# Posted 11:24 PM by 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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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# Posted 8:25 AM by Patrick Belton  

IRISH TIMES: Continuing our gradual irresistable takeover of the European Union institutions, former Taoiseach John Bruton (Fine Gael, 1994-97) has been appointed EU ambassador in Washington. He also managed to refer to corsets in his first speech, bringing great pride to Irish hearts everywhere. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:52 AM by Patrick Belton  

BURMA UNDER SEIGE: Geoffery Hiller compiles a remarkable photojournal of Burma, which he calls 'a Fascist Disneyland'. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:14 AM by Patrick Belton  

CALL FOR CALORIES: Any of our friends in New York who'd like to meet an interesting, well-regarded Indian NGO leader are warmly welcome to come out for lunch on Saturday at 1. Our friend Anil Singh is an Ashoka fellow who gave up a government job to begin an NGO with his wife, to help create opportunities for poor rural women in India through microcredit and microenterprise.  The organization is called NEED (for Network of Entrepreneurship and Economic Development), and anyone who is interested in hearing about its work is very cordially welcome to come along - you're especially welcome if you happen to be a writer or have a background in development. So please do drop me a line if you're interested! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:57 AM by Patrick Belton  

BRZEZINSKI ON PBS today proves that actually, contrary to popular impression, not all public television is worthwhile. Examples of interviewer Ben Wattenberg at work: (1) we don't get paid well enough to actually read our guests' resumes: You came to Washington - I was on the Johnson staff. I remember you coming down there occasionally as an advisor but then you - where - from where? From Harvard or from Columbia? (2) we also don't get paid well enough to start our homework before late the night before: I have been reading your new book, The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership. In fact I stayed up late last night reading it. It is a very good book. (3) we also don't get paid well enough to be policy experts: And you are in favor of human rather than technological intelligence. You think that’s where we’re short? ... Well you mentioned - you mentioned it here - you mention frequently in the book, getting some kind of an Israeli-Palestinian compromise. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:21 AM by Patrick Belton  

NEW ISSUE OUT of the Democracy News newsletter. Go read, if you like democracy. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:03 AM by Patrick Belton  

BRING NEW YORK TO NAJAF: In reference to Naomi Klein's odd plea to peace protesters to 'Bring Najaf to New York', her Nation colleague Marc Cooper asks 'Should they also endorse Sharia while they’re at it?' Also, sensibly, Cooper calls for 'Bringing New York to Najaf', which to me sounds like a better proposal.

Incidentally, Cooper's LA Weekly column musing about the conversation between Clinton and Kerry is the finest piece of political humour writing I've read in weeks. (Example: 'I can imagine Clinton’s first question: “Hi, John, say, is Teresa there with you? What’s she wearing?'") (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:43 PM by David Adesnik  

VIRGINIA WILL VOTE FOR KERRY: Well, maybe not. But Charlottesville is money in the bank for the Senator from Massachusetts.

I expected to have a quiet first morning in my new office. Instead, hundreds of visitors descended on the Miller Center for a presentation by Hendrik Hertzberg, the political voice of The New Yorker and former speechwriter for President Carter.

I had high expectations for the event. This may be a college town, but I figured there would at least be some conservative Democrats in the audience willing to ask Hertzberg some tough questions. Oh, how wrong I was.

If not for its colonial architecture, I might have mistaken the lecture hall for a Greenwich Village coffee shop. Hertzberg was preaching to the choir.

I began to suspect that I was in for trouble when the woman sitting next to me asked about the subject of my dissertation and then followed up by asking whether there is so much anti-Americanism in the world because of American efforts to promote democracy abroad. Wanting to make a good impression on the citizens of my new hometown, I told her that when America really promotes democracy abroad and doesn't just talk about it, the world respects us more.

The subject of Hertzberg's prepared remarks was the conservative bias in the United States Constitution. Instead of one government, we have three: House, Senate and presidency. Things only get done when all of them agree. That is why, Hertzberg said, we don't have national healthcare even though most people want it and every other modern democracy has it.

Now, I'm more than willing to agree that the Founders designed the Constitution to make our government resistant to change. But I'm not sure how much that has to do with today's healthcare debate.

During the Q&A, Hertzberg complained quite a bit about the extremism of the modern Republican party as well as the GOP's unprecedented control of the House, Senate and executive branch. Hertzberg says nothing is going to change because gerrymandered districts prevent any sort of turnover in the House while small states, most of them red, dominate the Senate. He said we should expect forty years of GOP dominance on the Hill, the same way we once had forty years of Democratic control. (Hertzberg didn't go into how the Democrats lost control if the system is so paralyzed.)

But if conservatives control all three of the "governments" set up by the Constitution, how can Hertzberg complain that the constitutional division of powers is what stands in the way of reform? What it really comes down to is that the Republicans have done a lot better at the polls since 1994. And as Hertzberg himself pointed out, moderate Democrats will probably stand in the way of dramatic reforms even if their party retakes control of the House and Senate.

The question that Hertzberg and his audience seemed unwilling to ask themselves was why American voters won't hand their government over to a solid majority of liberal Democrats. If someone did ask that question, I'm guessing that Hertzberg would've attributed the GOP's success to its vicious and unscrupulous lies. In his comments about Kerry's nuanced position on Iraq, Hertzberg said that one of Kerry's main shortcomings as a candidate is his "surplus of intellectual honesty."

The one interesting question the audience had for Hertzberg was whether activist websites and weblogs are right when they say that the "MSM", or mainstream media, have totally failed to expose the truth about Republican lies. Hertzberg agreed. Look at the Swift Boat controversy, he said. The media's prentensions of objectivity lead it to treat all politics in a he said-she said manner, thus giving unwarranted legitimacy to the most outrageous claims.

I wonder what newspapers Hertzberg has been reading. Certainly not the NYT or LAT or even the WaPo. As Jonathan Last has pointed out, all of the major media outlets, both print and broadcast, ignored the Swift Vets' story until Kerry himself counterrattacked. Then they provided coverage sympathetic to Kerry. Moreover, the "MSM" stills seems consitutionally unable to provide any reasonable coverage of Kerry's fantasies about spending Christmas Eve in Cambodia.

Hertzberg's comments about the MSM were enlightening, however, in the sense that they explain how the media can be so biased: because it absolutely refuses to admit even to itself -- or especially to itself -- how biased it is. [In retrospect, that comment is unfair to Hertzberg. He wasn't particularly emphatic about this point. But the journalists I spoke to at the RNC were. -ed.]

During the Q&A, I was tempted to ask a question myself, if only to disrupt the left-wing lovefest going on around me. But I'm having dinner with Hertzberg tonight, so I'm going to save my questions for then.

UPDATE: Kevin Drum describes my discussion of the media and the Swift Vets as "wildly misleading". Response forthcoming.

UPDATE: I had very nice dinner with Mr. Hertzberg, not to mention all of the other intelligent and inquisitive guests at the home of Mr. & Mrs. G. Over coffee, I had my chance to speak out. I can't say much about it, both because this was a private dinner and because the adrenaline rush shut down my memory.

What I can say is that Mr. Hertzberg listened to my improvised thoughts with greater care and greater patience than they might have deserved. I think that the other guests must have sensed my excitment at the prospect of going head-to-head with such a prominent individual. Thus, they graciously let me elaborate on my thoughts even though they themselves clearly had plenty to contribute to the discussion.

In the end, I think that Mr. Hertzberg had the better of the argument. However, the whole affair resulted in some excellent publicity for OxBlog, which Mr. Hertzberg said he would read.

(Rik, if you're reading, my apologies for throwing so many elbows your way at the beginning of this post. It wasn't my best work. If you click here and here, I think you'll see that OxBlog prefers analysis and evidence to rhetorical barbs.)
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# Posted 7:07 AM by Patrick Belton  

OXBLOG QUOTE OF THE DAY: Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Master of the Queen's Music, speaking to BBC Radio 3 from his home in the Orkneys: 'I'm tired of hearing that it's too hard for children to learn how to read music. It's simply not, it's just that teachers are too damned lazy to acquire the skills of communicating those skills to children.' (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:18 PM by Patrick Belton  

REZA ASLAN is keeping a journal from Iran. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:34 AM by Patrick Belton  

OXBLOG PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE JOKE OF THE DAY: Q: What does one behaviorist say to another after sex? A: That was great for you.  How was it for me? (a variant, of course, on the classic Q: What does one behaviorist say to another when they meet on the street? A: You're fine.  How am I?) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:59 AM by Patrick Belton  

SPIKED ONLINE, which has been producing a lot of good work lately, has this on the nostalgic core of contemporary anti-imperialism. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:39 AM by Patrick Belton  

OXBLOG READING LIST: Michael Ignatieff, of whom this blog thinks the world, has a new book out with Princeton University Press on political ethics in an age of terror. Rather graciously, they've put out the first chapter for free. This includes Ignatieff's suggestions for moral criteria for antiterrorist actions, which, as they tend to be consequentialist, conservative (in the sense of incrementalist), and in the spirit of the New Haven School (i.e., phrased in terms of a public order of human dignity), I think are likely to be beating down the appropriate track:

As a contribution to this process of standard setting, I would propose the following tests for policy makers. First, a democratic war on terror needs to subject all coercive measures to the dignity test--do they violate individual dignity? Foundational commitments to human rights should always preclude cruel and unusual punishment, torture, penal servitude, and extrajudicial execution, as well as rendition of suspects to rights-abusing countries. Second, coercive measures need to pass the conservative test--are departures from existing due process standards really necessary? Do they damage our institutional inheritance? Such a standard would bar indefinite suspension of habeas corpus and require all detention, whether by civil or military authorities, to be subject to judicial review. Those deprived of rights--citizens and noncitizens--must never lose access to counsel. A third assessment of counterterror measures should be consequentialist. Will they make citizens more or less secure in the long run? This effectiveness test needs to focus not just on the short term, but on the long-term political implications of measures. Will they strengthen or weaken political support for the state undertaking such measures? A further consideration is the last resort test: have less coercive measures been tried and failed? Another important issue is whether measures have passed the test of open adversarial review by legislative and judicial bodies, either at the time, or as soon as necessity allows. Finally, "decent respect for the opinions of mankind," together with the more pragmatic necessity of securing the support of other nations in a global war on terror, requires any state fighting terrorism to respect its international obligations as well as the considered opinions of its allies and friends. If all of this adds up to a series of constraints that tie the hands of our governments, so be it. It is the very nature of a democracy that it not only does, but should, fight with one hand tied behind its back. It is also in the nature of democracy that it prevails against its enemies precisely because it does.

For more, see The New York Review of Books's review and Ignatieff's transcript from a roundtable at the Carnegie Council. (American Prospect has a review article by James Mann, who we also like, but you either need to be a subscriber or read it in Border's....) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:04 PM by Patrick Belton  

HOW I STARTED RACHEL DOWN A LIFE AS A KEPT WOMAN: Me: 'Maybe by favors he just meant feeding his fish?' Her: 'Then why does he say 'please include a photo in your reply' after the bit about 'Prefer a female roomate and I am willing to lower or eliminate the rent in exchange for favors'? Me: 'Well, maybe it's to make sure you won't scare the fish?' (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:20 PM by Patrick Belton  

RNC POST-HOC QUOTE OF THE DAY: 'This is New York. Of course we have naked people on Eighth Avenue.' Michael Bloomberg, New York's mayor, commenting on nude anti-Aids protesters, via Associated Press (8/26). (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:12 AM by Patrick Belton  

OUR THOUGHTS AND WELL WISHES go with you today, Mr President. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:45 AM by Patrick Belton  

YIDDISH CORNER: More than a couple of our readers (we are here targeting our 'Indian' and 'Hebrew' market demographics) will be interested in Haaretz's story about India's Jewish general, Jacob-Farj-Rafael Jacob, whose ancestors emigrated from Baghdad to Calcutta in the nineteenth century. And Bush writes about Israel and the peace process in the Forward. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:37 AM by Patrick Belton  

EVE TUSHNET lovingly takes apart my YFP interview. Although I can't quite figure out whether I'm meant to be the headless body or the topless blog.... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:17 AM by Patrick Belton  

DEAD TREE WATCH: We complain a great deal that the nation's chief newspapers avoid covering ideas and trends, but mercifully, under Moisés Naím, Foreign Policy is becoming a noteworthy gathering point for precisely such conversations. To wit, Fareed leads off a piece on 'the world's eight most dangerous ideas' with an essay on anti-Americanism (excerpt: 'In this post-ideological age, anti-Americanism fills the void left by defunct belief systems'), while Marvin Leffler assesses Bush's foreign policy, and Kerry assesses Kerry's foreign policy. Other interesting pieces take on reforming Saudi Arabia and economic growth in India, while a very nice section in the print edition, 'In other words,' reviews books from overseas which (generally) aren't available in the United States.

I was sceptical of FP a few years ago, when every issue seemed to have a piece on assessing globalisation, generally with comparisons to McDonalds. But the limited scope of conversation in its pages may have just reflected a more limited foreign policy conversation then; at any rate, I'm now considering it one of the most creative publications focused squarely on ideas and on trends longer than a CNN news cycle. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:30 AM by David Adesnik  

THE WaPo GETS IT RIGHT: Living in NYC the past month, I haven't been reading the WaPo. Shame on me. As Jason Broander's comparison points out, the Post's coverage of Bush's speech was far more even-handed than that of the NYT:

NEW YORK, Sept. 2 -- President George W. Bush accepted the Republican nomination for a second term Thursday night with a lofty speech casting his reelection as crucial to the spread of democracy across the world and to the security of Americans at home...

Spreading democracy? But the NYT didn't say anything about that!
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# Posted 2:23 AM by David Adesnik  

OPEN MINDS AT HARVARD: Robert Tagorda is still looking for them.
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# Posted 1:52 AM by David Adesnik  

FOLLOWING THE PAPER TRAIL: In July, I had a plan. Instead of throwing away my print editions of the NY Times from the week of the Democratic convention, I decided to put them aside and wait until the Republican convention had passed so that I could compare how the Paper of Record had covered both events.

This post will address a very specific question: How did the NYT portray each candidate's comments about Iraq the morning after his speech? The answer is that it didn't. Even though the Times itself often describes Iraq as "a pivotal electoral issue", Adam Nagourney -- who wrote or co-wrote the lead story on both Bush and Kerry's nomination speeches -- somehow managed to avoid the subject.

In the lead story on Bush's speech, the word 'Iraq' only appears once, and in the following context:

Mr. Kerry said..."I will not have my commitment to defend this country questioned by those who refused to serve when they could have, by those who misled America into Iraq."

Now, perhaps, if Mr. Bush had ignored Iraq himself, Nagourney's approach would be justified. But here is just some of what Mr. Bush had to say about Iraq:

We knew Saddam Hussein's record of aggression and support for terror. We knew his long history of pursuing, even using, weapons of mass destruction. And we know that September the 11th requires our country to think differently: We must, and we will, confront threats to America before it is too late. (Applause.)

In Saddam Hussein, we saw a threat...

Members of both political parties, including my opponent and his running mate, saw the threat, and voted to authorize the use of force...

Because we acted to defend our country, the murderous regimes of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban are history, more than 50 million people have been liberated, and democracy is coming to the broader Middle East...

Despite ongoing acts of violence, Iraq now has a strong Prime Minister, a national council, and national elections are scheduled for January. Our nation is standing with the people of Afghanistan and Iraq, because when America gives its word, America must keep its word...

So our mission in Afghanistan and Iraq is clear: We will help new leaders to train their armies, and move toward elections, and get on the path of stability and democracy as quickly as possible. And then our troops will return home with the honor they have earned...

I believe in the transformational power of liberty: The wisest use of
American strength is to advance freedom. As the citizens of Afghanistan and Iraq seize the moment, their example will send a message of hope throughout a vital region.

I could provide additional examples, but I'm sure that all of you have either read or listened to the President's speech. Yet somehow, not one of the passages cited above made it into either Nagourney's lead article or Todd Purdum's news analysis column.

To be fair, Mr. Bush gave a very long speech. Perhaps it simply was not possible for Mr. Nagourney or Mr. Purdum to cover all that he said. Of course, Mr. Nagourney did have time to write that

As he did in 2000, Mr. Bush warmed the audience with self-deprecatory jokes, including one about his tendency toward malapropisms...

Before [the President] walked out Republicans handed out hundreds of placards reading, "Agenda for America," which they waved in a blizzard of American flags...

Mr. Bush, the 43rd president, smiled at the 41st president and his wife - that would be George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush - sitting in a box across the hall.

Somehow, Mr. Nagourney decided that self-deprecatory jokes, American flags, and smiling at one's parents were more newsworthy than the President's bold and controversial statements about Iraq.

(If Matt Yglesias were covering Bush's speech for the Times, he at least would've had the decency to quote Mr. Bush at length and then explain why he was lying.)

In contrast to Mr. Nagourney, Mr. Purdum does devote a respectable amount of attention to Mr. Bush's relationship with Iraq, even if he refuses to divulge what Mr. Bush himself actually said. Here are the contexts in which Mr. Purdum refers to Iraq:

For a nation divided over his stewardship, distressed about the economy and dubious about the war with Iraq, President Bush had one overriding message last night: He's still the one...

Mr. Bush spoke confidently but saved his passion for national security issues, and sounded a tone of defiance at critics of his decision to invade Iraq...

No one...can dispute that [Bush] has [led], first by steamrolling big
tax cuts through a compliant Congress, then toppling the Taliban and winning support for the controversial war with Iraq...

Even his father's former national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft... warned two years ago against rushing to war with Iraq...

