Sour Kraut

Advice for Democrats

2005-08-04T14:15:00.000-04:00

Check out Jim Wallis's op-ed today in the NYTimes.

My response:

Wallis is correct in his assessment that the importance of "framing" issues is largely overblown. As Wallis notes, the nature of a policy is far more important than the names or slogans associated with it.

Wallis even identifies two policy areas - abortion and protecting children from sleaze/pornography -in which Democrats could take common-sense approaches that would likely resonate with a large portion of the American political center.

However, Wallis himself engages in wishful thinking - and falls into the trap of "framing" -in his discussion of three other policy areas: poverty, the environment, and national security. In short, middle America cares not a whit about the first two - at least insofar as the issues actually affect voting decisions -and does not trust the Democrats with the third (precisely because some Democrats have already followed Wallis's advice).

With regard to poverty and the environment, the issues - whatever moral merit they might have - have absolutely no electoral appeal. It's just that simple. Great masses of voters (i.e. what the Democrats desperately need to attract) do not select political officials on the basis of what those officials will do for OTHER people - whether the OTHERS are poor people, gay people, or left-handed ex-convicts.

And outside of California, the same principle applies to the environment. No matter how many scientists are quoted about (real or hyped) impending environmental disasters, most of America does not care. Seriously, they just don't. Yeah, if you ask them in a survey, they'll say they care about the environment (and about poverty, too, for that matter). But in truth, they care about the environment like they care about whether their local grocery packs with (recycleable) paper or (unrecycleable) plastic. Yeah, it'd be nice if they used recycleable material, but we're not going to drive an extra 2 miles to a different grocery store.

Wallis tries mightily to frame both issues in language that makes them seem more important than most Americans think they are. It won't work (and hasn't).

Wallis's most glaring blind spot, however, concerns national security. When they speak about this issue, Democrats need to excise the word "international" from their vocabulary. "Yes, but Americans need to know that the international..." ZIP IT! "Ok, but the international..." ZIP IT! "But the entire world..." ZIP IT!

America - that is, the majority of Americans in the vast majority of states - do not trust the "international community" or ANY institution of the "international community."

And here's the key part, which Democrats have been flubbing for years:

EVEN IF AMERICANS DISTRUST THEIR OWN GOVERNMENT, THEY DISTRUST THE "INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY" EVEN MORE.

This means that no matter how bad Iraq is or gets, the solution, for most Americans, does not lie with the UN unless President Bush says it does. No matter how bad the environment gets, the solution does not lie with an international agreement like Kyoto, which - whatever its merits - surely restrains American industry. No matter how much we might want to try Milosevic or Saddam, the solution will not be an International Court in which American soldier could even conceivably could be judged by justices from other countries.

In this discussion, I have not spoken directly of the merit of various policy initiatives. I do have opinions in each of these areas; I sometimes agree with the Democratic position, and sometimes with the Republican view. But my purpose here is only to point out the reality of how these issues are perceived by the American public. And if Wallis's view is emblematic of mainstream Democratic opinion, the Dems still have a lot to learn about the crucial difference between what people (in their view) should care about and what they actually do care about.

Beinart's Fighting Faith - hardly original

2005-01-02T20:36:00.000-05:00

Hey all,

Just sent the following letter to TNR, regarding Peter Beinart's now-famous article calling for a transformation of the Democratic Party. I think I've finally sent them something that they won't print, so enjoy:

Peter Beinart is to be commended for his recent, courageous stance advocating a more muscular Democratic approach to foreign policy, which would fully acknowledge - and work to destroy - the threat posed to the world by Al Qaeda and militant Islam. However, it is somewhat ironic that Beinart is now considered the leading proponent of “fighting liberalism,” as he was TNR’s most vocal disparager of the Democrat who prominently voiced a similar position even before the colossal Democratic failure in Election 2004 - namely, Georgia Senator Zell Miller. Granted, Miller’s rousing speech at the RNC contained a number of inaccuracies, and his fiery rhetorical delivery might have struck some reasonable people as intemperate. But, significantly, these were not the grounds upon which Beinart savaged Miller in two separate columns. Rather, Beinart impugned Miller’s speech, and his integrity, because of two elements within it that Beinart first mischaracterized and has now essentially co-opted as keys to his vision of a transformed Democratic Party.

On October 11, Beinart - in an unconvincing, almost paranoid parsing of Miller’s speech - accused Miller of supporting an “antidemocratic vision” because of his statement that “while young Americans are dying…our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrats' manic obsession to bring down our commander-in-chief.” But a straightforward reading of Miller’s statement yields only his belief that Democrats were wrongly prioritizing defeating the President above fighting America’s real, external enemies. Or, as Beinart himself now puts it in rebuking certain of his fellow Democrats: “the litmus test of a decent left,” is “the realization that liberals face an external enemy more grave, and more illiberal, than George W. Bush.”

In late September, Beinart objected to Miller’s assertion that “No one should dare to even think about being commander-in-chief of this country if he doesn't believe with all his heart that our soldiers are liberators.” Beinart, here as well, (mis)construed Miller’s statement as a plea for quashing criticism of the administration’s policies: “He was urging Americans to reelect Bush because the president believes Iraq has been a success and Kerry has doubts.” Of course, Miller neither said nor implied any such thing. Indeed, Miller was not commenting upon the success of American operations in Iraq; rather, he was commenting upon the purpose of the mission, which - Miller said - was to liberate the country from tyranny (not occupy it), contrary to the belief of “today’s Democratic leaders.” And, once again, Beinart now echoes Miller’s critique, lecturing the “softs” of the Democratic Party: “Islamist totalitarianism--like Soviet totalitarianism before it--threatens the United States and the aspirations of millions across the world. And, as long as that threat remains, defeating it must be liberalism's north star.”

In the end, sensible Americans - Republicans and Democrats - should welcome support for the task of defeating totalitarianism Islam from whatever corners it should arise, and from that perspective, Beinart’s piece is most welcome. But, for the record, months before Beinart’s tract appeared, it was Miller who spoke the uncomfortable truths about the Democratic Party that Beinart now parrots; it was Miller who invoked the memory of freedom-fighting Democrats like FDR and Harry Truman as models that Democrats should be (but aren’t) emulating; and perhaps most significantly, it was Miller - and not Beinart - who spoke these truths about his party before the election, calculating that the good of the country compelled him to help undermine the electoral fortunes of his own misguided party.

Beinart should reread Miller’s speech; he might be surprised to find that Miller’s “demagogic argument” is not so different from his own.

Also, sign up here to earn a free ipod. I've been told that this really works.

Congrats, Bengals!!

2004-10-26T01:26:00.000-04:00

Fellow Bengals fan(s):

Great Win! Take heart, medicority is just around the corner!

Is CNN Shilling for Kerry?

2004-10-25T23:52:00.000-04:00

Don't know for sure, but if not, can someone please explain to me this sequence of two sentences?

Fifty-one percent of likely voters said they would back Bush,
and 46 percent expressed support for Kerry.
The margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points, meaning the true
leader was unclear.

I never did advance beyond AP Calculus, but doesn't 5 less 3 make 2? And wouldn't that make Bush the "clear" leader according to this poll?

No, and I am a dufus for suggesting it (yesterday) because I fell for the so-called problem of "innumeracy." My thanks to those who pointed it out. The margin of error applies not to the differential between the candidates, but rather to the percentage of support each candidate receives. So CNN, of course, is correct in its analysis. Here's a useful article explaining this phenomenon.

Leno Lines

2004-09-22T23:53:00.000-04:00

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

2004-09-19T01:21:00.000-04:00

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

2004-09-13T09:09:00.000-04:00

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

2004-09-06T13:22:00.000-04:00

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?

2004-09-05T23:35:00.000-04:00

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

2004-09-01T22:12:00.000-04:00

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...

2004-09-01T18:54:00.000-04:00

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.

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

2004-08-30T22:40:00.000-04:00

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

2004-08-30T19:25:00.001-04:00

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

2004-08-22T12:44:00.000-04:00

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

2004-08-15T16:34:00.000-04:00

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

2004-08-12T18:13:00.000-04:00

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

I'm going with: QUEEN JAMES!

