Leno Lines

Dude. Jay Leno is funny:

1) The NYTimes reports that Saddam Hussein is depressed and defiant. It seems, he's still claiming that he's the constitutionally elected president of Iraq. He's kind of like the Iraqi Al Gore.

2) Today, the first organized baseball game ever was played in Iraq. Luckily, the game went smoothly. No Iraqi player threw a chair in the stands - which actually happened at a Texas Rangers game last week. And it's a good thing, too. The last thing anyone wants to see is the Shiite hit the fan.

Ow, god. that's awesome. the shiite hit the fan.

Desperate Times

Well, the NYTimes has managed to make my Sunday, (even before tonight's Bengals game). Under the heading (online, at least), "WHAT SHOULD KERRY DO?" the Times offers up four - four - articles by Democratic luminaries, advising Kerry as to the best, or only, way that he can salvage his doomed candidacy.

A couple of observations:

a) The entire premise of this feature - that Kerry's campaign has reached or is reaching disaster status - is exhilarating for those of us who badly want (and expect) Kerry to lose badly.

b) Ok, call me crazy, but who among the following does not belong: Bob Kerrey (successful white male Democratic Senate candidate, member of the 9/11 Comission), Leon Panetta (successful white male Democratic Congressional candidate, Clinton Chief-of-Staff), Donna Brazile (unsuccessful black female campaign manager for Al Gore), or Paul Glastris (white male speechwriter for successful presidential candidate Bill Clinton, Editor-in-Chief of Washington Monthly).

If you named the sister with no notable electoral accomplishments and one massive failure, you win - and you now fully understand the policies of the NYTimes Editorial Desk:

"Hmm, ok, people, think, which Democrats have the credibility to give Kerry advice about how to revitalize his campaign? Ok, Bob Kerrey, not bad - public loved him during the hearings. Panetta, yeah, that makes sense, Clinton's people know how to win. Any other Clinton people we can use? Glastris, excellent, he's got a following on the Hill. Very good.
Oh, crap. All of these are white males. Not good, people. You know the drill. We need at least one African American and one woman. Oh, hey, great idea, Jayson, let's get an African American woman. Hmm, Oprah? No, she told us to stop calling. Maya Angelou? No good, we need someone coherent this time. Miss Cleo? Nah, she's got that corporate scandal going on.
Hmm, Donna Brazile, interesting option. But don't people view her as a loser? Does she have any credibility? I mean, she was campaign manager for Gore!? Oh, you're right, excellent point - I forgot for a minute that she's a Democrat, black and a woman. Silly me. Good work, people."

Ok, the preceding was dramatization, and you might be inclined to dismiss it as simply (not) funny. But I actually think it possible that Brazile was added as an afterthought. Consider, her article is basically the same as Glastris's - each urges Kerry to focus on national security, and Bush's supposed failures in that area. The other two writers each focus on a distinct topic - Kerrey on trade, and Panetta on communicating a consistent message. Why have two writers say the exact same thing? Well, normally that would be odd, but - Oh, you're right, excellent point - I forgot for a minute that she's a Democrat, black, and a woman. Silly me.

c) Speaking of Kerrey's focus on trade - can anyone else here sense Kerrey's obvious frustration as he trumpets a campaign suggestion that is so mind-numbingly boring and vacuous that it should have been Brazile (or some other Gore lackey) who came up with it?

I mean, seriously, shed a tear for Bob. How the mighty have fallen! He can't really believe that the election hinges on

"The Columbus Summit meeting [which] would be a means of giving our political, education and business leaders a venue at which they can reach consensus on trade and globalism."

Due to his supposedly non-partisan post on the 9/11 Commision, Kerrey is in the unfortunate position of being unable to talk about his area of real expertise - foreign policy and terrorism, the overridingly critical issues of this election. Instead, Kerrey must settle for offering lightweight talking point about global trade. You gotta feel for the guy, but - bottom line - just shut up until the Comission is disbanded. You're the only (or, at least, most) viable Democratic moderate in 2008, have some patience.

d) Note the lack of specificity largely evident in these articles. All are bold on broad strategies, but less so on nuts and bolts. As Homer lovingly commented when Bart considered him as a father-role model, "No way. I don't want my fingerprints on that train wreck." (Rough quote, sorry). Thus, we have Kerrey:

"it is vitally important for this consensus (on trade) to be found...However, it simply will not and probably cannot be found during a modern presidential campaign. That is something Senator Kerry must promise to do if he is elected in November."

Terrific, Bob, let's give the voters one more plan lacking specifics.

And Panetta:

"Mr. Bush is most vulnerable on two issues - Iraq and the economy. Mr. Kerry needs to confront the president on both, with specific proposals that make clear the stark choices facing voters."

Gee thanks, Leon. Could you be any less helpful?

And Brazile, advising Kerry to make Bush's greatest strength into a weakness:

"Every day until Election Day, Mr. Kerry should remind voters that the Bush administration is making America less secure."

Great, Donna. You want to explain to us how that is exactly and how to get this message across? Cause the voters seem to think that President Bush's war on terror is actually making them safer. Shouldn't you be bitching about disenfranshised voters in Florida or something? Oops, sorry, Donna, I forgot for a minute that you're a Democrat, black, and a woman. Silly me.

Of the four, only Glastris puts himself on the line and offers specific plans for attacking the President's record and advancing alternatives. Perhaps it's no coincidence that he's the only non-politician (or the least of a political creature) of the bunch.

Go Bengals!!

Richard Pipes Loses his Mind

In writing his mind-blowingly shortsighted NYT op-ed last week, Richard Pipes cast his lot with the head-in-the-ground branch of American conservatism (Think Brent Scowcroft, James Baker, et al).

Pipes's thesis, relating to the Russian-Chechnyan conflict, is fairly simple: The Chechens deserve their own state. Therefore, the attack on Russian schoolchildren - which, Pipes generously allows, was "bloody and viciously sadistic" - is not the same sort of unprovoked, nihilistic act of terror experienced by the United States on September 11, 2001. Chechnya is terrorism with a legitimate purpose. Therefore, "there is always an opportunity for compromise."

There are many holes in Pipes's view of the Chechen issue, and other elements in his argument that may be grounds for legitimate dispute. A few include: a) whether Chechnya is indeed so obviously in the right in its political demands; b) whether the 9/11 attacks should be considered "unprovoked," given that Bin Laden and company many times listed their own political demands. c) Pipes contends that "the Chechens do not seek to destroy Russia." Presumably, he is referring to the terrorists when he says this. How does he know that they do not seek to destroy Russia? d) Using Pipes's logic, the attacks in Russia and Madrid are analogous because each has a specific purpose - Pipes actually makes this comparison himself. So is Pipes in fact suggesting - as he seems to be - that Spain, if it had been possible, ought to have negotiated with the terrorists planning to oust their sitting government? (Remember, in Pipes's logic, as long as the object of terrorists is not the destruction of the terrorized, "there is always an opportunity for compromise.")

All of these considerations, particularly the last, highlight the weakness of Pipes's case. But there is one more issue, a matter in whose light Pipes's argument becomes so utterly ridiculous that Pipes does the only thing he can to combat it - he willfully ignores it. The proverbial elephant in the room here is summed up by the following question: Exactly what kind of government does Pipes imagine the Chechens will erect once the "tiny colony" is granted its "independence"? Will Chechnya be the next Taiwan or, as is almost certain, the next Taliban-run Afghanistan?

Pipes obscures two important realities:

1) Terrorism is not merely a political strategy. It's a particular kind of political strategy, one that tells us something very important about those who practice it, namely, that they reject the moral values cherished by all civilized people and nations on this planet. As they murder masses of innocent civilians - often, as in the case of the Chechens, children are particularly targeted - terrorists are not saying,

"Meet our demands, so that we can grant our people the important freedoms that they do not fully enjoy at this time."

Rather, they are, in effect, saying:

"We don't give a shit about your freedom of speech, and your freedom of the press, and your religious freedom, and your equal rights for women and homosexuals, and your free economies…"

You see, by murdering so many Russian children, the Muslim Chechen rebels (whether they were aided by Arabs or not), have made one thing perfectly clear: an "independent" Chechnya will be a first-order Islamic autocracy. People who feel politically and religiously driven to kill children do not agree to the limits on their power demanded by the democratic, republican form of consensual government.

2) So let us assume that an independent Chechnya will be an Islamic autocracy. Why should that concern us?

This is a question that made sense - or appeared to - until a September morning three years ago. At the cost of thousands of innocent lives, we have now learned that failed autocracies are the breeding ground for global terrorism.

Former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky has warned the world, for decades, that totalitarianism must be defeated, not accommodated, in order for human freedom to prevail. Our experiences of the last few years have confirmed Sharansky's contention, with one important addendum: totalitarianism is the enemy of human liberty not only in the totalitarian state itself, but in all places.

Today, as ideologies have become as easily exportable as any other marketable commodity, a small number of totalitarian fanatics - left unchecked, with the tools of corrupted statecraft at their disposal - have the capacity to threaten, coerce, and, indeed, attack the rest of the world in order to achieve their own reprehensible, freedom-crushing ends.

Richard Pipes would have us create one more haven for tyranny. The idea is both morally and politically repugnant, and it must be rejected at all costs.

Sexual Harrassment Question

This amusing article was linked on Protocols earlier today, about a college professor who was arrested for trading grades forsex. Which brings me to the following personal vignette.

I'm going to be a TA this semester, so last week I was required to attend 3-hours of training about sexual harrassment (the university is against it). Most of the time was spent telling us about how it is illegal - or at least, against university regulations - for a TA to maintain even a consensual sexual relationhship with any student in his class, because that would give the student an advantage over his or her peers.

My question is this: What if one were to engage in a consensual sexual relationship with every student in the class? Would that be ok, because then no student would have an advantage over any other. (And, after all, what is a TA other than the seamless union of T & A?)

[I did ask this question to other students and faculty. Reactions, predictably, varied quite a bit.]

TNR says hi to SK. But would it kill them to print the link?

Hey, peoples. If anyone's interested, TNR printed (or is printing) the point I made in this post in the forthcoming, Sept. 13 edition. Unfortunately, they were unwilling to print a link to the blog. But it's pretty cool anyway.

As might be expected, Jonathan Chait did not agree with my criticism of his analysis. And as might be expected, I do not agree with his disagreement with my criticism of his analysis. I hope to write a response soon. (In brief, for anyone who's dying to know, Chait's clarified point basically amounts to saying that if the deck were to be deliberately stacked in the Democrats' favor - not, as he implies, that it were to be "balanced" - then the Democrats would have a majority.)

Zell Miller

Anyone who isn't already, stop reading this stupid blog and turn on Zell Miller's speech. Now. Absolutely incredible. This will be the most talked-about speech of the next 8 weeks.

Sometimes, you got to wonder...

Doubtless, no one is surprised that liberals are complaining about police treatment of RNC protestors who have been arrested for various charges, ranging from non-violent misdemeanors to more serious crimes like assault. And it is not surprising, further, that the NYT is prominently trumpeting these claims. But can someone please explain this sentence to me?

"Several [prisoners] said they had contracted rashes from sleeping on the pier's floor, had gone hours without food and were given a Dixie cup to use to drink water."

Ok, I get the complaint about sleeping on the floor (and rashes are no fun, either). I can even understand the complaint about going "hours" without food or water - though most of us do this every day between meal (and snack) times. But can anyone tell me what the problems are with drinking water from a Dixie cup? Does the Geneva Convention or the NY State Penal Code have some sort of "fine china or crystal glassware" provision of which I am unaware?

Not exactly the naked pyramid recently popularized by US military forces - or, for that matter, the beheading and slaughter of civilians popular now among Islamist enemies of the US. But I suppose the Times (and the ACLU and the lawyers, etc.) have to work with what they have. Apparently, not much.