It Is Designed, Just Not Very Intelligently

Some of the few reasons for ever keeping cable television are PBS' series Nova and Frontline. Both present intelligent, thoughtful, incisive documentaries, the former on science and technology, the latter on political and social and cultural issues. The latest Nova is a kind of wedding of the two, covering the Dover, DE Intelligent Design Case. Greg Anrig writes about it today at TPM Cafe:

In watching the documentary, I was struck by the parallels between the Dover story and movement conservatism generally. The selling of “intelligent design,” and the idea itself, has much in common with Social Security privatization, supply-side economics, the invasion of Iraq, school vouchers, and other half-baked causes that the right has relentlessly been pushing in recent decades.

For example, central to the selling of the intelligent design idea was the creation in 1996 of The Discovery Institute’s Center for Renewal of Science and Culture, initially funded by the Ahmanson family and the MacLellan Foundation (which supports organizations committed to “furthering of the Kingdom of Christ”). The Center housed and otherwise supported an eclectic mix of people, usually affiliated with universities, who in one way or another tried to come up with examples that would reinforce their claims about intelligent design.

It developed an internal game plan called the “Wedge Strategy,” which states as an overarching goal the replacement of science as currently practiced with “theistic and Christian science.” What the center was most effective at was developing a soft-sell marketing pitch intended to minimize the opposition that would arise against a creationism hard-sell. So, for example, it advocated that biology classes “teach the controversy” as a means of incorporating its attacks on Darwinism into lesson plans, rather than insisting that intelligent design replace evolution.

Basically, the Discovery Institute’s Center was in the business of marketing—not research. . . .

Now think about the role played by the Cato Institution and the Heritage Foundation in selling Social Security privatization. Akin to the “Wedge Document,” they developed the 1983 game plan “Achieving a 'Leninist' Strategy.” For years they honed a pitch aimed at reassuring everyone that, far from phasing out Social Security, they actually wanted to bolster it. They even softened the lingo from “privatization” to “private accounts.” When confronted with fundamental flaws with the concept, such as the massive additional federal debt it would create while imposing added risks on Americans, the think tanks came up with lame excuses while steaming full speed ahead with the same ill-conceived idea that would advance their broader agenda. Just as some intelligent design advocates outright lied in saying religion had nothing to do with their motivations, many privatization advocates lied in saying they wanted to strengthen Social Security.(emphases added)

I would add that, not only is "Intelligent Design" more a marketing strategy than anything closely resembling a serious scientific theory, it also uses the kind of coded language - referred to derisively if truthfully by some as "dog whistle politics" - that Republicans have developed to appeal to southern racism since Richard Nixon honed the infamous "Southern Strategy". By blabbing about "law and order" and "State's Rights" and "Reverse Discrimination", Republicans have made appeals to racist sentiments as a wedge to divide the old Confederacy from their multi-generational ties to the Democratic Party. While there is a sense of "good riddance to bad rubbish" in that instance (the IQ of both parties increased when Strom Thurmond became a Republican), the deeper issue here is that, like the "Southern Strategy", Republicans can pretend a certain plausible deniability in regards to the religious nature of Intelligent Design. By refusing to admit they have tried to put lipstick on the fetal pig of creationism, and by playing around with such wonderful sounding things as "teaching the controversy", they make themselves look all high-minded and open, and the scientists who oppose them appear dogmatic and narrow. To the extent that it was a successful marketing strategy, it worked like gangbusters, just like the Southern Strategy gave us Jesse Helms (who ran an ad showing white hands crumpling a rejection letter, clearly indicating that minority set-asides had denied a job to a qualified white man for an unqualified black man), Newt Gingrich (a whole book could be written about this guy; several, if one includes psychological profiles), and a whole host of not-quite-closeted bigots who have disgraced our public life.

Lucky for us, and especially for Dover Public Schools, since the question became a court case, which deals in facts rather than political marketing, the issue of the religious nature of Intelligent Design could be decided on the merits, and was. No amount of blowing on the dog whistle could change the fact that not just lipstick, but rouge, a dress, and pumps had been put on the creationist pig, only to be stripped away revealing . . . a pig.

The judge in this case admitted that, although this particular case was over, the fight would continue only shows that the "Designer" may have been "Intelligent", but some of those so designed were not gifted with that same attribute. Lucky for us we have Nova to remind us that, no matter how much you try, a pig in a dress is still just bacon on the cloven hoof.

While I'm Navel-Gazing: A Traffic Report

I got Site Meter in January last year so I could get a handle on how much traffic I was getting. I got Neo-Earthworx for a more detailed breakdown, plus it's very cool. Neo-Earth has the advantage of giving me the IP addresses of who visits; I get what provider is being used, not any information like your own site URL or anything like that.

Since April, my traffic has been quite steady, at around 1500 visits a week. Minuscule, to say the least. Even though I have enjoyed a couple notices from the national (internet) press, from Slate, and David Frum at NRO, I have been slaving away in obscurity, relishing my modest role in the great goings on around me (I am most proud of the Frum piece, because he threw a partial quote from me in with one from digby, Duncan Black, and My Direct Democracy; I was in elite company there).

Over the past couple days, however, my readership has spiked, nearly doubling. Indeed, I am getting more readers in a day than I was in a week for the first months or so I had site meter recording hits. As I have not been doing anything differently over the past few days, I have to wonder - what in the world is going on?

Part of me hopes this spike is a trend. Part of me hopes things settle back down. I have a sense of responsibility about what I do here, and if my traffic increases, the pressure to continue to do the best job I can will only increase. I do get a bit over-awed at the fact that people quite literally all over the world check in to this blog if not daily then at least on a regular basis. Having more of them, well, that will be just more stress.

Any thoughts, folks?

I'm It! I've Been List-Meme Tagged

Angry Ballerina has tagged me with a list-meme, so here goes a bit of navel gazing:

1. Fears - night-time home invasion

2. Things I like - lobster bisque; smart, strong-willed women; any music that's good; sitting down with a good book; kissing my wife; sitting with my children at night

3. Things I do not like - wax beans; apple sauce (it feels like vomit in my mouth); people who don't use turn signals; listening to Toby Keith or Nickelback

4. First kiss - embarrassingly, I do not remember her name; my first real girlfriend for all too brief a time was named Holly, and she did much better when she hooked up with my best friend for a year and a half (we've reconnected over the past year and are becoming friends again)

5. First job - swim instructor

6. Favorite books - if trapped on an islancd, and given a choice of only five books, they would be Waiting for the Galactic Bus, One Hundred Years of Solitude, A Suitable Boy, Jonathan Strange and Mister Norrell, and Church Dogmatics, Volume IV, Part 2: The Doctrine of Reconciliation

7. Quirks - I am a bit of a slob at home (my wife will heartily agree), but I am almost obsessively neat about my work space

8. I once stood and chatted with Edwin Meece when he was Attorney General.

9. I was forty years old before I decided I really did like pie after all, and now cannot get enough of it.

10. I had a crush on the same girl from about fifth grade through my senior year of high school, and despite the fact that we were close friends, I never quite got over the initial "crush" thing. No, I will not give names, because I think some folks from school read this site, and I have no intention of embarrassing myself (or her) by giving her name.

I now turn it over to ER and Marshall Art. Gentlemen?

WATS/WAVR

Surrendering to my own conscience for failing to do what I have wanted to do for several weeks, I am doing a post on my hometown radio station, WATS(WAVR is an FM simulcast of the AM content).

WATS is operated by a friend, Chuck Carver. While I was growing up, it provided an education in '70's AM pop that I treasure (more on that in a moment), and continues to be a voice for our little cluster of communities on the New York/Pennsylvania border. When we are going for a visit, the signal usually strengthens around Elmira (this being only fifteen miles from Waverly, you can tell the signal strength isn't much, although the presence of the ubiquitous hills probably doesn't help).

In case you're wondering what I mean by '70's AM pop, here's a sampling:

And another:

And, finally, this:

Along with these usual suspects, I remember even earlier examples, among my favorites being Peter Nero playing "Autumn Leaves" with that chromatic declension after the first phrase; any song by Dionne Warwick; and Barry Manilow. I was still immersed deeply in the music of WATS when I saw a copy of The Sex Pistol's Never Mind the Bullocks LP at the Waverly Free Library and decided to take it home. It was all up after that. But, the station is still there, doing good community-based radio, and I miss it. What was your hometown radio station, and what fond memories do you have?