More NYT’s (In)Consistency

2004-08-11T20:40:00.000-04:00

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

2004-08-09T21:20:00.000-04:00

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

2004-08-08T16:45:00.000-04:00

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

2004-08-06T17:04:00.000-04:00

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...

2004-08-03T13:44:00.000-04:00

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

Bassinette, walker and newborn used but good condition clothing
must pick up ASAP! call Katherine@

Pudgy Protestors

2004-08-02T20:05:00.000-04:00

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

2004-08-01T19:30:00.000-04:00

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.

Gotta Love Okrent, But He Concedes Too Much

2004-07-27T14:27:00.000-04:00

Critics of the NYT’s supposed liberal bias have a new ally, the paper’s own bold and independent-minded Public Editor, Daniel Okrent. Signed to a one-year contract in the wake of the Times Blair-Raines-Tiger-Augusta fiasco(s), Okrent has distinguished himself as a keen observer and (mostly) fair-minded evaluator of deceptive and questionable journalistic practices – such as partial quotes, reliance on unnamed sources, and misleading headlines – which, apparently, creep in even to America’s most esteemed newspaper.

In his latest piece, Okrent bluntly discusses an issue that conservatives have been hyperventilating about for years.

“Is the New York Times a Liberal Newspaper?” asks the headline. “Of course it is,” answers Okrent.

And later: “…if you think The Times plays it down the middle on any of [the social issues, like gay rights, gun control, abortion, etc.]…you've been reading the paper with your eyes closed.”

And still more: "it's one thing to make the paper's pages a congenial home for editorial polemicists, conceptual artists, the fashion-forward or other like-minded souls…and quite another to tell only the side of the story your co-religionists wish to hear."

[Okrent, it should be noted, limited his discussion in this column to social issues; he says he will “get to the politics-and-policy issues this fall.” Looking forward, though I suspect conservatives will be somewhat disappointed with his conclusions.]

All of this is well and good. Excellent, even. And credit is due to Okrent for writing the piece – and even to the Times itself, for allowing such a self-critique to appear in its pages.

However, in his discussion of the Times treatment of gay marriage – the issue that he uses as the paradigmatic example of problematic Times coverage – Okrent unduly concedes a crucial premise to the Times' liberal ideology and, inadvertently, destroys his own case against the paper's coverage of social issues.

Okrent says that he doesn’t mind the laudatory editorials or the magazine article “that compared the lawyers who won the Massachusetts same-sex marriage lawsuit to Thurgood Marshall and Martin Luther King.” He even admits, seemingly, that he agrees with this comparison. “That's all fine, especially for those of us who believe that homosexual couples should have precisely the same civil rights as heterosexuals.”

However, cautions Okrent, the Times hasn’t given its audience the complete picture. A credible newspaper must make certain that “all aspects of an issue are subject to robust examination,” and the Times – with “a tone that approaches cheerleading” – has not done so in the case of gay marriage. In fact, articles on the “potentially nettlesome effects of gay marriage have been virtually absent from The Times since the issue exploded last winter.” Among the stories the Times has ignored: “Congressional testimony from a Stanford scholar [Stanley Kurtz] making the case that gay marriage in the Netherlands has had a deleterious effect on heterosexual marriage…potential impact of same-sex marriage on tax revenues, and the paucity of reliable research on child-rearing in gay families.”

Okrent’s criticism is exactly on target, but he doesn’t realize that he has already invalidated his own argument – with his admission that the advocates for same-sex marriage are the modern-day equivalent of Thurgood Marshall and Martin Luther King. For, if today’s gay marriage movement really is the equivalent of the 1960s civil rights movement, then who cares what the effects of gay marriage might be? It’s a civil right!? Think about it. At the height of the civil rights movement, when the overriding concern was (or should have been) abolishing discrimination against America’s black citizens, was that the time for newspapers to publish studies about the deleterious effects of integrating America’s population? Not unless the newspaper represented the KKK. The point is: when a civil right is truly at stake, when there is a gross societal injustice that demands immediate redress, academic arguments (except for national security-type emergencies) against granting the civil right are irrelevant and inappropriate.

And that, I’m guessing, is exactly what the Times would respond to Okrent’s critique; in the fight against "discrimination," there's simply no time to stop to consider the consequences of ending the discrimination. And Okrent has painted himself into the corner of accepting the Times’ liberal premise. Unfortunately, the apt response to the liberal claim – that the gay marriage issue is in no way meaningfully equivalent to the civil rights movement of the 1960s – will need a champion other than the Times Public Editor.

Chait Obscures Senate Situation

2004-07-26T21:58:00.000-04:00

In an article entitled "Power From the People," Jonathan Chait of TNR raises some legitimate questions about the Bush administration’s policy decisions and priorities. However, he muddies the waters with a vague and ill-informed complaint about the lack of “balance” in the U.S. Senate.

Specifically, Chait laments the fact that “the Senate…gives the citizens in the 30 states Bush won in 2000, which comprise slightly less than half of the U.S. population, 60 seats. [While] The 20 states Gore won comprise a narrow majority of the population, but they get only 40 seats in the Senate.” In Chait’s view, if we were to “balance the scales…[then] the Senate would have a solid Democratic majority.”

There are a few factual problems with Chait’s claims. First, Chait implies that the states won by Gore in 2000 are reliably Democratic in their Senate representation and that the states won by Bush are (somewhat less) reliably Republican in their own Senate representation. But that picture is not really accurate.

Of the 20 states held by Gore in the 2000 general election, 12 (60%) have two Democratic senators. Of the 30 states held by Bush, 18 (60%) have two Republican senators. In other words, in a full 40% of all states, Senate representation does not correlate directly with the state’s choice for President.

Furthermore, an analysis of the population of states with “stolen” senators – i.e., Gore states with at least one Republican senator, and Bush states with at least one Democratic Senator – shows that, on average, Republican senators have infiltrated Democratic population centers more than Democratic senators have returned the favor. Republicans have elected senators in Pennsylvania and Illinois, two of the Democrats’ four most valuable electoral states. Democrats, in contrast, have elected senators in only one of Bush’s most valuable states – Florida.

The general statistics concerning "stolen senators" also indicate the GOP’s edge: the average Bush state with a Democratic senator has a population of 4.62 million, while the average Gore state with a Republican senator has a population of about 5.01 million. In other words, the states that the Republicans have "stolen" (with at least one Senator) are more populous than those "stolen" by the Democrats.

And so, Chait’s argument about the Senate fails on two fronts. First, since a state’s Presidential selection is not an accurate indicator of its Senate representation, it is not at all clear that a population-based Senate would result in “a solid Democratic majority” (as Chait argues). Moreover, given the Republicans’ comparative advantage in electing senators in populous Democratic (i.e. “Gore-voting”) states, it is quite likely that a population-based Senate would tilt more Republican than does the current Senate roster.

Belated Welcome

2004-07-25T20:59:00.000-04:00

Hey Everybody (anybody?),

Thanks for stopping by. Some of you may be familiar with my (limited) work on a site called Protocols. That site is dominated now by a dude who, well, he's kinda hard to describe. Check him out, if you are so inclined; he's occasionally interesting.

Ok, but what is this site? Good question. I'm not exactly sure yet, but I can say the following:

a) It's not supposed to be a "Jewish" site. Meaning, contributors are encouraged to post on topics of interest or funny items, most of which - I'm hoping - will not have to do with Judaism or Israel. (Some will). There are plenty of Jewish blogs. If that's what you want, go find them.

b) The roster of contributors will grow in the next couple of months, and - I am assured - current contributors will actually have something to say. Every contributor is smart. All are either funny or interesting, and some are both. It should be a provocative and somewhat volatile mix, if we ever get our act together. (Big if).

c) Funny. Interesting.

That's all. Good to have you here.

[And I'm sorry that comments on previous posts were lost. I switched to a new comment format, and they got erased. I'll try to recreate them if I can.]

911 Report Exposes NYT Hypocrisy

2004-07-22T18:35:00.000-04:00

I’ve been glancing through the 585-page report just drafted by the 911 Commission. My first reaction is a feeling of tremendous respect for the Commissioners and the Herculean, uncomfortable, but necessary task they have undertaken and now concluded.

A second positive is that the Report is written in plain English. The text steers clear of the bureaucratic jargon that typifies government reports; as a result, factual accounts and the conclusions derived therefrom are presented clearly and can be easily considered.

And third – though I admit that a closer reading of the entire document is necessary before this assertion can be wholly accepted – the Commissioners were aware of and attempted to avoid the pitfall of wallowing in “20/20 hindsight,” a pastime enjoyed by the media in the post-911 era. In a remarkably candid passage on page 339, the Commission spells out this concern in detail:

In composing this narrative, we have tried to remember that we write with the benefit and the handicap of hindsight. Hindsight can sometimes see the past clearly—with 20/20 vision. But the path of what happened is so brightly lit that it places everything else more deeply into shadow. Commenting on Pearl Harbor, Roberta Wohlstetter found it “much easier after the event to sort the relevant from the irrelevant signals. After the event, of course, a signal is always crystal clear; we can now see what disaster it was signaling since the disaster has occurred. But before the event it is obscure and pregnant with conflicting meanings.”

As time passes, more documents become available, and the bare facts of what happened become still clearer. Yet the picture of how those things happened becomes harder to reimagine, as that past world, with its preoccupations and uncertainty, recedes and the remaining memories of it become colored by what happened and what was written about it later. With that caution in mind, we asked ourselves, before we judged others, whether the insights that seem apparent now would really have been meaningful at the time, given the limits of what people then could reasonably have known or done.

The media would do well to bear in mind this caution of the Commission. Indeed, the Commission itself notes (343) that

It is hard now to recapture the conventional wisdom before 9/11. For example, a New York Times article in April 1999 sought to debunk claims that Bin Ladin was a terrorist leader, with the headline “U.S. Hard Put to Find Proof Bin Laden Directed Attacks.”

The Commission’s reference to this headline is telling, but it does not adequately convey the depth of the NYT’s downplaying of the terrorist threat posed by Bin Laden. A more complete picture can be derived from the text of the article to which the headline was affixed. Two sentences in particular stand out:

In their war against Mr. bin Laden, American officials portray him as the world's most dangerous terrorist. But reporters for The New York Times and the PBS program "Frontline," working in cooperation, have found him to be less a commander of terrorists than an inspiration for them.

Interesting, no? Some two-and-a-half years before Bin Laden commanded the most horrific terrorist attack on US soil – the New York Times “found him [Bin Laden] to be less a commander of terrorists than an inspiration for them.” To add insult to injury, we now know – from interrogation of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (p149 in Report) – that it was during this exact time period, “late 1998 or early 1999” that “Bin Ladin…finally decided to give KSM the green light for the 911 operation.”

One would expect that the Times, having themselves been duped and having rejected the accurate portrait of Bin Ladin by “American officials” as “the world’s most dangerous terrorist,” would avoid assigning blame based on 20/20 hindsight – or, at the very least, would acknowledge that the paper, too, had fallen prey to the exact failures it so high-mindedly pointed out concerning the government’s pre-911 record.

Of course, the Times did the opposite. In a blistering editorial that appeared in May of 2002, the Times lamented - among other things - the mounting evidence of “monumental ineptitude and bureaucratic bumbling by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and other federal agencies…”

Throughout the piece, the Times editors are aghast at how badly the federal government was fooled. It was necessary to “determine why Washington failed to recognize that Osama bin Laden was on the hunt in America last summer.” The paper’s view is adequately summed up(though less caustically) in the second paragraph of the editorial:

“The entire national security and law enforcement apparatus underestimated the possibility that the bin Laden network might strike targets in the United States, and various agencies either failed to detect or mishandled warning signs.”

Seriously. Where could they have gotten that idea that bin Ladin wasn’t much of terrorist threat?

Question

2004-07-20T14:38:00.000-04:00

A number of Jewish businessmen were overheard this week asking for a halakhic ruling from the rosh yeshiva of Chaim Berlin in brooklyn: Is it ok to launder money during the 9 days?

