October 31, 2004

The Stockholm Syndrome at the Beeb

Some years ago, a Russian woman friend of mine described what it was like in her classroom - she was eight at the time - when Stalin died. She sat there apprehensive something would happen to her while her classmates and teachers wept and sobbed over the death of the man who was probably history's greatest mass murderer.

I was reminded of this story when I read (via Normblog and several emails from readers) this strange tale of weeping over the departure of Arafat by West Bank BBC Correspondent Barbara Plett. Apparently the Palestinians knew something that Ms. Plett didn't know. They didn't turn out for the caudillo's departure, but the BBC's woman-in-place was somehow moved. Her reason:

Despite his obvious failings - his use of corruption, his ambivalence towards violence, his autocratic way of ruling - no one could accuse him of cowardice.

I guess you could say the same thing of Stalin, Hitler and Attila the Hun. Kinda brings tears to your eyes, don't it? (I wonder what her defnition of "ambivalence" is)

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 2:25 PM
Comments (48)

Not MY Al Jazeera?

That most progressive of all media outlets actually censored "Bin Laden's" tape, only showing six of eighteen minutes, fearing it might make Binny seem weak. That's the strongest evidence I have seen yet that it actually is Bin Laden. According to the New York Post:

Officials said that in the 18-minute long tape - of which only six minutes were aired on the al-Jazeera Arab television network in the Middle East on Friday - bin Laden bemoans the recent democratic elections in Afghanistan and the lack of violence involved with it.

But those who have seen the tape have said there was no specific information regarding an attack.

It's those pesky elections again. If they come off well in Iraq and Kerry has won ours, what an irony that will be! (Let's make sure it doesn't happen.)

UPDATE: MEMRI (no surprise - they may be the greatest single information resource on the Internet) has the most complete analysis. Apparently (again no surprise) the US media mistranslated Bin Laden and there is more direct intervention in the US election intended by the "Sheik," against Bush, of course. Hindrocket wonders why the mainstream media isn't covering this. I assume... no, I know... he's being rhetorical.

MEANWHILE: Via PeterUK, the Beeb's readers react to the Bin Laden tape. [Pour yourself a double-brandy first.-ed.]

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:36 AM
Comments (63)

New Friends, New Times... New Election

George Bush has many new friends in and out of the blogosphere, among blogger and among commenters. Of course he had several fair weather friends who were unable to stand the course of the inevitable ups and downs of war, but I will not address those people now. I want to speak to those of us who have remained George's new friends.

Many of us have never voted for a Republican before, especially for President, and it will be a peculiar experience indeed on Tuesday (or before) punching hard on that chad so it doesn't hang. My hand will be shaking with the memory of a thousand ancestors who always voted Democratic as if it were a form of tribal initiation. This goes back to early childhood (age 5?) when I was informed that all my family, every last one of them, was "Gladly with Adlai." They gave me a pin, which I wore to school with pride. Later on, I... Well, you get the point. In any case, because I have broken so sharply with the past, I imagine I will be especially hard on Bush should he win. I will feel responsible in my miniscule way.

But what interests me now at this amazing crossroads is how difficult indeed it is for those of us who have made this transition. Some who comment on this blog do so under pseudonyms so their friends, family or employers do not know that they have gone over to the "dark side." Even though I have a blog written in my own name averaging 20,000 visitors a day, quoted in all sorts of media, I often find it difficult myself to admit in public, face-to-face, where I stand. And it's not just because I'm afraid of getting my car keyed. It has something to do with identity, my very core. I don't want to be thought of as one of "them." I'm a modern, with-it guy, dammit. I support gay marriage and stem cell research! [Who cares, Simon?-ed. You shut up. This is an unedited post.]

But sometimes I come out of the closet. Last night I was at a dinner party... yes, it was in Hollywood where I live, but it wasn't particularly glamorous, just normal big city folks getting together. Not all the people worked in the Industry and those that did were more on the workaday side. The people had come together through our children - we were all parents from the same school - and the kids played in the next room while we ate, drank and talked. Naturally, the subject of the election came up and I decided - maybe it was the vodka - to let it rip and say I was voting for Bush. One woman shrieked at the top of her lungs. The others just looked at me in incredulity.

I don't think it's bragging to say I knew more than these people about politics. (I have to - I am the one putting out opinions in public.) But that didn't stop me from shrieking back at the woman. Others joined in and it became for a few moments a battle of who could yell the loudest. But after a bit it quieted down and they stared at me curiously. These people did not know me well, but they knew I was a writer and they wondered how such a person could be voting for this man they reviled. We began to discuss. You will not be surprised to learn that most (not all) of them were not very well informed. Their view of the world was heavily influenced by the Six O'Clock News, a Dan Rather vision of reality. The UN Oil-for-Food Scandal was some kind of dim reference that some of them (sort of) recognized. What it implies, of course, they had never thought about.

I can't say I changed anyone's mind. How that happens is mysterious anyway. But a couple of them at least listened to my views. One woman I think pretty much got them, though she didn't fully agree. To the woman who shrieked, it remained "But there were no WMDs!" I am, however, glad I opened my mouth - and not just because it was therapeutic.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:16 AM
Comments (182)

October 30, 2004

The New Reactionaries - Part 304

I guess I'm not the only one calling my old colleagues on the left reactionary. Here's Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe: Radical Bush vs. Reactionary Kerry.This is a taste. Read it all if you're interested in how the playbook is changing in the new era.

Kerry is a liberal Democrat, but in this campaign he is running as a reactionary: one who wants to reverse course -- to go back to the attitudes and practices that guided US policy when Clinton and the elder George Bush were in office. The younger Bush may be a Republican, but he is running this year as a radical. Profoundly transformed by 9/11, he sees the old playbook as feckless and is set on a revolutionary new course.

Very few find it easy to adapt to new times - I struggle every day - but I would remind all of the words of the I Ching: "Change. Opportunity." (hat tip: Robert Snider)

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 1:22 PM
Comments (78)

Election Day Blogging

Of course I will be doing it here. How could I resist? But I will be checking in frequently with new Horserace Blog, which I have only recently discovered. It's a great place for making sense of the weird science of political polls. For election day, the blogger is setting up a "crack team of observers" to stream data from nine swing states.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:58 AM
Comments (33)

Arafat Watch

According to CNN, more moderate PLO officials are moving swiftly to arrange an order of succession now that Arafat is in Paris:

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei and former prime minister Mahmoud Abbas have divided the Palestinian portfolio and come to an agreement, the sources said.

Qorei would recognize Abbas as the main leader who would take over in the event that Arafat is fully incapacitated or dies, they said.

Abbas (Abu Mazen) is the natural choice in order to achieve international recognition. He performed relatively well on the world stage as PM until he was undercut by Arafat. A crossroads has been reached. If Abbas and Qorei are able to avert a Palestinian civil war, then negotiations with Israel will begin again rather shortly (at least on Middle East time), no matter who wins the US presidential election. But if all Hell (or something close) breaks loose in the West Bank and Gaza, obviously we will all have to wait that out. I am one of those, however, who is secretly optimistic that the man and woman of the famous Palestinian street have had enough. Although the Hamas crowd will engage in their usual psychotic behavior, they will not prevail.

The real wild card is the Monster Arafat himself. If he rises from his leukemia (or is it a different blood disease?) death bed, the peace process will be derailed once more. If there's one thing we know by now El Caudillo Yasser won't tolerate while he's alive and semi-kicking, it's a two-state solution.

UPDATE: Now leukemia is being denied. This AP report is accompanied by a photo of Arafat holding hands with his wife Suha who, for reasons unexplained, never found time to make the journey from Paris to Ramallah for the last three years. Perhaps she's not a diplomat.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:45 AM
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Terminate Those Polls!

Vodkapundit's Will Collier has an intriguing post about his wife's voting difficutlties in Georgia. Despite a double-digit Bush lead in the polls in that state, she was told she would have a 4-5 hour wait to vote. Collier writes:

Take whatever predictions you read or hear over the next four days with 380 tons of salt. Nobody has ever seen an American election like this before.

True enough. And although the polls are relatively similar, showing an extremely tight race, we could be in for a November Surprise on election day. As recently as the California Recall Election, the polls proved to be highly inaccurate. No one predicted the Governator would win in a blow-out against a large field - except for maybe him. Does this mean I am making a prediction? Noooo.... falta cojones! [You used to gamble like a crazy person.-ed. Yeah, if I could only have half my money back...]

MEANWHILE: 'Feiler Faster Principle'? Mickey thinks Bin Laden or his evil twin [How can Bin Laden have an evil twin?-ed. Okay, twin evil.] moved too early to affect the election with his tape. Should have gone, say, Sunday night. Makes sense to me.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:04 AM
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October 29, 2004

Hudna Anyone?

