# Posted 8:51 PM by David Adesnik  

SHI'ITES MURDERED: One car bomb in Karbala. Another in Najaf . More than sixty dead. The following reaction seems typical:

"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.
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# Posted 8:43 PM by David Adesnik  

LACI PETERSON, YOU ARE NOT ALONE: Under a banner headline on the front page of the WaPo, a lengthy article describes a shocking trend: the murder of 1,367 pregnant women or new mothers since 1990, many of them killed by husbands or lovers.
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# Posted 8:38 PM by David Adesnik  

CONGRATS TO POWER LINE on being named Time Magazine's Blog of the Year.
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# Posted 7:36 PM by David Adesnik  

HOLDING AUDITIONS FOR THE MAN IN THE STREET: What do a second-rate action movie and a long-term research project by the Washington Post have in common? More than you'd expect.

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...

Beneficiaries of the post-World War II boom in manufacturing, [African-Americans] have lost a disproportionate number of jobs as the factory workforce declined in recent years...

"Even for blacks who are following the model of the American middle class, going to college, getting a white-collar job, blacks have taken it on the chin," says labor economist William Spriggs, former executive director of the National Urban League Institute for Opportunity and Equality, which analyzes African-American issues.

That's how Cobb feels.

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)
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# Posted 5:46 PM by Patrick Belton  

RECEDITE, PLEBS! GERO REM IMPERIALEM: I'm leaving after a short nap to spend the holidays in Rome, Calabria, and Dublin, with a short likely side trip to Galway, as well. I'll try to do some travelblogging while there, to share some of the more interesting sights and sounds with our friends and readers. Ciao amici! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:24 AM by Patrick Belton  

FORMER U.N. OIL-FOR-FOOD CHIEF DENIES WRONGDOING: I'm shameless, shameless as a man can be. You can make a total fool of me. I just wanted you to know. (courtesy Billy Joel, recently covered by Benon Sevan.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:08 AM by Patrick Belton  

THROW THE BOOK AT 'EM, CONT'D: Having introduced in this space the new parliamentary sport of book throwing, Simon Hoggart writes in the Guardian (see, we like them sometimes) about a first-hand view of the first fixture from the stands (or, as known in the technical parlance of this sport, the 'backbenches'):

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.

Tories kept up the hubbub. "The book, take the book!" At which point the chief whip, Hilary Armstrong, marched briskly up to the table, picked up the book and lobbed it at the Tory frontbench, catching Alan Duncan right in the groin. Perhaps she meant to be playful, but then again, perhaps she didn't.

Mr Duncan looked every bit as startled as you would do if you suddenly suffered a ... biography of David Blunkett lodged in your crotch.

Eric Forth, another Tory, was on his feet in a trice. "The government chief whip hurled a very substantial book at my hon friend," he said. "Will you, Mr Speaker, sort out the chief whip and throw the book at her?"

The Speaker ... came back with a snappy riposte: "It is Christmas. But the exchange of gifts should be conducted outside the chamber."

Courtesy OxBlog's good friend JC. No, not that JC. That JC. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:28 AM by Patrick Belton  

CREATIVITY IN JOURNALISM WATCH FOR THE DAY: The Guardian has a piece this morning on an obscure Alabama state legislator who has the wonderful idea of banning works in the American theatre canon which 'promote homosexuality.' However, bigoted Alabamans do not an interesting story make. However, state representative Gerald Allen has met President Bush. And therefore, the headline becomes the more interesting, though blatantly fictional, 'President Bush wants "pro-homosexual" drama banned. Gary Taylor meets the politician in charge of making it happen.' (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:04 AM by David Adesnik  

REALIST SCHOLAR DENOUNCES IDEALIST PRESIDENT: Those of you who follow academic debates may be able guess who wrote this. Those of you who don't should still enjoy the purple prose:

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:

You have deceived once: now you must deceive again, for to tell the truth would be to admit having deceived. If your better judgment leads you near the road of rational policy, your critics will raise the ghost of your own deception, convict you out of your own mouth as appeaser and traitor, and stop you in your tracks...

You have told the people that American power has no limits, for flattery of the people is "good politics": now you must act as though you meant it.

Your own shouts, mingled with the outcry of the opposition, have befuddled your mind...

You will meet public opinion not at a point still compatible with the national interest, but rather where, regardless of the national interest, a deceived populace will support policies fashioned in the image of its own prejudices.

Where a knowing purdent and determined government would endeavor to raise the people to the level of its own understanding and purpose, an ignorant, improvident, and weak government will follow its own propaganda to that low level where uninformed passion dwells. You will become, in spite of your own better self, the voice not of what is noble, wise, and strong in the nation, but of what is vulgar, blind, and weak.

The leader will then have become the demagogue; as the mouthpiece of popular passion, you will at last have forsaken leadership altogether.

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.
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# Posted 9:33 PM by Patrick Belton  

SOME PRETTY HARD DRUGS IN THE 60'S: Joe Gandelman points out that the KGB is no stranger to the use of chemical weapons on Russia's political opponents. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:33 PM by David Adesnik  

WHY DON'T HOT CHICKS BLOG? Demonstrating an admirable concern for diversity, Kieran wants to know why the overwhelming majority of academic bloggers are male, even on enlightened and progressive sites such as Crooked Timber.

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.
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# Posted 7:43 AM by Patrick Belton  

WARNING LABEL: Beware beginning a blog from Oxford with two of your friends. You might well end up the top google cite for brushing your teeth is bad. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:56 AM by Patrick Belton  

WORD WATCH: Dalrymple mourns the passing of the stiff upper lip, that facing of grief with quiet dignity, and adversity with restraint and determined endurance, rumoured for several centuries to be indigenous to this country.

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  

WHAT I SHOULD BE READING: I've always thought of Jeff Jarvis as a pretty calm guy. But on Tuesday he decided to rip Juan Cole a new one. The issue here is Juan's nasty remarks about Omar and Mohamed from Iraq the Model.

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.
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# Posted 10:01 PM by David Adesnik  

ARROGANT MILLIONAIRE COWBOY: People are always asking me, "How can you like something as stupid as professional wrestling?" Well, here's one reason: On tonight's edition of Smackdown!, heavyweight champ JBL insulted another character by accusing him of being as corrupt as Kofi Annan.

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?
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# Posted 7:46 PM by David Adesnik  

DEFENDING THE DLC: Matt has decided that a fisking is in order.
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# Posted 7:32 PM by David Adesnik  

IS CBS BIASED OR JUST INCOMPETENT? Kevin points to a bizarre example of Rather Inc. shilling for conservatives.
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# Posted 7:08 PM by David Adesnik  

BEWARE OF W.B.O.P.W.A.P.U.L.S.: David Brooks explains.
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# Posted 6:47 PM by David Adesnik  

FORGET ABOUT SOCIAL SECURITY: It's Medicare that's in trouble. But Kevin Drum is thankful that GWB has decided to keep his Midas touch away Big Med.

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.
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# Posted 5:47 AM by Patrick Belton  

APPEARING AS USUAL IN TNR, our friend (and erstwhile Nathan Hale Foreign Policy Society Chicago chapter president) Will Baude argues admirably for Rehnquist's replacement coming from outside the current backup singers on the Supremes. Listen to the man; he goes to the Yale Law School. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:33 AM by Patrick Belton  

DOING OXBLOG'S WORK FOR US: You know, I was going to wake up this morning and write a persuasive piece arguing that the administration should live up to its democracy promotion rhetoric, yet Democrats today risk becoming the party of small ideas, while the heirs to Kissinger rather than Wilson and FDR now wish to change the world. I would probably have also said that promoting democracy is risky, but propping up autocrats only delays the reckoning with popular anger. The 'Shah solution' has hardly worked in the past. I was then going to close with a grand statement that democracy requires more than red state majority rule, but a decent and humble respect for the opinions of mankind.

Then I discovered Michael Ignatieff had already done it for us. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:39 AM by David Adesnik  

FIRE RUMSFELD: Bill Kristol seems committed to dealing with the Secretary of Defense the way Kristol's old boss Ronald Reagan dealt with the Soviets. He's not going to compromise until Rumsfeld says 'uncle'.
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# Posted 1:30 AM by David Adesnik  

RED STATE, BLUE SLEEPER CELLS: According to this dissident Republican prof, even Red State universities with conservative students bodies have aggressively liberal faculty members. (Hat tip: Glenn)

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.
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# Posted 1:26 AM by David Adesnik  

THINK AGAIN: This long-running feature in FP is almost always the most entertaining part of the magazine and often the most educational as well. Moreover, OxBlog favorite Tom Carothers (writing along with Marina Ottaway) is never one to disappoint. And even though Patrick has already linked to this article, I think it merits further comment. So let's start here:

“Democracy in the Middle East Is Impossible Until the Arab-Israeli Conflict Is Resolved”

Wrong. Arab governments curb political participation, manipulate elections, and limit freedom of expression because they do not want their power challenged, not because tension with Israel requires draconian social controls...Fear of competition, not of a Zionist plot, leads the Egyptian ruling party to oppose competitive presidential elections. When it comes to democratic reform, the Zionist threat is merely a convenient excuse.

Yet failure to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict prevents the United States from gaining credibility as an advocate of democracy in the Middle East. Liberal Arabs perceive claims by the United States that it wants democracy in the Middle East as hypocritical, pointing to what they see as American indifference to the rights of the Palestinians and unconditional support for Israel.

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”

Think again. The standard fear is the “one person, one vote, one time” scenario: Islamists would only participate in elections to win power and put an end to democracy immediately. Hence, the argument goes, they should not be allowed to participate.

True, the commitment to democracy of even moderate Islamists is uncertain and hedged by the caveat that democratic governments must accept Islamic law. However, the chances of an overwhelming electoral victory that would allow Islamists to abrogate all freedoms at once is remote in the Arab world. During the last decade, Islamist parties and candidates have participated in elections in eight Arab countries (Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, and Yemen), always with modest results. (These elections suffered from various degrees of government interference, but there is no indication that the Islamists would have won in a more open environment.) And Turkey, a country where an Islamist party took power with a large majority, is becoming an encouraging example of democratic success.

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”

False. This myth, a favorite of women’s organizations and Western governments, reflects the combination of correct observation and false logic. No country can be considered fully democratic if a part of its population (in some cases, the majority) is discriminated against and denied equal rights. But efforts to change the status quo by promoting women’s rights are premature. The main problem at present is that Arab presidents and kings have too much power, which they refuse to share with citizens and outside institutions. This stranglehold on power must be broken to make progress toward democracy. Greater equality for women does nothing to diminish the power of overly strong, authoritarian governments.

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”

No. This view is rooted in a simplistic assumption: Stagnant, repressive Arab regimes create positive conditions for the growth of radical Islamist groups, which turn their sights on the United States because it embodies the liberal sociopolitical values that radical Islamists oppose. More democracy, therefore, equals less extremism.

History tells a different story. Modern militant Islam developed with the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in the 1920s, during the most democratic period in that country’s history...It is a complex phenomenon with diverse roots, which include U.S. sponsorship of the mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s (which only empowered Islamist militants); the Saudi government’s promotion of radical Islamic educational programs worldwide; and anger at various U.S. policies, such as the country’s stance on the Arab-Israeli conflict and the basing of military forces in the region.

Moreover, democracy is not a cure-all for terrorism. Like it or not, the most successful efforts to control radical Islamist political groups have been antidemocratic, repressive campaigns, such as those waged in Tunisia, Egypt, and Algeria in the 1990s. The notion that Arab governments would necessarily be more effective in fighting extremists is wishful thinking, no matter how valuable democratization might be for other reasons.

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.
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# Posted 1:02 AM by David Adesnik  

HINDSIGHT:

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.
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# Posted 1:44 PM by Patrick Belton  

FAR BE IT FROM ME, AS A GAEL, to belittle the language of Burns (Robert, not Monty), but I'm not yet convinced the Scottish parliament's Scots language site quite enhances the dignity of the Scottish nation:

The Scottish Pairlament is here for tae represent aw Scotland's folk.

We want tae mak siccar that as mony folk as can is able tae find oot aboot whit the Scottish Pairlament dis and whit wey it warks. We hae producit information anent the Pairlament in a reenge o different leids tae help ye tae find oot mair.

This section o wir wabsite introduces ye til the information that is tae haun on wir wabsite in Scots.

We hae producit a publication cried "Makkin Yer Voice Heard in the Scottish Pairlament” that tells ye aboot the different weys that you can let the Pairlament and the Memmers o the Scottish Pairlament (MSPs) ken whit ye think.

Follae this link for tae look til the publication "Makkin Yer Voice Heard in the Scottish Pairlament” in Scots.

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  

HE'S OUT: David Blunkett has resigned as home secretary on the heels of (yet another) Nannygate. The quality of representative democracy would, one suspects, be improved considerably if officials took their children to the office with them.

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.
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# Posted 10:29 PM by David Adesnik  

SOFTWARE TROUBLE: My laptop is acting up, so I will be offline for the next 12 to 24 hours.
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# Posted 8:11 PM by Patrick Belton  

JOBS I'D LIKE TO HAVE DEP'T: Professor John Woods apparently gets to be Professor of Neat Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Chicago. I've always wanted to be director of 'things I find neat studies' at the Kennedy or Wilson School; little did I know that in Chicago you could actually do that. Kudos then to Chicago.

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  

CAROTHERS ON DEMOCRACY IN THE MIDDLE EAST: Carnegie's Tom Carothers and Marina Ottoway have a gutsy, tendentious, learned, and provocative piece on myths and false perceptions surrounding Middle Eastern democracy in this issue of Foreign Policy. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:21 AM by Patrick Belton  

OXBLOG'S EUROPE BUREAU ON THE MOVE: The European third of this blog will be hitting the road between 20th December and the 5th January - first scribbling the remainder of my French Muslims article in some cheap hovel by Rome's Stazione Termini (20th-22nd), then benefiting from a donnish yuletide (23-27) with Larry Siedentop and OxBlog's good friend Guglielmo Verdirame who have generously insisted on abducting me to Sicily for Christmas, and finally on to Dublin, where I've managed to find a sofa to crash on near O'Connell Street for the princely sum of 60 euro from the 28th to the 5th. I'm always happy to have coffee with our readers! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:40 AM by Patrick Belton  

DEADLY CHRISTMAS: This sounds to have the makings of a better than average horror film in it. (Okay, so reality's more quotidian: 14 percent more people than usual die on Christmas, for such reasons as people admitted to hospitals receiving care from stripped-down staffs.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:14 AM by Patrick Belton  

MORE GOOD REPORTING OUT OF IRAN: The Economist cites western diplomats for the belief that popular support for the regime in Iran is now down to 15 per cent. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:26 AM by Patrick Belton  

FREE STUFF, FREE STUFF! And no, we're not purveying tin Lubavitcher menorahs here on OxBlog either. If you ever (1) need to do statistical analysis, (2) are a cheapskate, and/or (3) don't have the seven hundred dollars to shell out on your own copy of SPSS, but also (4) can't be bothered to go to your college's computing cluster, where (5) the IT officer is a dodgy convicted felon - then boy, do we have the offer for you. I've just come across Statcrunch.com, which is a free, on-line, web-based statistical platform which handles multiple linear regressions, ANOVA, nonparametrics, 2-tailed T tests, and lots of other things that sound equally unintelligible and impressive when you drop them in academic papers. From my several minutes of trying to regress my dissertation data onto it, and not really knowing a bloody thing about statistics, it seems to work quite well.

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  

400 SPIES IN A BUNKER UNDER NAPOLEON'S TOMB: This and other family jewels from French intelligence being spilt in the course of an investigation into abuse of the powers of the presidency under Mitterand. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:43 AM by David Adesnik  

A FUNDAMENTALIST IS A FUNDAMENTALIST IS A FUNDAMENTALIST: What's the difference between evangelical Christians and Muslim extremists? Not much, according to Garry Trudeau. [LINK FIXED]
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# Posted 12:22 AM by David Adesnik  

ACCOUNTABILITY: Both the previous post and one from earlier today were pretty hard on journalists. So now let's turn to our own failures. CBS News reports that

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.

The Sioux Falls Argus Leader and the National Journal first cited Federal Election Commission documents showing that Jon Lauck, of Daschle v Thune, and Jason Van Beek, of South Dakota Politics, were advisers to the Thune campaign.

The documents, also obtained by CBS News, show that in June and October the Thune campaign paid Lauck $27,000 and Van Beek $8,000. Lauck had also worked on Thune’s 2002 congressional race.

Both blogs favored Thune, but neither gave any disclaimer during the election that the authors were on the payroll of the Republican andidate.

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.
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# Posted 11:27 PM by David Adesnik  

NO "COLLABORATIVE RELATIONSHIP" BETWEEN CHRIST, APOSTLES: This headline is a masterpiece of meta-politics: "Bush's References to God Defended by Speechwriter". The speechwriter in question, Michael Gerson, defended his work at an off-the-record meeting with reporters that Gerson subsequently decided was partially on-the-record.

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.

Across the U.S., similar scenes are unfolding, as small children progress from incomprehension to playtime participation to the beginnings of actual Christmas understanding.

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.
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# Posted 8:54 PM by David Adesnik  

HOW TO START YOUR OWN BLOG: A somewhat pedestrian guide from the WaPo However, I consider it a victory when they don't say anything nasty about us.

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?
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# Posted 7:36 PM by David Adesnik  

LEAKS, TAPS AND PLANTS: Why is the US tapping Mohammed El Baradei's phone? Perhaps more importantly, who told the Washington Post about it?

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.
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# Posted 1:27 PM by Patrick Belton  

TODAY IS THE BIRTHDAY of a friend of mine who is no longer alive, Mother Presentation Murphy, a Kildare woman and nun of the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary, who taught me as a child. She had an indispensable (and ever more massive) canine companion, Snowball Murphy, whose deed to his doghouse I wrote, cribbing that of my parents. She was an extraordinary woman, and a credit to her habit, profession, and county. Her birthday of 12/12/12 is a fairly unforgettable mnemonic, and always draws her to my mind this time of year. Happy birthday, Prez. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:46 PM by Patrick Belton  

A NEW academic conference for our postmodern third: pervert studies. Leave it to the Canadians. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:02 PM by David Adesnik  

OXBLOG'S BIG TENT POLITICS: In a bold effort to reach out to those with opinions minimally different from my own, I had dinner last night with Matt Yglesias (as well as JO, who doesn't figure in this story but generously let me crash at his place on Thursday night.)

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 presidential election leap [CORRECTION TO THE CORRECTION: Obviously, there were presidential elections in both 1800 and 1900. Perhaps my Federalist instincts led me to erase John Adams' tragic defeat from our collective historical consciousness.] year, since those years evenly divisible by 100 but not by 400 are not leap years. JK makes the same point and adds that OxBlog better have a new comeback ready for Yglesias by 2100.
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# Posted 2:56 PM by David Adesnik  

IS SANTA ON DEATH ROW? So what if Aaron McGruder is a left-wing nut? He's a really funny left-wing nut.
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# Posted 2:53 PM by David Adesnik  

'OY' IS JUST 'YO' SPELLED BACKWARDS: OxBlog wishes you a funky Chanukah. Turn up the volume! (Hat tip: Dr. Dreidel)
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# Posted 2:49 PM by David Adesnik  

DOESN'T RUMSFELD KNOW HE'S JUST ASKING FOR IT? It's a Jon Stewart clip, but well worth watching.
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# Posted 5:32 AM by Patrick Belton  

WHO KNEW THE NIGERIANS WERE SO PRO-PALESTINIAN? Suha Arafat, who was immortably memorialised by the New York Post as the 'Arafat Lady' (Sings), has now attained a second existence as a Nigerian spammer:

Dear Sir/madam,

This mail may not be surprising to you if you have been following current events in the international media with reference to the Middle East and Palestine in particular.

I am Mrs.Suha Daoud Arafat, the wife of YASSER ARAFAT, the Palestinian leader who died recently in Paris. Since his death and even prior to the announcement, I have been thrown into a state of antagonism, confusion, humiliation, frustration and hopelessness by the present leadership of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the new Prime Minister. and who said Nigerian spammers weren't well read in world politics? I have even been subjected to physical and psychological torture. As a widow that is so traumatized, I have lost confidence with everybody in the country at the moment.

You must have heard over the media reports and the Internet on the discovery of some fund in my husband's secret bank account and companies and the allegations of some huge sums of money deposited by my husband in my name of which I have refused to disclose or give up to the corrupt Palestine Government. In fact the total sum allegedly discovered by the Government so far is in the tune of about $300 million. And they are not relenting on their effort to make me poor for life. As you know, the Muslim community has no regards for women, hence my desire for a foreign assistance.

I have deposited the sum of $18.5million dollars with a presidential finance house abroad whose name is withheld for now until we open communication. I shall be grateful if you could receive this fund into your bank account for safe keeping and any Inves>tment opportunity. This arrangement will be known to you and my personal Assistant because if i get an attorney,there is every possibility that the informations might be exposed unlike, say, what your husband died of? and with an unknown person in the society who is well furnished and educated,this transaction will be 100% successful if you follow our guidelines i assure you of that fact because with his assistance,no one will have an idea of what i am doing provided you keep this business strictly to yourself. He might be dealing with you directly for security reasons as the case may be.

In view of the above, if you are willing to assist for our mutual benefits, we will have to negotiate on your Percentage share of the $20,000,000 that will be kept in your position for a while and invested in your name for my trust pending when my Daughter, Zahwa, will come of age and take full responsibility of her Family Estate/inheritance. but is she cute? Please note that this is a golden opportunity that comes once in life time and more so, if you are honest, I am going to entrust more funds in your care as this is one of the legacy we keep for our children.

In case you don't accept please do not let me out to the security and international media ah, nobody reads blogs anyway as I am giving you this information in total trust and confidence I will greatly appreciate if you accept my proposal in good faith.
Please expedite action and reply to: Email: suhaarafat@europe.com.
Yours sincerely,
Suha Arafat

So typical for Suha. She doesn't even have a Palestinian email address. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:45 PM by Patrick Belton  

WE HAVE A CONFERENCE FOR DAVID: Because he's interested in postmodernism. See, OxBloggers look out for each other. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:05 PM by David Adesnik  

NATALIE PORTMAN: Jon Last has decided to rant about Princess Amidala and America's obsession with "pedophilia chic". Jon says it wasn't Britney or the Olsen twins who started it all, but Natalie (with an assist from Brooke Shields.)

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.
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# Posted 5:36 AM by Patrick Belton  

MORE FROM THE BLOGOSPHERE'S RESIDENT NYC CARPETBAGGER: And you should see what the TSA does to carpetbags these days. There's a rather intriguing lunch briefing sponsored by the UN Democracy Caucus at the UN on December 16. Not only is there the perennial advantage of free food, but the Community of Democracies movement is a very interesting push, sponsored in the Clinton administration by Secretary Albright and in the current administration by Under Secretary Dobriansky, to make the UN cohere more closely to the Wilsonian vision of a democratic assembly of democracies, by rendering the democratic members into a coherent voting bloc. If anyone goes, please email around and let us know what you find out.

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.

For information, contact Amy Phillips at Freedom House, at this email.

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# Posted 5:09 PM by Patrick Belton  

IRAN AND NORTH KOREA NOT JUST FIGMENTS OF BUSH'S IMAGINATION: A producer for a television newsmagazine was kind enough to ask my opinion about a common British perception that Iran and North Korea present no threat to the west or the world, and are only figments of a feverish Texas imagination. (I'd hate to see what they'd think about the Twins.) I drew together a few thoughts, and since we haven't written that much lately about either country here, I thought I might share a redacted version here.

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.

Iran has acceded (in 2003) to the non-proliferation treaty - unlike India and Pakistan, which when they exploded nuclear weapons in May 1998 were under no treaty commitment not to acquire a nuclear capacity. (North Korea pledged in 1994 not to pursue nuclear weapons, in an Agreed Framework agreement which it promptly violated; it was also an NPT signatory from 1985 until 2003, when it withdrew.) Compared with Libya's cooperation with the IAEA about its undeclared nuclear programme since December 2003, Iranian officials have not been especially forthcoming about the extent or activities of their nuclear programme. Inspections have revealed its failure to report importation of uranium from China in 1991, as well as the existence of undeclared uranium and the existence of more sophisticated centrifuge designs and a laser enrichment programme. Two centrifuge enrichment plants at Natanz are partially underground, making them less transparent to observers and inspectors. The IAEA has stated that Iran has not met all of its NPT obligations, but it has not yet declared Iran in violation of the NPT; this is sure to happen shortly, raising the question of what the western response will be.

These will almost certainly take the form of an enhanced, more intrusive, and inevitably imperfect inspections regime, ideally implemented with a strong degree of political commitment from Europeans and Americans as well as other involved nations. Predominant thinking in the foreign policy community in Washington is that the principal downsides to any military intervention in Iran aimed at preventing Iran from arriving at a nuclear capability are that Iran has to this point not done as much as it could to foment Shi'a opposition to U.S. and Iraqi forces in Iraq; it would be difficult to strike all proliferation sites, many of which being closely held secrets we have not penetrated; and Iran's ability to retaliate, with its massive intelligence apparatus worldwide and depending on the state of its technological attainment, may well extend to include a dirty bomb placed in the San Francisco Bay or New York's East River. Further, the populace of Iran, though the Iranian government has becoming increasingly authoritarian and repressive toward its dissidents, is fairly pro-American, pro-democratic, and anti-regime. While it is difficult to foresee a peaceful transition of power to a democratic form of government, an eventual democratic government in Iran may likely prove a stabilising force and significant regional ally for the United States and Britain. Though North Korea harbours less rosy long-term prospects, though it is unable to sustain a long-fought war with its military's chronic fuel shortages, its ability to exact reprisals for a preemptive strike is also persuasive: North Korea has for the last several years been building up specific elements of its military forces to present as much of an artillery and rocket threat to Seoul as possible; Seoul is only 25 miles from the DMZ; Pyongyang may also attempt to launch one of its ballistic missiles under development, such as the Ro-dong medium-range missile or an improved Taepo-Dong 2, a three-stage experimental intercontinental missile capable of striking North America with a nuclear warhead. In addition, North Korean agents frequently and easily infiltrate their southern neighbour across the de-militarised zone, and saboteurs are widely expected to be stationed in places to wreak havok upon South Korean civilian life and infrastructure in the event of a war; a scenario discussed by western intelligence agencies has it attempting to secretly emplace an experimental nuclear bomb within Seoul, with its population of 10.3 million. In the recent six-party discussions, North Korea has been eccentric, pulling back from initially agreed agreements brokered by a helpful Beijing; its past record of compliance with nuclear agreements is unblemished: it has broken each one, generally in bids to blackmail western payments, but often more quietly by engaging in proliferation purchases from Pakistan and other purveying nations.

We may have no other option in the end than to reconcile ourselves to a nuclear Iran and North Korea. There is the touching notion that both countries will adopt the Indian model, and become duly responsible nuclear and regional powers. Unlike India, though, neither country is liberal, democratic, or within the international system; both have ties to international criminal and terrorist networks seeking different parts of the nuclear puzzle (such as the uranium enrichment centrifuges sold by Pakistan to Iran, and other enrichment technologies which it sold to North Korea and Libya). There is the danger, then, that either country or both might not follow the Indian model; and what would we do then?

Either country selling plutonium to terrorists would lead predictably to the daily elevated danger of dirty bombs in European and American cities, possibly rendering Mayfair or Upper Manhattan uninhabitable for generations; nuclear blasts by any terrorist organisation which obtains nuclear technology would kill civilians on a scale making the horrific bombing of the Second World War seem quaint by comparison; nuclear blackmail will neutralise America's controversial military might and give regional adventurers such as future Saddams or Slobodan Milosevics a free hand in pursuing whatever territorial aggressions or genocides toward their own people or others they may wish to attempt. The picture is not a pleasant one.

There is furthermore a rather dangerous supposition, often voiced by officers within the State Department's Near East Bureau, that the current Iranian government represents a workable Middle Eastern democracy, and left to its own devices, will blossom into an exemplary Islamic democracy. In fact, rather the opposite is true: human rights violations within Iran equal any of the world's most authoritarian regimes, and the trends at the moment are not toward greater democracy but toward greater marginalisation of reformers, who have lost their only seat of power in the assembly, and may have even more to lose in the future than that. (q.v.: peaceful Tehran University student protesters from 1999 remain in prison; secret squads operating under the authority of the Iranian judiciary have tortured internet journalists and civil society activists to write incriminatory 'confession letters'; see Human Rights Watch reports from Nov. 8 and Dec. 6). It is also a regime which, together with Syria, heavily finances terrorist and military activities by the Hezbollah organisation, which contrary to a frequent misconception, is not a fuzzy charity and has kidnapped western civilians (including British journalist John McCarthy, the Archbishop of Canterbury's special envoy Terry Waite, American journalist Terry Anderson, and Irish citizen Brian Keenan), and attacked civilians in the Western Hemisphere (bombing the Israeli Embassy in Argentina in 1992, killing 29, and an Argentine Jewish community centre in 1994, killing 95). If one is to be truly for liberal government and social democracy, then you must be for these things abroad as well as at home. The tradition of 19th century liberalism did not limit itself to parliamentary or Corn Law reform in Britain or constitutionalism on the Continent, but believed quite strongly that the right to live under enlightened, liberal government extended to all people. We could do worse than to live up to this tradition.

I'm eager to be of help however else I can - please do just let know. with all best wishes,
Patrick

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  

GEOGRAPHY LESSON: Patrick, I am more than willing to admit, as a postmodernist would, that "North" and "South" are relative concepts. But until the Mason-Dixon line migrates south to Richmond, you will not be a "northeastern" hawk.

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.
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# Posted 6:58 AM by Patrick Belton  

THE. MOST TROUBLING. THING. I'VE READ. THIS. YEAR. (No, this isn't a link to David's 'grits' post.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:22 AM by Patrick Belton  

FROM ONE NORTHEASTERN HAWK TO ANOTHER: Hang in there, Pale Male; this blog is pulling for you.


(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

# Posted 5:13 PM by David Adesnik  

DEAD HORSE BEATEN: I may not be the first person to complain about the jargon-laden surrealism of "post-modern" scholars, but complain I will because I have spent far too many hours over the past couple weeks grappling with such patent absurdity. Here's a sample of it for you, from Imperial Encounters by Prof. R.L. Doty:

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!
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# Posted 1:34 PM by Patrick Belton  

CHAG SAMEACH to all of our readers and friends! Incidentally, I play a pretty mean dreidel, if any of our readers would like to make the trip out to Oxford.

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  

THIS BLOG* LIKES MEXICO. This blog also likes New York city. So when there's a several week long festival celebrating New York's quickly growing Mexican community, it sounds like the sort of thing we would link to.

(*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

# Posted 10:53 PM by David Adesnik  

THE LATEST CONSPIRACY: Anti-globalization celebrity Naomi Klein argues that the US military has decided to kill off, arrest or intimidate those doctors, journalists and clerics who publicize civilian casualties in Iraq.

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.
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# Posted 10:48 PM by David Adesnik  

OBSCURE FACT OF THE DAY: Canada is the only country that allows Americans to apply for refugee status. Sometimes, this information can come in handy. [Subscription required, related article here.]
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# Posted 10:29 PM by David Adesnik  

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Hooters has opened its first restaurant in Croatia. According to

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.
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# Posted 6:13 PM by David Adesnik  

MANDATORY STERLIZATION CAN SAVE THE DEMOCRATS: That's the lesson I've decided to take away from Jonah Goldberg's response to David Brooks' latest column.
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# Posted 5:58 PM by David Adesnik  

THE SECRET OF SUCCESS? DROP DEAD! Ray Charles has picked up seven Grammy nominations for "Genius Loves Company", the best selling album of his entire career. (No disrespect is meant toward the incredibly talented Mr. Charles -- I just think that this sudden burst of recognition emphasizes that all of us, both experts and common men alike, have a very superficial notion of taste.)

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.
I'm not a part of a redneck agenda.
Now everybody do the propaganda.
And sing along in the age of paranoia...

Don't wanna be an American idiot.
One nation controlled by the media.
Information age of hysteria.
It's calling out to idiot America.

Sacre bleu!
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# Posted 9:59 AM by Patrick Belton  

AS THE CIA WOMAN SAYS TO THE PROFESSOR AT THE OPENING OF NORTH BY NORTHWEST, I know I shouldn't find this so funny, but I do. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:49 AM by Patrick Belton  

A PIECE I'D LIKE TO READ, IF SOMEONE'D LIKE TO WRITE IT: Sickened as I was like other observers by the scenes which appeared over the summer from Abu Ghraib, I'm left by the onset of Charles Graner's trial by court-martial in Fort Hood, Texas with a sense that there ought to be more coverage in the press on the reflection Abu Ghraib casts on American prisons at home. The Washington Post's profile of Spc. Graner (June 5, David Finkel and Christian Davenport) touched on the fact that Graner's day job in Pennsylvania was, actually, as a prison guard, and that images from the Fayette County Prison and State Correctional Institution-Greene rang eerily familiar to the images of Abu Ghraib; but I'm not aware of any further journalistic coverage of the point since. On the broader subject of execrable, and illegal, violations of inmates' rights in prisons, Human Rights Watch has written a report on the subject, and Slate touched once on prison rape (Oct. 1, 2003, Robert Weisberg and David Mills), but my impression is that the subject is generally not given due attention, and the Graner trial seems like it might provide an appropriate moment.

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

# Posted 6:32 AM by Patrick Belton  

FRENCH POLICE PLACE PLASTIC EXPLOSIVES IN UNSUSPECTING PASSENGERS' LUGGAGE: Ahem, you know, guys, maybe your government's taking the whole 'subcontractor for the terrorists of the world' thing a bit far.... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:31 AM by David Adesnik  

LOW-HANGING FRUIT: Yglesias bashes The Nation.
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# Posted 1:30 AM by David Adesnik  

IF KERRY WON, THIS PHOTO WOULD'VE BEEN HILARIOIUS.
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# Posted 11:20 PM by David Adesnik  

WaPo CELEBRATES MEDIA-BASHING BLOGGER: If it sounds to good to be true, that's because it is. The blogger in question is "Hugh Upton", a 26-year old from Manhattan and and the pseudonymous author of Iraq in Pictures, hosted on blogspot. Compared to Mr. Upton, Michael Moore is an exemplar of probity and non-partisanship.

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.

Judging by the reaction of several soldiers and military experts, a comparison of the two presentations shows, among other things, how the might of the U.S. military can be matched by a single blogger working part time.

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."

An Army soldier who fought in the Sunni Triangle last year and maintains a blog himself agreed. "The winner has to be the blog," he said. "There's something all too visceral about seeing the pictures of the dead and wounded, on both sides, which overwhelms static displays of weaponry" in the military presentation.

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  

WHAT'S DUMBER THAN A 1,800 HARVARD STUDENTS? Absolutely nothing.
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# Posted 7:41 PM by David Adesnik  

FOR SALE: You never know what you'll find for sale on the UVA maillist. For example:

I have for sale a WW2 German K98 Mauser rifle.
Nice condition
Very collectable
$250.00
$300.00 with bayonnette

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 Sale
97GL, auto, black, 120k
Featured: moonroof, cd changer, alloy wheel, security system, new tires and timing belt
Very clean and in good condition, sale price: 4300

So 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.
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# Posted 3:22 AM by David Adesnik  

WWW.PRISON.BLOGSPOT.COM: Yeah, I know that you can get thrown in jail for anything in Iran. Still, it's just bizarre to think of us pajama-clad folks as being dangerous.
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# Posted 3:01 AM by David Adesnik  

ELEPHANTS BREEDING LIKE RABBITS: Republicans have more babies. Thus, it is imperative "for Democrats to return to a worldview centered around the baby-making electorate." Sounds like a Bill Clinton demographic.
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# Posted 2:49 AM by David Adesnik  

IT MAY BE FREE, BUT YOU CAN'T JUST TAKE IT: Someone has stolen all 2,400 copies of the most recent issue of the Yale Free Press, a student-run libertarian/conservative paper. I have a special place in my heart for the YFP, since it once skewered me as a soft-on-crime, guilt-laden liberal hack. These days, I have to pay people to write stuff like that about me.
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# Posted 2:21 AM by David Adesnik  

2004 WEBLOG AWARDS: Lots of categories, lots of choices. Here are a few select endorsements from this third of OxBlog:

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  

GOOD COP, BAD COP: Phil Carter says Bernard Kerik is the right man to replace Tom Ridge. Fred Kaplan says Kerik is just another White House errand boy. They both make good points. I guess Kerik is a reasonably good choice given the political constraints on this situation.
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# Posted 2:03 AM by David Adesnik  

INEFFECTIVE SELF-OBSESSESED PROTESTERS: The Economist and the WSJ Online have added their voices of protest to George Will and others (e.g. OxBlog) who are up in arms about the kneejerk liberalism of American universities.

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.
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# Posted 11:51 PM by David Adesnik  

YOU WON'T SEE THIS IN THE NYT: Consider as a whole the four columns that appeared on the WaPo op-ed page this past Friday morning. One of them is the Henry Kissinger column mentioned below. The rest were written by columnists on the WaPo stuff.

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...

The best way to change the military and to create greater fairness in sharing the burdens of defending our country is to embrace the call to service, not reject it. By opening their doors to recruiters, our universities can strengthen our democracy.

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?
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# Posted 11:25 PM by David Adesnik  

A WEIRD DAY FOR OXBLOG: First, we decided to praise Henry Kissinger. Now we're going to say some nice things about George Will. It's as if OxBlog decided to betray everything it ever stood.

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:

Cornell: 166 liberals, 6 conservatives.
Stanford: 151 liberals, 17 conservatives.
Colorado: 116 liberals, 5 conservatives.
UCLA: 141 liberals, 9 conservatives.

The nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics reports that in 2004, of the top five institutions in terms of employee per capita contributions to presidential candidates, the third, fourth and fifth were Time Warner, Goldman Sachs and Microsoft. The top two were the University of California system and Harvard, both of which gave about 19 times more money to John Kerry than to George W. Bush.

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.
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# Posted 5:10 PM by David Adesnik  

WHOUDA THUNKIT? This may be this first time that OxBlog has had anything good to say about Henry Kissinger. It may also be the last.

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.

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# Posted 2:18 PM by Patrick Belton  

SMOKING CRACK: A HOW-TO GUIDE FOR TEENS, and other new Microsoft-hosted blogs. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:43 AM by Patrick Belton  

A FATEFUL YEAR FOR UKRAINE: We're grateful to have a piece today on the Ukrainian elections from the Carnegie Endowment's Anders Åslund, who directs Carnegie's Russia and Eurasia programme. Dr. Åslund, a former Swedish diplomat who has advised the Ukrainian government on economic matters, writes this to us from Kiev.

“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.

These elections are truly fateful. They can bring about a definitive democratic breakthrough or lead to its collapse. Ukraine’s geopolitical orientation is also up for grabs.

The latest opinion poll gave Kuchma 6 percent support to compare with 29 percent for Viktor Yushchenko, the leader of the democratic opposition and a respected former Prime Minister and Chairman of the Central Bank. Even so, Kuchma appears to be considering running for a third term. The current Constitution does not permit that, but, since Kuchma controls the Constitutional Court, he is likely to overturn that provision.

At the same time, Kuchma is trying to swiftly amend the constitution by hook and crook to reduce the presidential powers, showing that he is truly worried that Yushchenko may win.

Behind Kuchma stands a few big business clans, or oligarchs, who dominate government, parliament, media and security services. Their concern is that a new regime will undertake a redistribution of the considerable property they have amassed and prosecute them for crimes committed. The Ukrainian communists are marginalized but still form a third force.

The outcome of this struggle is no foregone conclusion. The prospects for democracy appear much more promising in Ukraine than in Russia. Power has not been consolidated in the security services, and competition prevails among the leading business groups. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian democratic opposition is much stronger and better organized than in Russia, primarily in Our Ukraine, a moderate center-right bloc.

Unlike Russians, Ukrainians are neither passive nor resigned. In the March 2002 parliamentary elections 70 percent of the voters participated, and 70 percent voted for parties opposing President Kuchma. Even so, the elections resulted in a hung parliament because half the seats are allocated in one-man constituencies, often purchased by rich businessmen. The joke is that two-thirds of the Ukrainian parliamentarians are millionaires, and that is probably not far from the truth.

Accidentally, the Ukrainian elections are scheduled for October 31, just two days prior to the US presidential elections. If anything goes awry in the Ukrainian elections, it will haunt the US administration. As heavy Russian interference is expected, Ukraine is set to be a major bone of contention between the US and Russia in 2004.

The US and Russia are bound to disagree upon most things in Ukraine. Russia will support Kuchma or whatever candidate he puts up, while the US will favor Yushchenko. While the US advocates democracy, the Russian leadership prefers a more authoritarian regime.

Aggressive nationalism is reasserting itself in Russia. Many nationalists entering the new Russian Duma do not conceal their contempt for Ukrainian independence. They advocate Ukraine’s union with Russia, ultimately eliminating Ukrainian sovereignty. The Russian government offers Ukraine with a “Common Economic Space” with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan in place of the World Trade Organization. The democratic opposition, by contrast, favors closer ties with the West, including Ukraine’s entry into NATO and the European Union.

With the roaring revival of the Russian economy, Russian corporations are swiftly expanding abroad, notably in Ukraine. The most contentious Russian economic interests involve energy, notably the ownership of pipelines and power utilities in Ukraine.

The US has a big presence in Ukraine, and it can play a major role. The Ukrainian opposition’s desire is to have election observers at all of Ukraine’s 33,000 polling stations. The Ukrainian diaspora in North America could mobilize that many volunteers, needing only the seal of approval from the Organization of Cooperation and Security in Europe (OSCE).

The opposition also hopes for more media support. Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe and Voice of America are as important as in the past. They need more, not less, resources. The opposition’s dream is a daily election newspaper. Foreign financing of such an undertaking is both legal and desirable.

Semi-democratic Ukraine can turn truly democratic or authoritarian, and the US can influence its fate. President George W. Bush will be either praised or blamed for the fortune of Ukraine, and rightly so.

The writer is Director of the Russian and Eurasian Program at the Carnegie for International Peace. He served as an economic advisor to the Ukrainian government from 1994 to 1997.

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# Posted 9:24 AM by Patrick Belton  

OXBLOG AT THE MOVIES: Oh dear. Oliver Stone, having already botched the story of Alexander, is now planning to do the same for Baroness Thatcher. This seems like precisely the sort of thing that a peerage might in earlier times have protected against.

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  

HEAR, HEAR: Thus Peter Beinart on the need for a liberalism which is as forceful an advocate of freedom and human dignity abroad as it is at home:

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.

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# Posted 5:28 AM by Patrick Belton  

DICTIONARY COMPANY MERRIAM WEBSTER names 'blog' its word of the year. BBC helpfully points out that 'the number of people reading even the most influential blogs is tiny. Statistics by web influence ranking firm HitWise reveal that the most popular political blog racks up only 0.0051% of all net visits per day.' Oddly, though, that would make the BBC only more irrelevant, since its most read story garnered only 234,000 page views yesterday - almost exactly the number of page views Instapundit had. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:45 AM by David Adesnik  

NEWS IS STYLE AND STYLE IS NEWS: One of the things I can't figure out about the WaPo is why most of its commentary on the media appears in the Style section. That's usually where Howard Kurtz's column shows up, not to mention this extraordinary inside account of a White House press conference.

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?"

Bush did not have a tape ready to stick into his VCR and he struggled to improvise. "I wish you would have given me this written question ahead of time, so I could plan for it," Bush said. He went on to say he could not think of a mistake he had made, providing months of fodder for his critics.

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.

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# Posted 1:38 AM by David Adesnik  

EVEN ESPECIALLY THE LIBERAL NEW REPUBLIC loves to skewer other liberals' pretentious hypocrisy. (And Tom Ridge.)
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# Posted 2:43 PM by Patrick Belton  

OXBLOG FAVOURITE Timothy Garton Ash writes in the Guardian about how the West must come to the help of Ukrainian democrats in the latest of Eastern Europe's Velvet revolutions. He knows whereof he writes. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:31 PM by David Adesnik  

THIS IS A RESPONSE from Prof. Colleen Shogan to a recent post on OxBlog. The response has not been edited.

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.

