The Years Of Writing Dangerously
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Thirteen years ago, as I was starting to experiment with this blogging
thing, I wrote the following: [T]he speed with which an idea in your head
reaches th...
''This was a whole lot more than a simple affair, this was a love story,'' Sanford said. ''A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day.''
During more than three hours of interviews over two days at his Statehouse office, Sanford said he is trying to fall back in love with his wife even as he grapples with his deep feelings for Chapur.
Creepier and creepier, even more pathetic than the emails.
And then this:
Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina disclosed on Tuesday that he had had casual encounters with several other women before starting an affair last year with an Argentinian woman.
Well, at least he didn't just lust in his heart like Jimmy Carter. Sanford is a real man.
I assume those sympathetic bloggers will start changing their minds.
UPDATE: TPM, via David Kurtz, doesn't seem to be giving all that much sympathy to Sanford any more. I presume Josh is a little too embarrassed after his "don't judge him based on his worst day" thing to chime in yet (it was, I'm sure, a misplaced attempt to try to show a little class that the Republicans failed at with President Clinton). But, like I said the other day, it was all BS.
The Minnesota Supreme Court has finally ruled, unanimously. Al Franken has won, Norm Coleman has conceded, and Tim Pawlenty will be signing the certificate of election today.
I guess I should move on, be gracious, all of that stuff.
But - then Norm had to go and pretend that his fight was one of principle to ensure that everyone's vote was fairly counted. What a crock. I couldn't watch any more.
Anyway, it's over. Welcome to the Senate, Mr. Franken.
(P.S. Do I think this will give the Democrats a "filibuster-proof majority?" No. Is the whole idea of a filibuster-proof majority an insult to democracy? Yes. I was not one of those who opposed the cynical Republican attempt to enact the "nuclear option" a few years ago and get rid of the filibuster, because despite Republican motivation at the time, the filibuster is just not fair. It is at best an anachronism of an age where Senators took their role in legislating, rather than partisanship, seriously. There is no constitutional requirement for a 60% majority in the Senate, and the sooner we can get rid of it, the better.)
I think the Black or White video is the perfect way to wrap up the extended Michael Jackson memories that I have been showing here. The song itself is great, that mixture of pop, rock, soul and hip-hop that only Michael Jackson could do. The music video, moreover, is funny, hopeful, strange and oftentimes disturbing (though not so much in this homogenized version), yet brilliant, at times revolutionary, by far his overall best post-Thriller effort.
But it is also chock-full of tragic contradictions and inner turmoil that encapsulate Michael. An inspiring message of hope, unity, love, world peace and raw talent which is tinged with so many other things that would haunt the rest of his life. Surrounding himself by children in one instant (Macaulay Culkin) and sexual imagery in the other, morphing faces and identities and race, the intentional or latent androgyny that Jackson embodied, all followed by a narcissistic dance sequence having nothing to do with the song - undermining the song, in fact - and then the insane and self-destructive violence, vandalism, smashing in a car, breaking windows, that crazy yelling, crotch-grabbing and pants zipping, most of which was sanitized from the video after the original premiere. In "real life," Michael Jackson and the media, which became largely indistinguishable, built an image of the "King of Pop," the biggest thing in music, the unifying center of all music, who sold his own mega records but also owned the Beatles catalog and married Elvis Presley's daughter. But in Black or White, he really seemed to inadvertently reveal himself, simultaneously hopeful and dark, inspirational and creepy, focused and direct and then incomprehensibly losing its way. If a picture is worth a thousand words, what was a Michael Jackson music video extravaganza worth?
I remember watching the Black or White premiere, amazed and then baffled, trying to separate the incredible from the bizarre. It was a major television event and more than that, and it was the only thing anyone spoke about the next day. [Note: the full video is now posted at the end.]
This In Living Color spoof of the Black or White music video is also essential to understanding the impact of the video on America.
On Friday night, Keith Olbermann interviewed Deepak Chopra, who was a good friend of Michael Jackson, and Chopra spoke of how he knew of Michael's drug dependency issues, that when Chopra would raise the issue Michael would ignore him for several weeks, then return and apologize and deny any problem - but continue on with the same behavior. Chopra was never able to force a drug intervention. Rinse, lather, repeat. Chopra expresses anger at the enabling doctors - legalized drug pushers - in Hollywood, and he should be angry about them. But they're being paid to be enablers. Keith gently pushed Chopra on the intervention point, and Chopra's candor is admirable, but you decide for yourself whether his answer is sufficient, or if Chopra has to do some soul-searching as well on the intervention front. I'm not interested in assigning blame or reading minds, and I honestly don't think it would even be fair to do that. And, in theory, Michael was a big boy and bears his own responsibility. It just strikes me as a question worth asking.
Similarly, it's hard not to wonder what in the world John Landis, of Animal House and The Blues Brothers fame and The Twilight Zone movie helicopteraccident infamy, who directed the Black or White video (as well as Thriller), was thinking when he allowed those last five minutes into the music video. Was Michael just too powerful to say no to? Or is this an example of how, as much as Michael's childhood years were distorted through abuse and demands, his adult years were marked by enablers and hangers-on who used Michael in their own way and for their own purposes and never stepped in to help right his course. Putting out a controversial music video is a lot different from prescribing medication, but it is nevertheless obvious that Michael Jackson seemed to be good at surrounding himself with those people who would enable his inner demons (and perhaps in the case of Landis, seeking out those with their own demons and questionable judgment), rather than tell him that a choice he was making was wrong or dangerous or Bad - and that may have been what finally brought an end to his life.
It seems to me that Jackson, in life and death, tells us a lot about ourselves, although in large part that is for each of us to decide. (That sounds a bit goofy, and I guess it is, but so what?) And I realize that, in a significant way, none of this really matters at all, or at least shouldn't. Nevertheless.
The first I heard of Michael Jackson's death was an email from a work colleague who wrote: "Michael Jackson dead. Pedophelia industry loses best customer." Which is not to say that there isn't a certain sad yet justified legitimacy to being horrified by some of the things that Jackson allegedly did. Jackson was never convicted of those actions (and there is substantial support for the idea that his accusers were simply opportunistic gold diggers, the likes of which will surely emerge from all corners following Michael's death, but who knows), yet it was clear that at a minimum he never really understood what was wrong with letting young kids bunk up with him, and how insane it was for him to continue to have sleep-overs with underaged children after allegations came to light. At best, he had a fantastic lack of self-awareness - who dangles their infant from a balcony and then insists there was nothing wrong, that those who were complaining were the sick ones? At worst? Well, we can all imagine the worst. I'm the last one to say that those things are not a sick part of the legacy.
Perhaps it is a generational issue. I grew up listening to Michael Jackson, and Michael was peaking as I went from middle school into high school and college. To me, in spite of all of the revelations and lunacy, and then because of the revelations and lunacy, he was and remains larger than life. The principal memory of younger people, on the other hand, may be the allegations and scandals and the bizarre behavior, Wacko Jacko, a freak, not the music.
But the fact is also that this nasty commentary came from the same person who has previously emailed me not-so-thinly-veiled racist imagery involving President Obama. It's not an isolated example, either. So how we choose to remember Michael Jackson may in large part be a reflection of how we choose to see the world. In Michael Jackson's confusion, we all have the opportunity to find our own messages and lessons, and learn things about others, in some cases for the better and in some for the worse. Those messages are as much a reflection on each of us as they are on the amazing, unique, conflicted and tragic life of Michael Jackson. From that standpoint, whatever the reality is or was about the nature of Michael Jackson, it may just not matter.
At the end of the day, though, I've been posting this music and my occasional comments not so much as social commentary but because his music deserves to be remembered. We'd only be hurting ourselves not to listen again, and to appreciate the monumental nature of what we've lost. Because for better or worse, that music helped to make my generation who we are. The King of Pop was a fabrication, simultaneously ubiquitous and completely unknowable, in a way that may never be possible again in our rapidly-changing, 180-channel mass media, iPod digital post-CD, single-song download era. One person may never be able to rise to that level of mythology again. Maybe that is better.
But maybe not. Maybe sometimes it is great having something so big that reality could not hold it down, that the whole world could collectively understand and be confused by at the same time.
UPDATE: MTV now has the "long version" of the video up, although it has supposedly been edited to make the violence more palatable.
My next-to-last Michael Jackson post, from the early 1970's Jackson 5ive cartoon. Yeah, for those of us who were the right age at the time, Michael also had his own cartoon that we'd watch on Saturday mornings. The Jacksons only contributed a few songs and the rights to use their names - they didn't even do the voiceovers. But it still made them part of our lives on weekly basis.
Paul Krugman (via Yglesias) on why we cannot wait to address global warming. When you take into account the normal up-and-down fluctuations, the upward trend in average temperatures is unmistakable. And the problem compounds exponentially each year as more and more CO2 is introduced into the atmosphere. There just isn't any time to waste.
As alluded to in my post on the passage of Waxman-Markey, this effort requires not just legislative action in the U.S., but also a worldwide effort. Most projected growth in CO2 emissions comes from developing countries, principally China, India and the Middle East. One of the keys to addressing the problem will be how Western nations, including and most significantly the U.S., use their leadership and influence to bring the developing world along. Bringing the world along requires credibility on the issue, which requires that we do something (even if that something is imperfect). Because without the rest of the world, nothing we do at home can succeed.
Despite John Boehner's attempt to stall the bill by reading the Waxman-Markey legislation on the floor of the House, cap-and-trade legislation to address global warming passed in the House of Representatives tonight (oh-so-barely, by a 219-212 margin, with lots of Democratic defections). The bill sets a limit (cap) on emissions of global warming gases and allows utilities and other industries to trade allowances. Over time, the cap lowers, increasing the costs of the problematic emissions, thereby attempting to monetize the environmental impact of this type of pollution. The goal, of course, is to create an economic incentive to influence industry to find cleaner energy sources.
Now, the bill moves to the Senate - probably after the summer ends.
Meanwhile, Republicans are gearing up to attack the bill as a tax which will slow down the economy. Eric Cantor is crying that this causes terrible harm to the economy during a difficult recession (intentionally ignoring the phase-in of the bill).
Some "realists," on the other hand, argue that, although the economic costs may not be that high (and right-wingers argue the opposite, so given their track record, I'm pretty sure where I'd come down on that) - about $1,000 per household by 2050 - the benefit is too small, as well. So, if the bill isn't perfect, the logic goes, we should continue to do nothing. This camp includes not only Republicans, who argue against efficacy for ideological purposes, but also some environmental groups like Greenpeace.
I think that those arguments are wrong, not substantively but practically. As much as anything, a bill is necessary to change our mindset and to encourage the rest of the world (the developed world has been largely ahead of us on this, except for the very significant examples of India and China - which cannot be ignored) to progress on climate issues, too. We're already too far behind (perhaps too far behind to stop significant warming, but that is no excuse to stop trying).
On specifics, it appears that the most significant arguments against the bill are regarding the authorization under the bill of an annual 2 billion tons of carbon offsets - "a massive loophole that will allow polluters to meet their carbon reduction obligations by paying someone else not to pollute," according to Michael Brune of the Rainforest Action Network. Joseph Romm counters that this objection is a red herring - 2 billion tons of offsets just don't exist and perhaps never will. The ability to offset, then, is, to an extent, illusory. (That may not be as good a thing as Romm makes it sound like; reading it another way, if 2 billion tons exceeds all the available offsets, the bill pretty much allows unlimited offsets to the extent available.)
It's not a cut-and-dry issue. Dr. James Hansen, the NASA climate scientist who last week was arrested at an anti-mountaintop mining protest, opposes the Waxman-Markey bill, citing studies that the bill would result in increased coal use in coming decades. As he told Elizabeth Kolbert in New Yorker Magazine recently (via New York Times' DotEarth blog):
Dr. Hansen pointed out that the bill explicitly allows for the construction of new coal plants and predicted that it would, if passed, prove close to meaningless. He said that he thought it would probably be best if the bill failed, so that Congress could “come back and do it more sensibly.”
I said that if the bill failed I thought it was more likely Congress would let the issue drop, and that was one reason most of the country’s major environmental groups were backing it. “This is just stupidity on the part of environmental organizations in Washington,” Dr. Hansen said. “The fact that some of these organizations have become part of the Washington ‘go along, get along’ establishment is very unfortunate.”
Yet as Al Gore said in a blog post supporting the bill:
Today is an historic opportunity to pass truly meaningful legislation to limit global warming pollution, vastly expand our use of renewable energy, and use energy far more efficiently. A victory today in the House of Representatives on the American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act would represent an essential first step towards solving the climate crisis. This bill doesn’t solve every problem, but passage today means that we build momentum for the debate coming up in the Senate and negotiations for the treaty talks in December which will put in place a global solution to the climate crisis.
There is no back-up plan. There is not a stronger bill waiting to pass the House of Representatives. It’s time to get started on a plan that will create jobs, increase our national security, and build the clean energy economy that will Repower America.
Which, of course, is right. Imperfections in the bill matter little at this point anyway. Any bill that emerges from the Senate will be different, and assuming that a bill does pass the Senate, it must then make its way through conference committee to become a reconciled bill for passage by both the House and Senate. Greenpeace is focused on a singular purpose and a narrow-minded insistence on purity, but is failing on process. This is a necessary and important achievement. It's only a start, but if you never start, you never get anywhere.
How could I have forgotten to mention Captain EO, Michael Jackson's space musical (presented by Eastman Kodak!) that ran from 1986 to 1994 at the Magic Eye Theater in EPCOT's Imagination Pavilion? With the power of song, and his cohorts including a bumbling, music-sneezing green elephant named Hooter, Captain EO turned the evil Supreme Leader into a beautiful woman. In 3D!
(Now that Michael is gone, the secret of turning Iran's Supreme Leader into a beautiful woman is probably lost with him.)
Disney was very proud of this film, at that time the most expensive film ever made on a per-minute basis - which isn't a reflection on it's quality, with music that composer James Horner shamelessly stole from his Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan compositions and special effects George Lucas stole from Star Wars, a space ship derived from an art deco toaster, puppetry that would have embarrassed the Krofft brothers, and acting that didn't figure into Angelica Houston's Oscar. Yet it was extremely successful and a big draw at EPCOT (and Disneyland as well), until allegations against Michael made his type of child-friendliness not mesh well with Disney's brand.
Through the wonder of YouTube, here is Captain EO. There's no need to wait through the Kodak pre-show. Just close the shades, put it on in full-screen mode, and put on those 3D glasses.
OK, I should be sleeping but asthma medicine will make your mind race and force one more post on Mark Sanford.
Just to point out the obvious, this whole situation is still very, very odd. Sanford disappears for almost a week - as we all now know, to visit or break up with his Argentinean lover or to cry in a hotel room or whatever. Supposedly with the idea that, heck, the legislative session was over, so who would even notice. Which requires more suspension of disbelief than ABC News apparently injects into its news coverage.
Layer upon that the fact that, according to the New York Times, not only did The State newspaper receive the steamy e-mails between Governor Sanford and his lovely Maria about six months ago, but they have no idea of the source of those emails.
Mr. Chapman [political editor at the paper] said he still did not know who sent the e-mail to the paper in the first place. “It’s kind of a moot point,” he said, “but I’m still curious.”
Uh, yeah, you should be curious. David Corn is thinking blackmail. But that doesn't explain the bizarre trip, unless the Guv wanted to stick it to the blackmailer and get the information out in public on his own. But, of course, that still doesn't explain the trip; you could do that with much less embarrassment by having the goofy presser without the crazy trip. Unless Sanford's even smarter than we think, and realized that by looking crazy, he would get our sympathy.
But I tend to look for simpler answers. Maybe the guy has just wanted to reveal his love for Maria for six months now, but lacked the courage to do it on his own. Maybe he thinks she was or is more important to him than being Governor. Maybe he needed the push, but was willing to hand out the tools. It's not any crazier than vanishing for a week. It is, possibly, pretty rational.
The emails were salacious enough to end his marriage, but go out of their way - and self-servingly, if you read them in this context - to present Sanford as a decent man stuggling with an "impossible situation." Unfortunately, The State didn't bite on the emails. But beyond that, they apparently didn't even make a real, concerted attempt to verify the emails. Did they know enough to not want the answer?
But, with the legislative session over, Sanford still needed a push, but couldn't wait any longer. Time to step up the crazy. And to leave some clues, too. He took a state car. He made a call on his cell phone near the airport in Atlanta. Someone made a tip to The State that Sanford had flown to Argentina (why tip off The State, and not CNN or other news outlet?). And The State already had the emails.
It's all speculation - based on Hollywood suspense thriller logic, too (State of Play, anyone?) - but I'm thinking that deep down, Governor Sanford couldn't have been all that surprised when Gena Smith met him at the airport, and was perhaps wondering what took so long. Because the only logical conclusion about this whole episode is that Mark Sanford wanted to get caught.
Or maybe this is why you shouldn't write blog posts on too much medication.
The Supreme Court recognizes that strip searching a 13 year old girl - to find Advil - is wrong.
At least that one was more obvious to them than polluting a lake (and no, I'm not equating the two, it's just that the conservatives were able to get to a more honest result because no big corporation was involved).
I have actually been listening to and thinking about Michael Jackson a lot lately. I just downloaded Off the Wall over the weekend. It's one of the great albums (Don't Stop Till You Get Enough, Rock With You, Workin' Day and Night, Off the Wall), but overlooked because its follow up collaboration with Quincy Jones, Thriller, may be (that's just trying to being open minded - but in this case, I think it is safe to say it is) the greatest record of all time, every song a work of genius, really not a flaw on the entire thing. And then Ta-Nehisi wrote about Michael and Thriller just the other day.
The music was brilliant, the videos transformed the industry (Billie Jean was the greatest music video of all time, until Beat It came along, which held the title until Thriller; nothing has ever, or ever will, come close to the Thriller video), and his performances enthralled the masses. And those moves. Oh, and how could you forget that voice that could make you feel so, so good (yet coming from a man-child that couldn't find that inner peace for himself).
For all the tragedy of his life that became apparent after Bad, the product of his fame and isolation and abuse and exploitation and things we can never know, the wrong and oftentimes confusing and sometimes disturbing turns in his life - for all of that, the cultural impact of this man cannot be overstated.
To write much about Michael Jackson the person would require an understanding of Michael Jackson the person. But I'm not sure there can be any such understanding of the person, since he was never allowed to be one. He thought of himself as Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up, and so lived in Neverland. The terrible irony of that is that he had it backwards; he was the performer who was never allowed to be a boy, and so never understood real childhood (living in an amusement park is most certainly not real childhood, nor is trying to never grow up), despite desperately trying to grasp for it his whole life. That grasping which perverted itself into the hopeless reach not just for a childhood that never existed, but also for inappropriate, inexcusable and incomprehensible physical connections with children.
What he was, and never had any choice to be otherwise, was a performer. Appropriately, then, here are some more of these culturally iconic appearances and videos. (For even more, click here.) They are the best way to remember Michael Jackson, because to the world, they are Michael Jackson, as long as we don't think of all the rest.
UPDATE: Since you asked, the original Jackson 5: Marlon, Jackie, Tito, Jermaine and Michael. When they left Motown for CBS Records, Jermaine was replaced by Randy.
I'm not sure who Mick Jagger replaced on the Victory Tour for State of Shock.
The Sears Tower in Chicago, formerly the tallest building in the world (and still the largest in the U.S. and the Western Hemisphere), is about to undergo a major renovation which will reduce its energy usage by over 80%, including the addition of wind turbines and other sustainable energy generation. Bravo.
I hope that this is the last time I delve into this, but who am I kidding.
I was just thinking about ten or twelve years ago when a former law partner of mine told me of a trip to Sao Paulo on a large merger transaction. As he gawked at the beautiful Brazilian women, his Brazilian counterpart told him that, while the women in Brazil were indeed beautiful, they had nothing on women from Argentina.
Early this morning Patty LaBelle lit up the Lady Marmalade for us, but I think today's events call for this version by Christina, Lil' Kim, Mya and Pink.
I just watched a remarkable profile of Pardis Sabeti, an Iranian-American evolutionary geneticist, on NOVA scienceNow. Pardis is ranked 49th on the list of the World's Top 100 Living Geniuses.
And she's also the lead singer and bass player in her own rock band, Thousand Days.
Here's one of her comments (from a year ago, predating President Obama and the current Iranian election fiasco and brewing revolution) on the question and answer portion ("Ask the Expert") of the NOVA link:
It is of course very difficult to see relations between America and Iran becoming increasingly tense, and knowing that it is not the people of the countries, but a subset of leaders and radicals that are causing such strife. I am hoping that the spirit of the people will triumph.
And this:
I sometimes try to think of my life as an Iranian, and it is hard to imagine. I am grateful for the life I have had in America, and all the amazing opportunities and experiences it has given me. But there is a spirit in Iranians I can see that is unbounded by geography.
How embarrassing must it be to be ABC News (my guess is that they're not embarrassed at all, which is even worse). Yesterday, on World News Tonight, Charlie Gibson reported two things.
One, Mark Sanford, Governor of South Carolina, was located and safe and back from a hiking adventure on the Appalachian Trail. Of course, we now know - and it was obvious already - that all of that was a tall tale.
And two, the newly released Nixon tapes show a strong leader and a doting father, highlighting fulsome praise by Bob Hope and John Ford. That's not how a decent person would describe tapes that show a vile racist who believes that abortions are warranted for interracial pregnancies.
To assume that ABC News is doing a bad job understanding the significance of events is, I think, giving them much too much credit. I guess that tells me something about Charlie Gibson and ABC News.
2:25. I'm sitting here shocked - not - as I watch Governor Sanford slowly working his way to admitting he ran off to Argentina on an affair (he hasn't said it yet, but we know we're getting there).
2:29: He's invoking "God's laws" now, "to protect us from ourselves." Still hasn't admitted the affair. How long can he stall?
2:30. Bottom Line: "I've been unfaithful to my wife." Stunner there. I can never talk about wanting to go on the AT again without my wife wondering about what I am doing.
2:31. Please be nice to me so you don't hurt my family. Yeah, right.
2:32. Can we get Elliot Spitzer on as a commentator? Actually, really I do assume that the cable news channels will find a way to spend most of their time now talking about Spitzer and John Edwards and, of course, Bill Clinton.
2:34. Wife has known for 5 months. Now talking about his congressional Christian bible sessions. Ooookay.
2:35. Reporter: "Were you alone." Sanford: "Obviously not." Geez, reporters are stupid (in another post we'll get to Charlie Gibson last night on ABC's World News Tonight reporting on Sanford being "found" on the AT). They almost make me sympathetic to Sanford.
2:39. He's committed to getting his heart right. And putting other people first. Which I'm sure is what he was thinking when he refused stimulus money for unemployed and education in his state.
P.S. Most other commentators seem to be giving Sanford props for being honest and open, granting him sympathy for leveling with people. I'm calling BS on that. He abdicated his constitutional responsibility to his state for the better part of a week. He ran off to South America to be with his lover. He left his kids alone for Father's Day. I'm not convinced he went to Argentina to break up his affair, but I don't really care, either. He wouldn't have confessed today had he not been busted in the airport in Atlanta by a rare reporter actually doing her job. And he made a choice about how this was going to become public. The sympathy is undeserved and unearned. He's a hypocrite and a liar. And I'm not preaching here - I could care less about the affair.
Among others, Josh Marshall is inclined to give some credit to Governor Sanford, saying "But it's worth remembering whoever it was who said that none of us deserve to be known or remembered only for our worst moments." Which is fair enough. However, nobody said that Sanford should be known only for his worst moments. This moment is now, and right now the focus is properly on his impropriety, his abandonment of his job, his deception of his constituents. We live in the moment. And this moment was made by his actions and his choice, and nobody else's. Now is not the time to give him credit. History will allow us to take a step back, look at the forest through the trees, and assess this event along with other events in his life.
Like, for instance, his attempt to deprive his state's schools of stimulus money, or to deprive same-sex couples the right to be in lawful, and faithful, marriages.
UPDATE:David Corn on another compelling reason why Sanford doesn't deserve our sympathy - because Sanford has had absolutely none for those whose hardship was the result of events (unlike Sanford's disappearance, affair and lies) entirely outside of their control, e.g. Katrina victims.
I rarely have the chance to watch the network news, but being home sick today, I was able to watch President Obama's press conference live on CNN, then later watch ABC World News Tonight and then the CBS Evening News. And what I saw really surprised me.
CNN was alright. Not great, but alright. They presented the conference, and didn't play too much of the spin game. Basically, it was nothing like their election coverage (the best freakin' political team in the history of journalism, or whatever their nonsense catch-phrase was), which was all-nonsense, all-the-time.
But then came Charlie Gibson and ABC News. And it is Charlie, not Charles, because it was news for the kiddies - if you want your kiddies to be stupid. Substanceless, sanitized, foolish, empty. The only way to truly describe it is to contrast it with the CBS News that followed.
I don't want to break down each story, so I will just focus on the coverage of the latest batch of Nixon tapes that were released today. According to ABC, they showed a happy, care-free Nixon at the height of his political career, "both a powerful President and a doting dad" in the pre-Watergate months, basking in the success of his re-election campaign and getting "gushing" calls from Bob Hope and director John Ford, calling Nixon the greatest President evah, and the praise of Pat Nixon over her husband's brilliant Vietnam policy. On CBS, on the other hand, we learned about Nixon's acknowledgement, following the decision in Roe v. Wade, that abortion wasn't a black-and-white issue [wow, did I mishear that one - see my update below, and realize that Richard Nixon was more evil than you ever imagined] and that there were circumstances where it was appropriate; his conversation with Billy Graham about how sad it was that Jews were so often subject to anti-Semitism and how the Jews somehow always seem to bring it upon themselves (really - "it may be they have a death wish, that's been the problem with our Jewish friends for centuries"); and conversations with Al Haig and Chuck Colson over Vietnam policy.
Which isn't to say that CBS News was perfect. Their coverage of the health care reform debate was pretty pathetic. Pointing to the press conference today, they showed a clip of President Obama commenting that the government wouldn't force you out of a private plan. "That's technically correct; but what the President didn't say," they continued, is that a public plan could create conditions where your employer changes your plan. Except, of course, he did say that - as I mentioned, I actually was able to watch the press conference. And that was the whole purpose of the President's comment - that the government wouldn't force you, but employers may make their own decision based on the perceived value of the various plans. (Which, of course, is nothing different than our current situation - my employer has changed health insurance plans on me three times in 7 years.) Even looking past that comment, though, CBS blew the story. Once on their narrative, they spent the story talking about how the government would destroy a fair marketplace for healthcare. Their expert for that determination? Michael Cannon, Director of Health Policy Studies at the "libertarian" Cato Institute, which opposes government involvement in everything (we've previously talked about Cato in connection with high-speed rail). Did they tell you what the Cato Institute is? Of course not. Did they lace the story with unsupported suppositions about how the government was going to force your doctor to refuse government insurance because the government would only be paying doctors 75 cents on the dollar? Of course. Nice objectivity there, CBS.
Nevertheless, aside from that complete failing, CBS News was head-and-shoulders above ABC. Substantive reporting on real issues. I had not expected seriousness from Katie Couric; I still think of her as the Today Show host. But hats off, and good job. But Charlie, please go back to morning television. Perhaps cartoons.
UPDATE: Over at the Dish, Sullivan points to this regarding the Nixon tapes:
“There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white,” - Richard M Nixon. So the 37th president would have aborted the 44th.
So, the "black and white" wasn't about situations where the answer was unclear, but rather an argument to abort a bi-racial fetus? Wow. I'm not sure about that interpretation. I generally assume the worst about Nixon, but that one just floors me.
I assumed that the "a black and a white" statement was simply a statement that there were often difficult circumstances where it wasn't clear whether abortion was justified - the same struggle that Sullivan so forcefully displayed on the Dish recently. Seeing Sullivan's comment on the Nixon quote has me stunned and disgusted. Was Nixon really advocating for abortion in the case of - and I hate to use this word, but I will since it reflects the core indecency of the viewpoint - miscegenation? Was Nixon even more vile a human being than I even imagined (it really puts the "doting dad" presentation in the ABC News piece in a different light); or do we just always assume the worst with that man?
So now I've gone to the CBS News site and listened again to the actual audio clip (now linked above). CBS News leads into the tape with the impression that the comment is just about abortion not always being out of the question. Yet they then let you listen to the actual words, and I admit, it's difficult, when you listen again, to not hear Nixon and Chuck Colson the way Sullivan interprets them:
"When you have a black and a white...." "Or rape." "Or rape."
That "or" is terribly damning, and it becomes pretty obvious that, yeah, that's exactly what Nixon meant. Those are indeed the two times when an abortion is appropriate in Nixon's view: multiracial children and rape. And what's the difference, right?
Despite the words, my gut reaction is to just not go there. But then it occurs to me that Bruce Hornsby wrote "The Way it Is" and "Talk of the Town" about that exact kind of thinking ("Talk," if you don't know the song, is about the reaction of townsfolk when a white boy and black girl date - "Predictors of doom think this is it"), and you realize that to comment on it, it must not have been all that long ago that people really did think that way, and how far we have come, and how far we still have to go.
Environmental policy is still struggling with the Bush legacy. Yesterday, citing ambiguities in the Clean Water Act and Bush Administration guidelines on interpretation, the Supreme Courtupheld the right of a gold mine operation to drain waste into a lake, by characterizing it as "fill." The Clean Water Act prohibits polluting lakes, but allows the Army Corps of Engineers to use dirt and gravel "fill" to divert a stream or build a dam.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, on behalf of the 3 dissenting justices (Souter and Stevens, if you had to ask), mocked the majority's rationale, saying it "strains credulity" and adding:
A discharge of a pollutant, otherwise prohibited by firm statutory command, becomes lawful if it contains sufficient solid matter to raise the bottom of transformed into a waste disposal facility. Whole categories of regulated industries can thereby gain immunity from a variety of pollution-control standards. The loophole would swallow not only standards governing mining activities … but also standards for dozens of other categories of regulated point sources.
Sarah Palin, on the other hand, was thrilled by the decision. No, I'm not mocking her. OK, I am mocking her, but it's also true. She said it was "great news for Alaska."
Earthjustice indicates that the Obama Administration can effectively overturn that ruling through new rulemaking.
True class. Senator Bob Corker (R-Tennessee) refused to wait an additional ten minutes in order to meet with Sonia Sotomayor - she was running several minutes late because of a broken ankle.
Do Republicans really believe that this kind of behavior is appropriate? Do they even bother to put themselves in the place of the people they treat that way?
I've been reading Mary Roach's book, Bonk, this week. As in Roach's Stiff before it, the book is oddly informative and very funny. Which isn't necessarily relevant to anything except that today is the birthday of Alfred Kinsey. I had high hopes to quote a funny line from Bonk about Kinsey. But, out of respect for the little eyes that may come across this post, I think this is about all I can reference:
Kinsey wanted to document the full spectrum of human sexuality, but it was more than that. He believed these people might have things to teach about the psychology of sex. And he was right.
If you are interested in learning about Kinsey's infatuation with toothbrushes, you will need to get the book. I will only say - and this may be revealing a bit too much - that it gives a whole new dimension to cavity creeps.
You know, a week ago I got pretty annoyed by Jeffrey Goldberg's charge that "the Left" sees white intolerance but doesn't acknowledge Muslim intolerance. A couple of days later, I gave him credit for showing that he "gets it" when it comes to recognizing that most Jews are behind President Obama's efforts to move Israel toward security in a moral and just manner. But today, he proves that he lacks graciousness, once again rolling out his "apologist" card against Roger Cohen. This is not a defense of Cohen's naiveté toward the Iranian regime, which I have referenced in the past; but, Cohen's read of the Iranian people, based on the experience of actually getting to know them, has been invaluable and, at times, courageous. Did he project his belief in the dignity of the Iranian people onto the corrupt Iranian government? Sure, and, as Goldberg notes, Cohen admits to that failing. Would it have taken Goldberg that much effort to show some class, or at least to shut up? Apparently so.
UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan is rightly appalled by his friend Jeffrey Goldberg. Maybe he will reconsider his assent to Goldberg's comments a week ago that "The left, generally speaking, doesn't want to acknowledge Muslim intolerance."
This is just weird. How can a governor just disappear for days at a time? And it appears that this is not the first time this has happened. I guess we're supposed to be concerned about Governor Sanford.
UPDATE: The public story is that Sanford was allegedly hiking the Appalachian Trail. Alone. Which he apparently does not infrequently. According to his wife, he needed "some space to get away from the kids." Over Father's Day Weekend. More Republican family values? If your cover story is that you're a terrible father, what's the real story? Hmmm.
And what of the "fact" (we're told) that he was located near Atlanta via cellular phone signal? I know the metropolitan Atlanta area keeps expanding, but until it includes all of Georgia, Atlanta is not on or near the AT.
It's still very, very weird. What we can be pretty sure of is that the official explanations we are hearing are not accurate. The truth lies somewhere in the triangle between salaciousness, being a irresponsible jerk and having a health or psychological disorder. And, really, options 2 and 3 are typically just modifiers of (or excuses for) option 1. Care to place any bets?
As a man of letters, do you have a favorite number?
22, and not just because it is an even number (it is also a palindrome). When my first book was initially priced at 21.95, I insisted that we take the extra nickel to make it an even 22. And guess what? IT WORKED. My new book, however, is priced at 25 dollars. I'm disappointed, but it was necessary. First, the new book contains almost twice as much COMPLETE WORLD KNOWLEDGE as the last; and second, I need more of your money. Life is full of such trade offs.
I love palindromes, but people always look at me like I'm crazy when I point them out. Interestingly, according to Wikipedia, "The word 'palindrome' was coined from Greek roots palin (πάλιν; 'back') and dromos (δρóμος; 'way, direction') by English writer Ben Jonson in the 1600s and included it in his poem 'An Execration upon Vulcan'." Which sounds like, but isn't, a synopsis of the plot of the new Star Trek. But this is not another Trek post.
That's right, John Hodgman. I can play the nerd card, too.
And on that point, last night Hodgman was at the Radio and Television Correspondents' Dinner:
Nevertheless, I don't plan on taking advantage of this old-time "remedy."
On a related topic, the President today signed into law legislation that finally gives the FDA the authority to regulate the manufacture, marketing and sale of tobacco. It's a change that is long overdue. Over 400,000 people die every year from tobacco-related illnesses.
Peggy Noonan, in the Wall Street Journal, yesterday:
To refuse to see all this as progress, or potential progress, is perverse to the point of wicked. To insist the American president, in the first days of the rebellion, insert the American government into the drama was shortsighted and mischievous. The ayatollahs were only too eager to demonize the demonstrators as mindless lackeys of the Great Satan Cowboy Uncle Sam, or whatever they call us this week. John McCain and others went quite crazy insisting President Obama declare whose side America was on, as if the world doesn't know whose side America is on. "In the cause of freedom, America cannot be neutral," said Rep. Mike Pence. Who says it's neutral?
This was Aggressive Political Solipsism at work: Always exploit events to show you love freedom more than the other guy, always make someone else's delicate drama your excuse for a thumping curtain speech.
Whose side is the U.S. on? President Obama's statement:
The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.
As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.
Martin Luther King once said - "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.
Roger Cohen of the New York Times wrote several columns in February and March regarding the Iranian people and what he perceived as their inherently good character. For this and other columns, he has been branded a "dupe of the ayatollahs," an apologist for Ahmadinejad, and numerous other critiques, some of them honest and fair, most vile and unfair. In March, commenting on Cohen's columns and the reaction to them, I said the following:
Whether or not one believes that Iran is a great place to be a Jew - and I think it is quite obvious to us on the outside that there are much better options - articles like Cohen's open our eyes to a broader reality. Cohen points to an opportunity to find commonality, rather than distance; to not conflate our struggles against the deep flaws of an autocratic, theistic regime with the people who have to exist within that regime, whether in the specific Jewish minority or within the Persian majority culture; to not supplant our critique of Iran's leadership, but to move toward a guarded view of a chance to transform a poisonous and dangerous relationship.
I wouldn't expect those who have been critical of Cohen to apologize now that those same voices have decided that there is a large population in Iran that is worth supporting.
At any rate, Cohen is back. There's no point in me quoting him at length here - go read what he has to say, on the ground in Tehran, in the middle of a new revolution. There's no telling if what he sees and reports speaks of a genuine decency of the Iranian people, or simply the desire to be free of tyranny. But the genie is out of the bottle now, and it is unlikely that it can ever be put back in.
It's pretty dangerous, yet remarkable and inspiring.
UPDATE: Don't take my word or Roger Cohen's word for anything. Here's Jason Jones, instead.
The funeral for Stephen T. Johns, the security guard murdered at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, was held yesterday in Maryland.
"The hope of the Holocaust museum was that the world would never again allow such crimes against humanity. Yet Officer Johns is another victim of an evil, criminal, pygmy and insane mentality," [Rev. John L.] McCoy said. "Officer Johns now belongs to the six million-plus who perished in the Holocaust."
I often wonder about some of the things that Jeffrey Goldberg says, but this post, in response to a Samuel Freedman op-ed in the Jerusalem Post, shows that he really does get it:
The leadership of the organized American Jewish community - that means you, Malcolm Hoenlein - doesn't seem to understand what is happening in America, among its Jews, and also, by the way, among its non-Jews. American Jews - or let's say, for argument's sake, the Jews who voted for Obama, which is to say, most Jews - no longer conflate support for Israel with support for the settlement movement. Quite the opposite: Many American Jews see the settlements, as I have written many times, as the vanguard of binationalism, which is to say, an ostensibly Zionist movement that is anti-Zionist in effect. But liberal American Jews not only see the colonization of the West Bank as a demographic threat to Israel; they see it as a moral threat as well, a moral threat to Israel, and a moral threat to the previously mainstream understanding that justice is on Israel's side.
What all this means politically is that Obama is positioned now, in ways that previous American presidents weren't, to tell Israel what it needs to hear; that the Zionist idea is just, but that the Palestinian idea has justice to it as well. He will be able to cajole, and ultimately force, Israel to make compromises that might be painful short-term (Judea and Samaria, a/k/a the West Bank, is historically Jewish, as well as, more recently, Palestinian) but that will save the Jewish democratic idea.
Malcolm Hoenlein and the other grandees of the organized American Jewish leadership believe that masses of Jews will rise up against Obama if he forces Israel out of its settlements. They won't. I believe the majority of American Jews want two things: A secure Israel, and a moral Israel that is a light unto the nations. Settlements make Israel insecure, and they make it seem immoral in the eyes of the world.
You should remember the coal ashdisaster in Tennessee late last year. There are numerous hazardous sites full of similarly dangerous coal ash throughout the country - the EPA has classified 44 such sites as "high hazards - meaning they could cause death and significant property damage if a storm, a terrorist attack or a structural failure caused them to spill into surrounding neighborhoods." But the Army Corps of Engineers is worried that this information could get into the hands of terrorists, so we're not going to find out where they are.
In the first part of a series over at Grist, former hydrogen bandwagon leader Joseph Romm (a former acting assistant secretary of energy and now Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress) agrees with me and begins laying out the case against hydrogen fuel cell automobiles. In short, hydrogen fuel cell cars are a dead end.
I wonder whether the uprising in Iran is the start of a revolution against the existing governmental structure, or a quest to "restore" the Iranian youth's current perception of democratic ideals (in a Shia Islamic form) of the 1979 revolution, even though the state that evolved from that revolution was never truly democratic, anyway. Maybe it doesn't matter.
On the other hand, it just may mean the difference between failure and success. It may be much easier to take down Ahmadinejad and, perhaps, Khamenei, from within the Iranian constitutional system, if they are considered illegitimate and corrupt, and the reform comes in the form of saving the constitutional system by "restoring" a fairly elected President, and newly appointed Supreme Leader, in what is perceived as a credible manner, a correction rather than a revolution, fixing what was intended to be rather than what came to be. That may not result in the type of change that some Americans are hoping for, or at least think they are. But meaningful change requires legitimacy if that change will hold. If that happens, and the United States can be perceived within Iran as a non-coercive and honest spectator, rather than a desperate interferer, we may have a recipe for progress.
