Thursday, May 08, 2003
�THE DAILY DOUCHE�:
Jo Davis lets Sullivan have it for his latest attempt to get back at Krugman:
Sully, the president�s truthfulness is about as evident as your hetero street creds. Need I say more?. This is one issue that can�t be spun, and is being studiously avoided by the 1600 crew and the wurlitzer, because they�ll have to start producing real documentation real soon if the heat gets too hot. And they can�t do it without making President Bottom-Gun look like the deserting, UCMJ-violating fratboy coward that he is. So head back to where they love you, Santorum-land. They�re waiting for your check, remember to make it payable to the Campaign to Re-elect the President.
posted by Sully 5/08/2003 11:29:00 PM
SO NOW HE FIGURES OUT HOW TO MAKE MONEY ...:
In other words, he�s aping Salon after ragging on their business model for so long.
Question: Will this �Inside Dish� be something else he takes all August off from doing?
Maybe we�ll have to start getting into merchandising, too.
posted by Sully 5/08/2003 11:23:00 PM
�YOU MUST BE JOKING ... OH NO YOU MUST BE JOKING ...�:
We thought Smalltown Boy would link to the same ambiguous image that other bloggers, pace Glenn Reynolds, have linked to to �prove� Clinton, too, wore a uniform when he visited the USS Theodore Roosevelt ... the same image that, as many have pointed out, merely shows Clinton wearing a windbreaker on closer examination.
The link Sullivan gives (as an aside, you have to check this guy out ... his two or three previous posts are slavish copies of Sully, and in fact one wonders if that was his source for the Drabble item) leads ultimately to the respected stock-photo house Corbis, which, Demmons tells us, has �lots� of images of Clinton on aircraft carriers.
Hmm. We typed in the string �Clinton aircraft carrier� and returned 37 images ... which is probably lots by the standard of someone who drags their camera out every now and then for special occasions, but is practically infinitesimal compared to the millions Corbis has at the disposal of art directors with enough cash to spend.
If you do the search, the image previously used is #0000284023-008 (If we could figure out how to deep-link to these, we would). You can see if you look carefully that Clinton is wearing a windbreaker only.
The image Stemmons uses, #0000284023-009, is a curious choice. Obviously blogging isn�t the only thing he does at a discount, because even a disposable-camera user could have done better than this (How �bout just a little wider aperture to take care of all that shadow at least?)
Aesthetics aside, it dates to 1993, very early in the Clinton administration, and if you look at it all by itself you'll see that Clinton appears to be again wearing a leather jacket of some type with his name and the Presidential seal on it. That�s all. Hardly counts as �a uniform� to us. Look at #0000284023-006 and -007, from the same visit, and you�ll see it�s pretty clearly not a flight suit (Or #0000284023-001, if you want a flight-deck image).
In fact, it�s really striking to us that in most of those 37 images, you can see even from the thumbnails that Clinton is wearing a respectable civilian business suit.
Oh, what about #0000316359-005 and #WL009753? Those are from a 1996 trip to Japan where he visited the USS Independence. But all he�s wearing is a bomber jacket with the ship logo on it and a carrier (and he looks pretty damn good there, don�t you think?). Not a uniform you�d expect to pass inspection with.
Likewise with the image of Hillary at the D-Day 50th anniversary. Enlarge, and you�ll see she�s wearing a USS George Washington cap and a suit that merely looks like a uniform (possibly a deliberate choice on her part).
So, it looks like this avenue of rebuttal has been vacated.
posted by Sully 5/08/2003 11:14:00 PM
BETTER REALLY LATE THAN NEVER, WE GUESS:
It isn�t that Leo and Sullivan aren�t right that Brett Bursey was denied his freedom of speech. It�s that they took so long to notice. They support a presidency that began with the Supreme Court making a pretzel out of the Constitution, a war whose stated justification looks less and less credible by the day (and we are now doing exactly what Sully and others mocked Hans Blix for doing), and they are suddenly surprised it has little tolerance for public expressions of dissent?
posted by Sully 5/08/2003 12:16:00 PM
LIBERAL FOR A DAY:
Not only does he properly condemn the Georgia students trying to have a whites-only prom, he ... well, he tangles himself up on what we have to hope will be his last discussion of Bennett.
Just what is he trying to say? First is his usual riff on Bennett's privacy, and how this means that apparently Josh Green and Jonathan Alter, once they were provided (note that usage ... it means the journalist got this stuff in the mail from a source rather than digging it out him or herself) with these records by whoever felt Bennett was playing it both ways, should still not have published the story.
Tim Noah speculates in Slate that they may have been outraged by Empower America�s opposition to casino gambling. He dismisses it, but we do think this makes the hypocrisy charge valid, since Bennett is not only on Empower�s board, he helped found the organization. In any case the violation of confidentiality (not the same thing as privacy, in our humble opinion) is on the part of the casino employees (assuming, of course, that they acted on their own initiative, and then again who knows what kind of a customer Bennett was? He could have been rude to a waitress or something), not the reporters.
Sullivan continues to elude the strongest point as to why Bennett is a hypocrite: because he has never condemned gambling, even while he has condemned all sorts of other activities that, in at least some of the country, are perfectly legal.
William Saletan takes Sullivan�s point head-on in Slate:
Now conservative pundits are coming to Bennett�s aid. They argue, as Kinsley predicted, that Bennett's gambling is 1) OK because it hurts nobody else directly and 2) non-hypocritical because Bennett never explicitly criticized gambling. Either point can be argued separately. But together they don�t stand up. Bennett's hypocrisy isn�t that he gambled while faulting others for the same habit. It�s that he says it�s OK for him to indulge in a habit that hurts nobody else directly, but it isn�t OK for you. To excuse his conduct, his libertarian defenders are substituting their standards for his.
[...]
Sullivan, Glassman, Goldberg, and Last are fully entitled to make this argument. But Bennett isn�t. As drug czar in 1989 and 1990, he constantly emphasized that anyone who patronized that addictive industry was responsible for its victims.
[...]
The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators 2001, to which Bennett wrote the introduction, says, �Approximately 2.5 million adult Americans are pathological gamblers; another 3 million have been classified as problem gamblers. � According to the American Psychiatric Association, �pathological gambling is persistent and recurrent maladaptive gambling behavior � that disrupts personal, family, or vocational pursuits.��
Since that pretty much wraps it up for his argument, Sullivan suddenly remembers that Bennett is still an asshole:
But when, of course, was the last time Bill Bennett defended anyone�s privacy? Hasn�t he spent a career arguing that privacy should be foregone for the public good? Doesn�t he believe that all private activities are dependent for their morality and legality on their effects on society as a whole? (Radley Balko nails this point home.) Hasn�t Bennett even defended the public shaming and stigmatization of �sinners?� (He has certainly argued that gay people should be stigmatized, while promoting untruths about them to boot.)
All true. And all valid reasons why it was a story.
The Blog Queen, of course, refuses to see the forest for the trees here for reasons that have everything to do with him and little to do with Bill Bennett.
posted by Sully 5/08/2003 12:06:00 PM
Wednesday, May 07, 2003
HOLD THE PHONE:
We knew Sully would respond to Kaus, and he did.
But, he needlessly segments the issue. He says he said there were enough troops to win the war but not enough to win the peace.
That�s not quite ingenuous. The peace begins the minute the war ends. You want those troops there right at that point ... not getting on a plane in South Carolina. That way you've got the boots on the ground to guard, oh, the Iraqi museum and things like nuclear-waste dumps that you don't want looted. Instead of really vital things like the Oil Ministry.
To pretend the two are separate works only if you live on some plane where armies don't need logistics whatsoever.
posted by Sully 5/07/2003 11:07:00 PM
EVEN HIS GOOD FRIEND MICKEY KAUS ...:
MK Ultra Hack (sorry, we just couldn�t resist) catches Sullivan trying to depend on the limited short-term memory of his readership:
Even the conservative Andrew Sullivan, scourge of doubters, is now saying there aren't enough troops. ... Hmm. Didn't Sullivan sneer at people who made this argument a few weeks ago, saying "I guess the anti-neocons have got to grasp at something." He did! ...
posted by Sully 5/07/2003 12:10:00 PM
THE WARTS CONTINUE TO SHOW:
If you condemn the Times for hiring some overeager young beaver who, in his zeal, makes too many casual yet laughable errors, it�s yourself a good idea to a) include the first name of the �Ritter� to whom you are giving a Sontag nomination and b) spell Phyllis Schlafly�s last name correctly.
posted by Sully 5/07/2003 12:05:00 PM
AS IF WE NEEDED REMINDING OF WHY HE GOT THE SAME AXE ...:
We seem to recall that The Boston Globe has been part of The New York Times Co.�s media empire for quite some time now, not �recently.�
And when he notes that blogs boomed, he ought to mention that, as far as we could tell, that tide lifted left-wing antiwar blogs (including this one ... we experienced our best stretch of average daily readership numbers during the war, and indeed our single best day ever) as well as his. So, contrary to what he was implying, it was not ideology that affected one�s readership (as he pains to admit, the BBC�s American numbers went up, and in his homeland the Guardian experienced the biggest percentage boost in circulation of any paper.
THE NON-CORRECTION CORRECTION:
We were wondering if Sully would try to address this one ... the raw spot in Bush�s recent attempt to play the conquering hero.
He proves that he shouldn�t even try, as Bob Somerbyadroitly notes
Thomas� short, 539-word piece was, in fact, quite sketchy. Even she found a �seven-month gap� (April 1972 to November 1972) in which Bush performed no service. In some ways, Thomas even seemed a bit slick. For example, she quoted General Turnipseed in such a way as to suggest that Bush had served in Alabama (see Sullivan�s item today). But she failed to mention Turnipseed�s repeated statements that Bush had not served there. In fact, Thomas seemed to refer to only one document which allegedly contradicted what Robinson had said. Here is the passage in question:
JO THOMAS (11/3/00): [Bush spokesman Dan] Bartlett pointed to a document in Mr. Bush�s military records that showed credit for four days of duty ending Nov. 29 and for eight days ending Dec. 14, 1972, and, after he moved back to Houston, on dates in January, April and May.
Thomas didn�t explain why the Bush camp hadn�t made this document available earlier. Earlier, the campaign had offered odd �documents� intended to contradict claims against Bush. In a report on October 31, Robinson had described one such doc:
ROBINSON (10/31/00): Dan Bartlett, a Bush campaign spokesman, pointed to incomplete records � one a torn page without Bush�s name or any discernible dates � as evidence that he did enough drills in Houston in the closing months of his service to satisfy military obligations.
[...]
In short, Robinson and Thomas penned reports within four days of each other. Each cited Bartlett as their source � but their information seemed to stand in stark contrast. And we think you know what happened next. No one made the slightest effort to sort out the matters in question. The press let the story drop; as far as we know, no one has ever tried to sort out the contradictory Globe/Times reporting. Obvious question: Was Thomas referring to the �document� which was in fact �a torn page without Bush�s name?� This document had been described before � and its value, of course, was enormously shaky. Is that the document on which Thomas relied? From her report, there is no way to tell � and the corps didn�t try to find out.
[...]
Whatever document Thomas was citing, it�s clear that the Bush campaign didn�t bring it forward back in the spring of the year. Here at THE HOWLER, we never much cared about the Bush-in-the-National-Guard �missing year� story. But Robinson�s May 23 report was real news � and the corps struggled hard to ignore it. Last week, a group of scribes seemed to be spinning the story down still.
So, we ask, just what, exactly, in the quoted graf of Krugman�s needs to be corrected? Sullivan�s commentary suggests that Krugman said there was no followup after the Globe story, but there�s nothing in the graf that even begins to imply that.
It�s then really lazy (or cheap?) to reprint just the abstract from the Times� data base. Especially when the most it can say is �some of those concerns may be unfounded.� Hardly a ringing refutation requiring an in-column correction there.
More importantly, it mentions William Turnipseed, the man Somerby calls �the disappearing general,� whose quotes in the original Globe article were straightforward and far more damning:
William Turnipseed, the retired general who commanded the Alabama unit back then, said in an interview last week that Bush never appeared for duty there.
[...]
In interviews last week, Turnipseed and his administrative officer at the time, Kenneth K. Lott, said they had no memory of Bush ever reporting.
�Had he reported in, I would have had some recall, and I do not,� Turnipseed said.
posted by Sully 5/07/2003 12:01:00 PM
BLAIR WHICH?:
A talented young journalist ingratiates himself with the bosses and, despite increasing questions about his or her integrity, continues to get big assignments until it all comes down on him in one humiliating final blow. Yup ... we�re so sure that Sullivan knows what he�s talking about.
While, as we�ve said elsewhere, Sullivan wasn�t half the enabler with Glass as he was with Ruth Shalit (and nowhere near what Michael Kelly was), he should still have reconsidered his lipsmacking, given his own demonstrable lack of journalistic competence (see blogroll) and the Times� own very good reasons to estrange itself from him.
(This does not excuse the Times itself one bit in this affair. We ourselves had questions about how competent this guy was for over a year, after a story of his (not mentioned in the fine City Paper article reported on how two tigers kept (not successfully) by a central New Jersey woman might be �moving across the Hudson River� to New York. Trouble was, the location in question was in Orange County, which, like New Jersey, is on the west side of the Hudson, and we (and perhaps others) called the Times�s correction line, annoyed by the sort of lapse in basic geographical knowledge by a Times reporter that unfortunately kept Ira Stoll in business. The ensuing rectification rather entertainingly stated that Blair had �inadvertently relocated the Hudson River.�)
posted by Sully 5/07/2003 11:39:00 AM
AYE, AND ANDROGEL:
So ... the truth is out regarding Sullivan�s opposition to circumscision. He apparently does not feel he is horny enough as it is.
posted by Sully 5/07/2003 12:24:00 AM
STRANGE ... DON�T YOU DARE USE THAT WORD!:
Guess who else is talking about how unhappy they are with the GOP in the wake of the Santorum Snafu?
posted by Sully 5/07/2003 12:22:00 AM
Tuesday, May 06, 2003
GALLO-WHY?:
Why hasn�t the U.S. media covered the Galloway story more? Might it have something to do with the fact that it has absolutely no bearing on U.S. politics? Or that politically-motivated newspapers just happening to find such damning evidence just like that is a little too convenient.
posted by Sully 5/06/2003 01:18:00 PM
OH, THEN, WHAT ABOUT US?:
If les grenouilles sending Blair bottles of the finest wine is so bad, what�s Sullivan going to make of this? Especially in light of his point that Iraq needs order (Link via Hesiod)
posted by Sully 5/06/2003 01:15:00 PM
THE IMPERIALIST AGGRESSOR OF THE RINGS:
Yes, the McSweeney�s bit is funny. But it strains the intellect to call it �post-modern� ... that would be more appropriate if, say, Jacques Derrida and Jean Baudrillard talked about textuality and self-referentialism in the text.
How �bout having Chomsky and Zinn do a similar paranoid-left take on Star Wars: Episode IV?
posted by Sully 5/06/2003 01:05:00 PM
BUT IS THAT STILL A 32-INCH WAIST?:
Apparently gleeful that he and his name have made one of their rare cameo appearances in the Newspaper of Record again, Sullivan notes what we noted in the last item. But �when I looked about 17�? Oh please, don�t flatter yourself that much, Andrew.
THE YARD SIGNS:
Yes, we�ve seen them to. And he�s right, they are worrisomely over the line. Now, will he once again stand firm against the movement he helped encourage?
posted by Sully 5/06/2003 01:01:00 PM
Monday, May 05, 2003
DAY-OLD TIMES TIDBITS:
First Friedman confirms our theory about the hidden domestic aims of the Iraq War:
Conservatives now want to use the victory in Iraq to defeat all liberal ideas at home
And then the graphic accompanying James Atlas�s piece on Leo Strauss�s influence explicitly identifies Sullivan as a neocon.
posted by Sully 5/05/2003 11:55:00 PM
THEY DIDN�T SEE, EXACTLY, JUST WHAT THE EVILS OF HOWELL RAINES HAD TO DO WITH ANYTHING:
TBogg on Sullivan�s latest instance of being passed over.
posted by Sully 5/05/2003 11:37:00 PM
THIS IS HIGH STAKES:
Sullivan might be less forgiving of Bennett had he read what The Horse discovered over at National Review Online ... namely, an ad for Bennett�s The Broken Hearth in which it is promised that he will show, among many other things:
How self-styled �gay conservatives� like Andrew Sullivan torture logic to make the case for homosexual marriage
Of course, he�s probably not too far wrong on that, inasmuch as Sullivan has logic in chains in the basement most of the time anyway.
But c�mon, Sullivan. This is your chance to kick this man in the testicles. It�s book sales we�re talking here, for Pete�s sake.
posted by Sully 5/05/2003 11:35:00 PM
BENNETT JOINS SADDAM IN BUNKER SOMEWHERE:
When it comes down to one of the writers of Dow 36,000 defending you, it�s time to throw in the towel, Bill (Or have your wife do it for you).
We�re puzzled as to just how Sullivan considers this persuasive. Is it because Glassman takes a snarky jab at The Washington Monthly (�I didn't even know [it] was still publishing�)?
Or because he employs the typical neocon �Who Are We To Question What The Very Rich Do With Their Money?� line?
Bennett is a smart man and knows how to get his ideas across. That gift has made him rich, and he deserves his success. Anyone who knows him recognizes that, unlike many on the religious right, he is not a scold and a prig. He enjoys life. What he does with his money is his own business. He can buy a house in Aspen or a private jet or collect Impressionist paintings or travel to the Antarctic or dine out with family and friends at expensive restaurants every night. It�s up to him.
It shall be interesting to see how some of the Religious Right react to the secular comrades letting slip that they consider them to be scolds and prigs.
And then there�s the �well aren�t liberals hypocrites by that standard� argument?
Some of the members of the Washington Monthly circle � like Michael Kinsley and Philip Carter (not to mention its famous benefactor, Sen. Jay Rockefeller) � have probably made a lot of money, too. How do they use it? Are they hypocrites if, as good liberals, they don't give most of it away and live as ascetics?
Glassman plays the typical conservative game here, again, of purposely conflating �liberals� with �Buddhist monks.� (We say purposely because he�s smart enough to know otherwise). It�s fair to charge a liberal who opposes school vouchers while sending their own children to exclusive private schools with hypocrisy. But most liberals believe, we like to think, that if you have money legally you have the right to make yourself comfortable ... but you ought to use some of it, too, to make the world a better place.
Nor does he consider the point that Kinsley makes so well, that Bennett is all the more hypocritical for not having condemned gambling in the past, since he�s not been shy about condemning everything else ... one can only imagine that he makes exceptions, like that lady in the church joke who �AAAAMEEEEN�s along with every sin blasted by the minister, with a big dip of snuff, until he mentions snuff-dipping, and then says �Wouldn�t you know it ... he�s stopped preaching and started meddling?�
Finally he takes Bennett at face value on breaking even, something everyone else, including those in the know about hardcore slots players, has guffawed at. And that it�s his money ... someone should go to guidestar.org, look up Empower�s 990s for the last three years, and see just how much Bennett�s professed salary is. Is he really gambling his own money?
Oh, alright ... we did. Empower pulled in about $1.4 million in 2001, the last year for which stats are available, and according to their IRS Form 990 for that year, Executive Director James Taylor (no, not the singer-songwriter) pulled down a good $105K, which accounted for well over half the organization�s total payroll. So it doesn�t look like he�s getting a lot there.
According to Montgomery County�s assessor�s office, he and the missus indeed have been able to pay a light five-figure sum in property taxes every year for at least the last four. But the house is still assessed at barely one-eighth of his alleged losses. It�s doubtful he borrowed against it for his gambling money.
(See, Andy and Jimmy? You don�t need nominally-private casino records to really learn about someone�s financial position and so much more when it�s out there on the Internet for anyone to see)
He must really be making hand over fist for his book royalties then. If so, his agent better barricade the door.
posted by Sully 5/05/2003 04:36:00 PM
WHAT IT�S ABOUT:
So Bob Tyrell says it was never about sex, just abuse of power. Oh.
From the response those stories got, it was pretty clear that for most of its intended audience, the sex was an abuse of power in and of itself.
And once you subtract that, you�re left with abuses of power no more egregious than those of Clinton�s two Republican predecessors (and let�s face it, if that alone had been the case against Clinton the Spectator would probably never have printed the stories, because it�s boring as hell to read about memos and orders discussing abstractions, or about things over which their could have been legitimate disagreements, like who should have looked over Vince Foster�s things post mortem.
What would have been a true abuse of power, worthy of the Spectator�s careful attentions, might have been something like this: Without letting most of Congress or his staff know, Clinton and a few disreputable cronies outside government set up a substantial secret fund for some legally dubious activities. Much is expended but with little concrete results. There is some speculation that Clinton himself may have dipped in.
A high-level staffer who knows of this fund begins to worry about its legality, especially as it seems those to whom money is going seem to be either enriching themselves or using it to fund further, more clearly illegal activities.
Finally this person puts together enough clout to call for an audit. But Clinton outmaneuvers him, and at a future staff meeting, this person is fired in their absence and winds up signing a termination agreement that reportedly rewards them handsomely but bars them forever from speaking about the fund.
The audit is completed by this person�s replacement, who informs Clinton and the other people in charge, without any documentation, that the major problem was that the fund was poorly administered but most of the money save a couple hundred dollars is accounted for.
Word gets out and there is an investigation, but very quickly the file is sealed by court order. And remains so today.
That sound like abuse of power, Bob? It sure does to us!
posted by Sully 5/05/2003 01:08:00 PM
NO, WE DIDN�T WRITE THIS:
From his letters page:
Oh, boo-hoo! After receiving hate mail from your right wing public because you dared to criticize the unelected fraud, you weep on your blog, �Are politics so polarized that you have to either engage in hagiography or hatred of our leaders? Is there nothing permissible in between?�
How many times did you call people who questioned the war �pro-Saddam?� How many times did you use the term �fascist-loving� to describe people who were insufficientely enthusiastic about this adventure? How many times did you smear as unAmerican people who didn�t view Bush�s swaggering, thick-headed arrogance as �Churchillian?�
You have spent the last six months leading the people you�re complaining about to ever-loftier heights of partisan venom. Did you actually think the hate you�ve peddled, and the cult of personality you�ve stoked, would disappear the moment it became inconvenient for you?
You are not a responsible journalist, Mr. Sullivan. But for this, you are responsible.
BULLSEYE!
posted by Sully 5/05/2003 12:46:00 PM
HOW TO SUPPORT CASTRO ... NOT!:
We�ve sort of avoided this subject till now because it�s really hard to say anything nice about Castro�s government of Cuba, or indeed Castro himself. There�s only so much hay his supporters can make of his past economic accomplishments, and it seems if they value him now it is purely as a symbol of Latin American resistance to U.S. domination of the hemisphere, or of their own youthful radicalism.
But we invite you to read the Moonie Times article and see how even that paper couldn�t find a good, unequivocal pro-Castro quote. The declaration concerns mainly U.S. policy toward Cuba, which (as with Iraq) we think can be condemned without implicitly supporting that country�s government, either.
"A single power is inflicting grave damage to the norms of understanding, debate and mediation among countries," the declaration says, referring to the United States and the war in Iraq.
"At this very moment, a strong campaign of destabilization against a Latin American nation has been unleashed. The harassment against Cuba could serve as a pretext for an invasion."
In fact, if these are his friends, Castro should stick to having Granma speak for him.
Portuguese Nobel Prize-winning novelist Jose Saramago, a longtime supporter of Mr. Castro, wrote last month that, �from now on, Cuba can follow its own course, and leave me out,� saying Cuba had cheated his illusions.
[...]
�I myself could not calculate the number of prisoners, dissidents and conspirators that I have helped, in absolute silence, to emigrate from Cuba over no less than 20 years,� Mr. Garcia Marquez, 76, said in his defense.
�As to the death penalty, I don�t have anything to add to what I have said in private and publicly for as long as I can remember: I�m against it in any place, for any reason, in any circumstances," said Mr. Garcia Marquez, who lives in Mexico and Los Angeles.
Of course, one wants to ask Se�or Cien A�os del Soledad, why are there still prisoners and dissidents for you to help? Given that he�s friends with Castro, what will the Cigar Guy think?
But nowhere in the article did we find a blatant statement of support for the current Cuban government. So, it looks like he�s sticking with that �objective enemy� meme that Orwell disavowed as Stalinistic.
posted by Sully 5/05/2003 12:42:00 PM
THE NEOCONSERVATIVE ID SPEAKS:
Being feared is sometimes much more important than being loved. In the Middle East it�s almost always more important.
Just what pro-democracy Iraqis need to hear, we�re sure.
posted by Sully 5/05/2003 12:27:00 PM
WE DON�T HEAR ANY ICE CRACKING DOWN BELOW YET:
He has nothing to apologize for in this instance, in my opinion, but at some point, I wish he�d turn his attention to some of the extremist moralizing among his allies on the far right. Sometimes it takes being a victim of their tirades to see where they�re coming from.
Dream on, Smalltown Boy. He�s nowhere near as marginal as you are. None of those people will have the balls to condemn him ... they�ll all talk about how he�s a truly virtuous man and just needs a little help.
But more importantly, even if they do turn on him, he won�t condemn them in turn. After all, as we said, he�s practically invented the form of erudite extremist moralizing himself.
posted by Sully 5/05/2003 12:25:00 PM
�WHAT ROUGH BEAST ...�:
Read some of the other passages from Wolin�s piece:
In the United States, however, it is the streets where democracy is most alive � while the real danger lies with an increasingly unbridled government.
You know, one of the (many) reasons Naziism got as far as it did was, it has been suggested, was that European governments of the time were so focused on preventing the rise of another Napoleon � yes, even more than a century after Waterloo � that they failed to recognize the horror ascendant because it was so new it didn�t fit into their template of Things to Avoid.
posted by Sully 5/05/2003 12:21:00 PM
CHURCH AND STATE:
How native has he gone? Does he forget the role that an official state church, one that has the sovereign as its head, has played in some of messier episodes in British history? Might a nation (much less a blogger) that has seen ugly anti-Catholic prejudice, or had a Civil War about four centuries back which was won by (essentially) the Protestant Taliban, be a little leary of any expressions of religion by its leadership?
posted by Sully 5/05/2003 12:14:00 PM