"Distortions And Smears"

A couple weeks ago I did a series of posts in which I highlighted the egregious conduct of the mainstream press towards Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. In the process, I think I disappointed Democracy Lover, because I seemed to be advocating for Sen. Clinton, even though I have stated that I much prefer Sen. Dodd as a candidate because of his stance on restoring the Constitution, and Rep. Kucinich because of his stance on socio-economic issues. The reason I was defending Sen. Clinton against the scurrilous, inaccurate, and psychologically problematical attacks from Tim Russert and Chris Matthews is summed up by Glenn Greenwald today:

I'm not trying to be Ron Paul's advocate but, still, outright distortions and smears are distortions and smears.

One does not have to support a candidate for office to decry bad, dishonest, scary-creepy journalism. All one need consider is a bit of journalistic history to see a pattern, which Greenwald highlights:

It has become fashionable among certain commentators to hurl insults at Ron Paul such as "huge weirdo," "fruitcake," and the like. Interestingly, the same thing was done to another anti-war medical doctor/politician, Howard Dean, back in 2003, as Charles Krauthammer infamously pronounced with regard to Dean that "it's time to check on thorazine supplies." Krauthammer subsequently said that "[i]t looks as if Al Gore has gone off his lithium again."

For a long time now, I've heard a lot of people ask: "where are the principled conservatives?" -- meaning those on the Right who are willing to oppose the constitutional transgressions and abuses of the Bush administration without regard to party loyalty. A "principled conservative" isn't someone who agrees with liberals on most issues; that would make them a "principled liberal." A "principled conservative" is someone who aggressively objects to the radicalism of the neocons and the Bush/Cheney assault on our constitution and embraces a conservative political ideology. That's what Ron Paul is, and it's hardly a surprise that he holds many views anathema to most liberals. That hardly makes him a "fruitcake."
--snip--
This whole concept of singling out and labelling as "weirdos" and "fruitcakes" political figures because they espouse views that are held only by a small number of people is nothing more than an attempt to discredit someone without having to do the work to engage their arguments. It's actually a tactic right out of the seventh grade cafeteria. It's just a slothful mechanism for enforcing norms.

Again, I am not supporting Rep. Paul, or Sen. Clinton. I am calling out the way journalistic and political narratives are used that include inaccuracies, character assassination, and outright lies to destroy a candidate who is perceived to be "outside the mainstream". Digby makes this larger point best (as always):

This is not about Hillary. All you have to do is read The Daily Howler's archives to see that the press ran the same game on Gore, to an almost comic degree, and we all watched them help the Republicans turn John Kerry into a "phony soldier." They'll do it to Obama, to Edwards or any of the rest --- they've already laid the groundwork on all of them. This is nothing personal. The Clinton Rules apply to any Democrat. It's just the way the Village does business.

THAT is my point. If Obama believes he will be treated with respect by these people he is either naive or delusional. If Edwards thinks the haircut/"Breck Girl" narrative will disappear should he get the Democratic nod, he is kidding himself. While it is true there is a visceral hatred and fear of Sen. Clinton among many of our top "journalists", do not think this will impede them from howling with rage at whoever the Democrats nominate.

That's why I don't hate on Hillary, or attack her from the left. The fire is raging all over the place, and will consume any Democrat who runs for high office. To pretend otherwise is to deceive oneself. To think it possible to engage in serious discussion and criticism outside this larger, hate-filled framework is to live in cloud-cuckoo land. It isn't about Clinton, or Paul, or Obama, or Edwards, or Kucinich. It's about the distortions and smears.

Between A Rock And A Stupid Place

Once again, I must confess disappointment with a column by E. J. Dionne. The opening sets up a false dilemma:

Democrats in Congress are discovering what it's like to live in the worst of all possible worlds. They are condemned for selling out to President Bush and condemned for failing to make compromises aimed at getting things done.

The column then goes on to talk about the attacks upon Congressional Democrats from both the electorate (where the approval rating for Congress continues to sit in the basement) and from two of the leading Presidential candidates, Sen. Barack Obama and former Sen. and Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards. This is the first half of the formula - the rock, if you will. There is nothing uncontroversial about this.

To the other part, being criticized for not compromising enough, the only evidence he presents is a letter from Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to President Bush, in which the to insist that President Bush do real political work (i.e. compromise) rather than make demands and refuse to budge until the Democrats accept the Administration line. While Dionne notes that this is "fair", he doesn't expand on this point, and it begs the question, obviously, of just who it is that is demanding the Democrats "compromise" to "get real work done".

Since this has been a theme the President has used, in speeches, press conferences, and the like, for the past couple weeks, the answer is clear. Besides the President, we have the constant bleating from idiots like David Broder about "bipartisanship", which is another term of art for "compromise". It all ends up in the same place, however, when dealing with this Administration - the toilet.

The Democrats real problem is not that they are caught between the Scylla of public disapproval and the Charybdis of their own refusal to deal honestly and above board with the Bush Administration. Rather, they are caught between the increasing anger and frustration of a public who elected them to stand up to the Bush Administration, and an entrenched, corporate bought-and-owned party "leadership" that refuses to upset their paymasters by actually confronting head-on the radical refusal of the Administration to budge on issues. Only idiots worry about compromise and bipartisanship - and only weaklings and cowards care about what those idiots say.

Music Monday

I keep putting off that post on WATS! Last week I heard a World Cafe interview with Joni Mitchell, and I thought, "That's for Monday!" She is one of those performers about whom much has been written, so I will not add to the flood-tide of verbiage, and just let her music speak for itself.

First, a song I must admit I first heard done by The Indigo Girls on their live CD. "River":

"Chelsea Morning":

This live clip of "Coyote" includes Pat Metheny on guitar and the late, great Jaco Pastorius on bass:

Reaching For Your Wallet

As you can see here, my wife and her associate are continuing their holiday from the lectionary with another Worship Series. Yesterday's was on looking at the Church Budget (yes, it's that time of the year) as a theological document. The sermon at PGUMC was actually preached by one of our lay speakers, and the chair of the Finance Committee, and he did an admirable job of making the point that giving isn't about dollars and cents, but about why we give.

The whole "Butterfly Effect" thing is part and parcel of making a difference. When my wife and I were discussing the issue as she prepared notes for her sermons at Blaine and Hunter United Methodist Churches, I told her that I looked at it this way: One week I may give only five dollars, but through the twistings and turnings of the connectional system of the United Methodist Church, that five dollars may just provide a meal to a hungry child who would otherwise go hungry, or provide a school textbook in Liberia for a student who wouldn't have it otherwise, or be matched by Nothing But Nets to provide a mosquito net to protect a woman from malaria. Since I have no way of knowing beforehand how that money will be used, it is the act of giving that is faithful.

Lying behind my own thinking is a somewhat strange idea - the money in my wallet, my paycheck, and what I get from DJing on weekends isn't mine. It isn't ours, either, in the sense that it is my wife's and mine. Rather, it is all a gift from God. Every penny I earn, every extra dollar that I get as a tip from a satisfied bride's father, isn't "mine". In the end, I look upon all that money as God's to be used wisely, faithfully, prayerfully, and with a sense of humble service. My wife and I will never be wealthy, at least by American standards, but we are far more comfortable than our parents were, and our income prospects will only increase with time, but it isn't about us. It's about how we can serve others through this weird process of giving out of the abundance provided for us by the mysteries of God's grace.

The entire series will be available for purchase once it is finished, and I invite you, if you so choose, to check out all her sermon series this past year, and if you feel moved, to buy one or two. The money goes to the church for its work, so it isn't making anyone rich. But, like a butterfly flapping its wings, it might just cause a chain reaction and bring about a hurricane half-way across the world. That is the strange way these things work.

Liberal Hawks Forget About Google

I was interested in reading why Paul Berman won the coveted Julian Casablancas Award for High Wankery over at Eschaton today, so I cruised over Slate and was pleased to see that the award was fully justified.

There are a couple points to note about Berman's article. First, ever since the Iraq war went tits-up (early summer, 2003), liberal war hawks have been wearing sack cloth and ashes, trying to justify their support for the biggest single cock-up/war crime in American history. Except for Christopher Hitchens, of course, for whom the kind of serious self-reflection such would entail might prompt him to attend AA. What amazes me more than anything is that these folks sold their souls to the devil, and now want to tell us that, in fact, it is the devil's fault they will spend eternity in hell, because the devil, to them, committed false advertising. Alas and alack, this is not true at all - all of these folks knew exactly who George Bush was, what his Administration represented, and no amount of rewriting their own history can change the fact that they snookered themselves in to believing that somehow, in some way still to be identified, some kind of silk purse could be made out of this train load of sow's ears.