Polls showAmericans have doubts about Mr. Bush's stubbornness, his truthfulness (only about one in five Americans now think he is telling the entire truth when he talks about Iraq), and even the likeability that helped him so much last time.

How strange. It almost seems as if Mr. Purdum has some sort of agenda. While the author of a news analysis column has more latitude than the author of a straight news article, one would hope that Mr. Purdum would at least analyse what Mr. Bush actually said.

Instead, he reminds us again and again of how "dubious" and "controversial" the invasion was while not even bothering to quote Mr. Bush's defense of it or mention that most Americans supported it.

But perhaps I shouldn't be suprised with the way the NY Times has covered this issue. As I show in my dissertation, when Ronald Reagan spoke passionately and at great length about democracy promotion in the 1980s, the NYT and WaPo ignored what he said and instead focused on the more controversial aspects of his foreign policy.

It's like deja vu all over again...

Coming up next: The NYT, Kerry and Iraq.

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# Posted 5:52 PM by Patrick Belton  

I READ THE GUARDIAN DAILY, not for the politics but because, apart from the LRB, I haven't yet found a better publication in England for covering the worlds of letters and ideas. But that high-mindedness doesn't stop them from producing hard-hitting investigative journalism, it turns out. For instance, thanks to today's paper I know now that 'Every weekend, Britain's town centres are transformed into scenes of drunken mayhem.' Other upcoming story lines, thanks to OxBlog's sources in the Guardian news room: UK dogs reported to have fleas; politicians discovered shamelessly courting votes of honest citizens; rich bastard in home counties considers casting ballot for Tory candidate. More coming.

UPDATE: A friend writes in to ask why not the TLS instead. Good point - it's mostly because they don't put up very much of their content for free. However, if on the other hand, they would like to give OxBlog a free subscription.... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:57 AM by David Adesnik  

A PAEAN TO NUANCE: In the Times Magazine last Sunday, James Traub observed that

Both the president and the protesters prefer certaintly to complexity. Is there room for nuance in a time of war?

How sad. I'm an intellectual. I love nuance and complexity and irony and uncertaintly and subtle gradations of meaning.

So whom should I hold responsible for the branding of 'nuance' as the most despised word in the American political lexicon since 'liberal'? The faux populist who cuts taxes for the rich and mocks his thoughtful opponent? Or the calculating opportunist who sways with the political winds while the nation's most prominent journalists and intellectuals praise his commitment to nuance?
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# Posted 1:56 AM by David Adesnik  

ROGER, OVER AND OUT: I spent four days this week huddled over my laptop just across from that irrepressible, fedora-clad blogger, Roger L. Simon.

Today, Roger slams NY Newsday for its politically-motivated and unprofessional decision to excerpt one of his GOP convention posts without letting him know which one. Unsurprisingly, Roger says, they chose his most anti-Bush post without letting their readers know that Roger will vote for W. this fall come hell or high water.

As punishment for its iniquity, Roger brands Newsday's editor as one of the "New Reactionaries". I beg to differ. I got the same e-mail from the same editor at Newsday. The editor asked if I wanted to know, before Newsday went to press, which passage it had chosen. I said yes and received another e-mail shortly thereafter which included the excerpt.

As it turns out, Newsday chose a passage from my post about Laura Bush. It was somewhat critical, but not at all harsh. If Newsday wanted, there were plenty of harsh posts to choose from. (For example, here and here.)

For the moment, I don't know which excerpts Newsday chose from the rest of the RNC bloggers, since there's nothing up on their website. But I think Roger might strengthen his full-frontal assault on the media if he planned his attacks a little more carefullly. (Not that you couldn't say the same thing OxBlog...)

UPDATE: Newsday has posted the excerpts here. Greyhawk thinks that Newsday is cherry-picking. I wouldn't say Newsday chose our best posts, but I don't see a political agenda here. At worst, there's a bit of condescension.
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# Posted 1:43 AM by David Adesnik  

SCHLESINGER BEATEN LIKE A DRUM: Congratulations to Kevin for publishing his first book review in the New York Times. Once again, Kevin has reinforced his reputation for being an open-minded liberal by thrashing Dr. Schlesinger's paranoid and incoherent anti-Republican rant. I shudder to think what sort of mail Kevin is about to get from his 40,000 fans at the Washington Monthly.

FYI, Kevin can be just as tough on Democratic candidates as he can on over-the-hill intellectuals:

Anyone who thinks the primary message of Kerry's campaign should be anything other than national security is just deluding themselves. To paraphrase James Carville, "It's 9/11, stupid."

In fact, it's a no-brainer: somehow Kerry has to convince people that
he can be trusted with national security and Bush can't — and if he doesn't, he's going to lose. But I guess he still doesn't get that.

I'm finally beginning to think Mickey Kaus might be right: Kerry has
spent too much time inside the liberal cocoon. It's going to cost him the election if he keeps it up.

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# Posted 1:42 AM by David Adesnik  

GO BACK TO SLEEP! What are you doing up at 6:30 in the morning, Josh? Looking for Jenna Jameson? I know you're not an official a "Dr." yet. But I'll bet anyone dollars to donuts that you'll walk out of your thesis defense with nothing but honors.
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# Posted 1:37 AM by David Adesnik  

NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL GHOST-WRITING! Consider the following passage from Jenna Jameson's memoir:

Trying to maintain eye contact with [my co-star] was like trying to
read Dostoyevsky on a roller-coaster.

Fyodor must be turning in his grave. Then again, perhaps I am wrong to doubt the highly athletic Ms. Jameson. She did come across as quite intelligent in her extended interview on VH1.

Moreover, Ms. Jameson has addressed the Oxford Union more often than I have, although her performance did pale somewhat in comparison to that of Mr. Dr. Chafetz. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:02 PM by Patrick Belton  

AND THEY SAY BLOGS ARE BAD? NYT runs a story with the title, "Deploying Children as Weapons of Mass Affection" (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:12 AM by Patrick Belton  

ECONOMIST ANSWERS THE QUESTION THAT'S BEEN ON EVERYONE'S MIND: Why are Eurocrats in Brussels so side-splittingly funny? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:05 PM by David Adesnik  

IGNORANT YANKEE! Much obliged to all those who pointed out that the unidentified narrator from last night was Fred Thompson. HS writes that

FYI, it wasn't Waylon Jennings, it was Fred Thompson, former senator from Tennessee and now actor on 'Law & Order.' He began the narration live with a mic on stage, then he stopped, exited stage right, and there was a seamless transition to the prepared video voice-over (it was hard to see him standing there even on TV, so it's not surprising you missed him if you were sitting in the convention hall).

You're right: folksy as all hell, so folksy it was almost a parody of
folksy; definitely reminds me of Jennings 'Dukes of Hazzard' oeuvre.

Viva los Duke boys! I actually saw Thompson come out on stage but didn't recognize him. Although I had never known what Thompson looked like, I did always think of him as the man who famously said that as soon as he got to Washington he began to yearn for the honesty and sincerity of Hollywood.

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# Posted 4:42 PM by Patrick Belton  

THOUGHTS FOR THE SABBATH: Michael Ignatieff on genocide, human rights, and a postwar Polish Jewish intellectual named Raphael Lemkin.

---

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:35 AM by Patrick Belton  

REQUIESCANT:
In place of death there was light.

- Leo Nikolayevitch Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilych

---

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:42 AM by David Adesnik  

LIVE BLOGGING THE PRESIDENT: There was no wireless access in MSG, but I did have my laptop with me. Here's what I wrote:

9:58 PM – Time for a video. The narrator sounds like Waylon Jennings from the Dukes of Hazzard.

10:03 PM – If this isn’t Waylon Jennings, it’s the best imitation I’ve ever head. Folksy, lots of inappropriate pronouns.

10:05 PM – It’s him! The crowd goes wild! [Bush, not Jennings. --ed.]

10:07 PM – The cameras are flashing. You could almost hear a pin drop.

10:14 PM – I gave you tax breaks! Lukewarm applause.

10:15 PM – Bush: I am a compassionate conservative. Government should help people improve their lives, not run them. We’ve come a long way from Ronald Reagan, haven’t we? What a strange
compromise. Conservatives are no longer allowed to attack government, but liberals aren’t allowed to call themselves liberal.

10:17 PM – “Two-thirds of moms also work outside the home.” Very scattered applause.

10:19 PM – A promise to make tax relief permanent. Big applause.

10:21 PM – A promise to lead a bipartisan effort to “reform and simplify the federal tax code.” Maybe the President can ask
Zell Miller about bipartisanship.

10:22 PM – Bush is speaking quite well. Patient. Serious. But down to earth.

10:23 PM – A pledge to help the workers at small businesses get more affordable insurance.

10:24 PM – A promise to establish rural health centers. I have nothing to say about that. It sounds like a good idea. But I really know nothing about the state of American healthcare.

10:25 PM – Stop the lawsuits that put doctors out of work! Huge applause. Now is this a one time thing, or will Bush & Cheney be attacking John Edwards all along the campaign trail?

10:27 PM – An ownership society? It’s a nice turn of phrase. It may do for this campaign what “compassionate conservatism” did for the last. But after January 20th, who knows?

10:29 PM – Empowerment and ownership. Empowerment and ownership. Howard Dean talks about empowerment, but not ownership.

10:31 PM – W. breaks out the Spanish! "No dejarémos a ningún nino atrás!"

10:32 PM – Bush plugs his website. Memo to OxBlog: Get nominated for President so you can plug your website on national television.

10:35 PM – Kerry is a tax-and-spend liberal! Bush is a borrow-and-spend liberal!

10:37 PM – Abortion, yadda yadda. Gay marriage, yadda yadda.

10:39 PM “I will never relent in defending America whatever it takes!” Standing ovation! USA! USA! USA! Vague! Vague! Vague!

10:41 PM – “Striking terrorists abroad so we do not have to face them here at home!” Where is my nickel?

10:43 PM – Protester time. God, these people may as well just vote for Bush. For Kerry, they’re just an embarrassment.

10:44 PM – Protester. Here we go again. Pathetic.

10:46 PM – “Do I forget the lessons of September 11th?” Or do I attack Saddam? Clever.

10:47 PM – Democracy in Afghanistan. Bush isn’t mincing words on this one.

10:47 PM – “When America gives its word, America must keep its
word.” It’s the OxBlog agenda. But what will Yglesias say?

10:49 PM – Our troops will come home when Iraq is a democracy.

10:52 PM – Flip-flop time.

10:53 PM – Big cheers for Tony Blair. I hope no one tells the delegates that Blair is head of the “Labour Party”.

10:54 PM – “Coaltion of the coerced and bribed”? John Kerry scorns our allies! Very clever.

10:56 PM – Democracy discredits hate. Democracy will transform the Middle East. Stop it! Stop it! George, if you keep sounding so idealistic, I’m going to have vote for you!

10:58 PM – Now Bush is mocking the New York Times. If this keeps up, OxBlog will be unemployed.

11:00 PM – A reference to promoting democracy in Nicaragua. Now Bush is trying to write my dissertation!

11:08 PM – “This young century will be liberty’s century.” How much did PNAC have to pay for that one?

It was a masterful performance. In a word, presidential.
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# Posted 1:38 AM by David Adesnik  

THAT TACKY PATAKI: There was no wireless access in MSG, but I did have my laptop with me. Here's what I wrote:

9:37 PM – It’s Pataki time! The governor is thanking all those states that came to New York states after 9-11. During the break, volunteers handed out little flags for all of us to wave.

Pataki says that New York looked terrorism in the face and spat in its eye. Thanks, George, for doing so much to get rid our reputation as the least polite state in the union.

Pataki reminds us that he went to college with both Kerry and Bush. Kerry was the head of the Liberal Party, Pataki was head of the
conservatives.

I was also in the Liberal Party (at the same college) and even served as an officer. I became somewhat disenchanted as time went on, but I am still inspired by the other members’ commitment to social service.

“He said he’d do it, AND HE DID!” Great call and response.

Pataki says Kerry has to Google his own name to find out
where he stands. Presumably, Santorum doesn’t have that problem.

9:46 PM – Pataki slams the Clinton administration for being soft on Al Qaeda. That’s low.

9:48 PM – Pataki: They say what about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Well on 9-11, box cutters were weapons of mass destruction. Quick, call David Kay, did he find any box cutters in Iraq?

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:29 AM by David Adesnik  

LIVE BLOGGING THE DARK MATCHES: As any professional wrestler can tell you, a night on the road begins with "dark matches", or brief contests among no-name contenders that take place before the television cameras come to life.

And political conventions are no different than wrestling shows. Before the main event, you have to watch the undercard. Even though there was no wireless access this week at Madison Square Garden (the home of pro-wrestling), I decided to type down my thoughts and post them later. Here goes:

8:40 PM – I just made it into the hall. At this time last night, the
green seats would mostly have been empty. Now they are almost full. I walked in with John, Tom and Roger, but we each had to find separate seats (although not too far from one another.)

Tommy Franks is giving his speech. He says he won’t trust terrorists to take care of his grandchildren. Neither would I. Presumably, John Kerry would.

“To take the fight to the terrorists is the best way to protect our country.” Presumably, John Kerry would wait for them to show
up in New York.

8:45 PM – Barbara Bush – the grandma, not the twin – is being interviewed. She says her favorite speakers were her grand-daughters. If I were Arnie or Rudy or Zell, I’d be pretty damn
insulted.

Getting a little sarcastic, aren’t I? I just don’t think I can take any more of the groupthink. Jim Taranto summed it up pretty well:
At the Democratic convention, you could listen to the delegates argue with one another and write about that. Here, you have work hard to find the news.

8:49 PM – Baby footage of the twins. Awww.

8:51 PM – It’s Michael Williams, the former Texas railroad
commissioner. In other words, he used to be George Bush’s boss. Lots of noise in the hall from people walking around and having their own conversations. I can barely hear what Williams is saying.

8:58 PM – It’s a video about the First Lady!

8:59 PM – Well that was short.

9:01 PM – Musical interlude. Time to save some battery power on my laptop.

9:17 PM – It’s Mel Martínez! Thanks to the music, I had the chance to make a pit stop and pick up a hot dog. There aren’t that many events at which you can trust the person next to you to watch your laptop when you step outside.

9:18 PM – Mel reminds us that if he wins, he will be the first Cuban-American to serve in the United States Senate. Martínez talks
about the hopelessness of his childhood in Cuba. Lots of noise in the
hall. Perhaps if he talked about terrorism people would pay more
attention.

“…to re-elect President George W. Bush!” Big applause. Then back to the noise.

9:21 PM – Martínez says he believes in compassionate conservatism. It’s true: Democrats are afraid to describe themselves as liberals but Republicans are proud to be conservative.

9:22 PM – Martínez mentions that minority home ownership is at an
all-time high. If I only had a nickel for every time someone mentioned that statistic this past week. I wonder what the real story is.

That's it for the dark matches. Now get ready for prime time.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:19 PM by David Adesnik  

GILLESPIE ON VIETNAM: The convention bloggers had the chance to interview the RNC chairman just over an hour ago. My mission was to break through the "We condemn all 527s" and get Mr. Gillespie to say something substantive about the Swift Vets' charges:

OxBlog: Mr. Gillespie, a question about the Swift Vets’ impact on the polls. Um, obviously until now the White House has been dodging the issue by saying that “We condemn all 527s”, but the issue is are the adds true or are they full of lies? If they’re true, will George Bush come out and say something supporting the Swift Vets, or if they’re lies will he join John McCain in condemning the content of the adds, not just the fact that they’re from 527s?

Gillespie: Well, let me just say, uh, uh, I’m going to restate the fact that we are opposed to these 527s. I filed a complaint with the Federal Elections commission back in March or April. $63 million has been
spent on attack against the President by 527s, using anything ranging from intentionally poisoning our children to trying to deny Hispanic Americans their constitutional right to vote to lying and to bandoning our troops in the field.

OxBlog: Can we get your personal opinion on the content of the Swift Vets’ two ads? Is there truth to what they’re saying, and if so, how much?

Gillespie: Well, I mean it’s obvious when you see Senator Kerry’s 1971 testimony there’s no denying that Senator Kerry spoke before the United States Senate and made very damning accusations against the soldiers in Vietnam.

Gillespie caught me there. I shouldn't have mentioned the second add.
Mentioning it gave him a good excuse to ignore the one that really matters, the
first. But I wasn't about to give up:

Ox: How many of the five medals did John Kerry deserve to win in Vietnam?

Ed: I assume that he served honorably and I’ve never questioned his
service and never will. I was just, by the way, 10 years old when John Kerry came back from Vietnam.

I didn’t, you know…these men have strong feelings obviously, and they are free to express their feelings and those who support Senator Kerry are free to express those feelings, using the political process. But I have no knowledge of it and I assume that he served honorably and we have consistently said that...

Ox: Have your research teams come to any conclusions about the
Swift Vets’ charges?

Ed: Our research teams have not researched Senator Kerry’s medals. Sen. Kerry himself said he’s proud of his leadership of Vietnam
Veterans Against the War and stands by the testimony he made before the United States Senate in 1971.

I think Gillespie got out of that last one on a technicality. Someone's research teams must be vetting the Swift Vets's allegations. Perhaps it was the White House instead the RNC. Perhaps it was a consultant. But I don't doubt for a second that Gillespie has an opinion on this issue which he is very carefully keeping to himself.

I may not have gotten anything out of Gillespie in the end, but the experience itself was an incredible adrenaline rush. I did get past the 527 line. Thinking on five seconds notice about how to rephrase my questions was a tough and exciting challenge.

It was more of a game than a discussion of politics. Gillespie had to evade my questions without evading them and misrepresent or hide his opinion without telling a lie.

In the end, I lost. I lost because I am a blogger and I lost because Gillespie is simply better. But if I got through the 527 line, you'd think that the professionals could do even better, since Gillespie can't dodge their questions forever.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:35 PM by David Adesnik  

MILLER TIME: Bloggers' Row is abuzz with excitment about Zell Miller's laying of the proverbial smackdown on Hardball's Chris Matthews. Now, there's no question that Miller got in some good shots and that Matthews came off as a blowhard. (Surprise!)

On the other hand, Miller was about as reasonable as Yosemite Sam and Matthews was gallant enough to extend his hand in friendship at the end of the interview. (Transcript here, video here.)

More importantly, TAPPED is probably right that Miller's temper-tantrum was a reaction to his embarrassing interview on Crossfire. This exchange made Miller look especially bad:

[Jeff] GREENFIELD: Then why did you say in 2001 that he strengthened the military? You said that three years ago.

MILLER: Because that was the biographical sketch that they gave me.

It's good ot know Zell was just as careful with his words back then as he is today.
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# Posted 5:15 PM by David Adesnik  

ZEALOTS AND ZELLOTS: Matt Yglesias says Zell Miller is a racist and a facist. Hugh Hewitt says Matt has gone off the deep-end.

Harold Meyerson settles for calling Miller a McCarthyite. I pretty much agree with that.
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:04 PM by Patrick Belton  

UNSURPRISINGLY, THE GUARDIAN RUNS EVERY WORD OF THE FIRST TWINS' speech. (Okay, so they've run all the speeches from the RNC. But it was still funny.) (That is, unlike Jenna and Barbara.) For humor that doesn't bomb quite so badly, see WhiteHouse.org's parody. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:43 PM by David Adesnik  

THE MAKING OF A BLACK CONSERVATIVE: Princella Smith is a tall, athletic, intelligent and well-spoken young woman. As the winner of MTV's "Stand Up and Holla" essay contest, she earned the right to address the Republican convnention.

Yesterday, OxBlog had the chance to sit down with Ms. Smith and talk to her about faith, politics and the future of the GOP. Also joining in were John Hinderaker, Kevin Aylward and Scott Sala.

The foremost quesiton on my mind at the beginning of the interview was why a young, intelligent black women chose to identify herself so fully and openly with the Republican party.

I am not suggesting that all African-Americans should vote Democratic. But when 90% of African-Americans support the same party, it is not just reasonable but important to ask what distinguishes those few who resist the dominant trend and support the GOP. And Ms. Smith was well-prepared to answer our questions:

OxBlog: Do people ever say that it’s remarkable that you’re both an
African-American and a Republican-American?

Ms. Smith: Every single interview I’ve had I’ve had to answer that
question…I think that you’d be surprised at the number of closeted
African-American Republicans there are...

OxBlog: What do you think the GOP could do to get more than 10 or 15 percent of the black vote, because it seems that election after election it’s going to the Democrats overwhelmingly. There’s a case to be made, but what it is it?

Princella's answer focused on the importance of communicating the Republican message more effectively to the African-American base. [Background noise on the tape made her precise words inaudible.] She said that Democrats "[ha]ve done a much better job of explaining their issues" but that Black Republicans do have powerful spokesman such as J.C. Watts who is

A very clear, very precise, very good speaker. He can speak to
anybody. White, black ,Asian, Puerto Rican, anybody.

I have to admit that I was skeptical of Ms. Smith's answer. Embattled but passionate minorities (in the political sense of the word) almost always prefer to explain their lack of success in terms of poor communication instead of accepting that there are valid reasons why the majority might ignore their message.

Even the Reagan administration held poor communication responsible for the enduring unpopularity of its Central American policy initiatives, despite the fact that the Great Communicator himself constantly made the case for those initiatives before massive audiences.

Instead of focusing on racial politics, I thought a better way to discover the well-spring of Ms. Smith's conservatism would be to ask her what issues she cares about, not what the media wants to ask her about:

OxBlog: Now we’ve been asking you a lot of questions about being Black and republican...but what do you want to talk about? Do you want to tell us about Iraq, do you want to tell us about free trade and outsourcing? What issue do you care most about?

Ms. Smith: Education has really been the one...[My parents,] they worked for everything they got…They always said to me "Education, education, education.”

...

OxBlog: An issue related to education is drug use among young people and also pregnancy. I was wondering how you feel, I guess, about the general Republican line on those issues. Do we need to move away from a “Just say no” legal enforcement approach to those issues and focus more on treatment?

PS: No! We need to just say no to drugs…It’s black and white.
It’s right or wrong.

I was becoming concerned about Ms. Smith's inflexibility. She seemd to have an almost disciplinary approach to politics:

Ms. Smith: There is an epidemic of unwed mothers...[their children] don’t have any kind of male role model at all. They either become very effeminate or they break out...

OxBlog: That leads into the issue of birth control. Republicans tend
to focus more on abstinence. Would it make sense to talk about abstinence to those who are willing to hear the message and for everyone else who doesn’t want to abstain, have them learn more about sex and about birth control?

Ms. Smith: I believe that job is the family’s...We have the same
problems as we did [in the 60 and 70s]...the only difference is that we’ve become so lax in raising our children.

I had to be impressed with Ms. Smith's consistency and commitment to principle. Individuals are responsible for their own behavior. Families, not governments, are resonsible for individuals. Compromising one's principles accomplishes nothing more than lowering standards.

But if that is Ms. Smith's message -- if that is Republicans' message for African-Americans -- no wonder 90% of them vote Democratic. As Ms. Smith said, there is an epidemic of single motherhood. And of drug use. And of gang warfare. And of crime. And yet in the midst of all this suffering, she has nothing to say except "Take responsibility for yourselves."

I admit that the instilling an ethic of personal responsibility is the most important challenge facing the African-American community today. Yet we can do more than condemn those who have alreayd succumbed to drug abuse or single motherhood. The government can facilitate the process of communal regeneration.

There is more, however, to Ms. Smith's conservatism. Thanks to Scott Sala thoughtful questions, Ms. Smith began to talk about her faith. She is the daugher of a minister and a very committed Christian. She noted that

They call the wife of the minister the First Lady. She has done an
excellent job of being a helpmate to my father.

Ms. Smith explained that "helpmate" is a very specific biblical term intended to designate the role of a woman vis-a-vis her husband. As the son of rabbi, I am also familiar with the verse to which Ms. Smith referred. It is Genesis 2:20, which the King James Bible renders as

And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found a help meet for him.

The Hebrew word for help meet is shifhah. It often refers to females servants. Unsuprisingly, the use of this word to describe Eve has become the basis (not unfairly) for theological justifications of male dominance. [CORRECTION: The phrase used in Genesis 2:20 is ezer k'negdo, which might be translated as a "fitting helper". The phrase most often used to justify male dominance is Genesis 3:16 (not to be confused with Austin 3:16) in which God informs Eve of her punishment:

Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy
conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

Many thanks to Rabbi JH for pointing out my unfortuate mistake, which could have been avoided with a minimum of effort.]

As Ms. Smith explained,

I really believe that the male is the leader of the family.

She said that women are leaders as well, but not in the same way. And so it became increasingly clear how Ms. Smith is different from the overwhelming majority of African-Americans who vote Republican.

She subscribes to a powerful faith whose interpretation of gender roles bears little resemblance to the lived experience of black America. She subscribes to a faith whose fidelity to the Biblical word rules out all those compromises of principle that Democrats identify as a path to healing the divisions of the black community.

The issue here is not communication.
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# Posted 2:59 PM by Patrick Belton  

NOT ONLY DO THEY MAKE GOOD COMPUTERS, THEY ALSO SUPPORT DEMOCRACY: If you have iTunes, you can go to the music store and search for either the DNC or the RNC, and recordings from all of the speeches from both conventions are available there for free. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:57 PM by David Adesnik  

HAVE YOU GOOGLED YOURSELF LATELY? Rick Santorum has. OxBlog and the rest of the RNC crew had the chance to interview Sen. Santorum (R-PA) just a little while ago, so look forward to a transcript.

We also had a long talk with Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and some us also spoke with George Allen, Republican of Virginia. My compliments to the GOP for going all out to give the blogosphere access to some of its leading figures -- and subjecting them to our rapid-fire interrogations.
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# Posted 5:05 AM by Patrick Belton  

OXBLOG ON CNN: The transcript is now up online from a debate I did on CNN in the run-up to the Democratic convention with the Kennedy School's Alex Jones. This was made considerably more difficult by the facts that he's a lovely guy, and that we didn't actually disagree on very much in the end. Alex and I appear toward the bottom of the transcript. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:24 PM by David Adesnik  

ZELLING OUT: Sen. Miller is pathetic and dishonest. During the Cold War, the phrase 'red-baiting' described the actions of those who recklessly accused their fellow Americans of supporting the other side. Whereas Communism marched under a banner of red, violent Islamic fundamentalism marches under a banner of green. And what Zell Miller did I can only describe as green-baiting.

Miller told the Republican convention that

No one should dare to even think about being the Commander in Chief of this country if he doesn't believe with all his heart that our soldiers are liberators abroad and defenders of freedom at home.

But don't waste your breath telling that to the leaders of my party today. In their warped way of thinking America is the problem, not the solution.

They don't believe there is any real danger in the world except that which America brings upon itself through our clumsy and misguided foreign policy.

I often criticize the Democratic leadership for their lack of idealism and flagging commitment to promoting democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq. But they do not question our soldiers. They don't believe that America is the problem. They recognize the existence of evil and are willing to fight it with all their heart. They simply differ on the matter of how.

Zell Miller has no more integrity than the Swift Vets.

And the delegates at the Republican convention demonstrated that their total lack of judgment by cheering (and jeering) so loudly for the most despicable of Miller's attacks. Miller said that

Senator Kerry has made it clear that he would use military force only if approved by the United Nations.

Kerry would let Paris decide when America needs defending. I want Bush to decide.

That is a simply a lie, but it brought down the house.

Finally, when it comes to hypocrisy, Miller once again demonstrated that he is second to none. Miller asked the Convention,

Where is the bipartisanship in this country when we need it most?

Today, at the same time young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrats' manic obsession to bring down our commander in chief.

Pathetic. Simply pathetic. Such vindictiveness and dishonesty should never masquearade as bipartisanship. This is going to get ugly.
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# Posted 11:05 PM by David Adesnik  

CHENEY IN COMMAND: There is only one word to describe Dick Cheney's performance tonight: presidential. I have little regard for the Vice-President, but must defer to a first-rate performance.

Cheney had the voice of a rock. Of all the prime-time speakers so far, only Cheney has come across as truly comfortable and confident. All of the others were performing and playing to the crowd. Cheney was delivering a message.

The Vice-President's bearing conveyed a profound understanding of the challenges facing a nation in peril. His voice neither rose in anger nor fell into condescension.

Cheney was solemn but not withdrawn. His bearing was the embodiment of mature resolve.

I want to emphasize that what I am describing in this post is not the man I believe Dick Cheney to be, but the man who he presented himself as. It was not the profoundity of his words but the silent strength of his bearing that was so powerful.

I have often described Dick Cheney as arrogant, reckless, and even amoral. But if tonight is any indicator of how he will present himself on the campaign trail, then he will be a perform an invaluable service for President Bush.

The President's greatest concern now may be that he cannot match his second-in-command when it comes to being presidential.
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# Posted 9:53 PM by David Adesnik  

BOOLA BOOLA! Our alma mater continues to distinguish itself.
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# Posted 9:41 PM by David Adesnik  

"DEMOCRACY" MISSING IN ACTION: Peter Beinart observes that both McCain and Giuliani may want to lower the American public's expectations of a democratic outcome in Iraq. Laura Bush was more optimistic, but still somewhat evasive. Only Governor Arnold was gung-ho about democracy promotion. But even he didn't connect it explicitly to Afghanistan and Iraq. So the question is, what are Cheney and Bush going to say?
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# Posted 8:11 PM by David Adesnik  

DO CONSERVATIVES TRUST THE SWIFT VETS? Two weeks ago, it seemed like the Weekly Standard was keeping its distance from the Swift Vets. If you read between the lines in the most recent issue of the Standard, I think you'll see that Kristol & Co. are still not willing to trust them.

Moreover, Byron York's cover story [no permalink] in the National Review's "special all-Kerry issue" comes dangerously close to writing the Swift Vets off as irresponsible and reckless.

The Standard opens up with an attack on Kerry's authorized biographer, Douglas Brinkley. Brinkley is a nice guy and a very good historian, but I think the Standard is right to describe his recent behavior as both partisan and inconsistent. Yet while attacking Brinkley, the Standard doesn't actually say that he's wrong to dismiss the Swift Vets' charges.

Next, Bill Kristol argues that if you just read Kerry's Senate testimony from 1971, you will know that the Senator from Massachusetts simply isn't fit to be President. But I'm not buying it.

Now, there's no question that the testimony is embarrassing. It perfectly embodies the "blameAmerica first" mentality that conservatives associate with post-Vietnam liberalism. But so what? Kerry said all that back in 1971. He has changed since then and so has Bush.

I am also disturbed by Bill Kristol apparent unwillingness to say anything about the substance of Kerry's accusations that were serious atrocities in Vietnam. Sean Hannity did the same thing in his interview with Tommy Franks; he said that Kerry betrayed his fellow soldiers by making the accusations -- full stop.

Next up is Fred Barnes' argument that Kerry should have known better than to run on his war record. He writes disingenuously that Kerry made a serious mistake by

elevating Vietnam and making it a front-page story by denouncing both the book and the ad as a "smear." But since Kerry labels almost all criticism of himself as a smear, this response had little effect. At this point, the Kerry campaign lost any chance of controlling the controversy and succeeded only at prolonging it.

Barnes' comments demonstrate that the Standard has a double standard. Kristol condemns Kerry's charges without addressing their substance while Barnes defends the Swift Vets' charges without addressing their substance. And yet Barnes still won't say straight out that the Swift Vets are right.

Neither will Jonathan Last. However, Last does an excellent job of demonstrating that the mainstream media's coverage of the Swift Vets has been highly irregular. First, they ignored the Vets. Then Kerry lashed out at them because the blogosphere and the talk shows kept the story alive. As soon as Kerry spoke out, the media starting attack the Swift Vets left and right.

But perhaps Last should be defending the media instead of criticizing them. If the Swift Vets' charges had no substance, they should've been ignored. If the story refused to die, perhaps the media was right to go on the offensive, even it often went too far.

The one accusation Last does endorse is the Cambodia charge. There is simply no way Kerry was there on Christmas Eve 1968. Perhaps that is why network journalists like Tim Russert have taken the Cambodia issue quite seriously.

NRO's Byron York also leads off his article on the Swift Vets with Cambodia. Bottom line: Kerry wasn't there on Christmas, or perhaps ever. York also suggests that Kerry didn't deserve his first Purple Heart, although York relies very heavily on the unsubstantiated testimony of Swift Vet Louis Letson.

On the Bronze Star, York cites the eyewitness testimony of a number of Swift Vets but still comes off as somewhat agnostic. But when it comes to the Silver Star, York exposes just how dishonest the Swift Vets' charges are. Their talk of Kerry killing a boy in a loincloth to get his medal is disgusting.

Last week, York tentatively suggested that the Swift Vets were beginning to cut in to Kerry's poll numbers. Liberals are making the same point in order to show that GOP lies are what's sinking their candidate, not his own inconsistency.

I disagree with both. My gut says that Cambodia is not enough to hurt Kerry and that running on his war record is still the best way to go.


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# Posted 5:44 PM by Patrick Belton  

IN IRAN: Atefeh Rajabi, 16, hung for having sexual relations with an unmarried man. Ms Rajabi was an orphan, and is the tenth minor executed in the country since 1990. A man arrested at the same time as her was released after receiving 100 lashes. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:52 PM by David Adesnik  

MY THOUGHTS EXACTLY: Josh Benson says that Schwarzenegger was

Charged with saluting a political ideology he doesn't share, praising a president he rarely campaigns with, and, most problematically, embracing a party his home state has abandoned, Schwarzenegger went with what we might call the "middle school civics class approach": He lauded American freedom. He celebrated our hospitality to immigrants. He expressed approval that we are not socialists. It was, in the end, a gauzy paean to American triumphalism--ready-made for delivery for most, if not all, political conventions congregating this summer.

As OxBlog said, the speech was shopworn and predictable. However, all of Arnold's talk about free enterprise made me ask, "Did Kerry or Edwards say anything good about free markets in their speeches?" Well, sort of. Kerry said:

Here at home, wages are falling, health care costs are rising, and our
great middle class is shrinking. People are working weekends; they're working two jobs, three jobs, and they're still not getting ahead.

We're told that outsourcing jobs is good for America. We're told that
new jobs that pay $9,000 less than the jobs that have been lost is the best we can do. They say this is the best economy we've ever had. And they say that anyone who thinks otherwise is a pessimist. Well, here is our answer: There is nothing more pessimistic than saying America can't do better.

Again and again, Kerry emphasizes the plight of the worker and the dangers of the marketplace, not the ingenuity of the entrepreneur and the opportunities inherent in a free market.

I don't think Kerry's emphasis is wrong. My natural sympathies lie with those whom the market has left behind. But is it any wonder that all those millions of Americans who are enchanted by the free markets and unprecendented opportunities vote Republican?

What does it mean in America today when Dave McCune, a steel worker I met in Canton, Ohio, saw his job sent overseas and the equipment in his factory literally unbolted, crated up, and shipped thousands of miles away along with that job? What does it mean when workers I've met had to train their foreign replacements?

America can do better. So tonight we say: help is on the way...

What does it mean when Deborah Kromins from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania works and saves all her life only to find out that her pension has disappeared into thin air – and the executive who looted it has bailed out on a golden parachute?

America can do better. And help is on the way...

What does it mean when people are huddled in blankets in the cold,
sleeping in Lafayette Park on the doorstep of the White House itself – and the number of families living in poverty has risen by three million in the last four years?

America can do better. And help is on the way...

Again and again, Kerry reinforces the image of the Democratic Party as the party of the victim. Is it any wonder that the optimism of the average American benefits the GOP? Even Kerry's insistence that "help is on the way" suggests that Americans ought to wait for help (from the government?) rather then depend on their own hard-work and ingenuity.

We value jobs that pay you more not less than you earned before. We
value jobs where, when you put in a week's work, you can actually pay your bills, provide for your children, and lift up the quality of your life. We value an America where the middle class is not being squeezed, but doing better...

So much promise stretches before us. Americans have always reached for the impossible, looked to the next horizon, and asked: What if?

Two young bicycle mechanics from Dayton asked what if this airplane could take off at Kitty Hawk? It did that and changed the world forever. A young president asked what if we could go to the moon in ten years? And now we're exploring the solar system and the stars themselves. A young generation of entrepreneurs asked, what if we could take all the information in a library and put it on a little chip the size of a fingernail? We did and that too changed the world forever.

Finally, a reference to entrepreneurs. It is interesting, though, that this lone reference is embedded within Kerry's paean to science. I think the optimism of the Democratic parties has always been more technological than that of the Republicans. What brings progress is science, not businessmen competing in the marketplace.

Now here's Edwards:

I grew up in a small town in rural North Carolina. My father worked in a mill all his life, and I will never forget the men and women who worked with him. They had lint in their hair and grease on their faces. They worked hard and tried to put a little something away every week so their kids and their grandkids could have a better life. They are just like the auto workers, office workers, teachers, and shop keepers on Main Streets all across America...

I have spent my life fighting for the kind of people I grew up with.
For two decades, I stood with families and children against big HMOs and big insurance companies. And as a Senator, I fought those same fights against the Washington lobbyists and for causes like the Patients’ Bill of Rights...

Edwards derives his authenticity from the fact that his father was a mill worker. Instead of talking about his own success as a legal entrepreneur, he describes his career as one of representing victims in the struggle against the corporations that have harmed them.

We can create good paying jobs in America again. Our plan will stop
giving tax breaks to companies that outsource your jobs. Instead, we will give tax breaks to American companies that keep jobs here in America. And we will invest in the jobs of the future—in the technologies and innovation to ensure that America stays ahead of the competition...

Tonight, as we celebrate in this hall, somewhere in America, a mother sits at the kitchen table. She can’t sleep. She’s worried because she
can’t pay her bills. She’s working hard to pay the rent and feed her
kids. She’s doing everything right, but she still can’t get ahead.

It didn’t use to be that way in her house. Her husband was called up in the Guard and he’s been serving in Iraq for more than a year. She thought he’d be home last month, but now he’s got to stay longer.

She thinks she’s alone. But tonight in this hall and in your homes—you know what? She’s got a lot of friends. We want her to know that
we hear her. And it’s time to bring opportunity and an equal chance to her door.

We’re here to make America stronger at home so she can get ahead. And we’re here to make America respected in the world so that we can bring him home and American soldiers don’t have to fight the war in Iraq and the war on terror alone.

So when you return home, you might pass a mother on her way to work the late-shift—you tell her……hope is on the way.

When your brother calls and says that he’s working all the time at the
office and still can’t get ahead—you tell him……hope is on the way.

The similarity of Kerry and Edwards' speeches is remarkable. Once again, the main rhetorical devices is the description of numerous individuals personal suffering. Moreover, Edwards emphasizes that American can't get ahead inspite of their hard work and presumable ingenuity. Then, towards the close of his speech, Edwards says that

We are Americans and we choose to be inspired. We choose hope over despair; possibilities over problems, optimism over cynicism.

Edwards, like Kerry insists that he is the true optimist and that the Democratic party is the true party of optimism. Yes, but of a certain kind. It the optimism that comes from believing that a compassionate government can help this nation's many victims. It is not the optimism that comes from believing that the people themselves have the answers.

Again, I don't mean that as criticism. I do believe that even the fairest marketplace has its victims. I believe that government has an ethical obligation to help and that Republican administration's often don't. But if the Democrats can only talk about markets as places of fear, is it any surprise that so many Americans are drawn to the GOP?
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# Posted 3:22 PM by Patrick Belton  

HOW ABOUT ANOTHER SPY SCANDAL: Curious about the identities of clandestine operatives working for the intelligence services of Nato member states? Well, no need to be any longer - you can read all about them on the Nato website! The alliance which won the Cold War took from 9 July until 28 August to remove from its website a convenient English language translation of a Croatian news report naming four of MI6's clandestine officers in Bosnia...and their wives...and their girlfriends....

Thus OxBlog's correspondent Tom McNiff:

In fact, this was a rather humorous tale at least as reported in the European press...

First a Belgrade paper, Nedeljni Telegraf, names the purported MI6 [station] chief in Serbia. As if that were not enough, a tiny Zagreb magazine called Nacional, said by the British press to circulate just 35,000 copies, last July ran the names of not only four alleged MI6 officials in Bosnia and Herzogenovia, but also the wife and girlfriend of two of the officers. [According to a subsequent email, Nacional's editor Ivo Pukanic maintains broad contacts in the Croatian and international intelligence community in Croatia, as well as with former irregular Croat operatives; his newspaper has the reputation in the Balkans of frequently being used for strategic leaks by one side or another.]

One of the British spies allegedly worked in the office of [...] a high-ranking international official in Bosnia. Another Brit was said MI6 chief of information in Bosnia, yet another chief British intelligence officer for Bosnia and Herzogenovia.

The Daily Telegraph in London quoted one former Defence Ministry official as terming the episode a "cock-up". Perhaps worse than the Balkans media reports of likely MI6 personnel was NATO's treatment of the whole scenario.

A NATO website carried an English language translation of the Croatian news report, including the four spies' names. The Telegraph said NATO officials took a relaxed view, leaving the article on the website from July 9 until Aug. 28, when the Telegraph contacted NATO about the information.

NATO officials were "embarrassed" and quickly removed the MI6 story, whose appearance on the easily accessible NATO site sparked "intense anger in Britain", the Telegraph said.

Meanwhile... the Guardian, reported Aug. 27 that the Croatian government had allowed MI6 officers to wiretap and spy on Croat citizens. The paper hinted that the arrangement was due to Britain's recent opposition to Croatia's joining the European Community.

British sources said the "outing" of the MI6 officials was done by maverick intelligence officials in Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia. One aspect of the case relates to Gen. Ante Gotovina, a Croatian commander sought as a war crimes suspect.

All in all, MI6 has not fared well this summer in the old fashioned espionage game.

As a former DCI I'm acquainted with once mused in desperation, 'Can't anyone here play this game?' (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:40 PM by David Adesnik  

SALON'S CHEAPSHOT AT OXBLOG: This column just barely dignifies a response. Author Marc Follman cherry-picks a number of humorous posts from the RNC blogging corps and concludes we have no substance.

Turning his sights on OxBlog, Follman mocks my brief post on my still-briefer run-in with Miss America. Then he mocks the humorous opening to my post about Ari Fleischer without noting any of the substance that follows.

Nor Follman refer to any of my other posts, which I think are fairly substantial. But I'd prefer if you judge that for yourself.
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# Posted 1:17 PM by David Adesnik  

CAWFEE TAWK WITH LAWRA: Fortunately for the First Lady, the Bush Twins are not a hard act to follow. In fact, I think that even the Olsen Twins would've said something a lot more substantial. (After all, they are successful businesswomen who might be able to teach Ahnuld a thing or two about free enterprise.)

Anyhow, I had high hopes for the First Lady, especially after she promised that

Tonight, I want to try to answer the question that I believe many people would ask me if we sat down for a cup of coffee or ran into each other at the store: You know him better than anyone, you've seen things no one else has seen, why do you think we should re-elect your husband as President?

That's a damn good question because I want to know who George W. Bush really is. When he gives a prepared speech, you feel that you are listening to his speechwriters. When he does a Q&A with the press, you wonder what he really wants to stay instead of gently stumbling through his talking points.

Who is this man, George W. Bush? He demonstrates an almost fanatical commitment to a few select policies, such as tax cuts and the war in Iraq. But I still don't know what George Bush believes. He talks about his faith, but it doesn't seem to have much impact on his policies.

What is it like to be in the Situation Room with George Bush during a crisis? Do Cheney and Rumsfeld do all the talking? When he's off the record, does the President really let go and say what he feels? Or is he like Reagan, who never let anyone know what he was feeling, except perhaps Nancy?

When Ari Fleischer says that George Bush is a warm and caring individual, what does that really mean? Never trust what a subordinate says about the intimate character of a President running for re-election.

But I have faith in Laura. I have always thought of her as a woman reluctant to live in the spotlight, a woman who believed that marrying a good man, raising good children and being a good teacher is more than enough to make you happy. (I agree.)

Sadly, Laura failed to deliver. She gave a policy speech. She spoke competently but without much passion. She maintained her composure yet still seemed profoundly uncomfortable and out of place. She spoke as it it were her obligation, not her inspiration.

In the end, Laura only deepened the mystery of who her husband truly is.

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# Posted 5:32 AM by Patrick Belton  

FOR ALL THOSE WHO, LIKE US, have a heartbreaking love for Russia and her people while hating her authoritarian governments, today's events are particularly sad. Our thoughts are with the families of the two hundred schoolchildren held hostage in North Ossetia, along with the family members of the passengers on the two airplanes destroyed last week by Chechnyan terrorists - illiberal seccessionists fighting an illiberal Russian government. One weeps that Russia's people, heritors of one of Europe's most noble cultures, must be caught in the middle. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:05 AM by Patrick Belton  

OXBLOG'S GOOD FRIEND ZAINAB AL-SUWAI addressed the Republican Convention yesterday during prime-time. Congratulations, Zainab! Her speech is here, and her organisation, the American Islamic Congress, has its website here. It began when her husband, Ahmed Al-Rahim, was studying at Yale, and deserves great support for its efforts to promote religious understanding at home while serving as an international focal point for a moderate and intellectually dynamic American vision of Islam. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:11 PM by David Adesnik  

ON THE FLOOR WITH LAURA & ARNOLD: Along with Tom Bevan from RealClearPolitics, I had the opportunity to stand right behind the Kansas delegation, right on the convention floor during Arnold and Laura's speeches.

My first reaction is that both speeches fell somewhat flat. Arnold told the story of a young Austrian who came to America with nothing in his pockets but hope in his heart. He established a decent rapport with the crowd, but there was no real emotion in the story so it came off as shopworn and predictable.

Strangely, Arnold identified Richard Nixon as the man who inspired him to become a Republican, then left Nixon of off his list of great Republican presidents.

In the second half of his speech, Arnold talked about the importance of having faith in the American economy and not listening to the nay-saying "economic girlie-men." He got some compulsory laughs but not much more.

And what exactly does it mean that you should have faith in the economy? That you should ignore the statistics and the government's policies? That you should assume things will get better even if they aren't so great right now? That's hardly a ringing endorsement of the President.

After Arnold spoke, Jenna & Barbara came out to introduce their mother. They started out with bad jokes and stuck with their bad jokes all the way to the bitter end. Next to me, Tom was cringing and muttering under his breath.

It's not just that their jokes were inappropriate. Yes, it's embarrassing when the daughters of the family-values president remind their grandparents that Sex and the City is a television show and not just something your not supposed to talk about.

The bigger problem was that the twins came across as childish and totally lacking in substance. That is not what George Bush needs to help him overcame his reputation for being a lightweight.

These girls -- women, perhaps -- are graduates of some of America's best universities. Can't they talk about politics or ideas? Or at least talk about their father as a human being? Instead, they came across as self-involved, self-indulgent sorority girls.

Well, the clock is ticking and the bar is open so I'll share my thoughts about Laura a little bit later. Cheers!
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# Posted 9:48 PM by David Adesnik  

NOT A FLIP-FLOP, JUST A NUANCE: Michelle Malkin puts Bush's comments in context (full transcript here) and says it shows that he never contradicted himself. Ramesh Ponnuru agrees and says that Bush was clearly saying that the war on terror couldn't be won in the next four years.

I strongly disagree. When Bush denied saying that victory in four years was possible, Lauer responded as follows:

“So I’m just saying can we win it? Do you see that?”

In response to that question, Bush said

“I don't think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world –- let's put it that way."

It's hard to disagree with that statement -- unless you're a President who has constantly promised nothing but victory.
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# Posted 5:25 PM by David Adesnik  

OXBLOG WELCOMES SAM DONALDSON, GUEST BLOGGER:

Question, from an old television show from yesteryear - "Will the REAL Republican party stand up!"

(Yes, Sam Donaldson typed that himself while sitting in front of my laptop and on my chair.)
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# Posted 5:08 PM by David Adesnik  

"CONSISTENCY, PERSISTENCY, CHARACTER...GEORGE W. BUSH": That's what Tommy Franks just wrote on Scott's laptop. It is the unofficial debut of his endorsement for the President. The official announcement will follow on Sean Hannity's radio show.

[UPDATE: Hannity just finished talking to the General. I haven't seen that many softballs since I went to summer camp as a kid.]

Here's a transcript of Gen. Franks Q&A with the RNC bloggers:

OxBlog: I have a question General Franks. First of all, it's an honor
to meet you. Second of all, with regard to consistency, do you think George Bush hurt himself a lot with his comments on Matt Lauer that maybe we can't win the war on terror?

Franks: Certainly not. We won the Cold War, didn't we? [Pause] And we didn't do it in 15 minutes.

OxBlog: Did Ronald Reagan show that kind of doubt in his efforts to win the Cold War?

Franks: Well I don't know that there was any doubt showing at all. I
think that we're talking about consistency and persistency and anyone who looks at the President over the last three and a half years is gonna have a heckuva hard time finding out [inaudible] when he was not consistent or persistent.

You know you get a lot of people who look at the other side, see, and they say "My goodness, you know he shouldn't've of been so consistent, actually, he should've changed his mind."

[Inaudible]

Scott: [Bush] did clarify himself on Rush Limbaugh.

Franks: I didn't see that. I didn't hear it.

Scott: He did clarify the Matt Lauer statement.

Franks: What'd he say?

Scott: He said he'd misstated it and he clarified his point that it is a
winnable war, it's not a traditional war in the sense that [inaudible].

Franks: And I think it's one of those kind of things where you had to look real hard to find a parade after the Cold War. You know when the wall came down, the greatest stand-off of our time, nuclear stand-off, crisis that went on for decades, and I believe if you'd asked any President during that time, "So what do you think, is it winnable?" You know, he might well have said, "I don't know". [Inaudible] The fact of the matter is that the war on terror is winnable, but you know it's not winnable in 15 minutes. Or in 12 months, you know this is going to go for a while.

To be continued...
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# Posted 4:56 PM by David Adesnik  

REPUBLICAN DIVERSITY AND COALITION-BUILDING:

A staffer from the Indian embassy remarked to an elderly Jewish woman in attendance "I saw Fiddler on the Roof last month so now I understand Jewish culture." "Well," the woman responded, "my husband and I just love Indian food" as a reply.

(Via Tapped)
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# Posted 4:42 PM by David Adesnik  

WHAT EXACTLY WAS THAT PROTEST ABOUT? Matt Yglesias unintentionally (or not?) punctures the NYT's sanitized anti-Bush narrative by writing that,

At root the issue is that large contemporary protests have become these carnival-like escapades. It is accepted -- and, indeed, encouraged -- for as many people as possible to show up, whether or not they agree with the United For Peace and Justice platform, know what the UFPJ platform is, or even know what UFPJ is. As a result, it's hard to know what protest attendance signifies. When thousands of people showed up for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s March on Washington we understood that to mean that all those people were supporters of
the Civil Rights Act demanding congressional action. At the UFPJ event, by contrast, you had people with all manner of views on Iraq policy a lot of people whose problems with the Bush administration really have nothing to do with foreign affairs, and my favorite fringe group of all time, the Spartacist Youth League complaining that the US needs to stop interfering with North Korea's right to a nuclear bomb. Most of the people there seemed to be impassioned Kerry
supporters, but the best-organized elements were Nader's people. Obviously the message of a pro-Kerry anti-Bush protestor and that of a pro-Nader anti-Bush protestor are bound to be rather different.

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# Posted 4:20 PM by David Adesnik  

TRAGEDY IN ISRAEL: Hamas has claimed responsibility for two suicide bombings in Be'ersheba. We see once again that Israel's enemies cannot speak out with words and ideas, but only with hate and terror.
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# Posted 3:52 PM by David Adesnik  

ENEMIES, A LOVE STORY: Roger Simon lashes out at the GOP for its hypocrisy on gay marriage. He's a born-and-raised Democrat who still can't get comfortable with the domestic politics of the one party he believes can win the war on terror. And he doesn't like feeling that the bloggers at this convention have been set up to serve as GOP flaks.

UPDATE: On a related note, I've been meaning to post about the Family Research Council's fortune cookies, which say offensive things like "Real Men Marry Women."

That's just disgusting. What does the FRC have to say about all of the gay soldiers in our armed forces, risking their lives for the United States of America? Are those men (and women) not "real enough"?

Full disclosure: I ate two of the FRC fortune cookies at the NRO cocktail party yesterday. Yes, OxBlog is a hypocrite. A very hungry hypocrite.
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# Posted 3:12 PM by David Adesnik  

BUSH FLIP-FLOPS (AND FLIPS) AT THE WORST POSSIBLE MOMENT: And the NYT is eating him alive. In contrast to the Times' front page splash, the WaPo is running a page six story that begins

President Bush said in an interview broadcast Monday that the war on terrorism cannot be won in the traditional sense of victory.

But the WaPo seems to have recognized that it was underplaying and underspinning the story. Right now, it has a headline story up on its website that begins:

President Bush rushed Tuesday morning to reverse his assertion that the war on terror cannot be won, trying to deflect a planned barrage of Democratic attacks by telling the nation's largest veterans group that "we are winning, and we will win."

Tellingly, Mike Allen is the author of both WaPo articles. In an effort to emulate Bush and Kerry, he's flip-flopping too!

So, is there real substance to Bush's conflicting states about our chances of "winning" the war on terror? At a human level, it is entirely understandable for a confident and decisive leader (any leader, not specifically George Bush) to have moments of doubt. In fact, most of us want to know that our leaders are able to question their optimistic premises.

Moreover, Bush's flip-flop on the war doesn't have much detail to it. It's not like Kerry's support and opposition for a specific war or his claim to voted for a specific measure before voting against it.

But in the midst of hard-fought and divise campaign, Bush's comments represent a colossal failure. If Giuliani is going to bash Kerry's indecisiveness while praising Bush's decisive leadership, then George Bush needs to act the part.

Going further, Bush's comments make him look like a buffoon who is being handled by his subordinates. They feed into stereotypes of him as too stupid to be our chief-executive.

Now let me just state that I don't agree with any of these descriptions of Bush. But simply speaking from a strategic perspective, Republicans need to recognize how damaging such incidents are.
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# Posted 3:09 PM by David Adesnik  

THREE CHEERS FOR THE NO-NEWS CONVENTION: Drawing on his extensive knowledge of US political history, Joshua Spivak argues that conventions should be irrelevant because they take power away from the voters.
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# Posted 2:53 PM by David Adesnik  

McCAIN SELLS OUT: Jon Chait is pissed off. I'm just surprised to hear McCain seriously wants to run in 2008. John from Power Line agrees. [No link -- he's standing right next to me!]

UPDATE: In his review of McCain's speech, John writes that "I don't think I'm the only Republican partisan who doesn't quite trust McCain. Not as a soldier or as a man, but as a Republican."

Earlier, John wrote that

The list of Republican convention speakers for tonight and tomorrow is dominated by moderate and liberal Republicans. Although I'm eager to hear John McCain, I'm not thrilled with the moderate tenor of the proceedings because I'm a conservative. The MSM isn't thrilled either, but its leading lights offer a different reason -- they contend that the Republicans are concealing the true, conservative face of the party.

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# Posted 2:44 PM by David Adesnik  

THE EXPERT AGREES: Political science icon and fellow UVA scholar Larry Sabato agrees that media coverage of Sunday's protests was sanitized. Also, click here for a CBS interview with a woman whose son was killed fighting in Iraq. I interviewed the same woman and will try to put up a transcript later on.
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# Posted 2:40 AM by Patrick Belton  

A PERSONAL NOTE: Happy anniversary, dear; I love you. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:29 AM by Patrick Belton  

OXBLOG ON THE ROAD: I had a lovely time doing an interview last week with the Yale Free Press's delightful Diana Feygin, and am tickled pink that she called. The results are online, and touch mostly on blogging, journalism, and centrist politics. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:48 PM by David Adesnik  

JOHN McCAIN AND THE "DISINGENUOUS FILMMAKER": What does it say about George Bush and the GOP that the biggest applause John McCain got was for taunting Michael Moore?

What it might say is that John McCain simply isn't a very good speaker. And it actually works to McCain's advantage. The audience loves him so much that it is desperate for him to succeed. It senses him struggling, unable to build momentum for his applause lines, unable to establish any sort of rhythm.

McCain's strength isn't his eloquence, but his persona. He isn't exciting. He invokes bipartisanship time and again. He praises the Democrats' sincerity in fighting the War on Terror. But the audience wants red meat. They want Michael Moore.

And Rudy Giuliani is giving it to them.
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# Posted 10:00 PM by David Adesnik  

OXBLOG RADIO: I was on Hugh Hewitt's show earlier tonight. If I find a sound file or transcript, I'll put it up. If I can't, I'll put up a summary.

UPDATE: You can always listen to Hugh's most recent show on the KRLA website. DH informs me that the show plays in a loop, so it's hard to locate specific interviews.
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# Posted 9:35 PM by David Adesnik  

ARI FLEISCHER'S GUIDE TO RED-HOT G.O.P. LOVE: Washington icon Ari Fleischer gave Bloggers' Row ten minutes of his time this afternoon. Blogs for Bush has the audio. I recommend listening to whole thing, but since I'm such a nice guy I'll describe some of the highlights.

Fleischer began by talking about the website his brother started up while serving in Baghdad. It taught him the power of internet communication.

After Fleischer finishes talking, you'll hear some mumbling followed by a whole lot of laughter. That was when OxBlog asked, "How do you score hot Jewish chicks on J-date? I'm still single and Jewish."

Fleischer's answer: Don't touch my daughter.

Next, John from Power Line asked if Fleischer misses being in the spotlight. Answer: At big moments like this, yes he does. But it's also a relief to put that kind of high-pressure work behind him.

Captain Ed's question for Ari F. was what he thinks of how the media's has covered Kerry's war record compared to its investigating of the Bush-AWOL story. Fleischer's response was actually quite positive. The press loves controversy and on this kind of issue, a Republican in trouble is a much bigger story. But the press was also very, very tough on Clinton.

Skipping forward a bit, John asked what President Bush is like to work for. Ari said that he is one of the most uplifting and warm people he's ever met. He treats his staff incredibly well and has a great sense of humor.

Now it was time for OxBlog to play hardball with our esteemed guest. [I'll put up an exact transcript of the exchange as soon as I get a chance. Capt. Ed is working on one right now.]

I asked Fleischer to give some advice to Scott McClellan about the Swift Vets. There are three options:

1) Actually say something good about them, which the administration obviously doesn't want to do.
2) Stay with the status quo and dodge the question by
condemning all 527s.
3) Agree with John McCain and condemn the ads.

Fleischer said he thinks McClellan is doing exactly the right thing. When he says the President condemns all 527s he means all 527s.

Fleischer had me there for a moment and I stumbled, but I decided I had to follow up. I told him there was a difference between 527 ads and 527 ads that lie. His response was that Democrats have sent a lot of below-the-belt shots in Bush's direction and there wasn't much outrage.

There were a few more questions after that. Bobby wanted to know how 527s have changed campaign strategy. Tom from RealClear wanted to know what Fleischer's fondest memory was of working at the White House. Kevin asked what he thought of Michael Moore's take on the Florida recount. And then Ben really decided to play hardball: He asked whether the Yankees have enough pitching to win this year's World Series.


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# Posted 9:13 PM by David Adesnik  

OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! Miss America Erika Harold is visiting Bloggers Row!

UPDATE: The extremely lucky Matt Margolis of Blogs for Bush has put up a picture of himself with Miss Harold.
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# Posted 8:41 PM by David Adesnik  

OXBLOG STOLEN! As bloggers, we're used to making our (non-profit) living off of other journalists' hard work. But now, other sites are turning our hard work into cold hard cash.

The sites I'm talking about are the aggregators for the RNC Convention which post links to each and every post put up by the 15 official convention bloggers. I put up links to a few of the aggregators a short while ago, but didn't really "get" what they were doing.

Basically, they realize that it's a helluva lot easier to get all your links in one place rather than having to check 15 different blogs. And then they sell ads that will be seen by everyone who wants to check one site instead of fifteen.

As they say, all's fair in love and blog. I'm using an aggregator myself to keep up with all of my colleagues' work. The one I'm using is RNC Bloggers, created by Wizbang's own Kevin Aylward. Because he said 'thank you' to all of us by covering half of the tab at last night's all-you-can-eat Brazilian BBQ dinner.
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# Posted 8:40 PM by David Adesnik  

EVEN MORE DOWD! Matthew, not Maureen. In case my post about him wasn't enough, Brian at CWR has a very comprehensive account.
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# Posted 3:28 PM by David Adesnik  

MORE PROTEST FUN: A Prospect correspondent writes in TNR that the police got a little too aggressive in midtown yesterday. The article contains this memorable passage:

The day's most noteworthy street theater wasn't even the creation of leftists; it was the brainchild of a conservative group calling themselves Communists for Kerry (which TNR Online wrote about here on Friday). Dressed as Lenin, Castro, and Che Guevara, and
speaking in appropriate Russian and Spanish accents, they marched up Seventh Avenue waving red flags and calling for revolution. (The fact that their display was satire wasn't immediately obvious to some of their fellow marchers.)

Ouch!
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# Posted 3:10 PM by David Adesnik  

BLOG IT YOURSELF: Via e-mail, JM gently upbraids OxBlog for criticizing the NYT and WaPo coverage of the protests before the papers even went to print. Shouldn't I expect fuller coverage in the morning's paper rather than criticizing the first articles up on the web?

Well, by the time I read JM's e-mail I'd already what the NYT has to offer. It's even more slanted in the protesters' favor than the initial coverage. You can read about it here, here and here. I won't go into the details, but you can just follow the links and decide for yourself whether there is an inordinate emphasis on mainstream protesters and whether there is any attention paid to the organizers and their far-left politics.

On the bright side, the NYT has gotten rid of its excessive emphasis on disruptions and arrests.

The WaPo wasn't as enthusiastic about the protests. Instead of a four-column banner headline like the Times, the Post gave them a big photo and the second story. The Post's headline is "200,000 in N.Y. Protest Bush". I'm more inclined to believe the Post than the NYT, which projected the turn out at 500,000 on the basis of the organizers' tally and that of anonymous NYPD officials.

As for the content, the Post also does a pretty good job of sanitizing the protesters. It even attacks them from the left by focusing on the fact that 90% of the protesters were white and apparently middle-class (about which more later). But as they say, bloggers can't be choosers.
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# Posted 2:51 PM by David Adesnik  

CELEBRITY DRIVE-BYS: The convention are doing a pretty nice job of bringing some top-flight GOP operators in to talk with us. We just saw campaign manager Ken Mehlman and foreign policy adviser Tucker Eskew.

They both came at the same time, so I only got to talk to Eskew. I wanted to press him on the effectiveness of John Kerry's talk about building strong alliances. How effective is it? I said Kerry was short on specifics, but he was saying what a lot of people want to hear.

Eskew said he thought Kerry was playing more to the base. Moreover, Kerry's position falls apart when you look at the details. He's really talking about France and Germany, not "alliances". But what exactly is he going to do about France and Germany?

As a follow-up, I said that many people, including myself, have underestimated Americans' fondness for the United Nations. They really believe in it. That's why there was so much interest in getting the UN to authorize the invasion. Won't that help Kerry?

Eskew didn't think so. He said it's absolutely true that Americans want to liked. It's in our nature. (He's right) But at the end of the day they want to know that their President will stand up do what's necessary to protect the nation's security.

That wasn't enough for me, so I tried one more approach. I said that even if I agree on the merits that George Bush has made a lot of the right decisions about when to go with and when to go against our allies, it seems that the Bush campaign isn't confident enough to go out say that it has kept America's alliances strong.

In response, Eskew talked about Bush's success in coalition-building in both Afghanistan and Iraq. And that was where the discussion ended, because a staffer said it was time to go. I didn't buy the coalition-building and I don't think too many swing voters will. Eskew may be right that it won't matter. But I'd say it's a gamble, not a sure thing.
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# Posted 2:24 PM by David Adesnik  

BLOG CABIN REPUBLICANS: Yesterday afternoon after spending a couple hours at the big protest I headed up to The Grill in Bryant Park for an event with the Log Cabin Republicans.

It was very easy to pick me out as one of the few straight guys there. Amidst a sea of well-groomed, well-dressed men, there I was with my cargo pants and sweat-drenched plaid shirt.

I missed Mike Bloomberg's speech but got there in time for Pataki's. Actually, it was more of non-speech than a speech. First, he said 'Hi' and 'Hello' to a long list of New York State politicians who were at the event. Then he told us all what a great city New York was.

And then finally he made a brief comment about how diversity makes the Republican Party strong. He didn't use the word 'gay'. He didn't use the word 'homosexual'. Here was a man afraid to go on the record supporting a cause that he was nominally in favor of.

Perhaps I shouldn't blame Pataki. Perhaps I should blame all those in the party who are making him afraid. But when Arlen Specter and Bill Weld got up to speak, they were 100% clear about what they stood for. They don't believe in avoding the heart of the issue by saying that the states should decide for themselves about gay marriage. They believe that freedom really does mean freedom for everybody.

Of course, Specter and Weld aren't running for President in 2008. Maybe by that time the courts will have decided the issue and/or the majority of Americans will support gay marriage. That way, Pataki can just endorse the status quo.

Still, what he said just pissed me off. Talking about diversity is total bulls**t. I don't believe in gay marriage because I want affirmative action and political correctness in the bedroom. I believe in gay marriage because it is about equality before the law.

UPDATE: TNR was also at the event.
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# Posted 1:52 PM by David Adesnik  

HIZZONER STOPS BY: Ed Koch decided he wanted to meet the bloggers. He's a fun guy, so when he sat down at our table, we all crowded around.

Koch wants to know exactly what a blogger is. Captain Ed says it's a freelance writers who posts his thoughts on a webpage. Koch asks if he counts as a blogger because he sends out an e-mail commentary every week that goes to thousands of people. John from Power Line says 'No'.

The next question is about Koch's question to endorse Bush, early and unequivocally. Koch says he doesn’t agree with Bush on any of the domestic issues, but the Democrats just don’t have the stomach to fight the war on terror. Koch then says that he invented the phrase “The Bush Doctrine”. He defines it as a willingness to stand up to terrorists.

Koch then adds that most Democrats are moderates. He says that there are far more Democrats like him then there are like Howard Dean or Ted Kennedy.

Next, Koch complains about Kerry's flip-flop on the war. "Which John Kerry do you believe?" The one who voted to authorize the war and defends that decision now, or the one who apologized to the Deanics for his vote?

While talking about flip-flops, Koch also lashes out at Kerry's "hypocrsisy" on gay marriage.

Bobby Eberle asks what Koch thinks of Kerry's "sensitive" War on Terror? Koch says that Cheney was right, that the concept is ridiculous. Not all Muslims want to kill us, but hundreds of millions do.

Now, I wasn't going to interrupt everyone, but the fact is that Bush has often described his own efforts to have a sensitive foreign policy in the Middle East, so Cheney's attack, Koch's answer, and Bobby's question are all unfair.

Kevin wants to know whether Koch thinks voters will forget about terrorism and not vote for Bush because there hasn't been an attack since 9/11. Koch says no way, people are smart, they don't forget. I agree. But Roger says the amnesia set in three months after 9/11.

Finally, my question. I love to hear myself talk. I told Koch I wanted to give him a compliment and ask him an easy question. I said I'm writing my dissertation on US-Central American relations and I want to compliment him on all of the excellent work he did on behalf of human rights in Nicaragua in the 1970s.

That was a secret swipe at my colleagues here for being a little too uncritical. Koch's attacks on the Somoza dictatorship drove its supporters in Congress (including some prominent Democrats) completely mad.

Next, I asked Koch which bloggers he reads most often and why. He said he doesn't have a lot of time and doesn't read a lot of blogs. (I guessed as much. I was setting him up.) But when he does have time, Andrew Sullivan is his man, because he works so hard.

Except in August, I said.
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# Posted 1:35 PM by David Adesnik  

BLOGGERS' BREAKFAST, 8:00 AM, Southgate Hotel:

After five hours of sleep and a sweltering subway ride, I want coffee but won’t touch anything hot. I go for the ice water instead. The speaker at our breakfast is Matthew Dowd, a top strategist and spokesman for the Bush campaign. Even though his job is to spin, Dowd talks in an affable and friendly manner. That’s the first rule of good spin.

Dowd begins by describing what he calls the basic assumptions on which Bush’s strategy rests. First and foremost, there are very few swing voters left. More than ninety and close to ninety-five percent of voters are fully committed and evenly split between the parties. Thus, turning out the base is a high priority.

On the other hand, there are around 60 electoral votes that will be decided by a total of fewer than 50,000 ballots. It’s going be close, but Dowd says he’s optimistic. It sounds like spin. He said that Bush is even with Kerry or possibly a point or two ahead – but that’s where the campaign expected things to be after the convention. QED, whatever support Kerry got from his convention was temporary and superficial.

Perhaps. If the Bush campaign expected to be behind in the polls coming into the convention it’s because they expected a bigger Democratic bounce.

Next, the Q&A. Can bloggers be as tough as professionals? If they can, do they want to be as tough, given that this meeting is Red-on-Red? My gut instinct is to ask the toughest question I can about the Swift Vets. But I decide to hold back and get a feel for the room before opening fire.

The first questioner observes that the Dean campaign had a problem staying on message even on its own website but that the Bush campaign seems to be doing better. It’s a softball, and Dowd softly concurs that his people are doing a better job.

Another questioner -- I can’t remember all of the questions or their exact order -- picks up on Dowd’s comment that the Bush campaign hasn’t had a lot of success with internet ad buys. Can Dowd be more specific about what wasn’t going right? His answer is that it’s hard to know exactly who your audience is on the net. Interestingly enough, that was the same point Jeff Jarvis made back at BloggerCon II when. According to Jeff, the biggest thing getting in the way of bloggers selling more ads is precise information about who exactly is reading out sites.

Now a question about polls. This morning’s Gallup shows even or ahead in Pennsylvania. How is the swing state forecast looking? Dowd makes an interesting point which I haven’t thought about much: most states have a fixed relationship to national polls, leaning Democratic or GOP by a stable percentage. But Pennsylvania used to lean Democratic by a handful of points but now tracks the national polls precisely. The bad news for the GOP is that Ohio has moved in the other direction. But the really interesting state may be Wisconsin, which could go Republican and would force Kerry to pick up Ohio or Florida if he wants to win.

At this point, I was beginning to feel that I had to ask Dowd something a lot tougher than he’d faced so far. Dammit, we’re David and they’re Goliath. But I didn’t just want to be a hardass just for the hellavit. “Real” journalists do that all the time and just come off as arrogant and condescending. So I wanted to ask a question whose answer I actually cared about and could learn something from.

Here’s what I came up with: You said that this convention is going to focus on the President's vision for the future. But given that most voters judge an incumbent based on his record, not his plans, might that indicate a lack of confidence in what Bush has accomplished? As Ronald Reagan memorably asked in both 1980 and 1984, "Are you better off than you were four years ago?

On a related note, voters' habit of judging a candidate based on his record explains why undecideds tend to break for the challenger at the last moment. Do you agree with the consensus and does that mean that Bush has to go into election day with a 2 or 3 point lead in order to win?

Here's what Dowd said: His research shows that voters do tend to be retrospective, but that they care about the state of the nation more than the state of their pocketbooks. Also, they tend to vote on the basis of the past year, not as Reagan suggested, the past four. Thus, the recent economic recovery may help the President. Finally, those who lean toward a candidate but aren't sure about supporting him do want to hear about the future.

When it comes to the undecideds, Dowd said that undecideds are traditionally those voters who haven't had access to a lot of information. But this year, both campaigns have already far outspent their counterparts in the last incumbent-challenger race in 1996. Thus, if people haven't made up their mind, it probably means that can't decide and aren't going to vote.

Is that right? I think Dowd is being too optimistic about the undecideds. But as one of my fellow bloggers pointed out, they may break for the incumbent in a wartime situation.

On a different note, I think Dowd is right that voters care more about the state of the nation than the state of their pocketbooks. I have no idea, however, how many years backward they look while forming their opinions.

Well, that was a long post for a breakfast that only lasted one hour. Let's move on...
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# Posted 6:45 AM by Patrick Belton  

FEWER PEOPLE DYING IN WAR: Contrary to the prediction of pundits and political scientists that the end of the Cold War would unleash an age of burning worldwide ethnic conflict and regional war, with the superpowers no longer imposing order on their client states, research from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and the Canadian NGO Project Ploughshares indicates that the world has actually become a substantially safer place lately - at least measured in terms of major conflict. The number of people killed in battle has fallen to 20,000 per year, the lowest number in the post-Second World War period. According to the ngo, in 2003 there were furthermore a total of 33 conflicts accumulating 1,000 or more deaths since they began, compared with 44 such conflicts in 1995. Of these, 19 were 'major wars', down from 33 in 1991. Also in the previous year, long-standing wars ended in Angola, Rwanda, and Somalia, and a conflict in the Indian state of Assam was downgraded from the 'major' category. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:06 AM by Patrick Belton  

IRELAND IS ABUZZ THIS MORNING after a drunken ex-priest from Kerry (who, in full disclosure, I am not related to) pushed lead marathon runner Vanderlei de Lima out of the race course, causing him to drop to third place after reentering the race. 56-year old Neil Horan, whose art of 'aggressing spectating' has been honed by lengthy residence in southern England, has an extensive career as a noted and successful race disruptor, with amongst his other resume lines a roundly-applauded disruption of the British Grand Prix at Silverstone last year. (Belfast Telegraph: 'Fr Horan, wearing a red kilt, green knee-high socks, green waistcoat and green tam-o-shanter dragged Vanderlei de Lima off the road during the final event of the Games.' Ireland Online: 'Horan told police he staged the disruption to “prepare for the second coming”', which the Bible, as interpreted in a sign on his back, says is imminent. F1 News: Horan 'pushed his way through the Silverstone crowd before dancing a jig within inches of the passing cars....Horan was carrying a religious placard and Israeli flag'. Irish Examiner: 'Eccentric is agent of peace in troubled world'.)

And of course, you can count on OxBlog to bring you the photograph:


Presumably the Bible also says something about 'wear a funny suit and have a go at Olympic runners'. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:40 AM by Patrick Belton  

CARLOS BARRIOS ORTA HAS got the worst...job...in the...world. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:25 PM by David Adesnik  

CHECK BACK LATER FOR MORE COVERAGE: Right now it's 7:25 and I have to run-out for a dinner at 8:00 with my fellow bloggers. If it hadn't taken two hours to get my press credential, I would've posted a lot more this afternoon. I don't think anything else will go up before midnight, but I assure you that I have a lot more to say about both today's protests as well as a great event sponsored by the Log Cabin Republicans.
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# Posted 6:31 PM by David Adesnik  

HOW NOT TO COVER A PROTEST: It is very hard to cover a massive protest. The action is spread out over miles and miles of asphalt baking in the afternoon sun. I only spent only two hours with the marchers, but did my best to interview as many different people with as many different perspectives as possible.

What I can say with a good amount of confidence is that the stories already up in the NYT and WaPo give a very superficial and often misleading impression of what it was what like to be at today's protests.

The first thing wrong with these stories is their focus on the few inconsequential arrests and mishaps that took place. Many of the journalists I saw just seemed to be waiting for something to go wrong. Because things going wrong is news, whereas the actual ideas and policies favored by the protesters are supposedly boring.

During my second hour at the protest I marched with the lead contingent from United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ). As the marchers advanced, a disorganized crowd of journalists, many of them with photo and video equipment, slowly retreated to make way for the protesters.

At one point, a small commotion broke out when the police escorted a protester away with his arms pinned behind his back. About a dozen officers moved in swiftly to make sure the commotion didn't spread. Then suddenly, dozens and dozens of journalists swarmed toward the knot of police officers like locusts from some biblical plague.

Shortly thereafter, a small group of rule-breaking protesters emerged around a block in front of the lead contingent and tried to march up 5th Avenue instead of down. Again, the police responded immediately and isolated the commotion. And again, journalists swarmed around the police, hoping to discover some news.

If I were a protester, I'd probably feel that the NYT and WaPo did the marchers a disservice by failing to recognize just how orderly and peaceful the protest was and how the organizers successfully defused the most important potential conflict of the day, i.e. the disappointed hope that the protest march would culminate with a massive rally in Central Park.

One important detail that I certainly would've included in a newspaper account was that the police came out in force to ensure that the protesters didn't wander off the official route and try to head for Central Park. At each intersection on 34th St. -- the northenmost point of the march -- dozens of police stood ready behind metal barriers to prevent the protesters from changing their route. Similar blockades were set up across 34th St. at the edges of the parade route to ensure that no one tried to pull an end run, get around the cops, and head for the Park (which begins on 59th).

Fortunately, no one that I saw tried to challenge the police and head for the Park. I think the absence of conflict reflects well on the organizers, who announced again and again that marchers must follow the official route.

Now, if I didn't like the protesters, I would tell you that the NYT and WaPo did them a tremendous favor by downplaying the degree to which they represented the leftmost edge of the American political spectrum. I've posted before about what UFPJ stands for, so I won't repeat myself. Suffice it to say that neither the Times nor the Post tells you anything about UFPJ's history or what it stands for.

The big papers also fail to convey how the protest resembled a carnival of the absurd, with every obscure leftist faction in attendance. For example, there were hundreds of big red signs provided by a coven of conspiracy theorists who insist that Bush had advance warning of 9-11. If I had bigger pockets, I could've collected at least half-a-dozen different socialist and communist newspapers and newsletters.

If you read the NYT or the WaPo, you get the impression that the protest was filled with reasonable people who just don't like George Bush. All of the (wo)man-in-the-street interviews in both papers are with soothingly moderate and even humorous people. "Bring the troops home now" is the most radical sentiment you'll find in the NYT.

So there you have it. The big papers managed to be unfair to both sides while failing to provide critical information. Let's hope things get better from here.
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# Posted 1:57 AM by David Adesnik  

WHAT THE PROTESTERS ARE SAYING: Here's a passage from the Unity Statement of United for Peace and Justice, the umbrella group organizing tomorrow's largest protest (which I'll be covering):

It is now clear the war on Iraq was the leading edge of a relentless drive for U.S. empire...This military strategy brutally reinforces the empire-building agenda of corporate globalization, which uses “free trade” policies to concentrate power and wealth in the hands of a few by attacking labor and environmental protections, reducing governments’ control over their country’s economies, and slashing public services...

Emboldened by its military victory in Iraq, the Bush administration has warned Syria, Iran, Cuba, and North Korea that if they don’t comply with U.S. demands, they, too, could be subject to “pre-emptive war” and “regime change.”

No! Not North Korea!

Now's here an excerpt from a 2003 interview with Leslie Cagan, the national coordinator of UFPJ:

[Interviewer]: I heard one of the big three radio networks in their coverage of the Washington march to stop the war, and they described the message coming out of the Oct. 25 rally as a call "to abandon Iraq" -- very highly charged words and a description. How do you respond to those who say that pulling out U.S. forces now from Iraq, would be a recipe for disaster both for Iraq and the
United States?

Leslie Cagan: Well, you know that's been said before in other
situations. People said during the Vietnam era, "We can't leave because there would be a nightmare, there'd be a bloodbath." And in fact when the U.S. left Vietnam that's when the war ended and the bloodbath stopped.

It's true, it's true. North Vietnam did not invade South Vietnam after the United States left. Tens of thousands of Vietnamese 'boat people' didn't become refugees after the American withdrawal. And the Khmer Rouge certainly didn't commit genocide after the United States went home.
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# Posted 1:43 AM by David Adesnik  

THE LESSONS OF VIETNAM: Peter Beinart's column touches on the same issue I raised before, except he's deconstructing the Republican side of the debate. Hugh Hewitt responds to Beinart, but I'm not persuaded. (Hat tip: Power Line.)
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# Posted 1:19 AM by David Adesnik  

CONVENTION BLOGGERS' ROUND-UP: If I were Lewis Lapham, I might be able to tell you in advance what all the bloggers were going to write. Instead, I'm just going to inform you that mutliple website will be compiling posts from all 15 bloggers at the convention. Slant Point provides the links.
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# Posted 12:50 AM by David Adesnik  

I LOVE NEW YORK F****N' CITY: Tonight I knocked back a couple of mojitos with OxBlog legal correspondent EK. He didn't have much to report, although he said that he recently found himself at a urinal adjacent to the one being used by Justice Scalia.

It was a warm night and not too humid, so I decided to walk home from the bar at 34th & 3rd despite that the fact that it was a good two miles. I had half of a Cuban cigar to work with (thanks to the lovely Miss CH), so I figured I wouldn't be bored.

Bottom line, it was an incredible walk. New York is more alive than other city I've ever been to.

If you visit New York, no one will tell you that have you to see 3rd Avenue. It's not the Village, it's not Times Square, it's not Nolita. It's just another street. But it was full of Irish pubs and all night diners and beautiful women.

3rd Avenue isn't somewhere I ever spent much time before. I grew up in the Village and all my friends were either Upper East or Upper West. That's where respectable people lived twenty-five years ago. But now all of New York is New York. It will always suprise you.
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# Posted 9:08 PM by David Adesnik  

ANOTHER LIBERAL HACK? NO, JUST TACITUS: Bird Dog says it's no secret he's voting for George W. this November. But check out BD's impressive list of Bush's failures.

So Kudos to BD for honesty. I agree with just about everything on his list.
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# Posted 8:39 PM by David Adesnik  

ME IN A NUTSHELL: Roger Simon writes that

Most of my life I rarely talked to Republicans -- not seriously anyway. If I did it was without the full knowledge that they were Republicans. I didn't think they would have much to say that would interest me, that they were intellectually bankrupt and probably greedy, possibly even racists.

I grew up in Greenwich Village. What's Roger's excuse?
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# Posted 6:45 PM by David Adesnik  

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN VIETNAM: Small questions about where John Kerry was on Christmas Eve 1968 or whether there was enemy fire the day he won his Bronze Star have gotten in the way of a far more important debate about the war in Vietnam and its role in campaign 2004.

Does the heroism of a junior officer prepare him to become the leader of the free world? Is a campaign built around a candidate's war record just a diversion from substantive issues or does it emphasize important aspects of the candidate's character and personal values?

One place to start looking for answers to these questions is the op-ed page of yesterday's NYT, which had no fewer than four columns about Vietnam and campaign 2004. In one of them, prize-winning author Neil Sheehan asserts that the Swift Vets' attacks are not just getting in the way of serious discussions about Vietnam, but that they are symptomatic of inability to comprehend the lessons of that war:

The nation has yet to come to grips with what really happened in Vietnam, and Mr. Kerry's accusers are among those who simply cannot and never will.

The question, then, is what "really happened" in Vietnam? Sheehan writes that

The truth is that atrocities were committed in Vietnam. The worst and most horrendous atrocity was officially sanctioned...The wholesale killing cheapened the value of Vietnamese life in American eyes...

In Vietnam, America the exceptional joined the rest of the human race and demonstrated that it could do evil as easily as it could do good.

I agree with Sheehan to the extent that the United States lost the war in Vietnam by betraying its own ideals. But if Vietnam was the consummate evil that destroyed American virtue, how can Sheehan celebrate Kerry's service there? Sheehan writes that

It always galls me when I hear the generation of World War II referred to as the "greatest generation.'' They were a great generation, but so were the men who served in Vietnam. The soldiers and Marines, sailors and airmen who fought there did so with just as much courage as anyone who fought in World War II. The generation of Vietnam had the ill luck to draw a bad war, an unnecessary and unwinnable war, a tragic, terrible mistake. But valor has a worth of its own, and theirs deserves to be honored and remembered.

Yet just a few paragraphs earlier, Sheehan argues that the the American strategy in Vietnam was a strategy of murder, intentionally resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent peasants year after year after year. Who implemented this strategy of murder if not the "great generation" whose valor Sheehan wants to memorialize?

If Sheehan wants to defend John Kerry from the Swift Vets, why not just say that Kerry was a good man in a bad war? Why is it necessary to try and praise an entire generation of soldiers while at the same time insisting that their generation was responsible for murder?

Obviously, Sheehan doesn't believe that all American soldiers in Vietnam were criminals. But if you agree with him that the United States waged its war in an inherently immoral manner, then, at minimum, tens of thousands of American soldiers implemented and facilitated that immorality. Sheehan even suggests that the moral sensibilities of an entire generation were perverted by the war, since "the wholesale killing cheapened the value of Vietnamese life in American eyes."

The reason, I think, that Sheehan -- and more importantly, John Kerry -- can't just say that there were some (or even many) good soldiers in a bad war is that that such a distinction forces us to ask who was good and who was bad. If that question were foremost in our minds, Kerry's constant references to his war record would become dangerously divisive.

If the Kerry campaign didn't constantly provide a sanitized and uncritical account of the war, reporters would begin to ask what exactly about the war Kerry thought was wrong. Instead of a footnote that everyone (except the Swift Vets) ignores, Kerry's 1971 testimony before Congress would be back in the headlines. The whole debate about Vietnam would begin again and Kerry would suffer.

I have to admit that if I were John Kerry, I'd also run a campaign that focused on my personal heroism while side-stepping broader debates about the war in Vietnam. Democratic candidates always face an uphill battle to show that they are just as tough and patriotic as the other guy. This year, winning that battle matters even more.

It would be nice if John Kerry could offer thoughtful criticism of the war in Vietnam without reinforcing the stereotype that Democrats are soft and dovish and unpatriotic. It is ironic that Kerry's gung-ho account of his war record will only make it harder for America to confront the legacy of Vietnam. But this is politics, not a college seminar. For the moment, I'm willing to forgive Kerry for leaving history to the historians.
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# Posted 6:34 PM by David Adesnik  

OXBLOG CONTROLS THE JEWISH MEDIA: Perhaps not. But there is some very nice coverage of us in the Atlanta Jewish Times. For the full text of the AJT's interview with OxBlog, click here.
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# Posted 11:17 AM by Patrick Belton  

QUOTE OF THE DAY: ... is from Ryan Lizza:

Instead of engaging the substance of an accusation, even when the facts are overwhelmingly on their side, the [Kerry] campaign's counterpunches sometimes seem as if they are scripted by an overeager college Democrat who knows only that Bush and Republicans are very bad.

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# Posted 8:21 AM by Patrick Belton  

HOW TO BECOME THE WEB'S LEADING 'ASSHOLES', IN THREE EASY STEPS:
1. compile a widely read list of Senators voting for the Defence of Marriage amendment
2. have a number of people link to you in posts referencing some subset of aforementioned senators as 'assholes'
3. then just sit back and enjoy

n.b.: trick apparently only works for yahoo. we're presumably not big enough assholes for google, yet.
n.b.: I don't usually curse. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:28 AM by Patrick Belton  

RIGHT TO COUNSEL WATCH: Presumably, an attorney is the thing that keeps you from doing this:

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba – Yemeni enemy combatant Ali Hamza Ahmed Sulayman al-Bahlul caused an abrupt interruption to his military commission hearing today by asking to provide his own defense. Al-Bahlul, who is charged with conspiracy to commit war crimes, engaged in a spirited discussion with the presiding officer, Col. Peter Brownback in today’s court proceedings. He first asked to represent himself. At this request, Brownback referred to Military Commission Order Number One, which says the accused must be represented at all relevant times by detailed defense counsel. Al-Bahlul’s detailed defense counsels are Navy Lt. Cmdr. Philip Sundel and Army Maj. Mark Bridges.

Brownback then began a dialogue with Al-Bahlul, explaining the qualifications to be a defense counsel in an attempt to inform him of the importance of having attorney representation. Al-Bahlul then asked that a Yemeni lawyer be allowed to represent him. Before Brownback could respond, Al-Bahlul began making statements including that he belonged to Al-Qaeda (emphasis added), at which point Brownback interrupted his statement. He then advised the panel that he had not questioned the accused and that the statement had not been made under oath and is not evidence.

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# Posted 6:21 AM by Patrick Belton  

IN THE NEWS: Congratulations to Yale provost (and former graduate dean) Susan Hockfield, who's moving to Cambridge to be MIT's first woman president. The TSA will be taking over authority for airline screening from individual airlines. The two downed Russian aircraft have been associated with terrorism, most likely Chechen given the presence of hexogen as an explosive. And a cleaner accidentally threw out an exhibit at the Tate Modern, thinking it quite literally was rubbish. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:37 PM by Patrick Belton  

THE COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS ANALYSES proposals for intelligence reform. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:22 PM by David Adesnik  

CONVENTION BLOGGERS: The WSJ Online has now posted a series of short interviews with the 15 bloggers set to cover the GOP convention in NY. Memo to the other 14: Alphabetical order rules! Take that Ardolino and Aylward!
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# Posted 10:46 AM by Patrick Belton  

AND YOU NEVER THOUGHT DAVE MATTHEWS HAD MUCH IN COMMON WITH SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK, DID YOU: It's unclear which is worse, dumping 800 pounds of liquid human waste from your tour bus into the Chicago River, or unintentionally dumping it onto a boatload of tourists. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:36 AM by Patrick Belton  

REASON'S JESSE WALKER HOSTS THE DEFINITIVE, final, and absolute must-read word on the Swift Boat Affair. (Courtesy of our friend Matt Frost). (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:32 AM by Patrick Belton  

'SORRY FOR THE DELAYED RESPONSE BUT YOUR EMAIL FELL SMACK IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SACRED PARISIAN AUGUST HOLIDAY:' An email I just received from an EU foreign policy hand containing that charming phrase points the way to Niall Ferguson's LA Times essay on comparative vacationing in the States and Europe. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:17 AM by Patrick Belton  

SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK DEMONSTRATES in the pages of the LRB that even some psychoanalysts never progress beyond their excretory phase. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:27 AM by David Adesnik  

A POST NOT ABOUT CAMBODIA, VIETNAM, OR JON STEWART: Two major investigations have faulted high-ranking officials and military intelligence officers for making possible the abuses at Abu Ghraib. I am glad to see that our government is beginning to take this problem more seriously and to recognize that responsibility for what happened extends far up the chain of command.
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# Posted 1:20 AM by David Adesnik  

"FREEDOM MEANS FREEDOM FOR EVERYONE": When Dick Cheney's right, he's right. Gay Americans are not second-class citizens. On the other hand, I'd appreciate it if more Republicans who didn't have gay children came out against the No Gay Marriage Amendment.

But that's politics for you. Senators and Congressmen are always crossing party lines to support proposals that benefit their families personally.

Conventional wisdom says that if you have an obscure disease, the best thing that can happen to you is a major celebrity getting the same disease. Well let me tell you, the next best think is if a Senator's kid gets it and his father or mother decides that an extra $10 million in targeted research funding isn't such a bad idea.

UPDATE: Michelle Cottle agrees. Dick Cheney is selfish, not compassionate.
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# Posted 1:15 AM by David Adesnik  

RUBIN'S RETRACTION: Jamie Rubin has taken back his statement that "in all probability" John Kerry would've invaded Iraq. I think Rubin did the right thing, but as Rob Tagorda points out, the damage has already been done.
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# Posted 11:01 PM by David Adesnik  

WHY DOES OXBLOG HAVE IT IN FOR JON STEWART? Why not go after Fox and its pretensions of being 'fair and balanced'? How about all the conservative radio talk-show hosts?

Well, the fact is that no one I know and/or respect relies on Fox or Rush or the Washington Times for their news. But more and more young, smart, educated people keep telling me how insightful Jon Stewart is. They even say that they rely on him for most of their news. So that makes Stewart a target.

So let's blog...

10:59 PM -- Stewart runs a mock-ad claiming that John Kerry was never on The Daily Show. It is a mildly clever send-up of the Swift Vets.

11:01 PM -- Stewarts hits the NYC government for preventing protests in order to protect the grass in Central Park.

11:03 PM -- Correspondent Samatha Bee interviews a Connecticut man who uses the bathroom in City Hall to protest the city's refusal to repair the sewage line connected to his fouse. Funny stuff, but you have to see it to get the jokes.

11:06 PM -- Commericals. Damn, that was quick.

11:09 PM -- It's Lewis Black with Back in Black! Black reviews the GOP convention's promotional video for NYC, hosted by Sean Hannity. Even that is full of lies!

11:12 PM -- Black does his own promo video for NYC: "Bronx is a borough. Bronx is where they invented the Dirty Sanchez..."

11:12 PM -- More commercials. Jeebus, can't Stewart's writers produce a little more material (so that OxBlog can criticize it)?

11:15 PM -- We're back! Time for RNC chairman Ed Gillespie! Stewart: Why did you pick NY? It's the gayest, Jew-iest town anywhere!

11:16 PM -- Stewart: "Last night we had John Kerry. Where's your guy?" Man, that would be awesome.

Gillespie: I'll put in a good word.

Stewart: No you won't.

Gillespie can't stop chuckling. It's sort of weird and spooky.

11:19 PM -- Gillespie jokes that he got a student deferrment in Vietnam...back when he was in elementary school. The joke bombs.

11:20 PM -- Gillespie plugs his video, KerryOnIraq.com. Stewart: You're going to say Kerry missed a committee meeting. But didn't your guy get us into this in the first place?

Gillespie: Hey, Kerry voted for the war.

Stewart: No, he just voted to give Bush the authority. But I disagree with that too...

Stewart: People always say we're a liberal show. But hey, if the GOP has the White House, Congress, the governorships, we've got to make fun of them, right?

Stewart: If you get Bush on my show, dude, I will be such a p***y!

11:23 PM -- More commercials.

11:26 PM -- That's our show. Now here's your moment of zen...

A good show. I laughed, which you probably can't tell because I didn't write "Ha-ha-ha!" after every post.

Obviously, Stewart gets big points for sort of admitting that his show is sort of partisan. You might even say he went too easy on Gillespie.

But now I have a new complaint: There was only 19 1/2 minutes of entertainment in a half-hour show! Frikkin' corporate media.
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# Posted 2:49 AM by David Adesnik  

LET SLEEPING BEARS LIE: Old NZ slams the professionals for their incompetence.
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# Posted 2:07 AM by David Adesnik  

KERRY-IN-CAMBODIA UPDATE: Fred Kaplan, via Tapped, offers the best argument so far on behalf of the proposition that Kerry actually was in Cambodia on Christmas Eve 1968. (Although Glenn Reynolds is far from being persuaded.)

On the other side, Joshua Muravchik argues in the WaPo that Kerry's own journal shows that he was never in Cambodia. I think it's interesting that the WaPo finally ran an op-ed on the Cambodia story after all this time.

Now, if you believe that the whole Cambodia business is just one big lie, then the WaPo's decision reflects the power of the right-wing media to force its agenda onto the mainstream.

By the same token, Tim Russert's decision to grill one of Kerry's top advisers about Cambodia also reflects right-wing power. This transcript from Russert's show suggests that Kerry hasn't even given his top spokesman any solid guidance on the issue:

MR. RUSSERT: ...so we--be clear and give you a chance to respond.
Senator Kerry in '86 on the floor of the Senate: "I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there, the troops were not in Cambodia...I have that memory which is seared--seared--in me."

In '79 in the Boston Herald: "I remember Christmas Eve of 1968
five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas. The absurdity of almost being killed by our own allies in a country which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops was very real."

First of all, Nixon was not president...

MR. [Tad] DEVINE [Senior advisor to the Kerry campaign]: Right.

MR. RUSSERT: ...in December of '68.

MR. DEVINE: Sure.

MR. RUSSERT: He didn't take office until January '69. Does Senator Kerry stand by that statement that on Christmas Eve of '68 he was physically in Cambodia?

MR. DEVINE: Right. Well, his memory, Tim, is being there, around there. And I'll tell you what happened on December 25th...

MR. RUSSERT: No--being there or around there?

MR. DEVINE: No, being right at the Cambodian border, over
the Cambodian border. That's what he remembers. That's his clear
memory.

What a clear memory. It can't tell the difference between 'there' and 'around there', 'at' and 'over'. Or is that just a matter of nuance, a nuance that was "seared--seared" into the Senator's mind?

OK, OK, enough jokes. On a more substantive note, Fred Kaplan (in the column mentioned above) cites the following passage from Kerry's Vietnam diary to show that he was very close to Cambodia on December 24, 1968:

It was early morning, not yet light. Ours was the only movement on the river, patrolling near the Cambodian line.

The italics are Kaplan's. But far more interesting than the fact that Kerry was near Cambodia is the fact that he clearly knew that there was a "line" separating it from Vietnam. So much for the confusion about whether Kerry knew he was in Cambodia, let alone "five miles" across the border.

Finally, let's go back Meet the Press and see how Kerry's advisor handled Russert's onslaught:,

MR. DEVINE: Now Tim...Let me tell you what happened on December 24, 1968. John Kerry started that morning 50 miles away from the Cambodian border and they headed towards Cambodia, deep behind enemy lines. First, they were ambushed once. Second, they were fired upon, again in a separate incident. And that night they encountered friendly fire. Three times in one day he was fired upon deep behind enemy lines. And that certainly was seared into
his memory.

And by the way, that's three times more than the president and
the vice president have ever been fired on in the course of their life.

When in doubt, go for the cheapshot. By the way, this is coming from the same advisor who told Russert just minutes earlier that "We want a debate and a campaign about the issues."

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# Posted 1:11 AM by David Adesnik  

BUSH VS. THE 527'S: Wow. Glenn Reynolds says the President is being shamelessly opportunistic. Matt Yglesias says he's being just plain hypocritical. Not a winner for the President, I think.
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# Posted 11:12 PM by David Adesnik  

LIVE BLOGGING JOHN & JON: Kerry is on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart!

11:10 PM -- Kerry says Americans want a more intelligent conversation about national affairs. Huge applause.

11:11 PM -- Stewart sarcastically asks whether Kerry was in Cambodia on Christmas Eve. Stewart leans over desk, looking ridiculous. Kerry goofily imitates Stewart. Big laughs. Kerry doesn't answer the question. Stewart doesn't care.

11:13 PM -- Stewart asks: "Are you the No. 1 most liberal Senator, even more liberal than Karl Marx?" Stewart asks: "Have you flip-flopped?" Kerry says he's flop-flipped. No laughs.

11:14 PM -- Stewart asks how Kerry can stand up to all the groundless abuse he gets in the media. Wow. Tough one.

11:15 PM -- Stewart: "So you're saying it's more important to make the right decision than to just be decisive, like George Bush?" Kerry agrees that George Bush is stubborn.

11:16 PM -- Stewart: "Do you think you can ever have an honest debate with George Bush?"

11:19 PM -- We're back! Stewart: Will we have to take over the whole Middle East because we don't have enough oil?

11:21 PM -- Stewart: What if cars ran on Twinkies instead of oil?

11:21 PM -- Stewart: What kind of loyalty oath do you have to sign to attend on John Kerry rally? Kerry: None. But the other guys make you sign one. (Is that what Stewart was hinting at?)

11:22 PM -- Kerry: It's amazing how many people want to introduce themselves to you in the mens room. Huh?

Not a bad job, all in all. Kerry came across as pretty comfortable and pretty fluid. Then again, Stewart perfectly set up Kerry for each of his soundbites.

When Kerry had a chance to improvise, he totally flubbed it, except for once. Of course, George Bush probably would've flubbed them all even worse.

Tomorrow night's guest: Ed Gillespie of the RNC.

By the way, at the beginning of the show, during the eight minutes when Blogger refused to accept my posts, Stewart turned to the camera and said that sometimes, people ask if what he does is a news show.

Stewart's answer to that question is that if people can't tell the difference between The Daily Show and a real news show, it's a sad comment on the state of news in America today. Either that, or a sad commentary on the state of Stewart's ability to make the audience laugh.

Presumably, this is one of Stewart's periodic efforts to exempt himself from criticism that The Daily Show is one-sided. It must work pretty well, since any time I criticize The Daily Show or The Onion or some other liberal satire, someone writes in to tell me that it's time to stop being so uptight and humorless.

My response to that criticism is the same as before: If Stewart just admitted that he's a partisan Democrat or that he is actively trying to counter the influence of Fox News and talk radio, then I wouldn't mind. But for as long as Stewart gets all indignant about media bias, I think he should make some sort of effort to be balanced himself.

Like it or not, his show is not just entertainment; it influences hundreds of thousands of of people's opinions. More importantly, that's exactly what Stewart wants.

So I guess tomorrow night is Stewart's chance to show that there is no double-standard. I'm sure Ed Gillespie will appreciate the softballs.
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# Posted 2:06 PM by Patrick Belton  

PATRICK'S OBLIGATORY MUSINGS ON DOMESTIC POLITICS: Booo-oooring. Oh, sorry, I was distracted by watching the Simpsons there. I'm all for asking a great deal of our politicians, but I stop at expecting them to do the impossible. On Iraq, I don't see how Kerry can at present do anything other than make a distinction without a difference. If he comes down against the Iraq War, he allows himself to be painted as a McGovern-like dovish candidate; for it, and he loses the support of the Democratic prospectives whose support for the war may have been tepid to cold.

Glancing forward to the coming campaign, I also don't see much hope in predicting foreign policy differences - a.k.a., with regard to Iraq - from campaign statements, which will consist of months of trying to score valence points: being the closer candidate, not to policies, but to themes everyone is for, ones which generally poll well. Better, probably, to look at who's advising them, and then at their prior careers. Exception to the Belton Rule (no, make that Lemma; I've always wanted to own a Lemma): performance at debate at least reveals familiarity with the stuff of policy. In this, Kerry shone far above all of his primary opponents (I except Lieberman, selfishly). You may not have agreed with everything he was saying, but you did at least have to concede, when he spoke at the Council on Foreign Relations, that he knew what he was talking about.

As a final note, in a peculiar personal exercise in escapism, I'm at the moment writing a book chapter on the oratorical culture of the Senate in the nineteenth century, when statesmen of the like of Webster and Douglas held policy conversations stretching over days, not 4-second CNN soundbites. Mmmm....nineteenth century..... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:12 PM by Patrick Belton  

AS A CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR IN THE KERRY-VIETNAM WARS, I've lately been adopting the Wonk's Approach to Surviving a Presidential Election: stop up both ear canals with particularly choice pages from the Economist; then gently begin reciting Clausewitz, the Brookings Review, and, in extremity, even the Road Map; and repeat until mid-November, at which point you might try emerging. Nonetheless, it seems to me that what Larry Sabato and Joe Gandelman have to say on the subject is worthwhile. (Namely, from a purely strategic standpoint, Democrats most likely hadn't foreseen the flip side of Kerry's career as a war hero, that is, the effect of his post-service career as a anti-war protester on how he is perceived by other Vietnam veterans. Also, the general point that like the American Civil War, or the Irish civil war of 1922-23, it now seems particularly likely that Vietnam will rear its head in a 'where-were-you' capacity in every presidential contest in the nation, as long as any of its participants are alive.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:38 PM by Patrick Belton  

RUSSIAN ATTITUDES TOWARD DEMOCRACY: The Washington Post runs a piece by three Russia scholars disputing Richard Pipes to argue that Russian attitudes with regard to democracy are deeply divided, with a democratic camp which is 'too large to be dismissed and too small for complacency', and as many as one in three Russians backing authoritarianism. Against Pipes who argues that Russians have made up their minds, and it was in favour of authoritarianism, Gerber, Mendelson, and Shvedov find a division into three camps of roughly equal size, one favouring authoritarian government, one democracy and one that cannot decide. (q.v., Atrios's view of American politics) The role of Western and Asian democracies, they argue, is not to be on the sidelines in this dispute:

Our collaboration with dozens of human rights activists in the regions of Russia during the past two years convinced us that foreign assistance can make a difference. One form of support has particular potential to strengthen civil society: funding for social marketing -- the "selling" of certain ideas about how a society should function -- and public awareness campaigns. Social activists around the world use these tools to change and shape attitudes, knowledge, policies and behavior through tactics including education, persuasion and shaming. Surveys on how the public thinks about issues such as police abuse, crises in the military, the war in Chechnya and the collapse of health care provide activists with the information they need to craft messages and communicate with the people they are trying to reach. Public awareness campaigns guide nongovernmental organizations toward local constituencies.

Incidentally, Rob Tagorda takes a look at similar public opinion work that has been conducted in Latin America and the eastern Länder of Germany. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:20 AM by Patrick Belton  

TURKEY TIME: Former National Intelligence Council vice-chair Graham E. Fuller analyses trends in Turkey, with particular focus on state secularism, relations with Europe and the US, and moves toward an independent, interest-centred foreign policy.

In other pieces worth reading in the current Washington Quarterly: Vali Nasr looks at the regional ramifications of Shi‘a-Sunni contestation in Iraq from Lebanon straight across to Pakistan. Rohan Gunaratna argues that after Madrid, Al Qa'eda is both focusing more on the West than the global South (as it had for the two years after 9/11), and has completed a transition from an organisation to an ideology. Career diplomat Timothy Savage attempts an objective look at the 'Muslim factor' in the contours of Europe’s domestic and foreign policy landscape. And RAND's China hand Murray Scot Tanner looks at evidence to hand to forecast much more civil protest to come in China, with the new government of Hu Jintao likely to be forced to rethink post-Deng solutions toward managing unrest and finding a balance between reform and social control. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:04 AM by Patrick Belton  

IN HOUSTON? Come hang out with us tonight.

(If you're not in Houston, don't worry - you can hang out with us some other night.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:39 AM by Patrick Belton  

DIAMOND ON IRAQ: Larry Diamond is, along with Carnegie's Tom Carothers, one of the most fair-minded and reputable scholars writing on democracy promotion and assistance today. He has also played a first-hand role in Iraq, as an advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority. For those reasons if for no others, his incisive analysis of what we've done wrong in promoting democracy in Iraq, and what we need to start doing, is truly required reading for any of us with interest in the issue. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:16 AM by Patrick Belton  

CENTRAL ASIA WATCH: Azerbaijan is attempting to parlay strong US interest in establishing a base there into restarting the Nagorno-Karabkh peace process, by using the US interest in a base to induce Russia to change its position toward the disputed Armenian enclave. Elizabeth Owen looks at the Georgian film industry, while Daniel Drezner examines successful police reforms under the reformist government of Saakashvili. And Tajikistan - which has most things going for it commonly associated with nationhood, except for an economy - may open its borders more to China to serve as a conduit for export. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:46 AM by Patrick Belton  

WHAT'S GOING ON IN THE WORLD?: Well, to begin with, Somalia has sworn in members of a new parliament, a key step in the establishment of the first national government since 1991. The Senate Republicans' unutterably silly proposal to dismantle the CIA has, mercifully, begun to attract widespread criticism. Musharraf has promised Karzai that Pakistan will work to ensure that Taliban elements operating from the nation's territory will not disrupt Afghanistan's upcoming 9 October elections. US oil prices have backed off from a 21-year high of $49.40 per barrel, as additional Iraqi exports come online. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has gone to Darfur to tour refugee sites and place pressure on President Omar al-Bashir to take measures against genocidal attacks by pro-government militias. Finally, responding to criticism, Bush issued a call for independent groups to stop running political advertisements, though the White House 'quickly moved to insist that Mr Bush had not meant in any way to single out the advertisement run by veterans opposed to Mr Kerry'. It's rather good to know that they have a sense of humour in the White House. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:40 AM by Patrick Belton  

ANYONE ENDOWED WITH EVEN THE SMALLEST DOSE OF ANGLOPHILIA will perhaps appreciate the delightfully dry tone of this James McConnachie essay on the BBC weather site. E.g.:'Unceasing grey and drizzle? Yet monotonous is exactly what British weather isn’t. We have the pure, blind luck to live in a maritime climate which never stops surprising.' 'When it’s pelting it down in Skye’s Cuillin mountains, as it so often is, it can be dry and sunny over the Cairngorms, in the east. Get in your car and drive.' And finally, 'maybe the best tip of all is to try and grow a thick, or at least impermeable, skin.' (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:39 PM by David Adesnik  

KERRY IN IRAQ, PART II: Not long ago, Matt Yglesias asked me what I thought John Kerry was going to do in Iraq if he became President. I started to answer Matt's question, but wandered off point and onto the related subject of what John Kerry would have done about Iraq if he were President back in 2002.

To answer that hypothetical question, I borrowed from Tim Russert. And in order to answer Matt's question, I'm also going to borrow from Tim Russert. Yesterday, Russert reminded his audience of Kerry's intention to "significantly reduce American forces in Iraq" within a year. Russert then asked Tad Devine, one of Kerry's top advisers, "Can [Kerry] do it?" Their exchange follows:

MR. DEVINE: Well, I think if we build the right international coalition we can...

MR. RUSSERT: You say a goal. Kerry said, "Absolutely we can
reduce the numbers." Is it a goal or a promise?

MR. DEVINE: Right. It is something he can do if we have the exercise of presidential leadership. One of the great failures today in Iraq is the lack of the exercise of presidential leadership. This president has done nothing.

MR. RUSSERT: Is it a goal or a promise?

MR. DEVINE: He has stood on the sidelines. If he can--it's something he feels he can do...

MR. RUSSERT: Is there a difference between the Bush and Kerry
position on Iraq?

MR. [Ken] MEHLMAN [Campaign Manager, Bush-Cheney '04]: There is, Tim. They agree on some things. They both agreed about the threat. They both agreed about authorization for war. And as Jamie Rubin pointed out, they both agreed about sending our troops to war.

Here's the difference...after a long period of saying, "Our troops need
to stay in to finish the job," in a political speech, he said, "Try to get them back there in six months." That's the worst thing you can say to try to get them back after six months. You know why? That's a signal to the enemy. It's a signal to the terrorists to wait six months and one day and to our allies who are making a big sacrifice, more than 30 nations today in Iraq. It's a signal to them that we're not willing to stay the course if there's a political interest at stake.

There is a difference between George W. Bush and John Kerry. Bottom line for George Bush is victory in Iraq. Bottom line for John Kerry is victory in politics.

MR. DEVINE: Ken, there's only one commander in chief in the United States to send our troops to Iraq without the body armor they need to survive and his name is George W. Bush. And if he had spent one day on the front line of a war, he never would have done it.

When talking to Matt, OxBlog often comes under fire for putting too much faith in George Bush's sincerity, especially when it comes to promoting democracy in Iraq. More broadly, OxBlog comes under fire for being too quick to assume that rhetoric matters, even though everyone knows that promises are made to be broken.

So, Matt, does John Kerry's rhetoric matter? Or is he just like George Bush? If Kerry does deserve OxBlog's trust, then we should be extremely concerned about his intention to start pulling out of Iraq in the middle of its efforts to draft a constitution and hold its first democratic elections.

"But David", Matt might say, "you constantly insist that Kerry has flip-flopped on Iraq. If pulling out is such a bad idea, don't you think he'll just flip-flop again after taking office?"

One might add that OxBlog likes to make fun of Kerry taking positions that are so nuanced. Look at how Devine tries to avoid Russert's question about whether bringing soldiers home from Iraq is a goal or a promise. And what about Devine's qualification that we'll only bring home the troops after building an international coaltion to handle the occupation?

In May, the French foreign minister vowed that "There will be no French soldiers in Iraq, not now and not later." Even if Kerry got the French to go back on their promise, how many troops do you think they would send? Thus, it should be pretty easy for President Kerry to say that his conditions haven't been met, so he won't be pulling any soldiers out of Iraq.

But enough of this jousting. Putting aside our partisanship for the moment, is there any way to tell whether a given candidate (or incumbent) really means what he says? In my dissertation, I try to show that Congress, the media, and public opinion can force a President to fulfill empty promises. This happens because Presidents really are at a disadvantage in policy debates when they seem to be going back on their word.

If Kerry becomes President, anti-war Democrats will push him hard to live up to his promise. And even if six months aren't enough, Kerry will want to bring home as many troops as he can before 2008. The framework for America's relationship with Iraq will become one of troop withdrawals rather than democracy promotion.

On the other hand, many promises are broken -- especially those that are laden with exit clauses, like Kerry's goal/promise to bring the troops home from Iraq. When push comes to shove, I feel like I have to make a choice between competence and principle if I want to vote on the basis of Iraq.

Even though our soldiers are adjusting far better than expected to the challenges of occupation, the White House gives them moral support instead of guidance. From John Kerry, I expect the reverse. The question is, which do our soldiers need more?
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# Posted 10:13 PM by David Adesnik  

HEY GRANDMA, DID YOU READ MY BLOG? Yesterday, I drove up to Haverstraw, NY to visit my grandmother. She is headed for her 90th birthday next spring and is, by her own admission, "getting younger every day." However, her memory isn't the best and she has a very hard time understanding anything new.

At one point, my grandmother (or 'Savta' in Hebrew), asked what kind of job I would get after graduation. I told her that I would work for the government. To my surprise, she was deeply impressed.

"Oooooh. The guuuuverment," she said. Most people I talk to consider my choice of profession somewhat dubious. These days, even liberals don't like the government. But I think my grandmother comes from that old European tradition that thinks of being in the civil service as being part of a secular priesthood. And far be it from me to disabuse her of that notion.

While on this line of conversation, my father (who had ridden shotgun) tried to explain that I would be covering the Republican convention. He then got really ambitious and tried to explain that I edited a website that had been given a press credential.

Unfortunately, my father had to give up after a brief effort to explain what the internet was. 'Computer' is a concept my Savta can deal with, but I'm pretty sure she has no idea what computers do. Instead, my father said I was sort of a journalist.

Now why does any of this matter? Because just after this failed discussion of blogging, my Savta eagerly grabbed my cellphone when I told her that my younger brother was on the line. Standing all of 4'8" and sitting in a chair at least three sizes too large, she began to chatter away like a New York cab driver.

You might say that cellphones aren't that hard to understand because they're so much like regular phones. In contrast, there's nothing like the internet. And it'strue. But compulsive cellphone talkers are an icon of the information age.

So for one brief moment, a little old woman from Vilna who still has a thick Yiddish accent despite being in this country for almost 60 years gave off the impression of being part and parcel of our brave new world. I couldn't help but smile.
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# Posted 9:19 PM by David Adesnik  

WOULD KERRY REALLY DO ANYTHING ALL THAT BAD IN IRAQ? That's the question Matt Yglesias wants answered. He asked it a while back via e-mail, and added that it wasn't a rhetorical question. He really wanted to know what kind of situation might come up in which, from an OxBlog perspective, Bush would make the right decision and Kerry the wrong one.

Matt's question has been on my mind for a while, but today is a good day to answer it thanks to Tim Russert, who interrogated Tad Devine, a senior adviser to the Democratic candidate, on yesterday's edition of Meet the Press. Opposing Devine was Bush's campaign manager, Ken Mehlman.

The first half of the discussion focused on the Swift Vets, about which more later. Then Russert asked, "[Why] are the campaigns debating Vietnam instead of Iraq?" After confronting Mehlman about the diseent of Rep. Doug Bereuter (R-Neb.), Russert turned to Devine and challenged him to show that there was a substantive difference between Kerry and Bush on the decision to invade Iraq.

The basis of Russert's challenge was Jamie Rubin's recent statement (paraphrased by Russert) that

"Knowing then what he knows today about the lack of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," -- John -- "Kerry still would have voted to authorize the war and `in all probability' would have launched a military attack to oust Hussein by now if he were president, Kerry national security adviser Jamie Rubin said in an interview."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Why had Rubin -- a veteran spokesman for the Clinton State Department and leading candidate to be Kerry's NSC director -- said something so obviously stupid? Kerry has been fighting since the convention to show that he has had a consistent position on Iraq. The core of that position, as stated by Devine, is that

John Kerry does not regret his vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq. What he deeply regrets is what the president did with that authority. The president rushed to war without a plan to win the peace.

But Russert saw the contradiction and hit Devine hard. The result is worth quoting at length:

MR. RUSSERT: But Jamie Rubin said in all probability John Kerry would have launched a military attack.

MR. DEVINE: Tim, again, the authorization was the right vote, it was the right choice. In fact, in 1998, John Kerry supported regime change in Iraq. And the fact of the matter is that this president said he would go to the United Nations, exhaust every remedy, build a
broad international coalition. He failed to do so and the result of that
president's failures is what's going on today in Iraq. It is a huge
problem being paid for by American taxpayers and American troops.

MR. RUSSERT: But why launch an attack if there were no weapons of mass destruction?

MR. DEVINE: Well, Tim, listen, it's a--you know, hypothetical is always impossible to deal with. I mean, the fact--this is the reality. We can deal with the reality. Saddam Hussein needed to be held accountable. There was a right way to do it and a wrong way to do
it. Every step along the way—once the president got that authority, he chose the wrong course. And today, as a result of that choice, of the president and the vice president, the decisions they made, American taxpayers are footing a bill of $200 billion in Iraq. John Kerry has said there is a way to win the war on terror, to be tough and smart to do it, and that we shouldn't be opening firehouses in Baghdad and closing them down here in America.

MR. RUSSERT: But if he voted to authorize the war and his foreign policy advisers said he would have launched an attack on Saddam, what's the difference between John Kerry's position and George Bush's?

MR. DEVINE: Well, listen, the president--the difference is the president made mistake after mistake in this country and our troops are paying for it today. John Kerry would never have pursued the course of action that the president of the United States has pursued. John Kerry would have built a true international coalition to shoulder the burden with America. He would have put it together the right
way. Unfortunately, the president has cost this nation with his costly mistakes and we're paying the price every day.

MR. RUSSERT: Who would have been in the coalition that was not?

MR. DEVINE: Tim, I think a number of countries, potentially, could have been in that coalition. But that's unknowable.

MR. RUSSERT: France and Germany?

MR. DEVINE: What we know, Tim--all we can know is this, that John Kerry would have kept his word and not broken it. The president promised to build a true, broad international coalition and he failed to do so. And the result of that failure is the cost being paid by America today.

Think about it: A Kerry spokesman defending the invasion by saying that "Saddam Hussein needed to be held accountable." That a Bush-Cheney talking point. Even OxBlog wouldn't go that far. After all, if we had known that Saddam had no WMD stockpiles, what would have held him accountable for?

Russert's point about France and Germany is also critical. How can John Kerry attack George Bush for undermining our alliances if Kerry would have done exactly the same thing that antagonized the French and Germans so much in the first place?

Devine is lucky that Russert didn't follow up on his questions by asking whether Rubin's statement counts as a flip-flop on the war. In Slate, Will Saletan rested his entire case for the consistency of Kerry's position on the Senator's October 2003 statement that

[The Bush administration] did not give legitimacy to the inspections. We could have still been doing inspections even today.

In other words, if John Kerry had been President, there would've been no war.

Now, your'e probably asking yourself, what does all this have to do with Matt's question about whether Kerry would do anything different in Iraq? My frustrating answer to that question is: To be continued...
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# Posted 3:16 PM by Patrick Belton  

COMMENT BY KETHAKDEVI , INDIAN WOMAN who is being carried by her son on a 17-year trek across India, which has already covered 3,750 miles: 'He is a nice son but I am getting tired. I sometimes feel like ending the journey and getting back home.' (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:05 AM by Patrick Belton  

OUR HEARTS ARE BROKEN by the destruction by arson of a Jewish-run soup kitchen in the 11ème arrondissement of Paris. Le Monde reports that slogans left include 'without the Jews, we will all be happy', along with swastikas; BBC also reports. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:24 AM by Patrick Belton  

INTELLIGENCE REFORM, A KGB PERSPECTIVE: A Russian veteran of the KGB of major-general rank offers his perspective about the Senate Republicans' proposal to dismantle the CIA: (Kobyakov served as deputy director of the KGB's American Division in the late 1980s.)

Back in the heyday of Cold War some of my KGB colleagues
toyed with an idea of breaking-up the C.I.A. by setting it
off against the F.B.I., and both of them against the Pentagon.
Most were harebrained schemes but none had been as sweeping
as the one proposed by Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas.
(This is not to imply that present set-up is perfect.)

But as a KGB/SVR veteran, who lived through quite a few sweeping
reorganizations of the Soviet/Russian era I can share my general
experience.

It usually looks swell on charts with all the bells and whistles
but when you try to implement it the place stops working, then it
falls apart with some of the best people running sway. And then the
ones, who for this or that reason stayed behind are faced with an
enormous Sisyphean labor of trying to jump start the new bastard,
or parts of what was once a functioning system. This may take years.

Good luck,

Julius Kobyakov
Major General SVR (Ret.)

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# Posted 10:54 AM by Patrick Belton  

THAT'S WHAT WE SAID:

The Scream, stolen at gunpoint this afternoon from the museum in which it resided. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:18 AM by Patrick Belton  

HERE ON OXBLOG, as social scientists we've often considered the various species of wildlife to be found on the streets of urban southern England. Of course, this makes us vulnerable to the charge of anglocentrism, which, naturally, we'd like to take the time to remedy. So let us introduce the Glasgow Survival Kit, which takes the time to replicate our findings on the yob population of Oxford with detailed research on the ned wildlife of Glasgow.

And if any of such neds would like to contact us about any concerns or comments motivated by said research, David's contact information is on the left. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:04 AM by Patrick Belton  

SI NON È VERO, È BEN TROVATO: As a schoolboy growing up in an Irish-Italian emigrant enclave in the South consisting roughly of the limits of my family's home, I acquired a number of amusing stories which almost collectively make up for my lacking the good sense to select a more mainstream family background. One of these is that, in my provincial city in Virginia, we would typically get the rejected textbooks from the northeast, often with mispellings which were caught in their second print run. It wasn't until I turned 25 that I realised why people kept snickering whenever I'd refer to Aeneas and Dildo. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion