August 31, 2007

Brian DePalma's same old song

Over on Pajamas, we have another article I am proud of [oh, shut up-ed. give me a second], Drima of Sudanese Thinker's Wild Parties in Sudan. We are working very hard to expand our global spread via the blogosphere to give people something they wouldn't get elsewhere. We hope you appreciate it. Finding and publishing such things take up a lot of my time nowadays.

Meanwhile, what used to take a lot of my time has a way of encroaching on my present reality. Apparently, someone I used to know...Brian DePalma... may have resurrected his career, seemingly scoring a hit at the Venice Film Festival with his new film "Redacted." The subject is a particularly gruesome real-life rape case, concerning a 14-year old Iraqi girl raped by US servicemen who also murdered her family.

Now I don't know the details of this case. (Some of the servicemen involved have been given long sentences and it sounds truly hideous.) Yet, according to Reuters, the film is halfway between documentary and fiction. This to me is a highly suspect form, especially when based on recent events (2006), which are more verifiable than most. You would think the truth would be enough.

But what interests me more is Brian's selection of material and his intention, as he states it, to stop the war. "The pictures are what will stop the war. One only hopes that these images will get the public incensed enough to motivate their Congressmen to vote against this war," he said.

Really? Does DePalma really think that the American public doesn't realize that such things occur in war on all sides and always have? No doubt a few American troops raped German and French women, murdered innocent people, etc. during World War II. War is Hell. Who disputes that?

So why would DePalma choose to tell this story now?

Propaganda, of course. But there's a bit more. We are all creatures of our times and of our great successes. This is perfectly human. DePalma, quintessentially a man of my generation, equates Iraq with Vietnam not just because he may think they are the same (ridiculous as that is) but because Vietnam made him the man he is today. In other words, he was able to live a fantastic Hollywood life (even with the normal vicissitudes),including the fancy houses, cars, women, etc., by being a "groovy" man of his generation - militantly opposed to Vietnam War and for all traditional PC things. Why change? Indeed, why not drill down further into the old well when things aren't as they once were. Why think about the specifics of the current situation or about history? They would only disrupt personal progress.

(For the record, I have not seen the movie, am only going on reports. )

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:11 AM
Comments (38)

August 29, 2007

Hillary in the Paw-Paw Patch (and a boy named Hsu)

The WSJ's investigative reporters have been going after Hillary Clinton's campaign sources in a fairly perspicacious manner. The latest revelations are about the Paw family in Daly City, CA and a guy/boy named Hsu. If you haven't seen, the links are here and here.

What jumps out at me in all this - besides the covert country music connections in the "Boy Named Hsu" (Hey, it's Johnny CASH) - is why would Hillary want all this possibly tainted money. It's not as if her campaign is running behind. She's leaving Obama in the dust at this moment. Of course, these connections were set up earlier... but still... why? The numbers are not that great - and considering the risk of being eventually connected to the Chinese government - you would think the campaign would just say no.

Perhaps it's arrogance, perhaps stupidity... or maybe something else. We shall see.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:41 AM
Comments (18)

August 27, 2007

The dance of the reprehensible

I don't have much sympathy of Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho, the latest in the growing list of closeted politicians caught with their pants down, and here's why:

The activist, Mike Rogers, who runs the Web site BlogActive.com, has complained about Craig's opposition to gay rights. The conservative senator has supported an amendment to the Constitution banning same-sex marriage and voted for the Defense of Marriage Act in the 1990s. Craig, who served in the National Guard, has also spoken out against homosexuals serving in the military.

The self-hatred implicit in that is mind-boggling. Human sexuality could be called the world's epicenter of hypocrisy. And the intolerance of this gay man in the Senate toward other gay people is mean and almost sadistic. He should resign, not for his behavior in the bathroom, but for his creepy political phoniness.

MORE: Craig also opposed civil unions. That would make him a bigot against himself. We should have a word for that. "His record includes a series of votes against gay rights and his support of a 2006 amendment to the Idaho Constitution that bars gay marriage and civil unions."

Posted by Roger at 11:24 PM
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France's (more or less) neocon president

It's fascinating to read the New York Times report on Sarkozy's foreign policy address, in which the French president seemed to countenance violent action against Iran unless the mullahs abandon their nuclear weapons program. Elaine Sciolino writes:

Although Mr. Sarkozy's aides said French policy had not changed, some foreign policy experts were stunned by his blunt, if brief, remarks.

"This came out of the blue," said Francois Heisbourg, special adviser to the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris and author of a coming book on Iran's nuclear program. "To actually say that if diplomacy fails the choice will be to accept a nuclear Iran or bomb Iran, this is a diplomatic blockbuster."

Indeed it is, but it should be no surprise to those who have followed Sarko and I doubt it will be any surprise to the French people who no doubt have had enough of Islamism. No doubt too there will be a plethora jeers from their fuddy-duddy media, but I will await Nidra Poller's report on that from PJM. (Saves me struggling with Larousse. They like big vocabulary words at Le Monde.)

I am looking between the lines at the venerable NYT. On 44th Street, they too are struggling, but not with Larousse. They are struggling with events. They don't know how to deal with the Surge. Some of their own reporters seem to think it may be succeeding, although that knowledge has not infected the editorial page (and must give Frank Rich fevers). And now there's Sarko. Despite pay the usual obeisance to global warming and American unilateralism in Iraq (how could he not?), he is proceeding as if he were an adjunct of the American Enterprise Insitute.

Mr. Sarkozy, who is often faulted for being too pro-American, proudly restated France's friendship with the United States, where he spent a two-week vacation this summer.

In a move that is certain to be welcomed in Washington, he announced that France would send more troops to Afghanistan to train the Afghan Army, despite his statement during the campaign that France would not remain in Afghanistan forever. The Defense Ministry confirmed that France would send 150 additional troops.

He sounds like Rudy Giuliani's new-best-friend. Or maybe Fred Thompson's.

Posted by Roger at 7:15 PM
Comments (6)

More on the China Syndrome

Max Sawicky - who doesn't always agree with me - does on the China repression/Microsoft/Yahoo situation. People can talk through the haze of ideology.

Posted by Roger at 11:05 AM
Comments (3)

Yahoo and Microsoft in bed with China again

That's the subject of my piece on Pajamas this morning. What I'd like to say here though is that we got some really cool art from Oleg Atbashian. I like working with him and with my friend Roman Genn who also does illustrations for Pajamas and is having a show opening in Santa Monica (James Gray Gallery/Bergamot Station) on September 8. Both Oleg and Roman - two very talented guys - are refugees from the former Soviet Union. I'm told if you join me down at Roman's opening, you might get some real vodka instead of the usual cheap chardonnay.

Posted by Roger at 12:32 AM
Comments (3)

August 26, 2007

Broder too long inside the Beltway

Today the venerable pundit is promoting a Bloomberg/Hagel independent candidacy in '08. In what world would that garner votes outside the immediate families involved? [Maybe it's filler.-ed. Ya think?]

Posted by Roger at 11:35 AM
Comments (1)

August 25, 2007

Film critic - embed

That's what we call in Hollywood a hyphenate (as in writer - director). Jonathan Foreman is one... film critic - embed (in Iraq)... and he does a fine job here of detailing the dreary story of Tinseltown's coming anti-war releases. I think I'll wait to see them on my Academy DVds, if then.

Posted by Roger at 8:57 PM
Comments (2)

Castro - Is Perez Hilton right?

Beats me... I have no idea if and when the Comandante "estira la pata" as José Guardia, PJM's Europe editor, just told me in IM (I like to learn new idioms). Sooner or later he will, as will the rest of us.

The interesting question then is whither Cuba? I visited Havana back in 1979 when I was invited to such places for my then political correctness. The proximate cause was the first festival of the New Latin American Cinema, to which I was a delegate. I have a lot of stories, which at some point I will write down, but my memories of "The Lost City" are strong - all the faded mansions and the DeSotos running on fumes. It was once a beautiful place. Maybe it will be again.

And, by the way, another memory: when I was 13, 14 years old...something like that... I saw Castro speak in Central Park. He was a great hero then. I can still recall the Dominicans screaming for him to foment a revolution in their country. Good thing he didn't.

APROPOS CUBA: Did this really happen? I have heard US presidential candidates make gaffes before, but this....? [Evidently Edwards doesn't go to a lot of Michael Moore movies.-ed. Evidently.]

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:54 AM
Comments (8)

August 24, 2007

Giuliani - Defying Gravity

Here's something interesting from Charles Krauthammer on last night's Brit Hume Show:

KRAUTHAMMER: But what is really interesting, I think, is the Giuliani effect. This is a guy who defies gravity. Everybody expected six months ago that, yes, he was high in the numbers because people associate him with 9/11. But when Republicans discover how socially liberal he is, his numbers will plummet. And they have not.

And what is important is the war on terror. Democrats are not reliable. Giuliani is a guy who in a Democratic year, which is going to be in 2008, could win. After all, he is a guy who won reelection twice in Sodom and Gomorrah.

Yes and yes. But there's more. As the nomination of Hillary becomes increasingly likely (and it has), the strength of Giuliani as her opponent increases. Maybe we will all look back in 2009 and see this seemingly interminable election was actually all over before it started.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 11:46 AM
Comments (37)

Amanpour - the Fake Fallaci

I know Christiane Amanpour has been doing a CNN three-parter on the evils of religious fundamentalism, but don't look for a review here. I no longer watch anything she does. She gives me hives.

As for the premise of her show that I didn't watch, the imputation of equivalence between the Abrahamic religions when it comes to violence, I think it is such an absurd lie it borders on propaganda out of Leni Riefenstahl - and I am a near atheist with no personal need for any organized religion at all. I would agree with John Derbyshire in his Pajamas review of Robert Spencer that they are all "magical thinking," stories made up to explain life and nature when people thought the world was flat. They don't work so well now.

Still, anyone who says the three religions are the same when Judaism and Christianity have gone through numerous reformations and Islam has not is simply delusional or lying or a combination of the two. For that reason, fundamentalists are a minority in Judaism and Christianity, while everybody is in one sense a fundamentalist in Islam. The Koran is the verbatim word of God, therefore immutable. The Bible is only a report of the word of God. Out of this, we still have Islamic people beheading people, trying to blow up civilians in subways, destroying Buddhist monuments, institutionally oppressing women and all the rest in 2007, not 1007. Are the perpetrators the exceptions? Sure to some degree (though not in the oppression of women). And there are certainly more of these violent types by far, exponentially far, than there are in any other religion. Do we see the Islamic world rising up in opposition to their behavior? Not at all.

Now Amanpour knows all this. So why does she lie? Well, one part of it's obvious. She's making several million a year from CNN for shoveling what she shovels. But I don't think it's just money, though that always help. I don't know enough of this woman personally (don't want to) to give any serious psychoanalysis, but it's clear there is a lot of rage, guilt, hatred and confusion beneath the cultured tones and expensive safari jacket of this Fake Fallaci.

TAKING ONE FOR THE TEAM: Phyllis Chesler has more patience than I do. She's watching.

RELATED: Shrinkwrapped writes on the possibility of moderate Muslims.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:09 AM
Comments (22)

August 22, 2007

TNR - Changing the Story

Changing the story when you're under attack is such an overused and obvious technique that you'd think people would be embarrassed to employ it. But not Jonathan Chait at The New Republic who jumps into the fray with a largely ad hominem attack on William Kristol in order to deflect criticism of TNR in the ongoing Scott Beauchamp scandal.

Chait does not respond at all to the many details and questions about TNR and Beauchamp raised in Richard Miniter's Pajamas Media story of a few days ago. It's hard to believe that Chait was unaware of the story since it was linked on the Drudge Report and viewed by over a hundred thousand people. But just to make sure, PJM has arranged for the link to be sent directly to Chait's email. It would be interesting to see how he responds to Miniter's reporting that Beauchamp was married to a fact-checker at The New Republic (among a raft of other uncomfortable truths).

Chait can choose to make this an ideological food fight, but it is not. This is a story about media and how it functions. The fact that Dan Rather lost his job because he could not admit a mistake should have been a lesson for all. Apparently The New Republic, despite Shattered Glass, etc., has not learned it.

UPDATE: PJM is following blogger reaction.

FURTHER UPDATE: It has been pointed out to me that Chait's story appeared in the print version of TNR and therefore closed before the Miniter/Pajamas Media story. It is worth noting, however, that the PJM story has been out for two days now with no response from TNR that we know of. Chait's response to the Weekly Standard was, as noted, a non-response anyway.

Posted by Roger at 11:51 AM
Comments (16)

August 21, 2007

Michelle Obama - the new Elmer Gantry

Mrs. Obama is apparently out on the hustings giving forth with a fair amount of political bombast like "I don't want my girls to live in a country based on fear."

What?

I haven't noticed that I'm living in a country based on fear. Too much trafffic maybe, but fear?

Then there's this: At another stop, in Atlantic, Michelle said she travels with her husband in part "to model what it means to have family values," adding "if you can't run your own house, you can't run the White House." She didn't elaborate, but it could be interpreted as a swipe at the Clintons.

Oh, get over yourself, Mrs. Obama. [People who brag about their families in public are usually the ones who end up in divorce court two years later.-ed. Word.]

More of this kind of wising-off and the Democrats can kiss the Clinton-Obama ticket goodbye.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:32 AM
Comments (16)

Neologisms R Us

I'm rather smugly proud of myself for coming up with the neologism "theothugs' yesterday for religious maniacs like Hamas (would apply to Hezbollah, etc.). This excellent column today by John Fund on some environmental hanky-panky in Romania just cries out for a new term to describe environmentalists who make things worse for the environment.

Suggestions?

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:22 AM
Comments (20)

Card Me Up!

Taking a swing at the national id card issue on Pajamas this morning. Are you worried about the government spying on you? Oddly, I'm not. Maybe I've been living too dull a life lately.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:12 AM
Comments (6)

August 20, 2007

Corruption

Those religious-gangsters at Hamas (theothugs?) must really have done it this time, since even the EU has decided to cut them off:

On Sunday, the European Union stopped paying for fuel to power generators that produce electricity for at least half of Gaza's population of 1.4 million. On Monday, it said the payments would not resume because it had received word that Hamas was "diverting" electricity revenues.

(The quoted AP report by Ibrahim Barzak is almost a comedy of bias.)

Reading the article reminded me of a conversation I had the other night at the BlogWest event in San Francisco. I'm assuming it was a confidential conversation, so I won't go into detail that would identify anyone, but the substance was this person had spent many years working for NGOs, etc. in Third World countries. Not surprisingly, the countries were riddled with the typical corruption at every level but what depressed me was what happened to the idealistic young Americans who went to those places, as described by this person. Their superiors - at the State Department and in the NGOs - told them to accept the corruption - that was the "culture"of the Third World and would be forever thus. I guess I don't have to tell you what a racist world view that is masquerading as multi-culturalism. The idealistic young Americans, this person said, would become depressed and reclusive. Essentially, they would give up.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 5:15 PM
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Good problems

The Pajamas Media Apache server crashed briefly today because of another Drudge link - this one to Rich Miniter's latest on The New Republic scandal. It will be interesting to see if TNR responds and how. I have been working with Rich behind the scenes on this all week. We don't have a big staff and I have to do triple duty. No complaints. It just accounts for the low blogging on here. Will get back to it - or clone myself.

To give you an idea of the power of the Drudge Report to drive news - as if you didn't know - at one point we were getting eleven thousand requests per second.

Posted by Roger at 9:55 AM
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Iran shelling Iraqi Kurdistan

If the Guardian, of all places, is reporting Iran shelling Iraqi Kurdistan, you can bet it's happening. And these, of course, are the Revolutionary Guard, who Robin Wright and her State Department friends would not have us refer to as terrorists. Well, they are one thing or the other. Either they are terrorists or they are in fact the nation of Iran attacking Iraq. What are we supposed to do about that?

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:49 AM
Comments (5)

August 19, 2007

Calling Robin Wright

I know I've been picking on Robin Wright lately, but she represents a kind of reactionary liberalism that I find particularly prevalent in our time. So I have a question for her, since she is so worried about the US acting unilaterally by branding the Iranian Revolutionary guard as a terror organization. What does she think of today's statement by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who, as she must know, is a child of those same guards and now virtually their leader (under Khamenei):

"The Zionist regime is the standard bearer of invasion, occupation and Satan," he said, predicting Israel's eventual demise.

So, Ms. Wright, let's have an answer. Is Ahmadinejad telling the truth as he sees it when he says Israel is the "standard bearer of Satan" or is this something else? If it is something else, I would like you to specify what it is and prove it. Because from every indication we have had, that is precisely what he and other leaders of that regime - and the Revolutionary Guard themselves - believe. If that doesn't sound like the basis for a terror organization, I don't know what does.

Posted by Roger at 12:02 PM
Comments (7)

August 18, 2007

Skype crisis

Skype was out for a few days and now is back.

I am frequent Skype user, have even used it for podcasts over at PJM, several times quite effectively when recording the kid in the shelter during the recent Israel-Lebanon War. We have been thinking of using it to record video interviews with people across the world. Very exciting service and practically free.

Now I wonder about their reliability. Is there a better VOIP service offering facilities like theirs?

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:47 AM
Comments (2)

August 17, 2007

RIP Max Roach

I could be accused of name dropping to say I knew Max Roach, the great jazz drummer who just passed away at 83. But I did. At least I met him a couple of times. It's so long ago, it's amazing I still remember, but then, why wouldn't I? He was Max Roach - a legend in his time, with Kenny Clarke and Art Blakey, the man who brought bebop to the drums or vice-versa.

In those days, circa 1960, I was dabbling at the drums myself and taking lessons from a slightly older white Jewish boy named Steve Gordon who knew Max. He took me to meet Max where the drum legend was playing... I think it was Birdland, because I was way underage and they allowed early teens in then. I don't have a vivid memory of the club... but I do have a vivid memory of Max... and of his girl friend/wife (can't recall which she was at that point) who was with him - singer Abbey Lincoln. No way a heterosexual male would not remember her! This was a few years before the Black Power era and they were both very friendly to me as an innocent young white kid/wannabe beatnik. Steve Gordon and I bumped into them again at the club a few months later and they hailed us as old friends. I don't think I was ever more star-struck in my life. Viva Max!

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:26 AM
Comments (2)

August 16, 2007

The Revolutionary Guard, continued

My two previous posts were about Robin Wright's thinly veiled attempt to influence opinion against the US government's plan to brand the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terror organization.

Far more interesting than the essentially trivial Wright, the IRGC (known as the Pasdaran) has itself commented on the possibility as follows (as quoted by the BBC):

In a statement published by Iran's Mehr news agency, the IRGC condemned the plan as "worthless resolutions" issued "dauntlessly and under baseless pretexts... to damage this holy institution".

"Those who are enchanted by the material world fail to realise the depth of the spiritual power and iron determination of the devoted members of the IRGC, which have roots in the religious beliefs of the people, and will witness the definite victory of the children of Islam against global infidelity," the statement said.

What's interesting here, of course, is that the Revolutionary Guard responds in religious terms. It almost sounds insane to us (people like Wright probably don't even believe it's real) but this is the voice of Khomeini's 1979 revolution still speaking loud and clear. National borders meant little to Khomeini. We are all intended to be part of Allah's kingdom (not nation states like the United States, Iraq or even Iran). It's important to note that the Iranian Army and the Revolutionary Guard are separate entities. The latter has the power and the IRGC's actions are based on Khomeini's weird eschatology. In that way they are arguably more dangerous than, though similar to, the Sunni Al Qaeda who are driven only to reinstate the caliphate. Those who advocate negotiations with the Iranian regime would do well to explain to us skeptics why they think the Khomeinists (Ayatollah Khamenei, Ahmadinejad, Larijani, etc.) don't believe their own ideology. So far, all indications are that they do.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:28 PM
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August 15, 2007

Wright continues her propaganda barrage at the WaPo

It's hard to believe the editors of the Washington Post believe Robin Wright's continued opposition to the proposed US policy of defining Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization is reporting in any true sense of the word. It is clearly "arranged opinion" with sources cited to support her views. That's fine. But put it on the oped page where it belongs. Don't tell us its news. Yesterday's article was analyzed below. Today's is worse.

Posted by Roger at 9:16 PM
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Totten keeps on getting better

If you want to make an interesting comparison between honest transparent journalism (new media vs. MSM), you could do no better than compare this latest report from Iraq by Michael Totten with the Robin Wright WaPo article in the post below. Hands down Totten is the better writer, better reporter and all-around more interesting read.

(Full disclosure: Michael is a friend of mine. And I'm proud of him.)

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:29 AM
Comments (25)

August 14, 2007

Reading the WaPo on Iran

It's the dog days of August and an article appears on top of Drudge: US to Designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard as Terrorists by Robin Wright. Our government is planning to do this so that the notorious Revolutionary Guard (Pasdaran) who have been associated with just about every nefarious deed out of Khomeinist Iran since the 1979 revolution is cut off from some of their funding. Sounds good to me.

But I'm not so sure it sounds so good to Robin Wright of the Washington Post. Everyone knows now how the conventional "objective" news article is structured,with the supposedly neutral reporter revealing his/her tilt by the choice of closing material, so here it is:

The administration's move could hurt diplomatic efforts, some analysts said. "It would greatly complicate our efforts to solve the nuclear issue," said Joseph Cirincione, a nuclear proliferation expert at the Center for American Progress. "It would tie an end to Iran's nuclear program to an end to its support of allies in Hezbollah and Hamas. The only way you could get a nuclear deal is as part of a grand bargain, which at this point is completely out of reach."

Such sanctions can only work alongside diplomatic efforts, Cirincione added. "Sanctions can serve as a prod but they have very rarely forced a country to capitulate or collapse," he said. "All of us want to back Iran into a corner but we want to give them a way out, too. [The designation] will convince many in Iran's elite that there's no point in talking with us and that the only thing that will satisfy us is regime change."

Hmmm... in other words, no sanctions, or not these sanctions, saith the Post. Or Wright.

Let's leave aside for the moment Cirincione's peculiar logic since negotiations with Iran over nuclear issues have gone on literally for years to absolutely no avail. Why should they succeed now? Cirincione isn't saying. (I'll wager because he can't.)

What interests me here is how the article came to be. The prose is sprinkled with the usual journo-blather: "according to US officials... sources said... analysts said," etc. But which officials and which sources and which analysts, nadie sabe. Meaning, I write what I want to write. Or perhaps I should say I Wright what I Wright. That's not to say this is wrong or it's not happening but my best guess is that someone at the State Department leaked this to the reporter because he/she knew the reporter would be cooperative,be the right mouthpiece. And he/she was correct. That's modern journalism. Or perhaps more accurately, "Scoop" lives.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:35 PM
Comments (9)

August 13, 2007

I didn't know there were so many dentists ...

Time Magazine's circulation declined 17.1% in the last six months, but it's still 3.4 million.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:20 PM
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Greenwald reads me

Being "read" in this Internet era is an interesting phenomenon. In my old novelist days it would take months or years to discover what people thought I meant (or whether they liked it). Now it's near instantaneous. But still what you find is not entirely unpredictable. To begin with, when you link gay marriage and the war on terror, you know you are going to gore a lot of oxes on both sides. So I can't say I was surprised to see Glenn Greenwald taking a whole lot of umbrage at me on Salon.

What's interesting about when people attack you is what they think you are saying, kind of a deconstructionist puzzle. Greenwald presumes that I assume Islamists are at our door. He runs the following quote as if it might come from my article: "read Zawahiri's speeches about the Plan for Caliphate!!" Of course I didn't write this at all. One of my teachers told me way back when not to overuse exclamation points, although occasionally I err.

Still, to be clear. I don't presume them to be at our door, although I know they are capable of hugely violent actions against the innocent. But I do think the Islamists approach life in an entirely different from manner from Mr. Greenwald and even from me. We are Western of the minute people, they are in it for the long haul ... to put it mildly. That is why in my essay I referred to the year 800 and secondarily to the large demographic changes of our time (Europe, of course, although Latin America seems to be at the beginnings of a similar change). It is these long term massive changes that the contemporary Left avoids dealing with. Yet changes do occur in history. And there is no guarantee that they be good ones unless good people make them so, and even then...

I also find Greenwald's gleeful categorization of Left and Right a tad tedious and old fashioned, but of course that's one of my hobby-horses. I note one of the commenters on Pajamas accused me of being a "liberal." Greenwald assaults me as a right-winger even though I support gay marriage and choice ... I guess I don't got that "old time religion."

Posted by Roger at 12:07 PM
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Talking about Gay Marriage the day Rove quits

Of course they have nothing to do with each other, but I'm amused an article of mine on Pajamas - Gay Marriage and the War on Terror - appeared on the day Karl Rove's resignation was announced. So it goes in the media world.

Actually, anybody who reads this blog with any regularity would be familiar with my views on the subject of the article. But, hey, we all repeat ourselves.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:58 AM
Comments (1)

August 12, 2007

The Day the Music Died

I find it amusing that so many pols seem to be twelfth-rate musicians, but still parade their "talents." Did it start with Truman on piano? Then we had Clinton's silly sax work and now we have Huckabee on geetarrh.... as a Rolling Stone no less, lookin' for advenchuh.

It's kind of endearing, really, like kids in junior high, showing off for their parents.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:16 AM
Comments (5)

August 10, 2007

I don't want your stinkin' ideology!

The editors uttered the oh-so-tired "I" word in their latest defense of the Beauchamp Scandal, posted (deliberately?) to their site on a very quiet Friday:

"While many of these questions have been formulated by people with ideological agendas, we recognize that there are legitimate concerns about journalistic accuracy."

I see. So it's those ideological agendas, is it? Well, Messrs. Foer, et al, let me make myself, at least, clear. I have no ideological agenda, because I am sick and tired of ideology. Let's put it this way. Remember the old Samuel Johnson canard "Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels"? Well, to me "Ideology is the last refuge of scoundrels." Not to mention a monumentally boring rehash of Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century thought. So I don't have an ideology anymore. I'm pro-gay marriage and pro-war on terror. What does that make me? Left of John Edwards on the former and right of him on the latter and 3.2 degrees north, north east of Boise, Montana on somebody's worn out Mercator Projection. In other words, get over it. Ideology is not the point. The truth is.

And speaking of the truth. Here it is - or part of it - buried in parentheses five graphs down in TNR's own vague non-defense defense of Mr. Beauchamp:

"Our investigation has not thus far uncovered factual evidence (aside from one key detail) to discount his personal dispatches."

They themselves used the word "key."

The reputation of The New Republic hangs by a thread. I suspect they know it.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 1:54 PM
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For once I agree with Dennis Kucinich

He and I both support gay marriage. That may be the only area in which we do agree, but at least there's that. I was suspicious of Dennis , however, when he remarked to the Democrat's forum on gay and lesbian issues: "All I can say is, keep those contributions coming ... and you'll have the president that you want." Contributions? So we get more Dennis - the man who has been rejected by the American electorate by a greater margin than anyone in living memory, yet still pops up to pollute airwaves on a more consistent basis than anyone since Arthur Godfrey? Everything about Dennis seems to be about Dennis, just as it is about John Edwards. I don't believe it for a second when Edwards asserted at the same forum he was "comfortable" around gay people. I have no doubt that Bob Schrum was telling it like it was in his memoir when he recounted Edwards' homophobia. Edwards is the quintessentially inauthentic man to me, no matter what he says.

Actually, we all know the candidate most comfortable around gay people in the genuine sense and that's Rudolph Giuliani. And I don't mean because he danced around in drag or whatever he did. I mean because he strikes me as a modern New Yorker who has lived in the real world. He has gay friends and straight friends as a matter of course and doesn't think much about it. That's life.

But, as I have said before, gay marriage is a done deal and people should stop worrying about it (except to get equal partnership legal rights). Anyone paying the slightest attention sees gay "married" couples all around us- some happy, some not, some in between. Yawn.

Now - to be frank - I have not seen this forum, only read reports. I'm sure I will catch bits of it later tonight on television. So I would like to ask if anyone mentioned the huge elephant in the room and I don't mean Republicans. I mean Islamic fascism and its outright assault on gays and women beyond anything that has ever been conceived in our culture. Did Melissa Etheridge and her fellow and gal panelists show any interest in that? Did the candidates?

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:36 AM
Comments (10)

August 8, 2007

Jerome Armstrong: The Big Sleaze meets the Netroots

Jerome Armstrong, the blogger who gave us MyDD and is a co-author of a recent book on "people power" with Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos, has agreed to pay nearly thirty thousand dollars to the Security and Exchange Commission over allegations "that Armstrong touted the stock of a software company, without disclosing that he was being paid to do so."

Now, as we all know, sleaze and corruption are not unique to either side of the political spectrum. But Armstrong, Kos & their netroot cronies have made a big deal out of clean government (and they should). So this kind of allegation speaks even more deeply to their ethics, as it it would for anyone in that position.

Moreover, this behavior, if true, besmirches blogging in general, harming all of us who take this enterprise seriously as a criticism of the activities of mainstream media. Armstrong has been fined nearly thirty grand, while not admitting guilt. Here is the language from the litigation release:

The Final Judgment permanently enjoins Armstrong from future violations of Section 17(b) of the Securities of 1933. The Final Judgment further orders Armstrong to pay disgorgement in the amount of $5,832, prejudgment interest of $3,235, and a civil penalty of $20,000. Armstrong consented to the entry of the Final Judgment without admitting or denying the allegations of the Commission's Complaint, except as to jurisdiction.

Hmm.... interesting. I know I wouldn't so quickly give up that much money - and allow the subsequent besmirching of my reputation - if I hadn't done something very wrong.

I'll give Armstrong the benefit of the doubt for now. But he owes us all a complete and thorough explanation of how this came to be. Otherwise, he might as well quit blogging. He and his integrity are toast.

All those followers of Kos should be especially interested in this. I hope they don't respond defensively, because if they do, the grounds for communication between intelligent Americans will be even worse than it is. How will we be able to take their pronouncements seriously?

UPDATE: Mickey Kaus has more, including details of the allegation. Kaus also calls for Armstrong to comment. I would add to that. Kos himself should say something. Otherwise some bright people are going to start asking all those candidates who showed up at the YearlyKos whether they're square with this kind of stock manipulation. You can call that guilt by association, but Kos demands purity of just about everyone. You reap what you sow. As of now, the Netroots are rotting.

MORE: For those unfamiliar with the ins and outs of SEC regulations (who me?), David Horwich has written an interesting explanation of this situation for Pajamas.

Posted by Roger at 9:47 PM
Comments (17)

What's New Pussycat?

Fred Thompson and I have one thing in common - three wives. Oops,wait a minute, he only had two... just a fair number of also-rans. Let's hope for both our sakes we stop there and that he stops at three campaign managers. The cliché goes third time lucky. That's been true of my personal life. Is it true of the political? I would like to see more of the sly, surprising Thompson we had a couple of months ago. You don't see much of that in politics and I think it's going to be sorely needed in this loooong campaign ahead. Winner, in the end, might be the wittiest; most of the list is already threatening to bore us to death.

(BTW, Pajamas Media still gets endless email from irate Ron Paul supporters complaining their man isn't on the poll, when he has been for several weeks. I guess they just pick it some bloviation on some website somewhere and fire away for the Causus Paulus. Talk about lack of sense of humor. These people are Grim with a capital G.)

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:17 AM
Comments (2)

August 7, 2007

Soaring over California

Isn't that the name of the ride at Disney's California Adventure? Anyway, that's what I feel like I have been doing since eight o'clock this morning, soaring over California, when we took off from a Victorian village called Ferndale not far from the Avenue of the Giants and headed South on 101. Of course, we have been soaring in a car, but the feeling isn't wildly different when you cover as much ground as we have in a day. I am typing this somewhere in the middle of the San Joaquin Valley as Sheryl drives.

This is some state or nation state or whatever it is. I hadn't been deep in the redwood country since doing research for my novel The Lost Coast. All the clichés about awe and religious experience are true. The trees can make an atheist shiver. And then you come down into the wine country, hundreds of miles of some of the most beautiful vineyards on Earth. We stopped for lunch at the Healdsburg branch of the Oakville Grocery. (Sad to say the sandwiches were disappointing, but I'm sure the bottles I bought will be just fine.). And then around San Francisco and Oakland through Livermore of the laboratory and the wind farm on the 580.

Now we are Coalinga, land of cow stench. Los Angeles looms.

Posted by Roger at 5:45 PM
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August 6, 2007

The New Republic - Only an Idiot Would Pay for This

In the midst of reading (a bit late) the revelations regarding the lies of Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp in The New Republic, I clicked over to tnr.com, only to be reminded the magazine is actually asking us to buy a subscription to read their publication on line. In other words, they want us to pay for their lies! Can you imagine anything more absurd and shameful? Who would be such an idiot?

Here's the top article on their web page today: The Overhyping of David Petraeus, Army of One by Andrew J. Bacevich . The first graph hints that General Petraeus is being oversold as our savior in Iraq. But to read more, to get the "facts" backing this up, you have to pay. The cost of a digital subscription to TNR is $29.95. Considering the amount of free information about Petraeus and everything else online, let's hope Mr. Bacevich's facts are more reliable than Private Beauchamp's. Or perhaps TNR will offer our money back for disinfo and propaganda.

But allow me to go further. As many reading this know, I am not a "young blogger," alas (wish I were). I spent a lifetime working in mainstream media - book publishing, Hollywood movies, newspapers and magazines. Fact-checking, in my experience, is a big lie. It barely exists in the mainstream media.

As an example, I wrote an article for the Los Angeles Times on my experiences on the jury of a film festival in Siberia. It contained many statements about the state of the Russian film industry in the post-Soviet era. My fact-checking? It consisted of a young lady calling me up and asking me "Did this happen?" I said, "Yes." End of conversation. That was fact-checking. And with some exceptions, that is par for the course. Mainstream media cannot afford extensive fact-checking. They are already in the soup financially. Where would they find the money to do it, even if they wanted to.

Blogs, of course, are much better at fact-checking. [What? You can't be serious.-ed. Damn right, I am.] Thousands of eyes are staring at these words right now, many of them belonging to people much more qualified and capable than the fact-checkers of the MSM. An open comment section lurks below. It's hard to get a spelling error by here for long, let alone a serious error of fact. If I were making up stories like Pvt. Beauchamp, I would be crucified - and deservedly so.

Of course, I am up against questions of fact-checking every day as an executive at Pajamas Media. It can be nerve-wracking and humbling (fortunately we have those comments to keep us honest) and for that reason I have some sympathy for Martin Peretz and Franklin Foer. But not a lot. Their way is the old way. If it's not over now, it's over soon. And the Beauchamp Affair put another nail in the MSM coffin. Pretty soon it will be thrown overboard.

Posted by Roger at 10:25 PM
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August 5, 2007

Heading South

Our family is headed back to LA after a wonderful month on Bainbridge Island, where we are fixing up an old property of some small buildings in the Douglas fir. Midway through the stay it got even better. We ran a Bobcat over some of our property, ostensibly to clear an area for a septic system, but in the process knocked over the existing deer fence. Every morning for the last couple of weeks we had deer grazing within a few feet of our house, a beautiful sight, especially when you don't have to worry about the garden, which is going to be destroyed during construction anyway.

We're are taking 101 home and are now in Oregon, a place called Cape Kiwanda (Pacific City) that has the biggest dune this side of Cairo. Blogging will be low for the next few days. Pan-fried oysters, however, will be frequent.

(Excuse the bizarre spelling. Blogging on the run via a very weak Verizon signal.)

Posted by Roger at 10:00 PM
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August 4, 2007

Life at the Kos Convention - Soldier Censored

John Stoltz - the guy you see waving a finger at the mild mannered soldiered who attempted to discuss the success of the Surge at the Kos Convention - seems to be one angry fellow. Stoltz, an Iraq vet, writes for the Huff Post and I would bet, given the company he keeps, has political ambitions. The soldier's gentle remarks threaten everything Stoltz stands for. If Stoltz really does have those ambitions, he'll have to learn to cool it when cameras are running.

This video, if you haven't seen it yet, is one of the more interesting things we've produced at Pajamas. Let me give a shout out to Andrew Marcus, video maestro extraordinaire. He's a pleasure to work with.

UPDATE: Sorry. The man evidently spells his name Soltz. He is also a massive hypocrite because he attacked the soldier at the convention for using his uniform for "political" purposes, which is exactly what Solz does here. Solz is the very definition of a reactionary, though I am sure he doesn't know it.

MORE: The power of Drudge... This video was linked on Drudge and Pajamas Media has been averaging near eight thousand people online all day. That will add up to quite a number who have seen the video. An interesting article on Drudge appeared on the front page of today's Los Angeles Times. I think there is little question that he and Andrew Breitbart drive a spectacular amount of Internet news traffic for two guys.

Posted by Roger at 8:55 AM
Comments (10)

August 3, 2007

Hypocritonissimo

Is Edwards the biggest phony who has ever run for President? Well, that's saying a lot but.... maybe he is. The hair... the twenty-eight thousand square foot friend of the poor house, and now - the revelation that John-o received 800 grand from Murdoch for a book when the candidate has been making holier than thou swipes at Rupert and Fox News, refusing to appear on the channel, etc..

We need a new, more extreme version of the word hypocrite for Edwards. Hypocritonissimo?

But beneath the kidding around is a more serious point. People like Edwards are more than just fakes - they are actually dangerous. By parading around like a popinjay for the poor, he actually hurts them, making a mockery of genuine of problems. Everything is about Edwards and his glory. It's not about anything else.

Posted by Roger at 9:17 AM
Comments (24)

"Old Dutch" Kos

Astonishing, and tone deaf, as it may seem, Markos Zuniga said insufficiently progressive Democrats should be "cleansed" from the Party at the YearlyKos Convention. What a strange man.

PJM is covering the convention, if you haven't noticed. (This is the fun part of my job, setting up things like that.)

UPDATE: Apparently our reporter misquoted or misheard Kos who did not use the "cleanse " word, but said "cleaning out the Democratic Party," meaning Lieberman. We corrected at PJ.

Posted by Roger at 8:27 AM
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August 2, 2007

Obama - further and further out of his depth

Now Barack is fumbling the nuclear weapons ball (no pun intended):

"I think it would be a profound mistake for us to use nuclear weapons in any circumstance," Obama said, with a pause, "involving civilians." Then he quickly added, "Let me scratch that. There's been no discussion of nuclear weapons. That's not on the table."

Is it just me - or does this sound like someone way over his head?

Posted by Roger at 1:40 PM
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Special culinary warning to Sarko

I read via Drudge that new French President Nicolas Sarkozy is planning a vacation on New Hampshire's Lake Winnipesaukee.

That's one place about which I can say safely - been there, done that. (I went to camp in the region for several summers.)

It's quite a lovely area. In its own way, it is arguably as beautiful as many parts of la douce France.

But, in all honesty, Monsieur le Président, if you care about food as much as most Frenchmen, bring your own chef. Unless things have changed radically since I was a kid, you are not exactly going to the culinary capital of America. When it comes to food, this is not Provence, or even the Napa Valley. It is Siberia (figuratively and literally).

Posted by Roger at 9:36 AM
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August 1, 2007

Obama runnin' scared

The new "macho" Barack Obama who is rattling sabers at Pakistan is an obvious reaction to two things - Hillary making him look out of it on foreign affairs at the last debate and the looming possibility that the surge may be working. Dove out; hawk in (for the next ten minutes, anyway).

Posted by Roger at 10:02 AM
Comments (14)