So: Walzer.

Me and Jason watched last night (after the Michael Jackson Private Home Movies special--it was a good night) an interview with Michael Walzer on PBS. Not surprisingly, they focused on his views on terrorism, which I will summarize in a second.

First, though, let me give a brief summary of Walzer himself. He is one of the most important living American political philosophers. He has written Just and Unjust Wars and Spheres of Justice and edits the journal Dissent. I wouldn't go so far as to say I agree with him about most things, but Dissent is a fine (if a bit too Hitchens-y / old-guard Jewish leftist) magazine, and he manages to be a public intellectual in America, a rare enough feat in this day and age that he deserves respect for that alone.

Here, then, is a ridiculously reductionary summary of his argument about terrorism.

- Terrorism is any indiscriminate act of aggression against noncombatants (aka "civilians" or "innocents"). That indiscriminate is imporant, for Walzer, since what he calls the "Revolutionary Code of Honor" that existed pre-WWII allowed for the selective assasination of political leaders, but not innocent bystanders. Thus, "terrorism" encompasses not only suicide bombings, but the fire-bombing of Dresden and the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War Two.

- Although we primarily think of terrorism today as the weapon of the weak and the fanatical, the responsibility for modern terrorism's origins (aka the Revolutonary Code of Honor being violated) lies with the West during WWII, specifically with the American actions above and the German holocaust and bombing of London. Thus, although he never states this explicitly in the interview, it is the responsibility of the rationalist west to end terrorism.

- Terrorism, by dint of its refusal to recognize barriers between combatants and non-combatants, and its indiscriminate choice of targets, makes the group targeted by terrorism worthless in the eyes of the terrorists; if any of them are worthy of being killed, all of them are worthy of being killed, and there is no group for which that is true. Thus, terrorism is an absolute moral wrong and should be universally condemned.

- Since terrorism is universally wrong, it should be universally opposed, and excusing it for any reason is simply to encourage evil. Thus, the police force should be encourage to defend against individual acts of terrorism.

- Terrorism was started by the rationalist western powers, although upon reflection Japan would be in here too with the Rape of Nanking, but whatever. Thus, the way to end modern terrorism as a phenomenon is for it to be universally condemned through rationalism, and for knowledge of the history of terrorism and revolution be spread throughout the world so that all might see it as a moral wrong.

So let's look at this. (Hopefully I haven't misrepresented it.) It starts off good, but then it goes a bit downhill as he gets twisted up in his logic--I tend to agree with the first two points, but less so with the last three. It was interesting to watch the program because you could kind of see this happening as the interviewer started pressing Walzer for solutions, although he pulled it all out after a brief bit of confusion. The bit at the end in particular, though, is a decent example of why I'm embarassed for political theory sometimes--it's just so, you know, blinkered intellectual, "show them the truth and they will be set free" etc., the idea that if people all just know what I know the problem would be solved. That, in other words, political theory can solve all the world's problems. I think that's kind of wishful thinking, but hey, maybe it could work, and it's not necessarily the biggest piece of his argument anyway, so let's move on.

Next we have the unqualified assertion that the best defense against individual acts of terrorism is the police force. Well, here we have a problem, given how the current technique of fighting terrorism with the police force is leading to strong erosion of key liberal democratic values like civil liberties and limiting the power of government. It's interesting to see Walzer slip into the trap that much of America is falling into today (or Britain was falling into twenty years ago, or Japan was falling into ten years ago, or Israel has been in for the last thirty years) of becoming so concerned with terrorism because it has the capacity for utter annihilation of individuals that they lose sight of issues that have far more importance for the polity as a whole or large groups within it. I think Walzer is obviously not there as much as John Ashcroft is, but I still see a tendency in Hitchens and some of the other lefty folks who fancy themselves followers of Orwell to become so reactionary against the (perceived or actual) views of the radical movement that they start to inch uncomfortably close to the neo-conservatives--a faith which is, after all, far more the evil twin of leftism than old-guard conservativism, given their Israel policy, their foreign-policy rhetoric, and their faith in government control. I'm not saying police shouldn't be involved in stopping terrorism; I'm just saying that for that to be Walzer's only answer is a bit weird, given that he even admitted earlier in the interview that, in areas that become involved in terrorism, past foreign policy is often partially to blame, and finding some way to correct these mistakes might be an effective technique. It's like he's so worried about being an apologist for terrorism that he loses sight of the practicalities of the situation and the fact that you need the carrot, not just the stick, to correct most political problems.

Indeed, it is this weird blindness to practicalities that is so confusing about Walzer's position. Early in the interview, while making the case for terrorism being an absolute wrong, he qualifies it by saying that he's sure some moral philosopher could come up with a situation where killing a thousand innocents prevents a million deaths, but he preferred not to think about so horrible a situation, and so terrorism = bad, that's it. But this is a weirdly abolutist moral position for an ostensible political philosopher. It seems to me that, right or wrong, terrorism is a reality of our world, and it's not going to be going away anytime soon, no matter what Michael Walzer has to say about it. It has become another weapon in the arsenal, and I think it's something we're going to have to engage with instead of simply condemning; I think the Israeli response to terrorism has been that of simple condemnation, and we can all see how well that's working.

So let me skirt the issue of the morality of terrorism as something those silly moral philosophers would be concerned about and instead focus on whether or not people will think it is morally wrong and how to get them to think that, as befits a political theorist. Walzer is, I think, quite deliberately including the atomic bomb in his definition of terrorism not just to condemn it but also to bolster his argument by equalting suicide bombing with nuclear bombing. But there are many differences, not least of which is the impetus for use and the consequences thereof. It is easier to absolutely condemn nuclear war because if an individual employs that tool, the reaction to it is very likely to result in his death, and so condemning something that will probably get you killed is logical. With terrorism, sad to say, one could very easily play the odds and assume that placing a bomb in a market will result in a net gain for you and your group, and as horrible as that may be, that is politics--we oppose welfare because it raises our taxes, we support tax hikes for the rich because it makes our public transportation run better. (Trying to be fair to both sides here.) Those are, of course, non-fatal issues, but they are issues for a polity that does not live under a tyrranical regime. So while I see Walzer's point, I have a hard time seeing its application; in a situation where absolute moral wrongs like torture and genocide are being carried out against your people, the fine points of terrorism's morality fall to the wayside in favor of the politics of getting yourself out of danger. The unfortunate reality is that terrorism sometimes works, and in the face of that fact, a lot of things stop mattering. Walzer has not given groups whose members practice terrorism any incentive to condemn that practice aside from saying that it is wrong.

Walzer's says that oppressed peoples should not have to use terrorism because it is an "elite" tool and that mass movements can acheive success just as well, so terrorism is simply what those groups that can't mount enough support to work politically do to get their way. But again, there's a difference between the technocratic elitism of the atomic bomb and the guy-in-the-basement individualism (not elitism, I don't think, although I don't mean to imply that one's good and one's bad by making that distinction) of suicide bombing. Besides which, as mentioned above, there are some situations where traditional political movements simply won't work, and there are other situations where, outside of liberal democracy, a minority is being oppressed by the majority and cannot mount a popular movement because, simply, they are outnumbered. He checks off a convenient list of examples where mass movements succeeded--India, Poland, etc.--but forgets the advantages these people enjoyed that were such a big part of their success.

So, as Jason says, I think Walzer has a lot to respond to here before his theory stops being Bushian "moral clarity" and starts being politics we can use. I think he's constructed a good theory, but simply saying terrorism is evil and believing it no matter what doesn't help us figure out situations where, evil or not, terrorism might seem like a good idea.
posted by Mike B. at 3:07 PM 0 comments

Good review by W. Bowers today of the Uncle Tupelo rereleases which he leads off with quotes from Jeff Tweedy's blip in Bookforum. How charmingly dorky! Here's the full Tweedy quote:

JEFF TWEEDY (MUSICIAN, Wilco)
I recently read a collection of essays: BUBBLEGUM MUSIC IS THE NAKED TRUTH: THE DARK HISTORY OF PREPUBESCENT POP, FROM THE BANANA SPLITS TO BRITNEY SPEARS, edited by Kim Cooper and David Smay. If an anthropologist from the distant future came back to our time, *NSYNC would tell him more about our culture than any Will Oldham record—definitely more than a Wilco record. People have this misperception that if something's easy to listen to or easy to read or easy to understand, then it was easy to do. I think the opposite is true. The circuit between Justin Timberlake and a fourteen–year–old girl is what's really important about music, and I definitely would argue that that connection is more profound than the one between an Interpol record and a fifty–year–old rock critic. Me? I'm just trying to connect with myself.

This is interesting given the following three facts: a) I hate Jeff Tweedy, b) I disagree with what he's saying, and c) it's pretty much exactly what I was saying yesterday. Crap. Of course, Tweedy is somewhat skirting the issue--anthropologists (or, more accurately, social historians) will focus on pop bands, and good for them, but it does seem likely that music historians will be more interested in stuff like Autreche, Beck, and Kool Keith--and, I guess, Wilco, although probably not Palace, if there's any justice in the world. (I will let the "connect with myself" bit slide except for this: Jeff, maybe that's your problem, huh guy? Shoot for the thirteen-year-old girl, it'd be hilarious if nothing else.) I think it would be more accurate to say that the connection between a thirteen-year-old and girl and Justin is just as important as that between default.hipster and Interpol, or my hippie neighbor and the Slip, or Robert Christgau and his scrotal sac, or Greil Marcus and his portable Derrida reader. Tweedy is engaging in the almost-as-annoying indie-rock reverse snobbery cliche, wherein instead of 7"'s with a run of 50 hand-etched copies being the only thing that matters, top 40 radio is the only thing that matters. Well, no, they both matter, and there's good and bad in each. There are some shitty Backstreet Boys songs and there are some good ones. (Most prefer "I Want It That Way," but I can't help but love "Backstreet's Back." I guess I'm a sucker for any song with the group's name in the title.) It's just--it's all valid, Jeff, and some of it's good, and all of it is something you can steal from, and learn from, and comment on, and with, and to. Eek.

The Walzer entry will have to wait a few minutes now--didn't mean to make this so long. I shall return.

posted by Mike B. at 12:34 PM 0 comments

Thursday, April 24, 2003

The Nation gives it up for the Daily Show and mentions that it has a bigger audience than Fox News. Score!

posted by Mike B. at 6:22 PM 0 comments

black like them
Simon Reynolds takes off on an ILM thread in his latest post and goes off on how difficult it must be to be a white American who wants to be involved in hip-hop, the "most significant and exciting form of American popular music these last 25 years." It's interesting, but it's also very British (sort of the equivalent of Americans pitying Brits for not having nice big cars or something like that) and about 6 years out of date, I'd reckon. Certainly this used to be true, and was a clear source of discomfort for a decent number of white kids, and maybe even remains that. But the fact of the matter is that hip-hop being "our music" doesn't really mean "black music" anymore, at least not for most people. The idea is more that hip-hop is a culture unto itself, and as long as you remain "true" to the culture, it doesn't matter what race you are. So, for instance, we're seeing in places like Def Jux and Anticon and a lot of the other undie hip-hop (to say nothing of Eminem) the first generation of white kids who, growing up in urban areas, essentially grew up in hip-hop culture. And while rap-rock was the first (embarassing) incarnation of this, in 5-10 years you're going to see suburban white kids exhibit this same degree of trueness, I expect, since hip-hop has become the dominant mode of popular music in America lately and so they've grown up with it, too. There's a surprisingly degree of equanimity in hip-hop these days from what I can see, and while some of this is based on embarassing superficialities (dressing the part, where you grew up) there's also an element of meritocracy--if you've got the skills, you can at least get your foot in the door. Whites do enjoy a lower status on the worker end of hip-hop (as well they should, all things considered) but a white kid needn't necessarily be embarassed to like it anymore. It's accepted, and it's a far more rebellious act in terms of parental approval than being into rock.