Wanted: Jewish Week Editor

2004-07-20T00:46:00.000-04:00

Couldn't resist sharing a tidbit from this past Friday's Jewish Week. After commenting that Phil Rosenthal - creator of TV's Everybody Loves Raymond - bases ELR on experiences from his own life, Eric Schleier provides the following caveat:

"But, Rosenthal, 44, adds, the well is running dry."

Excellent, sentence, dude. In Schleier's defense, though, he might have been overcompensating for the ridiculous bunching of letters -four consecutive consonants, followed by three consecutive vowels - in his last name.

Fahrenheit 911 ("F9") - some notes

2004-07-01T18:17:00.000-04:00

Many able and astute pundits have already dissected the broad claims – or, more accurately, innuendos – of Fahrenheit 911 and called attention to the glaring inconsistency, occasional dishonesty, and general incoherence of the film. Most noteworthy, perhaps, is Christopher Hitchens’s devastating review for Slate.com, which has become somthing of an instant-classic, due both to its trenchant analysis and the reviewer’s impeccable liberal credentials.

Indeed, Hitchens and a gaggle of others (who, by the way, seem more than a tad reliant on Hitchens) do an excellent job of unraveling, scrutinizing, and questioning/demolishing the foundations of the Moore’s thesis. Therefore, I see little point in sharing my thoughts – which generally parallel those of Hitchens and others – about the general effectiveness of the movie as an argument criticizing the decisions made by (and the character of) President Bush and his administration; in short, F9 is not a convincing argument, or even a very good one.

However, fortunately (sort of), F9 is a movie rich with material to be commented upon – a lot of bad arguments, but some genuinely entertaining and otherwise noteworthy parts, as well – and I am happy to share with you some of the discrete thoughts that occurred to me while I watched the movie. Indeed, I am half-tempted to see it again, with a proper notebook in hand rather than the napkins from Dougies upon which I scribbled mostly indecipherable notes, to record my impressions more completely and to mine some new nuggets that I undoubtedly missed during the first showing. I present some of my points here in no particular order (much like the scenes in the movie itself), with some discussion. They are my own, though I wouldn’t be surprised if others have had similar ideas. Also, I want to emphasize that my quotes are not exact, since I don’t have a recording or transcript of the movie.

1)Early in the movie, Moore (as narrator) calls the events of 9/11/01 “the worst attacks on US soil,” or something to that effect. He does not refer to them as “terror” attacks or as attacks perpetrated by “terrorists.” This would not be surprising, except that – a few minutes later – he brings up the attack on the WTC that took place in the 1990s, and he does refer to it as a “terror attack” (or to the perpetrators as “terrorists” – I don’t recall exactly).

He seems to be making some sort of distinction between the two, although I’m not at all sure what it is. Why would the attack in the 1990s be terrorism while 9/11 was not?

Perhaps Moore provides the answer when he tells us, in a pointedly gratuitous (and, therefore, suggestive) aside, that the 9/11 attacks were perpetrated against the “financial and military” centers of the country. Is Moore suggesting that 9/11 was an act of war and therefore not terrorism? Maybe.

[The obvious objection is that the “financial center” of the country was attacked in the 1990s as well, so that should be an act of war, too (and, therefore, according to Moore, not be “terror”). The only (twisted) rationale that I can come up with for the distinction Moore makes is that the 9/11 attacks on the Pentagon, specifically, sort of transformed the entire 9/11 enterprise into an act of war. And, as a result, the attacks on the WTC are subsumed under the general rubric of the “military action.”]

2)During a segment poking fun at the “terror alerts” disseminated by the administration following 9/11, Moore cuts to a number of still-frames, focusing on each image for no more than a fraction of a second. I’m guessing that it escaped the attention of most viewers, but one of these images struck me as hilariously funny: a picture of two cops on “terror alert,” standing right in front of a Dunkin’ Donuts.

This seems like a fitting point to note that, despite the movie’s ineffectiveness as an argument (see above), it is at times extremely entertaining.

