# Posted 11:56 PM by David Adesnik  

THE PRESIDENT'S SPEECH: It was an impressive performance. Or perhaps I should say an impressive text, since I only read it. But let's get to the criticism first. The praise can wait.

The purpose of this speech was to chart a course for the future of America in Iraq. As expected, Bush placed considerable emphasis on the June 30th handover date. Too much emphasis:

On June 30th, the Coalition Provisional Authority will cease to exist and will not be replaced. The occupation will end and Iraqis will govern their own affairs.

America's ambassador to Iraq, John Negroponte, will present his credentials to the new president of Iraq. Our embassy in Baghdad will have the same purpose as any other American embassy: to assure good relations with a sovereign nation.

The suggestion that a nation will govern itself with 150,000 foreign soldiers on its soil and without an elected government is simply not credible. While most critics emphasize the first of those two points, I think the latter is just as important. The fact is, interim governments don't truly govern. Their purpose is to dissolve themselves and pave the way for an elected, constitutional authority.

By raising expectation of what the June 30th handover will accomplish, Bush is only hurting himself. From what I can tell, few Iraqis expect much to change on that date. What I expect is an updating of the artificial consensus that produced the current Governing Council. Once again, the US -- this time along with the UN -- is trying to provide Iraq with a government that won't offend anyone.

But governments that don't offend anyone are governments that don't govern. Without the mandate provided by an election, no Iraqi government can make the controversial decisions that will have to be made during the process of reconstruction. And if Iraqis can't make those decisions, then Americans and UN officials will. That is why it is thoroughly disingenuous for Bush to describe Negroponte's post as just another embassy.

Now on to the good parts of the speech. First and foremost, I was overwhelmed by the President's unabashed Wilsonianism. Even Reagan's most idealistic speeches never went this far, either in terms of emphasis or specificity. On far too many occasions, Reagan embedded his democratic aspirations in vague formulas that had few practical implications.

In contrast, Bush has now lain out a very clear schedule for the transition to electoral democracy in Iraq. His remarks announced specific deadlines for elections to the constitutional assembly, for a referendum on the draft constitution and for general elections. He has invested his America's prestige -- and perhaps the survival of his administration -- in this process.

He is also investing American soldiers. With Bush's approval ratings in the midst of an extended plunge, critics have suggested that the President was getting ready to cut and run. But now he has explicity promised to hold the size of the occupation force steady at 138,000 or even increase it if necessary. While Bush held "the commanders" responsible for estimating that only 115,000 troops would be necessary at this point, he did admit that the American effort to create self-sufficient Iraqi security force has resuled in failures.

Finally, Abu Ghraib. It will be razed. To be sure, Bush refused to admit that the abuses there went beyond the actions of a "few American troops who dishonored our country and disregarded our values". Yet, in this instance, actions may ultimately speak louder than words. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:30 PM by David Adesnik  

DISTURBING: Human rights violations at Abu Ghraib have brought the perils of the American prison system back into the public spotlight. To some degree, this (re-)revelation of the horrors we tolerate at home detracts attention from the seriousness of what happened abroad.

However, I would argue that focusing more on the failures of the domestic prison and mental health systems provides a proper context for understanding how American soldiers committed such brutal and hypocritical acts at Abu Ghraib. Our domestic failures reproduce themselves abroad.

This fact in no way mitigates the guilt or responsibility of those who violated the human rights of Iraqi prisoners. It simply points to the fact that we may not be able to set the standards we want abroad until we commit ourselves to setting them at home as well. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:05 PM by David Adesnik  

BACK IN THE SADDLE AGAIN: I need a vacation to recover from my vacation. Bachelor party in Vegas. Drive to LA. Rehearsal dinner. Wedding mass. Wedding party. Flight back to Boston. Arabic final the next morning.

Although deprived of sleep, I am quite well-rested intellectually. I am actually excited to start working on my dissertation again. But I am a little apprehensive about blogging. Dissertation research behaves itself while you're away. When you come back, it is exactly where you left it.

But the blogosphere goes wild. How can I possibly catch up on hundreds of news articles and thousands of blog posts? How can I say anything without exposing myself to withering criticism from those who are now better informed than myself?

Yet strangely, I didn't feel at all disconnected from the world when I wasn't blogging. I threw an occasional glance at the headlines, but nothing seemed all that important. My life went on exactly as it had been going. No one I talked to seemed all that concerned about the news. What really mattered was that one of my closest friends ever, someone I lived with for four life-changing years, was entering into a life-long relationship with the woman he loves.

For someone who spends hours a day reading about, thinking about the news, this break served as an important reminder that very few of us inhabit the insulated reality known as the blogosphere. By the same token, it served as an important reminder that neither journalists nor politicians, no matter how important, play a prominent in the lives of most Americans.

One might argue that Americans should be more publicly-minded and better informed. But how much information is enough? At what point would the experts agree that American citizens know enough?

Of course, I am hardly the first one to consider the implications of such questions. Two hundred twenty-five years ago, the Founders sought to strike the right balance between creating a democracy and creating a republic. To what degree must elected representatives obey the will of the voters and to what degree must they act in what they believe to be the voters' best interests?

I have no new answers to these questions. I am simply glad that taking some time away from OxBlog enabled me to confront the real-life conditions that give rise to these eternal dilemmas. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:19 AM by Patrick Belton  

SURPRISE! So it looks as though Rachel's planned me a surprise birthday trip to my ancestral city of Dublin - I'm writing this from a kiosk at Gatwick, where she's whisked me away from Oxford's Gloucestr Green. I'll see all of you on Tuesday, and a year older - till then, slan agus dia dhuit! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:00 AM by Patrick Belton  

OXBLOG'S AFGHANISTAN CORRESPONDENT goes on a diet with 1974 vintage weight watcher cards. (Joel, can't you at least come up with a version featuring the delights of Afghan cuisine?) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:00 AM by Patrick Belton  

WELL, I HAVEN'T GOT ONE OF THOSE ANYWAY: Porsche owners are more likely to cheat on their spouses than the owner of any other genus of car, with 49 percent taking a spin in the wrong lane according to a survey. Want to boost your chances of marital fidelity? Try a trusty Vauxhall. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:50 AM by Patrick Belton  

INDIA WATCH: Outlook India speculates on what Indian national security policy will look like under Congress. Also, the Economic Times argues that Congress's election had more to do with astute alliance management than in increasing its vote share (which actually declined slightly from the 1999 elections). (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:49 AM by Patrick Belton  

SRI LANKA WATCH: OxBlog friend and Nathan Hale member Vikram Raghavan has just returned from Sri Lanka, where he formed part of a World Bank team to explore how best to go about the reconstruction of a country ravaged by two decades of civil war. He writes about his travels and thoughts there on his new blog. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:58 AM by Patrick Belton  

THINK TANK WATCH: Over at Rand, Bruce Hoffman considers the effect of killing Osama on the corporation succession plan of Al Qa'eda. Cheryl Bernard considers how the west might best assist reformers in the Islamic world without actually hindering their cause. OxBlog favourite John Lewis Gaddis speaks at CFR on surprise, security, and the American experience. DCIs Turner, Woolsey, and Webster talk about in which directions their alma mater agency should change in the future. Yale Law hosts a senior USAID official and two UN ambassadors to discuss whether nation-building is in fact possible. Brookings looks at labour standards in trade agreements and whether the market is moral, while CSIS looks at Afghanistan security, US options toward Pakistan, and security and migration across the US-Mexican border. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:47 AM by Patrick Belton  

GOVERNMENT TO BRITAIN: NIPPLES ARE FOR TABLOIDS, NOT FOR BREASTFEEDING - Brief shots which included the nipple of a breastfeeding mother were cut from an advert to encourage voting in upcoming elections for members of the European Parliament which will be shown in 2,200 British cinemas, on the orders of the Cinema Advertising Association.

Britain is the only country to require the deletion of the offending breastfeeding scene, which contravene long-standing British social standards that breasts are to be used to sell newspapers rather than feed young Britons. French censors are uncomfortable about a brief shot of a stern-looking female judge receiving a jury verdict. Ireland has reportedly decided not to screen the advert at all. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:57 AM by Patrick Belton  

PIGEON WARFARE: As most people know, Britain and the Forces Françaises Libres relied upon the services of trained homing pigeons to transmit messages across enemy lines. As is less known, British counterintelligence came to realise that the Axis nations also had their own pigeons relaying mesages to the continent from Blighty. So as BBC reports this morning, Britain established a falcon brigade to intercept enemy pidgeons. Other intelligence agencies considered, against the advice of MI5, the training of pigeons for suicide missions; much better to be a chicken, where your duties would merely consist (in another rejected British war plan) of sitting on a nuclear bomb. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:49 AM by Patrick Belton  

MORE ALEXANDRA KERRY: Apparently Alexandra was having a lovely evening before she ran into Michael Moore in the same dress. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:22 PM by Patrick Belton  

DEMOCRACY BRIEFER: I've written a quick democracy briefer over on Winds of Change, focusing on recently announced Palestinian local elections, the paring-down of the Greater Middle East Initiative, and elections in a number of countries making democratic transitions or consolidating after them. I won't say it's a must-read, because it's by .... me; but if you're the sort of person who'd be interested in this sort of thing, then this is the sort of thing that might interest you. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:06 PM by Patrick Belton  

ROBERT TAGORDA'S blogging at his best - you should definitely go pay him a visit. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:01 PM by Patrick Belton  

ONE DAY LATE, BUT, happy birthday, Matt! The three of us are always happy to have you out there as a very respected interlocutor, and we wish you many very happy returns of the day. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:06 PM by Patrick Belton  

OXBLOG'S ESTEEMED INDIA CORRESPONDENT ANTARA DATTA helps us continue our conversation about India's tumultuous elections:

Dear Patrick,
Two quick points about the post on india:

1. I'd be wary about the statistics indicating a drop in poverty. Poverty rates declined because the Indian government switched over to World Bank prescriptions to measuring poverty. In particular, this involved questioning people about their 'weekly consumption' rather than their 'monthly consumption'. Since the sampling method changed, rates too changed. I'd be more curious about the total number of people below the poverty line.

Also the definition of the poverty line in India is a hugely political question. Various definitions abound and were suggested by various committees set up by different governments in power, all determined to prove that poverty had declined during their tenure. So as I said, I'd be very wary of using data based on poverty lines in India- it's a political tinderbox!

This is not to say that poverty hasn't declined. And that things haven't gotten better under BJP rule. But we've also seen the highest suicide rate among farmers under them as well. So makes me wary again of making generalizations about how far their policies have benefitted the poor. As far as the upper middle classes are concerned, there is no doubt that we are certainly better off...but for the rest, perhaps this election was an indication that all is not well. Also, a lot of the reforms began under the Narasimha Rao led Congress government, and if we accept that it takes almost a decade for most reforms to bear fruit, it is a bit rich for the BJP to take credit, and then claim that the Congress would reverse these reforms!!

There is also a tendency in Western media coverage of Indian elections to think of the average voter as poor and illiterate. That they might be, but my experience of rural life in India, however limited, has shown that they are also incredibly politicized and know exactly what the crucial issues at stake are, so I would really respect the decision of the Andhra electorate as a good indication of what was happening within the country, especially in the agricultural sector.

The BJP called the elections six months early because they hoped that a good monsoon would benefit them. What they forgot was the unprecedented drought in north India last year, which they hadn't handled very well (despite the fact that we have fairly large quantities of foodgrains rotting in our warehouses). And after all, you can't really take credit for a good monsoon, can you?! I also find baffling the reactions of the stock market. If Sonia was going to be PM, Manmohan Singh was definitely going to be Finance Minister and would set the agenda on reforms. So how does his becoming PM alter the agenda so much, that the stocks make such a rapid recovery? I'm not sure what the stock brokers were really thinking. Also, it would be foolish to take the Left's statements very seriously. In my home state of Bengal, they've been vigorously trying to attract foreign investors, and besides, they are staying out of government anyway. So they can't really influence government policy all that much. I honestly suspect that on the important question of economic reform, not much will change at all. I also suspect that P. Chidambaram, a Harvard educated lawyer will be the next FM, and he's extremely pro-reform. So that should set some doubts at rest.

2. On Sonia:

It's a brilliant move from her. She's removed the last real 'issue' that the BJP could have used against her. She's made them look very silly (especially the Chief Minister who resigned yesterday morning to launch a campaign against her, only to find that she'd withdrawn). Now they really look like poor losers, and many of their supporters are quite dismayed by what they see as blatant political blackmail. In fact, from what I've been reading in the media for most of today, there is a reasonable groundswell of opinion lauding her act, and many former detractors are quite stunned at what is seen as an act of 'political sacrifice' quite unprecedented in Indian politics.

Part of the reason why the BJP were so taken aback is because most of them couldn't even imagine someone being offered PMship on a platter, and refusing it. So they expected Sonia to become PM, and this to be their main agenda for at least a while.

The other aspect is this: when the BJP says it's launching a 'nationwide agitation', it has ominous overtones. It means that they would have fomented trouble in the villages by targetting minorities. (also remember that Sonia is a Catholic, and the more extreme wing of the RSS has been saying for a while that if Sonia came to power, she would take her orders from the Vatican and so on...) If anything, the fear of what that would do, might have forced Sonia to make up her mind. Note she refers to maintaining the 'secular fabric' of the nation in her speech, which would otherwise seem odd, unless you read it in this context.

In the light of what I said in my last email, yes, I am indeed disappointed that in a way, the BJP's agenda has won the day. But I think, there is a silver lining to all this. And frankly if you vehemently oppose the BJP, like I do, I think this is the best possible thing that could have happened. And it's a really shrewd move from her. Makes me think that she's not as politically inept as most people think!

Anyway, I really ought to get back to revision!!

take care,
Antara

Thanks, Antara! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:54 AM by Patrick Belton  

MA'AM, WE NEVER KNEW: OxBlog, officially one of the disadvantages of monarchy! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:30 AM by Patrick Belton  

PAKISTAN DEMOCRACY WATCH: On Monday, and in a marked shift of tone if not policy, the United States demanded a transparent trial for a political prisoner in Pakistan and urged the Pakistani government to prepare for "fair multiparty elections" in 2007.

Javed Hashmi, a member of Parliament and leader of the opposition Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy, was arrested last fall on sedition charges and received a 23-year sentence in April for producing a letter in Parliament demonstrating the opposition on the part of many of the nation's senior generals to the military's continued interference in politics and support for a restoration of deomcracy. Hashmi's family and lawyer complained about a lack of transparency in his trial and that he was provided with inadequate access to counsel to prepare his defense.

UPI for more. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:16 AM by Patrick Belton  

TODAY'S READING MATERIAL ROUND-UP: Christopher Hitchens is responding to Seymour Hersh's New Yorker piece, and ends by noting

So a Sarin-infected device is exploded in Iraq, and across the border in Jordan the authorities say that nerve and gas weapons have been discovered for use against them by the followers of Zarqawi, who was in Baghdad well before the invasion. Where, one idly inquires, did these toys come from? No, it couldn't be. …

On India, the editor of the Hindu, currently a journalism fellow at the Kennedy School, calls Sonia's rejection of her proferred crown an 'ennobling moment for Indian democracy', even though another perspective might see in it an unwarranted legitimation of precisely the nativist claims the BJP was making against her during the campaign - which, in turn, do not ennoble Indian democracy, particularly. Also on India, TNR's Sunil Khilnani reviews Nehru's legacy of state secularism, and in the Wapo, Sebastian Mallaby points out that interpretations of the past election notwithstanding, the poorest of the poor in rural India area are actually doing rather better thanks to the last growth spurt:

People don't seem to have noticed that, whereas India's poverty rate stuck obstinately above 50 percent during the low-growth 1960s and 1970s, it is now falling precipitously: To 36 percent in the government's household survey of 1993-94; to 29 percent in the next survey, six years later. The idea that the countryside has not benefited is simply spurious. In the interval between the two most recent surveys, rural poverty fell from 37 percent to 30 percent.

A number of commentators take the opportunity of the fiftieth anniversary of Brown to comment on racial equality in today's America. The centrist DLC uses the anniversary to endorse the No Child Left Behind Act, while the San Francisco Chronicle tells the story of black schoolchildren who were the first to enter previously segregated schools.

Elsewhere, Slate's William Salletan introduces 'Kerryisms', triumphantly proclaiming 'This one can't talk, either!' The NYT Book Review looks at books on China, books on integration, and Somalia. The New York Review of Books looks at Saul Bellow and Osama. In the Prospect, Lord Falconer and friends discuss Labour's constitutional reforms. And The Onion takes a trip to my beloved Dearborn, Michigan. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:49 AM by Patrick Belton  

LEWIS ON ISLAMIC DEMOCRACY: Bernard Lewis, an impeccable scholar whose deep respect for his region of study makes him able to speak of democratic reform in the Muslim world without that stench of Islamophobia often infecting the opinion pages, has a lengthy interview in the Atlantic Unbound today on anti-tyrannical and contractual elements in the Islamic political tradition:

What about democracy? How compatible is it with Islamic law and custom?

Well, there are certain elements in Islamic law and tradition which I think are conducive to democracy. The idea that government is contractual and consensual, for one thing. According to the Islamic Treatise on Holy Law, the ruler comes to power by an agreement between the ruler and his subjects. This is bilateral. Both sides have obligations. It is also limited. The ruler rules under the Holy Law, which he cannot change and which he must obey. So these two elements, I think, of consent and contract, also have the element of limitation, and can be very conducive to the development of democratic institutions. There is also a deeply rooted rejection in traditional Islamic writing of despotism or dictatorship, of the capricious rule of the ruler without due regard to the law and to the opinion of the various groups in society.

What do you make of the thesis that Islam is another version of the anti-liberal, anti-modern dogmas of the twentieth century? Some pundits have been using the term "Islamo-fascism" to describe the ideology of bin Laden and his ilk. Do you think that the militant form of Islam stems more from recent utopian movements than from Islamic tradition?

No, I don't. There is an Islamic saying, "The first to reason by analogy was the devil." Certainly there is a Fascist element in the Islamic world, but it's not in the religious fundamentalists. It's rather in people like Saddam Hussein and his regime and the Syrian regime. These were directly based on the Fascist regimes. We can date it with precision: in 1940, the French government capitulated and a collaborationist regime was established in Vichy. The rulers of the French colonial empire had to decide whether they would stay with Vichy, or rally to De Gaulle. And they made various decisions. Syria and Lebanon were at that time under French mandate, and these French officials stayed with Vichy, so Syria and Lebanon became a center of Axis propaganda in the Middle East. That was when real Fascist ideas began to penetrate. There were many translations and adaptations of Nazi material into Arabic. The Ba'ath party, which dates from a little after that period, came in as a sort of Middle Eastern clone of the Nazi party and, a little later, the Communist party.

But that has nothing to do with Islam. The Islamists' approach is quite different from that and has its roots in the history of Islam. Though, of course, it is also influenced by outside ideas. I would not call it Fascist. I would say it is certainly authoritarian and shares the hostilities of the Fascists rather than their doctrines.

On Iran: For example, what they have now in Iran, for the first time, is a theocracy—a country which is actually run by the professional men of religion. This is totally unknown in the Islamic past. They now have the functional equivalent of a Pope, Cardinals, and Bishops, and above all, an inquisition that punishes heretics. One hopes that they may in due course have a reformation.

On secularism: The word secular is a Western term. It has only recently been imported into the Middle East. The idea of Church and State as two distinct institutions which can be either joined or separated is a Western and more specifically a Christian idea. In the past, if you talked to Muslims about separation of Church and State the usual answer you'd get was, "Oh, this is a Christian remedy for a Christian disease"—and therefore of no relevance to them. Now I think that they are beginning to realize that perhaps they have contracted the Christian disease and that it might be a good idea to try the Christian remedy.

On western media coverage: when I listen to the broadcasts from the media people who are in Iraq at the present time, they almost always mispronounce the names of Iraqi towns. One town which has been very much in the news is spelled in Latin letters N-a-j-a-f, and I hear one announcer or newsreader after another, even those who are calling from over there, say Na-jaf' (emphasis on the second syllable). Well it isn't Na-jaf', it's Na'jaf (emphasis on the first syllable). Anyone who's ever heard an Iraqi pronounce the name will know that. The fact that this sort of name is systematically mispronounced is really alarming. One wonders who they've been talking to.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:24 AM by Patrick Belton  

INDIA ROUND-UP: Time will tell whether crashing markets or eleventh-hour concerns about her background (which received full flushing-out by the BJP during the campaign, to no great consequence) played the greater role in Sonia's decision to step aside. Joe Gandelman praises the high-minded selflessness with which Sonia declined the prime ministership, but if she in the end accepts the position the more dramatically inclined of our readers might find themselves thinking of Richard III instead.

Prime Minister-presumptive Manmohan Singh is profiled by CNN, Kerala News, Guardian. He is by self-definition an apolitical technocrat, an academic with unimpeachable research credentials, and an economist seasoned by government experience whose selection has quite literally caused India's stock instantly to rise. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:53 AM by Patrick Belton  

AND WHO SAYS LOS ANGELENOS DON'T APPRECIATE CLASSICAL MUSIC: History of the 'General Kyd' 'cello, one of roughly 60 made by Straviarius (and metaphorical exegeses noting the implications of this story for the cultural descent from the Enlightenment to mass popular culture are not welcome.....):

* made, 1684, in Cremona, Italy
* acquires its current name at end of 18th c. from British general who brings it to England from Italy
* purchased, Los Angeles Philarmonic Association, c. 1975
* left outside 'cellist Peter Stumpf's home by accident, April 25
* picked up by bicyclist, then dropped off roughly one mile away
* discovered by nurse Melanie Stevens, 29
* Stevens asks cabinetmaker boyfriend to convert the Stradivarius into a CD holder
* cello saved from an eternity as a CD holder on May 7th when Ms Stevens, an assiduous viewer of television, notices a news report about the Stradivarius, and returns it.

And who says L.A. residents don't appreciate the arts. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:35 PM by Patrick Belton  

SONIA STEPS ASIDE: Amid speculation she acted out of deference to her children's wishes and out of threats made against her for being born overseas, she has indicated that she is backing Manmohan Singh (whose prime ministerial prospects we took note of last Tuesday). (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:55 AM by David Adesnik  

OH, RATS! I'm headed to California for my college roommate's wedding, so no posting from this OxBlogger until next week.

PS It is my birthday on Wednesday. In lieu of gifts, please make a donation to the David Adesnik Legal Defense Fund. Remember to specify criminal or civil on your cheque.

PPS It is Matt Yglesias' birthday on Tuesday. He doesn't yet have a legal defense fund, but you can find a good cause to donate to here. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:16 PM by Patrick Belton  

AND YOU THOUGHT BRITAIN WAS BAD: The alcohol consumption rate in Australia's Northern Territory is an estimated 1,120 standard drinks, per person, per year (2001). (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:07 PM by Patrick Belton  

OXBLOG GIRL CORRESPONDENT Rachel says that in the now-famous picture of Alexandra Kerry from Cannes sporting what in America would be called a 'wardrobe malfunction', Ms Kerry may have been simply subjected to an unfortunate lighting moment:

In some types of lighting, clothes that one imagines to be opaque are exposed as unfortunately and surprisingly translucent. The hypothesis is grounded in the fact that her underwear does not appear to be of a type that one would intentionally wear-to-show. If Kerry knew her panties were to be on public view, one would hope she would choose a more interesting type.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:47 PM by Patrick Belton  

IRAQ BRIEFER: Just since tactical-level reporting from Iraq is not always what we'd like it to be, I'd like to provide here General Kimmitt's situation briefer from this morning and the ensuing question session with reporters, just in case it might interest any of our readers. The devil is in the details, after all:

GEN. KIMMITT:  Good afternoon.

            The coalition continues offensive operations to ensure a stable Iraq in order to repair infrastructure, stimulate the economy and transfer sovereignty.  To that end, in the past 24 hours the coalition conducted 2,000 patrols, 26 offensive operations, 46 Air Force and Navy sorties, and captured 57 anti-coalition suspects.

            In the northern area of operations, 47 police officers from Najaf began a weeklong advanced skills training program at the Irbil police academy.  This training will enhance their capabilities and provide officers from both regions the opportunity to build better relationships and share effective tactics, techniques and procedures.

            In Baghdad, at 0955 this morning a suicide car bomb exploded near a coalition checkpoint in central Baghdad, killing seven civilians, to include the current Governing Council president, Mr. Izzedine Salim. Five civilians and two soldiers were wounded in this attack.  A quick reaction force and medical personnel were on the scene within minutes of the attack, along with Iraqi emergency responders and Iraqi Civil Defense Corps members.  Coalition military forces join in denouncing this horrible crime and ask Iraqi citizens to contact telephone number 778-4076 with information leading to the arrest of any attackers.