The ILM thread doesn't really get into this though, as far as I can tell, and in fairness the whole thing is supposed to center around the whiteness of indie-rock, not about white kids in general not being able to get into hip-hop. I don't agree with a lot of what I saw on my limited viewing of the exhaustive thread--for instance, I think anyone who thinks the Rapture is only drawing on Gang of Four instead of "actual" black music hasn't heard anything besides House of Jealous Lovers, as their more DFA-heavy stuff is extremely dancy in an R&B way--I tend to agree, in a qualified way. I mean, I think it's OK for indie-rock to be white, although I'd like it to own up to that a lot more, as admission of an actual white culture could be quite interesting. The people on the thread who seem to be saying that Amerindie (great term there) is bad because it's lost contact with black music are being annoyingly reductive, and you do have to recognize that Jack White's (for instance) opposition to hip-hop is based largely on its ubiquity, not its actual content or race. Now, I have a big beef with that attitude, too, but let's not pretend it's racism. And let's be willing to admit that white music has its peaks, too.

But if you replace "black music" with "popular music" (as Reynolds would like to, I think) stamp my passport for that excursion, ma'am. It's just so strange to me to see the way indie rock divorces itself from the mainstream, and the attitude of "ew that sounds like it could be on the radio, you sold out man" (cf Pitchfork) is weirdly similar to activists' notions of politics as an all-or-nothing proposition. Just because music is put out by a corporation doesn't mean that it was made by a corporation, and just because it's on the radio doesn't mean it loses all merit. Hip-hop has a much broader view of this conundrum--see, for instance, the Majesticons/Infesticons project, which alternates one album sounding like slick mainstream hip-hop with one of undie hip-hop, entered into this imaginary feud with each other. Indie rock can be embarassing when it tries to do that, but I think that's less because it shouldn't do it and more because it doesn't know how--or, more accurately, because it has the wrong attitude towards it. Indie rock has a very condescending attitude toward everything else in culture (for instance, can you see any indie-rocker sincerely using the hook Jay-Z uses for "The City is Mine" without being drummed out of the club?), and that's one of the most annoying things about it, not least because it results in the music being stifled artistically. I like the Beatles and, I dunno, Motorhead just fine, but I don't think their talents overwhelms all other talent, nor do I think that music has to be twenty years old to be a valid reference point. Why the hell wouldn't you steal stuff from the mainstream and repurpose it? If you have a critique of the mainstream, why do you avoid it instead of engaging with it? It's that weird, absolutely maddening repulsion to anything smacking of being too popular or too well-known that makes me want to take a fucking blowtorch to my fellow hipsters sometimes, although mainly I love them.

As for myself, I admit that not everything I do sits comfortably besides a Neptunes song, but some of it does. I don't know if I want to go platinum, but I want to at least sound like I could, both because the songs are good and because I'm not afraid to limit myself to what's acceptable. The mainstream is hugely interesting, at least as interesting as the underground, and I do wish more of my contemporaries would see through the hype and try to engage with it.

posted by Mike B. at 5:53 PM 0 comments

Here is what the New York State legislature wants: more funds for schools, and a tax increase of 7/10 of a percent for people earning over $100,000 a year. Seven-tenths of a percent.

Here is what the New York State Governor, George Pataki, has to say about that:

"I would hope that they will not pass it. But I have made it very plain that I will oppose and fight any job-killing tax, such as a personal income tax surcharge, that I believe would really hurt this state's economic competitiveness and drive jobs out."