What makes Berman's article worse is the fact that he is a lying sack of crap. His self-justification in Slate includes no references to anything he actually wrote four years ago, because, if he did, he would be forced to admit that, like every other booster for the war, he has been wrong from the get-go. Matthew Yglesias has the take down.

So, Berman was wrong then. Berman is wrong now. Berman lies about what he said then, and is caught at it. It is almost not even commenting about, except these liberal hawks consider themselves so politically and moral superior to the anti-war crowd. Yet, they are a bunch of lying, self-promoting hacks who, as I wrote above, have sold their souls to the devil, and cheaply at that. While some who supported the war, like Josh Marshall and Yglesias, have repented, the folks listed by Berman in his Slate piece have yet to admit that they managed to become intellectual whores for the most criminal regime in our history. The only one I excuse is Hitchens because, being drunk most of the time, he is not responsible for his actions.

BTW, this will probably get another "Who freakin' cares?" comment from Marshall Art. While he always denies that my calls are correct, in the post where he denies my prescience, he goes on to prove me right, so let's see, eh?

. . . And The Deficit Is Clinton's Fault, And The Anthrax Letters Were Sent By Clinton, And The Housing Bubble Collapse Is Clinton's Fault . . .

I had seen the headline this morning, but other things got in my way - church, sleeping so I could work tonight - but I returned to the full story, and it is one of those that put me on the point of a pin. Do I laugh hysterically, or weep? Is there any chance that any journalist, reputable or not, will ask him, "Mayor Giuliani, are you serious, or was the crack just kicking in?"

If you're wondering what I'm on about, click here and just read the headline. Go ahead. I'll wait.

Did you do it?

If not, I shall quote from the story. Ahem:

Here's the top story out of the Iowa local press: Rudy Giuliani told an audience at Iowa State University that the American military needs to be bigger, and he lashed out at Bill Clinton for cutting the military during the 1990's.

"Our military is too small to deal with the Islamic terrorism threats," Giuliani said, "but it really is too small to deter would-be aggressors to even think of challenging us. And that's due to Bill Clinton."

While he's at it, why doesn't he just go ahead and say that Bill Clinton planned 9/11, helped Osama escape in Tora Bora, set the fires in southern California, and weakened the levees in New Orleans so the city would flood during a hurricane. All of these claims make as much sense as Giuliani's.

Fall In

In honor of Veteran's Day, my own family Honor Roll:

Landis Safford, GAR, 1964-1865

Everett Shores, AEF, 1917-1918 (killed in action, August 18, 1918)

Daniel Safford, Unites States Army, 1945-1946

Bernard Safford, United States Navy, 1943-1946

Eugene Johnston, Jr., United States Navy, 1941-1946

David Johnston, United States Marine Corps, 1945-1955

Ivan Johnston, United States Navy, 1955-1969

My great-uncle (my paternal grandmother's brother), Everett Shores, was originally buried in the American cemetery in France. My great-grandparents requested his remains be disinterred and brought to the US for burial in the family plot in Wysox, PA. My grandfather, a railroad man, had to go and positively identify the body, per US War Department regulations. My father told me a few years back that, despite two years in French soil, it was clear that Corporal Shores died from the blast concussion from a shell, whether German, American, or French will never be known. Dad told me that his father said there was not a mark on his body. My father's brother, Bernard, who passed away in 1999, gave to me a small jewelry box, that contained an itemized inventory of the contents of Corp. Shores' pockets, and a handful of coins, some of them completely faded with age, others in great shape, that were all that was left behind. Corp. Shores, like many young men, traded money with French and British forces, including the French colonial forces, so I have old coins from France, Britain, and Morocco in that box. I also have the plaques sent to my great-grandparents by Gen. Pershing and by the French government, framed and hanging in our house.

Anti-Intellectualism

I am by turns amused and confused by various reactions to some of my blog posts by those on the right. I am not picking on Marshall Art, but as he is the most frequent right-winger to post here, I will use him as an example, for the good reason that examples abound from his very keyboard. He wrote here of "liberal intellectuals" (when he was actually referring to judges interpreting the law); he wrote here the following:

It's also legitimate to question the faith of someone who so proudly rejects long held beliefs about the faith as backward or uneducated, as if education is a basis for determining good or evil.

In one of his very first blog posts, he attempted to prove "scientifically" that a fetus was a human being because of the presence of unique DNA in fetal tissue. When I pointed out to him, politely but firmly, that he didn't seem to understand the way science works, and I wrote a post on the subject, all I got in response was a change in tactics. I also pointed out that trying to argue for the personhood of a fetus ignored the fact that we are nation of laws, and the response was a bunch of Bible verses thrown at me. In other words, rather than argue, the ground continued to shift to keep the argument from centering on something that might disprove his assertion.

In 1963, Richard Hofstadter wrote a Pulitzer-Prize winning book, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life. In this book he explores the history what he calls "anti-intellectualism" in politics, religion, and social life. While I agree with my old college professor, Robert Heineman, who in his own book, Authority and the Liberal Tradition, raises many questions about Hofstadter's work, including the quite elitist notion inherent in the term "anti-intellectualism", there is abundant evidence in Hofstadter's work to back up his thesis that there is a history of rejecting out of hand the thoughts and opinions of people who are well-educated, articulate, and knowledgeable about a great many things. This is not to claim some victimhood, to have a pity-party for all the smart people suffering at the hands of stupid people. It is merely to point out that it exists, and to wonder what, exactly, we can do about it.

The funny thing about this subject is that it becomes confused, and complicated, by a tendency among some of the most ignorant, anti-science, anti-thought movements in the country to create institutions similar to serious intellectual ones. Therefore we have the Institute for Creation Research, and its accompanying journal, which is almost a parody of serious, peer-reviewed scientific publications. We have various "universities", like Bob Jones, Liberty, and Regent (the last having lost its accreditation long ago, even as its law school graduates infect our Federal Justice Department) which produce students good at dressing well, but totally ignorant of basic biology, chemistry, geology, and American history.

There are the propagandists of the right - Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, and Michelle Malkin, with their "books", their "arguments", and their constant talk. We are flooded with talk We are overwhelmed by it, drowned by it. That none of these people has any serious moral, intellectual, or political acumen at all is ever brought up (well, maybe the moral part) when they are dragged out from under their various rocks and presented to the American people. It isn't just that they aren't educated (actually, Coulter is a lawyer); they are ignorant, and their ignorance runs so deep and is so profound, it staggers my own imagination that anyone takes them seriously at all. Yet, they are serious media players despite being deeply flawed individuals.

Finally, all this filters down here, on the Internet, and we have people who actually argue that there is no such thing as evolution, or that the big bang doesn't take all that much imagination to picture, or who claim that DNA proves that abortion is murder. What are we to make of it all?

I have written that I refuse to argue certain things because they are beyond the point of argumentation. Whether it's evolution, or the age of the Universe, or some other scientific issue, an anti-science position does not deserve to be taken seriously at all, and any response confers upon it a legitimacy it does not deserve. I suppose, for that reason, that I am elitist. Yet, what other choice is there?

Where do all these musings lead? Only here. In the first place, I do not consider myself an "intellectual", but a consumer of intellectual work. It is one thing to argue about the merits of a work based upon what the author presents. On the other hand, to dismiss out of hand someone's writing this way:

Another lunatic is on the loose. Talk about over-inflated sense of self-importance. This kind of talk makes me sick, with all it's psuedo-elitism, "I'm immune to such lowly nonsense" nonsense. People like this add nothing to the culture, the system or the social interactions of real people living real lives. We're talking about a professor of holier-than-thou.

it seems to me the only proper response is no response at all. Refusing to engage non-arguments, based upon some person's pride in their own ignorance, is the only way to keep moving forward.

Saturday Rock Show

When I was in college, I dated a young woman who was in to all the great 80's alternative bands - most of whom were British. She liked The Cure, and New Order (I don't know anyone who didn't like New Order, to be honest). She also liked The Smiths.

My relationship with The Smiths is a bit like my relationship with Bruce Springsteen. I recognize the genius. I even groove to some of the songs. Yet, I just don't feel like saying, "I really like this stuff!". It is one thing to say, "This is truly great music." It is another thing to invest oneself and say, "I like this!" Yet, The Smiths have grown on me over the years, and are far better than most of the offerings out there these days. So, in a fit of nostalgia (for the music, not my ex-girlfriend), here are The Smiths doing "Stop Me (If You've Heard This One Before)". By the way, they never were the cheeriest band; the closest thing they had to a hit in the US was a song called "Girlfriend in a Coma" after all . . .

By the way, don't you think Morrissey is kind of the anti-Brian Ferry?