Belmont Club is correct in saying that this Bin Laden (the latest tape's iteration) seems to want a cease fire of some kind:

It is important to notice what he has stopped saying in this speech. He has stopped talking about the restoration of the Global Caliphate. There is no more mention of the return of Andalusia. There is no more anticipation that Islam will sweep the world. He is no longer boasting that Americans run at the slightest wounds; that they are more cowardly than the Russians. He is not talking about future operations to swathe the world in fire but dwelling on past glories. He is basically saying if you leave us alone we will leave you alone. Though it is couched in his customary orbicular phraseology he is basically asking for time out.

A time out in Islamic parlance, as many of us know by now, is a hudna, which is not a peace settlement but more of a cease fire while they lick their wounds and re-arm for the fight to come. BC continues:

The American answer to Osama's proposal will be given on Election Day. One response is to agree that the United States of America will henceforth act like Sweden, which is on track to become majority Islamic sometime after the middle of this century. The electorate best knows which candidate will serve this end; which candidate most promises to be European-like in attitude and they can choose that path with both eyes open. The electorate can strike that bargain and Osama may keep his word. The other course is to reject Osama's terms utterly; to recognize the pleading in his outwardly belligerent manner and reply that his fugitive existence; the loss of his sanctuaries; the annihilation of his men are but the merest foretaste of what is yet to come: to say that to enemies such as he, the initials 'US' will always mean Unconditional Surrender.

Well, we all know what side Wretchard and I are on. But what's interesting is how this post dovetails with John Kelly's already cited here. The peculiar moveon.org rhetoric of this new Bin Laden sounds as if it wasn't written by BL at all, but by some group with an eye cocked on Tuesday. That the CIA has vaguely verified the tape means little. They always have. As many have noted, they have a continuing interest in the existence of a live Bin Laden. Both sides do.

But then, I could be wrong... It probably won't be the first time in the last five minutes.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:20 PM
Comments (61)

Okay, Bin Laden may be alive after all but...

... the real October Surprise is here.

MEANWHILE: If things haven't gotten bad enough in this divided country, even that last bastion of free speech - New York cabbies - is now being coerced into political correctness. (hat tip: Catherine Johnson)

UPDATE: Apropos the new "Bin Laden" tape, do not miss the latest installment from RLSimon.com's resident Afghanistan Expert.

ALSO not to be missed, if you haven't seen it, is Hindrocket's update on Al Qaqaagate. He asks the apposite question - why has Kerry been riding this slow horse? Maybe because it's the only one left in his stable.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 3:56 PM
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Some Even-Handedness from the WaPo

This coverage of the Al Qaqaa Scandal is an example of why the Washington Post is a much superior newspaper these days to the New York Times when it comes to the covering of events with political impact.

U.S. military commanders estimated last fall that Iraqi military sites contained 650,000 to 1 million tons of explosives, artillery shells, aviation bombs and other ammunition. The Bush administration cited official figures this week showing about 400,000 tons destroyed or in the process of being eliminated. That leaves the whereabouts of more than 250,000 tons unknown.

Against that background, this week's assertions by Sen. John F. Kerry's campaign about the few hundred tons said to have vanished from Iraq's Qaqaa facility have struck some defense experts as exaggerated.

(hat tip Richard Schwartz)

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:14 AM
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Another Opening of Another Show

I was reminded by PJ in the comments to the preceding post of the opening tonight in many major cities of Voices of Iraq - a documentary about the Iraqis in their own words (how's that for a new thought?). I'm told it is quite good and will try to get to see it over the weekend. Of course, all documentaries, no matter how verité their cinéma, reflect the editorial biases of their makers, but in a form now dominated by the most mendacious man in its history, all correctives are welcome.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:26 AM
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Watching Yasser

I don't know about the rest of you, but Sheryl and I were transfixed last night, watching the helicopter departure of Yasser Arafat from Ramallah on CNN. Despite the unrelenting anti-Israeli commentary of their "Chief International Correspondent" Christiane Amanpour, it was great theatre. (Note to Christiane: Even many Palestinian officials are now admitting the Al Aqsa Intifada was a tragic mistake for their people. That was Arafat's doing, not Israel's.)

Will Yasser return? Who knows? But I suspect, even though some worry the Palestinian caudillo is once again playing possum, this is the end of an era. We are beginning the next chapter in the endless Arab-Israeli conflict. Who knows what that will bring? With the election, events in Iraq and departure of Arafat all on top of each other, my head is swimming. It's a difficult time to be a fiction writer. The inventions of history are far more fascinating than anything any one human could conceive.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:03 AM
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The People - Nyet?

I was immediately reminded of this post on my site, when I read the following this morning on ABC's The Note:

But for better or worse, nothing - not the candidates, the TV ads, the ground game, even the voters, really - nothing matters more in determining the outcome of the presidential election than the major American media.

Seems unbelievably arrogant, doesn't it, but wait... The Note is actually making a much better point (scroll down), an interesting corrective for me and for all of us. After giving a long list of caveats for reporters in the count down to the election, they come to this:

Don't let yourself think for a minute, for better or worse, that nothing - not the candidates, the TV ads, the ground game, even voters, really - nothing matters more in determining the outcome of the presidential election than the major American media. You're just along for the ride, boys and girls.

Aren't we all? Meanwhile... as a corrective to the recent Hitchens demarche (or not) remarked upon by many. (No, I don't know what to say about it), here is Steyn - Prediction City. You'll need a National Review digital subscription, which I have, to get the rest but suffice it to say Mark thinks the hidden Bush vote is siginificant and will bring the President a solid victory Tuesday. I'm too chicken to make a prediction. Maybe later.

UPDATE: Via our Rick Ballard, the prediction of a Princeton econometrist.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:38 AM
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October 28, 2004

Wisdom from Abroad

The estimable Gregory Djerejian of The Belgravia Dispatch seizes on the time difference to give us a throrough recap of the Al Qaqaa Story "as told by the New York Times."

Meanwhile, hold onto your hats (I certainly have mine). As alert readers of this site must know, the next few days will feature several rolling media earthquakes. The first on tap, evidently, is what is clearly the carefully timed release in the British medical journal Lancet of a Johns Hopkins report of an estimated one hundred thousand dead in Iraq. Of course publishing figures like this on the eve of an election is unconscionable because they cannot in any way be checked, even assuming that there would be a method of ascertaining such a thing n the first place under present conditions, which is doubtful. It's time to be skeptical of people making rash charges. As a dieing woman once said, "Intergity, integrity, integrity."

UPDATE: Random Birkel has some interesting questions about the survey in Lancet.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:52 PM
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The Insufferable Self-Importance of the Mainstream Media Continues

Not much more than two weeks after ABC Political Director Mark Halperin was caught promulgating a flagrantly-biased anti-Bush memo to his staff, that same network has appointed itself guardian of what not only the public but the CIA itself can and cannot see of the latest Al Qaeda tape delivered to the network in Pakistan. I cannot agree for a second with Ann Althouse who thinks this behavior on the part of the network is justifiable because it supresses Al Qaeda's "lame advertisements." I'm afraid to say Ann hasn't been watching the same terror commercials I have. Recent activities in Madrid and Beslan force us to acknowledge there is some truth in some of Al Q's advertising. We'd better pay attention all right.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 3:48 PM
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A Wounded Animal Strikes Back

For many years, most of their lives probably, New York Timesmen and women have worked under the prideful assumption they were employed by the world's most important and prestigeous purveyor of news. They had some justification for that. The Times is and was often well written and it has amazing reach. It was indeed the newspaper of record. But history has moved on, as it has a habit of doing, this time driven by the seemingly inexorable forces of Internet technology. Those same forces are questioning whether one source - or even a group of sources - should have a monopoly on such power. No wonder these same Times people are now feeling wounded and harrassed. I would too were I in their place.

One of the early reflections of this pain is an article in today's NYT - Web Offers Hefty Voice to Critics of Mainstream Journalists. It begins:

Practicing cheap and dirty politics, playing fast and loose with the facts and even lying: Accusations like these, and worse, have been slung nonstop this year.

The accused in this case are not the candidates, but the mainstream news media. And the accusers are an ever-growing army of Internet writers, many of them partisans, who reach hundreds of thousands of people a day.

"Many of them partisans"? I would better say all of them partisans, including me. Who isn't partisan? Jim Ruttenberg, the author of this article? I sincerely doubt it. In fact, I'd bet my house Jim has a whole slew of opinions, known and unknown, assuming he's a person and not a cyborg.

And that's the crux of the problem. Journalists feel on the defensive because they depend as a profession on the pretense of impartiality, something we all suspect no one has or is. Jay Rosen, blogger and chairman of the NYU journalism department is correct when he tells Ruttenberg that's what's really going on is "... really an attack not just on the liberal media or press bias, it's an attack on professionalism itself, on the idea that there could be disinterested reporters."