In a similarly light moment – making fun, this time, of America’s coalition partners in Iraq, rather than of law enforcement officials – Moore mentions the Netherlands amidst the on-screen backdrop of a huge weed-filled pipe. Never thought I’d see a liberal making fun of marijuana users.

3)While we’re on the subject of the coalition…One of the tactics Moore uses (pointed out by virtually every reviewer) is providing only the information that serves to prove his point; but he takes this to extraordinary lengths, to the point that he will omit any information – no matter how vital to a real understanding of the situation – that undermines his point. A perfect, and fairly ridiculous, example of this is the roster he presents of America’s coalition partners. He mentions only the most insignificant countries in order to emphasize how alone America is in the war against Iraq. Of the 47 or so countries in the coalition, Moore mentions just a few: Palau, Costa Rico, Iceland, the Netherlands, Micronesia, Morocco (which offered monkeys to set off landmines, another humorous bit) and a couple of other countries. As Moore points out, these countries are of limited use, since they don’t have much, if any military capability.

Of course, this sort of argument is so stupid that it hurts. Arguing that we have no reliable military allies by simply not naming them?! Exactly. And the NY Yankees currently have a terrible team. I mean, just look at them – a pitching staff of Bret Prinz, Tanyon Sturtze, and Brad Halsey; and “sluggers” like Bubba Crosby, Miguel Cairo, and Enrique Wilson. They’ll be lucky to win 50 games. Unimpeachable logic, right?

4)Amidst a segment in which Moore attempts to show how convincingly the American people were duped by Bush, we discover that Britney Spears supports the President and, presumably, the war effort. As if we needed more proof that she’s hot.

5)One of Moore’s star witnesses is “Baghdad” James McDermott, the anti-war Democratic Congressman from the state of Washington who claimed earlier this year that the timing of Saddam’s capture was politically motivated – Saddam having been captured earlier and held, secretly, by the Bush administration. Anyway, I know this is gonna sound weird (and perhaps petty/irrelevant), and maybe it is, but check out this dude’s eyes; among the spookiest eyes I’ve ever seen. (Right up there with alleged shoe-bomber Richard Reid). Photographs don’t do them justice.

6)From the “facts that must be checked” department: Moore is incredibly enamored with making grandiose statements. The entire movie, in fact, is basically one long, grandiose statement. But are they accurate? Well, let’s start with this one. In the opening segment, detailing the election “stolen” by the Bush administration, Moore describes the protests on the day of the Bush inauguration as something “that had never been seen before in Washington.”

This would be meaningfully true, of course, if Moore had finished the sentence with the words, “since 1973,” 1973 being the year that Nixon’s inauguration drew between 25,000 and 100,000 protestors (according to conventional estimates cited by news reports and liberal organizations), as opposed to the perhaps 20,000 people who – organizers said – “would take part in the weekend demonstrations [at Bush's inauguration].”

See, but Moore is a slippery debater. He doesn’t actually say that the anti-Bush protest was the largest protest at a Presidential inauguration; such a statement could be shown to be false. He’s too clever for that. Instead, he makes a rather general statement that is true but actually doesn’t mean anything of substance, and which therefore cannot be proven false. “Washington had never seen anything like it.” What does he mean? That there had never previously been protests of a Presidential inauguration? Well, no. That it was the biggest protest? Well, no. That there had never been a protest of a Republican presidential inauguration in a year beginning with 2? The point is – if there’s anything unique about the 2001 protests, no matter how minor or trivial, then Moore’s statement is by definition true. But it doesn’t have any value, except – of course – the rhetorical value that Moore skillfully instills in it.

[By the way, a similarly tricky tactic is used in advertising: e.g. “Food X may reduce the threat of heart attack.” This is a true statement. But it doesn’t mean anything. Yeah, it may reduce the risk of heart attack, but it may not. It would be a strange commercial, but a clothing company would be equally justified in claiming that “Brand Y jeans may reduce the risk of heart attacks.” Whenever you hear a modal verb in a commercial – can, may, etc. – most likely a vacuously true statement will follow.]

Ok. That’s all I have patience for right now. I may add some more at some point.

eovjoijo

2004-06-10T18:05:00.000-04:00

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