            The Iraqi Survey Group confirmed today that a 155-millimeter artillery round containing sarin nerve agent had been found.  The round had been rigged as an IED, which was discovered by a U.S. force convoy.  A detonation occurred before the IED could be rendered inoperable.  This produced a very small dispersal of agent.  The round was an old binary type requiring the mixing of two chemical components in separate sections of the cell before the deadly agent is produced. The cell is designed to work after being fired from an artillery piece.  Mixing and dispersal of the agent from such a projectile as an IED is very limited.  The former regime had declared all such rounds destroyed before the 1991 Gulf War.  Two explosive ordnance team members were minor exposure to nerve agent as a result of the partial detonation of the round.

            In the western zone of operations, the situation in Al Anbar remains stable.  The reduction of hostilities in Fallujah has seemingly had a calming effect across the area.  Yesterday coalition forces hosted 43 government, religious, medical and ICDC leaders at the Camp Ramadi detention facility and 17 leaders at the Habbaniya facility.  The visit was well received, with positive feedback from the local leaders.  There was also one prisoner released to a sheik as a goodwill gesture.

            Coalition forces met with the Fallujah Brigade leadership today and continue to plan with the brigade for future joint patrols in Fallujah.  There were no violations of the cease-fire agreement, but neither were there any weapons turned in during this period.

            In the central-south zone of operations, coalition forces defending the buildings near the Mukhaiyam Mosque in Karbala continued to be attacked with sniper, RPG and mortar fire.  There were numerous engagements last night originating from the Iranian quarter in the downtown area of Karbala near the two holy shrines.

            Polish multinational division reports Muqtada militia elements are staying close to the shrine of al-Imam al-Hussein, as they are aware of concerns that the shrines not be damaged.  Sounds of fighting in the downtown area could be heard for much of the night and the Polish forces estimate 17 Muqtada militia killed in the vicinity of the shrine's area; 13 killed in other areas.

            This morning coalition forces near the Mukhaiyam mosque were attacked with two rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire. Multinational Division Central South reports that Muqtada militia has occupied the second floor of the al-Imam al-Hussein shrine in downtown Karbala and is directing sniper fire from the western wall of the shrine on to coalition forces at the al-Mukhaiyam mosque.

            Muqtada's militia is also firing on them from the streets and buildings of the Iranian quarter across from the al-Mukhaiyam.  Phone calls from private citizens to the CPA elements in Karbala are also overwhelmingly supportive of continuing to fight Muqtada militia.

            People from the Iranian quarter neighborhood are phoning to complain that coalition forces are not attacking Muqtada militia who have moved into their neighborhood.  They say there are no religious sites in their neighborhood and they want Muqtada's militias out of their home.
 
           In Najaf there have been three attacks this morning on Iraqi police stations.  The enemy used a combination of mortars, rocket- propelled grenades and small-arms fire during each of these attacks. Coalition forces assessed these attacks as harassment and hit-and-run as the enemy has immediately broken contact and efforts to regain contact have not been successful.  A coalition quick-reaction force was dispatched to assist in defending the police stations.  One enemy was killed from these attacks and coalition forces continue to assist in the defense of these police stations in an Najaf.

            In the southeastern zone of operations, enemy forces continued to engage coalition forces in Nasiriyah.  From 21:00 until 01:00 last night, the CPA building was attacked on three separate occasions. Camp Libeccio, the coalition and Iraqi police liaison building in the center of town, was attacked on four occasions and these attacks led to a withdrawal from the building to a more protected site.  One coalition soldier was killed and seven were wounded from these attacks.  A coalition fixed-wing aircraft engaged five targets this morning. The targets were five vehicles that had been observed loading and unloading ordnance.  And we estimate 20 enemy forces were killed during these strikes.  Within Nasiriyah, coalition forces are continuing to patrol the city.

Q: some IGC members have expressed that they are blaming the coalition for not providing enough protection for them and, obviously, for Mr. Salim, and that was the result of why he was targeted today -- was a successful target.  What could you guys respond to that?

 A: (Mr Senor):  Well, first of all, I'd say it's a very difficult time for everybody, and we understand that there are a lot of high emotions.

            As for security that we provide, since the Governing Council has been formed, the coalition provides financial assistance for security, we provide body armor, weapons for personal security details, vehicles, in some cases armored vehicles.  We offer close protection service training -- six-week courses back to back.  That's approximately 200 individual personal security members of various GC members have gone through the courses.  We offer a refresher course for these PSDs.  Approximately 40 personal security service members from various GCs -- for various Governing Council personal security details have gone through the program.

            Mr. Salim's security detail consists primarily of family members, which is the case with a number of the GC security details.  He's chosen to rely on cousins and nephews, which was his choice.  And unfortunately, our records show that none of his personal security detail members ever participated in any of our training programs. Again, his choice.  We make the resources available, we make the training available, but it's up to the individual GC members and the security details if they want to participate in it.

           Clearly, their security is a very high priority for us, and that's why we provide the funding, that's why we provide the body armor, that's why we provide the weapons, and that's why we provide this training.

Q, Sewell Chan from The Washington Post.  A question for General Kimmitt.  Sir, the Army right now is facing a continued insurgency in much of southern Iraq; obviously a lot of activity in the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, and also this attempt at a takeover, the city of Nasiriyah.  And now we're hearing that soldiers who are stationed in South Korea might be called into Iraq.  Is the Army stretched thin?  Are there enough resources here to deal with this continuing insurgency as we lead up to June 30th?  Could you comment on that issue?

GEN. KIMMITT:  Let me take the second point, then the third point, then the first point.

            Number one, these fights that we are having against Mugtada militia are not stretching us thin at all.  They are pretty much street thugs with weapons.  They don't present much of a military threat.  They're a nuisance.  They're a harassment.  And sadly, as you can imagine with street thugs with weapons, sometimes they kill and wound our soldiers.  But in engagement after engagement, they have not been able to stand and fight.  They're incapable of acting and responding as a disciplined force.

            And it's sad that they have taken to hiding within the holy sites for the Shi'a religion as their only capability to defend themselves because they know that we have one of two choices, which is to either attack them and risk provoking an outcome which would have strategic implications, or we can be a little more precise, reposition if necessary.  And of course, we've taken the latter.

            I don't know that we are repositioning any forces from South Korea to Iraq.  I've seen those reports.  I haven't heard it from DOD. Certainly we're looking at all our force stationing throughout the world, but I think that the decisions being made with regards to Korea are not being made because of the tactical situation on the ground here in Iraq.   That was a long-standing discussion that we've had with the Republic of South Korea.  That country is more than capable of providing for its own defense.  And Secretary Rumsfeld has said numerous times that we've got to look at a relevant force posture and relevant force positioning throughout the world.  But to suggest that the decisions driving our withdrawal from Korea is a more pressing need in Iraq is a stretch that I'm not willing to make and I don't think anybody else in DOD will make as well.

            To answer your final question, is the Army stretched thin, go back and ask DOD.  I think, again, Secretary Rumsfeld as recently as his visit out here the other day talked about trying to find more capacity within the existing force.  But these are the types of decisions that are being made in Washington, D.C.  I don't think that those decisions are being driven by Iraq, but I think it's a recognition of the entire global war on terrorism and the capability   for the military to be able to respond to that.  Thus far we've been able to respond to it quite well.

            Will it have a long-term effect on the Army if we continue this type of OPTEMPO for a period of years?  Personally, I can tell you, it probably will.  But I'm not an expert on force structure.

            The Army is certainly back there now, taking significant strides to revamp the force structure from 33 to 45 brigades.  But we're too busy fighting a war down here to be worried about those kind of things.  We remain absolutely confident that the Army is back there, in the States, thinking about the best way to man, train and equip the force that we're going to need to be able to continue a long-term operation, not only here in Iraq, but whatever threat that comes up.

Q, Charlie Mayer from NPR.  Do you have any idea at this point on who might have done this?

GEN. KIMMITT:  It would have been our first impression that this was classic Zarqawi network.  I understand about 10 minutes before I came in here that another group has popped up and is now, on the Internet, taking responsibility for this.  We don't know if that's a cover for Zarqawi network or if it's an actual organization.  But the fact remains this is the classic hallmarks of what we've seen on Zarqawi attacks: suicidal bomb, spectacular effect -- tried to go after a large number of civilians -- and also tried to go after a symbol, in this case two symbols; obviously -- clearly a high government official for the Governing Council as well as near a coalition checkpoint.  So all of those indicators -- suicidal, spectacular, symbolic -- line up here.  But we have this new group that has come in, and we don't know who this group is.  We'll have to do some analysis on it.
  (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:29 PM by Patrick Belton  

BOOK REVIEWS! GET YOUR BOOK REVIEWS! A very interesting and burgeoning corner of the internet (like wikipedia and Project Gutenberg), H-Net is a growing orbit of thriving academic listservs on almost every topic imaginable in the humanities and social sciences. In fact, we're planning on launching an H-Democracy through them to serve as a listserv to bring together scholars and practitioners in the democratization and democracy promotion community, just as soon as we can get their staff to write us back.

Anyway, one thing that's particularly nice about H-Net is that its listservs provides free and easily accessible reviews of academic books - these are usually thoughtful and knowledgeable, they cover all of the books released by the leading academic presses, and they're not noticeably different in quality than, say, most of the ones that appear in journals. And it's awfully useful to have one place where you could read reviews on new academic work on subjects as diverse as, say, the seventeenth-century House of Commons, liberalism in Georgian England, women in Congress, religious and secular perspectives on ethical pluralism, ancient Greek cavalry operations, reading, society, and politics in early modern England, medieval Islamic jurisprudence on legitimacy in leadership, pamphleteering in early modern Britain, the evolution of the White House press secretary, and many, many more.

So kudos to the good people at H-Net, and for all the rest of you, this is a site that's worth checking back every now and again. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:07 AM by Patrick Belton  

READING MATERIALS: Carnegie has a new Arab Reform Bulletin out, with pieces on upcoming Palestinian local elections, political reform prospects in Egypt and in Jordan, and more US revision of the Greater Middle East Initiative. Carnegie has also begun to publish these in Arabic, thereby making an already excellent resource even more excellent.

Also, one of our Deisi correspondents sends in www.allindianewspapers.com as a nice new portal collecting current stories from all major Indian newspapers in one spot. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:51 AM by Patrick Belton  

LATIN AMERICA WATCH: Our friends in Latin America, including Brazil correspondent Cisco Costa and a few other of our friends, tip us off with the conclusion of the expulsion of the NYT's bureau chief from the country for reporting on public concerns about Lula's alcoholism, a.k.a. Tipplegate, a.k.a. Winogate. Thus Cisco, our own Brazil bureau chief:

Larry Rohter, the NYT reporter that was to be expelled by the Brazilian government, wrote a document asking for reconsideration of the cancellation of his visa. Though he did not explicitly apologize, he said enough ("did not intend to offend the president", "the portuguese version of the text isn't faithful") that Lula could reverse his sorry decision without looking chicken. With this, the Workers' Party administration managed to back down from its counter-productive and brutish censorship and save some amount of face.

Rohter's text is reproduced here.

Xavier Botero appends this:

I'm not quite so sure myself that it was a "retraction," though it definitely was an apology, which, despite the shoddy journalism, was not necessary:

[Rohter] declares that he never had the intention of offending his honor the Most Excellent Mister President of the Republic, whom he has been able to interview on occasion, and he reaffirms his great affection for Brazil and his profound respect for Brazil's democratic institutions, including that of the Presidency of the Republic. In [Rohter's] opinion, the article limited itself to conveying commentary without presenting any value judgment on the part of [Rohter], who, regardless, reiterates that the text was not written to offend Mr. President, even if the repercussions and subsequent polemics on the reporting might have caused him embarrassment, which [Rohter] laments.

Is it a retraction? It doesn't seem to be. It's really just an apologetic note.

And of course, what Latin America Watch could be complete without reference to the blogosphere's resident Latin America expert, Randy Paul - who this week is handicapping Chile's upcoming presidential elections. With Chile's conservative parties self-destructing (with, bizarrely, each of their leaders accusing the other of participation in sadomasochistic sex rings, giving new political meaning to the term circle je), charismatic centrist defence minister Michelle Bachelet and foreign minster Soledad Alvear are emerging as the most attractive candidates. Either Dr Bachelet or Ms Alvear would, incidentally, be their country's first female president. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:24 AM by Patrick Belton  

IRAQI GOVERNING COUNCIL PRESIDENT IZZEDINE SALINE HAS BEEN ASSASSINATED, in a car bomb attack this morning in Baghdad.

Mr Salim, a Shi'a and leader of the moderate Daa'wa Islamic Party, was a writer, philosopher and political activist.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has called President Salim's assassination a terrorist act aimed at disrupting the transfer of power. Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari responded to the assassination with the statement 'We will not be intimidated'.

UPDATE: By email, the statement of UK Special Representative David Richmond on the death of Iraqi Governing Council President Izzadin Salim:

“The assassination of Iraqi Governing Council President Izzadin Salim is an appalling crime. My thoughts and condolences are with Mr Salim’s family, and the families of others killed in today’s attack.

“I knew Mr Salim well, and I respected him enormously. He worked tirelessly in the best interests of Iraq and the Iraqi people. He made a huge contribution to the work of the Governing Council. He was a man of courage and a man of vision, whose moderate voice and gentle manner set an example to all of us. His loss will be keenly felt.

As the Foreign Secretary has said, the perpetrators of this terrible crime are enemies of the Iraqi people. The Iraqi people want a peaceful, democratic and free Iraq. We best honour Mr Salim’s life and work by renewing our efforts to achieve this goal.”

 

ALSO, the Iraqi Governing Council has announced that it has selected Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer, a Sunni Muslim civil engineer from the northern city of Mosul, to replace Saleem. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:03 PM by Patrick Belton  

THIS on the other hand - the UK's virtual online church - is rather neat. Not only does it receive official sanction from the hierarchy - the Rt Rev Richard Chartres, Bishop of London, presented its maiden sermon last week - but, perhaps in a concession to evangelicals, occasionally an officiating cleric will be raptured directly from within its virtual 3-d walls:

Minister 'raptured' at opening service

Church of Fools got off to a flying start on Tuesday May 11th, until a computer crashed somewhere in York, England. At the computer was Revd Jem Clines, who was logged in to the church as its minister. His onscreen character, wearing a dark suit and a dog collar, turned to face the sanctuary wall and then simply disappeared, as Revd Clines' computer died some 225 miles away.

(1) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:33 AM by Patrick Belton  

LATIN AMERICA WATCH: Leading members of the two leading conservative parties in Chile, National Renewal and the Independent Democratic Union, have each accused the other of: taking part in a sado-masochistic sex ring (via Economist). (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:59 AM by Patrick Belton  

FOREIGN SERVICE WATCH: State Department dropout John Brady Kiesling follows up on his inglorious debut article in the WaPo (argument: North Vietnam bravely defeated the US then became an outstanding member of the international community and UN; therefore, we should let an Iraqi despot do the same) with an interview in which he says 'Iran should be our best ally -- they desperately want in Iraq most of the same things we desperately want (hands up, who here wants weakness and theocracy? you there, in the corner? oh, okay you were just stretching...), and the price they will ask -- no permanent U.S. military presence in Iraq -- is something we'll end up paying whether we work with the Iranians or not. ' (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:26 AM by Patrick Belton  

THE DUMBING-DOWN OF NETWORK NEWS: RatherBiased.com takes a look at the profusion of cheap ploys for viewership ('toys that are dangerous to your child' stories and similar ratings staples) over serious reporting. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:38 AM by David Adesnik  

ABU GHRAIB VS. NICK BERG: Glenn Reynolds has a long post up on how the mainstream media are paying far more attention to Abu Ghraib despite the fact that the American public has shown a much greater interest in the beheading of Nick Berg.

For Glenn, this constitutes evidence that the media has an anti-Bush agenda and will gradually lose its audience share to more reader-responsive sources of information. I strongly disagree.

There is no question that the media has made a subjective judgment that Abu Ghraib is far more important than the beheading of Nick Berg. But that is a judgment that I strongly endorse and for reasons that should be very familiar to conservatives.

We have known for a long time now that Al Qaeda has no shame and no respect for human life. No matter how gruesome, the beheading of Nick Berg did little more than confirm that fact.

In contrast, the events at Abu Ghraib have severely tarnished America's reputation as the foremost defender of democracy and human rights. In order to restore that reputation, we must ruthlessly pursue justice and punish those responsible for the abuses in order to ensure that this never happens again

American power rests just as much on its reputation as it does on its military and economic might. If we want to continue to use that power to promote American values, then we must restore our reputation.

Historically speaking, American journalists have long believed that they have the right to make judgments on their readers' behalf. There is no question that journalists have often misused this power of judgment.

Yet those who criticize the emphasis of Abu Ghraib at the expense of Nick Berg should remember that the New York Times and Washington Post provide extensive coverage of foreign affairs only because of their subjective judgment that such news is important.

If the leading newspapers and television networks responded exclusively to audience demands, domestic news would quickly displace almost all foreign coverage. And in time, entertainment, weather and sports would displace news about domestic politics.

Again speaking historically, American journalists are most willing to exercise their judgment when American behavior contradicts American principles. That is exactly what happened at Abu Ghraib. I do not doubt for a second that such abuses would receive just as much attention if there were a Democrat in the White House.

The exercise of judgment is an integral but often unacknowledged part of journalism. In this instance, that judgment is absolutely right.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:49 AM by David Adesnik  

OXBLOG TAKES A COURAGEOUS STAND: I have been thinking about this for some time now. Since four o'clock this afternoon to be exact. And I have come up with an answer: Ashley is definitely the hotter Olsen twin.

This important truth began to dawn on we while watching the E! special on the Olsen twins. At first, I thought it was just the make up or the clothes. After all, they're identical, right?

Wrong. Mary Kate and Ashley are fraternal twins. Moreover, they each have very distinct personalities. It is only the ignorance of mainstream journalists that perpetuates the notion of their being the same.

For example, look at the different roles each of the twins played while hosting Saturday Night Live tonight. Whereas Mary Kate excels at the physical humor of a Chevy Chase or Dan Akroyd, Ashley prefers the biting and understated satire of a Bill Murray or Harold Ramis.

Alright, so I made that up. The only real difference between the twins is that Ashley dyes her hair blonde. And what ultimately matters most is that they will both turn eighteen at exactly the same time. (You can follow the countdown here.)

The Vegas oddsmakers are already taking bets on who will get there first. The odds on Justin Timberlake are 3-1, Kobe Bryant 4-1 and Bill Clinton 12-1. If you are looking a big pay day, you can put your money on a Bryant/Clinton four-way at 25-to-1 or a Bill Clinton double-down at 45-to-1.

Side bets are also being taken on which Middle Eastern state Clinton will bomb in order to divert attention from the affair. Top picks are Syria at 2-1, Saudi Arabia 5-1 and Israel 9-1. In the event of a Clinton double-down, a nuclear strike on Tel Aviv is considered imminent.

(1) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:34 PM by David Adesnik  

MAKING CHOMSKY PROUD: I have no idea how this op-ed made it into the WaPo, nor how its author managed to serve as a US diplomat for over 20 years. Matt Frost has more. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:05 PM by Patrick Belton  

AND WE HAVE A NEW PROFESSOR-ELECT OF POETRY: It's Christopher Ricks, the scholar known most recently for his work on Dylan. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:30 AM by Patrick Belton  

SLATE'S COMMENTATORS say Diane Kruger's face only succeeds in launching about three ships. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:23 AM by Patrick Belton  

FUNNY PARLIAMENT TRICKS: These via BBC,

• Members may not eat or drink in the chamber. One exception to this is the Chancellor, who may have an alcoholic drink while delivering the Budget statement.

• Members are not allowed to have their hands placed in their pockets; this offence was committed by Andrew Robathan MP (Con) on December 19th 1994.

• Speeches are not permitted simply to be read out during debate; notes, though, are permissible.

• Finally, members must take particular care not to die on the premises. This is because the Palace of Westminster is a royal palace in which commoners are simply not permitted to die. Any deaths on the premises are thus said to have taken place at St Thomas's Hospital - the nearest hospital to the palace.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:42 AM by David Adesnik  

INTERVIEW WITH A LEGEND: The New York Observer talks to NYT correspondent John Burns. (Hat tip: Greg Djerejian) Lots of interesting stuff, but I especially liked the following:

"Things have progressed so much in my lifetime, that when I started as a foreign correspondent in difficult environments, you could spend half or three-quarters of the day finding a way to transmit what you’d written. Finding a cable. Finding the man who’s supposed to be operating the cable, who’s gone off for tea. All that time has come back to us in the form of productive reporting and writing time."

Also:

The Times bureau has a bulletin board where all the major Iraq stories from other papers are posted. "Every morning, first thing we do is read what The Washington Post has done," Mr. Burns said. "Anthony Shadid in particular, but all of them.

I wonder if they read the NYT, too. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:04 AM by David Adesnik  

MEMO TO FRANCE: STOP EMBARRASSING KERRY. We now know exactly what kind of response John Kerry will get when asks for French help in governing Iraq:

France's new foreign minister, Michel Barnier, [said] that France would never send troops to Iraq, not even as part of a peacekeeping force.

"It is out of the question," Mr. Barnier said in an interview published Thursday in Le Monde. "There will be no French soldiers in Iraq, not now and not later."

While one should probably blame (or credit) Bush for France's unwillingness to become involved, the fact is that Kerry can't go on insisting that he will get our allies to do more for the occupation.

On a related note, France has issued a set of demands that America must accept if it wants France to support a Security Council resolution on the June 30 transfer of power in Iraq. Perhaps the demands are just an initial negotiatiating position from which the French will compromise. Otherwise, they are simply ridiculous. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:43 AM by David Adesnik  

AGING ISRAELI FEMINIST ROCK STAR INSULTS MUSLIMS: That would be Gene "Chaim" Simmons, of course. (Via Gnu Hunter) Simmons' comments are sort of unfortunate, since he is one of the few celebrities who actually believes in promoting democracy in Iraq. Not long ago, Simmons told an interviewer that

The Iraqis for the first time in their history will decide what they want to do or not, whether there are U.S. troops there or not, and any transitional phase, whether it is Russia throwing off Communism, Germany coming out of Nazism, or Japan coming out of Emperor worship, has a 20 to 50-year transition, you know, giving birth is a painful experience...

I guess the guys in KISS were taking the right kind of drugs all those years. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:04 AM by David Adesnik  

WAS OXBLOG COMPLETELY WRONG? A couple of weeks ago, KH sent me an e-mail with the subject line "Tables Turned". The text of the message consisted entirely of a triumphant I-Told-You-So post I put up the day that Baghdad fell. It begins:

The time has come for those who had faith in American war plans to mock those who didn't. All I add is a note of caution, lest those who now mock become overconfident and leave themselves open to having the tables turned.

Right now, the NYT website is running a headline which says "Jubilant Iraqis Swarm the Streets of Capital; U.S. Says Hussein Has Lost Grip on Baghdad" That would seem to resolve the 'liberation' question. (And if the NYT isn't good enough for you, check out the Guardian for similar reports.)

So, KH is suggesting that the tables have in fact turned and that it is time for OxBlog to admit it. But I'm not so sure that I should. There is no question that the Ba'athist insurgency has proven more resilient than many of us -- including OxBlog -- expected. But is there any real evidence that it has much public support outside the Sunni Triangle? If anything, it seems to have alienated most Iraqis with its violent tactics.

Next come the Shi'ites. A few weeks ago, when Moqtada Sadr launched his rebellion, the NYT eagerly reported that this was the beginning of nationwide revolt that not only united the Shi'ite community but was bridging the Shi'ite-Sunni divide.

So much for that. Consider, for example, the extraordinary story in today's WaPo entitled "US Forces Attack Iraqi Holy City". It sounds like a classic mistake: showing contempt for Islam, losing hearts and minds, legitimizing Shi'ite radicals, etc.

But what do we hear from the residents of Najaf? At one point, three bullets hit the golden-domed shrine of Imam Ali.

"If it was done by the Americans, I don't think they did it intentionally," said Ali Awad, a 28-year-old Najaf resident, of the bullet holes. "If they wanted to destroy the shrine, they could destroy it. But they don't."

Unless Mr. Awad suffers from an extreme from of the Stockholm Syndrome, I'd have to say that his heart and mind are in the right place. Of course, it's not that America is so great or wonderful. It's the fact that most Shi'ites seem to accept Ayatollah Sistani's belief that the best thing for the Shi'ites to help America build a democratic Iraq so that it can withdraw its forces sooner rather than later.

But that's what winning hearts and minds is really about: persuading others that you share the same interests. Now, does Mr. Awad resent America for what happened at Abu Ghraib? I'd imagine so. If most Americans are outraged at what happened, how could an Iraqi not be? (Don't answer that question. There may a disturbing number of Shi'ites and Kurds who think that torturing Sunnis is exactly what America should be doing.)