Okay, guilty as charged. But how to resolve this without yelling at each other into perpetuity, something I don't want to do, I can assure you? We can all (bloggers and journalists) attempt to be as an impartial as possible, but I don't think that will work, certainly not without admitting our biases up front. The NYT, to its credit, was honest enough to do that, declaring itself a "liberal" newspaper through its ombudsman Daniel Okrent. Most bloggers I know are pretty up front. But the real guardian of honesty is diversity - the market itself. Despite its wounds, the NYT et al are going to have to live with a new reality. We're here to stay and there will only be more of us.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 1:52 PM
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Is Arafat Setting Himself Up For Martyrdom?

By refusing to leave Ramallah for a Paris hospital, it would seem that way. As CNN reminds us, there may still be known terrorists inside the Muqata under Yasir's protection. Israel has agreed to let Arafat return from hospitalization, but has it guaranteed it won't deal with those miscreants while the caudillo is gone? Arafat himself who, according to reports, floats in an out of consciousness and is suffering memory loss would seem to be in no condition to deal with such eventualities. But who knows? The behind the scenes jockeying in this deathwatch must be fascinating. I await the post-mortems.

OOPS: Both Debka and Haaretz are now reporting that good old Chirac is sending a plane. Dept. of Uh-Oh... Debka adds this interesting bit:

Top Palestinian Authority officials are drawing back from assuming crisis command. They fear punishment for officiousness if Arafat recovers. Political steps therefore hang on medical team's decisions. Abbas and Qureia lead one of two camps forming up to claim succession. Rival headed by Hani al-Hassan and Azzam al Ahmed.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:54 AM
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I usually read the Sofia Sideshow...

... but I missed this one. (hat tip: Yehudit)

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:45 AM
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Arafat Deathwatch?

Some are saying his condition is poor but stable. Haaretz reports:

Israel assured the Palestinian Authority on Thursday that PA Chairman Yasser Arafat will be permitted to return to the West Bank if he needs to go abroad for medical treatment.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:37 AM
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October 27, 2004

Liar, Liar, Al Qaqaa Pants on Fire

... or is it the New York Times building? It must be embarrassing to be an employee of that newspaper today, assuming their partisan zeal has not overwhelmed normal human emotion, to find themselves humiliated by the Washington Times, of all institutions, a newspaper which a few years ago (yes, I admit it) I would barely have used to line my kitty litter.

But Bill Gertz of the Wash Times has a bombshell tonight, although I can't say it truly shocks me. Jayson Blair did me a favor. I don't trust the NYT anymore the way I did for fifty-some years of my life. Anyway, Gertz corroborates what we all know - the Times story of missing explosives was jerry-rigged propaganda concocted to make the president look bad and get Kerry elected. How could it have been otherwise? Obviously, the Times didn't do the slightest bit of research on the matter. They just rushed the story out. Otherwise they might have found out what Gertz did - that the explosives were "almost certainly" moved before the war (logical, isn't it?) and that Russian intelligence helped Saddam do it. This too is no surprise because anyone following the Iraq War story reasonably closely knows that the Russians were deeply enmeshed with the Iraqi mukhabarat at that time.

What's even more embarrassing is that Times' story is further discredited by that other organ of the "extreme right" ABC News. Apparently there was a "discrepancy" in the amount of missing explosives reported. It wasn't the 380 tons of the Times' story. According to ABC:

But the confidential IAEA documents obtained by ABC News show that on Jan. 14, 2003, the agency's inspectors recorded that just over 3 tons of RDX was stored at the facility - a considerable discrepancy from what the Iraqis reported.

Oh, well, what's 377 tons between friends?

Now look, we all have a right to be outraged. These are the same media which have been telling the country how badly the Iraq War is going. These are the same media who are lopsidedly favoring Kerry over Bush in this election. Only this time their partisanship may have trapped the Senator. In his excitement with the New York Times explosives story, Kerry has gone around the country trumpeting Bush's "mistake" for anyone in shouting distance. Now it's his mistake. Let's hope the Senator has flipped his last flop.

UPDATE: Forgot to mention that I saw Paul Bremer being interviewed by Brit Hume tonight. This was evidently Bremer's first appearance of this nature since returning and he made it to refute the Times' explosives story. He said it would have been impossible for the dozens of trucks necessary to remove 380 tons of explosives at that time to have done so without having been noticed by US forces (well, maybe it was only 3 tons... then, who knows?). The roads were apparently empty then. I guess the Times didn't want to ask about that either. One final thing - I wonder what John Burns, who did do some wonderful reporting from Iraq for the NYT thinks about all this.

UPDATE: Hindrocket and the Deacon (I'm sure the Big Trunk as well) are, not surprisingly, following this story as it unfolds. We all should be.

MORE: The Venerable Bear has a wrap-up.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:19 PM
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Arafat Deathwatch - Is he already dead?

According to Debka, Israeli TV is on alert in case the Palestinian caudillo does not last the night. Obviously the situation is grave. Temporary leaders have been nominated. His wife Suha is on her way back from Paris. (Does this mean a major vacancy at the Hotel Bristol?) The one thing I dread about Arafat's death is all the phony encomiums to a man with so much blood on his hands. What will happen to the hundreds of millions of looted aid money distributed in secret bank accounts around the world?

MORE: According to Maariv International, Abu Ala and Abu Mazen - both more moderate than the incumbent - are coordinating to take over the leadership. Who knows if this will hold against Fatah, Hamas, et al?

As for the Jerusalem Post... Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, a cardiologist who visited PA Chairman Yasser Arafat Wednesday night, told the Jerusalem Post that Arafat is currently conscious and doctors are tying to determine whether he can fulfill his duties.

Normally this would be code for the death of a dictator while the succession is being worked out (See Stalin, Andropov, etc.). I think it highly ironic that Arafat fades from view the day after his arch-nemesis Sharon's greatest triumph - defeating his adversaries within Likud and gaining approval of the Gaza withdrawal plan.

UPDATE: Charles suspects the same result.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 5:31 PM
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Wag the Dog?

You will start to hear that from many Democratic operatives if the battle for Fallujah is now on as many are saying... but that dog won't hunt. In fact, it won't even get up for a biscuit, because as anyone who actually wants democracy in Iraq knows... and, yes, I know there are a few who would prefer to see their candidate win than the Iraqis have freedom... maybe more than a few... this battle is necesssary. And if we are in the midst of this battle a week from Tuesday, it is hard to see how Bush will lose.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 4:19 PM
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First Academy Screener Arrives

For those dwindling few interested in the Academy Screener controversy, the first screener of 2004 has arrived chez moi - Kill Bill/ Volume 2 - from perpetually Oscar-obsessed Miramax. As some may recall, last year's DVDs (meant for Oscar voting) were held up for fear we Academy members might upload our copies on the Internet, thus distributing free advance versions of art films nobody wants to a "delirious" public. (Please, take my film, please!)To prevent this perfidy, this year we were informed we would receive special DVD players to play specially-encrypted DVDs. But Kill Bill is a normal DVD, as far as I can tell, and as yet no such players have arrived. [Okay, now you can apologize for that snotty comment about art films nobody wants. You've even made one or two.-ed. Okay, I apologize.]

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 3:01 PM
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The Kleptocrat Who Cried Wolf

Has Arafat "lost consciousness"? This news is being reported by several sources. We know, however, in the past Yasir has used his deteriorating physical condition to garner political sympathy. Is that happening again or...?

UPDATE: Here's what Debka is reporting: Palestinian Authority finally admits Arafat's condition serious - as DEBKAfile has reported since Saturday. Palestinian leader, 75, refuses to leave his Ramallah HQ although his situation worsening.

Tunisian medical attendants have improvised a makeshift sickroom for minor diagnostic procedures under partial anesthetic. They insist on full-scale tests in overseas hospital before deciding if he has cancer.

Haaretz, of course, is watching closely and has similar information. Maybe he's not crying wolf this time. It's hard to imagine a world without Arafat. What will it mean?

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 1:58 PM
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Knockout in the Third Round!

Andrew Sullivan is a pretty good writer, but he just ran into a sensational one.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 12:26 PM
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The Electoral College Perplex

My friend Ben Zycher has a timely oped in the LA Times today making the case in favor of the electoral college system. I am of two minds in this debate, but I must say Ben is persuasive.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 11:49 AM
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Prediction

No, it's not about the election per se. As I said on Hugh Hewitt's show the other day, "I'm no Nostradamus. Nostradamus was no Nostradamus." But I do have this prediction:

If the Kerry does win, the mainstream media will have gotten him elected with their biased coverage and they will pay for it more than they could imagine. And it will be the blogosphere and you, our supporters, who will make them pay. Our strength will grow incremently with a Kerry victory in terms of influence and even economic power. And both will be at the expense of the mainstream media. Yes, we too have "plans."

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 11:07 AM
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Dept. of Whew!

This one speaks for itself. I am actively Googling "Adam Pearlman." If anyone finds something interesting, let us know.

UPDATE: Via Nancy Block, BECOMING MUSLIM by Adam Pearlman. Evidently Adam's real name is Gadahn. I am told his father is Muslim (though not active) and his mother Christian.

MORE: I'm hoping this is all a hoax, because this dude is looking off the charts... And this from the Daily News.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:04 AM
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Viva la Revolucion?

E muerto, creo... Marc Cooper reports on Castro's new fleecing of his own people. [Maybe the UN will give him a job.-ed.]

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:36 AM
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Webalizer vs. Sitemeter

Webalizer (on my server) reported 44,000 visitors to this site yesterday and the recently installed Sitemeter (below) reported 51,000. Either way this site wins - a new record.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:35 AM
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A Runaway Corporation with No Oversight

Megan McArdle does not highlight what to me is the most interesting part of Eli Lake's report on the missing explosives controversy in this morning's New York Sun:

On Monday, a spokesman for the American mission at the United Nations questioned the timing of the release of the material on the part of Mr. ElBaradei. Rick Grenell told the Sun's Benny Avni the "timing seems puzzling."

At the time, Washington was collecting intelligence - disputed by some agencies - that Mr. ElBaradei was providing advice to Iran on how to avoid sanction from his organization for its previously undisclosed uranium enrichment programs.

Isn't it interesting how all things connect? Something close to an open war has been going on for some time between the UN and the Bush Administration. Not long ago, an internationalist, I would have been reflexively on the side of the UN, but since the revelations of the Oil-for-Food scandal, my respect for the kleptocracy enablers on Turtle Bay has sunk to near zero.

This latest revelation is nothing more than a salvo in that war, timed to remove Bush from office. As we all know, at this very moment, the Oil-for-Food hearings are continuing in the House. In the event of Bush II, the conclusions of Henry Hyde's committee will undoubtedly get serious attention, at least we can hope so. Big changes could ensue between the United Nations and its greatest financier. Under a Kerry Administration, who knows? Most likely for the International Enron on 44th Street it will be business as usual. No wonder they are meddling in an American election. To me the most interesting investigation would be the provenance of the leak, not the almost stupefyingly banal "fact" that some explosives out of many may or may not have gone missing during a war.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:09 AM
Comments (26)

October 26, 2004

A 'Skimmity Ride' for Pinch

I just read Captain Ed's latest post on NYTrogate in which it is revealed that CBS themselves reported on the 'mysterious' site of Al Qaqaa back in April 2003, then praising the good work by the Third Infantry in uncovering an equally mysterious white powder. Don't these people read their own articles? Probably not.

You know this particular attempt by the New York Times and CBS to flog this low-rent partisan propaganda from self-serving (to put it mildly) UN bureaucrats ten days before an election would be risible if the election itself weren't so important. Well, it must be to them too. That's obvious - because if they were doing it to sell newspapers, they are driving most of us further and further away from print.

But I digress. The real question here is what happened to those explosives at Al Qaqaa. Well, here they are. [Simon, will you quit being a wiseacre. It's RDX, not THX. -ed. Okay, okay] I'll be serious. Let's review. As Belmont Club notes, Watson, there are three possibilities. 1. The RDX was gone before the war started. 2. It disappeared in the early days between the arrival of the Third Infantry and 101st Airborne. 3. It disappeared later. Now since it would have taken some forty highly-visible trucks to decamp with these supposed 380 tons of explosives and since Saddam and his Baathist cronies had at least six months to do what they wanted with this stuff during the prolonged Security Council bla-bla-bla and since no such explosives have apparently been used to attack US troops during the entire insurgency, even a twelve-year old boy making his first shave with Occam's original razor would undoubtedly pick ONE - THIS HAPPENED BEFORE THE WAR STARTED.

But did the New York Times respond that way? Noooooo.... Without, as far as I know, interviewing a single soldier who was there (or consulting the old CBS report) they trumpeted this story all over their front page as if Armageddon itself were about to be released and the culprit was that Christer George W. Bush. Maybe they think he secretly wants to bring on The Rapture. Again, it's almost funny but it's not. Of course, it's remotely possible that the US forces somehow screwed up here, but when you consider that if that happened it happened in the midst of an all-out war when things of this nature inevitably occur, the idea that you could blame that on any sitting president is nothing but propaganda in its most blatant form.

Now who is responsible for this cheap smear? Well, as one real smart fellow once said, "Freedom of the press belongs to the man who owns one." And nobody that I know of has been able to successfully contradict him. And the man who owns The New York Times is Pinch Sulzberger. He'd evidently rather see George Bush lose than his newspaper print the truth. Now what should be done about Mr. Sulzberger's behavior? I propose a 'skimmity ride.' You English majors may recall it from Chapter 36 of Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge. The offending party is driven around the town in an open wagon and subjected to public ridicule. Maybe we should bring that back.

UPDATE: NRO's editorial makes sense.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:07 PM
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Alas, poor Van Der Leun...

... I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy...

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 4:21 PM
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I'm waiting for those exit polls from Florida...

... to see if this is still true. If so, someone should write a book on how the Stockholm Syndrome pervades an entire community. Meanwhile, some people fight back.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 2:34 PM
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What's on TV in Tehran

One of the more depressing stories for those of us who favor democracy in Iran is that the films of Michael Moore have been making their way into that country and evidently having an influence. Thankfully some peole are striking back with corrective information (and films). You can find out the details at Gary Metz's blog Regime Change Iran - a site I recommend you bookmark.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 1:10 PM
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Three Cheers for Democracy

The Israeli Knesset votes to pull out of Gaza.

UPDATE: The deacon chimes in. Also, don't miss the Victor Davis Hanson article on Sharon as Ajax linked below. It's a keeper.

MORE: The boifromtroy has another interesting report on the Israeli-Palestinian situation.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 12:33 PM
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Is this beyond Oil-for-Food?

If the reports that Mohammed El Baradei or someone close to him is behind the leak of the putative documents that caused the new NYTrogate Scandal regarding missing explosive in Irag, the implications are staggering.

Consider this: That means a high official of the United Nations... and not just an ordinary high official but one empowered with preventing nuclear weapons proliferation... is trying to influence a US election. And we thought we had seen everything with the Oil-for-Food scandal!

The blogosphere and the mainstream media must stay on this story. The New York Times ought to get off its high horse and reveal its sources on this one because, if that is the source, our country is in a mighty peculiar situation indeed. El Baradei is the man we are relying on to authenticate weapons cooperation with Iran and North Korea. This is way beyond an election here, ladies and gentlemen. This is about the survival of many human lives. If El Baradei or one of his colleagues did this, he must step down immediately.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 11:22 AM
Comments (54)

Dept. of Strange Ironies

Andrew Sullivan makes the "endorsement I once never thought I'd write" (but virtually everyone else knew he always would) on the same day it becomes clear that John Kerry and George Bush have close to the same attitudes toward gay rights.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:37 AM
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Et tu, CBS...

... but, of course. No surprise there as we learn that Sixty Minutes - that upscale version of the National Enquirer (apologies to the Enquirer) - was planning on joining in the journalistic gang bang surrounding what some are calling Bomb Gate. After Dan Rather stonewalled for weeks on the National Guard forgeries, how can we take these people seriously? Maybe Jacques Derrida isn't dead. The truth is all relative and malleable to those who want to use it for their own ends, conscious or unconscious. The victim in that is, of course, democracy and those who linked fascism and deconstruction had a valid point.

Meanwhile back at the ranch of the perpetrator of this fantasy, the venerable Gray Lady, it's Saturday Night Live as the Times trumpets: Iraq Explosives Become Issue in Campaign. How do they do this with a straight face? [Maybe they don't.-ed] Actually, as N. Z. Bear shows us, the Times behaved just like a guilty child, burying the truth deep in its initial article. (I didn't mean to lie, mommy. Don't send me to bed without my dinner.) This is precisely what they did in the Swift Vet story, burying the real lead, that Kerry had made a complete fabrication on the floor of the Congress about spending Christmas in Cambodia, beneath a morass of irrelevancy. Captain's Quarters wrote that the Times owes those brave people who risked their lives defusing thousands of tons of actual explosives an apology. He's right.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:14 AM
Comments (25)

October 25, 2004

How Duranty Happened

It is through Wretchard, whom I have come to trust greatly, that I found confirmation for what I already suspected - that the New York Times report of 380 tons of escaped explosives published this morning was so much progandistic drivel timed to encourage the defeat of a sitting president in favor of a candidate, I am almost certain, the paper's publisher and editors do not even care for in the first place. How pathetic is that! How deeply reactionary! This kind of distortion during an election is a worse disgrace than the Jayson Blair affair.

The Belmont Club informs us that NBC reporters (no neocon stooges they!) embedded with troops at the beginning of the war found no evidence of those explosives when they arrived at the now ironically named Al Qaqaa. As Wretchard points out:

The account above shows that the RDX explosive was already gone by the time US forces arrived. Although one may retrospectively find some fault with OIF order of battle, most of the damage had already been inflicted by the dilatory tactics of America's allies which allowed Saddam the time and space -- nearly half a year and undisturbed access to Syria -- necessary to prepare his resistance, transfer money abroad and disperse explosives (as confirmed first hand by reporters). Although it is both desirable and necessary to criticize the mistakes attendant to OIF, much of the really "criminal" neglect may be laid on the diplomatic failure which gave the wily enemy this invaluable opportunity. The price of passing the "Global Test" was very high; and having been gypped once, we now show ourselves eager to be taken to the cleaners again.

This seems self-evident. But will the Times report that? Of course not, because it is not part of their narrative, not part of the way they see "the truth."

Fade out: Okay, now we get personal. The demise of The New York Times has been an extraordinary shock to me and a kind of benchmark for my own political migration. Like most New York Jewish boys from liberal homes the paper was a replacement religion for me. Many decades ago, when I was twenty-three and published my first novel, finding a short positive review in the Book Review validated me as a writer, enabling me to go on with my risky career. I was published by them several times in the eighties when I was an officer of the left-leaning International Association of Crime Writers. I owe a lot to the Times. I also fear them because they review my books and movies. But I cannot shut up. This kind of biased behavior is unconscionable. Although it is nowhere near as drastic, of course, it makes me think of the days of Walter Duranty, that Timesman who won a Pultizer while white-washing Stalin. How could such things happen, I always wondered. Now I know. They happen when people think they are doing the right thing for the right cause and in their zeal don't stop to consider the reality of what they are saying and writing. Yes, this is worse than Jayson Blair.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:00 PM
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Apropos my son's article...

...of yesterday... a front page headline from today's The Onion: Jacques Derrida 'Dies'

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 2:13 PM
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Revenge of the Arabists

It's ironic that the Arabist viewpoint, long associated with the Republican Party, is resurfacing through Kerry Campaign porte parole Richard Holbrooke. Appearing on the O'Reilly Show, Holbrooke lumped Israel together with Syria and Saudi Arabia as countries on which a Kerry Administration would put pressure. Considering what we have learned in the last few years of the Palestinian disinterest (particularly its leadership) in a two-state solution, this is Arabist realpolitik with a vengeance. Two birds are killed here with one stone - the Israelis (obviously) and possibly democratic Arabs (ironically). The superficial argument is that increased pressure on the Israelis will somehow bring forth democracy or democratic behavior among the Palestinians and their allies. But the reverse has almost always been true. It encourages irredentist dreams of a Palestinian State all the way to the Mediterranean. What the Palestinians (and by extension the Syrians and the Saudis) need is a heavy dose of reality, not fantasy. There is an innate cynicism in all this about the Arab mentality (that they can never have a democracy) that borders on the racist. Friends of Israel who think the Kerry Administration (wink, wink) will treat our ally the same as the Bush Administration has ought to reread Krauthammer. (via Michael Totten)

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 1:30 PM
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The Latest Salvo...

... in The New York Times' "War to Unseat George Bush" (it can be seen as nothing else) is the 'sudden' report of 380 tons of missing explosives in Iraq, immediately seized upon by the Kerry Campaign as yet another example of Bush's ineptitude.

But is the Times' report all based on a timeline error? Captain's Quarters thinks so. Will the Times respond to this? Not likely, unless the blogosphere forces them. But even then the damage may have been done.

UPDATE: Apropos the 380 missing tons of explosives "suddenly" reported by the NYT, evidently it had been reported months before that the Army Corps of Engineers had already destroyed 248,000 tons of weaponry in Iraq. If there's anyone who still thinks the mainstream media is anything more than propaganda organ (cum lifestyle guide) read this.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 12:03 PM
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Beware the Puff Daddy!

Those 'Team America' rascals Trey Parker and Matt Stone... already having incurred the wrath of Sean 'Puff Daddy or insert-your-name-here' Combs... for having the temerity to lampoon the ersthwhile rapper/fashionista's "Vote or Die!" campaign... are at it again. According to the Daily Dish (scroll down):

Parker says that, in the first episode of the new "South Park" season (airing Wednesday on Comedy Central), students will have to chose a mascot for South Park Elementary - voting for either a giant talking feminine hygiene product or a "t--d sandwich."

Invited to fire back, Combs' rep says, "Puffy is focusing too hard on getting the vote out to pay attention to Matt and Trey's cartoon."

Sounds like another winner for Parker/Stone. I'll be watching.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 11:09 AM
Comments (9)

Dangerous Flip-Flop

I'm not overly poll-obsessed... [Yeah, right.-ed]... but for the first time since Agust 23, Rasmussen shows Kerry in the lead in his daily tracking poll (48-46). Real Clear Politics, which does not appear to show Rasmussen in its widely-quoted running poll average, still shows Bush up by 3.1 percent. But I wonder.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:55 AM
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Hail to Thee, Oh Alma Mater!

How could anyone have been surprised by Harvard professor Ruth R. Wisse's graciously written piece on bias in academia in today's WSJ? Still, Professor Wisse provides us with some interesting statistics. At one point faculty contributions at Harvard were running about $150,00 for Kerry to about $8,000 for Bush. That ratio, Wisse informs us, has been maintained.

Being an Ivy Guy myself in the dim, dark past, I naturally scanned the article for news of my alma maters. I didn't have far to go (second graph). My graduate school, Yale, came in at 93% contributions for Kerry and my ungraduate college, Dartmouth, came in at a whopping 97% (must have been a lone Bush contributor - who was it?).

I guess if anybody up in Hanover's been reading this blog, there go my dreams of living out my days cross country skiing across the Dartmouth Green while teaching seminars on early Fellini movies. Speaking of which, it's ironic that three of the most prominent bloggers on the Bush side of the ledger, the lawyers of Power Line, are Dartmouth alums. I joked with their Hindrocket (John Hinderaker) at the Republican convention that we should form a League of Dartmouth Bloggers. We could add into the mix author and frequent commenter on this blog Catherine Johnson, also an alumna of the college. I doubt if we did form such a league, however, it would be anywhere near so monolithic in its ideology as the view within academia.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:23 AM
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Back in the Sixties, we used to say...

... you're either part of the solution or part of the problem. That's still true today - only the players have switched. The mainstream media is part of the problem. Arthur Chrenkoff is part of the solution. Here he is with his best overview so far of "Good News" from Iraq. Don't miss it.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 12:50 AM
Comments (2)

October 24, 2004

Christmas in Cambodia All Over Again

Is John Kerry a sociopath? That's an extreme statement but it would seem he at least exhibits sociopathic tendencies if the new report by Joel Mowbray in the Washington Times turns out to be correct. We all remember the Senator's bizarre (and to date unsubstantiated) claim that he spent Christmas in Cambodia during the Vietnam War. Well, he appears to have gilded the lily once again, this time, incredibly, before our very eyes during the second presidential debate. From Mowbray:

At the second presidential debate earlier this month, Mr. Kerry said he was more attuned to international concerns on Iraq than President Bush, citing his meeting with the entire Security Council.
"This president hasn't listened. I went to meet with the members of the Security Council in the week before we voted. I went to New York. I talked to all of them, to find out how serious they were about really holding Saddam Hussein accountable," Mr. Kerry said of the Iraqi dictator.

Evidently, Senator Kerry while talking to millions of Americans never thought anyone would check this bold assertion. According to Mowbray:

But of the five ambassadors on the Security Council in 2002 who were reached directly for comment, four said they had never met Mr. Kerry. The four also said that no one who worked for their countries' U.N. missions had met with Mr. Kerry either.

Now THAT is strange. Cambodia revisited indeed. The mainstream media did its best to obfuscate that previous story, the New York Times burying it at the bottom of one of its articles on the Swift Boat veterans. But I will ask those same editors and publishers if they are going to do the same thing now. Do they think it's fine to let a man with this odd relationship with the truth serve in the White House during a time of terrorism, no matter what their "ideologies"? Time for some serious thinking and investigation. (via Power Line)

UPDATE: Don't miss the elaborated details of this story here.

FURTHER: In some sense I regret bringing up the loaded S-word (sociopathy) with regards to the truth. I don't know the man and I would hate it if someone played such a dime-store analysis game with me. But I am a novelist and that's the way I think instinctively. And the obvious point remains - he has a casual relationship with the truth and has been willing to bend it for his own purposes for decades. More important - and perhaps more dangerous ulitimately - is the MSMs equally casual disregard for this obvious problem which it is their job to point out. The partisanship of the MSM in this election is more disturbing than either of the candidates on their worst days.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:58 PM
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Okay, I know a lot of bloggers are...FINALLY... declaring where they stand on the election...

... (it does get a little tedious and self-important, doesn't it?... I mean who cares, right?)... But at long last someone is making sense of all this.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:09 PM
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Important Oil-for-Food update

According to a new AP release:

Interviews with dozens of former and current Iraqi officials by congressional investigators have produced new evidence that Saddam Hussein micro-managed business deals under the U.N. oil-for-food program to maximize political influence with important foreign governments like Russia and neighboring Arab states.

These interviews were evidently conducted outside Iraq after an Iraqi official involved in Oil-for-Food died in a car bombing last June. Many documents have been retrieved.

One of the documents, known as "the exempt list" and obtained by AP from congressional investigators at the House International Relations Committee chaired by Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., catalogues companies personally approved by Saddam and top lieutenants to circumvent Iraqi regulations to sign deals. The list contains hundreds of names of companies from more than two dozen countries.

No French, Chinese or American companies are on the list, but more than 280 Russian and 100 Saudi companies account for well over half of the list. The investigator who provided the document to AP said Congress might not have the full list.

This is positive news on two fronts. 1. The Congressional Committee seems to be on the case. (It's hard to trust the UN to investigate itself.) 2. It's nice to see another mainstream organ like the Associated Press reporting on this mammoth scandal. Good for them.

(hat tip: Charlie in Col)

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 6:00 PM
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The League of Apostate Gentlemen (and Ladies)

The Nation recently posted (buried, I'm told) an essay by their apostate son Christopher Hitchens - "Why I'm (Slightly) for Bush". I don't think this is one of Hitch's more interesting articles (perhaps it's venue-fatigue), nor one of his more rhetorically spectacular (his tropes do entertain), and I was surprised to read Christopher echoing the tired patter about Bush's stupidity (obviously he hadn't seen today's NYT report discussed below), but the piece does contain one simple extraordinary bit. It comes in response to one of the magazine's editors asking him to explain his own political migration, which is not wildly dissimilar to mine:

In Kabul recently, I interviewed Dr. Masuda Jalal, a brave Afghan physician who was now able to run for the presidency. I asked her about her support for the intervention in Iraq. "For us," she said, "the battle against terrorism and against dictatorship are the same thing." I dare you to snicker at simple-mindedness like that.

Works for me.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 12:25 PM
Comments (56)

A Winner on Two Fronts

Hamid Karzai apparently has won an overwhelming victory in Aghanistan's first presidential election, avoiding a run-off, unless some dubious voter fraud challenges succeed. He was already by acclamation (mine anyway) the world's best dressed political leader. Have a look at him next to the frumpy Gerhard Schroeder in the photograph accompanying the link.

(Apropos the discussion below of leaders with high IQs, I suspect Karzai has one. Ditto Allawi.)

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 11:24 AM
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Question Time

Reading the unsurprising (to me at least) report in today's NYT that George Bush may actually have a higher IQ than John Kerry made me think of one of my favorite television shows - "Question Time" from the House of Commons on CSPAN. [My, aren't we full of ourselves today?-ed. C'mon. It's fun.] Can you imagine what it would be like for Bush or Kerry to submit to the rigorous questioning from back benchers Tony Blair has to undergo? At least with Bush, after a fair amount of fumbling and stammering, we'd get a relatively straight answer. From Kerry we'd get incomprehensible gibberish. I think part of the reason he is so often accused of flip-flopping or nuance is that he is really not all that bright. Of course compared to Blair both of these men are hopelessly inarticulate and probably not nearly as intelligent. When Blair speaks it's quite obvious what he is trying to say. "Complex" thoughts are not necessarily the hallmark of the advanced mind.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:12 AM
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Mark Steyn Channels My Grandmother...

You never write... You never call...

As for this Bush-failed-to-get-bin-Laden business, 2-1/2 years ago I declared that Osama was dead and he's never written to complain. There's no more evidence for his present existence than there is for the Loch Ness monster, which at least does us the courtesy of showing up as a indistinct gray blur on a photograph every now and again. Osama is lying low because he's in no condition to get up.

He also has the good sense to quote this blog. What a guy!

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:42 AM
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Dept. of a Father's Pride

My son Raphael Simon's essay on studying at UC Irvine with recently-deceased Godfather of Deconstruction Jacques Derrida appears in today's Los Angeles Times.

For those not registered at the LAT site (not difficult, btw), here is an excerpt:

For Derrida's followers, "deconstruction" was like a code word in reverse. Only his critics spoke it aloud. I was at Irvine in the early '90s, when, as his recent obituaries have taken pains to point out, Derrida's influence was on the wane. Poststructuralism no longer in vogue, university literature departments were in thrall to more overtly political movements like Cultural Studies and the New Historicism. Not long before, it was revealed that Derrida's late friend and advocate, Paul de Man, had written for a collaborationist publication during World War II - a fact upon which Derrida's adversaries seized to make a tenuous but widely embraced connection between deconstruction and fascism. Irvine was deconstruction's last stand. The proud but beleaguered Derrida was like an aging Napoleon in exile; he seemed to be biding time in Irvine, plotting his return to power with his faithful but shrinking retinue.

Nonetheless, the California sunshine suited the Algerian-born Jew. Tan, white-haired and well dressed, Derrida was known at UCI for being fond of the beach - and of beautiful women. His reputation may have diminished during his tenure at Irvine, but he became increasingly famous until he achieved the ultimate California dream and became, literally, a movie star. Instead of his countless books, it was the documentary "Derrida" that would serve for many as an introduction to the man who had spent so much of his career defending the priority of text over image. That is, the theoretical priority.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 6:42 AM
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Job Hunt

The brief interview with terrorism expert Kenneth Pollack in the front of the NYT Magazine this morning reads like an audition piece for a possible Kerry Administration. (It includes a particularly abject apology by the former CIA analyst for his misjudgment on Iraqi WMDs.) I don't blame Pollack for this - we'd all like a good job - but I am worried that he will get it because of the attitude he expresses on Iran, which I am sure reflects his forthcoming book on the subject - The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and America.

Here's the exchange that got me nervous:

NYT: But as a former C.I.A. analyst and a scholar of Middle East policy at the Brookings Institution, how do you propose that we prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons?

Pollack: It's hard to imagine how the Iranians would see it in their interest to give nuclear weapons to a terrorist group. They hate Al Qaeda as much as we do.

Oh, really? How does Pollack know that and, more importantly, who is the "they" to which he refers? Iran is a large county with many competing factions, even within the Mullahcracy. One of the many current theories is that Bin Laden himself is being hidden in Iran. Does Pollack know for a fact that this is untrue? If so, how? Is he willing to bet the future of civilization on a society where sixteen-year old girls are publicly hanged for adultery by allowing their leaders to have nuclear weapons? Evidently so. And if Pollack were a key adviser to a Kerry administration, this is what he would be acquiescing to.

Look, no one can pretend that the Iranian situation is simple or anywhere near that. But one thing the last decade has taught us is not to trust "terrorism experts." There is no such thing. (Indeed, an argument can be made that there is no such thing as an expert in general outside the hard sciences, where the learning curve is steep.) CIA and think tank pedigrees prove nothing other than that someone has given them a job. I do not wish to disparage Pollack personally. He's clearly a smart guy. But on this one, I'd prefer to think for myself. And I am frankly scared to vote for a candidate whose putative advisers are prepared to allow nuclear weapons in the hands of a violent theocracy. (hat tip: Catherine Johnson)

MEANWHILE: Iran continues to stonewall. Are we headed for yet another rift between EU and the USA?

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 6:08 AM
Comments (32)

October 23, 2004

It's undoubtedly Bush's fault...

... that Arafat didn't get his flu shot and has contracted the flu... at least that's how Tunisian doctors given permission to treat the Chairman by the Israelis have described Arafat's illness. Debka says it's more serious matters (gall stones, recurring acute intestinal infection) but implies this is one just one more bump to be exploited by the Grand Terrorist in his seemingly unending quest to ruin the lives of his own people.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:59 PM
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For the Francophone (mieux que moi)

My interview with Swiss public radio.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 6:24 PM
Comments (2)

The Usama Perplex

Do not miss the comments of John Kelly below. John, a filmmaker and Boston University prof, is an old Afghanistan hand and knows whereof he speaks. He thinks UBL's URL (as I enjoy calling it) is under a pile of Tora Bora rubble.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 11:41 AM
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The New Bourne Conspiracy

Many new martinis have emerged from the global cocktail shaker that was 9/11. In their desperation to maintain old alliances and world views, not to mention old jobs, some have had to resort to arguments that make a mockery of their former beliefs. Once great internationalists have become per force isolationists even if, as Wretchard shows us, the implications of their new weltanschauungs are almost blatantly racist.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:38 AM
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"Stolen Honor" - A Review

The Wall Street Journal is outraged this morning, as well it should be, in its lead editorial - "Sinclair and Watergate" - at the suppression of the film "Stolen Honor." The documentary was held back from television airing by the Sinclair Network because of a full-court press on the network by Democratic Party partisans, including the threat of lawsuit. The Freedom of the Press implications of this are obvious and disconcerting, to say the least. But read the WSJ for that. I would like to give my review of the suppressed film, which begins with a caveat: Because I was unable to view it on television, I had to see the documentary online in near postage stamp size. This is unfair to any movie. But because I am a film professional, I am used to seeing films in all sorts of formats and perhaps that compensates somewhat for this deficit.

The filmmaking in "Stolen Honor" is mediocre and employs shopworn techniques of documentary melodrama. Replete with portentous music and pretentious editing, it does not trust its audience to discover the truth for themselves, pounding it in over and over. This technique can work sometimes in a forty-five second commercial but in a film of forty-five minutes, it becomes tedious and actually undercuts the film's message - and this is particularly unfortunate because this documentary's message and content are devastating

The movie consists of interviews with now gray or graying men who were incarcerated and tortured in the Hanoi Hilton during the Vietnam War. Their stories are juxtaposed with the testimony of John Kerry at the Winter Soldier hearings. Despite the quality of the filmmaking, and my poor viewing conditions, I was deeply disturbed while watching this. It is not a "filmic" experience in the traditional sense. While viewing this movie, I imagine most of my generation find themselves reviewing themselves and their actions at the time rather than the film. I am far from resolving my view of Vietnam, although I still tend to think it was the wrong war. But the behavior of some factions of the antiwar side, factions which I fully supported then, were clearly out of line and as reprehensible as the war they wished to protest - central among those was Winter Soldier.

Some reviewers, like the NYT's Alessandra Stanley, made light of the testimony of John Kerry before those hearings as something we heave "heard before" and therefore of little importance, preferring to focus on the unresolved pain of the former prisoners. But the fact that we have heard at least some of Kerry's testimony before is beside the point. The testimony has never been explained. Kerry lied about his fellow soldiers in a serious and, it seems evident, conscious manner, going so far as to say they cut off peoples' ears, raped and pillaged like Genghis Khan. Even given the passions of the time, this defamation is hard to explain. No wonder the Democratic Party wants us to look away. I wanted to look away. It is hard to conceive someone of so little moral compass is going to lead us in a time of war. Still, I suppose I could forgive Kerry if he had apologized for this in full as the recklessness of youth. But until now he hasn't. The Democratic Party knows this too. That's why they also want us to look away. It is over thirty years ago and therefore, they wish us to believe, beyond the statute of electoral limitations. No it's not.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 4:31 AM
Comments (133)

October 22, 2004

Dept, of Good Thing He's Living in a Low Rent District

According to 9-11 panelist John Lehman, Bin Laden is alive and well (?) in the inaccessible South Waziristan region of West Pakistan. Who knows if that's true, but here's the interesting part - George Soros he's not.

Asked how bin Laden was surviving, Lehman said he was getting money from outside countries, such as the United Arab Emirates, and high-ranking ministers inside Saudi Arabia.

"He is not a wealthy man," Lehman said. "We ran that information into the ground, and discovered he only receives about $1 million a year from his family's fortune. The rest of what he gets comes from radical sympathizers."

Of course, most of us would be more than happy with a mil a year from the family trust, but UBL's got a lot of overhead, if you think about it. Dirty nukes don't come cheap. No wonder he hasn't been putting out any videos lately. (hat tip: Jim Walker)

UPDATE: I see some people are taking this more seriously than I intended. Someone named "Slim" is even about to sit out the election because of this "disclosure." I wouldn't use it to pick a jelly bean flavor. I think we know by now that information of this nature is to be filed under "for raised eyebrows only."

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 12:50 PM
Comments (59)

The "normblog profiles" of bloggers continue...

... with number 57 - Scott Johnson - Power Line's Big Trunk. We all know that Power Line has justifiably rocketed to the top of the blogosphere in the wake of Rathergate and I found this interview particularly interesting. Actually, I have read a good many of these profiles and found most of them worth a look, although someone should tell number 6 to quit being such a wiseacre.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 11:36 AM
Comments (1)

Punditdrome

In case you haven't seen it - I hadn't until today - here's another site providing a kind of table of contents for many of the major blogs. Particularly well laid out.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:39 AM
Comments (2)

Wolves

I'm a harsh critic of campaign ads. Even the Swift Vet spots didn't move me very much, although I was fascinated by the reaction to them and curious about their veracity. This one, however, is another matter. Well done indeed.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:04 AM
Comments (32)

Poor Tony Blair...

If you're ever looking for a Profile in Courage for our time, think about the PM and the pressure he's under. As if he hadn't had enough, now he has to deal with a weeping kidnapped CARE director Margaret HAssan pleading with him to withdraw troops from Iraq "and not bring them to Baghdad" because "this might be my last hours." Yikes.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:49 AM
Comments (34)

Is This the Missing "Plan"?

Writing opinion columns (or blogs), let's be honest, is not rocket science. Many such writers are bright men and women, but only one that I know of has a background that makes me stop short for sheer intellectual firepower and that is Charles Krauthammer. I admit that I pay special attention to what he writes, give it extra weight.

Krauthammer has a column this morning that is getting a lot of attention in the blogosphere and elsewhere. In it, he contends that the essence of Kerry's so far exceptionally vague Middle East "plan" is the sacrifice of Israel. That is the lever by which Kerry will achieve his vaunted international coalition. In Krauthammer's words:

Think about it: What do the Europeans and the Arab states endlessly rail about in the Middle East? What (outside of Iraq) is the area of most friction with U.S. policy? What single issue most isolates America from the overwhelming majority of countries at the United Nations?

The answer is obvious: Israel.

The "road map" would be back in spades with a fake negotiated settlement being proposed at every turn. Ironically, it was Clinton and his team that finally exposed the bankruptcy of this policy at Camp David when it became clear that the Palestinian Authority under Arafat had no real interest in a two-state solution, only in a one-state solution. Returning to this policy helps no one, neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians who are not encouraged to face the reality of their situation and improve it. Only Arafat and his kleptocrat cohorts profit. And, of course, the Euros who get to act out their weird/sick justification of their treatment of the Jews that Ron Rosenbaum so aptly described a while back.

There is a lot to be said about all this, including Kerry's peculiar denial of his own background (Where does that fit in?), but I will stop and allow commenters to take over. Have at it.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:18 AM
Comments (38)

October 21, 2004

The Mullahdrama Increases

According to the Associated Press...

Iran is unlikely to accept European incentives aimed at getting it to suspend uranium enrichment, diplomats said Thursday, raising the prospect of a showdown next month between Tehran and the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency.

Envoys from Britain, France and Germany offered civilian nuclear technology and a trade deal to the Iranians in a private meeting at the French mission to international organizations in Vienna. But Western diplomats said they doubt Iran will back down easily.

What does this mean? "Trouble ahead, trouble behind," as Jerry Garcia used to sing. The Bush Administration was skeptical of the Euros iniative to begin with. Where would a Kerry Administration stand? More complaisant, I would imagine, but the Mullahs have already shot down John Edwards' naive proposal of a few weeks ago. This will be a big challenge for whoever is our next President, probably the biggest of all since the Iranians are already claiming to have missiles capable of reaching Southern Europe and Tel Aviv. There is some debate whether these missiles are operational, but that is small beer, as they say. They soon will be. All these technologies, nuclear and rocket, are decades old. Logically speaking, the Iranians should have them already... if not now, in the nearly now.

Meanwhile, it would seem that the Euros would be our natural allies in this. They shouldn't want nukes on their doorstep either.But are they? It's worth remembering that back in 1979, when Khomeini staged his revolution, the new Islamic Republic quickly made huge discount oil deals with those same putative allies (including our closest buddies in Albion). Here's a way of looking at it: When they say it's about oil, it's about projection.

On a personal note, I will be following the unfolding Mullahdrama as an intermittent commentator on the John Batchelor Show. John, who is part Iranian himself, knows how important this story is.

(via the Ketel One kettle - that's my brand... more here)

UPDATE: I'm not sure of the accuracy of this article from last April by Darius Shirazi. But given recent events, it's worth considering.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 5:37 PM
Comments (28)

Everyone's New York Minute

Tom Friedman accuses the Bush national security team of "criminal incompetence" in his NYT oped this morning. The article is approvingly cited by Andrew Sullivan who seems particularly eager these days to find backing for his contention that things were badly mismanaged in Iraq. Maybe these men are right. I don't know. But I wonder how they are so sure.

Friedman marshals in his support senior Iraq envoys Jay Garner and Paul Bremer who have recently criticized the occupation. But Garner was fired after a sojourn of only weeks - so personal pique must be taken into consideration - and Bremer says he was misquoted. Of course that still doesn't mean that the occupation has been well handled, or even remotely so. But it doesn't mean it wasn't. Nor do the conflicting comments of military experts that we hear nightly on television, their views usually varying with the politics of the cable channels on which they appear.

What I think is going on here is a need to have closure. People's anxieties and their ideologies are at play more than a knowledge of the situation that can barely be considered accurate in the short run, let alone historically. We all - journalists, bloggers, etc. - must have opinions so we opine. I could make arguments on both sides of the major questions here - more troops, fewer troops, more US action in Falluja, less, etc. - but I would simply be posturing because I don't know. What I do know is this - this war has only been going on eighteen months, slghtly longer if you include Aghanistan. We are probably going to be in it for the rest of our lives. The more committed we are to it, the shorter it will be. I don't trust Kerry's committment. That's the story for me.

UPDATE: Amplification here.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 1:25 PM
Comments (63)

"Aqaba... 'Awrence!"

Debka has an interesting article about a Hashemite challenge to Al Qaeda in Aqaba.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:06 AM
Comments (6)

Great WSJ Piece on Iraqi Bloggers...

... by Bruce Chapman, aptly titled Liberation Online. Regarding one embarrassing correction of the MSM by (who else?) Iraq the Model, Chapman notes:

The bloggers had heard it, the L.A. Times reporter had not. The paper ultimately had to correct its account, though never acknowledging the indignant Iraqis who caught its snide oversight.

And speaking of my "snide" local paper, read this. [Is there another big city in the world with less newspaper competition than LA?-ed. Well, start another one, smart guy.]

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:38 AM
Comments (5)

America Agonistes - A Rant

Will we ever get over this?

Maybe it's my own hyper-sensitivity, but this feels like the most vitriolic election of my lifetime and, because I come from the generation of "Forever Young," alas, I no longer am. Is my memory growing weak or were families and friends ever torn asunder as they are now? Yes, I can remember Vietnam when parents and children were at odds, tremendous odds, but a dialogue was taking place. People were questioning their views, talking to each other. This is not that. Almost no one changes their mind.

One candidate is accused of having excessive beliefs while the other is attacked for having no beliefs; but whatever the strength of the candidate's opinions, who could doubt the devotion of their adherents? Everyone lines up. Everyone takes sides. Everyone goes for the throat. We have debates, but they seem not debates of issues at all but athletic contests to determine who won - debates over style with no content, more like "color war" with knives.

Is this an election in the end anything more than a fight over a minute undecided percentage of the electorate, who were too apolitical, too bored, self-satisfied or dumb to be interested in the first place? When this is all over in two weeks we will have determined what? Will someone please explain this to me?

Okat, it's over. I'll go back to being a partisan now.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:12 AM
Comments (67)

October 20, 2004

Just when you thought it couldn't get any uglier...

The Village Voice goes for the throat on its website. Does it remind you of something? Shame on them.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 5:19 PM
Comments (67)

Maybe Kerry should apologize...

... and say he "forgot" that Cheney is a heart patient.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 5:06 PM
Comments (17)

Dept. of Nepotism

My nephew Noah, a Trinity school senior in New York, has a new blog with two of his buddies called (what else?) TrinPundit. The young men are blogging about politics, the Yankees and, yes, girls. Noah posts under the handle of Schwaz. Have a look. As others have noted, sometimes nepotism has a point.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 2:28 PM
Comments (2)

Only the Dead Are Unbiased

Now that even Peter Jennings has admitted, mirabile dictu, that he might have a tad of bias... although, of course, he tries to be "fair" and "objective"... isn't it time we put to rest this myth of unbiased media? Anyone who pretends to it is, to be polite, disingenuous or, to be more blunt, a stone liar. The attack on Instapundit for being biased the other day struck me as absurd. Of course, he's biased. And so are his accusers. (They're probably jealous too, but that's another matter.) At least, Glenn admits it - and that's the point. So do I. On many issues I'm exceptionally biased. You could say I'm biased in favor of bias because without the competition of strong viewpoints, the truth, such as it is, would never emerge.

But now that we've gone down that relativist rabbit hole, I have to stop and smile, remembering one of my favorite titles from noir fiction. If "only the dead are unbiased," is there... as the immortal Charles Willeford so dryly put it... New Hope for the Dead?

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 12:14 PM
Comments (20)

Iran Radio Update

DoctorZin, Dan Darling and I will be taped this afternoon by the John Batchelor Show for broadcast at 11:20 PM Eastern. Streaming audio will also be available here.

Regarding Iran, MEMRI, as usual, is one of the better places to learn the "state of play." DoctorZin's handsome new weblog is a good place too.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 11:41 AM
Comments (1)

Some people know what "life is about"

I admit I am, at times, confused about this. Evidently Teresa Heinz Kerry is not.

Q: You'd be different from Laura Bush?

A: Well, you know, I don't know Laura Bush. But she seems to be calm, and she has a sparkle in her eye, which is good. But I don't know that she's ever had a real job - I mean, since she's been grown up. So her experience and her validation comes from important things, but different things. And I'm older, and my validation of what I do and what I believe and my experience is a little bit bigger - because I'm older, and I've had different experiences. And it's not a criticism of her. It's just, you know, what life is about.

Unbelievable.

(As most of us know, Laura Bush, not an heiress, was a public school teacher and a librarian - with a master's degree in library science - when she married George Bush at the age of thirty-one.)

UPDATE: La Teresa has made a lame apology for forgetting something nearly everone else in the country knew - that Laura had been a school teacher and a librarian. Is Teresa dumb or arrogant or both?

MORE: Karen Hughes has already responded to the "apology."

AND: Best characterization of THK so far: "... she effortlessly combines Marie Antoinette with Martha Mitchell." Occam's Beard, in the comments.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:47 AM
Comments (63)

My buddy Nelson Ascher...

... tells you why he's not voting for Bush. (hint: read the whole thing)

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:30 AM
Comments (33)

Fonda Blogging

As someone who worked in Hollywood as a screenwriter throughout the period in question, and knew many of the players involved, I have to say I support "non-pro" Eugene Volokh's view in his blog-fight with "pro" David Edelstein of Slate. For those who don't know, the pro/non-pro distinction is frequently made in Variety to separate those in and out of the Industry.

Edelstein contends that actors like Jane Fonda suffered and in some sense had to reform in the eighties because they had "cozied up" to dictators during Vietnam. Not by my observation. Box office ruled as it always does (at least in the post "Blacklist" period when I have been working in Hollywood). In the biz of the biz, money talks and left/right walks. And it's still that way. Clint Eastwood and Sean Penn, whose politics are about as opposite as they get, are perfectly happy to work together for the greater good of ka-ching! The ins and outs of Fonda's career have much more to do with her psychology (and aging, of course) than they do with her socio-political views, which vary roughly proportionally to Bob Dylan's.

As for Edelstein's review of Team America, evidently he doesn't like it. He's perfectly entitled. Others see it differently. But perhaps we could cite the old saw - more apropos of this film than it is of others - "Opinions are like assholes. Everybody's got one!"

UPDATE: Here's something great from Hollywood - founded by actor Gary Senise. (hat tip: Alex Selim)

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:46 AM
Comments (11)

Mirror Mirror on the Wall....

...Who is the scummiest of the UNSCUM nations profiteering off the UN Oil-for-Food program? France? Russia? China? According to the United Nations Secretary General, none are scummy, because "These are very serious and important governments," Mr. Annan told Britain's ITV News Sunday. "You are not dealing with banana republics."

Well, I'm relieved. But guess who isn't? Yes, you're right - it's that nasty Claudia Rosett again, poking her nose where it shouldn't go.

But in the modern world, the notion that Russia and China in no way qualify as banana republics might be news to the state-muffled media of both countries. It might also surprise readers of the Berlin-based Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, which ranks 133 countries by levels of corruption, from best to worst. On that list, China ranks about halfway down, worse than Colombia or Peru and tied for 66th place with Panama, Sri Lanka and Syria. Russia does worse yet, ranked between Romania and Algeria, and tied for 86th place with Mozambique.

France does much better. Though it ranks as more corrupt than the U.S., Israel or Japan, it ties with Spain for a still respectable 23rd place. That makes France one of the most corrupt countries not in the entire world, but merely in Western Europe.

Oh, well, what's a little corruption among friends? It's the way the world goes round, no? So what if they were playing footsie with a man who liked to leave children in unmarked graves. At least he left them with their toys! That shouldn't stop us from electing a man who thinks our big mistake was not "consulting with our allies." Mon Dieu, il parle francais! [They could elect you.-ed. At least you admit your French is mediocre.]

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 3:40 AM
Comments (48)

October 19, 2004

Those Subtle Mullahs - A Radio Preview

There's no question that Iran's Mullahs are much cleverer than the heavy-handed Yasir Arafat who endorsed John Kerry for President the other day, thus probably scaring away more votes in South Florida than Pat Buchanan. The mullahs know better. They feign indifference to the American election:

It makes no real difference to Iran whether US President George W. Bush or Democrat contender John Kerry wins the presidential elections, a senior Iranian official said Tuesday.

"It makes no difference for us which of the two parties wins the elections," Iran's top national security official Hassan Rowhani said in an interview on state television.

Oh, really? Well, we shall see. Meanwhile, on Thursday, the EU's big three will attempt to play "Let's Make a Deal" with the Ayatollahs. The Iranian response is, as usual, equivocal:

"We are not saying we are refusing Westerners offers to provide us with nuclear fuel, but we want also to produce our own nuclear fuel ... as well as buying what we lack from the West," Iranian Atomic Energy Organization (IAEO) chief Gholamreza Aghazadeh said on state television.