The New York Times Doesn't Read The New York Times
I am up on Bainbridge Island, some of you may have guessed from the less frequent blogging. (I shall return to LaLa on Wednesday night.) But flying up here early Sunday morning I had a few moments to indulge in a ritual that in days of yore was as much a part of my Sunday mornings as brushing my teeth - reading the New York Times. Yes, for some reason (ancestor worship? maybe I'm a secret Shintoist?) I still subscribe to the Sunday edition. So I did what I used to do, stripping the paper down to the sections I like (book review, magazine, news of the week, travel) and stuffing them in my overnight bag for the plane. Actually I was looking for an excuse to procrastinate from writing my book during the two and half hours from LAX to SeaTac.
Well,the procrastination didn't work. After about fifteen minutes of skimming (mostly in the travel section) I chucked the whole thing out and got to my writing. Much better in the long run, of course, and definitely a sign that I should save the twenty-two bucks a month or whatever it is I am being billed for this drivel. That's enough a year to buy an iPod. [You already have an iPod-ed. Okay, something, else. One half a Laker seat.]
Anyway, apparently I missed something "brilliant" from that day's NYT in my rush to get to more serious work - some party line (Zabar's zeitgeist) bloviation about Basra from James Ganz- their Baghdad bureau chief- who evidently thinks there's something amazing about Iraqis drinking Scotch. He apparently didn't read his own paper on April 2, 2003:
NAJAF, Iraq, April 2 - In the giddy spirit of the day, nothing could quite top the wish list bellowed out by one man in the throng of people greeting American troops from the 101st Airborne Division who marched into town today.
What, the man was asked, did he hope to see now that the Baath Party had been driven from power in his town? What would the Americans bring?
"Democracy," the man said, his voice rising to lift each word to greater prominence. "Whiskey. And sexy!"
Around him, the crowd roared its approval.
But not the NYT. As the years wear on, their voice becomes increasingly reactionary, their profound wish for our failure greater, almost as if as the paper goes down, it wants to take us with it.
Newsweek, however, appears to be just going down by itself.
Annals of the Liberal Blogosphere - It's the Media, stupid!
I had to smile when reading how the liberal blogosphere--convoking in Philly at Eschacon '08 under the aegis of, one assumes, the mighty Eschaton--have got their knickers in the proverbial twist at the namby-pamby way the media treats McCain (except when they don't). The libobloggers aren't going to put up with this nonsense. They're going after... wait for this... Chris Matthews who apparently likes McCain "as a person." That's better than a lot of Republicans. Of course, there are few the right despises more these days than Matthews. Meanwhile, I wonder what the Eschaton crowd would think of Hillary consorting with Richard Mellon Scaife, who seems to be playing namby-pamby with Clinton. My poor head is spinning here. I can't keep up with all this. I think I'm going to go call Woody Allen and see if he remembers my mantra.
Oliver Disappoints with Bush Film - Where's the Paranoia?
It would normally be good news for conspiracy theorists that Oliver Stone is working on a George W. Bush biopic to appear before Bush leaves office (don't hold your breath). But unfortunately the JFK director doesn't seem to be swinging for his usual fences here, no Johnson behind the Kennedy assassination whispers or anything close: "Stone has said that the film, which will focus on the life and presidency of Bush, won't be an anti-Bush polemic, but, as he told Daily Variety, 'a fair, true portrait of the man. How did Bush go from being an alcoholic bum to the most powerful figure in the world?'"
How disappointing. Well, at least he's calling Bush an "alcoholic bum" - not very PC, but we'll let that go. It has some attitude of a Twelve Step sort. Look, we should admire Oliver for getting financing for his convoluted political biopics (Nixon?). He's kind of a business genius.
Obama's Church's Racist Newsletter: Taking the Bloomberg off the Rose
It wasn't long ago (yesterday) that Michael Bloomberg was being hyped as the answer to Obama's Jewish problem, but I think the problem goes a lot deeper than floating the self-promoting NY Mayor for a running mate. It now seems Obama's church has been sending out the most old-fashioned anti-Semitic canards in their newsletter, including the nonsense we have been hearing for years about Israel being an "apartheid state" (shades of the Durban conference). And this was published by the church in June 2007, doubtlessly arriving Chez Obama in the midst of his campaign. (Do his children read the newsletter?) Barack didn't say anything about it until now. Of course you could just call this all "free speech," but if such racist bilge came out of any organization I was a member of, I'd be resigning post haste... and this man is running for POTUS.
Just one more point: one of the anti-Semitic screeds in question - with quotations around the 'state' of Israel - was published over six years after the Taba Conference when a Palestinian state was offered to Arafat by the Israelis and, as we all know, the deceased caudillo walked out for fear he might actually have to govern a country. He launched Intifada II instead. If I were Obama I'd be mighty embarrassed by the rubbish his church is publishing. And now with the current minister accusing Wright's critics of a "lynching" for expressing their natural indignation toward the retired pastor's appalling statements, I would be wondering whether my church was indeed "liberal" in any definable sense of the word or simply reactionary.
... is up on YouTube (with the usual comment zoo). I think it's quite well done, though of course I am not the audience. The voice over sounds like Kelsey Grammer to me, who has been one of the major Hollywood figures on the right for some time. (Amusing that he made his rather large mark playing a shrink.)
Annie Jacobsen's excellent article about the new religious segregation at the Harvard gym on PJM today raises a lot of interesting questions, but she missed what may be the most important one: Are they smoking Alaweed? [Bad pun. Seven demerits.-ed]
By now I imagine most readers of this site have seen Fitna - Dutch PM's Geert Wilders' controversial take on Islam and the Koran. If not, it's here. I gather several million people have looked at it by now and it's going viral.
I have watched it twice, once in Dutch (which I of course do not speak) and once in English. I found it better than I expected it to be, an effective fifteen minutes of propaganda. I don't mean the pejoratively. Fifteen minutes on a subject as vast and complicated as the Koran could only be propaganda. But I found it powerful. Of course the statistics on the growth of Islam in Europe are alone enough to generate a strong reaction, even if you already know them, as most of us do.
I could say you heard it here first, but that would be self-inflating on the level of, well, Al himself, but Joe Klein is creating more Gore buzz in Time today. Of course Klein's equivocating. That's his job. As is calling McCain a "flagrantly flawed" candidate. (Compared to Hillary and Obama?) Nevertheless, Gore is beginning to look more and more like a potential Democratic nominee. Another month or so they may be begging for him to run.
I know - if you're like me you'd rather be "Top Chef." But just suppose, arguendo, you'd want to be a "genocide scholar." Who would be your guru, your role model in this day and age? Eli Weisel perhaps... or Simon Wiesenthal? Not in the Minnesota State University System. So who is it? Answer here.
[Shouldn't there be a class action suit around this? Taxpayers are paying for this crap.-ed. I'm no lawyer, but the guys at the link are.]
As you can read on PJ, I was over at the Bonaventure today, checking out McCain's big foreign policy speech (nothing too new there). Had to get up way early in the morning to get downtown, so excuse any inaccuracies. I know, I know, I'm not as old as McCain, so I shouldn't complain. Speaking of which, the guy is something of a wonder. Full of energy at whatever Methusalah-like age he is. Isn't 70 the new 28? He did seem a little tired reading his prepared text, however, but sprang to life... as I indicated in my piece... during the Q&A.
We're doing a video in and around this event and Cong. Brad Sherman's counter speech. Bill Bradley and I will be interviewing Sherman. It will be interesting to see how he differentiates himself from McCain. Let's hope it's not just talking points.... zzzz...
UPDATE: Although a link on Drudge claims the pastor flap has not hurt Obama, that is only true versus Hillary. Versus McCain, Obama continues to fall. Rasmussen daily tracking now shows McCain up by ten over Obama for the first time.
Obama in free fall.... but against McCain, not Hillary
Mickey Kaus says that Obama's good numbers in a North Carolina poll indicate that his March 18th speech had the "Wright stuff." Mebbe so... at least in so far as the primaries are concerned. But the Rasmussen Daily Tracking Poll for the general election tells a different story. McCain's margin over Obama has been widening consistently since mid-March when the Wright story broke wide. March 18th had no discernible impact on this trend. My guess is that after Obama wins the nomination he's going to be looking frantically for a big time Sister Souljah moment... Otherwise he's in deep trouble. This isn't going to help either. Or this.
Of course, there are tedious blowhards like this that could still help Obama. [Maybe LeBoutillier is just trying to attract attention.-ed. Well, he got a link from me. He's also semi-literate. He swallowed the MSM line that Iran wasn't training Al Qaeda terrorists. He probably doesn't even read his own website.]
The Obama/Wright controversy just went up a notch or ten today when Hillary Clinton told the Pittsburgh Tribune- Review re: Wright: "He would not have been my pastor. You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend. You know, I spoke out against Don Imus, saying that hate speech was unacceptable in any setting, and I believe that. I just think you have to speak out against that. You certainly have to do that, if not explicitly, then implicitly by getting up and moving."
Never mind the fake Imus-baiting, those are fighting words that will be all over the media shortly - and if not, itheywill be all over Republican advertising in the general election. Obama clearly did not get up and move - not for twenty years and only after a scandal that, just after it seems to be dying, may be reigniting stronger than ever.
Apparently Sarkozy is considering it. [Maybe he has better things to do.-ed. Yuck-yuck.] It does seem appealing on the surface since what the Chinese are doing (and have done, of course) in Tibet is execrable. We have been debating on Pajamas Media whether to call for this, not that we matter at all, but still.... The standard "liberal" publications like the NYT and the WaPo will undoubtedly tut-tut, huff and puff and do nothing. Should we? Don't know. I welcome opinions here.
We have spruced up Pajamas Media a bit (be patient-there will be glitches) and I thought there could be no better debut piece for the new look PJM than my friend Lionel Chetwynd's Open Letter to Senator Obama. Like many of us--except the mainstream media, it seems--Lionel has profound doubts about the Senator's recent speech. But he takes a different tack I haven't seen elsewhere, bringing us into the realm of forgiveness--those who do and those who don't.
Glenn writes they are the Oscars of Food, but food these days is more important than movies. On doit manger pour vivre, as Moliere had it. Of course he also said Pas vivre pour manger--my problem. Nevertheless I have to give a shout out to the James Beard people for giving "best restaurateur" to Tom Douglas. I've never eaten a bad meal in any of his Seattle restaurants--and I've eaten quite a few with more to come.
Back to Watergate: Obama, Grandmothers and Charles Colson
Christopher Hitchens takes on Obama on Slate today ("Blind Faith") in way that tossed me back to Watergate (actually I had been thinking about this strange similarity of eras for a few days, but the article helped confirm my ruminations ). Hitch wrote:
You often hear it said, of some political or other opportunist, that he would sell his own grandmother if it would suit his interests. But you seldom, if ever, see this notorious transaction actually being performed, which is why I am slightly surprised that Obama got away with it so easily. (Yet why do I say I am surprised? He still gets away with absolutely everything.)
Of course Hitchens is referring here to Obama's throwing his own grandmother under the train during the candidate's recent vaunted speech "on race" by making the poor woman the equivalent of the execrable Jeremiah Wright. This in turn threw me back a few years to Watergate times when Charles Colson, in one of the most famous quotes of the period, said "I'd walk over my own grandmother to re-elect Richard Nixon." Many of us thought that was par for the course back then in Nixonland, because we assumed Tricky Dick would do the same. Not that he did, that I can recall. So this places Obama ahead of Nixon (or behind, if you will) and in the company of the sleazy Colson. Not a great place to be, in my book. So much, as I have written before, for the New Politics.
How to read the propagandistic drivel at the New York Times
Long ago in a universe far away, the New York Times published the news. Now they publish "think pieces", which are basically filler with an ideological tinge or should I call it frisson? You can usually recognize this pabulum from a pretty far distance--it almost always prominently placed on the front page--and has a title like today's "Obama's promise of a new majority, and the question it prompts". These articles are almost always several hundred or more words long with many "experts" marshaled for their opinions. Reading them can be time-consuming. What to do?
The RogerLSimon.com tip of the day - skip to end! The whole point of the piece is in the last three paragraphs or so - neatly buttoned up in New York Times speak in the last sentence. For the latest article:
So far, Republicans give every indication of planning to portray Obama as a big-government liberal out of touch with American values and unprepared to be commander in chief.
"When you're rated by National Journal as to the left of Ted Kennedy and Bernie Sanders, that's going to be difficult to explain," said Danny Diaz , a spokesman for the Republican National Committee.
But Democrats supporting Obama argue that the voters have moved beyond those ideological attacks.
So there you have it - all tied up at the end lest you be confused. Why bother to read anything else?
By a strange confluence of events, I was working yesterday on the portion of my new memoir book (to be published next year by Encounter) concerning the Symbionese Liberation Army when I heard the news of Sara Jane Olson's rearrest. I didn't know Sara Jane, but I did know her cohorts in the SLA, Bill and Emily Harris, the kidnappers of Patty Hearst. Many years ago I was almost hired to turn their life story into a movie - whatever that would have been - when the film's putative director - Milos Forman - couldn't enter the jail with me to talk with the Harrises. Milos was stateless then and was, justifiably, afraid any association with the Harrises would jeopardize his citizenship. There is more to the story than than, of course, but you will have to wait for the book. Those events had seemed so far away when I was writing them - only to see Sara Jane's name popping up on my computer screen. This means nothing, other than idle chance, of course, but it was an odd resurrection of another sort for Easter.
Good old "Tailgunner" Joe McCarthy - America's favorite whipping boy - the man who ruined more lives than Stalin... scratch that... well, ruined quite a few lives and was a drunk besides... [Is being a drunk all bad? There's Richard Burton and--ed. Will you let me finish my sentence?]... Now, before I was so rudely interrupted... it seems Bill Clinton is now being accused of being a McCarthyite or McCarthyist by some retired general flacking for Obama. This guy Air Force Gen. Merrill "Tony" McPeak may have a point, but it's not the one he thinks it is. Bill Clinton doesn't share much with McCarthy, except that they were both, essentially, Republicans. Clinton was a complete middle-of-the-roader who rolled back welfare because he realized it was bad for black people (among other things). Not only was Bill the "first black president," he was also the first "black Republican president." (Read that Condoleeza and weep.) Of course his wife has no skills for pulling off anything remotely like that. And Obama is shooting for being the first "black ye olde liberal president," as he has revealed in his recent speech on race. He should take some lessons from Bill on what really is good for African-Americans. The rest of this is just blabla from this morning's Drudge Report. It's a slow news day. [Don't forget to say Happy Easter!-ed. Happy Easter!]
At first glance, the current passport flap based on the revelation that all three major candidates' passport files have broken into by some "imprudently curious" folks caused me to ask the obvious: What's in a passport file anyway? As someone whose had a passport for over fifty years, I'm embarrassed to say I'm not sure, beyond the obvious, that is: normal identification and proof of citizenship (basically public information), some record of where you've been (passport stamps have been generally replaced by a magnetic swipe at the border) even though many countries don't bother, maybe something on some of the visas you have (for me, most recently, I have a rather pompous document from the Russian Republic attached to my passport, though I doubt the Russians told the US. They were more concerned I pay a fee.). That's about it. Unless the candidates have been sneaking in and out of the country without our knowing for nefarious purposes, there's not a helluva lot of there there. And even if they've gone places they're not supposed to, chances are they didn't have their passport stamped or swiped. [Were you in Communist Cuba for the First Festival of the New Latin American Cinema in 1979?-ed. Don't ask, don't tell... but you can read about it in my forthcoming book. And, no, I didn't get my passport stamped. I flew illegally out of Miami.]
So what is this all about? I'm curious. I'm also curious why the first revelation was about the supposed breach of Obama's information, then suddenly it was revealed that Clinton and McCain had snoopers too. What's it all about, Alfie? (other than campaign filler)
BTW, from the Passport Agency's website,this is the info required for a passport.
1. Your full name at birth and any subsequent name changes and/or the full name of your minor child or children, if you are requesting their records;
2. Your date and place of birth and/or those of your minor child or children;
3. Your current mailing address;
4. Your current daytime telephone number;
5. Your current e-mail address, if available;
6. Your reason for the request;
7. The dates or estimated dates your passports were issued;
8. Your passport numbers or any other information that will help us locate your records; and
9. A copy of requestor’s valid photo identification
There is some stuff in there about addresses and phones I wouldn't like gvien out. But I suspect for senators that most of it goes back to their offices - again.... public record info.
This is a bad morning for Barack Obama on the internet. I doubt he's a fan of Charles Krauthammer, but the former psychiatrist fairly eviscerates the Illinois senator here, posing a series of questions the senator will doubtless never answer. Then, from the left, he is undercut by none other than Mr. Valerie Plame, who, of course, toots his own horn as a man of the Three O'Clock Hour.
And the worst news of all is this: According to a new poll, Democrats look ready to desert for McCain. Will this happen? Will the Democrats, in panic, now work to join together? Ironically, it is McCain's advanced age that militates against this. Odds on, he's a one-term president. Probably both Clinton and Obama camps are keeping their options open for 2012. That, more than anything, could keep them from sharing a ticket.
UPDATE: Krauthammer's final graph merits quoting:
Then answer this, senator: If Wright is a man of the past, why would you expose your children to his vitriolic divisiveness? This is a man who curses America and who proclaimed moral satisfaction in the deaths of 3,000 innocents at a time when their bodies were still being sought at Ground Zero. It is not just the older congregants who stand and cheer and roar in wild approval of Wright's rants, but young people as well. Why did you give $22,500 just two years ago to a church run by a man of the past who infects the younger generation with precisely the racial attitudes and animus you say you have come unto us to transcend?
Is it even worth commenting on Josh Marshall's overheated post about McCain's supposed "gaffe" about the relations between Iran and Al Qaeda in which he informs us McCain is "Unfit to Serve"? I don't read Marshall much but have not noted him to be a Middle East scholar so I am not surprised he is not up to speed on the intricacies of the shifting Iran/Al Qaeda connections that don't always track with conventional Sunni-Shiite dichotomies. He may learn a few things here. But I am surprised he hasn't learned the basic lessons of that great American classic - The Godfather. Al Qaeda and the Iranian Mullahs behave very much like Mafia families. When it's convenient for the families to ally against their enemies, they do. When their enemies are vanquished, they kill each other. Is that too much for Marshall to understand - or shall we buy him another ticket to Pacino? [Somehow I think he doesn't want to hear it.-ed. Somehow I think you're right.]