An Immodest Proposal

With Halloween over, and retail outlets, malls, and even a municipality or two already cranking out Charlotte Church Christmas CDs over loudspeakers and hanging so much green you almost forget it's winter, the whakos trot out their annual "War on Christmas" shtick. Like all bad jokes that just won't go away, one tires of hearing the same-old same-old again, but these folks are incapable of relenting.

I want to submit to my readers the proposition that there is indeed a "War on Christmas". It is being waged on multiple fronts, and it has been going on for most of my life, and perhaps even before. "Christmas" was, for most of the history of the Christian faith, a relatively inconsequential feast-day; Epiphany, Easter, shoot, even the Assumption of Mary and the Annunciation were bigger feast days. With the advent of capitalism, however, and the insistence that giving gifts is part of participating in the love of God ("the Wise Men brought him gifts, so we should, too") we had the marriage of bad economics and worse theology creating a demon child that has wrested itself loose from any kind of control. We are quite literally super-saturated with Christmas by the time December 25 rolls around. We are swamped with the same 25 songs being done by mediocrities. We have to look at tinsel, lights, snowmen, reindeer, and every Santa imaginable. Entire stores seem dedicated to trying to induce the gag reflex by the amount of Christmas crap they can stuff in to a space.

Now, unlike Halloween, I am no Grinch or Scrooge about Christmas. I love the day, I love the season. I always have. In our house growing up, decorating began on December 1, and took place over the course of the four weeks running up to the day, culminating in the tree, which sometimes wasn't completely decorated until the 24th. All five of us have our special bits that we did; mine was a lovely plaster-of-paris stable scene, with a wonderful old wooden stable. We kept it in a model box of a Boeing 707, that had probably been my brother's. Usually the second week of December, my mother would bring it down out of the attic and I would set it up on the corner end table in our front living room, right under the white plastic Christmas tree, festooned with glitter, with the rotating disc of colored lights underneath. To outsiders, I am quite sure this sounds tacky, but I never thought so, and still don't. I loved it then, and my memories are not at all tinged with nostalgia because I loved it all.

As an adult, however, who gets avalanched with bad music, appeals to BUY!BUY!BUY!!!!, and ends every trip to Kohl's or the Mall with a headache from sensory overload (all that green gives me a migraine), I do believe the war on Christmas is one our retail outlets wage against the public. I have no problem with gift-giving; I have a problem with the endless reminders from media outlets that retailers depend upon Christmas for a large percentage of their yearly sales, and the fate of capitalism as we know it hinges upon whether we buy our kids a PS3.

My older daughter told my wife last week, "I don't want any presents this year. We have so much stuff we don't even use. Let's give that money to people who don't have anything." That's Christmas right there - not Mitch Miller And His Gang piped in over the PA in Target as we wait in endless lines to buy garbage.

For the past several years, my wife and I have not bought each other a whole lot. I get her a gift card to a store she likes; I get socks (which I always need), and underwear (which no man can have too much of), and a card. Our kids get one big present, and a bunch of practical stuff, like clothes. They don't own a video game system, nor are they particularly interested in one. We don't have access to television, so they aren't bombarded with demands to purchase stuff the TV tells them they have to have in order to survive, like Brats dolls or the latest Hannah Montana shirt. My older daughter likes books, she likes horses, and she likes music. My younger daughter likes books, she likes dogs, and she likes clothes. They're not demanding at all.

My family is contributing our bit to fight back against the War on Christmas in two ways: (1) We aren't big spenders, but talk about the baby Jesus a lot, and who this baby will become; (2) We say "Happy Holidays" to everyone we meet.

The Democratic Victories in the '07 Elections Are Bad For Democrats

Reading the Washington Post these day is like visiting with a favorite teacher after 20 years, and discovering she has Alzheimer's Disease. I suppose I am contending with my idealized version of the paper rather than what it ever really was. Yet, I find it heartbreaking that the hometown newspaper of the nation's capital, covering the business of the town, could be so bad.

What hurts even worse is reading today's column by E. J. Dionne. As I said on Tuesday, I have always liked Dionne. Yet, reading the piece left me feeling frustrated that someone who has displayed an understanding of the realities of politics at various levels, and had an eye and ear for nuance could pen the following lede:

The Democratic surge that began in 2006 continued in elections around the country on Tuesday. But how the Democrats won provides a cautionary tale for the national party.

Without belaboring the point, Dionne notes that the various elections this past week were good for Democrats. Yet, he doesn't seem to fathom the notion that these were local and statewide elections, turning mostly on local and state issues - corruption in KY, immigration in VA - in which the Republicans had either a history of corruption (KY's governor was the Richard Nixon of the Frankfort statehouse) or had staked out a party position that was unpopular. Local and regional elections turn on different issues from national elections. Technocratic skill, basic competence, and an attention to detail are key; whether one is ideologically opposed to tax hikes is just plain irrelevant. Local government is all about the efficiency and economy of the delivery of services.

Next years national elections will not be focused on balancing growth and taxation in the sprawling DC suburbs of northern Virginia. Next years national election will be focused on Iraq, our national collapse, and Iraq, and not in that order. Of course, the Democrats have big leads among the voters as to whom they think will deal with these issues better (which is why they are so ticked at the current Congress; they want the Democratic majority to do a better job of reigning in the insanity).

Becoming the Dukakis Party won't cut it next year. Competence is an issue, and if Giuliani is the Republican's nominee we can add sanity as well to the mix (I still think Romney will get the nod, which will only shift the added burden from sanity to consistency and trustworthiness). Yet, it is not now, nor has it ever been as vital as it is in statewide or local elections. These are, for the most part, people we all know - our neighbors, the guy who runs the bank or the big hardware store. We know them, and understand their hearts are in the right place. We just want to make sure they understand what they are getting themselves in to, and can deliver the goods on time, economically.

I suppose, however, that I shouldn't be surprised that Dionne thinks the results of the elections are bad for Democrats. After all, everything the Democrats do that is successful is bad for them and the country. It's been this way for thirty years, so why should it change now?

Political Pornography, Part II - Barely Legal Edition

When I read this post over at Hullabaloo the other day, I cringed all the way through. The very idea that a candidate's children should be subject any kind of scrutiny at all is deeply offensive. Even if they are adults (as Jenna and Barbara Bush are, as Chelsea Clinton is) they are not public figures by any stretch of the imagination. Of course, the trashing of Chelsea is old news; Limbaugh used her as the butt of a horrific joke on his short-lived television show back in the 1990's, at a time in her life when all young people, young men and women, are over-sensitive, and their self-image is never very strong.

I am an equal-opportunity disdainer of this kind of tabloid-style fake journalism. I find it disgusting that some people somewhere find it at all newsworthy what Jenna and Barbara Bush did during their college years, or during their early post-college excursions overseas. The fact that some criticism leveled at them came from left-wing blogs did not keep me from thinking that it was grossly wrong and has no place in our public discourse.

The two articles in question, in The New Republic, and Newsweek, are just about the most awful pieces of non-journalism I have seen in a very long time. Bob Somerby admits today that he sent the info to digby. On this particular bit of garbage, he writes:

Do you have any idea how dumb you have to be, as a male, to write panty-sniffing garbage like this in the year 2007? How mindless a magazine has to be to put this rot-gut in print? According to Newsweek, Romano “graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton University in 2004 with an A.B. in English and a certificate in American Studies.” Simply put, that’s a tragic admission.

Endless: Alas! Though culture is always part of the mix, the sense of male privilege driving these pieces (“droit de sophomore”) seems to be bred quite deep in the bone. Omigod! Absent appropriate guidance, each generation of young, callow males turns out just as dumb as the last one. Almost surely, many progressives thought this type of churlishness had been snuffed out by the early 70s, at least among “liberal” men. But these attitudes return with each generation. We gentlemen are just more resentful—therefore, dumber—each and every time.

Consequences: Do you trust a magazine which would print such a piece to cover the White House campaign of the first viable female candidate? In the past few weeks, Clinton has been trashed by Chris Matthews in astonishing ways; his lunatic conduct continued last night. (Tucker Carlson is little better—although he’s less influential.) Few “liberals” have found the heart to complain—or even to notice what’s happening. But then, our liberal leaders have long ignored Matthews’ woman-trashing, going all the way back to the late 1990s (more on these topics next week). This is A-OK with our tribe. Absent the unusual person like Digby, our tribe doesn’t even notice.

--snip--

A final note about consequences. When you see a collection of liberal scribes who think it’s OK to trash young women this way (down to age 6), do you think they will ever defend you against the wider values of their plutocrat bosses? . . . Do you think a bunch of boys who sniff their way through underwear drawers will ever stand up to the Russerts and the Matthewses? To the powerful interests which hired them—which stand behind them? Their empty hearts and outstretched hands are perfectly clear as they publish this swill. They’re letting you know who and what they are. . .

If this is the kind of political smut that will be peddled to us in the next twelve months, all I can do is quote Bette Davis: "Hang on boys. It's going to be a bumpy night."

And Bozo The Clown Isn't Convinced That Iraq Didn't Have WMDs

I saw the story yesterday about the founder of The Weather Channel coming out as a global warming denier. I didn't think much of it myself, but since I just know that Marshall Art and Neon Prime Time will jump on it and say, "See?!? See?!? A weatherman says it's crap!! What do you have to say about that?!?" I thought it would be best to at least note it.

I don't have anything to say, because Roger Ailes said it already:

Coleman was the wacky weatherman on Chicago's WLS-TV infotainment newscasts in the late 70s. He coined kooky terms like "thorms," used nutty props, engaged in inane banter, and stood in front of (or walked through) a green screen while the Happy Talk news team threw things at him and tried to make him crack up. In short, he was the original Steve Doocy-type performing monkey.

--snip--

The man is a crank who reads the weather forecast off a TelePrompter. He doesn't offer any science -- or even any "science" -- to support his position, nor does he offer any proof to support his conspiracy allegations. And the lemmings in the wingnutosphere follow him over a cliff simply because he "founded" a basic cable teevee station. I look forward to their similar deference to Ted Turner, Mark Cuban and Vice President Al Gore.

Desperation, thy name is right-wing anti-science types.

Shorter* Charles Krauthammer

We are saving them from their own self-interest -

Because the Pakistanis cannot be trusted with democracy, we have no choice but to use a dictator to further the cause of democracy in the Muslim world.

*‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard.

Uh, George, About That Whole Commander-In-Chief Thing . . .

This is a nice catch by Oliver Willis:

I think he really has no idea that he's president and commander-in-chief.

Just to make things clear. Prevez Musharraf is the military President of Pakistan and the Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistani military. George W. Bush is the civilian President of the United States . . . and Commander-in-Chief of the United States military.

I wonder who whispers in his ear, "Breathe in. Hold it. Breathe out. Count to three. Repeat."

This Is Why George Will Isn't A Film Critic

Today's column by George Will is another adventure in the alternate universe that is Willy World. In Willy World, The Godfather is a celebration of the criminal life, rather than an indictment of that life as the epitome of capitalism, family values, and the evil that can swallow a person whole once one surrenders to it.

I love The Godfather, The Godfather, Part II, Goodfellas, and The Departed precisely because these films show that, far from glamorous and exciting, the life of those in organized crime is squalid, decadent, and overflowing with violence. Precisely like American society as a whole. While I haven't seen American Gangster, it sounds like it is of a piece with this same tradition.

Will throws in a quote from Puzo's book, which shows exactly the point Coppolla's (sp?) film traced through a series of vignettes - organized crime is the logical extension of capitalism, rather than the antithesis of it. The violence employed is nothing more than the final logical extension of laissez faire to a market immune to the reach of legal regulation. The goal is the maximization of profit, by any means necessary. Corporations utilize corporate spies, various barely-legal strategies such as predatory pricing, undercutting competition, and the like. Taking out a gun and killing the competition because they are interfering with the possibility of making more money is just a strategy - "It's not personal. It's just business" is a phrase that Target and the Genovese's can use without blinking or feeling ashamed.

Will would rather read Puzo's book and see Coppolla's film as a celebration of a deviant lifestyle, rather than an indictment of that lifestyle and its inherent hypocrisies, which are nothing more nor less than the hypocrisies of capitalism magnified. That American Gangster seems to do this as well means it is not the antithesis of The Godfather, but another in a long tradition of exposing the horrid underbelly of American society and capitalism.

When Was The Last Time A Nuclear Canada And The United States Fought A War?

Help me. How can anyone be hailed as the "Dean" of political journalism when he is this holwingly stupid?

To gauge the impact here of the turmoil next door in Pakistan, Americans would have to imagine their own reaction to a military coup or the imposition of martial law in Canada.

Broder does acknowledge later in the column that

India and Pakistan have fought repeated wars over the years, and suspicions of trouble are always close to the surface.

So, my question is this - the whole Canada coup comparison means . . . what, exactly?

The reason India is as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs (I love that phrase; I first read it in a Stephen King novel, and have seen it in others of his published works) is not because, like Canada and the United States, India and Pakistan have the longest unguarded border in the world. Canada and the United States have not fought a war since 1812, although there were some skirmishes out west in the mid-19th century as rival claims to the timberland of the Pacific Northwest were still being settled. In the past sixty years, Pakistan and India have fought three wars, and there is an on-going guerrilla war in Kashmir, fueled by passions on both sides. With both sides armed to the teeth, including nuclear weapons, and with the constant internal political turmoil in Pakistan always a spur to Pakistani adventurism (aided by radical Islamic disdain for the officially secular, Hindu majority India), the fears of India are both rational and long-standing.

On the other hand, Canada is almost bland by comparison. We and they share language, legal and Constitutional traditions, a history of western expansion (although Canada's was much more orderly than ours), and many social and cultural traditions.

So - in order to understand India's nerves, we have to imagine not only martial law in Canada, we have to imagine a belligerent Canada, armed with nuclear weapons, with a history of political turmoil, three wars, on-going fueling of violence in the disputed Upper Peninsula of Michigan and Penobscot County, Maine, and a Canada that does not speak our language, is becoming almost psychotically wedded to a radical form of political religion, and has a history of hating the United States.

Good comparison, David. Really.

Agh.

David Horowitz Is Absolutely Insane

I saw this yesterday, but got all caught up in self-justification and so I failed in my duty to keep people up to date on what is actually going on in the world.

Max Blumenthal managed to capture David Horowitz' screaming paranoia despite Horowitz' efforts to keep cameras out. It needs to be watched to be believed.

This is a great example of why deinstitutionalization was such a failure.

Sunday School Lessons

The Senior High Sunday School class at PGUMC is doing a series of discussions on listening for Christian messages, or possible messages, within contemporary rock songs. I have been asked to contribute to this project by both teachers, and have done so, at first reluctantly, but a bit more enthusiastically over time.

What follows are three of my suggestions, lyrics included beneath. I am opening up for comments on what your take on the songs is, even if "This sucks" or "Ain't my cup of tea" is your only reaction.

"Prayer" by Disturbed:

Lyrics:
Another dream that will never come true
Just to compliment your sorrow
Another life that I've taken from you
A gift to add on to your pain and suffering
Another truth you can never believe
Has crippled you completely
All the cries you're beginning to hear
Trapped in your mind, and the sound is deafening

Let me enlighten you
This is the way I pray

[Chorus]
Livin just isn't hard enough
Burn me alive, inside
Livin my life's not hard enough
Take everything away

Another nightmare about to come true
Will manifest tomorrow
Another love that I've taken from you
Lost in time, on the edge of suffering
Another taste of the evil I breed
Will level you completely
Bring to life everything that you fear
Live in the dark, and the world is threatening

Let me enlighten you
This is the way i pray

[chorus]

Return to me
Leave me no one
Turn to me
Return to me
Cast aside

You make me turn away

[chorus]

"Rise Today" by Alter Bridge

Lyrics:
The wind is blowing cold
Have we lost our way tonight?
Have we lost our hope to sorrow?

Feels like we're all alone
Running further from what's right
And there are no more heroes to follow

So what are we becoming?
Where did we go wrong?

[Chorus:]
Yeah, oh yeah
I want to rise today
And change this world

Yeah, oh yeah
Oh, won't you rise today
And change this world?

The sun is beating down
Are we ever gonna change
Can we stop the blood from running?

Our time is running out
Hope we find a better way
Before we find we're left with nothing

For every life that's taken
So much love is wasted

[Chorus:]
Yeah, oh yeah
I want to rise today
And change this world

Yeah, oh yeah
So won't you rise today
And change

This world
Only love can set it right
This world
If only peace would never die

Seems to me that we've got each other wrong
Was the enemy just your brother all along?

[Chorus:]
Yeah, oh yeah
I want to rise today
And change this world

Yeah, oh yeah
Oh won't you rise today
And change this world?

Yeah, oh yeah
I want to rise today
And change this world

Yeah, oh yeah
I want to rise today
And change this world

"Judith" by A Perfect Circle

Lyrics:
You're such an inspiration for the ways
That I'll never ever choose to be
Oh so many ways for me to show you
How the savior has abandoned you
Fuck your God
Your Lord and your Christ
He did this
Took all you had and
Left you this way
Still you pray, you never stray
Never taste of the fruit
You never thought to question why

It's not like you killed someone
It's not like you drove a hateful spear into his side
Praise the one who left you
Broken down and paralyzed
He did it all for you
He did it all for you

Oh so many many ways for me to show you
How your dogma has abandoned you
Pray to your Christ, to your god
Never taste of the fruit
Never stray, never break
Never---choke on a lie
Even though he's the one who did this to you
You never thought to question why

Not like you killed someone
It's Not like you drove a spiteful spear into his side
Talk to Jesus Christ
As if he knows the reasons why
He did it all for you
Did it all for you
He did it all for you..

There Is Rude, Then There Is Rude

As I noted over here ELAshley thinks I am "the rudest person" he has encountered on the internet. I mentioned it to note the hilarity of the idea, not to whine about it. As Alan noted in comments:

For years liberals have been cowering in the corner any time a conservative says some nasty lie about them. Now they're shocked and surprised when we've finally grown sick enough of their BS to call them on it. Glass jawed, apparently.

Prior to this wonderful summation of my own position, I had this comment from infrequent busybody Mom2:

Geoffrey, you do your wife no favors with the comments that you make. Your behavior and manner of talking to people that disagree with you, causes me to wonder what kind of influence she can have in the pulpit when her husband has a vile mouth and an explosive temper. A pastor should have some control at home first.
Those names you called EL should not be held in your hand, let alone come out of your mouth, head, hands on the keyboard.

Before you read my response, please note that she backhandedly attacks my wife's integrity, the integrity of her ministry, and, indeed, our family life. As I have said, snide comments are one thing. Yet, this comment is of a piece with another comment sent my way, which I noted here:

Am I mistaken or do you classify yourself as a Christian with these kind of doubts?

Since there is a history of this kind of thing, and more, with this particular person, perhaps there can be some understanding behind my response:

Mom2, when I want advice from someone who knows nothing, I'll be sure to look you up. Until then, leave my wife, and her ministry, and everything else that has to do with me, out of it. I might just release some more words from my hands, because my patience with comments like yours has disappeared. Your phony sanctimony, your pompous preaching about morality, your tired, nonsensical drivel about how much more learned and wise you are simply because you haven't died yet all make me want to vomit.

Oops. I guess I was rude again.

C'est la vie.

ELAshley has taken it upon himself to expose me to the world for the horrid person I am. He even calls upon me to repent.

It is all well and good for ELAshley, Mom2, Marshall Art, and (previously) Neil to question my faith, to call in to question my wife's integrity, to claim that I am not truly a Christian. When I respond to their nonsense, however, I am wrong. It is all well and good to insist that my faith is erroneous, the way my wife and I raise our children is harmful, and we are a danger to society. It is hateful and evil for me to tell them all to mind their own business.

As I said once before, "Homey Don't Play That Way."

I honestly do not wish any of these people ill. I have not and will not call in to question their faith. As I have not only not been given the same courtesy, but have been lectured at, preached at, pronounced non-Christian, and now had my wife's integrity challenged, I do think I have shown remarkable restraint. It is not rude to take a stand when attacked. It is not un-Christian to act out of anger. It is not hateful to dismiss the intemperate comments and intrusive suggestions of people whose opinion one does not value. I have honestly sought dialogue with these folks, to a person, and have had nothing but bile thrown at me, time after time. Now, I am flinging back, although in a different way, and they don't like it.

WATB one and all.

Let's Talk About Sex

In comments here, Marshall Art writes:

Geoffrey, muh man, I've just said a quick prayer for your girl. To alert a child to the changes they will undergo is one thing. To present perversions as simply sexual diversity is reprehensible. As things are going now, don't be surprised if she winds up pregnant early with the very decisions she didn't need to make and wouldn't have to if she was taught to put sex in it's proper place.

First of all, one person's perversion is another's Friday night frolic. That's just the way the cookie crumbles. More to the point, I find it fascinating that there are so many people concerned with how other people raise their children. I have indicated that we are working for an open line of communication with our children on this issue, and that we are teaching our daughters that "difference" does not equate with "wrong" - and somehow, Marshall decides to warn me that because of that, my daughter is going to get pregnant.

If she does, you know what, Marshall? We will be there with her every step of the way. We will not judge, we will not be angry, we won't be disappointed, we will give her as much help as we can, and we will never, ever stop loving her. That, however, is hardly the issue.

Why, on God's green earth, is it wrong to tell children that people are people? Why, on God's green earth, is it wrong to tell children that love is far better than deciding how other's are to live?

I want to tell a story out of school, as it were. I hope I will be forgiven for this, but I will not use names to protect the innocent. In March of 1989, my youngest sister, living in Massachusetts with her boyfriend, called our house. She talked to my mother for close to two hours. She had not contacted my parents for three months, and we found out why that evening - she was pregnant, and terrified of my parents' reaction. My parents' reaction? As I was standing in the kitchen when my mother and father talked about this, I can give a first-hand account - Is that all? My mother added, "I thought it might be that" for good measure.

That child is a freshman on a full-ride scholarship to Dartmouth College, studying chemistry right now.

The point of this little family anecdote is simple - I learned how to raise my children, and love them no matter what, and accept their mistakes, from two people I admire more than any others - my parents, Daniel and Virginia Safford. I honestly don't think anything Marshall has said, or will say, about raising children, can compare to the lesson I learned that March evening eighteen years ago. However, I open this discussion to other parents out there - DL, ER, Jim, Sis - for their input.

While We're At It, The United States Is Pretty Artificial, Too . . .

I often wonder if people realize how truly dumb they are. Do they say something, and then realize, "Man, that was just about the worst arrangement of words possible. My bad, everybody!" I am not talking about garden-variety stupid, here, like the Uncle at the family reunion who goes on and on about his prostate treatment as everyone tries to hide in embarrassment. I am speaking about, well, about people who are supposed to be really smart saying things that are just God-awful.

Our entry today in the "I Wish I Could Take It Back" contest is this piece over at Newsweek/Washington Post on-line by Ali Ettefagh entitled "Why not Dissolve Pakistan, Too?" Mr. Ettefagh is Director of something called the Highmore Global Corporation, an investment group specializing in emerging and Third World markets. Here is a rundown on Pakistani history, accurate enough, given by Mr. Ettefagh:

Pakistan was a phrase coined for an idealistic confederation of five Muslim provinces within the old British-controlled India (Punjab, Northwest Frontier Province or Afghania, Kashmir, Sindh and Baluchistan). However, these are tribal lands with distinct traditions and have very little in common. These provinces were all knocked together, on presumption of a common religion, and a “dominion” was fabricated within the Commonwealth with self-governance authority akin to independence after World War II.

Before he gives this roughly accurate account of the emergence of Pakistan from the British Raj, however, he goes all Winston Churchill on us (during the 1920's debate in Britain on giving India dominion status, Churchill insisted that "India" was an artificial term, and trying to give coherence to what had never been coherent, or to unify what had never been unified was not just dangerous for the people of India, but historically dishonest) and writes in his very first sentence:

Pakistan is not a country. It is a failed British fantasy about the fabrication of a nation-state. It has other failed and failing peers in the Middle East, all fabricated during the 20th century. It is time to seriously review all of these structures and redraw the borderlines.

Red flags abound. While it is true that Pakistan has had its share of crises, coups d'etat, and is currently undergoing a profound political crisis not helped by Washington ambivalence (I do believe the US is sitting this one out because they have yoked themselves to Pres. Prevez Musharraf, a man with a clock ticking above his head if ever there was one), it is nonetheless quite frightening to offer up for serious discussion the thought of redrawing national boundaries by an outside party.

At the end of the First World War, the map of Europe was redrawn. At the end of the Second World War, it was done so again, including the elimination of the old Kingdom of Prussia within Germany, at the insistence of Josef Stalin (somehow, the reasoning was, if you got rid of Prussia, you got rid of something people insisted on calling "Prussianism", best described again by Winston Churchill with the bon mot "A Hun alive is a war in prospect."). after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its control over Eastern Europe, the world's map again was changed, but this time by the various countries in question.

Ettefagh is not suggesting the kind of thing done after conquering a defeated nation in war. He is not suggesting the Pakistanis deal with their internal crisis by considering dismemberment. He is insisting that outside powers intervene and decide the territorial integrity question of a sovereign state without its input or its consent.

Then we can all put on our jodhpurs and pith helmets and drink tea on the veranda and complain about the darkies and their lack of political ability, giving thanks for the White Man's burden.

I Love Him I Love Him I Love Him And Where He Goes I'll Follow I'll Follow I'll Follow

I was thinking this was going to be a difficult blogging day, but then the muse whispered in my ear and I went to take a look at today's entry in the Washington Follies by E. J. Dionne. Like his colleague David Broder, who insisted in a column back in February that President George Bush was on the verge of "a political comeback" (crickets chirp as we await the fulfillment of the prediction; oh, and people die, too, in Iraq and Afghanistan), Dionne is in full-out man-crush mode on the media's favorite Republican candidate:

The strangest thing about John McCain's campaign for president is that it's supposed to be dead, but it isn't. This is a real nuisance for his competitors.

The comeback is not showy or dramatic. And it's true that while McCain is better off than he was in July, when his campaign imploded in a dazzling display of financial mismanagement and staff recriminations, he still faces a more difficult route to the GOP nomination than his well-financed rivals, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney.

The evidence?

Nationally, McCain got a boost over the weekend when a new Post-ABC News poll showed him in second place to Giuliani. The former New York mayor had 33 percent; McCain, 19 percent; and the stalled Fred Thompson16 percent. Romney, who leads in both Iowa and New Hampshire, came in at 11 percent, and Mike Huckabee had 9 percent.

So, McCain is at the top of the back-of-the-pack crowd, fourteen points behind, and this is a comeback.

Remember, folks, this is one poll.

Wow.

The rest of Dionne's column is an attempt at a tactical dissection, not of McCain, but of what might be happening in other candidacies because McCain might be coming back. There is no actual research here - I mean, even David Broder pretends to listen to people talking, or places a phone call or two to a "source". Dionne, does nothing but spin out fantasies of what the Romney and Giuliani campaigns might be doing if his thesis that McCain is surging is correct.

Dionne's column ends thusly:

That McCain is still standing is a credit to his persistence. But it is also a symptom of the anxieties and misgivings among Republican voters over the choices they confront in this dark time for their party.

This is a much more honest assessment of what is happening - including the whole "persistence" part - than anything else in the column, except for the poll-quoting business.

I think it is important to note here that Dionne is one of my favorite columnists. He writes well, and thoughtfully, about the intersection of politics and religion. He usually eschews horse race malarkey for serious discussions about policy. Yet here we have an example of the kind of media-love-fest about John McCain that is so galling to so many people. It is one thing to note that McCain isn't sitting in the basement of the polls. It is quite another to insist that McCain - who has as much chance of winning the Republican nomination as I do - is somehow the new "Comeback Kid". He isn't.

As Glenn Greenwald notes today, the real "straight talker" and "maverick" is Ron Paul, who, as Greenwald also notes, is the one who is surging. He is doing so because, unlike McCain, he is not a bullshit artist at whose feet the media bow. This is the column Dionne should have written. That is was not says as much about Washington conventional wisdom, insiderism, and the hollow shell that is so much of our political discourse as Dionne's surprisingly vapid piece.

Music Monday

I was, again, going to do a post in honor of my hometown radio station. Along the way, however, I got sidetracked, and decided to do a post honoring a great songwriter who ranks with Irving Berling and Goerge and Ira Gershwin as a giant in American popular song. I think he gets short shrift because he was carrying on a tradition in an era that diminished that kind of thing, but I think Burt Bacharach wrote some of the catchiest melodies around. I know there are some who will dismiss it, and think I am off my rocker, but so be it.

As he will always be linked, in my mind at least, with Dionne Warwick, the following posts are Warwick-heavy. If this is a further turn-off, so be it.

I love this song. Sorry, but I do. "This Girl's In Love With You":

"I Say A Little Prayer For You":

Here she is in 1985 doing "What's It All About, Alfie":

I swear, soon I will do a post on my hometown radio station. This post is relevant, by the way, as you may see if I ever get around to doing that one.

She Wasn't That Good To Begin With

Fred Kaplan does a pre-demise post-mortem on the tenure of Condoleeza Rice as Secretary of State today in the Washington Post. As I've already done a post on her proposed Middle East peace conference and the likelihood of success in such a venture, I think it only fair that I tend to a larger "meta" question - what went wrong.

The first sentences from Kaplan's second paragraph sum up all that is wrong with Washington reporting:

Rice isn't used to failure, and most Americans aren't used to thinking of her as one. In Beltway wisdom, she's the star of President Bush's second-term team, someone who has employed smarts, sense and style to try to steer a wiser course in the world.

"Most Americans"? "Beltway wisdom"? "Star"? Loaded with terms of dubious accuracy and insiderism, this hardly bodes well for a serious consideration on the merits. Indeed, part of Kaplan's thesis is that, once, Rice was a "realist" as in real politique who sold her soul to the Bush Administration's "messianism". Educated as Standford University, she was an "expert" on the former Soviet Union. As the American foreign policy never approached political realism in regards to that particular historical dust-bin, one wonders how anyone who understands, or claims to understand, diplomatic history, could possibbly call Rice a realist.

Always conservative, Rice was sold to the American public not on her abilities, but on her supposedly sunny personality, her stylish dressing, and her piano playing ability. Only in Washington, where anyone with the letters p, h, and d after their names is automatically considered something of a sage (that is why the egregiously awful Henry Kissinger is not behind bars; "Why, he has a Ph. D.!"), could Rice be thought of as a "realist" without the quotes, and with a straight face.

Rice's failures, so far, and in to the future are her own. She is operating within an Administration that disdains serious diplomacy. She is operating within an Administration that has made the United States the chief rogue nation in the world, a danger to world peace on a grand scale. Thanks to her bosses, she represents a country with no diplomatic, political, or moral credibility whatsoever. Her word is less than worthless because all who deal with her know that she is not master of foreign policy, but just one more tool, and another poorly used one at that, in the arsenal of bad politics and horrid policy, of the Bush Administration.

We are where we are not only because of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, but because they were aided and abetted by lightweights like Condoleeza Rice. Rice may have sold her soul, but I wonder at times if there was much there to sell. Her price was certainly low enough.

Passive-Agressive Post-Modernist

With a generous, mellifluous tip of the old fedora to ER.

Over at comments here, Neil writes the following:

I admit that I don't have much patience for passive-aggressive postmoderns. I don't mind people who disagree; I do mind those who are endlessly wounded that I believe what I am saying while they pretend that they just aren't sure about anything . . . even though they are quite sure that it is bad that I believe the Bible was completely inspired by God.

I find this hilariously funny. Neil and I have been around about the whole passive-aggressive thing before, so I won't hash it out here. Suffice it to say that I do not "pretend" that I'm not sure. I'm just not sure. Period.

That doesn't mean that what I believe I believe half-heartedly. Or that I do not profess my belief honestly. For Neil, apparently, one only makes a statement of faith when one is convinced of its accuracy, its Truth, and its undeniability. He is a Christian Cartesian.

I do not think it is bad for him to believe what he believes. What I think is bad is his insistence that (a) he knows what I think better than I do (the whole passive-aggressive thing); (b) that those who do not believe as he does are "false teachers".

In the same comment section, ELAshley writes:

Geoffrey is perhaps the rudest person I've encountered on the internet.

He hasn't been around the internet very much if he thinks I'm rude.

ELAshley, you're a whiny-ass titty-baby. Seriously. Please, feel free not to darken my doorway again, if it hurts your tender Christian sensibilities that there might be some people in the world who wrestle with their faith, and do not like having referees who don't know the sport tell them what they're doing wrong.

I suppose that was rude, wasn't it. Ah, well.

Is There No End To These Internet Quizzes

Rolling Stone has something called "The Nearly Impossible Rock and Roll Quiz". I am embarrassed to say I only got a 27, scoring a big goose-egg on the section for "the 2000's". This is the kind of trivia quiz that people with nothing else in their lives would pass, so I suppose I should be happy.

Give it a try, and let me know how you do.

Note to ER: Johnny Cash is mentioned. And Lillie Langtry.

Not Only Is She Ridiculously Vapid, She Is Lazy And A Liar As Well

The folks at something called The Dowd Report don't like the fact that I call the Chief Kitty "ridiculously vapid". Seeing as how Dowd has won the coveted Wanker of the Day award by Duncan, I ventured to Whiskey Fire to find out why. Thers refuses to deal with the column in its entirety, settling on one statement, to investigate its truthiness, as it were.

One side note; Thers says that he is "most familiar" with the small city of Binghamton, NY, just sixty miles east of my old stomping grounds.

In any event, the line in question from Dowd is this one:

If the gender game worked when Rick Lazio muscled into her space, why shouldn’t it work when Obama and Edwards muster some mettle? If she could become a senator by playing the victim after Monica, surely she can become president by playing the victim now.

First of all, enough of the "gender card", especially as it is a phrase that denotes the opposite of its intended meaning. What it intends to mean is a person is using "gender" as a category to divide the electorate based upon an identity politics of grievance. In the same way that the phrase "race card" is used by bigots to complain when they are called out, and "class warfare" is screeched from the highest mountaintops when someone points out that a corporation, aided by the government, is screwing workers, it now seems that "gender card" will be trotted out whenever a woman runs for office. Or perhaps only when Hillary Clinton runs for office.

Maureen Dowd was "writing" at the Times during her 2000 run for the Senate. Since she is a "reporter" one might have assumed she would have gone back and read the campaign reports filed by her paper. Or she might have interviewed voters who went to rallies, perhaps, or did volunteer work for her. SHe might even have perused a campaign flyer or two in order to substantiate the claim that Sen. Clinton played the victim against her opponent, Rick Lazio.

As Thers points out, Clinton won in 2000, and again in 2006, by running in the whole state, familiarizing herself with the issues north of Duchess County and west of the Hudson River, and campaigning in places no New York State Senate candidate had ventured. One may disagree with her policies, but no one can say she sat in an office in Manhattan and played "poor me" in order to win. As Thers rightly points out, she worked her ass off.

So. Dowd just spins stuff she finds floating through that vast space between her ears (or that she pulls out of her ass, which is more likely) and it becomes part and parcel of the conventional wisdom. Or, as is the case with her description of the New York Senate race in 2000, is an established "fact" of "history". That it isn't, and that the so-called "gender card" is a way for lazy journalists who fear a woman President to discuss the candidate without actually dealing with issues. It can be all about her boobies, as The Washington Post has already made clear.

Lord help us over the next year. Or even over the next nine years.

Aren't We Forgetting A Few Things?

I suppose it was inevitable. I have broken down and linked to the Washington Post. I have done so because, after having lived for four years in the nation's capital, of the major dailies (along with the Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and The Christian Science Monitor), this is the one closest to the action, and the one with which I am most familiar.

I have already done a post on a story. To keep things even, as it were, I now refer the reader to today's opinion piece by David Ignatius. I was quite stunned to read that the United States will be hosting peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians in Annapolis later this month or early next month:

It's an unlikely recipe for peace: Take one unpopular Israeli prime minister still suffering from setbacks in Lebanon; add one politically weak Palestinian president who has lost control of part of his territory; fold in lukewarm support from Arab states. Now, beat the mixture with an energetic secretary of state and cook over high heat.

The diplomat in the chef's hat, Condoleezza Rice, hopes to produce something palatable in time for a big peace conference in Annapolis in late November or the first half of December. The conference will bring together Israelis and Palestinians, along with a coterie of Arab and international officials. The goal is a document that will commit everyone to creation of a Palestinian state and recognition of the state of Israel.

Ignatius goes on to discuss the possibility of substantive progress in this area (which, in a sane universe, would have been a top priority for a United States hell-bent on military action in the Arab world) without ever once discussing two relative points that might put Rice's venture into some kind of perspective.

In the fall of 2000, President Clinton initiated a peace conference at Camp David between then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. Substantively, the entire process became a bone of contention, as Barak stormed out of the meeting, refusing to discuss the terms set out by President Clinton. The entire process has since become mired in controversy, as the terms of the agreement proposed by Pres. Clinton, and accepted by Arafat and rejected by Barak, have been hashed, rehashed, discussed, disputed, belittled, and dismissed. At the time, however, the most salient feature of the entire process was the way it was framed in the press. The infection of horrid framing by the press spread overseas, as is evident in this story from the UK's Telegraph newspaper, datelined January 9, 2001. The opening sentence sums up the stupid way the entire issue was framed:

BILL CLINTON'S hopes of ending his presidency with a Middle East peace agreement were dashed yesterday as opinion hardened on both sides against his proposals.

The discussion of the peace conference centered not on the merits, or lack thereof, of President Clinton's proposal. The discussion did not focus on the possible results of either Israeli or Palestinian concessions on what had been, until then, points upon which neither side refused to yield. The entire event became focused on Pres. Clinton, and how he was trying to burnish his "legacy" with some kind of breakthrough on Israeli-Palestinian peace. In fact, one might have thought that even if this were an issue of substantive importance, there might have been some consideration of what a successful summit might have meant for the future of the United States' dealings with the Arab states in the region, as well as Israel.

The stories, almost compulsively, centered on how the entire thing was nothing more than Bill Clinton trying to do something positive for his "legacy". I wonder if we will hear stories about how George Bush is trying to burnish his legacy with a breakthrough on Israeli-Palestinian peace talks? Probably not, actually, because even the institutionally developmentally disabled press corps knows two things:
1) Relations between the Palestinians and the Israelis are so bad right now, and (as Ignatius points out very clearly) the leaders of both nations are so weakened right now, that any substantive deal would only be preliminary to further discussions.
2) This is Condi's deal. Pres. George W. Bush has neither the intellect, time, nor temperament to come up with a plan and serve as a moderator of serious diplomatic negotiation. In actual fact, Sec. of State Rice doesn't either, but the press pretends she does because she has the letter "Ph.D." after her name.

Here is the other thing we are forgetting - Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has no legitimacy. Not even in the State Department. Indeed, as Tbogg reminded us on Friday, this week has been, for Madam Secretary, the "Very Bad Not-So-Good I-Wish-I-Was-Shoe-Shopping Week". So, along with a weakened leader of Israel, a Palestinian leader whose party has no control over half his territory and an incipient civil war on his hands, we have a hostess and moderator who has zero credibility here or abroad. Don't believe me? See what they're doing to her image in Ankara:


This is a recipe for success. Not.

Doing The Dirty Deed

It seems I have started a whole new subset of posts - criticizing the press and politicians for doing the dirty work of the Republicans by engaging in sexist, pre-framed criticism of Sen. Hillary Clinton that, even on the merits, either has little evidence, or uses the kind of terminology and coded, loaded phrases we have come to expect from Republicans.

To that end, I came across this article by Dan Balz in today's Washington Post entitled "Obama Criticizes Clinton's Drive to Win". When I saw the headline, red flags went up all over the place. When I read the lede, however, I realized that Obama had gone and done something really stupid - he was reading from Newt Gingrich's playbook.

Sen. Barack Obama leveled a fresh round of criticism at Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday, accusing his rival for the Democratic nomination of following a campaign plan that prizes calculation over candor and that is aimed more at winning the election than uniting the country.
--snip--
Obama, who represents Illinois, described Clinton as a skilled politician running a textbook campaign but said the textbook itself is badly flawed and skewed against ordinary Americans. "It's a textbook that's all about winning elections but says nothing about how to bring the country together to solve problems," he said.

Obama pointed to last week's debate in Philadelphia, in which he, former senator John Edwards of North Carolina and Sen. Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut all challenged Clinton for being equivocal or engaging in political doubletalk, as emblematic of Clinton's strategy.

"As we saw in the debate last week, it encourages vague, calculated answers to suit the politics of the moment, instead of clear, consistent principles about how you would lead America," he said. "It teaches you that you can promise progress for everyday people while striking a bargain with the very special interests who crowd them out."

I don't know who Obama's advisors are, but on this particular topic, I think his advisors are more than stupid. Consider the issue logically. Obama is criticizing Sen. Clinton, essentially, for being ambitious. For wanting to win the nomination. Yet, he is doing so in order to win the nomination. The substance of his criticism is that she is a calculating, traditional politician who has neither the vision nor the strategy to attempt something bold and visionary for the country. He is doing so by engaging in negative campaigning, one of the oldest, most tried and true, but certainly effective campaign tactics around, which seeks to divide the electorate from a candidate.

Now, other than the latter part of Obama's criticism (in essence that she is George Bush redux, a divider not a uniter) the bulk of it could be construed as sexist by anyone who might think along those lines - people like Sen. Clinton, for example. After all, criticizing a woman for being ambitious, for being careful and calculating in pursuing her ambition - we don't criticize Barack Obama for being ambitious, or for being careful and calculating in pursuing his ambition, do we? That would be silly.

Yet, it seems not at all odd to level these criticisms as Sen. Clinton, criticisms which essentially say, "Stop acting like a politician."

I do wish that someone, somewhere, would tell these people to stop using Newt Gingrich's old playbook from 1994.