Not surprisingly, his ratings are dropping, given that favoring the rich over schoolchildren is not the most popular stance. I bet GOPAC is wetting its collective trousers, though.

posted by Mike B. at 4:55 PM 0 comments

Oh, and I had a letter in the Review this week, the Review being the ol' college paper. Here it is, in case it gets archived out:

To the Editors:

A few years back, Lawrence Summers visited Oberlin. His visit had been preceded by a slew of negative publicity about his pro-globalization stance, and as he took the podium in Finney Chapel to speak, a large banner was unfurled from the balcony and he was drowned out by the shouts of many students. When I asked some if they could please be quiet so we could at least hear what he had to say first, the response was, and I quote: “Uh, democracy?!”

Now, I confess I don’t know entirely what this meant, but I suppose it was pointing out our right to free speech. But this is indicative of the problems of the left. While it is true that we enjoy various rights, it might not be in the interests of the responsible citizen to exercise them all simultaneously, as the activists seemed to want to do. After all, the Constitution does not require us to speak, worship or congregate (or bear arms); it simply stipulates that we be allowed to if we so choose. And while I respect my fellow citizen’s choices, I do get the feeling sometimes that they might be more effective if they spoke softly on occasion, or even did not speak at all, since this is how politics sometimes operates, as opposed to talk shows on the Fox News Channel. That is to say: the left needs to choose between being right and being successful, because when you’re successful, you’re just not always going to be right. And that’s okay.

The left’s obsession with speech issues, recently highlighted here in the debate over the anti-Zionist (or, I guess, pro-racist) graffiti, seems strange in light of its interests. I think that at heart most on the left shares the same attitude about Israel — that it deserves to exist, but the policies of the Likud party are fundamentally unjust — and yet all involved scream at such a pitch that this consensus view slips through the cracks, and our Israel policy continues to be driven by the neo-conservative point of view. Take a gander at that movement: you don’t very often see Richard Pearle publicly dressing-down Donald Rumsfeld for using a term anathema to his ideology, yet we on the left seem obsessed with speech issues among ourselves, constantly debating not only who has the right to speak, but who feels comfortable speaking. This seems very, very strange to me when the people actually opposed to our interests think some of us should be taken off planes, kept from positions of authority, deported, jailed, etc., which seems a far more egregious act of silencing. Isn’t what they’re saying a more worthy object of criticism?

Some students will be graduating soon, and at that point they face a choice. They can continue within the activist culture that (regrettably) dominates the Oberlin political discourse, but they must recognize that this is a culture above all else, often more concerned with its own internal workings than with actually affecting the larger world. Or they can begin to fully participate in electoral politics, instead of screaming at people. It would be nice if the left was more interested in creating the good than simply criticizing the bad, and while I recognize that neither the Democrats nor the activists are really there yet, I think that with the help of some of our very smart Oberlin students — even ones who say confusing things to me in Finney Chapel — our nation can get a little closer to where it should be.

—Michael Barthel
OC ’01

posted by Mike B. at 10:30 AM 0 comments

So if you're Bill O'Reilly, and you're emceeing a Washington benefit for inner-city schoolchildren, and one of the groups of children is late, what do you say to break the tension?

"I hope they're not in the parking lot stealing our hubcaps."

Musta been a pleasant chill in that room.

posted by Mike B. at 10:24 AM 0 comments

People can make some pretty cool sculptures with Peeps.

Also, an oldie but a goodie: Peep Research.

posted by Mike B. at 10:22 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, April 23, 2003

A very good op-ed about governing Iraq which I am far too tired to comment on right now.

posted by Mike B. at 6:15 PM 0 comments

Our old friend Newt Gingrich made a speech to the American Enterprise Institute, and Salon has printed the transcript. Let's gut this baby.

The State Department took the President's strong position and negotiated a resolution that shifted from verification to inspection. This was in part done because of internal State Department politics because verification would have put the policy in the hands of people who disagreed with the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs' propensity for appeasing dictators and propping up corrupt regimes.

Uh, isn't that the CIA? Newt here is playing to the AEI's prejudices, so I don't entirely know what he's talking about, but presumably it's some sort of neo-conservative bugaboo. Anyway, it's far too glib.

From President Bush's clear choice between two worlds, the State Department had descended into a murky game in which the players were deceptive and the rules were stacked against the United States.

Alternately, Bush's myopic, reductive worldview was destined to fail in a world that is, in fact, murky, and largely distrusts the U.S. But.

The State Department communications program failed during these five months to such a degree that 95 percent of the Turkish people opposed the American position. This fit in with a pattern of State Department communications failures as a result of which the South Korean people regarded the United States as more dangerous than North Korea and a vast majority of French and German citizens favored policies that opposed the United States.

And [descending slide whistle noise] here's where it starts to get wrong. This is absolutely untrue. The reason State was pressing for increased UN efforts was because public opinion was already well on its way to child-molester levels. Newt's argument would be, I guess, that since everyone was so impressed by the military success in Iraq, if we had just done it sooner the numbers would never have gotten that high. But in the case of Turkey, just as a for instance, we had a problem wholly unassociated with the UN where their democratic system rejected putting our troops on their soil, and we ended up having to wait for these troops to work their way south in order to start the invasion anyway. And surely a lot of the problems were due to Rumsfeld's groaningly ham-handed public pronouncements. These are all separate from the UN, and the decision to go back there obviously didn't cost America that much because we invaded after canceling a vote. We lost a few weeks, and the world hated us just as much either way. Some neo-conservatives are at least honest enough to admit that they don't care.

Now the State Department is back at work pursuing policies that will clearly throw away all the fruits of hard won victory.

1. The concept of the American Secretary of State going to Damascus to meet with a terrorist-supporting, secret-police-wielding dictator is ludicrous. The United States military has created an opportunity to apply genuine economic, diplomatic and political pressure on Syria. The current Syrian dictatorship openly hosts seven terrorists' offices in downtown Damascus, in public, with recognized addresses. The current Syrian dictatorship is still developing chemical weapons of mass destruction and will not allow inspections. The current Syrian dictatorship is still occupying Lebanon to the disadvantage of peace in the region and is still transmitting weapons and support for Hezbollah in southern Lebanon where there are more than 11,000 rockets and missiles aimed at Israel. This is a time for America to demand changes in Damascus before a visit is even considered. The visit should be a reward for public change not an appeal to a weak, economically depressed dictatorship.

I've never really understood the political reasoning that posits that visiting is appeasement, not engagement. I think Powell has actually learned a hard lesson from Gulf War II, which is that he needs to get out of the fucking country in order to get anything done. This aside, however, the idea that now is the key time to engage with Syria is ludicrous. They pose no threat to us whatsoever, and to the best of my knowledge, none of the terrorist groups they house have every lifted a finger against the US. Let's not let our military bite off more than our diplomacy can chew. It's true that they are a serious issue in the extremely important peace negotiations with Israel, but whatever happened to "Speak softly and carry a big stick?" The big stick is there. Now we will be more likely to achieve success through treating them with some degree of respect rather than coldly shutting them out. Politicians know damn well that sometimes you need to shake the hand of the person you hate to get what you want.

3. The people the State Department has sent to Iraq so far represent the worst instincts of the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. They were promoted in a culture of propping up dictators, coddling the corrupt and ignoring the secret police. They have a constituency of Middle East governments deeply opposed to democracy in Iraq. Their instinct is to create a weak Iraqi government that will not threaten its Syrian, Iranian, Saudi and other dictatorial neighbors.

Oh, bullshit. How is Defense's sponsorship of Chalabi, a man who defrauded Jordan of $200 million, any more moral? All I know is that State does seem a lot more concerned with creating an actual functioning representative democracy rather than an administration blindly pro-American which will probably fall to Islamist groups within ten years.

4. The announcement that someone from the Agency for International Development would work to help reconstruct Iraq was a further sign that nothing has been learned. As of two weeks ago, not one mile of road had been paved in Afghanistan. This absolute failure of American entrepreneurship was a direct result of the State Department blocking the Corps of Engineers from being directly involved. There is no reason to believe AID will be any better in Iraq than the disaster it has been in Afghanistan. As one AID official told the Post, "Afghans need to understand the lengthy bureaucratic processes of AID and not become impatient." That is exactly the wrong attitude and helps explain why the State Department should be transformed but AID should be abolished.

You mean the organization that we forgot to give money to? That one? That one that is, for some weird reason, failing? Underfunding an agency and then declaring it a failure is a classic conservative technique. The gall anyone connected with the administration has to bring up Afghanistan as a "failure"--the absolute fucking gall--is cynicism of the highest order.

Our ability to lead is more communications, diplomatic, and assistance-based than military. People have always admired us more than feared us.

The collapse of the State Department as an effective instrument puts all this at risk. We must learn the transforming lessons of the last six months and apply them to create a more effective State Department.

And here I agree with him--well, except that we totally disagree. See, I think the reason that State's had so many problems is that because every time they say something, Rumsfeld comes out and says the exact opposite. How is this fostering anything besides "a broken instrument of international communication"? Time and time again, the DoD has come out and undermined State's authority in a very public way that has, time and time again, angered our allies. Let's not pretend that the "failure" of State is due to its own desire to prop up dictators when it's clear that the Pentagon opposes its policy choices at every opportunity, refusing to conduct these discussions behind the scenes and instead presenting a squabbling and vindictive administration that cares far more for its own internal working than for its image abroad. Let's not pretend State is this evil subversive bureaucracy when Powell's deputy is an ally of the neo-cons at Defense.

Gingrich's speech is a unique distillation of the cynical, manipulative politics of the neo-conservative movement: when they see an institution they don't like, they undermine it and then declare it defunct, when it never had a chance to maneuver in the first place. It's unclear what Newt wants State to be like in the future, but all I know is that I like having competing interests in government, because then maybe we won't fuck up quite so much. Give State room to breathe, let it do its job, and then we'll see how it does, OK? Claiming that they work counter to the President's interests implies that Paul Wolfowitz's wishes are the President's, and for now that's just not true.

posted by Mike B. at 4:56 PM 0 comments

So who was stealing those antiquities from the Iraqi National Museum, you ask?

A Fox News employee.

I shit you not. How perfect is that?

Oh, also, we're rattling some sabres at Iran, but what else is new?

posted by Mike B. at 4:18 PM 0 comments

So France goes, "I am rubber, you are glue! Nyeh!" I guess if I ever become an actual columnist, I can't represent tense diplomatic affairs in terms of schoolyard taunts, huh? Oh well, live for the moment.

The article also gives us some additional info about the spat. Excerpts:

Secretary Powell's comment on Tuesday, during a television interview, came a day after a White House meeting aimed at finding ways to punish France, which led the opposition to the United States-led military attack against Iraq and thwarted Washington's attempt to win United Nations support to the move.

Participants in the meeting reportedly considered actions ranging from lessening French influence in NATO to excluding the French from some international forums. "They are trying to find ways to create alternative mechanisms for dealing with the French, or rather without them, and not just at NATO," Agence France-Presse quoted a senior American official as saying...The vice president's office, backed by the Defense Department, was said to have been particularly vocal in pushing for punitive measures against France. There were indications that Mr. Powell, who wants French cooperation in the reconstruction of Iraq, was going along with talk of sanctions in order to help set limits to something he had been unable to block.

[snip]

Some analysts said that while administration frustration with France was understandable from Washington's viewpoint, a punitive response might be short-sighted, given the countries' complex range of common interests. Jeremy Shapiro, associate director of the Center for the United States and France, at the Brookings Institution, said that the administration's approach appeared to be "a policy more of revenge and retaliation than of working toward the future."

Last week, President Jacques Chirac of France telephoned President Bush — their first talk in two months — in what was seen as a clearly conciliatory gesture; and earlier this week, France, in a move that at first blush appeared welcomed by the United States, conditionally supported an end to United Nations sanctions on Iraq. The comments by Mr. Powell seemed to show that Washington was hardly appeased. Some in the administration are disdainful of what they see as a broader effort by Mr. Chirac to limit, or supplant, American power.

