# Posted 11:52 PM by David Adesnik  

FEINGOLD VS. HILLARY: Michael Crowley at TNR has a must-read article on Russell Feingold's emeriging leadership of the anti-war movement and its challenge to Hillary Clinton's front-runner status. Here are some samples, but you've got to read the whole thing:

Last month, Cindy Sheehan, the bereaved mother crusading against the Iraq war, posted an open letter on the website of left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore. Her latest target wasn't the man she staked out last summer--George W. Bush--but the new villain of the antiwar left: Hillary Clinton. Sheehan's letter excoriated Clinton for backing the Iraq war and for her refusal to call for a speedy withdrawal of U.S. troops. "That sounds like Rush Limbaugh to me. That doesn't sound like an opposition party leader speaking," Sheehan wrote. "I think [Clinton] is a political animal who believes she has to be a war hawk to keep up with the big boys."...

Feingold had never visited Iraq before, and he was appalled by what he saw there. "We couldn't stay overnight in Iraq," he said recently. "We couldn't drive from the airport to the Green Zone. When we went to the Green Zone, the helicopters had to go just over the palm trees so they wouldn't get shot down. We never got to go out to see the rest of Baghdad, because they couldn't take us out safely. We wore flak jackets and helmets in the Green Zone. And people are worried about chaos if we leave?"

Conditions in Iraq are certainly nasty. But Feingold has long harbored wariness about U.S. military action. When Republicans forced a 1995 Senate vote to cut off funding for U.S. military forces in Bosnia, for instance, he was the sole Democrat to join 21 conservatives in support of the resolution. As other Democrats waxed idealistic about human rights, Feingold fretted about Vietnam parallels and worried that "our attempting to police the world threatens our own national security."...

In reality, [Feingold's] odds of winning the Democratic nomination are slim anyway. What Feingold can do is make life miserable for the other Democrats who seek it. Dean didn't defeat Kerry, after all. But he was the proximate cause for Kerry's vote against the $87 billion war appropriations bill--a vote that haunted Kerry in the general election. In 2008, perhaps Feingold will play the role of Dean to Clinton's Kerry, battering her image and dragging her further left than she can afford to go.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:49 PM by David Adesnik  

JOHN COLE RESPONDS to my post about patriotism and dissent. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:27 PM by David Adesnik  

SCORECARD: INSTAPUNDIT VS. KEVIN DRUM. In the post below, I agree with Glenn and Tom that lying about the war is unpatriotic. But Glenn also makes a different argument about patriotism, with support from John Cole. Cole writes, and Glenn concurs, that

Painting as unpatriotic those individuals who change their opinions simply for political reasons is wholly appropriate, and that is what Glenn stated. Reynolds is not, as Kevin Drum would have you believe, simply calling anyone against the war or anyone who believes that the the reasons used to go to war were inaccurate ‘unpatriotic.’

It is wrong and offensive to argue that simply changing one's opinion is unpatriotic, regardless of the motive.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that most Democrats have come out against the invasion only because of the polls. This fact may demonstrate that the Democrats have no ideas of their own about foreign policy, but it isn't immoral. Public opinion has a democratic legitimacy of its own. Therefore, it is in no way unpatriotic for elected representatives to change sides in order to satisfy their constituents.

In democratic systems, there is an enternal tension between representation in terms of doing what the people want and representation in terms of doing what one believes is right. The role of politicians is to balance these competing demands on their allegiance.

This argument does not, however, contradict my assertion below that if the Democrats are consciously lying about the origins of the war, then one may consider them unpatriotic. The right to change positions does not entail a right to lie in order to defend that change of positions.

The reason, I think, that Kevin and Glenn are getting so angry at one another is that they are conflating these two arguments. Kevin paraphrases Glenn as saying that

Democrats who claim that George Bush misled us into war are being unpatriotic.

At times, Glenn makes it clear that it is not the Democrats' claim per se that is unpatriotic, but rather the fact that it is false. Yet Glenn is also responsible in part for the confusion, since his initial post simply said that

The White House needs to go on the offensive here in a big way -- and Bush needs to be very plain that this is all about Democratic politicans pandering to the antiwar base, that it's deeply dishonest, and that it hurts our troops abroad.

So what's wrong here? The pandering? The effect on the troops? Or the dishonesty? I hope that my efforts to explicate the differences between these arguments has shed some light on a very important debate. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:26 PM by David Adesnik  

"IF THE DEMOCRATS ARE LYING, THEN THEY REALLY ARE UNPATRIOTIC": That is the basic argument that Glenn makes here, and that Tom Maguire has aptly summed up by observing that

I believe there is a substantial difference between "Your false charges are undermining the troops" and "Your criticism is undermining our troops".

I agree with this argument in the abstract, although I don't think that it justifies what George Bush said. For Bush to be in the right, it should be transparently clear that his opponents are lying. I would argue that while the Democrats may not be telling the truth, it is not intentional. Instead, they have succumbed to confusion, short-sightedness, and unthinking resentment of the President.

Now I recognize that numerous conservatives see the case against the Democrats as black and white. Even according to Kevin Drum, who has lashed out at Glenn for slandering the Democrats' patriotism,

Liberals, for their part, need to accept the obvious: in 2002, virtually everybody believed Iraq had an active WMD program. The CIA believed it, as their October NIE made clear:

Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons....Iraq has maintained its chemical weapons effort, energized its missile program, and invested more heavily in biological weapons....has largely rebuilt missile and biological weapons facilities.... has begun renewed production of mustard, sarin, GF (cyclosarin), and VX....most elements are larger and more advanced than they were before the Gulf war.

The British believed the same thing. The Germans and French believed it. Former Clinton administration officials believed it. Lots of Democratic members of congress believed it. They were all wrong, it turned out, but they weren't lying. The simple fact is that virtually everyone who had access to the full range of classified intelligence at that point in time thought Iraq had an active WMD program.

Kevin adds that Bush lied in order to make his argument more persuasive, but that is secondary (and debatable). The key point is that leading Democrats supported the war because the evidence said Saddam had WMD. As Kevin pointed out long ago in an excellent post, opponents of the war argued that invading Iraq was a bad idea in spite of Saddam's possesion of WMD. For the Democrats to argue now that they supported the war because they were tricked is disingenuous at best.

Even Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus, the WaPo correspondents whose "Analysis" column distorted the President's statments, admit in that selfsame column that

The administration's overarching point is true: Intelligence agencies overwhelmingly believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and very few members of Congress from either party were skeptical about this belief before the war began in 2003. Indeed, top lawmakers in both parties were emphatic and certain in their public statements.

So what am I holding out against? When not just conclude that the Democrats are lying and therefore unpatriotic? I guess it turns on the Democrats' precise words. John Edwards wrote in yesterday's WaPo that

The intelligence was deeply flawed and, in some cases, manipulated to fit a political agenda...

The information the American people were hearing from the president -- and that I was being given by our intelligence community -- wasn't the whole story. Had I known this at the time, I never would have voted for this war.

Going back to another post from Kevin, I think it's fair to suggest that the administration may have withheld certain information and/or misrepresented it. This missing information wouldn't have done much to disrupt the overwhelming consensus that Saddam had WMD, but it justifies saying that we didn't have the "whole story".

So what Edwards is doing here isn't lying, but rather relying on rhetorical sleight-of-hand. He points to the missing information, but totally ignores the overwhelming evidence which suggested Saddam had WMD and which was the basis of his support for the war.

This is playing dirty, but not lying. Or am I just splitting hairs? I guess where I come down on this whole issue is that attacking an opponent's patriotism is so serious that it shouldn't be done unless the case for the prosecution is open and shut. Period. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:55 PM by David Adesnik  

ATTACKING THE DEMOCRATS' PATRIOTISM: WRONG. What the President said was wrong in both senses of the word. It was wrong because it was unethical and it was wrong because it did far more damage to the President than it did to his opponents.

Well aware of how provocative his message was, Bush prefaced it by saying that "it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war." He nonetheless concluded that

The stakes in the global war on terror are too high, and the national interest is too important, for politicians to throw out false charges. These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will.

The first thing Bush should have known was that these two sentences would become the next day's headlines, overshadowing all of the other important messages in his long (50 minutes) and otherwise well-crafted speech.

The next thing Bush should have known is that the media instinctively side with those who have their patriotism questioned. It doesn't matter that Bush avoided using harsh words such as 'treasonous' or 'unpatriotic'. He was setting himself up for a fall.

If the President had been wiser, he would've focused on a simple and straightforward message: that the Democrats are lying. Bush was in a very good position to claim the moral high ground in spite of lesser flaws in the administration's case for war, such as the aluminum tubes debate.

But now the discussion has become about whether Bush went too far instead of about whether the Democrats are lying. The strongest point in Bush's favor is, of course, the Democrats' own lavish statements about the threat Saddam Hussein presented because of his weapons of mass destruction.

In his speech, Bush quoted John Kerry' statement that

"When I vote to give the President of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein, it is because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat, and a grave threat, to our security."

In its major story on the speech, the WaPo at least noted this critical aspect of Bush's argument and republished half of the quote from Kerry. In contrast, the NYT made no mention of the Kerry quote, although it did report with consummate detachment that

Mr. Bush asserted that Democrats as well as Republicans believed before the invasion in 2003 that Saddam Hussein possessed banned weapons.

As if it were only an "assertion" that the Democrats believed Saddam had WMD. But this is what happens when a president attacks his opponents' patriotism. The substance of his arguments gets ignored.

Often, the substance of a president's argument gets ignored even when he comports himself with greater decorum. But this time the president had a strong hand to play, and he could've thrown the Democrats back on the defensive if he hadn't let his anger get the better of him. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:12 PM by Patrick Belton  

I REALISED I WAS ANGRY, so I took out my pen and began to write.

My first banlieue article hits the press today. Please let me know what you think! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:57 AM by David Adesnik  

DOES THIS MAN LOOK SERENE TO YOU?
(And, no, I'm not cherry-picking. I got this photo from the Washington Post website 20 minutes ago. Click here and go to photo #9.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:31 AM by David Adesnik  

JOURNALISTS KOWTOW TO McCAIN: Take a look at the transcript [.pdf] from yesterday morning's Face the Nation. Almost every question for John McCain was a total softball. Here's my favorite:

[BOB] SCHIEFFER: Senator, if there's anybody in this country that's an expert on prisoners of war -- I mean you spent about five years in that hotel run by the Vietnamese in Hanoi. Why do you feel so strongly about [torture]?

Even though I am a very, very, very big fan of McCain, there's really no excuse for this kind of pandering. It's not as if Bob Schieffer and Elisabeth Bumiller don't know how to ask tough questions. They do it all the time. But McCain gets a pass.

One reason for that pass is that journalists like to use McCain as a foil for Bush. They bring him on the show or do an interview because all they really want is for a popular Republican to contradict the president. In other words, they're not interested in taking a careful look at exactly what McCain thinks and why.

But you also have to consider McCain's reputation as a straight-shooter. He makes journalists feel that he'll give them the truth even if they don't ask tough questions or lay elaborate traps, a la Tim Russert. In addition, McCain cultivates an aura of self-awareness that journalists' value tremendously. Consider this:

Ms. BUMILLER: Senator, let me ask you about a recent poll that shows you neck and neck with former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani for the Republican nomination, and you're just edging out Hillary Clinton for the presidency. When are you going to make a decision and what is your thinking right now about a campaign?

Sen. McCAIN: Those polling numbers are wonderful for the ego, and mine is sizable, but the fact is, they're [a result of] name ID.

A lot of scholars have observed that Ronald Reagan made journalists like him by being self-deprecating. But McCain takes this a very important step further by being self-aware, for example talking about his own ego.

In an earlier post about spin doctors, I argued that self-awareness is the attribute that journalists value most highly. One might object that the cost of being that honest is greater than the benefits. After all, look at what journalists did to Howard Dean after "the scream".

However, McCain's success demonstrates that you can be a media darling for years on end if you know how to play your cards right. What I really want to know is whether McCain will keep getting the kid glove treatment once he is actually running against a Democrat for president.

In the primaries, I'd say it's a foregone conclusion that McCain will get better press coverage than any of his opponents. But in a general election, journalists will begin to realize -- subconsciously, in most cases -- that giving McCain good coverage may actually result in the Republicans holding onto the White House.

Until now, lionizing McCain has had minimal costs. I can't wait to see what happens when the rubber hits the road. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:01 AM by David Adesnik  

MONEY HAS VALUE, BUT IT IS NOT A VALUE: After talking to Ken Mehlman, Tim Russert spoke with Howard Dean. In contrast to Mehlman, Dean did a much better job of seeming honest and straightforward, even if I disagreed with just about everything he said.

I think Dean did a better job of seeming honest because he often really is. But I also began to get the sense that Dean has become too comfortable with the Beltway regimen of giving talking points instead of answers. Like Mehlman, Dean sometimes rushed to reel off what sounded like a clever answer instead of taking Russert's questions seriously.

I guess Dean has found himself between a rock and a hard place. The media adored him at first then punished him for being too forthcoming. Now he may be too well-prepared and not spontaneous enough. Then again, what politician has discovered the Golden Mean of both disarming candor and message discipline? Answer: John McCain.

Anyhow, what I wanted to do in this post is look at one specific answer that Dean gave to Russert:

MR. RUSSERT: The other issue that the Republicans still have the upper hand with Democrats, strong moral values; 35 percent see the Republicans are better on that issue. Only 18 percent of Democrats. And maybe that's why we're hearing radio ads like this that the Tim Kaine, Democratic gubernatorial candidate and governor-elect in Virginia, ran for his campaign. Let's listen.

(Audiotape, Tim Kaine for governor advertisement):

MR. TIM KAINE: The Bible teaches us we can accomplish great things when we work together. I'm Tim Kaine and I've devoted my life to bringing people together to get things done. ... I'm conservative on personal responsibility, character, family and the sanctity of life. These are my values, and that's what I believe.

(End audiotape)

MR. RUSSERT: And then John Kerry, last week, talking about the budget, said it was immoral; "There is not anywhere in the three-year ministry of Jesus Christ, anything that remotely suggests--not one miracle, not one parable, not one utterance--that says you ought to cut children's health care or take money from the poorest people in our nation to give it to the wealthiest people in our nation."

Are the Democrats now trying to embrace Christ, embrace moral values, because they see themselves on the wrong side of that issue?

DR. DEAN: Well, first of all, there's a fair number of Jewish Democrats who I don't think are going to embrace Christ. But I think we all embrace the teachings of morality and of embracing people and of tolerance and of inclusion. And what I encourage people to do, I was--we played a big role in Tim Kaine's campaign. It was a great campaign. He was a wonderful candidate. We funneled a lot of money into the party to try to be helpful and so forth. And he is a great candidate for America in the terms of how he campaigned. He spoke of his faith.

I don't think that people who are not comfortable speaking about their faith should speak about their faith. But I think we all should speak about our values. I think one of the mistakes we've made is to not understand that most Americans believe that moral values include making sure that kids don't go to bed hungry at night. The Republicans are cutting the school lunch program. We want to make sure that everybody in America has health insurance. That's a moral value. The Republicans are kicking people off their health care. So there is a--we win when we debate about moral values. We ought to talk about our values. Tim Kaine did it. I don't think that's the only reason he won, but that's certainly one of them.

That was a cute answer about Jewish Democrats not embracing Christ. But it is also an indication of how most Democrats' immediate response to religious rhetoric is to start worrying about who it excludes.

Notice how Dean immediately recast Kaine and Kerry's embrace of Christ as an embrace "of tolerance and of inclusion." Dean seems to be missing the much bigger point that excessive talk about tolerance and inclusion is precisely what's responsible for making it seem that the Democrats have no fixed values.

Also notice how, in the second half of his answer, Dean equates a concern for values with school lunch programs and health care policy. Yes, there is a moral element to providing food and medicine for the needy. But what the Democrats never seem to get is that voters with an interest in values are concerned precisely about those issues that can't be resolved by spending more money.

When Democrats translate values into money, it reinforces their image as the party that ignores the spiritual dimension of life and responds to every challenge it faces with a reflexive desire to tax and spend.

Now, I do appreciate the Democratic dilemma here. If the party wants to establish itself as the party of values, it can't really do that by touting its pro-choice and pro-gay rights agenda, because "values voters" tend to be pro-life and uncomfortable with gay rights.

I won't pretend that I have a good answer for the Democrats. But I would say that the party needs to think long and hard about its core values, so it doesn't have to fall back on economic answers to ethical questions. (1) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:29 PM by David Adesnik  

GOOD SPIN DOCTORS DON'T SOUND LIKE SPIN DOCTORS: After talking to King Abdullah, Tim Russert had conversations first with Ken Mehlman, the chairman of the RNC, and then Howard Dean, chairman of the DNC (but who needs no introduction).

If you just read the transcript, I don't think you'll get a good sense of just how defensive and disingenuous Mehlman sounded -- and this is coming from someone who agrees with almost everything Mehlman said.

Some of the best advice I've gotten about job interviews is to pause before answering every question. The point is to show the person doing the interview that you're really thinking about the substance of their question. In fact, it is a good idea to take advantage of that pause to really think about the question and how to be most responsive to it before firing off your preferred answer.

Mehlman did exactly the opposite. He rushed to answer every question Russert threw at him but evaded the questions' actual substance. For example:

MR. RUSSERT: But isn't there a cloud over the Bush presidency because of Iraq? The administration said he was reconstituting his nuclear program. Not true. It said there would be vast stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. Not true. He said we'd be greeted as liberators. Not true. Isn't Iraq a political problem for this president?

MR. MEHLMAN: Ultimately, Iraq's not about--should not be about domestic politics. Iraq's about our national security. And on September 11th, we learned that we need to think first and foremost about protecting America. And while wars...

MR. RUSSERT: But there's no linkage between Iraq and September 11th.

MR. MEHLMAN: Well, the lessons...

MR. RUSSERT: Saddam Hussein was not involved in September 11th.

MR. MEHLMAN: Well, the lesson of September 11th is we're not going to wait.

If I were going to write a how-to manual for spin doctors ("Spin Doctoring for Dummies?") its first principle would be that journalists value self-awareness above all else. Journalists see themselves as being the only profession committed to exposing the manipulation inherent in everything about politics. Thus, they tend to show the most respect to those who are also willing to talk about politics as a game. Conversely, journalists resent most those who play the game without admitting what it is.

When you get a question like the one Russert asked Mehlman above, the first thing to do is acknowledge the question's premise: "Yes, Tim. I can see how someone might think that the absence of WMD in Iraq lends credibility to the Democrats' accusations. But if you take a closer look, you'll see that..."

Journalists think of themselves as committed to carefully weighing all of the evidence for and against everything. Therefore, politicians and their spokesman must, at minimum, go through the motions of showing uncertainty and weighing the evidence.

At times, the journalist's brand of uncertainty can border on the pathological. George Bush could never have discovered the importance of moral clarity by taking lessons from journalists. But I firmly believe that even if he advocated the exact same policies, Bush could get much better coverage from journalists if he presented his arguments in the style with which journalists are comfortable. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:10 PM by David Adesnik  

FOR GOD SAKES, RUSSERT, ASK THE KING A QUESTION ABOUT DEMOCRACY: I may wish I were Tim Russert, but that won't stop me from criticizing him. This morning, Meet the Press somehow managed to get an exclusive interview with King Abdullah of Jordan. As usual, Russert sought to lay a trap for his guest. But it was the wrong trap.

Instead of asking Abdullah why he continues to rule with an iron fist while democracy awakens in Lebanon and Iraq, Russert instead tried to force the king to admit that he was much more pro-American than his subjects.

Well, obviously. But the real question is, what should Abdullah and America do about it? George Bush argues consistently but controversially that bringing democracy to the Muslim/Arab world will transform its peoples' attitudes towards the United States of America.

Bush's critics that the liberalization of Muslim/Arab dictatorships may accomplish nothing more than bringing jihadist regimes to power. I disagree, but it is a very important point to discuss in detail.

And what better case in point than Jordan? Russert could've challenged Abdullah to give his people the freedom they deserve. Or he could've asked Abdullah whether the only alternative to his rule is a jihadist republic. Either way, Russert missed a critical opportunity. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:58 PM by David Adesnik  

LOVING THE BAD OLD DAYS: An author reflects on the East Village before gentrification. I grew up toward the western side of Village and think that the entire neighborhood has improved immeasurably since I was young. Starving artists may no longer be able to afford a Village rent, but revolutionaries should be thinking about the future instead of trying to preserve the past. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:49 PM by David Adesnik  

OXBLOG'S IDEAS ARE MUCH BETTER THAN ITS TECHNOLOGY: In a futile bid to enter the 21st century of home computing, I made an attempt last night to upgrade my laptop from Windows 98 Second Edition to Windows XP. In some respects, the effort was successful. But now my computer is burdened with a tragic flaw worthy of Shakespeare.

Although I can connect to the Internet thanks to my trusted Linksys G wireless card, the connection fails every few seconds. And then returns. And then fails. And then returns. And so on and so forth.

On the bright side, I can check my e-mail and do other basic tasks. But any program that requires sustained connectivity -- iTunes, for example -- is now semi-functional at best.

Just now, I spent an hour and forty-five minutes on the phone with Microsoft technical support. I must admit, I'm very impressed that the technical rep kept up a positive attitude for the entire time I was talking to her. But I think I would've accepted a lesser attitude in exchange for a solution to my problem.

On the off chance that any of you have endured a similar problem while upgrading to XP, please let me know. Until then, I will attempt to maintain my sanity via the continuous consumption of alcohol. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:35 PM by Patrick Belton  

HAD I BEEN A ROUNDHEAD, I would undoubtedly have finished my thesis by now. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:00 PM by Patrick Belton  

PARIS MOMENT: So, shortly after filing Article the First from my cafe yesterday evening and prior to heading to my friend's temporarily ceded flat by Gare St-Lazare to begin work on the second, I was contemplating the inexhaustible number of ways nice crepes were nicer than nasty ones, and in particular, those freely growing on the street to ones housed in restaurants, so nice and so deeply a life-changing crepe experience that I suspected mine of containing not only oeuf, lard, but also liquified crack cocaine (ed: heroin - more upmarket!). My thought was on these weighty and important mysteries when I ended up, in a Parisian moment out of a genre film, meeting an Algerian secretary Salima and a postman named Thierry, neither of whom knew each other but who like me had congregated to listen to a subway musician from Brittany non-Spears play Breton bagpipes. We started talking, mostly when a panhandler asked me for change, I pretended only to speak Mandarin Chinese, and Thierry the postman helpfully translated.

OxBlog (in Mandarin): very nice music, isn't it
Panhandler (in French): money, please
Helpful Pausing Postman: this gentleman is wondering if you happened to have a euro.
OxBlog: it's a very intriguing proposition, but I'm not yet convinced.

Algerian Secretary then exited from the crowd to join this interesting conversation and perhaps offer Arabic translation services. It was, after all, a Friday in Paris, and no one seemed terribly eager to make the subway connection to leave it and go home. So, I suggested to the Postman and the Secretary that we go out for a drink, not solely because it seemed like the sort of random and aesthetic thing one does in Paris. As we wondered through the rues of the northern 8eme, the Secretary then shared her ambition to become a jazz singer and started demonstrating by singing us jazz standards, as we walked out toward adventure, fraternité and the Guinness which upon learning my name my comrades fretted I must instantly be given as a matter of the greatest urgency, or likely death would result. We paused by the nice gentleman speaking about Jesus so the Secretary could share that as an entirely assimilated Algerian, she didn't like the Qur'an at all on literary grounds, and much preferred the Bible of the Christianity to which she converted so that as a better assimilated Frenchwoman, she would instead have it as the religion she didn't believe in.

After much adventure, the scene ended up as follows.

parisienne: you're depressed. i can see it in your eyes.
oxblog: no. it's just 4 am, it's cold and raining on the champs, and i'm in shirt sleeves.
parisienne: tell me about all this pain of yours. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:46 PM by David Adesnik  

"JESUS CHRIST, WHOM I WORSHIP": There's often a lot of talk among Democratic strategists about how to break the Republican monopoly on religion-in-politics. A perennial suggestion for the Democrats is to talk about religion in a positive manner, in order to avoid the coastal condescension that inhabits most liberal criticism of conservative evangelicals.

But what would it sound like for a Democrat to talk about religion in a positive and persuasive manner? All too often, calculated efforts to talk positively about religion come across as just that -- calcuated. (For example, take a look at Hillary Clinton's ostentatious but maddeningly vague references to religious values in her autobiography.)

But a few days ago, I was listening to Brian Williams talk to Jimmy Carter on C-SPAN. The subject was Carter's new book, Our Endangered Values. While talking about the separation between church and state, Carter referred in passing to "Jesus Christ, whom I worship."

Carter's total comfort and sincerity with these words is what Democrats are searching for. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:34 PM by David Adesnik  

THE SOFT BIGOTRY OF LOW EXPECTATIONS: Earlier this week, I had a good bit of fun at Ted Kennedy's expense. But is it really fair to pick apart Kennedy's statements without subjecting Republican senators to the same scrutiny?

For example, Tom Coburn talked to Tim Russert just after the end of Russert's discussion with Ted Kennedy. Russert immediately tripped up the Oklahoma Republican by pointing out his promise to oppose any Supreme Court nominee who refused to outlaw partial-birth abortion. But then after Alito was nominated, Coburn declared his opposition to any single-issue litmus test.

If I felt like it, there's plenty more in the Coburn interview to poke fun at. But what it comes down to is that Kennedy has a reputation as a man of principle and a deep thinker, whereas the media tends to portray Coburn as a not-all-there extremist (except when Coburn criticizes the Bush's profligate spending).

All I can promise is that if the media starts heralding Coburn as a genius, OxBlog will be the first to expose his idiocy. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:30 PM by David Adesnik  

RETURN TO FALLUJAH: Bing West is a former Marine and assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration who went with the Marines into Fallujah. He has now written a harrowing account of the violent, house-to-house battles for control of that city. A while back, West got the chance to talk about his book on After Words, the book discussion show on C-Span 2.

Thanks to the magic of podcasting, I got to listen to West even though I missed the original broadcast. (The URL for the After Words podcast is: <http://www.c-span.org/podcast/aw_feed.xml>. For a full list of C-Span podcasts, click here.)

West describes the intensity of the battles for Fallujah in a way that makes you tense and angry just listening to him. In urban combat, there is no choice but to go house to house, fighting at almost point-blank range. Each house is a darkened maze that renders every soldier in it vulnerable to brutal surprise. As West wrote last month in the WaPo,

Fallujah first leaped to national attention last November when it became the scene of the fiercest urban combat in the past 35 years. During that battle, 100 Marine squads engaged in more than 200 firefights inside small, dark cement rooms against suicidal jihadists. A single such ferocious gunfight between police and gangs anywhere in America would receive overwhelming and immediate press attention. The Marines did that 200 times in one week in Fallujah.

But the courage and competence of the US Marines gets little attention because it is so commonplace. We faithfully count the number of soldiers killed in Iraq, but give little recognition to their incredible heroism and bravery. Perhaps that would be a better way to honor their sacrifice. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:19 PM by David Adesnik  

TWO VERSIONS OF TRUTH ON THE SAME PAGE OF THE WaPo: On the front page of Wednesday's "C" section, Howard Kurtz wrote about Mary Mapes, the CBS producer responsible for the fiasco involving fake documents about young Dubya's service in the National Guard. According to Kurtz, Mapes

Ladles out plenty of blame but largely defends what she still considers a fair piece of reporting, although an independent panel accused CBS of having "failed miserably" to authenticate the documents before rushing the story to air.

Now, if you follow Kurtz's story to its end on page C12, you will notice that there is a second, entirely separate discussion of Mapes' book by Paul Farhi, who writes that:

It's entirely possible that Mapes was wrong -- very wrong -- about Bush's military record. But that's still only theoretical...

The "independent" panel that CBS hired to look into the story (composed primarily of lawyers, not journalists, and co-chaired by a former Republican attorney general) cast plenty of doubt on the story and CBS's handling of it. But it never said the report was baseless, never accused Mapes or Rather of political bias or called the memos fraudulent.

Now back to Kurtz:

Linda Mason, a CBS News senior vice president, said Mapes was fired because "her basic reporting was faulty. She relied on documents that could not be authenticated -- you could never authenticate a Xeroxed copy. She led others who trusted her down the wrong road." ...

Three of CBS's own document experts say they had warned CBS they could not authenticate the memos. Mapes's source for the documents, former National Guardsman Bill Burkett, later admitted lying about who had given him the memos said to have been written by Bush's long-dead Guard commander.

Personally, I trust Kurtz's account more than Farhi's. Kurtz covered this story from the beginning and constantly provides first-rate coverage of the media. Plus, my own knowledge of the situation suggests that Kurtz is right. But some people will believe Farhi, because he is also a WaPo staff writer who covers the media.

The bottom line here is that journalists have a habit of presenting their own subjective, sometimes wild, interpretations as the unvarnished truth. It is precisely that habit that got Mary Mapes into so much trouble. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:45 PM by Patrick Belton  

EXCERPT FROM AN EMAIL TO A FRIEND: What lingers for me was the pride the rioters express in the toughness of their neighbourhood - referring to it as 'ghetto' and 'south Bronx', and offering to take you to caches of molotov cocktails, drugs and arms - which seems to tap into a performative identity of images provided by American media of anger and power. When police aren't around, they speak with exaggerated bravado, pointing out wreckage they claim responsibility for. They're kids, generally from fourteen to eighteen, and they were simply having a rather violent holiday, bashing up cars and bus stops because it's fun to do so. Locals don't want to say anything about them, their own children, students or customers, preferring to blame teenagers from other banlieues, as an article of faith. Residents are quite friendly to curious outsiders, and get on with their lives amid all the high fences surrounding each building of their estates, but they grow silent and uncomfortable when you bring up the unspoken current event. There's nothing religious at all to the riots; these aren't kids who reference religion at all, except to claim to you (possibly with some exercise of imagination) that they have friends in Guantanamo, and they might perhaps add Israel, Jews, and Sharon to France, Sarkozy, the police, and other people whose names in their drunken, possibly drugged, and excited invocations follow after the French equivalent of 'Fuck'. But this is acting out a repertory of imitation; the mosques have made off badly, while Jewish targets have by and large not. The mosques for their part have become taciturn and suspicious of outsiders; I was kicked by its imam with some force out of one, unmarked and in an industrial area, where I had been speaking with a congregant. There's a broader economic story surrounding all this, which gets away from the banlieues a bit and I might develop elsewhere, but where the French left and right are both in agreement about the rather Malthusian proposition that there is a limited amount of work to be distributed among the French, differing only in whether they prescribe it be allocated on the basis of non-immigrant status or equally over the population. There's a great disquiet now with the French model among people who while at Sciences Po would have taken for granted its virtue, and only a shared suspicion of fairly change, assumed to come and to bring jarring dislocations. Shortage of jobs and economic opportunities produced by the economy seems ultimately behind the anger of the young toughs; religious militancy or religion at all is not on their minds.

DEPT OF ARS SCRIPTORIA AFFAIRS UPDATE: When I said, incidentally, that my favourite cafe wasn't intolerably touristic, I should perhaps append a corollary for Friday nights: on Friday nights, it is often possible to find someone in my favourite cafe who speaks French. We on OxBlog like to look on the bright side of things. So, here it is that on Friday nights, by going here you can feel really awfully fluent in French! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:47 AM by Patrick Belton  

A CHANCE TO HELP THE PAKISTAN EARTHQUAKE VICTIMS, AND ENJOY WONDERFUL BACKYARD CRICKET ENACTMENTS:

Hi Patrick,

You've previously mentioned my Ashes cricket photos at Oxblog (ed: we did, they were rather famously 'some of the best photographs the game has produced'!), so I just wanted to let you know that I've put a poster together for my Ashes blog re-enactment photos. Someone left a comment suggesting that I should do something like this, and I'm crazy enough to give it a try. It's up for sale on Ebay at the moment:

"Now, exclusively to Ebay, you can purchase this fantastic 8 inch by 12 inch print of original re-enactments from The Greatest Series - England v Australia 2005. Each of the five Tests is covered:
a.. Lord's - "Adam Gilchrist celebrates the wicket of Freddie Flintoff - caught Gilchrist, bowled Warne for 3."
b.. Edgbaston - "Ricky Ponting trudges back to the pavilion after being dismissed for a duck."
c.. Old Trafford - "Michael Vaughan salutes the crowd after scoring a century at Old Trafford."
d.. Trent Bridge - "With a beer and a cigarette in one hand, and a ball in the other, Shane Warne very nearly won the game for Australia."
e.. The Oval - "Under dark and gloomy skies, Andrew Strauss is caught by Simon Katich close to the wicket. This photo is a re-enactment of the bad light."
It's not serious - and it's not meant to be - but you will be proud to hang this print up on your wall. It has been professionally printed on photo paper, and it looks just like the sort of thing you would get at the Channel Nine Sport Shop."

Here's the link:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8719009376&ru

I'll also be donating the entire amount that it sells for to World Vision's Pakistan earthquake appeal ... so hopefully I get at least a few dollars for it. With that in mind, I'd really appreciate it if you could make a short reference to it at your blog.

Thanks mate.

Sincerely,

Darryl
The Ashes blog

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:11 AM by Patrick Belton  

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:57 PM by Patrick Belton  

ECSCUSEZ MONSIEUR, JE CHERCHE RACAILLE: I'm in hiding, writing to file the first of two magazine pieces from here.

This from the mail bag, and David Harbottle.

Patrick,

It's great that you got yourself to Paris; I'm envious.

I have some questions. Feel free to ignore them, respond to them or do anything else with them.

To what extent do you think Sarkozy's policing policy caused the riots? Do you think, for example, that it might have disrupted the narcotics economy too successfully and added to the backlash?

According to reporters, there's supposed to be "coordinated organisation" - use of mobile phones, vehicles (gasp, vehicles!), bomb factories. But this sounds like the sort of organisation any reasonably well-nourished Arab gentleman would devise on the fly, rather than a sinister central brain at work. The latter would of course be more exciting, but are you hearing anything to support the idea?

How old is the average rioter? I understand he's around fourteen, and in my view this would explain the light touch of the police - serious injury or death to a child would cause the suburbs to explode. No wait... that's what already happened. But you get my point.

I'll leave it at that. Greetings and best regards from the frozen north of England.

David.

More soon, elsewhere but will link from here. But I must pause to defend a haunt, Sartre's Café de Flore, from vicious charges it's grown intolerably touristic. I defend my loves bitterly; like much of Saint Germain it has free wireless internet, and without the horrid need to procure WiFi cards each 15 minutes, as per Parisian tradition; and though a café crème is 5.50 rather than, i.e., the Bastille's dominant 3.50, you're actually getting a bit over two cups of coffee, by volume, when you take into account the beaker in which it's served you. And among the tourists you're likely to get also some of life's interesting people, such as the hare krishna fellow who just paused to tell me a story about how at the Mac Expo at La Defense several years ago, they killed twenty apple trees for the advertising of a computer. After the hatred and fear of the young rioters of Aulnay, it's rather nice to be around couples embarassing their flower peddler with their displays of affection. I would have taken a photograph. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:57 PM by Patrick Belton  

IN BAN-LIEU OF PICTURES: I had a little scrape in a cité in north Aulney, and so now need to modify two claims made in my previous post. I have now met some rioters, and I no longer have pictures to share, nor come to think of it, a camera. I got nothing of theirs. On the other hand, taking care of myself decently enough I rather nicely got to keep my unbacked up dissertation, wallet, and the passport and press card I'd kept with me in the off chance I had to give an accounting of myself to police. Nasty horrid villains. Pluck though being a virtue, OxBlog will be out there again tomorrow. With a disposable camera, this time. But a thousand words being worth a picture, I suspect I can make it up to you lads. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:34 AM by Patrick Belton  

THE 'GIVE A BLOGGER A CHANCE' FOUNDATION prize for the day would go happily to the generous people at Public Radio International, who very kindly had me on to their Radio Open Source programme last night from the banlieu of Aulnay-sous-Bois, where I spent the day from morning till midnight speaking with its residents. Incidentally, the staff at PRI and their Detroit affiliate are really wonderful people, and I enjoyed every aspect of being on their airwaves. You can listen to the broadcast here. It's kind of like podcasting.

I'd arrived at Aulnay-sous-Bois yesterday expecting a seething cauldron on just the point of boiling over. What I found was quite different, and surprised me. Aulnay has seen the worst violence of any of the banlieues to date, but its housing projects had their windows open, laundry hung out to dry, music and laughter spilling out from within; the streets were filled with children playing. The only odd inkling this was a neighbourhood whose violence this week featured in the news of every newspaper in the world was the procession of the odd burnt car being towed away like a discarded effigy; or, in the case of the Hertz station which lay inconveniently by the Cité de l'Europe, a whole parking lot of them. Someone clearly had a bad experience the last time renting.

To back up a moment, two things take place at the RER-B stop immediately before Aulnay's. One, the graffiti stops; and two, all the white people get off. But on exiting the station one could be forgiven an unsettling feeling you'd accidentally got off at the wrong dodgy banlieu. In the vieux pays and the area about the gare - southern Aulnay - the only indication that you're not in another well-heeled metropolitan suburb anywhere in the world is the awfully well-reinforced steel walls setting apart the houses, replete with their gardens and long driveways, from the street. This is a quarter with hotels: the cars on the streets are BMWs. It's only when you go north from there, up toward the Citroën plant and the R.N. 2 which bisects the banlieu, that you encounter the fields of high-rise housing projects, the famous cités. When the first of these were erected in the aftermath of the second world war, they were considered rather nice places to live - they had running water and en suite toilets inside, not by any means a given within the périphérique, where the postwar chaos was such to create the lasting impression on the other side of the Channel that the French were a naturally malodorous lot. It fit in Houssmanian traditions of rationalisation in Parisian city planning, and the aesthetic tendencies of Courbusier. It wasn't until the 1970s, the Algerian civil war and the onset of massive labour migration to Paris from the maghreb, that the acquired the reputation as a no-go zone that they retain today.

Go and talk to their residents, and you're struck that they're actually rather nice to you once you say hello. As assiduously as I donned turtleneck and leather jacket to simulate a Frenchman and, it was hoped, a not too out of place banluisard, I still perhaps didn't quite fit in, whatever diversified portfolio of national identities in which I might traffic, French maghrebian being decidedly not among them. Fairly tough lads, though, will still chat with you quite amiably once you talk to them; at any rate, they didn't seem too eager to engage in busting up any cars while I was there with my notebook and camera, however much I tried to indicate they really should pretend I wasn't there, make themselves at home and just carry on with what they were doing. Most residents of the cités where I spent the day behaved in a way that's quite familiar from housing projects across the world; they queued to pick up their playing children from school, they dropped off teenagers by car in the late evening, and a handful of them engaged in the time-honoured pursuit of sitting about outside with a cigarette or two trying their best to look ominous. Talk to them, and to admit selection bias I haven't yet caught up with anyone with a sledgehammer, and they express intense fury at the rioters, who they feel will quite neatly worsen the lot of the banlieu residents and people of north African descent, playing perfectly into the worst suspicions held about them and mitigating any chance for improving their lot. (This may not be the case, entirely: De Villepin is announcing a ferry of equality-of-opportunity initiatives, to include curiously lowering the age of school-leaving from 16 to 14 for children seeking out an apprenticeship. But social sentiment, and the often expressed feeling that a c.v. bearing the name of Ahmed and not Alain will quickly end up in the bed, is less likely to be so sympathetic.) Shopkeepers are peculiarly angry; they've had to lose business from early closings, and fear for their plate glass. In a sense, then, it is a neighbourhood stricken by fury - but this aimed inward at the rioters and not outward at France, quite to my surprise, really.

Policing is an interesting drama to observe here, and fits this reading of the banlieu riots as the handiwork of determined criminal gangs rather than a spontaneous, Francophone uprising of the oppressed to gladden the hearts of Trotskyists. (So does incidentally the pattern of violence - it dances about from banlieu to banlieu, staying one step ahead of increased policing in a cat-and-mouse strategic tango.) Go to the tourist core, the Champs and Arc de Triomphe, and you will see quite visible policing in spodes. It's policing intended not only to deter, but also to be visible, to comfort tourists and native Parisians that their city is intact. I've noted already the busloads of gendarmes, painted blue and bearing 'gendarmerie' in white letters on the side, and the tens of cars and wagons from the police nationale parked alongside the Champs metro station. But go to Aulnay and a quite different pattern emerges. At first, I'd thought that it was minimally policed if at all; only the periodic patrol car from the well-heeled southern police annexe protecting the respectable cars of the besieged comparably affluent, and the northern annexe situated alongside the projects which is there for quite a different reason. But look closer, and there are signs that here there indeed is a war being fought by the French state, not by massive billeting of troops to quell an uprise and reassert the temporarily abeyed sovereignty of the state and the monopoly of leviathan on force, but a more secret war, being fought by the security services against determined hardened criminal networks, clandestinely and quietly selecting its targets, and in the shadows so as not to alienate a broader and possibly tendentious populace. Look carefully at the cars going by, and there are not only those occupied by project residents and the southern quarter's shopmen, but ones bearing in each seat beefy short-coiffured men clearly only recently out of the forces, if at that, with more than a bit of technological wizardry inside to boot. There is a bus of gendarmes here as well, but this one does not bear the title 'gendarmerie' on the side to comfort those whom it protects and serves; it has its lights out, and is parked at an out-of-the-way stop a few roads removed from a project to effectively simulate an off-duty bus. Peer closer into its darkened windows and it is a hive of activity. The French state is here too; it has not given up on these of its neighbourhoods; it merely joins the battle on its terms, and against its selected enemies. Partially this may reflect the units under the control of the Minister of the Interior, whose remit includes the security services but not the armed ones (these last controlled by a resolute Chiracien at the MOD.) But one hopes that the French state is not so wholly riven by its succession struggle that it is incapable of strategic action; and these instruments would fit that reading of the situation nicely. A state defeats riotous masses with brigades and divisions; but one counters lightly mobile criminal gangs with a tradecraft determinedly more old-school, quiet, hardened and effective.

The banlieues slept quietly last night, the fireworks heading instead on the road to Toulouse; at 5, my drinking buddy from NPR, borrowing quickly my map of Aulnay to scribble down the mosque before heading to meet a bravely non-Francophone parachuter, was summoned to a southern banlieu where, the mobile phone-mediated reportorial meme machine reported, the night's action was to be. (It wasn't; but I'm promised interesting stories nonetheless over our next impromptu stringers' brigade alcohol tasting party à tête.) It's raining, which may just dampen things a bit tonight. I'm headed to the Aulnay mosque to make friends and try and file a lengthier piece from there, being as it is the site of the most resolute violence still. It's hugely ugly weather. I was able to shoot off a memory card of film of images of the Aulnay projects; I'll share them here as soon as I prove technologically capable. The sunset was a striking image, rising red over the banlieues and stamped bright with the white partial moon of the huntress.

(Incidentally, for those of you who hadn't read it already, perhaps the internet censors will permit me to dredge up this piece the TLS kindly ran over the summer about the banlieues. Or, if you're our reader in Mexico, you can wait for the Spanish-language edition which I'm told by my TLS editor is coming out this weekend in the literary supplement of Madrid's newspaper ABC. OxBlog: multilingual since next Sunday.) (3) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:58 AM by Patrick Belton  

JUST BECAUSE I'M NOT POSTING DOESN'T MEAN I'M DEAD DEPT: Only that there aren't nearly enough internet spots in the banlieues. No wonder they're rioting. A few quick observations from my first interviews, before I catch the RER up to Aulnay-sous-Bois; then I'll try to write more extensively this afternoon:

There is, in speaking with its people at its cafes and on its streetcorners, a sense of malaise these days in Paris, which I think you could probe further by juxtaposing the despair of the banlieu rioters with the stories of the increasing numbers of graduates of Paris's leading business schools who go to Britain upon graduation, or those of postgraduate degree holders working as postmen. All have in their way given up on the French dream, a comfortable lifestyle sheltered by an extensive and humane welfare state. The Dalrympean take, I suppose, would be to say that in both cases it's the unproductivity of the French economy that's partially to blame, particularly after the massive explosion in the size of the state during the early Mitterand years. People who during their days at Science Po took easily for granted the superiority of the French model, with its educated technocracy and comfortable standards of living, now despair over it. The operatic trio of Chirac (who, in the one sentence all American schoolchildren are taught in school, is un ver), Sarkozy (not only his former political son but, as his daughter's one-time lover, nearly his one by marriage as well), and Villepin may make for lovely libretto, but not for conspicuously good governance: Chirac's eerie absence from the airwaves until Sunday night led commentators to suspect that perhaps he and his preferred successor Villepin wouldn't mind too terribly much if it took a few more days for this to quiet down when the weather turns disagreeable, and the blame were deposited solidly on Sarko's door.

The police presence of the French state is everywhere: if not in Clichy and Aulnay, then at very least along the Champs and by the Place de la Concorde. Last night I was surprised to count ten police cars by the Elysee metro station (in a row, to cite a song from the wrong side of the Channel), then by the American embassy two entire large buses of Gendarmerie (painted blue, no police light on top though, however cool though that might have been) and the odd plainclothes unit (they being the ones who look like cops in suits, rather than French people in suits.)

Commentators have compared the loi sur la voile to the Dreyfus affair, manufactured by the French political class without necessity to reflect the fact the Republic regards some of its citoyens with suspicion. That it doesn't is clear enough: unemployment is high among all sectors of the French economy, but holding constant for education and age, it doubles among France's Muslims, the Algerian and Moroccan descendants who are in this regard the converse of the more professional, and more Levantine, American Muslim community who in educational attainment, salary, and employment rate exceed America's non-Muslims.

Paris is burning. It has done so before. Those of 1848 were the street riots of modernism, heralding enlightenment and republicanism versus the restoration of the ancien regime. The soixante-huitards's were those of postmodernity, seeking to resituate the individual and power at the centre of a discourse which modernity and liberalism's had to their view hidden. One is tempted to see in 2005 the riots of the atavistic, but that would be overdrawing the issue - they are the riots of Newark, Watts, and Brixton come to Paris. Those residents of the banlieues who are religious, even Islamist, are not the ones who are throwing stones or assaulting the Marais's Jews (whatever international activity some of their number may get up to to the side). Contra one recent meme of commentary, the problem of the banleieus in a sense is not that its inhabitants are Muslim, but that they are not.

France's Muslim population is, at 5 million, the largest in Europe. (Germany's comes next at 2 million, and the United Kingdom at 1.5 mn.) I'm off to talk to some of them. I spoke this morning with someone whom I asked, if I wanted to get to the banlieues, which was the best route. His response was to take issue with the premise of my question. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:50 PM by David Adesnik  

CHENEY AND TORTURE: I've only had time to read one article about this subject, but my instinct says that Cheney is completely oblivious to the moral and strategic cost of his lackluster concern for the abuse of American-held prisoners. (2) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:36 PM by David Adesnik  

DO AMERICAN SOLDIERS REALLY STILL BELIEVE IN THEIR MISSION? Steve Fainaru, a WaPo correspondent in Iraq, strongly suggests that the answer is "No". In an front page article entitled "For Many in Iraq, Death Is Quick and Capricious", Fainaru writes that:

The growing number of U.S. military deaths, which reached 2,000 last month and has since risen to 2,035, underscores a grim reality: There are countless ways to die in Iraq...

Asked if he thought [Sgt. Kevin] Davis's death was justified, [Sgt. Pete] Heidt chuckled darkly, repeated the question and paused for several moments.

"We're soldiers," he said finally. "That's what we do. Sometimes we die."

"Dying for Iraq is a horrible way to die," said Spec. Aaron Novak, 25, of Billings, Mont. "But to die for your buddies, that's the way I look at it. Iraq is going to be here a long time after we're gone."

This passage is just a brief aside in article that focuses mainly on the tragic death of Sgt. Robbie McNary, crushed during battle by his own unit's American humvee. But it drew my attention because those of us who still believe in victory in Iraq often point to our soldiers' commitment as evidence of the fact that this war very much is a noble cause.

Although I don't have much choice but to give Fainaru the benefit of the doubt, the NYT's highly selective (and now infamous) editing of Cpl. Starr's final message to his family and girlfriend leaves me wondering whether communication between soldiers and journalists has become entirely dysfunctional.

UPDATE: Noel Shepard is frustrated with this article for a different reason. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:28 PM by David Adesnik  

PALESTINIAN TERRORISTS ALSO TARGET HOMOSEXUALS: I guess it isn't surprising that those who murder Israeli children also torture and murder homosexuals. But James Kirchick is also 100% right that human rights activists should be paying more attention to this phenomenon. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:17 PM by David Adesnik  

HOPING FOR A DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION IN AZERBAIJAN: Publius has the story and the latest updates. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:41 PM by David Adesnik  

RUSSERT PLAYS THE SPIDER TO KENNEDY'S FLY. The transcript speaks for itself:

MR. RUSSERT: Samuel Alito, the president's new nominee -- let me take you back when he was appointed to the Court of Appeals, 3rd Circuit. Here's Ted Kennedy. [Sound of Kennedy's voice, c. 1990 -ed.]:

"Well, I just join in the commendation. You have obviously had a very distinguished record, and I certainly commend you for long service in the public interest. I think it is a very commendable career and I am sure you will have a successful one as a judge. ...We are glad to have you here and we will look forward to supporting you and voting for you."

So I assume based on that, you'll support him for the Supreme Court.

SEN. KENNEDY: Well, it's possible, but let me just point out that that was for a lower court and some 15 years ago. And since that time, he's had 15 years of decisions on the circuit court...

The people that were so enthusiastic about knocking down Miers are so enthusiastic for this nominee. We have to find out: Why are they so enthusiastic this time and what do they know that we don't know?

That's pretty funny. Kennedy is an experienced member of the Judiciary Committee, but he's suggesting that Christian conservatives know more about Alito than he does. Now that's what I call oversight. Anyhow:

MR. RUSSERT: It's interesting, Senator, though, the way the Senate has changed and I think maybe you have changed in the way you approach Supreme Court nominees. When you first came to the Senate, you said this. "I want to state that it is our responsibility as members of the committee ...in advising and consenting, that we are challenged to ascertain the qualifications and the training and the experience and the judgment of a nominee, and that it is not our responsibility to test out the nominee's particular philosophy; whether we agree or disagree ..."

You don't question Judge Alito's competence...

SEN. KENNEDY: No.

MR. RUSSERT: ...or integrity...

SEN. KENNEDY: No.

MR. RUSSERT: ...but you questioned his philosophy.

SEN. KENNEDY: Judicial philosophy is something that Judge Rehnquist thought was very important...

MR. RUSSERT: But that's different than the way you felt in '67...When Sandra Day O'Connor was nominated to the Supreme Court, Ted Kennedy said, "It's offensive to suggest that a potential Justice of the Supreme Court must pass some presumed test of judicial philosophy. It is even more offensive to suggest that a potential Justice must pass the litmus test of any single-issue interest group."

And yet if someone came before you as a nominee to the Supreme Court and they said they wanted to overturn Roe v. Wade, you'd vote against them.

SEN. KENNEDY: Well, if someone came before us and said, "Look, I want -- my intention is to overturn Roe v. Wade," that's bringing an ideology to the court...

MR. RUSSERT: But that's a...

SEN. KENNEDY: Wait a second.

MR. RUSSERT: But that's a single-issue litmus test.

SEN. KENNEDY: Now, wait a second. I am opposed to any litmus test for any nominee. That's been my position. But let me continue...

And continue he does, but let's fast forward a bit:

MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask you this: When there was a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, he nominated Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And at that time, "In her confirmation hearings, [Ginsburg] promised not to bring an ideological bias to the court but expressed opinions on several issues that put her at odds with some of her conservative colleagues. She acknowledged support for a woman's right to choose, praised the failed equal rights amendment and criticized discrimination against homosexuals."

And yet look at the vote. Ginsburg on August 3, 1993, passed 96-to-3. Stephen Breyer, who worked for you, approved 87-to-9. Liberal jurists, liberal judicial philosophy, and yet Republicans overwhelmingly said, "We know their views disagree with ours, but a Democratic candidate won the presidency, and he has a right to put those people on the court." Why won't you give President Bush the same courtesy?

SEN. KENNEDY: Well, first of all, I think he is entitled, obviously, for the selection. And he's going to nominate a conservative. The issue isn't so much are they--do they have a conservative view about the Constitution, but whether they bring an ideology to it...

Ah, yes. Here we go again with the "ideology". The good Senator claims that he is tolerant of all judicial philosophies, but will reject candidates who have an ideology. Apparently, the definition of "ideology" is "a judicial philosophy significantly different from my own."

Now, if you've had enough of Ted Kennedy and stop reading this post right here, you are forgiven. But Russert got in two more great shots that deserve to be posted. On the subject of White House personnel, Tim Russert asked:

MR. RUSSERT: Who should leave? Who should leave?

SEN. KENNEDY: Well, certainly Karl Rove ought to leave. He should...

MR. RUSSERT: He's not been charged with any crime.

SEN. KENNEDY: He should leave, though. He's being investigated at this present time. We're not assuming either guilty or innocence on any of these individuals.

Remember, Kennedy serves on the Judiciary Committee.

Finally, we come to a set up that I found to be completely transparent, but that Kennedy fell for hook, line and sinker:

MR. RUSSERT: You talked about Iraq. There's a big debate now about whether or not the data, the intelligence data, was misleading and manipulated in order to encourage public opinion support for the war. Let me give you a statement that was talked about during the war.

"We know [Iraq is] developing unmanned vehicles capable of delivering chemical and biological warfare agents...all U.S. intelligence experts agree they are seek nuclear weapons. There's little question that Saddam Hussein wants to develop them. ... In the wake of September 11th, who among us can say with any certainty to anybody that those weapons might not be used against our troops, against allies in the region? Who can say that this master of miscalculation will not develop a weapon of mass destruction even greater--a nuclear weapon. ..."

Are those the statements that you're concerned about?

SEN. KENNEDY: Well, I am concerned about it, and that's why I believe that the actions that were taken by Harry Reid in the Senate last week when effectively he said that we are going to get to the bottom of this...

MR. RUSSERT: But, Senator, what the Democrats stood for on the floor of the Senate in 2002 -- let me show you who said what I just read: John Kerry, your candidate for president. He was talking about a nuclear threat from Saddam Hussein. Hillary Clinton voted for the war. John Edwards, Joe Lieberman, John Kerry. Democrats said the same things about Saddam Hussein. You, yourself, said, "Saddam is dangerous. He's got dangerous weapons." It wasn't just the Bush White House.

In a word: Ouch! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:29 AM by Patrick Belton  

LANDED IN PARIS: And I've really got to say I'm incredibly grateful to a handful of recent Yale alumni list members and journalist readers of our blog who wrote back to my quick pleas for advice (and, in one noble case, for sofa) that I sent around before ducking out of Switzerland. The only interesting scene to sketch so far was at the Gare Lyon, where a platoon from the Foreign Legion were patrolling with submachine guns, and circled back around two men at the train station's underground metro entrance performing the midafternoon Salatu-l-Asr prayers, clearing searching their memories to remember whether suicide bombers did that before attacking, say, metros. The police presence is quite high - I passed four of what in a different context one might call Paddy wagons of the national police by the Bastille. So, the plan is that tomorrow I'll be following a recent Yale grad around Aulnay-sous-Bois, where she's been doing research, visiting the Paris Mosque, and chatting with staff of a few ngos which work in the banlieues. At the moment I'm rather more pedestrianly sorting out interview queries at a cafe in the Marais, where I was interested to chat with a few people as it's the traditional Jewish quarter, known to arriving Lithuanian immigrants as the 'Pletzl' (who in many cases would arrive at the train station with a piece of paper on which was written 'Pletzl', be ferried by hackney cab here, and then carry on speaking Lithuanian Yiddish as before). (Free wifi at said cafe! Café Le Reinitas, 32 rue du Temple. Come by in the next few minutes and the coffee's on OxBlog!).

Okay, that's it for now; more from this end once I get myself into some trouble for purposes of writing about it! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:24 AM by David Adesnik  

WE ARE EXPERIENCING TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES. Comments will begin as soon as I win my grudge match against the Blogger template. (1) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:25 AM by David Adesnik  

IS MAUREEN DOWD JUST A PARODY OF HERSELF? Last week, MoDo was on the cover of New York magazine. I think the story that went along with the cover photo was supposed to make her look good, but MoDo comes off as pretty shallow and self-absorbed.

On a similar note, MoDo's meditations on feminism in last week's NYT Magazine (full text here) won't do much to change her reputation as a pampered prima donna.

What it really all comes down to is that no one will ever tell you more about MoDo in fewer words than Josh Chafetz did in The Immutable Laws of Dowd. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:21 AM by David Adesnik  

CONGRATULATIONS, PROF. DREZNER! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:55 PM by David Adesnik  

HAS OXBLOG BEEN SEDUCED BY THE VIDEO iPOD? In Thursday's Slate, Jack Shafer thrashes the MSM for lavishing praise on every mediocre gadget coughed up by Apple.

Taken in by Apple's clever presentation of itself as the anti-Microsoft and by clever advertising that shamelessly exploits the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, journalists provide Apple with an extraordinary amount of free publicity. In exchange, Apple has often given the consumer little more than forgettable gewgaws such as the Newton.

Now, there's no question that press coverage of the video iPod has been pretty shameless. But I have to take issue with Shafer's suggestion that those, like myself, who buy the new iPod are just as naive as the cheerleader journalists. According to Shafer, the video iPod is a

Deliberately crippled by copy protection, low-res, underpowered video appliance that is merely Apple's first try in the emerging market of video players.

Perhaps my standards are too low, but I think the picture on my iPod is superb, and so do most of the people I show it too. Whether the iPod is crippled by copy protection, I don't know. In the next few days, I hope to play around with Videora, which may dramatically expand the range of visual content for my iPod. And I concede that the battery life could be better, although 2-3 hours is more than enough for my daily commute. (NB: If you only use the videoPod for sound, the batterly life is 15-20 hours.)

Regardless, it's never a bad thing to take media hype with a grain of salt. And if you want to laugh while you're at it, check out this parody of all things iPod. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:10 PM by David Adesnik  

TWO CHEERS FOR THE BBC: The first cheer is for the extensive list of podcasts that the Beeb makes available to its listeners. The second cheer is for the excellence of "The Soul Within Islam", a four-part documentary available via podcast from the BBC's Documentary Archive (Podcast URL: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rmhttp/downloadtrial/worldservice/documentaryarchive/rss.xml)

Although Part I seems to have been lost in the sands of time, Parts II, III & IV provide excellent coverage of religious trends in Indonesia, Malaysia, Turkey and Morocco. The Indonesian marriage of democracy and Islam is truly inspiring. This marriage may seem natural, since Southeast Asia has a distinctive heritage of toleration and enlightenment within Islam.

Yet the freedom that democracy has brought to Indonesia since 1997 is strengthening its heritage of enlightenment in unexpected. For example, is there any Arab Islamic nation in which truly open theological debates are broadcast on public television?

I don't know the answer to that question for sure, but I strongly suspect it is 'no'.
One can only hope that the freedom of Indonesian religious discourse has a catalytic effect throughout the Muslim world.

In contrast, the Malaysian government relies on propaganda to promote its program of religious toleration. Although the government's objective is praiseworthy, one has to wonder whether Malaysian fundamentalists will gain support because of their ability to portray themselves as noble, even pro-democratic dissidents.

In light of Malaysia's tradition of tolerance, I think it would be far wiser to have a truly open debate about Islam. Yet it is hard for a quasi-dictatorship such as Malaysia to let the people speak their mind in one forum, since they would surely demand the right to speak their minds in another and another.

The one major shortcoming of "The Soul Within Islam" is its unmitigated secular bias. Instead of attempting to understand those who resist moderation and tolerance within Islam, it simply brands them as fundamentalists, conservatives and worse. For the most part, their perspectives are entirely excluded from the documentary.

The real danger here is that "The Soul Within Islam" does nothing to separate the conservative Muslims who oppose women's rights from the even more conservative Muslims who question democracy from the terrorists who murder in the name of the Koran.

In the process of fighting the war on terror, it will be necessary to align ourselves with democratic conservatives against authoritarians and terrorists. And when Muslims who are ambivalent about democracy speak out against terrorism, we must recognize them as well.

I'm not talking here about the Mubaraks, the Assads or the other nominally Muslim dictators that plague the Middle East. Rather, I am talking about various religious organizations and individuals that may remain skeptical of the American agenda of democratization, but still firmly oppose the murderousness of Al Qaeda.

We should not compromise the project of democratization in order to placate the ambivalent, but we should do all that we can to persuade the ambivalent that America has much more to offer them than Al Qaeda. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:08 PM by Patrick Belton  

GONE FREELANCIN': I've in the last few days received a handful of friendly emails from our kind mums readers, asking why we're not covering the riots in Paris - given that French and western Muslims are of great interest to me and a subject I keep coming back to in my career as a writer. I was in the middle of writing back one of these kind parents readers explaining that I was really overwhelmed with a chapter for a book and another for my thesis, when it occurred to me, you people are entirely right. So I'm taking the 5 am train to Paris, to have a look around, walk around Clichy and talk with people I bump into, and if it works out that way, perhaps file a piece or two. I'll see you guys from there. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:53 PM by Patrick Belton  

MUTTERINGS OF A NATION: Hit or miss, but Overheard on the Underground has its moments. ('Of course it's not Halal. It's a ****ing pork chop.') ('Every country has its own fetish: the Germans seem to like ****ting on each other.') ('Goodbye Mein Kampf.') ('A brontosaurus could kill a stegasaurus... easily.') ('No offence like but I can't imagine you being skinny, like ever.') ('You shouldn't stop taking codeine if you've been on it for more than a week.') ('I never know what to say. I just stand there and look at her tits.') ('He sneezed and got snot all over her. It's not a great way to start a date.') ('I can pause live TV! I am practically a God.') ('Eventually, everyone in Asia will get adopted by Angelina Jolie.') ('What is to become of us, now that winter draws close?') ('She's been logging on to that Norwegian dating site.') ('All human tragedy is grist to your sordid entertainment mill.') ('Come with me. Walk with me. I'll buy you a sandwich.') &c. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:11 PM by Patrick Belton  

QUOTE OF THE DAY: 'The double-negative is a complete no-no.' - Humphrey Lyttleton (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:43 PM by Patrick Belton  

COW TIPPING. IT'S LIES, ALL LIES.


This courtesy the Times, Britan's most respected tabloid. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:13 PM by David Adesnik  

COMMENTS ARE COMING: Our trial period begins on Monday. We will use word recognition ("fuzzy words") to prevent spam, but won't require commenters to have a login. We hope that this will keep spam at a minimal level, which was one of your foremost concerns. If you have any other specific recommendations for how to eliminate spam, please send them along. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:52 AM by Patrick Belton  

THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN.

From Flanders to Iraq. OxBlog is happy to wear its poppy. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:56 AM by Patrick Belton  

HAPPY GUY FAWKES DAY, GO BURN SOME JESUITS IN EFFIGY BUT DON'T ACCIDENTALLY BURN THE REAL THING, WATCH: And they wonder why I'm sympathetic to British Muslims. Thus the BBC's David Cannadine, 'It's possible to be a Catholic Briton and admire Nelson; it's hard to be a Catholic Briton without wincing at the sight of an effigy of Guy Fawkes going up in flames.'

But no fear. Nowadays for his point of view, Guy has a blog. (Remember, remember, the 5th of November, gunpowder, reason, and blogs.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:28 AM by Patrick Belton  

BUSH BLAIR BONANZA!: For those of our readers interested in the evolution of the special relationship over time, particularly under the incumbent president and prime minister - and this includes me, since I'm meant to be doing some writing and a conference paper at SHAFR on the topic - the memoirs of Sir Christopher Meyer, recently retired Foreign Office man in Washington, ought to prove a useful and insightful source. His memoir, DC Confidential, is being published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, and serialised in the pages of the Guardian (appertifs here and here). I'll see if it's possible for us to review it here, as well. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:24 PM by Patrick Belton  

BENEFITS OF THE PEACE PROCESS ALREADY IN NI: These in the form of non-sectarian strippers. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:06 AM by Patrick Belton  

PAGING DAVID: The Pentagon goes Pod.

And they say we're technologically astute apologists for (Anglo-)American power. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:33 AM by Patrick Belton  

THE NAKED IRISH CHEF RIDES AGAIN: Or some less unmeaningly allusive title, particularly given our meal of the week is French. Prefatory material: roquefort, camembert. Chapter one: soupe de laitue. (Or, more simply, here.) Chapter two: prawns in a garlic and butter sauce on a bed of tomato paste. Chapter three: crepes, with assorted berries and maple ice cream on the side. Auteur note: serve unshaven while wearing a black turtleneck and smoking an unfiltered galloise. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:40 AM by Patrick Belton  

OXBLOG'S MILE-HIGH CLUB CORRESPONDENT BUREAU CHIEF ALAIN JUILLERAT GOES TO ASIA: And he sends us photographs.


Madras


Chennai (or a disturbingly large bit of it)


Moscow


The British coastline; extra points and the (exceedingly prestigious) OxBlog-Mandelbrot prize for guessing its length



He's reputed to fancy planes even more than quite nearly as much as members of the opposite sex.


Our dashing correspondent, ladies. He's the one with flowers around his neck. (Also second from right.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:18 AM by Patrick Belton  

BORIS JOHNSON BRAVELY TAKES ON DESERT ISLAND DISCS, or perhaps vice versa. Johnson is one of the brainier, and more humourous, chaps in British politics today; he's also, therefore necessarily, a blogger. His office has a partial transcript, with most of the better jokes redacted. Less interestingly, he hints he will renounce editorship of the Spectator once Cameron takes the Tory leadership battle. The honourable and New York-born gentleman from Henley is also the author of the words with which I intend to submit my dissertation to Oxford University: dark forces dragged me away from the keyboard, swirling forces of irresistible intensity and power. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:41 AM by Patrick Belton  

WALKING BAD FOR YOU, DRIVING SAFE: Friends, parents and concerned bystanders, noting I possess the habit of from time to time driving on the continent (on the right, ideally), in Britain and Ireland (on the left, same qualifier), and occasionally ferrying David about in the States (in a super-fly Cadillac El Dorado, side irrelevant), often ask me whether this, something like postgraduate education, poses undue or perhaps unneeded cognitive strain. No; not really. I find there are generally sufficient automobiles about that you can frequently puzzle out which side of the road you're meant to be on, and unless you've driven from Britain to the continent, the side of the car in which you're sitting also provides handy, constant subrational reminder. What I find truly dangerous, though, is walking. Speaking here I hope without excessive anglocentrism, I discovered this morning in Bern I no longer possess any clue which direction cars will come at me from when I cross a street. To be truly honest, I would not be surprised if on closer inspection they proved on replay to come simultaneously from both, and several nonorthogonally intersecting planes besides. (Trams too; this is the Continent.) I find to some extent you can mitigate certain death and tertiodiurnal resurrection as road pizza by (a) inspecting frantically all directions of the sphere until on the other side, and safely back in euclidian space, or, (b) asking an elderly lady to walk you across the street. They have, through long decades of urban natural selection, developed keener abilities in this regard than the rest of us, like bats in caves with sonar. But really; do the healthy thing, do the socially responsible thing, do OxBlog a favour, because we care for you, our readers. Drive a combustion engine automobile whenever possible. Including, if possible, to the toilet. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:40 AM by Patrick Belton  

TO MARMITE, ADD as worthy of export grade: Rivella, a soft drink made of milk serum (it makes you tell milk), and Knorr's Aromat (a seasoning which can be applied to everything, like cocaine; comparably addictive). Find a way to include all three in the same meal and you're Anglo-Swiss, or just simply weird. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:09 AM by Patrick Belton  

I OFTEN WONDER if there's an end eventually in the fun to be had with search engine referral logs. Then I think, no, really there isn't. So: OxBlog, your one-stop source for dirty stories in Urdu, Sonia's panties, What is the bipartisan policy?, and MoDo. All of which actually fits, in a way.

(Unlike Ms Gandhi's knickers. David, you can have them back now.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:09 PM by David Adesnik  

PANDACASTING: Sure, you could read about Tai Shan, the baby panda at the National Zoo. Or you could enjoy the very cute photo of him to the left. But really, nothing beats seeing little Tai Shan actually trying to walk or nuzzling with his mom, Mei Xiang. And for that you need a video podcast, courtesy of the WaPo. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:34 PM by David Adesnik  

TOO MUCH NUANCE! I mentioned a couple of days ago that I hope some day to understand what Stephen Breyer means when he talks about "active liberty". To that end, I downloaded an interview that Breyer did with George Stephanopoulos on the October 2 edition of This Week. (Podcast URL: http://abcnews.go.com/xmldata/xmlPodcast?id=940303)

Well, I still don't know what Breyer is talking about. Whenever Stephanopoulos asked Breyer anything, the justice was careful to hedge his remarks by saying that his answer only applied to certain cases. While it is admirable for Breyer not to overstate the value of his theory, I was really left with no sense at all of how to separate those cases to which it applied from those to which it didn't.

And I still don't understand the theory itself. What Breyer says he wants is for the court to take into consideration the Founders' desire to promote active participation in government. But by whom? Citizens? Legislatures? And what exactly counts as participation?

Perhaps the fault here is mine. My knowledge of constitutional logic and history is clearly deficient. And I clearly need to read Breyer's book. But I still get the sense that Breyer should be able to explain his ideas better.

It's not as if I'm asking for a soundbite or an elevator pitch. Breyer had almost 15 minutes on ABC. Not enough to convert a skeptic, but certainly enough to clarify his stance. Which makes me wonder: Is Breyer's maddening subtletly an inherent part of early 21st centuryAmerican liberalism?

Certainly, John Kerry got into plenty of trouble because he couldn't reduce his message to a soundbite. And here's another example: Last night, Chris Matthews had Howard Dean as a guest on Hardball. Take a look at their exchange about abortion:

DEAN: ...all these abortion cases, that's a family's personal business. That's not the government's business. And we'd like to keep the government out of people's private, personal lives.

MATTHEWS: But the Democratic Party [is] a pro-choice party, period?

DEAN: The government...

MATTHEWS: The Democrats, your party, is a pro-choice party?

DEAN: No. My party respects everybody's views, but my party firmly believes that the government should stay out of people's personal lives.

MATTHEWS: But you are a pro-choice party? Are you not? You sound like you're against ever being pro-life. Are you pro-choice?

DEAN: I'm not against people for being pro-life. I actually was the first chairman who met for a for a long time with pro-life Democrats.

MATTHEWS: This is the complicated thing for people. The people believe the Republican Party, because of its record, supports the pro-life position. Does your party support the pro-choice position?

DEAN: The position we support is a woman has the right to make -- and a family has the right to make up their own mind about their health care without government interference.

MATTHEWS: That's pro-choice.

DEAN: A woman and a family have a right to make up their own minds about their health care without government interference. That's our position.

MATTHEWS: Why do you hesitate from the phrase pro-choice?

DEAN: Because I think it's often misused. If you're pro-choice, it implies you're not pro-life. That's not true. There are a lot of pro-life Democrats. We respect them, but we believe the government should...

MATTHEWS: Do you believe in abortion rights?

DEAN: I believe that the government should stay out of the personal lives of families and women. They should stay out of our lives. That's what I believe.

I guess Dean should've said something like "Safe, legal and rare." But I think it's significant that Dean attempted to ground his position in a broad philsophical principle, i.e. the exclusion of government from family life, only then to back off from the logical application of that principle to the issue of abortion.

One might say that Dean's position is admirable. He is trying to return tolerance and civility to an issue plagued by divisiveness and resentment. Yet as a result, he comes of looking confused and/or disingenuous.

This is the Democrats' dilemma. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:21 PM by David Adesnik  

NBC OWNS OXBLOG (FOR NOW): One of the most important shortcomings of MSM criticism from the blogosphere is the fact that so few bloggers watch the big networks' evening news broadcasts.

Even though their audiences continue to splinter, the ABC, NBC and CBS broadcasts still reach about 30 million viewers (or 10 million each). In other words, their audience is an order of magnitude greater than the combined circulation of the NYT and WaPo, which suffer as the targets of an inordinate amount of criticism from the blogosphere.

So, if all of us are so interested in the (alleged) phenomenon of media bias, shouldn't we be watching the networks? Well, yes and no. In half an hour, you can learn a lot more by reading than you can by watching and listening. And how many of us are have schedules that allow us to sit down for half an hour each night, at the same time, in front of our televisions? And if we could sit down each at night, at the same time, in front of our televisions, wouldn't we prefer to watch the Simpsons? (I would.)

But this is where my brand-spanking new iPod comes in. I can download the network podcasts and watch them on the way to work. But for now, I'll only be watching NBC's Nightly News with Brian Williams. Why? Because it is the only one of the three broadcasts that delivers the entire broadcast in a single download, instead of divided up into segments.

The NBC download is also commercial-free, so it only takes twenty minutes to watch, instead of thirty, and you can even skip the human interest stories at the end. The podcast's one major shortcoming at the moment is that it provides only sound, and no images. But if video iPods turn out to be as successful as I hope, then images should be on the way.

So, in closing, have I learned anything yet by listening to Brian Williams? The answer is yes, yes I have: NBC has put up a special blog in which two of its correspondents describe their trek across the Gulf Coast to explore the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, as part of the Nightly News' in depth report on the the post-Katrina recovery.

I found it quite charming to hear Brian Williams suggest that viewers should read this "blog, or weblog". It would seem that the most impregnable of MSM citadels has now been breached. Precious moments on the evening news, watched by an audience of 10 million, are now being devoted to unpaid advertising for a blog. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:46 AM by Patrick Belton  

RETURN TO SARAJEVO: The World Service's Allan Little and Peter Burdin, who reported from Bosnia during the war in print and on radio, return and interview their original subjects a decade after Dayton, and alongside the drawing down of Paddy Ashdown's era as representative of the international community. I'll be writing in print later in the year on a related topic (on counterterrorism and the Nato-EUFOR handover), so I'll look forward to listening on the train ride down to Bern today, and returning to this subject tomorrow.

TRIVIAL PURSUITS: Paddy Ashdown has three first names: Jeremy, John, and Durham. Also 'Lord', if you want to count that, though it's technically somewhat more of a title. Note the conspicuous absence of 'Patrick'. He spent some time in NI as a child; hence Paddy. He also spent time in Delhi as a child, where he was in fact born; but to my knowledge no one calls him Vikram, or Madhusudhana even for that matter.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:35 AM by Patrick Belton  

IS IT JUST ME OR was the background rumble today during PMQs just a bit more rambunctious than usual? It surely had something to do with David Blunkett's cliff-hanger ending minutes before. Still, one wonders if they're pouring the pints a bit stronger in the Commons bar these days..... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:18 AM by Patrick Belton  

WILLIAM SALETAN develops further the theme of religion and the Court: since 1960, all four of the Jews appointed have been nominated by Democrats, all five Catholics by Republicans. Further, religion is a fair proxy for abortion preferences:

Six of the seven Protestants have defied pro-lifers. Only one of the five Catholics has done so, and in only one of six major cases.

If you're a pro-lifer, it's hard to escape the feeling that among the potential nominees in a Republican administration, Catholics are more reliable. Maybe it's the frank language of moral revulsion in abortion-related opinions by Thomas and Scalia. Or maybe it's the fact that Roberts' wife worked with Feminists for Life. Or maybe it's the fact that Alito's mother tells reporters, "Of course he's against abortion."

That's playing your cards fairly close to your chest. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:15 AM by Patrick Belton  

MAHMOUD THE TERRIBLE has ordered an unprecedented purge of diplomats he regards as reformists, including the urbane, American-educated Ambassador to London, reports the Times. Also encountering Ahmadinejad's Persian guillotine today are ambassadors to Paris, Berlin, the UN organs of Geneva, and Kuala Lumpur. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:14 AM by Patrick Belton  

BARNARDOS'S CAMPAIGN TO end child poverty in Ireland - very worth your time and units of your currency of choice.

(TANGENTIAL: Overheard on Morning Ireland, by I believe Brendan Butler: 'We're nouveau riche...') (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:12 AM by Patrick Belton  

IN MEMORIAM: Mary Wimbush, a.k.a. The Archers' Julia Pargetter. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:23 AM by Patrick Belton  

SEAMUS HEANEY on translation, war, and Antigone:

Shakespeare, as far as we know, didn't need to think twice. The problem identified once upon a time by Philip Larkin - of the discrepancy that often exists between the poems we would wish to write and the poems we are given to write - doesn't appear to have existed for him. According to the actors: "His mind and his hand went together." He possessed in abundance that "boldness in face of the blank sheet" which Pasternak regarded as the sine qua non of genius.

Readers recognise this rightness too. They take vicarious pleasure in the promise of openings such as "It is an ancient mariner/ And he stoppeth one of three" or "I will arise and go now and go to Innisfree". In such cases, you know that when the poets wrote the lines, they could have said what DH Lawrence says at the start of his Song of a Man Who Has Come Through: "Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me ..."

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:17 PM by David Adesnik  

KENNEDY ON ALITO c.1990 VS. KENNEDY ON ALITO c.2005: The following quotes are from separate front page stories in Tuesday morning's WaPo. First:

On April 5, 1990, four days after Samuel A. Alito Jr. celebrated his 40th birthday, he enjoyed a cakewalk of a hearing on his nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals. The Senate Judiciary Committee asked Alito only four questions -- just one more than its chairman, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), asked Alito's 4-year-old son, Philip.

Perhaps the good senator's memory is fading after almost 42 years in the Senate. Yesterday his tone was markedly different:

"The far right has now forced the president to choose a nominee that they think has views as extreme as their own," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

Well, I hope Kennedy has the good sense to cast the same vote on this extremist's nomination that he did in 1990.

By the way, I find it rather amusing how the Post unintentionally advertised the way that Kennedy has talked out of both sides of his mouth re: Alito. It just goes to show that the media is not a liberal conspiracy -- since a conspiracy would demand quite a bit more self-awareness. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:02 PM by Patrick Belton  

END OF THE BROADCAST DAY: Signing off for the night, broadcast day resumes at 5 am. Shipping forecast is q windy everywhere. Over to the OxBlog world service now. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:29 PM by Patrick Belton  

MICHIKO KAKUTANI REVIEWS BANVILLE'S BOOKER WINNER: She doesn't pull many stops in her praise: 'stilted, claustrophobic and numbingly pretentious,' 'chilly, dessicated and pompously written.' Actually, one starts to suspect she didn't like it. Actually, one starts to suspect she doesn't like most books, or perhaps books in general. We'll be reviewing it in this space, incidentally, as his publicist is kindly sending us a copy; Rushdie's latest, also. (Kakutani is a Pulitzer prize winning Yalie, incidentally, and single. But she doesn't like Banville, so it never would have worked.)

Vonnegut, auguring or perhaps just limning the New York Times's book critic: 'any reviewer who expresses rage or loathing for a novel is ... like a person who has just put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae or banana split.' (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:13 PM by Patrick Belton  

FIRST WE TAKE MANHATTAN, THEN WE TAKE THE WORLD WATCH: Alito if confirmed to be the fifth Catholic on the current Court. We just let the Jews (Bonesmen, Freemasons) think they run the world. Cunning, us jesuitical papists.

No, this is not an endorsement.

FOOTNOTE: Leonard Cohen, Antwerp, 17/04/88: 'It's a curious song. I used to know what it means but I don't remember what it means anymore. ... I think I intended to take Manhattan and then Berlin.' (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:26 PM by Patrick Belton  

THE NYT IS BRILLIANT WATCH: The headline, 'Michelin Awards 4 Stars to 4 N.Y. Restaurants'
The lead sentence: 'Michelin on Tuesday awarded four New York restaurants its coveted three-star rating in its inaugural restaurant and hotel guide to New York City.' (Ital. added.)
The question: really, we've caught you out at last. No one proofs this stuff, do they?

UPDATE: I suppose we do. They've gone and changed it. Now where's the fun in that? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:12 PM by Patrick Belton  

CONFUSED, BUT IT'S QUITE ALL RIGHT, I'M THAT WAY A GREAT DEAL, WATCH. Usually it's to do with consumption of alcohol; see following. But is it just me or is the current romantic art blogad on Glenn's site ... erm, a female presidential candidate?
I suppose now we simply have a small indicator of just how deeply President Bush has alienated the blogosphere. Does the right honourable Senator from New York have a position though on puppies and blenders? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:50 AM by Patrick Belton  

FESTUM OMNIUM SANCTORUM: In Spain, the performance today is traditional of Don Juan Tenorio, who was not a saint but had an awfully good time not being one. The day's hymn in the Catholic and Anglican churches, For All the Saints, is generally sung to the foot-tapping tune of Ralph Vaughan Williams, OM. The words, though, are those of public transport-taking suffragan Bishop of London William Walsham How (formerly of Wadham), who frequented the dockland slums and was in fact thought something of a saint there. (Given the Nelson anniversary, we could even note a Nelson connection: How's lyrics were first published in the Hymns for Saints' Days, and other Hymns (1864) by Thomas Nelson, nephew of the swashbuckler who in the peerage became Earl Nelson upon the first incumbent's death.) The personal connection: it was my school song, and I quite like it in spite of the fact I've never quite been accused of being a saint, and I once dated a How, though as a gentleman I will take to my grave whether she was or was not a saint. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:14 AM by Patrick Belton  

RITTER V. RITTER. Actually, I've often thought that by frequently disagreeing with myself I could become a one-person opinion industry. Riches, girls Tim Blair. Oh well. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:01 AM by Patrick Belton  

MY GOD, THEY'RE EVERYWHERE WATCH: This just in from OxBlog's Samhain and Scottish stuff correspondent Alex Massie,

Patrick,

Splendid stuff, as always.

You probably know that in plenty of the old Scottish fairy tales the fairies are far from the kindly, cute, little things popularly imagined today. On the contrary, they are malevolent, troublesome, vindictive creatures best avoided. [We call them yobs - pb]

Tonight they appear from that crack in time you refer to at Carterhaugh, the narrow plain at the confluence of the Ettrick and Yarrow rivers, just outside Selkirk in the Scottish Borders where they will dance for the Fairy Queen herself. (Caterhaugh is half a mile down the hill from where I grew up and does, at night, have an oddly eery feel to it. so I declare an interest here.)

She's a tough mistress as the final verses from the ballad of Tam Lin (as collected in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border by Sir Walter Scott - a must read, incidentally) make clear. Janet has returned to Caterhaugh to wait for her lover Tam Lin to reappear. The Queen is not amused:

52. Up then spake the Queen o Fairies,
Out o a bush o broom:
She that has borrowd young Tamlane
Has gotten a stately groom.,

53. Up then spake the Queen o Fairies,
Out o a bush o rye :
She's taen awa the bonniest knight
In a' my cumpanie.

54. But had I kennd, Tamlane,' she says,
A lady wad borrowd thee
I wad taen out thy twa grey een,
Put in twa een o tree.

55. Had I but kennd, Tamlane,' she says,
Before ye came frae hame,
I wad taen out your heart o flesh,
Put in a heart o stane.

56. Had I but had the wit yestreen
That I hae coft the day,
I'd paid my kane seven times to bell
Ere you'd been won away.'

Whole thing here:

http://www.tam-lin.org/versions/39I.html

Anyway, trust all is well with you and that you enjoy yourself this evening.

yours aye

Alex Massie

Many thanks Alex, tapadh leat! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:19 AM by Patrick Belton  

HOW BRITISH IS OXBLOG? Fortunately, now there's a test to see.

(Procrastinatory addendum because there's a bit more coffee left: Question four brings up the interesting point that by the usual standard - enfranchisement of both sexes with ability to stand for office, no racial bar from the vote - Britain becomes the world's first democracy at national level in 1918. Among dominions and provinces, the Pitcairn Islands get there in terms of women's suffrage in 1838, South Australia in a somewhat restricted fashion in 1861, and New Zealand in 1893 in terms of voting rights but not the ability to stand; then once more, South Australia with universal suffrage and the right to stand for parliament in 1894. New Jersey briefly extends women the franchise from 1776 until 1807, somewhat accidentally at first because of a drafting error and then formally from 1790. Coffee gone.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:14 PM by David Adesnik  

MEA CULPAS ARE OVERRATED: Yesterday morning, Tim Russert brought together three former chiefs of staff to hash out the implications of Scooter Libby's indictment. The firm consensus among all three -- two Democrats and one Republican -- is that presidents should admit their mistakes before aggressive journalists expose them as liars.

I disagree. Not on ethical grounds of course. I think presidents should tell the truth, sooner rather than later. But I'm not sure whether doing so is all that smart. The problem here is that both Democrats and Republicans have an incentive to draw the wrong lessons from history.

Democrats would clearly relish an immediate admission of wrong-doing from Rove and/or Bush without having to pull it out of him. But the real lesson of the Lewinsky episode -- GOP denials to the contrary -- is that Americans may enjoy raking their president over the coals because of an errant blowjob, but they will also forgive him because loose lips don't sink ships when they belong to Monica Lewinsky.

Certain Republicans have an incentive to overvalue mea culpas because they want to believe that Reagan eventually decided to tell the truth to the American public, rather than persisting in his delusions of innocence. This was certainly the line taken on Meet the Press by Reagan chief of staff Ken Duberstein. Tim Russert and his Democratic guests all agreed, because I think they're hoping for a Bush confession. (To my surprise, Reagan's foremost biographer has taken this position as well.)

But in spite of his semi-confession that he traded arms for hostages (which was only one of the issues at stake in Iran-Contra), Reagan and his associates proved to be extraordinarily uncooperative when it came to revealing the truth. But Reagan's breakthroughs in his negotiations with Gorbachev were so dramatic that he was able to leave office as a champion.

So my cynical advice for Bush is this: Win the war in Iraq. History will only rememeber Scootergate if America fails in Baghdad. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:44 PM by David Adesnik  

OXBLOG JOINS THE PODOSPHERE: I didn't just get an iPod. I got the brand-spanking new video iPod.

If I had been footing the bill myself, I might have lacked the courage to invest in this glorious bit of technological virtuousity. But thanks to my general incompetence as a retail shopper, I never cashed in the "good for one iPod" promise that my father made to me last Chanukah.

Until now. Why? Because one of the very few down sides associated with my new job is the almost hour-long commute. Since I really don't like reading in motion, I knew that the time had come to take the iPod plunge.

Yes, iPod a little too trendy, a little too been-there-done-that. But who gives a sh**? The only thing more conformist than buying something because it's trendy is refusing to buy something because its trendy.

The bottom line is that iPod has transformed the two lost hours of my every day into a chance to catch up on news and politics. But what I really should be talking about is iPod video, since everyone already knows what a plain vanilla iPod can do.

The screen may be just 2.5 inches wide, but the images are crystal clear and when you hold the iPod in your hand, 2.5 inches provides plenty of detail and clarity.

The real question is content. I have no interest in either music videos or network dramas -- although Apple has once again demonstrated its business savvy by focusing on entertainment content first. In just over two weeks, customers have downloaded over one million videos from the iTunes store.

But what I want is free content from the mainstream media of the kind that is so common for audio-only podcasts. The good news is that the WaPo has already stepped up to the plate. Click here to view five samples of what the Post has to offer.

The clear winner among the five samples is the two-minute clip of baby panda Tai Shan getting a check up at the zoo. With its help, I have elicited a chorus of oohs and aahs from my female colleagues at work. (The guys are impressed with the technology alone.)

I also recommend the WaPo vid-pod on the upcoming election in Azerbaijan.

In general, I am optimistic that ABC, NBC, CBS etc. will all step up to the plate and provide video content for the iPod. There is already so much free streaming video available on their websites that content itself isn't an issue. It's just a matter of presenting it in an iPod friendly format.

In conclusion, all I can say is "Thank you, Steve Jobs." (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:31 PM by David Adesnik  

WHAT IS "ACTIVE LIBERTY"? According to a profile of Stephen Breyer in this week's New Yorker, it is the good Justice's "manifesto for a progressive revival on the Supreme Court". It is a doctrine that hopes to provides progressives with the same intellectual heft as the originalism of legal conservatives.

So what is "active liberty"? Heck if I know. Jeffrey Toobin, author of the Breyer profile, suggests that the doctrine itself may not have a solid core. Nonetheless, Toobin is clearly smitten with Breyer, whom he celebrates for sharing the ultimate liberal character flaw: being too good and kind to recognize that Republicans aren't.

I'm guessing Toobin's right that Breyer really is quite a mensch. Thus, I just might be willing to give his book on active liberty a chance. Mercifully, Breyer has avoided the penultimate liberal character of excess verbosity. His book is just 176 pages long. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:32 PM by Patrick Belton  

AN IMPORTANT CUSTOMER SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Oíche Shamhna shámh, agus Athbhlian faoi mhaise!

In traditional Ireland, Samhain was the harvest festival marking the end of one year and beginning of the next. The two years wouldn't fully align, though, so for a short bit, time would quite literally be out of joint (thus the Celtic origins of the phrase from Macbeth.) Thus faries would get lost, wander up around the world of men, and generally not know what they were about - so if you were kindly enough, you'd dress yourself up like a fairy and go about, so when they ran into you, they'd run straightaways back to the fairy world, and a big fright on them. Hence the original custom, which we here at OxBlog have always found much nicer than its contemporary descendant. So a very happy maith Oíche Shamhna ort, from OxBlog.

HORRIDLY INCONVENIENT REPORTERS UPDATE: Jeff Landaw from the Baltimore Sun kindly points out this oddly seems to be in Hamlet as well. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:12 AM by Patrick Belton  

THIS BLOG'S OCCASIONALLY BEEN HARD ON HER. But hey, she's a hottie and she's Irish. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:25 AM by Patrick Belton  

DEARBORN HIGH FOOTBALL SQUAD: At least during Ramadan, they play hungry. They win, too. Personally, I think they should make something of a motto out of it.

(It's a lovely town, incidentally; and the food, when one can eat it, is superb - the best in the Midwest. I've written from there here on OxBlog and here in print.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:55 PM by David Adesnik  

POWER LUNCH, ROMANTIC DINNER: If you ever want to impress a beautiful and intelligent woman in Washington, take her to dinner at 1789. That is what I wanted, so I made a reservation there for my girlfriend and myself this past Friday night.

The food and the service are superb. Yet what endows 1789 with its atmosphere of romance and intimacy is its location in a converted townhouse on a quiet block in Georgetown. Instead of the single large hall that most restaurants provide, 1789 consists of a array of small dining spaces, each one carved out of a room or two in the old townhouse.

In addition, the understated 19th century decor and the jacket-and-tie dress code make you feel as if you have stepped back in time to a more civilized era. (Yes, I know that the average American in the 19th century lived a life of much greater hardship than his 21st century counterpart. But nostalgia is a wonderful sort of romance.)

Given what a romantic sort of place 1789 is, I have been surprised to learn that it is also a hangout for the Washington power elite. In fact, the hostess who seated us mentioned that Donald Rumsfeld had just finished having dinner. At first, I figured that the SecDef must have been celebrating an anniversary or something. Then, while reading Jeffrey Goldberg's profile of Brent Scowcroft in the New Yorker, I noticed with interest that Brent and Condi had a falling out just a few years ago over dinner at -- you guessed it -- 1789.

So, if your willing to take the risk that some members of the cabinet will distract your sweetheart, then there is no better place for a romantic dinner than 1789. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:16 PM by David Adesnik  

SCOWCROFT, TAKE TWO: All right, I'm back. I've read Jeffrey Goldberg's profile of Brent Scowcroft in the New Yorker and found it to be worth the while. Although focused on Scowcroft, it would be more informative to describe Goldberg's article as a fair-minded primer on the divide between realists and idealists within the GOP foreign policy establishment.

The article begins by using Scowcroft's record to demonstrate what realism has to offer. In 1991, Scowcroft opposed taking out Saddam, whereas Wolfowitz wanted to March on Baghdad. In 2002, Scowcroft went public in the WSJ with his opposition to invading Iraq. Thus realism is supposedly the doctrine that prevents the United States from entangling itself in dangerous and expensive occupations.

But at what cost? As most pundits would, Goldberg asks whether the self-consciously amoral approach to diplomacy that motivated Scowcroft to oppose regime change is a doctrine that Americans could ever apply with a clear conscience. Scowcroft is basically unapologetic about the first Bush administration's uncaring response to the slaughter in Bosnia. However, one could write that off as simply Scowcroft's defense of his own record.

In contrast, what interest could Scowcroft possibly have in defending the Clinton administration for its pathetic response to the genocide in Rwanda? If Scowcroft were less sincere, he might have mitigated the charge of amorality by saying that when confronted with definite evidence of genocide, even realists believe in intervention. But no:

"A terrible situation -- just tragic," Scowcroft said of Rwanda. "But, before you intervene, you have to ask yourself, 'If I go in, how do I get out? And you have to ask questions about the national interest."

Although Goldberg lets Richard Holbrooke respond to this remark by asserting that "support for American values is part of our national-security interests", Goldberg's article as a whole fails to develop this point, which is absolutely critical to the idealist worldview.

Instead, Goldberg slips into a realist framework in which one confronts a clear choice between ideals and interests. It may have been right for the United States to defend human rights Bosnia and Rwanda, but what do we have to gain from it?

Simply framing the question in this way gives away half the debate. Even if one grants, for the sake of argument, that the occupations of Germany and Japan in no way justify the occupation of Iraq, it is still absolutely critical to point out that the transformation of Germany and Japan from militarist empires into liberal democracies was absolutely critical to the United States' victory in the Cold War.

Often, committed realists often seem to forget their visceral opposition to the democratization of Japan on the grounds both that America had no right to dictate the Japanese form of government and that the Japanese people weren't ready for democracy. (With regard to Germany, the realists put up less of a fight.)

These days, critics of our nation-building project in Iraq, realists included, argue that we should've known it was going to fail because unlike Japan, Iraq is not ethnically unified and was not an advanced industrial nation before the war. But were there any realists who appreciated these underlying realities and therefore supported the democratization of Japan? Not as far as I know.

Whenever there is a country that may have a chance to cross the democratic threshold with American assistance, there will always be realists there to tell us that the people of that country aren't "ready". Because rather than a commitment to seeing reality as it is, realism is a commitment to a view of human nature that considers freedom to be less important than stability.

Scowcroft, at least, is candid about this fact. He tells Goldberg that

"This notion that inside every human being is the burning desire for freedom and liberty, much less democracy, is probably not the case...some people don't really want to be free."

It would be nice if Scowcroft would tell us precisely which people these are, since it would surely prevent us from ever occupying their homelands in the name of democracy promotion. I'm guessing that before March 2003, the good general would've have listed the purple-fingered people of Iraq as those who were least likely to be "ready" for democracy.

In fact, a marked blindness to this universal desire for freedom actually led to one of the most significant mistakes of Scowcroft's tenure in the Bush 41 White House. During the first Gulf War, President Bush encouraged the people of Iraq to "take matters into [their] own hands." The result was a massive Shi'ite-Kurdish uprising that Saddam brutally repressed. These uprisings caught Scowcroft totally unprepared. As Goldberg points out, Scowcroft and Bush 41 later wrote that

It is true that we hoped Saddam would be toppled. But we never that that could be done by anyone outside the military and never tried to incite the general population. It is stretching the point to imagine that a routine speech in Washington would have gotten to the Iraqi malcontents and have been the motivation for the subsequent actions of the Shiites and Kurds."

After reading that quote, I was ready for Goldberg to deliver the knockout punch. Wasn't he about to write that Bush & Scowcrofts ignorance provides a powerful demonstration of the costs of being ignorant of the human desire for freedom? Who knows -- with minimal American support those Shiite and Kurdish uprisings might have accomplished exactly what American soldiers are now attempting to accomplish with their own blood. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:11 PM by David Adesnik  

IRANIAN GOVERNMENT TO WIPE ISRAEL TEHERAN STOCK EXCHANGE OFF THE MAP: Joe Gandelman describes Pres. Ahmadinejad's novel approach to market jitters. I'm beginning to wonder: Is Ahmadinejad exactly the kind of incompetent dictator who paves the way for a democratic revolution? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:27 PM by David Adesnik  

SCOWCROFT, TAKE ONE: Inside the Beltway, Brent Scowcroft's nasty remarks about this President Bush have been big news. Unfortunately, the New Yorker has refused to post on its website the article by Jeffrey Goldberg in which Scowcroft goes for the jugular.

Thankfully, my girlfriend came down from NYC to visit me this weekend and brought me a copy of the magazine. In theory, I could have purchased it at a newsstand, but I refuse to pay newsstand prices. Anyhow, I will now depart briefly from the blogosphere in order to read the general's remarks. In the meantime, I recommend Jim Taranto's response to Scowcroft, posted on Tuesday:

War is Peace

The Washington Post reports on a New Yorker interview with Brent Scowcroft, who served as national security adviser in the Ford and Bush père White Houses:

Scowcroft, in his interview, discussed an argument over Iraq he had two years ago with Condoleezza Rice, then-national security adviser and current secretary of state. "She says we're going to democratize Iraq, and I said, 'Condi, you're not going to democratize Iraq,' and she said, 'You know, you're just stuck in the old days,' and she comes back to this thing that we've tolerated an autocratic Middle East for fifty years and so on and so forth," he said. The article stated that with a "barely perceptible note of satisfaction," Scowcroft added: "But we've had fifty years of peace."

Now let's see. Between 1953 and 2003, here are the Mideast wars we can think of off the top of our head: the Six Day War, the Yom Kippur War, the Iran-Iraq War, the Gulf War, the two Palestinian intifadas against Israel, the Algerian Civil War, the Yemen Civil War and two Sudanese civil wars. That doesn't even count acts of terror against non-Mideastern countries, from the Iranian invasion of the U.S. Embassy to the attacks of 9/11.

What do you call someone who describes this as "50 years of peace"? A "realist."

Heh. And let me just add two wars that Jim forgot: The Anglo-French-Israeli invasion of Suez in 1956 and the Lebanese civl war/Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the early 80s. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:07 PM by David Adesnik  

IS MY NEIGHBORHOOD FULL OF DRUNKEN, VIOLENT JEWS? In addition to myself, that is. Recently, while walking by the Tivoli Theatre, I noticed that an empty liquor bottle had been smashed to shards against one of the pillars on the theater's 14th St. facade.

I can't say I was all that surprised, since Columbia Heights isn't exactly Park Avenue. But then I took a closer look at the broken bottle. Its label read "Manischewitz". I guess when people describe this neighborhood as still being somewhat ghetto, what they have in mind isn't Harlem or Compton, but rather Warsaw. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:03 PM by David Adesnik  

COMMENTS ON COMMENTS: I am much obliged to all of you who have taken the time to share your thoughts on the subject of whether OxBlog should have comments. So far, the best description of your thoughts on the subject is 'cautious'. Alongside a few readers who are either firmly pro or firmly con, there is a majority that appreciates the potential benefits of a comments section while expressing serious reservations about the potential of even a limited number of trolls to destroy any hope for civility. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:48 PM by Patrick Belton  

WHEREIN AA GILL ANNOUNCES HE ISN'T ENGLISH: In the Times, which is of course the appropriate place for any English person to announce they aren't English. Well done.

This anger is also the source of England’s most admirable achievement — their heroic self-control. It’s the daily struggle of not giving in to their natural inclination to run amok with a cricket bat.

It's why they can't dance.

It’s not in the games that the English excel, it’s in making the rules that govern them, and the committees that oversee those rules. It’s in controlling the consequences of unbridled competitiveness. ... But of course, for the English, just getting off the pitch without their opponent’s ear in their pocket is a personal victory over their natural national inclination.

I suppose you might call it wit, and the definition of wit is a joke that doesn’t make you laugh.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:49 PM by Patrick Belton  

THE REAL REASON we want to see democratisation in the Middle East. (Note: OxBlog's also quite up for democratisation in Russia and Pakistan. Oh, and Cuba. Definitely Cuba.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:38 PM by Patrick Belton  

I WISH BRUCE REED WOULD STOP BEING WITTIER THAN US WATCH: 'It's a sure sign of how far the Bush White House has fallen that it's considered a good day when only one top aide gets a criminal indictment. Soon they'll be breaking glass and pulling out the last, desperate spin: Better than Nixon.' Also: 'Give Harriet Miers credit...she could proofread the writing on the wall.' (Extra credit: if you haven't yet read his piece on hacks versus wonks, go do it now....) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:33 PM by Patrick Belton  

HAVING YOUR COBLOGGER QUOTED IN FRENCH IN A BLOG on the Le Monde site: cool. Being called 'Oxbow': well, I suppose, also cool, provided it comes along with sufficient café crème, or say, boeuf bourguignon, or sweet crêpes. Think I'm going to go look for some food now... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:56 PM by Patrick Belton  

NOT THAT ONE GETS HOMESICK EVER, Switzerland being a lovely, wonderful place with brilliant chocolate, friendly cows, and where you can get gobs of writing done. But of a Sunday evening, I just felt like strolling down Grafton Street, and through WC1. Thanks to google local, I could. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:54 AM by Patrick Belton  

PROFILES IN COURAGE, AND ITS OPPOSITE:

British Defence Secretary John Reid: 'It is in contradiction to everything that the United Nations stands for.'

The Prime Minister: 'I have never come across a situation where the president of a country says they want to wipe out another country. This is not acceptable.' ... 'real sense of revulsion' ... 'a real threat to our world security and stability.'

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, Sunday: "I don't believe they [sanctions against Iran] are on the agenda now. At least, we are not considering them now.' ... 'premature' ... 'We are considering ... very strong political and diplomatic pressure.'

via CNN, Indy, and Times (which also features Juan Cole calling Bush and Ahmadinejad political 'soulmates'. Erm, right. Was it Wednesday when he called for the destruction of Canada?) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:16 AM by Patrick Belton  

OH, IS THAT ALL: Headline off the AP wire, Israelis, Palestinians to Stop Fighting. (Also includes a sad report of the apparent penetration of Gaza by Al Qa'eda operatives in the fluidity immediately after the Israeli withdrawal.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:34 AM by Patrick Belton  

IEVA LESINSKA has a conversation with Harold Bloom about wisdom literature, the art of reading and Hamlet who attempts to rewrite the play he is in.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:06 AM by Patrick Belton  

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF THERE WERE TWO PATRICKS ON OXBLOG? Would the world simply come to an end? Would OxBlog cease to exist because of our alcoholic punditocracies? Well, there's only one way to find out, but there's no danger in telling us apart when we welcome this corpulent Aussie on as a guest blogger in a few weeks, once he's punched the 'submit' button on his thesis - he's the one who'll have already finished his d.phil., to move on instantly to fame, riches, and girls (in his case, marriage - which I'll be live-blogging from New York in December.). So c'mon over, mate, we'll have the porter on tap for ye! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:49 AM by Patrick Belton  

PERHAPS NO ONE IS A HERO TO THEIR VALET, but Churchill came off pretty well to his bodyguard. In a biography just published from Walter Thompson's unpublished diaries, 'an unmistakable and living character breaks surface: irascible, impish, brave, with a child's curiosity and swift change of mood, unsullied by lasting spite or temper. No man could fake the lack of side and spin and the generosity of spirit. Not, at least, to his bodyguard.' (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:28 PM by Patrick Belton  

NAKED MORNINGTON CRESCENT: Coming to OxBlog as soon as we can find enough readers who have mastered all the rules. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:15 PM by Patrick Belton  

MAIL BAG - BRITS AND THE HOLOCAUST: Reader Paul Hurley obligingly sends this in further to the ministre des Affaires étrangères-gate story below.

Besides the few English Jews deported to Auschwitz from the Channel Islands, there may have been members of the UK armed forces or merchant marine who were captured by German forces, ascertained to be Jewish, and then sent off to Auschwitz (or other death camps) and oblivion.

At least one possible instance is documented in a 1954 book about a British senior NCO, Sergeant-Major Charles Coward, one who was captured by the Germans (during the battle of France, May 1940), and later came to be in charge of a detachment of other captured British troops, assigned to a POW work camp immediately adjacent to Auschwitz.

The book's title is The Password is Courage; it later was made into a movie starring Dirk Bogarde (1962; haven't seen the movie in its entirety so don't know if it covers the following episode from the book or not).

The captured British troops were frequent observers of Jewish "detainee" work groups and often worked in close proximity to them. One day, one of these Jews managed to slip the NCO a note (in English) from a captured British national.

The note said the writer was a captured "naval" doctor but did not give a name or location (also, as I recall it was unclear if he was Royal Navy or a civilian doctor from a sunken merchant vessel).

The captured British troops were trusted by their German supervisors and had fairly minimal supervision, so the senior NCO disguised himself as an inmate and slipped into the death camp to try to find the doctor. However, he had no location in which to search and it was hopeless; he was lucky to get back out again to his own compound.

I think he later was called before a war crimes tribunal (Nuremburg?) to give testimony about what he saw, in particular during this one episode when he actually spent the night in one of the death camp barracks.

A hair-raising story when I first read it in my youth. Had a used paperback copy which I gave away to a college professor years ago, so unfortunately I do not have a copy handy now to check my recollection.

His story may seem almost unbelievable now to someone who has never heard of it, but I believe it is well documented. The book is certainly still available.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:58 PM by Patrick Belton  

THE SELFISH ROMAN CATHOLIC GENE: Thomas Bouchard finds that identical twins raised separately tend to move toward similar levels of religious observance, even when one is raised in a religious home and the other is not. Also, more on the mind-body problem from Searle, who by naming a Chinese restaurant after one could attract a very densely specified clientele. (As advertised on late-night telly in selected markets: have a rich mental life while living in a physical universe, try new and improved dualism today!) (ed: can something be both new and improved? yes. that's called new-improved dualism.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:51 AM by Patrick Belton  

BUZZED: The Conspirators think it'll be Alito. They should know; they're lawyers. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:38 AM by Patrick Belton  

INDIA CORNER; OR, CURRYING FAVOUR: OxBuddies and general nice people both, Priyanjali Malik and Rahul Rao each have pieces on India in the most recent Oxonian Review, Priyanjali's on the history of Indian security thought and Rahul's on pomo anarchism Bangalore-style. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:17 AM by Patrick Belton  

BEST SLATE FEATURE: 'How to pronounce it', inaugurated before but revived for Federal Reserve appointee Ben Bernanke - whose name, we're told, is sounded "ber-NAN-kee." (They also helpfully provide a recording, before asking 'got other names in the news you'd like to have pronounced for you?') But where was Slate when General Shalikashvili was serving as Joint Chief of Staff?

Milking or doing whatever one does to a dead horse, Congress has a Faleomavaega, a Frelinghuysen, a Tiahrt and a Blumenauer, as well as a number whose names are funny but perhaps not strictly speaking difficult to pronounce; Parliament, where the names are odder, contains an Afriyie, an Öpik, a Llwyd who comes from a vowel-deprived bit of Wales and a John Baron who will presumably never become a life peer.

Got a name you'd like made fun of here for you? Send it in! OxBlog, raising the standards of public debate since 2002. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:04 AM by Patrick Belton  

AT THE MOVIES: The Times is blogging the London Film Festival. (And who says they're old media!) Meanwhile, the Emigrant (for which I occasionally write) has a new issue out of Books Ireland. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:50 AM by Patrick Belton  

TURKISH EU MEMBERSHIP QUOTE OF THE DAY: From the Economist, p. 18, and an article on product placement: Germany's public broadcaster, for instance, has been accused of taking money from a group promoting Turkish membership of the EU. That must have been tough to write into the script (Maria: No, no, our love can never be! Klaus: Yes, yes, my heart! We are destined to be together, as surely as Turkey is bound to be one with the EU). (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:39 AM by Patrick Belton  

THEY GOT THE WRONG ONE: He may well have broken the law. But purely from a political rather than juridical standpoint, is it just me or has the Plame Game process succeeded in removing one of the cleverer White House foreign policy hands, while leaving Karl Rove (and whoever was behind the Miers nomination) untouched? Good job there's not a war on, at least. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:33 AM by Patrick Belton  

THE FRENCH FOREIGN MINISTER visits Israel and with the best of intentions reveals he has no idea what went on in World War II. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:31 AM by Patrick Belton  

MY GERMAN FLATMATE thinks Chicago public radio's This American Life is the dictionary example of humour. And they say Germans aren't fun. You be the judge. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:41 PM by Patrick Belton  

ARTICLE DRAFTED, and I'm utterly knackered. Go read Kevin and Dan instead. And the WS draws the hidden Straussian-White Sox connection, because someone had to do it. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:28 AM by Patrick Belton  

NOTE TO SELF: Don't commit suicide by hanging from a tree around Halloween. You might be up there for a while. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:51 AM by Patrick Belton  

TAM DALYELL SUGGESTS that the only solution to the West Lothian question would be to have no more Scottish MPs at Westminster; something he opposes, thereby helping guarantee... Tam Dalyell can have a pleasant retirement as former Father of the House speaking about the West Lothian question. But is this really the case? Why couldn't this simply be resolved by a constitional convention that government would not advance measures to deal purely with English matters which would rely upon the votes of Scottish, Welsh and (after the resuscitation of Stormont) NI members to pass? It seems to me that would resolve the matter nicely. As a matter of politics rather than constitutional theory, of course, for it actually to be instated would require the interests of the proposing party at the hustings to outweigh the diminution in power the party would suffer because of the convention while in government; and that would require it to become an election issue in England, which to my knowledge it never has been. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:17 PM by David Adesnik  

SECOND ADMINISTRATIVE ANNOUCEMENT: Patrick and I have decided that OxBlog should have a comments section after each one of its posts, just like most of the other blogs you read. However, we would like to get your opinion on this subject before we make a final decision. Thus, we would very much appreciate it if during the next week you sent us your thoughts on whether OxBlog should have comments.

As we see it, comments provide readers both with the opportunity to respond to our posts in a public forum as well as the opportunity to engage fellow readers in discussion that otherwise would not have been possible. From our end, we appreciate the chance to get additional feedback on our work.

At the same time, we recognize that comment sections introduce a whole host of problems of their own. Above all, we recognize that a lot of posts wind up generating comments that consist of nothing more than partisan name-calling and personal attacks. But so far, I have been very impressed with the intellectual caliber of those readers who've gotten in touch with me via e-mail over the past three years, so I have a lot of confidence that an OxBlog comments section will be a very good thing.

But in order to help ensure that it is a very good thing, I would like to invite all of you to send in your ideas for how to ensure that our comments section becomes a forum for sophisticated, aggressive debates rather than sophomoric insults. My sense is that a set of informal guidelines for commenters would be best. For example, comparing anyone to Nazis is not a good way to foster discussion. Yes, such comparisons may be valid. But there are lots of other good ways to get one's point across.

So, I look forward to hearing your thoughts both about whether OxBlog should have comments and about how to make sure that the comments add value to this site instead of becoming a burden. In the meantime, Patrick and I will try to come up with some of our own ideas for how to make sure that having comments turns out to be a good thing.

Thanks,
David (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:56 PM by David Adesnik  

FIRST ADMINISTRATIVE ANNOUCEMENT: Just over a month from now, I will head back to Oxford to defend my dissertation. Although I didn't know the exact date of my defense until just recently, I did know that it was coming and thus began some months ago to look for post-graduation employment.

The good news is that I now have a job. The less good news is that I can't tell you anything about my job, otherwise I would have to kill you. Actually, I'm not doing anything terribly secret. However, my job does have to do with national security and I am indirectly working for the federal government, so a certain measure of discretion is called for.

Fortunately, I will be able to continue blogging. While requesting permission from my employer to blog, I made a commitment not to mention the name of my employer nor to address directly any projects on which my employer works, even if such information is available in the public domain.

In addition, I made a commitment to seriously consider how anything I write might affect my employer's relationship with the government, since at some point it is probable that my affiliation with my employer will become public knowledge. In plain English, that means that sometimes I may have to pull some punches when talking about the government.

Exactly what this will mean in practice I am not yet sure. However, my firm intention is not in anyway to publish anything that might mislead you about the nature of my opinion.

That said, I recognize that the restrictions mentioned above will limit my candor to a certain extent that OxBlog might be less interesting to read as a result. However, I hope you will continue to visit us for a while, so I have a chance to show you that I can still publish good material while at the same time respecting my employer's concerns. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:11 PM by Patrick Belton  

OVERHEARD THIS MORNING at the Alpine Institute for Advanced Study: 'I don't wake up in the morning and say, "I want to be an ideologue." I wake up in the morning and say, "I want to go back to sleep."' (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:02 PM by Patrick Belton  

NOT TRUE, ACTUALLY. Okay, that's annoying. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:16 PM by Patrick Belton  

SURE HE'S WEAK ON FOREIGN POLICY, BUT YOU SEE I VOTED FOR HIM BECAUSE OF DOMESTIC POLICY WATCH: Dan Drezner points out that Ahmadinejad is making a bullocks of things at home as well. Meanwhile, Downing Street, reading no doubt OxBlog, hints at whether the international community might be forced to consider forceful measures against Iran: ''If they carry on like this the question people will be asking us is — when are you going to do something about Iran? Can you imagine a state like that with an attitude like that having nuclear weapons?' (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:51 PM by Patrick Belton  

PLEASANT THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Brought to you by BBC and several rodents. 'The [British] beaver was hunted to extinction for its fur and the pain-relieving properties of its anal gland secretions.' We now have Bavarian, imported, beavers to take its place. Should you ever find yourself in pain, and near trees. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:59 PM by Patrick Belton  

EXTRA CREDIT READING: Belmont club (no relation) not only has a brilliant summary of the madness of Georgeous George the Perjurer, but also a blogbeat post with the memorable title 'Iraq the Model in Pajamas'. Well done. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:11 PM by Patrick Belton  

OXBLOG DOES EXPLAINER: Okay, I should be writing, but you guys are just too much fun to leave. So the Israeli prime minister has called for Iran's expulsion from the United Nations, or, to use the rhetoric of the moment, wiping Iran off the map of the General Assembly. (Does that also entail pushing Iran into the East River? - ed. Perhaps, but that sounds rather more difficult; plus there's always the danger of injuring Schrödinger's Cat, purported to be living on the Upper East Side).

Purely as a legal matter, can that be done? Apparently yes, though there isn't precedent within the current United Nations. (The closest is when in 1971 the General Assembly voted to change the government entitled to the Chinese seats in the General Assembly and Security Council from that based in Taipei to that in Beijing, but 'China' per se retained its U.N. membership.) The expulsion clause lies in Article 6, which provides the General Assembly with the ability to expel a state, if the Security Council has first recommended it do so (thus making the power vetoable by the P-5), and if the state has 'persistently violated' the principles contained in the Charter. The principles most explicitly associated with membership are mentioned in Article 4, i.e., being 'peace-loving,' (i.e., a strong case of 'like' doesn't cut it) as well as having the state capacity and intention to carry out obligations assumed under the Charter. The relevant sections, drawn from the Jesse Helms Handy-Dandy Pocket Guide to the UN Charter:

Article 4

1. Membership in the United Nations is open to all other peace-loving states [i.e., beyond signatories] which accept the obligations contained in the present Charter and, in the judgment of the Organization, are able and willing to carry out these obligations.

2. The admission of any such state to membership in the Nations will be effected by a decision of the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.

Article 5

A Member of the United Nations against which preventive or enforcement action has been taken by the Security Council may be suspended from the exercise of the rights and privileges of membership by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council. The exercise of these rights and privileges may be restored by the Security Council.

Article 6

A Member of the United Nations which has persistently violated the Principles contained in the present Charter may be expelled from the Organization by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.

The closest you can get to this actually being done was within the UN's granddaddy, the League of Nations, which expelled the USSR on 14 December, 1939 upon appeal from Finland, after it rather unsportingly invaded Finland several weeks before (you can read the resolution here). This was, incidentally, the very last thing the League Council ever did. So I think the precedent is clear: the United Nations could indeed, if it so chose, vote to exclude Iran from membership. Particularly if Iran happens to invade Finland. In which case the Rockefeller family might get back some midtown riverfront property. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:04 PM by Patrick Belton  

HA HA! Angry Bear points out the obvious - replace Harriet Miers with Scooter Libby!

NEXT DAY UPDATE: Okay, possibly not. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:52 AM by Patrick Belton  

GONE WRITIN': Gone into hiding to bash out an article. Back tomorrow, with an article. Lots of bad jokes, too, if my very nice editor who is undoubtedly reading this lets me keep them. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:47 PM by Patrick Belton  

COST OF TAKING ACTION AGAINST IRAN: One or two hundred billion dollars.

Not letting this guy get hold of nuclear weapons: Priceless.

(UPDATE: Sometimes you have to say something fairly provocative to see whether Matt's still reading OxBlog....) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:17 PM by Patrick Belton  

PADDYWHACK REDUX: Reader Kyle helpfully writes in, 'No, sir, Mr. Belton. A paddywhack is a set of small shelves or cubbies, usually wall-mounted, for the storage and display of curios, souvenirs, and the like. Sometimes (redundantly) referred to as a “knick-knack paddywhack.”' Interesting concept, but mine's funnier. But thanks, though. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:47 PM by Patrick Belton  

WANT TO REALLY KNOW WHO WILL SUCCEED BUSH? Paddy Power's current top three: Hillary (11-4), Rudy (6-1), Condi (12-1). Combined odds the president's name will end with -y or -i: not sure how you add these things, but apparently high. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:43 PM by Patrick Belton  

WESTMINSTER WATCH: The Backbencher is delightfully bitchy these days. We want to stay on her good side. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:23 AM by Patrick Belton  

OODLES OF STUFF ON THE INTERNET BESIDES PORN, AND NO ONE EVEN KNOWS ABOUT IT: The Institute of Politics at the Cambridge Vocational Polytechnic and Trade School has put a number of truly excellent panel discusssions and guest lectures on to the internet in streaming video. With stuff this good now on the internet, the porn industry is seriously considering its position. (Q: Does one ever grow out of making fun of Harvard? A: Naah.)

Also, tonight at 6 EST the Council on Foreign Relations is webcasting Stephen Walt (a truly nice man), Nancy Soderberg (possibly nice but not a man) and Robert Merry (definitely a man but possibly more popular around Christmas) in a panel on the uses and consequences of American power. Well done; more of this, please. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:58 AM by Patrick Belton  

PADDYWHACKED. My contribution to the lexicon. A paddywhack is a googlewhack with a tangentially Irish theme. Example: alcoholic punditocracies. Christ, I'm procrastinating. Back to writing. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:19 PM by Patrick Belton  

KIMCHI AND BOOK GLUE: The Frankfurt book fair, a Roman German orgy of annual literary commerce, opened its doors last week to the theme of 'Korea' - note absence of directional modifier. The South Koreans came. The North Koreans didn't let their writers go; then said they would; and then they didn't show up. But lest you think the fair was totally devoid of authoritarian representation, the Iranians duly turned up. They're being investigated by the prosecutor's office now, for anti-semitic literature at their exhibition stalls. Q: What do you call the North Korean Olympic delegation? A: Asylum seekers (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:32 PM by Patrick Belton  

FERNS REPORT RELEASED: The long-awaited enquiry into sexual abuse against children in the Wexford diocese of Ferns by members of the Catholic clergy, an investigation led by retired Supreme Court judge Frank Murphy, has been presented to Government today. (c.f. RTE, Irish Times, Times) The report identifies over one hundred allegations, involving 21 priests, and concludes that the diocese's Bishops Herlihy and Comiskey systematically disregarded the interests of the community they served in order to protect priests at fault. The state comes in for criticism too, with the inquiry documenting gardaí lost witness statements and failed to pass cases to the DPP. Though the report is not being released on the internet, which strikes me as rather discreditable, Fine Gael MEP Avril Doyle (disclaimer: née Belton) and Wexford newspaper editor Ger Walsh discuss it here.

The Royal College of Surgeons released a study in 2003 of sexual abuse by clergy in Ireland, a subject which - especially under the guise of abuse of institutionalised youth by the Christian Brothers - has been at the forefront of the changing role, and declining privilege, of the church in Irish society. The Redemptorists have written thoughtfully and searchingly about this in their magazine Reality, here and here, and the Jesuits in their excellent magazine Studies, here. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:02 PM by Patrick Belton  

NOSTALGIA KICK - WHATEVER HAPPENED TO MISSILE DEFENCE? Um, it went the way of hula hoops and Beta videocasettes. (For sale on Craigs List DC: one half-functional missile defence system, never used, fixer-upper...) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:54 PM by Patrick Belton  

THE UN AT 60, YESTERDAY: Brookings take a look. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:45 PM by Patrick Belton  

TIMES WATCH: David Aaronovitch surveys how today's Guardian, BBC, and Mail on Sunday would have covered, once teleported back in time, a Herr Hitler trial in 1946 (with the defendent importantly being not dead, or at very least undead). Meanwhile, William Rees Mogg has a long memory. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:17 PM by Patrick Belton  

TERRY EASTLAND, IN THE WILSON QUARTERLY: 'Though most existing news organizations will probably survive, few if any are likely to enjoy the prestige and clout they once did.' (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:13 PM by Patrick Belton  

SYRIA WATCH: Bidisha Banerjee and crew review ways that nice Assad family down the street might be getting into a little trouble; rumours are whispered they may have to move soon, poor things. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:01 PM by Patrick Belton  

TNR DEBUTS A NEW BLOG: A number of posts up on the Plame game, namely, who was the source for the Cheney-Libby story in the NYT today, Scooter's career as a novelist, and George Will's vivisection of Republicans supporting Miers. Warm welcomes to the blogosphere, we'll be reading! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:55 AM by Patrick Belton  

HEAVENS, I just discovered there were lyrics written about me. Viz,

The slow writer types a little slower.
Slow writer, is a real goer.

Hey.

Slow writer knows every street, yeah.
Slow writer, is the one to meet, yeah.

Slow writer don't use no ink now.
The slow writer don't type too fast.

Type a little bit, type a little bit
Type a little bit and see.
Take a little coffee, take a little coffee
Take a little coffee with me.

Guess we're more popular than Jesus Harry, your friend from kindergarten - less controversial! -ed.. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:39 AM by Patrick Belton  

ARE YOU FAMOUS? And a female role model, and would like to be in my friend's book, which needs to be in the printers in a week? Then get in touch!

Hey, it was worth a try. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:15 AM by Patrick Belton  

INTERESTING NEW DATA SET WATCH: This, over a listserv I participate in, and which I thought might interest some of our readers.

From: Gary King

I thought you might be interested in a newly updated dataset of almost 10 million individually coded international events (1990-2004). Each event is summarized in the data as "Actor A does something to Actor B", with Actors A and B coded for about 450 countries (and other actors) and "does something to" coded in an ontology of about 200 types of actions. The data are coded by a computer "reading" millions of Reuters news reports. Will Lowe and I wrote an article* that evaluated the software system (produced by VRA) that performs this task and found that for the numbers of events it was possible to convince humans (trained Harvard undergraduates) to coded by hand, the machine did as well as the humans. However, in part since there is only so much pizza you can feed undergraduates, the machine clearly dominates for larger numbers of events. We previously released a dataset with 3.5 million events; this one is bigger, more accurate (since the software has been improved), and covers a longer time period.

Most international relations data are limited to analyses aggregated to the year or month. Yet, as we say in the article, when the Palestinians launch a mortar attack into Israel, the Israeli army does not wait until the end of the calendar year to react. We think there is much to be learned about international relations from data like these.

For the data, documentation, and our article, see

http://gking.harvard.edu/events/

Gary

*Gary King and Will Lowe. 2003. "An Automated Information Extraction
Tool For International Conflict Data with Performance as Good as Human
Coders: A Rare Events Evaluation Design" International
Organization, 57, 3 (July, 2003): Pp. 617-642.


---
Gary King
David Florence Professor of Government,
Director, Institute for Quantitative Social Science
Harvard University, 1737 Cambridge St, Cambridge, MA 02138
http://GKing.Harvard.Edu

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:50 AM by Patrick Belton  

SITTING ON TOP A MOUNTAIN WITH YOUR GOAT? LOOKING FOR VIEWING MATERIAL? Well, get your basket of fondue popcorn. In a clash of titans and frequently hilarious debate, Harvey Mansfield climbs into the ring with William Galston to debate whether America should have a liberal or conservative future. To take a Churchillian comment, this is precisely the sort of public intellectual engagement up with which more I wouldn't mind to put. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:22 AM by Patrick Belton  

WE WOULDN'T BE OXBLOG IF WE DIDN'T LINK THIS: Namely, Roy Foster, in the TLS, on the historiography of 1916. It's like we should link to it three times. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:15 AM by Patrick Belton  

WELL, THE INTELLIGENT DESIGN CREW DON'T GO TO PUBS ANYWAY: Guiness, not only good for you but also the official drink of evolution and original primordial sludge! (Hat tip: the nice lads down at CT. All of them.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:12 AM by David Adesnik  

IN MEMORIAM: ROSA PARKS. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:49 PM by David Adesnik  

AN EXTRAORDINARY EXCHANGE: Last Wednesday, ex-SEAL Matthew Heidt of Froggy Ruminations posted an extensive critique of a PBS Frontline broadcast about acts of torture committed by American soldiers. Much of the Frontline report rested on allegations made by Spc. Anthony Lagouranis, a military interrogator who served at Abu Ghraib. (Hat tip: Blackfive)

Surprisingly, even though Heidt accused Lagouranis of "buddy f*cking his own" among other things, Lagouranis decided to respond in the comments section of Heidt's post. Moreover, Lagouranis didn't just respond once, but engaged in an extended debate with numerous critics who continually attacked him in a very personal manner. Good for him. That takes courage.

The issues at play involve a level of military detail far beyond my ken, so I won't venture to say which side got the better of the debate. However, what I would ask is whether, before there was a blogosphere, it would ever have been possible for audience members to cross-examine someone who had appeared on television. Moreover, not just run-of-the-mill audience members, but those with considerable expertise in the same line of work.

Score one for accountability (with an assist from the blogosphere). (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:18 PM by David Adesnik  

ADVICE FOR A BUDDING OMBUDSMAN: On Sunday, Deborah Howell published the first column of her tenure as the WaPo's new ombudsman, replacing.

Howell brings to her post more than four decades of experience as an editor and correspondent. I'm not sure that this kind of one-dimensional background provides the best education for an ombudsman, however.

Although extensive experience as a journalist is necessary to ensure that an ombudsman understands journalism from the inside out and can speak with authority to the WaPo staff members she must criticize, I would prefer to have an ombudsman who has also been on the receiving end of the journalistic profession.

Someone, perhaps, who has worked as a congressional staffer or for a state government. Because in order to be an effective ombudsman, I think one should know first-hand what it is like to be misrepresented and misquoted.

But Ms. Howell can't change her past, so my objections are purely academic. Thus my advice to her is as follows: read a lot of blogs. Blogs from the left and blogs from the right.

In her inaugural column, Ms. Howell says that she reads three different newspapers a day, sometimes more. But newspapers tend to teach you as much about media criticism as White House briefings teach you about candor. By reading multiple newspapers, journalists tend to reinforce their own perception of their profession as one of noble Davids battling the politicians' Goliath.

By entering the blogosphere, Ms. Howell will discover a world where journalists benefit from no presumption of intelligence, good faith and competence. Naturally, bloggers are often unfair to their cousins in the print trades.

But the unpleasant truth is that only when journalists see themselves being treated unfairly by bloggers, do they begin to understand how the subjects of their coverage feel about them. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:27 PM by David Adesnik  

VIETNAM ALWAYS GOOD FOR A LAUGH: The lead story in Monday morning's WaPo is entitled Enemy Body Counts Revived. Here are the first two sentences:

Eager to demonstrate success in Iraq, the U.S. military has abandoned its previous refusal to publicize enemy body counts and now cites such numbers periodically to show the impact of some counterinsurgency operations.

The revival of body counts, a practice discredited during the Vietnam War, has apparently come without formal guidance from the Pentagon's leadership.

These opening sentences are rather misleading, since no one in the military, "eager" or not, made a decision to release body counts as part of public relations strategy. Rather, commanders have occasionally decided to release body counts in order to illustrate the size of certain engagements.

How this story made it onto the front page, I have no idea. It provides some information worth knowing, but goes far out of its way to make the Army seem ignorant of its historical experiences. If anything, this should have been an "analysis" column somewhere inside the A section. Or perhaps an op-ed. Or even just a post on some moderately popular blog.

I think the real lesson of this article is that journalists are unable to comprehend Iraq except through the prism of Vietnam. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:48 PM by Patrick Belton  

JUST CURIOUS: Incidentally, is there a good reason why googling 'women' returns, say, the website of the National Organisation for Women, while googling '(ethnic group) + women' (black women, for instance, or latinas) generally returns a much higher proportion of sites one might not want to access at a place of work, or even one of worship for that matter? (Justification for knowing this: I was looking for websites in 'Latina', by the way. See following.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:14 PM by Patrick Belton  

CUTTING-EDGE JOURNALISM OF THE DAY: Courtesy of the Times, 'ever fewer people outside the Vatican understand Latin.' Non, illa non potest essere! (Tomorrow's headline, sneak preview: Anglo-Saxon native fluency dwindling; remedy sought in schools.) Latvian cardinal Janis Pujats is the last stalwart to speak only in Latin at episcopal synods, leading JP2 to quip, 'Paupera lingua latina, ultimum refugium habet in Riga.' The new pope should have them read Wikipedia in Latinam. Nunc 3,715 articuli sunt. Iei! Urei! Et tu quoque adiuvare potes! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:46 PM by Patrick Belton  

THE NAKED IRISH CHEF RETURNS: Today's themes are Italian, and hell. Open with creamy zuchini soup, with Italian deviled eggs as a side or atop the soup. Main is prawns fra diavolo over pasta, with a dry white. Top it off with lemon ice cream and strawberries in a white wine sauce. And watch where you point that thing. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:08 AM by Patrick Belton  

'NOW THAT I'M TRENDY, WHAT THE HECK DO I DO WITH THIS IPOD' OxTip of the Day: Though it looks like an ill designed porn site and has with somewhat endearing inexplicability badly rendered clip art festooned atop of a kalishnikov and Imperial Storm Trooper (or is it a welder's?) helmet, a plug here for AudioBooksforFree.com. I've already downloaded from there a huge number of Wilde and Saki short stories, along with some Swift, Nietzsche, Borges and Wodehouse, and not to mention Kipling's Man Who Would be King, Conrad's Secret Agent, the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and the Communist Manifesto (perhaps I was getting a bit carried away at the end.) Though the website is poorly designed and the copy resolutely pitched along the low brow (not to mention my copy of Dorian Gray is by 'Oscar Wild'), the reader's accent is intelligible, inoffensive estuary, and the holdings are both copious and wonderfully free. Do go visit. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:03 AM by Patrick Belton  

GONE CLIMBIN' PAINTIN': One of the pleasant rewards of painting house in the alps is seeing Swiss German speakers in mountain gear clambering up and down side walls wearing harness and rope. Another pleasant reward is pumpkin soup.

An open letter to the Most Rev the Lord Archbishop of York, bashed out with painted fingers after reading that this truly heroic man, a former Ugandan dissident opponent to Idi Amin turned Midlands C of E cleric, has been receiving racist mail, to include letters smeared with excrement, after announcement of his appointment to Bishopthorpe Palace.

21 October 2005
Schlosseck
Wengen, Switzerland



The Most Rev the Lord Archbishop of York
Bishopthorpe Palace
Bishopthorpe
York YO23 2GE


Dear Archbishop Sentamu,

After reading of your election and recent news coverage, and writing as someone for whom Britain has as well become an adopted home, I had wanted humbly to offer my warmest congratulations and prayers in the period before your inauguration. I have for some time found considerable inspiration in your life as a Ugandan liberal dissident turned socially activist Midlands cleric, and I believe in that regard I speak also for the readers of a small publication I co-edit, OxBlog.

I was wondering if I might note in passing that a fellow doctoral student at Oxford and I shall be editing a volume on racial integration in Britain and the United States later in the year. It would be our great honour if we might contact you when the project is slightly closer at hand both for your advice, and perhaps also to ask if you might consider contributing prefatory remarks.

I repeat my humble congratulations and prayers for an archepiscopate which I trust will prove quite a strong inspiration to your people.


Yours sincerely,


Patrick Belton

Do your own, just sign your own name, because that would be a bit odd. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:58 AM by David Adesnik  

DANIEL DREZNER IMPISHLY ASKS whether the convergence of left- and right-wing opponents of the war in Iraq under the banner of "realism" can possibly survive the vicissitudes of, well, reality.

Dan's case in point is Azerbaijan, where the Bush administration has so far been highly content to praise a regressive pro-American dictatorship flush with oil. Presumably, conservative realists have no qualms about this sort of behavior. But as Dan implies, liberal realists just don't have the stomach to get behind this such a ruthless pursuit of narrow, national self-interest. As Henry Farrell warned some time ago,

But leftwingers who rush too quickly to embrace their new friends on the right should meditate upon the malign example of Henry Kissinger, and the implications of Realpolitik for the causes and issues that they’re committed to.

Henry's right. (Farrell, I mean, not Kissinger.) All I can add to his point is a bit of historical perspective. Much of the incoherence at the heart of Jimmy Carter's foreign policy reflected an inability to reconcile realist anti-interventionism with an idealist commitment to human rights. Today we tend to think of Carter as exclusively a dove and an idealist, but his strongest supporters included liberal realists such as Harvard's Stanley Hoffmann.

When Reagan embarked on a crusade against communist Nicaragua, his liberal critics often invoked the realist principle of respecting state sovereignty as a justification for leaving the Nicaraguans alone. Yet the exact same liberals eviscerated Reagan for supporting a brutal right-wing dictatorship in nearby El Salvador.

What the Democrats have constantly been searching for is a synthesis of realism and idealism, a proverbial Third Way that would allow them to anchor their situational preferences in a coherent and consistent doctrine. My sense is that they are no closer to finding this golden mean than they were when Jimmy Carter was in the White House. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:21 AM by David Adesnik  

WHAT DEMOCRATS BELIEVE: Earlier this week I participated in a sort of focus group for Democratic activists designed to clarify the party's core beliefs. Not that I am a Democratic activist, but I took part because the participants in the focus group consisted specifically of moderate/DLC types committed to restoring the party's credibility on national security issues.

Liberal commentators, including OxBlog favorites such as Kevin Drum and Matt Yglesias , often observe that Democrats, unlike Republicans, don't have a simple set of core beliefs that can be summarized in an "elevator pitch", i.e. a 30 second speech that you could give to someone while riding in an elevator.

With this shortcoming in mind, the leader of our focus group asked the ten or so participants to write down in three sentences or less what the Democratic party stands for. A few months ago, Kos wrote:

Ask 10 people what the Democrats stand for, and you'll get 10 different answers. Ask me what the Democrats stand for, and I'll stare back speechless.

Yet in our focus group, almost every answer was exactly the same. The purpose of the Democratic party is to help the poor and the disadvantaged.

Most participants added that the federal government is the Democrats' preferred mechanism for helping the disadvantaged. More than one participant justified this focus on the disadvantaged by arguing that the free market structure of American society ensures that there will always be a significant numebr of Americans who are disadvantaged.

The organizer's response to this unexpected consensus was both sympathetic and devastating. On the one hand, this consensus suggested that there is a foundational commitment on which Democrats can build. On the other hand, if the purpose of the Democratic party is to help the disadvantaged, what can the party possibly offer to the overwhelming majority of Americans who see themeslves as middle class?

Adding insult to injury, I said that no one at the table had listed either national security or defending the United States as one of the core purposes of the Democratic party. Thus, how could anyone expect undecided voters to think of the Democrats as the party strongest on security issues if even the most committed Democrats don't define security as one of the party's most important missions?

(To be fair, one or two participants sought to extend the principle of helping the disadvantaged to the international arena. Of course, calling for more foreign aid is hardly the way to win middle class votes.)

After identifying why the party's core message failed to resonate with more voters, the discussion turned to the question of whether the answer to this problem is to "frame" its agenda differently or whether the substance of the party's agenda had to change. On this point, there wasn't much of a consensus.

Take the issue of being pro-market, for example. Not one person at the table listed a commitment to either entrepreneurs or free markets as a core part of the Democratic agenda. Yet everyone at the table was basically pro-market and pro-business BUT believed that America must pay more attention to those left behind by markets and businesses.

Given that Republicans always identify themselves as the party of markets and entrepreneurs, could Democrats make any headway with this kind of "yes, but" approach to the subject? But if framing isn't enough, how can Democrats alter the substance of their agenda without simply becoming more like Republicans?

In the final analysis, there was no answer to this question. Even a table full of Ivy League-educated Democratic activists couldn't come up with an answer to the question of what the Democrats want to offer America as a whole, and not just the disadvantaged. But the question itself is important, because it has the potential to force the Democrats to approach every major policy debate from a fresh perspective. (1) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:14 PM by David Adesnik  

OXBLOG FILM CLASSICS: REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE. A few days ago, for the first time, I saw the immortal James Dean play Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause (RWaC). RWaC is one of those films that just seems so bizarre to the modern eye that one almost begins to wonder whether the entire thing is a parody.

One might describe RWaC as an accidental cocktail of Beverly Hills 90210, Freudian psychoanalysis, and morbid existentialism with just a dash of Boyz N the Hood. These days, we think of juvenile delinquency as the result of broken homes and economic deprivation. Yet poor Jim Stark has grown up in a two parent, Ozzie & Harriet home where his mother cooks him bacon and eggs for breakfast on school days.

In order to explain the breakdown of this suburban fantasy, the film invokes the good Dr. Freud. Jim, it seems, is prone to violence because he has to compensate somehow for growing up with a domineering mother and emasculated father. Of course, based on what we see in the film, one might describe his father as mildly hen-pecked and his mother a tad overbearing, but in no way would one consider either condition to be pathological.

Even so, poor Jim is so distraught that he has to defend his delicate masculinity by partaking in knife fights and playing chicken with stolen cars. Meanwhile, Jim and love interest Judy (Natalie Wood) speculate about whether life is worth living since it is inherently meaningless.

This point gets driven home by the most surreal moment in the entire film, in which Jim's school goes on a field trip to a planetarium where the students watch a film narrated by a spooky old man who tells the kids that the earth will one day be destroyed by fiery explosions, thus renering pointless the existence of all mankind. Perhaps things had changed by the 1980s, but when I was a kid, most planetarium shows tried to be a little more uplifting.

Oh, and did I mention the homoerotic subtext to the film, primarily involving the relationship between Jim and his sidekick Plato? Jim's dad also gets thrown into the mix during an extended scene that involves him wearing his wife's frilly apron.

All in all, RWaC is so bizarre that I find it impossible to imagine what contemporary audiences thought of the film. Was it daring and subversive? Or was it a mostly unremarkable depiction of suburban life in the 50s? Given James Dean's status as icon, I wouldn't be surprised if there is an extensive literature, both popular and academic, that addresses such questions.

In fact, if you do an Amazon search for "James Dean biography" you get a very, very long list of results. Sadly, OxBlog does not have either the time or energy to undertake a detailed exploration of popular culture in the 1950s. However, if any of you saw RWaC when it first came out, I would be glad to post your reminiscences about what kind of reactions it provoked.

UPDATE: The veritable methuselah known as MD writes that:

Suffice to say I and my classmates in high school thought this was one of the more ridiculous stories ever told regarding us. Of course, the girls went to see Dean, and we guys went to see Natalie. Steve McQueen and the kids in "The Blob" were more believable as teenagers than anyone in RwaC.

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# Posted 2:11 PM by David Adesnik  

ALI G. IN DA NBA: Check it! New commercials for da NBA wit Ali G., featuring Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:49 AM by Patrick Belton  

I WANT MORE OF THE OXBLOGGERS, BUT DON'T KNOW HOW TO GET IT: We sympathise. So, you could either stalk us, or you could join one of two lists we run, on racial integration and democracy assistance and democratisation. Or you could do both. Decisions. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:33 AM by Patrick Belton  

TWO NEW HEANEY POEMS: In Guardian Books , courtesy of the excellent NI blogger Slugger O'Toole. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:12 AM by Patrick Belton  

WAR BLOGS WATCH: GlobalSecurity has a list of bloggers writing from Iraq, and one or two other theatres. My personal favourite of the moment: Never heard of this place till now!!!, at cantbelieveivolunteeredforthis.blogspot.com. ('I am about to begin a journey to Uzbekistan Afghanistan. If you don't know where that is at. Join the club.') (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:02 AM by Patrick Belton  

WHAT A PALESTINIAN WANTS, WHAT A PALESTINIAN NEEDS: Pollster Khalil Shikaki looks at Palestinian public opinion in the wake of the Gaza pullout. Survey says: prior to the Gaza withdrawal, Palestinians gave 'ending the occupation' as their top priority. Now, 'for the first time, after the Gaza disengagement, we have economics coming on top…And the second one is in fact a virtual tie between fighting corruption and fighting occupation. The gap between the first, which is improving economic conditions, and the second, which is corruption and ending occupation, is wide. It’s 15 percent.'

On another note, Yossi Beilin says we should ditch the Road Map, because with no party having fulfilled its commitments, it's traversed the security corridor dividing reality based diplomacy from fiction. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:46 AM by Patrick Belton  

IT’S BROUGHT ME NOTHING BUT TROUBLE; I’M JUST GOING TO CUT IT RIGHT OFF, AND THROW IT OUT THE WINDOW: But before I send PowerBook down the alp, a few notes about things that struck me as worth reading:

• Brummies come last in a UK courtesy poll. Ah gerrot, shut yer cake hole.

• Harriet Miers launches a blog. ('JUST THOUGHT OF SOMETHING: Does anyone have any good recommendations of general books on Constitutional Law, history of the Supreme Court, etc? THANX!!!') Talk of the Town interviews her via IM.

Dallasharriet44: Do I get to see the story early? I PROMISE I won’t blog it.
TOTT: In a word, no.
Dallasharriet44: O.K., then I won’t tell you how I’m going to rule in cases that come before the Court.

• Via Galley Slaves, 'when it comes to the future most Russian women are voting with their foetus: 70 per cent of pregnancies are aborted. [...] It has the fastest-growing rate of HIV infection in the world...at least 1 per cent of the population. [...] Most of the big international problems operate within certain geographic constraints: Africa has Aids, the Middle East has Islamists, North Korea has nukes. But Russia’s got the lot: an African-level Aids crisis and an Islamist separatist movement sitting on top of the biggest pile of nukes on the planet'. Though I believe Mark Steyn might be underestimating the strength of Russian nationalism or the domestic revanchist lobby if he believes Russia will sell Eastern Siberia to China, irrespective of how bad the AIDS crisis gets.

• Remember Haiti? Randy Paul points out it's still there, and surveys other goings-on in Latin America while he's at it. (Remember to back up? If not, let Randy be a lesson to you about bad things that can happen to nice people. Um, we do all the time.)

• Nathan points to a new blog from Uzbekistan, and to Ariel Cohen's summary of Condi's Central Asian trip. Also, the Beeb's Jenny Norton has been barred from Uzbekistan for her reporting on Andijan.

• Over at Volokh, David Bernstein asks why we insist upon Marx's Jewishness if his parents converted and he was raised as a Christian - apart from serving the interests both of those who care to perjoratively trace socialism to yids, or those who care to, um, give credit for socialism to yids.

• Kevin, insightful always, comments on Matt and Sam Rosenfeld's TAP article attacking liberal hawks who argue that the Iraq War was a good idea prosecuted badly . ('Because Sam and Matt's arguments against democracy building are technical, they beg a question: what if we corrected the problems they allude to? After all, it's not impossible to have a bigger army, or to have an army that's better at policing and counterinsurgency')

• Kieran, enjoyable as always, catches out Leon Kass being particularly grumpy. (LK: 'For why would a man court a woman for marriage when she may be sexually enjoyed, and regularly, without it?' KH: 'Well, it’s not as if I’m going to make my own pot roast, now is it?') (1) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:53 AM by Patrick Belton  

HAPPY 200TH ANNIVERSARY, Lord Nelson.



Thank God, I have done my duty. Kiss me, Hardy. (1) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:13 PM by Patrick Belton  

NON-SPAM WEBSITE OF THE DAY: The 30-Second Bunnies Repertory Theatre, wherein a troupe of bunnies re-enact a collection of films in 30 seconds a half minute - lexical variety - ed.. My particular favourites are Titanic and It's a Wonderful Life, though housemates preferred to watch Pulp Fiction or The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Fun for hours 30-seconds, but infinitely repeatable! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:55 AM by Patrick Belton  

SPAM MAIL OF THE DAY AWARD, coveted prize that (judging mostly from the number of entrants) goes to this one inviting the OxBloggers to try for the Doyles footie side in Dublin. Ethnically appropriate and unusual, four stars! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:57 AM by Patrick Belton  

REJECT HER WATCH:

Meanwhile, several constitutional law scholars said they were surprised and puzzled by Miers's response to the committee's request for information on cases she has handled dealing with constitutional issues. In describing one matter on the Dallas City Council, Miers referred to "the proportional representation requirement of the Equal Protection Clause" as it relates to the Voting Rights Act.

"There is no proportional representation requirement in the Equal Protection Clause," said Cass R. Sunstein, a constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago. He and several other scholars said it appeared that Miers was confusing proportional representation -- which typically deals with ethnic groups having members on elected bodies [ed.: actually, it typically deals with political parties having members on elected bodies, but who's counting] -- with the one-man, one-vote Supreme Court ruling that requires, for example, legislative districts to have equal populations.

(WaPo, also confused over what proportional representation means.)

Also, Will and the Crescat kids have some crazy good posts up on the Miers nomination, including this precious quote from Judge Kozinski:

[A]ll arguments that intensive questioning violate judicial independence confuse cause and effect or derive from other fallacies.... Or, as Judge Kozinski once put it, "Well, what the hell are you supposed to ask? Who do you like to sleep with? Girls? Boys? Will you sleep with me? Of course you'll ask them how they'd rule!"

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# Posted 2:28 PM by Patrick Belton  

NAOMI WOLF NEEDS TO GET OUT MORE. Even if she did show very good taste in doing stints eating both pizza and kebab during her educational career. See Scott Burgess:

In her Guardian article, Ms. Wolf seems to imply that, were it not for a TV show "that can acclimatise Americans to a woman in power" (this just after a sole, parenthetical mention of Condoleezza Rice), a Clinton candidacy would be doomed by the inability of the unacclimatised to accept a female President. In her eagerness to credit the TV show with an unlikely importance (it "... could change US politics for ever", as the subhead hyperbolically puts it), she paints herself as out of touch with current political reality - in fact, a May poll found a majority "likely" to vote for Sen. Clinton, even before being instructed to by the producers of Commander-in-Chief. And a more recent poll indicated that 79% of Americans "felt comfortable with a female president".

Ms. Wolf's perspective provides an amusing glimpse into the attitudes of the liberal would-be elite - in this case, that the masses acting on their own are too backward to do something as progressive as to vote for a female presidential candidate, and therefore must be educated by dramas presented via television and film - "where political change takes place and political momentum solidified". Readers are left wondering just which Hollywood dramas effected the changes in the political landscape that brought the Republicans to power.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:58 PM by Patrick Belton  

THE OTHER A. SULLIVAN in the blogosphere points out Egypt is about to build a fence around Sharm El Sheik as an anti-terrorist measure; when it was pointed out that bedouin would be cut off from their places of work, a security official told the AFP news agency the fence was 'not meant to stop any particular group of people but prevent terrorist attacks.' Bloody copycats. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:01 PM by Patrick Belton  

PREGAME AT RICE UNIVERSITY: The Backbencher's dreams apparently feature a President Rice, decked in leather (if, you know, she wanted), fairly less than this blog's. Nonetheless, the hon. scrivener surveys the 'Draft Condi' movement in this week's newsletter:

The thought of a woman in the White House has naturally captured the
Backbencher's imagination in recent days. Hell, why not let Harriet Miers run? And even though the Condistas aren't doing themselves any favours (http://www.rice2008.com/), the success of Arnold Schwarzenegger in California surely proves that acquiring a reputation for single-minded destruction can only boost one's electability. With Condi refusing to admit she wants the job, however, her supporters have been forced to threaten her with the draft (http://www.americansforrice.com) unless she runs in 2008. You
can buy the usual T-shirts and baseball caps here (http://www.americansforrice.com/Apparel.htm), unless you're Canadian: "We regret that we cannot ship to Canada due to multiple unexplained returns by the Canadian Postal Service." Odd, that. "Also, while everyone's taste is different, and we all show our support in our own way, our respect for Dr Rice prevents us from carrying any 'bobbleheads' or undergarments."

Frankly, this was disappointing. (Bobbleheads, by the way, are ceramic dolls that nod, like toy dogs in cars, at their owner.) Who wouldn't love a pair of Condi knickers? The captioning possibilities are endless. "That's Ms President"? "Is that a weapon of mass destruction, or are you just planning to invade Iraq?"

This from the same anonymous backbench MP whose 17 November newsletter carried the title 'For Fawkes' Sake'. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:30 AM by Patrick Belton  

AND MORE* IRA BLOGGING: Anthony McIntyre, who did 17 years in the Maze for being an IRA operative, gives advice to the Blair government on penetrating terrorist organisations after 7/7.

* Actually, Dessie's in the INLA, as someone kindly pointed out. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:41 AM by Patrick Belton  

MORE GOOGLE. I also note that we seem to be getting a rather large number of hits from people googling Dessie O'Hare, for whom on some searches we seem to be the first result. I just wanted to clarify, for the purposes of any IRA folk out there on their keyboards, that we think he's just a grand lad. Any suspicions to the contrary were wholly due to lousy editing. By my coauthor. In fact, he's welcome to come skiing anytime. The address is: 59 Calle P O'Neill, Buenos Aires, Argentina. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:46 PM by David Adesnik  

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# Posted 10:30 PM by David Adesnik  

MORE HE SAID/SHE SAID JOURNALISM: In theory, journalists give unwarranted credibility to those who are wrong and/or ignorant by quoting them along side those who are right and well-informed, because there must be two sides to every story. This alleged phenomenon is known as he said/she said journalism, and liberals rely on it to explain how liberal journalists unintentionally do the bidding of conservative Republicans.

Anyhow, this theory came to mind when I read the first paragraphs of the top story in today's WaPo, entitled Iraqis Say Airstrikes Kill Civilians:

BAGHDAD, Oct. 17 -- A U.S. fighter jet bombed a crowd gathered around a burned Humvee on the edge of a provincial capital in western Iraq, killing 25 people, including 18 children, hospital officials and family members said Monday. The military said the Sunday raid targeted insurgents planting a bomb for new attacks...

The U.S. military said it killed a total of 70 insurgents in Sunday's airstrikes and, in a statement, said it knew of no civilian deaths.

At Ramadi hospital, distraught and grieving families fought over body parts severed by the airstrikes, staking rival claims to what they believed to be pieces of their loved ones. [Emphasis added. Duh!]

In theory, this is an example of he said/she said journalism. But you'd have to pretty thick not notice the Post's hints that the Iraqis, and not the US military, are telling the truth.

As WaPo correspondent Mike Allen once observed in a moment of accidental candor, journalists shade their coverage so that "discerning readers" know who to believe and who is lying. Now in this instance, the Post may very well have put the correct spin on the story. I mean, you'd think families would know if their children were killed. But my purpose here isn't to challenge the facts of a specific story. It's just to demonstrate that liberal journalists know how to get their message across without breaking the rules of the game. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:04 PM by David Adesnik  

WHAT THE ARMY WANTS YOU TO READ: Since army officers have lots of free time, the Chief of Staff (currently Gen. Peter Schoomaker) maintains a Professional Reading List on the Army's homepage. The list is divided into four sections, according to rank, from cadet all the way up to general.

The list for cadets includes classics such as John Keegan's Face of Battle, which I must admit to having not read, although it is very high on my 'to read list'. Yet the list for generals starts of with some trendy bits of pundit-puff such as The Clash of Civilizations and The Lexus and the Olive Tree.

(Sorry, Tom, you're a great columnist and a friendly guy, but that book just got on my nerves. Not that you care. You're rich and famous, so you can wear floral-print Hawaiian shirts in public or even have a kooky haircut.)

On the bright side, the generals' reading list does gets much better as it goes along. The highlight, of course, is Donald Kagan's account of the Peloponnesian War. If only our generals had time to read the original four-volume edition... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:48 PM by David Adesnik  

ONLY MILLIONAIRES CAN AFFORD KOOKY HAIRCUTS: One of the great things about being rich (not that I would know) is that you can be eccentric without worrying about the cost of being mocked. For example, see below for what kind of haircut multi-millionaire Malcolm Gladwell currently sports. And then see if you can recognize the man in the photo to the left.

Yup, that's also Malcom Gladwell, except before he was rich and famous. So watch out: as soon OxBlog gets rich and famous, the Jewfro will become inevitable. Actually, I don't have the hair for it. But in high school I did have a ponytail for a while. So you might say that what being a millionaire really lets you do is relive your adolescence, except without parents there to prevent you from doing anything really stupid. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:22 PM by David Adesnik  

AND YOU THOUGHT THE GUYS AT OXBLOG WERE NAIVE OPTIMISTS: The haircut alone says that Malcolm Gladwell is an optimist. But it's hard to beat this quotation, from a roundtable on technology in the current issue of Time:

One of the big trends in American society is the transformation of the evangelical movement and the rise of a more mature, sophisticated, culturally open evangelical church.

Ten years from now, I don't think we're going to have the kinds of arguments about religion that we have today. Even the fight over intelligent design, to me, is a harbinger of a trend, which is that the religious world is increasingly willing to put its issues on the table and discuss them in the context of the secular world.

Go back to Gladwell's first sentence for a moment. How often do you hear a Blue State intellectual use the words 'mature', 'sophisticated' and 'open' in the same sentence as 'evangelical'?

On the other hand, what Gladwell's saying is that right now, all of the trouble America has with religion is because evangelicals are immature, unsophisticated and culturally closed. That sort of condescending generalization almost makes me wonder whether secular Americans might in some small way be responsible for the conficts we have about religion.

Anyhow, let me counter Gladwell's optimism with some of my own: I predict that there will fewer arguments about religion ten years from now because secularists will become increasingly respectful, patient and socially generous. Cool, huh? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:42 PM by David Adesnik  

IN MEMORIAM: PENN KEMBLE. I first met Penn almost two years ago while conducting research for my doctoral dissertation. In order to develop a better understanding of US-Central American relations in the Reagan era, I sought to interview those who were closely involved the policymaking process.

Certainly, Penn had more important things to do with his time than give interviews to graduate students. Yet he was always generous with his time. Less than twelve months ago, after Penn had already begun his struggle against brain cancer, he suggested that I conduct my follow-up interview over dinner at his home in Georgetown.

Over a home-cooked meal, Penn spent more than an hour passionately recounting the battles of old, even though his surgery was so recent that the scars on his head were still visible. It was that kind of living passion that nourished my interest in a facet of American politics and diplomacy that has few students left today, in spite of its historic importance.

For a more detailed account of Penn's life and accomplishments, I strongly recommend reading the obituaries published by the Washington Times and the New York Sun. Although one might infer from the names of those papers that Penn was an arch-conservative, he was, in fact, a life-long Democrat appointed to high offices by Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright. Yet Penn never hesitated to challenge his party and support the other when he believed that it the GOP was doing more to promote democracy across the globe.

Thus, Penn always led an uncomfortable existence in the center, preferring principle to partisanship. It is a position with which I can certainly empathize. But more importantly, Penn's tremendous success in life suggests that one may achieve the most by staying true to oneself.

I wish all the comfort in the world to his wife, Marie-Louise, in her time of loss. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:05 AM by Patrick Belton  

I’M SINGING THIS WHOLE THING WRONG BECAUSE I GOT HIGH DEPARTMENT: Part n + 2(rope length) of a series. I spent a lovely weekend up between 7,000 and 8,500 feet, overnighting in a small alpine refuge with a wood stove where I made some soup and a refreshing cup of tea (Oxford breakfast), and did a spot of work on a book review by candlelight. Oddly, cinema may not in retrospect be the best preparation for life in the actual world. For instance, I spent an entire night in an unlocked desolate cabin on top of an alp, and never once encountered a psychiatric patient with a chainsaw, or even a ski mask. He could have come; there was plenty of tea.


the plane, the plane!


this would have been even lovelier had it not been from an icy ridge in twlight whilst encircled by a pack of wild marmots.


and you really thought all this time I was making the goat up.


New readers




You would think…um, wood…would be easier to set fire to.


Sefinenfurgge, 8500 ft. and in ice, for the greater glory of the blogosphere. And other things mum wouldn’t approve of



On the descent, my knees formally gave notice that they would be seceding from the rest of my body, and would in the future quite like to be referred to by international bodies as FKOPB.


One hand, fine for showing off. Zero hands, maybe a little less so.

And my dear housemates and professors in alpinism, who have helped me over many an Everest - Barbara Bader and Dominic Blaettler, quite certifiably the sweetest people in the world:


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# Posted 8:28 AM by Patrick Belton  

BIRTH OF A NATION, OXBLOG VERSION: The scene, Wessex, c. 700 a.d..

First speaks Lear, wearing the horns of office. All right lads, so listen; we’ve got 800 years to get to run the world. Can someone help me roll over the next slide? I had a late night reinventing the wheel for these. Now, as some of you might have noticed, we’re here, wearing animal skins, and they’re over... here, developing calculus. So we’ve got some catching up to do. My suggestion – first, we’re going to need some boats to go with the sailing songs Worthy Brother Edmund came up for us last week; Edmund, well done. Then, we import some members of the opposite sex from the tribe of the Thongii, the ones whose midriffs and underwear stick out. You all remember that one down at the pub last Thursday. (Witena gemot nod in approval.)

Next we’ve got to decide how to make a body of law, to run the world with. My suggestion is that we always just do what we did last time; then we can lose all our decisions in the mists of time, which is, basically, now. As far as strategy, I say first we go left, over here, and secure our Guinness supply lines. Then, we go over here (drawing a line) and pick up some chicken curry; intelligence reports from that chap Brendan the Navigator suggest it goes down well with the Guinness. Finally, we keep going around here (continues line) and make a stop for cigarettes to go with the alcohol. (‘That’s a grand strategy!’ ‘Shut up, Alfred, you kiss-up’).

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# Posted 7:42 AM by Patrick Belton  

DEPARTMENT OF INTERBLOG CORRESPONDENCE: So we were engaging in amicable diplomatic correspondence with another blog whose name I won't drag into the mud except to note that it prominently features Chicagoans-turned-Yalies, and has a funny name. I relate the following exchange.

PB: (after several pages wherein he complains about the paucity of goats to be had above 8,500 feet)) Also, after my TLS article i seem to be a one-man european muslims industry these days, which really cracks me up given that i don't know any, although i came really close to getting one's number at a bar once.

INTERLOCUTOR: Bars, yes, always the best place to meet European Muslims.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:17 AM by Patrick Belton  

SEN ON INDIA: Taking on his natal country in a new collection of essays, Amartya Sen defends India as an assimilative nation marked principally by its heterogeneity and openness. For Sen, therefore, the Hindutva movement has entered into a confrontation with the idea of India itself. See reviews by Shashi Tharoor, Pankaj Mishra, Pavan Varma, Salil Tripathi, and NPR author interview. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:10 AM by Patrick Belton  

SEX, PHILOSOPHY, AND READING GLASSES: At least they're writing about Sartre and Simone rather than Brad and Angelie. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:01 PM by Patrick Belton  

GET PEOPLE LAID -> BIGGER BUDGET! It's scribbled somewhere on an upper management chalkboard at Broadcasting House. Q.v. here, and here. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:40 PM by Patrick Belton  

THAT'S WHAT THEY SAID ABOUT GRAD SCHOOL GETTING TENURE: In 1993, the FBI was assisting in a health care fraud case which involved seizure of a large number of records from the Southwood Psychiatric Hospital in Chula Vista. The records turned out to be more voluminous than had been expected, and to feed his workers the agent in charge attempted to order pizza, making the folowing telephone call.

Agent: "Hello. I would like to order 19 large pizzas and 67 cans of soda."
Pizza Man: "And where would you like them delivered?"
Agent: "We're over at the psychiatric hospital."
Pizza Man: "To the psychiatric hospital?"
Agent: "That's right. I'm an FBI agent."
Pizza Man: "You're an FBI agent?"
Agent: "That's correct. Just about everybody here is."
Pizza Man: "And you're at the psychiatric hospital?"
Agent: "That's correct. And make sure you don't go through the front doors. We have them locked. You will have to go around the back to the service entrance to deliver the pizzas."
Pizza Man: "And you say you're all FBI agents?"
Agent: "That's right. How soon can you have them here?"
Pizza Man: "And everyone at the psychiatric hospital is an FBI agent?"
Agent: "That's right. We've been here all day, and we're starving."
Pizza Man: "How are you going to pay for all of this?"
Agent: "I have my checkbook right here."
Pizza Man: "And you're all FBI agents?"
Agent: "That's right. Everyone here is an FBI agent. Can you remember to bring the pizzas and sodas to the service entrance in the rear? We have the front doors locked."
Pizza Man: "I don't think so."

Via Snopes. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:46 AM by Patrick Belton  

KNOCKDOWN ARGUMENTS: Yaël Ronen, an Israeli student at Cambridge, summarises the governing legal arguments on the demolition of Israeli synagogues in the Gaza Strip:

A final benchmark for examining the demolition of the synagogues, by either Israel (had it been carried out) or the Palestinians, is supplied by the general standards of religious tolerance required under international law. Most of these standards appear in instruments that are not formally binding under international law, but they nevertheless have normative content and are widely accepted. The dissenting judge of the Israeli High Court of Justice quoted UN General Assembly Resolution 55/254 of 11 June 2001, in which the General Assembly “condemns all acts or threats of violence, destruction, damage or endangerment, directed against religious sites as such, that continue to occur in the world.” This Resolution, adopted in response to the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, extends beyond its immediate circumstances, and reflects general standards concerning religious tolerance. These standards have been elaborated in the 1981 Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief, in the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights,[25] in the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action[26] and in UN action. Resolution 2003/54 of the Commission on Human Rights on the Elimination of all forms of religious intolerance,[27] for example, calls on all States “to exert the utmost efforts, in accordance with their national legislation and in conformity with international human rights standards, to ensure that religious places, sites and shrines are fully respected and protected and to take additional measures in cases where they are vulnerable to desecration or destruction.”[28]

[25] Adopted 25 June 1993, UN Doc. A/CONF.157/23, Part II, paragraph 22 (12 July 1993).
[26]Report of the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance Durban, 31 August - 8 September 2001, UN Doc. A/CONF./189.12.
[27] 24 April 2003, UN Doc. E/CN.4/2003/L.11/Add.5.
[28] Paragraph 4(3).

So perhaps not formally speaking illegal, but at any rate still a fairly nasty thing to do.

UPDATE: A reader questions whether the removal of the Torah scrolls prior to the Israeli withdrawal may have effectively deconsecrated the synagogues under the texts quoted above. Anyone?

I believe that the UN Resolution refers to buildings functioning as religious venues. My understanding was that once the Torahs were out of the building it was just a building, i.e., like a deconsecrated church. What one does with the building afterwards has no meaning, except in this case as an example of self-damaging spite. The Palestinians could have turned the buildings into schools, clinics, community centers, or the like; instead they trashed them.

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# Posted 10:57 AM by Patrick Belton  

WRITING IN THE PAGES OF COMMENTARY, Bruce Thornton deftly takes apart the cult of 'therapism' which is at odds with each nobler virtue - 'self-reliance, stoicism, courage in the face of adversity, and the valorization of excellence.' For him and for the authors he reviews, post-tramautic stress syndrome, and its treatment through self-preoccupation and psychic release, has become archetypal for the experience of adversity in western cultures - with the precise effect of marginalising ways those who suffer can find sustaining meaning in heartbreak through reliance on classical, sterner virtues, and ultimately, and ironically, quite skillfully disempowering them. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:09 AM by Patrick Belton  

OH, E: The Beeb looks at the trajectory of a public school education in British politics. It seems to be making a comeback; get up to speed on your wall game. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:38 AM by David Adesnik  

BLOGGING AND TENURE: Daniel Drezner reflects on what has been going through his mind this past week, after learning that he won't be staying at Chicago. One has to wonder about a profession that treats its extraordinary young talents in such a capricious manner.

In the private sector or even in most government jobs, the idea of letting go a proven performer would be considered absurd. I think the entire tenure system is flawed. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:25 AM by David Adesnik  

JUDITH MILLER/PLAME-GATE ROUNDUP: Joe Gandelman is comprehensive and balanced as usual. Kevin Drum parses the details here, here and here.

Personally, I'm appalled by this entire circus. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:28 PM by David Adesnik  

WHAT ARE THE SUNNIS REALLY THINKING? Initial returns suggest that Sunni voters overwhelmingly rejected the constitution -- by a margin of 8 or 9 to 1 -- in two of Iraq's eighteen provinces. In provinces with mixed populations, Sunni opinion was harder to discern. The question is whether the Sunni vote tells us anything about how Sunnis will react now that the constitution seems to have passed.

News analysis columns in both the NYT and WaPo focused much more on how the referendum will play in Washington rather than Iraq. Still, the respective expectations of the optimists and the pessimists are fairly clear. The White House asserts that

"increased participation by Sunni Arabs will draw them into the political process."

Critics, represented in this instance by Ken Pollack's quote in the NYT, respond that

"The theory that democracy is the antidote to insurgency gets disproven on the ground every day."

I would argue that neither the results of the referendum nor the fact of extraordinary Sunni participation tells us much at all. What we need to understand is how the Sunnis understood the meaning of their vote.

Although we have no systematic knowledge of Sunni motivations, I think that American journalists' spot interviews of Sunni voters emerging from the polls provide some very important clues. What the White House would want to hear from such voters is that they believe the poltical process is giving them a fair chance to make their voice heard. It would've been nice, but that's not what they said.

If the critics are right, Sunnis should've explained their "no" vote as an act of resistance against the US occupation and the Shi'ite dominated government. But that didn't happen either. As Anthony Shadid emphasized in his dispatch from Baghdad, Sunni voters kept saying again and again that they were voting "no" in order to preserve Iraq as a unified state.

One might consider such talk of unity to simply be a code for the restoration of Sunni dominance. But why bother talking in code to an American journalist? Typical dispatches from both Sunni and Shi'ite regions of Iraq often include quotes from named individuals saying horribly nasty things about both the United States and other Iraqis. If Sunnis wanted to say that this was a vote against America, they could have. And some of them did. Instead, many of them said things like:

"I had to vote," [Mehdi] said, "to prove that we're still one nation -- Sunni and Shiite."...

"We can't underestimate the value of Iraq. We want it to stay one, united," said Ibtihaj Ismail...

"As Iraqis, as people of Adhamiyah, we are united, we have one word, one voice. As Iraqi people, we can't recognize this document. There are so many mistakes in the constitution. There are paragraphs in it that will destroy Iraq."

Of course, some Sunni voters said what one might expect:

"Do we vote for the [American] massacres of Fallujah, for the massacres of Qaim?"...

"This is to the constitution and to the people who drafted the constitution," [Ali] said, raising [his ink-stained middle finger] in the air.

So, then, what does it mean that so many Sunnis seemed to think of their vote in terms of preserving a unified Iraq rather than in terms of giving the Americans the finger?

At first glance it may almost seem nonsensical, or even the height of chutzpah. How could the supporters of a sectarian insurgency say with a straight face that what they value is national unity?

One might speculate that Iraqi Sunnis are so used to thinking of Iraq as theirs that they can't distinguish between true unity and Sunni domination. But I consider that degree of self-deception to be implausible. I think Sunnis know quite well that Iraq is in the midst of a low-intensity sectarian war.

Thus, I am inclined to intepret Sunni talk of national unity as an indication of their desire -- almost certainly hesitant -- for some sort of national reconciliation. Will that desire translate into less support for the insurgents? Probably not anytime soon.

But I do now expect the Sunnis to turn out for the national elections in December. More broadly, I expect the Sunnis to try and get what they can from the political process without abandoning the insurgents. Some might consider this a cynical exercise to get concessions from the Shi'ites and the Americans by pretending to buy into the political process.

In contrast, I think the Sunnis have decided that they should give the political process a chance in order to see whether it produces better results than the insurgency -- while using the insurgency to improve their position at the bargaining table, just as Arafat used suicide bombings as an adjunct to the negotiating process rather than a substitute for it.

Of course, Arafat was never willing to abandon violence no matter how many concessions he secured. Yet for Arafat, peace represented a serious threat to his mini-dictatorship. Arafat was also able to draw on a major reserve of international support, both political and financial.

In contrast, the Sunnis control nothing and get only few shreds of support from Syria, et al. They have a lot more to gain from peace. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:53 AM by David Adesnik  

WHAT THE GERMAN ELECTION MEANT: A superb essay by Timothy Garton Ash, via Andrew Sullivan. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:44 AM by David Adesnik  

WANT SECURITY IN IRAQ? HAVE A REFERENDUM EVERY DAY! From the NYT:

About a half-dozen polling centers came under attack; one of them was in the predominately Sunni town of Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad, where insurgents attacked a polling center and stole a ballot box...

On Jan. 30, when more than eight million Iraqis went to the polls to choose the Shiite-led transitional government that led the drafting of the constitution, American military commanders reported nearly 350 insurgent attacks, including numerous suicide bombings, the highest level of violence for any day of the war.

It seems safe to infer that the insurgents no longer feel as confident as they once did about opposing elections.

One might argue that their acceptance of the vote is merely tactical. Of course it is. One might argue that the insurgents consider the referendum to be a win-win proposition; either the constitution fails, or it passes in spite of Sunni opposition, which demonstrates that democracy cannot serve Sunni interests.

But even that kind of thinking is far different from the blithe confidence required to slaughter prospective voters, as the insurgents did in January. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:20 AM by David Adesnik  

WaPo VS. NYT: WHAT HAPPENED TODAY IN IRAQ? Was turnout high or low? Were the voters subdued or celebrating? It's hard to figure out even that much if you read both the NYT and WaPo. Under the headline Turnout Is Mixed as Iraqis Cast Votes on Constitution, the NYT reported the following:

Turnout appeared to be highest in Shiite and Kurdish areas, although in many places, including Baghdad, it seemed not to approach the levels seen in January...

The mood on the streets of many Iraqi cities, even in Shiite areas, appeared markedly less enthusiastic than on Jan. 30, when millions of Iraqis braved an onslaught of violence to cast ballots and celebrate in a vast outpouring of pro-democratic sentiment.

In contrast, the WaPo reports the following in articles entitled On the Streets of Iraq, Scenes of Joy and Determination, In a Sunni Quarter, A Day of Emotion, and Sunni Turnout Is High In Vote on Iraqi Charter:

Through the day, the referendum unleashed paroxysms of emotion among many in the Sunni Arab community...

In Baghdad's heavily Shiite, middle-class Karrada district, thousands of children spilled out onto the streets, bicycling and wobbling on roller skates down deserted thoroughfares...

Voting en masse for the first time since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, Sunni Arabs cast ballots in large numbers, according to electoral officials and witnesses. Turnout in areas populated by the country's Shiite majority and ethnic Kurds, whose political leaders drafted the proposed constitution, was described by officials as low.

I guess the answer to my confusion is obvious: only read one newspaper, and then the world will seem like a much more orderly and rational place. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion