Herbert's Hollow History (Check out the links, they're awesome!)

In today's NYT, Bob Herbert laments the sorry state of American politics; the particular bee in Herbert's bonnet is the manner in which Republicans and Democrats deliberately dumb-down (take that as an active verb) complex issues like Iraq and the economy in order to sway a hopelessly ill-informed and uninterested electorate. As Herbert (memorably) puts it:

"...we're a nation of nitwits, and a presidential campaign at a critical moment in world history will be spoon-fed to us like an ad for Wheaties."

In this, Herbert is undoubtedly correct. But, unfortunately, Herbert is not content with making a legitimate intellectual point. He feels compelled to present the issue as a partisan rallying point. And he does an amazingly idiotic job of it.

As we have seen, Herbert's understanding of the political present is not the problem; what we will see is that his discussion of the past is woefully - woefully - inadequate. Let's take a a look at Herbert's claims.

[And in case you missed the title, do check out the forthcoming links! They are pants-wettingly funny. And I don't use that term lightly, or ever, really.]

Herbert traces the current paucity of substance in presidential campaigns to the influence of two individuals who worked on American political campaigns during the past fifty years. Oddly enough, both are Republicans. (Who would've guessed?!)

First off, Harry Treleaven, "an advertising man who took a leave of absence in the mid-1960's to work on the Texas Congressional campaign of 42-year-old George Herbert Walker Bush" and who later worked on the presidential campaign of Richard Nixon [pause for obligatory hiss].

At the time, Treleaven wrote [quoted by Herbert], ''Most national issues today are so complicated, so difficult to understand and have opinions on, that they either intimidate or, more often, bore the average voter.'' Trealeaven's response was to avoid intricate discussion of the issues. As one historian said of Trealeaven [also quoted by Herbert], ''There was no issue when it came to selling Ford automobiles; there were only the product, the competition and the advertising. He saw no reason why politics should be any different.''

It is Trealeaven's influence, says Herbert, that colors America's campaigns today:"Mr. Treleaven died in 1998, but the path-breaking cynicism of his type of politics hangs like a shroud over this year's presidential campaign."

And later:

"These [problems in Iraq and the economy] are issues that should be ruthlessly explored, but the politicians, their handlers and much of the media have taken their cues from Harry Treleaven."

Not bad - the guy's been dead for six years, but the media are still taking their cue from him. And let's not forget that path-breaking cynicism that hangs like a shroud over the campaign. (and you thought that was Elizabeth Edwards' shadow!)

But wait - shouts Herbert - it's not just Trealeaven! There's another villain. Who could it be? why, it's "Raymond Price, a speechwriter for Nixon in the 1968 campaign, [who] was as contemptuous of substance in politics as Treleaven. 'It's not what's there that counts,' he wrote, 'it's what's projected.' In Price's view, 'Voters are basically lazy, basically uninterested in making an effort to understand what we're talking about.' ''

Ok, phew. Now we know the truth. It was Trealeaven and Price - both working for Nixon [hiss] in the 1960s - who engineered this sinister movement in election politics. And hey, is anyone surprised? Who else but Nixon's evil minions could have ushered us into a political world so devoid of substance and seriousness and so condescending to the American electorate? Imagine that - treating American citizens like mindless fools who care not a whit about the issues. Those arrogant bastards!

Perhaps inconvenient to Herbert's self-serving narrative is this little clip from a campaign commercial on behalf of Eisenhower's presidential campaign in 1952. [Hit the little red play arrow beneath the cartoon image of Ike]. Or this clip from Eisenhower's opponent, Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson.

(If you're having problems with the video, just read the transcripts. They're worth reading in any case - and many thanks, by the way, to the American Museum of the Moving Image).


