SNIAHCRUOYGNIKNAYTSUJMI:

Genome Evolution | First, a Bang Then, a Shuffle: Did duplication fuel vertebrate genome evolution? (Ricki Lewis, Jan. 27, 2003, The Scientist)

Picture an imperfect hall of mirrors, with gene sequences reflecting wildly: That's the human genome. The duplications that riddle the genome range greatly in size, clustered in some areas yet absent in others, residing in gene jungles as well as within vast expanses of seemingly genetic gibberish. And in their organization lie clues to genome origins. "We've known for some time that duplications are the primary force for genes and genomes to evolve over time," says Evan Eichler, director of the bioinformatics core facility at the Center for Computational Genomics, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland.

For three decades, based largely on extrapolations from known gene families in humans, researchers have hypothesized two complete genome doublings--technically, polyploidization--modified by gene loss, chromosome rearrangements, and additional limited duplications. But that view is changing as more complete evidence from genomics reveals a larger role for recent small-scale changes, superimposed on a probable earlier single doubling. Ken Wolfe, a professor of genetics at the University of Dublin, calls the new view of human genome evolution "the big bang" followed by "the slow shuffle." [...]

Polyploidy is rarer in animals, which must sort out unmatched sex chromosomes, than in plants, which reproduce asexually as well as sexually. "But polyploidization is maintained over evolutionary time in vertebrates quite readily, although rarely. Recent examples, from the last 50 million years ago or so, include salmonids, goldfish, Xenopus [frogs], and a South American mouse," says Postlethwait. On a chromosomal level, polyploidy may disrupt chromosome compatibility, but on a gene level, it is an efficient way to make copies. "Polyploidy solves the dosage problem. Every gene is duplicated at the same time, so if the genes need to be in the right stoichiometric relationship to interact, they are. With segmental duplications, gene dosages might not be in the same balance. This might be a penalty and one reason why segmental genes don't survive as long as polyploidy," Lynch says. [...]

Human genome sequence information has enabled Gu and others to test the 2R hypothesis more globally, reinstating one R. His group used molecular-clock analyses to date the origins of 1,739 duplications from 749 gene families.8 If these duplications sprang from two rounds of polyploidization, the dates should fall into two clusters. This isn't exactly what happened. Instead, the dates point to a whole genome doubling about 550 million years ago and a more recent round of tandem and segmental duplications since 80 million years ago, when mammals radiated.

Ironically, sequencing of the human genome may have underestimated the number of duplications. The genome sequencing required that several copies be cut, the fragments overlapped, and the order of bases derived. The algorithm could not distinguish whether a particular sequence counted twice was a real duplication, present at two sites in the genome, or independent single genes obtained from two of the cut genomes.

Eichler and his group developed a way around this methodological limitation. They compare sequences at least 15,000 bases long against a random sample of shotgunned whole genome pieces. Those fragments that are overrepresented are inferred to be duplicated. The technique identified 169 regions flanked by large duplications in the human genome.

Although parts of the human genome retain a legacy of a long-ago total doubling, the more recent, smaller duplications provide a continual source of raw material for evolution. "My view is that both happen. A genome can undergo polyploidy, duplicating all genes at once, but the rate of segmental duplications turns out to be so high that every gene will have had the opportunity to duplicate" by this method also, concludes Lynch. It will be interesting to see how the ongoing analyses of the human and other genome sequences further illuminate the origins and roles of duplications.

It would appear they've identified several of the precise moments at which God intervened to create Man, in these cases doubling the entire genome to force evolution onto chosen tracks.

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NUMBER ONE, WITH A CROSS:

Jesus Sells: What the Christian culture industry tells us about secular society. (Jeremy Lott, February 2003, Reason)

Critics are right about the apparent insularity of evangelical culture, but not as right as they think they are. The hand wringing that the Left Behind series has engendered, for instance, is irrational. Though Bruce Bawer's Tompaine.com piece is an extreme example of overreaction, a few nonreligious friends have privately explained to me that the existence and popularity of such books -- "wish fulfillment fantasies about non-fundamentalists suffering apocalyptic torment," as Bawer put it -- worry them. The reviewer for the determinedly anti-religious Free Inquiry likened the series to The Turner Diaries, the anti-Semitic survivalist underground classic that helped inspire Oklahoma City bomber Tim McVeigh.

Yet, other popular novelists, Stephen King among them, are often just as apocalyptic as LaHaye and Jenkins, without inspiring dire warnings that America is about to embrace a fascist theocracy. True, King and company don?t take their apocalypses seriously. On the other hand, the end of the world has been a popular subgenre for many years. Exactly what has drawn readers to so many secular total destruction fantasies is a question that?s hard to answer, but that answer is unlikely to be compassion for humanity.

In any event, one might hazard that the incomprehension of secular outsiders has contributed significantly to the birth of the commercial Christian pop culture scene. That is, while the books, music, and videos in CBA stores may not have been of the highest quality or featured the best production values, they at least took seriously the beliefs held by evangelicals, who may constitute anywhere from a quarter to a third of American society. The move by secular presses, movie studios, radio stations, and record labels to cater to this market could be viewed as a victory for commercial self-interest over religious intolerance.

This whole piece is interesting, but on just this one point, one wonders if it's really that far off to compare things like Left Behind to the "literature" that militia groups favor. It seems likely the reviewer in question was trying to be inflammatory and to smear Christians, but most cultural conservatives--who obviously tend to be white and Christian--do have a feeling of being an embattled minority and a sense that most of the trends of modernity lead toward ruin for Western Civilization and thereby for mankind. Nor is this anything new, as evidenced by Ortega y Gasset's fear of the masses and Albert Jay Nock's portrayal of the Remnant. Art, even if extreme, that portrays the few as the Chosen and that suggests that the decline around us presages a great moment coming, rather than an ignominious end, must obviously be attractive. Add to this the the abysmal state of popular entertainment--books, movies, music and tv--not just in terms of the low quality and the gratuitous sex, violence, and profanity, but also the frequent hostility to religious belief, and it seems no surprise that a rather insular community would develop around art that consciously avoids these things.

Meanwhile, one of the most interesting recent developments in pop culture is the resurgence of "decent" great films with serious moral themes. Consider some of the best, and often most successful, movies of last year--Harry Potter, Spiderman, The Lord of the Rings, Signs, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Lady and the Duke, etc.--there's been not only a return of movies that portray existence as a battle of good vs. evil but that portray good as prey to temptation and despair and that place selfless moral obligations upon the good. It's hard to think of a moment in the popular arts--with the possible exception of the punk rock explosion in the mid-70s--that was quite this reactionary and retrograde. Whether the popularity of Christian products had an influence on this or not, it seems certain that if the secular movie industry continues to roll out big-budget flicks like this it will have to impact the distinctly evangelical culture. And the conscious creation of popular art that invites evangelicals and other conservatives in, rather than putting them off, would have to be considered something of a victory for Christian culture, regardless of whether it represents merely an economic decision on the part of artists or a genuine acceptance of the ideas for which they're now becoming proselytizers.

MORE:
Hollywood Rallies Round the Homeland: In a culture newly stirred by the danger of the national security state, the bad guys are clear-cut
and the good guys go nail 'em to the wall. (Todd S. Purdum, 2/02/03, NY Times)

The 70's revelations about C.I.A. coup attempts and other skulduggery gave way to the Carter administration's seeming powerlessness in the Iranian hostage crisis and the Reagan-era rebound in defense spending and the end of the cold war. By the 1990's, with the cold war over and prosperity reigning at home, the C.I.A. came to be seen as almost an afterthought.

Now the attacks of 2001 and the swift success of the United States's military campaign in Afghanistan have made for some creative amnesia about the American role in war through most of the last decade, when the Clinton administration stood on the sidelines in the face of the bloodbath in Rwanda and bombed Kosovo only from a relatively safe distance without a single American soldier on the ground. Next month, Bruce Willis stars in "Tears of the Sun," the tale of a Navy SEAL who defies orders by staging an unsanctioned rescue of a group of refugees in Nigeria.

"In how people are thinking, there's definitely an approach that says, `The government is not the bad guy,' " said Sean Daniel, an executive producer of "The Hunted," a thriller from Paramount set for release on March 14. Directed by William Friedkin, it stars Tommy Lee Jones as an F.B.I. agent on the trail of a serial murderer played by Benicio del Toro.

"There's an understanding from television and the `C.S.I.'s' and "Law and Orders' and the `24's' that there's a desire to see the bad guy gotten," he added. "It weighs in the story conferences and in the staff meetings. It just does. And while clearly the traditional grand escapism is what the movies are there for in times like this, there are also movies to be made where the government gets the bad guys."

Chase Brandon, a veteran covert operations officer who for the last six years has been the Central Intelligence Agency's official liaison to the world of movies, television and documentary films, said he had seen a steady increase in Hollywood's efforts at verisimilitude as well as a predisposition to offer sympathetic portrayals of the agency's work.

"People have seen documentary programs, most notably the series on the Discovery Channel, and they know what our lobby looks like and what our buildings look like, and more about the actual work that we do," he said. "So the old, tired and hackneyed representation of us as a bunch of rogue operatives, with everything dark and gloomy and sensational, that doesn't wash any more."

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SUNSHINE IS THE BEST INFECTANT:

South Korean Leader Assailed on Funds Transfer to North (DON KIRK, January 31, 2003, NY Times)

President Kim Dae Jung faced mounting pressure today to provide a detailed account of why nearly $200 million was moved to North Korea shortly before he flew to Pyongyang for his summit meeting with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, in June 2000.

The opposition Grand National Party, which controls a majority of seats in the National Assembly, said Mr. Kim "must reveal all details of secret-room deals with North Korea" and called on him to "apologize for lying to the people."

Opposition politicians, as well as some news organizations, asserted that government officials had denied the money transfer until government auditors verified that the funds had moved through a large corporation involved in an elaborate tourism project with North Korea. Prosecutors are now weighing whether to bring charges against some of the major figures involved in the transfer and are also investigating reports that other funds also wound up in North Korea.

Henry Kissinger, Yasar Arafat, Nelson Mandela, Kim Dae Jung, Jimmy Carter.... No matter how much money they give Laureates, would you let the Nobel Committee add your name to that list?

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GO, AL, GO:

Unnamed Dem Candidate Edges Bush In New Jersey, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; Lieberman Is Top Pick Of Dem Pack (Quinnipiac University, 1/31/03)

When looking for a possible presidential nominee, 32 percent of New Jersey Democrats pick Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman, followed by:

* Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry with 18 percent;

*Rev. Al Sharpton with 12 percent;

*Missouri Congressman Richard Gephardt with 9 percent;

*North Carolina Sen. John Edwards with 7 percent;

*Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean with 4 percent.

Nothing better demonstrates liberal media bias than the way they're refusing to cover the candidacy of Al Sharpton, who may well arrive at the Democratic convention with the second most votes.

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THE DEMOCRATS VS. HISPANICS:

GOP Pushes Estrada Past Democrats, 10-9: After nearly two years, panel OKs appellate court nominee (Tom Brune, January 31, 2003, Newsday)

Over Democrats' objections, Republicans on the Judiciary Committee yesterday quickly sent to the full Senate the long-delayed judicial nomination of Miguel Estrada, a conservative Hispanic attorney considered a potential Supreme Court pick.

In a 10-9 party-line vote that followed a contentious exchange among senators, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved Estrada's nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. [...]

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the committee chairman, accused liberal activists of a smear campaign against Estrada, who came to the United States from Honduras when he was 16, because of his ethnicity and politics.

"One new obstacle Hispanics face today is the attempt by some Washington political operatives to smear anyone who could be a positive role model for Hispanics and who might be a constitutionalist, rather than a liberal judicial activist, or who might even be conservative or Republican," Hatch said.

No honest observer will deny that had he an identical record and philosophy and WASP heritage Mr. Estrada would have sailed through. What Democrats fear is that he now becomes a slam dunk Supreme Court nominee, who they'd be forced to approve even in the final days of the second Bush term, when they'd normally be able to stop any nomination. This doesn't make them anti-Hispanic per se, but it does put them in the position of denying job promotions to Hispanics (and blacks) because of their ethnicity.

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AMERICA--LAND OF THE MEAN DOVES:

Poll: Even Doves Back Iraq Action (Dana Blanton, January 31, 2003, FOX News)

While only slightly more Americans describe themselves as "hawks" than as "doves" when it comes to military matters, by more than three-to-one the public supports military action to remove Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power.

According to the latest FOX News poll, conducted by Opinion Dynamics Corporation, two-thirds of Americans (67 percent) support U.S. military action against Iraq -- the same level of support as before the president's State of the Union address on Tuesday evening.  Among "hawks," that support climbs to 83 percent, and even among "doves" a majority still supports ousting Saddam (52 percent).

When asked to describe themselves on military matters, 38 percent say they are a hawk, 31 percent say dove, and 16 percent say it depends.  President Bush is seen as a hawk by 67 percent and as a dove by only 9 percent of the public.

Overall, fully 87 percent of Americans believe Iraq is deceiving inspectors by hiding chemical and biological or other weapons of mass destruction, and almost as many (81 percent) believe Saddam has ties to the Al Qaeda terrorist group.

Which leads one to ask: precisely who are the Democrats playing to with their opposition to the war?

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EXHIBIT A:

DENNIS MILLER: Conservative (or at least libertarian) hero. (Edward Driscoll, January 31, 2003)

Years ago a friend sent us a few of Mr. Miller's jokes accompanied by a note that said: You probably don't like him because he's a Hollywood liberal, but these are funny.

I responded: Of course I like him. He is funny and all humor is conservative.

Thus began a years long argument, though we've yet to have anyone refute the point.

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NUTHIN' FROM NUTHIN' (via Thomas Nicholson)

Go forth and multiply (Mark Steyn, January 27, 2003, National Post)

A society whose political class elevates "a woman's right to choose" above "go forth and multiply" is a society with a death wish. So today we're the endangered species, not the spotted owl. We're the dwindling resource, not the oil. Abortion is like the entirely mythical "population bomb" touted by the award-festooned Paul Ehrlich, who predicted millions of Americans would be starving to death by the 1980s: It's a prop of the Western progressive's bizarre death-cultism. We are so bad, so racist, so polluting, so exploitative that we owe it to the world not to be born in the first place. Abortion fetishism and our withered birth rate are only the quieter symptoms of the West's loss of self-confidence manifested more noisily elsewhere, from last weekend's Saddamite demonstrations to Chirac and Schroeder's press conference. The issue this week, according to the Ottawa
Citizen's David Warren, is simple: "Is what we are worth defending?" If you think the Euro-appeasers' answer is pretty pathetic right now, wait another decade, after the birth rate's fallen even lower and their bloated welfare programs are even more dependent on an increasingly immigrant workforce.

The abortionists respond that every child should be "wanted." Sounds nice and cuddly, but it leads remorselessly to Italian yuppie couples having just the one kid in their thirties. In a healthy society, not every baby is exactly "wanted": things happen, and you adjust to them. Legal abortion was supposed to make things better for that small number of women who found themselves clutching a handful of cash and riding the bus to a backstreet abortionist in the next town. But "unwanted" is a highly elastic term: in Romania in the Nineties, three out of four pregnancies were being terminated. Europe, in eliminating "unwanted" pregnancies, is eliminating itself. In Canada, meanwhile, Patricia Pearson assures us there's plenty of other folks to take up the slack:

"Immigrants to Canada from China and Eastern Europe are, I think it's fair to say, more secular and more accustomed to official support for abortion and gender equality espoused in the socialist and communist states they have fled from, than those immigrants to the United States who come from Catholic Latin America."

Well, that's one way of putting it. "Official support" means China telling you how many babies you can have: not a woman's right to choose, but the state's right to choose for the woman. Some "tolerance."

Those of us less persuaded than Miss Pearson by the benefits of totalitarian approaches to birth control will just have to do our bit as we can. Next time you're in a rundown diner and the 17-year-old waitress is eight months pregnant, don't tut "What a tragedy" and point her to the nearest Planned Parenthood clinic. Leave her a large tip instead. She's doing the right thing, not just for her, but for all of us.

It would make life so much easier if only we could all hate humankind as much as the Left does. But you can't care about Man and reconcile yourself to who we're becoming, or not becoming, if defenseless enough.

As always when I read something like this, the mind turns to one of the most insightful paragraphs of Albert Jay Nock:

Burke touches [the] matter of patriotism with a searching phrase.  'For us to love our country,' he said, 'our country ought to be lovely.'  I have sometimes thought that here may be the rock on which Western civilization will finally shatter itself.  Economism can build a society which is rich, prosperous, powerful, even one which has a reasonably wide diffusion of material well-being.  It can not build one which is lovely, one which has savour and depth, and which exercises the irresistible attraction that loveliness wields.  Perhaps by the time economism has run its course the society it has built may be tired of itself, bored by its own hideousness, and may despairingly consent to annihilation, aware that it is too ugly to be let live any longer.

Isn't this, in fact, precisely what is happening in Japan, Canada, and Europe, where countries with wealth that was previously unimaginable are,
rather than thriving, killing themselves off? And, if we're honest, who among us didn't have at least a brief frisson of terror on 9-11 that we too had slouched so far down the road to Gommorah that our time of reckoning had come? And wasn't part of the undeniable thrill of the days following simply a function of our relief that we remain a decent, courageous, and surprisingly substantial people at our core?

Europeans mock us for our religion, our moralism, our conservatism on social issues like abortion and cloning, and our relative prudishness about sex (think Clinton scandal), but ultimately it must be the case that it is these very remains of what we (and they) once were and the strong pull that they continue to exert on our society, almost uniquely, have given us the only still rising nation in the West. We may well be growing hideous, but somehow enough folks here are raging against the dying of the light that we, unlike the rest of the West, aren't quite ready for annihilation yet.

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PRINCESS CASPIAN:

A Different View of the Islamic World: Caspian Countries Defy Stereotypes (Baku Today, 31/01/2003)

[Brenda] Shaffer is research director of the Kennedy School's Caspian Studies Program. Its chairman is Graham Allison, the Douglas Dillon Professor of Government. Founded in 1999, the Caspian Studies Program focuses on those countries that surround the Caspian Sea, the huge saltwater lake known for its oil deposits and its caviar.

Even the program's title represents something of a paradigm shift. Under a more traditional scheme, Iran, which borders the Caspian on the South, would be considered part of the Middle East. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan on the East would be seen as part of Central Asia, while on the West, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia would be part of the Caucasus. Russia, which borders the Caspian to the West and North, has always been a geographic anomaly because it spans both Europe and Asia.

But the term "Caspian region" makes sense because the countries are all part of the Caspian basin, and Shaffer believes that defining regions in functional terms, based on how people live, whom they interact with, what their economic and security interests are, makes more sense than simply drawing an arbitrary line around a geographic area.

Part of what Shaffer hopes to do is get people, and especially U.S. policy-makers, to see the world in these functional terms rather than make assumptions on the basis of cultural, ethnic, or religious identity. As far as the Caspian region goes, she believes that shift is crucial.

"These are countries that can contribute to our energy security, to nuclear nonproliferation, to antiterrorism," she says, "and they were cooperating before 9/11!"

Maybe we could have done with fewer stories on shark attacks and Gary Condit and a few more on these bewildering portions of the globe.

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PEOPLE WILL SAY WE'RE IN LOVE:

Every picture tells a story, don't it?

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ABLE WAS I ERE I SAW SUPERMAX:

Saddam exile plan gathers pace (Syed Saleem Shahzad, 1/31/03, Asia Times)

Even as the United States appears to be drawing closer by the day to attacking Iraq, behind-the-scenes efforts are continuing to find a peaceful solution to the crisis by forcing Saddam Hussein to step down at the eleventh hour to prevent his humiliating dethroning after defeat in war, with Saudi Arabia and the US playing a pivotal role in the diplomatic initiative.

Asia Times Online has learned of an unpublicized visit to Pakistan by a high-powered Saudi delegation believed to have been headed by influential Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, the defense minister. The Saudis flew into the city of Rawalpindi last Friday aboard a special non-stop flight from Washington and then flew on to Paris the following day.

The Pakistan government has not said a single word about the delegation, but a highly-placed official in the Islamabad administration told Asia Times Online that the mission was a part of ongoing diplomatic efforts aimed at developing a plan for the exile of Saddam, as well as to discuss possible options for the future of Iraq.

Promise him anything to get him out and then arrest him anyway.

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(AND JEWS):

Politicians With Guts (Robert Kagan, January 31, 2003, Washingon Post)

I live in Brussels, famed "capital of Europe," and have traveled across the continent over the past year, speaking with intellectuals, journalists, foreign policy analysts and government officials at the endless merry-go-round of highbrow European conferences. The settings couldn't be nicer; the food and wine couldn't be better; the conversations couldn't be more polite. And the suspicion, fear and loathing of the United States couldn't be thicker. In London, where Tony Blair has to go to work every day, one finds Britain's finest minds propounding, in sophisticated language and melodious Oxbridge accents, the conspiracy theories of Pat Buchanan concerning the "neoconservative" (read: Jewish) hijacking of American foreign policy. Britain's most gifted scholars sift through American writings about Europe searching for signs of derogatory "sexual imagery." In Paris, all the talk is of oil and "imperialism" (and Jews). In Madrid, it's oil, imperialism, past American support for Franco (and Jews). At a conference I recently attended in Barcelona, an esteemed Spanish intellectual earnestly asked why, if the United States wants to topple vicious dictatorships that manufacture weapons of mass destruction, it is not also invading Israel.

Yes, I know, there are Americans who ask such questions, too. We have our Buchanans and our Gore Vidals. But here's what Americans need to understand: In Europe, this paranoid, conspiratorial anti-Americanism is not a far-left or far-right phenomenon. It's the mainstream view. When Gerhard Schroeder campaigns on an anti-American platform in Germany, he's not just "mobilizing his base" or reaching out to fringe Greens and Socialists. He's talking to the man and woman on the street, left, right and center. When Jacques Chirac and Dominique de Villepin publicly humiliate Colin Powell, they're playing to the gallery. The "European street" is more anti-American than ever before. Even in the 1960s at the height of the anti-Vietnam War protests or in the early 1980s at the height of the "nuclear freeze" movement, European anti-Americanism was always more than counterbalanced by European anti-communism. Most Europeans believed the real problem was the Red Army and Soviet totalitarianism, not Nixon or Reagan, and the United States, whatever its flaws, was defending them from those twin evils. When Helmut Kohl, Margaret Thatcher and even Francois Mitterrand stood with Reagan in the waning years of the Cold War, theirs was a courageous and vitally important but not a politically risky stand.

Not so today for Messrs. Blair, Aznar and Berlusconi or for Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish prime minister. For leaders in Western Europe, more so than for their Central and Eastern European colleagues, standing with Bush in the present Iraq crisis is political poison, at least in the short run. With the Soviet and communist threats safely behind them and the Balkan crises settled, most Western Europeans either don't remember, don't choose to remember or perhaps even resent America's long record of strategic "generosity" toward them. Certainly they do not feel a scintilla of generosity toward the United States. Instead, as keen observers such as Christopher Caldwell have noted, anti-Americanism has become the organizing theme for all European grievances about their world. And just as Arab leaders channel domestic unhappiness with their rule into anti-Americanism as a kind of
safety valve for discontent, so, in perhaps more subtle ways, do European leaders.

Do you suppose Bill Clinton is capable of the level of reflection that would cause him to look at Tony Blair and say: I too could have been somebody?

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"DISRUPTED OUR PLANS"?:

Mother wins damage claim over lack of test for Down syndrome (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, January 30, 2003)

A woman who said she would have had an abortion had she known her daughter would be born with Down syndrome has been awarded $10,000 (U.S.$6,500).

Dr. Ken Kan of suburban Richmond was negligent in failing to send Liu-Ling "Lydia" Zhang for an expedited amniocentesis, a procedure that likely would have detected the chromosome defect that causes the condition, British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Michael Catliff ruled this week.

Zhang, 42, a business operator with homes in Vancouver and Hong Kong, testified during a 15-day trial last November that she was devastated after her daughter Sherry was born on April 29, 1997.

Zhang said her husband, Simon Fung, could not accept that she had given birth to a retarded child and having Sherry "totally disrupted our plans."

These people are just despicable. Even if you can understand prefering the abortion to the child--and there is a coherent, though not necessarily compelling, case to be made--what kind of person would pursue a suit like this and say these things once their daughter is born? Is $6000 worth telling your child you wish she were dead?

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BUMPER CROP:

Albania ready to join U.S.-led anti-Iraq coalition(LLAZAR SEMINI, Jan 30, 2003, Associated Press)

Albania is ready to join the U.S.-led anti-Iraq coalition, the government said Thursday, releasing a letter from Prime Minister Fatos Nano to the American president pledging the country's "total and unconditional" support. [...]

"I wish to bring to your attention that the resolution of my government to support the United States in the war on terrorism is total and unconditional," said the letter, made available The Associated Press. "We want to be as helpful as possible to the United States and stand ready to join the coalition of the willing as your friend and ally."

Which calls for a rendition of that sentimental favorite by Ernie Pantuso:

Albania, Albania, you border on the Adriatic.
Your terrain is mainly mountainous.
And your chief export is chrome.

Or something like that. God Bless Albania.

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WILLIAM YOUNG FOR SENATOR COMMITTEE:

Shoe Bomber Sentenced to Life in Prison (AP, January 31, 2003)

Richard Reid, the al-Qaida follower who tried to blow up a trans-Atlantic jetliner with explosives hidden in his shoes, was sentenced to life in prison Thursday by a judge who warned him: "We are not afraid ... We are Americans. We have been through the fire before.''

The 29-year-old British citizen cried, "You will be judged by Allah!'' before being dragged from the courtroom in handcuffs. [...]

"Your government has sponsored the rape and torture of Muslims in the prisons of Egypt and Turkey and Syria and Jordan with their money and with their weapons,'' said Reid, who converted to Islam eight years ago.

U.S. District Judge William Young would have none of it.

"We are not afraid of any of your terrorist co-conspirators, Mr. Reid,'' said the judge. "We are Americans. We have been through the fire before.

"You are not an enemy combatant - you are a terrorist. You are not a soldier in any war - you are a terrorist. To call you a soldier gives you far too much stature. You are a terrorist and we do not negotiate with terrorists. We hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice.''

The judge then pointed to the American flag behind him and said: "You see that flag, Mr. Reid? That's the flag of the United States of America. That flag will fly there long after this is long forgotten.''

"That flag will be brought down on the day of judgment,'' Reid replied.

We're thinkin' the judge had the better of this discussion.

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APE DESCENDANTS ONLY NEED APPLY:

Justice Department probes Texas Tech professor's policy: Student alleges religious discrimination (LISA FALKENBERG, Jan. 29, 2003, Associated Press)

The U.S. Department of Justice is looking into the policy of a Texas Tech University biology professor who refuses to write letters of recommendation to students who don't believe in the theory of human evolution, school officials said Wednesday.

Federal officials, in a Jan. 21 letter, asked the university to respond to a complaint alleging that Texas Tech and biology professor Michael Dini are discriminating on the basis of religion. [...]

Texas Tech spokeswoman Cindy Rugeley said the university stands by Dini and that his policies do not conflict with those of Texas Tech.

"A letter of recommendation is a personal matter between a professor and student and is not subject to the university control or regulation," Texas Tech Chancellor David Smith wrote in an October response to a complaint letter.

The professor may well be a flaming anus, as the comments on his website suggest, but since when do you have a right to a recommendation from anyone? It's not even clear that there'd be a cause of action if he refused all Jewish or black or gay students. We're with the Darwinist on this one.

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SCALIA THE LIBERAL ACTIVIST:

Justice Scalia's Lament (The Washington Post, January 28, 2003)

In reality, the founding-era practice of religious neutrality was not one that even Justice Scalia today would recognize as neutral. For while Justice Scalia's idea of government neutrality among religious groups had some adherents at the time, it was not the principle that governed the early history of the American republic. States retained established churches and religious tests for public service, for example. Congress paid for missionary work among Native Americans. And many scholarly authorities emphatically did not understand the First Amendment, as the justice now does, as putting Christianity on an even playing field with other religions. Justice Joseph Story -- a celebrated early commentator on the Constitution -- wrote in 1833, for example, that the point of the amendment was "not to countenance, much less to advantage Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity," but to establish federal neutrality between Christian sects and the states those sects dominated. "[I]t is impossible for those who believe in the truth of Christianity as a divine revelation to doubt that it is the especial duty of government to foster . . . it among all the citizens and subjects," he wrote. This sounds little like neutrality among religions. Justice Scalia's Constitution, in other words, is just as "living" as the one he derides. He merely prefers to draw the line in a different place.

The trouble is that he draws it in a place that would permit public religious exercises that endorse one broad religious system -- Judeo-Christian monotheism -- at the expense of all other systems of belief and would do so with the imprimatur of the state. Justice Scalia can pretend that certain school prayers, to cite one example, are nondenominational, but any invocation of one God necessarily excludes Hindus as surely as it excludes atheists. Protecting their consciences from state indoctrination may be, as Justice Scalia laments, a deviation from the vision of religious freedom the First Amendment was originally intended to enshrine. But America has changed since the 18th century, and the American understanding of the principle the First Amendment stated -- Justice Scalia's understanding included -- has changed with it. In contemporary America, governmental neutrality on religious matters should be true neutrality.

They start off so well, pointing out that even Justice Scalia has drifted too far from the intent of the First Amendment, but then they fritter it all away by proposing that we veer even further.

The Constitution isn't alive; it's a written document. If you want to change it then let's call the Convention and let the chips fall where they may.

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THE FORSAKEN:

Newly released letters tell of Jesus calling Mother Teresa 'my little wife' (STEPHEN FRASER, 12/08/2002, The Scotsman)

MOTHER TERESA had visions in which she saw the Virgin Mary and talked to Jesus, newly-published letters have revealed. In her visions, Jesus called her "my little wife" and "my dear little woman" and told her to found a new order of nuns devoted to helping the poor in India.

The letters she wrote to two priests, who acted as her spiritual mentors, also reveal that Mother Teresa - who died in 1997 aged 87 - suffered episodes of depression throughout her life in which she underwent grave crises of faith. [...]

Her letters suggest the 1947 vision was her last experience of "dialogue" with Jesus. Later communications suggest profound religious doubt. In one letter, dated 1958, she wrote: "My smile is a great cloak that hides a multitude of pains."

Because she kept a smile on her face, she wrote, people "think that my faith, my hope and my love are overflowing, and that my intimacy with God and union with His will fill my heart. If only they knew."

Mother Teresa was more explicit in another item of correspondence: "The damned of Hell suffer eternal punishment because they experiment with the loss of God. In my own soul, I feel the terrible pain of this loss. I feel that God does not want me, that God is not God, and that God does not exist."

Apparently this bothers or gladdens some folks. But if this is so:

And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabach'thani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

...if Christ despaired (which is, after all, the most important aspect of his sojourn here among us), how could any mere human, even a saint, not suffer their own crises of faith?

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IN THE NAME OF LOVE:

Unlikely Allies Influenced Bush To Shift Course On AIDS Relief (Mike Allen and Paul Blustein, January 30, 2003, Washington Post)

Administration officials said Bush, who had planned to announce the effort during a trip to Africa that had been scheduled for this month but was postponed, was convinced of the scale of the crisis in part because of trips to Africa last year by the outgoing Treasury secretary, Paul H. O'Neill, and by Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans.

Evans said that he told Bush about the heartbreaking scourge he had witnessed and that Bush believes passionately that "we're here to serve other people and love our neighbors, and these are our neighbors."

The effort was championed inside the West Wing by Deputy Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, who told a colleague several months ago, "We need to do something major on this." Michael Gerson, Bush's chief speechwriter, also took an early interest in the issue, and an administration official said he has talked for months about "the importance of speaking to this as a moral matter."

Several administration officials have become friends of Bono, the lead singer of U2, who said in an interview from Dublin that Bush's announcement shows how the world has changed. "If you think back just six months or a year, conservatives, especially religious conservatives, were very skeptical about this, and we had to explain that if you can't get the drugs, why would you test, and if you don't get people testing, we can't control the virus," Bono said. "All these points have sunk in."

It's been interesting to listen to interviews over the past few days and hear how genuinely thankful and truly perplexed folks in the AIDs community are that it's a religious conservative like George W. Bush who is doing this.

MORE:
How Bush got wise to world AIDS crisis (STEPHANIE NOLEN, January 30, 2003, Globe & Mail)
Bush's Moral Rectitude Is a Tough Sell in Old Europe (TODD S. PURDUM, January 30, 2003, NY Times)
The President rides out: George Bush's foes see him as an inarticulate bully. Friends say that evangelical faith underpins his every action. Ed Vulliamy, January 26, 2003, The Observer)

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WHO'LL TELL JOE STIGLITZ:

The World is Winning, Not Losing, the War on Poverty: New research rebuts the accepted notion that globalization is causing poverty to worsen. (Clive Crook, January 28, 2003, Atlantic Monthly)

Western governments, however dedicated they may claim to be to the cause of global economic integration, seem equally embarrassed by the record on poverty and inequality. There's only one I know of that goes out of its way to confront the subject-the government of Australia. I have just been reading one of a series of refreshingly combative papers on the merits of globalization by economists in Australia's Treasury Department. Europe could do with a few civil servants like this. America could too. [...]

The Australian economists explain why, to begin with, you need to ignore all those comparisons of the "gap between richest and poorest": They are always grossly misleading. The main problem is that the richest and poorest countries keep changing, so the comparison is not like with like. The poorest country one year will typically not be the poorest country 10 years later; by then, it will have moved off the bottom rung, but this improvement is screened out by the comparison. The top slot changes too, so the pace of improvement at that end is correspondingly exaggerated. Also, the poorest country or countries in the world each year will usually be the ones hit hardest by temporary crises such as wars, natural disasters, or collapsing political systems-together with the economic privations they bring. If you are interested in global inequality and its trends, it is necessary to look at broader and more consistent sets of information. [...]

What about the absolute number of people living in poverty? The official figures show that the number of people living on less than a dollar a day (in 1993 PPP terms, the standard benchmark) has been about steady in recent years at 1.2 billion. However, as the Australians point out, global population is growing by about 70 million a year, mostly in poor countries. Against that background, it is quite an achievement just to hold the head count of poverty steady. And an obvious consequence of rising population, given that the poverty head count is stable, is that the proportion of the world's people living in poverty is falling fast: from 29 percent at the start of the decade to 24 percent by the end. By historical standards, all of this is no failure: It is an entirely unprecedented success.

These radically different conclusions follow from looking disinterestedly at exactly the same data (provided by the World Bank) used by the professional pessimists at the UNDP. If the Australians were now to look at the most recent research, they would find that their optimism may be even better grounded than they think.

Did anyone who doesn't stink of patchoulli ever doubt this?

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AXIS OF EVIL TRYOUTS:

Report: France, Syria coordinate Security Council efforts to avert Iraq war (AP, Jan 30, 2003)

Leaders of Syria and France discussed ways Thursday to coordinate their positions on the U.N. Security Council to avert a war on Iraq, the official Syrian Arab News Agency reported.

Syrian President Bashar Assad received a telephone call from his French counterpart, Jacques Chirac, in which the agency said they sought ways to "coordinate at the Security Council in the next stage to prevent the circumstances from reaching the point that may lead to the war on Iraq." [...]

Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Al-Sharaa, meanwhile, reiterated his country's "absolute rejection" of U.S. threats to wage a war against Iraq.

"A war in Iraq will have dangerous repercussions and consequences on the region," he said in a speech delivered to members of the Arab Writers Union during an annual meeting Thursday.

.
Yes, the most obvious consequence is that Syria becomes the top layer of scum waiting to be skimmed off of the Middle East swamp. Apparently the frogs don't mind getting caught up in the skimmers. (How's that for an extended and tortured metaphor?)

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STAR WARS--THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK:

Will There Be A Nuclear Space Race Between America And China (Wayne Smith, Jan 28, 2003, NuclearSpace.com)

The China Daily reports that China has spent 2.3 billion US dollars toward putting a man into space in October of this year -- and that is only the beginning of their ambitions.

The Chinese space program first began in 1956 with 30 young scientists and roughly 100 college graduates, some of whom didn't even know "exactly what missiles were," according to a Chinese government publication.

On Monday, November 21, 1999, they launched their first unmanned Shenzhou space vehicle with a view to eventually launching men into space. China invented the first rocket almost 900 years ago and now they want to be at the forefront of modern development. A nuclear space race would see a return to the frenzied and visionary, if politically induced, days of Apollo.

Let's hope that Nasa's nuclear space challenge does indeed awaken the Dragon.

Unless China implodes in the immediate future the arms race will certainly be carried to space. That's why Missile Defense is far too paltry a vision for America's space based weapons program. Our goal should be to develop the capability of destroying every single satellite in Earth orbit. The ability to leave our enemies largely blind and silent and to eliminate any weapons they may put in space seems like an imperative.

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THE MAGNIFICENT EIGHT:

LETTER: Europe and America must stand united (Times of London, January 30, 2003)

THE real bond between the United States and Europe is the values we share: democracy, individual freedom, human rights and the Rule of Law. These values crossed the Atlantic with those who sailed from Europe to help create the USA. Today they are under greater threat than ever. [...]

Jose Maria Aznar, Spain
Jose Durao Barroso, Portugal
Silvio Berlusconi, Italy
Tony Blair, United Kingdom
Vaclav Havel, Czech Republic
Peter Medgyessy, Hungary
Leszek Miller, Poland
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Denmark

Here's the letter from the New Europeans. One doubts the Old Europe really does share those values.

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DO DEMOCRATS BELIEVE IN AFFIRMATIVE ACTION OR NOT?:

Ex-Illinois senator to visit D.M. (THOMAS BEAUMONT, 01/29/2003, Des Moines Register)

Former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois said Tuesday she will visit Iowa next month as she considers a potential run for president in 2004.

Moseley-Braun said she would run in Iowa's precinct caucuses should she decide to seek the Democratic nomination, because they invite one-on-one campaigning with voters. Moseley-Braun, who is the only black woman ever elected to the Senate, expects to decide by Feb. 20.

"If I were to do this, it would make sense for me to come to Iowa," she said in a telephone interview with The Des Moines Register on Tuesday. "To talk about issues is what I like best. That's what motivates me about the whole set of challenges that a national campaign would represent." [...]

Elected to the Senate in 1992, Moseley-Braun was dogged by questions on campaign finance and ethics throughout her term. Republican Peter Fitzgerald defeated her bid for re-election in 1998.

Moseley-Braun told Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe two weeks ago she would not run for her old Senate seat in 2004 and was considering a presidential bid. Last week she discussed a potential presidential run with Democratic organizer Pete D'Alessandro, who managed former U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley's 2000 caucus campaign and other Iowa campaigns.

She met Monday with McAuliffe and influential Illinois Democrats about a potential presidential candidacy.

Moseley-Braun agreed Tuesday to speak at 1 p.m. Feb. 15 at the Hotel Fort Des Moines at an event sponsored by American Women Presidents, a group that encourages female White House aspirants. She agreed to headline events sponsored by the same group on Feb. 16 in New Hampshire and Feb. 17 in South Carolina, a Moseley-Braun adviser said Tuesday.

In keeping with their commitment to affirmative action, wouldn't it be appropriate for at least one, if not all, of the white male Democrats to bow out of the race, in order to increase the likelihood or even guarantee genuine diversity at the top of the ticket?

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EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN:

We received the following from Glenn Dryfoos, the Brothers Judd jazz correspondent, in response to the Wynton Marsalis article and comments below:

That Marsalis didn't like Miles' later work and publicly said so merely makes Wynton an honest guy. Most of what Davis played in the last years of his career was crap (with occasional exceptions, like his rendition of Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time").

To say (as Jeff does in his comment) that no one named Marsalis has "demonstrated anything beyond mere virtuosity" is ridiculous. Wynton, Branford and their dad, Ellis, are all more than just virtuosos; they all play great and beautiful music...and in the case of Wynton and Branford, they've written some damn good tunes.

Now, as for Wynton's place in the pantheon (Armstrong, Parker, Gillespie, Monk, Coltrane, Taylor). He clearly isn't there. Those greats are held in the esteem that they are because of the new sounds and ideas they bought to the music. Wynton is, in essence, a neo-classicist...his works, while impressive, are mostly built on the sounds and concepts developed by others (to my ears, his biggest compositional influences are Ellington and Wayne Shorter). In my view, however, there's no shame in "merely" being a great player and composer, but not an innovator...if that were the case, guys like Clifford Brown and Stan Getz and even Sonny Rollins wouldn't be as revered as they are. (And, conversely, great innovators like Coleman Hawkins and Benny Carter would be even more revered than they are.)

On the other hand, Marsalis has done the world a great service by banging the drum and reminding us of how great Ellington and Armstrong and Monk were. If it weren't for his efforts, those guys would be a lot more overlooked than they are now...and people like Ken Burns wouldn't have been inspired to look back at the history of jazz. Marsalis doesn't pretend to be a revolutionary...he likes playing his interpretations of musical styles that came before him. I don't think that's a reason to criticize him; it's just a fact.

As for Jeff's "the new Stan Kenton, at best" comment...ouch. First of all, Marsalis is a far greater instrumentalist than Kenton, and that alone is a huge difference. Secondly, his compositions and arrangements are far more diverse and interesting (and swinging!).

So where does that leave us? With a guy who for 20 years has been the finest trumpet player in jazz. A guy who has pushed for people to learn more about the history of the music and who has put together a great jazz orchestra that explores this repertory. He has never criticized "new" music or music that doesn't hew to the orthodoxies he admires...he has only criticized men, like Davis and Herbie Hancock, who once made great music, and then cashed in at the altar of bad pop. (Wynton doesn't launch fusillades at Herbie all the time, only when he releases "music" like "Rockit".)

At bottom is this: I have heard Wynton play live maybe a dozen times. Putting aside labels and agendas, he is simply a thrilling trumpet player. His improvisations and compositions are filled with fire and tenderness, sophistication and honky tonk, seriousness and humor.

He may not be Armstrong, but I'm awfully glad he's around.

As for the Brothers, we just have a soft spot in our cold hearts for misanthropes of every stripe, but particularly for those who defend classicism and revile modernism.

Here are some Wynton Marsalis discs that Dryfoos particularly recommends:
Wynton Marsalis (his first LP as a leader)
Live at Blues Alley
Standard Time, vol 3 (with his Dad, Ellis)
Soundtrack to "Tune in Tomorrow"
Crescent City Christmas
Blood on the Fields
Haydn Trumpet Concerto

MORE:
-PROFILE: Born Out of Time: Wynton Marsalis and his contemporaries recapitulate modern jazz (Francis Davis, April 1988, The Atlantic Monthly

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APPROPRIATE SKEPTICISM:

Bush AIDS Plan Surprises Many, but Advisers Call It Long Planned (SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and RICHARD W. STEVENSON, January 30, 2003, NY Times)

As one of the government's leading scientists, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci often visits the White House to talk about bioterrorism and vaccine research. But whenever he sees President Bush, Dr. Fauci said today, the president has the same question: "He says, `Tony, how's the AIDS program going?' "

That program, $15 billion over the next five years to fight global AIDS, caught many people by surprise when President Bush announced it Tuesday night. But while critics have long accused Mr. Bush of neglecting the epidemic, Dr. Fauci and other officials have been working on the initiative since June, they say, at Mr. Bush's explicit direction.

Mr. Bush's aides say the president has always been committed to the global AIDS cause, though not convinced that taxpayers' money could be well spent. But in recent months, a string of people from inside and outside the administration--including Colin L. Powell, the secretary of state; Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser; and Bono, the Irish rock star--made a passionate case to persuade Mr. Bush that the time was right.

Among those most surprised by Mr. Bush's announcement were officials in 12 countries in Africa, which along with Haiti and Guyana will receive the money.

In the United States, the president's unexpected initiative has political ramifications, as well as humanitarian ones. With Republicans still smarting from racially charged remarks of Senator Trent Lott, the former Republican leader, Mr. Bush's initiative may help mend fences with African-American leaders in Congress.

Today, they held a news conference to express what Representative John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan, called "new hope" and "some skepticism."

Mr. Conyers skepticism is well placed. There's not much of a constituency in the Republican Party for such a measure, there's no petro-benefit to be reaped in Africa (it can't all be about the oil there, can it?), and there's little prospect of blacks voting Republican any time in the near future. The only reason the President could have proposed this is because he actually believes in it and the only reason a Republican Congress would pass it is because they do to. They'd have to be acting because they think it's right, not because it's politically expedient. If such a thing happens then folks like Mr. Conyers will have to re-examine much of what they believe about George W. Bush and the Republican Party. If your opponents threatened to make the world shift under your feet you'd be skeptical too.

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A HEADLINE THAT DETERS READING:

Fighting an immoral war: Sure Saddam Hussein is an evil gangster, but... (Jack Lessenberry, Detroit Metro Times)

Is it wrong if you feel like you need read no further than that headline to know that the author is dazed and confused? If the leader of a country is an evil gangster, how can a war to replace him be immoral? Certainly some tactics or strategy we might employ could be considered immoral--recklessly or intentionally inflicting civilian casualties for example--but how can it be immoral in and of itself to fight to stop an unquestioned evil?

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PETROFIED & PETRIFIED:

'The Devil's Excrement': Perez Alfonzo's different name for oil. (Jerry Useem, January 21, 2003, Fortune)

"Ten years from now, 20 years from now, you will see," former Venezuelan Oil Minister and OPEC co-founder Juan Pablo Perez Alfonzo predicted in the 1970s, "oil will bring us ruin." It was an oddball statement at a time when oil was bringing Venezuela unprecedented wealth--the government's 1973 revenues were larger than all previous years combined, raising hopes that black gold would catapult Venezuela straight to First World status. But Perez Alfonzo had a different name for oil: "the devil's excrement."

Today he seems a prophet. When it hit the jackpot, Venezuela had a functioning democracy and the highest per-capita income on the continent. Now it has a state of near-civil war and a per-capita income lower than its 1960 level.

Far from an anomaly, Venezuela is a classic example of what economists call the "natural resource curse." A 1995 analysis of developing countries by Jeffrey Sachs and Andrew Warner found that the more an economy relied on mineral wealth, the lower its growth rate. Venezuela isn't poor despite its oil riches--it's poor because of them.

How could that be? For the same reason so many entertainers go bankrupt. Showered with sudden windfalls, governments start spending like rock stars, creating programs that are hard to undo when oil prices fall. And because nobody wants to pay taxes to a government that's swimming in petrodollars--"In Venezuela only the stupid pay taxes," a former President once said--the state finds itself living beyond its means.

This dynamic won't be at all surprising to anyone who's read the great Orientalist Bernard Lewis, who makes the point that oilwealth has effectively severed governments in the Middle East from the governed, because the leadership does not have to ask for tax dollars and is therefore beyond accountability.

But, maybe a more interesting point implicated by the story is that, while Americans pride themselves on being ultra-modern and a model of democracy, some of this same dynamic occurred here in the '90s. The post-Cold War boom was so massive and long lived that government--Federal, state, and local--found itself swimming in dollars, without having to raise taxes. For the most part it responded by spending this windfall, rather than returning it to the people. But now, when the downturn has come, those tax dollars aren't there but the spending programs are. So governors--many of whom are forced to be somewhat responsible by balanced budget requirements in their constitutions--face the unpleasant task of slashing spending and raising taxes in the teeth of a recession. The easy money of the 90s got us living beyond our means and enabled us to avoid making hard choices when we could afford them.

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THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS EUROPE:

'Gang of Eight' Iraq Letter Rubs Salt in EU Wounds (Paul Taylor, January 30, 2003, Reuters)

A joint letter by eight European leaders backing the United States on the crisis with Iraq highlighted the European Union's divisions on Thursday, rubbing salt into the wounds of its stumbling foreign policy.

EU president Greece, in charge of trying to coordinate European foreign policy, criticized the signatories for undermining a common approach to the Iraq problem.

The European Parliament deepened the disarray by declaring that Iraq's response to U.N. weapons inspectors did not justify military action and warning against a unilateral U.S.-led war.

In an article published in a dozen newspapers, the leaders of EU members Britain, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Denmark, plus future members Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, called time on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and appealed for unity.

The move appeared aimed at isolating France and Germany, which had publicly argued against a rush to war, and building a pro-American caucus within the 15-nation EU.

"This looks like Rumsfeld's Europe," one EU diplomat said, referring to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's dismissal of France and Germany last week as "old Europe."

The eight failed to consult most of their EU partners and candidates about their initiative, launched just two days after the bloc's foreign ministers had tried to paper over the cracks with a statement backing the U.N. disarmament effort in Iraq.

We mentioned the benefits of instability below and we're fond here of saying that war forces the contradictions. Considering that the EU is a threat to both the future of Europe itself and to American interests in the world and that a Union of such disparate states is self-contradictory, these growing divisions may be inevitable and are certainly welcome. If you're British you have to ask yourself a fairly simple question: as a citizen of one of cradles of liberty, what do you really have in common with the statist/egalitarian French and Germans? There's a reason that Britain has fought those countries repeatedly over the centuries and, unless you have no respect for the power and endurance of cultural differences, you have to wonder if they've really become so much like you that there's no more reason for conflict, or whether, instead, Union represents an ultimate victory for what you've long fought against--totalitarianism.

Why not let the Germans and French have their own Union? Bring the New Europe (and the Commonwealth nations, Amnerica's NAFTA partners, Turkey, Israel, India, Taiwan, etc.) into the Anglo-American special relationship and tie all together with the gentle binding of free trade, mutual defense, and the like, without the kind of bureaucratic dictatorship and common economic system that the EU envisions.

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IS THERE A DOCTOR IN THE (WHITE) HOUSE?:

The Wrong Words: To the Arabs, it seems that the major force behind instability in the Middle East is the United States itself. (Abdel Monem Said, 1/30/03, NY Times)

The historical bond between the United States and the moderate Arab states and mainstream Arabs in general contributed to the stability of the Middle East. For half a century, the bond worked well--to thwart Communist expansion in the cold war, to contain the waves of Iranian Islamic revolution and to end in 1991 Saddam Hussein's radical and regional ambitions. Now, it seems for the Arabs, the major force for instability in the region is the United States itself, which is moving militarily to Iraq, ignoring the Arab-Israeli peace process, giving Ariel Sharon a free hand in Israel, and insinuating a radical program for change in the region without building strategic understanding for it.

Who would even argue with this? The United States, since its own Revolution, has been the most destabilizing force in human history (except
perhaps for Christianity itself), to the great benefit of mankind. Having shucked off the imperial hand of England at its birth it has gone on to annihilate slavery and apartheid within its own borders, tossed other imperial forces out of the Western Hemisphere (from buying out Napoleon to backing the Contras against the Soviet clients in Nicaragua), defeated the Spanish Empire, the Kaiser, and fascism in battle and communism in Cold War. It has played a key role in "imposing" democracy from Tierra del Fuego to St. Petersburg to Johannesburg to Kabul. There's hardly a democracy that doesn't owe the U.S. some debt for either installing, preserving, or restoring it.

Mr. Said seems oblivious to one of the key points he's making. When communism was the primary threat to world peace the United States sought stability in the Middle East while it worked to destabilize the Soviet Empire. Stability was a subsidiary purpose of a policy that sought instability on a massive scale. But now the old communist states are by and large stable democracies and allies and it's the Islamicists who are the greatest threat to world peace. Who would wish a state like Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, or even Saudi Arabia to be stable? A temporarily stable patient with a malignant tumor is still terminal. It requires a surgeon to radically and invasively destabilize that patient if he's to be restored to some semblance of health.

MORE:
Stability, America's Enemy (Ralph Peters, Winter 2001, Parameters)

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MAKE THE PIE HIGHER:

Iran Veers Between Admiration and Resentment of American Power: Even as Iran declares its opposition to an American-led war to topple Saddam Hussein in Iraq, it is leaving all its options open in case war comes. (ELAINE SCIOLINO, January 30, 2003, NY Times)

At the Friday Prayer sermon last week at the University of Tehran, Iran's official national pulpit, Ayatollah Mohammad Emami-Kashani condemned the United States for "drunkenness" in pursuing the goal of dominating the world.

That night, in a low-budget play that opened at a theater festival a few miles away, a despondent, drug-addled young man dressed in a T-shirt emblazoned with an American flag vowed to find happiness by going to America.

The two images capture the extremes in Iran's discourse about the United States. At one end, America is still an evil-intentioned enemy that must be opposed at every turn. At the other, particularly among the two-thirds of the population that is under 25, it is called the "Fortune Land," a mythical place of limitless opportunity and freedom.

But images can deceive. Quietly, as a result of the projection of American power in the region since Sept. 11, Iran has embarked on a pragmatic strategy of pursuing its national interests within the context of America's overwhelming military might. So even as Iran declares its opposition to an American-led war to topple Saddam Hussein in Iraq, it is leaving all its options open in case war comes.

My math isn't so hot, so maybe someone can help me, but if two thirds admire us and the one third that resents us is willing to work with us--even if only implicitly, rather than explicity--doesn't that get us fairly close to three thirds?

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WE WIN; HERE'S YOUR STATE; KILL EACH OTHER OR LET'S MOVE ON:

Israel's tortuous path to disengagement: Ariel Sharon has both the opportunity and the obligation to break theuntenable status quo. (Gerald Steinberg, Financial Times)

[M]r Sharon's second government is more likely to be forced into gradual unilateral disengagement. In the absence of any realistic hopes for peace, one-sided separation from the Palestinians is very popular and this theme was adopted by the Labour party during the election campaign. The construction of a separation barrier built near the 1949 ceasefire lines and around Jerusalem has been forced on a reluctant Mr Sharon in the past year. While it is proclaimed that this will demarcate a security line, rather than political boundaries that would eventually lead to a viable Palestinian state, the distinction is clearly rhetorical. Once the barrier is completed, including four official crossings, it will become a de facto border for the Palestinian state.

To move decisively, Mr Sharon should now declare victory over Palestinian terrorism, so that dismantling some isolated settlements on the other side of the barrier would not be interpreted as a reflection of weakness, as occurred when Israel withdrew from Lebanon three years ago. He should then embrace the road map concept, and the goal of the two-state solution, while moving simultaneously to erect the barrier to provide a safety net if diplomacy fails again.

With the momentum from his decisive political victory, Mr Sharon has both the opportunity and the obligation to break the untenable status quo. If the hopes for resumed negotiations under the road map prove unworkable, he will have to lead Israel through the process of unilateral disengagement.

Palestinian statehood has been Israel's de facto position since Oslo, but it was always going to be on Israeli terms. Arafat had a chance for ridiculously good terms when Barak and Clinton were willing to give him nearly everything he asked for, but once there's a state he's superfluous, so he bailed out. Now is the time, with Ariel Sharon and George W. Bush both riding electoral mandates and in the aftermath of a successful war to replace Saddam Hussein, for Israel to withdraw from Palestine and declare the borders of the Palestinian nation, which America will promptly recognize. Mr. Sharon and Mr. Bush can then offer the Palestinian people economic, infrastructure, and security assistance as soon as they choose a government that is willing to accept peace and such relationships.

To do this would be to accept the Palestinians at their word, that they are serious about statehood as their primary objective. If this really is the case then the anger and violence that Palestinians justifiably feel about the state of their lives will be directed at the real culprits, their current leadership. But at the end of an internal struggle we can hope (and should be willing to help) that a representative government will emerge and be prepared to rebuild a decent civil society, at peace with its neighbors. If not, Israel will be facing a sovereign state that it can crush with relative impunity, rather than a restive territory with an internal population that it can repress only at great cost in public opinion at home and abroad.

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GLORIANA RULES AGAIN!:

Today's mail brings news that will fill with joy the hearts of those whose allegiance to America is tempered only by a love of its sole superpower rival, the Duchy of Grand Fenwick. The family of Leonard Wibberley informs us that his great comic novel, The Mouse that Roared is finally back in print. Here's our review.

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ALONE TOGETHER:

Europe split as leaders back US on Iraq (George Jones and Robin Gedye, 30/01/2003, Daily Telegraph)

The split in Europe over America's readiness to go to war against Iraq deepened last night when leaders of seven European nations joined Tony Blair in calling for the Continent to stand united with President George W Bush.

The diplomatic initiative, masterminded by Spain and Britain, did not include France or Germany, the two EU nations that have been most critical of what they fear is a rush to war by the US.

The appeal by the leaders of Britain, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Hungary, Poland, Denmark and the Czech Republic is a boost for Mr Blair who has sought to build a European coalition of support for Mr Bush.

Life holds no more beautiful prospect than that of Germany and France isolated from the rest of the West and stuck with only each other.

MORE:
Eight leaders rally 'new' Europe to America's side (Philip Webster, January 30, 2003, Times of London)
Blair gains Europe support on Iraq (BBC, 29 January, 2003)
Blair's Iraq gamble (Andrew Marr, BBC)

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BRAZIL NUT CRACKER SUITE:

TRANSCRIPT: Hardball (MSNBC, 1/28/03)

[CHRIS] MATTHEWS: Tom DeLay of Texas. Thanks for joining us.

Right now, let me go over to one of our panelists who hasn't had a chance yet. You yielded to Pat Caddell a moment ago. Let me ask you what you think. How does the president-I will go back to the main point of tonight's discussion. How does president convince you and other people who think, of like mind, that this is going to be a good-a good war? In other words, a necessary war. I think they're the same. How does he make that case to you?

[DONNA] BRAZILE: I think it's-Well, I don't think it takes lot-it doesn't take a rocket scientist and it clearly doesn't take a form of pest control man...

MATTHEWS: OK...

BRAZILE: ... like Tom DeLay, who believes that Republicans have the answer because they control the majority now in Congress. I think it takes coalition. It takes allies. I mean, we have the might, but my grandmother used to say might doesn't make it right. But we also need support. We need allies. This is going to be a huge endeavor to try to dispose and disarm Saddam.

MATTHEWS: But you know, in all fairness, Donna, since you took a shot at a man who was trying to earn a living as a pest controller-he succeeded as a pest controller. (LAUGHTER)

BRAZILE: Absolutely.

MATTHEWS: You failed as a campaign manager.

BRAZILE: He succeeded...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: I mean, there's a difference between being successful and...

BRAZILE: Absolutely.

MATTHEWS: Anybody who works-to work is to pray, I believe. Never make fun of someone's occupation, Donna.

BRAZILE: I made fun of his occupation...

MATTHEWS: You shouldn't do that.

BRAZILE: ... and I will do it again.

MATTHEWS: I don't think you should.

This very nearly redeems Mr. Matthews for his comparison of Saddam Hussein to a serial double-parker.

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"NO BACKSIES!":

Some Democrats Want Another Vote on Iraq
(DAVID ESPO, 1/29/03, AP)

President Bush's threat to disarm Saddam Hussein, the centerpiece of his State of the Union address, sparked criticism from senior Senate Democrats on Wednesday, some of whom proposed legislation requiring a fresh congressional or U.N. vote before the onset of hostilities.

Who knew there were mulligans on war resolutions?

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PART OF THE WAY, WITH JFK:

War Now Drives the Presidency (Ronald Brownstein, January 29, 2003, LA Times)

[T]he appearance Monday of chief weapons inspector Hans Blix before the U.N. may have been more of a turning point than Bush's address. In his unexpectedly tough indictment of the Iraqi regime, Blix reframed the case against Iraq into a succinct argument: While Iraq was cooperating with the "process" of inspections, it was continuing to resist the "substance" of disarmament.

Bush followed a similar strategy, underscoring the gap between the chemical and biological weapons Iraq had previously acknowledged possessing and those it can prove it has destroyed.

Even before Bush's speech, there was evidence this argument may be subtly strengthening the administration's position in the domestic debate. Though opposition to a near-term invasion of Iraq has been broadening among Democratic officials, Blix's conclusions may be sapping some of its intensity.

Just hours before Bush's address, for instance, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) told a small group of reporters that based on Blix's report, he believed Iraq was now clearly in material breach of the U.N. resolutions demanding disarmament.

Last week, Kerry had accused Bush of a "rush to war" and urged him to give inspections more time and to work harder to build international support for any military action. But on Tuesday, while repeating those arguments, Kerry also said he would be open to a U.N. resolution authorizing an invasion if Iraq did not disarm within 30 days. "That would sound pretty reasonable," he said.

By a "rush" Senator Kerry apparently meant attacking in February instead of March. You'll have to explain to me how Saddam can be in material breach but a new resolution be required.

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KICKING OUT THE JAMS:

Bush Adds Managed Care to Debate on Drug Benefit (Vicki Kemper, January 29, 2003, LA Times)

President Bush did far more Tuesday night than signal the beginning of a new round in the debate over a Medicare drug prescription benefit.

By proposing to tie eligibility for the benefit to participation in a managed-care plan, Bush also changed the rules of the high-stakes political battle.

Last year, Senate Republicans and Democrats came tantalizingly close to agreement on a compromise benefit package. After weeks of back-room politicking and serial votes over the details of the benefit and how much it would cost, in the end all that separated the partisans was a disagreement over how the benefit should be delivered.

Senate Republicans, along with their counterparts in the House, wanted private insurance companies and pharmacy benefit managers to administer the benefit, while Democrats wanted Medicare -- that is, the government -- to do it.

But now, with Republicans in control of Congress, and congressional Democrats lining up to run against him in 2004, Bush has upped the ante.

Instead of using the drug benefit to bring some private-sector competition into the Medicare program, he wants to make prescription coverage the driving force for a more thorough privatization of Medicare itself.

If you were a bettor you'd have to lay big money that he'll fail in this effort. But it's the essence of great leaders that they change the terms of debate. Love them or loathe them, FDR's "greatness" lay in changing the United States from a country in which government was distrusted into one in which it's depended on. LBJ's lay in his putting that government on the side of the nation's most despised and oppressed citizens. Reagan's lay in his assertion that not only was the Cold War winnable but that our victory was inevitable and just. Bill Clinton had a chance to be great. He could have been the President who brought free enterprise principles and structures to the Welfare State. But, other than welfare itself, which the GOP shoved down his throat and Dick Morris got him to swallow, Clinton just didn't have the vision or the stomach for the task. George W. Bush appears to have vision and stomach to spare, but it's unimaginable that the rest of his party will rise to the moment, while they would certainly have done so had they had Clinton for cover.

The '90s--what a waste.

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PATIENCE, CHILDREN:

Blair: North Korea is next (The Guardian, January 29, 2003)

Tony Blair today pledged that after dealing with Iraq, the UN would confront North Korea about its nuclear weapons programme.

The prime minister was giving an impassioned defence of the government's position on Iraq during his weekly question time when an anti-war MP shouted: "Who's next?"

Replying to the heckle, Mr Blair said: "After we deal with Iraq we do, yes, through the UN, have to confront North Korea about its weapons programme".

"We have to confront those companies and individuals trading in weapons of mass destruction," he added.

To another cry of "When do we stop?", Mr Blair answered: "We stop when the threat to our security is properly and fully dealt with."

Democrats have hypnotized themselves into believing that Iraq will last about a week, George Bush will get a bump in the polls, but by November 2004 they'll have a clean shot at him and the focus will be on an economy that they seem to believe will be in a new Depression. You'd think they'd have figured out by now that the President's serious when he says that the war on terror will last for many years and take us to many places. Their crocodile tears about not taking on North Korea may soon come back to haunt them.

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NORTH CAROLINA, THE NEW FLORIDA:

Five ballots and no new speaker (AMY GARDNER AND LYNN BONNER, 1/29/03, The News & Observer)

After five ballots, the state House of Representatives recessed for the day Wednesday afternoon when neither Republicans nor Democrats could marshal 61 votes to elect a new speaker.

On each ballot, the 60 House Democrats united to back Rep. Jim Black's bid for a third term. Republicans were divided, with 55 voting for the party's nominee, Rep. George Holmes of Yadkin County, and five for Rep. Richard Morgan of Moore County.

It was the first time since 1866 that the speaker of the 120-member House was not elected on the first ballot. The House went through four roll-call ballots, recessed so Republicans and Democrats could meet privately in separate groups, and then conducted one more ballots before adjourning deadlocked in mid-afternoon. [...]

In the November election, Republicans won a two-seat majority. But that vanished suddenly Friday when Rep. Michael Decker of Walkertown switched parties and declared his support for Black.

Decker's defection ripped wider a division among House Republicans who could not unite their first nominee, Rep. Leo Daughtry of Smithfield. And even when Daughtry
stepped aside on Tuesday, Republicans still could not rally behind Holmes, the new pick.

In the immortal words of Wesley Snipes: Always bet on Black.

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"I" AS IN IRONY:

Iraq to Chair U.N. Disarmament Conference (Liza Porteus, January 29, 2003, FOX News)

While the United States leads the charge in making sure Iraq owns up to its promises of complete disarmament, Saddam Hussein's country will head an international disarmament conference and will steer the course of the U.N. disarmament agenda this spring.

The irony has more than a few U.S. lawmakers up in arms.

"With the consideration of Iraq to head the Conference on Disarmament, the U.N. now becomes worse than any off, off, off-Broadway show. It becomes the theater of the absurd," said Republican Rep. J.D. Hayworth of Arizona, who joined Rep. Vito Fossella, R-N.Y., Wednesday in a news conference denouncing Iraq's taking the rotating chair.

"This is ridiculous. It's like the fox watching over the hen house," Fossella said. "Iraq has zero credibility to disarm any nation when it stands in violation of U.N. resolutions because it continues to develop weapons of mass destruction. This decision will leave a permanent stain on the conference, undermine its credibility and threaten its mission to disarm nations that possess nuclear weapons."

In May, Iraq will take the helm of the U.N. Committee on Disarmament and will hold that position for one month. The co-chair will be Iran. The presidency rotates in alphabetical order.

What next, France and Germany chairing the U.N. Committee on Gratitude?

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PLASTIC MAN:

On the button: Navel-baring midriffs credited for rise in umbilicoplasty (Clive Thompson, 1/16/03, Colorado Springs Independent)

Breast implants and liposuction are the traditional ways to create a new you. But a new body part is now going under the knife: the navel. In the spring of 2002, plastic surgeons began reporting a curious spike in the number of women requesting navel reconstruction -- or "umbilicoplasty," as the pros call it.

Sometimes it was part of a tummy tuck; sometimes the tummy was fine, but the navel rankled. "I get about three or five inquiries a week now," says Jim Romano, a San Francisco surgeon who performs the outpatient procedure for about $3,500. Calls have "gone way up, with all the midriffs showing." [...]

Consider what's going on here: a style of clothing is driving a style of surgery. But with umbilicoplasty, the body has become as plastic as fashion -- to be nipped and tucked along with trends that themselves might last only a matter of months.

And people think this species can be trusted with genetic engineering technology?

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THE ETERNAL OLIVE TREE:

Bush's Domino Theory: First, democracy for Iraq, then the rest of Middle East (CS Monitor, January 28, 2003)

On his current book tour, the former White House speechwriter who was behind the phrase "axis of evil" is calling the president's Middle East strategy nothing short of a foreign-policy "revolution."

Just more poetic license from a political wordsmith? No, his word choice isn't poetic enough, if bringing democracy to that troubled part of the world is truly the president's goal, as former insider David Frum states.

Certainly, the Bush administration's hawks hope the fall of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein would be the first domino to tip other autocratic states in the region toward democracy. Having felled the Taliban in Afghanistan, and insisted on new Palestinian elections, this White House drive to bring democracy to Iraq - as well as to disarm it of chemical and biological weapons, and end its support of terrorism - fits into an emerging United States strategy to push democracy into places that breed or support terrorists and the weapons of terror.

But for Mr. Bush to speak or act more boldly right now in promoting democracy in the Middle East could possibly lessen support for an Iraqi war from other Arab states, especially Saudi Arabia. So the administration may be soft-pedaling this new domino theory, and simply waiting to showcase a democratic postwar Iraq as a model for its neighbors.

Bush's intention, if not the detail, is right there in black and white in the National Security Strategy from last September. The document declares that the US example of freedom, democracy, and free enterprise constitutes "a single, sustainable model for international success," and that this model is "right and true for every person, in every society."

As is so often the case, the question of whether the domino theory of bringing democracy to the Arab world is most revealing when you consider the opposing viewpoint. First, you have to ask, if the dominoes there won't fall--as they've already fallen in Latin America; Eastern Europe; and most of East Asia--why not? What is it about Muslims that makes them unique among humans and uninterested in peace, freedom, and prosperity? Why are these people impervious to the globalization that is transforming the rest of mankind (for good or ill). And if they are that unique, and the dominoes won't fall, then is it responsible and safe for the West to allow an entire region of the world to remain a hotbed of anti-democratic, anti-Western, anti-Judeo-Christian hatred?

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HARD NOT TO LIKE HIM:

A talent for making music and enemies: He outrages feminists, had a spat with Miles Davis and is widely accused of being a reactionary, but trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis doesn't care. He is on a messianic mission to revive classic jazz. (Peter Culshaw, 20/01/2003, Daily Telegraph)

I suggest that at least one benefit of such movements as acid jazz is that many people are impelled back to the originals after hearing samples used on records. "That's a mind-boggling argument to me. It's like saying it's great that people might come across a quote from Hamlet in Playboy magazine. Why should you come into contact with the best of your culture through some other source? That's a major failing in education."

Marsalis has also been attacked by almost every politically correct group in New York for assorted perceived crimes from nepotism to sexism - feminists recently staged a demo complaining that there were no women in the Lincoln Centre Jazz Orchestra. "I'm paid to be artistic director, and I make the decisions" is all he will say on that.

Marsalis's most celebrated spat was with Miles Davis. Davis said of him: "The more famous he became, the more he started saying things - nasty, disrespectful things - about me," and famously exploded in Vancouver, "That motherfucker's not sharing the stage with me." So what was that all about?

"There was a classic competition between an older man and a younger man who is more idealistic. By that stage he'd given up jazz and was playing pop and rock, trying to stay pertinent." Marsalis makes "pertinent" sound like an insult. "He had released a large portion of his integrity." How is he so sure about that? "He knew it. We both knew it."

What is most impressive - but also a little scary - about Marsalis is his messianic drive to spread his version of jazz. He thinks in mythic terms.

What's that Middle East proverb: The enemy of my enemies is my friend? Is there a worse thing for an artist to do than stop trying to create beauty and try to be"pertinent" (as Mr. Marsalis is using the term) instead? Great art should be timeless, not timely.

MORE:
-INTERVIEW: And the trumpet shall sound: Wynton Marsalis is a man with a mission to spread the gospel of jazz. Some people are worried his influence will make the music too respectable. (Adam Sweeting, 06/02/2001, Daily Telegraph)
-WyntonMarsalis.net (Sony Music)
-Wynton Marsalis Page (Jazz World)

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LET'S NOT DICKER OVER TERMS:

Bias Control: Eric Alterman attacks the Right, but victory feels hollow. (John Dicker, 1/23/03, Salt Lake City Weekly)

Is the media really liberal? The question is as exhausting as it is inexhaustible, and it screams for qualifiers: Whose media are you talking about?

How about this media: the three major television networks, the two major weekly news magazines; and the major newspaper in the ten biggest cities in America? Is there a single one in that group that isn't left of center?

Hard to think of one. That may be a function of the free market of ideas and that's what viewers/treaders want. But that would still be a bias in favor of the Left.

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SEE NO, SPEAK MUCH:

The Empire Strikes First (MAUREEN DOWD, January 29, 2003, NY Times)

The axis of evil has shrunk to Saddam, evil incarnate.

It was gratifying enough to hear the President repeat his use of the word "evil" several times last night, something many commentators predicted he'd be too embarrassed to do. But the use had a particular genius--he really has some good speechwriters--because it framed Saddam in a way that makes Ms Dowd's point, which we hear often these days, look asinine:

The dictator who is assembling the world's most dangerous weapons has already used them on whole villages, leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind or disfigured.

Iraqi refugees tell us how forced confessions are obtained: by torturing children while their parents are made to watch. International human rights groups have catalogued other methods used in the torture chambers of Iraq: electric shock, burning with hot irons, dripping acid on the skin, mutilation with electric drills, cutting out tongues, and rape.

If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning.

So the question, for Ms Dowd and her ilk: is this not evil? And if it is evil, then why is it wrong to confront such evil?

Now, the honest answer for much of the Left is that there's no such thing as evil, but few pundettes would acknowledge that. So then you have to fall back on explanations of why this particular evil does not concern us. Even if that argument is right and popular--and it may be both--you sound rather craven making it.

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NON-RESPONSIVE:

Democrats Say the Nation Heads in Wrong Direction': The Democratic governor chosen to respond to President Bush faulted the president on the economy and national security. (CARL HULSE and SHERYL GAY STOLBERG, 1/28/03, NY Times)

[T]he selection of Mr. Locke was recognition of the party's fortunes in Congress, as well as a desire to present a fresh image. While the opposition's response to the State of the Union address is most often delivered by a lawmaker, the Democrats instead offered the nationally televised spot this time to their governors' association, to showcase a figure from outside Washington and shine a light on the statehouses, one of the few bright spots for the party in November.

Mr. Locke, of Chinese ancestry, stressed his roots as he began his speech.

"My grandfather came to this country from China nearly a century ago and worked as a servant," he said. "Now I serve as governor just one mile from where my grandfather worked. It took our family a hundred years to travel that mile."

On foreign affairs, the governor tried to strike a balance between support for a popular president at a time of international tension and encouraging that president to avoid acting unilaterally against Iraq.

"We are far stronger when we stand with other nations than when we stand alone," said Mr. Locke, who, like other Democrats, also noted that while Mr. Bush was focused on Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, remained at large.

Granted it's an awfully tough job, but who in the Democrat Party thought it would be a good idea to have someone most of the country has never heard of, who has no foreign policy experience, give the rebuttal to a run up to war? His personal story is fine, in its place, but this isn't exactly the moment to stress immigration and it certainly had nothing to do with confronting Saddam. The governor was punching way above his weight.

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NUMBSKULL:

Someone else who heard this is going to have to vouch for it, because I honestly wouldn't believe it if I read it somewhere: here's a rough transcript of a discussion between Don Imus and Chris Matthews this morning:

Imus: What would you do about Iraq?

Matthews: I think we need to keep doing what we're doing and let the inspections work.

Imus: What if they don't work?

Matthews: What do you mean by "don't work"?

Imus: They don't find anything and we know he still has stuff.

Matthews: You know, I think you just have to trust him. Saddam may be evil but you have to trust that he can be deterred. It's like parking tickets--the reason you don't just park anywhere you feel like is because you know you'll get in trouble. It's the same with him attacking us.

It might have been helpful if Imus had pointed out that when Saddam parks illegally there may be a significant weapon onboard the truck.

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SWING AWAY:

The State of the Union (President George W. Bush, Jan. 28, 2003, Jewish World Review)

Health care reform must begin with Medicare; Medicare is the binding commitment of a caring society.

We must renew that commitment by giving seniors access to the preventive medicine and new drugs that are transforming health care in America.

Seniors happy with the current Medicare system should be able to keep their coverage just the way it is.

And just like you, the members of Congress, and your staffs and other federal employees, all seniors should have the choice of a health care plan that provides prescription drugs.

My budget will commit an additional $400 billion over the next decade to reform and strengthen Medicare. Leaders of both political parties have talked for years about strengthening Medicare. I urge the members of this new Congress to act this year.

To improve our health care system, we must address one of the prime causes of higher cost: the constant threat that physicians and hospitals will be unfairly sued.

Because of excessive litigation, everybody pays more for health care, and many parts of America are losing fine doctors. No one has ever been healed by a frivolous lawsuit; I urge the Congress to pass medical liability reform.

No matter how often the Left, far Right, and Libertarians dismiss him as a Rockefeller Republican or Clinton-lite, Mr. Bush, rather than backing doiwn from something like privatizing Social Security, pushes the envelope farther--here proposing the privatization of Medicare. EJ Dionne, on NPR, called the speech Clintonesque. If Bill Clinton had proposed vouchers and privatizing the Welfare State's middle class benefits, when he had a Congress that would have eagerly passed them, he'd be remembered for more than being a sexual predator and he'd have left the country in the best shape it had ever been in.

Instead the heavy-lifting falls to a Republican president, who will be savaged by the Democrats and their interest groups, especially the media. But if President Bush can just get the process of privatization started it will be a more important legacy than the war on terror.

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WE:

The State of the Union (President George W. Bush, Jan. 28, 2003, Jewish World Review)

Many challenges, abroad and at home, have arrived in a single season. In two years, America has gone from a sense of invulnerability to an awareness of peril, from bitter division in small matters to calm unity in great causes.

And we go forward with confidence, because this call of history has come to the right country.

Americans are a resolute people, who have risen to every test of our time. Adversity has revealed the character of our country, to the world, and to ourselves.

America is a strong nation and honorable in the use of our strength. We exercise power without conquest, and we sacrifice for the liberty of strangers.

Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world; it is God's gift to humanity.

We Americans have faith in ourselves, but not in ourselves alone. We do not claim to know all the ways of Providence, yet we can trust in them, placing our confidence in the loving god behind all of life and all of history. May he guide us now, and may God continue to bless the United States of America.

Thank you.

The humility here is striking. Note the "small matters", an implicit reference to the dispute over whether he or Al Gore would be president. Whether true or not, it's an especially nice touch to suggest that it ultimately mattered less than things like our national security. Also, the point that liberty is the birthright of all Creation, rather than something America, or any other government, dispenses, is a welcome harkening back to first principles.

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I:

The State of the Union (President George W. Bush, Jan. 28, 2003, Jewish World Review)

This threat is new; America's duty is familiar. Throughout the 20th century, small groups of men seized control of great nations, built armies and arsenals, and set out to dominate the weak and intimidate the world.

In each case, their ambitions of cruelty and murder had no limit. In each case, the ambitions of Hitlerism, militarism and communism were defeated by the will of free peoples, by the strength of great alliances and by the might of the United States of America.

Now, in this century, the ideology of power and domination has appeared again and seeks to gain the ultimate weapons of terror.

Once again, this nation and our friends are all that stand between a world at peace, and a world of chaos and constant alarm. Once again, we are called to defend the safety of our people and the hopes of all mankind. And we accept this responsibility.

America is making a broad and determined effort to confront these dangers. We have called on the United Nations to fulfill its charter and stand by its demand that Iraq disarm. We are strongly supporting the International Atomic Energy Agency in its mission to track and control nuclear materials around the world. We are working with other governments to secure nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union and to strengthen global treaties banning the production and shipment of missile technologies and weapons of mass destruction.

In all of these efforts, however, America's purpose is more than to follow a process. It is to achieve a result: the end of terrible threats to the civilized world.

All free nations have a stake in preventing sudden and catastrophic attacks, and we're asking them to join us, and many are doing so. Yet the course of this nation does not depend on the decisions of others.

Whatever action is required, whenever action is necessary, I will defend the freedom and security of the American people.

Bill Clinton began the usage, and George W. Bush has unfortunately continued it, of saying "I" in these public announcements, rather than "we". But, when the president speaks, he speaks at least for his administration and, in cases like this, for the entire nation. The use of "I" seems like a baby-boomer self indulgence. I hate it.

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THEY JUST DON'T GET IT:

The State of the Union (President George W. Bush, Jan. 28, 2003, Jewish World Review)

Our fourth goal is to apply the compassion of America to the deepest problems of America. For so many in our country--the homeless, and the fatherless, the addicted--the need is great. Yet there is power--wonder-working power--in the goodness and idealism and faith of the American people.