[snip]

In Brussels, a spokeswoman for the European Commission noted that rules of international relations limited the ways Washington could express its irritation. "I am sure that Colin Powell was not implying that any of those rules would be broken," said the spokeswoman, Emma Udwin.

posted by Mike B. at 4:14 PM 0 comments

I'm sorry, I didn't think I was going to talk about "man on dog" with a United States senator, it's sort of freaking me out.

Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA), aka "the guy who thinks women who get partial-birth abortions don't know what they're doing" and "the guy who blamed liberals for the priest abuse scandal," has hopefully stepped in a big pile of it. In an interview with the Associated Press, he said:

"If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything."

Now, this sure sounds a lot like he's equating homosexuality with incest or polygamy, and it sure also sounds a lot like he thinks the government should stop faggot sex--or, even, mistress sex--because otherwise it's OK to rape your sister. Which is probably not true, it seems to me. Andrew "I'm only gay when it's convenient" Sullivan points out that the parenthetical "(gay)" is questionable (he also points out that Texas passed the anti-sodomy law under discussion the same year it repealed the beastiality laws), but a quick look at the transcript reveals that the foot is well implanted in the mouth as regards homosexuality. He proceeds from asserting that since the pedophilic priests having sex with young boys was "a basic homosexual relationship" because--get ready for it--they weren't three or five years old, it's our acceptance of homosexuality that leads to that rather than, say, the power structures of the church. (You know this practice has been going on for about 1000 years, right Rick?) He then goes on to assert that he doesn't believe in the right to privacy and that homosexuality is just like paedophilia. Wait, he already did that.

So he hasn't apologized, of course, and some people support that:

Santorum won some backing for his comments. Concerned Women for America, a conservative interest group in Washington, released a statement criticizing the "gay thought police" and saying Santorum was "exactly right."

Genevieve Wood, vice president for communications at the Family Research Council, another conservative group, agreed.

"I think the Republican party would do well to follow Senator Santorum if they want to see pro-family voters show up on Election Day," she said.

As Rachel put it, "Hahaha, gay thought police." Yeah, there's pretty much only a gay thought police in three places in the country. Everywhere else it's pretty much the straight thought police. And hahaha, pro-family voters. Do you really want "pro-family" to start explicitly meaning "homophobic"? Well, I guess if you want to appeal to homophobes (of which there is not a shortage in America), you do. Oh, although the Log Cabin Republicans did criticize him, thankfully:

"If you ask most Americans if they compare gay and lesbian Americans to polygamists and folks who are involved in incest and the other categories he used, I think there are very few folks in the mainstream who would articulate those views," said Patrick Guerriero, executive director of the group.

So the White House is saying nothing, and Rick is defiant. You'd think they'd have learned something from the whole Trent Lott thing, huh? Well, then again, I guess Trent didn't do too badly for himself in the end. Still: let's pick this one up, folks. The esteemed senator is free to believe this, of course, but I don't think we should have someone who "hates" the behavior of a decent proportion of our population as one of our leaders--Howard Kurtz notes that Santorum is "the third-ranking member of the Republican leadership." Barney "Fag" Frank thinks that "He knows exactly what he's doing. He's getting the right-wing vote." And the New York Times points out:

Earlier this month, as the chief Senate sponsor of President Bush's religion-based initiative, he aroused the ire of conservatives by stripping out a provision that would have helped religious groups get government grants. In fact, the Human Rights Campaign went so far as to praise Mr. Santorum in a news release.

In recent weeks the sensitivity of gays' relationship with Republicans came into the spotlight after Marc Racicot, chairman of the Republican National Committee, met with the Human Rights Campaign. The session enraged the conservative Family Research Council, whose president, Kenneth Connor, said Mr. Racicot was holding "secret meetings with the homosexual lobby."

Today, Mr. Connor came to Mr. Santorum's defense, saying, "I think the senator's remarks are right on the mark."

(the headline, by the way, is a quote from the AP interviewer in the transcript, and makes me very happy.)

posted by Mike B. at 3:56 PM 0 comments