Shot In The Dark - Politics and Current Events in Minnesota and Beyond

Friday, October 11, 2002

Iraq Taq - Americans are responding to Bush's appeal on Iraq.

So, it seems, are the French.

So let's go over this: The Democrats claim that we mustn't molest Hussein without:
Multilateral support - the UK, Kuwait, Italy, Spain, and now France count for that, I'd say
UN Approval - the resolution in Congress will help take care of that.
Proof of an Al-Quaeda/Iraq connection - there are plenty of circumstantial connections. And one wonders if the attacks on the Marines in Kuwait (blamed on Al-Quaeda) and the French Tanker off the Yemeni coast (which was ascribed to a Cole-style suicide-boat attack) as the tensions build don't at least circumstantially back this notion up
So - what'll the next excuse be?

Well, suddenly the Democrats are expressing boundless concern for the welfare of our troops. One wonders where that concern was when the Democrats were gutting defense spending, (especially operations and training budgets) and the Clinton administration's sixties-bred contempt for the military.

Glad to see they're so concerned. Finally.
posted by Mitch Berg 10/11/2002 12:13:42 PM

Peace Prize - Jimmy Carter just won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Jay Nordlinger wrote a piece last May in the National Review about the extent to which Carter cuddled up to foreign dictators.

Even when he was in office - when I was 18 and a liberal - the guy reminded me of a perfectly nice fella with a huge Neville Chamberlain complex. He believed in detente with Brezhnev, turning a blind, helpless eye to Soviet expansionism in Africa and Asia, and was basically a hapless fool before the international community.

But it turns out he's worse than that (according to Nordlinger's article, which will be on the NRO homepage later today:
Care for a quick walk down Memory Lane? Joshua Muravchik reminded us of some Carter nuggets in a 1994 piece for The New Republic. While in office, Carter hailed Tito as "a man who believes in human rights." He said of Ceausescu and himself, "Our goals are the same: to have a just system of economics and politics . . . We believe in enhancing human rights." Since leaving office, Carter has praised Syria's late Assad (killer of at least 20,000 in Hama) and the Ethiopian tyrant Mengistu (killer of many more than that). In Haiti, he told the dictator Cédras that he was "ashamed of what my country has done to your country."

While in North Korea, Carter lauded Kim Il Sung, one of the most complete and destructive dictators in history. Said Carter, "I find him to be vigorous, intelligent,...and in charge of the decisions about this country" (well, he was absolute ruler). He said, "I don't see that they [the North Koreans] are an outlaw nation." Pyongyang, he observed, was a "bustling city," where shoppers "pack the department stores," reminding him of the "Wal-Mart in Americus, Georgia."
Reminds me of the fools who nuzzled up to Hitler and Stalin (including, in the latter case, the progenitors of Minnesota's Democrat-Farmer-Labor party) in the thirties, the ones who figured making the trains run on time was the measure of a government and a leader.

A shameful day indeed.
posted by Mitch Berg 10/11/2002 11:34:56 AM

Thursday, October 10, 2002

Gripping Radio - Driving in to work this morning, I listened to NPR's edge-of-the-seat coverage of...

...Senator Byrd's filibuster.

Note to my Democrat friends - anyone who jokes about Strom Thurmond's advancing senility will be forced to listen to this.
posted by Mitch Berg 10/10/2002 01:57:58 PM

The Wichita Non-Hate Murders - Notes on the testimony of the single survivor of a rape-murder binge in Wichita that left four dead.

As reported in this space earlier, this crime has all the hallmarks of a hate crime - racial motivations, degradation of the victims (rape, sodomy) before the murders, and a quadruple (attempted quintuple) execution-style shooting.

But it's not being prosecuted as a hate crime (albeit the death penalty is on the table). Which is, on the one hand, OK, if you're being consistent about things. Conservatives oppose creating special classes of victims.

But Kansas does have a hate-crime statute. The fact that it's not being invoked in this case (even though it is a capital case) shows the dishonesty of hate crime laws, at least in that jurisdiction (although one might suspect many more would follow suit).
posted by Mitch Berg 10/10/2002 12:11:21 PM

Freedom, Part CMXXIV - Yesterday in this space (see "Why We Fight", below), we saw what joke freedom of the press has become in France.

Now, Natalie Solent shows that the UK isn't far behind. A Brit was accused by a Moslem man under a new hate crime law of defaming Islam. The "perp" has been convicted, and may get prison time.

The accuser, by the way, believes Bin Laden is a great man, and that Americans are stupid and deserve to die. Since it's not attacking anyone's religion, it's not actionable.

Shocked, aren't you?
posted by Mitch Berg 10/10/2002 08:44:39 AM

Wednesday, October 09, 2002

Theory Confirmed - I always rued the passing of the notion of "self-respect" - the sense of knowing and being able to live with oneself and one's actions - and its replacement by the idea of "self-esteem", the notion that one is just plain pretty darn good. Self-respect seems grown-up, sensible, based in moral concepts as simple as the Golden Rule, while self-esteen always seemed to me to be a gateway to narcissism and a solipsistic view of the world. Self-esteem says "I'm special!". Self-respect says "I'm not perfect, but I'm a good person". Self-esteem is one step removed from bragging; self-respect is an integral part of character.

The saw was that without sufficient self-esteem, kids would grow up to have problems - crime, violence, promiscuity, the whole line-up. It never added up to me, though - most of the real troublemakers I knew growing up, and in the adult world, seemed to like themselves just fine.

It seems that research is bearing this out. Despite a decade of social-service and education-establishment pandering to the concept of self-esteem, investigation indicates it's just not so. Andrew Sullivan, in a Time Magazine article, quotes Dr. Brad J. Bushman of Iowa State University and Dr. Roy F. Baumeister of Case Western Reserve University
"I think we had a great deal of optimism that high self-esteem would cause all sorts of positive consequences, and that if we raised self-esteem people would do better in life," Baumeister told the Times. "Mostly, the data have not borne that out." Racists, street thugs, school bullies all polled high on the self-esteem charts. And you can see why. If you think you're God's gift, you're particularly offended if other people don't treat you that way. So you lash out, or commit crimes, or cut ethical corners to reassert your pre-eminence. After all, who are your moral inferiors to suggest tht you could be doing something, er, wrong? What do they know?
So what do we do now? We've spent uncounted millions on programs to boost self-esteem, while the notion of self-respect has gone begging, and and it's been squeezed out of the agenda for most of the institutions that used to promote it (schools, churches, social organizations).

So when can we stop teaching school kids to mouth "I AM someone" - which always struck me as pathetic - and start teaching them why that matters?
posted by Mitch Berg 10/9/2002 04:45:20 PM

Why We Fight - One of the things for which our flag stands, and for which generations of Americans have fought and died, is freedom. Freedom to live, pursue happiness, protect ourselves from the ravages of man and governmet, to be secure in our homes and persons, free from the rapacity of the majority and the bureaucracy. Freedom to worship, to assemble, to choose our destinies.

Freedom to express ourselves, even at the risk of insulting and being insulted.

We do this in contrast to repressive governments like Iran, Iraq, the former Taliban, Myanmar...

...and France?

Miss America and the Sex Agenda - The new Miss America has ruffled many feathers. She embraces many conservative values (as noted in this space immediately after the pageant), including, most notably, teen abstinence.

Today, she details the pressure - indeed, bullying - she's received from pageant officials to drop the abstinence message from her "platform", and revert to the standard, cookie-cutter "prevent teen violence" message that the pageant has tried to impose on her.

She's fighting back.
posted by Mitch Berg 10/9/2002 04:03:58 PM

Matt vs. Babs - I love this bit here...

...and this one, too.
posted by Mitch Berg 10/9/2002 01:54:16 PM

I'll Know When I See It - My mom's an artist. She used to run a little city art gallery in the middle of North Dakota. Every now and then, in between displays of art from the town's elementary school kids, she's bring in an installation by some regional artist or another. Now, I'm pretty literate about some art - music and literature, certainly - but visual art has never been a forte of mine.

Still, in looking at the art of people like Eric Budd, I did develop a bit of revulsion for the subgenre of art that grew up around the notion of aestheticizing the reprehensible.

Charles Freund, on the aestheticization of 9/11 by artists who are blessed with greater senses of aesthetics than empathy.
One conclusion is that these artists represent an aesthetic barbarity not evident since the painters and writers of prewar Italy and France celebrated violence, destruction and martial strength as necessary to create a fascist order. These, too, saw something positive -- something wonderfully aesthetic -- in force, blood and mayhem, which is why the German critic and philosopher Walter Benjamin charged fascism with "aestheticizing" its repellent politics.

In that sense, these artists and those for whom they speak may be "aestheticizing" their own politics as well. Until such time as these artists applaud the obliteration of Hiroshima in a wonderfully novel burst of light, or celebrate Hollywood for its beautifully choreographed violence, or embrace the American right to bear arms for its aesthetic potential -- until then, we can justly speculate that it is only when Americans are murdered that the act is revealed as grand art.

The Vanishing Feminist - Catherine Seipp on organized feminism's relevancy gap.
posted by Mitch Berg 10/9/2002 01:41:02 PM

The Vanishing Legacy - First, it was the Middle East peace that wasn't.

Then, the Clinton bubble burst.

Now, the capstone of Clinton's foreign policy "legacy" - the Mitchell accord on Northern Ireland - is circling the drain.
posted by Mitch Berg 10/9/2002 01:31:03 PM

Does this make me Wierd? - I can't stop laughing at this, from the main page of today's Onion:
ARLINGTON, VA—The U.S. Defense Department apologized to Skokie, IL, dentist Ira Nussbaum Tuesday following a bombing campaign aimed at removing the 37-year-old from power. "Apparently, the intelligence source who drafted the attack plan against Iraq failed to strike the 'Q' key hard enough," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said. "The 'Q' was always a little stubborn on that keyboard. Sorry." This marks the first military action taken against Nussbaum since a malfunctioning shift key prompted Ulster Unionists to detonate his Ford Taurus in 1998.

posted by Mitch Berg 10/9/2002 01:25:23 PM

Tuesday, October 08, 2002

Sharpton: The Right Loser for Black America - Rod Dreher on Al Sharpton, his new book, and his candidacy for President.
posted by Mitch Berg 10/8/2002 03:48:56 PM

Liberal Opprobium Watch - Dave Konig, on the trials of being a Republican in a sea of liberals. He's in show-biz in New York. Say no more.

Except that it can't be much worse than being a Republican in Saint Paul.
posted by Mitch Berg 10/8/2002 03:19:38 PM

None Dare Call It Terrorism - The Maryland Sniper murders apparently continue - and J.J. Johnson wonders why it's not being called terrorism?
since nothing - absolutely nothing since September 11, 2001 will be called terrorism. Not the American Airlines flight over New York City a year ago, not the string of oil refinery explosions, unexplained train derailments, not the nutcases attacking Greyhound bus drivers, and heaven forbid - that Anthrax thing was an anomaly, just like the West Nile Virus and the new cases of malaria popping up in the same area of the shooting. Just individual crazed lunatics mind you, not terrorism.
OK, seems a little paranoid? Perhaps. But he goes on:
Not bad for eleven rounds. Anyone want to take a guess how many of these students are children of federal employees? Now, let your brain spin. Here's a federal government planning for war, importing and exporting no goods on its western flank, and with a market in a steady freefall, and yet to even submit a budget this fiscal year. But none of that will be on their minds when they wake up - only: who's next?

Just like September 11 - brilliant war tactics. Then again, as any sniper can tell you, psychological terror is a bi-product of this time-tested, lethal art.
I'm also counting the hours until some anti-gun zealot tries to count this as another reason to ban firearms - despite the fact that Maryland's gun laws are already extremely strict and proscriptive.
posted by Mitch Berg 10/8/2002 03:04:54 PM

Ooops - Smells like a hoax, but it sure is funny...
posted by Mitch Berg 10/8/2002 02:13:09 PM

Play MST-y For Me - A very clever attack on a very mendacious assault on the President, by a California "psychiatrist", done in the form of a "Mystery Science Theater" segment.

Sometimes I wish I were a lot more clever than I am!
posted by Mitch Berg 10/8/2002 01:59:35 PM

Follow the Flipping Penny - This site is a Republican production, but it does a fine job of catelogueing Tim Penny's endless...well, waffling.

It's a big job.
posted by Mitch Berg 10/8/2002 01:37:09 PM

The Speech - James Robbins has this opinion.

The anti-war left will not be convinced. Having seen the responses to 9/11, I doubt even a nuclear attack would do the job.
posted by Mitch Berg 10/8/2002 01:00:10 PM

Freeh as a Bird - Last summer, asking "what did Bush know?" was all the rage among the nattering classes.

Now that the man who knows what Clinton knew is on the stand...where is the major media?
posted by Mitch Berg 10/8/2002 12:52:01 PM

The Times, They Are A-Slanting - According to Dick Morris, the NY Times polls that purport to show slipping public support for invading Iraq are worse than slanted - they're dishonest:
But take a close look at the poll: The phrasing of the questions is so slanted and biased that it amounts to journalistic "push polling" - the use of "objective" polling to generate a predetermined result, and so vindicate a specific point of view.

It was just such polling that led the Democratic Party astray over the summer and played an important role in catalyzing their (politically suicidal) criticism of Bush over Iraq. Now the Times returns with another poll, on the verge of Congress' vote on a use-of-force resolution, to suggest that voters see the economy as a bigger issue than Iraq.
Read the piece - it goes into specifics about the questions the Times poll asked.

Connect the dots from there.
posted by Mitch Berg 10/8/2002 12:40:28 PM

Monday, October 07, 2002

Time Travel? - London's liberal The Independant covers Bush's speech tonight.

In the past tense.

The speech hasn't happened yet.
posted by Mitch Berg 10/7/2002 04:24:14 PM

Hateful - Conservative opponents of hate crime laws have long claimed that such laws would be far from color-blind - that they'd serve politically-correct aims.

This seems to be confirmed by the case behind an upcoming trial in Wichita. Reginald and Jonathan Carr are accused of the hate-based murder of five white men and women in two separate incidents, after inflicting an orgy of forced sex and depravity on their victims.

Didn't Rush Limbaugh get lambasted for claiming that it would be impossible for a white person to file a hate crime complaint against a minority? That seems to be what's happening here.
posted by Mitch Berg 10/7/2002 11:54:42 AM

Who's a Republican? - About twenty years ago, I was a committed far-left Democrat who was just starting to fray a bit about the edges. I was reading things that were challenging a lot of the assumptions I'd grown up with, in my Democrat household (Dad was a public school teacher and probably a Scoop Jackson-y Democrat, while Mom was probably two steps to the right of Abby Hoffman, and still is).

Reading the usual stuff - Ayn Rand, Solzhenitzyn, Paul Johnson, Tolstoii - began the process of starting my invincible liberalism to crumble. But to me, Republicans were still the country-club crowd, and did not act like me - play guitar, dig the Ramones, slobber over Justine Bateman...

Then came PJ O'Rourke, and Republican Party Reptile, and his tenure on the National Lampoon. He coined the phrase "Pants Down Republican" - people who liked loud music, free markets, the odd drink or three, limited goverment, driving fast, constructionism.

Today's analogue? The South Park Republican:
The most important Southpark Republicans are not famous. They are the millions of people of every age, race, sex, and religion that generally agree that government spending is usually not the best way to deal with the nation's problems. Many of these individuals can tell you why Ayn Rand should displace some other authors in high school literature classes. They know firsthand from endless hours at the DMV, at the post office, and preparing income tax forms that government wastes time and money. They know a nation cannot tax its way to greatness.
Y'know, as a father with two overly-impressionable kids, I'd pretty much banned South Park from the house. Now, I'm not so sure...

FBI Cluster...hug? - There are serious questions regarding what an FBI informant in San Diego knew about two of the 9/11 hijackers, according to Mickey Kaus.

If worse comes to worst, it could be a bungle more colossal than the one that left Moussaoui's computer unsearched in the days before the attacks.
posted by Mitch Berg 10/7/2002 10:18:10 AM

The Slippery Slope - Gun rights advocates talk about the slippery slope.

Liberals deny it exists (unless one criticizes Mapplethorpe).

Legal scholars - like Eugene Volokh, and David Kopel and Hamline's Joe Olson - refute this.
posted by Mitch Berg 10/7/2002 12:34:29 AM

Berg's Law of Liberal Iraq Commentary:

In attacking the reasons for war, no liberal commentator is capable of addressing more than one of the justifications at a time; to do so would introduce a context in which their argument can not survive