|
This takes me back to one of my first posts (should be searchable soon; I'm not going to go looking right now). It's easy to imagine Clinton finishing up a third term, preparing for a 4th. The Republicans got so angry at the Dems winning the White House 5 times in a row, they amended the Constitution. (They pointed out that there was a gentleman's agreement before the Depression that no one would serve more than two terms. But Clinton started when he was so young!)
Ramesh Ponnuru has a remarkable post on the pro-Bush Corner.
"It seems to me that if President Bush had not invaded Iraq, he would be heading toward a comfortable re-election. As it is, not only has the occupation soured many Americans, but the uncertainty over whether and when the war would start and end probably delayed the recovery. (Any disagreement on this point in the Corner?) I am hearing a lot about the intra-Republican bloodletting that will supposedly ensue if Bush loses. And it is true that there will be Republican infighting on social issues. There always is, and the lack of a socially conservative incumbent president will change the balance of forces within the party on such issues as embryonic stem-cell research. But won't most of the factions simply conclude that the invasion of Iraq was a political mistake not to be repeated?"
On the other hand, Rich Lowry argues that Bush is doing better in the polls as the economy improves (or the fact of its improvement is more recognized), and Iraq's problems, from a U.S. perspective, fade somewhat.
Iraqis will still be killing Iraqis (and even some Americans) but most of us will cease to care. That is the normal situation for almost all of us, almost all the time.
Kerry has apparently announced that he is going to be showing actual video (or old 8 mm film) of himself in combat; Drudge is reporting that he re-staged events to make this film. (Shades of MacArthur hitting the beach at the Phillipines--again and again).
Maybe we should work toward an agreement on how to rank the responses of American men who were young at the time to the war in Vietnam--from most to least noble. I'm with John Derbyshire--volunteering for combat is hard or impossible to beat, even if it was done with an eye on the cameras, future political prospects, etc. Yes it's getting a bit rank the way Kerry always brings it up, but still.
Next (I suggest) those who refused to serve, and paid a price: especially those who actually went to prison, like Muhammad Ali. (In his case, hurting what was in any case a brilliant career; what might he have achieved?) Next, those who went into exile. Thomas Hobbes says exile isn't a real punishment as long as you have something to eat, but I don't think that's a common view. I had draft-dodging professors who genuinely believed they would never be able to set foot on U.S. soil again.
Finally: using family connections to get soft duty--avoiding all the rigours of Doors Number 1 and 2. Is using all the school and family deferments even lower? I guess so. Cheney vs. Clinton? That's a tough one.
Some Republicans say Kerry besmirched door number 1 by becoming an anti-war activist, endangering soldiers who were still fighting, etc. Kerry exercised his constitutional rights to speak out, and he made some efforts to channel the efforts of angry vets into the mainstream. When his colleagues insisted on staying outside the law, he split with them.
My Carter story reminds me of what was probably the second most popular convocation event at the college I taught at: Robert Fulghum, who at the time had only one best-selling book.
His topic was the same as the book's title. What was it? Tuition at this college at the time was about $14,000 per year; the somewhat more selective college in the same town was about $18,000. Fulghum's topic? "Everything I Really Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten."
Thanks a lot.
I'm not actually watching much of the Democratic convention. Typically of the way I follow events these days, I have been reading a lot of blogs.
Many Democrats seem to think Carter did OK, it's great to have everybody under the tent, etc. But:
Carter's theme was supposed to be foreign policy? I have to agree with Nick Gillespie that if anyone was paying attention, Carter does not do himself or his party much good on this score.
Once again, I gather, he was all smiling and pious (although not referring directly to his faith), yet nastier, working more with a knife than other speakers.
Carter was the biggest draw of all convocation speakers at a college I taught at in Minnesota. I didn't get in to a packed chapel, but I must have heard the speech somehow. Carter actually got off a pretty good joke--one he had no doubt polished for a long time. He had never been successful at working a joke into a speech. Then in Japan, he told a joke, the translator translated it, and the crowd erupted in laughter. He was pleased until he commented later that he was surprised at the laughter. With some embarrassment it was explained: the translator said President Carter has told a joke.
Barbara Ehrenreich's column on abortion has attracted some comment.
Ann Althouse comments on several points, but in particular on this sentence: "I was a dollar-a-word freelancer and my husband a warehouse worker, so it was all we could do to support the existing children at a grubby lower-middle-class level." Althouse's point is that being lower-middle-class is not in itself grubby or disgraceful.
