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One problem with partisans or ideologues is that they don't see their own heroes and villains very clearly--and they spread misinformation about these leaders.
We are taught by advocates of left or right that famous leaders are either on the left or the right. In general I find the left/right classification handy--at least as a way of dividing up intellectuals. The public often refuses to play along by agreeing that if they are on the left on one issue, they must be so on others as well. Successful leaders, on the other hand, are often what I would call protean--they can change shape or position as needed--and often this helps them connect with a public that is not particularly ideological.
Bruce Bartlett, a conservative, is praising Clinton as a kind of "Eisenhower Republican," and critizing the present Bush as an irresponsible free-spender. (See Brad deLong and my original source, Kevin Drum).
Using this terminology, Reagan was probably a Truman Democrat who insisted on pretending he was cutting taxes more than he was, and actually shrinking government, which he wasn't.
(See here).
Even the hawk/dove distinction can be confusing. Bush defenders want to say Churchill was basically always a hawk, and was always correct. (See Tacitus, and the exchange with Kevin Drum).
Malcolm Muggeridge took a view that was basically at the opposite extreme, saying Churchill's career shows he would adopt any point of view, and support any party leader, in order to get a Cabinet or similar position, no matter how minor. This goes too far, as Muggeridge often did, but it does seem true that before Churchill pressed for more military spending in the years leading up to the two world wars, he was among the leaders who strongly advocated cutting that spending. He probably still deserves credit for shifting from an anti-war stance back to a pro-war stance more quickly than most others, but this isn't quite what his biggest fans praise him for.
A new official report from the General Accounting Office (GAO)in the U.S. says that in some important respects, including access to electricity, life in Iraq is worse than it was under Saddam. The main reason is sabotage and other attacks by insurgents--whoever they are. But it could still be argued that the U.S. opened the floodgates, and has consistently failed to provide minimal security--especially after dark, and for women.
I'm still looking for a great article on what life was like in Iraq from about 1993 to 2003. Bush defenders like to say Saddam killed hundreds of thousands of people--perhaps 799,000. I gather, however, that about half of that number results from two episodes: the gassing of Kurds in the 1980s (after which the U.S. government strengthened their support for Saddam), and the slaughter of Shiite rebels shortly after Gulf War I in 1991 (when Saddam was fighting for his life).
(UPDATE July 10: On the 1988 episode of gassing Kurdish civilians, and the strong possibility that it was actually the work of the Iranians--something Rumsfeld, for example, would know--see here).
The mass graves: when was the last time bodies were added to them? (See here).
Abu Ghreib (or whatever the spelling): what went on there from 1993 to 2003?
UNICEF circulated numbers about children suffering and dying under the UN sanctions--something like 2 million children malnourished, and 30,000 people per year (20,000 of them children) dying earlier than they otherwise would have. (See here and here). I've been trying to find a piece I seem to recall in which a conservative questioned these numbers. (In those days a criticism of continuing the sanctions was a criticism of the U.S.) There was a shortage of reasonably-priced food, and this affected the poor above all. For the rich, there was a great variety of food and other stuff available in Iraq. Precise numbers of suffering children?
On the other hand, there is obviously more cash in Iraq now, and a greater variety of food and consumer goods of all kinds--mostly in the black market, if that can even be distinguished from something more legal. But for many people, there is less security. Instead of a state which in principal was all-powerful, but in practice left many people alone, there is now private-sector kidnapping, extortion, rape and armed robbery.
As the U.S. turns over security to Iraqis--in practice, to militias--are they in many cases putting mullahs more in charge of people's lives than they were under Saddam? Does this impact women, in particular, and their ability, for example, to go to university? (See also here).
I think it has been a surprise to many people that so many Iraqis took part in looting, and now in violent insurrection, which makes it difficult for the U.S. or anyone to maintain the basic infrastructure of a country, including electricity. But it's still difficult to get a real picture of what is going on--or what it was like in the decade or so before March 2003.
UPDATE: I am constantly amazed at these recurring stories (link via Instapundit) to the effect that no one in Iraq was actually working on WMDs for Saddam, yet crucial people assured Saddam that this was taking place. They were apparently able to deceive him completely. No one paid taxes? Everyone had a gun? As I've said before, this doesn't sound like the regimes of Stalin or Hitler.
As I searched, I came across a story suggesting that admission to university was rigidly and corruptly controlled. Young men could be admitted if they agreed to marry the widow of a man who fought in the Iran-Iraq war. Shades of Aristophanes, and indeed of the ancient polis and strict (even harsh) citizen virtue. Oh, I almost forgot: very hard on the young men, of course. This isn't funny; I know that.
Final note: shorter version of that Fox news story on "intelligence failure": it's not Bush's fault--everyone was and/or is stupid and ignorant. Well, one can surely sympathize, yet somehow...this won't quite do.
I don't stay up to watch Jon Stewart, but he'll be able to do something good with this:
"Iyad Akmush Kanum, 23, learnt the limits of sovereignty on Monday when US prosecutors refused to uphold an Iraqi judges' order acquitting him of attempted murder of coalition troops.
"US prosecutors said that he was being returned to the controversial Abu Ghraib prison because under the Geneva Conventions they were not bound by Iraqi law." (via Atrios)
By the way: why has Paul Bremer twice tried to abolish the death penalty in Iraq? Does he hate America? Doesn't he enjoy jokes about Karla Faye Tucker begging not to be executed?
From Eric Umansky in Slate: Testimony, at the least, to how little U.S. officials still know about Iraq:
"...even though the United States suggests that Zarqawi is behind most large-scale attacks in Iraq, it's suffering from a dearth of intelligence about him. 'There is no direct evidence of whether he's alive or dead at this point,' one military spokesman acknowledged recently. Some military officials even suspect that Zarqawi might not really be in control. 'Not all other organizations are necessarily going to be in agreement with him,' one senior military official told the Los Angeles Times. 'Nor are they going to operate necessarily under his command and control.'
"Indeed, Zarqawi may be only a figurehead around whom Iraqi fighters are rallying, not someone directing operations there. 'Most are not members of his group in a formal sense,' one insurgent told Time. 'But everyone, especially the foreigners in Iraq who share his ideals of jihad, considers himself part of Attawhid [as al-Tahwid is sometimes spelled].'
"Most Iraqis don't see Zarqawi as a hero. And after last week's widespread attacks against Iraqis, even some supporters of the insurgency criticized the strikes and jihadists who seemed to be behind them. But as with Bin Laden, a feedback loop seems to have developed: The United States blames Zarqawi, increasing his street cred and thus the number of insurgents who proclaim fealty to him???giving substance to the initial charge."
This reminds me of the Wild West in the U.S. The famous bank robbers and outlaws were credited with many deeds. Very few people knew them by sight, or could identify them, especially if they rode through town quickly on horseback. Townspeople (especially newspaper editors) might say they had been robbed by a famous gang to put the town on the map. No-name robbers might yell out the name of a famous gang to deflect suspicion, or to add glory to the operation.
Underneath it all, although robbers in general were surely not seen as heroes, there was a grudging admiration that eventually blossomed into a romantic myth. The great robbers were born leaders who somehow ended up on the wrong side of the law, unable to conform to the dullness of peaceful agrarian society. Perhaps they were ex-Confederate officers, left with one horse and one gun by the treaty of Appomattox. (Like the hero of The Virginian, an early western novel). No doubt they had a "Robin Hood" side to their activities, especially toward the people among whom they lived.
The Wild West? Here's the Washington Post on some of Paul Bremer's "decrees" that he imposed as he left Iraq:
"The orders include rules that cap tax rates at 15 percent, prohibit piracy of intellectual property, ban children younger than 15 from working, and a new traffic code that stipulates the use of a car horn in 'emergency conditions only' and requires a driver to 'hold the steering wheel with both hands.'
"Iraq has long been a place where few people pay taxes, where most movies and music are counterfeit, where children often hold down jobs and where traffic laws are rarely obeyed, Iraqis note."
Meanwhile, Volokh (via the Corner) raises the question whether the Bush administration has ever denied the story that Bush had several chances to kill Zarqawi before March 2003, and chose not to do so. (If I don't credit Kevin Drum there, I should have). Apparently Condi Rice has issued a kind of non-denial denial on TV.
UPDATE JULY 23: Wild West? A story circulates that Prime Minister has summarily shot suspects. It seems he might have done that to prove his toughness, or he might have wanted the story to circulate to spread law and order. Mickey Kaus (July 21) compares Allawi to John Wayne, and to Tom Doniphon, the character played by Wayne in "The Man Who shot Liberty Valance." Sorry to be boring, but: Doniphon breaks the law by murdering Valance, and thereby helps establish law and order.
There seems to be a consensus that the pollsters were utterly and completely wrong about Canada's election. Maybe people lied, they are saying. Maybe they had to make up their minds about a number of issues, and didn't do so until just before they actually voted.
I think it's practically a cliche that it's difficult to get anyone to answer a telephone survey anymore. I certainly never do. I went to one seminar at which the featured speaker was a sociology prof from the States. He said he can remember the golden age of survey research: 90% or more response, with people answering carefully and enthusiastically. The telemarketers have spoiled it for everyone, he said. Who answers surveys when the response rate is very low? The chronically unemployed? Trouble-makers? Liars?
So one question: can pollsters actually do anything, or find out any real information, to justify their fees? Do pundits and political scientists (to say nothing of strategists) know what they're talking about? There have always been the problems of crafting the questions, taking the responses naively, etc. But now the experts may be totally in the dark.
When I lived in Minnesota I caught some of the BBC coverage (via PBS) of the British election in which John Major, surprisingly, won a majority. Absolutely no one had predicted that result. Obviously the pundits and political scientists were only moments away from writing articles in which they showed that they had seen the whole thing coming, but there was just a brief window when they could be caught being flatly wrong. It's this first-past-the-post system, they whined. Even a small shift in popular vote can make a big difference in the seat count.
(I also enjoyed the first amalgamated Toronto city election late in 1997. Due to a computer glitch, CITY-TV's big, oversized, Las Vegas-style tote boards showed a big lead for Barb Hall, the left-leaning candidate, for much of the evening. Prognosticators smoothly delivered their lines: there was no reason to fear, as some short-sighted people did, that the selfish, tax-cutting suburbs were going to take over; everyone has a sense of what a great resource the common urban space of Toronto is, and everyone is willing to invest to keep it that way. Suddenly, the computer problem was fixed, and the tote board reversed: a big lead for furniture and appliance salesman, and right-wing village goof, Mel Lastman. Same prognosticators: well, this is what many of us feared. The suburban philistines are taking over....)
Unfortunately, many of us have an ever-more obsessive desire to check polls, at a time when they may be less and less reliable as an indicator of anything at all.
It's as if we are obsessed with studying a tribe that keeps moving ahead of us across the savannah or tundra. Just when we think we're going to overtake them, they're gone again. We're forced to rely on secondary evidence: how did they cook their food? What did they eat? Let's check their stools! Once in a century we might get within shouting range of a few of them, but even our most shrivelled scholars only understand a few words of their language. Dissertations are written about the few remarks that were overheard, but skeptics point out that it was windy, and hence hard to hear, and we don't know who these few stragglers were, or if they were in any way representative of the tribe.
Who are we trying to study in our ham-handed, if not hopeless fashion? The sovereign democratic people.
It's a bit like the old cartoon. Two people are in a setting that evokes a remote Pacific island, but they have a stereo and TV, they are wearing jeans, and drinking Coke. One says to the other: quick! get out the native gear! The anthropologists are coming!
Liberal minority: 135 seats, to 97 for the Tories. The NDP, with only 21 seats, probably holding the balance of power. Bloc Quebecois: 54 seats. To put it cynically, the Tories did just well enough to force the Liberals into the arms of the left.
Libs about 37% of the popular vote, Cons only 30%. Projections in the few weeks before the election all gave the Liberals quite a bit less than that, and the Cons probably a bit more.
On April 7 I wrote: "The Conservatives may be as high as 30% nationally; the Libs about 40, with the NDP and Bloc at about 15% each."
It has been said that if you combined the popular vote of the Alliance and PC Party from 2000, you would get 38%. The new party is down from that.
Quickie analysis: urban and suburban voters in Ontario don't like the policies other than tax cuts coming from Stephen Harper's Conservatives. You can take your choice: social issues such as same-sex marriage or abortion; the gun registry; Kyoto; economic development issues such as "investment" or "partnership" in the auto industry (which Harper seems to call handouts), which is crucial in southern Ontario; similar cuts to the nuclear industry (Ontario's best hope for avoiding blackouts in the future); no support for "cities" (especially Toronto); or slightly more abstruse federalism issues--Harper wanting to give power, including tax power, to the provinces, which might have allowed him to govern in an alliance with the separatist Bloc Quebecois. Somewhat bizarrely, Harper promised more in equalization to the Atlantic provinces--blatant pandering--which would come largely from Ontario.
We will see more detailed breakdowns in coming weeks, but it looks like new Canadians, even if they come from traditional and patriarchal communities, don't vote conservative on social issues. It's unlikely that they see the present Iraq war as a cause in which all the decent people are on one side, and anyone who fails to join Bush is a nihilist.
Harper gained some rural seats in Ontario, but he lost some in the Atlantic provinces and of course ended up worse in Quebec than Joe Clark's (pathetic) old Tories. (The closest thing to an urban/suburban riding he won in Ontario was the one I live in, won (narrowly) by star candidate Belinda Stronach; and Oshawa, home of GM Canada). He gained in the West. So he may have the same old problem in a more dramatic form. If he keeps appealing to Western alienation (as he did in the closing days of the campaign), along with some kind of conservatism on social and other issues, does he stay confined to his present base? Can he find a way to break out in urban and suburban Ontario, and points East, without simply becoming a centrist party like the Libs?
Columnists: Ian Urquhart in the Star says we may see the growth of a western separatist movement; Tom Walkon says it's only because the real, sometimes hidden Tory policies were so nutty that Martin has been given another chance; Chantal Hebert thinks Canada may be moving toward a more "normal" situation--two big parties who aren't so different from each other. There will probably be another election soon, and with some adjustment of actions/policies, the Libs should do better in Quebec, the Tories in Ontario.
John Ibbitson says in the Globe the momentum belongs to the Tories. Hmmm... is he on their payroll?
Nothing very dramatic planned. My nephew will visit us for a couple of days. Today we got the minivan "fixed" so that heat won't blow in the summer. (A full repair of the heater was going to cost $300 or $400. No thanks). My wife and I voted and went for a walk, then cleaned the house a bit. I walked the dogs.
I have the laptop from work at home, and I checked e-mail as I had promised. It may be that there is a piece of work I have to do, that won't wait until next week. It just reached the point where I have no real backup on this one. Is this what it's like to work in the private sector?
So far (10:05 EDT) the Liberals are doing very well. Maybe people were scared of the Tories.
Headline: "The Choice for Voters: Health Care or Tax Cuts."
As a cost-saving measure, Governor Schwarzenegger had proposed allowing animal shelters to euthanize animals after 72 hours, instead of holding them for at least six days. He has backed down in the face of criticism, and is leaving existing rules in place.
Obvious headline joke: out of the doghouse. One critic: "U.S. Rep. Tom Lantos, a Democrat, said the proposal recalled Schwarzenegger's movie roles as the Terminator. Schwarzenegger should 'not try to play it in real life at every animal shelter in the state of California,' said Lantos, co-chairman of the Congressional Friends of Animals."
Surely there are other possibilities to be explored here. Citizens could:
1. Bring their own Hummers (preferably modified by Arnold's company) to a special event.
2. A stretch of state highway will be closed to regular traffic.
3. Drivers will be able to shoot at many kind of animals, which will have been freed for the occasion.
4. The clincher: excessive drinking will be permitted. Who would be the most scared: the drivers or the rabbits?
At least a few Hummer-driving, gun-loving drunk drivers will remove themselves from the gene pool. Perhaps a policy decision could be made as to whether the Hippocratic Oath requires physicians to treat the survivors. Don't tell me we have to perform a special triage, and only leave the lawyers to die; that sounds like the kind of red tape Arnold was elected to eliminate.
UPDATE: I should have mentioned that of course the fun-lovers would probably be willing to pay for this privilege: there are revenue opportunities for a cash-strapped government here!
I mentioned the novels of Ivy Compton-Burnett a little while ago. Having jogged my memory, I went and borrowed one from the public library: A Family and a Fortune.
Just a flavour: Matty, the younger sister of the family, has been forced by poverty to move with her father into a lodge or cottage on the property owned by older sister Blanche, her husband, brother-in-law and children.
Moving day for Matty and her father. Blanche: "How do you like the little [wall] paper? Don't you think it is just the thing? It is the one the boys have in their study."
"Yes, dear, is it? Yes, it would be nice for that," said Matty, following her sister's eyes. "Just the thing, as you say. For this room in my house, for a little, odd room in yours. It is the suitable choice."
Blanche's daughter, Matty's niece Justine shows up. '"When I am a middle-aged woman and Mark [her brother] is supreme in the home, I shall like nothing better than to have perhaps this very little place, and reign in it, and do all I can for people outside. Now does not that strike you all as an alluring prospect?"
'"Yes, it sounds very nice," said Miss Griffin [a servant], who thought that it did, and who was perhaps the natural person to reply, as the arrangement involved the death of most of the other people present.'
Compton-Burnett came highly recommended by Evelyn Waugh. There is a "modern" or "classic" desire to strip the text down to essentials--maybe not quite no adverbs, but certainly no Dostoyevsky. Sometimes there is no "he said" or "she said" and it is hard to keep track. Most of the action is conversation. As I recall (I haven't finished this one yet) the usual idea is that an extended family keeps re-discovering that they hate each other, yet they stay under the same roof (or in this case, within a few feet of each other) for reasons of finance and convenience.
I read a biography once that suggested that Compton-Burnett's own life inspired her novels, and makes a pretty interesting story itself. Her father made a very good living as a homeopathic doctor. The ancestors before him had pretty much been tenant farmers, or even migrant farm workers (although somebody had been middle-class enough to concoct the hyphenated name). He got to Vienna medical school on a scholarship, then to Edinburgh. He started out doing very well as a "conventional" doctor, but as he dabbled more and more in homeopathy, he was warned by his colleagues, more or less, to give up the three sisters at midnight.
Once he advertised himself as 100% homeopathic, he attracted a ton of patients, and really seems to have helped quite a few of them. The book I read said his treatments are no help to anyone who comes later--there was really no method to them as far as diagnosing a whole class of patients, following up methodically, etc. He just had a feel for what would help.
Anyway, his sudden good fortune left his children in a new big house--in a suburb, not gentrified or even pseudo-gentrified. No horses, as I recall. They really didn't know anyone in this social world, and they probably had little contact with their poor farming relations. So there they were. Upper middle class, or something, but not independently rich. Stuck with each other. Two of the youngest got piano lessons, and practised incessantly. Eventually Ivy, who was older, got to be head of the household, and immediately banned all piano playing--she just couldn't stand it.
It's sad, but it's also funny.
UPDATE: quick bio and appreciation here.
There is a line in Fawlty Towers something like: why go to the local or play golf, when you can drop by Bas's place. A similar thought arises here (as, in a different way, in Jane Austen): why explore Africa or the Amazon if you can become really well acquainted with a somewhat crazy family.
UPDATE: More from A Family and a Fortune. Matty, who is unmarried and childless and now, aging and a semi-invalid, likely to remain so: "Dear, dear, it is a funny thing, a family. I can't help feeling glad sometimes that I have had no part in making one."
The siblings: Justine: "Our mild disagreement now does not alter our feeling for each other."
"It may rather indicate it," said Clement.
"We should find the differences interesting and stimulating."
"They often seem to be stimulating," said Mark. "But I doubt if people take much interest in them. They always seem to want to exterminate them."
Dudley--Blanche's brother in law--learns that he has inherited "a fortune," and the word spreads. The tutor, Mr. Penrose, says he could not stay silent on the news of "the accession of a quarter of a million to the family."
"It is about a twentieth of a million," said Dudley.
"Well, well, Mr. Dudley, putting it in round numbers."
"But surely numbers are not as round as that. What is the good of numbers? I thought they were an exact science."
Matty hurries over to the big house at the news, and wants to hear about "this happy quarter of a million."
"My dear, it is not as much as that. It is not a quarter as much; it is about a fifth as much," said Blanche. "It is barely a fifth. It is about a twentieth of a million."
"Is it, dear? I am afraid they do not convey much to me, these differences between these very large sums. They have no bearing upon life as I know it."
Clarifying what happened: "What did the godfather die of?" said Clement....
"Of old age and in his sleep," said Dudley.
"He has shown us every consideration," said Mark, "except by living to be ninety-six."
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