Anyhow, the bottom line is that Mr. Awad and many Shi'ites like him seem to be just as committed to cooperating with the United States as they were when Baghdad first fell. Will Abu Ghraib change that? I don't know. If it did, the real tragedy would not be that Iraqis never saw Americans as their liberators, but that Iraqis once saw Americans as their liberators, only to lose faith in the United States because of its shameful conduct. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:12 PM by David Adesnik  

OIL AND DEMOCRACY: Not in Iraq. In Sao Tome. It's an interesting story and Bill Hobbs has been following it pretty closely, especially since the attempted coup last year against Sao Tome's elected government. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:04 PM by David Adesnik  

"NO CASH REWARD FOR THE OUTLAW FISH": How often do you read something like that in the newspaper? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:20 AM by Patrick Belton  

HARVARD, IN A NUTSHELL:

Warm Ties not Cold Calls: Leveraging Your Network - May 17th 6-8 p.m.
Hogan & Hartson 555 13th Street, NW, Washington, DC - FREE for members!
Harvard alums in career transition should join us on Monday, May 17th for Joe Loughran's (MBA '83) presentation on how to optimize the use of networks to accelerate their transitions and advance their careers. Our personal, business and "extracurricular" contacts can make introductions that will pull out our resumes and provide access to their Hidden Job Market of opportunities never posted. Learn how you can enhance your ability to generate and capitalize on your hidden network  This event is FREE for club members and only $10 for non-members.  You may register online through Friday, May 14th at http://www.harvard-dc.org,/ or contact Executive Director Caren Pauley at (contact information).

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:27 AM by Patrick Belton  

BEST OPENING LINE OF AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY: 'I joined OSS after Army basic training. Held at Area A while a Full Field Investigation was conducted, I was assigned to the Reproduction Branch. When I saw my orders, my thought was: "Well, they do strange things in war, so I wondered whether I was intended to be used as a stud for some reason."' (credit Paul A. Fisher) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:19 AM by Patrick Belton  

CENTCOM ANNOUNCES COURT MARTIAL PROCEEDINGS AGAINST THE FIRST US SOLDIER involved in the mistreatment of detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison, 37-year old reservist Staff Sgt. Ivan 'Chip' Frederick:

Lt. Gen. Thomas F. Metz, commanding general of III Corps, referred charges against Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick II to a general court-martial on May 5.

Frederick is charged with conspiracy to maltreat subordinates (detainees); dereliction of duty for willfully failing to protect detainees from abuse, cruelty and maltreatment; maltreatment of detainees; assaulting detainees, and committing indecent acts. 

Article 32 hearings, similar to a civilian grand jury proceeding, were held April 2 and April 9-10.  The investigating officer found reasonable grounds exist that Frederick committed the offenses and recommended trial by general court-martial.

A date and place have not yet been set for the court-martial.  It is anticipated that Frederick will be arraigned on May 20. 

As perhaps the only cause for hope in the entire affair, it will be interesting at least to see how a swift and fair administration of justice and demonstration of accountability in the Abu Ghraib events will be received in the Middle East. Startlingly, in his journal (though it was admittedly begun after military investigators began looking into abuse claims), Frederick wrote that conditions in Abu Ghraib prison were not nearly as bad as in the Virginia state prison where he worked in civilian life. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:16 AM by Patrick Belton  

US RELEASING 300+ PRISONERS FROM ABU GHRAIB: BBC breaks the story. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:37 AM by David Adesnik  

THE GREAT BOOKS MEME: Someone, somewhere, came up with this list of great brooks and asked people to post on their websites, with the books they've actually read in boldface. Pejman and P&F have answered the call.

But I won't. Not because the books aren't great or because I'm embarrassed at how few of the books I've read. The real problem is that I read so many of these books in high school. While I may have benefited considerably from reading them as a student, I have only vague memories of them today.

More importantly, one ability's to appreciate great literature increases dramatically along with one's life experience. Thus, the real question isn't "Have you read this book?" but rather "How recently have you re-read this book?" Lists are fun, but it may be more productive to ask ourselves which works of art and literature have had a tangible impact on our lives.

UPDATE: Nitin over at HawkenBlog has some interesting thoughts on this subject. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:25 AM by David Adesnik  

BOOT SAYS GIVE HIM THE BOOT: Another conservative has turned against Rumsfeld. Max Boot writes:

What, then, is the case for Rumsfeld resigning? Simply that this scandal has caused devastating damage to America's moral standing in the world, and we need to recover fast. Apologizing ad nauseam isn't going to do it. Even court-martialing the perpetrators, though important, isn't enough. We need to regain the initiative as more nightmarish pictures emerge.

Having the Defense secretary resign might salvage some good out of this house of horrors by causing Arabs to ask why their governments tolerate torture and ours doesn't. If the resignation were coupled with other steps, such as moving up the date of Iraq's first election and beefing up U.S. forces, it might even help to put Iraq back on track.

Against this prospect, what are the arguments for keeping Rumsfeld? Dick Cheney's claim that "Don Rumsfeld is the best secretary of Defense the United States has ever had" doesn't pass the laugh test.

Robert Tagorda thinks that Boot's argument is solid, but that the moment for a Rumsfeld resignation has passed. Somehow, I suspect that there may be more such moments in the future. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:10 AM by David Adesnik  

THEY'RE CALLED FOOTNOTES: When you the exact same thing someone else said the day before, you're supposed to give them credit.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, the Washington Times is stealing from Rob Tagorda. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:54 PM by David Adesnik  

FIFTEEN MINUTES OF BRILLIANCE: As Kevin Drum said on NPR, the events at Abu Ghraib have made Phil Carter's website a must-read for anyone who wants first-rate insight into the news. I disagree. Phil Carter is always a must-read for those who want first-rate insight into the news. But now more than ever. I can't even recommend a specific post. Just go to Phil's site and start reading from the top. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:08 PM by Patrick Belton  

FIRST BRAD PITT, THEN: Thus Crooked Timber, always one of my favourite liberal blogs:

The release of the movie Troy prompts me to wonder again about why certain things are named after the Trojans. Take sports teams, for example, like the USC Trojans. Now, there is just one story cycle involving the Trojans and conflict, and in it the Trojans decisively, utterly lose. I’m not saying they’re losers, per se; I’m always rooting for the Trojans because I love Hector. But imagine a coach giving an inspirational speech along these lines: “Guys, I want to you get out there and fight with all your hearts, only to see all you hold dear destroyed. At the end of this bowl game, I want you to feel like the original Trojans did when the saw their ancestral altar run red with the blood of aged Priam, beheld the pitiful spectacle of little Astyanax’ body broken on the walls of Troy, and heard the lamentations of their daughters, mothers and wives as they were reduced to slavery in a foreign land.” It’s not exactly “win one for the Gipper”, is it?


And then, there are the condoms. What do you think of when you hear the word “Trojan”? Possibly, you think of the heartbreaking scene of farewell between Hector and Andromache, when little Astyanax is frightened by the nodding plumes of Hector’s helmet. But probably not. Probably, you think: Trojan horse. So consider the context. There’s this big…item outside your walled citadel, and you are unsure whether to let it inside. After hearing the pros and cons (and seeing some people eaten by snakes), you open the gates and drag the big old thing inside. Then, you get drunk. At the height of the party, hundreds of little guys come spilling out of the thing and sow destruction, breaking “Troy’s hallowed coronal”, as they say. Is this, all things considered, the ideal story for condom manufacturers to evoke? Just asking.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:42 PM by Patrick Belton  

QUOTE OF THE DAY: 'There is an audience for these guys. We proved that. Most of America, frankly, is much smarter than television assumes they are.' Kelsey Grammer, commenting on the end of his prize-winning series 'Frasier' after 11 years. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:52 PM by Patrick Belton  

MORE ON BRAZIL'S DESCENT INTO AUTHORITANISMISM: We'd mentioned yesterday that, incredibly, Brazilian President Lula had expelled the NYT bureau chief for reporting on his alcoholism. The NYT follows up on the story, noting the initial public support for the decision is beginning to wane. Further, our correspondent in Rio (and the author of the Brazilian blog Filisteu), notes that the Supreme Court has granted the NYT's Larry Rohter habeas corpus, suspending his deportation and permitting him to question his expulsion in the courts. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:59 PM by Patrick Belton  

UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR OF POETRY: The Oxford Professorship of Poetry has been filled by, among others, Seamus Heaney, Paul Muldoon, Matthew Arnold, Robert Graves and WH Auden. I'm personally awfully grateful to the institution, as it's permitted me in the course of my four years here frequent opportunities to hear and often speak with a poet I've always esteemed as my favourite, Paul Muldoon. Rather unfortunately for us, come next Michaelmas he requires a successor, and any of our friends who already hold an Oxford degree and have been graduated can vote on Saturday, in Divinity School, from 11 to 4. Results are to be announced in Convocation House at 5. Rules are here.

The candidates are (alphabetically): Anne Carson (a Canadian currently at the University of Michigan), lighthearted Yorkshireman Ian McMillan, the prolific Australian native (a Londoner since 1951) Peter Porter, English expat in Boston (and frequent NYRB contributor) Christopher Ricks, and self-proclaimed 'stunt candidate' Mark Walker.

The Guardian, whose literary reportage is always quite good, goes to Ladbrokes and reports 'Following the close of nominations on Wednesday, Ladbrokes put the odds on Professor Ricks getting the job at 2/1, followed by Anne Carson (5/2), Peter Porter (4/1) Ian McMillan (5/1) and Mark Walker (5/1).' (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:07 AM by Patrick Belton  

A STATESMANLIKE MOVE FROM KERRY: In what strikes me as one of the wisest moves yet from his campaign, Senator Kerry announced his short list of candidates for Secretary of Defense yesterday on New York's Don Imus show. Two Republicans, Senators John McCain and John Warner, were included among the list of possibilities, as were Democrats Senator Carl Levin and former Secretary of Defense William Perry. Admirable choices all.

(My only other thought is that while announcing a short-list including respected Republican senators from across the aisle would be an extraordinary act of statesmanship from a president-elect, coming from a candidate it can't help but place Senators McCain and Warner in a rather awkward position - as they'd instantly come under pressure from their own party to demonstrate that they support its own candidate for reelection. They both, incidentally, also come from states with Democratic governors who would then appoint their replacements, but Kerry can't be begrudged having the interests of his party at least somewhat to heart.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:24 AM by Patrick Belton  

PLAYING WITH ADESNIK: Congratulations, David, on your radio play!

I was just in the process of trying to come up with a witty remark on the fact that David's last name had evolved to 'Odesnik' on the web page of the Boston NPR affiliate, when it struck me - heck, they're actually right! In the transition Odesnik (as in, 18 year old tennis legend Wayne Odesnik) -> Adesnik (as in the 26 year old blogging legend David Adesnik, or the equally legendary biophysicist Milton Adesnik whose age I won't mention as he occasionally lets me sleep on his sofa) to indicate 'someone who derives from the city of Odessa', we have a lovely example of the Russian reduction of unstressed orthographic /o/ to [a], which is a phenomenon that has intrigued linguists for a century and a half once they discovered that it occurs across languages. While on the one hand, Slavic languages and even individual dialects of Russian and Ukrainian differ considerably in how they make these assimilative and dissimilative vowel shifts, we can see, for instance, in English the reduction of intial /o/ in the transition from 'lobe' to 'lobotomy', where it is unstressed, or in Catalan and Portuguese, in the shift of quality of unstressed 'o' to /u/. So 'someone deriving from Odessa' would be spelled 'Odesnik' while pronounced [a]desnik, in the same way that eto and spasibo are pronounced et[a] and spasib[a].

Which is all to say that the folks at WBUR probably either have a wonderfully dry wit or wanted to take extra care yesterday to be orthographically correct. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:41 PM by David Adesnik  

KERRY ON THE AIRWAVES: While trying to find a transcript of Kerry's comments from today about Iraq, I came across the webpage with all of his recent commercials.

The biographical commercials are really impressive. My only question is: How much did the Yale admissions office have to pay him for the endorsement?

In contrast to the bio ads, Kerry's Iraq commercial is patently ridiculous. The Senator starts out strong by saying "Let me tell you exactly what I would do to change the situation in Iraq." Hey, I'm all ears. We need some new ideas for the occupation.

Then Kerry says: Have our allies send their troops to Iraq so not as many American soldiers have to die. I can just imagine Kerry on a conference call with Chirac and Schroeder some time in January 2005. "Jacques, Gerhard, could you send some of your boys to die in Iraq so that my poll ratings don't suffer? That's the least you owe me for getting rid of George Bush."

Anyhow, the good news for Kerry is that he sounds very presidential. He has a reputation for being wooden and stand-offish, but I think he comes across as both personable and thoughtful in his ads. He seems like someone you could trust. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:30 PM by David Adesnik  

WHY ISN'T KERRY SURGING? Pew's Andrew Kohut makes an interesting argument in a NYT op-ed. Like the current president, Jimmy Carter and George Bush Sr. also watched their approval ratings plummet in the first months of their re-election years. Yet both Carter and Bush I continued to lead their challengers in the polls until well into the summer. That's when it hit the fan.

Lesson: Voters don't immediately shift their support to the challenger when dissatisfied with the incumbent. But if their opinion of the incumbent doesn't change, switch they will. So is Kerry going to win in the fall? I don't know. Carter and Bush I couldn't do anything to fix the economy. But this time the election is about national security. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:24 PM by David Adesnik  

THIS IS WHERE I'M NOT: A tribute to the young men and women who've left the comforts of home to volunteer for the CPA. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:06 PM by David Adesnik  

IS THAT REALLY MY VOICE? GOD, I HOPE NOT: If you want to hear what I had to say on NPR, click here. For commentary, check out Matt Yglesias. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:01 PM by David Adesnik  

MORON:

"I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment," [Sen. Inhofe (R-OK)] said. While saying a few "misguided" and "maybe even perverted" perpetrators of abuse needed to be punished, he suggested that much of the criticism was exaggerated and misplaced.

"These prisoners, they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents," he said. "Many of them probably have American blood on their hands. And here we're so concerned about the treatment of those individuals."

He went on: "I am also outraged that we have so many humanitarian do-gooders right now crawling all over these prisons, looking for human rights violations while our troops, our heros, are fighting and dying."

That's 'Idiotarian' with a capital 'I'.

UPDATE: DR writes that "I agree with Inhofe's statements 100%. You sir, are the moron." (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:58 PM by David Adesnik  

WATCH OUT FOR HEROES: Both the WaPo and NYT have posted unabashedly positive profiles of Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba. In a scandal plagued with lies and incompetence, Taguba has emerged as one of the few individuals whose honesty and professionalism can be admired by all. By himself, Taguba has done more to restore the good name of the armed forces than all of the President's apologies combined. Without question, Taguba is a hero.

My concern, however, is that the comforting presence of such hero may prevent both politicians and journalists from fully exposing the personal and institutional failures that created Abu Ghraib. According to the WaPo account of Taguba's congressional testimony, the General

found no evidence the misconduct was based on orders from high-ranking officers or involved a deliberate policy to stretch legal limits on extracting information from detainees.

Instead, Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba attributed the scandal to the willful actions of a small group of soldiers and to "a failure of leadership" and supervision by brigade and lower-level commanders.

While technically accurate, this description creates a false dichotomy between orders-from-above and initiative-from-below. Yet Taguba himself was careful to note that

he did not conduct his investigation any higher in the chain of command than General Karpinski, leaving open the possibility that responsibility for the failure in leadership went higher than General Karpinski.

According to Gen. Karpinski, she sparred constantly with May. Gen. Miller and Lt. Gen. Sanchez about how to run the prison system in Iraq. The involvement of officers as high-ranking as Miller and Sanchez means that the issues being discussed were important enough for the Secretary of Defense and his subordinates to be playing close attention. An exploration of their role is critical to this investigation.

The place to begin such an investigation is with the contradictions between the testimony of Gen. Taguba and Undersecretary of Defense Stephen Cambone. Until we reconcile their statements, we won't really know what American policy in Abu Ghraib was. While neither Rumsfeld nor his subordinates have been exceptionally forthcoming in response to public and congressional, I think the NYT gets things very wrong when it says that

The administration and its Republican allies appear to have settled on a way to deflect attention from the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib: accuse Democrats and the news media of overreacting, then pile all of the remaining responsibility onto officers in the battlefield, far away from President Bush and his political team.

Yes, Dick Cheney said that "Don Rumsfeld is the best secretary of defense the United States has ever had," and that "people ought to get off his case and let him do his job." But the administration's real strategy for dealing with this scandal is far more prosaic: distort the truth and hope that nobody is paying attention.

When President Bush first went on Arab television to denounce the human rights violations at Abu Ghraib, I had hoped that his response was the first step that this administration would take to correct its mistakes, not the last. But since then, the President has let Cheney, Rumsfeld & Co. evade responsibility. While I don't believe that Bush is complicit in this effort, his inability to recognize the ethical failures of his closest advisers is a sort of moral blindness all its own. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:57 AM by Patrick Belton  

NATIONAL SECURITY WATCH:

• One day after the United States announced sanctions on Damascus for its support of terrorism, Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, who is broadly regarded as a Syrian puppet, showed he had a sense of humour and said 'This is yet another proof that the U.S. administration is biased and reels under Israeli influence.’

• The U.S. Navy is considering slashing the American submarine fleet by nearly a third, from 55 to 37 vessels.

• Five-party talks have begun with North Korea, with Pyongyang making an opening foray for increased US aid in return for it freezing its nuclear programme.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:41 AM by Patrick Belton  

JUST IN THE OFF CHANCE THAT THE EVENT doesn't attract much attention from the print media, sovereignty passed today from the CPA to Iraq's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This makes the Foreign Ministry the eighth Iraqi ministry to quietly, and successfully, assume autonomy in the hands of the Iraqi people.

These were Bremer's remarks on the occasion:

It is a great pleasure to be with you today.

Today we take an important step on Iraq's path to sovereignty, elections and a democratic government. In 50 days occupation ends and Iraqis will once again exercise sovereignty over the Land between the Two Rivers.

But Iraqi autonomy in foreign affairs begins today with control over the Ministry of Foreign Affairs formally passing to you, Mr. Minister.

Of course, as each of us here knows, this is a formality. Already for months the professionals of the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs have been making their own decisions and acting upon them.

And those decisions and acts, Mr. Minister, have led to a remarkable record of achievement:

• You and your colleagues have spearheaded Iraq's reinstatement into the Arab League, the United Nations and the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
• You have reopened nearly fifty embassies and now offer effective and open consular services so that no Iraqi need fear seeking help and advice from his government.
• The visa policy you have developed will play an important part in excluding from Iraq those who would harm the national interest if admitted.

Mr. Minister, you and your highly skilled staff, working harmoniously with Senior Advisor Marc Sievers and his predecessors, have opened Iraq to the world, playing a critical role in ending the isolation Saddam both provoked and encouraged.

Mr. Minister, your description of the world that Iraq is re-entering as dangerous is apt, as is your recognition that the problems Iraq and so many others face are multi-faceted.

Your clear understanding of these challenges has proven invaluable in restructuring the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the help of Ambassador Edward Glover to meet the needs of a modern democracy. Your long-range strategy for the ministry is sound and your emphasis on gathering a new generation of diplomats to represent Iraq to the world will serve your country for years to come.

We were speaking before of how impressive this auditorium is, but you know, Mr. Minister, that what really impresses about the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs are not the spaces it occupies, but what you and your staff have accomplished.

On behalf of the Coalition, I congratulate you and each member of your team.

Mabruk al Iraq al Jadeed.
Aash al-Iraq!

Iraq's Foreign Minister is Hoshyar Zebari, a British-educated Kurd. The Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs may be accessed online here. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:36 AM by Patrick Belton  

CARNEGIE ON RUSSIAN DEMOCRACY: The Carnegie Endowment is hosting a panel discussion afternoon, which if you like you can follow online live and subsequently, on whether Russia a democracy, whether it will be in ten years, and how Putin's rise has influenced the course of democratic consolidation, or the lack thereof. The panel features Carnegie's Michael McFaul, AEI's Leon Aron, and CFR's Amb. Stephen Sestanovich. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:44 AM by Patrick Belton  

PRESS FREEDOMS IN BRAZIL: The government of Brazil announced yesterday that on President Lula's express wishes, it is expelling the New York Times bureau chief for reporting public knowledge of a drinking problem of the president. The original piece by Larry Rohter, which appeared in Sunday's Times, is here.

Next stop for Brazil: look for Lula to begin smoking large cigars. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:22 AM by Patrick Belton  

REQUIEM FOR A CHECHEN WARLORD: The always provocative Sobaka (which covers some of the world's more interesting regions and authoritarians with a style reminiscent of some of the better Parisian left-bank writing of the Satrean period) presents an obituary for recently killed Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov.

It's still hard for me to see what's inside with Akhmad Kadyrov. Written two decades before anyone knew who the Chechen strongman assassinated yesterday in a monstrous bomb-blast was, Gabriel Garcia Marquez sculpted the perfect metaphor for it in Autumn of the Patriarch. Breaking into the presidential villa, the rebels find the old man's body caked in mold, and his body is found to be stuffed with flowers.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:17 PM by David Adesnik  

NORTH VS. SOUTH: No many how many times I correct this post, Blogger won't update it. So, for the record, Jon Lauck teaches at South Dakota State. By the same token, Daschle & Thune are slugging it out for the right to represent South Dakota in the United States Senate. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:48 PM by David Adesnik  

THE USUAL DEMOCRATIC APPLAUSE LINES:

When there is no penalty for failure, failures proliferate. Leave aside the question of who or what failed before Sept. 11, 2001. But who lost his or her job because the president's 2003 State of the Union address gave currency to a fraud -- the story of Iraq's attempting to buy uranium in Niger? Or because the primary and only sufficient reason for waging preemptive war -- weapons of mass destruction -- was largely spurious? Or because postwar planning, from failure to anticipate the initial looting to today's insufficient force levels, has been botched? Failures are multiplying because of choices for which no one seems accountable.

But what do you say when those applause lines are coming from George Will? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:27 PM by Patrick Belton  

INDIA'S ELECTIONS: The government was routed today in Andhra Pradesh, with its junior coalition partner Telugu Desam Party falling to Congress resurgent, and further disproving earlier predictions this year's polls would be 'technical elections' resulting in only minor coalition tinkering.

Vajpayee, who had confidently called elections six months early to take advantage of thawed relations with Islamabad, a booming economy, and good monsoon, has now told leaders of his party that he would rather go into opposition than lead an unstable coalition if his party and its allies failed to secure at least 250 seats in the 545-seat Lok.

Prospects of a hung parliament (no jokes from the peanut gallery, please) have caused the Indian stock market and rupee to plummet and have raised constitutional questions as to the president's prerogative ability to invite someone other than the head of the largest party to attempt to form a government.

It will, in any case, be a tight result, and Vajpayee's mastery of coalition crafting stands him even now in good stead to continue in office. If Congress, propelled by a reenergised new generation of the Gandhi-Nehru political lineage, is able to recapture power, Italian-born Sonia Gandhi has indicated she may step aside to permit erudite but politically untested former finance minister Manmohan Singh, D.Phil. (Oxon.), to serve as head of government in her place. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:43 PM by Patrick Belton  

VICTORIAN LITERATURE SCHOLAR Gertrude Himmelfarb (whose husband, Irving, and son, Bill Kristol, are also both scholars in their own rights), returns to give yet another Bradley lecture at AEI, this time on the British, American, and French Enlightenments.
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:23 AM by David Adesnik  

OXBLOG ON NPR: I just finished my call-in with The Connection on NPR. The show keeps going until 12pm, so check it out. George Packer is the main guest and Kevin Drum should be on soon.

I don't have any experience doing live radio or TV, so being on NPR was education. The first thing I learned was that you have a lot less time than you think. You have to know which your big points are and hammer them home.

I guess that sounds sort of cynical, huh? I'm on my way to being a scripted politician who just repeats the "line of the day" and tries desperately to stay on message.

Anyhow, I began by rambling incoherently but then began to hit my stride. The big point I hit was that the I-win-you-lose tone of blogs is no different from the tone of Maureen Dowd or Paul Krugman -- or of George Packer's column on blogs. We're just opinion journalists.

[Interruption: A caller just told George that his column reads like a bad blog post. He whines, talks about his personal life and blames other people for his problems. That's unfair to George, but it does hit at the same irony I was trying to point out.]

The final lesson I learned was that when you are in public, all of your dirty laundry gets aired. So, when Dick Gordon, the show's host, asked if blogs cross the line between public and private in inappropriate ways, George mentioned how, after the first time we met, I blogged our discussion without asking his permission. Dick then asked me if that was true. I said yes, and that's why I apologized to George after it happened.

I can't remember why, but Dick then asked George a second question about our meeting. I was glad, since it gave me a chance to say that I made an honest mistake rather than trying to take advantage of George.

Now, I guess if you asked me beforehand, would I want to have something stupid that I did six months ago become the subject of my first radio appearance, my answer would be no. But in retrospect, I'm glad that it happened. George forgave me for my mistake at the time, so there was no ill will. And I learned a valuable lesson. Be 100% honest. That is the only way to preserve your credibility.

UPDATE: Kevin Drum now has a long post up on the show as well, including a sly elbow in OxBlog's ribs. Admittedly, I earned it. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:21 AM by Patrick Belton  

TODAY'S NEWS ROUND-UP: The U.S. military's European Command has substantially increased its counterterror aid to African governments. The programme, going by the name of the Pan-Sahel Initiative, was begun with $7 million and focused on Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Chad; it is being expanded at present to include Senegal. Bush administration sanctions are forthcoming against Syria, to punish Damascus for aiding rebel groups in Iraq. And Sadr's prospects are declining, as Shi'a tribal leaders are negotiating his surrender to stand trial for his role in the murder of Sadr's rival Abdel-Majid al-Khoei - and as 1,000 residents of Najaf marched this morning to urge Sadr and his milita to leave their city. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:22 AM by Patrick Belton  

LANGUAGE CORNER: The exclamation point is believed to originate from the Latin word io, an exclamation of joy. (As in the English carol 'Ding Dong Merrily on High,' where it occurs in the verse 'And io, io, io / By priest and people be sungen.') It was formed either as a digraph of the letters i and o, or alternatively as the letter i (for io) above a full stop.

(- M. B. Parkes, Pause and Effect: An Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the West, University of California Press, February 1993)

UPDATE: 'It is not quite accurate to say that io is a Latin word, because it is simply a transliteration of Greek iw (where w=omega). It tends to occur in Latin poetry in context where the Greek origin is transparent (e.g. Catullus 61, an epithalamium). Iw is also the occasion for a splendid joke in [pseudo-] Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound 575ff--Io, transformed into a cow, laments her bovine status "iw, iw".' MC, University College, Oxford. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:55 AM by Patrick Belton  

TRANSFER OF SOVEREIGNTY WATCH: Dan Senor, CPA senior advisor, in a news conference several minutes ago:

[T]he following ministries have already been handed over for daily operational management to the Iraqi people:  Ministry of Education, Ministry of Municipalities and Public Works, Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Displacement and Migration, and today, the Ministry of Water Resources.

The following three ministries are scheduled to transition later this week:  the Ministry of Industry and Minerals, which is tomorrow; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is Wednesday; and the Ministry of Planning and Development, later this week, as well.  And we will continue to work every single week between now and June 30th to turn over additional ministries to the Iraqi leadership.

Also, in military operations watch, BGEN Mark Kimmitt made the following reports in this morning's briefing:

• Fallujah has gone over a week without a violation of the cease-fire agreement. [In the last day,] coalition and Iraqi security forces continued joint operations in check points around Fallujah.  Just after 10:00 this morning coalition forces conducted a joint patrol in Fallujah supported by the Fallujah Brigade.  With the 1st Battalion providing security along their route, Marines from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force traveled into downtown Fallujah today to meet with city officials.  The commanding general of the 1st Marine Division, Major General Mattis, met with the mayor of Fallujah and a group of tribal sheiks to discuss plans to rebuild and revitalize the city.

• Two nights ago in the north-central zone of operations, coalition forces conducted a raid to disrupt anti-coalition forces near Baqubah. The targets of the raid were suspected of financing enemy forces in the area and the raid detained four targets, and all have been taken to a base camp for further questioning.

• In Baghdad, coalition forces conducted offensive operations last night in Sadr City, to reduce attacks and the overall presence of the Muqtada militia. Starting at 02:00 last evening, coalition forces conducted a cordon and search in conjunction with the destruction of the Sadr bureau building, to deny its future use by Muqtada militia members. Coalition forces observed numerous accounts of RPG fire from the alleyways directed at their elements as they approached the Sadr bureau and encountered numerous other engagements during the early morning. Forces cordoned off and searched the buildings to identify any militia present.  No one was present and coalition forces pulled back from the immediate area.  Coalition forces then initiated the destruction of the building.  Total roll-up over the last 24 hours from the numerous engagements in Sadr City resulted in 35 enemy killed, two enemy wounded and four coalition soldiers wounded who have been returned to duty.

• Yesterday evening an IED exploded in the vicinity of Four Seasons al-Arabiyah Hotel in eastern Baghdad.  The Iraqi police service secured the site and confirmed two British citizens and two Iraqi citizens were injured.

• The situation in Basra has seen a moderate level of anti-coalition activity with four reported attacks in the last 24 hours.  The enemy in Basra continues to use RPG and small-arms fire to attack coalition forces.

• Yesterday coalition forces conducted a raid north of Mahmudiyah to capture multiple targets, suspected members of a cell who are suspected of conducting attacks on coalition forces.  The unit captured four of the seven targets plus one additional suspected enemy.  Yesterday a coalition patrol conducted a reconnaissance of the industrial complex across from a coalition base camp near An Najaf to kill or capture Muqtada militia and to prevent that militia from conducting future attacks at the coalition base camp.  The unit came under fire by small arms and RPG, and the unit returned fire, killing three militia.  The unit also captured two suspected militia and confiscated numerous RPG rounds and a machine gun.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:17 AM by Patrick Belton  

SALARY OF THE UK POET LAUREATE, ANDREW MOTION, author of 29 books, including Secret Narratives : £5,000

Salary of the UK football 'Chant Laureate', Birmingham City fan Jonny Hurst, author of a football chant to the tune of Barry Manilow's Copacabana about Aston Villa's Juan Pablo Angel: £10,000

Well, at least the country has got its priorities sorted out.... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:20 AM by Patrick Belton  

EURASIA WATCH: If you're anything like us, you wake up asking, "I wonder what's new in Central Asia this morning?" Well, since you asked....:

• Times have never been so good for heroin producers in Afghanistan, who expect a bumper crop of 200,000 acres of poppies in late summer which will in turn produce three-quarters of the world's heroin. Regional instability and a major shot in the arm to international terrorists are the expected likely results. Tajikistan, whose entire industrial sector consists of a single aluminium smelting factory and whose national budget measures $300 million, is a prime candidate for destabilisation, standing as it does along a principal transhipment route, and with a history of recent civil war and ill-paid officials vulnerable to cooperation.

• Afghan President Hamid Karzai travels today to the western city of Herat, where he will attempt to convince warlord-turned (vaguely)-governor Ismail Khan to dismand his personal milita. Khan, in an interesting move of logic, has simultaneously (1) claimed his personal milita is indispensable to maintaining security because "there is no alternative army to replace them", and (2) mocked the presence of 1,500 national troops Karzai dispatched to Herat in March when the city was consumed by factional violence, saying they had nothing to do. Karzai is attempting to remove as many as possible of his nation's 60,000 irregular fighters in advance of September's national elections, to prevent their being used as means of intimidating voters.

• Also in Afghanistan, violence has escalated as an explosion destroyed a UN vehicle carrying election workers in Nangarhar province, about 10 kilometres south of Kabul (the election staff were able to escape unhurt before their jeep burned), and two Westerners, one carrying a Swiss passport, were found stoned (that is, killed by stoning, as opposed to the earlier note on poppies) in Kabul on Sunday.

• The US has delivered a shipment of military and border-control equipment worth a half million dollars to the Uzbek Defence Ministry. A second shipment of $600,000, to include night-vision goggles and other border-control equipment, will arrive soon. The transfers have taken place within the Department of State's Export Control and Related Border Security Assistance (EXBS) and Aviation and Interdiction Project (AIP), intended to increase border security in Central Asia, particularly as regards the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

• Betraying that he does, perhaps, indeed have a sense of humour, Uzbek President Islam Karimov berated his nation's political parties for not being independent enough. Karimov went on to say, in an article which was not taken from the Onion, 'Why don't you even say a word against each other?... The collision of ideas will certainly lead to justice and truth. If there is no struggle between ideas, then why do we need five parties?'

• And in other news from the region, new Georgian President Saakashvili is pursuing a strong anti-corruption policy which is winning praise at home but attracting criticism from human rights groups, who say too vigorous prosecution is weakening the rule of law. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:07 AM by David Adesnik  

RADIO FREE OXBLOG: Dick Gordon hosts a show called The Connection on NPR. The second half of tomorrow's show, from 11am to 12pm, will focus on blogs. According to The Connection's homepage,

Some say 2004 is the year of the Blog, those online journals that pepper political debate with a little news, and lots of opinion. Writer George Packer is not among them. He says blogs are bad, for you and for democracy.

I'm not sure George would go that far. But I might get the chance to ask him in person, since I am scheduled to be one of two call-in guests for the show. The other is Kevin Drum.

My connection to all this is that George Packer mentioned OxBlog in his moderately anti-blog column in Mother Jones. Then I posted a response to George's column, which you can find here. With any luck, things will work out and I'll be on the radio tomorrow morning. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:01 PM by David Adesnik  

GOOD NEWS ON A BAD NEWS DAY: Kevin Drum explains why, contra Patrick, Brad Pitt really is the best choice to play Achilles. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:51 PM by David Adesnik  

HERESY OF THE FAITHFUL: The Republican commentariat is turning on President Bush. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:38 PM by David Adesnik  

ABU GHRAIB AND THE FUTURE OF A DEMOCRATIC IRAQ: Right now is the calm before the storm. We know that the horrific abuse of Iraqi prisoners will derail American efforts to build a stable and democratic Iraq. We just don't know how.

What does it mean to lose hearts and minds? How will we know when the fallout from Abu Ghraib is undermining the American-led reconstruction? Will there be mass demonstrations across Iraq? Will there be nation-wide prison riots that provoke further American abuse? Will law and order break down in the few places where it now exists? And how can the United States prepare itself for the chaos to come?

Today's WaPo has some good suggestions about how, in the short-term, to demonstrate an American commitment to international law: raze Abu Ghraib, announce that the Geneva Conventions will apply to all detainees, and allow Iraqi and international monitors to visit the Coalition's prisons.

But what comes after damage control? In the absence of an implementation plan for the June 30 transition, it is almost impossible to know how Abu Ghraib will affect the handover. For a long moment, any proposal with an American imprint on it may become poisonous to Iraqi representatives. Thus, it is fortunate that there is a UN representative handling the process at the moment. Even so, any proposal the Americans support may become controversial for precisely that reason.

The real issue, however, is elections. First, can the United States hold out until January? Will Abu Ghraib add fuel to the fire of the Sadr and Ba'athist insurgencies? My guess is that will affect the former much less than the letter. Over at Needlenose, Swopa makes a pretty persuasive argument that Sistani and other influential Shi'ites are doing all that they can to crush the Sadrist rebellion. Thus, I don't expect the Shia rank-and-file to vent their anger at the Americans by supporting Sadr.

The fact that Sistani is doing so much of our work for us vis-a-vis Sadr reflects a fundamental truth of the occupation: that those who expect to gain the most from the elections will always be our best allies. The WaPo writes that

America's greatest strength in Iraq remains that its goals are not only right but shared by most Iraqis, by most people of goodwill in other democracies and by the leadership of the United Nations.

That point is very similar to the one I am making, but it ignores the fact that goodwill isn't worth much without institutional structures to express it. Sistani provides that sort of structure for Iraqi Shi'ites. The Kurdish political parties provide it for the Kurds. No one seems to be providing it for the Sunnis.

All the Sunnis have is an institution capable of expressing rage: the Ba'athist insurgency. Thus, I expect that the reaction to Abu Ghraib will be increased support for the insurgency within the Sunni triangle (assuming that such support hasn't already reached its theoretical maximum.)

While it may seem trivial to point out that our best allies are the ones who have the most to gain from elections, that idea has some very important implications. Above it all, it illustrates Robert Kagan's argument why it will be even harder to stabilize Iraq if we abandon our goal of promoting a democratic order. If we start looking for "responsible", "pro-Western" generals to run the show, we would have a real Shi'ite insurgency on our hands, not to mention a Kurdish secession.

In other words, the best advice I have is to just stay the course. It's not original. It's not insightful. But it is better than the irresponsible alternatives.

UPDATE: Kagan & Kristol offer a modified version of staying-the-course: move up elections to September. In other words, make the course shorter so that staying it isn't as hard. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:03 PM by Patrick Belton  

NEWS FLASH TO HISPANOS IN THE AUDIENCE: Slate's Jacob Weisberg seems to think it's 'ridiculous' that a former governor of Texas, who has a sister-in-law from Leon, Guanajuato, uses the term 'hispanos.' He might have googled. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:25 PM by Patrick Belton  

DIFFICULT DECISIONS: On the one hand, there's a movie coming out which adapts my personal favourite story, one indubitably among the greatest ever told.

On the other hand, it has the bad fortune to star an actor who: (1) Cosmo helpfully notes has 'killer B.O.', (2) who in 1988 was arrested and fined $450 for exposing himself to (unimpressed) drivers on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, (3) whose pre-silver screen employment consisted of driving strippers to dates (theirs, not his), and (4) whose more recent public embarassments include 'The Mexican' and being taken down by Shania Twain. Yes, in other words, Brad Pitt as Achilles. Talk about a Hobson's choice.

(fr., incidentally, Tobias Hobson, c. 1544-1631, a Cambridge stable manager made famous by Milton and who insisted customers take the horse in the stall closest to the door or take none at all. Hence, a Hobson's choice was not a choice at all). (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:16 PM by Patrick Belton  

IN NY? LIKE CENTRAL ASIA? Then go hear the International Crisis Group's Osh director, David Lewis, speak at the Open Society Institute (400 West 59th Street, 3rd floor) on Wednesday, May 19, from 2:30 - 4:00 pm. I've had the happy privilege of being in touch with David on occasion, and he's a brilliant, nice fellow with a lot of folks in government who trust his opinion as a Central Asia hand. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:39 PM by David Adesnik  

AT WAR WITH RUMSFELD: The editors of the WaPo have been hammering home the same message day after day: That Donald Rumsfeld is personally responsible for creating a system of imprisonment whose excesses have been public knowledge for some time but about which the Secretary has done almost nothing. In light how strong a case the editors have made, it is extremely disturbing to see the President praise Rumsfeld so lavishly and declare that his performance has been "superb". (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:16 AM by Patrick Belton  

SILLY LANGUAGE TRICKS: One of the many things which make the world a generally interesting place to live in is its large number of in-group or secret languages, cants and cryptolects - many of which have existed for enormous stretches of time, and have popped up virtually intact after being transmitted from one very different group to another - and in the process, have often generated bits of slang which all of us would frequently recognise, even if it's occasionally a bit naff. Here are some examples, to get you started speaking incomprehensibly on your own:

• Verlan, a French banlieu slang which relies on constant inversion of syllables. The name is itself Verlan: Verlan is verlan for Lanver, or l'envers, the reverse. Some examples, to get you up and speaking Verlan for your next trip to the banlieux: tromé - métro; laisse béton - laisse tomber (drop or stop it); keum - mec (colloquial for man); meuf - femme (woman); reum - mère (mother); reup - père (father); keuf - flic (policeman; flic is coll. for cop); ouf - fou (crazy); zyva - vas-y (go for it); fais ièche - fais chier (slang for it's boring); céfran - français; relou - lourd (heavy, boring); zarbi - bizarre (strange); chanmé - méchant (wicked!, excellent!); chelou - louche (shady); keutru - truc (stuff). Where it gets even more interesting is that the generation of soixante-huitards, in university around 1968, adopted Verlan so broadly, and then rose to positions of prominence in the Establishment, that young, often Maghrebbian banlieu residents began to Verlan the Verlan. Doesn't that make, err, French, you ask? No, not precisely, because it changes a bit in each incarnation: c.f., reubeu - beur; beur is itself Verlan for arabe, making reubeu an instance of double-verlan. Here's a handy Verlan phrase book, for your next trip to Paris.

• Polari, which began as a cryptolect used in the nineteenth century by carnies and other entertainers, and in the 1950's became an in-group cant used by London fishmongers and later widely by male homosexuals (for whom a language incomprehensible to outsiders afforded a measure of protection against, say, plainclothes policemen, who may have been better received had they been wearing uniforms). It includes influences of the earlier medieval sailors' and merchants' lingua franca pidgin, who would presumably have gone to different parties. It's the origin of the term naff (not available for, erm, fornication; used broadly by the BBC's show Round the Horne in place of other expletives unavailable for broadcasting). Handy Polari phrase: "How bona to vada your ecaf!" - "How good to see your face!" For more, here and here.

• Shelta or Travellers' Cant, sometimes also called Gammon, a secret dialect of Irish spoken by the nomadic, itinerant Travelling people. It's still largely a secret language; anthropologists who have studied it have been asked by members of the Travelling community to withdraw their research from the public domain, and these have generally complied. Now it's more broadly documented, as members of the community come to fear it will die out: a few sources on their language are here and here. Prince Hal, in Henry IV, Part I, boasts he "can drink with any tinker in his own language." The Travellers were once roundly (and, as it turns, incorrectly) assumed to have lost their land during the Famine and never recovered it; and were until recently referred to by the now-pejorative "tinkers," to describe their pre-Industrial Revolution principal occupation of metallurgy, now replaced generally by mending and recycling. There are also Scottish Travellers, as the Travellers, well, they travel. There are other secretive cants, too: Thieves' Cant, as the name subtly hints, was used as a secret language by Victorian brigands, and is now helpfully documented for those wishing to to pursue a career in that promising field, and Eton now obligingly includes a glossary of (the tamer sorts of) public school cant.

Of course, some secret languages have managed to still remain truly secret. In fact, there's one which David, Josh, and I speak to proficiency, if not quite fluency. However, the cryptolect of Political Science Jargon rarely includes anything interesting or edifying to an outside audience, so I won't waste space by going into it here. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:56 AM by Patrick Belton  

UUF! (Leb. Arabic dial.: expression of emotion or surprise; generally enunciated by a male with a forefinger placed on the temple, and eyes closed; c.f. N. Nahas) For those of you in the blogosphere who have wisely jumped ship to Movable Type (which is to say, most everyone in the blogging world apart from us and the Conspirators Volokh, who fortunately happen to be numerically substantial enough to keep Blogger going rather single-handedly), you sadly missed the surprise and confusion of logging on to Blogger this morning and wondering if you hadn't somehow accidentally logged on to Movable Type instead. In an event which the BBC, perhaps rather strangely, decided to cover this morning, Blogger rolled out a substantial change to its user interface this morning, which includes a "dashboard" which looks basically like Movable Type's, except, again for some rather inexplicable reason, you seem to be able to place your picture on it - perhaps to guard against any momentary lapses of identity while blogging. Perhaps because I personally tend to enjoy believing I look rather like Hugh Grant while blogging, I think I'll elect not to disabuse myself of that misconception; on the other hand, one wonders whether this reminding of people of their identity when they post will have the unintended effect of cutting down on pseudonymous blogging. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:29 PM by David Adesnik  

FAVORITE SONS: North Dakota blogger and historian Jon Lauck has set up a blog devoted entirely to the Daschle vs. Thune Senate race. If you want an in-depth look at this critical race, you know where to go. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:27 PM by David Adesnik  

AW, SHUCKS: Jason B. writes that

This makes me happy that Bush is President. Very happy. In a really fundamental, non-political way. I really can't explain it adequately.

Even Yglesias had to admit that it was very sweet. Not that it prevented him from using it to demonsrate Bush's ethical shortcomings...

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:55 PM by Patrick Belton  

ONLINE URDU GRAMMAR TEXT: For those of you who might be interested (not all at once, now!), there's an excellent Urdu grammar textbook which has been digitised at the University of Chicago. (Although I haven't yet found as good an online grammar for Hindi, there's a guide to the Devanagari alphabet here - and all of you will undoubtedly be excited to hear there's a digitisation of Mícheál ó Siadhail's excellent Irish grammar from Yale University Press (1988) here.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:49 PM by David Adesnik  

DISSENT WITHIN THE RANKS: Senior generals are blasting Rumsfeld & Wolfowitz for their conduct of the occupation. The WaPo reports that the unnamed generals won't go on the record because they are afraid of Rumsfeld & Wolfowitz becoming vindictive. As one might expect, those who argue that we are losing Iraq believe that we must abandon our efforts to promote democracy there.

On an unrelated note, the WaPo article on the generals' dissent contains this classic line: "The New York Review of Books is not widely read in the U.S. military." Say it ain't so! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:48 PM by Patrick Belton  

HEARD AROUND TOWN:

• `[WaPo Managing Editor Steve] Coll has done a great service by revealing how Saudi Arabia and its intelligence operations aided the rise of Osama bin Laden and Islamic extremism in Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia's alleged involvement in terrorism has been the subject of wild conspiracy theories since Sept. 11; Coll gives us a clear and balanced view of Saudi Arabia's real ties to bin Laden. The links he reveals are serious enough to prompt an important debate about the nature of the Saudi-American partnership in the fight against terrorism. ''Saudi intelligence officials said years later that bin Laden was never a professional Saudi intelligence agent,'' he writes, referring to Saudi support for foreign Arab fighters against the Russians in Afghanistan in the 1980's. Still, ''it seems clear that bin Laden did have a substantial relationship with Saudi intelligence.''' (NYT reviewing Steve Coll's Ghost Wars)

• `"Some of the most gripping passages take place far from Washington, as intrepid C.I.A. agents, code-named rockstars, begin to penetrate northern Iraq in advance of the invasion, handing out so many $100 bills to their informants that $100 soon becomes the going rate for a cup of coffee.' (NYT reviewing Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack)
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:26 PM by Patrick Belton  

AND PEACE UNTO JERUSALEM: Sunday being a day of peace, today could be an excellent day to take note of several projects doing important work to build understanding between Israelis and Palestinians, and between Jews and Muslims in countries across the world.

Wikipedia - which incidentally, as an encyclopedia written by the public grows more impressive by the day - has one list of projects. These include Seeds of Peace, a justly celebrated project which brings Israeli and Palestinian teenagers together for a summer at a site in Maine; the American Jewish Committee's project of dialogue with Muslim organisations of many stripes from around the world, and collaboration with the Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in roundly denouncing and opposing scapegoating and vindictive attacks against American Muslims after the September 11th attacks; and the Abraham Fund, which is based in Israel and seeks to develop closer ties between Jews and Arab Israelis.

These organisations and ones like them are worthy of a great deal of moral and practical support - as when peace finally comes to the Middle East, it will in large part be because of their efforts and those of similar people of good will, on both sides of the painful divide which presently separates Jews and Muslims, people of the Book and Semitic cousins both.

Ure'êh bethubhyerushâlâim kol yemêy chayyeykha (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:32 AM by Patrick Belton  

SUDAN WATCH: This from the mail bag,

Your coverage of Sudan has been excellent.  In the rare case you missed it, this was the first paragraph from AFP's story this afternoon:

"Sudanese officials strongly denied UN charges of ethnic cleansing in the war-torn western region of Darfur and accused Western donors of fanning the crisis by withholding development aid."

 In other words: "There is nothing going on, but it will worsen in the event we are not payed."

 Were politics not tragic, it would be hilarious!

Cheers,
EA
(a member of our Nathan Hale Foreign Policy Society, Los Angeles chapter)

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:06 AM by Patrick Belton  

A VERY HAPPY MOTHERS DAY to our mothers, and to all mothers in our readership:

Clearances, II
In memoriam M.K.H., 1911-1984

Polished linoleum shone there. Brass taps shone.
The china cups were very white and big -
An unchipped set with sugar bowl and jug.
The kettle whistled. Sandwich and teascone
Were present and correct. In case it run,
The butter must be kept out of the sun.
And don't be dropping crumbs. Don't tilt your chair.
Don't reach. Don't point. Don't make noise when you stir.

It is Number 5, New Row, Land of the Dead,
Where grandfather is rising from his place
With spectacles pushed back on a clean bald head
To welcome a bewildered homing daughter
Before she even knocks. `What's this? What's this?'
And they sit down in the shining room together.

Seamus Heaney, from The Haw Lantern (1987)

Rachel also insists everyone immediately go inspect cute pictures of maternal polar bears. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:00 AM by Patrick Belton  

UZBEKISTAN WATCH: For those of you who are the least bit interested in Central Asia, here's a wonderful blog written by a woman named Margaret, who's in Tashkent this year on an American Bar Association/CEELI-sponsored rule of law promotion project, in which she principally works to train litigators and public defenders. She has a canny eye for detail and an attractive writing style, and makes a quite nice addition to the interesting and growing list of bloggers writing from abroad. (And Kevin and the other cat-owners in the blogosphere will be gratified to know she even has a cat, Lola.)

Margaret-opa: Oxforddan salom! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:48 AM by Patrick Belton  

LASER WEAPON DOWNS INCOMING MISSILE IN TEST: This is very neat. Earlier versions of the Tactical High Energy Laser have been dogged by, among other problems, the need to keep the laser beam tightly focused on a particular point on a generally quickly-moving target. At a time when we've grown used to repeated test failures in missile defence technology, contractor Northrup Grumman deserves congratulations for producing a system which has to date shot down 28 operational, captured katyusha rockets; and this is particularly the case with the recent escalation of hostilities along the Shabaa Farms portion of the Israel-Lebanon border.

(And plus, it's just really cool, too.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:27 AM by David Adesnik  

ACADEMICS AND AMATEURS: This afternoon, my institute -- the one I belong to, not the one I own -- hosted a discussion with Boston Globe political correspondent Patrick Healy. The subject of the discussion was "National Security and Campaign 2004". I was the moderator, which meant that I had to wear a jacket and tie.

Going into the discussion, I had no idea what to expect. I'd never met Patrick before and hadn't read much of his work until I spent a couple of hours reading his articles on Lexis-Nexis the night before. I'd invited him to speak because the Globe is our hometown paper and he is its lead correspondent on the Kerry campaign. I'd hoped to have their Bush correspondent come as well, but a last minute schedule change by the White House kept her away.

When I first saw Patrick in person, I was surprised at how young he looked. Now, I guess that's a funny thing to say since he's older than I am. But the firm authority with which jounralists write makes you want to believe that they are all grizzled professionals. Once Patrick started talking, however, he immediately began to seem more authoritative without abandoning the humility that makes you want to be his friend rather than take him down a notch.

Patrick opened up the dicussion by talking for about 10 minutes about where the Kerry campaign is now. The rest of the hour and a half was all Q&A. So when I say that I didn't know what to expect, that had as much to do with not knowing what kind of questions the audience would ask as with not knowing how Patrick would answer them. At first, I was concerned that Patrick wasn't making a good impression because so few hands went up when I opened the floor to questions. But after just a short while, it became clear that the audience was quiet because it was spellbound, not because it was bored.

The audience consisted of advanced grad students, mid-career diplomats and government officials spending a year at Harvard, institute staff, and a couple of faculty members. All together, there were around 20 of us. Patrick opened up by saying that the Kerry campaign was approaching a turning point. After the medal-throwing story broke a couple of weeks ago, Kerry became enraged and shut himself off from the press. After the ABC interview that started it all, Kerry said he was sick of journalists "doing the bidding of the RNC". But now, Kerry is set to resurface with a major press conference in the next couple of days.

Taking a broader look, Patrick said he thinks there hasn't been a lot of substantive debate about Kerry's foreign policy. One reason for that the Vietnam story line has become overwhelming. Kerry plays endlessly on his war record, so it is always the issue. Of course, journalists are complicit in that process.

I think the best way to describe the Q&A with Patrick is that it was like an introduction to blogging. The audience asked all those questions that I only began to ask once I started blogging and backseat journalism became my profession.

After hearing how journalists actually travel on the same bus as the candidate day after day after day, one of my colleagues very earnestly asked whether developing a relationship with the candidate and depending on him for information makes it harder to criticize.

Patrick he didn't think he'd really pulled any punches, but he talked about one of the other correspondents who wanted to do a feature on Teresa Heinz Kerry and wound up turning in an unremittingly positive profile that his editor rejected because it didn't cover any of the official negative storylines about her, such as concerns that she is a loose cannon or out of touch with the American mainstream.

At that point, I was thinking to myself that both Patrick and my colleague had missed half of the story, if not more. While journalists may depend on candidates for information, candidates depend on journalists for coverage. With few exceptions, candidates simply have to accept what journalists write and keep on working with them. The more influential the publication, the more this relationship favors the journalists.

At one point, in order to illustrate the dependence of journalists on the candidates they cover, Patrick described how Kerry's staff once distributed a major policy proposal in advance to the NYT, the WaPo, the WSJ and (I think) CNN. When all those papers got their stories out ahead of Patrick's, he got pretty angry and called the campaign staff to complain. At first they told them that if they'd given him the proposal, they would have had to give it to all of the correspondents for the big regional papers.

Patrick said that was bullsh**, since the Globe is Kerry's hometown paper and it had been covering him when no one else was. The staffer responded that Kerry may have needed the Globe before New Hampshire, but now he was running a national campaign. Besides, the Globe had always been far harsher on Kerry than the other papers, and you don't win points for that.

From my perspective, the moral of that story was that the NYT, WaPo et al. have tremendous influence over the candidate, probably more than he has over them. But no one in the audience saw it that way.

In general, both the questions and answers during the Q&A began from the implicit premise that the job of journalists is to prevent the candidates from distorting the truth. As such, the real danger is not that journalists will be excessively judgmental or critical, but that they will be too soft. There was no sense on either side of the table that perhaps there needs to be someone who watches over the journalists.

The one audience member was one man with a white beard who seemed perpetually agitated. He scribbled constant notes on a pad in front of him and was wearing a sweater that only made it half-way down from his neckline to his waist. His canvas tote-bag had "concerned liberal" written all over it. (Figuratively.) His was the one question that came from someone who had clearly spent a lot of time thinking about the media and its problems.

The question he asked, as one might have guessed from his tote-bag, was why the mainstream media invested so little effort in researching Bush's lackadaisical attendance at National Guard training sessions. Now, I would've phrased the question as "Why does the media pay attention to Bush's service record in sporadic bursts rather than trying to resolve the issue once and for all?" Still, it was a good question.

Patrick offered a number of answers. First, the Globe had done more than any other paper on the subject. Second, no new documents were coming out of the White House because there was no public pressure on at the moment. Third, Bush is an incumbent, so you don't need to infer how he will act as commander-in-chief from something he did more than thirty years ago.

Now, answer one is true, but it doesn't say anything about other papers' inconsistent coverage of the subject. Answer three suggests no one will ever pay attention to the issue, so it can't explain why sometimes it becomes front-page news. And answer two just begs the question of why public pressure suddenly comes and goes. At least in the case of Bush's service record, the answer is the media. Peter Jennings made it an issue by asking Wes Clark about Michael Moore's AWOL charge. There was a flurry of attention, but the story died once Kerry's victory in the primaries hit page one.

The question I was left asking myself after the debate was what questions I might have asked if I had been in the audience but hadn't been a blogger. Probably exactly the same ones that the actual audience asked. They were intelligent. They solicited important information from the guest. But from the perspective of a blogger-slash-backseat journalist, they seemed so elementary. And that made me realize just how much I had learned by spending a couple of hours a day on this website for the last eighteen months

It also made me realize how specialized and pedantic bloggers' media criticism is. Even the most intelligent "normal" people out there have only the vaguest sense of how bloggers read the newspaper. Much like scholars, bloggers tend to think of their analytical methods as being a secret treasure, while critics think of them as the product of some kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Yet in contrast to scholars, bloggers are rapidly winning bigger and bigger audiences.

Bloggers are also getting the attention of those they criticize. In contrast, politicians ignore what political scientists write (while obsessing about the media). If Instapundit gets more than 100,000 hits a day, how long is it before blog-style thinking becomes mainstream among the one or two million voters who are really well-informed?

The final thought I had about today's discussion was that if I can look back on myself from two years and say "Oh my God, I can't believe how ignorant I was!", who might look at me now and say "Oh my God, I can't believe how ignorant he is!" Would it be the soldiers who read what I have to say about Iraq? The officials at State and DoD who might laugh at my primitive concept of how policymaking works? Or the journalists who marvel at how much arrogant advice and allegedly constructive criticism comes from someone who hasn't written edited a newspaper since high school?

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:29 PM by David Adesnik  

ANOTHER KIND OF HERO: Millions of Americans know the name of Pat Tillman, and deservedly so. But how many know the name of Joseph M. Darby, the soldier responsible for alerting his superiors to the abuse of Iraqi inmates?

According to a profile in the WaPo, Darby was not the kind of person one would expect to become a lone voice for justice. He had a violent temper and seems more like someone who might express his anger by abusing the rights of those prisoners he was supposed to guard.

Yet when faced with a profound moral dilemma, Darby did the right thing. I'm not sure it is possible to explain why. There are simply some men and women who do not become remarkable individuals until faced with an unprecedented challenge.

Another hero of that sort, one whose name will live on because of his greatness, is Oskar Schindler. Why did he risk own life to save so many Jews? It is impossible to say. Schindler was not a particulary good or generous man before confronted by the Holocaust. Then he became one.

Conversely, there are those who become evil when confronted with moral dilemmas. I am sure that many of the soldiers responsible for the vicious abuse of Iraqi inmates were good, generous people before doing what they did. And some may not have been good.

But all of them had a choice. There is simply no way to claim that they and their superiors do not bear full responsibility for the horrific things they did. And that Joseph Darby has become a hero by letting the world know about those horrible acts. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:03 PM by David Adesnik  

GOOD NEWS ON JOBS: Or not. It depends on your perspective:

"Any step forward in the job market is good news for America's workers, but let's be clear: we still have a long way to go to get America working again," said Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (Mass.), in a statement. "America is still in the worst job recovery since the Great Depression, with 2.2 million private-sector jobs lost in the Bush presidency, 8.1 million Americans still looking for work, and long-term unemployment at the highest level in twenty years."

As one might infer from Kerry's statistics (which are not the only ones out there), it will be almost impossible for Bush to head into the elections with less than a 1 million net private-sector job-loss on his hands. But if the economy really does add another 1.2 million jobs before November, I don't think it will matter what Kerry says. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:05 AM by Patrick Belton  

TO OUR GOOGLE REFERRAL FROM 10:30 GMT THIS MORNING: Actually, we don't know either whether Harry Potter is circumcised or not. Sorry. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:34 AM by Patrick Belton  

NEWS OF THE WEIRD: Now, lest there be any misunderstanding, we love Anne-Marie Slaughter. We also love McDonald's. But McDonald's inviting one of the nation's principal international jurists to serve on its board of directors? That's just ... odd funny. (Not, for instance, that I'd object if McDonald's were to invite one or more OxBloggers too to serve on its board. Particularly if, say, that entitled you to lifetime supplies of free fries, or extra specimens of the little toys which go in Happy Meals.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:30 AM by Patrick Belton  

ETYMOLOGIST'S CORNER: Ever wonder why England was referred to as Blighty? OxBlog's friend and OED etymologist Michael Quinion has the answer:

It’s a relic of British India. It comes from a Hindi word bilayati, foreign, which is related to the Arabic wilayat, a kingdom or province. Sir Henry Yule and Arthur C Burnell explained in their Anglo-Indian dictionary, Hobson-Jobson, published in 1886, that the word was used in the names of several kinds of exotic foreign things, especially those that the British had brought into the country, such as the tomato (bilayati baingan) and especially to soda-water, which was commonly called bilayati pani, or foreign water.

Blighty was the inevitable British soldier’s corruption of it. But it only came into common use as a term for Britain at the beginning of the First World War in France about 1915. It turns up in popular songs: There’s a ship that’s bound for Blighty, We wish we were in Blighty, and Take me back to dear old Blighty, put me on the train for London town, and in Wilfred Owen’s poems, as well as many other places.

For more word play from Michael, see this. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:46 AM by Patrick Belton  

PAKISTAN, PART THREE: The last of my three-part series on democratic prospects in Pakistan, today's installment examines the history of U.S. efforts to promote democracy in Pakistan, as well as alternative options for American policy and their likely results.

Like the two prior parts, it's up on Winds of Change. And as before, I'll really look forward to hearing any suggestions or comments that our readers might have! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:50 PM by Patrick Belton  

PART TWO of my three-part series on democracy prospects in Pakistan is up over at Winds of Change. Today's piece looks at the record of Pakistan's historical experiences with democracy, and examines several possible explanations for why electoral democracy has not taken root to date. It also takes a look at Pakistan's record with regard to several categories of rights generally taken to be part of liberalism, such as the right to free press, women's rights, the presence of forced labour, and the ability of opposition groups and human rights organisations to conduct their activities without interference.

For those of you who know more about Pakistan than me, and who would be kind enough to point out any mistakes I may have made, or issues I may have neglected - I'd be very grateful to hear from you! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:11 PM by David Adesnik  

THE GOLDEN AGE OF MEDIA BIAS: Our neverending debates about the competence and fair-mindedness of the media focus incessantly on the present. But what might happen if someone (an OxBlogger perhaps) systematically examined how the media presented a given issue over an extended period time?

As it turns out, one purpose of my doctoral dissertation is to do exactly that. In the 1980s, few issues were more controversial than US-Central American relations. At different times, the media was partial to either the Reagan administration or its opponents. A serious effort to explain the media's strengths and weaknesses must go far beyond a simple identification of it as either liberal or conservative.

With regard to democracy promotion and Iraq, I have argued periodically that the American media derive their interpretations from an unspoken narrative about the nature and consequences of the war in Vietnam. Twenty years ago, that narrative had far greater influence than it does today. In order to make that point in a more concrete manner, I'd like to post a short excerpt from dissertation, which in fact was written today:

In the early morning of February 28th [1983], the President spoke in private to twenty influential congressmen and asked them to provide $60 million in supplemental military aid for El Salvador. For the next two months, El Salvador made the headlines almost every day. On March 8th, Reagan asked for an additional $50 million for FY 1983, bringing his total request for supplemental aid to $110 million. Both contemporary journalists and later scholars have portrayed anti-Communism as the exclusive motive for the President’s interest in El Salvador. On March 4th, after Reagan delivered an address on foreign policy in San Francisco, a member of the audience responded that “The recent request for escalation of military aid to El Salvador appears to be the beginning of a replay of the early days of Vietnam. What assurances can you offer that this is not the case?” Reagan answered the question as follows:

I can give you assurances. And there is no parallel whatsoever with Vietnam. We have the instance here of a government, duly elected. And just a short time ago – an election – the people of El Salvador proved their desire for order in their country, and democracy, and that they had no sympathy whatsoever for the rebels who are armed, who are trained by countries such as Cuba and others of the Iron Curtain countries…

The threat is more to the entire Western Hemisphere and toward the area than it is to one country. If they get a foothold, and with Nicaragua already there, and El Salvador should fall as a result of this armed violence on the part of the guerrillas, I think Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama, all of these would follow.

Reagan then recounted his favorite anecdote about the Salvadoran women on election day – one who defied death threats in order to vote and another who was shot in the leg by guerrillas but refused to go the hospital before casting her ballot. The President closed by mentioning that he might want to increase above fifty-five the number of American soldiers assigned to train the Salvadoran armed forces. The next morning, a front-page headline in the New York Times read “U.S. May Increase Salvador Advisers”. The Times described the President’s exchange with his audience as follows:

''I can give you assurances and there is no parallel whatsoever with Vietnam,'' he declared in response to a question from the audience. But a moment later he said of the leftist insurgents:

''If they get a foothold, with Nicaragua already there, and El Salvador should fall as a result of this armed violence on the part of the guerrillas, I think Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama, all of these would follow…

''It is vital to us that democracy be allowed to succeed in these countries,'' he said.

The Washington Post also relied on subtle devices to suggest that Reagan was oblivious to the parallels between El Salvador and Vietnam:

After saying "there is no parallel whatsoever with Vietnam," Reagan proceeded to tick off his domino theory of what would happen if El Salvador falls to guerrillas, whom he described as trained by Cuba "and others of the Iron Curtain countries" and supplied with weapons coming through Nicaragua.

A decade and a half later, William LeoGrande made this premise more explicit:

Reagan was adamant: “There is no parallel whatsoever with Vietnam.” But he proceeded to describe the importance of El Salvador with a vintage recitation of the domino theory that could have been lifted directly from a speech by Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s, with only the names of the countries updated.

The number of American soldiers involved in training the Salvadoran armed forces had remained constant since the middle of 1981. The comparison between El Salvador and Vietnam – to which President Kennedy committed 10,000 soliders and President Johnson 500,000 – reflected the obsession of American journalists with a tragic past. The prominence and validation given to such comparisons at the expense of Reagan’s comments about democracy demonstrates how journalists’ selection and shaping of their articles’ content enables them to promote unequivocal and highly controversial interpretrations of political events without violating official standards of what constitutes objectivity. The de-emphasis of Reagan’s comments about democracy also demonstrated an unwillingness or inability to grasp the President’s main point: that whereas the United States had lost hearts and minds by not even trying to promote democracy in Vietnam, it had already played a decisive role in the holding of internationally-monitored elections in El Salvador.

Since I don't know how to do footnotes with Blogger, I'll just state for the record that both newspaper articles cited above were from March 5, 1983. Both appeared on the front page. The quote from LeoGrande is on page 201 of the hardcover edition.

In the context of American politics circa 1983, this sort of partiality in the media obviously favored liberals and damaged conservatives. To some degree, this sort of coverage was a response to the extremely deceptive way in which administration officials described the conflict in El Salvador, primarily for the purpose of covering up gross violations of human rights. However, my sense is that the unjustified credibility and prominence given to the Vietnam scenario reflected an honest assessment by journalists of what was most likely to happen in Central America.

By the same token, a quagmire is what journalists honestly saw ten days into the invasion of Iraq and continued to see thereafter. If such journalists were more aware of their own history, however, they might developer a sharper eye for the direction of current events.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:58 AM by Patrick Belton  

NEWS THAT MAKES PATRICK HAPPY: Belton.com notes Belton is "consistently delicious." News that makes Patrick sad: per Belton.org, May 13-16 have been designated as Clean Up Belton Days. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:27 AM by Patrick Belton  

SOMEONE NEW WILL BE SIGNING C: John Scarlett, an Oxford man. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:46 AM by Patrick Belton  

AT A TIME WHEN PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL, grasping after new depths of crassness, has begun to auction the very covers of the bases on its diamonds to advertisers, the fiftieth anniversary of Sir Roger Bannister's first sub-four minute mile as a 25-year old medical student at Oxford comes as a welcome reminder of what we once had in sport and have lost.

Contemporary sport, professionalised and commercialised beyond all ability to relate to the massive egos of its performers, may attain to greater heights of athleticism, but has lost its capacity to inspire. It is difficult to pinpoint precisely where this took place, but it happened somewhere along the path between Bannister's muted, humble celebratory pint in an Oxford pub after he downplayed the greatest athletic achievement of humankind to reporters with the sportsmanship, decency, and sense of fair play of the England of his generation; and the more recent courtroom appearances, titanic salaries and athletic shoe sponsorship contracts, and rather less than inspiring behaviour off of the field of Pete Rose, Michael Jordan, Daryl Strawberry, or any of the other current legions of interchangeable bearers of Nike contracts whom history will fairly soon forget.

The man who from across the world raced Sir Roger to the mark and soon followed him across it, John Landy, is now remembered for his decision to stop racing in the 1956 Australian Championships, after he accidentally clipped the heels of world junior mile record holder, Ron Clarke, who fell. Landy (who would go on in life to serve as Governor of New Victoria) stopped and ran back to help Clarke to his feet, made sure that his competitor was all right, and then reentered the race - whereupon he caught the other runners and won the race and championship with a time of 4 minutes, 4.2 seconds.

The two men would race head-to-head in the 'Race of the Century' after both had broken the four-minute barrier. Bannister bested Landy, passing him on his right in the final stretch as Landy looked to his left. Landy accepted his defeat with grace, saying 'the better man won'; it was only much later revealed he had run with four stitches in his foot, the result of stepping on a flash bulb in bare feet.

Sir Roger told the BBC, "It may seem incredible today that the world record at this classic distance could be set by an amateur athlete, in bad weather, on a university running track."

Incredible indeed - both in the sense of unbelievable, and extraordinary. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:46 AM by Patrick Belton  

PART ONE of a three-part series on democracy prospects in Pakistan is up now on Winds of Change. (Oh, and it's by me....) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:44 AM by Patrick Belton  

OKAY I'M BIASED, BUT CONGRATULATIONS, Rachel!

Also, I generally don't tend to disagree with David that often, except for when it happens to be really funny to do so ... but the way I remember the anecdote is that when one certain unnamed distinguished Oxford academic (who may or may not be one of our advisors) introduced a sentence with "So when England entered World War Two against Germany," a booming, but not instantly intelligible, Scottish accent emitted "Bri'ain, no' 'England" (apostrophes to denote very strong glottal stops). To which Dr Khong this distinguished Oxford academic said, and I quote, "What?" The accent obligingly repeated itself. Finally, at length, and after several repetitions, the DOA availed himself of the translation services of the first several rows of students, who helpfully translated Scots-to-Malaysian English for him, apologised profusely to the accent and went on. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:44 AM by David Adesnik  

NOT A FOOL, JUST A SNOB: CH writes:

Firstly, for someone who spent any time in the UK, you should know that "England" and "United Kingdom" are not synonymous. Anyone who posts a Blog on politics, and one named after a City in the UK, without knowing this rather elementary fact is automatically subtracting from his credibility somewhat.

As CH points out, I have made a terribly obvious mistake. How could I not know that without Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland there would be no United Kingdom?

Well, let me tell you a story. In my first year at Oxford, a lecturer concluded a sentence with the observation that "the English defeated the Germans in World War I." Whereupon a powerful Scottish voice boomed out from the back of the lecture hall: "It was the British that defeated the Germans in World War I. The British!"

All I can say in my own defense is that I am not ignorant, but that I have given in to the self-congratulatory chauvinism of those who live in Southeastern England and confuse it with the whole of the UK. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:25 PM by David Adesnik  

WHY DOESN'T THIS HAPPEN MORE OFTEN? From the New Yorker:

On the day of Saddam Hussein’s capture, last December, the left-leaning political weekly The Nation celebrated its hundred-and-thirty-eighth birthday. It was a Sunday night, and the weather was dreadful—forbiddingly cold and wet, heavy snow giving way to sleet...

Toward the dessert (chocolate torte) portion of the evening, Uma Thurman rose to introduce a special guest: Aaron McGruder, the creator of the popular and subversive comic strip “The Boondocks,” who, as it happens, had travelled farther than anyone else to be there, all the way from Los Angeles. McGruder, one of only a few prominent African-American cartoonists, had been making waves in all the right ways, poking conspicuous fun at Trent Lott, the N.R.A., the war effort. An exhibition of his comic strips—characters with Afros and dreadlocks drawn in a style borrowing heavily from Japanese manga,with accentuatedforeheads and eyes—was on display in the Metropolitan Club’s Great Hall. It seemed to be, as a Nation contributor said later, “his coronation as our kind of guy.”

But what McGruder saw when he looked around at his approving audience was this: a lot of old, white faces. What followed was not quite a coronation. McGruder, who rarely prepares notes or speeches for events like this, began by thanking Thurman, “the most ass-kicking woman in America.” Then he lowered the boom. He was a twenty-nine-year-old black man, he said, who got invited to such functions all the time, so you could imagine how bored he was. He proceeded to ramble, at considerable length, and in a tone, as one listener put it, of “militant cynicism,” with a recurring theme: that the folks in the room (“courageous”? Please) were a sorry lot.

He told the guests that he’d called Condoleezza Rice, the national-security adviser, a mass murderer to her face; what had they ever done? (The Rice exchange occurred in 2002, at the N.A.A.C.P. Image Awards, where McGruder was given the Chairman’s Award; Rice requested that he write her into his strip.) He recounted a lunch meeting with Fidel Castro. (He had been invited to Cuba by the California congresswoman Barbara Lee, who is one of the few politicians McGruder has praised in “The Boondocks.”) He said that noble failure was not acceptable. But the last straw came when he “dropped the N-word,” as one amused observer recalled. He said—bragged, even—that he’d voted for Nader in 2000. At that point, according to Hamilton Fish, the host of the party, “it got interactive.”

Eric Alterman, a columnist for The Nation, was sitting in the back of the room, next to Joe Wilson, the Ambassador. He shouted out, “Thanks for Bush!” Exactly what happened next is unclear. Alterman recalls that McGruder responded by grabbing his crotch and saying, “Try these nuts.” Jack Newfield, the longtime Village Voice writer, says that McGruder simply dared Alterman to remove him from the podium. When asked about this incident later, McGruder said, “I ain’t no punk. I ain’t gonna let someone shout and not go back at him.”

Alterman walked out. “I turned to Joe and said, ‘I can’t listen to this crap anymore,’” he remembers. “I went out into the Metropolitan Club lobby—it’s a nice lobby—and I worked on my manuscript.”

Newfield joined in the heckling, as did Stephen Cohen, a historian and the husband of Katrina vanden Heuvel. “It was like watching LeRoi Jones try to Mau-Mau a guilty white liberal in the sixties,” Newfield says. “It was out of a time warp. Who is he to insult people who have been putting their careers and lives on the line for equal rights since before he was born?”

By the time McGruder had finished, and a tipsy Joe Wilson took the microphone to deliver his New Year’s Resolutions, perhaps half the guests had excused themselves to join Alterman in the lobby. A Nation contributor estimated that McGruder had offended eighty per cent of the audience. “Some people still haven’t recovered,” he said, sounding thrilled.

“At a certain point, I just got the uncomfortable feeling that this was a bunch of people who were feeling a little too good about themselves,” McGruder said afterward. “These are the big, rich white leftists who are going to carry the fight to George Bush, and the best they can do is blame Nader?”

When I started to read The Boondocks, I came to the immediate conclusion that Aaron McGruder was a genius. After 9/11, I discovered that the only thing McGruder knew how to write about was race. He knows jacksh** about politics. But, hey, nobody's perfect. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:15 PM by David Adesnik  

DEUTSCHLAND UBER ALLES (ODER MINDESTENS ENGLAND): While it isn't hard to mock Italy for its revolving door governments, the harder question to answer is whether this sort of unstable arrangement actually hurts the substantive aspects of the policymaking process.

Answer: I don't know. But if we are going to turn this into a competition about length and endurance, then I will feel compelled to point out that the German record of stable government makes the British record look positively Italian.

From 1949 to 1969, every German chancellor was a Christian Democrat. The first and foremost of the chancellors was Konrad Adenauer, who served from 1949 to 1963. More than any other individual, he made West German democracy a reality. What Iraq needs right now is its own Konrad Adenauer.

After Adenauer, Ludwig Erhard and Kurt Georg Kiesinger each served for three years. Then, for thirteen years, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) was the party of government. Its first chancellor, Willy Brandt, served for five years before resigning because of a spy scandal. Its second chancellor, Helmut Schmidt served for eight years, until unseated by Helmut Kohl.

Kohl, also a Christian Democrat, served for 16 years. In 1998, Gerhard Schroeder defeated Kohl and still governs. All in all, Germany has had 7 chancellors in 55 years. In those same 55 years, the party in power has only changed 3 times.

Message to England: You lose. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:33 PM by Patrick Belton  

ITALY SETS A NATIONAL RECORD tomorrow as Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government surpasses in longevity any previous Italian government since the Second World War. It has lasted - wait for it - three years in office.

By comparison, here are the governments in post-war Britain which have lasted at least three years, by prime minister:

Margaret, now Baronness, Thatcher, 11 years
Tony Blair, 7 years, thus far
John Major, 7 years
Harold, later Baron, Wilson, 6 years; a second term ran 2 years
Harold Macmillan, subsequently Earl of Stockton, 6 years
Clement, subsequently Earl, Attlee, 6 years
Sir Winston Churchill, 5 years, 4 years
Edward Heath, 4 years
And the government of James (now Baron) Callaghan was in office 3 years, tying Berlusconi's mark.

By contrast, here are the governments of post-war Britain to have lasted less than three years:

Sir Anthony Eden, subsequently Earl of Avon, 2 years
Sir Alec Douglas-Home, 1 year

For Italy's part, in that period it has had 59 governments (Ferruccio Parri, June 21, 1945 - Dec. 8, 1945, Alcide De Gasperi, Dec. 10, 1945 - July 1, 1946; Alcide De Gasperi, July 13, 1946 - Jan. 20, 1947; Alcide De Gasperi, Feb. 2, 1947 - May 13, 1947; Alcide De Gasperi, May 31, 1947 - May 12, 1948; Alcide De Gasperi May 31, 1947 - May 12, 1948; Alcide De Gasperi, May 13, 1948 - Jan. 26, 1950; Alcide De Gasperi, Jan. 27, 1950 - July 16, 1951; Alcide De Gasperi, July 26, 1951 - June 29, 1953; Alcide De Gasperi, July 16, 1953 - July 28, 1953; Giuseppe Pella, Aug. 17, 1953 - Jan. 5, 1954; Amintore Fanfani, Jan. 18, 1954 - Jan. 30, 1954, Mario Scelba, Feb. 10, 1954 - June 22, 1955, Antonio Segni, July 6, 1955 - May 6, 1957, Adone Zoli, May 19, 1957 - June 19, 1958, Amintore Fanfani, July 1, 1958 - Jan. 26, 1959, Antonio Segni, Feb. 15, 1959 - Feb. 24, 1960, Fernando Tambroni, Mar. 25, 1960 - July 19, 1960, Amintore Fanfani, July 26, 1960 - Feb. 2, 1962, Amintore Fanfani, Feb. 21, 1962 - May 16, 1963, Giovanni Leone, June 21, 1963 - Nov. 5, 1963, Aldo Moro, Dec. 4, 1963 - June 26, 1964, Aldo Moro, July 22, 1964 - Jan. 21, 1966, Aldo Moro, Feb. 23, 1966 - June 5, 1968, Giovanni Leone, June 24, 1968 - Nov. 19, 1968, Mariano Rumor, Dec. 12, 1968 - July 5, 1969, Mariano Rumor, Aug. 5, 1969 - Feb. 7, 1970, Mariano Rumor, Mar. 27, 1970 - July 6, 1970, Emilio Colombo, Aug. 6, 1970 - Jan. 15, 1972, Giulio Andreotti, Feb. 17, 1972 - Feb. 26, 1972, Giulio Andreotti, June 26, 1972 - June 12, 1973, Mariano Rumor, July 7, 1973 - March 2, 1974, Mariano Rumor, March 14, 1974 - Oct. 3, 1974, Aldo Moro, Nov. 23, 1974 - Jan. 7, 1976, Aldo Moro, Feb. 12, 1976 - April 30, 1976, Giulio Andreotti, July 29, 1976 - Jan. 16, 1978, Giulio Andreotti, March 11, 1978 - Jan. 31, 1979, Giulio Andreotti, March 20, 1979 - March 31, 1979, Francesco Cossiga, Aug. 4, 1979 - March 19, 1980, Francesco Cossiga, April 4, 1980 - Sept. 27, 1980, Arnaldo Forlani, Oct. 18, 1980 - May 26, 1981, Giovanni Spadolini, June 28, 1981 - Aug. 7, 1982, Giovanni Spadolini, Aug. 23, 1982 - Nov. 13, 1982, Amintore Fanfani, Dec. 1, 1982 - April 29, 1983, Bettino Craxi, Aug. 4, 1983 - June 27, 1986, Bettino Craxi, Aug. 1, 1986 - March 3, 1987, Amintore Fanfani, April 17, 1987 - April 28, 1987, Giovanni Goria, July 28, 1987 - March 11, 1988, Ciriaco De Mita, April 13, 1988 - May 19, 1989, Giulio Andreotti, July 22, 1989 - March 29, 1991, Giulio Andreotti, April 12, 1991 - April 24, 1992, Giuliano Amato, June 28, 1992 - April 22, 1993, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, April 28, 1993 - April 16, 1994, Silvio Berlusconi, May 10, 1994 - December 22, 1994, Lamberto Dini, January 17, 1995 - May 17, 1996, Romano Prodi, May 18, 1996 - October 9, 1998, Massimo D'Alema, October 21, 1998 - December 18, 1999, Massimo D'Alema, December 22, 1999 - April 19, 2000, Giuliano Amato, April 25, 2000 - June 11, 2001, Silvio Berlusconi, June 11, 2001 - present) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:59 PM by Patrick Belton  

IRAN. IRAQ. WAR.: MEMRI has an article describing Iranian influence in the Shi'a rebellion. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:24 PM by David Adesnik  

WHEN ZIONISTS ATTACK...they turn heads in Saudi Arabia. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:18 PM by David Adesnik  

WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS: Unbelievable. Figuratively, not literally. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:59 PM by David Adesnik  

UNEXPECTED TO SAY THE LEAST: The Moving Ideas Network, sponsored by The American Prospect, has set up a comprehensive set of links to liberal and progressive resources" on the web.

In addition to Kos, TPM and Atrios, Moving Ideas' list of top ten progressive blogs includes, strangely enough, OxBlog. I take that as a compliment. It has always been our aspiration to speak to both sides of the political spectrum. Moreover, as committed idealists, we have no reservations about describing ourselves as progressive, even if most self-described progressives are further to the left.

Nonetheless, I am surprised that Moving Ideas didn't put some sort of warning label on us which advises readers that we are liberal hawks or open-minded neo-cons or something like that. While we hope to win ourselves a reputation as independent and principled centrists, our persistent criticism of the media and conditional support for the the President's position on Iraq clearly differentiate us from most liberals and progressives.

I guess the purpose of this post is to ensure that any one who discovers OxBlog via Moving Ideas doesn't get the wrong idea about who we are. As with most blogs, the best way to find out what OxBlog stands for is just to keep on scrolling down. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:42 PM by David Adesnik  

HOW MCKINSEY CREATED JAYSON BLAIR: Not sure what I think of this idea, but it's certainly a new perspective on the issue. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:16 AM by Patrick Belton  

ONE IN FOUR, MAYBE MORE? The Royal Mail loses 14.4 million pieces of mail annually, according to a watchdog report.

Note to Oxford: my first 150 pages of my dissertation are taking so long because I...errr...mailed in the first draft and didn't keep a copy? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:41 AM by Patrick Belton  

LET US PRAISE FAMOUS MEN. And women. Georgiana Gerlinger Stevens, OSS veteran and correspondent for the Atlantic and Economist, rest in peace. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:01 AM by Patrick Belton  

NEWS RELEASE: UNITED NATIONS LOSES ALL REMAINING MORAL CREDIBILITY. Sudan, which is currently in the midst of perpetrating genocide upon the tribal residents of its western Darfur region, has surpassing all imagination been permitted to retain by re-election its seat on the UN human rights commission. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:47 AM by Patrick Belton  

DEMOCRACY PROMOTION LISTSERV: Do any of our readers happen to be familiar with any academic or practitioner listserv which focuses principally on questions in democratization and democracy promotion? I had never yet come across one, and thought that if indeed there isn't a listserv in the area, then we might perhaps think about starting one through our foreign policy society. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:05 AM by David Adesnik  

HALFWAY THERE: I almost never read George Will, but the title of today's column grabbed me: "Time for Bush to See the Realities of Iraq". Just how far would Will go with his criticism? Pretty damn far. Will writes that

If any Americans want to be governed by politicians who short-circuit complex discussions by recklessly imputing racism to those who differ with them, such Americans do not usually turn to the Republican choice in our two-party system.

Sadly, Will's column leaves behind a strong start and degenerates into neo-con bashing. Yet just like NRO, Will refuses to name any of the neo-cons supposedly responsible for the quagmire. Why? Because Bush, Rice, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Powell were making the decisions. Not Wolfowitz.

Just as bad, Will says absolutely nothing about how deal with the situation in Iraq after proudly declaring that a true conservative would not seek to promote democracy in such an inhospitable climate. So has Will joined John Kerry in the stability camp? Or is it just time to pullout? Either way, Will shouldn't forget what Robert Kagan has pointed out: that both of those options court disaster -- and may be even harder to accomplish than just doing the right thing.

UPDATE: Right Coast has a deviously funny and insightful post about George Will and the bowtie crowd. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:48 AM by David Adesnik  

BETRAYING THEIR BROTHERS: Former MP Phil Carter has some very worthwhile thoughts on the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. Most jarring of all is his observation that the soldiers responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib have made the job of occupation that much harder for the rest of the armed forces. In short, Americans will die because of what Americans have done. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:36 AM by David Adesnik  

THE RIGHT KIND OF DUMMY: Ventriloquist-slash-blogger Joe Gandelman is guest blogging over at Dean's World. Check it out, especially Joe's post on Charlie Brown. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:23 AM by David Adesnik  

DON'T CHANGE A WORD: Robert Kagan hits the bulls-eye with his column on Iraq. It is that damn good. For more links about Iraq, head over to Instapundit. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:56 PM by David Adesnik  

STOP PLAYING WITH MY MONEY!!! Why didn't anyone tell me about the new Louisiana Purchase commemorative nickel? I was emptying pockets just now and saw what I figured must be a Canadian nickel, so I was feeling pretty ripped off. But then I took a closer look.

My first thought was: Which Bush administration offficial decided to mint a coin honoring successful American negotiations with France? Was this the brainchild of ironic liberal bureaucrats at the Treasury Department? Or had the neo-conservative cabal decided to mock the French for getting suckered in one of the worst real estate deals in recorded history?

As far as I can tell, the answer is 'neither'. Amazingly, the US Mint has designed a memorial to the Louisiana Purchase that doesn't even suggest that the French had anything to do with it. Instead, the back side of the nickel depicts an American soldier shaking hands with a Native American. Above the clasped hands are a peace pipe and a tomahawk.

Talk about no sense of irony. What do you suppose that the American soldier is telling his Native counterpart? "I just bought your home from the French"? As it turns out, the clasped hands & peace pipe design was first used on medals that the Jefferson administration minted in preparation for the Lewis & Clark expedition. The explorers then gave the medals to native chiefs and other dignitaries as signs of friendship.

The reverse of the friendship medals, much like today's nickels, had a portrait of Thomas Jefferson. What an egomaniac. Imagine if George Bush put his own portrait on the Iraqi dinar. Well, at least Bush is trying to promote democracy in Iraq. Jefferson and his successors were more interested in a permanent occupation. (I guess if the NYT were in business back then, it would insist that the United States had gotten itself into a quagmire in Nebraska.)

Anyhow, while we're on the subject of coins, I'd just like to state for the record that all the new state quarters are boring and dumb. Do I really need a picture of a race car on my Indiana quarter? No offense meant to any Hoosiers or racing fans (both of whom I like), but shouldn't our money be a little more dignified? What's next? A shirtless David Hasselhoff on the California quarter?

Also, I don't want there to be fifty different coins. Yes, I know the government makes a lot of money by creating instant collectibles. Even the new Jefferson nickels are expected to result in a $100 million profit. And it is good to see the government coming up with innovative market-based revenue plans. Maybe I could've accepted 13 quarters, one for each of the original states. But fifty is just ridiculous.

Oh, and while I'm ranting, I think that the next three Americans to get their own coins should be Harry Truman, Martin Luther King Jr. and Eleanor Roosevelt. They bumped Franklin off of the half dollar and replaced him with Kennedy in 1964. OK, so maybe they should've issued JFK coins for a couple of years as a tribute. But isn't Franklin just a little more important? And what exactly are we honoring Kennedy for? He got us into a quagmire!

MLK Jr. got shot four years after JFK and what did he get? Nothing. Why? Because that's the way The Man wanted it. It's not like I'm saying we should put Malcolm X on the dime. But what if we take JFK off the half dollar and give it to Martin? Or what about the golden dollar? It's not like too many people really care about Sacagawea.

Now, Harry Truman, what he really deserves is to be on the Russian ruble. Every time a Russian spends money in a free market, he or she has Harry Truman to thank. (We've heard rumors of the Reagan dime, but he isn't dead yet. And he didn't win the Cold War!) Of course, since Truman won't be getting his due from the Russians, I figure we should thank him for all that he did.

Finally, Eleanor Roosevelt. She was so multilateralist she helped found the United Nations. She also played a big role in coming up with its Declaration of Human Rights. And she's a woman. And she was gay. Now that's what I call killing two birds with one stone.

Finally thoughts? Yes. Put Jimmy Carter on a coin whose value is indexed to the rate of inflation. And is only legal tender in Europe. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:23 PM by Patrick Belton  

WE MAY NOT BE ABLE TO SINGLE-HANDEDLY DUMB DOWN AMERICA, BUT BY GOD WE'LL TRY, AWARD: Goes to USA Today, for managing to combine stunning amounts of both condescension and needless confusion in this answer:

Q: What is the formula for converting pressure in millibars of pressure to inches of mercury?

You don't really need a formula. The "standard" atmospheric pressure at sea level is 29.92 inches of mercury, or 1013.2 millibars. In other words, these numbers are the same, but in different measurement systems. Anyway, if you see a pressure on a weather map of, say, 1016 millibars, you can convert to inches of mercury by multiplying by 29.92 and dividing by 1013.2 to come up with 30.00 inches of mercury.

Why? Think of the rules for cancellation. When you multiply by inches of mercury and divide by millibars, the millibars cancel out and you're left with inches of mercury. And, it's OK to do the multiplication and division because the numbers represent the same air pressure. A number divided by itself is 1 and when you multiply a number by 1 you get the original number. To go the other way from inches of mercury to millibars, you just divide by inches of mercury and multiply by millibars. This method is a good way to do all sorts of conversions without memorizing a bunch of formulas, as long as you know one equivalent set of numbers in the two systems.

Or, for those of you who got lost somewhere in that mess of USA Today-speak, you could alternatively just use (milibars) * 0.02953 = (inches of mercury). (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:19 PM by Patrick Belton  

OXFORD MEETS BAYWATCH: Current Oxford graduate student Amanda Kempa competed in the world beach lifeguarding championship held, need you ask, in Los Angeles. Said Professor-to-be Kempa: "The first time we pulled out a kid, it was, like, what’s happening? At first, you can tell they were scared, because they don’t know what you’re going to do, but then, it’s like ‘Can we do it again?'”
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# Posted 5:21 PM by Patrick Belton  

PAGING DAVID: I think we've found you your next research project for after your dissertation.... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:03 AM by Patrick Belton  

WHAT AMERICA DOES WITH ITS HEGEMONY WATCH: This via email from Baghdad (and just in the off chance you won't be hearing about it on the evening news):

A new multipurpose recreation facility has opened in the Al Dura neighborhood, benefiting thousands of residents in Baghdad's Al Rashid district.

The Al Dura Sports Complex includes a soccer field with bleachers, basketball court, a place for volleyball and a playground with several types of exercise equipment. The area was a vacant lot full of trash when the project started. It is an example of renovating and improving areas for public recreation called for by Ambassador Bremer in his Baghdad Beautiful initiative.

This success is the result of neighborhood District Advisory Council (DAC) leaders working together with the US Army First Cavalry Division to determine a project which would most help the area.

The ribbon cutting ceremony opening the facility was led by Sami Ahmed Sharif, the Al Rashid DAC Chairman, and Colonel Stephen Lanza of the US Army First Cavalry Division. Also in attendance were Baghdad City Councilman Sabin Radhi Zubun and US Army Brigadier General Jeffrey Hammond. Over 500 local residents, mostly children and their parents, attended the ceremony

Councilman Saba' Radhi Zubun said, "This will benefit many families in my district. For example, 60 soccer teams will play here in a tournament soon. And there are five schools with over 1,000 children each who can use this facility."

The children liked it as well. A twelve year old named Jafa said, "This is a very good idea. I play soccer, and my brother is on the field right now playing for the Iraqi Police Service team." His friend Mustafa added, "Thank you, American Army!" A soccer game was played between the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps (ICDC) and the Iraqi Police Service (IPS). IPS was victorious by a score of 2 to 0.

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# Posted 5:20 AM by Patrick Belton  

AND SEMANTIC (NOT SEMITIC) ACCENT ANECDOTE OF THE DAY: This comes via our good friend Josh Cherniss (this is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true).

Roughly eight years ago, a Yale professor with a strongly Southern accent was giving the final lecture of his class on Faulkner, and advised his students that in studying for the final exam, they should focus particular attention upon "Sarah Sally Dang." Mystified, the students spent the entirety of reading week searching through the entire Faulknerian corpus and critical literature in vain for any mention of Sally Dang. Finally, with no one having encountered any such thing, they arrived at the exam confident that their professor had played an odd, and undoubtedly humourous, joke on them, the punch line of which he was about to reveal.

At precisely which point they received their blue books, and eight tightly spaced pages of questions about As I Lay Dying. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:08 AM by Patrick Belton  

OXBLOG AND OPTIMISTS CLUB JOINT HEADLINE OF THE DAY PRIZE: "Qatar plans tourist boom" (CNN)

(Incidentally, Josh, David, and I applied to join the Oxfordshire Optimists Club, but personally I don't think they'll let us in.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:23 AM by Daniel  

IS IT GOOD FOR THE JEWS? I just got back from the 5th Annual New England Leadership AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) dinner and had a great time. For a few hours, I forgot that I was in law school and became that guy at Oxford who always talks about America and Israel and finds a way to work it into every conversation. However, instead of running away, people nodded and kept wanting to discuss it! In that way it was not like Oxford. Also, unlike Oxford, everybody seemed pretty pro-Israel.

The event began with a reception for AIPAC Club Members, which I believe refers to those who give AIPAC many thousands of dollars (not tax deductible, mind you). We did not give many thousands of dollars, but made our way in. They had a great spread with delicious sushi (kosher, of course). We proceeded upstairs to the main event, where elected officials from New England competed in a game of "Who Could Possibly Be More Pro Israel Than Me?." After some introductory remarks, they played a video championing AIPAC's importance, including television news clips where news anchors referred to AIPAC's power. The video also showed Clinton Bush, Daschle, Sharon, Barak, Peres, and Rabin at AIPAC events where they too talked about AIPAC's importance.

Only nerds who studied AIPAC and America's relationship with Israel would have noted the irony of AIPAC including a clip of Rabin's praise for it. In late 1992, after one of AIPAC's VPs had said Rabin had "chutzpuh" for proposing territorial concessions, he reportedly scolded the organization's heads in a closed meeting, saying "You have failed at everything. You waged lost battles. You caused damage to Israel. You created too much antagonism." The Israel Policy Forum was created in 1993, a primary purpose of which was to create American support for Rabin's efforts (AIPAC was seen as dragging its feet in this regard). Rabin's confrontation with AIPAC makes sense: it is much easier to defend an embattled Israel, and when it seemed like Israel was no longer embattled and did not need to be defended from its enemies (or certainly less so), then AIPAC has lost its cause. It just seemed a bit awkward for them to include a clip of his praise for the organization. Or maybe I'm just a nerd. People nearly hissed when they showed clips of Arafat screaming in Arabic and grisly suicide bombing scenes. Those who had to tone down their anti-Arafat rhetoric during the early Oslo years must have wanted to say "I told you so" a few times to a few people.

Susan Collins (R-ME) gave a nice keynote address in which she addressed Israel's challenges as well as those faced by Jews worldwide. She finished strong with a quote from Amos Oz about how Jews in Europe used to be told to go to Palestine, and now they are told to leave Palestine...." She finished with the words "never again" and the crowd gave her a standing ovation.

The experience confirmed my feelings about how AIPAC's opponents and the organization itself often employ identical rhetoric: they say that AIPAC is all powerful. Its critics can do this as a way to ignore the considerable non-Jewish support that exists for Israel absent any lobby group, and AIPAC can use it as a fundraising tool--"you can support the most powerful organization affecting America's relationship with Israel!" It was nice to see so many supporters of Israel in one place, but there were several reminders that we are a long way away from Arab-Israeli peace. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:47 PM by David Adesnik  

MASTERING THE ART OF COUNTERINSURGENT WARFARE: Belmont Club has a pair of interesting posts about Coalition forces' subtle integration of military and political initiatives in Fallujah and Najaf. I hope his analysis is correct. If it is, we should see the results soon enough. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:40 AM by Patrick Belton  

THE CPA IS INDICATING BGEN Kimmitt will be making an important announcement this afternoon, at 2:30 Iraqi time.

UPDATE: And here is the announcement - an American hostage, Thomas Hamill, has escaped from his captors. He returned to the CPA, and indicated that he was healthy and eager to get back to work.

In other recent news, the tabloid photographs of British soldiers abusing an Iraqi prisoner appear to have been fabricated, according to recent reports. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:50 PM by Patrick Belton  

JUSTICE DAVID SOUTER is one of the nicest, most moderate and thoughtful people to presently occupy a position in the American bench. Which is why this is really awfully sad. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:31 PM by Patrick Belton  

HEY, LOOKEY, EUROPE JUST GOT ANOTHER TEN MEMBERS!

With that said, Rachel and I are off now to Magdalen to hear the May Morning Hymn Hymnus Eucharisticus sung, per tradition, dreadfully early on May morning annually as a requiem for the soul of Henry VII. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:19 PM by David Adesnik  

VEEPSTAKES: It takes guts for a political scientist to actually predict something. That's because all that political scientists really have are their reputations, and they can't afford to put those on the line. So here's a shout out to Larry Sabato, who isn't afraid to put his money where his mouth is. Click here for a digest of Larry's latest picks, via TMV. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:50 PM by David Adesnik  

MEMO TO VILLAGE: OUR IDIOT(ARIAN) IS LOOSE. This is the second time in 10 days that I have felt compelled to use the 'I'-word. It is also the second time in 10 days that I have felt compelled to use this word as a result of something said at a dinner sponsored by my own research institute. Finally, it is the second time in 10 days that I have felt compelled to use this word because of someone's unjust criticism of Israel and extreme naivete with regard to Palestinian 'activists'.

So here's the story: Our guest tonight was a very high-ranking official at the United Nations. Our discussion focused primarily on Iraq. It was a fascinating discussion upon which I will elaborate in a later post. An important concern raised in the discussion was the absence of an Arab model for Iraqi democrats to emulate. On that point, a question was asked by a certain graduate fellow in international relations known for her uncritical embrace of Palestinian 'activists'. If she were just one of the Trotskyites or Lyndon LaRouche supporters hawking flyers in Harvard Square, I would ignore her. But her intention is to become a professor. Therefore, she will be in a position to access hundreds of students who may not have access to another credible source of information. That is sad.

Now here is what my colleague asked: Given that the United States continues to have strong alliances with Arab dictatorships and continues to endorse the Israeli occupation of Palestine, might it be said that the United States has prevented the emergence of an Arab model of democracy for Iraq to emulate? All right. That is a standard argument found in the pages of The Nation. In fact, the President himself has said that the United States must no longer embrace Arab dictatorships.

But here's what really left my jaw hanging open. Before turning the floor back over to our guest, my colleague added that the first Intifada was a landmark example of democratic participation in Arab politics that the United States and Israel crushed without a second thought. Oh my God. The first Intifada happens to be one of the subjects of my colleague's doctoral dissertation. She will be arguing in journals and lecture halls that this was the lost model of Arab democracy.

My only consolation is that sometimes, people like this get their comeuppance. A number of months ago, this same colleague of mine delivered a paper on the subject of non-violent resistance. Her case study was the first Intifada. In the audience there happened to be a former Israeli soldier who is also a current graduate fellow at Harvard. He said to her: I served in the occupied territories during the first Intifada. Was it a non-violent rock that Palestinian rioters used to crush the face of one of my close friends? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:19 PM by David Adesnik  

JUSTICE, NOT FORGIVENESS: There is no excuse for the crude and humiliating treatment of Iraqi prisoners. The United States Army must punish the soldiers involved, including all those whose passivity and neglect enabled this shameful behavior to take place. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:30 PM by Patrick Belton  

NEWSPAPER REPORTING ON SCENARIOS FOR HANDLING SECURITY AMID THE HANDOVER: CS Monitor has a roundup. Andrew has more. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:58 AM by Patrick Belton  

IF YOU HAVEN'T YET READ DAN DREZNER'S TNR ESSAY today on why, counterintuitively, better prospects in Iraq seem to help Kerry, while Bush's lead has widened over the course of the Iraqi insurgency - then shoo!

(And Rachel has asked me to point out that Dan's blog is required reading for Truman National Security Project members, too.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:58 AM by Patrick Belton  

OXBLOG FRIDAY AFTERNOON REAL-LIFE-IS-ODDER-THAN-FICTION ROUNDUP:

• Most ambassadors to the UN are rather sad at the moment because....because...they're not being permitted to play the part of UN diplomats in an upcoming Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn film. Thus Inocencio Arias, Spanish ambassador to the UN, who was set to play a prime minister: "It was my dream that I was going to be in a movie with Sydney Pollack directing. My opportunity to have a nomination for the Oscar next year went away because of some stupid regulation."
  
  Jordan's UN ambassador Prince Zeid Al Hussein, similarly miffed, said: "It's a great shame we weren't allowed to have bit parts in this movie because we're very familiar with the setting."
  
  
• Only in Germany....A band in Germany, which performs only with giant panda heads covering their faces, is only releasing its subsequent albums in the form of mobile phone ringtones.
  
  
• The founder of terrorist organisation Ansar al-Islam lost his temper when a female Muslim comedian, having secured the cleric's permission to perform "a little test to see if he was a fundamentalist," walked on to the stage and picked up the cleric, while declaring to her audience "a man who can be carried by a woman can't be a fundamentalist." The cleric, Mullah Krekar, exploded in rage while the audience convulsed in laughter.
  
  
• Rhea County, Georgia Tennessee - whose principal, belated claim to fame had merely been providing the venue for the Scopes trial - briefly banned homosexuals by a unanimous vote of its county commissioners. When the commissioners were advised at a subsequent meeting by the county attorney that they could not actually ban homosexuals, they voted to rescind the ban, and have subsequently declined comment.
  
  
• Harvard Professor Weldong Xu, having raised $600,000 to fund a fraudulent nonexistent project of SARS research in China, then proceeded to blow the entire amount on a Nigerian email scam. (Note to self: remember to apply for professorship at Harvard - may actually be qualified!)
  

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# Posted 5:57 AM by Patrick Belton  

TODAY'S THE DEADLINE FOR OUR FOREIGN POLICY ESSAY CONTEST: Which means, of course, that there's still plenty of time to enter. Details are here. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:13 AM by Patrick Belton  

WHILE MOST COMMENTATORS ARE FOCUSING ON HIS FOREIGN POLICY or personality, the Economist displays a titular interest this week in Kerry's economic policies. Its verdict? There's good and bad there - first, the good. Kerry's plan to extend government health care to the uninsured is ambitious but more sensible than the early Clinton administration's proposal to reorganise the entire health-care sector. Also, in sterling contrast to the instincts of the current administration, he touts fiscal discipline (halving the budget deficit, and rolling back tax cuts on individuals earning over $200,000 a year).

Then, the worrying: while his trade rhetoric is nowhere near the protectionist nonsense touted by, for instance, the otherwise attractive Senator Edwards, in his desire to win over the battleground rust-belt states of the mid-west, Senator Kerry's trade policy is oriented around getting tough on China and Japan for manipulating their currency, and going after other countries engaging in unfair trade practices with the "Super 301" process. While this, erm, unilateralism isn't Ross Perot, neither is it the Clinton administration's leadership of new free trade rounds, either.

Finally, the inevitable: Candidate Kerry is not above subordinating the sensible, centrist economic instincts displayed by his Senate-floor counterpart to the dictates of appealing to an electorate. For instance, he has now distanced himself from his earlier bold proposals to restructure Social Security, claiming now that Social Security can survive as is without structural adjustment, raised reitrement age or premuims, or lowered benefits. Which, of course, is pure poppycock, but perhaps inevitable. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:44 AM by Patrick Belton  

A GOOD PART OF THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH'S ALLURE is that he's the only royal you could even remotely imagine having a pint with. This becomes increasingly the case as the proposition comes to involve an increasing number of pints. Case in point: a recent authorised portrait of Prince Phillip by avant-garde artist Pearson Wright, which depicted him with a fly perched on his finger and a naked torso modeled on that of an elderly homeless man. A more remote royal might simply have glared, but the response of the Prince Consort was precisely that of a middle-aged Londonner with a middling good-natured sense of humour: "Gadzooks - as long as I don't have to have it on my wall" and, asked whether he thought it looked like him, a candid "I bloody well hope not."

(As a further note, when Rachel and I were invited over to meet the family in August, he was, incidentally, by far the most friendly to us - which perhaps explains my source of personal bias. Admirable humility from someone whom the Pacific islanders on Tannu worship as a god.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:30 AM by Patrick Belton  

BRITISH CPA STAFFER RECEIVES AMERICAN AWARD FOR VALOR: This via email from the CPA press office, about a UK civilian who though injured saved the life of an army colonel and three others while under enemy fire:

Dr Andrew Rathmell, Director of Planning, Policy and Analysis at the Coalition Provisional Authority, today received the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Valor. The medal was presented by Ambassador L. Paul Bremer at a ceremony at the CPA Headquarters in Baghdad.

On January 21st 2004, Dr Rathmell was visiting the Forward Operating Base Warhorse in Baquba with civilian and military colleagues. While in Baquba, Dr Rathmell was caught in a mortar and rocket attack on the base. One mortar landed close to Dr Rathmell, and he was knocked to the ground, temporarily deafened by the blast. Despite his injury, Dr Rathmell was able to drag US Army Colonel Ralph Sabatino to safety, before running into the line of fire three more times to administer potentially life-saving first aid to others who were wounded, and tragically confirm that two soldiers were already dead.

As Ambassador Bremer presented the award to Dr Rathmell, he said "valor at risk of your own life requires strength of purpose sufficient to overcome the love of life, the fear of death. Andrew Rathmell is not a professional warrior, but he displayed the courage and coolness under fire to which all warriors aspire".

This might serve as a fairly moving reminder that even in our day, heroism is not dead. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:04 AM by David Adesnik  

IS SISTANI A FEMINIST? This post from NZ Bear may not answer the question, but it sure will make you laugh. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:48 PM by David Adesnik  

MEDALGATE II -- HEAVY MEDAL: Marine Rifleman (Ret.) JC writes that

Medals and ribbons are NOT considered to be interchangeable uniform accoutrements by anyone who served or is serving on active duty. In fact, in 1971, it would be possible for one to replace his ribbons with store bought official copies -- but not the medals. Medals were controlled items issued by the government. If you lost one (or several) they were hell to replace. John Kerry knew this then and knows it now.

That being the case, how do Kerry's explanations of the medal throwing incident stack up with it? JS writes:

Did you see the clip from the [1971] interview? [No, just read about it. -ed.] It was aired on Monday on The News on CNBC in a report from Kelly O'Donnell (the report was probably also shown on NBC Nightly News).

Here's a transcript of the clip:

INTERVIEWER: How many did you give back, John?

KERRY: I gave back -- I can't remember, six, seven, eight, nine medals (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

INTERVIEWER: Well, you were awarded the Bronze Star, a Silver Star, and three Purple Hearts.

KERRY: Well, and above that...

INTERVIEWER: Right.

KERRY: ... I gave back my others.

If you watch the clip, by "that" he was referring not to what he'd given back but to the interviewer's list of what he had been awarded; and by "I gave back my others" he meant: Yes, I was awarded those you just mentioned, but I was also awarded other decorations, and those are the ones I gave back (not the decorations you listed but the others).

That's a pretty good argument, but I'm not persuaded. When Kerry says "and above that...I gave back my others" he seems to be explaining how it was possible for him to have given back six or more medals if he'd only been awarded five. But that isn't the whole story. DC writes that

If you heard Kerry on Hardball last night or went to the site showing military ribbons with their medals attached to them, you would see that the medals are attached to the ribbons above them. Most soldiers don't usually wear the medals on their uniform, they only wear the ribbons. Purple Hearts, Bronze and Silver Stars all have corresponding medals. So when he said that in 1971 he threw his Bronze, Silver Star and Purple Hearts he was referring to the ribbons of the Silver and Bronze Star and the Purple Hearts. Ergo he didn't lie or mislead in 71 or 84 or now.

On Hardball he indicated he had gone to Washington with just his ribbons. Also the vets had initially come to Washington with no plan to toss medals. That was only decided the night before (with Kerry arguing against it and losing) because the Nixon administration had put up a fence which angered them. Military men or vets don't usually travel with their medals or wear the medals on their uniform. They wear the ribbons instead.

That seems like a good explanation, but then why does Kerry describe himself in the '71 interview as throwing back "medals"? If the distinction was so clear to all the veterans involved, why does Kerry continue to insist that "what I said was and back then, you know, ribbons, medals were absolutely interchangeable"?

By the way, I asked yesterday Kerry had gotten so defensive and tried to blame Medalgate on the GOP attack machine if he himself were responsible for it. As JS (same JS as above, same JS as yesterday, still doing research on OxBlog's behalf) points out, the only reason ABC got its hands on the '71 interview was that the GOP sent it to them. Still, it's sort of strange that Kerry is blaming the GOP for what he himself said (a long time ago).

Finally, we get to a letter from GH. He writes

I'm not the least convinced that Kerry was acting bravely during his three month stint in-country. Recall that he was awarded, at least, three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star, and a Silver Star. Many, including me, went in harm's way almost every day for a year or more and didn't collect an array like that.

I'm not sure what to say about that. As someone who has never put his life on the line for his country, Kerry's actions seem extremely impressive to me. But if his fellow veterans don't buy his story, then Kerry will pay for it at the polls.


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# Posted 6:24 PM by David Adesnik  

HOW THE NYT MANUFACTURES PUBLIC OPINION: Take a look at the front page of today's NY Times. When you're done looking at the stunning photo of colorfully-attired entrepreneurs in Bangladesh, look over to the headline at the top left that reads "Support For War Is Down Sharply, Poll Concludes".

That's some pretty big news, especially given that last weeks WaPo/ABC poll resulted in the headline "Poll Shows New Gains For Bush". So what happened? According to the first three grafs of the NYT article,

Support for the war in Iraq has eroded substantially over the past several months, and Americans are increasingly critical of the way President Bush is handling the conflict, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.

After initially expressing robust backing for the war, the public is now evenly divided over whether the United States military should stay for as long as it takes to stabilize Iraq or pull out as soon as possible, the poll showed.

Asked whether the United States had done the right thing in taking military action against Iraq, 47 percent of respondents said it had, down from 58 percent a month earlier and 63 percent in December, just after American forces captured Saddam Hussein. Forty-six percent said the United States should have stayed out of Iraq, up from 37 percent last month and 31 percent in December.

The first thing you need to know about the NYT poll is that there was a single question (#56) which asked

Looking back, do you think the United States did the right thing in taking military action against Iraq, or should the US have stayed out?

If you don't think that the US did the right thing, then you have to answer that it should've stayed out (or just not answer the question). I think that's somewhat of a misleading question, since there are probably a good number of Americans who believe that we did was right but, in hindsight, was a mistake. However, in order to get a fuller sense of why the NYT poll is misleading, you have to take a look at the sidebar entitled "Different Poll Results But Much in Common". The sidebar explains that

Wording differences among polls can [also] have a significant effect. In the ABC News/Washington Post poll, 51 percent said that the war in Iraq had been worth fighting, "all in all, considering the costs to the United States versus the benefits to the United States." That number was down from 56 percent in January and 59 percent in December. Forty-seven percent said it was not worth fighting, up from 41 percent in January and 39 percent in December...

Every polling organization has different ways of wording questions and of conducting surveys, but those methods tend to remain consistent over time within an organization. For this reason, the trends within an organization's polling are generally viewed as more relevant than the results from polls by different organizations within a short period of time

Now, I agree in principle that trends over time are an extremely important indicator of public opinion. But depending on what window of time you're looking at, trend lines can have a very different message. For example, the NYT started asking its 'done the right thing/should've stayed out' question (#56) in mid-December 2003. Thus, the 17 point decline among those who answered 'done the right thing' reflects the artificial high in support for the war that followed Saddam's capture. Moreover, there was only a 6 point decline from December to March, then an 11 point decline from March to April. Does that kind of single observation merit its own headline?

[CORRECTION APPENDED 5/9: JH points out that the NYT asked Question #56 both immediately before (Dec. 10-13) and immediately after (Dec. 14-16) Saddam's capture. There was only a one point difference between the answers. Thus, I was wrong to say that the 63 percent benchmark represented an artificial post-capture high.

One should point out, however, that the NYT had never asked Question #56 before Dec. 10-13/Dec. 14-16 and did not ask it again for a number of months. So first of all, there is no real benchmark against which to measure the mid-December results. This is especially important, since the second mid-December survey took place while the news of Saddam's capture had begun to spread. Second of all, one cannot confirm whether or not the December results were accurate since no further samples were taken until March.

By way of comparison, Question #13 in the WaPo survey (see below), which is analogous to Quesiton #56, was asked consistently over time. It demonstrated that there was, in fact, a post-capture high in support for the war, one which gradually dissipated thereafter.]

Perhaps. Before answering that question, take a look at the answer to Question #13 in the WaPo/ABC poll, which asked

All in all, considering the costs to the United States versus the benefits to the United States, do you think the war with Iraq was worth fighting, or not?

On April 18, there was a 51-47 margin in favor of 'It was worth fighting'. But what's really interesting is that the Post has been asking the exact same question at regular intervals since last April. By last July, support for the war had already fallen below 60 percent. In November if tell to 52 percent. It then rose to 59 after Saddam's capture before falling back to 51 percent today.

So if the NYT staff is so well aware of the important of trends over time, how did they manage to ignore the most important evidence against their conclusion that support for the war is dramatically down? Who knows.

Anyhow, I also think its extremely interesting that the NYT poll doesn't have a question like #11 in the WaPo poll, which asks respondents to say whether Bush or Kerry would deal better with a specific issue (taxes, healthcare, etc.). Instead, the NYT poll asks separate questions (#46 and #51) about whether Bush and Kerry will be able to handle the situation in Iraq effectively. Surprisingly, both men get around a 60-40 vote of confidence, with Kerry doing just slightly better. When it comes to fighting terrorism (Questions #47 and #51), both men get around a 75-25 vote of approval, with Bush supporters more likely to have a lot of confidence in the candidate.

Given that Bush continues to beat out Kerry by 30-point margins whenever voters are asked who will do a better job of fighting the war on terror, I think it's fair to say that asking separate questions about the candidates ability says very little about whom voters prefer. After all, the best way to explain why voters disapprove of how Bush is handling the situation in Iraq but still want to vote for him is that they think Kerry would do even worse.

In closing, I'd like to take a quick look at the second statistic that the NYT uses to demonstrate that suppor for the war has fallen sharply. According to Question #69, the public is evenly split at 46-46 about whether the US should stay in Iraq until it is a "stable democracy" or whether it should pull out "even if Iraq is not completely stable".

Again, the trend line on this question only goes back to last November, when the split was 49-43. It rose to 56-35 after Saddam's capture. Then, for some reason, the NYT didn't ask the question again until this past week. As a result, there was a sudden 10 percent drop in support for sticking it out.

The most comparable question to that in the WaPo/ABC poll is #17, whether the US should stay in Iraq until it restores order, even if that means taking more casualties. Surprisingly, the margin on that one is 66-33 in favor. But again, the question hadn't been asked since last fall, so there isn't much of a trend line to look out.

All in all, I'd say the NYT has a lot to learn about interpreting poll results and even more to learn about writing headlines.

# Posted 6:17 PM by Patrick Belton  

TEST-DRIVING GMAIL, PART DEUX: At one point last week, I reviewed Gmail here, on which I'd been allowed a test spin. (Hey, you think anybody would let me take out one of these next?) What I didn't yet have the ability to do was assess how Joe Google's latest project dealt with spam. So, I listed my gmail account, Patrick.Belton@gmail.com, on our blog. Once. Of the resulting 64 spam messages which winged their way to me in the following week, 50 went into the spam folder, 14 ended up in my inbox, and 3 more were from readers writing to offer me Nigerian diamonds. Thanks.

Note to Joe Google (actually, Sergey - and he sometimes wears a dress): you might want to work on the spam filter a bit more.

And note to everyone else: if you want to know how to amuse yourself with your Nigerian spammer, this guy's got the right idea. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:29 PM by Patrick Belton  

BUT I WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOU'RE REALLY FEELING: Harvard's Institute of Politics has released its annual study of undergraduate political attitudes, led by David King. Like always, it makes an interesting read. The surprising news is that centrists predominate among college students - the breakdown produces 29 percent secular centrists and 23 percent religious centrists, compared with 32 percent traditional liberals and a 16 percent traditional conservatives. The good news for the Senator is that college students are trending strongly toward him, toward the Democratic party, and souring on the war. The good news for the President is that swing voters - the two categories of centrists - are currently leaning toward him. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:27 AM by Patrick Belton  

KERRY'S IRANIAN-AMERICAN FUNDRAISER SUING THE IRANIAN STUDENTS: More here. Hassan Nemazee, a New York-based financier who favours closer ties with Iran and has raised $100,000 to date for the Kerry campaign, has taken the surprising step of taking the Iranian students' organisation to court to seek $10 million in damages. While details are a bit sketchy at the moment, Nemazee seems to be suing the students for this letter, in which they rather heatedly referred to him as an "agent."

An established Democratic fundraiser and longtime proponent of conciliation with the clerical government of Iran, Nemazee was denied an ambassadorship to Argentina in the Clinton administration when details of his past business dealings came to light. The entire latest affair seems rather silly all around, and above all regrettable as it seems to draw a further wedge between the Kerry camp and the much-needed cause of reform in Iran. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:29 AM by Patrick Belton  

A VICTORY FOR ANTI-ANTI-SEMITES: A few weeks ago, Josh had pointed out that the first of 1.75 million entries to appear for a Google search on "Jew" was, in actuality, an anti-Semitic site. As a result, we and a number of our blogosphere friends began a Google-bomb to instead propel Wikipedia's entry for the word Jew to the top of the search records. And, if you'd like to Google yourself to see, we can now happily report that the Wikipedia entry stands now proudly at the top!

An attempt by the anti-Semitic site's owners to vandalise the Wikipedia article notwithstanding, what's most noteworthy of mention is that the preponderant portion of the bloggers taking part in removing the vitriolic site from the top of the search results weren't even Jewish at all. Which reflects awfully well, I think, both on the great-spiritedness of the greatest portion of our society and that of the blogosphere. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:22 AM by Patrick Belton  

ANOTHER PAPER UP IN OUR THINK TANK: Yusuf Muntaz in our Asia program has just finished a stellar piece on US policy toward Sri Lanka and the conflict between its Sinhalese Buddhist-led national government and Tamil Tiger insurgency. His paper presents a nice review of US interests in the nation, connections between the Tamil insurgency and various criminal and terrorist organisations, and different strategies which Washington could adopt.

You can download it here. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:40 PM by David Adesnik  

MEDALGATE:

You write:

"But if someone asked me whether or not I had thrown away my medals, I'm pretty sure that I would be brave enough to tell the truth."

I guess you haven't had a chance to keep up on this issue. Check out Thomas Oliphant's column yesterday in the Boston Globe.

Salient points: (1) Kerry didn't have his medals with him that day (or the entire week in Washington, as it happened), only his ribbons, so that's what he threw. (2) "Medals" is often used in the military to include ribbons. It didn't occur to Kerry during those early interviews to make a distinction. [Emphasis added. -ed.] (3) Later in the day he returned to throw the medals of two other vets who couldn't be at the demonstration, at their request.

See the Oliphant piece for context. He was there, right behind Kerry in the line of vets tossing their medals.

There is no evidence anywhere that Kerry ever lied about whether he had thrown away his medals. It's an utterly bogus issue, and you ought to stop perpetuating it. You might even think about explaining to your readers that it *is* a bogus issue.

JS

To my mind, the italicized words above are the most important. Oliphant writes was that "It was clear from our [Oliphant and Kerry's] conversations back then and ever since that Kerry made no distinction among his various decorations, though others have." Yet according to ABC,

Kerry was asked [in 1971] if he gave back the Bronze Star, Silver Star and three Purple Hearts he was awarded for combat duty as a Navy lieutenant in Vietnam. "Well, and above that, [I] gave back the others," he said.

The statement directly contradicts Kerry's most recent claims on the disputed subject to the Los Angeles Times last Friday. "I never ever implied that I did it, " Kerry told the newspaper, responding to the question of whether he threw away his medals in protest.

If ABC has its story right, then Kerry didn't make a public distinction between medals and ribbons back in 1971 because he claimed to have given back both of them. But privately, Kerry understood the distinction, which is why kept the medals and gave back the ribbons. Anyhow, ABC also reports that

In 1984, when he first ran for the U.S. Senate, Kerry revealed he still had his medals. According to a Boston Globe report on April 15, 1984, union officials had expressed uneasiness with Kerry's candidacy because he had thrown his medals away. Kerry acknowledged the medals he threw away were, in fact, another soldier's medals. He reportedly invited a union official home to personally inspect his Silver Star, Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts, awarded for his combat duty as a Navy lieutenant.

In the 1971 Viewpoints interview, he made no mention of the ribbons or the medals belonging to another veteran.

And in 1988, Kerry again clarified his statement by saying he threw out ribbons he had been awarded for three combat wounds, but not his medals. "I was proud of my personal service and remain so," he told the National Journal.

Eight years later in 1996, Kerry said while he did throw out his ribbons, he didn't throw out his own medals because he "didn't have time to go home [to New York] and get them," he told The Boston Globe.

So what's really going on here? My guess is that Kerry himself forgot about the 1971 interview and was just as surprised as anyone else to see it broadcast on ABC. Thus, I don't think that Kerry was lying to Peter Jennings when he said he never even implied that he had thrown away the medals. But it's hard to avoid the conclusion that Kerry was consciously lying in 1971 if he claimed to have thrown away his medals after intentionally leaving them at home. I'd even speculate that Kerry was intentionally taking out insurance on his political future, since he knew that he was going to run on his war-hero image and couldn't do that if he'd thrown his medals away.

As for Kerry's inconsistent comments about the medals during his various Senate races, those aren't really worth bothering with. What really gets me is that on Good Morning America, Kerry tried to pin all the blame for this controversy on the GOP attack machine rather than recognize that his own questionable behavior was responsible for it. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:15 PM by David Adesnik  

THANKS, MOM: Mother Jones has posted the rest of George Packer's column on blogs. Kevin Drum adds his thoughts on the subject, which are slightly more critical than before. I still think that Packer is seriously underestimating the quality of what reads in the blogosphere, but I can't figure out why because we seem to read the same blogs. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:02 PM by David Adesnik  

QUESTIONS WITHOUT ANSWERS: The Christian Science Monitor is running a profile of Moqtada Sadr that provides a lot more information than usual about Sadr's influential father. This historical perspective is extremely important, given that Sadr's influence rests entirely on the legacy of his martyred father.

