# Posted 11:24 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

WHAT TO BOB NOVAK AND ALCOHOLISM HAVE IN COMMON? Novak writes that the Bush administration has a secret plan to pull out of Iraq right after the election. As Michael Young points out, the political logic behind Novak's column is absurd. (Hat tip: MY) And yet there is something vaguely plausible about it.

Last month, I was at a party at my brother's place in New York. Under the influence of more than one alcoholic beverage, a mutual friend of ours by the name of JL confided to me that he was absolutely going to vote for Bush because the President has the right vision for America's foreign policy.

But, JL added, he wouldn't be surprised at all if Bush turned right around after his inauguration and let Iraq fend for itself. In contrast to Novak, whose story about a secret plan reflects the perverse wishes of his evil realist soul, JL is an avowed neo-conservative advocate of global democracy promotion.

I told JL that I understood his fear. But why? I wasn't so sure about Bush's commitment to democracy promotion before the war because he had no record on the subject. But now, with the death toll rising and John Kerry still attacking him on the subject day in and day out, Bush refuses to budge.

So why don't I believe in the President fully, the way he seems to believe in himself? My best guess is that it's because Bush can't provide a substantive, intellectual foundation for his policy. He says all the right things (which are composed by his speechwriters), but those right things aren't grounded in a sophisticated -- yes, nuanced -- analysis of American history and the current global situation.

In contrast, John Kerry is able to provide a substantive, intellectual foundation for just about any foreign policy. After all, he was a champion debater at Yale. But without firm principles to guide him, Kerry doesn't seem to know which argument should carry the day.

However, when unsupported by evidence, principles alone are subject to radical change. That's why so many first-generation neo-conservative began their political lives as leftists or even Trotskyites. And that, I suspect, is why George Bush was able to abandon his antagonism to nation-building so suddenly after 9/11.

Of course 9/11 changed everything. But most realists who opposed nation-building before 9/11 also opposed it afterward. Neither Cheney, nor Rumsfeld nor Rice seemed to have any change of heart about the subject. And given the political cost of the occupation, all three of them must wonder whether the President's sudden conversion to the democratic cause may cost them their jobs this November. (Or at least that's whey they were thinking before the GOP convention.)

Political psychologists often argue that politicians persuade themselves with their own rhetoric, even if they fail to persuade their audience. While such arguments can be taken to extremes, I do think that they have a fair amount of validity. Like Bush, Reagan was a late convert to the democratic cause whose fervor seemed to intensify the more he spoke about his passion, regardless of the disturbing situation on the ground -- for Reagan in Nicaragua, for Bush in Iraq.

Indoctrination via repetition has its drawbacks, however. Like Reagan, Bush is much better at selling his policy than he is at implementing it. Thus, if the situation on the ground deteriorates enough (in part because of the administration's own failure), another about face may be in the cards.

On this point, Reagan's case doesn't provide much guidance. In the aftermath of the Iran-Contra revelations, Reagan lost control of his Nicaragua policy to Congress. Moreover, abandoning the Contras would've entailed only limited costs for the United States, especially compared to pulling out of Iraq.

So where does all of this analysis leave us? Nowhere, but with a marked sense of foreboding about the future of Iraq.
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# Posted 5:57 PM by Patrick Belton  

MILLIONTH READER WATCH: Okay, we've actually had our millionth reader some time ago, since we haven't had the counter on the bottom from the beginning of OxBlog. However, even if it wasn't present at the creation, it's still kinda cool to see it change numbers. So, to celebrate, the reader who writes to us either with the number at bottom of OxBlog reading 1,000,000 when he or she loads it; or failing that, with the number at bottom closest to and over one million, will receive - gasp - a free bumper sticker (or bookmark, or something) from one of the three universities we're living at! And this is on your honour- come on, if you're willing to lie for a bumper sticker, that's actually kind of sad.

So may the best (okay, best is a strong word - perhaps, randomly selected) reader win! Oxblog: rounding to the nearest million, one million readers served, and counting.... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:37 PM by Patrick Belton  

MORE EUROPEAN SECURITY: Radek Sikorski says there are signs that European perceptions of the threat from terrorism are beginning to converge with those of the United States, and paradoxically, the war in Iraq is convincing Europeans that they need a more capable military to give them greater influence over how the West uses force beyond its perimeter.

Sikorski concludes with five suggestions for improving European defence capabilities. (Example: #5, European nations should reduce duplication of staffs and capabilities. If each U.S. state had its own general staff, its own army, navy, and air force, U.S. defence dollars would be as misallocated as they currently are in Europe.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:52 AM by Patrick Belton  

I DON'T KNOW IF WE'VE GOT ANY GEORDIES in our readership, but if we have, you really ought to go see Euripedes's (it's thought) Alcmaeon in Corinth at the Northumbria Live Academy, in which a friend of mine is Nikarete, Priestess of Aphrodite - who, as my friend says, is '(wait for it...) a pimp and brothel-keeper'. Alcmaeon completes the trilogy begun by The Bacchai and Iphigenia at Aulis - where Iphigenia is about the collision between public ambition and private sentiment during social and moral crisis, self-sacrifice and the politics of redemption, and the temptation, timely in an age which has given us Charles Graner and Abu Ghraib, to invoke the barbarism of the enemy to justify inhuman acts; and Bacchai elaborates the human quest for faith, deriving from both terror and hope, in which redemption produces persecution, and compassion, cruelty; Alcmaeon, in the twenty fragmentary lines that are left of it, is less clear in what its themes were meant to be, but seems to grapple with the unanticipated consequences of human action, and the contrasts between memory, anticipation, and social reality. This Alcmaeon, by the way, is produced by a Dubliner, Colin Teevan.

Of Nikarate, incidentally, Asklepiades (c. 156-28 BCE) writes

Nikarete’s face, sweetly moistened
by her desires
and frequently shown
at her gabled window,
was dried by Kleophon
at her door below
and, dear Kypris, his eyes’
sweet blue-bright lightning.

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# Posted 7:19 AM by Patrick Belton  

THE EPISTEMOLOGISTS DECIDE to field a Little League team, and three of them volunteer to serve as umpires. They go into a bar after one game, and after they've got their drinks the critical realist says "Yeah, well, I call 'em as I see 'em."  The direct realist responds "Well, I call 'em as they are!"  Then the Berkeleian idealist pipes up and says, "Shoot, they ain't anything till I call 'em!" (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:25 PM by Patrick Belton  

ANOTHER PROMISING ACADEMIC ANNOUNCEMENT AT H-NET that we're again, err, behind. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:07 AM by Patrick Belton  

EUROPEAN SECURITY WATCH: The Barcelona Report proposing a new security doctrine for Europe has been delivered to Javier Solana, and a copy of the report is here. The report urges creation of a European Human Security Response Force for post-conflict situations, in which 5,000 of the 15,000 personnel would be readily deployable civilian staff prepared to serve in such scenarios, such as aid workers and lawyers. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:55 AM by Patrick Belton  

COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS WATCH: (You know, the aliens with green pointy heads who control the outcome of world events through Jewish Yalie Rhodes Scholars...) Since I've recently groundlessly (see, that's a pun, get it?) made fun of their coffee, and would very much like to be hired back there at some point in my life, here's a magnanimous review of some of the cutting-edge research being done by 22-year old research assistants and being passed off as the work of our nation's foremost diplomatic and security minds:

For starters, there's a synopsis of the leading three proposals for intelligence reform. Moving right on, you've got reviews of the Sunni insurgency and democratic prospects in Iraq, all selling for free dollars. Interested in UN reform? Well, there's a distinguished panel (no, not that distinguished panel) making recommendations to the Secretary General this session of the GA. Rounding up, you might have a look at their scorecard on progress in counterterrorism and implications of the U.S. State Department's decision to refer to Darfur as genocide.

Make that extra milk and sugar, by the way. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:39 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

SHOOTING THE BULL: This big-time shout out is for all of you who wrote in when I said that I needed advice about buying a Ford Taurus. Here's what you had to say:

I had an ’89 Ford Taurus Wagon. It was getting a bit creaky when I
hit a bison in Yellowstone and the car got totaled. But it had 255,000
miles when the bison/car interface took place...

The Taurus was not trouble-free. Two fuel pumps, two water
pumps. But heck, after a trip to the moon (mileage-wise) even “lifetime” parts tend to disintegrate. --PS

I’ve had a ’95 Taurus for 5 years, and except for normal things that would be expected to break (it has 130,000+ miles on it) it has been super reliable, and it’s great in snow. I live in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, so we have a lot of experience with snow/transportation issues! --KG

[Tauruses] are real sh***y...While its true that Japanese cars are more
reliable than their american counterparts, not all Japanese car makers are created equal...

If you want to buy a Mazda, Nissan or Mitsubishi, you might as well buy that Ford Taurus, because they are hardly any more reliable than an American car. --SP

For what it's worth...I bought a 93 Taurus wagon with 40,000 miles in 1996. Since then I've put another 130,000 miles on it and have been very happy. Maintenance has been reasonable - nothing lasts forever and assorted bits have been repleced, but my Taurus is far from dead at 11 years and 170,000 miles. --BM

David, stay away from Taurus. We had one that we bought used and it was great for a while. At about 100,000 miles, it started costing us money constantly, a thousand here, a thousand there, to fix it. -- AF

So the funny ending to this whole story is that I'm probably going to buy a Honda Accord. It's from 1990, but only has 86,000 miles on it and has had just one owner. If the mechanic gives it a clean bill of health, I'll buy it, hopefully for just over $2000.

If I hadn't come across the Accord, I probably would've gone with the Taurus, but I may not need the car for more than a year or two, so I'd rather save the extra two grand. As LS puts it,

The best deal if you are just looking for reliable transportation cheap, is the oldest car you can find with the fewest miles, as depreciation is a huge cost leveler.

Besides, owning a car that's fourteen years old appeals to the historian in me. (Oh, if any of you are inspired by my example, an '87 Accord with 87,000 miles and just one owner went up on the DC Craig's List today. My loss!)
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# Posted 9:35 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

IRONY, CONTINUED: I'm sitting on the steps outside my friend's brownstone. I can't get in because he's still at work. But I'm using his wireless connection to blog.

The Information Age: Where your friends' networks are more accesible than their homes.

On a related note, my friend Josh (not Chafetz) lives at the corner of Vermont Ave. and Q Street in Washington, DC. Before visiting him, I'd never ventured this far east of Dupont Circle. The gentrification process had already begun before my time in Washington about four years ago. But I had no idea how far it's gone.

[NB: I am now indoors, and it is now two hours later. I have learned that writing outdoors is quite charming, but results in many mosquito bites.]

I parked my car earlier tonight at the intersection of 12th and Vermont, well in sight of an abandoned lot that betrays no signs of gentrification. (If you aren't familiar with the local geography, don't worry -- just focus on the concepts.) Having promised to buy my friend some quality beverages, I set off in search of a beverage merchant.

I walked two blocks west to 14th St., a major thoroughfare once known as the border fence that separated civilized Washington from what lay beyond. This time, however, I was coming from beyond.

Populated by auto repair shops, empty lots and the occasional run-down grocery story, 14th St. was once the polar opposite of Starbucks-laden Dupont Circle. For no particular reason, I chose to walk south on 14th. On a single block, there were half-a-dozen buildings under renovation or being built from scratch.

The only open storefront belonged to a Chinese take-out joint. Thus the street was lonely, but something very important was clearly going on. Then, as I approached P Street, I saw the bright windows and letters belonging to the inner sanctum of gentrification: Whole Foods.

If memory serves, there was absolutely nothing on that block (P St. between 14th and 15th) when I left DC just over four years ago. But it wasn't just whole foods. Across the street from it was a luxury apartment building, newly built. The retail space on the ground floor belonged to an upscale bar teeming with late-twenty- and early-thirty-something.

And, yes, there was a Starbucks. After purchasing four fine bottles of Samuel Smith's Taddy Porter, I called Josh on the phone to express my total amazement at what had happened to our neighborhood. His opinion of the matter is especially worth having because he both works for Washington's foremost real estate development corporation and because he is the author of an in-depth biography of James Rouse, one of America's great urban planners.

(Please buy the book now, or Josh won't let me stay with him next time I'm in Washington.)

Hard at work at 9:00 PM on a Sunday, Josh didn't have time for a long conversation. But he did note that the same local residents fortunate enough to get jobs at Whole Foods can no longer afford to live in their own neighborhoods. Oh, the irony.
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# Posted 6:10 PM by Patrick Belton  

DEPARTMENT OF IRONY WATCHING: This via AP has our department working overtime this week: (and on a Sunday, that! union regulations should forbid such exorbitant demands on irony watchers...)

Mental health counselor Ryan C. Moore, 54, who treats anger management problems and addictions, was arrested Friday and charged with aggravated battery for allegedly ordering his two pit bulls to attack a group of people riding out Hurricane Frances inside his office building.

Good thing he didn't treat mass murderers.

(And for you Rortyians out there, our departments of contingency and solidary watching will be appearing on alternate Tuesdays...) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:35 PM by Patrick Belton  

BLOGOSPHERE QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Kevin reminds us why he's darned near our favourite blogger, laying out his rules for commentors: 'no vitriol, no yelling, and no insults unless they're really funny. ' (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:09 AM by Patrick Belton  

WHY IS IT THAT the Times sends better people to review Lloyd Webber's latest monstrosity (best line: It isn't unpleasant, but it doesn't begin to capture what makes Collins's book such an enduring page turner. What's the theatrical equivalent of page turner, anyway? Stage burner? Scene speeder? Whatever the term, it does not apply here.) than to interview Arthur Miller (best line: It doesn't matter,'' he said. ''It's my truth. It's not your truth.'' My truth, your truth -- conversations with Miller tend to move beyond the quotidian and enter such depths quickly. We met in his apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, a cramped one-bedroom in a red-brick building of the sort commonly described as prewar. Miller, who turns 89 next month, is still a forceful presence, a tall, long-limbed man prone to unapologetic silences. etc... even more formulaic writing follows, if you have the taste for it it)? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:18 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

CAR BLOGGING: I am on a mission: to by a reliable and moderately attractive used car for under $4000. I've looked at four cars today and, to my surprise, the best one I saw was a 1998 Ford Taurus with 70,000 miles on it.

After all, the rule of thumb with used cars is that you buy Japanese or you regret it. (Anti-Americanism is acceptable in the automotive world because it is objective.)

I also looked at a '99 Mazda Protege and a '97 Nissan Sentra. I had high hopes for the Protege because it only had 47,000 miles on it. But when I took it to a mechanic, I found out that it needed $750 of maintenance and repair work, most of which should've been done 20,000 miles ago.

Now, if all of these details haven't already bored you to death, I'm guessing that you have an opinion about either used cars in general or Tauruses in particular. So let me hear it! I could use some advice, you know.

Also, the man selling the Taurus sells used cars as sort of a hobby. It isn't his job, but he likes to make a little extra money off of it. What that means is that he never drove the Taurus himself, but instead picked up as a trade-in from someone who bought a nicer car off of him.

The whole concept of an amateur dealer raised some red flags in my mind, but I figure there's no problem with it as long as a mechanic says the Taurus is OK. Any thoughts?
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# Posted 5:28 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

PHIL CARTER IS BACK from his well-deserved, post-bar exam vacation. As always, Phil is the best source in the blogosphere for information about the United States military. Recent posts include discussions of interrogation reform at Abu Ghraib and how to increase the number of American soldiers ready to serve abroad.

Before going away, Phil put up a very interesting post about the Army's new Kevlar helmets and why they aren't protecting our soldiers in Iraq. Generally speaking, I'd just like to note how strange it is that our soldiers actually war armor.

Growing up, I just assumed that armor was a relic of the Middle Ages that couldn't stand up to modern firepower. But as Phil points, the armorers (and "armor-ees") of today are facing the same challenges that they did more than a thousand years ago.
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# Posted 8:13 AM by Patrick Belton  

DEPARTMENT OF BURNING QUESTIONS ANSWERED: The Audhumlan Conspiracy (note to self: keep watch for conspiracy of blogosphere conspiracies) answers the question everybody's been asking since 1920 - namely, what does TRB stand for in the New Republic?

UPDATE: Baude's not convinced. (What is it with those Yale 1Ls and evidence?) Fortunately, however, the "TRB=Brooklyn Rapid Transit" explanation is backed up by no lesser source than its former author Richard Strout in an oral history interview at the Truman presidential library. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:59 AM by Patrick Belton  

IRONY WATCH: Bus-full of policemen robbed in Rio.

(Of course, as our friend Randy points out, at least this time they're not doing the robbing....) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:05 AM by Patrick Belton  

WHERE HAVE ALL THE INTELLECTUALS GONE? Frank Furedi poses the question with a book by that name (Continuum, 176pp), and Terry Eagleton's review is an admirable read. Some snippets:

• In fact, there are dim-witted intellectuals just as there are incompetent chefs. The word "intellectual" is a job description, not a commendation.

• One mark of the classical intellectual (more recently dubbed a "theorist") was that he or she refused to be pinned to a single discipline. Instead, the idea was to bring ideas critically to bear on social life as a whole. In this sense, Polly Toynbee is an intellectual but most Oxbridge dons are not. In fact, a snap definition of an intellectual would be "more or less the opposite of an academic".

• A society obsessed with the knowledge economy, Furedi argues, is oddly wary of knowledge. This is because truth is no longer precious for its own sake. Indeed, the idea of doing something just for the hell of it has always put the wind up philistine utilitarians... At an earlier stage of capitalism, knowledge was not so vital for economic production; once it becomes so, it turns into a commodity.... Now, knowledge is valuable only when it can be used as an instrument for something else: social cohesion, political control, economic production.

• "Student-centred learning" assumes that the student's "personal experience" is to be revered rather than challenged. People are to be comforted rather than confronted.

• In what one American sociologist has termed the McDonaldisation of the universities, students are redefined as consumers of services rather than junior partners in a public service... Meanwhile, libraries try frantically not to look like libraries, or to let slip intimidatingly elitist words such as "book".

Furedi makes the courageous case, against the cultural move away from challenging standards and toward warm fuzzies, that excellence and popular participation are not bound to be opposites, and that paternalism and condescension weigh instead on the side of the ledger sheet of those who claim they are. Both Furedi and Eagleton are well worth reading. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:13 PM by Patrick Belton  

ADAM PHILIPS has a lovely piece on the role of nuisance in philosophy in the Threepenny Review (which, incidentally, costs $6.25 at the annual subscription rate):

"Interesting philosophy," Richard Rorty writes in Contingency, Irony and Solidarity, "is rarely an examination of the pros and cons of a thesis. Usually it is, implicitly or explicitly, a contest between an entrenched vocabulary which has become a nuisance and a half-formed new vocabulary which vaguely promises great things...it [the half-formed new vocabulary] says things like, 'try thinking of it this way'— or more specifically, 'try to ignore the apparently futile traditional philosophical questions by substituting the following new and possibly interesting questions.'"

Something about what Rorty calls, in his blandly tendentious phrase, "interesting philosophy" needs a nuisance... If a substitute is a constant reminder of what it is substituting for—if a new lover becomes a compulsory and compulsive allusion to the one you have lost—it is a mixed blessing.

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# Posted 3:25 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

THE IMPENDING HYPOCRITE: Robert Kagan scores again. Read the whole damn column. Here are the money grafs:

The Bush administration has turned a blind eye to anti-democratic trends in Russia. Secretary of State Colin Powell made a strong statement against Putin's treatment of opponents last spring, and he expressed concerns about Putin's actions yesterday. But the White House has been relatively quiet. And the president's voice, the only one that really matters, has not yet been heard...

A White House official commented to the New York Times that Putin's actions are "a domestic matter for the Russian people." Really? If so, then the same holds for all other peoples whose rights are taken away by tyrants. If the Bush administration holds to that line, then those hostile to democracy in the Middle East will point to the glaring U.S. double standard; those who favor democracy in the Middle East will be discredited. That will be a severe blow to what Bush
regards as a central element of his war on terrorism...

Did the United States help undo Soviet communism only to watch as tyranny takes its place? Is that the legacy President Bush wants to leave behind?

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# Posted 2:12 AM by Ariel David Adesnik  

CHARTER SCHOOLS: Professor D reports on a new, comprehensive study of charter schools' impact on their students proficiency in reading in math. Sadly, it seems that a certain newspaper has decided to pay far less attention to the new study than to a shoddy, partisan research project it recently splashed on the front page and endorsed in a masthead editorial.
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# Posted 1:55 AM by Ariel David Adesnik  

KERRY "DECORATED...BUT NOT HIGHLY DECORATED" IN VIETNAM: Who would dare say such a thing about John Kerry? The Swift Vets? A Fox News broadcast? No! It's the New York Times!

On December 4, 1986 [no permalink] the Times reported that:

During the Vietnam War, then Second Lieutenant [Oliver] North was once swept from the deck of a tank by its revolving turret. But, according to a battle citation, he grabbed a grenade launcher, climbed back onto the tank and led an attack that killed seven North Vietnamese soldiers. On another occasion during his 11-month tour he led three assaults on an enemy position until it finally fell.

He was decorated for such actions, but not highly decorated. He was
regularly promoted, but not rapidly promoted. He took a serious, studious interest in such subjects as revolutionary warfare and military history, but one friend remarked that ''anyone who tells you Ollie North is a military intellectual is crazy."

According to the Times, North won a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts. If he had won a third Purple Heart, he could've been a war hero like John Kerry. If he had won a third Purple Heart, he also could've gone home after four months instead of finishing his tour of duty.

NB: I consider Oliver North to be a not just a pathological liar, but a traitor to the Constitution. Col. North did far more damage to American democracy than any of our Communist adversaries ever did. I guess it just goes to show that you shouldn't put a war hero in charge of our nation's foreign policy.
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# Posted 11:49 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

OXBLOG DEFENDS THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA: Before getting carried away with self-congratulation about Dan Rather's change of heart, I think that the blogosphere ought to remember how much of its success it owes to the mainstream media -- and I don't just mean the free publicity they give us once in a while.

The bottom line is that the media listen. In the spite of their condescencion and self-righteousness toward us non-journalists, the media have much less of an appetite for obstruction than most government officials. Thus, it is just plain offensive when Bernard Goldberg says that

"CBS News is acting the way the Nixon administration did during Watergate. I'm really sad to say that Dan Rather is acting like Richard Nixon. It's the coverup, it's the stonewalling."

Think about how long it took Reagan to admit he traded arms for hostages or how long it took Clinton to admit that he slept with an intern. In contrast, Rather's arrogance and contempt for his critics only lasted a few days.

The media's willingness to listen also extends beyond those cases where it is obviously in the wrong. In spite our constant, slashing attacks on the journalistic establishment, more and more journalists read our blogs -- either because they want to or because they feel compelled.

Journalists listen because their sense of professional self-worth depends on it. Their sense of superiority over the politicians they cover rests on their honesty and open-mindedness. Thus, when confronted with serious and substantive criticism, journalists listen -- in spite of the critics' often disrespectful tone.

In spite of all their flaws, American journalists' unflagging efforts to confront authority figures and challenge conventional wisdom created the environment within which bloggers can thrive. Even though our instincts are Oedipal, America's bloggers are very much its journalists' children.

UPDATE: Yes, I know I just got finished praising the media. But I also just came across a priceless quotation from a December 5, 1986 NYT article [no permalink] on journalists' efforts to cover the Iran-Contra scandal fairly:

Many of the editors said their self-consciousness about fairness was, in large part, a legacy of what they called ''excesses'' by the press during the Watergate and post-Watergate era.

For instance, Dan Rather, who reported on the White House for CBS News during the Watergate scandal and now anchors the CBS
Evening News, said he ''often'' talked about the tone of the coverage with his staff. ''I like to think I learned from my mistakes during that period, and I emphasize and keep emphasizing accuracy and fairness.'' Mr. Rather said.

The author of the piece is none other than Alex S. Jones, currently the director of a media studies program at Harvard and author of an LA Times op-ed that listed the "common attributes of the blogosphere" as:

Vulgarity, scorching insults, bitter denunciations, one-sided arguments, erroneous assertions and the array of qualities that might be expected from a blustering know-it-all in a bar.

Erroneous assertions? Blustering know-it-all? Prof. Jones, how dare you compare us to CBS!
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# Posted 7:30 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

HOW THE TIME FLIES: Robert Tagorda reminds his readers that yesterday was Daniel Drezner's second blogiversary. So I went to Dan's site looking for the official announcement so I could post a link to it. And here's what I find:

Yesterday [my] blog celebrated its second birthday. Which means it's also the two-year blogiversary of both Jacob Levy and David Adesnik -- congrats to both of them as well.

Yes, congratulations to me (and Jacob). You know, I'd never forget my own birthday. Then again, I'm only 27 and it seems that lots of middle-aged folks tend to forget theirs. And since blog years, like dog years, pass by much more quickly than real time, maybe this third of OxBlog has reached middle age. So I guess it's time to buy a sports car and father some new blog-children.
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# Posted 7:06 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

WHY SEAN HANNITY IS WORSE THAN DAN RATHER: Nice try, TNR, but you're just plain wrong. Here's the argument:

Dan Rather may have indeed been duped, but even if that is the case, his mistake was far less problematic than the offenses against journalism perpetrated daily by Fox News...[W]e ought to be much more concerned about the willful journalistic contortions of the latter than the alleged sloppiness of the former.

Fox reporters hide behind the conceit that they are opinion journalists, and media critics therefore hold them to a lower standard--as if being in the business of opinion journalism frees Fox from the obligation to deal in facts.

It should be clear from this week's torrent of commentary that Rather is held to very high standards by his critics... No one at the Post, the Times, ABC, or NBC is doing the same for Fox's journalists.

Since I don't watch Fox, I can't comment on its integrity. But that is exactly the point. Ten million Americans watch Dan Rather every evening and they trust what he says. Fox's audience is a fraction of that.

When Rather breaks a story, it goes straight onto the front pages of the major daily papers. When Fox comes up with something like a doctored photo of John Kerry with Jane Fonda, no one cares until independent sources validate its authenticity.

But that really isn't the point. No one thinks that CBS lies to its audience on a regular basis. The issue is whether Rather's transparently partisan decision to publicize the forged Killian memos indicates that one ought to interpret all CBS broadcasts as an extension of its correspondents' liberal politics, the same one way one interprets all Fox broadcasts as an extension of its correspondents' conservative politics.

As I've pointed out before, I'm not in any position to comment on the partisan content of either Fox or CBS broadcasts, because I don't watch them. The purpose of this post is simply to expose the false premise on which TNR's argument rests, i.e. that the focus of Memogate is Dan Rather's "alleged sloppiness" rather than the ideological biases that inform his broadcasts.
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# Posted 6:58 PM by Patrick Belton  

CALL FOR PAPERS: Over at H-Net, a call for papers for a foreign policy working papers series. We admit we're biased, because it's the Nathan Hale think tank that's behind it. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:15 AM by Patrick Belton  

RACE STUDY GROUP: Over the past year, I'd had conversations with a few friends about racial divisions in Washington and some of the other cities in the East Coast in which we'd lived, and in the end we agreed on the need to have a broader, rigorous, pragmatic conversation about race and racial integration in the United States (and, to some extent, Britain). For myself I have nothing in the least authoritative or new to say on the subject, but it's one I've been wrestling with personally since living in Washington, D.C., and I'm awfully interested to take part in a searching conversation on the subject with friends whose idealism and intellect I respect. So we've decided to begin a race study group, under the working title Hands Across Our City. You're very welcome to join us.

Our thought is at first to run our forum as a series of electronic seminar-style conversations, where different members lead different discussions on racial division and integration from the perspective of academic or professional disciplines in which they have backgrounds (urban studies, law, economics, literature, different species of policy, and so forth). In the longer term, we've already spoken about the possibility of some subset of us perhaps working to start an ngo, to find ways at the civil society level to counteract racial division in the cities we live in.

It might also turn out that we'd have insights gained together in this conversation that we might want to carry over into writing, perhaps in the form of a magazine article or series of op-ed pieces laying out proposals for combating racial division at different policy and, perhaps more significantly, community levels. We might even turn out to be sufficiently ambitious as to collaborate together in writing an edited volume, looking at racial integration from the perspective of different academic and policy disciplines, and perhaps developing proposals and insights in greater depth.

As a first step toward getting this conversation going, we've set up some links to some of the better academic, policy, and journalistic writing on racial integration, and a growing online library of conference papers and other research. We'd love to hear from you if you have ideas you'd like to share, or if you'd like to come be part of our project. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:09 AM by Patrick Belton  

AN APPEAL: The Russian consulate in Britain has distributed an appeal for assistance to support the victims of the Beslan terrorist attack, which I am very happy to pass on to our readers.

As you are well aware, millions of people around the world are setting up funds to help the victims of Beslan. However, we have identified an area of need that has, so far, been overlooked. Julia and I are from Rostov-on-Don, Glasgow's twin city, which is located in the same region of Russia as Beslan. During the news coverage it was broadcast that some of the most critically ill victims have been sent to hospitals in Rostov-on-Don, which is the biggest city in the region. Today we contacted the Rostov hospitals directly to find out what is going on. We have learned the following: 

11 critically wounded children have been transported to the Rostov Regional Children's Hospital. All of them are unconscious with multiple gunshot wounds. This is a very good hospital, but it is not equipped to deal with so many intensive care patients at the same time. Dr. Feodor Sharshov, chief consultant of the intensive care unit told us that the situation is absolutely desperate because they do not have enough equipment to deal with all the cases at once. Despite staff working 24 hours a day, three of these children have already died. He told us that they desperately need the following equipment:

1. Original Infusomat Tubings

2. Infusomat Volumetric Infusion Pumps for use in anaesthesia

3. Perfusor Compact S syringe pumps for paediatrics and neonatology

This equipment is required to maintain life support and is manufactured by Braun Melsungen AG. We managed to contact a representative of the firm in Rostov-on-Don and have been told that if the money is paid to the company's account, the equipment can be delivered to the hospital overnight.

This is a real chance to save some lives. If you have any thoughts on how to raise the money please help us. Time is of the essence, we need to collect the money as soon as possible and transfer to their account. We are a charitable organisation ourselves and can use our account to transfer the money from. We will accept any and all donations, which should be sent to:

The Russian Cultural Centre
10 King Street
Merchant City
Glasgow
G1 5QZ

Cheques should be made payable to the Russian Cultural Centre (Beslan Appeal).

Lev and Julia Atlas, Directors
The Russian Cultural Centre
0141 6493270 Russian Cultural Centre
tel/fax 0141 5530733 Russian Cafe-Gallery
07968977763 Julia's mobile

Please contact the Cultural Centre directly if you have any questions or would like to offer support. There are also Russian Cultural Centres in the United States and Ireland (although visitors to the last will be faced with the enigmatic notice 'The Russian Cultural Centre in Ireland do not creation at the moment').

UPDATE: Our friend Tatiana rang the head of hospital in Rostov, where the children from Beslan are presently being treated: 'Today I talked to the Head of the Hospital. He said that at present the Hospital is really in need of a new absortiometer for acid base composition of blood (sorry, I translate literally because I don't know the medical terminology). He said this is really what now we need for children from Beslan.'

I'm really grateful to everyone who has forwarded this appeal on, and particularly to the pediatric emergency department of the Cincinnati Children's Hospital, which has been enquiring into whether it could be of help. If any of our medical readers might be in a position to assist in donating this last piece of equipment, we would be tremendously grateful. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:46 AM by Patrick Belton  

ENGLISH TO ENGLISH DICTIONARY: OxBlog's friend Jamie Metzl, as good a candidate as you'll ever find deigning to run for the House, took away just a bit of all of our faith in politics when he lost a heartbreaker in Missouri's fifth Congressional District last month. But that's not the point. Instead, the Kansas City Star gave a start to those of us accustomed to the English language as it's spoken in Ireland and Britain - where 'getting a leg up' refers to the act of amorosity. We knew politics made strange bedfellows, but apparently not enough to match Metzl and Cleaver: 'If Metzl wants a leg up, he won't get it from Cleaver, who is still smoldering from all the attacks.' But not smouldering enough, apparently.

UPDATE: Yes, 'shag carpets' kind of crack me up, too.... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:14 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

WISCONSIN SWINGS: Captain Ed reports on a new poll that puts Bush ahead in the Badger State. There are also indications that Bush is pulling ahead in Ohio. Finally, El Capitan had this to say about Russia:

In the end, it looks like Beslan will give Putin the excuse to push to his eventual destination just that much faster than before. Spain may have been the first terrorist victory, and the Phillipines the second, but Russia may be the first time their action resulted in the loss of liberty that they hate. Despite Putin's call to work closely with the US on counterterrorism -- assistance that will pay off very well in the years to come -- I can't help but think that Russia will wind up paying a much steeper and more permanent price than Beslan.

Hear, hear.
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# Posted 6:16 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

CLASSIC HEADLINES: On May 20, 1986, the NYT ran a story on its front page entitled "Pentagon Fears Major War if Latins Sign Peace Accord". It was the most memorable bit of Cold War satire since the immortal exchange from Dr. Strangelove in which the general yells, "There is no fighting in the War Room!"

[CORRECTION: OxBlog should fact check its memory. We are much obliged to NM for pointing out that it was the President in Dr. Strangelove who said "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room."]

If you read the story (which I came across while working on my dissertation), the headline sort of made sense. The Pentagon was concerned that the Central American republics, including Nicaragua, would sign a peace treaty that lacked enforcement mechanisms. If so, the Pentagon expected Nicaragua to violate the treaty's disarmament provisions, ultimately provoking a major war in which the United States would have to participate.

While technically accurate, the NYT headline managed to mock the Pentagon's alleged paranoia. Given that Nicaragua was the most controversial foreign policy issue of the day and that a major vote on US policy was approaching in Congress, the White House didn't appreciate the NYT's humor.

In order to understand the Pentagon's thinking, take the Times' headline and substitute 'Churchill' for 'Pentagon' and 'Chamberlain' for 'Latins'. As any student of history knows, a bad treaty can pave the way for an even worse war. While Nicaragua may not have been a threat compared to Nazi Germany, the Pentagon's concerns were hardly unfounded.

This all may seem very distant now, since the Nicaraguan civil war ended in 1990 and Latin America has fallen off the United States' list of global priorities. But there's probably a lesson buried in there somewhere.
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# Posted 6:10 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

REAGAN ON GAY MARRIAGE: This is from an interview with the New York Times in March 1986:

Q. Mr. President, can I ask you a New York question? New York City, after considerable debate and controversy, has just approved a bill banning discrimination in housing and jobs for homosexuals. What is your position on that?

The President. Well, I know that this is a very touchy question, and I am one who believes in the rights of the individual -- individual freedom. But I do have to question sometimes whether individual rights are being defended in this particular field, freedom of the individual, or whether they are demanding an acceptance of their particular lifestyle that others of us don't demand. For example, should a teacher in a classroom be invoking their personal habits and
advocating them to their students as a way of life?

Q. Yes.

The President. Teachers habitually don't do that. Their personal life -- --

Q. But this bill, I don't think really covers that. It basically guarantees
to homosexuals equal treatment in hiring policies and gaining housing, these sorts of things. Essentially applies the same antidiscriminatory measures as are applied to blacks, as to women, to other people. Do you think that's all right?

The President. Well, I've said -- but again, I haven't actually involved
myself in what this law contains up there, so I don't know what I'm speaking of. But what I'm saying is that how would we feel if a teacher, male or female, a heterosexual, insisted on the right in the classroom to discuss their sexual preferences and why and whether they believed in complete promiscuity or not? We would be quite offended and think that our children should not be exposed to that.

Reagan's struggle with his own commitment to individual freedom is emblematic of the struggle that is going on within the Republican Party today. Even though the question has changed from jobs to marriage, the logic is the same: If Republicans can't show that treating homosexuals the same as heterosexuals hurts somebody, they will have to tolerate it.
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# Posted 8:57 AM by Patrick Belton  

ANNIVERSARY BLOGGING: I have just gotten back from three days of hiking with Rachel in England's Celtic-flavoured west country, to celebrate our second anniversary. Devon is lovely - it adjoins Cornwall, and is the landscape of the Baskervilles' Hound and the relics left behind by the pre-Roman Celts of the Dumnonii (whence Devon; Exeter for its part contracts Isca Dumnoniorum). I thought I might share some of what we came across.




Personally, I feel that the most human attribute is the capacity to feel wonder. Monkeys laugh; pigeons use tools; but the capabilities to sense awe and wonder seem to strike close to the core of what is most uniquely human. It is inherent in the nature of language to shy away from such contact with reality, through imposing layers of words and meanings - thus 'wonder-ful' and 'awe-ful' have become but banalities for rather nice and bad.

There is a Celt appearing in the landscape in several of the pictures, who ought in general be disregarded.

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# Posted 2:08 AM by Ariel David Adesnik  

THOSE SWINGIN' VOTERS: I've been hesitant to jump on the "What went wrong with the Kerry campaign" bandwagon because President Bush has been up in the polls for less than two weeks now.

A month ago, I expected John Kerry to become the 44th President. (Maybe that says more about my ignorance than anything else.) If Kerry pulls even again in the polls, we'll hear about what the Bush campaign did wrong.

This kind of analysis is really just the product of a false hindsight that tends to see the past through the lenses of the immediate present. That said, Kerry's dive in the polls has provoked some interesting analysts from his fellow Democrats.

Responding to Michael Tomasky's argument that Republicans win elections because they just play dirtier, Kevin Drum says that

It's a big mistake for us liberals to kid ourselves into thinking that
Republicans win elections solely because they fool people into voting for them. It's not just that this is a debilitating mental attitude — although it is — but it's also not true. Our main problem isn't that this year's campaign has ignored the issues, our main problem is that the #1 issue in this campaign is national defense, and on that issue — like it or not — the majority of Americans favor the Republican position.

I agree, but I would add three words to the end of Kevin's sentence: "for the moment". The issue isn't simply that Americans favor the Republican approach, but that Kerry has failed to outline a clear alternative.

But Josh Marshall disagrees. He thinks Kerry should avoid the temptation of trying to explain how he would deal with an impossible situation like Iraq. Rather, Kerry should hammer home one simple point: that George Bush is responsible for creating the impossible situation in Iraq. This is the right way to go because

the key to winning an election is often simply a matter of bringing to the surface of the public consciousness what voters already really know. They know Iraq is a disaster. They know it's President Bush's fault.

But do American voters really "know" that? Consider this headline from last Friday's WaPo:

Polls Suggest War Isn't Hurting Bush: Mounting Deaths in Iraq Have Not Resulted in Major Backlash in Public Opinion

As the Post points out, the current poll results don't reflect the fact that American fatalities have just passed the 1,000 milestone. But I think the analysis behind the article is solid. For quite some time now, I've been critical of journalists who read their own beliefs about the occupation into the results of opinion polls.

In spite of increasing violence, more Americans think the invasion of Iraq was worth it and more American think it has contributed to our national security. Perhaps most importantly, 53% think Bush will handle the situation better, as opposed to 37% for Kerry. In early July, the split was 47-47.

The most recent polls also show that OxBlog got something very wrong in its analysis of previous results. After the 9/11 Commission announced that there was no "collaborative relationship" between Saddam and Al Qaeda, Bush's honesty ratings took a nose dive. OxBlog observed that

The big question now is whether the damage done to Bush's reputation for honesty is permanent... perhaps the impact of the intensive coverage of the Commission's finding will slowly fade during a long, hot summer.

Or perhaps not. My gut feeling says that American voters pay far more attention to a President' personal characteristics than they do to what's happening on the ground half a world away. Bush may recover some of his lost ground, but I suspect that a significant amount of the damage will be permanent.

Oh how wrong I was. Take a look at the answers to question 14a in the new WaPo-ABC poll. 48% say Bush is honest and trustworthy while only 35% say the same about Kerry. In late June, only 39% said Bush was honest while 52%said the same about Kerry.

What is going on here? You might say it's the Swift Vets, but I don't buy it. My best guess is that the Republicans' relentless hammering away at Kerry's flip-flop on the war has persuaded voters that he can't be trusted. As for Iraq, I don't think that the handover fooled anyone or that there has been insufficient coverage of the recent violence.

But maybe Josh Marshall really is right. Kerry hasn't focused on the failures of the occupation, even though he talks about bringing the troops home. In fact, Kerry's decision to rail against Bush for "opening firehouses in Baghdad and closing them down in the United States of America" suggests that the President really is doing his best to deal with the situation in Iraq.
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# Posted 1:36 AM by Ariel David Adesnik  

OXBLOG FORGED THIS POST: I haven't followed this whole CBS thing all that much, but figured that I ought to weigh in now that I've come up with a snappy headline for my post.

I'm also weighing in now because it seems like an easy call. Why? Because:

A detailed comparison by The Washington Post of memos obtained by CBS News with authenticated documents on Bush's National Guard service reveals dozens of inconsistencies, ranging from conflicting military terminology to different word-processing techniques.

The big question now is whether the WaPo will put it on the front page when CBS finally admits it was swindled. (By whom? And why?)

The apparent lesson of this whole story is that Rather & Co. were so desperate to shift the focus from Kerry's military record to Bush's that they went public without fact-checking their story first.

The irony, of course, is that Rather & Co. were so angered by the Swift Vets' unfounded allegations that they decided to fire back with unfounded accusation of their own.

Yet whereas the Swift Vets acknowledged their ideological and partisan motives, Rather operated from behind a veil of objectivity. Whereas the Swift Vets had to wait months before getting publicity for their work, Rather & Co. had immediate access to an audience of millions (plus front page coverage in the next morning's papers).

If Rather didn't already have a reputation as the most liberal of the network anchors, I might be inclined to write this episode off as an unavoidable low point in an otherwise impressive career. But I just don't have that much faith in Dan Rather.

On the other hand, it's sort of interesting how much interest the blogosphere has shown in Rather's work given that none of us seem to watch CBS on a regular basis. After all, how many posts do you see that begin with "Last night on CBS..."?

However, there are still 10 million Americans watching each of the networks nightly broadcasts -- a total audience of 30 million. And if the blogosphre's raison d'etre is to factcheck big media, shouldn't we be watching what other people actually watch?

Probably. But it's just so boring. Television takes a lot of time to present very little information. It entertains but doesn't inform. Well, there are three of us on this website, so maybe we could take turns watching...or if the Volokh Conspirators each gave 30 minutes of their time, they could watch Brokaw, Jennings and Rather every night of the week!
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# Posted 7:06 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

WE ARE LOSING THE WAR ON TERROR. In the name of security, we deprive our citizens of their constitutional rights. In the name of democracy, we enforce a hostile occupation. In the name of human rights, we brutalize countless prisoners. And day by day, our soldiers get shot down one by one in the futile hope of winning a war we never should have started.

That is what I would say to Vladimir Putin if I were a Russian citizen. Putin's war on terror is a sick and perverted mirror image of America's just cause. In the aftermath of Chechen terrorists' horrific attack on the children of Beslan, we stood as one with the Russian people. And now we must stand with the Russian people against the government whose authoritarian deception and incompetence has left them increasingly to terrorist attacks.

In the Washington Post, Russia expert and democracy promotion advocate Michael McFaul writes that

Putin needs to reevaluate not only his strategy for fighting terrorism, but also his plan for building a strong and effective state...

Each of Putin's political changes increased the power of the Kremlin and decreased the power of other political actors and institutions. The
restructuring has not produced a more effective state, but a weak, corrupt and unaccountable regime: authoritarianism without authority...

Beslan is the most horrific terrorist attack in Russia but not the first.
The list of victims is as long as it is shocking: More than 300 died in
apartment bombings in Moscow and two other cities in the fall of 1999; 120 hostages died in the standoff at the Moscow theater; more than 270 people, including the Kremlin-backed president of Chechnya, Akhmad Kadyrov, died in eight incidents between December 2002 and May 2004. In June, 92 were killed at a police station. On Aug. 24 two passenger jets exploded, killing 89, and 10 more died on Aug. 31 when a suicide bomber struck outside a subway station in Moscow...

Over the last four years, Putin's advisers have explained the rollback of democratic practices as part of a trade -- less freedom for more security. But Putin has not delivered on his part of this deal, as Russians now have less freedom but no more security.

Imagine our response in the United States if Al Qaeda continued to launch attack after attack while the Bush administration did nothing more than shut down the New York Times and CBS. That is the only way to understand what Putin has done.

Yet just today, Putin announced plans to replace Russia's elected regional governors with Kremlin-appointed bureaucrats. In addition, Putin will force members of the Duma, the lower house of parliament, to run on centrally-controlled party lists instead of running as independent candidates.

And let us not forget the atrocities that Putin is responsible for in Chechnya. In January, Human Rights Watch informed the UN Commission on Human Rights that

Russian forces round up thousands of men in raids, loot homes, physically abuse villagers, and frequently commit extrajudicial executions. Those detained face beatings and other forms of torture, aimed at coercing confessions or information about Chechen forces. Federal forces routinely extort money from detainees’ relatives as a condition for release. “Disappearances” remain a hallmark of the conflict, and their frequency rose sharply in early 2003. According to statements by pro-Moscow Chechen officials, in the first half of 2003 an average of two people went missing every day, many of them after being detained by Russian forces. The Russian human rights group Memorial documented 294 “disappearances” between January and November 2003, including forty-seven people whose corpses were later discovered in unmarked graves or dumped by the roadside. The group estimates that the real number of “disappearances” was three or four times higher.

According to one HRW analyst,

Five months of indiscriminate bombing and shelling in 1999 and early 2000 resulted in thousands of civilian deaths. Three massacres, which followed combat operations, took the lives of at least 130 people. By March 2000, Russia’s federal forces gained at least nominal control over most of Chechnya. They began a pattern of classic “dirty war” tactics and human rights abuses that continue to mark the conflict to this day. Russian forces arbitrarily detain those allegedly suspected of being, or collaborating with, rebel fighters and torture
them in custody to secure confessions or testimony. In some cases, the corpses of those last seen in Russian custody were subsequently found, bearing marks of torture and summary execution, in dumping grounds or unmarked graves.

Moral clarity in Chechnya means recognizing that this is a war of evil vs. evil that has taken the lives of thousands of innocent civilians on both sides. If so, is there anything that the United States can do other than wash it hands of the conflict?

Yes and no. There is no forceful action we can take, as we did in Iraq and Afghanistan. But we must tell our supposed allies in Moscow that their self-destructive war on terror has provided another base for the terrorists of Al Qaeda. The more that Russia abuses the Chechens and slaughters the legitimate Chechen opposition, the more room Al Qaeda has to operate. According to McFaul,

Some Chechen groups have allied with al Qaeda and joined the jihad against Western civilization. Many other Chechen opponents of Russia's military operation inside Chechnya, including most government officials in power before Russia's second invasion in 1999, have unequivocally denounced the Beslan attack. They understand that such actions do not serve the interests of the Chechen people. They are nationalists, ready to begin negotiations with
authorities in Moscow, and they do not exclude the possibility of some special arrangement about Chechen sovereignty even within the formal borders of the Russian Federation. They could become, over time, allies of Moscow in fighting the kind of terrorists who attacked Beslan's children. To date, however, Putin has refused to engage in a dialogue with anyone inside Chechnya except his handpicked puppets.

Negotiation may seem unthinkable once children have been murdered. Both Russians and Chechens have a right to feel that way. Yet victory on the battlefield is not a realistic option.

In contrast to the insurgents' demands in Afghanistan and Iraq, those of the moderate Chechens are entirely reasonable. Compromising with the Chechens is not appeasement, but justice. What the Chechens want is what the United States has already offered to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan: a chance to determine their own future.

UPDATE: Joe Gandelman has some trenchant thoughts of his own.
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# Posted 6:55 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

YES, DISGRACEFUL: I'm going to disagree with Josh. Dick Cheney's remarks earlier this week were disgraceful. Even though Cheney's remarks are already old news -- and the Vice-President has offered a pseudo-apology -- I just want to go on the record saying that his remarks were offensive. Here's what Cheney said:

"It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on November 2nd, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again...that we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States, and that we'll fall back into the pre-9/11 mind-set, if you will, that in fact these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts and that we are not really at war."

This is the lowest sort of scaremonging, the kind that lowers public standards of debate even in the midst of a divisive election like this one. Cheney's comments were totally devoid of substance. They were an attack on John Kerry's character, not his policies. They were a suggestion that the terrorists want Kerry to win.

After Cheney's impressive speech at the convention, I expected better from him (in spite of his hypocritical comments about Kerry wanting to fight a more "sensitive" war on terror). But it seems that the Vice-President really hasn't learned anything about civility during his time in office.

(Btw, John Edwards' description of Cheney's comments as "un-American" was over the top as well. But Cheney did come perilously close to attacking John Kerry's patriotism.)

On a related note, Tom Coburn, the GOP senate candidate in Oklahoma, declared that the choice between himself and Democratic candidate Brad Carson is a choice between "good and evil". One or two more comments like that and Coburn will be a full-fledged idiotarian.

In the meantime, Coburn may not become a full-fledged senator in spite of the fact that Bush is running 25 points ahead of Kerry in Oklahoma. I guess that the Sooner electorate knows the difference between moral clarity and being just being a schmuck.

UPDATE: Steve Sturm has given this post the honor of a thorough fisking. Steve says that Kerry and Dean have said things that were just as bad Cheney's remarks, but doesn't provide links or quotations.

Steve also says that Cheney's comments did have substance because they took issue with Kerry's "law enforcement" (i.e. non-war) approach to fighting terrorists. Yet Kerry has repeatedly said that we are at war. In Boston, he said that

We are a nation at war – a global war on terror against an enemy unlike any we have ever known before.

So if Cheney is accusing Kerry of subscribing to a law enforcement mentality, then Cheney is lying.

Next, we come to Cheney's suggestion that the terrorists want Kerry to win. Steve responds:

Well, DUH. David: do you really believe the terrorists are ambivalent about the outcome of this election?...to speculate that they would prefer one or the other is not out of bounds.

Saying the terrorists want your opponent to win is pretty much saying that your opponent is so weak that he barely recognizes that the terrorists are our enemy.

In his pseudo-apology, Cheney tried to back away from this interpretation by saying that he was only criticizing Kerry's policies. But Cheney's original remarks didn't point to any substantive difference between Kerry and Bush. His remarks were nothing more than a malicious ad hominem attack.

Finally, Steve says Colin Powell agrees with Cheney. Not by a long shot. In the article Steve cites, Powell tries to pretend Cheney didn't mean what he said. Powell then adds that

"Both candidates, I'm sure, will do everything they can to defend the United States of America, whichever one becomes president."

If only Cheney were decent enough to say that himself.

UPDATE: Surprisingly enough, Matt Yglesias has decided to defend Dick Cheney from OxBlog's attacks.

Picking up where Matt left off, H-Bomb says that his post from three days ago refuted my criticism of Cheney even before I made it.

First, HB makes Steve's point that Kerry has sunk to the same level as Cheney, for example when he said that the Bush administration has "made America less safe than it should be in a dangerous world". I admit that that's not softball politics. But it's still a helluva lot different than saying that if you vote for the other guy, America will get attacked. Cheney's comments made it seem like it is Kerry, and not the terrorists, who are the biggest problem.

Next, HB points to Kerry's statement from January that

"The war on terror is less -- it is occasionally military...But it's primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation."

Kerry is muddying the waters here, but he clearly says that we are at war with the terrorists and that war involves military action.

Finally, HB says that Cheney's controversial speech did make substantive distinctions between Bush and Kerry. Well, sort of. Cheney said that Kerry voted against the Reagan defense build-up, opposed the first Gulf War and flip-flopped on the second. But it's a very long way from there to saying that if you vote for Kerry, terrorists will attack.

In closing, I'd just like to thank Steve and HB for responding to my post. There is considerable merit to their arguments, even if I disagree with them.

I think that this post is a classic demonstration of how the blogosphere promotes well-informed debate. If I were in a bar with Steve and HB, we'd just have to agree to disagree and probably forget about our argument on the way home.

Instead, each of has done additional research and brought new sources to each others' attention. And anyone who reads through our posts can click through to those sources and judge for themselves which of us has made the best argument -- a perfect example of what the blogosphere offers that printed matter can't.
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# Posted 6:47 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

NO COMMENT! NO COMMENT! From the WaPo:

John F. Kerry continues to be elusive to the media contingent traveling with him on his charter jet. Not that anyone is focused on this much, but regular reporters on the plane say that the Democratic presidential nominee has not had a formal news conference since Aug. 9. On Aug. 2, he took two questions from the media in Grand Rapids. On Aug. 14, during a flight from Portland, Ore., to Idaho, he came back to chat about windsurfing.

Since then -- nothing. Reporters who sit 20 feet from Kerry only see him with a cast of thousands at rallies.

On Wednesday, traveling journalists got excited when he walked up
to the assembled horde on the tarmac near Cincinnati. But after making a brief statement marking "the tragic milestone" of the 1,000 dead U.S. troops in Iraq, he walked off, ignoring shouted questions.

The campaign further raised reporters' ire Thursday by moving the news media back from Kerry as he bounded down the stairs from the plane -- symbolically and literally suggesting that Kerry was putting distance between himself and the news media.

"I think it's ridiculous," said Jodi Wilgoren, who covers the Kerry campaign for the New York Times. "There are a lot of things happening in the country and the world, and the public has legitimate questions they'd like to ask. I don't know what he's afraid of. He's criticized the president for not giving enough press conferences. And now we face daily arm-wrestling to ask a question."

Privately, campaign aides say the campaign is trying to keep Kerry "on message" and does not want to run the risk that he might make other news.

Does 'no message' count as 'on message'? Anyhow, Kerry's introversion is hardly surprising. At a forum I hosted at the Olin Institute earlier this year, Patrick Healy, the Globe's lead correspondent for the Kerry campaign, was already attacking the Democratic candidate for not being available to the press.

But who knows? Perhaps Kerry has a surprise in store for all of us.

UPDATE: Steven Den Beste points out [via e-mail] that Kerry has broken his silence with an interview in Time. Steven also points out that Time provides its own harsh commentary in the interview, in which the author suggests that Kerry is an ostrich with his head in the sand.

The commentary's main point is that Kerry's tepid response to the Swift Vets' attacks has left voters with the impression that he is weak. I vigorously disagree. While Kerry's response could've been sharpter, the media did more than enough on its own to discredit the Swift Vets.

The real issue is that Kerry hasn't presented a clear alternative to Bush's foreign policy. In the interview, he talks about a "more effective" war on terror and how he "would not have taken the country into war [in Iraq] the way [Bush]did.

Not much of a rallying cry, is it? "I would've done the same thing slightly differently!"

We armchair pundits may know that Kerry can't be more forceful because he has to satisfy the anti-war Democratic base while also reaching out to more moderate swing voters. But if you want swing voters and independents to throw out an incumbent and take a risk on a new president, you have to present them with a clear alternative.

UPDATE: Gene Vilensky speculates about the relationship that a President Kerry might have with the media. At least in this one respect, Kerry is Reaganesque.
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# Posted 5:34 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

SEPTEMBER 11TH, THREE YEARS ON: In memory of all those who were lost. They were the citizens of many nations and the faithful of many faiths.

In honor of those who rushed into the burning towers, sacrificing their lives in the hope of saving others. With profound admiration for the brave men and women who struck our first blows against terrorism in the skies of Pennsylvania.

In tribute to all those who rushed to Manhattan and to Northern Virginia, providing comfort to their fellow Americans with their blood, their sweat and their tears. On September 11th, 2001, we learned once again that in the United States every generation is the greatest generation.

Yet September 11th was not just an attack upon the United States but upon the free world. The men who carried out the attack subscribed to a violent faith that spills the blood of innocents without shame or remorse. A faith of conquest, but not of understanding. These men were not Muslims, only terrorists and criminals.

United by the ideal of the liberty, the free world will prevail in its war on terror. Sharp arguments divide us, yet our profound commitment to this ideal will overcome such divisions.

Already, two captive nations have begun to taste the life of freedom. It is our sacred obligation to ensure that both Iraq and Afghanistan become democracies in the fullest sense of that word. Their freedom must serve as an example to all the oppressed nations of our world.

Freedom alone can vanquish terror. Painfully separated from their families and their homes, our soldiers fight and die on our behalf and for our ideals. We must honor their sacrifice by ensuring that it becomes the foundation of a world that will one day become entirely free.
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# Posted 6:51 AM by Patrick Belton  

THREE YEARS:

May you rest in peace. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:00 AM by Patrick Belton  

JAMAICAN PLUCK: Sian Halliwell in Kingston, by email to BBC:

We've managed to stop the water coming through the shutters by nailing towels to the window frames and putting the bottom ends into buckets - it seems to be holding up fairly well and the floors are a lot drier.

"The wind is still slamming into the back of the house and so we've switched to drinking Red Stripe Beer instead of tea! Much stronger and will save the water for cooking!"

Being extraordinary fans of the country, we wish her people much luck. No one cyaan test Jamaica. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:33 PM by Patrick Belton  

THINK TANKS ON IRAQ: CSIS's Frederick Barton and Bathsheba Crocker have a report out measuring the progress of reconstruction in Iraq. Also, Michael O'Hanlon has updated his Iraq index at Brookings. Up in New York, the Council has begun a series of scorecards comparing differences between Bush and Kerry on foreign policy, beginning with a good inaugural effort on homeland security.

(Thinking of the Council, I can just taste the bad coffee on the fifth floor of the Pratt House now....) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:13 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

HE SAID/SHE SAID JOURNALISM: Conservatives prefer a very simple explanation of why the media is biased: because most journalists are liberal.

Liberal critics of the mainstream media have a far more nuanced explanation: because journalists are so obsessed with preserving their reputation for objectivity, they tell both sides of every story but provide little indication of which one has more merit. You might call it "he said/she said journalism".

Recently, liberal critics -- including both Hendrik Hertzberg and Kevin Drum -- have invoked the he said/she said hypothesis to account for the media's unjustifiable decision to treat the Swift Vets as "serious (though partisan) critics" of a certain Senator from Massachusetts.

Kevin's comments came in response to the "wildly misleading" post in which I described press coverage of the Swift Vets as sympathetic to Kerry. Since Kevin has decided to call me out on this one (along with Zachary Roth at CJR's Campaign Desk), I will do my best to oblige.

The place to start is with the three articles to which I provided links in my post about the sympathetic coverage. The first of the three is the NYT's first major investigative report about the Swift Vets. Its authors elaborate their conclusion in the seventh paragraph of their article:

The strategy the veterans devised would ultimately paint John Kerry the war hero as John Kerry the "baby killer" and the fabricator of the events that resulted in his war medals. But on close examination, the accounts of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth' prove to be riddled with inconsistencies. In many cases, material offered as proof by these veterans is undercut by official Navy records and the men's own statements.

Several of those now declaring Mr. Kerry "unfit" had lavished praise on him, some as recently as last year.

It's not exactly what you would call he said/she said journalism. But that doesn't mean it's sympathetic to Kerry. After all, if the Times is right about the Swift Vets' allegations, then that's just the truth, not a pro-Kerry broadside. Moreover, OxBlog has argued that the Swift Vets are full of it, except for their allegations about Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia.

So what's to complain about? Answer: the fourth and fifth paragraphs of the NYT report. They read:

Mr. Kerry called them "a front for the Bush campaign" - a charge the campaign denied.

A series of interviews and a review of documents show a web of
connections to the Bush family, high-profile Texas political figures and President Bush's chief political aide, Karl Rove.

This passage clearly suggests that Kerry is right and that Bush broke the law that prevents the coordination of political campaigns with independent 527 advocacy groups. However, there is no evidence to substantiate this charge in the NYT report, nor has any evidence emerged since.

(The closest thing to such evidence has been the revelation that a lawyer by the name of Ben Ginsberg worked for both the Bush campaign and the Swift Vets. Ginsberg confirms this allegation, points out that his behavior was fully legal, and that the media have ignored numerous connections between the Kerry campaign and a whole host of liberal 527s.)

Next up, the LA Times. Here are the third, fourth and fifth paragraphs from its first major investigative report:

What military documentation exists and has been made public generally supports the view put forth by Kerry and most of his crewmates — that he acted courageously and came by his Silver Star, Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts honestly. This view of Kerry as war hero is supported by all but one of the surviving veterans who served with him on the two boats he commanded.

None of the critics quoted in the ad actually served on the boats with Kerry. Some of them also have given contradictory accounts and offered conflicting recollections.

But what actually happened about 35 years ago along the remote southern coast of Vietnam remains murky. Some of Kerry's own recollections over the years, as presented in two biographies and many interviews, also have been inconsistent.

The reference to Kerry's inconsistencies puts the LAT ahead of the NYT, which two sentences to Kerry's statements about Cambodia. Yet when the LAT actually addresses the evidence about Cambodia, it comes down firmly on Kerry's side.

Anyhow, the main point is that neither the NYT nor the LAT practiced anything close to he said/she said journalism in their first major reports on the the Swift Vets. If I haven't persuaded you yet, I strongly encourage to go beyond the excerpts I've provided and read the rest of the lengthy NYT and LAT reports, which continually and explicitly cast doubt on the Swift Vets' recollections.

Finally, the WaPo. Here's the first sentence from it's article:

Newly obtained military records of one of Sen. John F. Kerry's most vocal critics, who has accused the Democratic presidential candidate of lying about his wartime record to win medals, contradict his own version of events.

I guess you could call it "he said/he said" journalism. I should point out, however, that this wasn't the WaPo's big piece on the Swift Vets, just a companion piece. The major WaPo report [still searching for permalink] was authored by Michael Dobbs and published on August 22nd. Its strangely worded conclusion was that

An investigation by The Washington Post into what happened that day [in March 1969] suggests that both sides have withheld information from the public record and provided an incomplete, and sometimes inaccurate, picture of what took place. But although Kerry's accusers have succeeding in raising doubts about his war record, they have failed to come up with sufficient evidence to prove him a liar.

Once again, this is anything but he said/she said journalism. However, it may provide the Swift Vets with far more credibility than they deserve. Have they "succeeded in raising doubts about Kerry's war record"? Yes, in the sense that their allegations have had an impact regardless of whether or not they are true.

Also, what exactly does it mean to not prove someone a liar? That kind of phrasing suggests that the Swift Vets' allegations have as much merit as Kerry's defense.

The rest of the WaPo article is quite well-done, however. It's main shortcoming is that it only focuses on the March 1969 Bronze Star episode, a decision that makes the Swift Vets look better than they should. On the other hand, it also prevents the article from commenting on Kerry's inconsistent recollections about Cambodia.

In conclusion, I'd say that I've taken the first steps towards showing that straight news accounts of the Swift Vet controversy took a clear stand on the merits of the Swift Vets' allegations. Kevin, Zach, the ball is in your court.
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# Posted 7:06 PM by Patrick Belton  

MY FRIEND GOT detained at the RNC for having anti-Bush literature with him that someone handed him on the way in. He wrote a piece about it. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:59 PM by Patrick Belton  

ON PAGE 32 OF THIS WEEK'S ECONOMIST, a full-page advert from European aerospace contractor EADS apparently seeks to make the important and timely point that European women have a role in the world of national security and aerodefence, as long as they're hot. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:00 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

METHOD ACTING: Jamie Kirchick takes a backstage look at the art of political theater at Yale and the RNC.
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# Posted 11:20 AM by Ariel David Adesnik  

THE TEXT YOU ENTERED WAS NOT FOUND: Gary Farber has put up a clever post about the words that were and weren't in George Bush's acceptance speech.

Michelle Malkin has run a similar search on the NYT's big front-page story on the hostage crisis in North Ossetia. (Hat tip: TMV)
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# Posted 11:13 AM by Ariel David Adesnik  

ZELIKOW LIVE: Philip Zelikow, staff director of the 9/11 Commission, is speaking about the Commission's report at the Miller Center right now. Live webcast here. Just audio here. Comments forthcoming.
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# Posted 10:49 AM by Patrick Belton  

NEW ISSUE OUT OF NATURE GENETICS: My friend edits this. Go read.

If you're not convinced already, it includes a feature called 'Mutant of the Month'. Miss September is this lovely little mutant flower (Antirrhinum majus var. pallida-recurrens), an unstable little snapdragon, with red sectors and spots appearing on the ivory background as a result of somatic excision of a Tam 3 transposable element in the promoter of the pallida gene, required for pigment synthesis:
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# Posted 10:28 AM by Patrick Belton  

FUN IN TEXAS: In Houston, that is. Our local chapter of our nationwide, bipartisan Nathan Hale Foreign Policy Society will be meeting next Tuesday. If you're not in Texas, but instead live in New York, Boston, New Haven, Washington, San Francisco, LA, Chicago, Miami, Puerto Rico, Montreal, or Oxford, and you're not already on our mailing list, please just drop us a note! Our chapters are all gearing up for a busy autumn. Here's a sample of the fun you could be having -

The Houston chapter of the Nathan Hale foreign policy society will meet
 Tuesday, September 14th at 7:00 PM until 9:00 at:
The Black Labrador (pub)
Churchill Room
4100 Montrose
713-529-1199
RSVP: September 13

This month's topic is ethics in foreign policy. Only one suggested reading: From the Journal Of Democracy,  'Globalization and Self Government' by Marc Plattner.  The article is available at www.journalofdemocracy.com.

Plattner presents a persuasive arguement for democracy and globalization in his article.  Just a couple of questions to think about. What does he mean by self-government in the title?  He talks about two sides of democracy, does globalization have two sides? In the article he uses statistics to convince that democracy is spreading but nowhere does he use stats to support globalization's growth.  Why or why not?

Enjoy the article and come enjoy the fun.

Tom

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# Posted 10:16 AM by Patrick Belton  

IT WAS BAD ENOUGH WHEN this election was about 1970s war records. When it became about 1970s typewriters, I decided to go write my dissertation.

Incidentally, from the steady stream of email I've been getting since my one foray into the subject this morning, the strongest argument seems to me to be the fact that Times New Roman didn't appear on Selectric typewriters, being owned (the emails tell me) by Monotype. The second strongest argument is, having served briefly in a national security branch of government, it seems from my own experience highly unlikely that anyone other than possibly a young Marine would devote the thirty seconds to changing Selectric balls and typing 'th' after ordinal numbers in superscripts. (Our Marine embassy guards, at three in the morning, would begin scrubbing things at random, occasionally to include my computer. One even tried to teach me better ways to do push-ups, around 4 am.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:24 AM by Patrick Belton  

GARY FARBER TAKES apart a few silly media myths appearing in the WaPo, ABC, and elsewhere this morning about typewriters in the Seventies. He, you see, was there:

So now we hear that the Bush [National Guard] documents may be forgeries. Are they? I have no idea. But I do know some things that are nonsense when I see them.... 'The experts also raised questions about the military's typewriter technology three decades ago. Collins said word processors that could produce proportional-sized fonts cost upwards of $20,000 at the time.' 'I'm not real sure that you would have that kind of sophistication in the office of a flight inspector in the United States government,' Showker said. 'The only thing it could be, possibly, is an IBM golf ball typewriter, which came out around the early to middle 1970s,' Haley said. 'Those did have proportional fonts on them. But they weren't widely used.'

Instead of talking to 'experts,' the Post and ABC might have done a bit of googling instead:

The IBM Executive uses a unique system of letter spacing... instead of every character taking exactly the same space on the writing line, as on standard typewriters, thin letters get narrower space, wide letters get the wider space needed. So, each word, each line, is more attractive, and more legible, and the overall appearance is outstanding. (from IBM Executive advertisement, 1953)

As Farber notes, 'They in no way cost "$20,000" or even $2000. They sold new for a few hundred dollars.'

More poor research appears in the bit about superscripts: ABC's expert Haley says 'There weren't any typewriters that did that.... That looks like it might be a function of something like Microsoft Word, which does that automatically.' Or you could listen to a blogger who was there, who says 'it might have been done by a Selectric, which most certainly did superscripts and subscripts. All you had to do is switch golfballs. Doesn't anyone remember actually using these things?'

Well, OxBlog doesn't. But we're glad that there are people in the blogosphere who do, since the mainstream media's typewriter experts apparently don't, either.

UPDATE: A counterpoint, also from the blogosphere. Personally, I should note that like Josh, I believe rather strongly that elections should be fought on ideas, instead of the Vietnam war records of either candidate, which I consider an irrelevance and a distraction. However, as long as we're trafficking in irrelevances, I'm delighted that the blogosphere is capable of doing so at a factual level above what we've seen from the more established forms of journalism. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:24 PM by Patrick Belton  

RESISTANCE IS FUTILE: Via OxBlog favourite Howard Kurtz:US News and World Report's Roger Simon pulls out this observation in his September 6th column, 'Two Conventions, One Bounce':

If John Kerry loses his presidential bid, analysts will point to the Democratic Convention as the time and place that he began losing it.

Kerry made his convention - - just as he has made his campaign - - about Vietnam, a divisive, controversial war that most Americans would just as soon forget.

By comparison, the Republican convention was anchored in the present with one clear and simple message: Vote for George W. Bush - - or die.

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