, 2008. Tibetan exiles broke into the Chinese embassy complex in New Delhi on MArch 21, 2008 after making repeated failed bids since launching their pro-independence protests 12 days ago, police said. By Manan Vatsayana/AFP/Getty.
The Wright Post 9/11 Sermon
22 Mar 2008 06:43 pm
The full text. The video is here. This is what the Internet can be for. I still do not find it appropriate, and still do not agree with it. But it is not what Hannity and Ingraham and the other talk show thugs of the far right have been saying. They won't air the whole thing. I can. Read it and make your own mind up:
"Every public service of worship I have heard about so far in the wake of the American tragedy has had in its prayers and in its preachments, sympathy and compassion for those who were killed and for their families, and God's guidance upon the selected Presidents and upon our war machine, as they do what they do and what they gotta do -- paybacks.
There's a move in Psalm 137 from thoughts of paying tithes to thoughts of paying back, A move, if you will from worship to war, a move in other words from the worship of th God of creation to war against those whom God Created. And I want you to notice very carefully this next move. One of the reasons this Psalm is rarely read, in its entirety, because it is a move that spotlights the insanity of the cycle of violence and the cycle of hatred.
Continue reading "The Wright Post 9/11 Sermon" »
The Aftermath Of Wright Week
22 Mar 2008 05:51 pm
If Kerry had taken on his swift-boating as forthrightly and as quickly and as honorably as Obama, he'd be president today:
Can someone tell me why the Clintons have not released their tax returns?
The Clintonites and Richardson
22 Mar 2008 05:37 pm
"An act of betrayal," said James Carville, an adviser to Mrs. Clinton and a friend of Mr. Clinton. "Mr. Richardson’s endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic."
After the last few weeks, I'd say it's an act of simple judgment. But it's good to see the mindset of an unreconstructed Clintonite partisan like Carville: the Clintons are Jesus and all disagreement is treason. Sound like the Bush administration to me. Which is why a third Clnton term, while marginally different in policy, would be very similar on issues of transparency, paranoia, entitlement, secrecy and vindictiveness.
Clinton's Balkans BS Update
22 Mar 2008 04:30 pm
Running to cars, ducking under sniper fire at the airport? Roll the tape:
Dissent Of The Day
22 Mar 2008 03:25 pm
A reader writes:
I felt the same way as you about B. Clinton's "love America" remarks, until I saw the whole thing: he ended with the words (as I recall them) "That's my argument for Hillary." In saying that, he, in fact, made it particular and implied that the same would not apply to Sen. Obama. As you have noted many times, there's not much they say that's not carefully calibrated. So whereas I agree with the core of his sentiments -- that it would be nice to have a campaign strictly about issues -- he actually made a differentiation between Hillary and Barack. I'm a strong Democrat, and a (former) admirer of both Bill and Hillary. I heard her talk a year or two ago in Seattle and was highly impressed. Now, I find myself wanting to switch channels when I see her; as I do when I see Bush.
Clinton's Balkan BS
22 Mar 2008 02:09 pm
The usual.
The View From Your Window
22 Mar 2008 01:32 pm
Minneapolis, Minnesota, 10.30 am.
Closet Believer
22 Mar 2008 12:28 pm
Mikhail Gorbachev comes out as Christian:
Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Communist leader of the Soviet Union, has acknowledged his Christian faith for the first time, paying a surprise visit to pray at the tomb of St Francis of Assisi.[...]
Mr Gorbachev's surprise visit confirmed decades of rumours that, although he was forced to publicly pronounce himself an atheist, he was in fact a Christian, and casts a meeting with Pope John Paul II in 1989 in a new light.
What a lovely final rebuke to Karl Marx.
The Making Of Barack Obama-sistible
22 Mar 2008 12:02 pm
Chess Boxing
22 Mar 2008 11:57 am
I kid you not:
One man makes his move, and respectfully looks up to the gentleman seated across from him. The second man pensively nods his head in recognition of a good move. He thinks to himself: One more move like that will bring about a checkmate, unless I can...
Then they stand up, don a pair of gloves, and proceed to beat the living crap out of each other while others gape in horror! In a few minutes, the first man falls unconscious to the floor. Man number two walks away a champ in spite of the impending checkmate against him.
It's Raining McCain
22 Mar 2008 11:43 am
This is almost as painful as a Clinton supporter made video:
An Obama-Richardson Ticket?
22 Mar 2008 11:13 am
Hewitt gets excited:
The Clintons must be furious. The superdelegates who throw in with Obama publicly have to think of themselves as political equivalents of Brutus and Cassius --they are striking at the king and queen, and even if they succeed, they can expect the remaining Caesarians to pursue them for a very long time.
But maybe the power-shift has already begun. Obama has just survived, with some aplomb, his first swift-boating from Fox News et al. He has more delegates. He has more of the popular vote; with Michigan and Florida unlikely to give Clinton much of a boost, smart Democratic operatives will begin to side with the rising star rather than the setting sun. Karen Tumulty:
I'm betting Bill Clinton will be watching the Super Bowl with someone else next year.
Doesn't this also have to be somewhat tinged with Richardson's hope for a veep pick? Obama is weak with Hispanics; Richardson has sterling foreign policy and executive experience, another perceived (but in my view phony) weakness; Richardson could also help with the West where McCain will be strong. A black-brown ticket? Hmmm.
Laughing At Evil
22 Mar 2008 10:31 am
Ross reacts to Osama's latest video:
...nearly every pronouncement from Osama bin Laden or his imitators contains something that might be laughable, if it weren't in deadly earnest.
There's the incessant nostalgia for the Crusades, heavy-handed enough to embarrass Sir Walter Scott, and the Risk-board view of geopolitics, epitomized by the oft-cited aspiration to reconquer "Al-Andalus" (known to most of us as "Spain") for Islam. There's the blinkered understanding of American politics, as when Bin Laden criticized George H.W. Bush for "installing" his sons as governors of Texas and Florida, and seemed to suggest (depending on the translation) that he might make a separate peace with any American state that didn't vote for George W. Bush. And of course, there's the consistency with which Al Qaeda and its fellow travelers greet perceived insults to Islam with threats and actions that seem designed to, well, vindicate the offending parties.
When a Danish newspaper published cartoons portraying Muhammad as an assassin and a terrorist, Islamists responded to these outrageous insinuations by inciting their co-believers to ... assassination and terrorism. When the Pope stirred up controversy by suggesting that Islam might be less compatible with reason and philosophy than Christianity, he was answered with a burst of (no doubt rigorously-reasoned) acts of violence committed on behalf of the faith he had insulted. Now, just in time with Easter, he's been answered with al Qaeda's idea of inter-religious dialogue as well. Here's hoping that the His Holiness enjoys a quiet chuckle while he puts the Swiss Guards on high alert. There's nothing wrong with laughing at evil, so long as your bodyguards are packing heat.
Yglesias Award Nominee
22 Mar 2008 09:29 am
Defending Bill Clinton
22 Mar 2008 06:26 am
You may want to sit down, but I read the following Bill Clinton remarks yesterday and didn't see anything untoward about them:
"I think it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country," said Clinton, who was speaking to a group of veterans Friday in Charlotte, N.C. "And people could actually ask themselves who is right on these issues, instead of all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics."
I don't think he's implying that Obama doesn't love his country or is not devoted to the interest of this country (although you could, with some strain, parse it that way). He's actually hoping for a substantive, non-swift-boating, non-Coulter, non-Hannity campaign. It's pretty close to my own hope for an Obama-McCain race. Now why Clinton didn't include Obama, who is the current front-runner, and who has shown an ability to speak and talk constructively and civilly for the entire campaign, is an interesting question, isn't it? He's certainly less divisive than he or his wife. And he has just shown an ability to respond to swift-boating not by the usual Clinton defensive crouch but by tackling it head-on and winning the argument.
I think the statement just speaks to Clinton's staggering sense of ownership of the Democratic party and the unconcious assumption that his wife deserves to be the nominee. I still think the Clintons cannot believe the gall of anyone daring to challenge their power or their specious self-regard. I've said it before, but imagine if Clinton had won over a dozen primaries in a row, was ahead in the delegate count, ahead in the popular vote, and way ahead in the number of states won. Don't you think the pressure on Obama to pull out would be enormous? And wouldn't Clinton regard his persistence as treachery? And yet Clinton in the exact same situation carries on, with a minimal chance of victory,and actually had the gall to offer Obama a veep slot. Who on earth does she think she is? At best it's pure Clinton entitlement. At worst it's white entitlement.
Oh, well, I tried to defend the Clintons and look where I ended up. Better luck next time.
(Photo: Win McNamee/Getty.)
Friday, March 21, 2008
What Obama Could Not Say
21 Mar 2008 10:57 pm
Sam Harris pens an inimitable essay. Money quote:
The problem of religious fatalism, ignorance, and false hope, while plain to see in most religious contexts, is now especially obvious in the black community. The popularity of "prosperity gospel" is perhaps the most galling example: where unctuous crooks like T.D. Jakes and Creflo Dollar persuade undereducated and underprivileged men and women to pray for wealth, while tithing what little wealth they have to their corrupt and swollen ministries. Men like Jakes and Dollar, whatever occasional good they may do, are unconscionable predators and curators of human ignorance. Is it too soon to say this in American politics? Yes it is.
Despite all that he does not and cannot say, Obama's candidacy is genuinely thrilling: his heart is clearly in the right place; he is an order of magnitude more intelligent than the current occupant of the Oval Office; and he s till stands a decent chance of becoming the next President of the United States. His election in November really would be a triumph of hope.
But Obama's candidacy is also depressing, for it demonstrates that even a person of the greatest candor and eloquence must still claim to believe the unbelievable in order to have a political career in this country. We may be ready for the audacity of hope. Will we ever be ready for the audacity of reason?
I don't disagree with many of my friend Sam's smaller points; but I do disagree with his largest argument. If you want to know why or how, our long dialogue about faith and reason is here.
Obama Pulls It Off?
21 Mar 2008 06:41 pm
The latest CBS News poll on the Wright speech suggests that Obama scored well. 71 percent thought he did a good job explaining his relationship with Wright, with 24 percent saying a poor job. 63 percent mostly agreed with his views on race. The poll shows no real shift from the speech in voters' intent to vote for him or not vote for him.
The Nightmare Scenario
21 Mar 2008 06:08 pm
...the Democratic "nightmare scenario" has gotten even more nightmarish. If Clinton wins on the strength of the super-delegates despite trailing in pledged delegates and the popular vote, then party insiders will have blocked the historic first nomination of a black candidate -- and now they will have done so because of racial fears regarding a black preacher.
Yglesias Award Nominee
21 Mar 2008 05:37 pm
"I understand how naive it is to read a presidential candidate's speech as if it were anything except political positioning, but that leads me to my final point: Itâs about time that people who disagree with Obamaâs politics recognize that he is genuinely different. When he talks, he sounds like a real human being, not a politician. I'm not referring to the speechifying, but to the way he comes across all the time. Weâve had lots of charming politicians. I cannot think of another politician in my lifetime who conveys so much sense of talking to individuals, and talking to them in ways that he sees as one side of a dialogue. Conservatives who insist that heâs nothing but an even slicker Bill Clinton are missing a reality about him, and at their peril," - Charles Murray.
Charles cannot vote for Obama on substantive policy grounds. I completely respect that. I have always noted that Obama is much more liberal than I am. But, frankly, after what Bush has done to limited government conservatism and fiscal responsibility, I find it hard to give much lee-way to Republicans (I do not include Murray) who are now suddenly shocked - shocked - that a Democrat supports government as a solution to certain problems. Where have they been these last eight years as Republicans legitimized such liberal nostrums, and even declared that they were the only moral positions to take on many issues? At least Obama proposes taxing rather than borrowing to fund big government. And, McCain, as I need not remind many conservatives, also has a great fondness for government action. As for Ramesh Ponnuru's absurd notion that Charles has not exhibited charity to his critics, I see no evidence for it whatever.
Problem Solved
21 Mar 2008 05:27 pm
Dave Barry finds a solution for Florida:
Every day somebody comes up with a new proposed solution. The most recent one is a ''50-50'' plan, in which the Jan. 29 primary results would be used as a basis for seating half of the Florida delegates, with the other half being selected by Minnesota. Or something like that. I can't keep track any more.
I personally think my wife came up with the best solution: Why not hold a texting primary? We already have the technology. At least our children do. We could ask them how to use it.
Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, ``Wait a minute, Dave: Florida voters and technology do NOT mix. Many Florida residents can't operate their turn signals. They would totally screw up a texting primary. Many would injure themselves trying to retrieve their phones from their oatmeal.''
True, but it doesn't matter. We're just seeking closure here, to get Florida out of the national-ridicule spotlight. Whatever happens with the Florida Democratic delegation, neither Obama nor Clinton will have enough delegates to win the nomination. They're locked in a bitter struggle that I predict will continue right through the Democratic convention, and then through the November presidential election. Next January President McCain will be giving his inaugural address, while somewhere else in America, Clinton and Obama will be holding their 1,387th debate, with the hostility level between them having reached the point where the debate consists entirely of spitting.
Broke
21 Mar 2008 04:54 pm
The Clinton campaign is almost out of cash. Josh:
Once you subtract the other debts her cash on hand number would be in the neighborhood of $3 million. By contrast, Obama has over $30 million on hand for the primary.
Beards And Doctors
21 Mar 2008 04:47 pm
Science's rocky relationship with beards:
Darwin had a big one. As did Plato and Aristotle. Pythagoras most certainly had one, a long one judging from his statue. Leonardo da Vinci’s grew to illustrious lengths later in life.
So why, if all these famous scientists had beards to stroke when being clever and contemplative, is sporting facial hair in the lab a big no-no? Well, it appears that facial hair provides a massive substrate on which bacteria can frolic and play. So much so that a bearded man wearing a face mask sheds significantly much more bacteria than a non-bearded man or woman. In fact the risk posed by the facial hair bacterial fallout is such that the authors of the February 2000 paper in Anaesthesia end their abstract with this line: Bearded males may also consider removing their beards. So it appears that a responsible doctor in this day and age should be sure to shave.
Count me unconvinced. One of my doctors - I am extremely lucky to say - is Jerry Groopman. He's a research scientist and, as book readers know everywhere, an amazing primary physician. His beard is one of the most magnificent I know.
(Hat tip: Bookforum)
The View From Your Window
21 Mar 2008 04:01 pm
Vientian, Laos, 10 am.
Clinton's Lobbyist
21 Mar 2008 03:30 pm
From CQ:
A small number of lobbyists are super insiders. They don’t just donate money to their favorite congressional causes — they serve as treasurers of the lawmakers’ campaign committees. One of them is Janice Enright, a registered lobbyist who is also treasurer of HillPAC, one of the political committees of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton… Enright is the lobbying partner of Harold Ickes, a Clinton presidential campaign adviser, and they both worked in the Clinton White House. The Senate Appropriations Committee listed Clinton as having jointly requested, with Sen. Charles E. Schumer , D-N.Y., hundreds of millions of dollars that the spending law earmarks for New York projects. About $4 million of that funding went to clients of Enright and Ickes, including $292,000 designated for a United Auto Workers training program that is a part of an umbrella group, Consortium for Worker Education, that Enright represents.
(Hat tip: Ken Silverstein)
Suicide By Robot
21 Mar 2008 02:48 pm
If you're enough of a techie, you don't need Dr Kevorkian.
What Didn't Work
21 Mar 2008 02:39 pm
Peggy Noonan has been on a roll lately. She represents to me the kind of Reagan Democrat who is able and willing to hear a black Democratic candidate out - even if on some policies he isn't as conservative as she (or I) would like - and who understands that most Americans, whatever the consultants say, are still interested in intelligent, educated, thoughtful discourse. Her take on Obama's historic speech this week is excellent, and its critique is sharp:
Near the end of the speech, Mr. Obama painted an America that didn't summon thoughts of Faulkner but of William Blake. The bankruptcies, the dark satanic mills, the job loss and corporate corruptions. There is of course some truth in his portrait, but why do appeals to the Democratic base have to be so unrelievedly, so unrealistically, bleak?
This connected in my mind to the persistent feeling one has -- the fear one has, actually -- that the Obamas, he and she, may not actually know all that much about America. They are bright, accomplished, decent, they know all about the yuppie experience, the buppie experience, Ivy League ways, networking. But they bring along with all this -- perhaps defensively, to keep their ideological views from being refuted by the evidence of their own lives, or so as not to be embarrassed about how nice fame, success, and power are -- habitual reversions to how tough it is to be in America, and to be black in America, and how everyone since the Reagan days has been dying of nothing to eat, and of exploding untreated diseases. America is always coming to them on crutches.
But most people didn't experience the past 25 years that way. Because it wasn't that way. Do the Obamas know it?
That's why I think Pennsylvania is an opportunity for him. The most tired element, and the least refreshing aspect, of his message so far is a resort to left bromides about the grim facts of American life in the last twenty years or so. There are problems, real problems. Inequality, fostered by globalization, has left many Americans treading water at best. But the vitality of the economy, the astonishing creativity of American industry, especially in tech and pharmaceuticals, the miracle of the Internet, the relative cheapness of items like food and clothing that once consumed far more of the average American's expenses - these are also integral to the picture. Obama hasn't conveyed this complicated picture - perhaps because of the primary season. But he should. America needs hope. But it is not currently hopeless. And its recent past, despite the disasters of the past eight years, has had as many highs as lows.
Strategizing Against al Qaeda
21 Mar 2008 02:18 pm
Increasingly I hear that even if it were in the West's interests to leave Iraq, al Qaeda would consider it a victory, be emboldened and grow stronger. This is a core part of McCain's message, as if a complicated war against a Wahhabist terror franchise, a Shiite regional power and a myriad other, constantly shifting cross-currents can be reduced in this fashion with any great enlightenment. Obviously, the morale of the enemy matters; and bin Laden himself has cited Iraq as a key battle ground. But it is important not to have our strategy actually dictated by bin Laden. Matt makes a similar point today:
This business about al-Qaeda securing a recruiting boon from us leaving Iraq is bizarre. According to MNF-Iraq, the occupation of Iraq is the main fact driving recruits to join AQI. Absent the occupation, there's no recruiting pitch. Pearl Harbor was a boon to U.S. military recruiting, VJ Day wasn't. And what's this business about them acquiring "an even greater determination to dominate the region and harm America." Does Bush really think they lack determination now?
It's striking how much of conservative thinking about national security these days centers around subjective factors -- determination, emboldening, "claiming victory" -- rather than on objective assessments. Objectively speaking, withdrawing from Iraq would cut off a major line of recruiting for al-Qaeda while simultaneously freeing up vast quantities of American manpower and other resources.
I'm not as sanguine as Matt about the consequences of withdrawal. But I do think there is one force Sunni al Qaeda may hate as much as the West: Shiite Iran. And vice-versa. One classic way to advance our interests in a situation like this is to let them fight each other and get out of the way. Al Qaeda has tended to lose support when it targets other Muslim Arabs. And the Iraq-Iran war kept two monstrous regimes busy with their own battle for quite a long time. Why not fly-trap themselves?
Clinton's February Fundraising
21 Mar 2008 01:40 pm
She claimed $35 million. Here's how Ben Smith reported it:
Hillary Clinton's campaign is set to announce later today that she's on track to raise roughly $35 million in the month of February, a huge month by any standard measure of political fundraising and her best of the campaign.
Sen. Hillary Clinton said Thursday she was incredibly gratified to learn her campaign hauled in a record 35 million dollars in the month of February, despite losing 11 contests during that time.
The Field has doubts.
[I amended this post because although there does appear to be some discrepancies, I don't think it's completely clear that the Clinton campaign did lie about this - but it's a complicated matter. I apologize for jumping to that conclusion.]
The American Forests
21 Mar 2008 01:34 pm
An Atlantic classic:
The forests of America, however slighted by man, must have been a great delight to God; for they were the best he ever planted. The whole continent was a garden, and from the beginning it seemed to be favored above all the other wild parks and gardens of the globe. To prepare the ground, it was rolled and sifted in seas with infinite loving deliberation and forethought, lifted into the light, submerged and warmed over and over again, pressed and crumpled into folds and ridges, mountains and hills, subsoiled with heaving volcanic fires, ploughed and ground and sculptured into scenery and soil with glaciers and rivers,—every feature growing and changing from beauty to beauty, higher and higher. And in the fullness of time it was planted in groves, and belts, and broad, exuberant, mantling forests, with the largest, most varied, most fruitful, and most beautiful trees in the world. Bright seas made its border with wave embroidery and icebergs; gray deserts were outspread in the middle of it, mossy tundras on the north, savannas on the south, and blooming prairies and plains; while lakes and rivers shone through all the vast forests and openings, and happy birds and beasts gave delightful animation. Everywhere, everywhere over all the blessed continent, there were beauty, and melody, and kindly, wholesome, foodful abundance.
What I Got Wrong About Iraq
21 Mar 2008 12:24 pm
Slate asked me to reflect on my own failings of judgment on the fifth year of the war. Maybe the day we Christans are called to atonement is a good day for publishing it. It's cross-posted here.
I think I committed four cardinal sins.
Historical Narcissism.
I was distracted by the internal American debate to the occlusion of the reality of Iraq. For most of my adult lifetime, I had heard those on the left decry American military power, constantly warn of quagmires, excuse what I regarded as inexcusable tyrannies and fail to grasp that the nature of certain regimes makes their removal a moral objective. As a child of the Cold War, and a proud Reaganite and Thatcherite, I regarded 1989 as almost eternal proof of the notion that the walls of tyranny could fall if we had the will to bring them down and the gumption to use military power when we could. I had also been marinated in neoconservative thought for much of the 1990s, and seen the moral power of Western intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo. All of this primed me for an ideological battle which was, in retrospect, largely irrelevant to the much more complex post-Cold War realities we were about to confront.
When I heard the usual complaints from the left about how we had no right to intervene, how Bush was the real terrorist, how war was always wrong, my trained ears heard the same cries that I had heard in the 1980s. So I saw the opposition to the war as another example of a faulty Vietnam Syndrome, associated it with the far left, or boomer nostalgia, and was revolted by the anti-war marches I saw in Washington. I became much too concerned with fighting that old internal ideological battle, and failed to think freshly or realistically about what the consequences of intervention could be. I allowed myself to be distracted by an ideological battle when what was required was clear-eyed prudence.
Narrow Moralism
I recall very clearly one night before the war began. I made myself write down the reasons for and against the war and realized that if there were question marks on both sides, the deciding factor for me in the end was that I could never be ashamed of removing someone as evil as Saddam from power. I became enamored of my own morality and this single moral act. And he was a monster, as we discovered. But what I failed to grasp is that war is also a monster, and that unless one weighs all the possibly evil consequences of an abstractly moral act, one hasn't really engaged in anything much but self-righteousness. I saw war's unknowable consequences far too glibly.
Unconservatism.
I heard and read about ancient Sunni and Shiite divisions, knew of the awful time the British had in running Iraq but had never properly absorbed the lesson. I bought the argument by many neoconservatives that Iraq was one of the more secular and modern of Arab societies, that these divisions were not so deep, that all those pictures of men in suits and mustaches and women in Western clothing were the deeper truth about this rare, modern Arab society; and believed that it could, if we worked at it, be a model for the rest of the Arab Muslim world. I should add I don't believe that these ancient divides were necessarily as deep as they subsequently became in the chaos that the invasion unleashed. But I greatly under-estimated them - and as someone who liked to think of myself as a conservative, I pathetically failed to appreciate how those divides never truly go away and certainly cannot be abolished by a Western magic wand. In that sense I was not conservative enough. I let my hope - the hope that had been vindicated by the fall of the Soviet Union - get the better of my skepticism. There are times when that is a good thing. The Iraq war wasn't one of them.
Misreading Bush
Yes, the incompetence and arrogance were beyond anything I imagined. In 2000, my support for Bush was not deep. I thought he was an okay, unifying, moderate Republican who would be fine for a time of peace and prosperity. I was concerned - ha! - that Gore would spend too much. I was reassured by the experience and intelligence and pedigree of Cheney and Rumsfeld and Powell. Two of them had already fought and won a war in the Gulf. The bitter election battle hardened my loyalty. And once 9/11 happened, my support intensified as I hoped for the best. His early speeches were magnificent. The Afghanistan invasion was defter than I expected. I got lulled. I wanted him to succeed - too much, in retrospect.
But my biggest misreading was not about competence. Wars are often marked by incompetence. It was a fatal misjudgment of Bush's sense of morality.
Continue reading "What I Got Wrong About Iraq" »
Permanent Vacation
21 Mar 2008 12:08 pm
White-collar conceptual art.
For Good Friday
21 Mar 2008 11:07 am
"Any authenticity that we are going to have as persons of faith and any authority that we are going to have as witnesses to the gospel of Jesus Christ will come because of our exposure to bruises and scars. There is no other way to authenticity. There is a certain counterfeit pose that one may maintain, but as to an entrance into the full, the true authority, into the glorious liberty of the sons of God, that comes by exposure and by wounds. There is no other way. If one looks back at those who have deeply affected their generation, the discovery will be made that almost without exception they did it against some minus, some ache, some pain in their own lives ...
At some time, who can say when, there will be a crown of thorns pressed down upon your head. It may be some private anguish. It may be some profoundly disturbing condition in your own family. One cannot detail the direction whence the affliction will come, but when it does, you will have every right to rail against it and to cry out against that kind of providence, even to argue with God, to withstand him to the face ...
But do one other thing. Take it. Accept. For was it not our Lord's word that the cup he looked into, the awful agony which waited for him, did not come from unfriendly hands: "The cup which my Father hath given, shall I not drink of it?"
I promise you this, if you can take whatever deep hurt that occurs in your life and hold it up before God and say to him, even in bitterness, of this which you despise and this which you hate, "If there is anything you can do with it, take, and use it."
I promise you, you will be utterly amazed at what will occur," - Gardner C. Taylor, sermon delivered February 1, 1978. A Charlie Rose interview can be seen with him here.
Wright In Context
21 Mar 2008 10:25 am
This strikes me as worth a look. Here is Jeremiah Wright's sermon from which one Hannity clip has been culled. After 9/11, Wright is making a classic pacifist case against what he calls "the insanity of the cycle of hatred." I don't agree with it, and he clearly equates the death of innocents in American warfare with the deaths of innocents in 9/11. But it does fall within the boundaries of a certain kind of Christianity. It does not seem to me to be Chomsky so much as a left-wing Biblical pacifist message. He is also self-critical, which you don't get from the edited version. He is calling Christians to examine "my own and your own relationship with God," in the wake of a moment when we all sought to fight back against the evil of al Qaeda. I don't agree with his moral equivalence. But I do see the roots of this message in a version of liberation theology and Christianity, rather than hatred of America as such. He includes himself as someone who needs to examine his own conscience and consider what he regards as a cycle of violence. I think the cable news clips are a little distortive and make more sense in fuller context.
Let me add that I do not believe that patriotism means never criticizing one's own country, especially if one criticizes one's own complicity in its failings. That's especially true for Christians who are sometimes called to make their fellows very uncomfortable in their loyalties. In the days after 9/11, I would have been furious about that sermon. But from a distance, I do not see it as political so much as a form of radical Christianity. Anyway, see for yourself and make your own mind up:
Here's another piece of fuller context. It's too long for cable news. But that's what the web is for, right?
Wright And Gays
21 Mar 2008 10:08 am
This doesn't excuse some of his remarks, but it does give another view of the man:
As a leader, Wright defied convention at every turn. In an interview with the Chicago Tribune last year, he recalled a time during the 1970s when the UCC decided to ordain gay and lesbian clergy. At its annual meeting, sensitive to the historic discomfort some blacks have with homosexuality, gay leaders reached out to black pastors.
At that session, Wright heard the testimony of a gay Christian and, he said, he had a conversion experience on gay rights. He started one of the first AIDS ministries on the South Side and a singles group for Trinity gays and lesbians—a subject that still rankles some of the more conservative Trinity members, says Dwight Hopkins, a theology professor at the University of Chicago and a church member.
One thing I will always respect about Jeremiah Wright is that, alone among many black ministers, he saw and embraced the God-given dignity of gay men and women. He is a flawed man. He has said some angry things. But I do not believe he is an evil man, as some have claimed. And I also believe he has been a pioneer in one the great current civil rights movements, and done it in a place where it has been hardest.
(Hat tip: Chris Crain).
Which Evil Anti-American Racist Demagogue Said This?
21 Mar 2008 09:31 am
"God didn't call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war. . . . And we are criminals in that war. We've committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world, and I'm going to continue to say it. And we won't stop it because of our pride and our arrogance as a nation. But God has a way of even putting nations in their place...[God will say:] And if you don't stop your reckless course, I'll rise up and break the backbone of your power."
It was Martin Luther King Jr, someone whom the Sean Hannitys and Bill O'Reillys of the time called a communist, and an associate of moral degenerates (a gay man, Bayard Rustin, with a criminal record for public sex and one of the great heroes of twentieth century American history). E.J.'s column today is one of the best he has ever written.
The Obama Passport Flap
21 Mar 2008 09:26 am
There's no solid evidence of foul play from any rival campaign in this Bill Gertz scoop; but count me skeptical about this being totally innocent. From the absurd rumors of his religion, the lies about the pledge of allegiance, the uproar over Wright, it's quite clear that Obama's historic candidacy has some people in a panic. Good. Some people should be.
Clinton And Wright
21 Mar 2008 09:10 am
Clinton supporter Joseph Wilson:
Claims of superior intuitive judgment by his campaign and by him are self-evidently disingenuous, especially in light of disclosures about his long associations with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Tony Rezko.
Joe Klein's response:
If her campaign persists in peddling this sort of kamikaze stuff--and make no mistake, this sort of op-ed is usually vetted by the campaign--her judgment should be called into question.
The Polling On Wright
21 Mar 2008 09:03 am
It appears that only a majority of Republicans buy the notion that Obama shares Wright's views as expressed in a tiny proportion of his sermons on YouTube. Eric Kleefeld has more:
The internals show only 17% of Democrats saying Obama shares Wright's ideas, along with 20% of independents and 36% of Republicans.
Fox also asked respondents whether they had doubts about Obama because of his association with Wright. The results: 35% Yes, 54% No, with the numbers standing at 26%-66% for Democrats, 27%-61% among independents, and 56%-33% with Republicans.
The independents seem to me to be the critical block. Obama has clearly been wounded by the onslaught. But it is not fatal.
Obama-sistible
21 Mar 2008 08:53 am
Live by YouTube; die by YouTube. A very white backlash:
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Jeremiah Wright At The White House
20 Mar 2008 08:48 pm
The Clinton White House, that is.
Change, Anyone?
20 Mar 2008 07:19 pm
He's Having A Baby
20 Mar 2008 07:16 pm
A transgender man experiences pregnancy:
This whole process, from trying to get pregnant to being pregnant, has been a challenge for us. The first doctor we approached was a reproductive endocrinologist. He was shocked by our situation and told me to shave my facial hair. After a $300 consultation, he reluctantly performed my initial checkups. He then required us to see the clinic’s psychologist to see if we were fit to bring a child into this world and consulted with the ethics board of his hospital. A few months and a couple thousand dollars later, he told us that he would no longer treat us, saying he and his staff felt uncomfortable working with “someone like me.”
In total, nine different doctors have been involved. This is why it took over one year to get access to a cryogenic sperm bank to purchase anonymous donor vials, and why Nancy and I eventually resorted to home insemination.
Iraq And The Gulf War
20 Mar 2008 05:54 pm
Hilzoy marks the Iraq anniversary:
The first Gulf War had a purely military objective: kick the Iraqi army out of Kuwait. This was popular with Kuwaitis, for obvious reasons. More to the point, however, Kuwait had not been occupied for long. There was an existing social and political structure that just needed to be put back in place. So we had no complicated political tasks to achieve within Kuwait itself. Everything we needed to do could be done with military force, and we have the best military force in the world.
Invading Iraq was, obviously, completely different. Iraqis needed to set up a society virtually from scratch. They badly needed our help: help like ensuring basic law and order after the regime fell, and protecting infrastructure from looting. Even if we had not failed utterly to do those things, though, their task would have been immensely difficult.
Continue reading "Iraq And The Gulf War" »
Comparing Crises
20 Mar 2008 04:20 pm
A reader writes:
A response to your treatment of Dr. Paul and Senator Obama's personal racial crises within their campaigns. Wouldn't you agree that there are real similarities between the two issues within each campaign?
I take the point. No one argues that the ugliest views of Lew Rockwell or Jeremiah Wright are the views of Ron Paul or Barack Obama. Equally, the ugliness of some of Wright's and Rockwell's views does not exhaust the full views of either of them. Both Paul and Obama tolerated or over-looked some of the ugliness. The obvious difference is that Paul financially profited from those ugly newsletters; Obama attended a church that included some of those sentiments, but many, many others of greater breadth and depth. Should we give greater lee-way to black racism than to white racism? I don't think so; but I do think it's important to understand the cultural context of the black church and the preaching tradition which does occasionally veer into improvised popping off that might be viewed a little less seriously than a pre-meditated, printed pamphlet.
But while I do believe these are legitimate questions, I also believe that what the candidate says and believes and his own public record are far more important than the views of those with whom he associates. When you have a man like Obama who has a long, impassioned, searingly honest record on race and his long attempt to overcome it, it seems to me that that should be our primary focus. Ditto with Paul, whose courageous attempt to express classical conservatism in fiscal and foreign policy added a vital dimension to the debate in the GOP primary. My reader continues:
Continue reading "Comparing Crises" »
Malkin Award Nominee
20 Mar 2008 04:05 pm
"I would much prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than to import them into the United States because we believe homosexuality is destructive to society," - Peter Sprigg, Family Research Council.
All You Can Eat Music
20 Mar 2008 03:32 pm
The FT reports that Apple is considering charging a premium for unlimited music downloads:
Apple is in discussions with the big music companies about a radical new business model that would give customers free access to its entire iTunes music library in exchange for paying a premium for its iPod and iPhone devices.
Tyler Cowen considers the implications:
...songs will get shorter and their best riffs will be held to higher standards of immediate accessibility. If the marginal cost of a song is free, people will sample lots more and they will give fewer songs a second listen (higher opportunity cost); of course the opening bits of a song are already free in many cases but this will make sampling even easier.
Continue reading "All You Can Eat Music " »
And Not In An English Pudding
20 Mar 2008 03:03 pm
Virginia Postrel and Reason make the case for or allowing markets in kidneys.
How Wright Could Backfire
20 Mar 2008 02:46 pm
Bob Beckel on the Wright controversy:
Unless it is proven that Obama lied about not being in the pew when Wright delivered the controversial statements in question then, for the vast majority of Democrats at least, he is likely to put this crisis behind him.
But the Republican right wing has seized on the Wright story and is unlikely to let it go. For John McCain this has serious downside potential. Anger in the black community towards Republicans is established and immutable. But if conservatives are perceived as exploiting yet another race story, anger could spread to moderate Republican and Independent voters, many in the suburbs, where the Republicans have been bleeding support the last decade.
For those supporters of Hillary Clinton who see the story as a way of selling superdelegates on Obama's unelectability, the downside is far more dangerous. If the Clinton campaign is caught using the race card, particularly after Bill Clinton's 'cracker tour' of South Carolina, it will assure a Clinton defeat in November. Not only will blacks boycott the polls, so will many of the millions of young voters Obama has brought into the political process.
Dog's Best Friend
20 Mar 2008 02:05 pm
Bob And Mickey Debate The Speech
20 Mar 2008 01:35 pm
Bob is rightly impressed that Obama addressed both black and white resentment in his speech. Even Mickey can't fault it as civics; he just thinks it's a disaster for electoral politics. That distinction seems to me to be part of the problem.
The Final Gamble
20 Mar 2008 12:50 pm
From today's NYT:
Mrs. Clinton’s advisers had hoped that the uproar over inflammatory remarks made by Mr. Obama’s longtime pastor that has rocked his campaign for a week might lead voters and superdelegates to question whether they really know enough about Mr. Obama to back him. Although it is still early to judge his success, the speech Mr. Obama delivered on race in Philadelphia to address the controversy was well received and praised even by some Clinton supporters.
Marc on where we are:
...the Obama campaign has met the challenge of Rev. Wright, perhaps sufficiently, perhaps not. But from the perspective of wavering superdelegates, it's hard to find a level of panic among them. Obama has four weeks to recover until Pennsylvania; assuming that the bad news evens out the good news, the attitudes of these superdelegates will regress to the mean and they won't be a position to rethink the entire premise of Obama's candidacy.
...the analyst's emotional brain feels momentum for Hillary; the analyst's analytical brain can't quite figure out how Obama loses.
(Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty.)
Israel And Obama
20 Mar 2008 12:42 pm
Some see the enormous potential that Obama has to transform global politics:
"We Israelis traditionally look at the candidates of a US election through the very specific prism of "whether or not he or she would be good for Israel." Some of my friends were surprised that I was so enthusiastic about Obama: "Clinton would be much better for us," they claimed. But I believe that what is good for Israel is a US president who is good for the world. A US president with whom the Palestinian boys would identify would make Israel, and the whole world, more secure. It would inspire people everywhere to embrace what America represents - modernity, freedom, civil society, and democracy. I will be watching this election very closely because all six billion of us will be affected. And while I can't vote for Obama myself, I will certainly pray that Americans will."
The View From Your Window
20 Mar 2008 12:18 pm
Sikasso, Mali, 2.15 pm.
The Politician Formerly Known As Marvin Richardson
20 Mar 2008 12:02 pm
A one issue candidate.
The GOP And The Paulites II
20 Mar 2008 11:38 am
The Weekly Standard reacts to the Washington Times article:
...let me just say to Ron Paul supporters everywhere, and on behalf of the New Right (by which I assume Paul means the Jew Right), get lost.
There should be plenty of room for the Paulnuts in Obama's big tent. If Rev. Wright isn't exactly a 9/11 Truther, at least he's breathed new life into the Pearl Harbor Truther movement. Imagine a newsletter coauthored by the Reverend and Lew Rockwell--now that's racial harmony.
They never disappoint, do they?
It All Depends On What The Meaning Of 'Participate' Is
20 Mar 2008 11:15 am
The latest Clinton spin on Michigan:
The pledge reads, in part, "I shall not campaign or participate (emphasis added) in any state which schedules a presidential election primary or caucus before Feb. 5, 2008, except for the states of Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina..."
Today, Clinton's memo argues "Let's remember that the point of the early state pledge was to protect the role of the four states that held early nominating contests. Well the contests in those states were protected and the people in Iowa, South Carolina, New Hampshire and Nevada got a chance to vote... Senator Clinton signed the pledge and kept it... Senator Obama decided to go further and made a voluntary decision to remove his name from the Michigan ballot."
So the issue would seem to be, what does the word "participate" actually mean?
Getting DNA From Troubled Kids
20 Mar 2008 11:14 am
The surveillance state in Britain entertains a truly chilling idea.
McCain And Cameron
20 Mar 2008 10:51 am
The Green Republican meets the Green Tory. Money quote from Cameron:
“It was a fascinating and very productive meeting which covered a wide range of subjects including Iran, Iraq, the global economy and climate change. Our conversation centred on Afghanistan where the Senator praised the incredible work being carried out by British troops. We also discussed the need for greater co-ordination among the military and various authorities there. The Senator and I also spent time discussing our shared interests and how we can broaden the appeal of moderate Conservatism.”
Obama And Michigan
20 Mar 2008 10:32 am
This isn't all that surprising:
The Obama campaign is opposed to a Michigan re-vote mainly for reasons of politics. That's a descriptive truth I arrived at from reporting and talking to numerous sources within the campaign. It may well be true that there are legitimate grievances and obstacles to a new primary that the campaign has found -- indeed -- there appear to be some. Pointing out that the main reason for the opposition is political has pushed some readers to conclude that I have a pro-Clinton bias. Think what you wish.
I would say this, wouldn't I?, but Marc strikes me as one of the fairest reporters out there.
Lanny Davis Joins The Swift-Boaters
20 Mar 2008 09:06 am
The veteran Clintonite writes on the Huffington Post:
1. If a white minister preached sermons to his congregation and had used the "N" word and used rhetoric and words similar to members of the KKK, would you support a Democratic presidential candidate who decided to continue to be a member of that congregation?
2. Would you support that candidate if, after knowing of or hearing those sermons, he or she still appointed that minister to serve on his or her "Religious Advisory Committee" of his or her presidential campaign?
Jeffrey Goldberg On Iraq
20 Mar 2008 08:44 am
His mistake:
If one of my mistakes was to trust men like August Hanning, another larger mistake was to put my trust in the Bush administration, not so much on matters of intelligence—faulty intelligence was a near-universal phenomenon—but on matters of basic competence. I will admit to a prejudice here: I believed—note the tense, please—that Republicans were by nature ruthless, unsentimental, efficient, and, most of all, preoccupied with winning. It simply never occurred to me that Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney would allow themselves to lose a war. Which is what they have very nearly done.[...]
What the world is confronting five years after the invasion—the mess that Gen. David Petraeus is attempting to clean up today—was almost entirely preventable. It's not only my encounters, inside Iraq and outside, with senior figures of the Bush administration that have convinced me of this; the investigations conducted by George Packer, Tom Ricks, Bob Woodward, and Michael Gordon, among others, have unearthed thousands—literally thousands—of mistakes made by this administration, most of which were avoidable.
McCain vs The Christianists?
20 Mar 2008 08:11 am
McCain campaign advisor Lawrence Eagleburger unloads on the religious right:
On the Christian hard right, I live in Charlottesville now and I can't tell you I'm surrounded by it," Eagleburger said. "I must tell you we fought it there, fought hard against it. There's no question that in the Republican Party it is a serious problem...Among the hard-right conservatives in the Republican Party John McCain was, shall we say, less than enthusiastically received...What you see is what you get. You are not going to see him moving to assuage the concerns of these conservatives.
Code Stupid
20 Mar 2008 07:55 am
Paul Waldman