In spite of this historical perspective, however, the CSM profile leaves a lot of important questions unanswered. The profile suggests that the Sadr family's resentment of Ayatollah Sistani reflects the failure of the latter to speak out against Saddam during his reign. That makes sense, but I'd like to see some more evidence. One can also infer from the CSM article that the Sadr family's commitment to Islamic theocracy, which as far as I know, Sistani opposes.

But what is Islamic theocracy or wilayat al-faqih? Is there any room for democracy in Sadr's theocratic vision? The CSM tells us that Sadr wants to rebuild Iraq in the image of Iran. But does he want to create Khatami's Iran or Khomeini's Iran? Is there a place in Sadr's vision for Sunni muslims, both Arab and Kurd?

In its closing paragraph, CSM endorses the view that Sadr's current uprising is directed more at Sistani than at the Americans. That's plausible. But it raises an interesting question: What was Sadr's position on the invasion of Iraq before it happened? Having lost both his father and two of his brothers to Saddam, it seems that Moqtada must have looked forward to the American invasion, even if he saw it as a prelude to a struggle with Sistani.

That said, how has American behavior since last April compared with Sadr's expectations? Did his theological anti-Americanism lead him to expect vicious human rights abuses by American soldiers? Does he believe even now that the United States actually wants to hold elections and withdraw from Iraq? What does he think about Sistani's relationship with the Americans?

Finally, to what degree do the Shi'ites of Iraq share Sadr's beliefs? The CSM profile insists that

The younger Sadr has built on his father's popularity and created a militant Shiite movement that has eclipsed many in the more moderate Shiite majority.

At the same time, it acknowledges that Sadr's current revolt has failed. But why did it fail if Sadr has ample public support? Do many Shi'ites share his belief that Sistani sold out to Saddam? I don't know.

Up until now, every major American paper has reported that reverence for Sistani is universal. Is it possible to support both Sistani and Moqtada? Again, I don't know. All in all, CSM deserves credit for printing information that often gets overlooked by others. At the same time, its profile has only begun to scratch the surface. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:42 PM by David Adesnik  

BRITISH DIPLOMATS REVOLT: Greg Djerejian analyzes a harsh letter sent to Tony Blair by scores of former diplomats, including what the Financial Times describes as "the cream of Foreign Office expertise in the 1990s".

The immediate cause of the diplomats' revolt is Blair's implicit support for the Bush-Sharon entente re: Gaza. But as Greg points out, the signatories also insist that the Anglo-American effort to promote democracy in Iraq is misguided and futile no matter how much "Iraqis may yearn for a democratic society".

That is a strange statement to say the least. Is it supposed to mean that even though the Iraqi people want democracy, they are so short-sighted and resentful that they would prefer to endure another civil war or dictatorship rather than let the British and the American take credit for promoting democracy in Iraq?

By that logic, the smartest thing for the Coalition to do is declare that it wants to restore Saddam to power. Then the proudly nationalist Iraqi people will establish a democracy just to spite us. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:23 PM by David Adesnik  

LIBYA TO LEAD GLOBAL PEACE MOVEMENT:

"Libya, which led the liberation movement in the third world, has decided to lead the peace movement all over the world," said Colonel Qaddafi.

Well, I guess that this what we should have expected from a nation that has been so active during its time as chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:00 PM by David Adesnik  

KRISTOF ADMITS 'I AM A BLOGGER': Having read about two-thirds of Nicholas Kristof's column on Iraq this morning, I was a hair's breadth away from deciding to fisk it. Then, Kristof announced that he is holding a poetry competition and that "winners will be quoted on my blog."

He didn't say "web log". He didn't explain what a blog was. He just made it seem perfectly normal for a New York Times columnist to have a blog. If that is so, then there's no need to get worked up when other leading insist that the revolution will not be blogged. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:09 PM by Patrick Belton  

PAGING DAN DREZNER: As a further note in the Department of Blogosphere Affairs - Halle Berry is newly single. You've just had a piece come out in Foreign Affairs. Now how's that for a convenient two-by-two matrix?

UPDATE: Oh, wait, Dan's married. In that case, erm, paging my cobloggers, then. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:52 PM by Patrick Belton  

BYE, BYE, EASTERBLOGG: On behalf of all those of us who were Gregg's daily readers, I'm awfully sorry to see him go. With his blog, the always excellent TNR site managed to somehow get even better, and as he moves on to other projects and punditries, we in the blogosphere owe him a fond farewell. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:23 PM by Patrick Belton  

REMEMBER HAITI? As rebels continue to roam the streets, an interim government conducts a witch-hunt on the associates of its predecessor, and the world turns a blind eye to a nation one month already out of the headlines, new allegations have come forth that the Dominican Republic aided the insurgents in February's rebellion. See Economist and the Haiti Support Group for more.

UPDATE: Not surprisingly, Randy Paul has more, too. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:06 AM by Patrick Belton  

OXBLOG BEST LINE OF THE DAY: From our good friend Bob Kokta, director of studies in our think tank, on returning to Fletcher to finish his dissertation after having surgery to excise a rather useless abdominal organ: "...Now where did I put that appendix?"

Get better soon, our friend! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:00 AM by Patrick Belton  

REASON TO AVOID THE NHS LIKE, ERR, THE PLAGUE, NO. 667:

A hospital nurse accused of attempting to murder four elderly patients was motivated by a drive to free up beds, a court has heard.

Prosecuting barrister Robin Spencer QC told the jury on Wednesday that Ms Salisbury was even heard urging one patient "give in, it's time to go", as she administered an overdose.

The court heard Ms Salisbury allegedly tried to kill James Byrne by repeatedly pressing the booster button on the device delivering diamorphine.

She is accused of trying to kill Reuben Thompson by removing his oxygen supply and she allegedly tried to kill Frank Owen by lying him on his back and telling another nurse: "With any luck his lungs will fill with fluid and he will die."

Mr Spencer said: "She was driven to free up a hospital bed but in fact there will always be another patient waiting. If she thought there was no hope of recovery, she didn't want to wait too long.

"If the patient could be made well enough to be discharged, she would aim for that, if not she would hasten death.

"One way or another, she wanted these patients off her ward."

Awww, and they say it's impossible to get efficient customer service here.... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:07 AM by David Adesnik  

WES CLARK ON JOHN KERRY:

After risking his life in Vietnam to save others, John Kerry earned the right to speak out against a war he believed was wrong.

First of all, does that mean that those who didn't risk their lives didn't have a right to speak out against the war? Second, does risking one's life also endow one with the right to lie about the ways in which one protested the war? Clark doesn't answer those questions, but he does say:

Make no mistake: it is [Kerry's] bravery these Republicans are now attacking.

I have a lot of respect for Kerry's bravery in Vietnam. In my life, I haven't done anything nearly as brave as serving in the armed forces or pulling an injured comrade out of the water in the midst of a firefight. But if someone asked me whether or not I had thrown away my medals, I'm pretty sure that I would be brave enough to tell the truth.

UPDATE: Steve Sturm adds to my post. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:55 AM by David Adesnik  

JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS DEAD...It looks like South Park is trying to cash in on the Passion. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:38 AM by David Adesnik  

THAT OTHER CONTROVERSIAL MOVIE ABOUT A DEAD JEWISH GUY: I just finished watching The Last Temptation of Christ. Leaving aside the theological issues it raises, I think it is a stunning cinematic achievement. But having been just 11 years old when it debuted in theaters, I have no recollection of precisely why it provoked such profound resentment among Christians who felt that their faith was being maligned.

Then again, it isn't hard to guess why Temptation became such a cause celebre. The film's greatest literary achievement and most perilous theological statement departure are one and the same. In the Gospel, the divinity of Christ makes him seem distant and superhuman even when he is in his human form. In the film, Jesus of Nazareth becomes a human being with tragic failures and complex motivations all his own.

As the film begins, Judas Iscariot discovers that the Carpenter has been making crosses and selling them to the Romans. After watching the crucifixion of a fellow Jew on a cross that he has made, Jesus endures the taunts of an embittered mob that accuses him of betraying his people. I suspect that the attribution of this sort of selfishness and cruelty to the Son of God approaches the blasphemous. Yet at the same time, the profound irony of portraying Christ as a maker of crosses provides the character of Jesus with a powerful and credible motivation for abandoning his home in Nazareth to become a wandering prophet.

On a similar note, I also suspect that the closing scenes of the film, in which the crucified Savior struggles against temptation, would violate many Christians' sense of propriety and decorum. In order to render Christ's temptation in an emotionally compelling and realistic manner, Scorsese once again lets Christ become more human and more flawed than Christian doctrine can accept.

Now, as a non-Christian, I cannot put myself in the shoes of a Christian watching the film. Nonetheless, I found the general tone of the film to be inspirational rather than offensive. If one can accept the artistic license taken by the director, then one can benefit from a vision of compassion that speaks to all of us and not just Christians. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:06 AM by David Adesnik  

SISTANI VS. SADR: Swopa has some interesting thoughts on the situation in Najaf, where Moqtada Sadr seems to have lost whatever popular support he might once have had. Even so, Sadr occupation of Najaf may have endowed him with enough resources to continue the fight against both Sistani and the Americans. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:49 PM by Patrick Belton  

WORTH READING TODAY: Larry Diamond is calling for a redoubled troop presence in Iraq, as well as a consistent policy of opposition to private militias and political benefits to militias who voluntarily lay down their arms to participate in democratic institutions. (Also see his Lou Dobbs appearance tonight, where he speaks on the current confrontation in Fallujah.) Fred Kagan, too, is calling for a few more good men in Iraq. And Reuel Marc Gerecht is calling for lots of things - consolidating Sistani's position in the Shi'a community and relying on him to suppress Sadr; avoiding the delusion that Iran is not trying to - a term of art - screw us in Iraq (as is, secondarily, the case with France and Germany); backing away from the Kurdish veto in the TAL, as well as if necessary from the TAL itself; and sending in the Marines to storm Fallujah.

Madeline Albright and Sen. John McCain (correctly, to my mind) call for renewed US sanctions on Burma, as well as a refusal of international recognition for the junta's cynical "road map to democracy" - which is intended only to grant a thin veneer of civilian political legitimacy to the junta's continued rule, and that in a bid to avert regional and international sanctions.

Among the many pundits left and right currently experiencing an epiphany that Senator Kerry, whatever his virtues, is a terrible, terrible, terrible presidential candidate are John Podhoretz and the Village Voice's James Ridgeway (who is calling for a reinstatement of the draft - ideally, of Edwards). And elsewhere, Narasimhan Ravi, editor of The Hindu and a current fellow at Harvard, writes about India's parliamentary elections. And of Kofigate Claudia Rosett (rightly) asks of the Secretary General of the world's foremost corrupt organization, what did Kofi know, and when did he know it? (Note to self: that would almost make for a rather merited google bomb...) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:00 PM by Patrick Belton  

ONE INDICATION OF WHY I IN THE END DO LOVE ENGLAND: From an email,

Beating the Bounds of the Parish is a very ancient custom. At St Michaels at the North Gate (our Saxon tower is the oldest building in Oxford, predating the arrival of William the Conqueror) we have documentary evidence of the practice back to the fourteenth century and it probably goes back to Saxon times when parishes became the basic land unit for law enforcement and taxation. It was very important for members of the parish to know precisely where one parish ended and one began. It was even more important for neighbouring parishes to be told where not to trespass. So, on Ascension Day, Thursday 20th May 2004, armed with willow wands (spears maybe?) we process round the parish, marking the stones which ring our parish.

St Michael's is a small and now entirely city parish and thoroughly built over, so our beating the Bounds consists of processing down Broad street, walking through shops and bars, climbing into bike sheds, visiting the Town Hall and ending up in Lincoln College to drink Ivy Beer (actually a bit challenging). We start at 9 am with a short service in the church - the entrance is at the Cornmarket end of Ship St, then at about 9.45 we essay forth down Cornmarket towards the Clarendon Centre, through Littlewoods, Frewin Court, New Inn Hall Street and on to St. Peters. By 10.30 we are reading from Foxe's "Book of Martyrs" on the spot in Broad Street outside Balliol where Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley were burnt at the stake in what was the town ditch. By 11 am we will be coming out of Brasenose, 11.35 Bar Oz and the Covered Market. And so on and so on.

UPDATE: I love our readers:

Hi Patrick,

"Beating the Bounds" aka "processioning" the bounds was widespread in colonial America well into the 1700s. The purpose for periodically outlining, in this instance, private property (as the American wilderness was carved out) was to limit the number of disputes - passing the boundary info on to the next generation or latest buyer of the property. Conversely, by the 1700s in Britain, I suspect this event was more ceremonial. As you know, land in Britain was highly concentrated in few owners, and most boundaries, if not all were well documented for centuries.

Here is a snippet abstract I gleaned from Princess Anne County Virginia court record books which addresses the issue (Note: you often find these "processionings" mentioned in the records of Virginia parish churches):

Sept 17 1731 An account of land processioned on ye South Side of ye Eastern Branch by me Thomas Wiles

The land of Aron Fentris processioned with a quet procession in the presence of Moses Fentris and John Fentris

The land of Moses Fentris...in the presence of Michael Fentris and James Fentris

The land of Capt George Kempe...Capt John Ivy and James Kempe

And so forth. The list of processioned land goes on for pages.

Kenneth Scislaw

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:13 PM by Patrick Belton  

IT'S THE LEADING FOREIGN POLICY ESSAY CONTEST IN THE U.S. (just ask Google!), and if you're a high school or college student, you can still enter it through the end of this month!

For more information, please consult our essay contest guidelines or email our contest chair, Connie Chung. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:01 AM by Patrick Belton  

BUT IF YOU CAN'T TRUST THE TIMES, WHO CAN YOU TRUST? With regard to an amazing medley of factual errors in pieces in both the LA Times and NY Times,

Just as a minor correction to an interesting piece (Thomas Corbally, 83; Figure of Mystery Was Reputed Spy, April 26, 2004 Home Edition, Section:California; Metro; Metro Desk; Part B; Pg. 11), PM Wilson was actually not a Conservative but rather a lifelong member of the Labour party, and is still regarded by many non-Blairites in Labour as representing the high point that party reached.

With regard to the Profumo affair, it also was not Wilson's government, but Harold Macmillan's which fell. And further contrary to the author, it did not fall in elections at all, but by the collective resignation of the government in Commons, to be replaced by another Conservative government under Sir Alec Douglas-Home.

with all best wishes, yours faithfully,
Patrick Belton
Trinity College, Oxford

My, with this degree of neglect for detail in just one small matter of British parliamentary history I happen to know something about, I must say I'm starting to have some doubts about these people. Or as a reader rather eloquently puts it: "Whenever I read anything in a newspaper about which I know something, I find they get it wrong. So why should I believe them on subjects about which I know very little?" (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:34 PM by David Adesnik  

THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE BLOGGED: That's the title of the George Packer column that Josh mentioned earlier today. Matt Yglesias isn't too happy with Packer's column, however, since it is "dripping with condescension." I'd say that's a pretty fair statement. After all, Packer writes that blogs are both

Pleasurable and destructive: They're so easy to consume, and so endlessly available. Their second-by-second proliferation means that far more is written than needs to be said about any one thing. To change metaphors for a moment (and to deepen the shame), I gorge myself on these hundreds of pieces of commentary like so much candy into a bloated -- yet nervous, sugar-jangled -- stupor. Those hours of out-of-body drift leave me with few, if any, tangible thoughts.

Blog prose is written in headline form to imitate informal speech, with short emphatic sentences and frequent use of boldface and italics. The entries, sometimes updated hourly, are little spasms of assertion, usually too brief for an argument ever to stand a chance of developing layers of meaning or ramifying into qualification and complication. There's a constant sense that someone (almost always the blogger) is winning and someone else is losing. Everything that happens in the blogosphere -- every point, rebuttal, gloat, jeer, or "fisk" (dismemberment of a piece of text with close analytical reading) -- is a knockout punch.

A curious thing about this rarefied world is that bloggers are almost unfailingly contemptuous toward everyone except one another. They are also nearly without exception men (this form of combat seems too naked for more than a very few women). I imagine them in neat blue shirts, the glow from the screen reflected in their glasses as they sit up at 3:48 a.m. triumphantly tapping out their third rejoinder to the WaPo's press commentary on Tim Russert's on-air recap of the Wisconsin primary.

In contrast to Matt, Kevin Drum isn't too bothered by all of this. He observes that

Based solely on the thousand words that are online, I'd say Packer has blogs pegged pretty well. While it may be true that mainstream journalists are sometimes more contemptuous than they should be toward blogs, Packer is dead right when he says that we more than return the favor. In fact, practically the only place that liberal and conservative bloggers find common ground these days is their apparent belief that the New York Times ranks just below Richard Nixon's White House on the list of trustworthy American institutions.

Hmmm. I'm going to side with Matt on this one. Packer is right that blogs always seem to be keeping score and that they are far too quick to compliment themselves on landing a knockout punch. But isn't that exactly what Packer is doing in his column? Even the title of his column sounds like a blog post.

Of course, this kind of 'gotcha' attitude is widespread at all levels of the journalistic establishment. All you have to do is the open the paper in the morning to find a half-dozen examples. Here's one: The ABC website now has an article up on the mini-scandal set off this morning by John Kerry's extremely nuanced explanation of what medals he did (or possibly did not) throw over a fence during an anti-war protest in 1971. The article begins as follows:

Contradicting his statements as a candidate for president, Sen. John Kerry claimed in a 1971 television interview that he threw away as many as nine of his combat medals to protest the war in Vietnam.

So I guess the lesson here is that bloggers, myself included, have adopted some of the mainstream media's less desirable habits in spite of our constant efforts to demonstrate our moral superiority. Anyhow, I think the real problem with Packer's column (or that portion which is online -- even LexisNexis doesn't have the whole thing and I am certainly not giving my money to Mother Jones) is his assertion that blogs lack substance. While Kevin may be too moderate to say so, his own website disproves Packer's allegation that blog posts are "usually too brief for an argument ever to stand a chance of developing layers of meaning or ramifying into qualification and complication". And while I have my issues with Josh Marshall, I think that is absolutely impossible to accuse him of not developing his arguments in considerable detail.

Moreover, Kevin (and less frequently Josh) develop their arguments through active debate with other bloggers. How often can professional journalists say the same of themselves? While I'm sure that journalists deconstruct each other's work off the record, it is absolutely taboo for the New York Times or Washington Post to take apart each other's articles in the public spotlight (except when plagiarism is involved.) While Packer is right that bloggers tend to have a sort of rah-rah patriotic attitude toward the blogosphere as a whole, he is wrong to say that they are "unfailingly contemptuous toward everyone except one another." Right after the NYT, the #1 target of almost every blogger is his or her closest friends and closest enemies in the blogosphere.

So, how can one conclude a chest-thumping, navel-gazing post like this? By reminding everyone that George Packer is an absolutely first-rate journalist. He has published what is far away some of the best work on the occupation of Iraq. And in person, he is a very nice and down-to-earth kind of guy. But like the rest of us, he makes mistakes. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:08 PM by David Adesnik  

SAVING LATIN DEMOCRACY: Today, the NYT is running one of its periodic editorials on why democracy in Latin America simply won't last. The format is pretty standard. The editorial begins by discussing some unsettling aspect of Latin American politics, then concludes with some trite advice about how to strengthen the democratic order. The unsettling fact for today is as follows:

The U.N. [Development Program] surveyed thousands of people in 18 democratic Latin American countries and found that a solid majority would prefer an authoritarian system if it produced economic benefits.

Commenting on this result, the NYT observes that

Clearly, this endorsement of the Pinochet model shows that most Latin Americans do not feel as if they have a stake in their democracy.

Now hold on a second. Pinochet was a brutal dictator who murdered thousands. Is he what the UN's poll respondents had in mind when they expressed their willingness to trade freedom for prosperity? Probably not.

Along with most academic experts on Latin American politics, journalists often forget how powerful the memory of a brutal dictatorship is. I don't think it is any accident that democracy is strongest today in those Latin American nations that suffered the most under military rule (Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, etc.) whereas it is most threatened in those nations that had very moderate dictatorships (Ecuador and Peru) or haven't had to endure authoritarian rule for more than fifty years (Colombia and Venezuela).

On a related note, the NYT should probably mention that dictatorships actually have an extremely poor record of promoting economic growth or even economic stability. The Pinochet regime probably came the closest, although Chile suffered terribly during the pan-Latin crisis in the early 1980s. In theory, dictatorships are supposed to be able to implement those economic reforms that are too controversial for an elected government to implement. Yet in the absence of a democratic mandate, Latin American generals have often found themselves forced to buy off both the rich and the poor. So, what is to be done? The NYT recommends that

Democratization in much of Latin America, if it is to be completed rather than reversed, now requires a bold set of reforms aimed at bolstering the rule of law, such as the development of independent judiciaries.

I think it is fairly misleading to suggest that a lack of boldness is the cause of Latin America's troubles. Even the most well-meaning governments (and Latin America has had many) cannot will the rule of law into existence. If a policeman can't afford clothes for his children, do we really expect him to resist taking bribes? Perhaps if there were better child welfare programs, policemen wouldn't take bribes. But how can you set up such programs when the bureaucrats are also corrupt? And so the cycle continues.

Rather than a lack of will, what Latin America suffers from is a set of interlocking institutional crises that eviscerate the democratic order without necessarily promoting dictatorship. How can such interlocking crises be resolved? Unfortunately, nobody knows. Political scientists have been caught off guard, since they expect flawed democratic orders to be overthrown by dictatorships. In other words, this is the first time that Latin America's democracies have survived long enough for the experts to worry about institution-building rather than coups d'etat. At least that is something to be thankful for. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:30 PM by David Adesnik  

WHY NORTH KOREA NEEDS CABLE MODEMS: The crocodile tears are flowing over at Steve Sachs' blog, where Steve is lamenting the fact that Kim Jong Il's treatise on cinema is languishing at place #455,145 on the Amazon bestseller list.

Plus, don't forget to read the latest installment in Steve's series on Pornography and Prostitution, which not only explores the legal dilemmas surrounding such unsavory pursuits, but also explains what Josh Chafetz does on Thursday evenings. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:18 PM by David Adesnik  

YOU KNOW YOU'VE HIT THE BIG TIME WHEN: You're interviewed on the NBC Nightly News. Congratulations, Dan! (And enjoy the groupies.)

Plus: Read the latest entry in the annals of how high-tech outsourcing creates jobs right here in the USA. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:18 PM by David Adesnik  

BECAUSE THE EUROPEANS ARE SUPERIOR: Pejman asks

why it is that in-flight movies are so uniformly bad. There is rarely an Oscar winner shown on flights, and the movies appear to range from barely tolerable to profoundly awful.

Well, if you want high-quality films along with attentive service and reasonable food, you should fly Virgin Atlantic. I've flown from London to New York around a half-dozen times with VA and have almost always had something good to watch. Best of all are those flights on the newest VA planes, which are equipped with a sort of video jukebox that gives each passenger a choice of 50+ films to watch along with 50+ hours of TV (including The Simpsons, Ali G, etc.). Moreover, you can control the box the same way you would a DVD player: start the film whenever you want, pause it to go the bathroom, etc.

Among the films I've seen on VA are Igby Goes Down, which came highly recommended by Mr. Chafetz, and the very clever Japanese bank-heist farce, Space Travelers (not to be confused with the animated film of the same name and from it which it borrows playfully). Of course, VA gives you the right to watch bad films as well. Once, I made it through 30 minutes of watching Ben Affleck as Daredevil. Mr. Affleck should be shot.

Anyhow, the question remains as to why VA has better in-flight entertainment. In general, in-flight films are supposed to be as inoffensive and unstimulating as possible. If you look up "least common denominator" in the thesaurus, you'll probably see "in-flight films" listed first. However, Virgin prides itself on being a maverick in the airline industry. It built up its successful business by challenging the staid and government-backed British Airways (which is a perfectly good airline). This rebellious corporate culture -- embodied by CEO Richard Branson -- tends to affect all aspects of the VA experience, from the unorthodox style of animation used for the pre-flight safety video to the choice of films shown on board. Perhaps the best expression of Virgin's rebellious attitude is the fact that its in-flight magazine sometimes gives bad reviews to the films being shown on board. Now that is service. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:52 PM by David Adesnik  

MODO TREATS BUSH VERY FAIRLY: You can't accuse Maureen Dowd of picking on the President. As Spinsanity shows, she's willing to compromise the standards of professional journalism in order to make other people look bad too!

And a note for all you Spinsanity fans: Ben, Brendan and Bryan's first book is coming soon to a store near you! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion