| OxBlog |
|
Front page
|
Sunday, December 19, 2004
# Posted 8:51 PM by David Adesnik "I swear to God, even if they burn all the elections centers, we will still go and vote," said Ali Waili, a 29-year-old taxi driver .I guess the United States doesn't really have to promote democracy in Iraq -- the insurgents are already doing that for us. But David Ignatius argues that democracy in Iraq means a puppet for Iran: Iran is about to hit the jackpot in Iraq, wagering the blood and treasure of the United States. Last week an alliance of Iraqi Shiite leaders announced that its list of candidates will be headed by Abdul Aziz Hakim, the clerical leader of the Iranian-backed Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.My impression has been that SCIRI is not an advocate of Shi'ite fundamentalism. But if Ignatius says it is, then it's time for me to do more research. The one point on which I can't agree with Ignatius is that Given the stakes for the United States in these elections, you might think we would quietly be trying to influence the outcome. But I am told that congressional insistence that the Iraqi elections be "democratic" has blocked any covert efforts to help America's allies. That may make sense to ethicists in San Francisco, but how about to the U.S. troops on the ground?I think, or pehaps I hope, that our troops on the ground believe that what they need most is a legitimate government in Baghdad. And covert operations don't have much of a record of producing legitimate governments. Which isn't to say that we haven't tried to influence the election. From the assault on Fallujah to the distribution of aid to the actions of our the US-sponsored Allawi government, America is already exerting a profound influence on Iraqi politics. If those above-the-board methods aren't enough, I doubt that covert ops will make much of a difference. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 8:43 PM by David Adesnik (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 8:38 PM by David Adesnik (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 7:36 PM by David Adesnik On yesterday's front page, the Post ran the fifth article in its ongoing look at how hard it is for Americans to make ends meet even when their income matches the national median of around $35,000 a year. Correspondent Alec Klein recounts the story of a women named Kayasa Cobb in order to make a larger point about the experiences of the black middle class. A Florida resident, Cobb is married and has two children. She doesn't just have a bachelor's degree, but also a masters. She has a full time job and earns $39,000. Her husband earns just over $20,000 as a librarian. He puts in extra hours at a move theater for just a shade over the minimum wage. And still the Cobbs are barely getting by. They have $80,000 in debt. Day care for their infant daughter costs $520 a month. Health insurance adds another $400. Cobb and her family still live in a dangerous neighborhood where gunshots are often heard. "Earlier this year, Cobb applied for a local government grant to help buy a home in a safer neighborhood. She was denied, she says, because her family made too much money." Klein's article never exactly makes clear why the Cobbs are having such a hard time making ends meet despite having a household income of $60,000. I'm not exactly one to criticize, since I don't have any children to support and my parents were never strapped for cash. But I am curious: How did this family come to be chosen as the representative of an entire social class? Shouldn't Klein tell us how he met the Cobbs and whether their situation is common among those with similar levels of income and education? In Klein's article, the implicit answer to why the Cobbs are facing an uphill battle in life is that the system is rigged against them: Even as African Americans and other minorities have made economic progress in the last 40 years, many of those reaching the middle-income rung, like Cobb, are finding it a hollow promise. In earlier decades, a union-protected factory worker or government employee earning such a wage could expect a comfortable life with company-provided health and retirement benefits, and perhaps enough money for indulgences such as the occasional new car...Now here's what you've all been waiting for: the part of this post about a B-grade action flick. Yesterday, I watched Walking Tall, starring The Rock. Walking Tall is both the remake of an earlier film by the same name as well as fictionalized version of the life of Buford Pusser, a legendary Tennessee sheriff in the 1960s. The basic storyline of the 2004 version of the film is that Special Forces vet Chris Vaughn (The Rock) returns to his home town only to discover that the local lumber mill has closed down and his father is out of a job. The new game in town is a casino owned by one of Vaughn's high school friends, who has bought off the cops and uses the casino as a front for his drug-dealing operation. No one in the town wants to do anything about this because they all depend on the casino for jobs. Long story short, The Rock becomes sherriff, beats up a whole lot of people, beds a reformed stripper and busts the drug operation. Then, in the final scence, you learn that the lumber mill has reopened and the elder Vaughn has a good job again. Unsurprisingly, the film never explains this magical reversal of our nation's transition from an industrial to a service economy. But Hollywood's job is to give us happy endings, so you can't really blame the film for that. Still, I think that the fantasy on which the happy-ending is based has a lot in common with yesterday's story in the WaPo. Both are animated by a powerful nostalgia for the good old days of solid union jobs with comprehensive benefits. Perhaps because I am a historian, I tend to doubt whether such good old days ever existed. I'm not suggesting that the "good factory job" is a myth. But even if there were millions of them, did they really represent the typical life of America's middle class? Or does nostalgia for the good old days just lead us to misdiagnose the cause of our probelms today? I am doubly suspicious of those who suggest that African Americans benefited from the old order as much as their Caucasian counterparts. America's unions have a long history of racism and America's factories had a long tradition of making blacks into second class citizens on the factory floor. One striking statistic briefly mentioned in the WaPo is that "The unemployment rate for those with a bachelor's degree or greater in the United States is 2.5 percent, far below the national average." Wow. I'm willing to guess that the median income for college graduates is also significantly above average. Perhaps the real question we should be asking is not what happened to the good union jobs, but how we can put more Americans through college. If I had more time on my hands, I could write a research paper comparing the opportunities that white and black Americans have to attend college. I could compare the living standards of college-educated African-Americans with their white counterparts. I could find out what percentage of the black middle class is college educated. I could find out how often college educated African-Americans wind up on welfare -- a fate of which Kayasa Cobb is quite wary. In other words, I could find out whether the Washington Post's poster child for the failure of the marketplace was chosen because she had the right story to tell or because she really represents a subset of the American workforce that is struggling to leave a decent life despite working as hard as it can. UPDATE: Kaus is blasting the WaPo for this half-baked article with far more gusto than I can summon. (Hat tip: MD) (1) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 5:46 PM by Patrick Belton
# Posted 8:24 AM by Patrick Belton
# Posted 7:08 AM by Patrick Belton As the prime minister walked out, helpful Tories yelled at him: "Don't forget your book!" He grinned, but left it lying on the table.Courtesy OxBlog's good friend JC. No, not that JC. That JC. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion Saturday, December 18, 2004
# Posted 5:28 AM by Patrick Belton
# Posted 1:04 AM by David Adesnik This is the disheartening tale of a noble people ignobly led. The Administration is both author and protagonist of that tale, and to the Administraiton must be read this indictment and this prophesy:This goes on for a good bit longer, so I'll cut things short right here and tell you that this was written by Hans Morgenthau. In 1951. About Harry Truman. (You can find the full text on pages 239 and 240 of In Defense of the National Interest.) What is the significance of this surprising fact? It is hard to say. First of all, it indicates the degree to which even the best-informed scholarly opinion of the day can utterly fail to anticipate what policies will be vindicated in hindsight. Some might read into this fact the potential for a vindication of George W. Bush five decades from now. Others will insist that George W. Bush is no Harry Truman. (Althought it might be more accurate to say that Harry Truman was no Harry Truman.) A less partisan reading of Morgenthau's work might suggest that it points to the striking motivational power of idealistic rhetoric that invokes American ideals as well as the enduring nature of the clash between realism and idealism. The ever-present as well as most important but hardest question to answer is which doctrine provides greater insight into the challenges of today and how, if at all, it might be possible to combine the strength of both doctrines in order to achieve an optimal outcome. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion Friday, December 17, 2004
# Posted 9:33 PM by Patrick Belton
# Posted 5:33 PM by David Adesnik Kieran's main explanation revolves around the concept of "homophily", which has nothing to do with gay sex. Rather, homophily refers the general social practice of like associating with like. Kieran aptly points out that the biggest problem with this argument is that there is a pretty good mix of lefty and righty blogs out there, but not much balance between male and female authors. Moreover, there is even a considerable amount of interaction between bloggers on opposite sides of the political spectrum. Surprisingly, one issue Kieran doesn't raise is whether the gender gap in academic blogging reflects the gender gap in academia as whole. I have no idea what the latests statistics are, but I feel like it is something on the order of 2 or 3 to 1. Working off of that baseline, the gender gap may not be so remarkable. Another issue Kieran doesn't raise is whether the political opinions of academic bloggers are as "diverse" as those in the rest of the blogosphere. Since Kieran's comments about the gender gap are based on some statistics compiled by his co-blogger Henry Farrell, I imagine it wouldn't be too hard to tell us what the balance of opinion is in terms of liberals versus conservatives. My guess is that conservatives will be overrepresented (but not dramatically so) because of their tendency to compensate for being in the minority. In theory, women should also become more vocal in order to compensate for their minority status. But for some reason, that is not how they operate. Why not? The most interesting idea that Kieran throws out there is that women have a general tendency to be less assertive than men when it comes to demanding attention and rewards for their achievement. Kieran cites this book as evidence. This identification of significant behavior differences between the sexes opens up a whole Pandora's Box of hypotheses about the gender gap that might sound cliche and sexist if a conservative without a Ph.D. in sociology decided to elaborate them. First and foremost, my sense is that women shy away from the kind of forceful and often scathing debate that takes place in the blogosphere. Even though women have few reservations about saying scurrilous things about one another (or about men), they seem to have a certain aversion to saying such things in public. You might say women simply accept as given the existence of a double standard that labels aggressive men "ambitious" and aggressive women "bitchy". It is also worth asking what kinds of rewards the blogosphere hands out for success. The two most important ones are praise from your peers and attention from thousands of readers. In both cases, this recognition consists of an attachment of sorts to people you have never met and probably never will meet. If one hypothesizes that women are far more concerned about receiving praise and recognition from those they interact with face to face, then bloggering offers women very little in the way of compensation. So is there any validity to what I'm saying? Heck if I know. I don't study this kind of stuff. All I have is experience to go on. In high school, in college, and in graduate school, I have always found men to be far more outspoken in the classroom. Even on a one-to-one level, I have found many more women who shy away from political debate. In almost every organization I have been part of, men have been more assertive about taking a leadership role. I'm not saying that women lack the capacity to speak out and lead or that it's their fault if they don't get ahead because there are no formal barriers standing in their way. I do think that culture matters. And perhaps it matters when it comes to blogging, too. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 7:43 AM by Patrick Belton
# Posted 6:56 AM by Patrick Belton The first occurrence of the phrase, it may surprise TD, was actually though in the States. Its first recorded use in print is in the 1833 'A Down-Easter in the Far West' by James Neall. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 1:02 AM by David Adesnik I figure it's safe to assume that Cole has no idea what he's talking about, but the real issue here is that I don't really know that for a fact because I haven't made an effort to read Omar and Mohamed's writing, or for that matter Zeyad's or Riverbend's or anyone else's. So I think I should. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion Thursday, December 16, 2004
# Posted 10:01 PM by David Adesnik So you know, part of JBL's shtick is to be as offensively conservative as possible. He's an arrogant millionaire cowboy who is supposed to resemble a certain other arrogant millionaire cowboy. (You can see why I had to dress up as JBL when I went to watch Smackdown! live in Washington, DC.) After dissing Annan, JBL paused for a moment, apparently to check for the negative reaction from the audience he wanted to provoke. But maybe JBL forgot he was in Nashville and that a whole bunch of folks from the 101st Airborne were in the house. Or maybe the whole thing just went over people's heads. Anyhow, there were plenty of other clever bits in the show. At one point, two henchmen are arguing about which of their bad guy bosses is better. The trump card in their debate turns out to be the fact that one of the bosses -- JBL, in fact -- gives his henchmen full healthcare and dental benefits. Priceless. And how about this: The new ad for the WWE's annual Royal Rumble features 30 wrestlers dressed up as members of the Sharks and Jets and singing a song from West Side Story with slightly modified lyrics. (I think it was "When you're a Jet".) Finally, here's something to think about even if this kind of humor doesn't appeal to you. Next Thursday, Smackdown! will be broadcasting from the Middle East, where for the second year in a row the WWE is making a major effort to support the troops by shipping all of its biggest superstars overseas. (Click here for a video clip of some highlights from last year's trip.) I'm guessing that the show will probably be broadcast from Qatar or Kuwait rather than Baghdad for security reasons, but so what? What was the last time Sean Penn made it to the Persian Gulf? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 7:46 PM by David Adesnik (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 7:32 PM by David Adesnik (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 7:08 PM by David Adesnik (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 6:47 PM by David Adesnik Not that Kevin has any plans to stay quiet about Bush's plans for Social Security. Instead, he says its time for the Democrats to out-GOP the GOP by bringing back Harry & Louise. Kevin's bottom line is that Social Security is a proven winner that is even better financial shape than it was ten years ago. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 5:47 AM by Patrick Belton
# Posted 5:33 AM by Patrick Belton Then I discovered Michael Ignatieff had already done it for us. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 1:39 AM by David Adesnik (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 1:30 AM by David Adesnik You might chalk it up to paranoia, but I think it's pretty significant that the dissident prof in question is afraid to even publish under his own name. After all, how many college professors are afraid to publish under their own name in The Nation or other lefty strongholds? As mentioned before, I myself have had colleagues who were afraid to publish in the Weekly Standard. On the whole, I'd say that all this carping about liberalism on campus tends to accomplish very little. Until conservatives are pissed off enough to start becoming college professors by the score, I think that nothing much will change. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 1:26 AM by David Adesnik “Democracy in the Middle East Is Impossible Until the Arab-Israeli Conflict Is Resolved”So how about proposing the most radical solution of all to the Arab-Israeli conflict: a democratic Palestinian state. Perhaps because George W. Bush doesn't have sufficient credibility, no one praises him for suggesting that the Palestinians should have the same freedom as the Israelis. With any luck, the Palestinian people will take the first step toward liberating themselves by participating enthusiastically in the upcoming election -- and demanding that their elected officials behave democratically once they are in office. Regardless, concerned Arabs will always have some example of American hypocrisy to point to if they so desire. If not the Palestinians, then Abu Ghraib. If not Abu Ghraib, then Mubarak. If not Mubarak, then Musharraf. Chances are that the United States will have close relations with some dictator or oil sheikh right up until the whole Middle East is democratic. Thus, the real key to enhancing our credibility is to demonstrate that when we set out to promote democracy that we get the job done. The idea of a rapid-fire reverse-domino effect may be, as Carothers says, an example of "magical realism". Yet if Iraq and Afghanistan have elected, moderately liberal governments five or ten years down the road, Arabs will take notice. Now here's my favorite point from Tom's article: “Islamists Are the Main Obstacle to Arab Democracy”I won't comment any further on that one, so let's move on to the most controversial point in Tom's article, at least from a liberal perspective: “Promoting Women’s Rights Is Crucial for Democratic Change”It's sad but true. The United States managed to build and consolidate a (profoundly flawed) democratic order that brutalized African-Americans and made women into second-class citizens. Fifty years from now, the Arab world may be a sort of women's Jim Crow. Last but not least, we come to the point in Tom's article that threatens everything that OxBlog stands for: “Middle East Democracy Is the Cure for Islamist Terrorism”This last point will no doubt cheer Matt Yglesias, who is fond of pointing out that the first truly independent government in Iraq will crush the insurgents by resorting to the exactly the sort of horrifically brutal methods that provoke international outrage if the United States used them. However, there are also numerous examples of unrestrained violence triggering an even more massive revolt. Both the Japanese and the Chinese Nationalists tried to exterminate Mao's communists, only to have Mao & Co. prevail in the end. For those whose political memories extend back to the 1980s (or happen to write dissertations on the subject), Nicaragua and El Salvador provide examples of right-wing dictatorships whose brutality destroyed them. But this point is secondary. The real issue is whether democratic reform can resolve a problem whose origins clearly include factors other than the lack of democracy. In theory, the emergence of pristine liberal democracies in the Middle East probably would be enough to put an end to terrorism regardless of its cause. The real issue is whether flawed democracies that won't measure up to Western standards for at least a generation can make a difference in the War on Terror. Disputing that notion, Carothers points to active terroist organizations in Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Nepal. What I'd be interested to know is whether there is an observable relationship between democratic progress in those three nations and efforts to fight terrorism. Also, is it just an accident that terrorists in all those nations target their own government rather the United States or Europe? Does democracy lead terrorists to recognize that the answer to their problem lies at home, not in Washington or New York? UPDATE: MY has some thoughts about the Sri Lanka and the Philippines. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 1:02 AM by David Adesnik Nowhere has...progress in the last decades been more staggering than with regard to the ease and speed of transportation and communications. It has been remarked that the thirteen days that it took Sir Robert Peel in 1834 to hurry from Rome to London in order to be present at a cabinet meeting were exactly identical with the travel time allowed to a Roman official for the same journey seventeen centuries earlier. The best travel speed on land and sea throughout recorded history until close to the middle of the nineteenth century was ten miles an hour, a speed rarely attained on land. In 1790, it took four days in the best season to go from Boston to New York, a distance somewhat exceeding two hundred miles. Today the same time is sufficient for circling the globe, regardless of season.Thus wrote Hans Morgenthau in 1951 in the treatise on American foreign policy entitled In Defense of the National Interest. And so it seems that our habit of marveling at the wonders of modern technology is itself a historical artifact. FYI, the ellipsis in the first sentence above replaced the word 'mechanical', which might have given away the dated nature of the text. In the information age, the mechanical has become the primitive, so instead we refer to 'technological' progess. In case you're curious, there's no political point to be made here. I was simply reading Morgenthau's book today and was amazed at how much this hardened realist sounded exactly like the techno-prophets who declared the age of globalization to have begun sometime after the Berlin Wall came down. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion Wednesday, December 15, 2004
# Posted 1:44 PM by Patrick Belton The Scottish Pairlament is here for tae represent aw Scotland's folk.I'm left with the hankering suspicion that the whole thing was translated on one of those silly accent websites. The world eagerly awaits the Valley Girl version of Scottish legislation. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 1:40 PM by Patrick Belton Memorable moment of the day: a copy of Blunkett's authorised biography, in which he attacks fellow members of the government, being thrown across the Commons chamber by the Government's chief whip. We have for our viewers an action shot of the new parliamentary game of 'toss the book' being played. The book was tossed once by each side across the despatch boxes. There was no word from either side afterward as to how the day's play ought be scored. ![]() Tuesday, December 14, 2004
# Posted 10:29 PM by David Adesnik (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 8:11 PM by Patrick Belton HEISENBERG UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE UPDATE: Kindly writes in the South Asia Centre: 'No doubt he feels that all the languages he knows are neat, but the department he belongs to is the Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Department. Thanks for making our site famous on your blog. It is almost with a sense of regret that will we be changing Prof. Woods’ entry.' (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 8:54 AM by Patrick Belton
# Posted 6:21 AM by Patrick Belton
# Posted 5:40 AM by Patrick Belton
# Posted 5:14 AM by Patrick Belton Monday, December 13, 2004
# Posted 10:26 AM by Patrick Belton UPDATE: Our friend Zach Mears recommends R, as his preferred free stuff for statistics. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 9:10 AM by Patrick Belton
# Posted 1:43 AM by David Adesnik (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 12:22 AM by David Adesnik Two leading South Dakota blogs – websites full of informal analysis, opinions and links – were authored by paid advisers to [Senator-elect John] Thune’s campaign.Lauck responds to the CBS story here. Van Beek comments here. Power Line says My instinct is that the bloggers' relationship with the Thune campaign should have been disclosed on the blogs (as it apparently was, but obscurely, in FEC filings).I agree. Prof. Lauck and I had a number of exchanges via e-mail, which got me interested in his blog and resulted in my praising his work without reservation. Now I feel deceived. I would have evaluated Prof. Lauck's work very differently if I knew he were being supported by the Thune campaign. Now the quesiton is, do I -- and all those who linked to Daschle v Thune -- owe our readers an apology? Should we have a system in place for vetting the websites we link to? I don't know the answer to that question. There isn't much you can do to protect yourself from someone who is being intentionally deceptive -- especially when such individuals are peddling opinions rather than facts. Before going to air, CBS had an obligation to verify the accusations it levelled at George W. Bush. But you can't verify an opinion. On the other hand, shouldn't bloggers make some effort to assess the credibility of the sources? Should we have a formal code of ethics that would at least deter some deception? Again, I don't know. But I'm open to ideas. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion Sunday, December 12, 2004
# Posted 11:27 PM by David Adesnik While we are all familiar with the accepted (but still questionable) practice of providing national security information on background or off-the-record, it seems quite strange for theological debates to be withheld from the public -- especially when the subject of debate is the President's public statments. Then again, religion is such an explosive political issue that perhaps it should be handled with such extreme care. Yet once again, as in the case of national security coverage, there is an unacknowledged trade-off between public education and professional objectivity. For example, consider the cover story [subscription required] from last week's issue of Time Magazine. It's title is "Secrets of the Nativity". Naturally, the folks at Time aren't going to tell you that there was no actual news about the Nativity last week, but that they are hoping to capitalize on the relentless merchandizing of the holiday season. That may seem like a cheapshot, but there's a serious point I'm trying to make. Feature stories about religion are meant to boost sales and you can't do that by antagonizing your customers. On the other hand, journalists don't want to compromise their objectivity. So what you wind up with is a strange sort of hybrid coverage that never makes it own premises explicit. Imagine for just a second that journalists treated the messages that come from America's pulpits the same way they treat the messages that come from our White House. Instead of emphasizing the beauty and wonder of the Nativity (a la Time), journalists would embark on a wholesale effort to expose the lack of historical evidence for the events described in the Bible. The result would be headlines such as "No 'Collaborative Relationship" Between Christ, Apostles". Of course, the polarizing effects of such coverage would outweigh any positive value it might have. But since religion is so important in American life, how exactly should journalists describe it? Time's cover story by David Van Biema resolves this conflict by presenting a highly critical take on the Gospels with an upbeat, pro-religious attitude. The opening paragraphs of Van Biema's cover story are set in a Presbyterian church where As if on cue, from a Sunday-school classroom upstairs wafts the sound of 70 angelic young voices rendering a still shaky but clearly heartfelt version of Away in a Manger.The literal content of these sentences in no way suggests that there is any inherent validity to the Christmas story or the Christian faith. While some might suggest that the use of the word "angelic" is a little much, the heavy lifting here is being done by the words 'progress', 'participation' and 'understanding'. Ostensibly neutral, each of these words has a positive connotation in the American political lexicon. Participation and understanding are the prerequisites of democratic deliberation. 'Progress' describes the success of enlightened policymaking. In contrast, when evil individuals, e.g. Iraqi insurgents, achieve success, we tend to describe it as 'sophistication'. Van Biema balances such positive descriptions by observing that no Christmas pageant Will be precisely like the New Testament Gospel accounts...a fact that causes concern to almost no one.As we all know, journalists only pay attention to a fact that causes concern to almost no one only when the jouranalists themselves believe that such facts should cause tremendous concern to just about everyone. Once again, the literal meaning of the sentence is neutral. Yet within the context of journalistic convention, its connotation self-evident. Shortly after offering up this bit of heresy, Van Biema protects himself by writing that In the debates over the literal truth of the Gospels, just about everyone acknowledges that major conclusions about Jesus' life are not based on forensic clues.Van Biema further protects himself by quoting numerous scholars from prestigious seminaries and universities, all of whom have a fairly upbeat (or least diplomatic) attitude toward the Gospels. The one scholar who breaks from this pattern gets introduced to the reader as an "iconclastic feminist critic". And nowhere in this very long cover story do we hear from those who see religion as a dangerous set of myths that promote intolerance and threaten democracy. Nonetheless, Van Biema still senses the need to put a positive spin on some of his interlocutors already positive quotations. For example, What jumps out at close readers," [Prof. White] says, "is Matthew's and Luke's different roads to performing the vital theological task of their age: fitting key themes and symbols from Christianity's parent tradition, Judaism, into an emerging belief in Jesus and also working in ideas familiar to the Roman culture that surrounded them." Thus the Nativity stories provide a fascinating look at how each of the two men who agreed on so much—that Jesus was the Christ come among us and was crucified and resurrected and took away sin—could be inspired to begin his story in similar, yet hardly identical ways.A "close reader" might notice that Prof. White is carefully suggesting that Matthew and Luke were far more concerned about winning converts than they were about the (Gospel) truth. To prevent this point from becoming too obvious, Van Biema reminds us again how much Matthew and Luke did agree on. This strategy of broaching a heretical suggestion then insisting that it has no such implications characterizes the whole of Time's cover story. Perhaps that isn't a bad thing. Time's cover story accomplishes the important task of introducing readers to a broad range of modern scholarship about the Gospels. I have to admit, I myself found the article tremendously informative. And yet there is something condescending and disingenuous about the whole approach. Putting on the kid gloves suggests that Christians aren't really ready to grapple with the complexities of their own faith. Now, I don't pretend to know exactly how journalists should balance the imperatives of candor and tact. Yet I can't help but conclude that the best way to resolve this question is to be open about it and to engage the reader, rather than crafting an unstable and silent compromise. You might say that my philosophy of journalism comes down to just one word: accountability. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 8:54 PM by David Adesnik In addition to the guide, today's WaPo also has a long round-up of travel blogs, emphasizing their limited utility. Sample quote: You may happen upon a nugget of wisdom after only a few minutes' search, but you may also feel like you've fallen into a bottomless, inane abyss where someone blathers in less-than-fascinating detail about how hung over she was in Barcelona -- without even revealing which of the latest hip bars she visited to contract the condition.Sort of sounds like a MoDo column, doesn't it? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 7:36 PM by David Adesnik The information in this morning's front-pager is attributed to "three U.S. government officials". It's pretty reasonable to assume that they weren't all leaking the same information, either individually or in concert. But one of them may have leaked the information to the Post, which then contacted the other two for confirmation. Since this whole story is pretty embarrassing for the Bush administration, there isn't much reason to believe that the story was planted. Unless, of course, it was a pre-emptive plant meant to head off more embarrassing revelations from unauthorized sources. One of the interesting things about this story is the way in which it illustrates how the journalistic imperative to educate the public clashes with the imperative of objectivity. As is so often the case with stories about national security, correspondents know far more about the situation than they are allowed to tell their readers. Moreover, they sometimes label their sources in a deceptive manner in order to prevent public identification of those sources. The issue here isn't ideological bias but rather the intentional confusion of the public. Although written like any other regular news story, the WaPo front-pager about El Baradei omits the information that is most important for anyone who truly wants to assess its significance. Now, I am hardly the first person to point out how a reliance on anonymous sources threatens objectivity. But I think I am one of the few to note how the presentation of such confusing material is done in exactly the same manner as the presentation of a run-of-the-mill news story. Thus, the overwhelming majority of WaPo readers don't know that they have to read this kind of story far more carefully than the would any other. And even those of us familiar with the relevant journalistic devices have no way to judge the accuracy of what's being reported. What it all comes down to is the same issue responsible for so many problmes with the mass media: a total lack of accountability. What I wish I knew was how to introduce some sort of accountability without ensuring a cut off of the valuable information that unofficial sources provide. Anyhow, getting back to El Baradei, the Post suggests that the US wiretap is part of a vindictive and heavy-handed effort by the White House to get back at El Baradei for being uncooperative first on Iraq and now on Iran. My instincts says that that assessment is just about right. But I prefer evidence to instincts. If we are trying to bully El Baradei, I think its a bad idea. As the article points out, there isn't much available in the way of replacements. And what exactly could a better IAEA director do to resolve the situation with Iran? Going after El Baradei seems like a particularly self-destructive way of ignoring the message and killing the messenger. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 1:27 PM by Patrick Belton Saturday, December 11, 2004
# Posted 10:46 PM by Patrick Belton
# Posted 3:02 PM by David Adesnik Without hesitation, I can say that Matt up came with the best dis of OxBlog I've ever heard. I can't remember the exact words, but it went like this: "You people make no sense. You spend 364 days a year trashing liberals and defending the Bush administration. Then, come election day, it's all, 'Oh no, I couldn't vote for Bush. I mean, he's just not a good president.'" I didn't have a comeback ready for that one last night, but 15 hours later, here it is: All presidential election years are leap years. Therefore, OxBlog spends 365 days a year trashing liberals, not 364, before coming out for Kerry at the polls. Choke on that, sucka! CORRECTION: Reader TD from MIT points out that neither 1800 nor 1900 was a (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 2:56 PM by David Adesnik (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 2:53 PM by David Adesnik (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 2:49 PM by David Adesnik (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 5:32 AM by Patrick Belton Dear Sir/madam,So typical for Suha. She doesn't even have a Palestinian email address. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion Friday, December 10, 2004
# Posted 6:45 PM by Patrick Belton
# Posted 1:05 PM by David Adesnik I got two words for ya, Jonny boy: Jodie Foster. Inspired by Foster's turn as a child prostitute in Taxi Driver, John Hinckley decided to kill President Reagan in the hopes of impressing Ms. Foster. You see, the degradation of our culture and our family values really is a threat to our democracy and the American way of life. Or if you have a slightly different opinion of Reagan and the GOP, then you may think pedophila chic is the Democrats best hope, alongside sterilization. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 5:36 AM by Patrick Belton The Council for a Community of Democracies, the United Nations Association-USA, the Democracy Coalition Project, Freedom House, and the Transnational Radical Party will sponsor a luncheon briefing on the United Nations Democracy Caucus at the UN headquarters in New York City on December 16, 2005. At its founding conference in Warsaw in June 2000, the Community of Democracies (CD) endorsed the creation of a caucus of nations sharing common democratic values at the United Nations. On September 22, 2004, the UN Democracy Caucus, composed of member states of the CD, formally met for the first time at the foreign ministers level at the UN General Assembly. The December 16 event will explore how the UN Democracy Caucus can coordinate common positions at the UN to advance the principles of democracy and human rights.(0) opinions -- Add your opinion Thursday, December 09, 2004
# Posted 5:09 PM by Patrick Belton A point I frequently find myself having to make to friends in this country is that, occasionally, some things are true even if Bush believes them. There are threats emanating from both North Korea and Iran at the moment, even if it isn't as clear what ought to be done in response to those threats. You mention the demographic of twenty and thirty year olds; in my experience, young members of the Foreign Office and other national security services have roughly the same appraisal of threat in those two cases as their American generational and occupational counterparts. I think in both nations, there is a segment of liberals with the most noble of political beliefs who impute the same to the leaders of Pyongyang and Tehran, and who overestimate dangerously the rationality, morality, and bona fides of foreign dictators. The Chamberlain tradition is alive and well on both sides of the Atlantic, but there are also political liberals in both nations with more sophisticated understandings of the world, who do not expect negotiation and international law to resolve all political difficulties involving illiberal leaders as in the best of worlds. Traditions of pacificism and Quakerism are admirable as signpoints toward a better world, but the reins of state in our imperfect times have never been entrusted to their adherents. So I think the journalistic tradition of transatlantic division is generally overstated, as is reflected by the public opinion research; New Yorkers are not far removed from Londoners and Oxbridge students, and religious, nationalist West Country Tories have more than a thing or two in common with Middle Americans, though the thought might discomfit some here.I'd be grateful for any thoughts on either side of this debate, or links to posts or other online resources on the subject, and will share ones that seem particularly useful. I haven't been thinking that much about either country lately, and am eager to. (Although, in the 'coming attractions for early next year' category, I have been thinking a bit about French Muslims and Indian foreign policy....) (Those are separate pieces.) Not that this is as scintillating a conversation, of course, as whether David or I will lose our virginianity first. But they can't all be. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 10:43 AM by David Adesnik One might object that being northeastern is not a geographical fact, but a state of mind. But I still think that all those who have met Patrick would agree that his laid-back, gentlemanly charm is disntinctly Southern. I am the bagel. Dr. Chafetz is the lox. But you, Mr. Belton, are the okra & grits. UPDATE TO PATRICK'S UPDATE: Mr. Belton, you seem to be taking geographic postmodernism to new heights. How can you "formally immigrate" to New York while living in the United Kingdom? Are you the blogospheric equivalent of Hillary Clinton? But, yes, you have divined my inner motive: I now am good ol' Virginia boy (wearing a cowboy hat as I type this post) and I want us to have a state in common, although I may have to settle for a state of mind. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 6:58 AM by Patrick Belton
# Posted 5:22 AM by Patrick Belton ![]() (NOTE: David, playing nativist gatekeeper, disputes my ability to formally immigrate to New York. Ever. Incidentally, I've kept all of my receipts, for absentee ballots cast, statesside time spent, and Woody Allen movies watched. Then again, David is a Virginia good ol' boy now, so maybe he just wants us to have a state in common. Awww.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion Wednesday, December 08, 2004
# Posted 5:13 PM by David Adesnik When US troops march into Grenada, this is certainly "real", though the march of troops across a piece of geographic space is in itself singularly uninteresting and socially irrelevant outside of the representations that produce that meaning. It is only when "American" is attached to the troops and "Grenada" to the geographic space that meaning is created. (Page 5)I will hazard a guess that such events, in and of themselves, were neither uninteresting nor irrelevant from the perspective of the "American", "Cuban" and "Grenadian" soldiers who were "shot" and "killed" during the "battle". Alas, they might have been saved if only Foucault had been on the scene to inform them that "death" is a social construction and a product of false consciousness! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 1:34 PM by Patrick Belton I also just had a lovely piece of cake given to me by a man standing beside a just-lit menorah in city centre who I stopped to say hello to. It wasn't until after I finished eating that it occurred to me that, should anyone happen to want to get rid of most of the Jews and Semitophiles around Oxford, one of the more efficient ways to go about it would probably be precisely .... to procure a just-lit menorah, make some cyanide-laced chocolate cake, and start giving it out to anyone who stops to say hello. Fortunately, however, this was not the case. So it's a happy Chanukkah! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 6:54 AM by Patrick Belton (*Or at least this third of it.) Blogger woes update: This blog also likes things that are international, but was still somewhat taken aback when blogger's homepage came up in Japanese just now. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion Tuesday, December 07, 2004
# Posted 10:53 PM by David Adesnik On a more amusing note, Klein has noticed how some Americans are outraged about the sudden prominence of James Blake Miller, the infamous cigarette-smoking marine of Falluja. One troubled woman asked the Dallas Morning News, "Are there no photos of non-smoking soldiers?" Klein observes: Yes, that's right: letter writers from across the nation are united in their outrage - not that the steely-eyed, smoking soldier makes mass killing look cool, but that the laudable act of mass killing makes the grave crime of smoking look cool.The "mass killing'" that concerns Klein is the insidious American plan to kill off the entire population of Iraq with second-hand smoke. If our boys have learned anything from the insurgents, it's that beheading simply isn't efficient. Even suicide car bombs can't take out more than a few dozen civilians. If you want to take out thousands at a time, you need WMD -- Weapons of Marlboro Destruction. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 10:48 PM by David Adesnik (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 10:29 PM by David Adesnik John Weber, Executive Vice President of Operations for Hooters, "English is very common in Croatia, and the citizens are very excited about bringing American concepts into the country, such as Hooters."I'm as patriotic as the next guy, but somehow I don't think that the appeal of Hooters rests on the fact that it is American. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 6:13 PM by David Adesnik (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 5:58 PM by David Adesnik In other Grammy news, Green Day picked up six nominations for 'American Idiot', its very catchy effort to provide a rock 'n' roll equivalent to Fahrenheit 9/11. Billy Joe and the boys deserve credit for creating songs that make almost impossible not to sing along, but somehow I suspect that Green Day's six nominations are a result of lyrics like these: Well maybe I'm the faggot America.Sacre bleu! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 9:59 AM by Patrick Belton
# Posted 8:49 AM by Patrick Belton Note to editors: the piece that I have in mind would probe a bit deeper into the stateside penal institutions Graner served in, by tracking down prisoners and guards from Graner's time there for interview; review the evidence to hand about abuse in prisons in general and assess competing possibilities, and past attempts, of reform; and argue prison abuse in America doesn't receive necessary attention - whether because of notions prisoners deserve what comes to them, reluctance of civil rights organisations to associate themselves with prisoners' causes, or simpler problems of lack of resources. Speaking as a liberal hawk, whose cautious support for American and British war aims in Iraq has been closely premised on their humanitarian rationale, it's not clear that we can separate the reformist impulse for a public order of human dignity at home from its counterpart abroad. Abu Ghraib makes it painfully clear that on both counts, there's much more to be done. P.S. Low posting due to blogger being down. (i.e., the program, not me.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion Monday, December 06, 2004
# Posted 6:32 AM by Patrick Belton
# Posted 1:31 AM by David Adesnik (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 1:30 AM by David Adesnik (0) opinions -- Add your opinion Sunday, December 05, 2004
# Posted 11:20 PM by David Adesnik The correspondent responsible for celebrating Mr. Upton's accomplishments is Thomas Ricks, who contrasts Mr. Upton's forthright work with the disingenuous propaganda emanating from the Defense Department. Ricks reports that The military's presentation depicts the fight for Fallujah as a liberation of a city from the insurgents. The Web log posts far more graphic wire service and other photos, and tends to point the finger of blame for civilian suffering at the military.To Mr. Ricks' credit, he describes the DoD presentation on Falluja both accurately and in detail. [If you don't have Power Point, you can download a free Power Point reader directly from Microsoft.] It is also to Mr. Ricks' credit that he gives some indication of Mr. Upton's style of argumentation. For example, In the version of the Web site that was up last week, the first image on the site showed a malnourished Iraqi baby, wide-eyed and screaming in pain, under the sarcastic headline, "another grateful Iraqi civilian."Yet for reasons unknown, Mr. Ricks avoids reporting on the more inflammatory -- as well as more representative -- aspects of Mr. Upton's website. For example, one post from November 17th is entitled "What exactly do you mean when you use the word genocide?" Apparently, what Mr. Upton means is not the wholesale slaughter of civlians a la Bosnia or Rwanda. Rather, his definition of genocide refers to the American killing of Sunni insurgents, or as Mr. Upton prefers to call them "resistors". That's right -- insurgents, not civlians. Perhaps, perhaps I could understand if Mr. Upton described the death of Iraqi civlians as a form of genocide. Yet none of the captions under the photos in the November 17th even mentions civilians. Two of the photographs depict "resistors" while the rest depict unidentified corpses that also seem to belong to insurgents. But let's stay focused on civlians. There are many photographs on Mr. Upton's site of suffering civlians. In numerous instances, the captions identify these civilians as the victims of American attacks. Yet none of the photographs depict the hundreds and perhaps thousands of civlians who have been killed by suicide bombings, IEDs, and other reckless attacks by the insurgents. On occasion, Mr. Upton includes photos of Iraqis "found murdered" or killed by "unknown gunmen". There is even one photos of an Iraqi policemen "injured in attack by resistors". Injured, not killed. Because only Americans kill. Of course, Mr. Upton is entitled to his opinions. But it is incumbent upon Mr. Ricks, a professional correspondent, to describe Mr. Upton's opinions with a certain measure of accuracy. However, this is the passage that Mr. Ricks chooses to excerpt from Mr. Upton's writing on the Iraq in Pictures website: "This is not an antiwar site. You can visit this site and appreciate what it's doing and still support the war. . . . We need the whole story." He added that those wanting to see "the other side" of the story should "Go to Fox News, CNN, USA Today, WSJ, the Washington Post, or any of the other outlets that has these pictures and doesn't show them."Yes, you can visit the website and still support the war. I did and I do. Yet Mr. Ricks leaves us with the very false impression that Mr. Upton's primary interest is education, rather than advocacy of his radical anti-American views. Even though Mr. Ricks is smart enough not to express his opinion about Mr. Upton website explicitly, he clearly suggests that Mr. Upton's work is far more persuasive than that of the public relations officers at the Pentagon. After quoting one retired officer who provides lukewarm praise for his colleagues at the Pentagon, Mr. Ricks writes that "As far as the blog site, this is information operations at its finest," said one Marine officer who has served in Iraq. "IO is about influence, and this piece tries to influence people by depicting the human cost of war."With all due respect to the servicemen in question, Mr. Upton's site is not primarily concerned with "the human cost of war". Yet just in case these officers' comments weren't persuasive enough, Mr. Ricks closes out his article by citing the judgment of an "expert in Iraqi affairs" well known to those of us in the blogosphere: Juan Cole, a University of Michigan expert on Iraqi affairs who has a blog called "Informed Comment" (http://www.juancole.com/), came to a similar but broader conclusion: "What the two presentations show us is that the U.S. military is full of brave and skilled warriors who can defeat their foes, but is still no good at counterinsurgency operations, and is wretched at winning hearts and minds."How impressive. A left liberal professor who insists that the US military is incapable of winning hearts and minds because a 26-year old leftist in Manhattan is against the war. (Of course, Mr. Ricks doesn't tell you anything about Prof. Cole's politics. He simply describes Prof. Cole as an "expert".) Even though it is hard to understand how Mr. Ricks could provide such a deceptive impression of Mr. Upton's a website, one may infer a certain motivation from something that Mr. Ricks wrote not long ago in the Post. In article about a new exhibit at the Smithsonian, Mr. Ricks wrote that Some might be put off by the loaded title, "The Price of Freedom: Americans at War." But behind that red-state rubric is a well-balanced show, with enough combat gear to please the warriors, enough emphasis on casualties and Indians and blacks and women to comfort the loyal opposition, and enough balance to satisfy most historians.If Mr. Ricks believes that an emphasis on casualties (inflicted or sustained by our side) as the essence of "balance" and "loyal opposition", than perhaps Mr. Ricks sought to promote such balance and opposition by lavishing praise on Mr. Upton. Perhaps Mr. Ricks decision to misrepresent Mr. Upton's website was only subconscious. According to Phil Carter, who knows more about the military than anyone else I have ever met, Mr. Ricks is "the best defense reporter out there." Be that as it may, I still think that Mr. Ricks has a lot to learn. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 7:53 PM by David Adesnik (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 7:41 PM by David Adesnik I have for sale a WW2 German K98 Mauser rifle.So if someone buys the rifle without the bayonette, will this guy put up the bayonette for sale by itself? I think I would buy and give it to Patrick as a Chanukah present. And now here's my favorite ad from the UVA list: VW Jetta For SaleSo what's the big deal about that? Well, let me provide you with some context. This same ad has been running for over two months. Back when I was looking for a car, I test drove this Jetta. The price back then was $4800. I asked the owner if there was a reason he was asking for 20% above Blue Book (which was already more than the car was worth). He said he was just charging what the market would bear. I knew back then that he was out of his mind, and dropped a hint to that effect. In addition, the car's moonroof is broken and this guy still isn't honest enough to mention that in his ad. So, one of my favorite things about the UVA maillist is that I can get my recommended daily allowance of schadenfreude by seeing this ad run again and again. The question is, how much further will the price drop before it gets sold? And will I test drive it again just to make sure Mr. Jetta gets the point? Nah, that's rude. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 3:22 AM by David Adesnik (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 3:01 AM by David Adesnik (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 2:49 AM by David Adesnik (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 2:21 AM by David Adesnik Best Liberal Blog: Matt Yglesias Best Election Coverage: Real Clear Politics Best of the Top 100: Dan Drezner Best Blog Ranked Below 2500: The Moderate Voice. Best Group Blog: Volokh (...although we won't hold it against you if you vote for OxBlog.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 2:18 AM by David Adesnik (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 2:03 AM by David Adesnik In other words, all the usual suspects have spoken up and no one else is really interested in this issue. And why should anyone care if they don't have a personal or ideological stake in this fight? Compared to journalists, professors inhabit a world that is far more distant from the daily life of American politics and far more impervious to change. Thus, most conservatives can spend their time more productively on other issues while liberals have no incentive to defend the professoriate. In closing, let me just say that I cannot wait to finish my dissertation. UPDATE: Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby has joined our little chorus. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion Saturday, December 04, 2004
# Posted 11:51 PM by David Adesnik Two of the three columns were written by staunch liberals -- EJ Dionne and David Ignatius. Both of them know how to think outside the box in a way that Dowd, Krugman and Herbert simply can't. Dionne's column is a response to the 3rd Circuit decision that allows law schools to expel military recruiters from campus without risking their access to federal funds. Like Dionne, I fully support the open integration of homosexuals into the United States military. Yet Dionne argues that law schools should voluntarily allow the recruiters back on campus because Liberals especially should be worried about the growing divide between the armed forces and many parts of our society. They should acknowledge that if liberals stay out of the military, their chances of influencing the military culture are reduced to close to zero...I agree. Ignatius' column consists of a description rather than argument, yet is also demonstrates an impressive ability to transcend the conventional wisdom of the liberal left. The subject of Ignatius' column is the tremendous but unheralded success of our military logistics officers in Iraq, who have kept our frontline soliders in the field in spite of constant attacks on our supply chain. Finally, there is this column by Charles Krauthammer. Unsurprisingly, it contains the expected measure of Europe-bashing that one might expect from certain neo-conservatives (although not necessarily Robert Kagan). Yet Krauthammer also asks that we "all join hands in praise of the young people braving the cold in the streets of Kiev." That sort of identification with a popular revolts is not your everday brand of conservatism. Now that David Brooks has replaced William Safire as the voice of the right at the NYT, Krauthammer may not be alone. The question is, when will Bill Keller decide that the liberal dinosaurs on his staff should go the way of their conservative colleague? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 11:25 PM by David Adesnik Anyhow, Will does have a good column up about the unmitigated liberalism of the American professoriate. In his column, Will reports on some interesting findings about professors registered with the two major parties or with liberal or conservative minor parties:In the second half of his column, Will goes a bit too far when he argues that the death of intellectual diversity on America's campuses is the product of liberal professors' overt antagonism toward anything conservative. Will's argument draws heavily on a recent article by Mark Bauerlein in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Even though I have no reason to dispute any of the anecdotes that Bauerlein recounts, I think that he ignores the degree to which the conservatives' departure from the ivory tower is an elective response to the unpleasantness of being in such a rigid intellectual environment. I think that Bauerlein should also pay more attention to an important phenomenon that provides evidence to support his main argument, namely conservatives' voluntary suppression of their own dissent in what they perceive to be a hostile environment. For example, I once had a colleague to whom I suggested publishing an article in the Weekly Standard. He immediately responded that doing so was unthinkable because it would severely damage his prospects for professional advancement. At first, I was somewhat dismayed by his decision not to speak out as a matter of principle. Yet because I have no interest in becoming a tenured professor and no family to support, I put nothing on the line when I publish in the Standard. More importantly, my colleague's patient discipline will ensure that there is one more moderate voice that may play some role in restoring a sense of balance to America's campuses. As the leftists of the last generation might have said, it is wiser to embark on a "long march through the institutions" instead of simply turning one's back on them. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 5:10 PM by David Adesnik Regardless, I'd recommend taking a minute or two out of your day to read old Henry's essay on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in yesterday's WaPo. [No permalink -- due to copyright issues it is only available in the print edition.] The one point on which I'd take issue with Kissinger is exactly the one you might expect: democracy in the PA. To be fair, Kissinger is actually quite good on this point. His essays speaks out forcefully against corruption and lawlessness while recognizing that transparent institutions (his words, not mine) are critical to the success of a viable (and peaceful) Palestinian state. The lesser point on which I disagree with Dr. Kissinger is his suggestion that Israel Must not insist on postponing the beginning of the peace process until democratization on the West Bank is complete. But it has every right to demand the acceptance of genuine coexistence and the disavowal of terrorism before it agrees to move tens of thousands of its settlers from the West Bank.First of all, I don't believe that Israel has made such a demand. More importantly, as the situation in Iraq illustrates, democratic reforms may actually be considerably easier to achieve than a disavowal of terrorism. Whereas disavowing terrorism represents an outright concession to the Israelis in the West Bank and the Americans in Iraq, democracy is something of a win-win proposition. Speaking more broadly, Kissinger seems to be making the same conceptual error that damaged John Kerry's proposals for Iraq, i.e. the proposition that stability can be achieved without democratization. This proposition, of course, is an extension of the classic Realist doctrine that the relationship between foreign policy and regime type is tenuous at best. Yet as Bob Kagan has argued quite persuasively (with OxBlog's hearty endorsement), democratization is the most plausible road to achieving stability, even if its accomplishments so far are less than impressive. Kagan's column was about Iraq, but I think the same lesson applies to the PA. Since Arafat's legitimacy rested on reputation as anti-Israeli figher, he could not make peace without risking his leadership of the Palestinian movement. In contrast, a Palestinian leader with a popular mandate can make peace without sacrificing his own ambitions. Naturally, the inherent risk in the election process in the PA is that it may result in the election of a President (e.g. Marwan Barghouti) who refuses to disavow anti-Israeli terrorism. Yet the election of a figure such as Barghouti would at least force the Palestinians to take responsibility for their decisions. After five more years of war, they may well vote for a pro-peace candidate. Five years is a long time to wait, but what is it compared to the last decade of chaos under Arafat? Throughout that time, Palestinians could blame Israel both for the persistence of conflict as well as the failure of internal reform within the PA. Barghouti might even turn out to be something of as Sharon -- elected on a hard-line platform only to recognize its futility and then initiate the pursuit of peace. Or perhaps that is only pipe-dream. Even so, the bottom line is that the peace process cannot move forward until Palestinians take joint respoinsibility for its outcome. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion Friday, December 03, 2004
# Posted 2:18 PM by Patrick Belton
# Posted 8:43 AM by Patrick Belton “I am looking at the next year with fear. Everybody agrees that the [October 2004 presidential] elections will be the scariest and dirtiest ever,” said Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma recently, and he should know, because he is widely perceived as the main threat to democracy in the country.(0) opinions -- Add your opinion Thursday, December 02, 2004
# Posted 9:24 AM by Patrick Belton If you want a better Colin Farrell flick than Alexander (and you should, if for no other reason than I'm biased by sharing a birthweek as well as a genome with the boy from Castleknock...), go rent Intermission, possibly the best Irish film to come out in recent years, and one which riffs playfully on a number of stereotypes (lovable roguish thieves/coppers with a Celtic heart, &c) while ultimately stepping past them to knit together a rather nice love story out of a credible pastiche of characters. Second OxBlog movie recommendation: it got panned by reviewers who rather prize, say, Polanski's loving paeans in Chinatown to the camera shots in the Maltese Falcon, but if your tastes run a bit more toward continental philosophers and eccentric humour (and you are reading this blog...), then you might give I Heart Huckabees a try, which I found, in spite of its reviews, the sleeper surprise of the season. We're happy to accept any reviewer perks the cinema houses would like to dish out on us, by the way. As long as it doesn't involve needing to go see Bridget Jones. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 6:26 AM by Patrick Belton In sharp contrast to the first years of the cold war, post-September 11 liberalism has produced leaders and institutions--most notably Michael Moore and MoveOn--that do not put the struggle against America's new totalitarian foe at the center of their hopes for a better world. As a result, the Democratic Party boasts a fairly hawkish foreign policy establishment and a cadre of politicians and strategists eager to look tough. But, below this small elite sits a Wallacite grassroots that views America's new struggle as a distraction, if not a mirage. Two elections, and two defeats, into the September 11 era, American liberalism still has not had its meeting at the Willard Hotel. And the hour is getting late.(0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 5:28 AM by Patrick Belton
# Posted 1:45 AM by David Adesnik When I say 'extraordinary', I don't necessarily mean it in a complimentary manner. Presumably without the intention of doing so, Mike Allen's essay demonstrates how transparent the fiction of journalistic objectivity really is. In rhetorical terms, a George Bush press conference is a particularly vicious sort of trench warfare. Allen makes it very clear that the raison d'etre of the White House press corps is to trick, trap and otherwise embarrass the President, while the President's objective to say as little as possible about what he believes or how he is running the country. In spite of most journalists' preference for nuance, Allen describes the ordeal of the press conference with a significant degree of moral clarity. He writes that These sessions are a contest between Bush's desire to repeat his previously articulated views ("sticking a tape in the VCR," as one frequent Bush questioner puts it), and the reporters' quest to elicit something that will contribute to democracy, not to mention getting them on television or the front page.How generous of Allen to admit that personal ambition sometimes influences journalists' behavior. Otherwise we would assume that journalists' only desire to defend our freedom from the depredations of the President. Not surprisingly, Allen never considers the possibility that Bush is so maddeningly evasive precisely because he knows that journalists want nothing more than to put his misstatements on the next morning's front page. Now, I'll be the first to admit that Bush is not just a poor speaker, but one whose unscripted performances are often disturbing to watch even when one agrees with what the President is saying. But since Bush can't magically transform himself into Cicero or Pericles, the logical thing for him to do is to avoid confrontations with hostile audiences. It is also quite interesting to note what Allen and other journalists consider to be the best, i.e. most embarrassing questions that the President has been asked. The first question is Do you believe that Ariel Sharon is a man of peace, and are you satisfied with his and his government's assurances that there was no massacre in Jenin?Bush responded that "I do believe Ariel Sharon is a man of peace." Other memorable questions include Whether Muslims worship the same Almighty as Christians. (Bush said they did, prompting a stir among some evangelicals.)Finally, there is this: In April, [John] Dickerson [of Time] asked one of the most famous questions of Bush's presidency: "In the last campaign, you were asked a question about the biggest mistake you'd made in your life, and you used to like to joke that it was trading Sammy Sosa. You've looked back before 9/11 for what mistakes might have been made. After 9/11, what would your biggest mistake be, would you say, and what lessons have you learned from it?"Again, I'll be the first to admit that Bush did a terrible job of answering this question. But think of what he was being asked to do -- he was being asked to provide the Democrats with admissions of fault that they could throw back in his face for the rest of the campaign. Even though this post has entailed a defense of the President from Mike Allen's misleading accusations, I don't want to leave the impression that I am satisfied with the way that this administration treats either the press or the voting public. Right now, neither side wants to give an inch lest it be taken advantage of. Yet the only way to raise the level of public debate is for the President to be more candid and for the press to challenge him on substantive matters, rather than forcing him to walk through a rhetorical minefield. How, you might ask, can we build up the sort of trust necessary to reach this more civilized state of affairs? Frankly, I have no idea. But we certainly won't get there by pretending that either the President or the media is entirely responsible for the current stalemate. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 1:38 AM by David Adesnik (0) opinions -- Add your opinion Wednesday, December 01, 2004
# Posted 2:43 PM by Patrick Belton
# Posted 1:31 PM by David Adesnik I’m grateful for the opportunity to respond to Mr. Adesnik’s critique of my working paper on anti-intellectualism and Republican presidents. While I do not question Mr. Adesnik’s right to criticize my paper, I believe his characterizations of my research and my own integrity as a scholar are severely misconstrued. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 3:29 AM by David Adesnik And so it turns out that Dr. Brooke has a blog. Since Dr. Brooke's archives extend all the way back to May of 2001, one might even say that his was the original OxBlog. Then again, who knows what other Ox-blog I may discover if I continue to explore the blogosphere? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 3:09 AM by David Adesnik Dan Drezner has lots more on this subject. I agree with him that the US has played an important role in building up Ukrainian, Georgian and Serbian opposition movements, but that America has played the role of facilitator rather than puppet master. If the peoples of Eastern Europe didn't actually want democracy, there is no way America could get them to pour into the streets to protest on democracy's behalf. Matt Yglesias adds the valid point that one fair election doth not a democracy make. But then he makes the rather strange point that Realpolitik plays a large role in explaining the level of Western interest in and commit[ment] to reform in Ukraine...[because] democracy-promotion and mild nationalism have proven to be an effective tool for advancing American and Western European interests [in Eastern Europe] over the past 25 yearsI can only imagine what Matt would have said if George Bush had decided to pander to his good friend Vladimir Putin by ignoring Ukraine instead of supporting its democratic opposition. It seems to me that the application of realist principles to Ukraine would result in a policy of doing as little as possible to offend Russia, our supposedly valuable great power ally in the War on Terror. Which is not to say that supporting democracy in the Ukraine damages our national interest. Rather, there are many different conceptions of the national interest, each of which entails a different set of policy initiatives. A Wilsonian idealist sees democracy promotion as the foundation of national security. A Kissingerian realist would disagree. As I have so often found in my research on democracy promotion during the Cold War, the critical question for the United States is not whether there is a conflict between democracy promotion and the national interest, but whether we define the national interest in a way that is conducive to democracy promotion. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion Tuesday, November 30, 2004
# Posted 8:53 PM by David Adesnik If you are also a Ken Jennings fan, or simply in awe of how much he knows about almost everything, you can catch an interview with the man himself tonight on Letterman. At the exact same time on ABC, Nightline will be devoting an entire show to Jeopardy! Finally, it's time for a shout out to my good friend PF, who won $5,000 in the Jeopardy! Teen Tournament. But that was a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away when PF still had a full head of hair. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 5:19 AM by Patrick Belton Monday, November 29, 2004
# Posted 2:42 PM by Patrick Belton (Note: this doesn't indicate in any way that I wouldn't accept a lectureship at the Kennedy School, however.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 1:45 PM by Patrick Belton (0) opinions -- Add your opinion Sunday, November 28, 2004
# Posted 1:02 PM by David Adesnik On the WaPo homepage, the headline for this story reads "A Chilling Death in Gaza". Underneath it is a sub-headline that reads: "Israeli army concedes failure in the shooting of a young girl." Of course, when Hamas and Al Aqsa murder Israeli children, they describe it as a tremendous success. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 6:40 AM by Patrick Belton Saturday, November 27, 2004
# Posted 8:00 PM by David Adesnik (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 7:50 PM by David Adesnik (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 7:39 PM by David Adesnik Two years ago, the administration denied that it had any advance warning of the coup. Turns out, that simply wasn't true. (Hat tip: KD) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 7:31 PM by David Adesnik (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 7:06 PM by David Adesnik Reuters reports that the Ukrainian parliament has issued a non-binding resolution declaring the election to be invalid. In other news, negotiations between the government and opposition have begun. Opposition leader Viktor Yuschenko has declared that "We will only hold talks on staging a new vote," Yushchenko declared after the talks to supporters in Independence Square. "If there is no decision within one or two days, it means Yanukovych cannot hear you."I also consider the following detail to be quite interesting: Yushchenko appeared to be drawing support from some members of key organs of government in the capital -- the security services, the prosecutor's office, state television journalists and government workers.Without firm control of the security forces, violence may not be a viable option for the government. On the international front, there is also good news. Vaclav Havel has forcefully stated that democracy is non-negotiable. Lech Walesa has also lent support to the opposition. The WaPo has characterized President Bush's first direct response to the crisis as dangerously ambivalent. According to correspondent Mike Allen, Bush's comments appeared to allow for the possibility that the Moscow-backed candidate's victory will stand, despite charges of fraud, and that the administration will have to work with him instead of his Western-leaning opponent.What Bush said was that There's just a lot of allegations of vote fraud that placed their election -- the validity of their elections in doubt. The international community is watching very carefully. People are paying very close attention to this, and hopefully it will be resolved in a way that brings credit and confidence to the Ukrainian government.Even though Allen is correct to point out that the President's comments were less forthright than those of the Secretary of State, it seems strange to suggest that the President indicated any tolerance for fraud. In contrast, NY Times correspondent CJ Chivers portrays the President's remarks as fully consistent with other strong statements issued by the United States government. For the latest updates and in-depth commentary on the situation in the Ukraine, head over to the ever-informative website of the incomparable Dan Drezner. (1) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 3:34 PM by Patrick Belton
# Posted 9:34 AM by Patrick Belton
# Posted 9:14 AM by Patrick Belton And as far as David's question about the noble bird, I'm happy to note that my fellow Bulldog Oxonian Rachel and I have apparently moved into second place in the yahoo search results for 'the more similar education the more successful marriage.' (The first went to Andrew Sullivan, who with the present regrettable state of the law probably doesn't quite count as competition for present purposes.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion Friday, November 26, 2004
# Posted 6:05 PM by David Adesnik (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 5:54 PM by David Adesnik The Oxford University European Affairs Society's "Ottoman Ball" is only a few days away, and has been widely advertised through posters and email announcements across the university. The event has been billed as a showcase of "the once glorious Ottoman Empire," and aims to "reflect the best of this culture, and the role of modern Turkey as a bridge between European thought and Islamic art, music and philosophy".The official host of the OUEAS Ball is the Turkish Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Please note that interested parties can sign the petition online. If you follow the link in the upper left hand corner of the signature page, you can purchase a lovely ottoman for only $129.99 (shipping included). (1) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 1:42 PM by Patrick Belton Thursday, November 25, 2004
# Posted 10:42 AM by Patrick Belton
# Posted 6:47 AM by Patrick Belton Social scientists, who are always to be trusted, say that persons exhibiting senses of wonder and gratitude lead much happier lives. So, on Thanksgiving, we invite all of our readers to think about things they're grateful for. We'll start. This Thanksgiving, we're thankful that Irish girls are only the second most obese of any nation in the world, and not in first place at all. We're thankful that the current American administration has only succeeded in driving most, and not its entire, clandestine service into early retirement through arrogance, unpardonable condescension, and in general not behaving in a very well-brought up way toward them. You can do a lot with our remaining four spies. Witness the Cambridge spy ring, for instance. I'm also grateful that former Ambassador, and now former deputy National Security Advisor, Robert Blackwill, by shoving and manhandling a female State Department employee in the course of a temper tantrum over a missed flight and thereby getting himself fired from the Bush administration a second time, has helped us to remember to go gently with and always give second chances to criminals, and realise not to blame the child, but the environment in which the child is brought up. I'm grateful that I have an ex-girlfriend from Los Angeles who reminds me to only call Thanksgiving 'Thankstaking,' or else I wouldn't be very welcome in the proper sets in Westwood. I'm grateful that I really do have the most wonderful wife, co-editors, family, friends, and set of readers anyone could ever imagine hoping for. I'm also grateful that my long-suffering thesis supervisor puts up with me, for which he is entitled to great reward in any and all afterlives that exist. A very warm and happy Thanksgiving to all of our readers and friends. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 1:29 AM by David Adesnik But I was wrong. The liberal websites I visit may have stopped talking about the subject, but apparently my sample of such websites wasn't representative. At the moment, I'm in the middle of a long critique of Kaplan's essay by Daniel Davies of Crooked Timber. Expect more to come... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion Wednesday, November 24, 2004
# Posted 10:49 PM by David Adesnik So much for my speculation that the WaPo had confused the new study by IAIS with a May 2003 study by UNICEF. Unfortunately, the IAIS update gives us only the most rudimentary information about its study. The update instructs the curious reader to visit this page on its site, which has been available for quite a while now and contains no new information about the study's results. One should also note that according IAIS, the malnutrition rate for Iraqi children is 7.5% and not 7.7%, as reported in the WaPo. Presumably, those numbers are indistiguishable from a statistical perspective. I have to admit, the 7.7% figure from the WaPo made me somewhat suspicious, since it was exactly the same as the final number provided by UNICEF last year. IAIS also writes that a 7.7% malnutrition rate translates into 216,000 Iraqi children with the condition, presumably a correction of the 400,000 figure provided by the Post. Frankly, all this presumption is rather frustrating. It would be nice if IAIS were more straightforward abot all of this. Moving on from facts to logic, Tim is still unhappy with my explanation for why the invasion was not the probable cause of rising malnutrition in Iraq. He writes that: I didn’t offer “just speculation”, but quoted the conclusion of the study, which found that “Seven out of 10 children reported had suffered from diarrhoea at some time during the previous 5 weeks.” Adesnik can doubt that the children got sick, but the doctors who examined them seem to think otherwise.That last comment makes me sound like some sort of ostrich-headed Luddite, but Tim is missing the point. The question isn't whether a certain child had some diarrhoea during the invasion, but whether that child started to have diarrhoea (or whether the condition intensified) during that five week period. I should also point out that diarrhoea is not the same as acute malnutrition, which has been the focus of our survey. As Tim notes, 70% of Iraqi children had diarrhoea. In contast, only 7.7% percent suffered from acute malnutrition. In order to show that the invasion was the primary cause of rising malnutrition, one has to show that the preponderance of the children's severe weight loss took place during the six weeks of major combat operations, rather than the preceding year or so. Tim is a long way from proving that that is the case, but my argument rests on speculation as well, i.e. the belief that it would take more than six weeks for 100,000 children to develop acute malnutrition. (I said 200,000 in my last post, but I'm assuming that the updated IAIS figure is more accurate than the original figure from the WaPo.) On a brighter note for OxBlog, Tim doesn't seem to challenge my assertion that the similar results of the UNICEF and IAIS studies demonstrate that the malnutrition rate has been essentially stable since the beginning of the occupation. Thus, the WaPo was still very wrong to report that malnutrition "shot up...this year". Final score: Lambert 1, OxBlog 0, WaPo -1 (although I'm considering deducting a point from Tim's score because of his assertion that "it doesn’t seem likely that Saddam could get Unicef to cook their numbers". Saddam bribed high-ranking officials at the United Nations. In return, they allowed Saddam to steal billions and billions of dollars even though the Security Council considered him a threat to international security. Why assume that UNICEF -- a UN agency -- was any less receptive to Saddam's tempting offers?) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 7:39 PM by Patrick Belton
# Posted 4:55 PM by Patrick Belton
(0) opinions
--
Add your opinion
# Posted 4:28 PM by Patrick Belton
# Posted 2:54 PM by Patrick Belton
# Posted 1:50 PM by Patrick Belton
# Posted 8:46 AM by Patrick Belton The Times (UK) reports on a vote of no confidence in the United Nation's management taken by the employees of its Secretariat in New York, after the U.N.'s director of oversight was cleared on charges of exchanging promotions for money and sexual favours following an extremely cursory investigation. Staff representatives who had raised complaints were not consulted or interviewed in the course of the investigation, nor were they informed it was taking place until it had exonerated the undersecretary. Dileep Nair, the official accused of peddling promotions for sex, is incidentally the U.N.'s anti-corruption watchdog. The present scandal follows close on the heels of Annan's recent admission that civilian and peacekeeping personnel on UN duty in Congo and Sierra Leone have committed what appear to be several hundred separate documented instances of gross misconduct, frequently dispensing food aid to under-age local girls on the condition of having sex with them first, and with instances of rape and paedophilia by peacekeepers documented on videotape as well. (see Scotsman, CNN, BBC, BBC). This continues a pattern of sexual predation perpetrated by the United Nations upon vulnerable host populations occurring in previous years with the presence of UN peacekeepers and officials in East Timor, Cambodia, Bosnia, and Kosovo. The sad perversions of peacekeepers raping women and children from the very populations they were dispatched to protect, and promotions allegedly being levied for sex by none other than the organisation's principal anti-corruption official, are only indicative of a more systematic culture of corruption, in which the son of Annan's chief of staff Iqbal Riza was hired to work for the United Nations in clear violation of nepotism rules, in an incident for which Riza was never held accountable. The affair of the organisation's corruption czar also represented the second time in two weeks, point out employees, that U.N. management refused to take action against a senior official accused of harassment: U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers being exonerated earlier this month of allegations of sexually harassing an American woman working in his agency. Furthermore, the investigation continues into the Oil-for-Food scandal, in which senior U.N. officials accepted bribes in exchange for diverting funds meant as aid for impoverished Iraqis directly to former Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein. In a bureaucracy which has been as isolated as the United Nations from ordinary mechanisms of accountability, one begins to sadly suspect that in the present scandals we might only be seeing the tip of the iceberg. * the blog world's cutest Jewish Ukrainian Australian of whom we're aware (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 8:37 AM by Patrick Belton Short on its heels, the Canadian Jesus Fish Cake. So much for vaunted northern tastes. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 7:49 AM by Patrick Belton Sunday: Absent friends and those at sea. Monday: Our native land or King and country. Tuesday: Our mothers or Health and wealth. Wednesday: Ourselves or Our swords or Old ships. Thursday: The King; honest men and bonnie lassies. Friday: Fox hunting and old port or Ships at sea. Saturday: Sweethearts and wives. The current versions, Sunday: Absent friends. Monday: Our ships at sea. Tuesday: Our men. Wednesday: Ourselves (the remark "since no one else is likely to think of us" usually follows). Thursday: A bloody war or a sickly season. Friday: A willing foe and sea room. Saturday: Sweethearts and wives ("may they never meet" is the popular rejoinder). (0) opinions -- Add your opinion Tuesday, November 23, 2004
# Posted 11:18 PM by David Adesnik According to the page in question (which I saw before adding the final update to my original post), IAIS completed a comprehensive survey of living conditions in Iraq this past June. The website promises that the collected data will be released shortly. Perhaps it will. According to the WaPo, the results of the new study haven't been released yet, even though the survey was conducted in April and May. (Although presumably someone released them to the Post.) Hoping to track down the data, I sent an e-mail to IAIS on Sunday asking for further information about their work. In addition, I spent a considerable amount of term searching for related information on Google and Lexis-Nexis, yet found absolutely nothing. Of course, it may turn out that IAIS really has done a new survey. But for the moment, there is hardly enough evidence to substantiate Tim's allegation. But what if I were right and there were just one malnutrition survey conducted (in April-May 2003)? Tim says that the United States may still be responsible for widespread malnutrition. First of all, Tim notes that the survey was conducted six weeks after the invasion of Iraq, not (as I said) less than three. Pardon the ambiguity on my part. I was counting from the fall of Baghdad, which marked the end of major combat operations. But lets just say six weeks for the sake of argument. According to Tim, "Adesnik seems to be unaware that a sick child can lose a lot of weight in a few weeks." Actually, I'm quite aware of that. What I doubt is that 200,000 thousand children can get that sick in the space of a few weeks. Major combat operations were fairly localized and coalition bombing raids did not target civilian infrastructure. While most Iraqis probably were dependent on official food rationing programs that may have been disrupted during the war, I tend to doubt that such a disruption would translate so immediately into a national epidemic of malnutrition. Of course, that is just speculation -- but Tim is only offering more of the same. Next up, we come to the issue of logic. I suggested that malnutrition may have been far more widespread before the invasion than Saddam wanted to admit. Tim responds: Even if, for the sake of argument, we believe that Saddam could force UNICEF into cooking the statistics, why would Saddam have been artificially lowering the figures? Surely he would have been raising them so that he could point to the harm that the sanctions were inflicting on Iraqi children.The premise here is that Saddam's propaganda always sought to persuade Western audiences that Iraq was a victim, not an aggressor. That same premise led us to conclude that Saddam had extensive stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. After all, if he didn't have them, why wouldn't he allow foreign inspectors to demonstrate that Iraq was a victim, not an aggressor? The absence of the stockpiles suggests that we don't understand Saddam nearly as well as we thought we did. Perhaps Saddam believed that if he were exposed as a paper tiger, the Iraqi military revolt. The premise behind that bit of speculation is that Saddam was more concerned about his image at home than abroad. Thus, perhaps Saddam wanted to downplay malnutrition in order to persuade his subjects that things were not so bad. Or perhaps he wanted the hide the degree to which precious supplies of food and medication were being given out only to Sunni children, while the Shi'ite majority was left to suffer. The bottom line is that speculation about Saddam's motives is futile. Finally, let me hedge my bets just a bit. Let's say that tomorrow, Tim turns up definitive evidence that there was a second survey done this year and that the child malnutrition rate in Iraq is 7.7%. It was also 7.7% last year, at least in Baghdad -- which suggests that the malnutrition rate has been stable for almost eighteen months now. In contrast, the WaPo reports that the malnutrition rate has "shot up...this year." (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 2:35 PM by David Adesnik For background on the vote, check out this excellent by Stephen Sestanovich. While the State Department has already spoken out against electoral fraud, it is the reaction from the White House that will matter most. On a historical note, the official color of the Ukrainian democratic movement is orange, a potent reminder of the bright yellow chosen by democratic reformers in the Philippines in 1986. Just like Corazon Aquino, Viktor Yuschenko is relying on massive peaceful protests to overturn the results of a fraudulent election. Fashion may not be the most important factor in politics, but bright colors sometimes have bright futures. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 2:24 PM by David Adesnik He made no mention of the National Guard story in announcing the change, saying he had agreed with CBS executives last summer that after the Nov. 2 election would be the right time to leave.Yet someone at the WaPo clearly thinks that Rather's explanation is pure bulls***. Underneath the link to the AP's report on the ever-changing WaPo homepage, there is a subhead that reads After flap over forged documents, the anchor will step down in March.Objectively speaking, this statement is true. Only the most confused of metaphysicians would insist that March 2005 precedes September 2004. Yet the purpose of this objective statement is to advance a (probably correct) subjective interpretation. Apparently, Dan Rather isn't the only one who needs to refine his definition of journalistic detachment and objectivity. Even so, I hope the blogosphere doesn't embarrass itself by going overboard in celebrating its victory over the notorious MSM. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 1:55 PM by Patrick Belton
# Posted 1:10 PM by Patrick Belton
# Posted 1:04 PM by Patrick Belton
# Posted 6:46 AM by Patrick Belton
# Posted 5:04 AM by Patrick Belton Monday, November 22, 2004
# Posted 10:01 PM by David Adesnik Amy Ridenour doesn't. She says the investigation of DeLay is politically motivated and that the GOP should fight fire with fire. Mark Kleiman says the DA going after Congressman Tom is actually a consummate professional. I don't know enough to weigh on that subject. I don't like Tom DeLay one bit, but that's not really the point. The GOP decided to ban indicted members from serving in its leadership after an indicated Democrat refused to step down from his leadership position some time ago. To change the rule now that DeLay is in hot water would simply be hypocritical. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 8:35 PM by David Adesnik I feel compelled to respond to Prof. Shogan's paper because it embodied so fully the manner in which professional scholarship rests on a foundation of unstated liberal presuppositions. One might describe the tone and style of Prof. Shogan's paper as thoughtful, sedate, and even non-partisan. Yet on almost every page there are statements that strongly suggest an unacknowledged debt to a liberal worldview. Yet before describing exactly what is in Prof. Shogan's paper, it may be more important to mention what isn't. Based on a close reading of public and private statements by Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan and Bush, Prof. Shogan concludes that anti-intellectualism is part and parcel of a Republican strategy to attract less affluent voters. Perhaps. Yet not once does Prof. Shogan consider that the GOP's anti-intellectualism represents a conservative response to the intense commitment of an overwhelming majority of American intellectuals to a passionately liberal ideological agenda. The conceptual roadblock that prevents Prof. Shogan from recognizing the ideological nature of American intellectuals is her identification of ideology and intellectualism as polar opposites. For example, she refers to President Reagan's "reliance upon ideology rather than intellectual prowess" and observes that As Reagan demonstrated, ideologues and intellectuals do not make the best bedfellows. (Page 24)In contrast to her (often justifiable) criticism of President Reagan, Shogan provides an extremely positive, almost glowing description of the academy. She writes that The intellectual community is inherently critical of the status quo and often serves as the catalyst for social upheaval and development. (Page 8)Shogan also takes care to point out that the "lasting, negative stereotype of the intellectual" grew out of "a clash between the educated elite and the party machine politicians" in the Progressive era. (Page 4) In other words, Republican anti-intellectualism amounts to nothing less than an embrace of reactionary prejudices that retard social development. Naturally, this identification of the GOP with social regression begs the question of why Republican candidates have prevailed so often in presidential elections. In the manner of Thomas Frank, Shogan asserts that For Democrats, fostering a populist connection is an easier task, since liberal policy proposals emphaisze the diffuse benefits of government intervention and social welfare. (Page 7)According to Shogan, the voting public fails to recognize the advantages of voting Democratic, because television gets in the way. Shogan writes that The political era of the sound-byte [sic] frustrates an extended intellectual discussion of complex policy issues...Unsurprisingly, Shogan doesn't even consider the possibility that media coverage may favor Democratic presidential candidates (cf. "Rather, Dan"). In any event, Shogan goes on to argue that Republican candidates also benefit from the fact that evangelical voters are decidedly anti-intellectual. According to Shogan, Animosity between evangelicals and intellectuals in the United States has existed for over a century. As theologians, Darwinists, and scientists discredited religious fundamentalism and literal interpretations of the Bible, evangelicals were displaced from mainstream intellectual discourse. (Pages 10-11)While I can understand how one might argue that science has discredited creationism, Shogan seems unaware of the fact that science cannot discredit those all-important passages in the Bible that consist of moral prescriptions rather than statements of fact. 'Thou shalt not kill', 'Thou shalt not steal' and other commandments -- including the controversial ban on homosexual behavior -- are simply not amenable to scientific proof or disproof. Thus, it is somewhat misleading for Shogan to write that "Religious and moral imperatives are consistent with anti-intellectual leadership stances." (Pages 10-11) On a similar note, Shogan writes that Bush's anti-intellectualism and moralism are complementary and reinforcing.The example that illustrates this point is Bush's "visceral" reaction to one of Bob Woodward's questions about North Korea. During an interview with Woodward, Bush emotionally shouted "I loathe Kim Jong Il!" Bush shouted, waving his finer in the air. "I've got a visceral reaction to this guy, because he is starving his people...It is visceral. Maybe it's my religion, maybe it's my--but I feel passionate about this.One would hope that even the most nuanced contemplation of Kim Jong Il's brutality would produce a similar outburst. Yet Shogan writes that By definition, a visceral reaction cannot be reflective; it comes from the "gut" or from deep-seated beliefs that are firmly rooted in place. (Pages 27-8)It seems that even when Bush is right, he's wrong. Anyhow, Shogan concludes her analysis of Bush's anti-intellectualism with a back-handed compliment: There is no doubt that the "cowboy" persona performs well as a plebiscitary [read: electoral] tool, but its utility to fight the international War on Terror is more limited.There is something to this argument, yet the way in which Shogan takes its validity completely for granted demonstrates the degree to which an unstated liberal worldview animates an academic work that presents itself as detached and non-partisan. At Friday's colloquium, I made many of the same points that I make in this post, although somewhat more briefly. Prof. Shogan responded that my criticism is misdirected, since she has more positive things to say about Bush than any of her colleagues. For example, she recognizes that Bush is sincere and that he is very successful at putting together winning coalitions. In other words, Shogan has absolutely nothing good to say about Bush's policies, although she acknowledges that he is a formidable politician. However, it is her first statement that is far more revealing. If she represents the right-wing of the American academy, then it should come as no surprise that Republicans lash out so often at the professoriate. Thus it is quite ironic (but not at all surprising) that Prof. Shogan attributes the GOP's anti-intellectualism to its conservatism rather than her own liberalism and that of her colleagues. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 8:26 PM by David Adesnik Nationals was the name of the Washington franchise as early as the late 1800s, and it was the official nickname of the team from just after the turn of the century into the 1950s, though Senators gained popularity during the late stages of that period as well. Owner Calvin Griffith officially changed the name to Senators in 1957, and that franchise left town twice.The name 'Senators' is clearly bad luck, since the Senators have already abandoned Washington twice -- perhaps because the District of Columbia has no representatives in the United States Senate. However, those committed naming our team after the least representative elected body in the Western Hemisphere may find some consolation in the fact that The primary [Nationals] cap -- which Williams and other officials donned immediately after unveiling the logo -- are red with a script "W", exact replicas of the old Washington Senators hats.As for you Mr. Belton, isn't it time for you to come clean and just admit that you your affinity for the nation's capital approximates the affinity of Michael Moore for George W. Bush? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 8:21 PM by David Adesnik (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 8:13 PM by David Adesnik (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 7:25 PM by Patrick Belton
# Posted 5:35 PM by Patrick Belton
# Posted 3:38 PM by Patrick Belton On the other hand, 'Nationals' has one thing going for it: at least it boasts several interesting anagrams - A Slain Ton, A Latin Son, A Loan Isn't, A Tonal Sin, a Stalin No, A Nina Lost, A Last In On, A Ann I Lost, Annal It So (that's two n's, people), Ana Sin Lot, Anna I Lost, Satan Olin (a well-known, malevolent philanthropist), Santa Loin, Snail Nato, Satin Loan, Tina Salon, Tan As Lion, Salt An Ion (several of these sound like good band names, incidentally...unlike the Nationals....). I'll be rooting for the Santa Loin, myself. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 2:46 PM by David Adesnik The College is an institution that opened its doors to those didn't have the financial resources or social connections necessary for admission to the Ivy League. Nonetheless, the intellectual standards for admission to the College were almost impossibly high because there was so much talent waiting to be discovered among the new Americans of New York, Eastern European or otherwise. As a result, City College became known as 'The Harvard of the Proletariat'. It graduates include numerous Nobel laureates as well as the current Secretary of State. Sadly, the College stumbled into a long era of decline in the decades after my father's graduation. Yet today, there is cause to celebrate once again. This weekend, Lev Sviridov of the Class of 2005 was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship: For Mr. Sviridov, who scavenged for cans and bottles in trash barrels in his early years in New York, the Rhodes represents not just prestige but a windfall.I am proud to see that once again, City College has been able to serve as a gateway to the most ambitious of American dreams. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 10:36 AM by Patrick Belton It’s been just two weeks since the polls closed, and Democrats have accepted that their defeat stemmed from losing the values-debate. But in the first minutes after the election, conventional wisdom served up another theory for the Democratic loss: Americans don’t trust Democrats to protect them from terror. These voting blocks were only three points apart. But these theories are in danger of becoming mutually exclusive. Instead, they need to be unified. Americans want a candidate with a strong moral vision, and a commitment to their security. For Democrats to win elections again, we must embody strength, with principle.(0) opinions -- Add your opinion Sunday, November 21, 2004
# Posted 9:27 PM by David Adesnik Several minority staff members lamented that a white man recently was chosen over a woman and a black man as the [Washington Post]'s new managing editor.This article seems comes across as a consolation prize for the disgruntled minority staff, not an informative account of what took place. Compared to accurate reporting about what goes on, in say, Iraq, reporting about internal affairs at the Post should be pretty easy. So obviously, someone at the Post has decided that a hint should be given, but that the full story should not be told. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 9:13 PM by David Adesnik In spite of OxBlog's loud protest, Mr. Getler has nothing to say about the extremely misleading data on civilian casualties provided by iraqbodycount.net and reprinted by the Post on a regular basis. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 3:10 PM by David Adesnik I'm not so sure. After eight years of quiet work in the Senate, perhaps she will emerge as a genuinely likable candidate. Or perhaps she will be the same tone-deaf candidate who ran for Senate four years ago and won decisively because she was a national figure running against a GOP novice in a heavily blue State. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
# Posted 1:16 PM by David Adesnik Just as naturally, the WaPo never makes this point explicitly and never suggests that the older statistics might be questionable. According to the article's second sentence, After the rate of acute malnutrition among children younger than 5 steadily declined to 4 percent two years ago, it shot up to 7.7 percent this year.Considerably later on, we find out that: International aid efforts and the U.N. oil-for-food program helped reduce the ruinous impact of sanctions, and the rate of acute malnutrition among the youngest Iraqis gradually dropped from a peak of 11 percent in 1996 to 4 percent in 2002.I do believe that the oil-for-"food" program improved nutrition for Iraqi children. Corruption at the UN may have been pervasive, but it seems that most of the money still went for food. But why should I attribute any credibility to pseudo-statistics such as the 11 and 4 percent malnutrition figures? Before continuing with my criticism of the Post, I think it is worth point out that malnutrition rates in Iraq are apalling, regardless of whether they are higher or lower than they were before the invasion. As the Post points out, Iraq's child malnutrition rate now roughly equals that of Burundi, a central African nation torn by more than a decade of war. It is far higher than rates in Uganda and Haiti.So no one should pretend that this isn't problem. But why is this problem on the front page of the Washington Post? Because the problem is supposedly America's fault. Even so, the Post does illustrate that some of this fault is indirect. For example, one apparent cause for the rise of malnutrition (and the widespread lack of health care) in Iraq is the fact that violence has forced relief workers out of the country. The United Nations, Doctors Without Borders and CARE International have all left the country. While the Post does mention the specific incidents -- "a truck bombing", a "director...was kidnapped" -- that led these agencies to haul anchor, it never connects the dots to make an obvious point: that the insurgents have deliberately sought to increase the misery of the Iraqi people by violently attacking those who seek to make their lives better. UDPATE: Reader OV points to this UNICEF study of malnutrition in Iraq which also reports that 7.7% of Iraqi children suffer from acute malnourishment. The problem is that this UNICEF study was conducted less than three weeks after the invasion of Iraq. This raises a lot of questions. Were two different studies conducted, one last year and one this year? If so, then the malnutrition rate has remained essentially stable since the US invasion of Iraq -- and the increase from 4 to 7.7 percent was Saddam's doing. Or are the two studies one and the same? Both were conducted by Iraq's Ministry of Health with help from the United Nations. If the two studies are the same, then the earlier date (April-May 2003) is presumably the correct one. The political implications of such a scenario are the same as above. Finally, did the WaPo simply get confused and report on last year's study as if it were new? I'd put my money on that one. Even so, if any of these three scenarios is correct, then the entire thrust of the Post's article is very, very wrong. UPDATE: Both this UN press release as well as this one confirm that the 7.7% figure was publicly available by May of 2003. One should note, however, that it applies only to Baghdad. UPDATE: The WaPo identified two organizations as having worked with the Iraqi Ministry of Health to conduct the nutrition survey. They are Norway's Institute for Applied International Studies and the UN Development Program. Both IAIS and UNDP have webpages devoted to Iraq, but neither seems to have information about the malnutrition statistics. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
|