A Happy Moment In the Alternative Media

April 30, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under News media | Leave a Comment 

First Clinton chairman Terry McAuliffe praised Fox News. Now “Huffington Post” praises Bill O’Reilly:

Hillary Clinton made her first ever appearance on the O’Reilly Factor on Wednesday, a confrontational but mostly friendly exchange that was — kudos to Bill — the most issue-oriented (if right-leaning) major interview with a presidential candidate in recent memory.

O’Reilly’s been reasonably gracious to Sen. Obama over the last few days. “Huffington Post,” though a target of O’Reilly lately, gets points for this reference to his Clinton interview as well as for having broken the story of Obama’s comments about working people’s bitterness over the economy.

If Hannity and Colmes ever retire, how about Huffington and O’Reilly?

Wright Tender

April 30, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, Democratic Party, Faith | Leave a Comment 

From a fascinating New York Times study of the long, slow death of the Obama-Wright friendship:

“Its easy to hurt [Wright's] feelings,” said Richard Sewell, a Trinity deacon who has known both men for two decades. “He’s extremely sensitive.”

Us, too.

Weirder and Weirder

April 30, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, Democratic Party | Leave a Comment 

Two months ago in the New York Times, Maureen Dowd approvingly discussed Sen. Obama’s “more feminine management style.” The Boston Phoenix’s Steven Stark picks up the theme today, not approvingly (“Is Barack Obama in Danger of Being Outmanned?”):

[T]here is one Clinton line of attack that does have the potential to seriously undermine the Obama effort. She has begun to try to emasculate Obama – portraying him, in so many words, as a wimp. Look at the recent poses Clinton has adopted: she downs drinks at a bar, wields baseball bats at rallies, and constantly uses the combative metaphors of sports. She demands more debates, while Obama ducks them. Her most successful negative ad (the “3 am” commercial) accuses Obama of not being able to keep us safe, which is, after all, the traditional male role….It’s true that American culture and politics are changing, and that Obama may be the harbinger of not only a biracial but a “feminizing” trend, brought on by the huge gender shifts in American life. Still, that feminizing of our politics is likely to be welcomed far more by the young than the old, which helps explain, again, why Obama appeals so much less to elderly voters than to the young. So doubts about a candidate’s masculinity would spell trouble regardless of the opponent. But it’s especially problematic when, well, it’s a woman who’s pointing out what a wimp you’ve become. There is a well-accepted role in American life for the “tomboy” – a role, say, inhabited in pop culture by Seinfeld’s Elaine – the girl who loves hanging out in the boy’s gang. Clinton has more than willingly stepped into it.

And then tonight, Sen. Clinton had the bad boy himself, Bill O’Reilly, eating out of her hand. I wish President Nixon were still with us. Always energized by Presidential elections, he’d really be having a ball this year.

Jaw Jaw vs. War War

April 30, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, Democratic Party, International Affairs, Nixon Administration figures | Leave a Comment 

Brent Scowcroft, national security advisor to two Republican Presidents, agrees with Sen. Obama that the U.S. should talk to Iran.

Frum/Perlstein Dialogue

April 30, 2008 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Book Review | Leave a Comment 

Today I acquired a copy of Rick Perlstein’s second book, Nixonland, which Scribner is to publish May 12 (though the book is already being shipped at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble’s website). Starting tomorrow afternoon I’ll be blogging about it in several installments, through the weekend. At 750 pages of text (not counting nearly 100 more of footnotes) it is, along with Conrad Black’s recent biography, the most massive book on the Nixon era since Richard Reeves’ President Nixon eight years ago. Perlstein’s first book about Sen. Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign, Before The Storm, was very well-received upon its publication in 2001, in both conservative and liberal publications, where this young historian was praised for his diligent research and impartiality. But in the course of this decade his statements both about contemporary politics and historical issues have become decidedly more partisan. A recent Chicago Reader profile discussed this shift. And, earlier this month, David Frum of the American Enterprise Institute conducted an online debate (via digital camera and telephone) with Perlstein about the arguments in his book and the contemporary political scene.

Newspapers, Save Thyselves (Pt. 6)

April 30, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under News media | Leave a Comment 

A journalist and blogger, Ezra Klein, writes:

Of late, I’ve been talking a bit about the media’s inability to report on policy in a judgmental manner. They know how to imply that Barack Obama has had bad friends, and Hillary Clinton tells lies, and John McCain — well, they know how to doodle his initials inside a sparkly heart. What they don’t know how to do, however, is say that one candidate’s health plan, or housing plan, or economic agenda, is better than another candidate’s. Which is why folks basically have to vote on grounds of flag pins and flip-flops — they’re not given much else in the way of analytical guidance. But I sympathize. Policy is hard.

To the extent this applies to print journalists, democracy is doomed. If newspapers don’t defend their franchise with discerningly reported stories about policy at home and events affecting U.S. interests abroad, then they’ll stop being useful, and they’ll die, and all we’ll have is bloggers and spokespeople — and no one will know what’s going on in the world.

Many Happy Returns

April 30, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Entertainment | Leave a Comment 

Today is Willie Nelson’s 75th birthday.Over the years the Willmeister has had to wrestle with some demons and deal with some problems; he has done some considerable good raising money and helping people; and he has said some supernally silly things.But his music has been an important and creative part of the American soundtrack since just about the time RN arrived in the White House.

As a performer and interpreter of American ballads, Willie Nelson has enjoyed a long career based on his superb taste and his sure touch. And as a composer and lyricist (he wrote Crazy, Nightlife, and Funny How Time Slips Away in the course of one week) he has provided spirited and touching memories for millions.

In an interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air in 1996, Willie Nelson talked about his life and music (and performed Amazing Grace and Family Bible among others).

Hoosier Hysteria and Jindal

April 30, 2008 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Election 2008 | Leave a Comment 

This afternoon an article by Dan Balz appeared at washingtonpost.com concerning Indiana Gov. Evan Bayh’s view of his state’s primary next Tuesday. When I noted that Indiana had voter demographics not dissimilar from Pennsylvania’s in a recent post, I forgot one difference about this contest, which Bayh points out in this article: the Hoosier State, unlike Pennsylvania, permits members of one party to cross-vote in another. Bayh, a supporter of Sen. Hillary Clinton, makes it clear that he believes that she would easily defeat Sen. Barack Obama next week if the Pennsylvania rules applied, but that, due to the likelihood of hordes of wascally Wepublicans voting for the gentleman from Illinois, Obama may win the state, though he notes that Clinton is gaining in the polls.

On the Republican side, Youtube now has some clips of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s appearance on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show. They further suggest that the Louisiana governor just might have what it takes to wage a winning vice-presidential campaign this fall.

Party On The Potomac (postscript)

April 30, 2008 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under News media | Leave a Comment 

The other day Vanity Fair’s site put up photos of the festivities at the post-WHCA-dinner bash at Christopher Hitchens and Carol Blue’s apartment in Kalorama. Pamela Anderson and Heidi Montag are absent, but the pix are must viewing nonetheless, for here’s your once-in-a-lifetime chance to tell your grandchildren you beheld Hitch – or his digital image, anyway – wearing a tie.

Playing Wright Into Democrats’ Hands

April 30, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, Culture, Faith, Republican Party | 6 Comments 

According to a study reported in the Washington Post in 2005, half of the African-Americans surveyed believed that the AIDS virus is human-made, 25% believed it was done in a government lab, and 12% believed it was “created and spread by the CIA.” We can be appalled and amused by such people all we want, but if I were Sen. McCain, contemplating yet another razor-thin general election margin, I’d be wondering how to win some of their votes. If I were a Republican strategist or a right-leaning journalist, I’d stop bashing Jeremiah Wright and start talking to African-Americans about the issues that really concern them — and not just to those who earn our favor by disagreeing with Pastor Wright’s world view.

These African-Americans don’t think the government invented AIDS because they want to irritate everybody else, nor because they’re especially deluded or uniquely prone to conspiracy theories. Because of the cultural upheavals of their youth and young adulthood and their lingering suspicion about government, the majority of white Boomers erroneously think there was a government conspiracy behind the Kennedy assassination. Blacks are also influenced by their cultural and political experiences, and they have a lot more to be angry about than a bunch of post-Woodstock elites who are still upset that Crosby, Stills, and Nash songs didn’t come true. Nearly 400 years of foul injustice, beginning with the arrival of the first African slaves in the early 17th century, only technically ended when President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The anger and trauma obviously persist. It’s amazing that anyone thought they wouldn’t.

McCain gets the point. As David Broder wrote about the candidate’s recent swing through the deep south,

In Selma, McCain praised the African-Americans who, more than four decades ago, were clubbed and beaten by Alabama state troopers at the start of their anti-segregation protest march to Montgomery. He vowed, in their memory, to bring his campaign — and the publicity it attracts — to the “forgotten places” of America, and to help the families in those communities if he becomes president. At other stops, including the Kentucky hamlet where Lyndon Johnson launched the War on Poverty and in New Orleans’ hurricane-obliterated Lower Ninth Ward, McCain condemned the performance of the Bush administration and offered his own free-market ideas for creating more jobs, improved schools and better health care. The Democrats were quick to call his message hypocritical, noting, for example, that McCain had opposed making a national holiday of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. That’s a fair fight.But what is incontestable is the fact that McCain sees the need for Republicans to reach beyond their past comfort level and engage the many Americans who have every reason to doubt they are anywhere on the GOP agenda. To many of those struggling to survive, who are accustomed to being ignored, if not exploited, the Bush administration’s blindness to the plight of the residents of New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit is all too typical of the Republicans’ mind-set.

With all due respect to Mr. Broder, for most of my adult life the typical enlightened GOP view on race has been: “We get it. Slavery was a sin, although we didn’t do it personally and of course wouldn’t have. Our party neglected its 19th century principles by failing to work for equal rights for all in the 20th century. But our policies today will lead to more opportunity for all people, especially blacks, and if they’re smart they’ll get on board instead of always being in the tank for Democrats. You guys were oppressed and degraded for centuries, no question, but we get it now, like I said, so get over it.” When a conservative such as Oklahoma’s J. C. Watts comes along, many Republicans can’t help but say, “Check out our black — he saw the light, and you can, too!” Yet did you hear what former Rep. Watts said about the GOP candidates this year?:

Republicans want to say we reach out [to blacks]. But what we do instead is 60 days before an election, we’ll spend some money on black radio and TV or buy an ad in Ebony and Jet, and that’s our outreach. People read through that.

The danger this election year is that blacks will read through the conservative media’s persistent attacks on Pastor Wright and thoroughly dislike the subtext. For the last few months, right-wing radio and TV commentators have devoted themselves to two propositions above all others: McCain isn’t conservative enough, and Obama should be held accountable for having associated with a pastor with noxious views on the U.S. and its government. How about we take it one step further? Let’s disassociate ourselves from every black voter who attends a church where black liberation theology influences the preacher. The problem is, beginning with the thousands at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, that might be a lot of voters. According to Thabiti Anyabwile, author of The Decline Of African-American Theology, who gave an interview in March to the evangelical magazine “Christianity Today,”

I’ve…been surprised at how deep the ignorance [about] the African American church and its preaching tradition goes. Anyone with a passing familiarity with the church in either its historical or contemporary form would recognize Wright’s preaching in style, and sometimes in content, as essentially what has been preached for at least 100 years in African American churches. There’s much to object to in some of the language. But it’s essentially what is shared in a lot of churches whenever the comments turn political.

But what Wright says about America is inexcusable! Of course it is. That’s not the point, nor would it matter if it could be demonstrated that most black pastors and churchgoers don’t take a Wrighteous line. I’ve heard enough angry callers to talk radio in the last few days to understand that many black Americans who disagree with much of what Wright says also deeply resent the attacks on him. If we can’t grasp that, then we’re still failing to hear the echoes of four centuries of trauma. Vietnamese still angry at the communists may understand. Armenians still angry at the Turks may as well. Heck, a good number of Georgians are still mad at General Sherman.

So let’s not make the mistake of seeming to require everyone associated with Obama, and by implication all black Americans, to repudiate Wright. Now that Obama has clearly disassociated himself personally from him, if Republicans and conservative commentators continue to pound Wright in a probably only marginally useful effort to saddle Obama and other Democrats with his views in the primary and general election, they risk deepening the racial divide in our country and missing yet another chance to make new inroads in the African-American community for the party of Abraham Lincoln.

The better move: A speech by John McCain enunciating his own vision of a better deal for black Americans and calling an end to to the national debate about Jeremiah Wright. If Obama is the nominee, it will be tempting for Republicans to ignore the black vote or even run against it. These would be terrible errors. Instead, McCain should give African-Americans a better choice — a candidate who understands and respects their experience while credibly pledging to keep America safe from its enemies so it can continue to grow in freedom and justice.

Wednesday Morning Open

April 30, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Open threads | Leave a Comment 

“When the winds blow and the rains fall and the sun shines through the clouds he still resolves as he did then, that nothing so fine ever happened to him or anyone else as falling in love with Thee-my dearest heart.” – Richard Nixon

Featured Articles — April 30, 2008

April 30, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes from Home and Abroad:

Getting to Know John McCain By Karl Rove
It came to me while I was having dinner with Doris Day. No, not that Doris Day. The Doris Day who is married to Col. Bud Day, Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, fighter pilot, Vietnam POW and roommate of John McCain at the Hanoi Hilton.

Obama’s Opportunity By Dick Morris
At the start of his campaign, Obama ran in counterpoint to the previous candidacies of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Here was a black man running for president on issues that had nothing to do with race as he rose above the victimization rhetoric that characterizes so many speeches of African-American political figures.

Economy puts heat on politicians By Richard Simon and James Gerstenzang
As prices rise and constituents call for action, officeholders float proposals and seek to deflect blame.

Pakistan’s Moment By Yousaf Raza Gillani
We Will Fight Terrorism — Our Way.

Start Drilling By Robert Samuelson
What to do about oil? First it went from $60 to $80 a barrel, then from $80 to $100 and now to $120. Perhaps we can persuade OPEC to raise production, as some senators suggest; but this seems unlikely. The truth is that we’re almost powerless to influence today’s prices. We are because we didn’t take sensible actions 10 or 20 years ago. If we persist, we will be even worse off in a decade or two. The first thing to do: Start drilling.

Why treat the London election as a joke? By Simon Heffer
There was a compelling BBC television drama series – and I apologise if it is early in the day for an oxymoron – broadcast recently called The Curse of Comedy.

Foreign Law and the First Amendment By Floyd Abrams
How British courts threaten free speech in America.

King and the Jews By Clarence B. Jones
MLK had no tolerance for anti-Semites.

Life Sentence

April 29, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under China, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

Clare Booth Luce said that a great leader gets one sentence. President Nixon’s critics have sometimes said his will be “He quit.” In a book excerpt posted at npr.org, Bill Emmott suggests that it will be “He went to China”:

Richard Nixon’s presidency was dominated at the time by the final failed years of the Vietnam War and by Watergate, but memories of it now are dominated by a diplomatic act, not a military or judicial one: his dramatic opening of relations with China in 1971–72, which brought to an end more than two decades of bitter estrangement between the United States and the People’s Republic.

The New Nixon-Rockefeller

April 29, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, Democratic Party, Election 2008, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

Though he overstates their ideological differences, Mark Green says two great moderate Republicans helped light the way to 2008’s inevitable unity ticket:

Richard Nixon and Nelson Rockefeller represented two different wings of that Republican Party. With Rockefeller itching to run, he and Nixon met at 810 Fifth Avenue to iron out differences — the result being “the Compact of Fifth Ave” with Nixon putting some civil rights planks in the party’s platform and Rocky stepping aside.

Ferris Bueller’s Day On

April 29, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Culture, Faith, Nixon Administration figures | Leave a Comment 

In which Nixonian Ben Stein, while making his documentary “Expelled,” gets the better of the world’s leading atheist:

Amazingly, Stein got to [Richard] Dawkins and edited the face-to-face interview to make the Oxford don look dumb, including when he admits that nobody knows how life started on Earth. Luckily, big-brained Ben does. Was it Dawkins’s belief in British fair play or intellectual vanity that led him to entertain Stein? It was a naive move, either way.

This Australian reporter, John Harlow, is undoubtedly right: Michael Moore and Mike Wallace would never edit an interview to advance their own arguments. Besides, is the point that Dawkins really does know how life started on earth? Somebody better find that outtake quick!

Dean’s Foolishness

April 29, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Election 2008 | Leave a Comment 

H/T: LGF

In an attempt to unite the Democratic base, and depress and distract the rest of the electorate away from their primary indecision, Howard Dean and the DNC have just launched a defeatist ad attacking John McCain for his steadfastness on the Iraq War. The footage is incredibly tasteless with depictions of American troops dying in battle:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/RIYQEmkgJj4" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

On a more amusing note, this tactic is Dean’s attempt to be Rovian, attacking the opposing candidate on his strongest point. Here are Dean’s own words in an email release regarding the intention of the ad:

Dear Friend,

John McCain wants to stay in Iraq for 100 years. He’s said it, and it’s on tape.

But his campaign hates that he was caught. They’ve viciously attacked anyone who reminded the American people that he said it, including me. They’ve said that those who reference the 100 years comments are “deliberately misleading voters.”

So we’ve taken John McCain’s own words — video of him saying that 100 years would be “fine with me” — and made a TV ad. There’s no confusion, no distortion, no misleading — it’s John McCain, on tape, for voters to judge on their own.

It’s one of the most powerful political ads I’ve ever seen. It’s devastating — and the McCain campaign will spend the rest of the election trying to fight it.

Unfortunately for Dean, John McCain along with Generals Petreaus and Odierno, are responsible for the increasingly positive narrative in Iraq. And unlike John Kerry and Sen. Obama, he isn’t prone to same type of negative attacks that devastated both campaigns. McCain’s service to his country doesn’t require embellishment, and he isn’t running a Messianic unity campaign undermined by the divisive company he keeps.

Then again, there are McCain’s lobbyist ties. But Dean seems to be cautiously balking at this charge, as even the “unsullied” Obama has his lobbying problems.

Tuesday Morning Open

April 29, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Open threads | Leave a Comment 

A public man must never forget that he loses his usefulness when he as an individual, rather than his policy, becomes the issue. – Richard Nixon

Featured Articles — April 29, 2008

April 29, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes from Home and Abroad:

Petraeus, Odierno deserve gratitude By San Antonio Express-News Editors
One of George Bush’s greatest weaknesses as president has been his penchant to reward loyalty over performance.

A Pastor at Center Stage By George Will
Because John McCain and other legislators worry that they are easily corrupted, there are legal limits to the monetary contributions that anyone can make to political candidates. There are, however, no limits to the rhetorical contributions that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright can make to McCain’s campaign.

The Food Crisis By J.R. Dunn
Food riots have occurred in Haiti, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Indonesia, Yemen, and as close to our borders as Mexico, but the problem has its origins in politics.

China’s Drug Dilemma By Roger Bate
How to ensure product safety when oversight is weak?

The Remaking of the BJP By Swapan Dasgupta
The party that was written off a year ago has staged a comeback.

Looking for Mr. Wright By Jonah Goldberg
The minister reveals that he’s as radical and bigoted as his critics insist.

The Shrinking Election By E. J. Dionne
This is supposed to be a big election, but it has given every sign in recent weeks of becoming a small one. As a result, the public and the media are showing signs of exhaustion with what had once been an exhilarating contest.

Understanding American Exceptionalism By Karlyn Bowman
An ambitious new book explains how and why the U.S. is so different from other countries around the world.

An Old Newness By Thomas Sowell
Many years ago, a great hitter named Paul Waner was nearing the end of his long career. He entered a ballgame with 2,999 hits — one hit away from the landmark total of 3,000, which so many hitters want to reach, but which relatively few actually do reach.

China’s powerful weakness By Francis Fukuyama
Beijing’s reach isn’t big enough to stop local governments from abusing the rights of ordinary citizens.

Demography Is King By David Brooks
Fifty-five years ago, 80 percent of American television viewers, young and old, tuned in to see Milton Berle on Tuesday nights.

A Victory Against Voter Fraud By John Fund
Justice John Paul Stevens begs to differ with Barack Obama.

Balkan Neighbors By Takis Michas
State of the Union: Resolving the ‘name dispute’ won’t end Cold War between Greece and Macedonia.

An Urgent Memo to the SecDef By Herbert E. Meyer
On May 13 about 70 percent of Iraq’s mobile telephone network will cease to operate. This will be a serious blow to the Iraqi economy, and many Iraqis will no longer be able to phone in tips on terror activity.

If You Can’t Get Olympics Tickets

April 28, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Asia, Nixon Library | Leave a Comment 

News of our upcoming ping pong diplomacy rematch.

Ethanol Montana

April 28, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, Bush Administration, International Affairs | Leave a Comment 

The Secretary of State says setting U.S. farmland aside for biofuels is contributing to the international food crisis. Now back to Pastor Wright and Hannah Montana’s “Vanity Fair” photos!

This Bud’s For You

April 28, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, International Affairs, Nixon Center, Republican Party | Leave a Comment 

At The Nixon Center, President Reagan’s national security advisor, Bud McFarlane, says President McCain’s first year would be “neocon redux.”

Let’s Move Beyond Wright

April 28, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, Democratic Party, Faith | Leave a Comment 

Joe Klein argues that Pastor Wright is now freelancing — boosting his own profile, wholly unconcerned about the political effect he’s having on Sen. Obama.

It’s just as likely that the pastor can’t help himself. Those called to ministry usually have tender egos. Charismatic preachers who are community fixtures get a lot of affirmation and adulation and very little if any of the kind of treatment he’s been receiving from Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly, the commentators who really seem to have gotten his goat. Upset about being misunderstood and attacked, he’s doing everything he can to get an unalloyed version of his message across. He’s evidently oblivious to the fact that every time he opens his mouth, it gets worse.

Whatever Pastor Wright’s mission and motives, since he’s obviously beyond the control of the Obama campaign, isn’t it about time to give the issue a break?

In his Philadelphia speech, Obama dissassociated himself from the pastor’s most corrosive views. Just because Pastor Wright keeps expressing doesn’t mean that Obama should have to keep disassociating. Some may want him to cut off Wright completely, but he still shouldn’t renounce his family’s pastor, for both humane and practical reasons. The time for that would’ve been 15 years ago.

Besides, efforts to associate Obama with Wright’s angriest statements will have less and less saliency. Most voters have probably made up their minds about it.

So after this National Press Club round, after Obama says a few more times that his oddball father figure doesn’t speak for him, how about we talk about something else — the economy, foreign policy, that kind of thing?

Party On The Potomac

April 28, 2008 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Entertainment, News media | Leave a Comment 

Of all Washington’s major social events, none match the level of glitter and pizzazz maintained over two decades by the annual White House Correspondents Association dinner.  During the last few weeks, as thousands around DC prepared themselves for the dinner – or, if they weren’t invited, for one or another of the post-dinner parties – or, if not invited to the parties, for milling around somewhere near the parties – there could often be heard “Remember what Colbert said in his speech?” or “Remember what happened at the [Jason] Binn party last year….” or some similar nostalgic remark.

But it wasn’t always this way.  At New York Social Diary Carol Joynt, the organizer of the well-known Nathan’s lunches, who’s attended WHCA dinners since the Nixon era, details how the event grew to its present pre-eminence over its competitors, the Gridiron Club and Radio & Television Correspondents’ Association dinners.

The WHCA dinner has been around since the 1920s, much longer than the RTCA event but a newcomer compared to the Gridiron, which has done its shindig since 1885.  Until the 1960s, the Gridiron dinner – then, as now, primarily a journalistic and political affair – was the leading event of its kind. Then the RTCA and WHCA began to up the ante with figures from the world of show business, a process that accelerated after the late Jack Valenti became MPAA head and movie and TV stars became increasingly frequent visitors to the capital. But while both groups’ dinners could attract leading show-business names to provide entertainment, the RTCA took the lead when it came to rounding up superstar guests at the tables.  By contrast, the WHCA tended to be sedate.

This continued to be the case until 1987, and, as Ms. Joynt notes, the man who took the first step in making the WHCA dinner what it is now was none other than Michael Kelly.  The man now best remembered as the dedicated journalist and Washington Post columnist killed in the first days of the Iraq war was, in the late Reagan era, working for the Baltimore Sun.  When Kelly was given the chance in 1987 to pick a notable to grace that newspaper’s delegation to the WHCA, he chose Fawn Hall, Oliver North’s statuesque aide.  This caused a lot of grumbling among the WHCA elders.  Undeterred, Kelly rounded up Donna Rice, who’d just derailed Sen. Gary Hart’s presidential candidacy, for the 1988 dinner.  And from then on the WHCA dinner started to become a favorite destination of the famous, the notorious, and the just plain curious among celebs.

This year’s dinner was the last one to see President Bush speak, and he delivered some particularly barbed lines, noting that Sen. Hillary Clinton was absent “due to sniper fire” and that Sen. Barack Obama was otherwise engaged – “at church.”  Colin Ferguson, the late-night TV host, turned in a speech that, by unanimous consent, was an improvement over Rich Little’s remarks last year, though not quite displaying the kind of take-no-prisoners verbal assault that Stephen Colbert unleashed in 2006.

But, as always, the big WHCA story was which celebs were there and where they went afterwards.  This year the list included (in alphabetical order) Pamela Anderson, Marcia Cross, Rosario Dawson, Morgan Fairchild (a very longtime guest at this event), Colin Firth (who was turned away from the Bloomberg after-dinner party at the Costa Rican Embassy because security failed to recognize him – perhaps he should have worn his Mr. Darcy outfit), Dennis Hof of HBO’s Cathouse (the Bunny Ranch proprietor was admitted with no problems to the Bloomberg event), Rob Lowe, Heidi Montag of The Hills (along with her “frenemy” Lauren Conrad), Ron Silver,  Ashlee Simpson, Donatella Versace, and rapper Will I Am.  The usual representatives of the Fourth Estate were supplemented by manic showbiz blogger Perez Hilton.

The most snippy guest had to be actor Rupert Everett, who informed Roxanne Roberts and Amy Argetsinger of the Washington Post that the dinner was “one of the most hideous events I’ve ever been to.”  The most highbrow guest, maybe, was novelist Salman Rushdie, who put in an appearance at Christopher Hitchens and Carol Blue’s traditional after-dinner gathering.

Other online examples of WHCA coverage are the Sydney Morning Herald’s account,  and David Patrick Columbia’s lengthy survey of the scene.  And once the hangovers are done, it’ll be time to get ready for next year.

Newspapers, Save Thyselves (Pt. 5)

April 28, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Kindle, News media | Leave a Comment 

With their astonishingly useful Kindle, Jeff Bezos and Amazon have set out to save text and rebuild our attention spans. Every newspaper in the world should be Kindled; it makes it cool for people under 50 to read good journalistic content again. Papers should buy hundreds of thousands of Kindles and give them away in promotions. Below is from Bezos’s 2007 investors’ letter, which is all about the Kindle:

Physical books ushered in a new way of collaborating and learning. Lately, networked tools such as desktop computers, laptops, cell phones and PDAs have changed us too. They’ve shifted us more toward information snacking, and I would argue toward shorter attention spans. I value my BlackBerry—I’m convinced it makes me more productive—but I don’t want to read a three-hundred-page document on it. Nor do I want to read something hundreds of pages long on my desktop computer or my laptop. As I’ve already mentioned in this letter, people do more of what’s convenient and friction-free. If our tools make information snacking easier, we’ll shift more toward information snacking and away from long-form reading. Kindle is purpose-built for long-form reading. We hope Kindle and its successors may gradually and incrementally move us over years into a world with longer spans of attention, providing a counterbalance to the recent proliferation of info-snacking tools. I realize my tone here tends toward the missionary, and I can assure you it’s heartfelt.

Fear and Loathing at CFIUS

April 28, 2008 by Joshua Treviño | Filed Under Asia, China, International Affairs | Leave a Comment 

Cross Posted From Joshua Trevino.

This is an extended version of this piece, which originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal Asia on April 28th, 2008.

Japan isn’t the only place flexing its regulatory oversight of foreigners these days. Now, the U.S Treasury Department wants to look at transactions involving stakes of less than 10% of the acquired American company.

But before Treasury does that, how about first explaining the criteria bureaucrats use to weigh the transactions they already review? That step – so obvious that it’s surprising it hasn’t been done yet – would offer much greater benefits to U.S. and foreign companies and investors, not to mention the American economy overall.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, has existed in its present form since the late 1980s. This intergovernmental panel is empowered to review any acquisition of more than 10% of a U.S. company by a foreign entity when the U.S. company does business important to national security. But only this year, on April 8, did Treasury, which coordinates CFIUS, announce it will release clear guidelines on how CFIUS conducts these reviews. That will likely happen sometime next month.

Meanwhile, CFIUS remains a regulatory black box, issuing contradictory rulings with abandon — and without meaningful explanation. Unfortunately, what explanation exists is too often nakedly political.

The political nature of CFIUS becomes especially stark when considering the China National Offshore Oil Corporation’s 2005 effort to acquire Unocal. The proposed acquisition was scuttled by vigorous political opposition within the United States that included the employment of CFIUS as a bureaucratic obstacle. CNOOC’s leadership grasped that American security concerns would have to be assuaged for Unocal shareholders to approve the bid, and so it voluntarily submitted to CFIUS review. Incredibly, CFIUS refused to conduct that review until after Unocal accepted CNOOC’s buyout. CFIUS’s withholding of review was a major factor in the erosion of CNOOC’s bid, which thus ultimately failed.

By contrast, during the 2006 fracas over the United Arab Emirates-based Dubai Ports World’s bid for port operations contracts within the United States, it approved the firm’s doomed bid. CFIUS was right in that case, but it’s notable that the argument against its decision had some objective merit on national-security grounds. The argument against the CNOOC/Unocal deal, by contrast, was more tenuous — and, troublingly, rests upon an assumption of China as a power hostile to the United States.

Major policy decisions should not be implicit, and certainly not in the hands of an inter-bureaucratic committee; and CFIUS should strive for consistency rather than present the appearance of politicization. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that CFIUS approved the DP World deal because the American Executive branch supported it.

Meaningful reform would entail the promulgation of definitive rules for CFIUS’s authority and operations. Under current law (50 U.S.C. app. § 2170), the factors purportedly affecting CFIUS decisionmaking are sufficiently vague as to be easily subjected to the politicization already noted. The law requires the CFIUS to “consider among other factors,” “domestic production needed for projected national defense requirements,” “the control of domestic industries and commercial activity by foreign citizens as it affects the capability and capacity of the United States to meet the requirements of national security,” and other similarly-worded criteria. With “national security” meaning nearly anything that a politician may wish it to, this must change.

A reformed CFIUS would restrict itself to the scrutiny of deals involving actual enemies of the United States — for example, states on the list of terror sponsors. Barring that, it would subject itself to judicial appeal, rather than operating as an economic Star Chamber with a capricious power over business and entrepreneurial life.

Until such a list comes out, expect more debacles like the thwarted merger between 3Com and Bain Capital, two American companies that wanted to merge with cash from Huawei, a Chinese firm that would have then owned a minority stake in the company. That deal failed last month when CFIUS refused its permission.

It is undeniable that 3Com is involved in the production of sensitive and advanced technology products. However, a Huawei minority stake under the proposed deal with Bain Capital would not meaningfully alter China’s access to those products. For starters, they are already freely available for purchase by private parties — and Huawei already participates in the manufacture of many of them. The 3Com facility in Hangzhou, China, at the Zhijiang Science Park, has operated under a partnership with Huawei for some time, to the apparent unconcern of CFIUS.

Were CFIUS genuinely concerned with foreign acquisition of critical national-security products, it would not have approved the 1995 sale of Indiana-based Magnequench, Inc., to a China-based consortium. Magnequench was and remains a key manufacturer of the rare-earth magnets needed for American precision munitions — and its entire production operation has since left Indiana for China. CFIUS apparently believes that 3Com’s routers, network intrusion-prevention systems, and network cards, available to any purchaser, are more vital to American security than actual advanced war materials whose sole market is the Pentagon itself. This is, to be charitable, a remarkable proposition.

Arguably worse than its rejection, though, is that CFIUS didn’t deign to tell the parties, or anyone else, precisely why it had rejected the deal. Given the costs involved, such an explanation was the least CFIUS could have done. Bain Capital shareholders are now out $66 million, which must be paid to 3Com as a termination fee for the deal.

Upon CFIUS’s scuttling of the deal, 3Com’s shareholders saw their company swiftly lose 12% of its market capitalization, with its stock dipping to its lowest level since the early 1990s. The prospects of the acquisition had driven 3Com’s total capitalization to approximately $1.8 billion in fall of 2007: as of this writing, it stands at about $960 million — barely half its prior value. That is a tremendous amount of havoc, in a few short months, for an unaccountable bureaucracy to wreak on an American company and its shareholders.

Indeed, that market reaction helps clarify exactly what is at stake here. America needs foreign trade and investment. By introducing an element of unpredictability into such trade and investment, CFIUS does more harm than good. And the problem appears to be getting worse just at a time when the U.S. economy appears to be wobbling and needs all the help it can get.

CFIUS defenders point to the potential threats to national security that would result from the sale to foreigners of a company manufacturing critical military technology. On its face, this is a good thing. Who wants an Iranian firm to purchase an American manufacturer of uranium centrifuges? Why should we allow a Venezuelan business to acquire American technical expertise that abets Caracas’s destabilization of Latin America?

Yet this noble-sounding purpose is confounded by the government’s failure to explain how it evaluates deals in practice. The number of “obvious” cases – an Iran buying centrifuges, say – is exceedingly rare. Among other reasons, this is because most of America’s post-Cold War state enemies are too poor to buy any American assets. So CFIUS does most of its work on “marginal” cases where there might be some grounds for concern but the potential threat to security interests isn’t clear.

And all too often those cases seem to get decided by politics. This should hardly be surprising, given CFIUS’ origins. The law creating the committee was passed in 1988 amid fears that newly wealthy Japanese companies were gobbling up America. Security concerns would hardly seem to have justified opposition to the bulk of those deals. Japan was then, and is now, a strong ally and a thriving democracy.

China presents a different situation. It’s neither a strong ally nor a thriving democracy. But given the history of CFIUS, the burden is still on the committee to prove that it’s making decisions that are rooted in national security rather than protectionism. The only way to do so, and take another step toward encouraging the foreign investment America needs, is for CFIUS to be clear and consistent about its standards.

Clinton’s Lowest Blow

April 28, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, Democratic Party | Leave a Comment 

This “Guardian” analysis overreaches in implicating the Clintons in race-baiting. For elevating racial tensions in the Democratic campaign, the Clintons are 1% to blame, Pastor Wright 80%, and the conservative media for endlessly repeating his comments 19%. But on reflection, this comment by Sen. Clinton, when she was asked if she thought Sen. Obama was a Muslim, is indefensible:

There is nothing to base that on – as far as I know.

Of course that’s not race-baiting; it’s faith-baiting.

McCain and “a New Cold War”

April 28, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, International Affairs, Presidents, Republican Party, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

In “Newsweek,” Fareed Zakaria on Sen. McCain’s “radical” foreign policy:

On March 26, McCain gave a speech on foreign policy in Los Angeles that was billed as his most comprehensive statement on the subject. It contained within it the most radical idea put forward by a major candidate for the presidency in 25 years. Yet almost no one noticed. In his speech McCain proposed that the United States expel Russia from the G8, the group of advanced industrial countries. Moscow was included in this body in the 1990s to recognize and reward it for peacefully ending the cold war on Western terms, dismantling the Soviet empire and withdrawing from large chunks of the old Russian Empire as well. McCain also proposed that the United States should expand the G8 by taking in India and Brazil—but pointedly excluded China from the councils of power. We have spent months debating Barack Obama’s suggestion that he might, under some circumstances, meet with Iranians and Venezuelans. It is a sign of what is wrong with the foreign-policy debate that this idea is treated as a revolution in U.S. policy while McCain’s proposal has barely registered. What McCain has announced is momentous—that the United States should adopt a policy of active exclusion and hostility toward two major global powers. It would reverse a decades-old bipartisan American policy of integrating these two countries into the global order, a policy that began under Richard Nixon (with Beijing) and continued under Ronald Reagan (with Moscow). It is a policy that would alienate many countries in Europe and Asia who would see it as an attempt by Washington to begin a new cold war.

Featured Articles — April 28, 2008

April 28, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes from Home and Abroad:

Pariah Diplomacy By Jimmy Carter
It is counterproductive for Washington to isolate governments that refuse its mandate, as exemplified by recent events in Nepal and the Middle East.

Dear Senator Obama … By Karl Rove
President Bush’s former senior adviser offers advice for fighting the ‘elitist’ label.

Hillary Gets No Respect By William Kristol
Since we conservatives believe in giving credit where credit is due, it falls to us to praise Hillary Clinton.

America needs to make a new case for trade By Lawrence Summers
While the financial crisis dominates current discussion on the US economy, questions regarding America’s future approach to globalisation are looming increasingly large.

An Anatomy of Surrender By Bruce Bawer
Motivated by fear and multiculturalism, too many Westerners are acquiescing to creeping sharia.

The ABA’s ‘Diversity’ Diktat By Gail Heriot
How the American Bar Association mandates discrimination in our law schools.

The Fed’s Bender By Wall Street Journal Editors
What Ben Bernanke needs isn’t a gradual withdrawal from easy money but membership in Central Bankers Anonymous.

Tan Ally and His Ordeals By Rupert Darwall
Bookshelf: Tony Blair was brilliant at Question Time but failed to deliver on all sorts of promises.

Betraying Benedict By Robert D. Novak
How two American bishops disobeyed the pope at his own Mass.

Flying (and Bidding) Solo By Dov S. Zakheim and Ronald T. Kadish
Competition barely exists in the defense industry — and it’s growing weaker by the day.

Plouffe: McCain is the New Wallace

April 27, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, Democratic Party | Leave a Comment 

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe says Sen. McCain has the racist vote sewn up:

I mean the vast, vast majority of voters who would not vote for Barack Obama in November based on race are probably firmly in John McCain’s camp already.

And yet, as David Broder writes,

Over the past week, as [McCain] toured the South from Selma to Little Rock, he clearly was signaling a shift from the traditional GOP way of courting Dixie voters. In Selma, McCain praised the African-Americans who, more than four decades ago, were clubbed and beaten by Alabama state troopers at the start of their anti-segregation protest march to Montgomery. He vowed, in their memory, to bring his campaign — and the publicity it attracts — to the “forgotten places” of America, and to help the families in those communities if he becomes president.

Newspapers, Save Thyselves (Pt. 4)

April 27, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, News media | Leave a Comment 

Elizabeth Edwards bemoans the political media’s fascination with tactics and polls and their neglect of substance:

I’m not the only one who noticed this shallow news coverage. A report by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy found that during the early months of the 2008 presidential campaign, 63 percent of the campaign stories focused on political strategy while only 15 percent discussed the candidates’ ideas and proposals.

Wright and Wrong

April 27, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, Democratic Party, Faith | Leave a Comment 

At “Salon,” Joan Walsh has now heard Pastor Wright in context and listened to his Bill Moyers interview. She is not reassured:

As Wright described it to Moyers, America would seem to be all about dispossessing the Indians, enslaving blacks, interning the Japanese and now killing Iraqis. He said nothing about Americans who fought any of that (and nothing about white ethnic groups who also faced WASP prejudice). Note that, in his defense, Wright didn’t say: “Hey, I’m a guy who also talks a lot about the promise of American democracy, and the way Americans of every race have worked together to try to make the country live up to that promise. Here’s a sermon about the heroes of the civil rights movement! Even some who weren’t black!” (I’m not saying Wright never gave any sermon like that; maybe he did, but that’s not what he pointed to in self-defense.) He used his hour with Moyers to argue that his thoroughgoing critique of American evil is, well, true. And I’m on the left. I know huge chunks of it are true. But Wright casts his critique in such an extreme way that the possibility of redemption, the evidence that America can and has and will change for the better, is never considered. (It should be noted that Obama agreed with me on that point in his March 18 speech about Wright and race.) Wright preaches a deadly kind of “blame America” politics that many on the left have tried to move away from since the 70s. And it could be especially deadly for Obama. He was supposed to be a continuation of our evolution towards promise and opportunity and optimism — but his pastor is a guy who says “God damn America”? Who seems to feel vindicated by “the chickens coming home to roost” after 9/11?

Trio of China Hands

April 27, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under China, Presidents, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

The New Nixon thanks Terry Adamson, of the Carter Administration and Carter Center, for e-mailing this photo of President Carter introducing former President Nixon to Deng Xiaopeng at the White House in 1979. At left is Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. Vance had not favored the invitation to Mr. Nixon, who had reestablished relations with China during his historic 1972 visit. National security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski voted aye, as did President Carter.

Ping Pong Advocacy

April 27, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Democratic Party, Election 2008 | Leave a Comment 

Everybody gets a scandal today. The LA Times explores an Illinois state grant Barack Obama endorsed for Killerspin, a table tennis company owned by a political supporter.

This Is Getting Confusing

April 27, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics | Leave a Comment 

Radical Tom Hayden red-baits Sen. Clinton, holding her accountable for her role in the near-impeachment of President Nixon, among other things. You go, Tom!

Legal Scandal?

April 27, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Election 2008, News media, Republican Party | Leave a Comment 

The New York Times essays another expose on Sen. McCain without alleging that he did anything legally wrong. This time, it’s the political use of wife Cindy’s corporate jet:

The senator was able to fly so inexpensively because the law specifically exempts aircraft owned by a candidate or his family or by a privately held company they control. The Federal Election Commission adopted rules in December to close the loophole — rules that would have required substantial payments by candidates using family-owned planes — but the agency soon lost the requisite number of commissioners needed to complete the rule making. Because that exemption remains, Mr. McCain’s campaign was able to use his wife’s corporate plane like a charter jet while paying first-class rates, several campaign finance experts said. Several of those experts, however, added that his campaign’s actions, while keeping with the letter of law, did not reflect its spirit.

Featured Articles — April 27, 2008

April 27, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes from Home and Abroad:

Feed your Prius, starve a peasant By Mark Steyn
Last week, Time magazine featured on its cover the iconic photograph of U.S. Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima. But with one difference: The flag has been replaced by a tree. The managing editor of Time, Rick Stengel, was very pleased with the lads in graphics for cooking up this cute image and was all over the TV sofas, talking up this ingenious visual shorthand for what he regards as the greatest challenge facing mankind: “How To Win The War On Global Warming.

The View From Gate 14 By Peggy Noonan
Declarations: America is fed up with Bush, but not yet sold on Obama.

Psychology: The Hard Truth about a Soft Science By Selwyn Duke
While many may debate Freud’s influence over modern psychology, there is no doubt that the atheism and moral relativism he espoused reigns in it.

Odd Couple of the Jungle By Nicholas Kristof
Of all the struggles to fight climate change, the partnership between an American businessman and a hunter in the Amazon rain forest is one of the more quixotic — and inspiring.

The Parker Six Beat McCainism By George Will
Ugly locutions often crop up in the promotion of ugly politics. Consider the threat of “scrutinization.”

How McCain Lost in Pennsylvania By Frank Rich
IT’S a nightmare. It’s the Bataan Death March. It’s mutually assured Armageddon. “Both of them are already losing the general to John McCain,” declared a Newsweek columnist last month, predicting that the election “may already be over” by the time the Democrats anoint a nominee.

Carter’s Heir by Matthew Continetti
He’s a senator from Illinois.

What Petraeus Would Face in Afghanistan By David Ignatius
For many Americans who are weary of Iraq, Afghanistan is the “good war” where the U.S. and its European allies are destroying what’s left of al- Qaeda and the Taliban. That view certainly holds with the Democratic presidential candidates, who talk of adding more troops in Afghanistan next year even as they pull troops out of Iraq.

The McCain Paradox

April 26, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Election 2008 | Leave a Comment 

H/T: Powerline

Powerline’s John Hinderaker rightfully points out the paradox of John McCain’s negative campaign tactics. In a blogger’s conference call yesterday, McCain essentially called Obama Hamas’s preferred candidate:

All I can tell you Jennifer is that I think it’s very clear who Hamas wants to be the next president of the United States. So apparently has Danny Ortega and several others. I think that people should understand that I will be Hamas’s worst nightmare….If senator Obama is favored by Hamas I think people can make judgments accordingly.

Yet McCain cringes at this North Carolina Republican Party ad tying Obama with his pastor of 20 years, Jeremiah Wright.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/JXxkctYRAZQ" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Rudy is The New Nixon

April 26, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Election 2008, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

While his friend John McCain seems destined for the White House in the midst of Democrat Party chaos, Rudy Giuliani is already accepting donations for a 2012 bid. The conventional wisdom of a 2012 run implies that Rudy isn’t putting much stock in McCain’s campaign. But the contrary is true. This move is very peculiar as Giuliani has thrown considerable currency behind McCain, transferring his conservative endorsements from the likes of Ted Olson, and close advisers Michael DuHaime and Tony Carbonetti. McCain, in turn, has reciprocated by absorbing debt from Giuliani’s campaign.

It’s still early, and Rudy is still in the proverbial Nixonian wilderness (even floating the idea of a 2010 gubernatorial run). But by laying early groundwork for a bid 4 years down the road, McCain might be lining up Hizoner as Vice Presidential nominee and successor.

See Joinrudy2012.com.

Wright Last Night

April 26, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, Culture, Faith | Leave a Comment 

In his interview with Bill Moyers last night, Pastor Wright talked about how one of his seminary professors, the great Martin Marty, encouraged him to be aware of the persistent contrast between what’s going on in the world and what we hear about in church:

You leave a world, Vietnam, or today you leave a world, Iraq, over 4,000 dead, American boys and girls, 100,000, 200,000 depending on which count, Iraqi dead. Afghanistan, Darfur, rapes in the Congo, Katrina, Lower Ninth Ward, that’s the world you leave. And you come in; you pick up your church bulletin. It says, there is a ladies tea on second Sunday. The children’s choir will be doing. [Marty] said, “How come our bulletins, how come the faith preached in our churches does not relate to the world in which our church members leave at the benediction?” Well, it hit me. And it hit me several different ways. Number one, I know there’s a church publication, the bulletin, the weekly bulletin. But what about the ministry? And what about the prophetic voice of the church that’s not heard? We’re talking about things that our members are wrestling with a whole bunch of other things. And the sermons and the ministries of the church don’t touch those things.

Fair enough. Karl Barth, the neoorthodox theologian, said that a minister should preach with a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other. If you don’t like the worldly issues Pastor Wright mentions, then substitute anything you have profound moral concerns about — abortion, climate change, gay rights, whatever. If you’re really passionate about something, how meaningful and useful can a faith community be in your life if it never supports you in or even acknowledges your passion?

Pastor Wright went on to say that at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, he established ministries to support people through the difficulties and opportunities of their daily lives. Again, all power to him.

Then we get to the issue of Trinity’s African-American identity. Adapting a slogan of his predecessor, under Pastor Wright its watchwords became “unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian” — unashamed, because blacks had historically been taught to undervalue their cultural inheritance; unapologetic, because black Christians were sometimes ridiculed for following the “white man’s religion.”

Anyone who reacts negatively to the very idea of the black church might want to measure the diversity in the pews at their own. Martin Luther King, Jr. used to call 11 a.m. Sunday the most segregated hour of the week, and it hasn’t changed much in 40 years. Many congregations are integrated; but studies show that, like most neighborhoods, most faith communities are nests for birds of a feather, albeit ones that often proclaim their openness. Some white churches go out of their way to welcome the other, offering multicultural liturgies and bilingual services. If we’re talking about what Jesus would do, he’d probably suggest that white church members drive (or, now that I think about it, carpool) to black, Hispanic, or Asian-Pacific Islander neighborhoods and go to church there — plus join the church council, do hospital visiting, and tithe. For the time being, when it comes to diversity, U.S. Christians should not cast stones, since by and large we are living in a crystal cathedral.

At Trinity and many black churches, of course, the lack of diversity is essentially celebrated. While I would never rule out going to a black church, and there are a few whites at Trinity, I might feel a little funny about the slogan, since I’m not unashamedly black and might wonder if I was really welcome. Still, it would be churlish to criticize Pastor Wright for building a thriving church around ethnic identity and pride.

The remaining question is the content of his preaching. He persists in calling it prophetic, but prophets make their people feel uncomfortable, as Dr. King probably did on April 3, 1968 in Memphis when he exhorted his fellow pastors to come out of their sacristies and support the striking sanitation workers. Instead, on the the Sunday after Sept. 11 Pastor Wright’s church rang with shouts of support as he described the terrorist attacks as the result of American atrocities at home and abroad. A prophet might’ve called on his people to suppress the impulse some might have had to believe that the United States deserved the attack — that any innocent people could ever deserve such a thing. A prophet would’ve called on the body of Christ to ponder its radical unity with those who had suffered and had struggled heroically to attend to the suffering. A prophet might’ve said something like this — from Rabbi Brad Hirschfield’s You Don’t Have To Be Wrong For Me To Be Right: Finding Faith Without Fanaticism:

The memory of past oppression can break two ways in our lives. It can make us resentful and full of reasons why now it’s someone else’s turn to suffer as we have; and it can soften our hearts and open our eyes to suffering. It can deepen our commitment to help others as we wish others had helped us. Turning personal or national suffering into a source for healing is never easy, but unless that remains our top priority, we’ll be left with a world in which everybody has a finely honed sense of how his particular past entitles him to undermine someone else’s future.

Defining Success in Iraq

April 26, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Iraq War | Leave a Comment 

Frederick Kagan’s article today addresses time and space in defining the success of the Iraq War. He cites the following criteria in defining success:

• Stability
• Representative government
• Control of territory
• Orientation toward the West
• An ally in the war on terror

I found the last two most intriguing. And Kagan cites measurable promise in both.

Firstly, many cite the Shiite dominated government as a potential puppet of the Iranian regime. But as Kagan notes, the forces of Arab nationalism are stronger than religious commonality:

It is also clearly against America’s interests for Iraq to become an Iranian puppet. Some in the United States, however, see that development as inevitable; they point to geography and religious ties. Some even say that the United States should not only acquiesce in the inevitable but embrace it, reaching out to the Iranians for their assistance in smoothing our withdrawal as they establish their domination. But why? Iran has not dominated Iraq in centuries. True, the Sunni-Shia divide is profound, but so is the Arab-Persian divide. Iraq’s Shia, remember, enthusiastically supported Saddam Hussein’s war against their Iranian co-religionists in the 1980s–a sectarian “betrayal” for which the Iranians have never forgiven them. Again, American troops and civilians who live day to day with Iraqis throughout the country report a dramatic rise in anti-Persian sentiment, coincident with a rise in Iraqi Arab nationalism. But back in the United States, the debate over Iraq is scarcely tethered to reality on the ground. In the simple terms suitable to that debate, then, suffice it to say that neither shared Shia faith nor a shared border has historically led to Iranian domination of Iraq. There is no reason to assume it will do so now.

Kagan also notes national cooperation among Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds in stamping out violent Al-Qaeda elements as success in finding key allies in the greater war on terror:

Whatever Saddam Hussein’s ties were to al Qaeda before the invasion, the reality today is that an important al Qaeda franchise has established itself in Iraq. It initially had the support of a significant portion of Iraq’s Sunni Arab community, but that community–with critical American support–has rejected al Qaeda and united with Iraq’s Shia and Kurds to fight it.

As a result, there is no state in the world that is more committed than Iraq to defeating al Qaeda. None has mobilized more troops to fight al Qaeda or suffered more civilian casualties at the hands of al Qaeda–or, for that matter, taken more police and military casualties. Iraq is already America’s best ally in the struggle against al Qaeda. Moreover, the recent decision of Iraq’s government to go after illegal, Iranian-backed Shia militias and terror groups shows that even a Shia government in Baghdad can be a good partner in the struggle against Shia extremism as well.

In Defense of Hillary

April 26, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, Democratic Party, Election 2008 | Leave a Comment 

This Washington Post article, “Party Fears Racial Divide; Attacks Could Do Lasting Harm, Democrats Say,” contains this observation:

That fear [of a brokered nomination], plus a more general sense that Clinton’s only route to victory would be through tearing down her opponent, has led even some black Democrats who are officially neutral in the race…to speak out.

But in a race this close, isn’t tearing down one’s opponent the best way to win? Granted, in the middle of this historic gut fight either one of the candidates could decide to go positive. I’ll bet at least one political consultant in 500 would recommend it. Yet the article comes dangerously close to suggesting that Clinton shouldn’t attack Obama as hard as she has been just because he’s black. The reporter’s own apparent rationale is that Clinton is openly appealing to the white voters who gave her Pennsylvania, which she undoubtedly is, though no more than Obama is openly appealing to blacks. Beyond that, as to whether the Clinton campaign is purposely fanning racial tensions, the article has this to offer:

[Rep. James] Clyburn [the highest-ranking African-American in the House] accused Clinton and her husband yesterday of marginalizing black voters and opening a rift between her campaign and an African American Democratic base that strongly backed Bill Clinton’s presidency. Some surrogates in her camp are trying to render Obama unelectable against the Republican nominee so she could run for the Democratic nomination in 2012, he suggested. The discussion flared up yet again when Bill Clinton suggested this week that Obama’s campaign had played “the race card” after the former president compared the candidate to Jesse Jackson after the South Carolina primary.

Not everyone agrees with Clyburn’s critique of the Clintons:

Campaigning for Clinton in Gary, Ind., yesterday, Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (Ohio), who is black, said she does not share her colleagues’ concerns. “I don’t think Bill and Hillary Clinton will ‘do anything’ to win this election,” she said. “They are trying to be successful, but I disagree they will do anything or they are trying to hurt Barack Obama.” She added that black voters “are not a monolith, and we recognize the importance of this election.”

Unless someone has hard evidence that the Clintons are race baiting, the assorted inferences in this Post article add up to a bum rap. President Clinton definitely goofed when he compared Obama to Jackson. But the Clintons had nothing to do with Pastor Wright, whose sermon excerpts, endlessly recycled by the media, first injected profound and admittedly troubling racial overtones into the campaign. She could’ve given her own Philadelphia speech, imploring her supporters to repudiate all Wrighteous attacks on Obama. That she didn’t — that she chooses to enjoy the benefit of the conservative media’s attacks on him — means she’s an opportunist. As for those who suggest that she will be responsible for the consequences for the Democratic Party and race relations in America just for continuing her hellbent-for-leather campaign against an African-American candidate, there’s considerable opportunism in their position as well.

Vicious circle postscript: If all harsh criticism of Obama is implicitly racist, is harsh language about Clinton sexist? Read this.

Featured Articles — April 26, 2008

April 26, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes From Home and Abroad:

How We’ll Know When We’ve Won by Frederick W. Kagan
A definition of success in Iraq.

How the South Won (This) Civil War By Michael Hirsh
Southernism is taking over our national dialogue. Maybe it’s time for the North to secede from the Union.

McCain’s Money Mess By Robert Novak
Big-time Republican contributors are complaining that prospective presidential nominee John McCain is poorly organized for the campaign and off to a bad start in raising money.

‘Earmarks’ by Another Name: Democracy By Dannel P. Malloy, Robert Duffy and Mark Mallory
A couple of months after Officer Michael Briggs was killed in October 2006, the police department in Manchester, N.H., informed the city that the federal program that finances police officers assigned to target street crime and reduce open-air drug sales had not been funded for the next fiscal year.

Dying Russia By Nicholas Eberstadt and Hans Groth
No modern society can expect to enjoy an Irish standard of living on an Indian survival schedule.

Popular Vote Gives Clinton an Edge By Michael Barone
One thing many people haven’t noticed about Hillary Clinton’s 55 percent to 45 percent victory over Barack Obama in the Pennsylvania primary is that it put her ahead of Obama in the popular vote. Her 214,000-vote margin in the Keystone State means that she has won the votes, in primaries and caucuses, of 15,112,000 Americans, compared to 14,993,000 for Obama.

Russia’s Pre-Olympic Nightmare By Garry Kasparov
Will we have to wait for the 2014 winter games before somebody pays attention to us.

Brown Takes From the Poor By Wall Street Journal Editors
The British Prime Minister’s floundering on income taxes raises more questions about his economic judgment.

Last Breakfast in Cambodia By Sichan Siv
As I walk from one memory-filled place to another, I pray for a new year in which Cambodia’s leaders will find a way to bring about peace and stability.

Part V, HAK on Uncommon Knowledge

April 25, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under International Affairs, Nixon Administration figures | Leave a Comment 

On Part V of Peter Robinson’s interview with Henry Kissinger, the former Secretary of State talks about the importance of implementing a more effective program of public diplomacy, and the continued bias of the media towards military affairs.

Old McGovern: Obama Not Necessarily the New One

April 25, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, Democratic Party | Leave a Comment 

“Huffington Post” on Clinton backer George McGovern:

[The] former senator and [1972] Democratic presidential aspirant…says he sees some striking similarities when it comes to his run at the White House and that of Sen. Barack Obama. But ultimately, McGovern argues, Obama has organized a much wider political coalition and thus a greater chance of electoral success. “I think that is his strength,” McGovern [said]. “He has very broad appeal. He certainly is going to galvanize the black vote. But he has strong appeal to voters of all kinds. Some of the old buckaroos out here in South Dakota are for him.”

Maybe This Time It’s For Real

April 25, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, Democratic Party | Leave a Comment 

Andrew Sullivan writes, “[T]he boomer media class is fighting the last war and misreading the current one,” hence its focus on Pastor Wright, William Ayers, and other distractions from our country’s problems amd opportunities. He continues:

This election will be decided by white independents, African-Americans, new Hispanic voters, and a vast influx of younger Americans. Those are the people Obama has brought into the process; and they are the people who will change the face of American politics. In fact, they already have. But the boomer elites have yet to notice.

When I talk to my kids and their friends and read what smart younger commentators write, I’m tempted to agree. I’m as weary of boomer narcissism, my own and others’, as anyone. Yet during the spring of 1968 and even 1972, people were making the same argument as Sullivan about President Eugene McCarthy and President George McGovern. And if there’s something that today’s elite young Americans are as anxious about as that era’s were about civil rights, women’s rights, Chicano rights, and expecially Vietnam, I haven’t seen any evidence of it, with the possible exception of climate change — but there was plenty of hot air about saving the planet back then, too.

Green Company

April 25, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Environmental issues, International Affairs, Iraq War | Leave a Comment 

The greenest former CIA director in history, neocon James Woolsey, is profiled in “Mother Jones”:

As Woolsey explains it, there is a seamless connection between his strategic worldview and energy-independence convictions. In an op-ed he coauthored for National Review last September, he wrote of ending our reliance “on the whims of opec’s despots, the substantial instabilities of the Middle East, and the indignity of paying for both sides in the War on Terror.” He still thinks the United States should continue its global military role even as it untangles itself from the Middle East, standing by the decision to depose Saddam Hussein. “I’d support his ouster again if there weren’t a drop of oil in Iraq,” he explains. “If all that had been at issue was the oil, the simple thing to do would have been to just buy it.” Woolsey recalls the moment he started thinking seriously about energy as both an environmental and strategic issue. “I was sitting in my car in a gas line in Washington in ‘73, after the Saudis had declared an oil embargo on us and Israel was attacked,” he says. “And I got mad.” Energy issues have captivated him ever since. In the early ’80s, he joined the Jefferson Group, an alternative-fuel salon founded on the Jeffersonian ideal “that the future of America is determined by the independent yeoman farmer.”

The Good Guy

April 25, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under History | Leave a Comment 

Statue of Winston Churchill outside British Embassy in Washington, April 2008

Clinton is the New Eisenhower

April 25, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Democratic Party, International Affairs, Presidents | Leave a Comment 

Deterrence, Cold War style:

Eisenhower: During the 1956 Suez crisis, the U.S. supreme commander in Europe, Gen. Alfred Gruenther, said that if the Soviet Union attacked America’s allies Great Britain or France, it would be destroyed “as surely as night follows day.”

Deterrence, 21st century style:

Sen. Clinton on ABC: “Because whatever stage of development [Iran] might be in their nuclear weapons program, in the next 10 years during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.”

Franklin and Winston Were the Bad Guys – REALLY?

April 25, 2008 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Book Review, Presidents, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

Winston Churchill seldom, if ever, struggled with a lack of self-confidence. When he was in his early thirties he remarked: “We are all worms. But I do believe I am a glowworm.”

So years later when he said, “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it,” I’m sure he believed that his words would be the gold standard by which other writings on his chosen subjects would be judged. And when it came to writing history, his mammoth treatments of the two world wars during the first half of the twentieth century bear witness to his literary ambition and talent.

But as with most supremely confident people, they tend to underestimate peers and those who will come later.

Remember that old Steve Allen show “Meeting of the Minds” – where he’d put random characters from history at a table to talk? Well, I’d love to see something similar, but just one on one, between Sir Winston Spencer Churchill, and a guy named Nicholson Baker.

Baker’s previous claims to literary fame involved novels dealing with such disturbing matters as phone-sex (“VOX”) and, more recently, a book about the merits of assassinating George W. Bush (really – it’s called “CHECKPOINT”). I’m very happy to announce herein that among the accomplishments of my life is the great sense of fulfillment I find in the knowledge that I have never read those books.

But I did find myself reading Mr. Baker’s recent foray into quasi-nonfiction – a book entitled: “HUMAN SMOKE: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization.” I was intrigued by the title for two reasons. First, I enjoy reading anything about that period and those events. And I felt bad that I’ve lived my life thus far clueless about the fact that civilization apparently ended before I was born.

That made me sad and sort of curious. In fact, as I read the book I became, in the words of a young girl named Alice, “curiouser and curiouser.” If important works of history are like mines – rich with detail – then Baker’s book is more like Lewis Carroll’s rabbit hole.

This 576 page journey through the looking glass is actually very readable. It’s a series of approximately one thousand anecdotes drawn from newspapers (Baker is apparently a collector of old newspapers), diaries, letters, and contemporary works from the period leading up to, and into, the Second World War. There’s no commentary from Nicholson Baker – he makes his point via the way he pastes it all together.

Think of a quilt made of old newspapers. A really ugly old quilt – one that smells, has stains on it, and you wouldn’t use it on the coldest night.

You see, it’s the point Mr. Baker makes, or tries to, that’s so very outrageous. In his on-going narrative, the history we have all heard lo these many years is all wrong. Hitler would have been more peaceful if only Churchill hadn’t been so provocative. Japan would have minded their own business if only Franklin Roosevelt hadn’t lusted to see wood and paper structures all over Tokyo become an inferno. And a few anti-Semitic comments by American and British leaders (certainly wrong), rise to a kind of immoral equivalence to Hitler’s murderous racist rabidity.

We were just as bad as the other guys – actually worse. And our chief weapon of evil was aerial bombardment. In Baker’s imagination, the RAF was as big and bad as the Luftwaffe – maybe even bigger. The Germans bombed Britain as a defensive measure because of the overpowering might of the RAF.

I guess Mr. Baker thinks Churchill should have said, famously: “Never in the field human conflict was so much owed by so many to such a gigantic and overwhelming air force.”

I’m not kidding. This is what not-so-saintly Nick seeks to prove. His book is a tribute to the American and British pacifists of the era. Of them he says: “They tried to save Jewish refugees, feed Europe, reconcile the United States and Japan, and stop the war from happening. They failed, but they were right.”

Really?

Instead of the United States selling weapons to China in the late 1930’s to help that nation resist Japanese aggression, what we “really” did was to arm China for aggressive purposes. I half expected to read, as I went along, that Pearl Harbor was an offensive act by the United States Navy, opening fire on Japanese aircraft randomly flying overhead.

In this book, the ultimate villain is not Hitler – it’s Churchill. Winnie is devious, manipulative, cunning, ruthless, and warmongering, while Hitler is reasonable and is being backed into a corner by the Allies.

The problem with getting our history from newspapers and subjective contemporary diaries alone is that there’s no room for post-game analysis. And there’s no place for evidence revealed after the fact.

One example (and it’s hard to figure out where to start on this) is found in something called the Hossbach Memorandum. This was used during the Nuremburg Trials (Baker’s narrative conveniently ends on December 31, 1941). It’s the summary of a meeting that took place in late 1937 between Hitler and some of his key military cronies (the document named after the man who took the minutes). It is, in effect, the record of a secret plan for war – in 1937!

Hitler had talked in “Mein Kampf” about Lebensraum (“living space”) and this conference at the Reich Chancellery discussed plans for acquiring such extra room at the expense of other nations in Europe. Hitler is quoted as saying: “Germany’s problem could only be solved by means of force.”

This was before Munich, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and all the rest. And during that conference he specifically talked about Germany’s “two hate-filled antagonists, Britain and France.”

But Nicholson Baker seems to be convinced that if Britain would have sued for peace in 1940 or 1941 (and, admittedly, there were some in Churchill’s cabinet who leaned that way), Hitler would have stopped his aggression and the world would have lived happily ever after, instead of ending, as it apparently did (who knew?) in 1941.

Nicholson Baker has gone beyond mere revisionism in this book. He has crossed over to the even darker side of “perversion-ism” (sadly appropriate considering some of his other literary expressions). I guess I, for one, will have to find solace in something else Winston Churchill said:

“The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.” – DRS

Featured Articles — April 25, 2008

April 25, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes from Home and Abroad:

The Future of American Power By Fareed Zakaria
On June 22, 1897, about 400 million people around the world — one-fourth of humanity — got the day off. It was the 60th anniversary of Queen Victoria’s ascension to the British throne.

Pennsylvania Fault Lines By E. J. Dionne
Perhaps it was inevitable: The Democrats’ battle for the presidential nomination has now led us into the thicket of race and religion.

Obama’s Revealing ‘Distractions’ By Charles Krauthammer
Real change has never been easy. … The status quo in Washington will fight. They will fight harder than ever to divide us and distract us with ads and attacks from now until November. — Barack Obama, Pennsylvania primary night speech.

The War on Terror Is Not a Crime By David Rivkin and Lee Casey
Lynching lawyers, as Shakespeare once suggested, has never appealed much to the legal profession itself – literally or figuratively. But an exception apparently will be made for a group of attorneys who advised President Bush and his national security staff in the aftermath of 9/11. They’ve been subject to an increasingly determined campaign of public obloquy by law professors, activist lawyers and pundits.

Sixty years of determined survival By Uri Dromi
Israel is celebrating its 60th anniversary, and this creates some fuss in the world media. Having just passed this age myself, I can say that this is a good age to fondly reflect on your past achievements, while still having a lot of plans in store for the future.

The Sad End of Jimmy Carter By Bernard-Henri Levy
The problem is not that he is, or is not, talking to the Syrians – everyone does it to some degree.

The New Strategy for Afghanistan’s Cops By Ann Marlowe
Basic policing is a crucial challenge.

We Are Making Progress on AIDS By Seth Berkley
If scientists of an earlier time had subscribed to a defeatist, treatment-only doctrine, polio patients would still be in iron lungs.

Busy Signal By Oliver North
“The number you have called cannot be connected.” Ever heard a recording like that on your telephone? On 9/11, messages like that were commonplace in New York and Washington — and incredibly frustrating for first responders trying to coordinate rescue operations and families attempting to contact loved ones.

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