Americans are doing the work of compassion every day: visiting prisoners, providing shelter for battered women, bringing companionship to lonely seniors. These good works deserve our praise, they deserve our personal support and, when appropriate, they deserve the assistance of the federal government.

I urge you to pass both my faith-based initiative and the Citizen Service Act to encourage acts of compassion that can transform America one heart and one soul at a time.

Last year, I called on my fellow citizens to participate in the USA Freedom Corps, which is enlisting tens of thousands of new volunteers across America.

Tonight I ask Congress and the American people to focus the spirit of service and the resources of government on the needs of some of our most vulnerable citizens: boys and girls trying to grow up without guidance and attention, and children who have to go through a prison gate to be hugged by their mom or dad.

I propose a $450 million initiative to bring mentors to more than a million disadvantaged junior high students and children of prisoners.

Government will support the training and recruiting of mentors, yet it is the men and women of America who will fill the need. One mentor, one person, can change a life forever, and I urge you to be that one person.

Another cause of hopelessness is addiction to drugs. Addiction crowds out friendship, ambition, moral conviction, and reduces all the richness of life to a single destructive desire.

As a government, we are fighting illegal drugs by cutting off supplies and reducing demand through anti-drug education programs. Yet for those already addicted, the fight against drugs is a fight for their own lives.

Too many Americans in search of treatment cannot get it. So tonight I propose a new $600 million program to help an additional 300,000 Americans receive treatment over the next three years.

Our nation is blessed with recovery programs that do amazing work. One of them is found at the Healing Place Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. A man in the program said, ``God does miracles in people's lives, and you never think it could be you.''

Tonight, let us bring to all Americans who struggle with drug addiction this message of hope: The miracle of recovery is possible, and it could be you.

By caring for children who need mentors, and for addicted men and women who need treatment, we are building a more welcoming society, a culture that values every life.

And in this work we must not overlook the weakest among us. I ask you to protect infants at the very hour of their birth and end the practice of partial-birth abortion.

And because no human life should be started or ended as the object of an experiment, I ask you to set a high standard for humanity and pass a law against all human cloning.

Perhaps it's merely a function of the number of people in the media today, but it's really astonishing how little the commentrariat understands politics. You keep hearing them refer to how this portion of the speech could have been borrowed from a Clinton Staste of the Union. But take a look at it in isolation and you can clearly see that what the President is talking about here is bringing religious faith to bear on America's social problems. The mentoring program to some degree, and drug treatment in its entirety, represents a transfer of government funds to basically religious institutions. A few years ago a gay heroin-addicted friend with AIDs asked me to try and find him a drug treatment program where they wouldn't rely on God or a Higher Power or any other religious basis to supplant the addiction. I called every program in Central New Jersey and they laughed at me when I told them what he wanted: "There are no treatments that work that aren't based in faith of some kind."

UPDATE:
The anti-religious activists figured out the message, if not the reality of effective treatment, Religious Drug Treatment Plan Irks Some (LAURA MECKLER, Jan 29, 2003, Associated Press)

"The president wants to fund untested, unproven programs that seek to pray away addiction," said the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. "People with addiction problems need medical help, not Sunday school."

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W'S BIG FAT GREEK MOMENT:

The State of the Union (President George W. Bush, Jan. 28, 2003, Jewish World Review)

Our third goal is to promote energy independence for our country, while dramatically improving the environment.

I have sent you a comprehensive energy plan to promote energy efficiency and conservation, to develop cleaner technology, and to produce more energy at home.

I have sent you clear skies legislation that mandates a 70 percent cut in air pollution from power plants over the next 15 years.

I have sent you a healthy forest initiative to help prevent the catastrophic fires that devastate communities, kill wildlife and burn away millions of acres of treasured forests.

I urge you to pass these measures for the good of both our environment and our economy.

Even more, I ask you to take a crucial step and protect our environment in ways that generations before us could not have imagined.

In this century, the greatest environmental progress will come about not through endless lawsuits or command-and-control regulations, but through technology and innovation.

Tonight I'm proposing $1.2 billion in research funding so that America can lead the world in developing clean, hydrogen-powered automobiles.

A simple chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen generates energy, which can be used to power a car, producing only water, not exhaust fumes. With a new national commitment, our scientists and engineers will overcome obstacle s to taking these cars from laboratory to showroom, so that the first car driven by a child born today could be powered by hydrogen, and pollution-free.

Join me in this important innovation to make our air significantly cleaner, and our country much less dependent on foreign sources of energy.

Who knew he listens to Arianna Huffington?

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CONFOUNDING:

A Speech as Autobiography: The president presented a vision that is both compassionate and full of resolve. In other words, perfectly in tune with America. (David Brooks, 01/29/2003, Weekly Standard)

THE CENTRAL POINT to make about President Bush's State of the Union speech is this: For the past several weeks, the American people have had growing qualms about going to war against Iraq. This speech will reverse that trend. If President Bush's speech had been a dud, it would have been cataclysmic for the administration. Instead, it was a strong, sober, moral, and determined speech, which will give the president the latitude he needs to pursue the right course.

When I scanned through the text of the speech--which is delivered to journalists just as the president begins--I have to confess I was a little disappointed. I knew this wasn't going to be a legal brief with newly released intelligence data--much of the substance I had heard before in recent speeches by Colin Powell and other administration figures. But when I saw the president deliver the speech, all my disappointments evaporated. In this speech, the president was able to show his resolve, his sober determination, his moral vision.

This was speech as autobiography. President Bush once again revealed his character, and demonstrated why so many Americans, whether they agree with this or that policy proposal, basically trust him and feel he shares their values. Most Americans will not follow the details of this or that line in the address. But they will go about their day on Wednesday knowing that whatever comes in the next few months, they have a good leader at the helm.

The first domestic policy section was predicate for the more important foreign policy section that followed. In that first section, Bush demonstrated that he is not the shallow, rough-riding cowboy that so many Europeans imagine him to be. He is instead a man who understands the need to discipline the growth of government, but who also, when he sees the opportunity to do good, is willing to use government in limited but energetic ways. I thought the decision to launch a major initiative against AIDS in Africa was a noble gesture, exactly the kind of great undertaking that befits the United States.

One wonders whether the infrastructure really exists in Africa to get the drugs to people who need them, but it is a worthwhile undertaking to at least try. The values of America may confound evil, but W's values sure as heck confound America.

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THE STRANGE DEATH OF LABOUR ENGLAND:

New union law to crush fire strike: Prescott uses emergency powers in historic breach with Labour allies (Jill Sherman and Philip Webster, January 29, 2003, Times of London)

Draconian powers to force unions to bow to the Government's will on pay were announced by John Prescott and Tony Blair yesterday.

Mr Prescott's patience with the Fire Brigades Union finally snapped as he declared that he would take emergency powers to impose a pay settlement on the striking firefighters.

A Bill will be introduced next month which will allow him to impose pay, terms and conditions. The legislation, which will be rushed through the Commons in weeks, will also give him direct powers to close fire stations and change working practices.

The Prime Minister, who has said that he regards the leadership of some far-left unions as "Scargillite", also made clear that he was determined to take hardline measures to end the dispute, leaving the union movement shocked by such an openly confrontational approach. [...]

Employment relations experts could not recall a similar move and said the announcement ranked with a ban on prison officers taking industrial action imposed by the Conservatives in the mid-1990s.

Unfortunately I can't find the story on-line anymore, but when Tony Blair was elected there was a profile in one of the British papers, the gist of which was that he was a new kind of Labour leader, but the part that stuck out was a quote from a close friend who said that one of the most important things to recognize about him is that he "hates Labour". The suggestion was that he truly believes in his Third Way and that he understands that the British labour movement is an obstacle to the types of reforms that the Third Way envisions. It's not shocking that this analysis has held true, but it is pretty surprising that he's managing to drag the rest of his party so far to the Right with him.

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ONE CAVE AT A TIME:

U.S. destroys stronghold in Afghanistan (Anwar Iqbal, 1/28/2003, UPI)

U.S. forces, in a 12-hour assault with overwhelming air power, destroyed an enemy stronghold in Afghanistan near the former Taliban headquarters, bringing an end to fighting in the area, military officials said Tuesday.

"About 250 plus U.S. and Afghan forces are now searching the caves (where the enemy troops were hiding)," A U.S. Central Command spokesman Col. Ray Shepherd told United Press International by telephone from Tampa, Fla.

Shepherd said troops loyal to the governor of Kandahar region, in Afghanistan's southwest, were participating in the search along with U.S. Special Forces.

Gov. Gul Agha now controls the region, which was formerly the headquarters and main support base of the Taliban militia.

U.S. Central Command said earlier at least 18 enemy personnel were killed, and there were no U.S. casualties. But Shepherd said the enemy casualty figure was "no longer accurate... We are searching the caves now and will give more information after the search is complete." He confirmed that there were no U.S. casualties.

The caves fell to U.S. ground forces after a 12-hour pounding with U.S. B-1B bombers, AC-130 gunships, and coalition F-16 fighter-bombers as well as Apache helicopters, another CENTCOM spokesman in Florida, Cmdr. Dan Gage told UPI.

More than 9,000 U.S. troops are still based in Afghanistan, helping the new government and training a national Afghan army.

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Patrick Ruffini is live blogging the State of the Union.

AND THIS FROM THE WHITE HOUSE:
State of the Union Excerpts

Tonight, President Bush will talk about the challenges our country is facing both at home and abroad, and call on the American people to confront them as we always have--with resolve and confidence:

"This country has many challenges. We will not deny, we will not ignore, we will not pass along our problems to other Congresses, other presidents, and other generations. We will confront them with focus, and clarity, and courage."

He will outline four specific domestic goals for the Congress to address in the coming year: strengthening our economy by creating more jobs; high quality, affordable health care for all Americans and prescription drugs for seniors; greater energy independence while improving the environment; and applying the compassion of America to the deepest problems of America.

On our economy: "Jobs are created when the economy grows; the economy grows when Americans have more money to spend and invest; and the best, fairest way to make sure Americans have the money is not to tax it away in the first place."

On health care: "... for many people, medical care costs too much - and many have no coverage at all. These problems will not be solved with a nationalized health care system that dictates coverage and rations care. Instead, we must work toward a system in which all Americans have a good insurance policy ... choose their own doctors ... and seniors and low-income Americans receive the help they need."

On compassion: "Tonight I ask Congress and the American people to focus the spirit of service and the resources of government on the needs of some of our most vulnerable citizens - boys and girls trying to grow up without guidance and attention ... and children who have to go through a prison gate to be hugged by their mom or dad."

During the second half of the speech, President Bush will talk about our challenges abroad to defend the peace by confronting them:

"The qualities of courage and compassion that we strive for in America also determine our conduct abroad. The American flag stands for more than our power and our interests. Our Founders dedicated this country to the cause of human dignity - the rights of every person and the possibilities of every life. This conviction leads us into the world to help the afflicted, and defend the peace, and confound the designs of evil men."

President Bush will also speak to the progress we have made on the war on terror, including the need to confront Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, as part of the war:

"Today, the gravest danger in the war on terror ... the gravest danger facing America and the world ... is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. These regimes could use such weapons for blackmail, terror, and mass murder. They could also give or sell those weapons to their terrorist allies, who would use them without the least hesitation."

He will discuss the Iraqi regime's defiance to the world and our obligation to hold him to account:

"Twelve years ago, Saddam Hussein faced the prospect of being the last casualty in a war he had started and lost. To spare himself, he agreed to disarm of all weapons of mass destruction. For the next 12 years, he systematically violated that agreement... Almost three months ago, the United Nations Security Council gave Saddam Hussein his final chance to disarm. He has shown instead his utter contempt for the United Nations, and for the opinion of the world."

"The dictator of Iraq is not disarming. To the contrary, he is deceiving."

President Bush will conclude by reaffirming the principles that demonstrate the true character and goodness of our country:

"Americans are a resolute people, who have risen to every test of our time. Adversity has revealed the character of our country, to the world, and to ourselves. America is a strong Nation, and honorable in the use of our strength. We exercise power without conquest, and sacrifice for the liberty of strangers."

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54, 40 & FIGHT:

TO: Interested Parties

FR: Matthew Dowd, Senior Adviser, Republican National Committee

RE: President Bush Approval Numbers

Much has been discussed about the President's "falling" poll numbers and what he needs to do in the State of the Union Address to fix this situation. Democratic leaning pundit Paul Krugman with NY Times referred today to President Bush's "plummeting" poll numbers in the last few months. Here are some facts:

1. Bush approval numbers have "plummeted" all of three points since election day nearly three months ago. His Gallup approval numbers were 63% before election day and today in most recent Gallup poll they are 60%. As we have said, they are right where we thought they would be after a high point nearly 18 months ago.

2. Former President Reagan was re-elected in a landslide with a 58% job approval. Former President Clinton won re-election overwhelmingly with a 54% job approval. No president has been defeated with a job approval above 50%.

3. State of the Union addresses at this point in Presidents' terms don't usually move numbers on job approval. In 1983, Reagan's job approval went from 37% before the speech to 35% after the speech on Gallup job approval. In 1991, Bush job approval went from 83% before the speech to 74% after the speech. And in 1995, the media's great orator Clinton went from 47% before the speech to 49% after the speech.

I hope this provides some much needed perspective.
54% in November 2004 should be good for 40 states as long as the fight's going well.

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RED ROVER, RED ROVER, LET CURRY COME OVER:

Planning Ahead (Washington Wrap, Jan. 28, 2003, Dotty Lynch, Douglas Kiker and Steve Chaggaris of CBS News)

In Maryland, Republicans have been wooing former Prince George's County Democratic Executive Wayne Curry to take on incumbent Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski in 2004. The hitch, however, would be getting Curry - an African-American who headed the suburban Washington county through a period of tremendous growth – to switch from the (D) column to the (R) column.

Fueling the speculation is the fact Curry was a member of Maryland's new GOP Gov. Bob Ehrlich's transition team, and has been supportive of Ehrlich and the state's new lieutenant governor, Michael Steele, who's also African-American.

State GOP chairman John Kane told the Baltimore Sun: "The orbits are aligning É If this did happen, it would continue to demonstrate what Bob Ehrlich and Michael Steele have said, that this is a party for all Marylanders, and that they are reaching out to minorities."

But the Sun reports that Curry told them Monday that he hasn't given much thought to the race and doubted he would become a Republican.

Considering how badly the GOP needs a black member of Congress, expect Mr. Curry to get the full Rove treatment.

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CAN'T CATCH ME:

DARK AND MOIST DOUBLE GINGERBREAD (Lynne Rossetto Kasper, NPR: The Splendid Table)

Makes 9 servings

2 cups, less 2 tablespoons, all-purpose unbleached flour (measure by spooning into cup and leveling)
1 generous teaspoon baking soda
Generous teaspoon salt
Grated zest of small orange
2 tablespoons finely chopped candied ginger
1 tablespoon ground ginger
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
3/4 cup dark molasses
3/4 cup very hot water (190 degrees F)
1/3 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 large egg

1. Butter and flour an 8-inch square baking pan. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, and spices.

2. In a mixing bowl, beat together the rest of the ingredients except the egg. When almost frothy, beat in the egg and quickly add the flour mixture.

3. Stir only until thoroughly blended. Pour into pan. Bake 35 to 40 minutes, or until a tester inserted in center of cake comes out clean. Cool on a rack in the pan for a moist cake. For a drier consistency, cool 10 minutes then turn out of pan.

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AB HONESTO VIRUM BONUM NIHIL DETTERET:

HONEST, DECENT, WRONG: The invention of George Orwell (LOUIS MENAND, 2003-01-20, The New Yorker)

[A]lmost everything in the popular understanding of Orwell is a distortion of what he really thought and the kind of writer he was.

Writers are not entirely responsible for their admirers. It is unlikely that Jane Austen, if she were here today, would wish to become a member of the Jane Austen Society. In his lifetime, George Orwell was regarded, even by his friends, as a contrary man. It was said that the closer you got to him the colder and more critical he became. As a writer, he was often hardest on his allies. He was a middle-class intellectual who despised the middle class and was contemptuous of intellectuals, a Socialist whose abuse of Socialists—"all that dreary tribe of high-minded women and sandal-wearers and bearded fruit-juice drinkers who come flocking toward the smell of 'progress' like bluebottles to a dead cat"—was as vicious as any Tory's. He preached solidarity, but he had the habits of a dropout, and the works for which he is most celebrated, "Animal Farm," "1984," and the essay "Politics and the English Language," were attacks on people who purported to share his political views. He was not looking to make friends. But after his death he suddenly acquired an army of fans—all middle-class intellectuals eager to suggest that a writer who approved of little would have approved of them. [...]

Hitchens says that there were three great issues in the twentieth century, and that Orwell was right on all three: imperialism, fascism, and Stalinism. What does this mean, though? Orwell was against imperialism, fascism, and Stalinism. Excellent. Many people were against them in Orwell's time, and a great many more people have been against them since. The important question, after condemning those things, was what to do about them, and how to understand the implications for the future. On this level, Orwell was almost always wrong. [...]

Some people in 1949 received "1984" as an attack on the Labour Party (in the book, the regime of Big Brother is said to have derived from the principles of "Ingsoc"; that is, English Socialism), and Orwell was compelled to issue, through his publisher, a statement clarifying his intentions. He was a supporter of the Labour Party, he said. "I do not believe that the kind of society I describe necessarily will arrive," he continued, "but I believe (allowing of course for the fact that the book is satire) that something resembling it could arrive. I believe also that totalitarian ideas have taken root in the minds of intellectuals everywhere, and I have tried to draw these ideas out to their logical consequences."

The attitude behind this last sentence seems to me the regrettable part of Orwell's legacy. If ideas were to stand or fall on the basis of their logically possible consequences, we would have no ideas, because the ultimate conceivable consequence of every idea is an absurdity—is, in some way, "against life." We don't live just by ideas. Ideas are part of the mixture of customs and practices, intuitions and instincts that make human life a conscious activity susceptible to improvement or debasement. A radical idea may be healthy as a provocation; a temperate idea may be stultifying. It depends on the circumstances. One of the most tiresome arguments against ideas is that their "tendency" is to some dire condition—to totalitarianism, or to moral relativism, or to a war of all against all. Orwell did not invent this kind of argument, but he provided, in "1984," a vocabulary for its deployment.

Unfortunately, I've read just enough by Mr. Menand to both take him seriously as a critic and to be suspicious of his motives when he writes something like this. George Orwell certainly was conflicted--torn between what appears to have been a genuine solicitude for the plight of the poor, coupled with a visceral dislike for the upper class, on the one hand and a reluctant love of middle class Britain on the other. We see this most clearly in two of his novels, Coming Up for Air and Keep the Aspidistra Flying. The links there will take you to more detailed reviews, but for our purposes it's sufficient to note that Coming Up for Air--like the closing chapter of George Dangerfield's Strange Death of Liberal England--represents an ostensible man of the Left's heartfelt longing not for a progressive future but for the lost world of pre-WWI England. It is decidedly reactionary. Meanwhile, in Aspidistra, the eponymous plant itself becomes a symbol of the British middle class and the title alone thereby reveals Orwell's purpose in the book: it marks his reconciliation with and celebration of middle class life. The title is the battle cry of an anti-revolutionary.

Mr. Menand is right then to call him a middle class intellectual, but wrong that he hated the middle class, and, more importantly, fails to consider that the very term "middle class intellectual" is an oxymoron. In any economically healthy democracy with a reasonably broad franchise the middle class will be the ultimate source of power in the State, simply because they will be, overwhelmingly, the largest group in society. This will necessarily tend to make the middle class conservative, in the very broad sense that will try to conserve the basic structures, traditions, etc. of the state they control. The powerful just don't tend to be risk takers where their own power is concerned. The philosophy of the middle class then, its intellectualism, tends to be rather conservative, traditional, and opposed to change or experimentation with a system that's working pretty well by their terms.

Intellectuals, on the other hand, at least as we've come to conceive of them in modern times, are characterized by a rejection of tradition and a hostility to inherited wisdom. Here's how Paul Johnson describes them in his terrific book, Intellectuals:

Over the last two hundred years the influence of intellectuals has grown steadily. Indeed, the rise of the secular intellectual has been a key factor in shaping the modern world. Seen against the long perspective of history it is in many ways a new phenomenon. It is true that in their earlier incarnations as priests, scribes and soothsayers, intellectuals have laid claim to guide society from the very beginning. But as guardians of hieratic cultures, whether primitive or sophisticated, their moral and ideological innovations were limited by the canons of external authority and by the inheritance of tradition. They were not, and could not be, free spirits, adventurers of the mind.

With the decline of clerical power in the eighteenth century, a new kind of mentor emerged to fill the vacuum and capture the ear of society. The secular intellectual might be a deist, sceptic or atheist. But he was just as ready as any pontiff or presbyter to tell mankind how to conduct its affairs. He proclaimed, from the start, a special devotion to the interests of humanity and an evangelical duty to advance them by his teaching. He brought to his self-appointed task a far more radical approach than his clerical predecessors. He felt himself bound by no corpus of revealed religion. The collective wisdom of the past, the legacy of tradition, the prescriptive codes of ancestral experience existed to be selectively followed or wholly rejected entirely as his own good sense might decide. For the first time in human history, and with growing confidence and audacity, men arose to assert that they could diagnose the ills of society and cure them with their own unaided intellects: more, that they could devise formulae whereby not merely the structure of society but the fundamental habits of human beings could be transformed for the better. Unlike their sacerdotal predecessors, they were not servants and interpreters of the gods but substitutes. Their hero was Prometheus, who stole the celestial fire and brought it to earth.

Nor is Mr. Johnson alone in this kind of definition. One can turn to authors like Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind; Jeanne Kirkpatrick , Dictatorships and Double Standards : Rationalism and Reason in Politics; and Michael Oakeshott Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays ; and find remarkably similar definitions. But, even more revealingly, one can turn to Richard Hofstadter's classic liberal study Anti-Intellectualism in American Life , the entirety of which is devoted to the entirely accurate proposition that America, the exemplary middle class nation, is and has been hostile to Intellectuals and Intellectualism:

The common strain that binds together the attitudes and ideas which I call anti-intellectual is a resentment and suspicion of the life of the mind and of those who are considered to represent it; and a disposition constantly to minimize the value of that life.

The great tragedy of Intellectualism though is that Hofstadter and his fellows did not, and do not, even consider thinkers like Johnson, Kirkpatrick, Oakeshott and Kirk to be intellectuals, because they are guardians of tradition, of the reality of society, and enemies of rationalism, of the imagined state, and are, therefore, beyond the Pale in Intellectual circles.

What makes George Orwell so complex a figure, and one of the heroes of modernity, is that he wished that Socialism, his favored form of rationalism, might work, that by restarting the world we might eliminate poverty and level society, but he was too honest to believe that the rationalists (the Intellectuals) should be allowed to test their experiment upon an England which he understood to be more good than bad. Thus his two great dystopian novels--1984 and Animal Farm--are set in societies where the very experiment who's theoretical results he longed for is actually tested and instead results in soul-crushing tyranny. His writings then may make Orwell a middle class intellectual, but, as such, he is the antithesis of an Intellectual and he is a celebrator, not a hater, of the middle class.

So Mr. Menand begins with an Orwell who does not exist, at least on the written page, but then he dismisses even the Orwell he proposes, in the passage when he baldly states:

Hitchens says that there were three great issues in the twentieth century, and that Orwell was right on all three: imperialism, fascism, and Stalinism. What does this mean, though? Orwell was against imperialism, fascism, and Stalinism. Excellent. Many people were against them in Orwell's time, and a great many more people have been against them since.

There's a very simple response to this: who? Name the significant contemporaries of Orwell who opposed all three, particularly among the Intellectual class. Even if you consider Churchill and Roosevelt/Truman to have been the great liberators of humanity of that time, you have to concede that Churchill was an imperialist and the Americans, though they were not Stalinists, were guarantors of Stalinism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, were de facto Stalinists. (The only politician who mattered at all that I can think of who fits the profile Mr. Menand pretends was common is the great Robert Taft.) Moreover, because Christopher Hitchens used to be at least a Socialist, he chooses not to lump socialism in with Stalinism (not that it's not Nazism but fascism while it's not socialism but Stalinism). But, in reality, all of the isms belong in the same group. As Albert Jay Nock, one of the rare contemporary intellectuals (small "i") who could be said to oppose that triad, wrote:

It may be in place to remark here the essential identity of the various extant forms of collectivism. The superficial distinctions of Fascism, Bolshevism, Hitlerism, are the concern of journalists and publicists; the serious student sees in them only the one root-idea of a complete conversion of social power into State power. When Hitler and Mussolini invoke a kind of debased and hoodwinking mysticism to aid their acceleration of this process, the student at once recognizes his old friend, the formula of Hegel, that "the State incarnates the Divine Idea upon earth," and he is not hoodwinked. The journalist and the impressionable traveler may make what they will of "the new religion of Bolshevism"; the student contents himself with remarking clearly the exact nature of the process which this inculcation is designed to sanction.

We can argue until we're all blue in the face about whether Nazism was a pathology of Left or Right, but no one can argue the point that all of these rationalisms are unified by their desire to destroy the existing society and erect in its place a state designed by the Intellectuals. Even Imperialism, which is not mentioned there, envisions replacing traditional, though non-Western, cultures with bureaucratic states run by "elites".

Finally, given all of that, when Mr. Menand suggests that it is unfair of Orwell to force "ideas" to their logical conclusions because we also live by "the mixture of customs and practices, intuitions and instincts that make human life a conscious activity susceptible to improvement or debasement", he is using sleight of hand. Those who advocate "ideas", which is to say a set of concepts sprung full blown from the minds of Intellectuals, intend them to replace custom and intuition and all the rest. It is only fair, since they plan to sweep away all restraints upon their ideas, to look at where those ideas lead.

Orwell's ultimate point, as that of all the middle class intellectuals, is that what makes the "idea" wielders, the Intellectuals, so dangerous is that they do represent a leveling wind of destruction. Failing to recognize the wisdom of the ancestors and of the traditions handed down to us, they have no compunctions about annihilating them. This stands in stark contrast to the middle class intellectuals, who it seems necessary at this point to call by their true name: conservatives. Here's how Oakeshott famously described the breed:

The man of conservative temperament believes that a known good is not lightly to be surrendered for an unknown better. He is not in love with what is dangerous and difficult; he is unadventurous; he has no impulse to sail uncharted seas; for him there is no magic in being lost, bewildered or shipwrecked. If he is forced to navigate the unknown, he sees virtue in heaving the lead every inch of the way. What others plausibly identify as timidity, he recognizes in himself as rational prudence; what others interpret as inactivity, he recognizes as a disposition to enjoy rather than to exploit. He is cautious, and he is disposed to indicate his assent or dissent, not in absolute, but in graduated terms. He eyes the situation in terms of its propensity to disrupt the familiarity of the features of his world.

If we look at the life that Orwell lived and the Socialism he espoused, it may be difficult to square them with this temperament. But those things are not why, as Christopher Hitchens says, "Orwell matters". He matters because of what he wrote and what he wrote makes him a middle class intellectual, a conservative, or perhaps we might call him a compassionate conservative. And looked at from that simple shift of perspective his contradictions--particularly the willingness to forego the unattainable Socialist ideal in favor of the mundane but quite decent middle class British reality of his lifetime, especially his youth--seem heroic rather than tragic.

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THANKS AGAIN, FDR:

Why They Cry 'Non!': Greed, pride and desire to show up the U.S. inspire France's policies on Iraq (Max Boot, January 23 2003, LA Times)

Of all Bush administration officials, Colin Powell is the one held in highest esteem in Europe. It's not hard to see why.

Just like the Europeans, he doesn't want the United States to disarm Saddam Hussein without the backing of the United Nations. The secretary of State even managed to convince President Bush to seek U.N. support back in August.

Thereafter he spent two months heroically haggling -- mainly with French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin -- over the text of a resolution that would win the assent of the entire Security Council.

So how does De Villepin repay his negotiating partner? With a kick in the teeth. [...]

So why is France pressing for endless U.N. palaver in the case of Iraq? Its first motive is crassly commercial: France has about $1.5 billion in contracts with the current Iraqi government and doesn't want it overthrown for fear that a more democratic regime might take its business elsewhere. Its second motive is essentially wounded national pride. France, a noted poet recently wrote, "used to have the ability to inspire princes and kings" but now "comes the time when no one listens to her anymore and the universe turns without her, except when it judges her with spite or commiseration." This writer suggested that the solution was for France to adopt "a humble and global approach." [...]

It is hard to see anything humble about De Villepin's grandstanding Monday, but it was certainly "global": France is taking advantage of Franklin Roosevelt's dispensation -- a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council -- to maximize its influence at the expense of the "hyperpower."

The bad news for Paris is that it can get away with this game only as long as Washington lets it. After Monday, even Powell's patience may wear thin.

Few nations have greater cause for humility than France.

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WHEN THE WALL COMES DOWN:

The real test of China's appetite for reform (Minxin Pei, January 27 2003, Financial Times)

Three powerful forces are placing pressure on China's rulers to restructure the country's political system. The biggest of these is the economy, which has become more market-oriented and more closely linked to the world. In spite of adopting policy changes that have propelled market reforms, Chinese leaders have not made state institutions market-friendly. As a result, the state has maintained its command-and-control orientation and interferes excessively in the marketplace.

That is evident in the size of the Chinese bureaucracy. Even though the share of state-owned enterprises in the economy has fallen 60 per cent since 1979, the number of officials has tripled. A bloated bureaucracy and unchecked power breed corruption. At the very least, political reform would require a painful downsizing of the bureaucracy. The proposed measures in Shenzhen suggest that administrative streamlining is likely to be the dominant theme of reforms.

The second force comes from China's changing society. Increasing affluence, economic independence, access to information and physical mobility have rendered the government's traditional means of social control obsolete. Luckily for the Communist party, the emerging middle class has not displayed much zeal for democracy. But it would be foolhardy to take its political apathy for granted. The party needs to court these elites and to incorporate them in the political process.

More important, continued political disenfranchisement is radicalising China's two biggest social groups: peasants and workers in moribund state-owned enterprises, who are relative losers in economic reform. Unable to protect their interests, these groups are increasingly turning to riots and street demonstrations to press their demands. Opening up the political process could help to defuse rising social tensions.

The third force comes from the party itself and many officials have begun to call for change. The results of a recent poll of mid-level officials at the Central Communist Party School in Beijing show that, since 2000, political reform has become the most important issue for them. Li Rui, a former personal secretary of Mao Zedong and deputy chief of the party's organisation department, published an essay recently that openly called on the party to institute democratic reforms.

But the need for such reforms does not necessarily mean that the regime will undertake them. Experience of democratic transition elsewhere suggests that few authoritarian regimes initiate, of their own accord, reforms that could threaten their hold on power. In most cases, political and economic crises have forced them to accept the inevitable.

People are so frightened about the instability that may follow the fall of Saddam; just imagine what the inevitable crumbling of Communist China is going to look like.

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BETTER A LIVE THORN IN YOUR SIDE THAN A MARTYR:

Iran to Lift Dissident Cleric's House Arrest After 5 Years (ELAINE SCIOLINO, January 28, 2003, NY Times)

In a surprise move, Iran will release its most senior dissident cleric from the house arrest that was imposed on him five years ago, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported today.

Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, the cleric, was once in line to succeed Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as Iran's supreme leader, the most powerful position in the country.

But he fell out of favor with the Islamic republic in the late 1980's when he criticized the government's excesses, accusing the judiciary of "murdering" its political opponents, faulting government policies for paralyzing the economy and questioning the official view that Iran had won the war against Iraq. When Ayatollah Khomeini issued a ruling calling for the assassination of Salman Rushdie, Ayatollah Montazeri refused to endorse it.

In March 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini stripped him of his position as designated successor. He was put under house arrest in November 1997, when he said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the man who became supreme leader in his place, was not competent to issue religious rulings.

The decision to free Ayatollah Montazeri from house arrest, which could occur as early as Tuesday, was made by the Supreme Council of National Security, which reports to the reformist president, Mohammad Khatami. It will mean the removal of armed security police officers stationed in a bulletproof trailer outside the ayatollah's modest home in the city of Qum, a senior Iranian official said in an interview. The ban on his giving speeches or conducting public activities will also be lifted, the official added.

Hard to see it as anything other than a sign of weakness on the part of the clerics and the government.

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WHEN CHALABI COMES MARCHING HOME AGAIN, HURRAH:

Iraqi Opponent Says He's Leaving Iran to Plan Takeover (ELAINE SCIOLINO, January 28, 2003, NY Times)

Ahmed Chalabi, an Iraqi opposition leader, announced today that he intends to travel to Iraq shortly to meet other opposition leaders and plan a provisional government to replace the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Mr. Chalabi, who heads the Iraqi National Congress, the main Iraqi umbrella opposition group, told a news conference here that he was going into Iraq despite objections from some members of the Bush administration but with the blessing of the White House. [...]

"We hope to go to our country in northern Iraqi Kurdistan to have consultations with the leaders over there," Mr. Chalabi said. "And we expect we can come up with a coalition leadership council, which will be empowered to establish a coalition provisional government at the appropriate moment so that the government will lead the process of liberation and would also assume control of the administration of Iraq."

Mr. Chalabi, wearing a suit and tie in a country where ties are still suspect for being too Western, seemed to revel in his surroundings. He welcomed a reporter to his headquarters and said the villa had been "paid for by the State Department."

Mr. Chalabi's comfort in inviting journalists to his American-financed headquarters in Iran and announcing plans to cross into Iraq underscored how confident he feels about the support of his Iranian hosts.

Maybe someone should tell the dovish Colin Powell that his State Department has been planning regime change without his knowledge...

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SADDAM, THIS IS JACQUES, THEY'RE HEADED TO SITE 7:

U.S. to Make Iraq Intelligence Public: Evidence of Weapons Concealment to Be Shared in Effort to Boost Support for War (Bob Woodward, January 28, 2003, Washington Post)

The Bush administration has assembled what it believes to be significant intelligence showing that Iraq has been actively moving and concealing banned weapons systems and related equipment from United Nations inspectors, according to informed sources. [...]

The concealment efforts have often taken place days or hours ahead of visits by U.N. inspection teams, which have been operating in Iraq during the past two months, according to these accounts. In many cases, the United States has what one source called "compelling" intelligence that is "unambiguous" in proving that Iraq is hiding banned weapons.

Speaking to reporters yesterday, Powell said that U.N. inspectors have picked up similar indications of Iraqi concealment and that the United States supported the inspectors' claims. "The inspectors have also told us that they have evidence that Iraq has moved or hidden items at sites just prior to inspection visits. That's what the inspectors say, not what Americans say, not what American intelligence says," he said. "Well, we certainly corroborate all of that, but this is information from the inspectors."

Administration officials have said for weeks that the United States has intelligence demonstrating that Iraq maintains banned weapons programs. But they have said they could not disclose the information because doing so would jeopardize U.S. intelligence-collection methods or military operations against possible weapon storage sites in the event of war. [...]

A senior State Department official said the information the administration plans to release will show what the Iraqis are "doing, what they're not doing, how they're deceiving."

"We will lay out the case that we can, and we will leave it to others to judge," the official said. "When you listen to it, it should be disturbing to those people who listen objectively. To those who have made up their minds and want to duck their heads in the sand, it will pass right over them."

Spokesmen for the White House and U.S. intelligence agencies declined to comment.

In one recent example of what officials described as Iraqi obstruction, a ranking Iraqi official issued a warning that U.N. inspectors were planning a visit and directed those at the site to conceal specific prohibited weapons. In another, an Iraqi official directed scientists and others involved in research or production of chemical and biological weapons to conceal their files and papers from the inspectors.

Unfortunately, the UN is such a sieve--with the French in particular leaking information to Saddam so he can hide stuff before inspectors get there--that we can only release truly valuable evidence just before we go to war. It would be irresponsible to give Saddam time to move weapons we know about for sure when we could instead wait a couple weeks and announce that we know where they are with a barrage of cruise missiles.

---

WMD:

WEAPONS OF MASS DISTRACTION (Edward Driscoll, 1/27/03)

Just in case there was any doubt in anyone's mind, Brother Driscoll reveals that Modern Art is officially a weapon of torture.

Which brings to mind a story from Mark Steyn's inevitably fantastic collection of columns, The Face of the Tiger:

[C]elebrated German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen...told a radio interviewer the other day that the destruction of the World Trade Center was "the greatest work of art ever". I'm reminded of the late Sir Thomas Beecham when asked if he'd ever played any Stockhausen: "No," he said. "But I once stepped in some."

MORE:
-REVIEW: of The Face of the Tiger By Mark Steyn (Steven Martinovich, Enter Stage Right)

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IT'S ALL ABOUT THE OIL...:

U.S. Expands Afghan Aid for Maternal and Child Health (Judith Miller, January 27, 2003, NY Times)

The Bush administration will spend $5 million this year to rebuild and expand the largest women's hospital in Kabul and to create four satellite teaching clinics for maternal and child health in other parts of Afghanistan, officials said yesterday.

Officials said the Department of Health and Human Services and the Pentagon were joining forces to improve Kabul's Rabia Balkhi Women's Hospital and to open the clinics.

The commitment is the administration's latest effort to address the health needs of Afghanistan's 25 million people, and particularly Afghan women and children, who international health surveys show have among the world's worst health and greatest needs.

The additional money for women's health is the result of a visit that Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, made to Kabul last October. "You cannot see suffering on that scale without concluding we need to do everything possible to help the Afghan people rebuild their public health infrastructure," he said in an interview.

After his trip, Mr. Thompson worked with Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to promote a special women's health initiative, officials said.

You read something like that and you have to wonder if these protestors with their "No War for Oil" signs live in a different America than you do.

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PEACE FOR US, DEATH FOR THEM:

'A River of Peaceful People' (Mary McGrory, January 23, 2003, The Washington Post)

Danny Maguire, age 19, a college student with wide green eyes and face fuzz that may be a beard someday, rode a bus from Kansas City, Mo., for 23 hours. He hoped that the president, who makes much of his faith, was taking in the fact that the march was faith-based: The Catholic bishops, the National Council of Churches and many rabbinical organizations were opposed to an attack on Saddam Hussein.

Maguire is a history student, but his real passion is social justice, and his patron saint is Dorothy Day, the Catholic radical who took the Gospels literally.

Ms Day was a great woman and a genuine Christian pacifist. But most will be familiar with the Star Trek episode, City on the Edge of Forever, where Joan Collins played someone similar, who Captain Kirk had to make sure died, lest her activism lead to the United States staying out of WWII and Hitler winning. Ms Day, you see, was so serious about pacifism that she opposed America's entry into WWII, even after Pearl Harbor.

That's a perfectly honorable position and one with which I'm broadly sympathetic, but, as Pat Buchanan found out a few years ago, very few other people are. Before she starts speaking in such hushed tones about Ms Day and those who follow her example, Ms McGrory should probably explain to her readers why she's okay with the prospect of leaving folks like Hitler and Saddam in power to continue their murderous reigns.

There's nothing wrong with opposing war so long as you're willing to accept some measure of responsibility for the deeds of such men, the murders that you're willing to let continue. But it is this willingness that so often makes pacifism the moral low ground, rather than the high ground, and the failure to even wrestle with the reality comes close to making the position despicable.

---

HOSERS:

As it Happens (CBC, 1/27/03)

Listening to this show is enough to make you hate Canada, which I recognize is unfair. Tonight they had caller reaction to the story last week about Saddam equipping his troops with chemical warfare suits. Both calls that they played featured guys saying that Saddam had disarmed himself but reasonably feared the US and Britain would use chemical weapons against Iraq

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AND TO THINK, THE GAME ALWAYS STINKS:

What pools? (John Cote, January 25, 2003, Modesto Bee)

The American Gaming Association, a casino lobbying group, estimates that Americans will wager more than $5 billion on the Super Bowl this year.

That figure almost matches the gross domestic product of Honduras or Nepal in 2001, according to the World Bank.

Every once in a while, numbers really put things in perspective.

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DOES ANYONE EDIT THE CHRONICLE?:

Raising the Bars: Complete sentences: Turning students into prison inmates (Margo Freistadt, January 19, 2003, San Francisco Chronicle)

A simple solution would avert the budget disaster facing California's schools: We should declare every public school to be a prison. The kids would understand.

Details need to be worked out, but I want every child in California to be given a 13-year prison sentence at age 5, with the possibility of a four-year extension.

That way, the $7,000 the state spends per student each year could immediately be raised to $27,000 -- what the state spends on each inmate annually. And our criminally under-funded schools would qualify for the only category in the governor's proposed budget that's slated to get more money this year.

She probably thinks this is clever, but did her editor ask her how spending $20k more per pupil would reduce the deficit?

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AMERICA-HAMMER OF THE EMPIRES:

-INTERVIEW: "The Shah Always Falls": A soldier-historian looks at how the world has changed in the past decade and finds that America is both hostage to history and likely to be saved by it: An Interview With Ralph Peters (Fredric Smoler, February/March 2003, American Heritage)

[A:] The clash of civilizations is a great thesis, but it does not describe a new phenomenon. The history of the eastern Mediterranean in the twelfth century b.c. is the clash of civilizations, and so are the imperial wars of the eighteenth century. In the eighteenth century the French and Indian War is crucial, and the colonial militia is decisive. On the Plains of Abraham, we prove that modern empires can fall. We show that it's possible. Well, we fight the greatest empire of that age, the British Empire, twice, once to kick it out, and once to confirm it's got to stay out. Our next war is against the Mexican Empire. The first phase of our struggle against empires climaxes with the Civil War, when we destroy the imperial legacies of human bondage and a landed aristocracy. That first phase ends with Seward's purchase of Alaska, and it roughly defines American territory as we know it, except for Hawaii.

[Q;] What's the second phase?

[A:] In 1898 phase two kicks in, and America starts looking outward. Nowadays we underestimate the Spanish-American War because we assume that important wars are bloody. This one wasn't bloody, but it was the first time a non-European power destroyed a European empire. The Spanish Empire was decrepit, archaic, and bankrupt, but it was an empire, and we reached out and broke it, and we began becoming a new form of empire in the process. The Japanese saw that the Europeans didn't all gang up on the Americans for destroying a European empire, so a half-dozen years later they took on the other decrepit empire in the Far East, the empire of the czars, and destroyed part of it. In the First World War we were fighting alongside empires but also against them, and we destroyed the decrepit Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires and the upstart Second Reich. In the Second World War we destroyed the Italian empire, the Japanese empire, and the German Third Reich. By the end of the Cold War we'd destroyed the last great surviving European empire, the Soviet incarnation of the Russian Empire of the czars, and in some respects become an empire ourselves, although a new kind.

This process was layered and complex. In Indochina we were an anti-imperial power fighting imperial wars against anti-imperialists backed by imperial powers. Communism was an imperial force, the last great wave of European imperialism. But at the same time, the Vietnamese and Cambodians were fighting their own anti-imperial struggle against us. By the nineties we'd directly or indirectly been involved in the destruction of almost every European empire. Even the Dutch in Indonesia had to leave back in 1949 because America basically said, "You've got to go home." The Belgians pretty much withered on their own. The Portuguese mostly withered on their own too, but sad to say, we apparently gave Indonesia a green light to kick them out of East Timor, which we came to regret less than a quarter of a century later. Finally, in the course of restructuring empires we've gotten a legacy of behaving like a new sort of imperial power. I want us to continue to be this new sort of enlightened imperial power. It's the moral, right, and wise thing to do.

[Q:] Is the Chinese empire the last one that you think America will destroy?

[A:] I don't see China as an empire. It's got some imperial possessions, but it's not an empire in the European sense. I think the greatest threat to the Chinese is internal fissuring. There might be a period of warring states. There have been such periods throughout Chinese history. Whether we'll see a division between the rich east coast and the poor interior, whether we will see a Chinese democracy or a renewal of dictatorship, perhaps of a grotesque and monstrous form, nobody knows. China is the great wild card for the twenty-first century. It's important that we avoid the American arrogance of imagining we can have a decisive effect on a power like China. We're not even going to have a decisive effect on Indonesia, but if we engage there, we can make a difference. With China, we're playing on the margins. Patience is the one great virtue Americans lack. It's true in our personal lives, it's true in our consumer habits, and it's certainly true in geostrategy.

Mr. Peters's perspective is, as always, an interesting one. However, he could probably push his model at least that one step further: if China is going to fissure into warring states then it's an empire at least to the extent that it is an artificial construct of states that are natural rivals, rather than an organic state in and of itself. And, of course, if it does not fall apart on its own and if, though it's hard to see how, it does manage to rise to world power status, then it's entirely likely that eventually our power will be brought to bear on it, with decisive consequences.

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NOT DAYS OR WEEKS BUT MINUTES:

Iraq Faces Massive U.S. Missile Barrage (CBSNews.com, Jan. 24, 2003)

They're calling it "A-Day," A as in airstrikes so devastating they would leave Saddam's soldiers unable or unwilling to fight.

If the Pentagon sticks to its current war plan, one day in March the Air Force and Navy will launch between 300 and 400 cruise missiles at targets in Iraq. As CBS News Correspondent David Martin reports, this is more than number that were launched during the entire 40 days of the first Gulf War.

On the second day, the plan calls for launching another 300 to 400 cruise missiles.

"There will not be a safe place in Baghdad," said one Pentagon official who has been briefed on the plan.

"The sheer size of this has never been seen before, never been contemplated before," the official said.

The battle plan is based on a concept developed at the National Defense University. It's called "Shock and Awe" and it focuses on the psychological destruction of the enemy's will
to fight rather than the physical destruction of his military forces.

"We want them to quit. We want them not to fight," says Harlan Ullman, one of the authors of the Shock and Awe concept which relies on large numbers of precision guided
weapons.

"So that you have this simultaneous effect, rather like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima, not taking days or weeks but in minutes," says Ullman.

800 cruise missiles at $500,000 a pop gets you to $400 million, right? If that plan does get the Iraqi military to throw in the towel, it seems damn cost effective.

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RIDDLE US THIS:

Religion Major to Get State Scholarship (AP, Jan 24, 2003)

The decision followed a federal lawsuit filed in December by the American Center for Law and Justice on behalf of Michael Woods Nash. The center, founded by televangelist Pat Robertson, agreed to drop the suit following the revision.

The center sued after the Cumberland College junior learned in October that he would lose his scholarship funding because he had declared philosophy and religion as his major.
How, precisely, did we get from here, First Amendment (United States Constitution)

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

to here, FAQ (Kentucky Educational Excellence Scholarship)

Governor Paul E. Patton and the 1998 General Assembly provided Kentucky high school students a great opportunity to make their education pay with the Kentucky Educational Excellence Scholarship (KEES)! KEES is administered by the Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority (KHEAA). Students who try to get the most from high school by studying hard and making good grades (2.5 GPA or higher) can earn scholarships for college or technical school. The better students do in high school, the more they will earn toward college scholarships. And students who complete their college studies have a better opportunity to achieve their career goals and improve their standard of living. Education really does pay!

[Q:] Can I use my KEES award if I plan to major in a religious program of study?

[A:] No. KEES awards cannot be used for programs of study that lead to a degree in theology, divinity, or religious education.

MORE:
Kentucky Constitution, Section 1
Kentucky Constitution, Section 5

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YET "OUR HOPES AND OUR JOURNEYS CONTINUE":

3 Apollo Astronauts Die in Fire; Grissom, White, Chaffee Caught in Capsule During a Test on Pad: Tragedy at Cape: Rescuers Are Blocked by Dense Smoke -- Cause is Studied (The Associated Press, January 27, 1967)

The three-man crew of astronauts for the Apollo 1 mission were killed tonight in a flash fire aboard the huge spacecraft designed to take man to the moon.

Those killed in the blaze on a launching pad were:

VIRGIL I. GRISSOM, 40 years old, Air Force lieutenant colonel, one of the seven original Mercury astronauts.

EDWARD H. WHITE 2d, 36, a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force, the first American to "walk" in space.

ROGER B. CHAFFEE, 31, a Navy lieutenant commander, who had been awaiting his first space flight.

The astronauts were the first American spacemen to be killed on the job and ironically, died while on the ground. The bodies were removed hours later and a space agency spokesman said death was "instantaneous."

Three other astronauts died in airplane crashes, in the line of duty, but today's tragedy involved the first "on premises" deaths in the American space program- the first time anyone was killed while in space hardware. [...]

The fire broke out at 6:31 P. M. while the three men were taking part in a full-scale simulation of the scheduled Feb. 21 launching that was to take
them into the heavens for 14 days of orbiting the earth.

They were trapped behind closed hatches, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Tom Wolfe, naturally, said it best:

As to just what this ineffable quality was...well, it obviously involved bravery. But it was not bravery in the simple sense of being willing to risk your life...any fool could do that... . No, the idea...seemed to be that a man should have the ability to go up in a hurtling piece of machinery and put his hide on the line and then have the moxie, the reflexes, the experience, the coolness, to pull it back in the last yawning moment--and then to go up again the next day, and the next day, and every next day... . There was a seemingly infinite series of tests...a dizzy progression of steps and ledges...a pyramid extraordinarily high and steep; and the idea was to prove at every foot of the way up that pyramid that you were one of the elected and anointed ones who had the right stuff and could move higher and higher and even--ultimately, God willing, one day--that you might be able to join that special few at the very top, that elite who had the capacity to bring tears to men's eyes, the very Brotherhood of the Right Stuff itself.

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THE VOICE OF MULTILATERALISM:

Powell, in Europe, Nearly Dismisses U.N.'s Iraq Report (MARK LANDLER and ALAN COWELL, January 27, 2003, NY Times)

Though the United States had hoped to forge a consensus among its allies, Mr. Powell said, the lack of a coalition would not deter the Bush administration. "When we feel strongly about something, we will lead, we will act, even if others are not prepared to join us," he said. [...]

"To those who say, why not give the inspection process more time, I ask, how much more time does Iraq need to answer these questions?" Mr. Powell said.

"We're in no great rush to judgment tomorrow or the day after, but clearly time is running out," he said. "We will not shrink from war if that is the only way to rid Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction." [...]

"I don't think I have anything to be ashamed of, or apologize for, with respect to what America has done for the world," he said in response to a question asking why the United States always falls back on the use of "hard power" instead of the "soft power" of diplomacy.

Mr. Powell noted that the United States had sent its soldiers into foreign wars over the last century, most recently in Afghanistan, without having imperial designs on the territories it secured.

"We've put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives," he said, his voice growing hoarse. "We've asked for nothing but enough land to bury them in."

It's one thing for Howell Raines and company to have been duped, but there are many on the Right who should be sitting down to a plate of crow right now also (two plates--if we add their steel tarrif confusion). Remember all the folks calling for Mr. Powell to resign or for President Bush to "get him in line"? Mr. Powell could have given this speech when they demanded it, to no effect. Instead, by waiting and giving it now, he seals the deal. That's the difference between governing and punditing.

MORE:
Whither Colin Powell? (Robert Novak, January 27, 2003, Townhall.com)

Since Colin Powell has been relied upon to impede the nation's march to war in Iraq, apprehensive Republicans were startled last week by his suddenly bellicose rhetoric.

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ALL HUMOR IS CONSERVATIVE (part 4,762):

Dave Barry has a blog.

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WALTZING WITH THE DICTATOR:

Peron, Pinochet and Patience (Jorge I. Dominguez and Steven Levitsky, January 26, 2003, NY Times)

Argentine history offers lessons about the consequences of trying to save democracy by going around the constitution. The 1955 coup against Juan Peron, a semi-autocratic populist much like Mr. Chavez, did not bring about a return to stable constitutional rule. Those who supported Peron denied the legitimacy of all successor governments and worked actively--and at times violently--to bring them down. Those against Peron fought back. Three more presidents fell victim to coups. More than 30 years passed before another elected president completed his mandate.

Fortunately, there is an alternative model: Chile. During the mid-1980's, after protests failed to topple the dictator Augusto Pinochet, Chilean democrats embarked on a different course. The opposition decided to abide by Chile's Constitution and wait for a plebiscite in 1988 to determine whether General Pinochet would step down. Opposition parties used the time to build a broad coalition and organized an ultimately victorious campaign. Because the plebiscite had been General Pinochet's idea and was run according to his rules, he stepped down. Chile became one of Latin America's most successful democracies.

The Venezuelan opposition can follow suit. Mr. Chavez's 1999 Constitution allows for a binding referendum to remove the president at midterm, or in August 2003. If Mr. Chavez were to be voted down, a new presidential election would be held within 30 days.

Thus far, the opposition has refused to wait until August. It should reconsider. The opposition could use the next seven months to organize an effective campaign and agree upon a single candidate for future presidential elections. In playing by the rules, the opposition would also be able to maintain the domestic and international legitimacy that it forfeited with a failed coup in April 2002.

Unlike a forced resignation, a recall election would be constitutional and more peaceful. [...]

The Venezuelan opposition should be patient. As former President Jimmy Carter recently proposed, the opposition should lift the general strike and abandon current efforts to remove the president in exchange for an agreement with the Chavez government to choose the day for an internationally monitored referendum in August. If the opposition were to force Mr. Chavez's removal before that, it would risk ushering in a cycle of polarization and violence that could grip the country for years. Avoiding this and saving Venezuela's constitutional democracy is well worth waiting eight months.

The authors may well be right, however there's an important factor that they fail to consider: the damage that may be done while you're patient. This failure would appear to stem from their lack of comprehension that there's a massive difference between dictatorships of the Left and of the Right. Thus, Pinochet, like Franco, could be granted patience precisely because his mission was to preserve civil society and its institutions until an orderly transition of power could occur. Compare this to a place like Russia or Cuba, where patience did or will eventually lead to a replacement
of dictatorships of the Left, however, in the meantime, civil society and all of the institutions that might counter-balance the centralized government were destroyed.

Unfortunately, Mr. Chavez has left the opposition with little reason to believe that he will preserve Venezuelan society and it is therefore a reasonable thing to wonder whether they can afford to leave him in power to further damage a nation he seems bent on destroying. Patriotism can't be mere legalism: one must be loyal to society in general rather than just to a constitution. Government is, after all, only one part of the nation, and not the most important part.

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THERE'S A REASON GOD SORTED US INTO PAIRS:

Single-parent homes studied: Afflictions later in life are seen for children (Emma Ross, 1/24/2003, Associated Press)

Children growing up in single-parent families are twice as likely as their counterparts to develop serious psychiatric illnesses and addictions later in life, according to an important new study.

Researchers have for years debated whether children from such homes bounce back or whether they are more likely than those whose parents stay together to develop serious emotional problems.

Specialists say the latest study, published this week in The Lancet medical journal, is important mainly because of its unprecedented scale and follow-up - it tracked about 1 million children for a decade, into their mid-20s.

The question of why and how those children end up with such problems remains unanswered. The study from Sweden's National Board for Health and Welfare in Stockholm suggests that financial hardship may play a role, but other specialists say the research also supports the view that quality of parenting could be a factor.

The study used the Swedish national registries, which cover almost the entire population and contain extensive socio-economic and health information. Children were considered to be living in a single-parent household if they were living with the same single adult in both the 1985 and 1990 housing census. That could have been the result of divorce, separation, death of a parent, out of wedlock birth, guardianship or other reasons.

About 60,000 were living with their mother and about 5,500 with their father. There were 921,257 living with both parents. The children were aged between 6 and 18 at the start of the study, with half already in their teens.

The scientists found that children with single parents were twice as likely as the others to develop a psychiatric illness such as severe depression or schizophrenia, to kill themselves or attempt suicide, and to develop an alcohol-related disease.

Girls were three times more likely to become drug addicts if they lived with a sole parent, and boys were four times more likely.

The Other Brother is the product of a single-parent household and he's a notorious right-wing lunatic, so there you go...

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WE HOLD THESE SUGGESTIONS TO BE UNEVIDENT AND NON-BINDING:

Tax travesties: Bush is wrong: It's not "our money" (Liam Murphy and Thomas Nagel, 1/26/2003, Boston Globe)

The persistence of the idea that the distribution of tax burdens can be fair or unfair in itself stems from a very natural, but mistaken, picture of the relation between taxes and property rights: According to this picture, we own our pre-tax income, so in taxing us the government takes away some of our private property to pay for its activities. But in fact we don't own our pre-tax income, and what we do own is defined by a legal system of private property in which taxes play an indispensable role.

This claim may seem outrageous, but a little reflection shows that it must be so. Notice that we couldn't, as a matter of logic, have unrestricted property rights in the whole of our pre-tax income, because without taxes there would be no government, and consequently no legal system, no banks, no corporations, no commercial contracts, no markets in stock, capital, labor, or commodities-in other words no economy of the kind that makes all modern forms of income and wealth possible.

Modern property rights are not part of nature. They are created and sustained by a legal, political, and economic system of which taxes are an essential part. This doesn't mean that everything really belongs to the government, except what it decides to give us. What it means is that property rights in a modern state, including the division between private and public property, depend for their existence on a legal system that does not and could not assign full property rights in pre-tax income. What we own depends on how we and others interact in the context of that system, and our private property is what we end up with after taxes, not before. Whether the result is fair depends on the legitimacy of the overall system, and we are collectively responsible, as a society, for the rules of that system.

Rights of private property are extremely important. In addition to playing a vital role in the working of the economy, they are as central to personal liberty as freedom of speech or religion. People need to be secure in the possession and use of what is theirs, protected both from theft and from arbitrary expropriation. But there remains the question of what forms modern property rights should take, and what legal rules and economic policies should determine their formation and transmission. John Locke, in the 17th century, argued that a man has natural rights to the fruits of his labor on unowned land, even in the absence of government. But even if such primitive natural property rights exist, they hardly correspond with anyone's right to shares of a mutual fund. Modern property has to be legally defined.

So, the right to be secure in one's own property is one of the central purposes for which men constitute governments but that right doesn't precede those governments? How does the fact that we voluntarily surrender some of that property in order to fund that subsequent government get transmuted into a requirement that we come, hat in hands, before that government for a determination of how much of our property we get to keep?

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THE WAR AT HOME:

Davis to push bill allowing president to reorganize agencies (Tanya N. Ballard, January 22, 2003, GovExec.com)

House Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., said Wednesday that he plans to push legislation that would give the president broad authority to reorganize federal agencies. His goal is to get the measure through Congress by August.

"It's clear that you can?t take the existing structure into the 21st century," Davis said during a luncheon sponsored by the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit group focused on improving the government?s recruitment and retention record. "We need to give the administration reorganization authority--where they can move ahead without specific congressional authorization in every case." [...]

Revamping the outdated civil service system will be another priority for the committee, Davis said.

"The key for us as we look at the civil service and the government bureaucracies . . .is to try to make it more streamlined, more efficient and more effective, and the way to do that is to revamp it significantly," Davis said. "Getting hired and getting firedare two of the most difficult things in the federal sector today."

In the long run, these kinds of reforms and the privatization of Social Security and Medicare (and voucherization, which is not necessarily privatization, of education), though they're less sexy and get less attention, are far more important to America than the war on Islamicism. It's here that the conservative revolution is proceeding, beneath the radar.

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AXIS OF GOOD UPDATE:

Taiwan Military Overhaul To Enable Preemptive Strike On China>Taiwan military overhaul to enable preemptive strike on China: report (AFP, Jan 26, 2003)

Taiwan's ambitious overhaul of its armed forces could enable the independence-minded island to launch preemptive strikes against rival China, local media reported Sunday.

A 10-year plan to shift the military into a "joint forces" command was described as "the most dramatic reform since the former Kuomintang government retreated to Taiwan" in 1949 by an authoritative military source quoted by the China Times.

Based on a US model, the reform plan would reduce the size of Taiwan's military to 300,000 troops by 2011, resulting in a leaner force armed with more sophisticated weaponry. The leaner and meaner force would be equipped with a missile command to orchestrate any planned "long-distance missile" launches, the daily said.

Under the new military strategy, Taiwanese forces would be authorized to attack China's military commands, ballistic missile bases, airports and harbours -- a deviation from the island's long-standing defensive strategy.

Considering the fecklessness of our presidents during the time, the U.S. was extraordinarily lucky that Cuba, the Soviet sword pointed at our underbelly, was backwards and, thanks to communism, destined to stay that way--so it never posed a significant threat us (as witness the Missle Crisis, when, rather than using it as the much needed pretext to dispose of Castro, the Kennedy brothers just told the Russians to move the missiles and they had no other choice). But China's aspirations to rivalry with the U.S. must always be limited by the fact that it has a technologically-advanced, military peer, or superior, just offshore. Moreover, that enemy is allied with the greatest military powers on Earth--the US, Israel, etc.. Conservatives have taken heat over their support of Taiwan for fifty years, but today it may be our most important ally. That, unfortunately, seems to be about the timeframe required before folks accept that the Right was right.

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FORGET SERENA:

'Aggressive' Kasparov outplays computer (ABCNews.com, 1/26/03)

World number one chess player Garry Kasparov has crushed the champion computer program Deep Junior in his trademark aggressive style.

Kasparov won the first game of the six-game "Man vs Machine" match in New York.

The Azerbaijan-born grandmaster took his first step toward burying the ghost of 1997, when he lost a match to the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue, with a convincing win in just 27 moves and 3 hours 40 minutes play. Kasparov scored a point for the victory over Israeli-built Deep Junior and the second game is scheduled for tomorrow.

US grandmaster Maurice Ashley, one of the experts providing commentary for spectators at the New York Athletic Club, said: "Garry played dominating chess, great open play, aggressive, just like the Kasparov we know well."

Kasparov, 39, playing with the white pieces and the slight advantage of the first move, eschewed the cautious "anti-computer" strategy he used six years ago against Deep Blue for more adventurous moves.

Rage against the machine, baby.

MORE:
Chess Champion Faces Off With New Computer (PAUL HOFFMAN, 1/26/03, NY Times)
Chess Base
Kasparov, Computer Talk Smack (Michelle Delio, Wired News)

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ICH BIN EIN IVORIAN:

Mobs attack French embassy (John Lichfield, 27 January 2003, Independent uk)

Pro-government mobs, enraged by an agreement that would end the four-month-old civil war in Ivory Coast, besieged the French embassy in Abidjan yesterday and destroyed a cultural centre.

The mobs, who accuse France of giving too much to rebels in peace talks near Paris, burned a fence around the embassy, attacked foreigners and looted shops and a radio station. French troops used tear gas to disperse a group trying to storm their military base in the city. The violence subsided later after the President, Laurent Gbagbo, begged his supporters to await his return from Paris.

Such are the wages of unilateralism.

---

DANGIT, WE ORDERED A SURPLICE, NOT ARMY SURPLUS:

Chemical war suits in London mosque (Hala Jaber and David Leppard, January 26, 2003, The Sunday Times)

DETECTIVES investigating a plot by Islamic terrorists to carry out a chemical weapons attack in Britain have found chemical warfare protection suits at a mosque in north London.

The NBC (nuclear, biological and chemical) suits were discovered during a raid by 150 police officers on the Finsbury Park mosque last Monday. Informed sources said the discovery confirmed growing fears by police and MI5 that a chemical attack is being planned by supporters of Osama Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda movement in Britain.

Police announced after the raid they had seized a small arsenal of weapons including a stun gun, an imitation firearm and a CS gas canister.

But discovery of the NBC suits has been kept a closely guarded secret known only to a handful of senior officers. Ministers are acutely aware that any suggestion that the mosque may have been involved with chemical weapons could inflame racial tensions. Seven men - six north Africans and one eastern European - were arrested during the raid. Last night two were still being held under the terrorism act.

Our father, The Reverend Orrin D. Judd, used to have a pair of hip waders for when he baptized folks, maybe this is similar.

---

LET'S GET IT ON:

Hezbollah warns America will face Israel's fate if it attacks Iraq (The Associated Press, 1/26/03)

The United States will face resistance from Iraqis similar to what Palestinians are waging against Israel if Washington invades Iraq, the leader of the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah said Saturday.

If Americans move against Iraq, "they will put themselves in a confrontation of the sort" the Israelis are facing, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said without elaborating.

Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim movement backed by Iran and Syria, has no love for President Saddam Hussein, whose government has crushed the Shiite opposition in Iraq. But the Lebanese guerrilla group, which fought Israel in southern Lebanon for 18 years until the Israelis withdrew more than two years ago, has strong animosity toward Israel and the United States, which consider it a terrorist organization.

Hopefully Hezbollah is stupid enough to do something to provoke us, because Southern Lebanon needs to be cleaned out too.

---

ADD TWO MORE LATERALS TO OUR UNI:

Saudi Says OPEC Could Fill Output Gap (DAVID McHUGH, January 26, 2003, AP)

Report: Turkey, U.S. Agree on Troops (AP, January 26, 2003)

Soon we might even have a multi.

---

DEUS LO VOLT!:

How the Media Misconstrue Jihad and the Crusades (Timothy Furnish, 1-13-03, History New Network)

It's axiomatic among historians that winners write (or sometimes rewrite) history. How strange it is, then, that on thetopic of Jihads and their Western analog, the Crusades, the losers in the post-1492 struggle for world mastery (the Islamic world) and their willing spinmeisters (academics and media pundits) are currently foisting their ahistorical views on the rest of us.

That view, a two-sided coin of deceit, consists of the following contentions: 1) that jihad almost always means "moral self-improvement in order to please God" and, on the rare occasion that it does take martial form, it only does so as a desperate defensive measure against the Christian West; and 2) that the history of Christian-Muslim interaction is almost entirely one of invasion and exploitation of the latter by the former, exemplified by the Crusades.

As examples, consider these recent propaganda gems:

1) MSNBC, in a segment discussing the new PBS video "Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet" (Dec. 18, 2002), runs a graphic explaining that the true definition of jihad is "the struggle to please God."

2) History Channel/A & E's recent (summer 2002) "Inside Islam" special presents the Crusades as the first violent struggle between Christendom and the Islamic world.

3)U.S. News and World Report's cover story "The First Holy War" (April 8, 2002) does likewise, claiming that "during the Crusades, East and West first met--on the battlefield."

4) History Channel/A & E's (otherwise fine) 1995 video series "The Crusades" (hosted by former Monty Python member Terry Jones) has Salah al-Din, the Kurdish Muslim leader who retook Jerusalem from the Crusaders, telling Richard the Lion Heart that "this land has always been ours" and it also avers that jihad only developed as a response to the rapacious Crusades.

5) The PBS video "Islam: Empire of Faith" (2001) presents Islamic military expansion, both pre-modern and Ottoman, as natural and understandable and never calls it by its true name: jihad.

Such examples could be multiplied many fold, if every self-styled expert on Islam who has been interviewed by any American newspaper since 9/11 were adduced. But sticking with the five aforementioned contentions, what is wrong with each of them?

Perhaps it's as easy as this: would the world be a better place today if Christendom or Islam had won the wars of the Crusades decisively?

---

FORCING THE CONTRADICTIONS:

Iraqi Dissidents Meet in Iran to Plan Iraq Entry (ELAINE SCIOLINO, January 26, 2003, NY Times)

More than a dozen exiled Iraqi opposition leaders have quietly gathered in Iran to prepare their entry into northern Iraq, in a sign of Iran's increasing involvement in planning for its neighbor's future.

Iran's welcome of the opposition leaders, who came at the invitation of a senior Iraqi opposition cleric here, was coupled with an official offer of protection into Iraq, the opposition leaders said. They plan to hold meetings there in an area under Kurdish control and out of reach of the government in Baghdad, to designate a small group that will eventually decide on the shape of a government if Saddam Hussein is ousted.

"We are struggling to determine whether or not an Iraqi leadership that can claim legitimacy can emerge," Kenan Makiya, an author and a Brandeis University professor who is part of the delegation, said in an interview.

Mr. Makiya, who was one of three Iraqi opposition leaders to meet President Bush at the White House this month, added: "The Iranians are actually offering to protect us so we can hold our meetings in northern Iraq. Would you believe that?"

Why would it be surprising that the Iranians want to see Saddam dangling from an overpass by piano wire?

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WHAT? NO VIRGINIA WOOLF?:

The Original Band of Brothers (JUDITH SHULEVITZ, January 26, 2003, NY Times)

The men who waged World War II viewed it as a war of ideas as much as of territory, pitting liberal democracy against totalitarianism, and to them intellectual openness seemed like good public relations. Seeking out the new and the challenging is clearly not part of the public relations agenda today. What is, though? The most suggestive of the books in that regard is ''Henry V.'' One imagines that the officers who approved the play had in mind the movies directed by and starring Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh, both of whom interpreted the drama as a stirring battle cry and played young King Harry as a rousing patriot. Olivier's was the more pro-war; he shot his movie in England during World War II and released it in 1945 as a sort of victory whoop. Branagh's movie, filmed in shades of brown and gray in 1989, exhibited some post-Vietnam-era qualms about militarism. On the whole, though, both movies conformed to the critical tradition according to which Henry V embodies the Renaissance ideal of the man of action -- part Christian, part Machiavel, all charisma.

One of the most satisfying things about literature, though, is the way it can turn on those who use it for self-interested reasons. The play's plotline, for instance, offers more commentary on our current situation than the Pentagon probably intended: A newly crowned king's claim to the throne is subject to grave constitutional question, since his father usurped it by murdering its previous holder. The king needs to win his people's trust; he also wants to make them forget his youth as a drunk and a bum. He does exactly that by skillfully and courageously prosecuting a war against France, just as his father told him to do: ''Be it thy course to busy giddy minds / With foreign quarrels.''

Did Shakespeare think Henry was a hero? Critics have argued over this question for two centuries, and even those who say yes admit that ''Henry V,'' though one of the more popular history plays, ranks among the least convincing, emotionally speaking. Shakespeare promised at the end of ''Henry IV, Part 2'' to bring back Henry's mentor, the brilliant clown Falstaff, but he reneged, killing off the old man offstage and leaving ''Henry V'' without a character strong enough to counterbalance the now overbearing king or to provide the clash of perspectives that makes drama persuasive. Shakespeare also packed the play with an unusually high proportion of ringing rhetoric. The only character who shows us his private thoughts is Henry, and he spends much of his brief soliloquy before the Battle of Agincourt whining about having to shoulder the burdens of kingship. When ''Henry V'' works, it is as a purely public spectacle, a hymn to power. Compare it with the other plays, even the other history plays, and it comes off as hollow.

Some critics have gone so far as to claim that not only was Shakespeare's Henry not heroic, he was a war criminal. (''Henry V, War Criminal?'' is in fact the title of a recent essay by Sutherland.) After all, Henry leads his nation into a dangerous, unnecessary and unjustified war. Even Olivier's movie makes a joke out of the Archbishop of Canterbury's self-aggrandizing and self-contradicting speech laying out Henry's supposed dynastic claim to the French crown: halfway through the disquisition, the Bishop of Ely drops the stack of documents meant to bolster Canterbury's case, and the two of them scramble around on the floor to the amusement of all. When Henry lands in France, he turns into a brutal, lawless warrior. He threatens total war -- genocide, infanticide and rape -- against the citizens of the first town he lays siege to, and during the Battle of Agincourt, in a scene cut by both Olivier and Branagh, orders the massacre of all French prisoners for no apparent reason. Both actions have been excused by critics on the grounds that, as one put it, they were ''approved . . . for 15th-century war.'' Sutherland is appalled by that remark: ''Approved? If that were the case, what foe would ever be fool enough to allow himself to be taken captive?''

Considering that we're acting unilaterally, maybe we just want the troops to take pride in being a part of the "happy few". But there is an alternative interpretation of the fact we're distributing Henry V: hopefully, we're getting the men ready to attack France.

MORE:
-Books and battles: Soldiers once took Homer and Les Miserables into battle. But now they are only allowed to read about patriotism (John Sutherland, November 18, 2002, The Guardian)
-Shakespeare, War, and Peace (Joseph R. Stromberg, LewRockwell.com)

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ALONE IN A WORLD THAT'S SO COLD:

Powell: Time running out for Saddam (GEORGE GEDDA, January 26, 2003, Associated Press)

Secretary of State Colin Powell, declaring that the U.N. weapons process in Iraq has run its course, warned Sunday that Saddam Hussein could take advantage of international inaction by using his doomsday weapons or sharing his technology with terrorists.

"The nexus of tyrants and terror, of terrorists and weapons of mass terror, is the greatest danger of our age," Powell said in a speech here.

Powell delivered his remarks to a gathering of political and business leaders on the eve of a report that U.N. inspectors are scheduled to deliver to the U.N. Security Council.

Powell did not explicitly call for an end to the inspections, and some countries believe the process should continue as a means of building more public support for the policies of the Bush administration.

But Powell said he has lost faith in U.N. inspections.

It's hard to recall a time in recent memory when an administration has so thoroughly sandbagged its opponents as did this one by putting Colin Powell out front as the resident "dove" on Iraq. Now the dove is crying havoc and there's nowhere for those who've been singing his praises to hide.

MORE:
War and Consequences: The evidence against Iraq is scanty, the global opposition to an attack growing more vocal. But the Bush team's biggest dove has now grown talons. Will war make us more-or less-secure? (Richard Wolffe and Michael Hirsh, 2/03/03, NEWSWEEK)

Something snapped inside Colin Powell. For two long years the secretary of State had been the biggest dove inside the Bush cabinet, slowing the hawks' headlong rush to war in Iraq.

WHEN HIS ARCHRIVAL, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, had raised the idea of taking on Saddam Hussein only days after 9-11, Powell rolled his eyes in exasperation, insisting Al Qaeda alone should be the focus. Last summer Powell warned President Bush in dire terms not to attack Iraq unilaterally, and prodded him to go to the United Nations. But last week, as Powell listened to Europeans boast about the success of the weapons inspectors in Iraq, his patience finally gave out. Sitting across a long rectangular table inside Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria hotel, the usually genial Powell issued a stark warning to his French counterpart: the clock has run out on Saddam and the United Nations. "Don't underestimate the resolve of the United States to solve this problem without dragging it out," he said. The dove had finally morphed into a hawk.

There is no higher level of spin than that spin which leaves the spun unaware of the spinning. So this "even Powell forced into hawkishness" story is rapidly approaching the status of greatest spin of all time. Look at what even this story says: we did al Qaeda and Afghanistan first, then went to the UN while we built a coalition and moved our forces, now we're getting ready to attack at the optimal time of year. But they perceive sudden and random forces at work?

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LET'S HOPE IT'S THE RALLY MONKEY:

Monkeying with the Market (DAVID ROEDER, January 26, 2003, Chicago Sun-Times)

The elegantly attired Mr. Adam Monk hunched over the Sun-Times' stock tables and was the very image of astuteness and probity.

The 31-year-old alumnus of Duke University scanned the listings, occasionally erupting with an "Eeeeehhh!'' or an "aaahhhh.'' Sometimes he would gaze into the distance and chew thoughtfully on his pen.

It took some coaxing and cogitating but, at the Sun-Times' request, he marked his choices for the best-performing stocks of 2003. And now it's up to you, dear readers, to submit picks that will top his.

If your choices are better, we're sure Mr. Monk won't mind. He has a ready handshake and is very sociable, although he might climb on your shoulder and muss your hair.

Mr. Monk, you see, is a monkey. And he'll set the pace for this year's Sun-Times stock-picking contest, which we call Monkey Business.

What the heck, he can probably write better editorials than most of the folks at The Times.

---

REDEEMING LITTLE ROCK:

Magazine of Southern writing reborn (CHUCK BARTELS, January 26, 2003, Chicago Sun-Times)

The first edition of the relaunched Oxford American is on newsstands with a previously unpublished essay by James Agee about his experiences with racism.

The Pulitzer Prize winner's ''America, Look at Your Shame!'' was discovered among his poetry manuscripts and was inspired by a 1943 race riot outside a Detroit amusement park. Agee, a novelist, poet, screenwriter, critic and journalist, died in 1955.

Billed as ''The Southern Magazine of Good Writing,'' the Oxford American almost folded last year. It was taken over by At Home Media Group Inc., publishers of an interior decorating magazine. The new owners moved the publication from Oxford, Miss., to its new home in Little Rock.

Now, with the Agee essay and a travel story about motel life from novelist Charles Portis, who wrote the novel that inspired the John Wayne movie ''True Grit,'' the winter 2003 edition is trying to increase its circulation.

Charles Portis is always worth reading.

---

OPEN THE POD BAY DOOR, HAL:

Chess champ takes on computer (ERIN MCCLAM, January 26, 2003, Chicago Sun-Times)

Chess legend Garry Kasparov, still bitter over losing six years ago to the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue, is about to take on a machine programmers say is an even more cunning opponent.

In six games beginning Sunday, Kasparov will match wits with an Israeli-programmed computer called Deep Junior. And this time, Kasparov says, it's a fair fight.

''Deep Blue was more about PR, selling the story, scaring the human race,'' he said.

Kasparov's 1997 defeat by Deep Blue was seen as a watershed moment for technology. But Kasparov, 39, has claimed the computer might have received human hints, and he complains it was quickly dismantled after the event.

By contrast, his six games against Deep Junior, beginning Sunday in New York, will be sanctioned by the international governing body of chess and will be subject to a human appeals committee to guarantee fairness.

Time to win one for the species, Mr. Kasparov.

MORE:
Bruce Cleaver writes:

If any of OJ's readers (Annoying Old Guy comes to mind) wish to watch a blow-by-blow account done by world-class computer chess programmers, try the following link:

http://www.talkchess.com/forums/1/index.html

Registration is required. I lurk/post there, and the site is chock full of people who know the art in nerd-level detail....

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RIGHT ON THE PROBLEM, WRONG ON THE ANSWER:

Erasing Trent Lott's legacy (Jack E. White, TIME)

I'm convinced that the Democratic Party's virtual monopoly on the black vote is bad for African Americans. It's the foundation of a demeaning form of political serfdom, a Plantation Politics that we will never be free of as long as Democrats take our votes for granted. We've been trying to find a way out of this bind since the 1960s, when militants proposed the creation of a black third party that could deliver our votes to the party that offered us most. [...]

Many blacks have become disillusioned by the cynicism of the Democrats' quadrennial rallying of the black vote, which typically involves sending out Jesse Jackson to round us up and deliver us to the polling place--only to ignore some issues that matter to blacks until the next election.

A case in point: a recent survey by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think tank based in Washington, shows that 60% of blacks support vouchers, but almost all prominent Democrats are staunchly opposed to them. They aren't even willing to find out whether giving black kids in lousy public schools the chance to attend private or parochial institutions could help close the academic gap between black and white students, the most urgent racial problem we're facing.

The hostility to vouchers is usually phrased in sanctimonious rhetoric about preserving the public school system--often mouthed by Democrats, including Jackson, who sent their children to private schools. That sort of hypocrisy helps explain why the Joint Center recently found that only 62% of blacks ages 18 to 35 identify themselves as Democrats, compared with more than 80% of blacks older than 35.

So far, only 6% of younger blacks say they are Republicans, but those numbers could grow if Republicans made a real effort to expand their outreach.

Mr. White is absolutely correct that lockstep black fealty to a Democrat Party that can therefore take them for granted is a disaster for black Americans. However, he seems rather confused about the steps that should follow this recognition. The series of Republican victories in recent years (since '94) have come with as little as single digit black support, suggesting that the GOP neither needs blacks nor "owes" them anything. Despite this, as Mr. White himself points out, the GOP is better on such issues as vouchers than Democrats.

So the question now is: what are blacks willing to do to solve what has become a major political problem for them (their servility to the Democrats) and to repay the Republican Party that has been carrying their water for free? Are blacks prepared to repay their debt to President Bush and the GOP, or will they continue to bite the hand that helps them?

---

WITH APOLOGIES TO MRS. MURTAUGH:

Why Is Baseball So Much Better Than Football? (Thomas Boswell, January 18, 1987, Washington Post)

1. Bands.

2. Half time with bands.

3. Cheerleaders at half time with bands.

4. Up With People singing "The Impossible Dream" during a Blue Angels flyover at half time with bands.

5. Baseball has fans in Wrigley Field singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" at the seventh-inning stretch.

6. Baseball has Blue Moon, Catfish, Spaceman and The Sugar Bear. Football has Lester the Molester, Too Mean and The Assassin. [...]

9. Baseball has a bullpen coach blowing bubble gum with his cap turned around backward while leaning on a fungo bat; football has a defensive coordinator in a satin jacket with a headset and a clipboard. [...]

12. Vince Lombardi was never ashamed that he said, "Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing."

The whole thing is great, but one line in particular sums the matter up: "Marianne Moore loved Christy Mathewson. No woman of quality has ever preferred football to baseball."

MORE:
Baseball and Writing (Marianne Moore)

Fanaticism? No. Writing is exciting
and baseball is like writing.
You can never tell with either
how it will go
or what you will do;
generating excitement -
a fever in the victim -
pitcher, catcher, fielder, batter.
Victim in what category?
Owlman watching from the press box?
To whom does it apply?
Who is excited? Might it be I?

It's a pitcher's battle all the way - a duel -
a catcher's, as, with cruel
puma paw, Elston Howard lumbers lightly
back to plate. (His spring
de-winged a bat swing.)
They have that killer instinct;
yet Elston - whose catching
arm has hurt them all with the bat -
when questioned, says, unenviously,
"I'm very satisfied. We won."
Shorn of the batting crown, says, "We";
robbed by a technicality.

When three players on a side play three positions
and modify conditions,
the massive run need not be everything.
"Going, going . . . " Is
it? Roger Maris
has it, running fast. You will
never see a finer catch. Well . . .
"Mickey, leaping like the devil" - why
gild it, although deer sounds better -
snares what was speeding towards its treetop nest,
one-handing the souvenir-to-be
meant to be caught by you or me.

Assign Yogi Berra to Cape Canaveral;
he could handle any missile.
He is no feather. "Strike! . . . Strike two!"
Fouled back. A blur.
It's gone. You would infer
that the bat had eyes.
He put the wood to that one.
Praised, Skowron says, "Thanks, Mel.
I think I helped a little bit."
All business, each, and modesty.
Blanchard, Richardson, Kubek, Boyer.
In that galaxy of nine, say which
won the pennant? Each. It was he.

Those two magnificent saves from the knee-throws
by Boyer, finesses in twos -
like Whitey's three kinds of pitch and pre-
diagnosis
with pick-off psychosis.
Pitching is a large subject.
Your arm, too true at first, can learn to
catch your corners - even trouble
Mickey Mantle. ("Grazed a Yankee!
My baby pitcher, Montejo!"
With some pedagogy,
you'll be tough, premature prodigy.)

They crowd him and curve him and aim for the knees. Trying
indeed! The secret implying:
"I can stand here, bat held steady."
One may suit him;
none has hit him.
Imponderables smite him.
Muscle kinks, infections, spike wounds
require food, rest, respite from ruffians. (Drat it!
Celebrity costs privacy!)
Cow's milk, "tiger's milk," soy milk, carrot juice,
brewer's yeast (high-potency -
concentrates presage victory

sped by Luis Arroyo, Hector Lopez -
deadly in a pinch. And "Yes,
it's work; I want you to bear down,
but enjoy it
while you're doing it."
Mr. Houk and Mr. Sain,
if you have a rummage sale,
don't sell Roland Sheldon or Tom Tresh.
Studded with stars in belt and crown,
the Stadium is an adastrium.
O flashing Orion,
your stars are muscled like the lion.

---

A STRANGER TO GRACE:

Portrait of a Laddie (MAUREEN DOWD, 1/26/03, NY Times)

In my last column, I cited a Time article reporting that the president had "quietly reinstated" a custom of sending a wreath to the Confederate Memorial. Time has since corrected the story, saying he didn't revive the custom, but simply continued it.

I would still ask: Why keep a tradition of honoring the Confederacy while you're going to court to stop a tradition of helping black students at the University of Michigan?

Well, even if it's ungracious, it's at least an acknowledgment of error. Perhaps though we might render her question this way: why honor men who fought to preserve a system of racial spoils while you're going to Court to fight a new system of racial spoils? She's right: no more wreath and no more affirmative action.

---

BOOKNOTES:

Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War by Robert Coram (C-SPAN, January 26, 2003, 8 & 11 pm)

---

FUNKY BONE:

Fred Wesley: 'Recollections of a Sideman': Trombonist's Memoir Covers Half a Century of Musical Influence (All Things Considered, 1/25/03, NPR)

This is a great interview with Fred Wesley, who not only played in the bands of Count Basie, Ike Turner, James Brown and George Clinton, but tells how, when he played in the U.S. Army band in the mid-60's, he and his bandmates were America's first line of defense against Chemical, Biological, and Nuclear attack. It's worth listening to just for his generous but brutally honest comments about the Godfather of Soul. The book sounds fascinating.

---

ENVYING NEW YORKERS:

Jonathan Schwartz - The Sunday Show (Hosted by Jonathan Schwartz, Airs Sundays at 12PM on 93.9 FM)

If you're lucky enough--one of the few times it is lucky--to live in the Tri-State area, don't forget to tune in to Jonathan Schwartz today for his annual Superbowl Sunday Salute to Baseball.

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OLD AND IN THE WAY:

Paris and Berlin: the axis of weasel (Ferdinand Mount, January 26, 2003, The Sunday Times)

Yet Rumsfeld’s rebuke is positively mild beside some of the language being applied in the United States to the peace-loving Europeans. "Euroweenies", "cheese-eating surrender monkeys", "destined to slip down the Eurinal of history" and a "pain in the butt" are only some of the more printable insults.

Anti-Americanism in France has a long history. But now for the first time it is matched by knee-jerk anti-Europeanism coming from all sorts of Americans from the taxi driver to the defence secretary. The difference is that the bomb-happy rednecks don't worry about the limp-wristed frog-eaters nearly as much as the French worry about the onward march of American power and influence through the world--and especially through France. [...]

No doubt France and Germany will in due course recover that marvellous post-war elan which took them from their ground zero to the heights of the 1960s and 1970s. But it is silly to pretend they have begun to recover it yet.

You have only to look at the barmy scheme they have just concocted for not one but two elected presidents of the EU to see that an incestuous politics of gesture and posture is no sort of answer. Whether you agree with them or not, the painful reality is that the opposition of France and Germany poses only a minor inconvenience to whatever the Americans choose to do in Iraq.

Rumsfeld is a cantankerous old boy. His three little words were wounding and were meant to wound. They recall Dean Acheson's remark that Britain had lost an empire but had not yet found a role. That hurt, too. But in the long run it did us good.
For those of you unfamiliar, Mr. Mount was a Thatcherite and is now a fine novelist.

MORE:
-LECTURE: The Recovery of the Constitution (Ferdinand Mount, Charter88 Sovereignty lecture, 11 May 1992)

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THERE'S A REASON HELL IS HOT:

The Snow Man (Wallace Stevens)

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Sure, it's existentialist twaddle, but it fits the season.

---

GIVE THE REVEREND SHARPTON HIS MICHIGAN POINTS:

Give president 150 points for duplicity (Cynthia Tucker, 01/26/03, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

While the admissions staff are looking to admit a "critical mass" of underrepresented minorities, they read each application and judge it on its merits.

In the legalisms of affirmative action, the word "quota" has a specific meaning. The Bakke case, which struck down quotas, invalidated a California medical school admissions policy that specifically set aside 16 seats for minority applicants. The Michigan program has no such rigid numeric goal.

But the Bush White House has conjured up a new meaning by analyzing years of law school admissions and discovering that, each year, the class happens to have an enrollment of minorities that hovers between 12 and 20 percent (a significant spread).

That, they claim, is a hidden quota.

By that logic, the U.S. Senate and the Oval Office have a quota of zero for African-Americans. If you analyze the history of both institutions, you will find that the Oval Office has never had a black occupant and the U.S. Senate usually does not. Who will file the lawsuit protesting the quota system in the highest levels of national politics?

Ridiculous? So is the president's claim that the University of Michigan uses a quota system.

What in the heck is a "critical mass" if not a predetermined minimum of minority students? And what is she talking about in that Senate and presidency riff? For it to be at all analogous we'd need weighted voting. For example, if the Democrats are serious about affirmative action and about this system being worthwhile, how about a primary system that gives black candidates an extra 15% when the votes are tallied?

---

THE MOSS WITH TWO BACKS:

British Moss Breaks Century of Celibacy (John Pickrell, January 23, 2003, National Geographic News)

A rare species of moss, found only in a few European locations, has fruited for the first time in nearly 140 years.

Prior to last fall, when fruiting carpets of Nowell's moss were discovered in a rural area of northwest England, the species hadn't been known to reproduce sexually since 1866.

Cue Carly Simon.

---

TWO WINGS GOOD, FOUR WINGS BAD:

Four-Winged Dinosaurs and the Dawn of Flight (Kate Wong, January 23, 2003, Scientific American)

The ancestors of birds may have taken to the air on four wings and a prayer. Paleontologists have recovered from deposits in Liaoning, China, dinosaur fossils that exhibit evidence of flight feathers on their hindlimbs as well as their forelimbs. The specimens are said to represent a long-sought intermediate stage in the evolution of birds from flightless theropod dinosaurs, and could breathe new life into the theory that protobirds glided between trees before developing powered, flapping flight.
Evolutionary biologists have long debated whether birds began winging it by gliding among the trees or by racing along on the ground. The latter scenario has gained favor in recent years. But the new finds, described in a report published today in the journal Nature, "provide negative evidence for the ground-up hypothesis" and instead support the arboreal gliding scenario, assert study author Xing Xu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and his colleagues. [...]

Xu and his collaborators base their conclusions on the long aerodynamic feathers that cover the fore- and hindlimbs of Microraptor according to the same pattern seen on modern bird wings. Long feathers around the ankles would have made traveling on the ground difficult. But the forelimb and hindlimb feathers "would make a perfect aerofoil together," the authors write, likening it to the membrane employed by bats and gliding animals.

Well, obviously not perfect, or natural selection wouldn't have disposed of them, would it?

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A CONSTITUTION THE LEFT LOVES TO IGNORE:

A Ruling the G.O.P. Loves to Hate (Jack M. Balkin, January 25, 2003, NY Times)

Thirty years after Roe v. Wade, many wonder how long the decision can survive when the Republican Party controls all of the branches of government.
Republicans may well chip away at Roe v. Wade. But if they overturn it, they do so at their peril.

The contemporary Republican Party is a coalition. It contains religious and social conservatives who are strongly opposed to abortion, and economic conservatives, libertarians and suburbanites who may be quite moderate on abortion rights or even strongly pro-choice. Today, the abortion struggle largely revolves around issues like late-term abortions, parental consent requirements and restrictions on public financing. Moderate voters can accept many if not most of these regulations because the basic right to abortion is still protected.

But if Roe v. Wade were overturned, the political agenda would shift. Early-term abortion would no longer be constitutionally insulated from federal or state efforts to outlaw it. In response, some states would restrict or abolish abortion rights. Social and religious conservatives would also press for abolition of abortion at the national level. For Republican candidates, it would no longer be just a question of defending limited restrictions on abortion. They would have to explain whether they were willing to send women and their doctors off to jail. [...]

In a world with Roe v. Wade intact, the Republicans are not just the party of the religious right, but also the party of lower taxes and strong national defense.

To some, Roe v. Wade symbolizes the Supreme Court's failure to bring consensus to a divided country. But in areas like religion or abortion, that is precisely the wrong expectation. Roe is not supposed to eliminate controversy. Rather, it functions as a lightning rod, drawing political heat away from the democratic process and onto the Supreme Court itself.

I don't know what kind of Republicans Mr. Balkin hangs out with, but I know of fairly few who consider our current tax scheme to have been a good trade for 40 million abortions and know of none who think it a good thing for the Supreme Court to supplant the democratic process. In fact, the circumvention of the democratic process that Mr. Balkin accurately portrays the Court as having engaged in is cause ample cause for impeachment. You'd think a law professor might have a bit more respect for the Constitution, if not for either the convictions of his opponents or the lives of abortion's victims.

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HOW MANY LATERALS DOES IT TAKE TO MAKE A MULTI?:

Japan to back U.S. independent military operation against Iraq (Japan Today, January 25, 2003)

Japan will support the United States even if Washington independently launches a military attack against Iraq, under conditions that the U.N. Security Council finds Iraq in "serious violation" of U.N. resolutions regarding its weapons of mass destruction, government sources said Friday.

Japan has also begun studying how to secure escape routes of Japanese citizens staying in Iraq and how Tokyo should contribute to international society on the assumption that the U.S. will launch an attack as early as mid-February, they said.

The moves follow visits to the U.S. earlier this month by senior Foreign Ministry officials, including North American Affairs Bureau chief Shin Ebihara, who were seeking information on Washington's stance, they said.

The officials found it likely the U.S. will launch a strike against Iraq as early as mid-February when its military buildup will be complete, they said.

If our side has Britain, Australia, Italy, Spain, Japan, all of Eastern Europe, etc., in what sense are we being unilateral? And, if Saddam's side has only traditional tyrannies like France, Germany and Russia, then who cares if we're being "unilateral"?

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A QUIZ:

One of these things is not like the others:

H.D. Miller; Robert Fisk; Saddam; the French.

The answer's obvious, but, oddly enough, they've all converged here: Saddam and the French (H.D. Miller, 1/25/03, Travelling Shoes)

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GET THE LUX:

Curse of the Foul Mouth: It's not just celebrities. Profanity is everywhere. (GENE VEITH, January 24, 2003, Wall Street Journal)

Bad language used to be associated with the lower classes--hence the term "vulgarity." But it is now an affectation of celebrities and macho corporate go-getters. Even sailors and peasants watched their language around ladies and children, but now family gatherings at the ballpark must endure obscenities from neighboring fans. Women are swearing the same blue streak as men, and young children don't seem to have their mouths washed out with soap. A recent Washington Post op-ed lamented the common experience of finding oneself in a subway car "filled with cursing students."

What difference does it make? What is so bad about bad language? In fact, language taboos carry moral and spiritual significance in every culture.

Like many a son of a preacher man, I have a foul mouth, and, like most of us once we have kids, I wish I didn't. The older I get the stupider I think I sound when I swear (though I'll go to my grave appreciating the value of a well timed "Holy Crap!"). In fact, one of the few rules we try to enforce in our comments section is that posters please not use profanity nor slurs (for instance, because Muslims find Mohammedan to be an offensive term, we'd rather no one use it here). Thus, you can feel free to call me an "idiot", just not a "f**in idiot". I may be one, but there's no reason other people should be subjected to your profanity.

MORE:
N.B. Some of you may have noticed that while I try to use Mr. and Ms in references to people in the text of our posts, I do use first names, nicknames, or even initials in the comments. Typically, I do try to use Mr. or Ms until you've posted a few times, but if we've had prior discussions, especially if you've e-mailed us, I'm likely to switch to more familiar usage. This is not meant to imply any disrespect, particularly by comparison to the newsworthy but often nitwitish folks in the posts; rather it's intended to be friendly. However, please feel free to email me if you have a preferred name that you wish to be addressed by (or for any other reason--many of the posts here are suggested by y'all and I do answer every one).

Meanwhile, you can call me anything you want, though most folks call me O, OJ, Juice, or Mr. Judd depending on the vintage of our relationship and our respective ages.

I can't tell you how many times people have told me, or I've seen references at other sites, of the quality of the comments that people put up here. I agree with those who say the comments are better than anything I have to say (with the sole exception of the Darwinian nonsense that some of you adhere to and the occassional defense of soccer). We humbly thank all of you who participate and who endeavor to steer your poor misguided hosts a little nearer to the truth.

Finally, I try, sometimes more successfully than others, to leave my personal life out of the posts. Personally, I'd rather put my fist in a blender than read about every moment of a blogger's day. So, I was flattered that folks wrote last weekend to ask if I was okay or if the Other Brother had staged a coup, but I honestly just assume that folks don't care a whit if the Wife dragged me to FL, thereby violating the State Border Rule, but preserving the Time Zone Rule intact. So, don't worry, this overly first person post will not become a habit.

Be well. Stay warm. Pitchers and catchers report in a few weeks and all will once again be well with the world,
O

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THERE'S STILL SOME LIFE IN THE RED ARMY FACTION:

Blue Movie: The "morality gap" is becoming the key variable in American politics (Thomas Byrne Edsall, January/February 2003, The Atlantic Monthly)

Early in the 1996 election campaign Dick Morris and Mark Penn, two of Bill Clinton's advisers, discovered a polling technique that proved to be one of the best ways of determining whether a voter was more likely to choose Clinton or Bob Dole for President. Respondents were asked five questions, four of which tested attitudes toward sex: Do you believe homosexuality is morally wrong? Do you ever personally look at pornography? Would you look down on someone who had an affair while married? Do you believe sex before marriage is morally wrong? The fifth question was whether religion was very important in the voter's life.

Respondents who took the "liberal" stand on three of the five questions supported Clinton over Dole by a two-to-one ratio; those who took a liberal stand on four or five questions were, not surprisingly, even more likely to support Clinton. The same was true in reverse for those who took a "conservative" stand on three or more of the questions. (Someone taking the liberal position, as pollsters define it, dismisses the idea that homosexuality is morally wrong, admits to looking at pornography, doesn't look down on a married person having an affair, regards sex before marriage as morally acceptable, and views religion as not a very important part of daily life.) According to Morris and Penn, these questions were better vote predictors-and better indicators of partisan inclination-than anything else except party affiliation or the race of the voter (black voters are overwhelmingly Democratic). [...]

The demographic reality is that as currently constituted, liberal Blue America is growing and conservative Red America is in decline. Take church attendance. Exit polls in 2000 showed that the more often a voter attended religious services, the more likely he or she would be to cast a ballot for the Republican Party. But long-range trends in religiosity (the term sociologists use for "depth or intensity of religiousness"), as measured by the National Election Studies polling series on church attendance, do not favor the Republicans. From 1972 to 2000 the proportion of voters who said they attended services every week dropped from 38 to 25 percent. The proportion who said they went "almost" every week remained nearly constant at 11 to 12 percent, and the proportion who attended "once or twice a month" rose only slightly, from 12 percent to 16 percent. The proportion who attended just "a few times a year" dropped from 30 to 16 percent. The one group that has grown dramatically consists of those who never go to church or synagogue. This group, which has become a mainstay of liberal politics, made up just 11 percent of the population in 1972 but 33 percent in 2000.

Thus if the Republican Party hopes to build on its 2002 gains, it must continue to mute its social conservatism when speaking to the public. President Bush did just that at a press conference right after the November election, when he pointedly ignored a question about whether social conservatives should "push for new restrictions on abortion," instead focusing on issues of national security. In that press conference he used the words "war," "threat," "terror," "terrorism," "terrorists," and "nuclear" a total of forty-five times.

Many House and Senate Republicans, however, are eager to revive a conservative social agenda. In order to keep his party ascendant Bush will have to hold in check both the Senate conservatives, who have already promised to bring to the floor legislation banning so-called partial-birth abortion, and the House majority leader Tom DeLay, an adamant opponent of abortion rights. (Currently, congressional conservatives are seriously promoting at least three anti-abortion bills.) Bush and his strategists are fully aware that positioning the Republican Party as the party of sexual repression would be devastating to its electoral prospects-but the conservative right is not likely to accede to further delay of its agenda after years of waiting for action under Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. For this reason judicial appointments will also present a major challenge for Bush, because social conservatives consider the federal judiciary to be the prime vehicle for reversing the sexual revolution.

As long as al Qaeda, Iraq, and North Korea dominate the news, the Republicans will be able to maintain their slight advantage. But should war fade into the background, or as soon as emboldened congressional Republicans begin moving to restrict Americans' sexual autonomy, the currently weakened Democratic Party will be positioned to push back with the kind of vitality that propelled Bill Clinton to victory in 1992 and 1996. Lest 1996 seem like ancient history to Republicans, they should recall that more-recent elections demonstrated the power of the electorate's new morality quite vividly: in both 1998 and 2000 (the former a midterm election, when the presidential party traditionally loses ground in Congress) the Democrats gained seats in the House. And these gains came despite-and perhaps because of (insofar as they represented a reaction against the Republican-led drive to impeach Bill Clinton)-their following soon after the most explicit sex scandal in the history of the Oval Office.

As a rule of thumb, any time you read an essay by somebody where they argue that the ideology of the winning party in an election didn't matter you should approach it skeptically. This one is particularly nonsensical. I'm aware of no one who would fail to acknowledge that Bill Clinton won in 1992 by running to the Right on moral issues. From executing even an imbecilic inmate to promising to make abortion rare to confronting a rapper in front of Jesse Jackson to taking on George Bush Sr. on the issue of Tienanmen Square, half of his campaign--the half that wasn't "the economy stupid"--was an intentional blurring of the moral lines between the two parties. In fact, it's a conspicuous fact that the only two Democrats elected president in the last third of a century were born-again Christian Southerners. Indeed, in the nine elections since Barry Goldwater lost to LBJ the candidate who made the greatest effort to position himself as the champion of traditional morality has won.

Meanwhile, Mr. Edsall seems not to have noticed that since the Republican Revolution of '94, which was largely based on moral issues, the GOP has held the House for six straight cycles and would have maintained control of the Senate through that period were it not for Jim Jeffords. We can argue about how conservative the Revolution actually turned out to be, but there's no question that in the popular media the Republicans were portrayed as near Victorians, right down to the orphanages. If their position as the party of morality has hurt them it's awfully hard to see how.

Mr. Edsall's dismissal of the war is also strange. War is after all a moral pursuit. the very fact that it's benefitting the GOP suggests that the loss of any claim to the mantle of morality has devastated Democrats. Recall that WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam were all Democrat wars. In fact, except for two years, the entire Cold War was waged with Democrats running the House and for most of that time the Senate too. It is a recent phenomenon that voters find it absurd to consider trusting Democrats with our national security, and it's not a phenomenon to be taken lightly.

Lastly, Mr. Edsall seems to have mistaken one sociological trend for another, very different one. He's noted that people are bowling alone and leapt to the conclusion that they've stopped bowling. In a society where folks have stopped doing much of anything together, it's hardly surprising that church attendance has declined. However there seems to be only minor slippage in the numbers of people who consider themselves to be either religious or spiritual. Not only that, but the irreligious are unlikely to a growing demographic in and of themselves. They may stand to gain members as portions of the culture become more secular, but since these people tend to be relatively affluent and socially liberal they tend not to have many kids. They are a self-limiting group. Meanwhile, if Mr. Edsall's proposed "gap" is accurate, and it seems to be, over time you'd expect Democrats who take morality seriously to gravitate towards the GOP and the demographic group that's actually growing quickly--Hispanics--tends to be predominantly religious and morally conservative. If American politics is dividing over morality them why won't Hispanics trend Republican?

The most difficult poll number for Mr. Edsall to overcome though is that the period of decline in Americans' church attendance has seen a spectacular shift in the relative numbers who identify themselves as Republicans and conservatives and a corresponding decline for Democrats and liberals, so that Republicans are now evenly matched with Democrats among voters and far more people self-identify as conservative than as liberal. It is perhaps too easy to forget what a monumental change this is in a country where Democrats dominated Congress for over sixty years and where conservatism was thought to be dead as recently as 1964.

To take just one issue: if you are arguing that staking out a moral position against abortion is dangerous, it would seem to be significant that more Americans consider abortion to be immoral than consider it moral and that large majorities support numerous restrictions that would fundamentally reshape the practice of abortion in America. It can be argued that people are willing, even eager, to set their moral qualms aside on this issue, but that's an argument you need to make and you probably need to explain why pro-life candidates won in races this November where their opponents made abortion a primary issue. Similarly, it's all well and good to imagine that Americans support something like gay rights, but an 85-14 Senate vote against gay marriage suggests that view is divorced from political reality. And, though it must make liberals cringe to contemplate, polling that shows only one in ten Americans believe in evolution is hardly a ringing endorsement of secularism.

As a conservative, and therefore a pessimist, I'd acknowledge that Mr. Edsall may be right in the long run. I regret the likelihood that my grandchildren will live in a place indistinguishable from France. However, I don't necessarily think that's inevitable; it for damn sure isn't imminent; and we should do everything in our power to prevent it.

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WORLD'S GREATEST ATHLETE:

Serena completes her 'Slam' (PHIL BROWN, January 25, 2003, Chicao Sun-Times)

Serena Slam or Sister Slam--no matter what you call it, Serena Williams is truly grand.

Williams survived an error-filled match to beat elder sister Venus 7-6 (4), 3-6, 6-4 Saturday to win the Australian Open for her fourth straight major championship.

Serena added another Grand Slam title to the French Open, U.S. Open and Wimbledon crowns she won last year, all against her sister.

After Venus slumped through four straight errors in the final game, the sisters met at the net to put their arms around each other's shoulders and whisper in each other's ears. While Serena blew kisses to the crowd, Venus applauded with her racket.

With Michael old, Shaq hurt, Tiger MIA, and Lance Armstrong a mere bicycle rider, Serena may well be the world's greatest athlete at the moment.

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THE BUSHOCENTRIC UNIVERSE::

Why Bush Won't Wait: President Bush says he has not yet decided whether to go to war with Iraq, but this week the signs were that he had all but given up on peace. (BILL KELLER, 1/25/03, NY Times)

So far in its showdown with Iraq, the Bush administration has mostly done the right things, though often with a disheartening lack of finesse. Mr. Bush was right to identify Saddam Hussein as a menace, right to mobilize our might to prove we mean business, right to seek the blessing of Congress and the Security Council. A credible demonstration of will has produced tangible results. The inspectors are at work. Arab neighbors are looking for ways the Iraqis can solve their Saddam problem short of an invasion. (The prospect of a coup or an asylum deal for Saddam may be remote, but give them credit for creative thinking.) Saudi Arabia was moved, first, to propose a peace plan for Israel and Palestine, and second, to suggest a charter for political and economic reform in the Arab world.

There are compelling reasons for war with Iraq. Mr. Bush has been wise to emphasize the danger Saddam poses because of his unrelenting campaign to acquire weapons of horrible power. His mere possession of such weapons would give him daunting power in a vital region.

Many Americans and some of our allies have mistaken inspection for an answer to this problem. In fact, inspections have always been a way to buy some time, during which the regime might crumble, or Iraq might shock us all by really surrendering its weapons, or Iraqi non-compliance would exhaust the patience of even the French. Eventually, though, the inspectors go away, and if Saddam is still in place his quest for the nuclear grail resumes, presumably with fiercer motivation than before. [...]

What Mr. Bush has failed to do over these months of agitation is to explain his urgency to the American public or our allies. In the year since the "axis of evil" speech, popular support for war has declined by at least 10 points. It's not that people doubt Saddam is a danger. They just think Mr. Bush is in too much of a rush. They want to see the evidence the president claims to have. They would like to know what costs and dangers we're in for. Most of all, they want the world, as much as possible, with us.

Presidents should not make decisions of war and peace based on polls. (Mr. Bush's father launched the last war against Iraq with less support than the current president has.) Nor should our national interests be decided by the faintest hearts among our allies. But the dwindling of support here and resentment abroad represent a failure to persuade, and persuading is worth taking some time.

Mr. Keller's long work on the comparison of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush below seems to have given him the best insight into the current president that anyone at the Times has had since Frank Bruni. But even Mr. Bruni didn't figure things out until after the 2000 campaign and Mr. Keller still has a ways to go too and here he also overestimates both the attention span and the seriousness of the American people.

The current poll numbers, for both the president and his Iraq policy, are nearly identical to what they were in early September, at the end of another long period of presidential silence on the matter. But, if you'll recall, all it required was one presidential address to the U.N. and the polls and the international community's position changed dramatically. There's no reason to believe that a simple reminder from the President about why we're going to war won't move the numbers and opinion again.

Meanwhile, what Mr. Keller appears to have missed in his study of the President is that Mr. Bush and Karl Rove were serious in 2000, when they talked about increasing presidential leverage by shutting up. If Bill Clinton were president now, we'd see him on tv every day making pronouncements on all kinds of issues but keeping Iraq on the front burner. The problem with that kind of omnipresence is that eventually Iraq becomes indistinguishable from school uniforms or midnight basketball programs and, because the president is yammering every day, there's no such thing as an important speech, it's just one more speech in a cascade of hundreds. On the other hand, by limiting President Bush's press availability and his set piece addresses, each takes on an enhanced importance. Because Mr. Bush isn't in our faces every night, telling us that whatever's on his mind at the moment is central to the life of the nation, when he does actually come before the nation and tell us something is important it really stands out.

Imagine for a moment that Bill Clinton had been confronted with the stem-cell research decision: he'd have spent weeks mulling it over in public, telling us that on the one hand this and the other that. Contrast that with President Bush, who made one speech about it and the policy, whether wise or not, was set. Mr. Bush and Mr. Rove comprehend that presidential capital with the public is most valuable when it is spent rarely. Mr. Bush is as parsimonious with his presence at the bully pulpit as Mr. Clinton was profligate.

That may well be because the key to this sort of use of silence is a centeredness and a supreme self-confidence that, as Mr. Keller writes in his other piece, Mr. Bush shares with Mr. Reagan, but of which rather few other recent presidents have partaken. This is so because you need to know what you think, unlike Mr. Clinton who tended to turn every issue into a psychodrama that he'd then enact before us, being on one side of an issue one day and on the other the next. Equally important, you need to be able to stand aloof from the criticism of the press and political opponents and able to not worry too much about bureaucratic infighting in your own administration. Folks who haven't figured this out look at the (supposed) disagreements between Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld and say that the President hasn't made up his mind. In reality, it is precisely because he knows his own mind and what he plans to do with regard to Iraq--and has planned to do in all likelihood since before he became president--that Mr. Bush need pay little attention to such mere squabbles. Moreover, the seeming indecision below serves his own purposes. Democrats, Europeans, and the Times have staked their opposition to the war on Mr. Powell, and have therefore built him up into the sole voice of reason among the hawks. So where do they go when Mr. Powell, this paragon of world leadership, announces that there's no longer any rational alternative but war, which he's close to saying right now?

On Tuesday, President Bush will give the State of the Union speech, and for the first time since his September address at the UN he'll lay out the case for war in a comprehensive way. Comparing the two speeches it will be evident that over those five months the President has not wavered in the slightest, merely given the rest of the world an opportunity to enter into an often wobbly orbit around his position, that of regime change. In this sense, when we speak of a Ronald Reagan or a George W. Bush as men of gravity, it is nearly literal. Such men remain at the center and exert an attracting force on all that surround them. They affect events far more than they are affected by them.

In the following days (by the end of February) the administration will release intelligence that proves Saddam to have been thwarting inspections and Colin Powell will make his official pronouncement that Saddam's hour of reckoning has come. The polls and public opinion will, at that point, take care of themselves. Only someone who's too shallow to lead a great nation would be worried about his approval numbers at this point in the game.

MORE:
Bush to Gird U.S. for Prospect of War in Speech (Steve Holland, Jan. 24, 2003, Reuters)
Bush Creates Office in Post-Saddam Plan: Bush Creates New Pentagon-Based Office As Part of Post-Saddam Planning (The Associated Press, Jan. 22, 2003)
An anxious America keeps on smiling (James Harding, January 25 2003, Financial Times)

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IT'S OUR MONEY, GIVE IT BACK:

Democrats Seek a Tax Rebate to Aid Growth: Responding to the Bush tax cut plan, Senate Democrats called for a $300-a-person rebate check and $40 billion for states and cities. (David Firestone, 1/25/03, NY Times)

Senate Democrats took on the administration's tax cut plan in earnest today with the release of a sharply different economic stimulus proposal, calling for a $300-a-person rebate check and $40 billion in aid to states and cities.

The one-year plan, announced in Cleveland by Senator Tom Daschle, the minority leader, would spend $141 billion to stimulate the economy, in contrast to the 10-year $674 billion plan proposed by President Bush. It would drop the administration's proposal to eliminate the dividend tax, an idea with diminishing support on Capitol Hill, and concentrate its tax relief at the lower-to-middle end of the economic spectrum, with few benefits for the wealthy.

Today's plan is likely to become the Democrats' most reliable political tool once the jockeying over tax cuts begins on Tuesday with Mr. Bush's State of the Union address, even though the party lacks the votes to pass it. Although some Democrats have slightly different ideas on how to stimulate the economy, the party appears to be more unified against Mr. Bush's economic ideas than it was in 2001, and its leadership has begun to take heart in the president's slippage in opinion polls, particularly on economic issues.

The rebate is an excellent idea: the GOP should add it to their plan and make it permanent. Aid to the cities and states is a terrible idea. They, like the federal government, spent like drunken sailors in the 90s when they had too much money, so now they need to cut spending not get more tax money.

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NEVERMIND:

Correction: The following correction was issued by TIME on Thursday, Jan. 23, 2003  (TIME, Jan. 23, 2003)

The article "Look Away, Dixieland" [Jan. 27] stated that President George W. Bush "quietly reinstated" a tradition of having the White House deliver a floral wreath to the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery — a practice "that his father had halted in 1990." The story is wrong. First, the elder president Bush did not, as TIME reported, end the decades-old practice of the White House delivering a wreath to the Confederate Memorial; he changed the date on which the wreath is delivered from the day that some southern heritage groups commemorate Jefferson Davis's birthday to the federal Memorial Day holiday. Second, according to documents provided by the White House this week, the practice of delivering a wreath to the Confederate Memorial on Memorial Day continued under Bill Clinton as it does under George W. Bush.

The two obvious questions are: (1) if the implication of the earlier story was that W was race-baiting, was Clinton also?; and (2) Is Maureen Dowd man enough to apologize for this The Class President (MAUREEN DOWD, January 22, 2003, NY Times)?

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IT'S MORNING, AGAIN:

Reagan's Son (BILL KELLER, January 26, 2003, NY Times)

[M]idway into Bush's first term, measuring the emerging president against Reagan is an instructive way of looking at Bush's qualities and of explaining his popularity. It is even, with a larger margin of error, a basis for hazarding some guesses about the course he will follow, particularly now that his hand is strengthened by a Congress of his own party, by the unlikelihood of internal opposition in 2004 and for that matter by the lack of coherent opposition from the Democrats.

I began this exercise inclined to think of Bush as Reagan Lite -- that is, a president with shallower, unschooled instincts in place of the older man's studied, lifelong convictions, and without the mastery of language that served Reagan so well. Perhaps, I'd have said, he is a bit of a Reagan poseur -- the White House being such a studio of contrivance and calculation. I ended my research more inclined to think that Bush is in a sense the fruition of Reagan, and that -- far from being the lightweight opportunist of liberal caricature or the centrist he sometimes played during his own election campaign -- he stands a good chance of advancing a radical agenda that Reagan himself could only carry so far. Bush is not, as Reagan was, an original, but he has adapted Reagan's ideas to new times, and found some new language in which to market them. We seem not only to be witnessing the third term of the Reagan presidency; at this rate we may well see the fourth. [...]

There was about Reagan, like it or not, a dream of America and its potential that was often utopian. It was easy to ridicule -- as the first President Bush did with his memorable sneer at the ''vision thing'' -- but it made Reagan more than the sum of his advisers and his constituencies.

What is Bush's morning in America? He clearly has the instinct to do big things, and barring some failure of leadership -- a serious misadventure abroad, a corroding economy -- he has the license. What does America look like if he succeeds?

Two years ago the question would have seemed ridiculous. We knew America had to be governed from the center. That was the lesson of Bill Clinton's popularity, it was the constraint imposed by a divided electorate and in Bush's case it was the price of a minority victory. Bush had no mandate. But Bush, like Reagan, seems to believe that presidents make their own mandates.

What Bush is striving for, on the evidence of the choices he has made so far, is bold in its ambition: markets unleashed, resources exploited. A progressive tax system leveled, a country unashamed of wealth. Government entitlements gradually replaced by thrift, self-reliance and private good will. The safety net strung closer to the ground. Government itself infused with, in some cases supplanted by, the efficiency and accountability of a well-run corporation. A court system dedicated to protecting property and private enterprise and enforcing individual responsibility. A global common market that hums to the tune of American productivity. In the world, America rampant -- unfettered by international law, unflinching when challenged, unmatchable in its might, more interested in being respected than in being loved.

If he fails, my guess is that it will be a failure not of caution but of overreaching, which means it will be failure on a grand scale. If he succeeds, he will move us toward an America Ronald Reagan would have been happy to call his own.

This may be the smartest piece to appear in the Times since Red Smith died. There was a report on NPR tonight about the debate over prescription drug coverage. Democrats, interest groups, and many Republicans want it as just an add on to Medicare. But George W. Bush is pushing for a plan that will begin devolving Medicare to private insurers. There's even talk of requiring people to switch to private carriers in order to get the benefit. That may be a fight that scares the GOP too much for Mr. Bush to win it now, but it's a at least a portent for '05 and suggests that he continues to think far bigger than most politicians.

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RESISTANCE IS FUTILE:

When will we resist?: The US is preparing to attack the Arab world, while the Arabs whimper in submission (Edward Said, January 25, 2003, The Guardian)

One opens the New York Times on a daily basis to read the most recent article about the preparations for war that are taking place in the United States. Another battalion, one more set of aircraft carriers and cruisers, an ever-increasing number of aircraft, new contingents of officers are being moved to the Persian Gulf area. An enormous, deliberately intimidating force is being built up by America overseas, while inside the country, economic and social bad news multiply with a joint relentlessness.

The huge capitalist machine seems to be faltering, even as it grinds down the vast majority of citizens. None the less, George Bush proposes another large tax cut for the 1% of the population that is comparatively rich. The public education system is in crisis and health insurance for 50 million Americans simply does not exist. Israel asks for $15bn in additional loan guarantees and military aid. And the unemployment rates in the US mount inexorably, as more jobs are lost every day.

Nevertheless, preparations for an unimaginably costly war continue without either public approval or, at least until very recently, dramatically noticeable disapproval. A generalised indifference among the majority of the population (which may conceal great overall fear, ignorance and apprehension) has greeted the administration's warmongering and its strangely ineffective response to the challenge forced on it recently by North Korea. In the case of Iraq, with no weapons of mass destruction to speak of, the US plans a war; in the case of North Korea, it offers economic and energy aid. What a humiliating difference between contempt for the Arabs and respect for North Korea, an equally grim and cruel dictatorship. [...]

In this entire panorama of desolation, what catches the eye is the utter passivity and helplessness of the Arab world as a whole. The American government and its servants issue statement after statement of purpose, they move troops and material, they transport tanks and destroyers, but the Arabs individually and collectively can barely muster a bland refusal. At most they say no, you cannot use military bases in our territory, only to reverse themselves a few days later.

Why is there such silence and such astounding helplessness? The largest power in history is about to launch a war against a sovereign Arab country now ruled by a dreadful regime, the clear purpose of which is not only to destroy the Ba'ath regime but to redesign the entire region. The Pentagon has made no secret that its plans are to redraw the map of the whole Arab world, perhaps changing other regimes and borders in the process. No one can be shielded from the cataclysm if and when it comes. And yet, there is only long silence followed by a few vague bleats of polite demurral in response. Millions of people will be affected, yet America contemptuously plans for their future without consulting them. Do we deserve such racist derision?

This is not only unacceptable: it is impossible to believe. How can a region of almost 300 million Arabs wait passively for the blows to fall without attempting a collective roar of resistance? Has the Arab will completely dissolved? Even a prisoner about to be executed usually has some last words to pronounce. Why is there now no last testimonial to an era of history, to a civilisation about to be crushed and transformed utterly, to a society that, despite its drawbacks and weaknesses, nevertheless goes on functioning? [...]

There is a wonderful expression that very precisely and ironically catches our unacceptable helplessness, our passivity and inability to help ourselves now when our strength is most needed. The expression is: will the last person to leave please turn out the lights? We are that close to a kind of upheaval that will leave very little standing and perilously little left even to record, except for the last injunction that begs for extinction.

Hasn't the time come for us collectively to demand and formulate a genuinely Arab alternative to the wreckage about to engulf our world? This is not only a trivial matter of regime change, although God knows that we can do with quite a bit of that. Surely it can't be a return to Oslo, another offer to Israel to please accept our existence and let us live in peace, another cringing, crawling, inaudible plea for mercy? Will no one come out into the light of day to express a vision for our future that isn't based on a script written by Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, those two symbols of vacant power and overweening arrogance? I hope someone is listening.

Even Admiral Yamamoto, after Pearl Harbor, realized that all Japan had done was "waken a sleeping tiger". Does Mr. Said really still not comprehend the magnitude of the error that the Islamicists made? The Arab world is helpless because it is so poorly run. Because it is poorly run and helpless it lashed out at the West, whose success is an ongoing humiliation. Because it lashed out it stands to be radically restructured, so that it will be better run, less helpless, and less likely to lash out. Having failed to write their own script they've left it to others to write one for them. This is a cultural failure on an epic scale and it is likely to be ugly. But as one of the leading lights of that culture he has no one to blame but himself. If he put one tenth of the energy into democratizing Palestine that he puts into moaning about Israel and America, we might not be in this mess.

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SOMEBODY TELL HANS BLIX:

Documents Suggest Iraq May Use Chemical Weapons (WARREN HOGE, January 24, 2003, NY Times)

Iraqi military documents smuggled out of the country in the past month suggest that Saddam Hussein is preparing to use chemical and biological weapons against troops invading Baghdad, the BBC reported today.

The hand-written Arabic-language notes say that elite units of the Iraqi armed forces have been issued new chemical warfare suits and supplies of the drug atropine, used to counter the effects of nerve gas.

Experts who have seen the documents say that since the countries that might invade Iraq would not be using chemical weapons, the only reason Mr. Hussein would equip his most loyal corps with such protection is to guard them against his own use of chemical warfare weapons to repel invaders.

I thought they didn't have any weapons any more?

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ONE FOR THE BAD GUYS:

Decker Switches to Democrats, Making House Even Split (WRAL, January 24, 2003)

Raleigh, NC: Staunchly conservative state Rep. Michael Decker switched his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat on Friday, splitting the House 60-60.

The move is the latest and most bizarre twist in the contest to select a speaker to lead the House as the General Assembly prepares to begin a new session next week. [...]

Told of Decker's switch, Rep. Frank Mitchell, R-Iredell, a close ally of Daughtry, accused the Forsyth County legislator of selling out his party to become speaker pro-tem, the second-ranking position in the House.

How can he hope to be re-elected?

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SO DIES RELIGIOUS FREEDOM:

Euro rules force Church bodies to employ atheists (Jonathan Petre, 25/01/2003, Daily Telegraph)

Thousands of religious schools, charities and organisations could face legal action if they refuse to employ atheists or sack staff who become Satanists under proposed Government regulations.

The laws, which are based on a European Union directive and which have to be implemented by December, ban discrimination in the workplace on the grounds of religion, belief or sexual orientation.

But a report from the Christian Institute says the laws will restrict the freedom of religious organisations to employ solely staff who are practising believers.

Christian groups are particularly angry that the Government has chosen to exempt political parties from the laws, so that the Labour Party will be able to continue its policy of employing only party members.

It's long past time to add the EU bureaucracy to the Axis of Evil.

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THE ANGLOSPHERE MOUNTS UP:

AUSTRALIAN TROOPS MOVE (John Ray, January 23, 2003)

I live in Brisbane and our daily newspaper is the Murdoch-owned Courier Mail. Its headline today is Bravehearts set sail -- reporting that Australian troops have just left to join U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf readying for war with Iraq. I wonder how the N.Y. Times would have reported the story? "Troops depart amid controversy", perhaps. The Courier Mail also reports that our Prime Minister has said that Australia would join the U.S. regardless of the U.N. It makes me proud to be an Australian.

In their honor, here's a poem by Harry "Breaker" Morant, who was done poorly by in another unpopular war:

A Departing Dirge (The Bulletin, 5 August 1899)

Girls in town and boys out back,
I've rolled up my little pack,
And on june's chill wintry gales
Sail from pleasant New South Wales.
Ere I go - a doggerel song
To bid the whole caboose "So-long!"

Saddle-gear and horses sold -
Fetched but scanty stock of gold -
Scanty!! yet the whole lot
Publicans and Flossies got.
Since I in this country landed
Ne'er before was I so "stranded".

Now I'm leaving Sydney's shore
Harder up than e'er before;
A keen appetite I feel
To taste a bit o' British veal;
And let's trust, across the foam
They have a fatted calf at home.

From duns and debts (once safe on board)
Pray deliver me, oh Lord!
Here's the burden of my song:
"Good-bye, old girl! Old chap, So-long!"
Hardest loss of all I find
To leave the good old horse behind.
So-long, "Cavalier!"

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LULLED:

'Major al-Qaeda attack foiled': More than 150 police took part in the operation (BBC, 24 January, 2003)

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar says police have thwarted a "major terrorist attack", following the arrest of 16 suspected al-Qaeda militants in the north-eastern Catalonia region.

Mr Aznar described the arrests as an extraordinarily important strike in the war against terror, adding that explosives and chemical materials were seized. [...]

The BBC's Margaret Gilmore says there has been a massive anti-terrorist investigation in the UK since the discovery of traces of ricin in a north London flat several weeks ago.

The investigation unearthed a huge number of names and phone numbers of terrorism suspects all over Europe which have been passed on to intelligence officers in the relevant countries.

"The dismantled network has connections with terrorists arrested recently in France and Britain who were preparing to carry out attacks, using explosives and chemical materials," Mr Aznar said.

"I want to highlight once again that when we talk about the fight against terrorism and the circles around it and when we talk about ensuring the safety and the peace of all, we are not talking about fantasies," he added.

That's the sad irony, that by thwarting attacks you enable people to comfort themselves that it's all just a big government fantasy. And since 9-11 we've been so successful in dismantling al Qaeda that we're returning to a business as normal atmosphere. It unfortunately seems likely that getting Western Europe on board the war on terror and getting the American people (and the Democrat Party) refocused will require a few successful attacks.

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PUSH ALWAYS COMES TO SHOVE:

'Bad Herr Dye' (WILLIAM SAFIRE, January 23, 2003, NY Times)

Chirac had made a deal with the U.S. last fall: we agreed to postpone the invasion of Iraq until after U.N. inspectors had been jerked around long enough to satisfy the world street's opinion, and in return France would not demand a second U.N. resolution before allied forces overthrew Saddam.

As D-Day approached, France sent its aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle to the coming war zone. Chirac made plain that, though a minor and reluctant participant in the attack, France was not to be frozen out of postwar oil arrangements.

Then Schroeder, reliant on his militantly antiwar Greens, made Chirac an offer he could not refuse: to permanently assert Franco-German dominance over the 23 other nations of Continental Europe.

In a stunning power play in Brussels, Germany and France moved to change the practice of having a rotating presidency of the European Council, which now gives smaller nations influence, to a system with a long-term president. This Franco-German czar of the European Union would dominate a toothless president of the European Commission, chosen by the European Parliament.

Little guys of Europe hollered bloody murder this week, but will find it hard to resist the Franco-German steamroller. France then had to repay Schroeder by double-crossing the U.S. at the U.N. That explains France's startling threat to veto a new U.N. resolution O.K.'ing the invasion of Iraq - a second resolution that France had promised Colin Powell would not be needed.

British foreign policy has been based on preventing anyone from becoming dominant on the Continent for what?--maybe four or five centuries? And in order to achieve that goal they've had to fight Spain, France and Germany repeatedly. It's forgivable for liberal academics and leftist politicos not to get what's going on, but how can conservatives be surprised that Europe is descending into classic great power politics instead of approaching the pan-European nirvana? The EU has never been much more than a way for France and Germany to dominate Europe. Sooner or later that had to be unacceptable to Britain (unless it's become completely emasculated). The only surprise is that it didn't happen sooner and that the Tories are so brain dead they aren't exploiting the situation.

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ZWAN SONG:

Billy Corgan In Search Of Personal 'Jesus' On Zwan Debut (Gil Kaufman, 01.22.2003, MTV)

While Corgan's lyrics for the Smashing Pumpkins were often concerned with the search for transcendence, spirituality and love in dark hours, his Zwan lyrics are even more focused on messianic visions of love, but with a more uplifting vibe. Corgan is billed as "Billy Burke" in the album's liner notes, a possible reference to a golden-haired Florida preacher of the same name, which gives the songs an evangelical feel.

But more than a preacher, Corgan acts as a spiritual cheerleader on tracks such as the swirling, psychedelic power pop song "Declarations of Faith," in which he sings, "I declare myself/ Declare myself of faith."

Whether or not the inside joke billing is religious in nature, Corgan clearly has salvation and tribute-paying on his mind. He gives a nod to his lifelong heroes, New Order, on the bouncy, new wave-y "Settle Down" and "El Sol." Again driven by the combination of Chamberlin's aggressive drumming and Lenchantin's throbbing bass line, "Settle Down" is another ode to devotion, sprinkled with the kind of wailing, fuzzed-out guitar lines familiar to fans of the Pumpkins' 1993 breakthrough, Siamese Dream. [...]

Corgan keeps his more grandiose side in check until near the end of the album, at which point he unleashes the 14-minute religious epic, "Jesus, I/ Mary Star of the Sea." The song begins with just Corgan's nasally vocals ("Jesus, I've taken my cross/ All to leave and follow thee") over a repeating guitar line, then explodes into a kaleidoscopic barrage of guitar solos. The solemn middle section leads into a majestic coda for an archetypal Corgan rock song of redemption, in which salvation is found in the character of a female savior.

We've been Billy Corgan fans ever since he did guest spots on both The Simpsons and Chicago's great The Sports Writers on TV. There's this tall bald rock star sitting at a table with a bunch of geezers who saw Dempsey fight Firpo, all of them smoking stogies, chatting about the White Sox...hard not to like him.

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POEMS FOR A NEGATIVE 20 NIGHT:

The Snowfall Is So Silent (Miguel de Unamuno) (Translated by Robert Bly)

The snowfall is so silent,
so slow,
bit by bit, with delicacy
it settles down on the earth
and covers over the fields.
The silent snow comes down
white and weightless;
snowfall makes no noise,
falls as forgetting falls,
flake after flake.
It covers the fields gently
while frost attacks them
with its sudden flashes of white;
covers everything with its pure
and silent covering;
not one thing on the ground
anywhere escapes it.
And wherever it falls it stays,
content and gay,
for snow does not slip off
as rain does,
but it stays and sinks in.
The flakes are skyflowers,
pale lilies from the clouds,
that wither on earth.
They come down blossoming
but then so quickly
they are gone;
they bloom only on the peak,
above the mountains,
and make the earth feel heavier
when they die inside.
Snow, delicate snow,
that falls with such lightness
on the head,
on the feelings,
come and cover over the sadness
that lies always in my reason.

After Apple-Picking (Robert Frost, 1914)

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.

And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.

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HOW BIG A TENT?:

What About Those End Times, Mr. President?: Sen. Joe Lieberman announces his candidacy, but not his association with lunatic fringe of Biblical prophecy (Edward Ericson, January 16, 2003, Hartford Advocate)

The image is jarring: Sen. Joseph Lieberman, presidential candidate, appears on an infomercial asking Evangelical Christians to donate money to "rescue a Jew.""'On Wings of Eagles' is a modern-day fulfillment of Biblical prophesy," the voiceover in the infomercial says, over images of huddled Russian Jews at the airport, smiling as they presumably wait to leave Russia for Israel.

The half-hour appeal aired on the afternoon of Jan. 2 on Paxson Broadcasting (PAX) stations across the nation (locally on WHPX, channel 26), according to the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ), the Chicago-based nonprofit that paid for the spot. Alongside Lieberman, testimonials come from stars of the Christian Right, including convicted Watergate felon Charles Colson, Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson, and Moral Majority head Jerry Falwell. [...]

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein founded IFCJ in 1983, soon after his ordination at New York's Yeshiva University. Its mission, according to its website, is "to foster better relations and understanding between Christians and Jews ... and help build support for Israel and Jews in crises or need."The group toiled in obscurity for its first decade. Then in 1994, Eckstein shifted focus, appearing on Pat Robertson's 700 Club to pitch Christians. Robertson's flock responded generously; IFCJ's budget thereafter ballooned from about $500,000 to, last year, $27.5 million. Eckstein boasts that his organization has "saved" more than 200,000 Jews from Russia. [...]

The "project" may also have direct political consequences. The Likud government, reeling from scandal but always more hawkish about suppressing the Palestinians than the rival Labor party, had drawn support from the exploding population of former Russians relocated by IFCJ and similar organizations in Israel. Former Soviet emigres now represent more than one-sixth of Israel's voters.

One fails to see how Democrats will benefit from attacking Joe Lieberman's religious associations.

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FLIRTING? MORE LIKE SUCKING FACE:

Flirting with disaster: Brash and controversial, former US representative Cynthia McKinney could lead the Green Party to prominence in 2004--or right over a cliff (SETH GITELL, Boston Phoenix)

QUESTION: WHICH WAY is the national Green Party headed these days? Answer: toward Cynthia McKinney.

When the party's presidential exploratory committee put out feelers to Greens around the country about whom they wanted to run for president, the number of recommendations McKinney received was second only to those for Ralph Nader, who ran for president on the Green Party ticket in 2000. McKinney, a former Democratic US representative from Georgia who lost to Judge Denise Majette in a primary challenge last August (Majette eventually defeated Republican Cynthia van Auken in the general election), has yet to change her party affiliation or indicate she's willing to run as a Green. But the Greens want her. Her name was high on a list of potential candidates compiled by the national Green Party (other names included MSNBC talk-show host Phil Donahue, actress Susan Sarandon, and filmmaker Michael Moore). If the Greens do run McKinney--either at the top of the ticket or with Ralph Nader--it will be a new, high-risk strategy for a party that has heretofore focused on building itself from the ground up.

The Greens, in theory, are well-positioned to build on their plan, instituted in the late 1990s, of running candidates at the national and local levels with the goal of constructing a permanent electoral apparatus and a real third-party alternative to the Democrats and Republicans. The Greens won national recognition--and derision from Democrats, who blame them for former vice-president Al Gore’s narrow defeat by President George W. Bush--in 2000, when Nader won 2.7 percent of the national vote. In 2002, moreover, the Greens did well on the statewide scene. Here in Massachusetts, Lexington physician Jill Stein, running for governor, garnered 10 percent of the vote. In Maine, the Green Independent Party elected John Eder to the state House of Representatives; meanwhile, Green Party gubernatorial candidate Jonathan Carter won nine percent of the vote. In California, Green Party gubernatorial candidate Peter Camejo received 5.3 percent of the vote and came in second to Democrat Gray Davis in San Francisco.

Nader is still playing coy about a presidential run next year. Co-hosting CNN's Crossfire last week, he told Tucker Carlson that "it's too early to say" whether he would run again, adding he would decide "sometime later in the year." As Nader has kept his cards close to his vest, some national Greens have gone looking elsewhere for a 2004 presidential candidate. And they seem to be looking in the same place: Georgia, where McKinney resides. McKinney has several assets that appeal to Greens: she's progressive; she's an articulate and seasoned politician who knows how to campaign; and she is black and from the South, an area of the country where the Greens are weakest. Most important, however, is that she can tell the story of how the Democratic Party is no home for progressive politics.

There's no reason that the Green's should not replace the Democrats as the main opposition party to the GOP. The Clintonized Democrats have abandoned most of the "progressive" platform--from Universal Health to gay marriage to anti-capital punishment to anti-war to large tax and spending increases and so on. It's strange but even as the Third Way in Britain has destroyed the Tories, Tony Blair having co-opted the middle on most issues, Bill Clinton's New Democrat agenda has destroyed the Democrats. It would seem that the GOP has been more successful at painting the Democrats as a party of me-tooism and then pulling them even further towards the Right, effectively alienating their base, than has the Tory Party (which, for reasons that no one can explain, has claimed the me-too mantle for itself, rather than forcing Blair and Labour to the Right by coming out forthrightly against the EU and the Welfare State). But in both cases you have what were once main parties that no longer even bother to enunciate the political visions that led most of the membership to them in the first place.

Here in the States that offers a chance for one of two things, either a genuine progressive will emerge in the Democrat presidential primaries, maybe a Hillary Clinton, or, if the party turns instead toward the New Democrat-type candidates (Lieberman, Gephardt, etc.), the Greens could ride a groundswell on the Left. However, they need a plausible candidate to rally around, which means not a Nader or a McKinney. In fact, there don't seem to be many professional politicians who are true progressives and are also charismatic. The Greens might do better to look to someone like a Robert Redford or a Martin Sheen who would immediately capture massive media attention and who can at least pretend to be presidential.

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THE REASON NIXON MUST NOT BE JUDGED BY WHO HIS ENEMIES WERE:

There was an amusing bit on The Diane Rehm Show this morning. They were doing the Friday Roundtable with Susan Page, David Brooks and Daniel "Dogtrack" Schor. They discussed the imminent war in Iraq for a while and Mr. Schor huffily interjected that no one had yet mentioned oil. Mr. Brooks said that Tony Blair had effectively dealt with that issue by pointing out that if it was about oil it would be easy enough to cut a deal with Saddam and, in fact, we currently buy substantial amounts of Iraqi oil. Ms Rehm asked how Mr. Schor would handle that argument. He said the point was that you can't trust Saddam to honor an oil contract, so you might get the oil for awhile but then he'd renege.

There's the silliness of the Left in a nutshell: Saddam can't be trusted to sell us oil on a consistent basis but we should trust that he's stopped developing WMD and that he's going to honor the 1991 peace treaty.

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BUILT TO LAST:

White House seeks to steer Senate races: White House officials have put pressure on at least two House Republicans to put their Senate ambitions on hold and leave the way clear for the administration's favored candidates, Republican sources say. (Allison Stevens, The Hill)

To engineer victories in South Dakota and Washington, Reps. William Janklow (R-S.D.) and George Nethercutt (R-Wash.) have been asked to let former Rep. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Rep. Jennifer Dunn (R-Wash.) weigh their options first. [...]

In South Carolina, sources say the White House has met Rep. Jim DeMint (R) to discuss challenging Sen. Ernest Hollings, 82, who has not said whether he will retire at the end of his sixth term next year.

A three-term lawmaker from the state's northwest, DeMint is close to the Bush family and supported President Bush in the 2000 presidential race. Former GOP Reps. Lindsey Graham, who won last year’s Senate race to succeed ex-Sen. Strom Thurmond, and Mark Sanford, who won the state’s gubernatorial contest, endorsed Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) in the contested primary. [...]

In North Dakota, White House officials are wooing former Gov. Ed Schafer (R) to take on two-term Sen. Byron Dorgan (D). Schafer, one of the state’s most popular politicians, says he is not interested in the job.

At a Christmas party in Washington he spoke briefly with Bush, who greeted him as "Senator," and added that the name had a "nice ring to it." A North Dakota insider said Schafer has “not closed the door” on a Senate bid and knows "he's on the list to be worked over."

In North Carolina, the administration hopes Rep. Richard Burr (R) will take on presidential contender Sen. John Edwards (D). [...]

In Nevada, the White House reportedly hopes to lure Rep. Jim Gibbons (R) into a race against Sen. Harry Reid (D). Rove met Gibbons in Washington on Dec. 10, according to The Washington Post, and plans to meet him again.

One of the chief stumbling blocks for Republicans winning Congress had always been that after sixty-plus years of Democrat control it was hard to convince qualified candidates to run. 1994 changed all that and now they have a nice feeder system that prepares House members for Senate runs. More important than knocking off weak Democrat incumbents is that these folks are serious enough in their own right that they can win re-election, unlike the looney-tunes class of '80 that Ronald Reagan dragged in.

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THE HENRY JAMES OF THE RIGHT (via Paul Cella):

The Ghosts of Kirk: The sage of Mecosta’s short stories are back in print. (John Miller, January 23, 2003, National Review)

As one of the great conservative minds of the 20th century, Kirk is best known as a founding intellectual of a modern political movement. When he wasn't writing books about Edmund Burke or columns for National Review, however, he was scribbling away for publications such as Fantasy and Science Fiction, London Mystery Magazine, and New Terrors. In 1958, T. S. Eliot wrote to him: "How amazingly versatile and prolific you are! Now you have written what I should have least expected of you--ghost stories!"

If Eliot had been a bit more familiar with Kirk, he wouldn't have been surprised at all. Kirk often talked about his brushes with revenants, and was convinced that his big house in Mecosta, Mich., was haunted. Visitors to his home--myself included, as a college student on a trip sponsored by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute--were regaled with ghost stories told by candlelight.

Kirk's most-influential book was The Conservative Mind, but his most popular one was a novel, The Old House of Fear. It made the bestseller lists in the early 1960s and sold more copies than all of Kirk's other books combined. It employed the conventions of Gothic fiction to tell a great story set on a remote and mysterious Scottish island — and also to satirize Marxism and liberalism.

Many of Kirk's books remain in print, but The Old House of Fear is not one of them. It isn't easy to find copies on the secondhand market, either. The same goes for Kirk's other fiction--mainly ghost stories told in a traditional vein--even though collections of them were published in the 1980s.

Today, however, it's a bit easier, and will remain so for a short time. Ash-Tree Press, a small publisher in rural British Columbia, has just issued Off the Sand Road, the first of two volumes that will collect all of Kirk's short fiction. The second book, What Shadows We Pursue, is scheduled for release in late March. (Sadly, there are no plans to reprint The Old House of Fear.)

In a better world more folks would have read The Conservative Mind, but whjat's not to love about anti-Left ghost stories?

MORE:
-REVIEW: of Russell Kirk: A Critical Biography of a Conservative Mind. By James E. Person, Jr. (Jeremy M. Beer, First Things)

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GET OUT!:

Mars May Be Much Older Or Younger Than Thought (Space Daily Express, Jan 24, 2003)

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EGALITARIANISM RUNS AMOK:

Economic Inequality Grew in 90's Boom, Fed Reports (EDMUND L. ANDREWS, January 23, 2003, NY Times)

Economic inequality increased markedly as the boom of the 1990's fizzled, even as incomes increased at almost every level, according to a detailed new survey by the Federal Reserve released today.

Conducted at the end of 2001, when the economy was in a recession, the survey compared wealth and income with levels of 1998. It suggests that the benefits of the economic boom were widespread but extremely uneven.

The wealth of those in the top 10 percent of incomes surged much more than the wealth of those in any other group. The net worth of families in the top 10 percent jumped 69 percent, to $833,600, in 2001 from $492,400 in 1998. By contrast, the net worth of families in the lowest fifth of income earners rose 24 percent, to $7,900. [...]

"I am alarmed and disheartened by the growth in inequality in this report," said Jared Bernstein, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal research group based in Washington.

Are we really supposed to take seriously the notion that while incomes for the poor went up significantly it's unfair that they didn't go up as much as those of the rich? [editor's note: we've removed a spirit-killing metaphor about rising tides here.] When we were kids, the Sister Judd got $5 from our Grandmother for her birthday in April. But then the Other Brother got $10 for his, in May. When Sister pointed out the inequity, Grandma took five bucks from Brother. The Left would presumably find this a reasonable result.

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DAYENU!:

Officials: U.S., Israel Readying Call for Palestinian Statehood (NOGA TARNOPOLSKY, JANUARY 24, 2003, The Forward)

Israel and the United States are preparing a new joint peace initiative for possible release following Israel's January 28 general election, the Forward has learned.

The initiative, details of which are still being ironed out in high-level, behind-the-scenes talks, would reportedly include a joint American-Israeli call for the establishment of a "demilitarized Palestinian state with temporary borders," according to several sources familiar with the talks. A unilateral Israeli announcement of the establishment of such a Palestinian state is being considered. The new state reportedly would be led by an appointed prime minister, with Yasser Arafat barred from playing any role.

This has been inevitable since at least the moment that Arafat walked away from Ehud Barak's offer, and, we've long argued, was Israel's best option for several years before that. It should never have taken this long but it's a very good thing that they're finally going to do it. On the day that the US and Israel recognize the State of Palestine, regardless of its borders, the anger and violence of the Palestinians will be primarily refocused inwards (though there'll still be terrorist attacks on Israel) as the basic question moves from "whether a state" to how that state is run.

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NOT LIKELY:

AIDS Panel Choice Wrote of a 'Gay Plague': Views of White House Commission Nominee Draw Criticism (Ceci Connolly, January 23, 2003, Washington Post)

The Bush administration has chosen Jerry Thacker, a Pennsylvania marketing consultant who has characterized AIDS as the "gay plague," to serve on the Presidential Advisory Commission on HIV and AIDS.

Next week, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson is scheduled to swear in several new commission members. They include Thacker, a former Bob Jones University employee, who says he contracted the AIDS virus after his wife was infected through a blood transfusion.

The 35-member commission, which makes recommendations to the White House on AIDS prevention, is the latest incarnation of a panel that has existed since the Reagan administration. Earlier commissions issued reports strongly critical of the national response to AIDS, and helped to nudge the government and the pharmaceutical industry toward greater action.

In his speeches and writings on his Web site and elsewhere, Thacker has described homosexuality as a "deathstyle" rather than a lifestyle and asserted that "Christ can rescue the homosexual." After word of his selection spread among gays in recent days, some material disappeared from the Web site. Earlier versions located by The Washington Post that referred to the "gay plague," for instance, were changed as of yesterday to "plague."

Mr. Thacker has already withdrawn his name from consideration for this position and I've little interest in psychoanalyzing him, nor any qualifications to do so, but one must note, particularly in light of his comments, that men just don't contract AIDs from heterosexual sex.

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WE HAVE MET THE IGNORANT, AND HE IS US:

Many Americans Wary of War With Iraq, Just as in 1991: But almost 8 out of 10 believe the United States would win such a war (Frank Newport, January 13, 2003, GALLUP NEWS SERVICE)

A Jan. 3-5 Gallup Poll re-asked several questions about a possible war with Iraq that had been asked of the American public in early January 1991, just prior to the outbreak of the military action against Iraq that became known as the Persian Gulf War.

One of the basic results shows that Americans are slightly more likely now than 12 years ago to consider the situation in Iraq "worth going to war over." This is a question Gallup asked on a regular basis in the late summer, fall, and early winter of 1990 and 1991, as the United States and its allies moved troops and equipment into the Persian Gulf in anticipation of an invasion of Iraq.

There was remarkably little variation in the responses to this question during that time period (between August 1990 and early January 1991), with the percentage saying "yes" varying only between 45% and 51%. The final reading on this question before the war got underway was 46%, measured in a Jan. 11-13, 1991 Gallup Poll.

The precise circumstances in regard to Iraq are different now than they were 12 years ago in many ways. But the basic facts remain quite similar: there was then and is now a build-up of U.S. troops and equipment in the Persian Gulf area in anticipation of possible military action against Iraq. And, asked today this same question about the "worth" of a war against Iraq, a quite similar 53% say yes.

The 1991 data clearly show a dramatic increase in positive attitudes about the justification for war once military action actually got underway, with 71% saying the situation was worth going to war over in a Jan. 30-Feb. 2, 1991 poll. We can anticipate a similar increase in support if and when military action against Iraq begins this year.

One of the frequently mentioned weaknesses of the American people is that we tend to have roughly the historic recall of gnats. But these days even pundits and politicians who should know better are talking about the public unease over war with Iraq as if it were signficant and as if it were significantly different than in past circumstances. In particular, there's an odd assumption that the prior Iraqi war was popular when it was anything but. Do folks think that the 52-47 Senate vote on the 1991 war was a function of Democrat courage? To the contrary, they were then, as they are now, merely following the polls that showed the American people wanted no part of that war.

On the day we start this war with Iraq the polls will likely show no more than about 45% support for the action. The poll after that will show support in the high 60s or low 70s. Or, since polling takes two to three days and the war could be over by then, it may be in the 80s.

Leadership requires you to do what you believe to be right and to have sufficient vision to know that the people will follow. President Bush seems to have made up his mind a long time ago about the Saddam problem and folks who are mesmerized by the poll numbers of the moment (which includes all the Democrat presidential candidates) are in all likelihood completely misjudging what's going on and what's about to happen. Perhaps they should let history be their guide, rather than transitory public opinion.

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WHAT'S IN A NAME?:

Meme Spreading: call it by its name: National Socialism (David P. Janes, January 23, 2003, Ranting and Roaring)

We (that is, the Blog Collective) should stop using the diminutive word "Nazi" to refer to the party that ruled Germany through the 1930s to the mid '40s and start calling them by their real name: National Socialists (from the German Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei: National Socialist German Worker's Party). It's been far too long that the morality of these clowns have been pinned to the right.

In fact, take a look at Russell Kirk's definition of conservatism and Leftism:

Any informed conservative is reluctant to condense profound and intricate intellectual systems to a few portentous phrases; he prefers to leave that technique to the enthusiasm of radicals. Conservatism is not a fixed and immutable body of dogma, and conservatives inherit from Burke a talent for re-expressing their convictions to fit the time. As a working premise, nevertheless, one can observe here that the essence of social conservatism is preservation of the ancient moral traditions. Conservatives respect the wisdom of their ancestors...; they are dubious of wholesale alteration.  They think society is a spiritual reality, possessing an eternal life but a delicate constitution: it cannot be scrapped and recast as if it were a machine. [...]

I think there are six canons of conservative thought--

(1) Belief that a divine intent rules society as well as conscience, forging an eternal chain of right and duty which links great and obscure, living and dead. Political problems, at bottom, are religious and moral problems. [...]

(2) Affection for the proliferating variety and mystery of traditional life, as distinguished from the narrowing uniformity, egalitarianism, and utilitarian aims of most radical systems. [...]

(3) Conviction that civilized society requires orders and classes. The only true equality is moral equality; all other attempts at levelling lead to despair, if enforced by positive legislation. [...]

(4) Persuasion that property and freedom are inseparably connected, and that economic levelling is not economic progress. Separate property from private possession and liberty is erased.

(5) Faith in prescription and distrust of 'sophisters and calculators.' Man must put a control upon his will and his appetite, for conservatives know man to be governed more by emotion than by reason. Tradition and sound prejudice provide checks upon man's anarchic impulse.

(6) Recognition that change and reform are not identical, and that innovation is a devouring conflagration more often than it is a torch of progress. Society must alter, for slow change is the means of its conservation, like the human body's perpetual renewal; but Providence is the proper instrument for change, and the test of a statesman is his cognizance of the real tendency of Providential social forces.

He contrasts these core beliefs with those of conservatism's opponents on the Left, the radicals of all stripes, who believe in :

(1) The perfectibility of man and the illimitable progress of society: meliorism. Radicals believe that education, positive legislation, and alteration of environment can produce men like gods; they deny that humanity has a natural proclivity toward violence and sin.

(2) Contempt for tradition. Reason, impulse, and materialistic determinism are severally preferred as guides to social welfare, trustier than the wisdom of our ancestors. Formal religion is rejected and a variety of anti-Christian systems are offered as substitutes.

(3) Political levelling. Order and privilege are condemned; total democracy, as direct as practicable, is the professed radical ideal. Allied with this spirit, generally, is a dislike of old parliamentary arrangements and an eagerness for centralization and consolidation.

(4) Economic levelling. The ancient rights of property, especially property in land, are suspect to almost all radicals; and collectivist radicals hack at the institution of private property root and branch

One is unsurprised to find that National Socialism fits none of the criteria for conservatism and all of those for Leftism. National Socialism was in fact just another utopian variant on the rationalist theme of the kind that, as we suggested below, the Left has been prey to since it lost its sense of Man's true nature.

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REV UP THE RACE:

Lieberman Leads Pack: But Poll Shows Democratic Presidential Race Still Wide Open (Dalia Sussman, Jan. 23, 2003, ABCNews.com)

Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut continues to lead in support for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, gaining six points since July to inch numerically ahead of "undecided," an ABCNEWS/Washington Post poll has found.

Lieberman, known by dint of his vice presidential run in 2000, has 27 percent support among Democrats and independents who lean toward the Democratic Party. Twenty-four percent have no preference, signifying how wide open the race remains.

Fourteen percent support Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri, 11 percent Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, and 10 percent Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts. The Rev. Al Sharpton, a New York-based activist, has 7 percent support, and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean 3 percent.

In a poll that basically just measures name recognition, and that was taken before he even announced, Al Sharpton is already a significant factor. How can anyone not love politics?

MORE:
NADER: On The D-Fence? (The Hotline, 1/23/03)

"According to some" in Ralph Nader's circle, "among the 2004 electoral possibilities" for the WH '00 Green candidate "is the tactic of entering the Democratic primary as Democrat, and then, when he loses, running in the general election" as either an indie or a Green. "This would enable Nader to receive the publicity of a primary season, gain inclusion -- along with [Al] Sharpton and other progressive Democratic candidates -- in debates, and possibly even earn federal matching funds to fuel a campaign."

The other great rumor today is that The Reverend Al Sharpton has offered both Howard Dean and John Kerry the VP slot on his presidential ticket. If Nader and Sharpton are both at the Democrat debates it will barely qualify as reality TV.

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WHY IS HE ON THE STREET?:

New porn charges hit R. Kelly (ABDON M. PALLASCH, January 23, 2003, Chicago Sun-Times)

R&B superstar R. Kelly's court-approved visit to Miami to tape a music video for his racy new song "Ignition" was interrupted Wednesday by yet another trip to the lockup for the three-time Grammy winner.

This time, he was charged with 12 counts of possession of child pornography. He was released on $12,000 bail.

The charges come on top of the 21-count indictment for child porn that Kelly faces in Chicago. Those charges stem from a video that appears to show Kelly engaging in various sex acts with a 14-year-old girl. [...]

A Cook County judge told Kelly in December he could go to Florida to work on the music video as long as he checked in by phone every day and avoided contact with minors. [...]

Kelly's spiritual adviser, the Rev. James Meeks, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson declined comment on Kelly's latest arrest.

There's something fundamentally wrong with a legal system that let's this scum out in society.

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WHOSE RANKS?:

Dissent in the Ranks (Howard Altman, January 16-22, 2003 , Philadelphia City Paper)

Edward H. Hamm is a retired real estate investor and oil man. He's a card-carrying Republican who's given more than half a million
dollars to GOP campaign coffers, including $1,000 to elect George Bush. Hamm gives so much money to the party that he goes by the title of Republican Regent. [...]

On Monday, Hamm paid $170,000 for a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal -- titled "A Republican Dissent on Iraq" -- exhorting Bush to back down. The ad is signed by more than two dozen people with Republican ties nationwide, including two from Philadelphia -- John Haas, the retired chairman of the board at Rohm & Haas, and Peter Benoliel, chairman of the executive committee of Quaker Chemical Corporation. [...]

Hamm's original draft of the ad was massaged by the Avenging Angels, a "progressive" advertising and communications firm whose founder, Gene Case, began his career working with Lyndon Johnson's 1964 re-election campaign.

According to Climaterescue.org, an environmentalist website, Case founded the $500-million advertising agency and assisted organizations like The Nation magazine, National Council of Churches, Nuclear Information and Resource Service and TrueMajority, a grassroots education and advocacy project founded by ultra-liberal ice cream magnate Ben Cohen. [...]

John Haas is happy to talk about why he signed Hamm's ad.

"I am not against war, just against us going in by ourselves," says Haas, who was a Republican until switching allegiances earlier this year to vote for Ed Rendell in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. "A unilateral approach to this problem is the wrong way to go. It is a mistake for us to go in ourselves and create more problems than we solve. It will infuriate the world community, the Muslim community and create more terrorists. If you go in with the backing of the Security Council, you are all right."

Haas, whose father helped found Rohm & Haas, says that disagreeing with President Bush is nothing new for him.

"I did not vote for Bush," he says. "I have been a lifelong Republican, but I was not able to go along with his politics."

In what sense are these guys Republicans?

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THE FUTURE'S HAPPENING THERE:

India to be fastest growing tech market in the world: Gartner (AFP, Jan 20, 2003)

India was forecast Monday to have the fastest growing information technology market in the world for the current year by US-based technology research house Gartner Inc.

"The Indian domestic market is expected to grow between 25 and 30 percent and will be the fastest growing IT market in the world," Gartner said in a press statement released in Bangalore.

"Wireless will be a key driver of continued growth in the Indian telecoms market, though rationalization of licensing regulations and interconnectivity policies will be a strong factor affecting growth in the longer term," it said.

If we can wean India away from its unacceptable Hindu nationalism, it is poised to be the economic juggernaut that folks mistook China for.

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OLD THINK:

U.S. Set to Demand That Allies Agree Iraq Is Defying U.N. (STEVEN R. WEISMAN, January 23, 2003, NY Times)

If anything, Americans officials said, the recent French and German appeal for American patience has backfired--emboldening the hawks in the administration and even spurring Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to tell aides that he would accept military action against Iraq without approval from the Security Council.

Mr. Powell has resisted that position for months. Sounding tougher today than he has, he said on the PBS program "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer" that the question was whether to allow Iraq "a few more weeks, a few more months" to comply when it was clear already that it would never do so.

"Frankly," he added, "there are some nations in the world who would like simply to turn away from this problem, pretend it isn't there."

Mr. Powell's comments appeared to be a direct rebuttal of the call for a delay of two or three months by the French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, with whom he has talked frequently--some said tensely--since the weekend.

Going further, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld dismissed the German and French roles in a newly expanded NATO, which has been asked to provide indirect assistance for an Iraqi invasion.

"You're thinking of Europe as Germany and France," Mr. Rumsfeld told foreign journalists at the State Department, as leaders of the two countries today solemnly celebrated the 40th anniversary of their treaty of friendship in Versailles, France. "I don't. I think that's old Europe." He added: "You look at vast numbers of other countries in Europe. They're not with France and Germany on this. They're with the United States."

At the end of the day, what do France and Germany really have to offer in the event of war--white flags and Zyklon-B respectively?

MORE:
The French Death Blow (Colin May, Innocents Abroad)

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WE, RESPECTFULLY, BEG TO DIFFER:

Much as I enjoy tweaking Charles Murtaugh about the deleterious effects being at Harvard has had on his political sense, I usually agree with his literary judgments. So it comes as a great surprise to see him agree with this portion of an essay about The Lord of the Rings (Eric Olsen, Blogcritics):

I finally finished rereading The Return of the King, about 25 years after the first time I read it. I find it preposterous that the series has been voted the greatest work of literature of the 20th century, or even the millennium by one poll: this is a great story with an amazing depth of mythic detail behind it, not a work of great literature. "Literature" at its greatest shines an uncanny light upon human relationships and exposes something so surprisingly true about ourselves that we stare into space in wonder and even fright. Depth of character and the complexity of relationships is what Tolkien does least well.

As a threshold point, one fails to see how it can be argued that a great read that creates its own mythology of "amazing depth" can fail to be considered great literature. By comparison, I'm currently reading Philip Pullman's Dark Materials Trilogy, which has won awards and much critical acclaim, but as you read it there is no sense that the characters have any life or history beyond what appears on the page and serves the plot at that moment. Part of the unique genius of Tolkien is that he created Middle Earth, its languages, religions, literature, songs, peoples, history, etc. and only then wrote the novels. It may be fair to say that characters don't have the "psychological depth" we require in the age of James Joyce, Marcel Proust, and Oprah, but they have an entirely different kind of depth: to the extent such a thing is possible, they exist outside the books.

However, even this underestimates the series. For it is precisely by exposing humanity to the truth about itself, in a very frightening way, that the series achieves true greatness. If it is fair to say that characters are in some sense too heroic, that their basic goodness makes them unrealistic, it is also the case that not a single one of them--from the wisest to the mightiest to the most innocent--is capable of resisting the ring and its siren call to wield power over others. At he heart of the series lies this core truth--and it is here that we most clearly see Tolkien's Christian message--that evil exists and that it is is irresistible but must be resisted.

This, of course, is a message that is denied by the modern (since Rousseau) Left (and by the libertarian Right), which insists that bad behavior is a
mere product of bad circumstances, rather than a function of the eternal capacity for evil that is at war with the aspiration towards good that is ongoing
in Man's soul. Perhaps the best example of what has happened comes from Andrew Delbanco, who TIME named America's best intellectual. In
1995, he wrote a very fine, but ultimately tragically wrong, book called href=http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/1129>The Death of Satan: How Americans Have Lost the Sense of Evil:

[T]he work of the devil is everywhere, but no one knows where to find him.  We live in the most brutal century in human history, but instead of stepping forward to take the credit, he has rendered himself invisible.  Although the names by which he was once designated (in the Christian lexicon he was assigned the name Satan; Marxism substituted phrases like 'exploitative classes'; psychoanalysis preferred terms like 'repression' and 'neurosis')  have been discredited to one degree or another, nothing has come to take their place.  The work of this book is therefore to think historically about the shrinking range of phenomena to which accusatory words like 'evil' and 'sin' may still be applied in contemplatory life, and to think about what it means to do without them.

I have written it out of the belief that despite the shriveling of the old words and concepts, we cannot do without some conceptual means for thinking about the sorts of experiences that used to go under the name of evil.  Few people still believe in what the British writer Ian McEwan has recently called the 'malign principle, a force in human affairs that periodically advances to dominate and destroy the lives of individuals or nations, then retreats to await the next occasion.'  We certainly no longer have a conception of evil as a distributed entity with an ontological essence of its own, as what some philosophers call 'presences.'  Yet something that feels like this force still invades our experience, and we still discover in ourselves the capacity to inflict it on others.  Since this is true, we have an inescapable problem: we feel something that our culture no longer gives us the vocabulary to express.

Yet, even having recognized the problem inherent in abandoning a world that recognizes the existence of evil, Mr. Delbanco shows himself unable to confront its implications:

Although there would be a certain satisfaction in living imaginatively in such a world, on balance it is probably a good thing that we have lost it forever.  Whether we welcome or mourn this loss, it is the central and irreversible fact of modern history that we no longer inhabit a world of transcendence.  The idea that man is a receptor of truth from God has been relinquished, and replaced with the idea that reality is an unstable zone between phenomena (unknowable in themselves) and innumerable fields of mental activity (which we call persons) by which they are apprehended.  These apprehensions are expressed through language, which is always evolving, and which constitutes the only reality we recognize.  Our world exists
in the ceaseless movement of human consciousness, a process in which the reception of new impressions is indistinguishable from the production of new meanings: 'mind's willful transference of nature, man, and society--and eventually of God, and finally of mind itself-- into itself.'

Where Mr. Delbanco had begun by telling us "we cannot do without some conceptual means for thinking about the sorts of experiences that used to go under the name of evil," now he tells us that instead :

[T]he story I have tried to tell is the story of the advance of secular rationality in the United States, which has been relentless in the face of all resistance.  It is the story of a culture that has gradually withdrawn its support from the old conception of a universe seething with divine intelligence and has left its members with only one recourse: to acknowledge that no story about the intrinsic meaning of the world has universal validity.

In the fundamentally unserious kind of culture that America had become by the mid-90s, this kind of nonsense could be argued with a straight face. However, here's a bit of an interview that Mr. Delbanco did with Bill Moyers right after 9-11:

BM: Do you believe in evil?

AD: I don't see how anyone can have experienced even indirectly as you and I sitting here have the events of the last day and not take seriously the existence of evil. One of the things that a number of writers have said about the devil-- some people believe in him as a literal being, some people believe in him as a metaphor or an image or a representation of these dark, human capacities-- one thing that a number of writers have said is that the cleverest trick of the devil is to convince people that he does not exist. We saw evil yesterday. We have to confront it. We have to face it.

BM: Evil is defined as?

AD: Well, for me I think the best I've been able to do with that question is to try to recognize and come to terms with the reality of the fact that there are human beings who are able, by convincing themselves that there's some higher good, some higher ideal to which their lives should be dedicated, that the pain and suffering of other individuals doesn't matter, it doesn't have to do with them or that it's... That they're expendable, that it's a cost that's worth making in the pursuit of these objectives. So evil for me is the absence of the imaginative sympathy for other human beings.

BM: The absence of a moral imagination, the ability to see what the consequences of your actions are to someone else?

AD: Yes, the inability to see your victims as human beings. To think of them as instruments or cogs or elements or statistics but not as human beings.

BM: You have written about your concern that Americans have lost the sense of evil. Is what happened in the last 36 hours going to bring us back or is it too deep for that, our absence, our loss of memory.

AD: I think it simmers. It's dormant in all of us. We don't want to acknowledge it. We want to explain it away. We want to find [an explanation] for it. In a modern world we mostly live in a place where the terrible suffering of the world seems far away-abstract and unreal and we can somehow imagine that it hasn't anything to do with us. It came home yesterday. I think a lot of people in this city and in this country are searching their souls.

Suddenly, Mr. Delbanco has ditched his secular rationality and is speaking of the soul and there's no more blather about how there are no universals. The relativistic Left asked in the wake of the attacks: why do they hate us? Because they can no longer comprehend evil, there had to be something we did that caused such a horror. But Mr. Delbanco seemed entirely able to state a universal truth, that the attacks of 9-11 were evil.

If the cleverest trick of the devil truly is to convince us that he doesn't exist, then one of his greatest modern opponents is J.R.R. Tolkien--whose writings have reached millions, by now perhaps hundreds of millions. The Lord of the Rings teaches us that evil is real and that it is compelling, that even the best of us will be attracted to it. This is one of the oldest truths of Western Civilization, yet somehow it still surprises people, as Mr. Olsen demands that great literature must. And because it does and because this truth is so vital to a proper understanding of what it means to be human, it seems to me at least that it must be considered one of the greatest works of literature our civilization has produced.

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THE LOTT FALLOUT (continued):

Official switches affiliation: The party of “inclusion” has lost a county official to the other side. (WILLIAM LANEY, January 21, 2003, Wapakoneta Daily News)

Auglaize County Commissioner John Bergman announced that he has left the Democratic Party and joined the Republican Party in a news release Thursday and delivered to area newspapers Monday. He also announced he would be seeking re-election in 2004.

“I think that they don’t look at the views toward the middle like they used to at the national level,” Bergman said in a phone interview from his Noble Township home Monday afternoon.

Bergman, 48, said he became upset when the Democrats appointed U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, as the House Minority Leader, when they could have looked at more moderate representatives. She was sworn in on Jan. 7.

“It shows me a lack of willingness to come to the center because Mr. (Martin) Frost from Texas, he was in the race from the get-go and he has moderate views, and, of course, Marcy Kaptur, here, from Ohio, who got into the race a little bit later, is much more moderate,” Bergman said. “The party of inclusion has forgot about the moderate and conservative Democrats, and it is supposed to be the party of inclusion.”

Will the last person to leave the Democrat Party please shut off the lights.

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THE PARANOID OPTIMIST:

The future is American: a review of 20:21 Vision: the Lessons of the 20th Century for the 21st by Bill Emmott (Martin Vander Weyer, Daily Telegraph)

[W]hat is perhaps...surprising is that Emmott is so cheerful: he calls his attitude "paranoid optimism", the belief (commonly found, apparently, among wine-makers) that the future will be better than the past, as long as nothing goes horribly wrong.

He boils the big questions down to two: whether the United States will retain its current leadership role in the world, and whether capitalism will continue to be the dominant force in the global economy. His answer is that they probably will, and that both these outcomes will probably be a good thing.

Emmott is a free-marketeer who believes democracy and enterprise go hand in hand with prosperity and freedom. The lesson of the past century for him is that the useful role of government is to provide stability, security, rule of law and an absence of corruption, but no more. Beyond that, human progress is driven by the great trial-and-error process of capitalism, with all its obvious faults and wrong turnings.

That makes it all the more vital, he says, to win the argument for globalisation - the object of such visceral hatred from environmentalists and anti-poverty campaigners today - because the poorest nations will always be those that try to keep global economic forces at bay, and simply get left behind.

In 1989, Mr. Emmott wrote The Sun Also Sets: The Limits to Japan's Economic Power, which was then, and pretty much remains, the only sensible look at Japan and the structural weaknesses that made its decline inevitable. He, of course, was writing at a time when the operating assumption of far too many, but especially of the 1988 Democrat Presidential candidates, was that Japan's managed economy was a success story and one that we should emulate here. This sounds like another winner.

MORE:
-TJFR Business News Reporter: Journalist Profile[tm]: Bill Emmott, The Economist
-BOOKNOTES: Japanophobia: The Myth of the invincible Japanese by Bill Emmott (C-SPAN, February 13, 1994)
-REVIEW: of Japanophobia (Oren Grad, Reason)

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"EURO CAPITALISM"?:

The American Way Wins: Why American capitalism trumps Euro capitalism. (Irwin M. Stelzer, 01/21/2003, Weekly Standard)

The governments of the European Union by and large claim about 50 percent of their nations' output for the governments' ministers to do with as they please; the U.S. federal government takes about 30 percent. The high taxes needed by E.U. governments to support their welfare states have contributed to persistent double-digit unemployment in Germany, and to very low growth rates throughout most of what is called "Euroland." Add to the tax burden three further economic impediments to growth--labor markets so rigidly regulated that employers dare not hire for fear of being unable to fire; a Growth and Stability Pact that prohibits countries from running significant deficits when faced with recession; and a one-size-fits-all interest rate that is applied both to recession-afflicted Germany and inflation-afflicted Portugal.

There is worse. In addition to national governments that are inclined to regulate everything from the amount of foam allowed on a mug of beer sold by publicans (the UK), to the hours stores can stay open (in Germany it's never on Sunday and only part of the time on Saturday), Brussels' eurocrats have rules that regulate everything from the size of condoms to the permitted curvature of bananas.

So it comes as no surprise to any economist not included in the swath of those who hate America--"capitalism red in tooth and claw" and "the law of the jungle" are two of the epithets sometimes hurled at me in international conferences--that the E.U. economies are in trouble.

There is no better proof than last week's moan from Romano Prodi, president of the European Commission. It seems the European Union is falling ever-further behind the United States in the competitiveness race. Per capita productivity of the E.U.'s employed workforce fell from 86 percent of the U.S. level in 1999 to 83 percent last year. If you count the zero productivity of the massive numbers of Europe's unemployed, things are even worse for the European Union.

And unlikely to get better, says the new study by the European Commission. Resistance to labor-market reform remains a potent force, Europe continues to devote fewer resources to research than does the United States, and E.U. taxes remain high (at a time when the debate in American is not over whether, but by how much, to reduce the tax burden on workers, entrepreneurs, and investors).

That's without taking the demographic problems into account.

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ANTI-SEMITISM NEVER GOES OUT OF STYLE:

Survey: 34% of Americans say 'Jews have too much influence' (DPA, 22/01/2003, Ha'aretz)

A nationwide survey released Tuesday shows anti-Semitism is growing in the United States, according to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle.

The poll showed that nearly a third of all U.S. citizens fear a Jewish president may have divided loyalties when dealing with Israel, the report said. [...]

The survey found higher anti-Semitism among Democrats than Republicans. Twenty percent of Democrats and Independents tend to "view Jews as caring only about themselves," compared to only 12 percent among Republicans.

If you're a Republican do you get to brag about having fewer knuckle-dragging idiots in your party?

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DICTATOR CHIC:

Downing Street silent as France welcomes Mugabe (Philip Webster and Adam Sage, January 23, 2003, Times of London)

TONY BLAIR held back from attacking France last night as it prepared to invite President Mugabe of Zimbabwe to a summit in Paris.

Downing Street remained silent on the proposed visit, apparently to avoid a new row with France that could jeopardise both international consensus on war with Iraq and the renewal of EU sanctions against Zimbabwe--which include a travel ban on the country's rulers.

The Conservatives described the Prime Minister's stance as outrageous and dishonourable.

European foreign ministers will decide on Monday whether to renew sanctions against Zimbabwe, which expire on February 18, the day before the Franco-African summit is due to start in Paris.

President Chirac wants Mr Mugabe to attend, and a formal invitation has been prepared. If the sanctions are not renewed he would be able to come in any case, but Britain and most EU countries want the sanctions extended for another year. The price appears to be allowing an exemption to be made for the summit.

Is there a dictatorship anywhere that the French don't support?

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SOWING THE WIND:

Why Jews and blacks vote Democrat (Dennis Prager, 1/21/03, Jewish World Review)

The odds are that you have wondered at one time or another why the great majority of Jews and nearly all blacks vote Democrat. There are, after all, no other ethnic or racial groups that so overwhelmingly and consistently vote either Republican or Democrat.

Moreover, given Jewish values and given blacks' views on a host of important social issues, there is really no compelling reason for blacks and Jews to vote Democrat.

Let us begin with the Jews. Judaism, like every great religion, is essentially conservative: Judaism demands obedience to a judging G-d and to a moral code set forth thousands of years ago. That is why the more orthodox a Jew is religiously, the less likely he is to be a liberal politically; and the more likely he is to vote Republican. Furthermore, the dominant Jewish issue, the security and survival of the Jewish state, is also unlikely to orient a Jew politically leftward. Even sociologically, Jews voting instinctively Democratic makes little sense. Jews, more than many, consider it shameful to rely on others for welfare, raise their children to believe in hard work, and benefit from a merit-based society. Indeed, even those Jews who vote Democratic usually lead rather conservative lives.

As for blacks, their virtually unanimous voting for the Democratic Party makes even less sense. For one thing, most blacks tend to have socially conservative views (considerably more so than their fellow Democrats). Blacks tend to be religious, have traditional views on homosexuality and abortion, and believe in school vouchers, a policy strongly opposed by the party nearly all of them vote for. [...]

Clearly then, it is not Democratic Party positions that explain why so many Jews and blacks vote Democrat. Something deeper must be at work.

That something is fear in the case of Jews and anger in the case of blacks. And both the Jews' fears and the blacks' anger are a result of their respective collective memories.

One of the reasons that these groups can afford to vote Democrat is because the Republican Party--which is ideologically driven, as opposed to the Democrats who are coalition and interest driven--will continue to support issues like vouchers and Zionism regardless of who benefits. The danger for these groups though is that when an issues comes up that the GOP does not have a strong ideological bias for or against it will be very difficult to convince Republicans that they should adopt a position favored by a group that consistently opposes them. So, for instance, Jewish or black groups seeking increased funding for research on Tasachs or Sickle Cell would have no reason to expect a favorable hearing in a Republican-controlled Washington other than simple decency. In politics it's never a good idea to be stuck depending on your opponents' decency.

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ONE-EYED AL:

The Debut of the Six Amigos (Douglas Kiker and Steve Chaggaris, Jan. 22, 2003, CBS)

Tuesday night's NARAL Pro-Choice America celebration of the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade brought together, for the first time, the six Democrats who've officially thrown their hats in the presidential ring for 2004. [...]

Rev. Al Sharpton, fresh off filing his presidential committee papers with the Federal Elections Commission, followed Edwards – and nearly brought the house down with his revival-tent style oratory. "If America is to be America, we must protect women's rights to choose for themselves," Sharpton said. (Note to Democrats: Sharpton's ability to fire up a crowd, particularly a partisan crowd like the one at the Omni Shoreham last night, should not be underestimated as the presidential campaign wears on.)

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who is also a doctor of internal medicine, bragged that his state is the "promised land" for abortion-rights supporters. He also attacked the politically loaded term "partial-birth abortion" with as "designed to illicit fear" and added, to a roar from the crowd: "Using the words partial birth abortion divides us by conscience."

What's more amusing, that the only candidate with a pulse is unelectable or that Howard Dean thinks it inappropriate to appeal to conscience on moral issues?

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"I DON'T THINK THAT WORD MEANS WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS":

Understanding the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

This site aims to provide authoritative information on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict without polemics.

There certainly is some useful information available here, but that disclaimer is just risible. Check out the description that follows this topic:

The Pro-Israel Lobby - Learn how this special interest group influences U.S. foreign policy and stifles public debate, to the detriment of U.S. national interests.

No, no polemics there...

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THIS COULD BE THE START OF A BEAUTIFUL FRIENDSHIP:

France punches above its weight (BRET STEPHENS, Jan. 22, 2003, Jerusalem Post)

French President Jacques Chirac has a personal relationship with Saddam Hussein dating to the 1970s. Chirac's predecessor, Francois Mitterrand, helped furnish Iraq with an estimated $10 billion worth of French arms, according to journalist Michel Gurfinkiel. Though France joined the coalition to expel Saddam from Kuwait in 1991, thereafter it worked sedulously to weaken UN sanctions on Baghdad, in part because it sought favorable concessions for French oil concerns bidding to develop lucrative Iraqi oil fields.

Finally, French diplomacy seeks advantage over perennial rivals Britain and America. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder may inveigh against war, but he's in no position to influence the outcome of deliberations at the UN. France is, and by opposing a resolution authorizing force, it puts Britain in an awkward spot.

Either London accepts the judgment of the Security Council, as Blair has repeatedly stressed he wishes to do, or it goes it alone with Washington against the wishes of the government's political base. Neither choice can be very attractive to Blair.

With Washington it's the same, only on a grander scale. The Bush administration took its case against Iraq to the UN with great reluctance; having done so, however, it's not in a good position politically to act unilaterally. Bush may nevertheless do exactly that, leaving France out of the action and perhaps depriving it of the spoils of victory, too. Even so, the middleweight French have put the American heavyweight on the defensive, showing once again that they know how to outbox a giant. Not bad for a short day's work.

It's worth recalling that when Ronald Reagan bombed Libya, effectively ending the terrorist threat from Colonel Qaddafi, the French refused to let our bombers fly over their air space, thereby putting American lives at risk in an attempt to protect a murderous dictator. It's hardly surprising to find them siding with another against the U.S.. As their behavior once again demonstrates, France can not objectively be considered an ally and should probably be treated as an enemy.

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THE HAUNTING (reader advisory below):

How Many Ghosts? (Philip Gold, August 23, 1999, The Washington Times)

As I write these words, a friend of mine is out on the highway, counting down the hours to the death of his unborn child. Before leaving, he wrote his (now former?) girlfriend a check for half the price of the procedure. He said it made him nauseous.

Long years ago, having nowhere to drive (or perhaps the car was in the shop), I did my own countdown in an Eames chair with a bottle of scotch. I do not recall writing a check, or offering, or being asked. The nausea occasionally returns.

My friend is a young man, the kind who almost makes you believe the X in GenX can also stand for excellence. Intelligent, well-educated, thoughtful, college football player/philosophy major, with a limitless future in a field so high-tech I can't begin to understand what he's talking about. I understood well enough, however, when he told me about his on-again, off-again girlfriend, brilliant and beautiful and volatile in the harsh, addictive way that brilliant, beautiful young women often are. She had gotten pregnant on a night when off changed, somewhat unexpectedly, back to on. He does not doubt that he loves her, or she him.

I asked him if this was the first time he had faced this kind of situation. He answered, yes. Then welcome to reality. Before it's over, you're going to learn a lot about who and what you are.

This is a terribly disturbing essay that some folks may wish to skip entirely. It seems unlikely that we truly desire to know who and what we are as a society.

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CAN AUSTRALIA PUT A TIGER IN ITS TANK?:

From dozy cat to Celtic Tiger in 20 years - and Australia can do it, too. (MairŽad Browne, 17/1/03, Online Opinion)

Growth rates went from 3.5 per cent in the early '90s to eight per cent in the late '90s - outperforming all other EU countries. The numbers at work rose by a staggering 45 per cent over 12 years, with an average increase of jobs of three per cent per year. Unemployment dropped from 17 per cent in the 1980s to less than four per cent in 2001.

For the phenomenon that was labelled the 'Celtic Tiger' to occur required some important contributing factors that by good fortune prevailed at the crucial time. These included the sustained US economic boom and availability of EU funding for infrastructure development. But there were also areas where conscious, bold decisions by politicians and business leaders on matters within their control paid dividends in terms of fuelling the growth. These factors included creating a favourable environment for foreign investment through low corporate tax rates, vigourous and creative promotion of Ireland as a good place to locate and a strong macroeconomic environment with strong public finances.

And there was also the long history of Irish investment in education since the 1960s, which was an essential element in the growth. From the '60s, no matter what government was in power, there was no faltering in public spending on education, even in face of huge unemployment figures and a bleak economic outlook. [...]

The question to be asked is what does this mean for Australia? What lessons are there from the Irish experience if we are to become a Tiger economy? First, government policy is important, as was the case in Ireland. The critical role played by what was a handful of visionary, and in many ways desperate, Irish politicians to turn around a very depressed economy has been recognised. There was bi-partisan support for new tax regimes, continued investment in education, and decent industrial practices. Would Australian politicians be capable of a bi-partisan approach to creating the policy framework for the development of a real, as opposed to a rhetorical, knowledge economy? I fear not. And even if there was bi-partisan leadership in Australia the question of how Australian industry might respond remains.

A major difference between Australia and Ireland lies in the way in which the Irish community and businesses responded to government leadership; the Irish started from a position where they did not think education and research were luxuries or the pastimes of elites. They recognized that these were fundamental strategies to improve the economy and, through that, the quality of everyone's life. Educators and researchers were seen as people to be taken seriously and not the subject of jokes about their irrelevance to the concerns of the 'real' people, the 'battlers'.

We have the policies here in Australia such as the Coalition's 'Backing Australia's Ability', with the Labor Party's 'Knowledge Nation' and 'Research: Engine Room of the Nation' waiting in the wings. But none of these addresses the cultural and attitudinal issues that face Australia if research and innovation are to become part of the fabric of the way we do things here. Adequate funding and support will never come as long as researchers and university people are regarded, even affectionately, as 'boffins'.

One of the good side-effects of the Sputnik shock and the race to the moon, as opposed to the many bad ones, was that suddenly science and scientists became sexy. An emphasis on math and basic science in school and a healthy respect for those who pursue careers in science can't help but benefit a society.

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CULT OF PERSONALITY:

Stop the Worship: The Kennedy cult does a disservice to history. (THOMAS C. REEVES, December 29, 2002, Wall Street Journal)

With the stampede over revelations about John F. Kennedy's medical problems now a memory from several weeks ago, this veteran historian would like to make some sober observations. Many journalists seemed to be encountering this issue for the first time. JFK was sickly? He was dependent on drugs? This was news?!

In fact, historians have long known in some detail about Kennedy's poor health, and of the fact that he, his wife and several aides were routinely taking amphetamines administered by a quack physician. That the White House physician, Dr. Janet Travell, gave him injections of procaine for his pain is old news. So is the coverup by Kennedy aides, family members and sympathetic historians, who claimed that JFK was the embodiment of the vigor and action needed by the country after the allegedly sleepy and feeble Eisenhower administration.

However, I did not see a single story on the medication flap that linked the medical coverup with the sexual-escapade coverup, documented, among other places, in my "A Question of Character: A Life of John F.Kennedy, and by Seymour Hersh's highly revealing interviews with Secret Service agents in "The Dark Side of Camelot." The truth is that no other presidential administration can begin to compete with this record of recklessness and deceit. Bill Clinton, bad as he was, was no match for JFK.

Mr. Reeves excellent biography, which came out around the same time as the equally devastating The Crisis Years by Michael Beschloss, set a rather high bar that JFK apologists need to clear before they start telling us how great his presidency was and what a swell guy he was personally. From consorting with Nazi spies and mafia molls to being whacked on painkillers (prescribed by a quack) when he met with Khruschev, the by now undisputed facts about JFK paint a picture of a man who was not only every bit as irresponsible as Bill Clinton but whose irresponsibility may have had an even greater influence on world affairs at a time when the world was a far more dangerous place.

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UNCLE SAM WANTS YOU!

Front-line troops disproportionately white, not black: Numbers refute long-held belief (Dave Moniz and Tom Squitieri, USA TODAY)

The American troops likeliest to fight and die in a war against Iraq are disproportionately white, not black, military statistics show -- contradicting a belief widely held since the early days of the Vietnam War.

In a little-publicized trend, black recruits have gravitated toward non-combat jobs that provide marketable skills for post-military careers, while white soldiers are over-represented in front-line combat forces.

This is also the reason that there are even fewer minorities in the higher ranks of the military. The military has traditionally relied on the servicemen with combat arms experience for top leadership positions.

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TED FINDS AN ACORN:

Senator Kennedy: Terrorism, N. Korea Are Greater Concerns Than Iraq (Deborah Tate, 21 Jan 2003, VOA)

On the day President Bush warned that time is running out for Iraq to disarm, Senator Kennedy argued that a U.S.-led war against that country could impact negatively on other areas of U.S. foreign policy.

"I continue to be convinced that this is the wrong war at the wrong time," he said. "The threat from Iraq is not imminent, and it will distract America from the two more immediate threats to our security: the clear and present danger of terrorism and the crisis with North Korea."

It's rare to find oneslf in agreement with Ted Kennedy, but I agree that the right war at this time is with North Korea and am heartened to hear even liberal Democrats calling for its declaration. There's plenty of time to take on Saddam after we make the rubble bounce in Pyongyang.

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DOES ANYBODY EDIT THE POST?:

-REVIEW: of A FREE NATION DEEP IN DEBT: The Financial Roots of Democracy By James Macdonald (Michele Wucker, Washington Post)

Two new books about the historical roots of debt could hardly be more timely. American consumers owe more than $1.7 trillion, not even counting home mortgages. A record 1.5 million bankruptcies were declared over the past year. Meanwhile, war with Iraq could cost as much as $2 trillion, roughly equivalent to a full year's U.S. federal budget, and much of it likely to be financed by borrowing.

Or $200 billion. But hey, what's 1.8 trillion dollars between friends.

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JUST TELL ME WHO YOU WANT ME TO BE:

Lieberman Denies Shift On Race Policy (DAVID LIGHTMAN, January 20 2003, Hartford Courant )

As Joe Lieberman's 2004 presidential campaign begins its first big road trip today, he is already on the defensive over seemingly conflicting views on affirmative action.

And to add even more tension, he is heading to Michigan, ground zero in that controversy.

Lieberman told a national television audience Sunday that he supports the University of Michigan admissions system, which uses racial preferences, and said President Bush's opposition was flatly "wrong" and "divisive."

But nearly eight years ago, as Democrats struggled to keep their historic backing of affirmative action from becoming a serious political liability and as California considered banning preferences at state-funded institutions, Lieberman sounded a different tone.

"You can't defend policies that are based on group preferences as opposed to individual opportunities," he said in 1995 as he raised serious questions about affirmative action. [...]

On March 9, 1995, before an audience of national reporters, Lieberman said of group policies: "When we have such policies, we have the effect of breaking some of those ties in civil society that have held us together because [the affirmative action policies] are patently unfair."

Lieberman continued: "Those who are the victims of [group preferences] and lose out when choices are made based on group preferences as opposed to individual ability naturally become disaffected from the process."

Asked that day about the California initiative, Lieberman said: "Looking at the wording of the Civil Rights Initiative in California, I can't see how I could be opposed to it," he said, "because it basically is a statement of American values ..."

The problem for Mr. Lieberman is that it is not a statement of Democrat values. Luckily, the Good Senator has never been reluctant to cut his conscience to fit the year's fashions.

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ALL WE ARE SAYING....IS GIVE MARX A CHANCE:

Behind the Placards: The odd and troubling origins of today's anti-war movement (David Corn, NOVEMBER 1 - 7, 2002, LA Weekly)

[T]he demonstration was essentially organized by the Workers World Party, a small political sect that years ago split from the Socialist Workers Party to support the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. The party advocates socialist revolution and abolishing private property. It is a fan of Fidel Castro's regime in Cuba, and it hails North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il for preserving his country's "socialist system," which, according to the party's newspaper, has kept North Korea "from falling under the sway of the transnational banks and corporations that dictate to most of the world." The WWP has campaigned against the war-crimes trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. A recent Workers World editorial declared, "Iraq has done absolutely nothing wrong."

Officially, the organizer of the Washington demonstration was International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism). But ANSWER is run by WWP activists, to such an extent that it seems fair to dub it a WWP front. Several key ANSWER officials--including spokesperson Brian Becker--are WWP members.

This Brian Becker character was the one they had on MacNeil/Lehrer last week. This is great--like the 50s all over again--with front groups and fellow travelers, the whole nine yards. Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins could be our Hammett and Hellman, if either of them was as talented as Dash.

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ALL LIFE CAN BE EXPLAINED BY REFERENCE TO THE GODFATHER (part 42):

One of the great mysteries of our time is how Scott Ritter went from the most hawkish of the Iraqi arms inspectors to essentially being Saddam's boy toy. Well, remember in the Godfather II when Senator Geary is giving the Corleones a hard time, so they set him up in a brothel and make it look like he whacked a hooker? Check out this story on the suddenly pliant Mr. Ritter, Arrest wasn't first time police had eye on Ritter Former U.N. arms inspector reportedly was under inquiry when cops charged him in 2001 (MIKE GOODWIN, January 21, 2003

The Internet sex case that led to the arrest of a former U.N. weapons inspector was not his first involvement with police on that type of crime, a person familiar with the case said Monday.

Scott Ritter was under investigation for trying to set up a meeting with a girl through the Internet when town police charged him in June 2001 with using an online chat room to set up a similar rendezvous at a Menands restaurant, the source said on condition of anonymity.

Police began investigating the 41-year-old Ritter, who lives in Delmar, in April 2001 after he tried to meet someone he thought was a 14-year-old girl, the source said. Ritter drove to a Colonie business, where he instead was met by police officers, the source said.

Ritter, an outspoken critic of President Bush's plans for war against Iraq, was released without being charged while police investigated.

Two months later, the source said, Ritter was caught in the same type of Internet sex-sting operation after he tried to lure a 16-year-old girl to a Burger King in Menands. The supposed teenager actually was an undercover investigator posing online as a minor as part of the town Police Department's investigation of Internet sex crime, the source said.

Considering the startling transformation in Mr. Ritter's views on Iraq, mightn't we fairly assume that Saddam has a videotape of him with some poor Iraqi teenager?

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AT THE YANKEES' SIDE OR THE FROGS' FEET?:

We must choose between Europe and America: EU leaders are deeply suspicious of the gusto with which Mr Blair has aligned himself with George Bush (Nick Clegg, 22 January 2003, Times of London)

There are many reasons for the sudden change in the UK's standing in the EU. Some are self-inflicted. British ministers have a grating habit of overstating their case in EU debates. Gordon Brown is famous for lecturing his counterparts into submission. There has been too much baseless hype that the Convention on the Future of Europe, chaired by ValŽry Giscard d'Estaing, is "going Britain's way".

Other reasons are beyond the British Government's control. In particular, the ruthless brilliance with which M. Chirac has moved to capitalise on the German government's weakness to reoccupy the EU's centre stage could not have been foreseen. Last week's Franco-German proposal for a dual presidency of the EU, one representing national governments and the other the European Commission, was only the latest in a succession of proposals shaped by M. Chirac's determination to set the EU agenda.

But there are two more profound reasons for the plunge in Britain's status within the EU that should give Tony Blair real cause for concern. First, there is the euro. Last month, the Portuguese Prime Minister, Jose Durao Barroso, voiced in public what EU heads of government have long whispered in private – why should the UK be granted a leadership role as long as it is unwilling to sign up to one of the central tenets of EU membership? As long as EU leaders believed Tony Blair was merely biding his time before putting the issue to a referendum, there was sufficient goodwill to forgive Britain's procrastination. But, as the Continent looks on with perplexity at the gridlock between the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, fears have deepened that Mr Blair has missed his chance.

And then, most important of all, there is Britain's special relationship with the United States. It is difficult to capture the conflicting reactions which Blair's ostentatious loyalty to George Bush's foreign policy elicits within the rest of the EU.

Admiration, to some extent, that there is a European leader trying to exercise a restraining influence on the US administration's apparent unilateral instincts. Envy, too, at the effortlessness with which the London and Washington establishments communicate with each other. But, above all, a deep suspicion that the gusto with which Mr Blair has aligned himself with Mr Bush demonstrates that the UK's reflex is to choose America over Europe. De Gaulle, it is muttered, was right. British Atlanticism will always stand in the way of a true commitment to Europe.

That is the choice England faces: subservience to the Franco-German axis in a United Europe or near-equal status with the U.S. in an Anglosphere. It still seems improbable that the majority of Brits would willingly choose the former.

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We got this email the other day:

I wanted to introduce you to a new site I've launched recently: FetchBook.Info

It's a free service, allowing you to easily compare prices of any book among 60 bookstores, and find a price which is 30% - 80% off the market list price.

I tried it out a little and it seemed to return decent results. Anybody used it before or care to test drive it?

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Speaking of Hollywood, check out this from Ed Driscoll.

MORE:
After you do, here's a note about Mr. Stewart from our friend (and jazz correspondent) Glenn Dryfoos:

I met him a couple of times at Princeton events, and he was as good as advertised...

One story (which I may have told you long ago): Stewart's main activity at Princeton was the Triangle Club, a musical theater group, which I played in some 50 years later...he was so devoted to Triangle that in the late 50's or 60's he appeared on the Ed Sullivan show singing a song from one of his Triangle appearance...a very funny bit...a serious love song sung to a guy in drag...(until co-education, most Triangle humor was based on the fact that half the cast was in drag)...

On the occasion of his 50th reunion year, we dedicated the show to him and took a road version to Los Angeles over Christmas break. He sat in the front row, and laughed and applauded throughout (those of us in the pit band had a better view of him and his wife than we did of the stage). At the party afterwards, he made a gracious speech, saying how much his Triangle days still meant to him and how much he enjoyed our show. Then, he paused and said that he had been a vocal opponent of coeducation at Princeton, not because he didn't think women shouldn't get educations or become doctors or lawyers or legislators, but because he thought that activities like Triangle would somehow get lost or diminished. He went on to say that he now knew that he had been wrong, that although the shows were different, it was still obviously a great activity that he knew we'd all treasure, and that Princeton was better for the change.

He didn't have to make that confession in that crowd, but he did, and it was a memorable moment...(although, of course, in the Judd scheme of things, it's better if he enjoyed the show and then stood up anyway and said he still thinks they should have never accepted broads....)

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A PEARL BEFORE THE SWINE:

Heaton walks out of music awards show because of lewd tone (Mark Dawidziak, 16th January 2003, Cleveland Plain Dealer)

"Everybody Loves Raymond" star Patricia Heaton took a stand Monday night at the 30th annual American Music Awards. The Bay Village native stood up and walked out of the Shrine Auditorium, disgusted by what she described as "an onslaught of lewd jokes and off-color remarks."

A two-time Emmy winner for her portrayal of Debra Barone on "Everybody Loves Raymond," Heaton was at the awards ceremony in Los Angeles to introduce a prerecorded retrospective of executive producer Dick Clark's annual music bash. But the sitcom star grew increasingly upset with the raw and raunchy comments made by presenters, performers and the hosts for the evening, the Osbournes.

"I'm no prude, but this was such a vulgar and disgusting show," Heaton said yesterday morning after seeing her four sons off to school and before leaving for the Burbank studio where "Everybody Loves Raymond" is taped.

Known for her candor in a town where stars routinely are warned to modify and suppress opinions, Heaton rarely shies away from speaking her mind, even when her views don't conform with the Hollywood company line.

"I arrived a little late and was seated in the audience," Heaton said. "I was going to present what's called a video package - a look at 30 years of the American Music Awards. Well, what was passing for humor basically ranged from stupid to vulgar, and I just thought, 'I'm not going to be part of this.' So I walked out and said, 'Get me my car. I'm leaving.' " [...]

"I really didn't know what I was getting into," Heaton said. "I mean, there was Ryan Seacrest pulling open his co-presenter's shirt, then noticing there was a 12-year-old girl in the front row. And he says, 'Don't worry, honey, you'll have a pair of these soon.' And everybody went crazy. It felt like I was in the Roman Colosseum. As far as I'm concerned, it was an affront to anyone with a shred of dignity, self-respect and intelligence."

Not only is Everybody Loves Raymond just about the only even half-decent show on television, Patricia Heaton is our favorite star. Though one would think she'd know better by now than to think there were very many other people in that building with "a shred of dignity, self-respect and intelligence."

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DARWIN'S RIGHT, I'M WRONG:

Volunteer 'Human Shields' to Head for Iraq (Andrew Cawthorne, 1/21/03, Reuters)

A first wave of mainly Western volunteers will leave London this weekend on a convoy bound for Iraq to act as "human shields" at key sites and populous areas in case of a U.S.-led war on Baghdad.

I've always said that I'd concede the truth of Darwinism if only someone would provide an ongoing example of natural selection in action. I concede the point. The human gene pool can only be strengthened by the removal of these deviant strands of DNA.

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THE BANALITY OF DICK GEPHARDT:

The Note (Mark Halperin, Elizabeth Wilner & Marc Ambinder, 1/21/03, ABCNews.com)

On the presidential level, with party circles still picking apart the results of this past weekend's events in Iowa, all six announced Democratic candidates will speak tonight at NARAL Pro-Choice America's dinner at the Omni Shoreham Hotel. Receptions to start at 6:00 p.m., event to begin at 7:00 p.m.

The NARAL event will be important for a lot of reasons. Watching the body language in how the candidates treat each other is key.

Influencing the Chattering Class, NARAL Division of pro-choice women activists is also key — right up there with labor and African-Americans. The echo-chamber effect for anyone who does well tonight (or poorly) will be huge.

Watch how the candidates use their limited speaking time (four minutes) to maximum effect. Watch to see if the time limit is strictly enforced. Watch to see who tries to make news, and how hard they go after President Bush. Watch to see who brings and/or makes reference to their spouse.

Richard Gephardt is the only one about whom there is some pre-event buzz that he plans to make news. Most of the speculation has centered on the possibility that he will "apologize" for his previously pro-life position, but Time's Joe Klein says "at the pro-choice cattle show, the only profile in courage will be Dick Gephardt's refusal to endorse late-term.

One would like to think that even Dick Gephardt is not so vile as to apologize for voting to protect human life in the past, but, sadly, his past--including his becoming pro-choice immediately on deciding to seek his party's nomination in '88--suggests he's precisely that vile.

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THE HOUSE DIVIDED:

NARAL Pro-Choice America Releases State-By-State Report: Gives Nation a D+ (NARAL, January 15, 2003)

The report uses a state ranking system to capture the burdens each state has imposed to limit access to reproductive services. This year, nine states (including the District of Columbia) merited a grade of A or A-, and 18 states earned an F. For the third year running Louisiana is the most restrictive of a women's right to choose.

"A" States — The best in protecting women's right to choose.
Connecticut,
Washington,
Oregon,
Vermont,
California,
New York,
Washington, DC,
Hawaii,
Maryland.

"F" States — The worst in protecting women's right to choose.
Georgia,
Wisconsin,
Idaho,
Kansas,
Virginia,
Alabama,
Arkansas,
South Dakota,
Mississippi,
Nebraska,
Ohio,
Michigan,
Utah,
Pennsylvania,
Missouri,
Kentucky,
North Dakota and
Louisiana.

That's very much the Red State/Blue State breakdown that we were expecting, isn't it? Abortion is most easily available in the Pacific and Mid-Atlantic regions and most restricted in the South, West and Rust Belt. One would think a regime that allowed these regions to freely legislate their cultural values and morality, rather than uniformly imposing either Roe or anti-Roe, would go some ways to reducing the tension that surrounds abortion.

MORE:
30 Years After Roe v. Wade, New Trends but the Old Debate (KATE ZERNIKE, January 20, 2003, NY Times)

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A CULTURE THAT'S BEYOND PARODY:

Animal 'Rights' Activists Confront Homosexuals Over Leather 'Pride' (Michael L. Betsch, January 17, 2003, CNSNews.com)

Hundreds of leather-clad homosexuals hailing from across the country were confronted by animal "rights" activists Friday as they kicked off Mid-Atlantic Leather Weekend in Washington, D.C. Avoiding condemnation of the leather enthusiasts, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) sent homosexual activists to offer "cruelty-free" alternatives to the alternative lifestyle crowd.

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UN BELIEVABLE:

Libya to chair UN panel on rights (Mike Trickey, January 21, 2003, The Ottawa Citizen)

Canada, the U.S. and a third country, believed to be Guatemala, voted against Libya's nomination yesterday, but most of the other western states followed the UN tradition of abstaining as a form of protest, while 33 of the 53 members of the UN panel voted in favour.

Libya, still under UN sanctions for its role in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing of a Pan-Am airliner that killed 270, was nominated by the African Union, whose turn it was to propose the human rights body's rotational chair.

Is this the same UN whose permission we're supposed to seek before attacking Iraq, another brutal totalitarian dictatorship in the Arab world? How can anyone take the place seriously? Why weren't any of these whiny "human rights" protestors this weekend marching in front of the UN and denouncing this abomination?

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WHY DIVERSITY?:

Is Diversity Good? (Harry V. Jaffa, January 17, 2003, The Claremont Institute)

It was gratifying that President Bush came out firmly against the University of Michigan's versions of affirmative action, and that his Justice Department filed an amicus brief to that effect. Yet the President found it necessary—in today's climate of opinion—to pay lip service to the concept of "diversity." Yet however rhetorically fashionable this may be, it is nonetheless mindless. [...]

Ask yourself: if you or a loved one is to undergo brain or heart surgery, does it matter whether the surgeons who will operate had been selected for medical school for any other reason than their aptitude for medicine and surgery? Even if there were no quotas, should race have been "taken into consideration" in their selection? Consider the hairline life and death decisions that surgeons make all the time. Does not every consideration, however slight, apart from aptitude, dilute the qualifications of surgeons for surgery? The next time you are crossing a great bridge, do you not rely upon the qualifications of the engineers and builders to ensure your safety? What does the skin color of the classmates of doctors or engineers have to do with their medicine or their engineering? Is it not their professional qualification that matters, and not either the sameness or the differences from which they came? Is not the same true if we are seeking mathematicians, physicists, economists, or generals? In each case, what is apt for the end in view may be regarded as good, what is inapt may be regarded as bad.

"Diversity" as an abstraction has no meaning. Today, however, it means racial preference and nothing else. A commitment to diversity, apart from the ends it may serve, is absurd.

Mr. Jaffa has a legitimate point, but there's one thing that seems to get lost in this debate. While state schools should not be allowed to consider race at all, there seems to be no good reason to require that private institutions be similarly color blind. If Harvard or whoever thinks that diversity is a good thing, by all means let them use race-based, rather than merit-based, admissions. The worst that could happen is that a formerly great school that no longer strives for excellence might begin to see its reputation tarnished and the value of its name on a degree diminshed. But if the folks who run Harvard don't care, why should we? We may find private racial discrimination of this kind distasteful, but it's never been apparent why the government should even take cognizance of it.

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WE WANT FOX RADIO!:

All Things Considerate: How NPR makes Tavis Smiley sound like Linda Wertheimer. (Brian Montopoli, Jan/Feb 2003, Washington Monthly)

Last May, I had the chance to participate in an NPR fellowship for young journalists interested in public radio. There were eight of us in all, each of whom worked with a mentor to produce a story that would become part of a Web-based news magazine. In order to decide who would host the magazine, the mentors and NPR folks held auditions: One by one, we were required to stand up and read a few lines to the assembled crowd, who would then compare notes. We weren't allowed to watch the auditions. As we waited in the hallway, some of us tried to make small talk; others found a quiet corner where they could go over their lines. But we were all thinking about the same thing: The Voice, the NPR Voice, and how the hell we were going to pull it off. The Voice is tough to describe, but you know it when you hear it: It's serious, carefully modulated, genially authoritative. It rings with unspoken knowledge of good wine and The New York Times Book Review. We were terrified of it.

As it turned out, I couldn't quite manage The Voice--the hosting gig went to someone else--but I quickly realized that if I wanted anything to do with NPR, I'd need to figure it out pretty quick. NPR's ascendancy has been striking--"Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered," its drivetime shows, are the second and third most popular radio programs in the country, and the network's listenership continues to grow--up 18.5 percent in 2001 alone. A big part of the reason is the unparalleled quality of its news coverage. NPR's journalism is in-depth, accurate, fair, intelligent, and, not insignificantly, virtually commercial-free. In the sea of vituperative right-wing radio, NPR is an island of sanity, civility, and seriousness. And its reporters and personalities are truly talented: Their ability to explain complex issues in plain, sharp, value-neutral language may be unsurpassed in all of broadcasting.

But the network has also become something of a victim of its success. If you listen to a lot of NPR, you realize how similar it all sounds: no matter who is talking, or what they're talking about. There's a simple reason for the homogeneity: The drivetime shows, the 800-pound gorillas of public radio, have become so successful that the sensibilities of their influential hosts and correspondents have come to dominate all other NPR programming. Susan Stamberg, Nina Totenberg, Bob Edwards, Carl Kasell, and their peers have a tight grip on the sound of NPR, especially Linda Wertheimer, whose cadence--a sort of patrician delay--still defines the NPR sound even though she no longer serves as a host. It is a sound created by boomers for an audience of their contemporaries. The Voice is theirs, and if you can't pull it off, as I quickly discovered, you'd better get out of the way.

It is an extremely appealing Voice--to a certain demographic. About 20 million people tune into NPR each week. Their mean income is $78,216, and their average age hovers just below 50. Nearly 90 percent of those who shared their racial information are "non-Black/non-Hispanic," according to NPR survey data. In other words, the people whose Zeitgeist Edwards et al., have been extraordinarily effective in catching are affluent, middle-aged white liberals, who tune in to the drivetime shows on their way to work and sometimes continue listening for the rest of the day. This demographic just adores NPR, and NPR gives the love right back.

That's the conventional wisdom anyway, but studies don't seem to bear it out. Here's just the latest poll to show that Republicans are as likely to listen to NPR as Democrats, Republicans More Likely Than Democrats to Use Talk Radio for News (Frank Newport, January 6, 2003, GALLUP NEWS SERVICE). It was perhaps Ann Coulter who best summed up the reasons for this, on Booknotes (C-SPAN, ):

COULTER: [N]o one in the entertainment world is going to watch this show.

LAMB: Why not?

COULTER: Because we're using words with more than two syllables.

LAMB: But you're...

COULTER: If they watched the show they'd all be conservatives. Did you see that NPR listeners, something like 72 percent are conservative? And you remember from your own show here when you just had open lines, it was all conservatives calling and you had to set up a liberal line. If liberals paid attention to politics, they'd all be conservatives.

There's more truth to that than might appear at first glance. For instance, there are plenty on the isolationist Right who will forthrightly admit they just don't care about the Iraqi people, but folks on the anti-war Left claim to care. Unfortunately, you can't care about the people and know what Saddam's Iraq is really like and still oppose his overthrow. So, on this issue, as on many others, to be a Leftist and not descend into schizophrenia requires a really profound ignorance.

Conservatives, on the other hand, welcome news and information because it tends to confirm our philosophy. Unfortunately for us, the purveyors of news tend to be liberal, so, we're stuck listening, reading, and (to a lesser degree) watching them. After all, if you want to be an informed citizen of the Republic you do need to read the Times and the Post and such, even though their editorial policies are mostly antithetical to conservatism.

NPR, particularly on those affiliates that have abandoned classical music, is unique in that it is the rough radio equivalent of cable television's all-news networks, combined with C-SPAN. Many of the shows and all of the hosts may be annoying, but if you want to be able to find news and discussion of the news at any time of the day, you're guaranteed to find them on your NPR station and unlikely to find them anywhere else, except for the few hours of Imus in the Morning and Rush in the afternoon.

The author's contention that NPR hosts are fair is laughable on its face. The other day I actually heard what may be the quintessential NPR moment. Diane Rehm had a discussion about the Bush judicial nominations and her guests were Stuart Taylor from National Journal and Nan Aron from Alliance for Justice. Now, we all know the format for modern talk shows; you're supposed to have a a lefty and a rightie, a pro and a con, whatever, but two opposing viewpoint. Here, instead, we had a liberal lobbyist and a reporter. Stuart Taylor happens to be an exceptionally good reporter, but he's also, by any measure other than his willingness to judge harshly the maneuvering of the Clintonites during impeachment and his open-mindedness about the unpleasant legal steps that might be required in the war on terrorism, a liberal Democrat. Yet here he was placed in the awkward position of defending Bush nominees, whose legal viewpoints he frequently had to acknowledge disagreeing with, from the ad hominem attacks of Ms Aron, and,
not coincidentally, Ms Rehm herself. Finally a guy called in and said that he couldn't help feeling that Ms Aron was biased because she not only rejected every Bush nominee they discussed but even dismissed the ABA for giving Judge Pickering a highly qualified ranking. Ms Rehm responded that perhaps the bias was in the caller's own mind since the show had presented views from the entire political spectrum and so could not be cited for bias. Ah yes, the spectrum according to NPR: all the way from radical leftist to garden variety liberal, hosted by another liberal.

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ON NOT BITING THE HAND:

OPB Election Fantasy (It's all about priorities) (Oregon Magazine, January 10, 2003)

On the program following Seven Days, Bill Moyers' NOW,  Grover G. Norquist, of Americans for Tax Reform, was described in the intro as having "plotted" the new Bush economic strategy, which the program previous to Seven Days, Washington Week in Review, portrayed as shocking.  (And, of course, impossible, risky, not based in reality, etc.)

Three programs in a row, supported by your tax dollars, telling you that unless you vote for higher taxes on yourself, and more spending by government, everything will collapse.  Three programs which are produced and manned by people who haven't the faintest idea how an economy works, what is contained in the U.S. Constitution, or what they've done to the people of America.

This all has to do with priorities.  What people think comes first.  To these people, government comes first.

Well, of course, they are government employees, aren't they? The government employee is today what the Founders thought the residents of DC would be at the time of the Founding, which is why the former should be disenfranchised and the latter allowed to vote in either Maryland or Virginia.

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CAN ATARI BE FAR BEHIND?:

Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Delaware) Plans to Dive into U.S. Presidential Pool (Mike Sneed, January 20, 2003, Chicago Sun Times)

Word is that Sen. Biden, a top Democrat leader who was once President of the powerful Senate Foriegn Relations Committee, met privately with former President Bill Clinton in New York recently to discuss entering the Presidential sweepstakes.

We've had some terrific plagiarism scandals in recent years, but they've perhaps dulled our appreciation for just how despicable Joe Biden's own was. Not only did he "borrow" a speech of Neil Kinnock's, he actually "borrowed" the autobiographical details of Mr. Kinnock's life:

Why were the Coal Mines all my ancestors had? These people who could write poetry? My people who could make wonderful things with their hands? Why didn't they get the chance? Were they too weak? The people who would work underground for 8 hours and come out to play football for the evening? Do you think that they didn't get what we had because they didn't have the drive? Never. It was because they never had a platform on which to stand. Why am I the first man in my family to go to University? Was it because our ancestors were too thick? Why were my ancestors shut out of life? My people who could dream dreams and recite poetry and dance and make wonderful things with their hands and dream dreams ? My parents who could make wonderful things with their hands and sing and write epic poems and make beautiful things and see visions?
Why didn't they get the chance? Were they too weak? Those people who worked underground for 8 hours and come up to play football? Does anybody really think that they didn't get what we had because they didn't have the stamina? No. There was no platform on which they could stand.

With Mr. Biden and Gary Hart apparently joining Dick Gephardt in the presidential campaign, it's an especially good time to go read what might be the best book ever written about politics, Richard Ben Cramer's What it Takes: The Way to the White House. Reading between the lines of the book, one concludes that Mr. Cramer had great respect for Mr. Hart's mind, but was appalled by his self-destructive streak;that he truly loathed Mr. Gephardt, who comes across as a man devoid of principles; and that he found Mr. Biden to be a lovable rogue, but a rogue nonetheless, an operator and a con man, all too willing to cut corners.

MORE:
Biden has etched a political legend (J.L. MILLER, 10/27/2002, The News Journal)
Blabbermouth Biden (Timothy Rollins, 10/31/01, OpinioNet)

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THE WAGES OF JUDICIAL ACTIVISM:

Roe v Wade battle shifts to Congress, states (MARY DEIBEL, January 16, 2003, The Knoxville News Sentinel)

Under a Supreme Court test first articulated in 1989 that lets government regulate abortion so long as the restrictions don't pose an "undue burden," the fight has shifted to Congress and state legislatures, which kept the power to regulate abortions after the first trimester.

Since the Supreme Court signaled its willingness to permit new restrictions, various limits have been approved by states, including waiting periods, mandatory counseling and parental involvement where minors are concerned. Recently state statutes have outlawed abortion procedures late in a pregnancy, although the Supreme Court requires such laws to make an exception for the woman's health or life.

At the federal level, President Bush held a signing ceremony for the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act conferring personhood and declared Jan. 19, 2003, to be "National Sanctity of Human Life Day. " Bush's executive orders made "unborn children" eligible for federal insurance coverage and reinstated the so-called "gag rule" forbidding doctors and clinics that get federal funds from mentioning abortion.

Congress is expected to pass a federal "partial-birth" ban on late-term abortions, which Bush promises to sign, but there is no guarantee the new Republican House and Senate majorities will pass other restrictions.

"Millions of women have come of age controlling their reproductive choices, but it's a sad state of affairs when those rights are in such peril today," said Kate Michelman of NARAL ProChoice America. She points to the current Supreme Court's 5-4 split in support of legal abortion that nevertheless has led to 335 laws enacted since 1995 to regulate abortion.

Abortion is no longer available in 87 percent of U.S. counties. [...]

Carol Tobias, director of the National Right to Life Committee's political action committee, acknowledges, "The reality is we don't have the votes in Congress for a constitutional amendment," nor is there agreement among abortion foes on what an amendment should say.

Otherwise, Tobias said, "Everything is going our way," including public opinion polls that show a growing number of younger Americans oppose legalized abortion. The latest University of California at Los Angeles survey, for instance, found that in 2001 just 55 percent of all college freshman favor keeping abortion legal in the United States. [...]

The U.S. abortion rate started falling in 1990 and is at its lowest level since 1974, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute.

The latest figures show 21.3 abortions in 2000 for every 1,000 women ages 15 to 44. No one knows the reason - safe sex, use of emergency "morning-after" pills, federal approval of the "abortion pill," decreased availability of surgical abortion or all of the above.

It is the great tragedy of the Court's judicial activism in Roe v. Wade that had they stayed out of the issue--which there is no readily apparent role for them in under the Constitution--America would probably not look all that much different than what's described above, but much divisiveness and anger and violence would have been avoided, and probably (though not necessarily) many lives saved. Thirty years after the fact, people mistakenly assume that abortion was illegal throughout the U.S. prior to Roe. In fact, several states had alredy legalized abortion and it was no longer the case that a woman wanting one had to resort to back alley abortionists. Had things been left to develop naturally, you'd likely have wound up with a regime where the Blue States mostly allowed abortion and the Red States mostly forbade, or severely limited, it. This would have allowed communities to reflect their own cultural values in their laws, rather than have imposed upon them the most extreme viewpoint, that mandated by the Court. This presumably would have greatly lessened the tensions that have riven society and made abortion one of the most difficult issues in the life of the nation. It will be argued, correctly, that this would have been inconvenient for people in Red States who wanted abortions, but having to travel a little to secure one is hardly an unreasonable burden and, presumably, the many women's organizations that lobby on the issue would have been more than happy to help such women deal with their transportation difficulties.

Considering how far we've moved towards this kind of regime anyway, we may be approaching the time when the Court will be able to reverse its unfortunate ruling in Roe without even disrupting society too much. At such a time, places like California and NY and other liberal states will likely become havens for those seeking abortions and, over time, you'd expect them to attract those people whose world views require abortion. Meanwhile, many (most) Southern and Western states, which retain more traditional and religiously-based cultures, will attract peoples who share a belief in classic Judeo-Christian morality. This may tend to exacerbate the cultural divide that already exists in America, but it will give people some greater level of comfort that their local laws conform to their local cultural customs and beliefs. It should also restore some degree of the community
cohesion and coherence that we've lost in recent years. That seems like a good thing.

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R.I.P., MR. VAZSONYI:

The importance of being Balint (Paul Craig Roberts, January 20, 2003, townhall.com)

Two hundred years after the American Founding came a defender of our Constitution's principles, Balint Vazsonyi, who toiled in the tents of revival and rededication until he passed away on Jan. 17.

With nothing but hope and determination, Balint, a budding concert pianist, walked out of Soviet occupied Hungary with his mother and brother in 1956, crossing on foot through the mountains to Austria. [...]

Balint had a career as a concert pianist and recording artist, and as professor and dean of music. But as years rolled by, Balint grew increasingly concerned that American education was ceasing to pass on the principles and cultural wealth in which our success is based. Disturbed at the deracination of America, he resolved to do something about it.

Balint wrote an important book, "America's Thirty Years War," showing the source of the alien ideas that are subverting our culture and society.

He became a newspaper columnist, and he and Barbara organized a cross-country bus tour of state capitals to renew enthusiasm for the Constitution.

Balint's view was that America is his country, and he was not going to lose it because citizens neglected its principles.

In his writings and lectures, Balint stressed "the Four Points of the Compass." These are: the rule of law, equality before the law, which means individual -- not group -- rights, the security of property and a common American identity.

Balint realized that multiculturalism, hyphenated-Americanisms, racial quotas, redistribution, and rule by unaccountable regulators are erasing
American principles and turning our country into something the Founding Fathers designed the Constitution to prevent.

On Saturday, in Miami, the Wife and I met a shuttle bus driver. She spoke English with an odd Spanish/Eastern European accent and it turned out she'd come to Florida from Hungary thirteen years ago, then learned Spanish and English. She had American flags all over her van and a license plate holder that said "United We Stand" and she avowed to all us passengers on the bus that she loved this country. We'd just come from our hotel room, where all you saw on television was protesters denouncing America. I immediately thought of her fellow Hungarian emigre, Balint Vazsonyi, who I'd seen some years ago on Booknotes---BOOKNOTES: America's 30 Years War: Who Is Winning by Balint Vazsonyi (C-SPAN, September 27, 1998)--and who shared (or, as I thought then, shares) her fierce love of America:

BRIAN LAMB: Balint Vazsonyi, author of America's 30 Years War, what's your book about?

Mr. BALINT VAZSONYI : It is about America's 30-years war, which began roughly 30 years ago and produced what I perhaps should call a national divide underneath a thin layer of countless issues--a national divide over dimension, over magnitude that this country perhaps has not experienced since the time of the Civil War.

LAMB: Why do you think this is so?

Mr. VAZSONYI: Because when I first arrived here about 40 years ago, it seemed to me that most Americans agreed on most basic things--I would almost go as far as to say on all basic things. There were all sorts of differences, healthy differences, about the ways America's principles should be applied to the issues of the day, but there was no question about America's basic principles.

And roughly 30 years ago I began to notice a split and a growing number of Americans who no longer believed in those principles. Andtoday we have arrived at a time when I think it's fair to say that certain of our fellow Americans think of this country, this society, as the most successful in the history of mankind and believe that the reason for that success is to be found in America's founding principles. Others believe that it's really the shortcomings of America that make up our relevant history, and therefore those principles need to be replaced. And what the book explains in a much broader and deeper context is how the second group looks to the only known alternative, which is the European Socialist model.

LAMB: What's your favorite thing about the United States that you've found?

Mr. VAZSONYI: The people, I think without any question. I don't know what magic and what incredible inspiration led the founders to the point where they laid the foundations of this society the way they did. But the result is that people have come here from all over the world, from countries where, as we know, people are not particularly nice to one another and pretty bad things happen.

Now those biologically same people, identical people, come here, sign on to these, well, if I may say, articles of incorporation, if I may so refer to the Constitution and the Declaration. And somehow they become different people, people who know how to live and work with one another. And that really was what hit me when I first arrived. Also, of course--and this is an important part of it--the relationship between government and the governed, which is something that, of course, many people have written about and is basic. But, you see, growing up in Europe, you get used to government as--acting as the possessor of power. And here, I found out what it is when the government is public servant, but that's a matter of the past.

There, in a nutshell, is the promise and the peril of immigration. For so long as we share a set of values as Americans and are willing to inculcate them in all who come here, we can make them different peoples than they were in the countries they came from. And, so long as that is true, we should welcome them. But to the extent that we lose our commitment to those values ourselves and buy into the nonsensical proposition that we need to preserve the values they bring with them from benighted lands, such immigrants are a danger. But, note, they are a danger to us to exactly the degree that we are a danger to ourselves. The real threat lies not with them but with us. Mr. Vazsonyi understood that well and articulated it beautifully: our loss is great.

More:
-Center for the Anmerican Founding
-ARCHIVES: INDEX OF VAZSONYI COLUMNS AND FEATURES
-OBIT: Cancer claims columnist/pianist Vazsonyi (Robert Stacy McCain, 1/18/03, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)

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COMMON CAUSE:

The Dawning Bush Establishment?: Republican dominance may be in the offing for a long time. (Robert L. Bartley, January 20, 2003, Wall Street Journal)

Prior to the Great Depression, the American Establishment was rooted in big business, led by the House of Morgan. But Franklin D. Roosevelt managed to tag the old Establishment with the Depression, and with World War II success managed to build his own. Junior officials such as [Dean] Acheson, rapidly promoted on the basis of merit, emerged self-confident and able to retain respect despite failures like the Korean War. We have just recently had a spate of books celebrating the greatest generation, six wise men and the like.

These thoughts come to mind by what seems to me a radically different political and social texture since the last elections. Now that Republicans control both houses of Congress and the other two branches of government, Democrats have to fear not only losing elections. They have to fear that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Condi Rice, Paul Wolfowitz and, yes, Karl Rove could conceivably consolidate a new Establishment, dominating the next half-century as FDR's progeny dominated the last one. [...]

[T]he believing, conservative and Republican denominations are prospering, while tepid, liberal and Democratic mainstream denominations are dwindling away. Academia, another traditional transmission belt, is now dominated by radicals; even here there are stirrings, with Harvard President Larry Summers backing the military, and Columbia University revoking a Bancroft Prize given to politically correct but fraudulent scholarship. In any event, society has thrown up academic alternatives such as Heritage, Hoover, AEI and Cato.

On the political front, Democrats have a tough row asserting moral authority after Bill Clinton, and after winning Senate seats by bending the rules in New Jersey and avoiding a recount in South Dakota. They face foreboding 2004 arithmetic. Republicans who won Texas get to redistrict House seats there. In the Senate, the GOP will defend 15 mostly safe seats while the Democrats defend 19, eight of which are in states Bush carried by five points or more. Filibusters against the Bush tax plan or judicial nominees are only likely to dig Democrats further into the moral and political hole, especially if they take place in the context of war in Iraq and confrontation with North Korea.

There are no sure things in life, and President Bush could still come a cropper either abroad or on the home front. A new Establishment remains only a possibility. But remember that for all the Texas twang George Bush is an aristocrat--Yale, Skull and Bones, Harvard, a presidential son. And that FDR, castigated as "a traitor to his class," showed what can happen when an aristocrat turns against the old establishment. We may be witnessing not only a change in political power but, perhaps more important, a change in moral authority.

One of the most important things that would have to change, in order for this to become a reality, is that President Bush and company would have to convey a sense of mission to young conservatives, that they can change the world by taking over government, academics, media, and the clergy, the same way the previous generation--motivated in large part by Barry Goldwater's 1964 campaign--took over Republican politics. Nothing would be better for the long term health of the culture than a massive influx of conservatives into academia and the media, who view it as their mission to deconstruct the damage done by the 60s radicals to our colleges and the post-Watergate generation to our news media in particular.

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THE MAN:

-REVIEW: of Johnny Cash, American IV: The Man Comes Around: Johnny Cash enriches the formula honed on his first three American Recordings with an instant classic. (Daniel Goslee, 01.15.03, Flak)

When Johnny Cash teamed up with famed rock/rap producer Rick Rubin on his first release for American Recordings, no one knew what to expect. After the first outing consisting only of Cash and his guitar, they experimented with a backup band. That was dropped for the third, which found the right production groove. Now the public can expect unconventional covers, reworkings of traditional songs and stripped-down originals delivered with the occasional help of celebrity collaborators. The trick for Cash and Rubin, then, is to proceed in the same style without it becoming played out.

Where earlier American sessions included memorable covers of Beck and Tom Petty, this album's standout cover is Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt." Cash's rendition is bare-bones; a barely audible guitar and piano back Cash as he nearly talks his way through Trent Reznor's words, and "Hurt" becomes an old man's deathbed speech on guilt. That is, until the track swells up into an epic declaration of regret.

This collection, however, does add a new element to the formula behind the American Recordings: the instant Johnny Cash classic. All the previous efforts included original material from Cash the songwriter, but nothing outstanding. With The Man Comes Around's title track, Cash adds another masterpiece to his catalog that can live beside such landmarks as "I Walk the Line" and "Folsum Prison Blues."

One of the most remarkable box sets to come out in recent years was Johnny Cash's three-cd Love God Murder, which made one realize that not only did he have enough material for a separate 16-song disc on each topic but that nearly every tune on each was a classic.

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GETTING THEIR ACT TOGETHER AND TAKING IT ON THE ROAD:

The Four Horsemen of Bush Economic Policy (Fred Barnes, Winter 2003, The International Economy)

Glenn Hubbard is the most influential chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in two decades. His job is to provide economic analysis for the White House, primarily on domestic issues such as taxes and jobs. The sudden popularity of eliminating the taxability of stock dividends--that's Hubbard's doing. As a young U.S. Treasury Department official ten years ago, he circulated a fifty-page study advocating the change, and he followed up this year by prevailing on President Bush and his senior aides to support the idea. And Hubbard was also active in feeding information and analysis to the presidential commission that looked at one of Bush's pet projects, reforming Social Security and creating individual investment accounts.

But Hubbard, 44, has stretched his role far beyond tinkering with the tax code and overhauling the pension system. When an international bankruptcy system was being talked up at Treasury and the International Monetary Fund, he crafted his own proposal for a new global arrangement. He also weighed in with his take on bailouts for Brazil and Argentina. Hubbard, a free-market economist from Columbia University, "is an impressive guy and his views are respected across the range," says a top Bush assistant.

That's putting it mildly. Hubbard exemplifies what's happened to economic policymaking in the Bush Administration. From the start, Bush's national security team--Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, CIA director George Tenet--have performed dazzlingly. But the economic team, led by Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and National Economic Council chief Larry Lindsey, stumbled. O'Neill was out of sync ideologically with Bush, and Lindsey failed to run the NEC to Bush's satisfaction.

The result: little-known officials quietly stepped up to fill the gap. Josh Bolten, 48, the deputy White House chief of staff, took charge of the underperforming economic apparatus and the task of sharpening ideas for the president's consideration. Hubbard emerged as a major player in administration policy circles. At Treasury, the undersecretary for domestic affairs, Peter Fisher, a 46-year-old Democrat, became the person the White House relies on. And Karl Rove, Bush's top adviser on politics and practically everything else, has involved himself as a kind of overseer of economic policy. "Everything crosses his desk," says an economic aide.

We hear good things about Mr. Hubbard in particular, but even more important than who these guys are is that the White House, by putting Rove on the case, has demonstrated a welcome seriousness about getting their economic house of cards in order.

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THE NEW DEAL FAILS AGAIN:

The other side of China's success story (Financial Times, January 19 2003)

[A]ttempts to stimulate the economy have succeeded up to a point - national growth has remained above 7 per cent a year for the past several years. But, as Xiang Huaicheng, finance minister, warned last April, the government cannot continue to finance growth through deficit spending indefinitely.

When the tap is turned off, the impact along much of the coast will be offset by continuing foreign investment and export operations. But elsewhere, much of the country will find the going tough. In fact, many places already are. Thanks to the huge state-spending binge of the past five years, many second-tier cities, including many provincial capitals, have heavily over- invested in everything from near-empty highways and surplus bridges to speculative high-rise properties and grandiose multi-storey stations that dispatch a train or two a day.

They are also home to a big part of China's surplus manufacturing capacity - again, much of it caused by over-investment. This has been a prime cause of the deflation that has plagued China since 1998. It has also created tens of thousands of money-losing companies propped up by bank loans - in turn adding to the bad debts of China's banks, now standing at 40-50 per cent of all loans.

These are just the most noticable effects. It's hard to imagine things won't get much worse as an isolated authoritarian bureaucracy continues to make its inevitable bad decisions. Add in the coming demographic crises, the centrifugal forces that any easing of political control will unleash, and potential military confrontations with vastly superior militaries like India's and Taiwan's/ours and you've a society headed for disaster.

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WE THE LIVING:

Abortion Rights are Pro-life: Roe v. Wade Anniversary Still Finds Defense of the Right to Abortion Compromised. (Leonard Peikoff, Jan. 17, 2002, AynRand.org)

Thirty years after Roe V. Wade, no one defends the right to abortion in fundamental, moral terms, which is why the pro-abortion rights forces are on the defensive. [...]

If someone capriciously puts to death his cat or dog, that can well be reprehensible, even immoral, but it is not the province of the state to interfere. The same is true of an abortion which puts to death a far less-developed growth in a woman's body. [...]

Abortions are private affairs and often involve painfully difficult decisions with life-long consequences. But, tragically, the lives of the parents are completely ignored by the anti-abortionists. Yet that is the essential issue. In any conflict it's the actual, living persons who count, not the mere potential of the embryo.

Being a parent is a profound responsibility—financial, psychological, moral—across decades. Raising a child demands time, effort, thought and money. It's a full-time job for the first three years, consuming thousands of hours after that—as caretaker, supervisor, educator and mentor. To a woman who does not want it, this is a death sentence.

The anti-abortionists' attitude, however, is: "The actual life of the parents be damned! Give up your life, liberty, property and the pursuit of your own happiness."

Sentencing a woman to sacrifice her life to an embryo is not upholding the "right-to-life."

The anti-abortionists' claim to being "pro-life" is a classic Big Lie. You cannot be in favor of life and yet demand the sacrifice of an actual, living individual to a clump of tissue.

Anti-abortionists are not lovers of life—lovers of tissue, maybe. But their stand marks them as haters of real human beings.

This would be almost amusing if he weren't serious, but among the points he makes here are the following:

(1) There should be no legislation to protect animals from abuse.

(2) Morality is not a reasonable basis for laws. Period.

(3) Abortions, which, at a minmum, include two parents, a fetus, and medical staff, are a private matter between mother and clump.

(4) Being a parent is a "profound responsibility" but becoming pregnant imposes no responsibilities.

(5) Requiring people to take responsibility for the actions that lead to preganancy is a "death sentence".

There are plenty of morally serious libertarians--see for instance our friend Perry de Havilland--but, for the most part, the Objectivists are not among their number. Theirs is a philosophy of monstrous selfishness. To read this essay is to see the wisdom of Whittaker Chambers in his review of one of Ayn Rand's novels:

Atlas Shrugged can be called a novel only by devaluing the term. It is a massive tract for the times. Its story merely serves Miss Rand to get the customers inside the tent. And as a soapbox for delivering her Message. The Message is the thing. It is a sum, a forthright philosophic materialism. Upperclassmen might incline to sniff and say that the author has, with vast effort, contrived a simple materialist system, one, intellectually, at about the state of the oxcart, though without mastering the principle of the wheel. Like any consistent materialism, this one begins by rejecting God, religion, original sin, etc. etc. (This book's aggressive atheism and rather unbuttoned "higher morality," which chiefly outrage some readers, are, in fact, secondary ripples, and result inevitably from its underpinning premises.) Thus, Randian Man, like Marxian Man, is made the center of a godless world.

At that point, in any materialism, the main possibilities open up to Man. 1) His tragic fate becomes, without God, more tragic and much lonelier. In general, the tragedy deepens according to the degree of pessimism or stoicism with which he conducts his "hopeless encounter between human questioning and the silent universe." Or, 2) Man's fate ceases to be tragic at all. Tragedy is bypassed by the pursuit of happiness. Tragedy is henceforth pointless. Henceforth man's fate, without God, is up to him. And to him alone. His happiness, is strict materialist terms, lies with his own workaday hands and ingenious brain. His happiness becomes, in Miss Rand's words, "the moral purpose of his life." Here occurs a little rub whose effects are just as observable in a free enterprise system, which is in practice materialist (whatever else it claims or supposes itself to be), as they would be under an atheist Socialism, if one were ever to deliver that material abundance that all promise. The rub is that the pursuit of happiness, as an end in itself, tends automatically, and widely, to be replaced by the pursuit of pleasure with a consequent general softening of the fibers of will, intelligence on "man as a heroic being" "with productive achievement as his noblest activity." For, if man's "heroism" (some will prefer to say: "human dignity") no longer derives from God, or is not a function of that godless integrity which was a root of Nietzsche's anguish, then Man becomes merely the most consuming of animals, with glut as the condition of his happiness. [...]

Out of a lifetime of reading, I can recall no other book in which a tone of overriding arrogance was so implacably sustained. Its shrillness is without reprieve. Its dogmatism is without appeal. In addition, the mind, which finds this one natural to it, shares other characteristics of its type. 1) It consistently mistakes raw force for strength, and the rawer the force, the more reverent the posture of the mind before it. 2) It supposes itself to be the bringer of a final revelation. Therefore, resistance to the Message cannot be tolerated because disagreement can never be merely honest, prudent or just humanly fallible. Dissent from revelation so final (because, the author would say, so reasonable) can only be willfully wicked. There are ways of dealing with such wickedness, and, in fact, right reason itself enjoins them. From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from
painful necessity, commanding: " To the gas chambers— go!"

It's particularly revealing that Mr. Peikoff bases his case for abortion on the way caring for children may interfere with a parent's pursuit of material happiness.

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THE LOTT FALLOUT (cont.):

Baker makes switch (THE SUN HERALD, Jan. 18, 2003)

State Rep. Larry Baker of Senatobia, who was elected to the House as a Democrat in 1999, has qualified to run for a second term as a Republican.

"I have been a conservative all my life and have pretty well gone with the Republican Party on most votes," said Baker, 63, a retired officer with the Mississippi Army National Guard and a cattleman.

Baker is the fourth lawmaker to switch parties this year after Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck made the move last December.

The Mississippi House now has 83 Democrats, 36 Republicans and three independents. The Senate has 31 Democrats and 21 Republicans.

These folks are even switching to the minority, the rarest form of political honesty.

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REUNIFICATION NOW:

The Crisis Last Time (William J. Perry and Ashton B. Carter, January 19, 2003, NY Times)

Fifty years ago the Korean War ended not with a treaty but with a truce. Just how precarious that truce can be is being demonstrated on the Korean Peninsula--much as it was demonstrated in June 1994, when the United States came to the brink of war with North Korea.

That crisis is forever ingrained in our memories because we were personally involved in preparations for a possible military strike on North Korea's nuclear reactor complex at Yongbyon with conventional weapons, and for the war that could well have followed--a war that would have been disastrous for all sides. Today's crisis is eerily similar to that of 1994. But what happened four years later may be just as pertinent as the Bush administration thinks through its options now. [...]

In the end, we recommended that the United States, South Korea and Japan all proceed to talk to North Korea--but with a coordinated message and negotiating strategy.

The other night on CNN, Ken Adelman debated Clifford May about a more radical option: Mr. Adelman says that we should just announce, or leak the news, that we're withdrawing our troops, because S. Korea doesn't want them there anymore:

Long-term dependency yields dysfunctional relationships and warped perspectives. The incoming South Korean president dishonestly poses as an "honest broker" between us - their saviors and current protectors - and North Korea - their invaders.

But why this notion of beginning to withdraw American troops from Korea? Especially from a hawk, like me?

Because beyond Korea, it would send a timely message on Iraq, and transform the East Asia region. It could break today's dysfunctional paradigm of a still-dependent but increasingly-resentful South Korea, a duplicitous China, a free-riding Japan, and a you-handle-the-messy-stuff Russia.

One would think we might even go a step further and add that we're reviewing whether the Korean Penninsula is a strategic interest of the United States and whether it might not be more appropriate for S. Korea, Japan, Russia and China to handle the North Koreans. The worst that might happen is that North Korea would attack and take over the South, but they'd be stretched so thin they'd fall apart rather quickly (just as the USSR would have been unable to maintain control over Western Europe had we withdrawn after WWII). On the other hand, as Mr. Adelman suggests, it might teach our allies a salutary lesson about who their enemies truly are.1

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THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING DWARVES:

Edwards faces skepticism at home: Most Tar Heels will need convincing that the Democratic senator is ready for the White House (JOHN WAGNER, January 18, 2003, Raleigh News and Observer)

More North Carolina voters disapprove of Sen. John Edwards' White House ambitions than approve, and George W. Bush would soundly defeat Edwards in his home state if the 2004 presidential election were held today, according to a new poll conducted for The News & Observer.

Underscoring the sales job Edwards has ahead, the poll found that 47 percent of active Tar Heel voters disapprove of the senator's decision to seek the presidency, compared with 39 percent who approve. The remaining 14 percent were unsure. [...]

If the 2004 election were held today, the poll found, Bush would win handily over Edwards in North Carolina, 56 percent to 40 percent. That is a slightly larger margin than Bush enjoyed in his win over Al Gore in the state in 2000.

Continuing the worst campaign roll out in history, John Edwards, the sole rationale for whose campaign (other than his Dan Quayleish good looks) is his theoretical appeal in the South, turns out to be loathed in his own state. It was widely speculated at the time of his decision that he was moving up because he doubted he could be re-elected and this certainly seems to confirm that theory.

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BOOKNOTES:

First Great Triumph: How Five Americans Made Their Country a World Power by Warren Zimmermann (C-SPAN, January 19, 2003, 8 & 11pm)

Americans like to think they have no imperial past. In fact, the United States became an imperial nation within five short years a century ago (1898-1903), exploding onto the international scene with the conquest of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, and (indirectly) Panama. How did the nation become a player in world politics so suddenly-and what inspired the move toward imperialism in the first place?

The renowned diplomat and writer Warren Zimmermann seeks answers in the lives and relationships of five remarkable figures: the hyper-energetic Theodore Roosevelt, the ascetic naval strategist Alfred T. Mahan, the bigoted and wily Henry Cabot Lodge, the self-doubting moderate Secretary of State John Hay, and the hard-edged corporate lawyer turned colonial administrator Elihu Root. Faced with difficult choices, these extraordinary men, all close friends, instituted new political and diplomatic policies with intermittent audacity, arrogance, generosity, paternalism, and vision.

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A NOT SO OLD NATION

Recalling a Storied Trek to Parts Unknown (TIMOTHY EGAN, January 18, 2003, NY Times)

It was on Jan. 18, 1803, that Jefferson sent a confidential message to Congress asking for $2,500 for an expedition across North America. The trip began in earnest in May 1804, as the Corps ventured up the Missouri River, looking for its headwaters in the Rockies, and ended 28 months later in St. Louis, after the explorers had reached the Pacific an