This reminds me of an earlier piece by Ehrenreich, proudly announcing that divorce works well for a lot of people. Children of divorce often have step-siblings, and end up with the biggest families at graduation. And adults who divorce and re-marry rationally, as Ehrenreich and her husband apparently did, will move up in income, and thus be able to afford more things for all those kids. I can't find this article (Mother Jones 1998? Spudding?) on the web.
In Googling I found a nice piece in CJR. When Ehrenreich worked as a health aide, she reveals that she sometimes felt contempt and anger for an Alzheimer's patient; working in ladies' wear, she shows some of the same contempt for overweight customers. In general she finds it hard to forgive blue-collar women for lacking true revolutionary spirit.
A fair bit of Ehrenreich's own life has apparently been spent moving between the world where one has to work hard for a living, and a world of greater leisure. She longs for the latter, and has a horror of the former. The left-wing politics is somehow overlaid over those personal feelings: if only everyone would rise up, we could all get richer without guilt.
I didn't know Storm Jameson was a female until I had finished this book. (It was for sale for a few cents at the public library; I have to be on the lookout--the Compton-Burnett books may go on sale there soon).
A Google search reveals that she was actually Margaret; that she lived into her 80s, and saw some of her books printed in the "Virago" series, celebrating women; that she wrote articles for feminist publications; and that she left her first husband, and even a young child, to make a life for herself. One can see that she could be portrayed as a sister doin' it for herself.
Yet this book, "A Cup of Tea for Mr. Thorgill," is by today's standards small-c conservative or right-wing--reminiscent of G.K. Chesterton. The "lesson" seems to be that the English taste for individuality, even eccentricity, especially when it goes with self-reliance, is in itself, even if it often thoughtless, a check against the fanaticisms of the 20th century. The fanaticism that is portrayed as the biggest threat is Communism.
The bright, idealistic young people at Oxford are drawn to communism to a greater or lesser extent. By the 50s they are debating the mass imprisonment, forced labour and slaughter that have become typical of the Soviet Union. Does a sane person have to think: we are not just burning away the bad in people, so as to let natural goodness emerge; we are actually supporting one of the worst governments imaginable--one that makes constant war on its own people? Or is it still possible to grit one's teeth and say the corpses of today will fertilize tomorrow's crops?
Jamieson makes it clear that the people who remain communist are crazy or evil. She over-uses words like "egoists," and she seems to think this explains the hard-core Soviet apologists or even agents. She seems to think the British government needs to crack down on security risks, and it is unfortunately likely to be asleep at the switch. On the other hand, she doesn't favour witch-hunts.
One young man is fired from Oxford basically because he admits that he was working for the Soviets in secret for years. His worst faux pas, in the social world of Oxford, may have been the confession, which allowed him to be painted as a liar or cheat (he had come up from the working class, so there was an old suspicion that he was no gentleman). Worse, he identifies the two people who were senior Soviet agents, giving him his instructions. He has no proof, and when these distinguished people, one of them a physicist at Oxford, deny the allegation, the repentant communist is seen even more as a liar and a rat. So he is fired. The protagonist, another don, urges the Master, at precisely this point, not to fire the guy. The argument is: he will really understand how to teach communism, in a historical context, to the young: he has felt the appeal and the idealism.
The protagonist has become bitter and cynical, especially since the death of his beloved wife. There are suggestions, sometimes a bit melodramatic, that it is love which matters most of all--or which can save us from political and selfish nonsense. There is one brief suggestion that if one needs faith, one should try faith in Jesus Christ--but we don't really see a C.S. Lewis or Tolkein in the book.
OK, here I go again. This may be one subject on which I have fallen for some nutbars. But:
How much oil and gas is there? Even if you accept that they are fossil fuels, created from limited raw materials (life forms) under very specific conditions, and therefore available in amounts that are finite in a meaningful sense, i.e. we might run out soon: there is some debate.
Here's one economist who says the last nail has been put in the coffin of the argument that emhasizes "the possibility of a near-term peak in production and the concomitant adverse economic consequences." The main point seems to be that previous oil and gas fields have proven to be far more productive than was originally projected. This author also thinks already-known fields are the best place for further drilling--and drilling was curtailed from the 70s on because of the politics of the Middle East and Persian Gulf.
More radically, there is the view that oil and gas are not fossil fuels at all; that vast reserves exist at lower depths; and this fact is the best explanation for the "reserve growth" of known fields. Participants in this debate are quick to get into conspiracies and politics. On the one hand, the oil companies want to stress that their product is scarce, because that justifies high prices. Politicians are their tools, and certain environmentalists want to push an agenda that says we must sacrifice our wealth, limit population, etc. On the other hand, "abiotic" or "abiogenic" folks are seen as nut cases who are trying to distract us from serious problems.
I don't know the science, but it seems true that diamonds are part of this debate. As I have said, when I was a kid we were taught that diamonds had a fossil origin--that they were basically coal, subjected to higher temperatures and pressures. It is at least a striking fact that the world's supply of diamonds is constantly increasing. Are there deep reserves of carbon?
Responding to news that Iran may be worse news than ever, Syria is still a threat, and Pakistan is problematic, Glenn Reynolds links to people caught up in a "boys' night out" mood: Thank goodness we're in the middle of all these conflicts! The bad guys don't have a chance now!
More soberly, Michael Young says "the perception of failure" in Iraq is "ambient (and utterly mistaken)." As usual, I don't know what's going on there.
For Bush's critics, it may be enough to say the U.S. effort in Iraq has not been a brilliant success, and strategically it was a distraction from the true war on Islamic terror, which should have been fought to more of a completion in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Apparently the 9/11 Commission says very little about the war in Iraq, while emphasizing that it is of the highest importance to fight Islamic terrorism. By implication, Bush has missed the boat at least to some extent.
Young comes to Bush's defence, although in a surprising way, with a strategic argument. He first outlines how severe are the problems with Saudi Arabia. These go deeper, and farther back in time, than harping on relations between the Bush family and their Saudi friends would indicate.
"The real difficulty with Saudi Arabia is that it poses a problem with no solution, at least in the short term: The despotism, brutality and corruption of the Al-Saud has reinforced domestic Islamists, many of whom sympathize with Osama bin Laden and detest the United States; yet democratic elections could well bring these people to power. At the same time, if the Al-Saud crush Al-Qaeda in their midst, this would allow the royal family to ward off real change, generating new forms of violent opposition."
Young literally can't see much of a solution other than for the U.S. to take over the Saudi oilfields.
"Short of this option, there is an alternative, namely deriving advantages from democratization in Iraq. This may be a long shot given the ambient (and utterly mistaken) perception of failure there. But as Americans consciously turn their attention away from the grand ambitions that accompanied the war in Iraq and embrace a more urgent desire to head for the country's exits, they might want to recall that one of the inherent aims of the Bush administration's campaign was to protect the U.S. against the dangerous vicissitudes of Saudi politics.
"Nothing has changed: In the long run a truly democratic Iraq would surely be more stable than most other Arab states; it could also provide a substitute model to the Saudis than the one presented today by Islamist extremists???Saudi liberals may be weak, but they are not nonexistent. But if pluralism proves too idealistic an alternative for the kingdom, and fails, a democratic Iraq, which will presumably also be a fairly pro-American Iraq, will be a far better regional bet than Saudi Arabia. That means that heading for the exits in Iraq is simply not an option."
Of course the Islamic terrorists are largely "non-state actors," and must somehow be treated as such. Yet some regimes are more dangerous to the U.S. and the world than others--and perhaps none is more dangerous than the Saudis. It is in this light that a substantial U.S. presence in Iraq, leading--we hope--to some kind of democracy, is such a hopeful development. We can hope that Young, Reynolds and others are correct that things in "Wild West" Iraq are not going as badly as some reports indicate. And we can soberly hope that Iraq will come down strategically on the side of the U.S. and West--whether the regime is really a democracy, or even dramatically better than Saddam's, or not.
First, Martha Stewart:
On Larry King, with Althouse's headings:
"Comment that made me think it would be good to go to prison:
"KING: Have you spoken to Sam Waksal, by the way, at all? ... How's he doing?
"STEWART: He seems to be OK. He said he's read 180 books and he's learned Italian.
"The belief in research:
"KING: Do you have thoughts as to how you might be treated [in prison]?
"STEWART: No, not yet. I think I have to do some research.
"KING: Which, knowing you, you will. You'll...
"STEWART: Well, you have to. I mean, it would be silly not to don't you think?
"Stewart's book idea:
"I think I'll write a book. Because, I think it could be helpful to other people, just about -- just about what lawyer to choose, how to behave, how to attend an interview. I mean there's things that, you know, there's no how-to book about this.
"KING: No, there ain't.
"STEWART: There isn't. Not that, you know, it's going to be a big bestseller. But for anybody who has to go through this process, there should be some guidelines. Because, guidelines would help.
"Taking comfort where you can get it:
"Donald Trump has been ... a very nice source of comfort for me."
I find this funnier than any of the now-standard jokes about how she's going to work in brocade or French linen or earth tones or de-boned duck in prison. The real Martha is touching, yet funny. She really does believe in planning in order to make daily parts of life work out as well as possible. A female Dale Carnegie. She may be constantly on the verge of rage that things are not, in fact, perfect, but surely there is a genuine aspiration here, that people respond to. Sue-Ann Niven?
Althouse also deals with Martha's brief reference to Nelson Mandela in a very judicious way.
Secondly: KenJen on Jeopardy:
You get a sense Althouse has been losing her patience for a while. At one point she simply commented that the interest is in waiting to see when Alex Trebek shows he is getting sick of Ken. More recently, however, she has taken flight:
"Maybe the problem is that Ken Jennings really isn't very interesting. And the show is less interesting than normal when Final Jeopardy presents no risk and no occasion for strategic betting. The only surprise is how much KenJen wins by. (An obvious missed opportunity in the Slate drinking game: there should have been a rule to drink when Ken bets just enough on Final Jeopardy to equal but not exceed the one-day record.)
"On Final Jeopardy with KenJen, the people out of contention just seem like mere shells of a man/woman. What about that guy yesterday--you know, the guy that looked like Al Gore--just writing "What is ....?" when the question required the name of a country in Africa? At least name some country in Africa! The only possible thing you could lose there is your last shred of dignity if you were somehow to fail to name a country in Africa! But you did fail to ... ah ... enough already. That man was boring. And the woman was scarcely alive!
"Conclusion: KenJen is making the show boring, but way more people are tuning in because of him than would watch on an ordinary day, where the contest would be more exciting. Viewers are dully observing the dollar total advance and sticking around because they want to be watching when some day KenJen falls. The percentage of viewers hoping to see him defeated probably increases each day."
Trebek may not have blown yet, but Althouse has! Funny stuff. This raises an old question with me:
What was wrong with game shows being fixed, if that made them more entertaining? Robert Redford directed a movie that went back over the great scandal of the late 1950s. Remarkably, Charles Van Doren, who was caught conspiring with the producers of a show so that he knew the answers, was disgraced, and hounded into a kind of oblivion. Redford apparently wanted to re-ignite this mob feeling of hatred and indignation for a cheater. We thought he won fair and square! But he didn't!
Joseph Epstein wrote a moving essay (requires subscription) about Van Doren's later years. Van Doren was practically rescued by Mortimer Adler, and given work on the Encyclopedia Brittanica and the "Great Books," which is where Epstein met him. How could Van Doren have been treated as such an outcast, a moral leper?
I think Epstein makes the point (or someone did, commenting on Redford's movie): the only way on a TV game show to keep correct answers coming fairly frequently, without cheating, is to dumb down the game.
The KenJen phenomenon opens up different possibilities. Have a legitimate winner who dominates so much, a lot of people are rooting for him to fall? Ah yes, this is so morally superior to cheating in order to give Charlie Van Doren the answers.
To the discomfort of some of his war-cheering supporters, and the puzzlement of some of his critics, President Bush has apparently followed (Kaus: "That Was Fast") the Noonan/Kaus counsel and promised Americans they can take a break for a while (via Josh Marshall):
"I want to be the peace president. The next four years will be peaceful years."
"Now we're marching to peace."
In a way this makes sense. Having made themselves doubtful as to whether they are tough enough on "the terrorists," or "the war," the Democrats might benefit from promising they will pick up the French by the scruffs of their dirty necks, and kick their asses. Or invade some country based on very little in the way of analysis or planning--better tough than hesitant, hombre. Hell, invade Norway--or Canada.
Bush, on the other hand, may give off a slight impression that he is reckless with troops and resources, and he likes war. He may benefit from promising to look after things at home for a while--maybe even back to good old-fashioned isolationism: I can't pronounce it, or find it on a map, so to hell with it.
Buh-duh-thah, buh-duh-thah, buh-duh-that's politics, folks.
|
Search This Site
Syndicate this blog site
Powered by BlogEasy
Free Blog Hosting
|