Just when you stop thinking about Mad Binny, he pops up again like the insane narcissist he is, lest you somehow forget him personally. Heaven forfend his almost as nutty followers would supersede him in the world's attention. So this time he brings back the trusty cartoons--that primitive and idiotic complaint that made us all love Islam so much. He also took a shot at the Pope. And why not? That insolent Crusader had the temerity to call for a reduction of violence in Iraq. Binny knows he was kidding. It's another Crusader trick. [Maybe we should get Obama to reason with him without preconditions? He can bring Reverend Wright to interpret. They both speak the same language.-ed I have one answer to that. What's your favorite Anthony Newley play? Stop the World. I Want to Get Off. You said it.]
Of course, at Pajamas Media, in a situation like this, we don't call "Ghostbusters" or Barack Obama. We call our own Xpress blogger - the man who knows more about the cartoons than anybody because he was behind them - Flemming Rose.
Or is he headed for a rout? Hard to tell, of course, but he's looking good in this new poll. I understand he's coming to California next week, but perhaps he should go on an Asia tour instead, visit Tokyo or Beijing (to complain about the Tibetans), and stay as far above the fray as possible. Of course there's the jetlag to consider. That would wreck me and I'm a spring chicken compared to Mac.
Don't miss Charles Martin's fine obituary of Arthur C. Clarke over on Pajamas this morning. Charlie wrote me almost immediately after the announcement of Clarke's death that he wanted to do one for us and that was a no-brainer. I couldn't imagine anyone better and the obit he produced reads as if he had been working on it for weeks. (Maybe he had - you know these sci-fi guys.) I don't have much to say about Clarke myself except that's it's nice to see people of that quality living long lives.
To say that I am not much of a poet is understatement. The last time I published a poem was a haiku in my high school literary magazine. But something about the current situation inspired me to break into verse. As I said on Pajamas, "I apologize for the inadequacies." It just wasn't enough for me to respond to Obama's speech by pointing out the obvious: that anyone who finds moral equivalence between Wright's racist screeds and his white grandmother's admitting to him in private that she feared black men on the street has got a serious problem.
Okay, I'm breaking my pledge to myself and blogging about Andrew "Mr. Sophist" Sullivan
Now this isn't easy, because understanding Sullivan is like trying to play whack-a-mole, a game at which I am terrible. His opinions switch more often than Arianna Huffington's-- and even more wildly. Today I discovered, of all things, that I am a firmer supporter of gay rights than Andrew, who writes in the midst of the Wright dust-up:
Or my own church, for that matter. What they have all said about gay people is horrifying to me, and I do not share all the political views of my spiritual leaders. The key - it seems to me - is the candidate's public positions on these issues - not what his pastor has said and says in the pulpit. I remain in a church which describes gay people as "intrinsically disordered."
Well, anything to justify Lord Barack, I suppose, but, to be frank, I can't imagine anything more appalling than being in the congregation of a bigot--whether on racial or sexual matters. I wouldn't stand for it for a second. It's a moral issue to me, but I guess not to Andrew.
Earlier in this peculiar mobius curve of a post he writes:
The relevant - the only relevant - question is: are Obama's beliefs represented by the handful of video clips of the most incendiary of Wright's sermons? Or to unpack it a little further: Does Obama believe that black people should damn America? Does he believe that racial separatism is a viable option? Is he a black liberation theologian?
Okay, Andrew, have it your way, but some of us might have a few others, like - Does it show good judgment that a future president of the United States consorts with a racist as his chosen pastor for twenty years? Or do you like it that Obama claims not to have realized Wright's views all this time? Or, in Sullivan's words, "to unpack it further," that that makes Obama either a liar or a fool? (I'm betting on the former.)
Editor's note: This is is all Michael Weiss' fault, since I don't read Sullivan anymore. I found the link here.
The elegant Mr. Kimball writes today of "Soft Jihad," while Andrew Bostom warns of the curious absence of Alan Dershowitz on similar matters.
On the home front, Obama continues to implode (Instapundit). If Matthew Yglesias is correct in his analysis and I think he is:
Obama's going to have a hard time explaining that I take to be the truth, namely that his relationship with Trinity has been a bit cynical from the beginning. After all, before Obama was a half-black guy running in a mostly white country he was a half-white guy running in a mostly black neighborhood. At that time, associating with a very large, influential, local church with black nationalist overtones was a clear political asset . . . . Since emerging onto a larger stage, it's been the reverse and Obama's consistently sought to distance himself from Wright, disinviting him from his campaign's launch, analogizing him to a crazy uncle who you love but don't listen to, etc.
Then what Reynolds says is also true:
The "real" Obama, in other words, probably looks a lot like the "real" person inside most politicians -- somebody who mostly cares about Number One and will do and say what it takes to get elected. The problem for Obama is that Bill Clinton, who ran as a likable rogue, could get away with this sort of thing to an extent that someone who runs as a force for "unity" and "a new kind of politics" can't, since this looks a lot like -- well, actually it looks exactly like -- the old kind of politics.
So this all seems to be good news for that geezer John McCain who is running around the world making the top of Drudge by acting like the President.
Speaking of McCain... and this is highly highly anecdotal obviously... I was at a fund raising party for my daughter's private school last night. It's a Hollywood private school, so naturally has a large number of parents in the entertainment industry. Guess what? Several I talked to are seriously thinking about voting for McCain. In fact to me it sounded as if it were a fait accompli. Jeremiah Wright, apparently, got their attention. And no one believed Obama hadn't known about Wright's views for years.
One more thing: Those who look at Yglesias' post will also see that he thinks this is a"trumped up" issue. He references Congregation Rodef Shalom, which he attended or attends, as an example. He said he didn't always agree with the rabbi on political issues. I'm sure that's so. But I doubt the rabbi of Rodef Shalom is a racist. Jeremiah Wright is. And I doubt Yglesias would ever attend the synagogue of a racist rabbi. Matthew is not even being slightly honest here. This is an example of where liberalism itself has become a religion. That is reactionary in my book.
As a onetime lefty, I'm fairly familiar with political schisms - you know, Trotsky, Lenin, the Third International... that kind of thing. But I was not prepared for the storm on the Daily Kos today. The Hillarians apparently are crying foul about their treatment by the Obamamanians on the popular site and are now striking... in other words not writing for the Daily Kos anymore. The well-known etymologist and and literatur, Markos 'Kos' Moulitsas , demurs before wishing them well: "First, these people should read up on the definition of 'strike.' What they're doing is a 'boycott.' But whatever they call it, I think it's great. It's a big Internet, so I hope they find what they're looking for."
"You Know Me Al": With Obama Wounded and Hillary Unappealing, Will Gore Finally Surface?
I don't know the answer to that, but it certainly occurred to me last night while watching a nervous Obama being interviewed on CNN and Fox. It seems Barack made a very conventional and not "change" worthy mistake that could come back to haunt him, telling a half or untruth by denying he had ever heard his "Uncle" Jeremiah hurling his more extreme Jeremiads. This is almost impossible to believe and even David Gergen - America's own refugee from the Medici Court - raised an eyebrow. Will Obama be finished by this (and the ongoing Rezko affair)? Hard to tell. But the innocent days of "Hope" and "Change" are now as distant as a Doris Day movie. When I saw the word "Change" behind him on the video screen last night, I almost laughed. Even if he wins the nomination, he will have a hard time selling himself as the second coming of anything.
And Hillary, as everyone knows, has shown scant appeal and is close to the most over-exposed candidate in history. (McCain may be lucky to be somewhat out of view for a few months.)
So what is a poor Democratic Party to do... besides sing for a rock and roll band? With two tarnished candidates lumbering toward the convention, this may call for more drastic medicine. There's a great old book about baseball by Ring Lardner (published 1916) called You Know Me Al. Maybe everyone should start reading it. It begins this way: "FRIEND AL: Well, Al old pal I suppose you seen in the paper where I been sold to the White Sox..." (It's available on the Kindle.)
China and Tibet: Will Athletes Desert the Olympics
Watching the coverage of the Beijing smog, which makes LA look like Lapland, on cable news in the run-up to the Olympics, I kept wondering how the athletes could want to compete in this stuff. Now I wonder if they will:
BEIJING - Protests led by Buddhist monks against Chinese rule in Tibet turned violent Friday, bathing Lhasa in smoke from tear gas, bonfires and burned shops, and posing a challenge to China on whether its image can withstand a harsh crackdown ahead of the Beijing Olympics.
At least 10 people were burned to death in the violence, according to a state media report.
You don't have to be Richard Gere to feel queasy about all this. But if the Beijing Olympics come a cropper, the smoke coming out of China may be more lethal than any of us predicted.
Barack Obama has written a well-wrought and definitive statement on the Wright controversy for the Huffington Post. He condemns his former pastor and goes so far as to include the following:
The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation.
UPDATE: Noam Scheiber at The New Republic had this to say:
Whether or not this explanation does the trick depends on two things, I guess: 1.) Most obviously, whether Obama has really never heard Wright preach this kind of stuff. If Obama is somehow placed at a sermon in which Wright went on one of his rants, it's going to be a disaster. (Then again, it would have been a disaster without or without his HuffPo statement.) 2.) How plausible it is that Obama wouldn't have known about Wright's, er, greatest hits. Obama strongly implies he didn't know his pastor had a habit of giving nutty sermons up until the outset of his presidential campaign. Is that believable? Is there any way to disprove it? If the answers are "yes" and "no" respectively, then he'll weather this. If not, it could get uncomfortable.
It may be that Obama will regret ever opening his mouth. "Never complain, never explain," as they old saying goes. Of course, in this case, it wouldn't have been easy.
Now... what are they thinking over at Casa Clinton?
It will be interesting to see if Christopher Ward's possible theft of "as much as one million dollars" from the coffers of the National Republican Congressional Committee gets anywhere near the buzz that Spitzer's recent hijinks did. [Not unless he was using it to pay for hookers.-ed. We don't know yet.] I'm beginning to have the tiniest bit of sympathy for all these politicians being caught at various levels of hanky-panky. Reason: I can't imagine anything worse than being a politician. [Is that enough of an excuse?-ed. No... but it's something.]
Reading this article about how the Chinese are muscling the Nepalese over Everest in preparation for an Olympics inspired or connected expedition to the mountain--the Chis don't want the pesky Tibetan raining on their parade--reminded me of the couple of weeks I spent trekking in Nepal (1989). No, I didn't go anywhere near Everest (or near that high) though we did have a sherpa who had been a guide on Everest expeditions--a delightful fellow with a Buddhist smile. It's an unforgettable experience, if you ever get a chance to do it. Just stay clear of the Maoist guerrillas. (I never saw any myself.)
For those following the continuing legal adventures of Philippe Karsenty - the French media gadfly who accused France 2 (French state TV) of promulgating phony video in the supposed murder of the youth Mohammed al Durah by Israeli troops - Richard Landes' latest piece (France 2 Accused - The Appeals Case Takes Another Turn) is well worth reading.
I'm not much for guilt-by-association, but when I saw the Reverend Jeremiah Wright on television last night (clip below), I realized that Barack Obama has to do a lot more than merely pay lip service to disassociating himself from "some of the comments" of his minister as if Wright were some errant family member. As we all know, we don't choose our family, but Obama chose this racist demagogue as his pastor for decades. It's not funny. Barack is running for President of the United States. As a former civil rights worker, I find it pretty appalling. Was this what we were fighting for? Forget the primaries, in the general election this video is going to be all over the airwaves and the internet. It could do for Obama what Willie Horton did for Dukakis.... But unlike the Willie Horton ad, Obama will deserve this. Horton was a mistake by Dukakis that any of us could have made. Jeremiah Wright was Obama's personal choice for years. And let's not even get into Barack giving Farrakhan the honorific of "Minister" in the recent debate...
The Daily Spitzer: Think Locally, Act Globally... or is it the other way around?
Pajamas Media has an amusing insider look at the high-end escort trade this morning. (Yes, we know how to exploit a story.) My only beef with this one is the author's take once again implies this is another "America Alone" event. (Sorry, Mark, I couldn't resist.) This would be news to your average Dutchman in Bangkok, not to mention anglais, francais, etc. And, lo and behold, guess who Client #6 turns out to be?
Just when we were starting to like France again, along comes the self-indulgent lifestyle of Sarkozy followed by this pompous, bourgeois bilge from his foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, who informs us the "magic is over" for the US. And after the Academy gave an award to the empty-headed actress who performed in that tedious, banal movie about Piaf. What ungrateful... dare I say it?... frogs!
Robert De Niro is just like us-he has problems with his health care provider! De Niro won his case against the Fireman's Fund Insurance, which had sued the actor, alleging that he had withheld information about his medical condition. Fireman's Fund had to cover costs when a prostate cancer scare delayed filming for the De Niro vehicle Hide and Seek blah blah blah. But why is Robert De Niro, a very famous actor, having these middle class problems with his regular-people insurance company? There's no national health care.
Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!... His "health care provider?" Now, come on, Gawker, I know you're not into the political thing - bad for advertising and all that - but you should be into showbiz. That wasn't to do with poor Bobby's health insurance. He has that through the Screen Actor's Guild, just as I do through the Writers Guild. That was on set insurance that movie company's take out in case the film's star goes down with some illness during production and the company is out of pocket 200K a day while everyone cools their heels. Get the difference? I have no idea whether De Niro disclosed his prostate condition during the pre-shooting checkup (yes, they have those), but this has about as much to do with national health insurance as Gawker does with boolean algebra (or whatever else you want to fill in).
People alerted me to David Mamet's article in the Village Voice - Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal'- wondering if the playwright/filmmaker had been reading this blog. I doubt it, but I would be flattered if he had. In any case, it's a cause for celebration when anyone breaks with the sclerotic Hollywood-Broadway orthodoxy - and when it's someone as distinguished as Mamet, it could be cause for a holiday. His words:
I took the liberal view for many decades, but I believe I have changed my mind.
As a child of the '60s, I accepted as an article of faith that government is corrupt, that business is exploitative, and that people are generally good at heart.
These cherished precepts had, over the years, become ingrained as increasingly impracticable prejudices. Why do I say impracticable? Because although I still held these beliefs, I no longer applied them in my life.
...to bloggers, talk show hosts and, of course, the New York Post, which is having a journalistic orgasm. And what luck for the chattering classes - what with the Obama/Hillary duel veering toward the tedious - that El Elioto is not stepping down gracefully and easily. He may even be plotting to hold onto his job... no real surprise there, except for who is instigating his obstinacy. Answer here. (Yes, there's that little matter of not wanting to be sent up. And, yes, my wife wrote it - full disclosure.)
UPDATE: Here's an interesting detail from a very recent AP story saying Spitzer may have spent as much as 80K on hookers:
Atill another law enforcement official said investigators found that during the tryst with Kristen on the night before Valentine's Day, Spitzer used two rooms at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington - one for himself, the other for the prostitute. Sometime around 10 p.m., Spitzer sneaked away from his security detail and made his way to the room where she was waiting, the official said. The three officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.
Hmmm... "Spitzer sneaked away from his security detail..." Now how did it he do that? Slip them a Mickey Finn perhaps? Or was his security detail in on the drill? Sound familiar?
Cheney's Trip: Should the US Be Reining in Oil Prices?
Sure, in the short run, it would be a good thing. But in the long run, I think Dick Cheney's apparent mission (to convince King Abdullah to lower oil prices) takes the eye way off the ball and is an example of the political "old thinking" we're getting on both sides of the aisle these days. In some ways, Cheney seems like a junkie begging for a lower price on his drug. Enough already. Forget Abdullah. Our society should make a mission of getting off foreign oil and onto new and old (nuclear) technologies. Otherwise we will remain whores to religious psychopaths (Saudi Arabia, Iran) and just plain psychopaths ((Venezuela). Why not some real creativity from our politicians instead of the same old drivel? (That includes Obama, who sounds like a refugee from a Sincalir Lewis novel.)
Spitzer Update -Strange Doings on Planet Dershowitz
Alan Dershowitz showed himself to be monumentally out of touch with humanity when he cluelessly asserted on MSNBC this afternoon, re: Spitzer:
I have two reactions. One, I feel terrible for Eliot and his family. But I feel that this is a America-only story that we have to put in perspective. You know, big deal, married man goes to prostitute! In Europe, this wouldn't even make the back pages of the newspaper. It's a uniquely American story. We're a uniquely, you know, pandering society and hypocritical society, when it comes to sex.
America only? I'm assuming Dershowitz has been living in a cave somewhere for the last six months and missed the entire French nation getting in a twist over Sarkozy's affair and then marriage to Carla Bruni - and that was completely legal and aboveboard. Only someone truly square (like a lawyer?) still believes that canard about sophisticated Europe/naive US. Moreover, the outcry against Spitzer was not because he was some man seeing a prostitute, but because he was a guy who puts prostitutes in jail seeing a prostitute. Meanwhile, the Times Online has it not on page 23 or whatever, but on its front page. You can imagine where it would be were this true of Tony Blair or Gordon Brown. Oh, Dershowitz must have forgotten the Profumo Affair. Time for Alan to amend his statements.
The NYT may have been trying to get McCain of late, but the real sex scandal has hit the Democratic side. It was poor Eliot Spitzer's wife who was forced to be the latest spouse to be humiliated before the cameras by the actions of her spouse. The whole thing is straight out of Moliere -- a crusading public official caught as the object of his crusade. According to the Times: Mr. Spitzer gained national attention when he served as attorney general with his relentless pursuit of Wall Street wrongdoing. As attorney general, he also had prosecuted at least two prostitution rings as head of the state's organized crime task force.
In one such case in 2004, Mr. Spitzer spoke with revulsion and anger after announcing the arrest of 16 people for operating a high-end prostitution ring out of Staten Island.
This has got to be bad news for Hilary because this kind of public sexual hypocrisy reminds people of one person only more than others: William Jefferson Clinton. Now, to be clear, Clinton's sad dalliance with Monica was not illegal (Spitzer allegedly violated the Mann Act), but it became illegal when Bill lied. The country was then shut down for essentially trivial private occurrence. Why people would to see a rerun of this kind of behavior in the White House eludes me. The Spitzer Scandal - one more step for Obama.
Nick Cohen in his Pajamas and what some people are saying about me
I am proud to see Nick Cohen's artful piece - Why Brits Don't Swoon Over Obama - on PJM this morning. Nick is one of the originators of The Euston Manifesto. Of note is his commentary on why the Tories seem to be favoring Hillary in this election: "The Conservatives have also grasped what liberals still don't understand: Bill Clinton was one of them. His balanced budgets look good to Tory eyes when compared against the deficits of the Bush years, while his attacks on the needy have inspired the Tories to propose bringing his welfare 'reforms' to Britain."
I was amused to read this today not only for its perspicacity, but also because just the other day I was attacked because Pajamas Media and supposedly I think of Hillary Clinton as a "monster." Well, to be honest, I voted for Hillary Clinton in the California Primary, because I am still a registered Democrat. I have voted only twice for a Republican in my life. Yes, I intend to vote for McCain in the general, but I don't normally vote for people I regard as "monsters" even in the primary. And in truth I don't regard any American politicians as monsters, not current ones anyway... liars and hypocrites, maybe...but monsters, no, not anything close. I reserve that term for the likes of Saddam Hussein, Ayatollah Khomeini, Stalin, etc.
But obviously that doesn't stop people from imputing this hatred to me. Interesting, isn't it? Perhaps the apostate thing makes me a magnet. Or maybe it's projection. Anyway, enjoy Cohen's piece. It's a good one.
Trapped on Virgin America from NY to LA for some five hours last night, I had the opportunity to do something I might not normally - watch Samantha Power's interview with the BBC in its entirety. It had already been announced that the Pulitzer Prize winner was resigning her position with the Obama campaign, so I was surprised to see it still playing on the plane's satellite TV, but there it was. (You can find it here.)
Power came off to me as a young woman quite full of herself and overly impressed with her own closeness to and influence on Obama. But perhaps I was reacting to the news I read elsewhere that the candidate text messages her (or did) in the middle of the night for foreign policy advice. What's most interesting to me, however, is how Power characterized Obama's approach to Iraq, which seems conspicuously different from his public statements. Apparently Mr. Obama's vaunted 16-month withdrawal plan is only a "best-case scenario." Well, there are plenty of those, as in the Dow will go up 2000 points next week or gas will drop to $1.75 a gallon by Thursday. What Power was clearly admitting, assuming she is correct, is that Obama--that lord of "new politics" and scourge of the "special interests"--has been conning the anti-war throngs. Maybe Rezko isn't such an aberration.
When confronted with this hypocrisy, Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe pointed to Hillary Clinton as being equally hypocritical on the issue. MSNBC's First Read wades into this mess as follows:
On Obama's 16-month Iraq withdrawal plan, Power told BBC that it was a "best-case scenario," that nothing firm could be decided in March 2008 without seeing the situation on the ground in Jan. 2009 and that "He will, of course, not rely on some plan that he’s crafted as a presidential candidate or a U.S. Senator." When asked about it, Plouffe defended Obama's plan and deflected by pointing to retired Gen. Jack Keane's comments on Clinton's own intentions on withdrawing troops from Iraq.
"He did not believe that she will pursue a quick withdrawal," Plouffe said of Keane, who he said Clinton has developed a "close relationship" with.
Kean told the New York Sun this past weekend: "I have no doubts whatsoever that if she were president in January '09 she would not act irresponsibly and issue orders to conduct an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, regardless of the consequences, and squander the gains that have been made."
He also said Clinton "generally supported the surge strategy in the sense she wanted it to succeed but she was skeptical about its chances."
As far as I can recall, we have had not one single moment of honesty from either Clinton or Obama on this issue - the most important of our times - throughout these entire months of debates. What pathetic phonies.
Now there's a question! Why is McCain angry at the New York Times? Gee, there's a tough one - after what the NYT did to McCain the other week, writing a front page article implying he had an affair with no evidence. It's a miracle McCain lets the NYT on his campaign plane. Would you? He seems like the soul of forbearance, considering their behavior.... But here's the larger question - why the NYT at all? Why are they more entitled to be on that plane than Joe Blogger from Hannibal, MO? Interesting question, isn't it?
Power to the Stupid: Obama's Choice of Samantha Power as an Advisor...
... shows worse judgment on the part of Barack than his consorting with the sleazy Rezko. Rezko, after all, was being used for cheap real estate, campaign cash, etc. - standard fare, alas, for our politicians. Power - who is such an undiplomatic nitwit that she would call Hillary Clinton a "monster" to the press in the midst of a presidential campaign - is an Obama "senior foreign policy advisor," of all things. How unsophisticated can you get? It was this woman who recommended we talk with Ahmadinejad if only to register our "displeasure." If this is what we want in the White House, I'm baffled.
UPDATE: If I were Obama, I'd fire Ms. Power today. Let's see what he does. In a sense, it's a defining moment.
I am in New York -- the city of my birth -- for today en route home to LA from the Politics Online conference in DC. Waking up in my sister and borther-in-laws appartment, my brother-in-law passed me this article from the NY Sun -- Mayor: Muslim Holy Days Shouldn't Be School Holidays. "As Drudge would say, the article contains what was, for me at least, a "shocker": A 2004 Columbia University study estimated that 102,000 Muslim children attended city public schools, making them about 10% of the city's student population." That was 2004. What is it now? So much, in any case, for Jesse Jackson's vaunted "hymietown". Should we now be closing our eyes and looking forward to the imposition of Sharia Law at Zabar's? Crazier things have happened in the history of humanity. I blush to admit I haven't read any of Robert Ferrigno's futuristic thrillers yet, in which the author envisions courageous holdouts battling inside an Islamic US. Maybe I should.
What would you do if you were the Prime Minister of Israel?
The horrific news today from Jerusalem put me in mind of that age old question. I may be th village atheist but the idea that some religious psychopath could march into a yeshiva and shoot everyone in sight until someone stops him sends me reaching for my non-existent guns. And on top of that Hamas praises the act and people dance in the streets of Gaza. What a culture they have.
So what would you do? I think I am basically a hothead and would not exercise restraint. Tonight I think, if I were the Prime Minister of Israel, I would sat to the citizens of Gaza "You want a state? From today, you've got one. Behave like one." And when the inevitable katyushas came, I would do to them what the United States did to Dresden.... Of course, I do not know that I would really do this. But that's the way I think right now. There may be no other one in the end.
Sitting here on the Amtrak train DC-NY, I had a laugh reading an oped in the NYT - Grand Old Protectionists - by Robert E. Lighthizer, a trade attorney and, apparently, a conservative. Besides doing the obvious - reminding us that, until November, the NYT will be an open dumping ground for conservatives with something bad to say about McCain - it was a marvelous exemplar of my article in Pajamas yesterday - Is Liberal the New Conservative? What Lighthizer tries to do is prove that free trade is a liberal, not a conservative position. [Isn't he a trade attorney?-ed. Doesn't he make money off restrictions in trade? Shhh....] He does this by cherry-picking quotes from famous conservatives in opposition to free trade. Of course, as anyone knows, he could probably find plenty of quotes from conservatives saying free trade is a good thing. Even Lighthizer refers to one mysterious "writer in National Review" but doesn't deign to give the name. No surprise there. He might be someone respected. What the oped doesn't contain, of course, is any argument about whether free trade is or is not a good thing. He just waves the word "conservative" around. More ideological baloney.
As it happens I'm headed to New York from DC in an hour where an explosion occurred doing minor damage to a Times Square recruiting office. I will be arriving in Penn Station, of course, but it will be interesting to see if there is any heightened security. Well, scratch that. Maybe it won't be that interesting - just inconvenient. See Annie Jacobsen's piece on Pajamas this morning. This security business isn't easy. Flying as much as I do I tend to get riled at the long lines. But is there a better way? Again, not easy.
You know that old line about Washington being Hollywood for ugly people. Well it's being revised by Barack Obama, who's a pretty good looking guy. But is he just a pretty face? We're going to be finding out in the weeks to come as the game changes. It will also be interesting to see if Obama and Clinton can stay on good enough terms to to run together eventually without it being a joke. (Yes, I know Kennedy and LBJ hated each other, but that was in another media age.)
Now we see that Barack is hinting at taking a tougher stand on Hillary. Is this all a dream come true for John McCain. I heard Karl Rove theorizing it might not that be that good, what with McCain being bumped off the front pages for a while. But (dare I contradict The Rove?) maybe that's not such a bad thing, especially since he will certainly be back.... Or was Rove just playing it cute, knowing full well things are breaking in McCain's favor? Vamos a ver.
I'm supposed to give the real skinny on the Dennis Miller Show tomorrow, but... as a preview.... assuming it doesn't change radically after tonight's results... the buzz among the politically obsessed (who else attends something called the Politics Online Conference?)... is amazement... call it even shock and awe... that Obama may have shot himself in the foot over NAFTA at the last possible moment to save Hillary's campaign. Of course, these are the political cognescenti and ahead of the curve on such things, so the voters may not have caught up with it. But the further buzz is that they will and things like this will make Obama a weak candidate in the Fall. Ironically, Hillary would be the stronger Dem candidates, although the polls have been showing Obama the stronger for some time. Call it the political "futures" market.
... otherwise known as the Starbuck's capital of the world (isn't every conference these days?)... speaking of which I just spilled my cup all over the Pajamas Media booth table, barely missing this computer.
A lot of this event is about online political advertising. So guess who's here? The ad reps for Giuliani and Thompson (neither of whom are buying any ads anymore, needless to say). Obama and Clinton reps not in evidence. They're off in Texas and Ohio. There's a McCain person here somewhere - probably hiding in a phone booth.
I don't believe this for a minute: ...the Canadian Embassy in Washington released a statement essentially backing up the Obama camp's version of the meeting between adviser Austan Goolsbee and officials at the Canadian consulate in Chicago.
"There was no intention to convey, in any way, that Senator Obama and his campaign team were taking a different position in public from views expressed in private, including about NAFTA," the embassy statement said. "We deeply regret any inference that may have been drawn to that effect.".
What I believe is this - the Canadian government doesn't want to be involved in a dust-up of this nature with a possible future president of the United States. The real story has yet to be told.
I'm off to DC this morning to attend the Politics Online Conference. I will be on a panel Wednesday at 1:15P. I promise - no Power Points. (I don't no how to do them anyway.) I've been trying out my jokes on my daughter. "Oh, dad...." she says, scrunched face.... Maybe I can do some rewriting on the plane. [Never plan jokes.-ed. You don't say? Ever go to a Jackie Mason Show?]
52-points.... 30 in the fourth quarter and overtime.
"We gave him a single look, then we double-teamed him, then we gave him a triple-team and he split the triple-team and scored,'' Johnson said. "We tried to zone him, we tried to funnel him in the trap for a zone and he went the other way. He didn't cooperate on any of our defenses.
"Obviously he milked the free throw line on us and he just had it all going. He's a great player. He has these (games). Lots of these.''
Run, don't walk, over to Power Line where John Hinderaker has, once again, eviscerated the gang at CBS/60 Minutes. It's almost incredible, when you think about it. CBS is the network that gave us Dan Rather and is now being sued by the anchorman they fired for his obvious prevarications on 60 Minutes. And now the 60 Minutes crew is at it again.
This time Hinderaker takes apart their new story on Don Siegelman/Jill Simpson. Maybe CBS now will accuse John, also once again, of being "some guy in his pajamas" as some semi-literate factotum over there did during the Rather affair. Déjà vu all over again, as the great Mr. Berra told us. We can add the famous clichés from Lord Acton and Santayana into the bargain.
What amazes me about the mainstream media - the New York Times last week with their puerile hit job on McCain and now CBS- is how deeply unsophisticated they are. Bloggers are supposed to be the rubes, but it's the other way around.
But go read Hinderaker. He did his homework on this one.
March 31, 2008