First, Mr. Adesnik selected quotations from my paper completely out of context. Several readers of Oxblog actually went to the Miller Center website, read the entire paper, and contacted me to dispute Mr. Adesnik’s depiction. For example, Mr. Adesnik implies that I disparage Reagan for his anti-intellectualism. This is simply incorrect. In fact, I argue that Reagan’s firm ideological beliefs provided him with the political skills needed to succeed in the presidency. In the paper, I discuss an anecdote provided to me, courtesy of interviews I conducted with Ed Meese and Martin Anderson, about Reagan’s desire to keep his intellectual pursuits hidden from the public’s eye. Reagan understood the political value of anti-intellectualism. In my mind, that doesn’t make Reagan a naïve simpleton; on the contrary, it makes him a sophisticated, savvy politician. The same can be said for George W. Bush, who I argue is the most skilled operator of anti-intellectualism. Bush’s anti-intellectualism allows him to rebuff political opposition and disarm his opponents—a very shrewd tactic in today’s polarized Beltway climate.

Mr. Adesnik’s commentary neglects the driving force of my thesis: anti-intellectualism is an effective political strategy because it enables presidents to demonstrate forceful independence. In my paper, the section on Bush makes this point very clear. Bush’s ability to demonstrate this forceful independence generates an aura of confidence surrounding his leadership that is difficult, if not impossible, to neutralize. As my dissertation adviser Stephen Skowronek wrote in The Politics Presidents Make, the presidency is an “order-shattering” institution which thrives on independent leadership. It is my contention that Bush uses anti-intellectualism as one resource for demonstrating that charged independence. This is the crux of my paper, yet Mr. Adesnik never mentions it. This is what presidential scholars are interested in—how political strategies affect the essence of executive power and the institution of the presidency itself.

This is not to say that my paper is perfect. It is a work in progress. In my opening remarks at the Miller Center, I explained that while I was reasonably satisfied with the case studies (Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Bush) in the paper, I needed to work on the causal explanations of Republican anti-intellectualism. The most instructive comments in this regard were not provided to me by Mr. Adesnik, who seemed overly concerned with my supposed liberal bias, but from Professor Brian Balogh, who co-directs the Miller Center American Political Development project. Professor Balogh observed that I need to pay attention to how intellectuals have changed since World War II. Whereas Richard Hofstadter used to write history books for the masses, now our most prominent scholars are not widely read. A gap between the academy and the public has grown, which may also explain the rise in popularity of anti-intellectual appeals.

Lastly, I want to address Mr. Adesnik’s characterization of my own political beliefs and their alleged effect on my scholarship. For me, this is the most distressing part of Mr. Adesnik’s public remarks. Although he had never met me, Mr. Adesnik assumed that I was part of some left-wing academic conspiracy that aims to discredit all Republicans as stupid morons. This is perhaps the best example of an academic bias and arrogance—the willingness to assign a label to someone without any corroborating evidence.

After Mr. Adesnik accused me at the Miller Center forum of a liberal bias, two individuals in the room, Professor Sid Milkis (co-director of the American Political Development project) and Russell Riley (Project Leader of the Presidential Oral History Project at the Miller Center) both vouched publicly that Mr. Adesnik’s comments about my scholarly integrity were inaccurate and misplaced. In particular, Mr. Riley assured Mr. Adesnik that he would have never selected me to conduct interviews with former White House staffers (both Republicans and Democrats) for the Presidential Oral History Project if he detected any hint of a political bias that impeded my work. Quite conveniently, Mr. Adesnik did not include the remarks of Mr. Riley and Professor Milkis in his Oxblog entry. Apparently, Mr. Adesnik felt he knew more about my intellectual motivations than two senior scholars I have worked with for most of my professional career. Clearly, I am not the one who suffers from intellectual arrogance.

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# Posted 3:29 AM by David Adesnik  

ANOTHER OXBLOG? While browsing the comments section over at MY's website, I happened to come across the opinion of a certain Chris Brooke. It's a fairly generic name, but it caught my eye because my academic adviser at Oxford (not to be confused with my dissertation adviser) is none other than Dr. Christopher Brooke.

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?

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# Posted 3:09 AM by David Adesnik  

EVIL AMERICANS CONSPIRE TO PROMOTE DEMOCRACY: Bob McGrew points to this bizarre column in The Guardian that attributes unrest in the Ukraine to an American master plan.

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 years

I 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.


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# Posted 8:53 PM by David Adesnik  

OH, HOW THE MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN: After winning seventy-four consecutive matches and more than $2.5 million, Ken Jennings met his match on Jeopardy!

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.
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# Posted 5:19 AM by Patrick Belton  

DUBLIN LITERARY LANDMARK Bewley's cafe, a haunt of students, shoppers, and pen-wielders since Joyce, to close its doors for the last time this evening in the face of the smoking ban, soaring Dublin rents, and competition from Starbucks. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:42 PM by Patrick Belton  

HARVARD SUCKS: The photographic evidence.

(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  

TRUMAN DEMOCRATS ON DEMOCRACY IN THE UKRAINE: Our friend, and sometime classmate, Matt Spence has an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times on democracy promotion and the Ukrainian elections. Not only is Matt a grand person and a Truman Democrat besides, but he happens to have just completed a dissertation here at Oxford on democracy assistance programmes and the Ukraine. So go read.

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# Posted 1:02 PM by David Adesnik  

A TRAGIC MURDER: There is a sobering report in the WaPo on the death of Iman Hams, a 13 year old Palestinian girl shot for no apparent reason by Israeli soldiers. An initial investigation by the Israeli military reported no wrongdoing, but the independent work of print and broadcast journalists forced the military to re-open the investigation and take responsibility for what was, in essence, a murder.

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.
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# Posted 6:40 AM by Patrick Belton  

1234567 WATCH: Our warm congratulations to Kevin Brogle, who was our 1234567th reader, and wins something English and Christmas-related. (Kevin: 'I would just like to thank all three of you for the fine work you are doing. It is always thought provoking. Except, maybe, discussions on psychadelic purple shirts.') Also, Jack Brounstein wins the runner-up prize (presumably something Cornish or Manx and Christmas-related). (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:00 PM by David Adesnik  

YGLESIAS FLIP-FLOPS ON TEEN LUST: Methinks that Yglesias' earlier position on the subject represents a defense of his aspirations rather than his practices. Meanwhile, Prof. Drezner indulges in a bit of brilliantly ribald satire.
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# Posted 7:50 PM by David Adesnik  

THE DeLAY DELAY: Time for him to move on, no? David Brooks says the majority leader is vulnerable. Tom Friedman is apoplectic.
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# Posted 7:39 PM by David Adesnik  

STILL INTERESTED IN VENEZUELA? It's not front-page news, but the Bush administration's unprincipled decision to endorse a military coup in April of 2002 is one of the most important indications that the President isn't 100% committed to democracy promotion.

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)
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# Posted 7:31 PM by David Adesnik  

DON'T THINK OF AN ELEPHANT! Kevin Drum reviews George Lakoff's surprise bestseller. Go read the interview, even if there's no reason to buy the book.
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# Posted 7:06 PM by David Adesnik  

HOPE IN UKRAINE? In the short term, the most effective (although immoral) response to a massive, peaceful protest is extreme violence. The longer such a protest remains peaceful, the less reversible it becomes. Thus, I am hopeful about the prospects for democracy in Ukraine.

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.

In a symbolic but potent example of that shift, cadets from the country's Interior Ministry academy marched in uniform Friday morning to a spot where riot police were protecting the offices of the president. The cadets called on the riot police to cross over and join them. None did.

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.
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# Posted 3:34 PM by Patrick Belton  

THE CHANTICLEER ENSEMBLE, who together with Britain's Tallis Scholars are one of the world's few truly great a capella ensembles, will in the coming weeks be performing in North Carolina, Virginia, New York City, Chicago, and then through a Californian December in San Francisco, Berkeley, Stanford, and Los Angeles. Do go see them if you can - their tour details are here. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:34 AM by Patrick Belton  

ANOTHER OXBLOG CONTEST: If you happen to be our 1234567th reader, send us a screenshot and we'll send you something Christmas-related from blighty. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:14 AM by Patrick Belton  

DEFENDING MY FASHION SENSE: Oh dear. Lest any of our readers be disconcerted by the thought that OxBloggers sit around wearing psychadelic purple pyjamas, the shirt I was wearing at Thanksgiving actually looks a bit more like this before image-reduction algorithms got to it.

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

# Posted 6:05 PM by David Adesnik  

PATRICK, PLEASE TELL ME THAT YOU DIDN'T ACTUALLY WEAR A SHINY, PURPLE SHIRT TO THANKSGIVING DINNER. By the way, who's the babe?
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# Posted 5:54 PM by David Adesnik  

SPEAKS FOR ITSELF: What follows is the text of the "Petition to Protest the advertising of OUEAS's [Oxford University European Affairs Soceity's] "Ottoman Ball": Questioning the Ethics of Representation"

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".

However, instead of promoting respectfully and representing fully the breadth of the Ottoman Empire or of the cultures and societies associated with it, the OUEAS's posters depict a debaucherous harem scene, with numerous nude women lounging around, dancing, and playing music - an image that recapitulates the best of European stereotypes of its created 'Orient.' In fact, the image is not far from the cover painting on Edward Said's renowned book, "Orientalism," which critiques this very construction of the Near East in the European imagination.

Not only are the image and the advertising of the ball in general offensive to many of Turkish, Arab, and Persian backgrounds, and to other historically -aware and culturally-sensitive students, but they are arguably just plainly inaccurate. It is very difficult to see how such stereotypical depictions reflect "the best of" the region's multiple and complex histories, philosophies and cultures, and it is reductionistic of the OUEAS to suggest that they do.

An additional and entirely separate concern is the representation of womenin the publicity campaign. It is indisputable that the institution of theharem epitomizes the objectification of women and their use as objects ofsexual pleasure. The historical accuracy of the harem as it is portrayed here is very much a contested issue, and to use a harem scene to publicize a ball purporting to "reflect the best of" a culture, is problematic at best; it serves to glorify this representation of blatant sexual exploitation. Alternatively, if the organization claims to be against such derogatory depiction of women, the use of these images in their publicity campaign is hypocritical.

We seek to voice our disagreement with the OUEAS's posters and blurbs and ask for an apology for its insensitive and inaccurate advertising. Now in particular, at a time when many are seeking to forge genuine bridges between societies and cultures that have been long linked, such unquestioned reinforcement of stereotypes does little to further coexistence and cooperation; there needs to be a deeper and more accurate ethic of representation.

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).
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# Posted 1:42 PM by Patrick Belton  

THIS JUST IN, VIA MODERATE VOICE: Bush kills turkey, pardons Tom DeLay. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:41 AM by Patrick Belton  

A VERY NOBLE BIRD:

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# Posted 10:42 AM by Patrick Belton  

LARGESSE, A GREATNESS OF ATTITUDE: A North Indian princess having died has left half of her fortune to a pair of peanut sellers. Her brother is furious; the remaining half of the princess of Bilaspur's property will be used to open an old people's home. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:47 AM by Patrick Belton  

THIS THANKSGIVING, OXBLOG IS THANKFUL FOR:
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  

THE LANCET RECONSIDERED: A study published in The Lancet suggested that the United States was responsible for 100,000 deaths in Iraq, the greatest number of which were attributable to American bombing raids. After Fred Kaplan published a forceful refutation of the study in Slate, I sensed that the debate was over.

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...
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# Posted 10:49 PM by David Adesnik  

LAMBERT 1, OXBLOG 0 (WaPo -1): In an update to his update, Tim Lambert mischievously writes that he didn't have to rely on Google or Lexis to find the truth. He just went to the IAIS hompage, which now has an update advertising the WaPo article that covered its malnutrition study.

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?)


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# Posted 7:39 PM by Patrick Belton  

THROUGH A GLASS, DARKLY: Alan Henderson shows what we look like in our proverbial blogging uniforms, according at least to the New York Times.... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:55 PM by Patrick Belton  

AUTUMN IN NORTH OXFORD: Some photoblogging, in anticipation of Thanksgiving tomorrow:





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# Posted 4:28 PM by Patrick Belton  

THE INDEPENDENT, WHICH I've got to admit I'm rather catching a fondness for (in particular because of their cultural and literary coverage), thinks they've finally uncovered who the Ripper really was - Liverpudlian cotton merchant James Maybrick's gold watch has been, under electron microscopy, shown to bear the scratched initials of five victims and the words, dating from roughly the appropriate period, helpfully stating 'I am Jack' and 'J Maybrick.' Well, perhaps - though Maybrick's purported diary, in which he makes a claim to be the Ripper, uses several twentieth-century expressions, and the handwriting doesn't quite match that in his marriage certificate and will. The riddle of the Ripper will never be solved until enthusiasts finally admit the one ineluctable source of a cover up with an incentive to keep the murderer's true identity obscure for all this time - the website Casebook.org. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:54 PM by Patrick Belton  

ARE YOU A POLITICAL SCIENTIST? (IF SO, POOR YOU. YOU KNOW, THERE ARE RESOURCES FOR PROBLEMS LIKE THAT.) So our foreign policy society is beginning a small research listserv for democratisation scholarship, as well as research on democracy and rule of law assistance, and most likely dealing with formal government promotion of human rights to some extent also. In terms of tone and scholarly level, the diplomatic history list H-Diplo is probably as good an example as any of what we're trying to do, though of course the subject matter's a bit different. If this interests anyone, we have two opportunities to involve people: as advisory board members (where the demands won't be very extensive - basically, you won't really have to do anything at all, although you do get the ability to fire our editors - though speaking as initial lead editor, it would really be quite all right if you didn't), and as editors (who will have the opportunity to take a more active role). If you might be interested at all in either possibility, please do just let me know and I'll write back with a bit more about what the listserv is trying to do. Also, it comes with a fetching logo, a half-decade's residence in Britain having left me oddly rather susceptible to lavender. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:50 PM by Patrick Belton  

ENGLISH LESSONS, II: Our historic first inclusion of Cockney rhyming slang on OxBlog having met with such resounding success, we decided to take the logical next step and link to one of the basic first sites of the CockneyWeb, CockneyRhymingSlang.co.uk. Click the balloon hovering above the person born within the requisite earshot of the bells of St Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside (source also of the 'Marylebone Road' which the M40 turns into), and they'll take you through the basics.... And OxBlog Extra Credit Hebrew tie-in: the East End was also one of the principal destinations of Lithuanian Jews fleeing pogroms through emigration to London. Oy ve, innit! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:46 AM by Patrick Belton  

STILL LOOKING FOR, NOT FINDING THE SUPERIOR MORAL LEGITIMACY: Continuing an earlier theme and via a tip-off from the blog of Sasha Castel,*

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  

THE VIRGIN MARY GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICH SELLS FOR $28,000. This via the Screws and Currant (i.e., Cockney rhyming slang: currant bun – Sun).

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  

ENGLISH LESSONS: Royal Navy toasts corresponding to days of the week, from the Gentleman's English Dictionary and Usage, not to everyone's tastes but not wholly repellant to mine:

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

# Posted 11:18 PM by David Adesnik  

MALNUTRITION UPDATE: Tim Lambert thinks that there are fatal flaws in my recent post on malnutrition in Iraq. First and foremost, Tim says I have my facts wrong. He points to this page on the IAIS website as evidence that there were two separate malnutrition surveys conducted in Iraq, not (as I suggested) just one.

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."
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# Posted 2:35 PM by David Adesnik  

PEOPLE POWER IN THE UKRAINE: We can only hope that the democratic movement led by Viktor Yuschenko will prevail over the Moscow-sponsored thugocracy that rigged the results of Sunday's election.

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.
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# Posted 2:24 PM by David Adesnik  

IMMINENT TRIUMPHALISM: As Patrick mentioned, Dan Rather has resigned, effective next March. Rather insists that his resignation has nothing to do with Memogate. According to the AP

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.
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# Posted 1:55 PM by Patrick Belton  

OXBLOG: STILL AMONG THE WEB'S TOP hits for 'something interesting'. Somewhat more distressingly, also still the top hit for 'ivory coast porno.' (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:10 PM by Patrick Belton  

DAN RATHER STEPPING DOWN. You heard it here first (or may have, anyway). Blogosphere one, Lazy Coddled Journalistic Profession zero. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:04 PM by Patrick Belton  

AL QAEDA 2.0: THE CONFERENCE: Just to clear up any potential misunderstanding, our foreign policy society's Washington chapter is not lending its support to a conference with Al Qaeda, but to a conference on it. The conference is being organised by Steve Clemons, who recently spoke to our Washington chapter. Among the speakers are Bruce Hoffman from Rand, the Kennedy School's Jessica Stern, CNN's Peter Bergen, academic Rohan Gunaratna, the WaPo's David Ignatius, and several former case officers from the Agency with a background in operations against the organisation. It is on 2 December in the Russell Senate Office Building (having incidentally worked in the building, SOB truly is the official acronym, with no disrespect of which I'm aware toward the Senator from Georgia). More information here. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:46 AM by Patrick Belton  

THE QUEEN has delivered the Queen's Speech this morning, setting out the Government's legislative programme for the coming year. Chief proposals include increased powers to local municipalities to deal with anti-social behaviour, a Serious Organised Crime Agency to parallel the American FBI, a national identification card (not immediately to be made mandatory), and creation in law of an offence of incitement to religious hatred. Black Rod has again had the door to the Commons slammed fast in his face; as someone whose aesthetics, if not politics, are rather conservative, all is well, or well as it can get, with the world. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:04 AM by Patrick Belton  

IS IT JUST ME, OR DO criminal sex rings follow UN peacekeepers wherever they're deployed? (c.f., Kosovo, Bosnia, East Timor, Sierra Leone, Congo... I'm looking for this 'superior moral legitimacy' thing, I'm just not seeing it.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:01 PM by David Adesnik  

THE GOP SHOULD SIMPLY DO WHAT'S RIGHT: Stephen Bainbridge says that it was wrong for the GOP to do Tom DeLay a favor by lifting its ban on indicted congressmen from serving in the party leadership. Glenn agrees.

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.


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# Posted 8:35 PM by David Adesnik  

IVORY TOWER POLITICS: Last Friday, I attended a colloquium at The Miller Center on the subject of anti-intellectualism in American politics. Over lunch, we discssed a paper on that subject by Prof. Colleen Shogan of George Mason University.

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...

Furthermore, the plebiscitary presidency is dependent upon the creation of "spectacles" that encourage awestruck citizens to become passive spectators rather than active participants in politics. Spectacles lend themselves to the portrayal of presidents as energetic, dynamic, hyper-masculine individuals who defeat evil in the name of American democracy, exemplified most recently by George W. Bush's landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln. [Do I detect a note of sarcasm here? --ed.] The intellectual process of deliberation cannot constitute a spectacle. (Page 6)

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.
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# Posted 8:26 PM by David Adesnik  

NOT SO FAST, PATRICK: Long before Washington had Senators, it had Nationals. According to the selfsame article you cite,

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?
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# Posted 8:21 PM by David Adesnik  

GOING, GOING, GONZALES: The new Attorney General may be here to stay, yet both this editorial and this column argue persuasively that his credibility is already gone.
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# Posted 8:13 PM by David Adesnik  

BUSH'S NAIVE MULTILATERALISM: There is no excuse for the decision to accept a watered down Security Council resolution rather than a real mandate to stop the genocide. This embarrassment should remind America's liberal multilateralists that the moral legitimacy of the United Nations is less of a fact than a fiction. And it should remind our conservative unilateralists that the President just doesn't understand his own rhetoric about "the transformational power of liberty."
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# Posted 7:25 PM by Patrick Belton  

MOBILE PHONE CAMERA + WEDDING + SAUDIA ARABIA = bad idea (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:35 PM by Patrick Belton  

IMMODEST PROPOSAL: Joe Gandelman points out that embedding reporters with terrorists may not on reflection be the wonderful idea that Guardian's Alex Thompson is so enthusiastic about... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:38 PM by Patrick Belton  

GRUMBLE: Washington's new franchise has been officially, and stupidly, dubbed the Nationals. Not only is this a remarkably tone-deaf rendering of tradition in a sport for which tradition is its lifeblood - come on, everyone knows that the baseball team that plays in Washington is supposed to be the Senators - but the only thing more regrettable than the bland, distinctive-as-soap name is the justification put forward for it. Thus Mayor Anthony Williams (who, like most American politicians, wise and otherwise, was educated in New Haven rather than that dumb jocks school slightly to the north): by choosing a sucky name for Washington's ball team, so the argument goes, the actual Senators will be embarassed into granting the District representation in Congress. Jesus, where did he learn about politics? As sports misnomers go, this one is up there with moving the Jazz from New Orleans to that second city of jazz, Salt Lake City, Utah (or the Brooklyn Dodgers to that precious borough's geometric opposite, though a substantial contingent of our readers will write back saying 'wait, they're not still the Brooklyn Dodgers?')

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  

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE HARVARD OF THE PROLETARIAT: This coming spring, my father will return to the City College of New York to celebrate his forty-year reunion. For my father, as well as for countless other children of working-class immigrants from Eastern Europe, City College occupies a mythic place in American life.

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.

His mother, Alexandra Sviridov, was a journalist and filmmaker in Moscow who exposed Russian government officials who were former KGB operatives. They came to New York for a visit in 1993, when Mr. Sviridov was 11, then stayed, afraid to return home when tanks rolled in. He was homeless for a time as his mother fought for the right to stay in the United States and searched for a job. Mr. Sviridov has himself held many jobs to bring in income; he said he would probably send part of his Rhodes stipend home to New York to help his mother...

Mr. Sviridov said that he had found the City College faculty very supportive, and that many professors told him they had followed paths like his.

"No one was born into something," he said. "They were all self-made people. My education there is terrific."

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.
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# Posted 10:36 AM by Patrick Belton  

STRENGTH WITH PRINCIPLE, AND HOW TO CREATE TRUMAN DEMOCRATS: The co-directors of the Truman National Security Project just sent us their interesting thoughts toward how Democrats can gain public trust on security as the party of principled strength; among other things, they explore the relationship between Realism and Wilsonianism within the Democratic party, as well as the putative values gap. Since one of the directors of the Truman Project happens to be my wife, Rachel, I'm happy to include their thoughts in full here.

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.

Values are perennially important in America, but the 2004 election turned on national security. In poll after poll, voters ranked security as a top priority. Even the “town hall” debate, billed as a domestic issues forum, focused almost entirely on foreign policy. Exit polls confirmed that 19% of voters rated terrorism a priority—and Bush had a 86% advantage among these voters. When Americans fear for their lives more than their livelihoods, the old mantra that they vote with their pocketbooks does not hold.

Yet it is hardly the fault of the Kerry team that Democrats could not win on security. Democrats face a perception problem too deep to be addressed with policies and messaging, or to be overcome in a single campaign. It is a problem of values, of the chasm within the Democratic Party between values and strength, between the Party of Idealists, and the Party of Pragmatists.

The Party of Idealists, embodied by the Howard Dean movement, talks in the ethically-based language of Democratic activists. But scarred by the post-Vietnam aversion to American power, they remain deeply uncomfortable with American national interest, and with the harder tools of foreign policy, particularly the military and intelligence communities. This vocal and visible camp scares Americans, who feel that the Democratic Party does not value their safety.

Moreover, while these individuals see themselves as upholding moral values, their first instinct is often to distrust American action. Thus, they embrace human rights—but think words like democracy and freedom are for neo-cons. They build shantytowns to protest apartheid in South Africa, but are silent when terrorists attack a school in Beslan. Their policies often end up supporting repressive regimes and undermining the values they claim to uphold—leading Americans to see our party as confused and morally rudderless.

Many of our foreign policy experts live in another Democratic Party—the Party of Pragmatists. Perhaps out of fear of being lumped with starry-eyed Wilsonians, they invoke pragmatism when attempting to convey hard-nosed strength. This cohort offers strong, sensible policies, but is deeply uncomfortable grounding these policies in values. Their realpolitik turns off our party’s base, who are led to believe that there is little difference between conservatives and Democrats on foreign policy. Meanwhile, by talking policies and methods, not values and vision, they fail to provide a coherent, overarching message that can inspire the American people.

The more our activists trumpet their moral cause, the more our experts avoid values-based language. Instead of harnessing strength and values together, Democrats see these forces in opposition. No wonder we can’t convince Americans that we have a principled and strong foreign policy!

To regain preeminence in national security, we must reunite security and values within the Democratic worldview. This belief has birthed a movement among a new generation of Democrats. We were not scarred by Vietnam. Instead, we are jointly committed to the values that make us Democrats, and to forging a foreign policy strong enough to stop the deadly, asymmetric, ideological threat of fundamentalist terrorism. In a few months, we have become a force of hundreds through word of mouth alone. We have found many mentors among those who served in previous Democratic administrations, who also see the need for a strong and principled foreign policy. We call ourselves Truman Democrats, because we believe that Truman has much to teach us on the cusp of a new age.

Truman believed that a strong foreign policy was one that combined the traditional tools of strength with values that offered hope, justice, and opportunity at home and abroad. Through such enlightened self-interest, America gained legitimacy and power, military and diplomatic strength, the ability to secure ourselves and the ability to lead others for our joint security. This was, and is, the Democratic alternative foreign policy. This is strength, with principle.

So long as we face a real threat of terror at home, national security will remain at the top of voters’ agendas. Democrats will win elections again when we can convince Americans that we value their security, and that we have a coherent, principled posture that provides a real alternative to the Republican vision. It is the time to forge a party that can lead once more. Let’s get started.

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# Posted 9:27 PM by David Adesnik  

RACISM AT THE WaPo? I'm pretty sure that only us folks who subscribe to the print edition of the Post read the Style section. But actually, there's all sorts of political stuff hidden in there. For example:

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.

Philip Bennett, assistant managing editor for foreign news, who is white, was selected by [Executive Editor Leonard] Downie to be the paper's No. 2 editor earlier this month, besting Eugene Robinson, assistant managing editor of Style, who is black, and Liz Spayd, assistant managing editor for national news.

"We're crushed," said national reporter Darryl Fears at the meeting. Fears, who is black, organized two meetings of African American staffers in recent days in response to Bennett's promotion. "A lot of our worst suspicions were confirmed about the ability of African Americans and other minorities to rise to the highest level of the best papers in the world," he said...

"I didn't take this personally," Bennett said. "I felt several people made clear that there wasn't hostility toward me as much as a very legitimate series of questions and concerns about the newsroom's commitment to diversity."

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.
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# Posted 9:13 PM by David Adesnik  

OMBUDSMAN MISSES THE POINT: WaPo ombudsman Michael Getler apologizes today for the Post's insufficient coverage of the impact that the war in Iraq has had on civilians.

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.
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# Posted 3:10 PM by David Adesnik  

DEMOCRATIC DARK HORSES FOR 2008: Reihan Salam has the round-up, including a gratuitious reference to Taco Bell. Meanwhile, Michelle Cottle is arguing that it would be "insane" for the Democrats to nominate Hillary.

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.
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# Posted 1:16 PM by David Adesnik  

IRAQ -- "MALNUTRITION NEARLY DOUBLE WHAT IT WAS BEFORE INVASION": That the headline from today's WaPo. Naturally, the conclusion that malnutrition has doubled depends on the uncritical comparison of statistics compiled while Saddam was in power with those compiled more recently.

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.
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