More on James Traub's Jewish Problem

*From James Kirkick's "The Plank" in The New Republic:

HONEST ABE:
James Traub has a profile in this week's New York Times Magazine of Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. Traub had a great time making fun of a man he views as an old-fashioned chicken little obsessed with Jews. He sullies Foxman as "the hanging judge of anti-Semitism" who is a "one-man Sanhedrin doling out opprobrium or absolution for those who speak ill of Israel or the Jews." Foxman's demands for an investigation into the murder of a young French Jew last year was an example of his proclivity to "stage public rituals of accusation." The piece amounts to little more than a hit job.

Traub accuses Foxman of frequently (and presumably erroneously) smearing individuals as anti-Semites. Other than Professors John Mearsheimer and Stepehn Walt (who have written of their belief in a Jewish conspiracy reaching into the highest levels of the press and the government), Traub does not once name a supposed victim of Foxman's descriptive wrath other than Jimmy Carter, whom Foxman never labeled anti-Semitic--just "bigoted."

Another prominent victim of Foxman's Inquisition is the oft-persecuted Tony Judt, whom Foxman allegedly prevented from speaking at the Polish Embassy last year. Yet Traub ends up exonerating the one-man Sanhedrin and shows that it was the Poles themselves who eventually realized that, given their own history with Jews, hosting a man who has called for the end of Israel might not be the greatest idea for a diplomatic mission.

Traub writes that it is "tempting to compare Abe Foxman with Al Sharpton, another portly, bellicose, melodramatizing defender of ethnic ramparts." Has Foxman ever instigated race riots, used bigoted language to describe blacks, or libeled police officers?

Yes, Foxman can be shrill. But even Traub confesses that his heart is in the right place. And at least Foxman errs on the side of vigilance. At one point in the piece Traub writes tiredly of Foxman's "shouting about Auschwitz and six million." How obnoxious!

What's more telling is that the paper of record - which ignored the first Holocaust - decided to devote 5,000 words to maligning and mocking a man who has made it his life's work to avert a second.

*From Soccer Dad:

James traub has a semite problem
(h/t Judeopundit, My Right Word)

James Traub profiled Abe Foxman in this week's NY Times magazine in piece titled Does Abe Foxman Have an Anti-Anti-Semite Problem?.

Assuming a mocking and dismmissive tone toward his subject, Traub paints Foxman as a petty autocrat who's looking for antisemites under every bed. If one sentence sums up Traub's opinion of Foxman it's:

The A.D.L., for all its myriad activities, is a one-man Sanhedrin doling out opprobrium or absolution for those who speak ill of Israel or the Jews.

In contrast, Foxman's critics and opponents are described in complimentary terms. Tony Judt is "highly regarded"; J. J. Goldberg, is the editor of a "leading" American Jewish weekly; Mearsheimer and Walt are "distinguished figures."

Aside from the snide tone pervading the article, it's filled with mistakes and omissions.

One of Traub's themes is that antisemitism is no longer problem. The need for the ADL is therefore diminished if not gone therefore:

The A.D.L.’s world became increasingly binary — “good for the Jews,” “bad for the Jews.”
with Foxman becoming sole arbiter and - shock of shocks - moving to the right.

To dispove the notion that antisemitism is a problem Traub writes:

And yet a Pew Global Attitudes Poll in 2004 found that anti-Semitism had declined in much of the West and was lowest in the United States. A Pew poll last year found American support for Israel as strong now as at any time in the last 13 years.

According to the FBI's uniform crimes statistics for 2005 there were 900 hate crimes classified as anti-Jewish and 3200 hate crimes classified as anti-Black. Given that there are roughly 7 times as many Blacks as Jews, that means that Jews suffer hate crimes at nearly twice the rate as Blacks in the United States according to the most recent statistics.

And while anti-semitism has clearly not disappeared in the United States, it is mild compared to the rest of the world. Three years ago a survey in Europe chose Israel as the biggest threat to world peace. And let's not forget the Durban conference on racism. There is plenty of antisemitism still around and citing two Pew polls doesn't refute that.

Traub like any good liberal finds fault with Foxman for making common cause with evangelical Christians while being cool to Black leaders and ignoring the great alliance between Jews and Blacks.

While it is true that at one point Foxman did foster evangelical support for Israel, that seemed to come to an end in 2005.

And as far as the black-Jewish alliance it's folly to blame it on Foxman for moving right and away from civil rights. In recent years, the civil rights movement has made common cause with the likes of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan. All have shown varying degrees of antipathy to Jews.

(In a particular inapt comparison, Traub equates Foxman with Sharpton. Yes, I remember when Foxman led a threatening protest outside a Black owned business in Flatbush that ended in a massacre.)

But what's really bothering Traub isn't Foxman. It's Walt and Mearsheimer. It's not that Walt and Mearsheimer were antisemitic, but that they were right and no one seems to realize that except for objective observers like Tony Judt and Jimmy Carter.

Traub describes the effect of the publication of the Israel Lobby like this:

“The Israel Lobby” slammed into the opinion-making world with a Category 5 force. The article loosed a flood of fevered editorials, labored rebuttals and bare-knuckle debates.

In truth it came in like a whimper. Yes the New York Sun and New York Post weighed in right away. But the NY Times and Washington Post were very circumspect. The Times for its part published an article buried on page B8 about "The Israel Lobby." It followed with an essay defending Walt and Mearsheimer by Tony Judt and then about 8 letters.

(One letter, by a Chad Levinson put it brilliantly:


Taboos are things people avoid out of fear of ostracism. Here, it seems to me, people proudly proclaim their intention to criticize Israel, noting the dangers they face in shattering this supposed taboo, reminding everyone that it's not necessarily anti-Semitic to do so.

Quite the opposite of being a taboo, criticizing Israel resembles a kind of intellectual ritual, with its distinct pattern and style.


And then they congratulate themselves for their self-proclaimed courage.)

Traub overstated the impact that "The Israel Lobby" had. I suspect that even the editors of the NY Times and Washington Post realized how indefensible the paper was and so avoided it. The Post eventually did an in-depth article on The Israel Lobby in the middle of the summer and it was quite unsatisfying.

He also neglected to mention that David Duke gave an enthusiastic review to the Israel Lobby. It would have been a lot harder for Traub to argue that the paper wasn't antisemitic if Duke's inconvenient endorsement was taken into account.

Traub spends a lot of time arguing that Foxman more or less proved the point of Walt and Mearsheimer by getting the Polish consulate to cancel a talk to be given by Tony Judt. He never mentions that Foxman claims that he never demanded that the talk be canceled.

Though Foxman is not above criticism, the viciousness with which Traub goes after Foxman is astounding. . Given the sloppiness of his reporting, it's fair to ask whether it is Traub who has a problem. With semites.

Happy Martin Luther King Day!

Here's a link to Dr. Martin Luther King's biography, from the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize website. And here's a link to his Nobel Prize Lecture.

Agustin Blazquez on Why He Is "Unbalanced"

Our favorite Cuban-American filmmaker has sent us this "manifesto":

From Revista GUARACABUYA, January 12, 2007
http://www.amigospais-guaracabuya.org/oagaq128.phpuya

WHY I AM ‘UNBALANCED’
by Agustin Blazquez with the collaboration of Jaums Sutton

My forty years of life in the U.S. have given me reasons galore to dissent from establishment conventions. Specially now days when the despicable “political correctness” has been forced down the throats of Americans depriving them of their old-time, sacred, freedom of speech given by the Constitution.

When you have to stop, think very carefully and spin what you are going to say in order to open your mouth, that isn’t freedom. You are auto-censoring yourself, just like the obedient citizens of North Korea, China, Vietnam or that little, forgotten, fiefdom of the decrepit, now sickly, Fidel Castro and his alcoholic brother.

I don’t mean that people should be impolite and give Miss Manners vapors causing her to faint in her boudoir. No!

Let’s be civil but truthful and sincere and not feel oppressed to speak freely. After all, the U.S., supposedly, is a free country. Or, is it? Please let me know, so I can plan my escape on time, because I don’t like tyrannies from the right or left.

Increasingly, as a writer and as a filmmaker, I have been feeling oppressed in my own country. I have been a naturalized American citizen for over 30 years, but I had the misfortune – literally – of being born in Cuba, which was converted into the hellhole-Jurassic park of the Caribbean by Castro’s Communist Fascist Reich.

My biggest crime was to escape that “paradise” like the million and a half Cuban exiles that now live in the U.S. Clearly, we have become the most openly hated minority in this country even though we have been the most productive, prosperous and law-abiding minority in recent history. The Cuban exiles have not organized gangs like some other minorities.

The hatred toward us came from the vindictive Castro – a trait he displayed since his school years. With his supposed charisma, he conquered the intellectuals, artists, reporters and fools from all over the world.

Castro placed himself as a demigod, a hero of all the leftists, progressives, socialists and useful fools everywhere, magically without generating the panic of a bygone era in which communism was feared for the aberration that it actually was and still is.

Note that “progressive” is a key word that used to mean “advancing” that now can be used to identify hidden communists and sympathizers since Castro and his ilk claim that their suppression of freedom, etc., is “progressive.”

The cold war is not really over. Snap out of that stupid, implanted thought! Wake up to take a look at what is going on in Latin America! Has China, Vietnam, North Korea or Castroland changed? No, they are still very dangerous communist countries. And China is not a friend but an adversary of the U.S. Snap out of that stupor if you want to continue singing “God Bless America!”

Continuously, the anti-U.S. left, and the “progressive” elements that are in control of most of our learning institutions, print and television media, are censoring information.

They were the first to adopt “political correctness” – which is a communist technique (read my article at: http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/4/4/121115.shtml) in order to manipulate, change and brainwash the masses.

Their goal is to eventually “socialize” this country according to obsolete Marxist postulates that have been a dismal failure in all communist countries and put themselves in charge.

Before I make the statements that follow, I must clarify that I am not a Democrat or a Republican since I believe that neither party represents me as a Cuban American and as a victim of Castro’s version of tropical communism-fascism.

I am an Independent and a real Liberal in the true sense of the word: which means that I am for real liberty. I don’t have anything in common with the American Liberals, which I believe have degenerated much too close to socialist ideology.

The hypocrisy of the U.S. media is such that it doesn’t inform the American people that many members of the Democratic Party are also members on an International Socialist Organization. Isn’t that revealing?

And now my statement, which in no way, shape or form is an endorsement of the Republican Party, but based on my observations and experiences in Cuba and the U.S., the Democratic Party has been sliding too far to the far-left and anti-U.S. side of the spectrum. I am very concerned about them and what that party will end up in the not so distant future.

Orestes Lorenzo, (the Cuban pilot who rescued his wife and children by landing a small plane on a Cuban road) referring to the ideas of the liberal and academic crowd in the U.S., wrote that they are “not only dishonest but being supported by pure intellectual shit.” I think that is an accurate description of those repulsive, despicable people and I congratulated Orestes for exercising his freedom of speech.

So, why am I “unbalanced?”

Well, that’s what the reigning paranoid left in control of the information media said about my documentary work. They of course reject my work and don’t allow what my documentaries expose to reach the American people.

The American Film Institute (AFI) in Silver Spring, Maryland, said that my documentary about 5-year old Elian Gonzalez – the child that miraculously reached the south Florida shores while his mother gave her life for him to have freedom in America – was “too controversial.” However, they immediately choose to show Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 911” over and over. I guess an anti-U.S., anti-war and anti-President movie was not controversial in their twisted minds full of “pure intellectual shit.”

The AFI’s bozo, made the mistake to make that statement to my face thinking that I would take it lightly, which was not the case. I gave him hell in his very own little office and told him how Cuban American filmmakers feel about it. Later, he lied and denied what he said. I am “unbalanced” but not crazy.

Film festivals and other venues systematically reject my documentaries about Cuban issues. And I am not alone. I am just one more Cuban American reject. This is part of our history in this “land of freedom.”

That’s why I don’t even bother to send submissions to film festivals, because they take my money up front and then they reject me. To hell with them! I only show my films in festivals and other venues where I am invited because of the merits of my work. If anyone wants to take up that battle for my documentaries, let me know.

Cuban Americans can do and say whatever we want, but the censors of the left don’t let us play and don’t let us offer a different viewpoint to the American people to insignificantly try to “balance” the barrage of pro-Castro propaganda present in the U.S. media and academia.

On PBS, of course, we cannot even try. They are a lost cause and a bastion of the left.

Ed Koch, three-time elected Mayor of New York City who, like me, isn’t “politically correct”, said in his published New Year’s Resolutions, “I will no longer lend financial support to New York’s Channel Thirteen public television station. That station recently showed a documentary that was blatantly biased against Israel and has refused to acknowledge the bias to try to correct it.”

Cuban Americans are constantly subject to that and no one of any importance complains about it.

On November 28, 2006, I received a very decent letter (I say so because the person was really very nice and I appreciate the answer) of rejection of my documentary “The Rats Below” from a well-known television channel.

Among other things, the letter said, "The subject is intriguing, however, and includes some great sound bites from seemingly very knowledgeable sources. What might be problematic for most broadcast and cable networks is that the film includes no one representing the side of the company, or Elian's family. Without that, there may be some issues of fairness.”

About "Elian's family" I have Delfin Gonzalez, Elian's great uncle in the U.S.

About "includes no one representing the side of the company" and the issue of "fairness," I've yet to see a documentary or film about the Holocaust, the Nazis, Hitler or about apartheid in South Africa or about Chile's Augusto Pinochet (and the list goes on) that shows the other side.

But even if I make in my lifetime 1,000 documentaries of our point of view it will not even begin to balance the eschewed coverage of the U.S. media in relation to the Cuban tragedy. My goal is to try to balance the unbalanced coverage about Cuba, the country of my birth, which I happen to know about and they obviously don’t.

And that is my final answer as to why I am “unbalanced.”

I make my documentaries without any grant or financial help from any U.S. institution (they don’t give grants to projects that expose the nature of Castro’s regime) or Cuban American organization. I made my productions with my own money, effort and heart. I dedicate uncounted hours working alone on my projects.

Always with the frustration that there are not enough hours in a day to complete my goal. Knowing that so far, after 12 years of dedicated labor, I am not reaching my intended audience, Americans, not Cubans – we all know and understand the Cuban tragedy very well.

The Americans are the ones left in the boonies by the disservice of the media and the learning centers in the U.S. who are not telling the truth about what has been going on there for decades.

I get to put in my documentaries whatever I want. I am certainly not going to capitulate and interview the same types of American “Cuban experts”, who are not, and who have been lying and distorting information constantly in newspapers, television and pro-Castro documentaries 99.99% of the time.

I, the “unbalanced” one, continue to try to bring some balance to the story where there isn’t any.

Did I answer the question?


Agustin Blazquez, producer/director of the documentaries
COVERING CUBA, premiered at the American Film Institute in 1995, CUBA: The Pearl of the Antilles, COVERING CUBA 2: The Next Generation, premiered in 2001 at the U.S. Capitol in and at the 2001 Miami International Book Fair COVERING CUBA 3: Elian presented at the 2003 Miami Latin Film Festival, the 2004 American Film Renaissance Film Festival in Dallas, Texas and the 2006 Palm Beach International Film Festival, COVERING CUBA 4: The Rats Below, premiered at the Tower Theaters in Miami on January 2006 and the 2006 Palm Beach International Film Festival and the 2006 Barcelona International Film Festival for Human Rights and Peace, Dan Rather "60 Minutes," an inside view , RUMBERAS CUBANAS, Vol. 1 MARIA ANTONIETA PONS and COVERING CUBA 5: Act Of Repudiation premiered at the Tower Theater in Miami, January 2007.


ALL AVAILABLE AT: www.CubaCollectibles.com
For previews visit: http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=Agustin+Blazquez
Author of more that 300 published articles and author with Carlos Wotzkow of the book COVERING AND DISCOVERING and translator with Jaums Sutton of the book by Luis Grave de Peralta Morell THE MAFIA OF HAVANA: The Cuban Cosa Nostra.

2007 ABIP

This and other excellents articles by the same AUTHOR appears in the electronic magazine REVISTA GUARACABUYA at:
Este y otros excelentes artículos del mismo AUTOR aparecen en la REVISTA GUARACABUYA con dirección electrónica de:
www.amigospais-guaracabuya.org

Tucker Carlson v. Freelance Genius

This story from the Washington Post caught my eye, because it featured my favorite video store:

Clerk's Blog Spells Trouble

It all started with a simple video rental. Who knows where it will end?

Potomac Video store clerk Charles Williamson, 28, posted a message on his blog, Freelance Genius, Dec. 23 that described how he set up a movie rental account for MSNBC host Tucker Carlson at the MacArthur Boulevard store the day before.

"I could tell you what he and his ridiculously wasped-out female companion (wife?) rented if you really want to know," he wrote. "I won't tell you where he lives, though. That would be wrong and stupid." Williamson also joked that he wouldn't send 10,000 copies of Jon Stewart's best-selling political satire, "America (The Book)," to Carlson's home; Stewart ridiculed Carlson on "Crossfire" before the 2004 election.

A week later, Williamson had forgotten all about it, he told us yesterday. That is, until Carlson, 37, reappeared at the video store and, said Williamson, "got pretty aggressive." According to Williamson, Carlson confronted him about the blog and said he viewed the post as a threat to him and his wife. "He said, 'If you keep this [expletive] up, I will [expletive] destroy you,' " Williamson recalled.

Williamson said he agreed to remove the blog post and did so later that night: "All I remember thinking was I was worried about what this guy was going to do." He consulted a lawyer friend and was told he had probably not broken any laws. "What I said was pretty juvenile, I'll admit," he said.

In a phone interview Thursday, Carlson acknowledged that he approached Williamson in the store and said he was "very aggressive" because he wanted the post removed: "I don't like to call the police or call his boss. . . . I'm a libertarian. I'm not into that."

On Monday, Williamson said, his Potomac Video manager called and fired him. Williamson said he was told the company was threatened with legal action "and the owner doesn't like that." He re-posted the original Carlson item later that day. Williamson said he later learned that a man who identified himself as a lawyer for Carlson had been in the store and asked Potomac Video employees questions about him.

Carlson told us that he was concerned for the safety of his family, but did not threaten legal action against the company or push to have Williamson, who still has his office-manager day job, fired.

"He implied he was going to come and do something to my house," Carlson said. "I've got four kids at home and I've had serious problems with stalkers twice. . . . This guy is threatening to come to my house and I'm on the road all the time. What would you do? This guy is threatening my family."

Carlson said he took no further action and said he couldn't have called his lawyer because he doesn't have one.

"He's trying to make it sound like I'm this big, bad guy trying to hurt the video store clerk," he said. "I don't understand why he's hassling me. I just wanted to rent a Woody Allen movie."

A manager at Potomac Video told us the situation was "absurd" but refused to answer questions. The company's lawyer, Steven Kramer, said he is investigating the matter, but would not comment further.

Williamson told us Thursday that before the incident his blog usually received a handful of hits a day from friends and a few other bloggers. Wonkette.com linked to the post on Tuesday and, as of yesterday, over 6,700 readers had checked in.

"I'm just a guy with a blog," he said. "I live over MacArthur Boulevard and I go to work and sometimes I see famous people. . . . I blogged about seeing Karl Rove, and the Secret Service didn't knock down my door."

You can read Williamson's minute-by-minute account of the story on his personal blog, Freelance Genius:

I have been asked to write a timeline of all the interactions and incidents surrounding the Tucker situation. I am worried that too much more on this is going to turn my ego space into a one trick pony, but I do take requests on occasion. The real problem with ponies is that I don't know how to ride ponies and they are enemies of the state.

Between 8 and 9:30 pm on Friday, December 22, 2006: Tucker comes to store, opens account and rents unspecified movie.

Approximately 12:15 am Saturday, December 23, 2006: Chuckles publishes blog about encounter.

Between 6:30 and 8 pm on Friday, January 5, 2007: Tucker enters store, threatens Chuckles, leaves. Chuckles resumes working and tries not to let shit get to him.

Approximately 11:15 pm on Friday, January 5, 2007: Chuckles takes post down from site in order to be a basically nice guy, even though he doesn't like being threatened in his place of business.

Between 12:30 and 1:30 pm on Monday, January 8, 2007: Chuckles receives call that his employment at the unnamed video store has been terminated due to threats of legal action against the store.

Approximately 2:31 pm Monday, January 8, 2007: Chuckles reposts the original offending post, updates it, updates the explanation post, then posts his statement of the entire affair.

Between 7:00 pm and 8:15 pm Monday, January 8, 2007: A man identifying himself as a lawyer for Tucker Carlson enters the video store and asks questions of employee (whom we shall call EmpAlpha) about Chuckles such as Chuckles' full name, blog address, home address, current employer, whether the post was removed, whether the blog was deleted, etc. Chuckles arrives at video store shortly after this person has left.

10:40 pm Monday, January 8, 2007: Chuckles updates the post about the whole thing.

Sometime after 5 pm Wednesday, January 10, 2007: A person enters the store asking an employee (now called EmpBeta) questions about EmpAlpha. It is currently not known whether the questing person on Wednesday was the same as the person on Monday. The questing person on Wednesday did not identify himself as a lawyer for Tucker Carlson so far as Chuckles knows. Chuckles receives word of this incident from EmpAlpha, not EmpBeta. EmpBeta has not read Chuckles' blog, apparently.

Between 2:00 and 2:30 pm Thursday, January 11, 2007: Chuckles gives interview to Washington Post Reliable Source column.

3:14 pm, Thursday, January 11, 2007: Chuckles receives word that Tucker Carlson is denying having a lawyer and Tucker also states that he is not pursuing any action against The Genius.

You all may make your own conclusions from the facts of the situation. Personally, I doubt the person that had been asking questions about me will ever show up again. The simplest answer is that Tucker called the lawyer off as soon as he received a phone call from the Post. It is almost too bad that moron of a lawyer couldn't figure out how to either find me or contact me, even after I posted an email address on this blog. I doubt that guy is worth the money, but what do I know? I am just a member of the peasant class.

I wonder if he's going to sue? If so, we'll follow the story here...

Is James Traub a Jew-Hater?

Reading today's New York Times Magazine profile of ADL chief Abe Foxman by James Traub, I couldn't help wonder if Traub is a Jew-Hater. He repeated anti-Semitic stereotypes about rich and powerful Jews, he mocked Foxman's experience as a Holocaust survivor hidden by a Polish nanny, he suggested that the US could have avoided 9/11 by dropping support for Israel, and he appeared to give credence to the "Jewish Lobby" arguments of Walt and Mearshimer, while defending the views of Minister Farrkhan and Jimmy Carter. OK, if it appeared in an American Nazi publication it would make sense--or even in the Nation. But the New York Times Magazine? Do they really want to lose the rest of their subscribers?

I'm no fan of the ADL, I've criticized Foxman for Koshering Borat, but Traub's article a real slime job, a crude and ugly smear that reeked of was so over-the-line, so ugly, so cruel, and so dishonest, that it may be the most disgraceful thing I've seen in print yet at the Times, which might perhaps think about changing its motto to: "All the News NOT Fit to Print."

As for James Traub, if he's not a Jew-Hater, unless the piece was some sort of Borat-like parody designed to fight anti-Semitism, I'd say Traub does a remarkable literary imitation of presenting the very tendencies the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith was established to combat.

Senator Jim Webb: Bush Should Fly to Iran

On the Democratic side, Sen. Jim Webb also had an idea, expressed at a hearing on C=Span, that President Bush fly to Tehran to confront the Mullahs personally.:

And I personally think it would be a bold act for George W. Bush to get on an airplane and go to Tehran in the same manner that President Nixon did, take a gamble, and not give up one thing that we believe in, in terms of its moving toward weapons of mass destruction, our belief that Israel needs to be recognized and interests need to be protected, but to maybe start changing the formula here.

Again, I don't know whether it would work (Neville Chamberlain's 1938 meeting with Hitler in Munich sprang to mind), any more than Giuliani and Gingrich's proposal, but again, at least it is an idea. Webb's cracked open the taboo on discussing Iraq policy options. One good thing about crisis, the famous Chinese "danger plus opportunity," is that it opens things up for ideas, which makes life more interesting.

Bush's failiures may not be due to a lack of will--but to a failure of imagination.

Giuliani & Gingrich: Stop Using Contractors in Iraq

Hizzoner Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich published a plan in the Wall Street Journal on Friday, calling for an Iraqi CCC to rebuild Iraq. I don't know whether it might work, or if is too late. But at least it is an idea.

In any case, I think the main point of the op-ed was buried towards the end--so I'm highlighting it here. The two Republican leaders want to drop private contractors like Halliburton, Kellogg Brown & Root, BearingPoint, Booz Allen Hamilton as well as NGOs--in favor of the military and Iraqi government:

One word of caution: The program should be overseen by the U.S. military, not private contractors, to avoid unnecessary delays in deployment or accusations of cronyism in the bidding process. Our military will still be devoted to its primary role of hunting down terrorists and patrolling the streets, but administering a jobs program would be a direct extension of their effort to secure law and order. After the program has been started and becomes successful, it can be transferred to a civilian authority within the Iraqi government.

I'd go even further--and ask that private for-profit and non-profit contractors return to US taxpayers the money Congress and the President gave them in order to rebuild Iraq. It might go towards paying for the 20,000 troops President Bush has asked for...

How to Eavesdrop on Bill Moyers' Phone Calls

I was amazed to hear a 1966 telephone call between Bill Moyers and President Lyndon Johnson, while driving in my car the other night. If I only had heard them when I wrote the "Rev. Moyers" chapter in my book, PBS: Behind the Screen, I could have quoted from them. In any case, Moyers sounded just like the kind of guy people said he was. No wonder Johnson stopped talking to him...

You can listen to Moyers talk with LBJ, for yourself at C-SPAN's LBJ White House Tapes Archive.

My Favorite Video Store

Why do I love my local, neighborhood video store, Potomac Video?

Maybe because they usually have whatever film I'm looking for--classic old movies, new releases, international films.

Maybe because the manager will chat with me and ask me how I liked the film.

Maybe because the manager has ordered swashbuckler and western films for me, after I've seen all one the ones in stock.

Maybe because they still have a large collection of VHS cassettes.

And most of all, because they still stock my film on VHS, even though it came out 25 years ago, and hasn't been rented since 2003...

Christopher Hitchens on Thomas Jefferson & Religion

Hitchens is on a roll, taking on both Congressman Keith Ellison and his Christian fundamentalist critics, in Slate:

A few years later, in 1786, the new United States found that it was having to deal very directly with the tenets of the Muslim religion. The Barbary states of North Africa (or, if you prefer, the North African provinces of the Ottoman Empire, plus Morocco) were using the ports of today's Algeria, Libya, and Tunisia to wage a war of piracy and enslavement against all shipping that passed through the Strait of Gibraltar. Thousands of vessels were taken, and more than a million Europeans and Americans sold into slavery. The fledgling United States of America was in an especially difficult position, having forfeited the protection of the British Royal Navy. Under this pressure, Congress gave assent to the Treaty of Tripoli, negotiated by Jefferson's friend Joel Barlow, which stated roundly that "the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion, as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen." This has often been taken as a secular affirmation, which it probably was, but the difficulty for secularists is that it also attempted to buy off the Muslim pirates by the payment of tribute. That this might not be so easy was discovered by Jefferson and John Adams when they went to call on Tripoli's envoy to London, Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman. They asked him by what right he extorted money and took slaves in this way. As Jefferson later reported to Secretary of State John Jay, and to the Congress:

The ambassador answered us that [the right] was founded on the Laws of the Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have answered their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.

Medieval as it is, this has a modern ring to it. Abdrahaman did not fail to add that a commission paid directly to Tripoli—and another paid to himself—would secure some temporary lenience. I believe on the evidence that it was at this moment that Jefferson decided to make war on the Muslim states of North Africa as soon as the opportunity presented itself. And, even if I am wrong, we can be sure that the dispatch of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps to the Barbary shore was the first and most important act of his presidency. It took several years of bombardment before the practice of kidnap and piracy and slavery was put down, but put down it was, Quranic justification or not.

Jefferson did not demand regime change of the Barbary states, only policy change. And as far as I can find, he avoided any comment on the religious dimension of the war. But then, he avoided public comment on faith whenever possible. It was not until long after his death that we became able to read most of his scornful writings on revelation and redemption (recently cited with great clarity by Brooke Allen in her book Moral Minority: Our Skeptical Founding Fathers). And it was not until long after his death that The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth was publishable. Sometimes known as "the Jefferson Bible" for short, this consists of the four gospels of the New Testament as redacted by our third president with (literally) a razor blade in his hand. With this blade, he excised every verse dealing with virgin birth, miracles, resurrection, and other puerile superstition, thus leaving him (and us) with a very much shorter book. In 1904 (those were the days), the Jefferson Bible was printed by order of Congress, and for many years was presented to all newly elected members of that body. Here's a tradition worth reviving: Why not ask all new members of Congress to swear on that?

HOUSE

Someone I know is a fan of Hugh Laurie, and while I was teaching last night, she watched his Fox medical drama, HOUSE. She reported that he is completely changed from Jeeves and Wooster days. Dr. House is a testy, irritable drug addict, who chews vicodin, percodan, and other controlled substances like M&Ms. He calls everyone an idiot. Everytime he's supposed to go into rehab, he has to take care of another medical emergency--so his visit to the Betty Ford Center slips between the cracks.

What kind of specialist is he? I asked.

All of them, she answered.

Is it believable?

No.

Did she like the it?

Yes.

Given recent news reports about the release of FBI files documenting Chief Justice Rehnquist's long-term Placidyl habit, a tv-drama about a drug-addicted doctor may be in keeping with the Zeigeist. It sounds interesting, though I wonder if Dr. House's fictional medical center's fictional administrator ever worries about legal or medical liability... In any case, when I get a Tuesday night off--or a TiVo subscription--I may take a look myself.

Meanwhile, I'm working on my spec script for a series pilot about a drug-addicted Chief Justice of the United States, who believes that the CIA is spying on him. He's diagnosed as suffering from paranoia and a persecution complex during a withdrawal episode.

"He must be going crazy, to think that the CIA is spying on him," says a doctor in one scene set at a Washington, DC hospital, after the Chief Justice attempts to escape the grounds dressed in pyjamas.

"Why do you say that?" asks a concerned young intern.

The doctor looks him straight in the eye, pauses, and mumbles: "Everyone knows it's the FBI."

Sunset Boulevard, Reconsidered

We watched Sunset Boulevard (1950) the other night on DVD, thanks to Netflix. It struck me that Gloria Swanson's character of Norma Desmond was at the time supposed to be 50 years old--ancient enough to be a washed-up old bag desperate for her comeback. In some way, Swanson's scenery-chewing performance reminded one of Madonna...

In any case, the film is funny, especially as an inside joke about Hollywood, which hasn't changed much, it seems. Norma Desmond had a pet chimp--so did Michael Jackson. Norma Desmond believed in astrologers--so did Nancy Reagan. Norma Desmond had her first spouse work as her domestic servant--so did the owners of a Hollywood bookshop where someone I know toiled in the 1990s.

Swanson's life was apparently as melodramatic as Norma Desmond's--minus the murder of William Holden. Here's a list of Swanson's real-life romances from Wikipedia:

Marriages and Relationships
She married actor Wallace Beery (1885-1949) in 1916. They divorced in 1919 with no children but according to Swanson she miscarried after Beery, encouraged by his mother, secretly gave her a poison intended to induce a miscarriage.

She married Herbert K. Somborn (1881-1934), then president of Equity Pictures Corporation and later the owner of the Brown Derby restaurant, in 1919. Their daughter, Gloria Swanson Somborn, was born in 1920. Their divorce, finalized in January 1925, was sensational. Somborn accused her of adultery with 13 men including Cecil B. DeMille, Rudolph Valentino and Marshall Neilan. During this divorce in 1923 Swanson adopted a baby boy named Sonny Smith (1922-1975). She renamed him Joseph Patrick Swanson in tribute to her then lover, Joseph Patrick Kennedy Sr., the Kennedy family patriarch.

Her third husband was French aristocrat Henry de la Falaise, Marquis de la Falaise whom she married in 1925 after the Somborn divorce was finalized. He became a film executive representing Pathé in the United States. She conceived a child with him but had an abortion which she said (in her autobiography, Swanson on Swanson) she regretted. This marriage ended in divorce in 1931.

In August 1931, Swanson married Michael Farmer (1902-1975). Although frequently described as a sportsman the only evidence of the Irishman's prowess was his frequent betrothals. Unfortunately Swanson's divorce from La Falaise had not been finalized at the time, making the actress technically a bigamist. She was forced to remarry Farmer the following November, by which time she was four months pregnant with Michelle Bridget Farmer, who was born in 1932. The Farmers were divorced in 1934.

In 1945 Swanson married William N. Davey and they divorced in 1946. Little is known of Davey except that single mother Gloria married this rich man because young Michelle had been nagging her about wanting a father. According to Swanson, she and Davey actually cohabited forty-five days.

Swanson's final marriage was in 1976 and lasted until her death. Her sixth husband, writer William Dufty (1916-2002), was the co-author of Billie Holiday's autobiography Lady Sings the Blues and the author of Sugar Blues, a best-selling health book. Swanson shared her husband's enthusiasm for macrobiotic diets.

There's an interesting review of the film by D.K. Holm on DVD Journal.

A New Year's Plug

Before heading off for the holidays, I went to a book party at the Hudson Institute for John O'Sullivan's memoir of life with Margaret Thatcher (he was her speechwriter). I didn't have a chance to plug the book then, so I want to do it now. O'Sullivan gave a fascinating glimpse into Thather's behind-the-scenes personality, and if the book is even half as good as his talk, it's worth buying.

Most telling anecdote: After the Pope and Reagan had survived assassination attempts, they reportedly said they thought they had spared by Providence for a special purpose. O'Sullivan asked Thatcher, did she think she had been spared by God for a special purpose -- after surviving the IRA's Brighton Conservative party conference bombing on October 12, 1984.

The Iron Lady's answer was brief:

"No."

You can buy the book from Amazon.com

Frederic Martel on American Culture

I was interested to read Alan Riding's interview with Frederic Martel, a French intellectual with a new book explaining American culture, De la culture en Amerique. Here's an excerpt from the article that sparked my interest:

What France's cultural elites have rarely done, however, is examine how both serious and pop culture actually work in the United States.

Rather, in the view of Frédéric Martel, a Frenchman and author of a recently released book on the topic, they have preferred to hide behind "a certain ideological anti-Americanism."

Now Martel, 39, a former French cultural attaché in Boston, has set out to change this. In "Culture in America," a 622-page tome weighty with information, he challenges the conventional view in Paris that (French) culture financed and organized by the government is entirely good and that (American) culture shaped by market forces is necessarily bad.

"My first idea was to compare France and the United States," he recalled, "but when I arrived in America, I realized things were much more complicated. The United States is a continent, and you can't compare a continent with a small country or a decentralized country with one that is highly centralized."

Sounds a little bit Michel Schneider, whose La Comedie de la culture critiqued the French Ministry of Culture; or Marc Fumaroli, author of L'Etat Culturel, whom I interviewed in 2000 while he visited Washington. Unfortunately, the book hasn't been translated into English yet, but as soon as it is, I'll get my copy. Meanwhile, for those who read French, here's a link to his website...

UPDATE: Frederic Martel writes:

Dear Laurence Jarvik,

Thanks a lot for your email and for the nice comment on my book. I think you are right on your comments. I just think you miss one important point when comparing my work with Michel Schneider or Marc Fumaroli (books that I know pretty well). First of all there are both very polemics (especially Schneider) and on France. I'm not talking about France at all and I'm not polemic. Second of all, I'm from the left, so it's a book by a kind of social-democrat guy not by a center right or a conservative perspective. At least, I think on my project this way. Just for your information and as a friendly reader on you own work.

Affectueusemet, frederic martel

Act of Repudiation

Cuban-American filmmaker Agustin Blazquez has another picture coming out for the New Year: Act of Repudiation. It sounds truly shocking. Here's the description he sent:

COVERING CUBA 5/CUBRIENDO CUBA 5
ACT OF REPUDIATION/ACTO DE REPUDIO
(in English with Spanish subtitles/en ingles con subtitulos en español)
produced & directed by Agustin Blazquez

WORLD PREMIERE/PREMIERE MUNDIAL
Presented by Miami Dade College

THIS IS THE STORY OF AN ACT OF REPUDIATION DIRECTED AT CLASSIC GUITARIST CARLOS MOLINA AND HIS FAMILY
Es la historia de un Acto de Repudio dirigido contra el guitarrista clasico Carlos Molina y su familia

ARTS & POLITICS ARE INSEPARABLE IN CUBA
Las artes y la politica son inseparables en Cuba

THE REALITY OF CUBAN LIFE UNDER CASTRO’S REGIME!
La realidad de la vida cubana bajo el regimen de Castro!

WHAT THE U.S. MEDIA DOESN’T TELL
Lo que la prensa de EE.UU. no dice

DON’T MISS THIS DOCUMENTARY
No se pierda este documental

Saturday, January 20, 2007 at 8 p.m.
Sabado 20 de enero de 2007, a las 8 p.m.
TOWER THEATER
1508 S.W. 8th Street, Miami, Florida

Contacts/contactos: Juan Mendieta, Director of Comunications, 305 237-7611,Beverly Counts Rodrigues, Director of Public Relations with the Press: 305-237-3949 y Alejandro Rios: 305-237-7482 & 305-989-1701

Konstantin's Russian Blog on Anna Politkovskaya

Konstantin explains how some Russians saw the recently assassinated Moscow journalist:

That's exactly what Anna Politkovskaya was – a war journalist fighting on the side of Chechen rebels. And she did her job fine. I believe her books and articles helped dozens of Chechen men and women to become guerillas and suicide bombers. During proper wars like WW2 nations don’t have war correspondents writing “truth” about their soldiers but in case an army is fighting guerillas like in Chechnya or Iraq things are different. First, such wars are mostly distant and don’t disturb everyday activities of ordinary citizens. Second, we live in a very politically correct world where big transnational NGO’s keep a close eye on human rights and power abuses. This way it’s normal that there’re many Politkovskayas both in Russia and in America. Only people both in Russia or America have very little interest to read books where their sons are described as sadistic orcs from Mordor. Enemy war correspondents are almost always marginal figures to the general public in there native countries but are extremely popular in countries that support their enemies. This is why Politkovskaya was so popular in the West and Gore Vidal is so loved in Iran.

The Accomplices

This season, New York's New Group Theatre (which appears to be a regular venue for plays by Wally Shawn, among others) presents the world premiere of playwright Bernard Weinraub's drama, The Accomplices, based on the real-life story of Hillel Kook (aka Peter Bergson), Ben Hecht and the work of the Emergency Committee to Rescue the Jewish People of Europe during World War II. Having dealt with this topic on film--and as an acquaintance of the playwright--I'm looking foward to seeing the show when it opens on 42nd Street's Theatre Row in March...

Ann Althouse on The Liberty Fund

Happy New Year!

A change of topic for 2007:

Ann Althouse recently attended a Liberty Fund conference, and made some striking comments on her blog, here: Althouse: Where I was when I was out of my milieu.

I am struck -- you may think it is absurd for me to be suddenly struck by this -- but I am struck by how deeply and seriously libertarians and conservatives believe in their ideas. I'm used to the way lefties and liberals take themselves seriously and how deeply they believe. Me, I find true believers strange and -- if they have power -- frightening. And my first reaction is to doubt that they really do truly believe.

One of the reasons 9/11 had such a big impact on me is that it was such a profound demonstration of the fact that these people are serious. They really believe.

I need to be more vigilant.

And here: Here's the post where I take on Ron Bailey of Reason Magazine.

My friends, in all honesty, what made me cry -- and I'm not too sentimental, as you may have noticed -- was the realization that these people didn't care about civil rights.

I was also astonished by the poise with which my tablemates handled Althouse. Our companions did not raise their voices nor dismiss her (as I would have), but tried to calm her down. In fact, Althouse made the situation even more personal by yelling repeatedly at one of my dinner companions (who is also a colleague) that she was an "intellectual lightweight" and an "embarrassment to women everywhere." In fact, in my opinion, with that statement Althouse had actually identified herself. Before Althouse stalked away, I asked her to apologize for that insult, but she refused.

I don't think I said "embarrassment to women everywhere." That doesn't sound like my language. But I really was very angry at this young woman for her smiling and for her incessant justification of racial discrimination. I left the table because Bailey himself yelled at me in an extremely harsh way. He just kept saying "You don't know her. I know her." Basically, they were colleagues, and he was vouching for her. He didn't respond on the substantive issue. How could he? He agreed with her about private discrimination. At that point, I was so offended by these people that I got up and left. I felt terrible about causing a scene and being part of any ugliness. But on long reflection, I think I would have felt far worse if I had sat through all of that without saying anything.

And here: Are we having Fund yet?

Idea geeks. Okay. Well, my experience in legal academia is that people who try to get into the idea geek zone need to get their pretensions punctured right away. The sharp lawprof types I admire always see a veneer on top of something more important, and our instinct is to peel it off. What is your love of this idea really about? That's our method.

We are here to harsh your geek zone mellow.

I am interested in Althouse's reactions, because a few years ago I was invited to a Liberty Fund event, and found it a mixed bag. The Liberty Fund does some good things, has republished works by the Founding Fathers, copies of which they donated to my Russian and Uzbek universities. In addition, there were some very interesting people at the conference on aesthetics I participated in--I got to meet Canadian painter Alex Colville, whom someone I know and I later visited in Nova Scotia, as well as critic Roger Shattuck, whose writings on Proust are worthwhile. Nevertheless, I think that Althouse has picked up on something that was in the air. In her verbal confrontation with Ron Bailey (not my favorite person--he once came up to me at an AEI event to berate me for my publications on PBS, demanding that I should criticize C-Span, instead, because C-Span is part of a lobbying effort by the cable industry--I answered something like, "So what?" Which ended the conversation), in any case, it comes out that Althouse didn't go to the Liberty Fund "hospitality suite" for cocktails after dinner. I did go to one of those late-night "bull sessions." What I heard wasn't pretty, and not fit to print. (Neither Colville nor Shattuck appeared to be there.) Not used to this sort of thing, I excused myself soon after arriving. So, I tend to conclude that if Althouse had gone drinking with the boys and girls, she might have encountered even more evidence for her case... I do agree with Althouse that certain cult-like aspects undercut the seminars' potential for making more of a useful contribution to intellectual discourse and dialog. There should be a place for more robust debate. Unfortunately, Liberty didn't fully rise to the challenge, in my experience--or Althouse's.

Remembering Jeane Kirkpatrick

From the American Enterprise Institute website:

AEI senior fellow Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, who joined the Institute in 1978, died yesterday. As a young political scientist at Georgetown University, Kirkpatrick wrote the first major study of the role of women in modern politics, Political Woman (1974). It was an essay written for Commentary magazine in 1979, Dictatorships and Double Standards (later expanded into a full-length book), that launched her into the political limelight. In the article, Kirkpatrick chronicled the failures of the Carter administration's foreign policy and argued for a clearer understanding of the American national interest. Her essay matched Ronald Reagan's instincts and convictions, and when he became president, he appointed her to represent the United States at the United Nations. Ambassador Kirkpatrick was a member of the president's cabinet and the National Security Council. The United States has lost a great patriot and champion of freedom, and AEI mourns our beloved colleague.

Martin Kramer on the Iraq Study Group Report

From Martin Kramer's Sandstorm

Cogent arguments can be made for each of these three fixes, but only if you accept the core assumption: the receptivity of the Arab world to the democracy message. That is why I cannot regard these as true Plan Bs. Each of them is a Plan A, version 2.0. They build on the very same premise as Plan A: that we just have to find the right path to their open hearts.

And there's the rub. There is a growing suspicion that maybe the problem isn't us, it's them—it is some complex interaction of culture, history, and economy that is the obstacle to a successful democratic transformation.

I say "suspicion" deliberately. The idea of an Arab exception has always been anathema on the left and in Middle Eastern studies, for obvious reasons. But it has been anathema on the right as well. President Bush (following Ronald Reagan) has attacked "cultural condescension," and no one wants to be guilty of that. So we have to keep our suspicions to ourselves.

But let us be frank: there isn't a person in this room who, down in his gut, doesn't harbor such a suspicion. And no amount of historical analogy, social science theory, or stern gazes from Condi Rice can put this suspicion to rest, because too much of the front page of the paper seems to validate it.

There are also subversive texts that go far to substantiate it. One of them was published by The Washington Institute in 1992: Elie Kedourie'sDemocracy and Arab Political Culture. "There is nothing in the political traditions of the Arab world," he wrote, "which might make familiar, or indeed intelligible, the organizing ideas of constitutional and representative government. . . . Those who say that democracy is the only remedy for the Arab world disregard a long experience which clearly shows that democracy has been tried in many countries and uniformly failed."

These words now shock us in their lack of equivocation; a leading political scientist once denounced Kedourie (Baghdad-born and raised) for his "Eurocentric chauvinism." But if it is Eurocentric chauvinism we are out to pillory, might not our gaze fall upon democracy promotion itself? Upon the big-think social scientists and New York intellectuals who ran a few data sets or met a few dissidents and proclaimed the Arab world ready and eager? Upon the CPA appointees who flew into Baghdad loaded with books on the postwar reconstruction of Germany and Japan? One could go on in this vein, but you get the idea.

A Different Freedom

The only exit from our own self-centered chauvinism is to begin to think systematically about the way the Arab world is different, and then to formulate a true Plan B—a plan not fixated on elections, or even on democracy, but on the kind of freedoms whose suppression has been most resented in the region. Those freedoms are not the ones we necessarily value. They are collective, not individual; and they revolve around identity, not interests. There is a yearning for freedom—of a kind I call freedom of identity.

A Holiday Book Recommendation

Do you know someone who wants to understand the roots of today's conflict in the Middle East? There's no better introduction than Barbara Tuchman's Bible and Sword: England and Palestine from the Bronze Age to Balfour.

Tuchman published this book--her first--with NYU Press in 1956, dedicated to the memory of her parents Alma Morgenthau and Maurice Wertheim. I had not heard of it before it turned up in my Amazon search for a copy of her classic, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam, which I had wanted to read again for perspective on the current Iraq crisis.

I can't say enough good things about this study, which is a careful examination of the role of Britain in the Middle East over the centuries, with special attention to the origins of the Balfour declaration. Tuchman writes with verve and gusto, bringing to life characters from Richard the Lion Hearted to Mark Sykes, T. E. Lawrence, Lord Balfour, and Chaim Weizmann. She's particularly good at describing the conflict in British Jewry between anti-Zionists like Montagu and Montefiores and Zionists like Nathaniel Rothschild. The Manchester Guardian and Winston Churchill come out looking good. Lloyd George is the villain of the piece (she basically calls him a liar).

For Anglophiles, as well as those interested in Zionism, Evangelical Christianity, or the Middle East--or those just wanting to read a brilliant history book...

You can buy the book from Amazon.com, here:

James Kurth on Crushing Iraq's Sunni Insurgency

From The New Republic (ht Foreign Policy Research Institute):

The Sunni Arabs of Iraq have much to answer for. Since they have
always made up a rather small minority--about 15 to 20 percent of
the country's total population--the regimes they created were
historically authoritarian ones. They compensated for their small
base by employing especially brutal methods against their Kurdish
and Shia neighbors. Successive Sunni governments became
steadily more repressive, leading eventually to the rule of the Baath
Party and culminating in the ferocious regime of Saddam Hussein.

Baathist Iraq was often compared to Nazi Germany: Saddam was
said to play the role of Adolf Hitler and the Baath Party that of the Nazi
Party. A more accurate comparison, however, would analogize the Baath
Party to the Waffen S.S., the Nazi Party's elite unit, and the Sunni Arab
community to the Nazi Party as a whole, which eventually made up as much
as 15 percent of Germany's population.

But, unlike their Nazi counterparts in Germany in 1945, the Sunni
Arabs in Iraq in 2003 were not totally defeated, devastated, and
demoralized by the time their government was toppled.
Consequently, they were soon able to initiate and support a vicious
insurgency. Even now, when Shia militias are taking their revenge
on the Sunni community and only the U.S. military stands in the
way of its decimation, opinion polls show that nearly 90 percent of
Sunnis approve of insurgent attacks on U.S. troops.

Many commentators have suggested partitioning Iraq into three
states--Shia, Kurdish, and Sunni. This would be a good solution in
many respects (analogous to the partitioning of the former
Yugoslavia), except that any Sunni state would be dominated by
an Islamist regime created by the insurgents, who would claim that
they had defeated and driven out the U.S. military and would
continue to inflict murder and mayhem upon their Shia and Kurdish
neighbors. This is why the Sunnis have to be subordinated so that
they have no state at all. The result would be an Iraq partitioned
into two states--a Shia one in the center (including Baghdad) and
the south and a Kurdish one in the north.

Mark Steyn on the Baker-Hamilton Commission on Iraq

From The Chicago Sun-Times:

God, I can't go on. I'd rather watch Mia Farrow making out with Mickey Rooney to a Doobie Brothers LP. As its piece de resistance, the Baker Commission concluded its deliberations by inviting testimony from -- drumroll, please -- Sen. John F. Kerry. If you're one of those dummies who goofs off in school, you wind up in Iraq. But, if you're sophisticated and nuanced, you wind up on a commission about Iraq. Rounding it all out -- playing David Gest to Jim Baker's Liza -- is, inevitably, co-chairman Lee Hamilton, former congressman from Indiana. As you'll recall, he also co-chaired the 9/11 Commission, in accordance with Article II Section 5 of the U.S. Constitution, which states: "Ye monopoly of wisdom on ye foreign policy, national security and other weighty affairs shall be vested in a retired Representative from the 9th District in Indiana, if he be sufficiently venerable of mien. In the event that he becomes incapacitated, his place shall be taken by Jill St. John." I would be calling for a blue-ribbon commission to look into whether we need all these blue-ribbon commissions, but they'd probably get Lee Hamilton to chair that, too.

Don't get me wrong, I like a Friars' Club Roast as much as the next guy and I'm sure Jim Baker kibitzing with John Kerry was the hottest ticket in town. But doesn't it strike you as just a tiny bit parochial? Aside from Senator Kerry, I wonder whether the commission thought to hear from anyone such as Goh Chok Tong, the former prime minister of Singapore. A couple of years back, on a visit to Washington just as the Democrat-media headless-chicken quagmire-frenzy was getting into gear, he summed it up beautifully:

''The key issue is no longer WMD or even the role of the U.N. The central issue is America's credibility and will to prevail.''

As I write in my new book, Singaporean Cabinet ministers apparently understand that more clearly than U.S. senators, congressmen and former secretaries of state. Or, as one Baker Commission grandee told the New York Times, ''We had to move the national debate from whether to stay the course to how do we start down the path out.''

An ''exit strategy'' on those terms is the path out not just from Iraq but from a lot of other places, too -- including Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Venezuela, Russia, China, the South Sandwich Islands. For America would be revealed to the world as a fraud: a hyperpower that's all hype and no power -- or, at any rate, no will. According to the New York Sun, ''An expert adviser to the Baker-Hamilton commission expects the 10-person panel to recommend that the Bush administration pressure Israel to make concessions in a gambit to entice Syria and Iran to a regional conference . . .''

On the face of it, this sounds an admirably hard-headed confirmation of James Baker's most celebrated soundbite on the Middle East ''peace process'': ''F - - k the Jews. They didn't vote for us anyway.'' His recommendations seem intended to f - - k the Jews well and truly by making them the designated fall guys for Iraq. But hang on: If Israel could be forced into giving up the Golan Heights and other land (as some fantasists suggest) in order to persuade the Syrians and Iranians to ease up on killing coalition forces in Iraq, our enemies would have learned an important lesson: The best way to weaken Israel is to kill Americans. I'm all for Bakerite cynicism, but this would seem to f - - k not just the Jews but the Americans, too.

It would, furthermore, be a particularly contemptible confirmation of a line I heard Bernard Lewis, our greatest Middle Eastern scholar, use the other day -- that ''America is harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend.'' To punish your friends as a means of rewarding your enemies for killing your forces would seem to be an almost ludicrously parodic illustration of that dictum. In the end, America would be punishing itself. The world would understand that Vietnam is not the exception but the rule.

Why We Blog

From 2 Blowhards:

...I'd suggest, the pleasures of self-expression, connecting with other people, and perpetrating some completely-useless mischief. I won't speak for other blog-creatures, but when I write postings or cruise other blogs, I'm pitching in because it's fun and rewarding to meet interesting people and to take part in freewheeling conversations. (Part of the fun, I'd argue, comes from the fact that it's all so defiantly un-sensible in economic terms.) I suppose I like to think that I'm doing my little bit for opening the general culture-conversation up a bit and providing a place where culture-hounds can hang out and compare notes. But mainly I prowl the blog-world because I find it fun and rewarding. And I find it fun and rewarding because ... Well, I don't know really. It just is. So there.

Did Putin Do It?

(Illustration from the Sherlock Holmes Museum, London)

Someone I know, who has a family history of law enforcement (a descendant of county sheriffs and police chiefs) explained to me that it is possible to figure out whether Vladimir Putin is responsible for the radiation poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko. It is a matter of deduction of the Sherlock Holmes kind in the story "Silver Blaze."

It is a matter of the dog-that-didn't-bark-in-the-night.

Since in principle official KGB (now FSB) killings are never solved, whether or not this particular case is solved will provide the answer.

If someone is arrested, tried, and convicted in Britain for poisoning Litvinenko, then Putin probably is innocent of the crime.

But if this crime remains forever unsolved, then, as Sherlock Holmes might have said: "Elementary, my dear Watson..."

You can read more about the case in today's Sunday Times (of London).

Taking a break...

I've got some deadlines in the next few weeks, so before the end of the year blogging will be light. Hope to get back up to speed by January, 2008...

Until then, Happy Holidays!

Computer Troubles...and Thanksgiving Wishes

I've been having some problems with my laptop lately, and may have to reboot and reformat the whole thing. So, the blog may be offline for a few days. Meanwhile, to all readers: Happy Thanksgiving!

China Takes Africa

From today's NY Times Magazine article by James Traub:

Angola is a very, very poor country, but it is also an extremely rich one, for immense deposits of oil lie under the South Atlantic Ocean within its territorial waters. Thanks to the growing appetites of several developing nations, China in particular, that need oil to sustain the furious expansion of their economies, last year Angola, which otherwise has almost no economy, had more than $10 billion to play with. And it has used that money to pay more advanced countries to rebuild its infrastructure. This vision — call it “Development by China” — looks like a catastrophic mistake to the Western experts and institutions that have scrutinized, invested in and at times despaired of Angola.

And yet Development by China looks more like Africa’s future than its past. Angola is not alone in having choices, for the high price of oil has begun to transform the prospects of African countries once viewed simply as basket cases. Earlier this month, Nigeria, the continent’s oil giant, signed an $8.3 billion agreement with China to build an 1,800-mile railway. Oil production in Africa is expected to double over the next 20 years while it stays flat or declines in much of the rest of the world. And China has already begun, in myriad ways, to serve the interests of these emerging clients, while the United States, preoccupied with terrorism, has seen its dominant status slip. Angola, once a cold-war pawn, can now serve as a kind of test case in the latest struggle to shape Africa’s destiny. Call it Chinese-style globalization.

Thomas Sowell on Milton Friedman

From Opinionjournal.com:

As one of those privileged to have studied under Friedman, I felt a special loss at his death but also a sense of good fortune to have learned from him, not only when I was at the University of Chicago but also in the years and decades since then. He was a tough, no-nonsense teacher in the classroom but a kind and generous human being outside.

Students were not allowed to walk into his classroom after his lecture had begun, distracting others. Once, I arrived at the door just minutes after Friedman began speaking and had to turn around and go back to the dormitory, wondering all the while whether what he taught that day would be on the next exam. After that, I was always in my seat when Friedman entered the classroom. He was also a tough grader. On one exam, there were only two B’s in the whole class--and no A’s.

The other side of Friedman was his generosity with his time to help students, and even former students. In later years, long after I had left the University of Chicago, he helped me with his criticisms and advice on my work--only when asked. When I was offered an appointment to the Federal Trade Commission in 1976, he was asked by the White House to urge me to accept but he declined to do so. It was the best non-advice I ever got. I would have been miserable at the FTC.
Although in recent years we were both members of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, we each lived miles away and neither of us was physically present there with any great frequency, so the chance that we would both be there on the same day was virtually nil. The last time I saw Friedman in person was in 2004, when we were jointly interviewed on television. Afterwards, he gave me a ride in his little sports car over to the Stanford faculty club, where we joined a group for lunch. Then he drove back to his home in San Francisco, 30 miles away, though he was at the time in his 90s.

More recently, I happened to chat briefly with Friedman on the phone a few days before his death, and found his mind to be as clear and sharp as ever. That will always be a special memory of a very special man, one of the giants of our time--intellectually, morally, and as a human being.

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Milton Friedman, 94

From MichelleMalkin.com:

Today, upon news of the death of Nobel Laureate economist Dr. Milton Friedman, Gordon St. Angelo, president and CEO of the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation, offered the following statement:

America has lost a true visionary and advocate for human freedom. And I have lost a great friend.

Milton’s passion for freedom and liberty has influenced more lives than he ever could possibly know. His writings and ideas have transformed the minds of U.S. Presidents, world leaders, entrepreneurs and freshmen economic majors alike. The loss of his passion, incisive mind and dedication to freedom are all national treasures that we mourn for today.

Milton never chose to slow down; even at 94 he kept fighting to bring educational equality to all of America’s children. And it’s this vision, this drive for educational liberty that the Friedman Foundation will continue to bring to families throughout America.

His impact on my life over the last 33 years was significant. His impact on the world was momentous. Without a doubt, few people have done more to advance civil and economic liberties throughout the world during their lifetime than Dr. Milton Friedman.

Here's an excerpt from a July, 2006 Wall Street Journal interview which included Mrs. Friedman:

Mr. Friedman here shifted focus. "What's really killed the Republican Party isn't spending, it's Iraq. As it happens, I was opposed to going into Iraq from the beginning. I think it was a mistake, for the simple reason that I do not believe the United States of America ought to be involved in aggression." Mrs. Friedman--listening to her husband with an ear cocked--was now muttering darkly.

Milton: "Huh? What?" Rose: "This was not aggression!" Milton (exasperatedly): "It was aggression. Of course it was!" Rose: "You count it as aggression if it's against the people, not against the monster who's ruling them. We don't agree. This is the first thing to come along in our lives, of the deep things, that we don't agree on. We have disagreed on little things, obviously--such as, I don't want to go out to dinner, he wants to go out--but big issues, this is the first one!" Milton: "But, having said that, once we went in to Iraq, it seems to me very important that we make a success of it." Rose: "And we will!"

BTW, Milton Friedman had kind and generous soul. He helped with my book PBS: Behind the Screen-- the final chapter tells the story of how Friedman got Free to Choose on the air, over the opposition of PBS executives. It was based in part on a long on-the-record telephone interview with Friedman, who spoke frankly and at length to a total stranger. He later paid the ultimate compliment a writer can give, when he quoted from my work in his autobiography (co-written with Mrs. Friedman) Two Lucky People:

As Laurence Jarvik writes, "While Galbraith was seen as a moderate by PBS, Friedman, who called himself a liberal and who advocated laissez-faire free-market policies, was viewed as an extremist." He quotes Allen Wallis as saying "The public broadcasting people regarded Friedman as a fascist, an extreme right-winger. They didn't want to have anything to do with him." (p.474)

IMHO, Friedman was a real mensch, who left the world a better place than he found it...

Here's a link to the Free to Choose website. A new PBS show about Friedman is scheduled to air in January, produced by Bob Chitester of the original series. It is called The Power of Choice: The Life and Ideas of Milton Friedman.

Christopher Hitchens on Borat

From Slate:

Is it too literal-minded to point out what any viewer of the movie can see for himself—that the crowd at the rodeo stops cheering quite fast when it realizes that something is amiss; that the car salesman is extremely patient about everything from demands for pussy magnets to confessions of bankruptcy; and that the man in the gun shop won't sell the Kazakh a weapon? This is "compliance"? I have to say, I didn't like the look of the elderly couple running the Confederate-memorabilia store, but considering that Borat smashes hundreds of dollars worth of their stock, they bear up pretty well—icily correct even when declining to be paid with locks of pubic hair. The only people who are flat-out rude and patronizing to our curious foreigner are the stone-faced liberal Amazons of the Veteran Feminists of America—surely natural readers of the New Statesman. Perhaps that magazine's reviewer believes that Borat is genuinely shocked when he finds—by video viewing—that Pamela Anderson has not been faithful to him and he will thus not be the first to "make romance-explosion on her stomitch." (And either the love goddess agreed to stage the moment when Mr. Sagdiyev tries to stuff her into a "wedding bag," or she and her security team displayed a rare indulgence to the mustachioed interloper.)

The joke, in other words, may well be on the prankster. I thought the same about Da Ali G Show. As far as one can tell, most youth culture is as inarticulate and illiterate and mannerless as Sacha Baron Cohen made it out to be: The elderly dupes who did their best to respond (Gen. Brent Scowcroft on the anthrax/Tampax distinction being the most notable) were evidently resigned in advance to quite a low standard of questioning. You can see the same fixed expressions on the faces of politicians when they attend a "real" event, like Rock the Vote, where wry, likable smiles are obligatory, and the only dread is that of appearing uncool.

Having gone this far in a curmudgeonly direction, I may as well add that any act that depends too much on the scatological is in some kind of trouble. Borat—and Borat—rely on excremental humor from the very first frames. This isn't unfunny just because it's infantile and repetitive and doesn't know when to stop; it's unfunny because the revulsion produced by feces is universal and automatic and thus much too easy to exploit. This is especially true when, in a cheap knockoff of Luis Buñuel, our hero decides to introduce the unmentionable topic at the dinner table. (To be honest, I am still reeling at the relative composure of that Birmingham society lady. If I wasn't trying to change the subject, I would say that I admired her phlegm.)

Daniel Pipes on What Went Wrong in Iraq

From his article in The National Interest:

Alongside the easy and fast victory over Saddam Hussein, the Bush Administration made a critical conceptual mistake—raising short-term expectations too high. Nomenclature alone required Operation Iraqi Freedom to quickly produce a vibrant, healthy, open, calm Iraq, with anything less constituting failure. Talk of a "free and prosperous" Iraq serving as a regional model foisted ambitions on Iraqis that they—just emerging from a thirty-year totalitarian nightmare, saddled with extremist ideologies, deep ethnic divisions and predatory neighbors—could not fulfill.

As Iraqis failed to play their appointed role, frustration grew in Washington. Deepening the trap of its own making, the administration forwarded these ambitions by bogging itself down in such domestic Iraqi minutiae as resolving inter-tribal conflict, getting electricity and water grids to work and involving itself in constitution writing.

Had the U.S.-led coalition pitched its ambitions lower, aspiring only to a decent government and economy while working much more slowly toward democracy, Iraq's progress over the past four years would be more apparent. The occupying forces should have sponsored a democratically-minded strongman to secure the country and eventually move it toward an open political process; and this approach would have the benefit of keeping Islamists out of power at a moment of their maximal popular and electoral appeal.

Kazakh President to Western Countries: "Don't Tell Us What To Do..."

In case you didn't understand what prime minister Feliks Kulov said in Kyrgyzstan, the president of Kazakhstan also expressed his frustration with foreign meddling, according to Pakistan's Daily Times:

ASTANA: Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev said on Friday his country had had enough of foreign advice and should not “blindly copy” Western models of democracy.

It was not clear what prompted his speech, although it comes in the week that neighbouring Kyrgyzstan changed its constitution to slash its president’s powers and ahead of a likely “no” to Kazakhstan’s chairing the OSCE, a democracy and rights body.

“We already have enough advisers from here and there, from the West and from across the ocean, telling us how to live and work,” Nazarbayev told a congress of the Civic Party, which supports him and is merging with his Otan (Fatherland) party. “Enough already,” he said. “Kazakhstan is not a state that can be ordered about and told what to do. We know what we need to do and do what we need.”

...The only hint that Kyrgyzstan may have been on Nazarbayev’s mind was a reference in his speech to trouble around the world, both “for distant and nearby neighbours”. As recently as September, Nazarbayev publicly repeated that he was still intent on chairing the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in 2009, a role he sees as bringing international prestige. The 56-member organisation is due to announce a decision next month. Western states had offered support for his chairmanship in return for democratic progress. But, following Nazarbayev’s Soviet-style 91 percent margin of victory in last December’s election, that support has ebbed.

In his speech, Nazarbayev said: “We should not pull up our trousers and run after every foreign recommendation ... We should not blindly copy foreign schemes.” He said political reforms in Kazakhstan should instead be “balanced” and take into account the people’s will.

Nazarbayev last launched an attack against Western values in June 2005, saying his country could not subscribe to Western-style democracy as it had a different culture and needed to guard against instability in a volatile region.

Christopher Hitchens on the Fall of Donald Rumsfeld

From his Mirror (UK) article, The Man Who Would Not Listen:

Is it only five years since the society columns in Washington were describing Donald Rumsfeld as “hot”, and printing stories about how ladies of a certain age wanted his phone number?

The aplomb he displayed during the campaign in Afghanistan, and the way he seemed to enjoy his press conferences, were just the tonic that the country appeared to need after the humiliation and panic of 11 September.

It didn’t hurt that the Secretary of Defence had been seen in his shirt-sleeves, helping direct rescue operations after a plane ploughed into the Pentagon.

As the Taliban fled and Afghans greeted American soldiers as liberators, the escape of Osama bin-Laden was a detail that could be taken care of later, and “Rummy” seemed able to do no wrong.

By this month, it seemed not only that he could do nothing right, but that everything that had gone wrong was his fault.

President Bush's Veteran's Day Proclamation

From the Veteran's Administration Veteran's Day website:

A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America

Through the generations, America's men and women in uniform have defeated tyrants, liberated continents, and set a standard of courage and idealism for the entire world. On Veterans Day, our Nation pays tribute to those who have proudly served in our Armed Forces.

To protect the Nation they love, our veterans stepped forward when America needed them most. In conflicts around the world, their sacrifice and resolve helped destroy the enemies of freedom and saved millions from oppression. In answering history's call with honor, decency, and resolve, our veterans have shown the power of liberty and earned the respect and admiration of a grateful Nation.

All of America's veterans have placed our Nation's security before their own lives, creating a debt that we can never fully repay. Our veterans represent the best of America, and they deserve the best America can give them.

As we recall the service of our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen, we are reminded that the defense of freedom comes with great loss and sacrifice. This Veterans Day, we give thanks to those who have served freedom's cause; we salute the members of our Armed Forces who are confronting our adversaries abroad; and we honor the men and women who left America's shores but did not live to be thanked as veterans. They will always be remembered by our country.

With respect for and in recognition of the contributions our service men and women have made to the cause of peace and freedom around the world, the Congress has provided (5 U.S.C. 6103(a)) that November 11 of each year shall be set aside as a legal public holiday to honor veterans.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim November 11, 2006, as Veterans Day and urge all Americans to observe November 5 through November 11, 2006, as National Veterans Awareness Week. I encourage all Americans to recognize the valor and sacrifice of our veterans through ceremonies and prayers. I call upon Federal, State, and local officials to display the flag of the United States and to support and participate in patriotic activities in their communities. I invite civic and fraternal organizations, places of worship, schools, businesses, unions, and the media to support this national observance with commemorative expressions and programs.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirty-first day of October, in the year of our Lord two thousand six, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-first.

GEORGE W. BUSH

Ann Coulter on the Democratic Victory

From Ann Coulter.com

So the left won the House and also Nicaragua. They've had a good week. At least they don't have their finger on the atom bomb yet.

Democrats support surrender in Iraq, higher taxes and the impeachment of President Bush. They just won an election by pretending to be against all three.

Jon Tester, Bob Casey Jr., Heath Shuler, possibly Jim Webb — I've never seen so much raw testosterone in my life. The smell of sweaty jockstraps from the "new Democrats" is overwhelming.

Kyrgyzstan's Failed November Revolution

While the US elections were coming to a head, an attempted coup has been averted in the former Soviet Republic of Kyrgyzstan. Face-saving compromise language for the constitution provided a fig-leaf for protest organizers, who failed to force the resignation of Kyrgyz president Kurmanbek Bakiyev--their original demand, and impetus for a week of protests. Despite red tents and red flags, these November events did not become another red revolution.

Russian president Vladimir Putin reportedly played a key role in urging Bakiyev to hang on. Kommersant's Mikhail Zygar interviewed one of the leaders of mass protests in Bishkek held on the anniversary of the Russia's October Revolution (actually November 7-8 in the Western calendar). He admitted the coup attempt had failed:

I spoke with senior parliamentarian Dooronbek Sadyrbaev, known in Soviet times as a film director and dissident, in private in a yurt.

“I think we have lost. Yes. The opposition lost,” he said. “The young liberal leaders of our opposition made the same mistake Sartacus did. He didn't want to attack when he had 300,000 people, so he had to attack with 30,000. I tried to convince them that we had to do that as quickly as possible.”

“You were for a coup? For storming the presidential palace?”

“Of course! We had to neutralize Bakiev and Kulov in the first day and not miss the moment. We had to storm the presidential palace and turn them over to a court. Bakiev played for time and our young leaders did not make a decision. But that won't save Bakiev. He won't last to the end of is term.”

The Revolution and Counterrevolution Are One

The parliament waited all day for instructions from the president.

“At first we wanted new parliamentary and presidential elections three months and six months after the new constitution was passed,” parliament member Melis Eshimkanov recounted as he smoked nervously. “But they all wanted to serve out their terms – to 2010. The president and the administration. So we conceded to them. Let them serve their damn terms! Now we are waiting for the president to sign the order.”

A few hours later, the president declared new conditions. Besides the demands the opposition had already accepted, he wanted to be the coauthor of the new constitution, to have the right to approve ministers and appoint judges without consulting with the parliament. The parliament agreed to it. And still the president didn't sign the order.

“He spoke with Putin on the phone Tuesday evening and that gave him new strength,” they said around the parliament.

Olga Mikushina's report on the Central Asian website Ferghana.ru, features an interview with Kyrgyz political scientists Nur Omarov and Alexander Knyazev. Alexander Knyazev also called the events a coup attempt:

Establishment of the Constituent Assembly was illegitimate indeed. I accept it. It was nothing short of a coup d'etat... particularly without the parliamentary quorum.

The two experts go on to argue that the failure of the coup strengthened the current governing "tandem" of Bakiyev and prime minister Felix Kulov, and weakened the parliamentary opposition.

Nur Omarov: Crisis in the camp of the opposition leaders is undeniable nowadays. It should have been expected. Whenever a group is acting against something or someone, its members inevitably end up at each other's throats sooner or later. I'd like to add as well that all of that is happening as though in some other life, leaving society and the population absolutely unaffected. Social protest is what is absent. Neither side in the square included any socially active people. Some turned up because they had been paid to do it, others because they had been forced to (like budget sphere employees) but nobody was a genuine social protester.

Alexander Knyazev: Society is worn down. The population of Bishkek will only rise in response to something like that what happened last March - pogroms and all that. City dwellers will be better organized if it comes to that than residents of rural areas. After all, the former do have something to lose. It's like nomads and farmers. Whenever the former will leave to avoid trouble, the latter will remain and put up a fight to defend what is his.

Question: What turn will the events take now?

Alexander Knyazev: Bakiyev and Kulov need interaction and cooperation. Reinforcement of the executive branch of the government and security structures is what they need.

Nur Omarov: That's right. It is the executive branch of the government that handles the problems the population is facing. Properly or inadequately, regardless of whether it wants it or not. As I see it, an attempt to split the tandem is the worst mistake Bakiyev may make now. Left to their own devices, they are not even nearly as strong as when they operate together. Bakiyev won the November round. It's time Kulov solidified his position. The regime has emerged from the confrontation with the least damage to itself.

Why should Americans care about this?

Because many in Kyrgyzstan appear to believe that the opposition is supported by the European Union and the US government. As in Venezuela, where a failed coup attempt supported by the US strengthened the Chavez regime and increased anti-American sentiment throughout Latin America (Bush just lost Nicagaragua to Daniel Ortega, for example); perception of American and EU meddling in Kyrgyz politics (especially failed meddling) threatens to inflame anti-Americanism throughout Central Asia. Since the US air base in Manas, Kyrgyzstan supports the war in Afghanistan, and might be useful for any operation against Iran, it might be prudent to reconsider continuing any American (or EU) support for the Kyrgyz opposition. Especially given the comments of prime minister Felix Kulov in today's Washington Post:

"The adoption of a constitution within minutes deserves to be in the Guinness Records Book," Kulov said, referring to two quick votes late Wednesday after which parliament adopted the amendments. "We have to be wise to avoid groundless aggravation of the situation and prevalence of unsatisfied ambitions over reason."

Translation for Americans and EU readers: "Leave Kyrgyzstan alone..."

My Dinner With Chris...

...Matthews.

Here's the background:

Last night, the sister of someone I know came to town for a visit. We had a nice time at the Kennedy Center's "Performance Plus" event--a talk by George Washington University professor Jessica Krash devoted to songs about love and death, featuring excerpts from works by Schumann, Brahms, Mahler, Corigliani and others. She really did a great job, though some of us wondered why she left out Wagner's Liebestod...In any case, the ticket price included a free wine-tasting (3 Italian vintages, perhaps in honor of incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi?), some free nuts, as well as 1/2-off parking ($7.50 instead of $15). So it was a good deal, as well as educational, and fun.

Afterwards, we decided to try a new restaurant that just opened on the same block as our neighborhood Politics and Prose Bookstore. It still had no sign out front, maybe because it is supposed to be so happening that you peek through a peephole in the front window to see if it is open. It was.

We entered the dark interior, stripped bare to plaster walls and wooden beams. Inside we discovered the joint is named Comet Ping Pong. It is a pizzeria with a wood-fired oven. The "hip" touches include eating off of (pseudo) ping-pong tables, and a real ping-pong area in the back.

The place was very dark, but we did make out--a few tables away--a famous celebrity pink-shirted CNBC talk-show host, Chris Matthews. He was sitting with WJLA-TVs local news anchor (his wife) Kathleen Matthews, alongside what looked like family members. We don't know what they ordered, probably some sort of pizza, because that's all they seemed to serve, but they seemed to be having a good time.

Our team ordered two vegetarian pizzas: one with anchovies and onions, the other with tomato sauce and mozzarella. They were served on a single tray--no plates!--and although the waiter had said they would be 9-inches in diameter, it would be more honest to say they were 9-inches long and about 3-inches wide.

And one of them was burnt.

The salad tasted like it came out of a supermarket pre-washed plastic bag.

The glass for the chardonnay served to the sister of someone I know was smaller than the glasses orange juice used to come in NYC diners when I lived there a quarter of a century ago (very small).

And our waiter seemed to be about 16 years old.

There was no menu, and no prices. There was a board listing pizzas, but no prices on that, either. After some questioning our server told us what things cost, approximately. The $9.00 pizza price quote turned out to be sort of a Washington budget estimate. One pizza cost $10, the other $12....

Still, it was a lot of fun to hobnob with local celebrities, on the day after the historic Democratic wave swept the House and Senate--especially since Matthews used to work for the legendary Tip O'Neill. Now, if we only had been able to hear what he had been saying...

Kazakh Fashions Come to Washington

From Teresa Wiltz's fashion column in today's Washington Post:

Designer Azhikhan, her blond hair providing striking contrast to her Central Asian features, seemed eager to present an alternative view of the Kazakh woman.

Did she see the [Borat] movie?

"Yes," she said, shaking her head and smiling. "I saw."

And did she laugh?

"Yes. Very funny. But some situations . . . I felt a little bit sad.

"Everything, it's not true. . . . The faces are not exactly Asian faces. . . . We're beautiful women in Kazakhstan. We like expensive clothes. We have high buildings! We have Bentleys! I have a home that cost $3 million."

Judging by Azhikhan's designs, Kazakhstan is a land where the women are rich, modest -- this is, after all, a largely Muslim nation -- and shivering from the cold. Think Doctor Zhivago transplanted into the cellphone excesses of the 21st century: rich jewel shades, earthy prints and pelts. Fur -- chinchilla, mink and faux -- cropped up in everything, trimming funnel necks on great, charcoal velvet coats, slung around the hips of a paisley-esque maxi-skirt, punctuating jackets shot though with shimmers of Swarovski crystals. (About the fur: It's a tossup as to who would be more unwelcome here: Sacha Baron Cohen or the red-paint slingers of PETA.)

Why Fire Rumsfeld Now?

President Bush's announcement yesterday shows that elections do make a difference. The Democrats wanted Rumsfeld's head--and they got it. (One Republican commentator told local news radio that if Bush had done this a month before the election, the Democrats might not have taken the House.)

As far at the Robert Gates nomination goes, if I were the Democrats, I might want to give Gates a very hard time in confirmation hearings--and maybe reject him altogether, just to show who's boss...