But who knows? And anyone that claims to is, at this point, surely the last one who does.
The US would be wise to wait and see how this develops before making any policy decisions. We have learned two things we knew already but now know with fierce urgency - that the Iranian people want more freedom and better relations with the outside world, and that the regime itself has a desperate, dangerous core that cannot be trusted. But how we engage these two facts remains a prudential decision best left until this revolution takes its course. What I find a little gob-smacking is that this outbreak of democracy in Iran seems to have left the neocons saddened. Interesting, no?
We don't really know much behind the facts of what is currently going on in Iran, although it appears to be pretty likely that the election was stolen by Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. But regardless of whether this was effectively a coup by the current rulers of Iran against its own citizens, or a complete misreading by us about what actually happened, I have learned (or relearned, or finally had my instincts confirmed about) a few critical things.
First, our major cable news media outlets are fundamentally incompetent. When I logged on to the computer this afternoon to see the latest, I was stunned, excited, concerned, confused, and a few hundred other emotions, based on the developments being reported on certain blogs. Trying to get real-time information, I turned on the television, first CNN, then MSNBC. Nothing, nada, zip, zilch, diddly-squat, bupkis.
Second, the existing regime in Iran is deeply corrupt and rotten. Not much more need be said.
And third, a substantial portion of Iranians want change and some form of honest rule, some commitment to democratic principles, in their country, and are making the first efforts at revolution.
The American Right are convinced that the events of these last couple of days in Iran portend danger, a hardening of an already dangerous regime which has crossed the line so far that action against it is essential by the U.S. or by Israel - one as the proxy for the other, but it is equally unclear who is in which role. (I recognize that this is a gracious explanation for the Right's distress at the current events in Iran, and their interest in a win by Ahmadinejad, which appears in no small part to be motivated by a desire to have that goon be the face of Iran, rather than an apparent moderate President, in order to keep up the pressure for an attack on Iran, which the neocons view as dangerous no matter who is in charge - which may or may not be true.)
It seems to me that this is dangerous and risk-filled misreading of the events. It is possible that we end up with a more repressive, more aggressive, more publicly evil and dangerous regime, willing to lash out against the West and against Israel to solidify its hold on power or its support in the eyes of extremists. Perhaps. But I think it is just as likely that, regardless of short-term events here, this is the start of a popular revolution, which may result in rapid change or erratic change, but which must be given some air to play itself out. The evil regime appears to have grossly, arrogantly, or witlessly overplayed its hand, creating a narrow opening for real, progressive (though likely painful) change in a once-great nation. And even if the result is a more democratic, but equally anti-America and anti-Israel, regime, that's probably a better thing for us, too. Changing minds and hearts doesn't happen over night, and it doesn't happen at the receiving end of a gun barrel.
There is risk in that, to be sure, and we must do what we must do to protect ourselves and our allies, not insignificantly Israel. But interference by the U.S. or Israel at this point could suffocate a popular uprising, choking the agents of change as they attempt to lurch toward democracy that could redefine Iran and its place in the world. It's too early, I think, to know whether these new revolutionaries need a lifeline or room to breathe. The perception of an American or Israeli boot on the throats of Iranians, or as the oxygen behind the movement, will not win us any allies, but instead would serve to unite Iran against us and delegitimize the forces for change and democracy within Iran, making them appear as puppets of the U.S. rather than as patriots in their own country. We need to be cautious and smart.
How do we know when and if the time to act may come? I'm not sure. But I am sure that Charles Krauthammer doesn't know, either.
UPDATE: Here's what I had to say several months ago regarding Iran - it's people and its totalitarian government - and their varied relationships with Iran's Jewish population.
The attacks in Arkansas and Washington are both manifestations of a radical type of intolerance, and they are linked in very deep ways. The left, generally speaking, doesn't want to acknowledge Muslim intolerance, and the right, generally speaking, doesn't want to acknowledge white, Christian intolerance. But they both exist, and they should both be acknowledged.
I was annoyed by that statement when I first read it. Then Andrew Sullivan approvingly referred to it last night.
I'm not sure what world Goldberg and Sullivan are living in. I don't know who they think is "generally speaking" for "the left," but they're confusing a general instinct on the left to treat Muslims and other groups fairly with a failure to acknowledge dangers. The criticism of a piece with the RJC's criticism of the "balanced tone" of President Obama's Cairo speech, and not too far removed from Charles Krauthammer's accusations that President Obama is hostile to Israel or to Debbie Schlossel's offensive piece that I referred to earlier this week, despite the appropriate criticism of that piece by both Sullivan and Goldberg.
I know lots and lots of people on the left - even Gentile ones and a couple of Muslims - and I don't personally know one who does not acknowledge - and fear - the problems of intolerance in radical Islamic groups. The exploitation of that acknowledgement and fear is what convinced enough of the left to ignore all of the other issues that they cared about and hand George Bush a second term. Do Democratic congressmen consistently join in objecting to any pressure on Israel in its exercise of its foreign policy because they don't acknowledge the dangers from Muslim intolerance? There are some (Jimmy Carter can often appear that way) on the fringe who fit Goldberg's stereotype, but it's not "the left" that I'm familiar with.
From Bill Moyers' Journal last night, here's the left that I am familiar with:
Finally, you know by now that in our nation's capital on Wednesday, an elderly white supremacist and anti-Semite is alleged to have walked into the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum with a rifle and killed a security guard before being brought down himself. 88 years old!
You will know, too, of the recent killing in church of Dr. George Tiller, one of the few doctors in the country still performing late term abortions. It was evidence that violence works. His family has now announced that his Kansas clinic will not be reopened.
You may be less familiar with the June 1st shootings in an Army recruiting office in Little Rock that killed one soldier and wounded another. The suspect in question is an African-American Muslim convert who says he acted in retaliation for U.S. military actions in the Middle East.
Perhaps that is too balanced for the RJC. I assume Goldberg and Sullivan should know better.
Sickening. More evidence today of the troubling trend that I pointed to last week of the movement of radical right wing ideology toward violence.
TNC and Jeffrey Goldberg get to the point. First, Ta-Nehisi:
Perhaps this means nothing but I feel that I should acknowledge that a black man was killed on guard duty at the Holocaust museum. That may mean nothing. But I think it should be said.
No, it means something. More than something, in fact. The great tragedy of the rift between blacks and Jews is that while we waste time arguing with each other, our common enemy -- racialist fascism -- goes unfought. Add Stephen Tyrone Johns to the group that includes Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman. All were victims of the same sick ideology.
Sadly - and I fully acknowledge that it may not be the right time to discuss this, particularly on the day a man was killed defending the Holocaust Museum - but our people are not immune from their participation in the fomenting of the radical right, in this case in response to this despicable act. This isn't any twisted attempt at false equivalence, or a diminution of the (state-sponsored or stateless) terror and anti-Semitism from various quarters in the Islamic world, which is real and dangerous where it is real. But it's illegitimate to use the tragedy of this act as cause to ignore the bizarre response of reactionary loon Debbie Schlussel, who uses an act of violent hatred to invoke her own breed of hatred:
The rash of anti-Semitic attacks in America, with a frequency unheard of in previous contemporary U.S. history--on synagogues all over the country, a Jewish community center in Seattle, and now this Holocaust museum--have all happened since 9/11 and our new tolerance for Islam and all of its intolerant extremism. This is no coincidence. It is a correlation.
And trust me, they're cheering him on, on the streets of Lahore and Riyadh and Damascus, but bummed out that he only got some poor working class guard, instead of . . . . the JOOOOOS.
Make no mistake. Muslims created this atmosphere where hatred of the Jews is okay and must be "tolerated" as a legitimate point of view. The shooting today is just yet another manifestation emanating from that viewpoint--another manifestation of the welcome mat that Muslims rolled out for fellow anti-Semites of all stripes to no longer be afraid to come out of the closet.
The rest of the piece isn't any less disgusting. This desperate and dishonest attempt to link the actions of a racist neo-Nazi to radical Islam (Schlussel would probably label me a "tolerator" of Muslim hatred of Jews, and a self-hating Jew, too) relies on the disconnected-from-reality allegation that somehow Christian anti-Semites have been afraid to expose themselves but-for a somehow-now-legitimized Muslim hatred of Jews. Because, as we know, if 9/11 did anything, it made narrow-minded right-wingers accept the arguments of al Qaeda. And there were obviously no Gentile anti-Semites before there were Muslim anti-Semites, either, and the copies of Mein Kampf that Schlussel envisions "the Muslims" brandishing about were, I guess, ghost written by Yasser Arafat. And it's all because of the liberals. I say we kill the Beast! Ten points for Gaston!
The mendacity here is, as I said, desperate, hollow, and serves only to highlight her inanity. Nevertheless, there's an audience for these screeds.
As Max Blumenthal highlighted a few days ago in this video of bile-filled spoiled American youths on parent-sponsored Jerusalem boondoggles, Schlussel is not alone. Great job, Dr. Dad, teaching your kids a love for Israel.
Of course, the Schlussels of the world will employ their failed logic to charge that, by criticizing her brand of sociopathic hatred, I am somehow creating false equivalence, legitimizing the actions of James von Brunn, that von Brunn is in fact a product of left-wing support for a Middle East peace process and a belief that only a two state solution can save Israel, that legitimate criticism of failed Israeli policy is somehow an invitation to murder Jews and those associated with them. They would have you believe that by electing Barack Obama, a secret-Muslim fake-American, as President, we have told left-wing anti-Semites to go to war against Jews.
Which is, in a mirror universe kind of way, part true. The election of Barack Obama has, it seems, set loose the radicals, yet not for the reason that they claim, and it has done so across the appalling spectrum that defines the coalition of the right. Remember that this is the coalition that is home to both Pat Buchanan and Doug Feith, to Bill Donohue and Bill Kristol. It welcomes both the racist and anti-Semitic far right and the "new" Neocon right.
That form of big-tent Republicanism began with the party's evangelical wing and the growing subset of Christian Zionists, whether for fulfillment of prophesy or a passion for bringing about the expulsion of Islam from the Holy Land, with Jewish sovereignty a temporary facility to bring about their apocalyptic vision for rapture and the second coming. Building on that foundation, the Bush-Cheney-Rove-Limbaugh conservative movement manipulated the "War on Terror," conflating the U.S. need to defend against al Qaeda with Israel's struggles to maintain its existence in a hostile Middle East, calculated to capture a portion of the Jewish vote. And a portion of the Jewish population (a small but vocal portion) has been all too content to play along - and to ignore the ever-present tug of the racialists in their party and then, in some cases (Schlossel, Mark Steyn, and others), to join their ranks - for their own part using the conservative movement as a platform for conflating Israel's ongoing legitimate existential struggle with putting down the Palestinian's own legitimate desire for sovereignty and respect for their territory (which is not to say that there are not considerable - and considerably evil - forces on the Palestinian side for whom sovereignty means drowning Israelis in the Mediterranean, which sometimes explains but does not justify much of the counter-reaction). That, and tort reform.
But the cynical co-optation of the Zionist vision by the conservative movement doesn't change that movement's soul.
As we're now seeing, some on the radical right feel trapped and marginalized as America moves away from their brand of hatred and narrow-mindedness, and they are lashing out, against those that threaten their place in their world, shaped in their Fair-and-Balanced self-image. From the disturbing hatred expressed in lines waiting for their hero Sarah Palin to take the stage before last year's Presidential election, to the tea parties of early 2009, to the thinly-veiled hatred toward Sonia Sotomayor, to the escalation into gradual armed warfare on the enemies of the traditional right wing that we are seeing right now, these forces of the Right keep ratcheting up the fear and are blossoming into full-blown rebellion. Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war. That's the Right's soul, exposed.
None of which should take away from the fact that this shooting was a sick act by a desperate, evil man, a tragedy for America, and a personal tragedy for the Johns family. Politics and posturing and personal agendas should not diminish that. Ta-Nehisi and Goldberg were right that it matters that a black man was killed guarding the Holocaust Museum - we, black and Jew, have common cause here, and, whether we realize it or not, have common cause on most issues. But more than that, it matters that a man - a person, an individual, a human being - was killed guarding the Holocaust Museum, because we all have that common cause, to ensure that Never Again is more than just words, and whether or not everyone realizes it, or cares to.
UPDATE: Apparently, Max Blumenthal's video has been pulled from YouTube and Vimeo. That's absurd, and simply allows those who hold the Zionist movement hostage to pretend that type of thinking doesn't exist. But they're troubled by the censorship coming from Iran. Wow.
The Republican Jewish Coalition is offended by the "balanced tone" of President Obama's groundbreaking speechin Cairo, because there can be no legitimate interests beyond those of the Israeli right wing. Peace is a one-way street.
As always, the RJC is wrong - and offensive in the process. Rational actors recognize that acknowledging the concerns of one group does not delegitimize the issues of another. But, in the world of the RJC, because Palestinians have been harmed by their tragic leadership at least as much as by the Israelis, Palestinians don't count as people who deserve any rights or respect, and any recognition of any such rights or the treatment of those people with respect by President Obama is necessarily a betrayal of Israel.
We'll be out of town for several days, with no internet access, so I cannot write too much about the Cairo speech or the absurd reactions on the crazy right or from those in our community who cannot see past their limited interests that have served to halt any progress in the Middle East. I will try to get to that next week.
South Carolina (still, for now) Governor Mark Sanford, still nuts and still playing the sympathy card.
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