Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 89

The Moscow Times has published a very interesting obituary of the great Russian novelist by Alexander Osipovich:

After the 2000 election of President Vladimir Putin - a former KGB agent - the two men had a three-hour meeting at Solzhenitsyn's residence. The writer praised Putin afterward. Solzhenitsyn generally supported Putin's efforts to strengthen the Russian state, although he broke with him on several issues. For instance, he fiercely criticized the revival of the old Soviet anthem in late 2000.

In early 2006, Rossia television aired a 10-part miniseries based on "The First Circle." Despite his previous disparaging of television, Solzhenitsyn helped write the script and even narrated parts of the voice-over. The miniseries starred the popular young actor Yevgeny Mironov and earned respectable ratings.

Solzhenitsyn was lauded at the highest levels of the state in his final years. Putin quoted him in his 2006 state-of-the-nation address, and on June 12, 2007, the president visited his home to give him Russia's highest award, the State Prize.

The old enemy of the state had come full circle.

I hope that we might see that Russian television adaptation of The First Circle on Masterpiece Theatre someday soon...

Glenn Greenwald on the Latest Anthrax Death

Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald is tracking the strange death of Ft. Detrick anthrax scientist Bruce Ivins while under survelliance by the FBI on his blog. It makes for interesting reading:

It's perfectly possible that Bruce Ivins really is the anthrax attacker -- that he perpetrated the attacks and did so alone. Perhaps the FBI is in possession of mountains of conclusive evidence that, once revealed, will leave no doubt that Ivins is the guilty party. But no rational person could possibly assume that to be the case given the paltry amount of facts -- many of which contradict one another -- that are now known....

...So much of the public reporting about Ivins has been devoted to depicting him as a highly unstable psychotic who had been issuing extremely violent threats and who had a violent past. But that depiction has been based almost exclusively on the uncorroborated claims of Jean Carol Duley, a social worker (not a psychiatrist or psychologist) who, as recently as last year, was apparently still in college at Hood's College in Frederick, Maryland. Duley's scrawled handwritten complaint against Ivins, seeking a Protective Order, has served as the basis for much of the reporting regarding Ivins' mental state, yet it is hardly the model of a competent or authoritative professional. Quite the opposite.

Duley herself has a history that, at the very least, raises questions about her credibility. She has a rather lengthy involvement with the courts in Frederick, including two very recent convictions for driving under the influence -- one from 2007 and one from 2006 -- as well as a complaint filed against her for battery by her ex-husband. Here is Duley's record from the Maryland Judicial data base...Just three months ago, Duley pled guilty and was sentenced to probation (and fined $1,000), as a result of having been stopped in December, while driving at 1:35 a.m., and charged with driving under the influence...

On April 21, 2006, Duley was also charged with "driving a vehicle while impaired by alcohol," driving "while impaired by drugs or alcohol," and reckless driving, and on October 13, 2006, she pled guilty to the charge of reckless driving and was fined $580. Back in 1992, Duley was criminally charged with battery against what appeared to be her now-ex-husband (and she filed a complaint against him as well). Later that same year, she was criminally charged with possession of drug paraphenalia with intent to use, charges which appear to have been ultimately dismissed.

Prior to the restraining order against Ivins which Duley obtained two weeks ago, Ivins had no criminal record at all, at least not in Frederick. A story in today's Frederick News-Post quotes Duley's fiancee as claiming: "She had to quit her job and is now unable to work, and we have spent our savings on attorneys." But she doesn't appear to have used an attorney for her complaint against Ivins. If anything, her savings were likely depleted from attorneys' fees, court costs, and fines and probation for her various criminal proceedings (Larisa Alexandrovna has more details on Duley).

None of this is to defend Ivins, nor is to suggest that this constitutes evidence that Duley is lying or is otherwise inaccurate in her claims. As I said, it's perfectly possible that Ivins is guilty of being the anthrax attacker. I have no opinion on whether he is. The point is that nobody should have any opinion on that question -- one way or the other -- until they see the FBI's evidence.

What is certain is that Jean Carol Duley is hardly some upstanding, authoritative source on Bruce Ivins' psychological state or his guilt, nor is she some accomplished and highly credible psychological professional, notwithstanding the fact that most media depictions of Ivins are based on uncritical recitations of her accusations. The fact that her depiction contradicts not only the claims of virtually everyone else who knew Ivins but also numerous facts about how Ivins was treated even by the FBI (see below), suggests that a large amount of skepticism is warranted...

Someone I know pointed out that in Duley's handwritten complaint, she spelled the word therapist as "T-H-E-R-I-P-I-S-T." No qualified therapist would make such a spelling mistake.

Further, it is incumbent upon a professional therapist to protect a patient first--before themselves. If Duley truly believed that Ivins were a danger to himself or others, she had an obligation to seek his involuntary commitment to a psychiatric institution. Especially since he had recently been released from Sheppard Pratt psychiatric hospital (established by Quakers for the humane treatment of the mentally ill, and once home to Zelda Fitzgerald.) And, if her citation of Dr. David Irwin's alleged diagnosis were true, there may be grounds for a medical malpractice lawwsuit on behalf of surviving family members against both Dr. Irwin and Ms. Duley--for failing to seek involuntary commitment when they believed Irwin posed a real danger to both himself and the community.

The Frederick News-Post has found at least one authority on medical ethics who believes that something appears seriously wrong with Duley's behavior towards her patient, Dr Arthur O. Anderson:

As a health care professional and bioethicist -- he heads USAMRIID's Office of Human Use and Ethics -- Anderson said he takes issue with what he views as Duley's professional betrayal of Ivins.

"I can tell you very clearly that the minute a conflict of interest occurs in the caregiver-client relationship É she has to withdraw as the caregiver," he said. "She can't ethically continue to gather information or share information -- betray that trust -- without disclosing to her client that she is sharing what he believes is confidential, privileged information."

Anderson said that if he was to betray a patient's trust in such a manner, he would be subject to medical disciplinary procedures.

In commenting about remarks made by Duley when she applied to the District Court of Maryland for a Peace Order, Anderson said he was amazed that a judge would allow hearsay to be entered on the record.

Duley referred to comments allegedly made by Ivins' psychiatrist about Ivins' homicidal and sociopathic tendencies, without confirmation to the court that the doctor actually made the comments.

"The remaining allegations about murderous ideas and plans sound so foreign to me that in the absence of contemporaneously documented evidence I would have to consider them items of Ms. Duley's vivid imagination or information fed to her by the people she communicated with outside the therapeutic environment," Anderson wrote in an e-mail to the News-Post. "It is not at all surprising to me that a patient whose therapist is serving as a double agent 'therapist' and 'accuser' would become very angry with the therapist and might make some rather dramatic expressions of that anger."

The doctor and scientist paused briefly after being asked if he believes Ivins committed suicide.

"Oh, yeah," he said. "I think all of the circumstances put him in a place where he felt he had no place to go."

Anderson said he became aware in June that the FBI had taken items out of Ivins' lab.

"The FBI took all of the stored things in his lab freezer," Anderson said. "They basically destroyed his life's work. I think that's what upset him the most."

Anderson said it is "highly incomprehensible" to him that Ivins would be regarded as the perpetrator in this case simply because he had access to anthrax.

He said he last saw Ivins around July 6. Ivins told him the FBI was stalking him, following him everywhere, Anderson said.

"He was animated and appropriately concerned, but certainly not out of control."

Anderson does not believe Ivins is responsible for the 2001 anthrax deaths.

"Now that he can't defend himself against the allegations, this will play out the way it will play out," he said.

But he firmly believes it wasn't guilt that killed his colleague and friend.

"I think it was the sense of betrayal and complete abandonment by those around him," Anderson said. "He cared so much and had so much pride in the work he did -- I don't think he could handle that sense of abandonment."

Curiously, The Wall Street Journal has published the only halfway decent editorial on this case that I can find today:

The FBI has invested its credibility in proving its mad scientist theory of the case, only to be wrong about Mr. Hatfill. Perhaps the sudden turn toward Ivins has solved it, but FBI Director Robert Mueller needs to reassure Americans that his agents didn't target another innocent man because he fit their psychological profile. Justice should make its evidence about Ivins public for anthrax experts and the media to inspect. Congress should also hold hearings that explore how the FBI pursued the case from the beginning and why it went awry. The FBI cannot be allowed to close the case and declare victory.

More at Meryl Nass's blog and Larisa Alexandrovna's blog.

J. Murdoch Ritchie, 83

Benbo Ritchie was a psychopharmacologist and friend of my father at Albert Einstein Medical College, so I was interested to see his obituary in the New York Times so shortly after my father's death:

In 1975, while a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was reviewing the C.I.A.’s “operational use” of poisons, Dr. Ritchie asked for access to the agency’s store of saxitoxin, a rare and highly effective neurotoxin made by clams.

The request raised eyebrows in Congress because the substance, which kills by causing respiratory failure, was not even supposed to exist; President Richard M. Nixon had ordered the government to destroy all of its bacteriological weapons in 1969. To the committee’s dismay, the C.I.A. did not turn over its saxitoxin supply, which the agency said was used to prepare suicide pills for spies in case of capture.

In the early 1970s, Dr. Ritchie, who was known as Murdoch, used saxitoxin for a nonlethal purpose, in studies of electrical conduction within nerve cells. It was already known that the nervous system used shifts in levels of sodium and potassium to transfer electrical signals and that saxitoxin could be employed to block the movement of sodium.

Dr. Ritchie, Richard D. Keynes, Gary R. Strichartz and others labeled molecules of the toxin with radioactive tags and introduced them into the living tissue of rabbits, fish and lobsters. They then read the radioactive markers to count the number of sodium entry sites, called channels.

This work, which helped explain fundamental questions about the nervous system, was based on earlier observations made by Dr. Ritchie and Paul Greengard, who studied the action and effects of lidocaine, dibucaine and other local anesthetics on the nerve cells. Like saxitoxin, dibucaine and lidocaine act by blocking the flow of sodium, dulling the sensation of pain.

In a development that surprised Dr. Ritchie, the government decided not to incinerate the saxitoxin and actually offered it to him. But he soon realized how much responsibility for safeguarding it would be involved, and he recommended that the remaining store be donated to the National Institutes of Health instead. Although Dr. Ritchie was not successful in finding an antidote to saxitoxin, which was his original goal, his research shed light on how nerve cells can lose their protective sheaths of myelin, ultimately interrupting the nervous system’s signals and leading to multiple sclerosis.

Working with Robert Byck, a colleague at Yale, [NOTE: Also a friend of my father's] Dr. Ritchie investigated the physiological effects of smoking marijuana. In tests on nerve fibers, they found that the drug’s active component, THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, had a more pronounced influence than previously thought.

Treasures of the Nukus Museum Now Online

(Sergei Luppov, Woman in Black) Thought I'd share this email with readers:

WEBSITE- Savitsky Collection, Nukus Museum, Nukus, UzbekistanPosted by: Dion Richard

The Friends of the Nukus Museum Foundation is pleased to announce the
launch of the museum's updated website (www.savitskycollection.org),
which provides an overview of its history, extensive details of
several dozen artists as well as details on seeing the collection.

Opened in 1966, the Nukus Museum (the Savitsky Collection) houses a
collection of over 82,000 items, ranging from antiquities from Khorezm
to Karakalpak folk art, Uzbek fine art and the second largest
collection of Russian avant-garde art in the world. It represents the
life's work of Igor Savitsky, whose legacy, which includes thousands
of artistic and cultural treasures on permanent exhibition, make it
one of the most interesting repositories of ancient and modern art.

I saw an exhibition of art from the Savitsky Collection when I lived in Tashkent as a Fublright Scholar in 2002-2003, and really enjoyed it. Now the online exhibition gives everyone a chance to view an outstanding collection of modern art.

Barack Obama's 21st Century "Era of Good Feelings"

That what I think the Democratic Presidential candidate has to offer, in contrast to Bush (a reminder of the Adams dynasty) and McCain's 21st Century "Alien and Sedition Acts". The 9/11 and Pentagon attacks in 2001 parallel the burning of the White House by the British during the War of 1812. In this case, the collapse of the Republican party mirrors the dissolved Federalists. Some background from Wikipedia:

Overt political bitterness declined because the Federalists had largely dissolved and were no longer attacking the president, then causing an era of good feeling because there was only one political party. The nation was politically united behind the Democratic-Republican Party. The Era of Good Feelings started after the War of 1812. The Hartford Convention of 1814-15 underscored the disloyalty of the Federalists during the war. Nationalism surged even though there were no redress of pre-war grievances at the Treaty of Ghent, but America had survived the onslaught of a mighty military power, Britain. Americans had even scored a few land and sea victories. The battles of the Thames, Lake Champlain and Baltimore were all American victories, victories attained against the world's largest and most prestigious navy. The USS Constitution was able to defeat HMS Guerriere, USS United States defeated HMS Macedonia, the USS Enterprise defeated the HMS Boxer, American vessels defeated British in the Battle of Lake Erie, and finally America was even able to extend its navy across the Atlantic where the USS President defeated 3 frigates off the coast of Ireland. These victories instilled pride in the new nation. President Monroe paid little attention to party in dispensing patronage. In the election of 1820, Monroe was re-elected with all but one electoral vote. A myth has arisen that one elector deliberately voted against him so that George Washington would remain the only unanimously elected president. Factually, the elector disliked Monroe's policies; at the time he cast his vote, he could not have known that his would be the only one to prevent a unanimous election.

If Obama wins, that means Democrats in the White House for at least two terms...

Joe Postell on the Dimness of Jim Glassman

From the Heritage Foundation blog, The Foundry, an analysis of the media strategy proposed by America's Top Propagandist (and author of Dow 36,000):

But there does seem to be some confusion about how to defend our principles in the face of violent extremism. Glassman argues that “the aim of the war of ideas is not to persuade foreign populations to adopt more favorable views of America and its policies…America’s image is not at the center of the war of ideas. Our priority is not to promote our brand but to help destroy theirs.” In other words, our public diplomacy must intellectually critique violent extremism, but cannot defend our own way of life or our principles.

If our public diplomacy were to move in this direction, it would be a positive but insufficient development. There are, quite simply, two objectives to public diplomacy: to defend through rational argument the moral legitimacy of our principles, and to undermine the principles of our opponents. One cannot be achieved without the other.

Along the same lines, Kim Andrew Elliott quotes Jeffrey Asjes pointing out Glassman's intellectual incoherence:

Even James "War of Ideas" Glassman does not like the term "war of ideas." "On Friday at the New America Foundation, the Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy, James Glassman, spoke about America’s strategy in the so called ‘war of ideas’. ... Glassman’s speech took on an amused tone when he mentioned that he himself disliked the name ‘war of ideas’, despite his unofficial title as its ‘commander in chief’. He insisted that the name has connotations that imply a simple, two sided ‘us vs. them’ struggle. Instead, Glassman was adamant that the objective is not to get anyone to accept our own ideologies, but rather simply to have them reject ideologies that promote unprovoked violence." Jeffrey Asjes, Partnership for a Secure America, 27 July 2008.

Robert Gates on US Defense Strategy

This document lays out how the US military sees the world. ..at least until January 20, 2009:

"Iraq and Afghanistan remain the central fronts in the struggle, but we cannot lose sight of the implications of fighting a long-term, episodic, multi-front, and multi-dimensional conflict more complex and diverse than the Cold War confrontation with communism..."

Is Obama the Democratic Reagan?

Chuck Raasch seems to think so, and wonders if Obama should run on the same question, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" IMHO, Make that eight years...in today's USA Today column:

WASHINGTON — There are obvious differences between Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama, but Obama faces the same fundamental question Reagan did in 1980: Amidst a sour economy, energy woes, an unpopular president and a crisis in the Middle East, is the new guy up for the job?

Reagan didn't answer the question until late in '80, when in two debates he stood at least equal in many Americans' minds to the unpopular Jimmy Carter. Democrats had ridiculed Reagan as an actor who had crazy economic theories and would be an unsteady finger on the nuclear button. This very week in 1980, the then-Moonbeam Gov. Jerry Brown of California said Reagan offered nothing more than "hokum and snake oil." The New York Times magazine said of Reagan: "Not only does he often oversimplify the issues, he actually seems to believe his oversimplifications."

But Reagan's "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" became the defining question of 1980, and he beat Carter in a landslide.

Poem of the Day

While in college, someone I know and I saw this poem by Philip Larkin posted on the refrigerator at the then-home of novelist Diane Johnson. I was shocked, believing that Larkin had gotten it wrong...

This be the verse

They fuck you up, your mom and dad
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-stylen hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can
And don't have any kids yourself.

Now, several decades later, I see that Diane Johnson and Philip Larkin had it right.

Adam Garfinkle on the Dimness of Jim Glassman

Secretary of State Colin Powell's former speechwriter takes on the author of Dow 36,000 and America's new Top Propagandist to task on Harvard's MESHNet:

But his speech itself was hardly a model of effective public diplomacy, exhibiting not just one, but five cardinal sins of how not to make a serious policy speech.

First, it’s narcissistic: Glassman begins by talking not about ideas or missions or his office or the policy of the President, but about himself. This is a turn-off. Second, the speech breaks frame by calling attention to the fact that it’s a speech, not a from-the-heart statement of purpose. There’s a huge difference between saying, “I’m here today to tell you that X…” and “X…” It’s like the difference between a genuine ritual and a mere ceremony. Third, Glassman buries his lead: He doesn’t say anything interesting until he’s nearly half finished, spending too much precious fresh-attention time on kitchen-sink stuff and too little time later on explaining what’s significant about his new approach. Fourth, Glassman botches the tone: You don’t emphasize three times how serious a task public diplomacy is and then use silly Coke/Pepsi metaphors to illustrate it—metaphors that also happen to hark back to Charlotte Beers’ unapt commercial approach to the subject. There are better ways to describe a useful shift from caring about our own popularity to focusing on the U.S. role in quietly and carefully trying to influence intra-Muslim dynamics.

And fifth, Glassman makes some incautious statements. He says, for example, “Here is our desired end state: a world in which the use of violence to achieve political, religious, or social objectives is no longer considered acceptable.” You don’t need much imagination to see what Al Qaeda, Inc. can do with that one, as in (supply your own accent): “You Americans lecture Muslims about the use of violence, but you are the ones trying to jam your godless democracy, that denies the law of God himself, down the throats of Iraqis and Afghans on the points of bayonets! If you are so much against violence, then why are American tanks and bombs every day murdering Muslim women and children?” and so on and so forth. Again, there are better ways to make the point Glassman wants to make. Doing it the wrong way is known technically in the speechwriting trade as “stepping in it.”

Bubbl.us

In a course I taught for a day, one of the better students told me about this cool site for online brainstorming sessions...

Finally! A MacArthur Foundation-NEA Program I Like...

It's called RE:FRAME:

Reframe is a program of Tribeca Film Institute, and is funded by John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation with additional support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

The goal of Reframe is to help individual filmmakers, distributors, archives, libraries and other media owners to digitize and sell their work using the internet, and to become a one-stop location for anyone seeking these films.
The Reframe web site is in beta stage and we welcome any questions, comments, or suggestions.

The Problem
Substantial amounts of film, video and media arts remain “stuck on the shelf,” inaccessible to large segments of the public. Sometimes this is due to rights-clearance issues, but more often it is because of the high cost to convert to digital formats that would allow for broad circulation. Even media that is available for distribution can be difficult to find because it is held and catalogued in many places, and in less than ideal databases.
Reframe was conceived as a solution.

Our Partnership with Amazon
Under a unique deal with Amazon’s CreateSpace division, we are able to offer digitization at little to no cost to our partners. Once digitized, these works are made available for non-exclusive distribution through both the Amazon storefront and Reframe website at a price set by the partner. Titles may be sold via DVD-on-Demand, which forgoes the cost of large product runs and inventory storage, and Digital Download to rent or buy, which allows consumers to download films directly to a PC or to a television via TiVo.

Full disclosure--they list my film...

Obama's Prayer at the Western Wall

From Haaretz:

Obama reportedly wrote in the note: "Lord - protect my family and me. Forgive my sins, and help me guard against pride and despair. Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just. And make me an instrument of your will."

Not bad...

Eugene Robinson: Investigate Bush's Torture Policies

From today's Washington Post:

The whole thing would be laughable if it were not such a rank abomination. No government obeying the law needs a paper trail to absolve its interrogators of committing torture. Conversely, a government that produces such a paper trail has something monstrous to hide.

It is not difficult to avoid violating federal laws and international agreements that prohibit torture. Just don't torture people, period. The idea that there exists some acceptable middle ground -- a kind of "torture lite" -- is a hideous affront to this nation's honor and values. This, perhaps above all, is how George Bush should be remembered: as the president who embraced torture.

I wouldn't be surprised if, as he left office, Bush issued some sort of pardon clearing those who authorized or carried out "enhanced techniques" of interrogations from any jeopardy under U.S. law. International law is something else entirely, however, and I imagine that some of those involved in this sordid interlude might want to be careful in choosing their vacation spots. I'd avoid The Hague, for example.

Barack Obama has stood consistently against torture. John McCain, who was tortured himself as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, has denounced torture as well -- and, although he voted against restraining the CIA with the same no-exceptions policy that now applies to military interrogators, he has been forthright in saying that waterboarding is torture, and thus illegal. On Inauguration Day, whoever wins the presidency, this awful interlude will end.

A clear and urgent duty of the next president will be to investigate the Bush administration's torture policy and give Americans a full accounting of what was done in our name. It's astounding that we need some kind of truth commission in the United States of America, but we do. Only when we learn the full story of what happened will we be able to confidently promise, to ourselves and to a world that looks to this country for moral leadership: Never again.

John C. Coughenour: Try Terrorists in Ordinary American Courts

I agree with this sentiment:

I have spent 27 years on the federal bench. In particular, my experience with the trial of Ahmed Ressam, the "millennium bomber," leads me to worry about Attorney General Michael Mukasey's comments last week, urging Congress to pass legislation outlining judicial procedures for reviewing Guantanamo detainees' habeas petitions. As constituted, U.S. courts are not only an adequate venue for trying terrorism suspects but are also a tremendous asset in combating terrorism. Congress risks a grave error in creating a parallel system of terrorism courts unmoored from the constitutional values that have served our country so well for so long.

I have great sympathy for those charged with protecting our national security. That is an awesome responsibility. But this is not a choice between the existential threat of terrorism and the abstractions of a 200-year-old document. The choice is better framed as: Do we want our courts to be viewed as another tool in the "war on terrorism," or do we want them to stand as a bulwark against the corrupt ideology upon which terrorism feeds?

Remembering Jim Beckwourth

The Puryear sculpture exhibition at the National Gallery of Art discussed below displayed a large mixed-media tributed to Jim Beckwourth. I Googled him, so found out that he was a legend in his own time. Here's what Wikipedia had to say:

James Pierson Beckwourth (April 6, 1798 or 1800, Frederick County, Virginia - October 29, 1866, Denver) (a.k.a. Jim Beckworth, James P. Beckwith) was born in Virginia in 1798 to Sir Jennings Beckwith, a descendant of Irish and English nobility, and an African-American mulatto woman about whom little is known.

His life is best known from the book The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth from 1856, which was rejected by early historians of the Old West as being ridiculous campfire lore, but has been rehabilitated since as not reliable in details, but a valuable source of social history. The civil rights movement discovered Beckwourth as an early afro-american pioneer and he is subsequently named a role model in children's literature and textbooks.

Obama's Morning Minyan

Before flying to Berlin, Obama He davened at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, apparently at a Shaharit morning service, according to Jeff Zeleny's New York Times story. The Psalm of the day was number 122:

Psalm 122

Song of Praise and Prayer for Jerusalem

A Song of Ascents. Of David.
1I was glad when they said to me,
‘Let us go to the house of the Lord!’
2Our feet are standing
within your gates, O Jerusalem.


3Jerusalem—built as a city
that is bound firmly together.
4To it the tribes go up,
the tribes of the Lord,
as was decreed for Israel,
to give thanks to the name of the Lord.
5For there the thrones for judgement were set up,
the thrones of the house of David.


6Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
‘May they prosper who love you.
7Peace be within your walls,
and security within your towers.’
8For the sake of my relatives and friends
I will say, ‘Peace be within you.’
9For the sake of the house of the Lord our God,
I will seek your good.

From Obama's Berlin Speech--on Russia

This sounds pretty good to me...

This is the moment when every nation in Europe must have the chance to choose its own tomorrow free from the shadows of yesterday. In this century, we need a strong European Union that deepens the security and prosperity of this continent, while extending a hand abroad. In this century – in this city of all cities – we must reject the Cold War mind-set of the past, and resolve to work with Russia when we can, to stand up for our values when we must, and to seek a partnership that extends across this entire continent.

I liked a lot of the talking points, it represents a clear change from Bush's "unipolarity" as well as Clinton's "end of History." For example this:

This is the moment when we must defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it. This threat is real and we cannot shrink from our responsibility to combat it. If we could create NATO to face down the Soviet Union, we can join in a new and global partnership to dismantle the networks that have struck in Madrid and Amman; in London and Bali; in Washington and New York. If we could win a battle of ideas against the communists, we can stand with the vast majority of Muslims who reject the extremism that leads to hate instead of hope.


This is the moment when we must renew our resolve to rout the terrorists who threaten our security in Afghanistan, and the traffickers who sell drugs on your streets. No one welcomes war. I recognize the enormous difficulties in Afghanistan. But my country and yours have a stake in seeing that NATO’s first mission beyond Europe’s borders is a success. For the people of Afghanistan, and for our shared security, the work must be done. America cannot do this alone. The Afghan people need our troops and your troops; our support and your support to defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda, to develop their economy, and to help them rebuild their nation. We have too much at stake to turn back now.

And I really like this elegant rhetorical point:

Will we acknowledge that there is no more powerful example than the one each of our nations projects to the world? Will we reject torture and stand for the rule of law? Will we welcome immigrants from different lands, and shun discrimination against those who don’t look like us or worship like we do, and keep the promise of equality and opportunity for all of our people?

Robert Spencer on James Glassman's Dimness

Jihad Watch's Robert Spencer doesn't seem to think the author of Dow 36,000 is any more credible when it comes to the "war of ideas":

In "Winning the War of Ideas" in the New York Sun, July 23 (thanks to Ethelred), James K. Glassman, the new under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, says many positive things. He points out that our primary task is not to make foreigners love the United States -- which has been the focus of many of our "ideological" initiatives up to now. Instead, he says that "our priority is not to promote our brand but to help destroy theirs."

Great! Does that mean that he will confront the Sharia imperative and Islamic supremacism, and try to make the millions of Muslims who implicitly accept Western values make that acceptance explicit? No. He doesn't seem to have any idea of the stealth jihad at all -- that is, he doesn't seem to have any idea that jihadists might be trying to advance their agenda by means other than violent attacks. Glassman demonstrates this lack of awareness by praising Lawrence Wright's article about how Muslims are turning away from Al-Qaeda, which I discussed in detail here. Glassman seems to have no comprehension at all of the significance of one telling phrase in the Wright article: "jihad did not have to be restricted to an armed approach."

This does not bode well for his attempts to "destroy" the enemy's ideology: if he doesn't even understand it, how can he possibly expect to destroy it? For he cannot even name that ideology (which is no surprise these days), and declares: "We also should not shrink from confidently opposing poisonous ideas — even if they are rooted in a twisted interpretation of religious doctrine." That the jihadists are proceeding according to a "twisted interpretation" of Islam, rather than according to core and mainstream principles of the religion, is of course an iron and never-to-be-questioned dogma at State, but it rests upon the word of Muslim Brotherhood-linked "experts," and ignores the copious teachings of the Qur'an and Sunnah, as well as of all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence, about warfare against and the subjugation of infidels.

Not an auspicious beginning for a war of ideas: Glassman only dimly understands the ideas he is fighting, and can't even call them by name.

Glassman may also only dimly understand legal restrictions prohibiting US government propagandists from trying to influence domestic public opinion by placing op-eds in US newspapers, found in the Smith-Mundt act, IMHO...

Ann Coulter on John McCain

I emailed Ann c/o one of her speaking agencies to ask her about a story that I vaguely remembered her telling me about a confrontation with Jesse Jackson on cable TV about a decade ago that seemed to prefigure the famous Obama castration threat--but I never heard back...

So in the meantime, here's her response to McCain's op-ed controversy:From AnnCoulter.com:

Now the Times won't even publish McCain's op-ed. I wouldn't have published it either -- I've read it twice and I still can't remember what it says -- but I also wouldn't have published McCain's seven op-eds in The New York Times since 1996.

Since McCain has gone from being a Republican "maverick" who attacks Republicans and promotes liberal causes to the Republican nominee for president, he's also gone from being one of the Times' most frequent op-ed guest columnists to being an unpublishable illiterate.

I looked up McCain's oeuvre for the Times, and if you want unpublishable, that's unpublishable. In one column, McCain assailed Republicans for their lack of commitment to the environment, noting that polls -- probably the same ones showing him to be the most "electable" Republican -- indicated that "the environment is the voters' number-one concern about continued Republican leadership of Congress."

McCain concluded with this ringing peroration: "(O)ur nation's continued prosperity hinges on our ability to solve environmental problems and sustain the natural resources on which we all depend." That's good writing -- I mean assuming you're writing hack press releases for an irrelevant environmentalist think tank.

The rest of McCain's op-eds in the Times bravely took on -- I quote -- "unnecessary regulation" and "pork-barrel spending." It's that sort of courage and clear-headedness that tells me we're going to be OK this fall.

In coming out four-square against "unnecessary regulation" and "pork-barrel spending," McCain threw down the gauntlet to those who favor "unnecessary regulation" and "pork-barrel spending." Actually, I think there's a rule that says you're not being brave if there is not a single person in the world who would publicly disagree with you.