Andrew Sullivan: The More You Look, The Worse It Gets

Writing in the London Times, Andrew Sullivan lays into the 3 Cs of the Bush administration: cronyism, corruption, and "conservatism." His verdict on Bush?

He campaigned fundamentally on his ability to run the country in wartime, on emergency management, on protecting Americans from physical harm. That was his promise. It was swept away as the waters flooded New Orleans. And Al-Qaeda was watching every minute of it.

The Constant Gardener

Just saw The Constant Gardener with Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz. As I see everything through the prism of Antigua, now, it was interesting that Fiennes played a British diplomat. His relation, Sir Eustace Fiennes, was Governor-General of Antigua during the colonial period. On his death, Sir Eustace left a bequest that pays for the Fiennes Institute, an almshouse and old-age home that cares for needy Antiguans to this day. An earlier Fiennes, Lord Saye and Sele, was the founder of Old Saybrook, Connecticut. His descendant, a cousin of Ralph Fiennes, still lives in Broughton Castle. We toured this National Trust home, and it is worth a look. It is quite possibly the homiest castle in England.

In any case, although the plot was ridiculously PC (why kill people over a report that sounds like dozens already posted on the internet--or tonight's 60 Minutes story about Amgen?), everything else about the movie was first rate--travelogue, suspense, acting, sets, costumes, music, lighting, and so forth. So, forget the storyline, and just take a bath in Anglophile porn.

Pew Poll: Bush Sinking

Andy Kohut summarized this Pew Poll on the same Lehrer Newshour (a really good show, btw). Bush is ahead of Richard Nixon in the middle of Watergate, but that's about it. His popularity is way down, sinking fast in the Big Muddy...

This may turn out to be Bush's Waco. After the Clinton administration botched the David Koresh operation, the country turned to the Republicans, who swept into Congress. In 2006, if the Democrats play the good government card instead of the race card, they can pull off the same trick.

Then, impeachment looms for Dick Cheney and George W. Bush. One reason for Democrats to try and hold off confirmation of Supreme Court nominees for a year or two...

Calling Clark Kent (Ervin)!

I watched the former DHS-IG on the Lehrer Newshour last night talking about New Orleans, and was impressed with the content of his comments as well as his manner. Ervin deftly inserted the needle in Bush administration positions (his style reminded me a little of Robin McNeil). Here's what Ervin told Margaret Warner last night, about FEMA chief Michael Brown:

I question whether it makes sense to put Brown back in Washington to be in charge of overall FEMA efforts since obviously this kind of thing can and likely will happen again. I think the larger issue is whether there's leadership at the top of FEMA that has the competence that's necessary to do the planning and preparedness that is necessary to make sure this kind of response doesn't happen again.

Ervin was so impressive--Who is this guy? I thought--that I googled him.Here's another quote:

CLARK KENT ERVIN: Well, it seems to me at the Department level as a whole there has been a lack of attention to detail, a lack of focus on management. And I think we're seeing the consequences of that. It seems to me absolutely inexcusable that, frankly, both the secretary as well as the FEMA director said it wasn't until Thursday that they learned there were thousands of people stranded without food and water when all you had to do was turn on the television set to see that. So it seems to me a lack of attention to detail. And it is just inexcusable. It is inexplicable. I don't have an explanation for it. I don't know that there is one.

Turns out that until he was canned, Ervin had been a loyal Bushie, from Texas. He was apparently purged, best as we can figure out, because he was competent and good at his job (which made some Bush cronies look bad). Here's the USATODAY story on his departure from government service. Title: "Ex-official tells of Homeland Security Failures."

While in office, Ervin made some scathing findings. He reported that:

• Undercover investigators were able to sneak explosives and weapons past security screeners at 15 airports during tests in 2003.

• Federal air marshals, hired to provide a last line of defense against terrorists on airlines, slept on the job, tested positive for alcohol or drugs while on duty, lost their weapons and falsified information in 2002.

• Department leaders should have taken a more aggressive role in efforts to combine the government's myriad terrorist watch lists since the department was created in 2003.

• The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) gave executive bonuses of $16,477 to 88 of its 116 senior managers in 2003, an amount one-third higher than the bonuses given to executives at any other federal agency.

• The TSA spent nearly $500,000 on an awards banquet for employees in November 2003. The cost included $1,500 for three cheese displays and $3.75 for each soft drink.

The department complained that many of Ervin's reports were based on outdated information. After the report on air marshals, border and transportation chief Asa Hutchinson said the problems had long since been fixed.

Ervin, a Harvard-trained lawyer who worked for Bush when he was governor of Texas and for Bush's father in the White House before that, couldn't explain why he didn't get the nod to continue his work. It "will be an enduring mystery to me," he said.

Ervin currenlty heads the Homeland Security program at the Aspen Institute.

Mark Helprin on 9/11's Fourth Anniversary

He lets loose with both barrels in The Wall Street Journal.

Rotting Oranges in Ukraine?

Yushchenko has fired everyone due to a corruption scandal, and Kommersant has this analysis of recent developments in the current Ukrainian crisis.

British Expats Won't Leave New Orleans

This is an interesting story about Britishers staying put in the Big Easy...

Japan Today: Barbara Bush Blunders

Hurricane Katrina is taking a toll on America's international stature. I watched Karen Hughes funble her way through a BBC World interview last night talking about "elements" in New Orleans; and the Japanese press seem to be picking up on Barbara Bush's Marie Antoinette approach:

U.S. President George W Bush is not the only member of his prominent political family to be drawing criticism for public utterances about Hurricane Katrina: His mother has raised eyebrows too.

In widely reported comments after visting evacuees at a Texas sports arena, former first lady Barbara Bush on Monday seemed to suggest a silver lining for the "underprivileged" forced from their flooded homes in New Orleans.


"What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality," she said in a radio interview from the Astrodome in Houston, Texas.

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this — this is working very well for them," she said.

The Horse's Curse

Last night at a dinner party, met children's book author Fiona Darling, who wrote The Horse's Curse. The book is about St. Patrick, who drove the snakes from Ireland, and his horse, among other things...

Great Job, Brownie?

Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for the link to this Florida Sun-Sentinel editoral pointing out that they called for Brown's firing a year ago, due to his incompetence!

But nothing can restore FEMA's full functionality so long as the agency's incompetent director, Michael Brown, remains at the helm. Brown, a patronage appointee with no previous disaster management experience, embarrassed himself last year with his attempts to justify FEMA's waste of more than $31 million in hurricane relief given to areas not affected by a hurricane. After a South Florida Sun-Sentinel investigation exposed the waste, the newspaper called for Brown to be fired. It now repeats that call.
This year Brown embarrassed the whole country. Three days after Katrina struck, he admitted to being surprised to learn that thousands of people were suffering without food or water in New Orleans' convention center. This from the man who was supposed to be in charge of federal relief efforts.
Brown is in over his head. If FEMA is ever to become effective again, his dismissal must be the first step.

I'm sure the Democrats are looking into FEMAs business dealings with former FEMA head and Bush crony Joe Allbaugh, as well as any contracts with Dick Cheney's Halliburton or Kellogg, Brown & Root.

If they find anything, they can impeach Cheney first, then go after Bush. So maybe the Republicans might want to act so they can pick Bush's replacement, instead of the Democrats. Also, if I were the Democrats, I'd hold off any Supreme Court confirmations for a long time...

Our new cat, Moxie.

Willa Cather on TV

Last night, to take my mind off disasters, I watched the PBS American Masters documentary about Willa Cather. It was sort of interesting, and made me think of my internship with TV producer-director Glenn Jordan, who did a Hallmark Hall of Fame based on O Pioneers! in 1992, starring Jessica Lang. Turns out that there are quite a few Willa Cather stories on IMDB's list of her tv movies. They have been directed by A-list talent like Jack Gold, Joseph Sargeant, and Karen Arthur.

I learned from the PBS show that Cather wasn't much of a country mouse at all; rather, a Greenwich Village bohemian (she lived on Bank Street), who left Nebraska as soon as she was able to do so. She was obviously a lesbian, a very successful editor at McClure's Magazine, and became a best-selling author despite the failure of her first novel. She began writing later in life, and in the 30s fell afoul of the Communist Party types who wanted proletarian novels. Her work has stood the test of time, and her interesting personality has made me interested--for the first time--in reading what Willa Cather wrote. It wasn't all about wheatfields and praries, it turns out...

Is Al Franken a Liar?

Michelle Malkin thinks so.

The Lincoln Memorial, Revisited

On Monday, with an old friend from UCLA Film School, I went to see the Lincoln Memorial after many years. (He pointed out that it was featured in the last scene of the 2001 remake of Planet of the Apes). It had been at least a decade since the last time I climbed the steps leading to the statue of the Great Emancipator that stares down the National Mall to the US Capitol. The World War II and Korean War Memorials had been added since my previous visit. Now, flanking Lincoln's left and right were remembrances of failed or stalemated military episodes: Vietnam and Korea. Straight ahead were America's successes, WWII, the Washington Monument (remembering the American Revolution), and the US Capitol -- itself surmounted by a goddess of liberty.

The Lincoln Memorial seemed to be in a state of disrepair. It looked like mold was growing inside, and moss seemed to be on the exterior marble. The grass was uncut in places, and construction work put piles of dirt and debris on the side, as well as unsightly chain-link fences.

In the basement of the monument there is now a small museum. It has a section devoted to Martin Luther King's March on Washington, and a small selection of Lincoln quotes about slavery and union, installed at the instigation of visiting schoolchildren in 1990, who collected pennies to pay for the exhibit because there was nothing about Lincoln's life in the temple-like statuary hall above.

The statue of Lincoln was kept pretty clean, but the rest of the imitation Greek Temple was in need of some upkeep. It almost reminded me of visiting Chor Minor or the Lodi Gardens in Delhi. Lincoln seems to be fading into the distant past. His accomplishment, and its relevance to the American purpose of proclaiming liberty throughout the world, seems to be in danger of being forgotten as well.

My friend didn't believe Lincoln was against slavery--and that if even if he had been, so what? Slavery was obviously wrong, against the Declaration of Independence, against Scripture, against simple human decency. Of course, he was right.

Yet, Lincoln did face a struggle to end the practice in the United States--whether its end was the result of or the cause of the Civil War, in the end, is a mere debating point. The fact is that before Lincoln's presidency, the US was a slave society, and afterwards, it was no longer. Hundreds of thousands of Union soldiers died in the struggle, not defending their homes, but defending a principle. It makes little difference whether you call that principle Union or Freedom; because the Confederacy's principle had been slavery.

This fight for freedom continued in America's wars around the world--including Vietnam and Korea. The Korean memorial has its motto engraved in stone: "Freedom isn't Free." A cliche, perhaps, yet one that has truth to it. There is slavery in North Korea but not in South Korea. Of course, Vietnam and Cambodia both became slave societies after the American withdrawal.

So Lincoln's struggle is not ancient history. Slavery is a constant threat to humankind that must be fought in every generation. It existed in the former Soviet Union, a slave society, with slave labor camps. Slaves built the Moscow metro, the grand boulevards, the Stalinist skyscrapers--and cut timber in the camps of the Gulag, as well. Slavery existed in Nazi Europe, they built the V-2 rockets that exploded in London, they made chemicals for IG Farben, and after being worked to death, were exterminated at places like Auschwitz and Treblinka. China had a slave system, of course, on the Soviet model.

There is widespread slavery today, according to the Anti-Slavery Society. There is slavery in Saudi Arabia , and the Sudan. Anywhere where people are forced to work without being paid, can be physically abused or killed by their bosses, there is a slave system.

And if Osama Bin Laden gets his way, we shall all be "slaves to Allah." That is why the Global War on Terror is worth fighting--it is in fact a Global War Against Slavery.

Which is also why the Lincoln Memorial remains deeply relevant, and deserves better upkeep than it seems to be getting from the Bush administration (if only it looked as nice as the official photo above...).

And Now For Something Completely Different...

There's been so much bad news, that I didn't have a chance to mention that Hammasa Kohistani was chosen as the new "Miss England" for the annual "Miss World" contest. She was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and hopefully will help improve the image of that very interesting country. There's a nice webpage devoted to her British beauty contest victory at The Jawa Report.

FEMA and DHS

All this talk about taking FEMA out of the Department of Homeland Security raises the question: If the Federal Emergency Management Agency doesn't belong there, what does?

After all, FEMA would have to take care of the aftermath had it been an atom bomb in New Orleans. If they can't handle a hurricane, what would happen with a dirty bomb, a suitcase bomb, a chemical attack, a germ attack? Don't even want to think about it...

The answer is that nothing belongs in Homeland Security, the agency shouldn't exist, it has a bad name, an impossible mission, and obviously is a mess. The US appears to be worse off--and more unprepared--today than on 9/11.

Time to go back to the drawing board. The situation is actually too serious for partisan politics, since America is facing insane suicide killers who will stop at nothing. Bush might have to be impeached.

While it sounds farfetched even to me, the best scenario I can come up with to get some proper leadership quickly is:

Step One: Cheney steps aside.

Step Two: Rudy Giuliani becomes VP.

Step Three: Bush is impreached or resigns.

Step Four: Giuliani takes over, fires everyone, bangs heads together, and cleans up the mess the Bushies made--hopefully, with a bipartisan government of national unity with someone like Zell Miller or even Hillary Clinton--before Osama Bin Laden strikes again...

Belgravia Dispatch

My wife told me to read what this website had to say about Hurricane Katrina. I did, and shall add it to my blogroll, forthwith...

PS Also recommended reading Michelle Malkin and Andrew Sullivan.

Inside Russia's Valdai Discussion Club

The Club unites former Sovietologists, that is, leading American and European experts on post-Soviet territory, as well as Russian politicians and analysts.

Before meeting the President [Putin] last Monday a group of fifty foreign experts had been through a real marathon: in the first half of the day they listened to the speeches of Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Vladislav Surkov, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Defense Minister Sergey Ivanov, Minister of Communications Yevgeny Reiman, Minister of Oil and Natural Resources Yury Trutnev, and finally three deputy ministers from the government's 'economic' bloc. The experts who had been used to patiently screen bits of information from the former U.S.S.R. and later on from Russia, were literally showered with exclusive and often classified information.

The participants in the second session were very prominent figures, too. It was attended by Marshall Goldman (US), a seasoned expert on Soviet studies, Germany's best known expert on Russia Alexander Rahr, leading foreign policy expert from France Thierry de Montbrial, and Lord Howell, a shadow minister in the British Parliament, to name but a few. In other words, these were the best of the best.

Nic, Bupkis & Nichevo

Just found that there was a link to here from Nic, Bupkis & Nichevo, so thought I'd return the favor...

Bloggers Do the American Political Science Association Convention

Last Friday, I attended the American Political Science Association convention at Washington, DC's Mariott Wardman Park and Omni Shoreham Hotels. It was huge. For fans of what Washingtonians call "show business for ugly people," it seemed something like a buttoned-down version of the Cannes Film Festival. The APSA convention motto: "Mobilizing Democracy." (I had my mobile phone with me, does that count?)

At registration, I spotted Washington Post columnist David Broder and Princeton University professor Cornel West. The 0800 am session on Bush's presidential leadership style, in which Princeton political science professor Fred Greenstein predicted that Bush would come back from outrage over Hurricane Katrina in the same way he came back after 9/11 was packed--Broder was in the audience, as was Brookings Institution political guru Thomas Mann, among other American politological luminaries. Washington Post reporter John Harris shared a scoop, as he contrasted the governing styles of Bush and Clinton, then revealed that Hillary likes Bush Junior's style and hopes to emulate it. Yikes!

I missed seeing Republican bigwigs Elliott Abrams, and Bill Kristol, or former Clinton advisor William Galston, who appeared at some other panels, (I guess they aren't too busy doing their jobs to bloviate with academics) but did have a chance to drop in on a panel about the Bush doctrine in Iraq.

It featured John Hopkins professor Francis Fukuyama, who appeared with Princeton's John Ikenberry, and the University of Chicago's John Mearsheimer. The banner hanging above their heads read: "APSA: Networking a World of Scholars."

It was strange to hear Fukuyama, one of the signatories of the famous (or notorious) 1998 letter to President Clinton calling for the American overthrow of Saddam Hussein, now mocking the Bush doctrine as an equivalent to the Wizard of Oz scene where the munchkins come out singing "Ding, dong, the Witch is dead..." Fukuyama may be right now, or he may have been right then, or he may be wrong twice in a row. Could he have been right twice in a row? Who knows? Maybe the Bushies thought it was the end of history, or something? I admit that I don't know...

I do know that I certainly would want to think twice before I would trust anything Fukuyama has to say about politics or world affairs.

The worst was yet to come. Professor Ikenberry was icky in the extreme, he actually used the term "final solution" in connection with Bush's policies in Iraq, a creepy academic type, who thought he was so cute and clever. Ikenberry appeared so amoral and calculated that he made Fukuyama look good by comparison. Mearsheimer seemed to be the most "realistic" of the bunch, arguing that the Bush doctrine is dead, though no one will admit it. This, at least, is a testable hypothesis. We have three years to see if he is right or wrong...

Most interesting--after the book exhibit, which really was great, all publishers were there, and some gave away free books, which I'll discuss as I read them--was the Claremont Institute's panel on bloggers and politics, concentrating on Powerline's coverage of the Dan Rather 60 Minutes II scandal. Both John Hinderaker and Paul Mirengoff were there, and there was a lively debate about blogs versus newspapers with Jeff Gertz of The Washington Times and the Boston Globe's Peter Canellos. Canellos gave the liberal line pretty well, and Hinderaker agressively challenged him. It was almost like watching Crossfire. (You can see Hinderaker v. Canellos in the picture above.)

At that same session, I learned that author and US News correspondent Michael Barone is now a blogger, since he was introduced from the audience as a member of the tribe.

Overall, I'd say reporters at APSA were more interesting than professors, and bloggers at least as interesting as journalists. And before attending APSA, I didn't realize that Bush political appointees cared what political science professors thought (a mistake, IMHO).