Could this be? Is it possible that Republican and Democratic candidates avoided real issues with catchy campaign slogans - years before Trealeaven and Price showed up on the scene? For anyone with even the slightest grounding in American political history (and my grounding is slight indeed), the answer would have to be a resounding yes. Consider a couple of examples (among many others):

1) 1828 - the presidential campaing that is widely considered one of the dirtiest in our history.

a) Andrew Jackson was portrayed by his opponents as a murderer and adulterer (with his wife, Rachel - the "American Jezebel" - who took up residence with Jackson before her divorce from a previous marriage was finalized).
b) Jackson's supporters took to distributing hickory toothpicks and and walking sticks, in deference to their hero, "Old Hickory" Jackson. [Perhaps Trealeaven traveled back to the 1820s (in a Delorean?) in order to spread this pathbreakingly cynical strategy.]
c) Jackson's supporters, moreover, accused his opponent - John Quincy Adams - of hooking up American virgins with the Russian czar. (Adams had been America's ambassador to Russia).

2) Perhaps no American political slogan is as catchy - and, ultimately meaningless - as that which accompanied the 1840 Presidential ticket of Harrison and Tyler: "Tippecanoe and Tyler too."

Here's one paragraph of the song in which the slogan appeared:

"What has caused the great commotion, motion, motion,Our country through?It is the ball a rolling on, on. (Chorus) For Tippecanoe and Tyler too - Tippecanoe and Tyler too, And with them we'll beat little Van, Van, Van."

And Trealeaven was path-breakingly cynical?

Hey Herby, wake up, human nature hasn't changed much in the past, oh, couple thousand years. Politicians have always been aware that popularity is a function - to some degree - of manipulating the public by emphasizing points and issues that best reflect their own strengths and prospects. Perhaps Trealeaven and Price came up with some fancy terminology or polling data that capture this reality - though, tellingly, you don't provide us with any such data - but cynical and issue-avoidant political campaigning are as old as politics itself, a fact that makes your otherwise-worthwhile lament into a typically misleading partisan screed.

Play of the Year

Just wanted to get this on record - though I've been saying it for a while. Bush will win this election. It wil not be close (electorally, at least).

Plays of the week

1) OVTI - looks like solid play. weakhearted might want to wait until earnings, Tuesday after close.

2) CIPH

3) GTW

Looking for brief pullback in CIPH, GTW, for best entry.

Yeah, I'm really busy. But I wanted to post something. So there you go. (PS, I have a horrible track record).

Hope to bash Dahlia Lithwick soon.

Athens’ Special Olympians

Okay. This is an updated version of an essay I wrote for my school paper a couple of years back. I think it's a cool argument, even though I'm not sure I totally buy it. But what's cool - if you're into this kind of thing - is that it turns liberalism against itself (more on that, some other time). Aright, enough intro. And if I don't piss off at least one feminist with it, then, well, then I'm not really sure what the point of this site really is.


Athens' Special Olympians

Lost amidst the security concerns and general hoopla generated by the current Olympic Games in Athens is the simple fact that this Olympiad, like every other since 1900, features a politically correct element perhaps unparalleled in any other global venue. This feature is never mentioned in the massive advertising campaign launched by NBC to promote the Olympics, but its influence permeates the essence and totality of the Olympic Games as we know them. The Olympics thoroughly empowers a physically disadvantaged minority – whose constituents are neither the world’s fastest, strongest, nor best – and affords its members the legitimacy of worldwide athletic acclaim. The disadvantaged minority members being referred to, of course, are Athens’ female athletes.

Although not conventionally perceived in this way, the participation of women in the Olympic Games represents an exemplar of the purest sort of affirmative action. Consider the following: The sixteen fastest swimmers on planet Earth happen to be males. Yet, rather than having these sixteen, most qualified, individuals compete for the title of “world’s fastest swimmer,” the organizers of the Games disqualify swimmers nine through sixteen and ensure that eight other, female, swimmers participate in their own competition for the title of “world’s fastest female swimmer.” And so, instead of one competition between the world’s elite swimmers, we are provided with two races, one to decide the world’s fastest swimmer, and the second to determine the champion swimmer of a subgroup of athletes who can be considered fast swimmers – that is to say, extraordinarily and unusually fast swimmers – only if the competition is circumscribed to exclude the half of humanity with the inborn predisposition towards optimum athletic achievement.

But this, perhaps novel, understanding of the Olympic Games need not foment, in itself, any degree of consternation. So long as the participation of female athletes is recognized for what it truly is – the implementation of a particular format of competition, in which rank is decided not strictly by merit but by extraneous factors as well – why should the system spawn any sort of complaint? Conventional wisdom seems to dictate that the Olympic system is perfectly sound; the best athletes conduct one competition, and a separate, less rigorous, competition is reserved for female athletes. The system could hardly be fairer.

Furthermore, a potentially troublesome point raised above can be dispatched rather easily. It was remarked that in conducting two separate competitions – and let us continue with our example of a race among swimmers – the Olympics, in effect, preempts the participation of swimmers nine through sixteen among the world’s sixteen fastest swimmers and substitutes the fastest female athletes. But this contention is illusory. For after all, even if there were no separate contest for females, what compelling reason is there to believe that the men’s competition would be broadened to include eight additional competitors? None comes to mind. Seemingly, female athletes do not impinge upon the men’s competition; they simply complement it.

The accommodation of female athletes, then, seems perfectly justified: no one mistakes the fastest female swimmer for the world’s fastest swimmer; female athletes seem not to occlude the Olympic destiny of athletes greater than they; and the participation of females in the Olympic Games indubitably serves as an inspirational example for women around the world. Is there any sense, then, in which the participation of female athletes seems anything less than equitable?

Indeed, one dimension to the participation of female athletes in the Olympics represents the starkest form of discrimination. Ironically, the tremendous lengths to which the organizers of the Olympic Games have gone to include female athletes has obscured the fact that this arrangement systematically disenfranchises an enormous percentage of the world’s population – the group of athletes with any physical shortcoming other than that of being female. For, as we have already noted, the Olympic Games have been designed to establish two parallel, but wholly unequal, athletic competitions – one that measures the athletic skill of the world’s finest athletes, and another that gauges the skills of a physically disadvantaged subgroup of the world’s athletes, namely, the female athletes. But is such largesse bestowed upon other groups of athletes with physical disadvantages?

The problem here being examined is very simple. In general, athletes with physical circumstances preventing them from competing in the highest level of competition are provided with some particular, non-mainstream, venue in which they can showcase their skill: athletes with physical or developmental disabilities participate in the Special Olympics; athletes below a certain age level, who are limited by the relative physical immaturity of their bodies, compete in the Junior Olympics; and even Jews, because of their genetic (or otherwise determined) athletic deficiencies, feel the need to arrange the Maccabia Games, the Jewish Olympics. Our question, then, is the following: Why is it that females, who – bottom line – simply cannot realistically vie for supremacy in athletic competition with males, are not relegated to some sort of “Women’s Olympics” parallel to the other “special-interest” Olympic Games, but instead are indulged as if they fully epitomize elite athletic competition?

The organizers of the Olympics, in other words, are faced with the following dilemma: If the Olympic Games are supposed to be an athletic competition based solely on merit, females should be judged according to the same criteria that apply to men – in which case, they [and, for that matter, lightweight male boxers, and perhaps a few other such athletes] most likely would not qualify to actually compete. However if, on the other hand, the Olympics are not about pure athletic merit but rather about allowing people with physical disadvantages to demonstrate their athletic skill on a worldwide stage, why are women [and lightweight male boxers] the only group to be granted this privilege? Why are contests among female Olympians broadcast in prime time on network television all across the world, while competitors in the Special Olympics, the Junior Olympics, and the Jewish Olympics receive only minimal, if any, media coverage? Furthermore, why are the Special Olympics called the Special Olympics (or any of the other Olympics given their own specific designation)? What defect makes a Special Olympian (or a participant in the Junior Olympics or the Jewish Olympics) unworthy of the simple moniker “Olympian”? Why must we stamp the athlete with the qualifying title, “Special” (or “Junior” or “Jewish”)? And given that we do refer to these Olympians with these specific labels – which mark the fact that these athletes cannot physically compete in athletic competition of the highest caliber – why are the Olympic Games’ women athletes not referred to as “Female Olympians”?

The only obvious distinction between the group consisting of the world’s female citizens and the groups made up of the world’s physically or developmentally disabled, young, and Jewish citizens, respectively, is that the group of females has many more members than any of the other groups. Relative size, then, is a factual distinction between the group of women and all the other groups. But does the size of a group justify affording it special treatment? Well, in free and democratic societies, no. In general, modern societies and governments that profess to adhere to progressive – or just, or equitable (or some other such adjective) – policies go out of their way to enact and enforce legislation that prevents any group, even the most populous group, from receiving privileged treatment. For instance, though the United States has many more white citizens than black citizens, white people in America – under the law – are entitled to no special protection or privileges simply on the basis of their belonging to the most populous American demographic. So, in a truly equitable world, it seems that simple numbers would not justify preferential treatment. And, extending that logic to our example: The considerable number of females in the world seems not to constitute legitimate grounds for the exclusive treatment that female athletes competing in the Olympic Games receive.

A number of other possible distinctions (between women and all other physically disadvantaged groups) perhaps merit consideration, but I found none particularly compelling and will not discuss each independently. Instead – as my analysis unearthed no meaningful distinction that would justify the status quo – I will, rather than justify the status quo in a normative sense, attempt to explain, in a pragmatic sense, why it is that female athletes are in fact afforded privileged treatment that is denied other physically disadvantaged athletes.

The reason that female athletes receive preferential treatment has nothing to do with consideration of athletic merit or fair play and everything to do with economics. Athletic competition, it must be realized, comprises only one element – though an essential element, to be sure – of the phenomenon known as the Olympic Games. But in addition to athletic competition among nations, the Olympics constitutes the quintessential example of corporate commercialism. Today, the single-biggest driving force behind the marketing bonanza known as the Olympic Games is the dollar. According to a study by USA Today in 2002, the entire operating budget of the Olympics – approximately two billion dollars – derives from “sponsorship, broadcast, and ticket revenue.” Corporate sponsorship represents the largest source of funds – 42% of the total, or $840 million. Broadcasting rights earns the silver for a contribution of 37% of the budget, or $740 million. In short, it should be unmistakably evident that the Olympics, which receive about 80% of their budget ($1.6 billion) directly from corporations, are largely beholden to corporate interests. (It could even be reasonably argued – though I do not do so here – that non-corporate sources of funding for the Olympics such as ticket and merchandise sales are themselves a derivative of corporate promotion and sponsorship).

And it is this mutualistic relationship between the Olympics and the world’s (primarily America’s) largest corporations – based as it is on the realities of the capital markets rather than on any principled devotion to athletic competition – that guarantees female athletes the worldwide media exposure and general validation denied all other physically limited athletes. We noted above that the major factual distinction between the group of the world’s female athletes and the groups of all other physically disadvantaged athletes was numeric. We concluded that this differentiating factor does not ethically justify special treatment for female athletes. But ethical justification, of course, is in no way a precondition for corporate (or any other) action.

The simple fact is that the world’s female population represents the world’s – and Nielsen’s – single largest demographic group. And the single most effective method of ensuring that women tune in to the Games is to ensure that female viewers identify with the athletes who are competing. Hence, female Olympians are Olympians, while all other physically disadvantaged groups are considered undeserving of that appellative. In truth, the bureaucrats and businessmen who control the Olympics are not the least bit concerned with providing female athletes a worldwide forum in which to showcase their athletic skill, but they are most assuredly concerned with boosting networking ratings, even if it entails the adoption of discriminatory criteria regarding who may participate as an Olympic athlete.

But, in a sense, perhaps this realization – that the inclusion of female athletes in the Olympics is an economic, rather than moral, policy – can provide youngsters, Jews, the disabled, and all other physically disadvantaged athletes some measure of solace. For, in theory, these groups, too, might one day qualify for the real Olympics. The organizers of the Olympics have no ideological objection to their participation and would gladly provide them with a “seat at the table” – so long, of course, as their participation guarantees that sufficient millions of Americans will be moved to occupy a seat on the couch.

McGreevey Mess

Any suggestions for tomorrow's NYPost and Daily News Headlines?

I'm going with: QUEEN JAMES!

More NYT’s (In)Consistency

The NYT has recently demonstrated a great deal of consistency. In being inconsistent, that is. In late July, I reported on the Times’s rather elastic notion of organizational accountability (other organizations – accountability good; at the NYT, accountability bad). And now, during the past couple of weeks – in response to the heightened terror warnings – the good people at the Times editorial desk have provided us with yet another example of their peculiarly Timesian method of evaluating public policy.

Back in April, a media-induced public groundswell of opinion demanded that National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice testify in front of the 9/11 Commission and respond to questioning from the Commissioners. After initially opposing such an arrangement, the Bush administration gave its consent, and Rice appeared before the Commission on April 8, 2004. Rice, of course, was peppered with questions – most insistently by Democratic Commissioners Bob Kerrey and Richard Ben-Veniste.

The most dramatic exchange occurred when Ben-Veniste zeroed in on the matter of an August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB), which warned of Bin Laden’s intent to strike in the United States:

BEN-VENISTE: Isn't it a fact, Dr. Rice, that the August 6 PDB warned against possible attacks in this country? And I ask you whether you recall the title of that PDB?
RICE: I believe the title was, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States."


After the audience – as expected – gasped and Ben-Veniste failed in his attempt to silence Rice before she could answer his first question, Rice was finally permitted to explain why the PDB was not the immediate call-to-arms that its title might suggest.


RICE: You said, did it not warn of attacks.[?] It did not warn of attacks inside the United States. It was historical information based on old reporting [from 1998]. There was no new threat information. And it did not, in fact, warn of any coming attacks inside the United States.


The key word here, please take note, was “historical.” The reason that the PDB did not inspire robust new counter-terrorism measures, said Dr. Rice, was because there was nothing in the briefing that suggested a robust new terror threat existed.

The Times editors, of course, were not mollified by this explanation. First, the very next day (April 9), they cast doubt on Rice’s contention that the memo indeed contained “historical” information:

“The administration argument that it had only gotten intelligence about potential terrorist attacks abroad in the summer of 2001 was rather drastically undermined when Ms. Rice revealed, under questioning, that the briefing given Mr. Bush by the C.I.A. on Aug. 6, 2001, was titled ''Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.'' Ms. Rice continues to insist that the information was ''historical'' rather than a warning of something likely to occur.”

This initial attack crumbled on April 10, when the PDB was declassified and Rice’s contention was confirmed. Still, the Times would not let the memo go. On April 12, the editors returned to “the now-famous Aug. 6, 2001, memo he [President Bush] received on domestic terrorism.”

This time, the editors admitted that, “Perhaps no other administration would have responded differently to the skimpy document Mr. Bush received in August 2001.” Yet, earlier in the editorial, they complain that Mr. Bush could have done more to prevent the attacks after receiving the “skimpy” document:


“He could, for instance, have left his vacation in Texas after receiving that briefing memo entitled ''Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.'' and rushed back to the White House, assembled all his top advisers and demanded to know what, in particular, was being done to screen airline passengers to make sure people who fit the airlines' threat profiles were being prevented from boarding American planes.”


Ok, let’s attempt to be fair. We may not entirely approve of the Times’s April coverage of the PDB story, but it is wasn’t wholly unreasonable. The editors treated Dr. Rice’s claims with skepticism until the PDB was released, after which they admitted that it was a “skimpy” document. True, their simultaneous criticism of President Bush’s lack of a forceful response to the PDB smacks of 20/20 hindsight – after all, they admit that it was a “skimpy” document that likely would have been treated the same way by any administration – but, to be perfectly honest, every sane American wishes that the President (and the federal government, and all previous administrations) had done more to ensure airline safety and combat terrorism.

Like I said, the April coverage is – at least – defensible. Yes, the Times admits, the document really was historical; it did not contain new actionable intelligence. But wouldn’t it have been better if the President had done more, anyway? Well, wouldn’t it have been?

Fast forward four months. August 1, 2004. The Bush administration releases an urgent alert of possible terror attacks against New York financial buildings and various other targets. The Times reports on August 2: In response to alarming intelligence, “New York City, Washington, the State of New Jersey and major financial institutions in Manhattan and northern New Jersey stepped up security yesterday to the highest levels since the terrorist attacks of three years ago…”

The response was vigorous and broad-based, as demonstrated by these three (among numerous other relevant) excerpts from a NYT news piece:

“‘We are deploying our full array of counterterrorism resources,’ Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday [Aug. 1] at a briefing called to announce the assignment of special police units and other measures to guard the stock exchange, Citigroup buildings in Midtown Manhattan and Queens and other potential targets. 'We will spare no expense and we will take no chances.’''

“Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, who joined Mr. Bloomberg at City Hall, said that trucks would be banned from the Williamsburg Bridge, which links Brooklyn to Lower Manhattan, starting today, to help police concentrate vehicle searches on the nearby Manhattan Bridge. Manhattan-bound trucks will also be diverted from the Holland Tunnel to the Lincoln Tunnel and the George Washington Bridge, where truck searches are to be conducted, officials said.”

“The New York Stock Exchange in Lower Manhattan was barricaded and heavily guarded yesterday, as usual. And extra contingents of special antiterrorism officers with automatic weapons were visible outside the Citigroup building at 54th Street and Lexington Avenue, at a Citigroup tower in Long Island City, Queens, and at the 24-story Prudential headquarters in Newark, where barricades were set up to block traffic from surrounding streets.”


Now this, you must be thinking, this level of urgency, this level of immediacy, this level of seriousness – this is the way to respond to the threat of terrorism! This is the United States government at its finest – its resolute, decisive leaders, mobilizing every resource at their disposal to protect the lives of its citizens. If you are like me, you also find yourself thinking – If Only! If only on August 6, 2001, our leaders had known what we know now, that a dedicated group of Islamofascists is plotting, every day, to kill us and our way of life. If only our leaders had showcased then the admirable vigilance – even hyper-vigilance – which they have displayed during the past two weeks.

Such was not the view of the editors on 43rd Street. There, the government’s present mobilization of resources against a terrorist threat was perceived in a different light, especially when it was revealed that the intelligence upon which the alerts were based were historical (there’s that word again) in nature:

“The Times reports today [August 3] that much of the information that led to the heightened alert is actually three or four years old and that authorities had found no concrete evidence that a terror plot was actually under way. This news does nothing to bolster the confidence Americans need that the administration is not using intelligence for political gain.”

Did you catch that? Read the passage one more time:

“The Times reports today that much of the information that led to the heightened alert is actually three or four years old and that authorities had found no concrete evidence that a terror plot was actually under way. This news does nothing to bolster the confidence Americans need that the administration is not using intelligence for political gain.”

Excuse me, you must now be asking yourself, Are these people serious?! The same editors who in April lamented the fact that Bush did not act more forcefully in response to “historical” intelligence concerning a terrorist threat in 2001 are now criticizing the federal government – and questioning its motives – for responding forcefully to “historical” intelligence concerning a terrorist threat?

You may recall that I used an unfamiliar adjective at the beginning of this rather long piece – “Timesian.” You might have asked yourself what I could have meant by this adjective. I hope that the answer is becoming apparent. “Timesian” describes the mindset according to which the vigilance of American leaders is considered a laudatory objective only when it is absent and the horrible occurs; actual vigilance, the kind that prevents the horrible from occurring, is frowned upon. This is so because, in the Timesian view, governmental action and public policy are evaluated not according to their inherent value – right and wrong being merely a theoretical (though sometimes useful) framework of the narrow-minded – but rather according to the god of all values: political expedience. The end always justifies the means, so long – of course – as it is a Timesian end for which we justify. You see, America’s response to the threat of terrorism is not really about defending innocent people from those who would murder them; it is, like all other issues of national import, actually only a tool for achieving a desired political end.

In criticizing the Bush administration in August for implementing the counter-terrorism policy it had recommended in April, the New York Times has, once again, clearly identified the political end it is intent upon achieving.

Jewish Press Says Hello to SourKraut

Hate to toot my own horn. Or, rather, I like to pretend that I hate to toot my own horn. But if no one's here, does it really matter? Whatever.

Anyway, here's the link to the article by Jason Maoz.

Thanks, Jason.

Keeping it Real at the NYTimes

One month ago, guest NYT columnist Barbara Ehrenreich busted a gut castigating Bill Cosby for daring to suggest that African Americans needed to accept some measure of personal responsibility for some of the social ills - such as highschool dropout rates, teen pregnancies, and poor English skills - that affect the African American community.

Ehrenreich isn't surprised that a rich person is criticizing black people; that's "such a dog-bites-man story." But what's surprising about the Cosby story is that a black billionaire is leveling the criticism. "The only thing that gave this particular story a little piquancy is that the billionaire doing the bashing is black himself."

For Ehrenriech, it's unthinkable, really. How could a black person be so callous? "...it's just so 1985 to beat up on the black poor. " "...it must be fun to beat up on people too young and too poor to fight back."

Indeed, it must be fun to beat up on the blacks; how else are we to explain that, in the weeks since Ehrenreich wrote her sarcasm-laced column, the NYT has printed the opinions of numerous African Americans who are essentially unanimous - in supporting the notion that the African American community must take responsibility for its problems?

Leading off, we have Henry Louis Gates Jr., perhaps the preeminent African American intellectuals of our day:

"Why has it been so difficult for black leaders to say such things in public, without being pilloried for ''blaming the victim''? Why the huge flap over Bill Cosby's insistence that black teenagers do their homework, stay in school, master standard English and stop having babies? Any black person who frequents a barbershop or beauty parlor in the inner city knows that Mr. Cosby was only echoing sentiments widely shared in the black community.

"Too many of our children have come to believe that it's easier to become a black professional athlete than a doctor or lawyer. Reality check: according to the 2000 census, there were more than 31,000 black physicians and surgeons, 33,000 black lawyers and 5,000 black dentists. Guess how many black athletes are playing professional basketball, football and baseball combined. About 1,400. In fact, there are more board-certified black cardiologists than there are black professional basketball players. ''We talk about leaving no child behind,'' says Dena Wallerson, a sociologist at Connecticut College. ''The reality is that we are allowing our own children to be left behind.''

"Only 50 percent of all black children graduate from high school; an estimated 64 percent of black teenage girls will become pregnant...Are white racists forcing black teenagers to drop out of school or to have babies?

"Mr. Cosby got a lot of flak for complaining about children who couldn't speak standard English. Yet it isn't a derogation of the black vernacular -- a marvelously rich and inventive tongue -- to point out that there's a language of the marketplace, too, and learning to speak that language has generally been a precondition for economic success, whoever you are. When we let black youth become monolingual, we've limited their imaginative and economic possibilities."


Next up, media darling and Democratic Senate candidate Barack Obama, who announced the following to an adulatory national (and international) audience:

"Don't get me wrong. The people I meet in small towns and big cities, in diners and office parks, they don't expect government to solve all their problems. They know they have to work hard to get ahead and they want to. Go into the collar counties around Chicago, and people will tell you they don't want their tax money wasted by a welfare agency or the Pentagon. Go into any inner city neighborhood, and folks will tell you that government alone can't teach kids to learn. They know that parents have to parent, that children can't achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white."

Even the Times's Letters section tilted (in 6 out of 8 letters!) against Ehrenreich and in favor of Cosby, Gates, and Obama. Three of the letters are so poignant and relevant that they are worth including here:

a) To Bill Cosby's remarks and those of Barack Obama and Henry Louis Gates Jr., I wish to add this: Let every black kid who scoffs at being studious as ''acting white'' remember who else thought that education was inappropriate for dark-skinned folk: slave owners and their sympathetic legislators in the Old South, who made it a crime to teach a slave to read and write. So, kids, look at the company you keep. Whose side are you on? J. Swartele-WoodMahwah, N.J., Aug. 1, 2004

b) Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s take on the causes of some of the problems facing a large segment of the black community is mostly correct. I take issue, however, that a conspiracy of silence exists in the black community that works to make people fearful of publicly discussing these issues. Regular, everyday black folks, no matter where they lived or worked, have talked about these issues for generations now. I often heard such discussions at family gatherings; my friends and I talked about these issues as teenagers in the housing project where we grew up, and we still talk about them today.Black intellectuals have articulated the need for self-development and critical thinking. What has apparently changed is that black elected and appointed officials are finally beginning to follow the lead of many of their core constituents and are adding their voices to the debate. Barack Obama's timely remarks at the Democratic convention should be seen not as a generational change in African-American political leadership but as an honorable and astute move by a black elected official to align himself publicly with the black mainstream.Darryl CoxWest Chester, Pa., Aug. 1, 2004

c) As an African-American, I was not at all appalled by Bill Cosby's remarks, because I knew them to be extracts from something greater. Let's face it: education is no longer considered the ticket out of impoverishment. Ambitions in entertainment and sports have usurped the prestige that educational goals once held.Bill Cosby, the entertainer, the billionaire, is hardly bashing anyone, as Barbara Ehrenreich says. He is saying, in his way, what disturbs many. DOUGLAS HATCHERNew York, July 8, 2004

So, to recap, here's what we have: a) 1 middle-aged white woman who is horrified at the notion of asking black people to take responsibility for some of the problems in their community b) 3 prominent black (or part-black) figures who agree that more must be demanded from the black community and c) 75% of the printed responders to articles on both sides of the issue (likely, but not certainly, black) who either rip Ehrenreich or vocally support the targets of Ehrenreich's vitriol.

Well, what do you know? An example of a middle-aged white liberal whose condescending attitude toward African Americans is out-of-touch both with the African American community and the public at large. Now there's a dog-bites-man story.

A Principled Liberal Approach

I enjoy making fun of liberals. A lot. I'm not sure exactly why; I have never been (and am not now) a devoted conservative. But, given that I do enjoy many-a-chuckle at the expense of liberals, I thought it'd be nice to point out an example of the type of principled liberal dissent from the policies of our current government that is, well, exceedingly and lamentably rare.

Not surprisingly, the example comes from the pages of The New Republic, the most consistently honest liberal publication. In the June 28 issue of this year, TNR hosted a sort of literary symposium consisting of twelve writers - liberal and conservative - who reflected upon the high points, low points, and future of our ongoing military involvement in Iraq. And it was on page 31 that one Paul Berman, a Senior Fellow of the World Policy Institute with extensive and impeccable liberal credentials, made the following statement:


"Sometimes you have to hold in your heart two contradictory emotions. To understand Saddam Hussein and the history of modern Iraq, you have to feel anger - or else you have understood nothing. But what if, in addition to feeling anger at Saddam (...and at Saddam's army, which was organizing suicide terrorists even before the invasion), you have come to feel more than a little
anger at George W. Bush?...What if, in mulling these thoughts [about what the US could have done better in Iraq], you find that angry emotions toward George W. Bush are seepoing upward from your own patriotic gut?

Here is the challenge: to rage at Saddam and other enemies, and, at the same time, to rage in a somewhat different register at Bush, and to keep those two responses in proper proportion to one another. that can be a difficult thing to do, requiring emotional balance, maturity, and analytic clarity - a huge effort.

...Bush has asked a great deal from America. He has asked us to draw on our emotional balance, maturity, and analytic clarity: the qualities that are needed to help us distinguish our feelings about the enemy from our feelings about the commander in chief. To distinguish between outright hatred and a certain kind of contempt."


Listen, I don't agree with everything Berman says here and in the rest of the article. In fact, there is much that I disagree with. However, I respect and admire his rational thought-process and his sense of perspective, all the more so because both are so rare today in liberal circles, where the target of popular hatred is Bush - not the mass-murdering Saddam, and not the Islamists who are actively trying to kill us.

Forget Adoption...

Adoption agency has you feeling down? Giving up hope of ever raising a child? Fear not. This Craigslist ad has the answer:

Reply to: katherine_sprowal_cucs
Date: 2004-07-10, 1:30PM EDT


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Pudgy Protestors

From CNN, we have this priceless story - about the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA), which is holding its annual convention at the Mariott in Newark. The agenda is basically to protest the diet and health industries, which have been conducting a "witch hunt" against obesity. The NAAFA aims to counteract this with its "fat liberation" movement.

This story, of course, raises two very important questions:

1) Where can I sign up to run a concession stand at the event?

2) If corporations are blamed for people being fat and they're also blamed for people being not fat, can the corporations claim that Americans are being, um, force-fed a load of propaganda?
(Of course not! Pass the donuts; actually, don't pass them. I don't know. Either way, call my lawyer!)

Newhouse Thing

I can't imagine why anyone would be interested in my take on the R' Schachter - Alana Newhouse thing (if you're not familiar with it, it's a stupid Jewish argument), but if you are, you can read my response here.