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Monday, October 25, 2004

Kerry scandal

I’m just catching up to the past two days’ news, but apparently John Kerry has allowed over 350 tons of RDX and HMX explosives to be looted from Iraq’s Al-Qaqaa facility.  The explosives had been under International Atomic Energy Agency seal, and the IAEA had warned the U.S. about the need to keep a tight lid on the bunker:

The International Atomic Energy Agency publicly warned about the danger of these explosives before the war, and after the invasion it specifically told United States officials about the need to keep the explosives secured, European diplomats said in interviews last week. Administration officials say they cannot explain why the explosives were not safeguarded, beyond the fact that the occupation force was overwhelmed by the amount of munitions they found throughout the country.

Unfortunately, due to his failure to meet with all fifteen members of the United Nations Security Council in late 2002, John Kerry allowed those deadly explosives out of Iraq in early 2003.

This is appalling.  We knew, of course, that Kerry was undermining U.S. troops by suggesting that things were not going well in Iraq, but we had no idea-- until now-- that he had sabotaged the war effort from the start.  So although the wingnuts and warfloggers might be outraged today by the Security Council story, clearly, they are not outraged enough.  It’s been said before, but we’ll say it again-- the man is unfit to lead.

Posted by Michael on 10/25 at 02:13 PM
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Down to the wire

As we enter the final days of this epochal contest, October has given us one surprise after another-- but none quite so surprising as this:  a dark-horse candidate has come out of nowhere and surged into the lead. 

Camille Paglia!

What, you thought I was talking about the election?  Screw the election!  I’m bored with the election.  Besides, the election has been so over ever since Bush landed on that aircraft carrier, or ever since Saddam was found, or ever since the Republican convention, or ever since that devastating ad showed Americans that John Kerry would not defend us from the Minnesota Timberwolves.  It has been over over and over again, people.  And it just happens to be one of those “ironies” that I’ve lost all interest in the election on the very day Kurt and I finally got around to displaying that “best political blogger nominee” tile from Rox Populi.

No, I’m talking about my own special contest, my “I am the Back End of a Horse” Award.  After three and a half weeks in which Townhall, Tech Central Station, the Corner, and various Professors of Law have battled mightily for the coveted hindquarters, Camille Paglia comes roaring into the lead with this recycled gem.  She recently told Reason that her “most embarrassing vote” was for

Bill Clinton the second time around.  Because he did not honorably resign when the Lewinsky scandal broke and instead tied up the country and paralyzed the government for two years, leading directly to our blindsiding by 9/11.

(Via Slate.)

It’s a twofer:  Clinton was responsible for 9/11, sure, we knew that, but he tied up the country and paralyzed the government as well, thereby preventing those brave, vigilant House Republicans from disarming al-Qaeda.

Now, because Camille has said similar things before, this month’s Back End of a Horse Award-- should Paglia remain in first place at the end of the week-- will be more like a recognition of lifetime achievement.  Two years ago, on Sullivan’s Daily Dish, Camille could be found saying, “I blame the media as well as the superstructure of the Democratic party for the appalling delusionalism of the Monica Lewinsky episode, which began in 1998 and consumed the news for two years.” (What is “delusionalism,” you ask?  The end result of delusionalization, of course.) No question, Al Gore would have been given a long honeymoon by the Freepers, the Isikoff-Fineman crew, and the Congressional GOP-- except that four years ago, Professor Paglia could be found in Salon, repeatedly ridiculing and lying about the very guy she believes should have taken office in Clinton’s stead-- Al Gore, who, she now says, would have prevented 9/11 had he won in 2000.

And six years ago, when Clinton ordered missile strikes against al-Qaeda in response to the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, what was Camille saying?  Funny you should ask!  Why, she was saying this:

The missile attacks Clinton ordered from Martha’s Vineyard this summer were similarly oddly timed to coincide with politically embarrassing events in Washington.

So in 1998, there was Clinton trying to take out bin Laden with a couple of cruise missiles while the House Republicans were making their little origami-diorama replicas of Lewinsky’s kneepad performances in the Oval Office, and there was Paglia, sneering that the missile strikes were diversions from Monica, only a couple of years before she decided that the Democrats were to blame for letting Monica divert us from bin Laden.

I used to refer to Camille as the Howard Stern of academe-- occasionally good for a little amusement amid the outrage, and certainly more savvy about media and celebrity than most of her critics.  But the truth is, she’s not nearly as bright as Howard.  “Incendiary,” yes; “provocative,” I suppose; “voluble,” no question.  But really not very bright, in the end.

This award isn’t wrapped up-- anything can happen, especially in those swing states, and the floor is still open for nominations-- but right now, Paglia is the leading Back End of a Horse.  Remember, only one week left!

Posted by Michael on 10/25 at 09:20 AM
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Monday deer blogging

It’s time to take this blog to the Next Level!

image

Jamie and I travelled to Pittsburgh this weekend to meet Nick, who was on fall break; meanwhile, Janet was in Illinois, and . . . oh, never mind.  No one need bother with the byzantine logistics of this little three-quarters-family rendezvous.  What’s important is that Pittsburgh rocks.  It’s been the most pleasant surprise of our move to Pennsylvania; I’ve now been to Pittsburgh maybe half a dozen times and I always come away impressed.  Things are pretty bad financially-- the city is deep in a budget hole and everyone at USAir is now suffering through a 21 percent pay cut-- but it’s a strangely beautiful river city with steep rolling hills and lots of cool neighborhoods.  And a good zoo, which is crucial for Jamie, who collects municipal zoos the way certain baseball fanatics collect major league parks.  I love the zoo as well, though I can’t help noticing that it’s always Heterosexual Day at the zoo-- hets everywhere!  (Half price admission for breeders!) Except for the animals, of course, who are as queer as queer can be.  And as this pic suggests, Jamie is cool with that.

At one point during the Bérubé Boys’ tour of the zoo, Nick and I got into a discussion of canonization.  We don’t remember exactly why, but I think it started when we mentioned the saintly demeanor of this person or that.  So he asked me about the stages that precede official canonization by the Vatican, and kicked it off by saying, “after embalming, of course.” This cracked me up for some reason, so I parried with, “of course there’s flagellation.” “And then transmogrification,” Nick said, “followed by immolation.” By this point I was laughing too hard to keep up my end, so Nick capped it off with, “and then the entire chorus of ‘Pastime Paradise.’” Which, as you’ll recall, involves

Consolation
Integration
Verification
of Revelations
Acclamation
World Salvation
Vibrations
Stimulation
Confirmation . . . to the peace of the world

I don’t remember everything the Jesuits taught me, but that sounds about right.  Saintation is serious business, people!

OK, so here’s to Nick, Jamie, and two kangaroos:

image

My next post will also involve animals.  Stay tuned.

Posted by Michael on 10/25 at 07:59 AM
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Saturday, October 23, 2004

Etymology interlude

Yesterday’s post has apparently spawned a great deal of commentary among scholars of the late Colonial period and the early Republic.  Exceptionally learned reader Jay, for instance, writes in comments to ask, “Is that Madison quote the first known use of the term ‘wing-nut?’ It sounds like an expression Ben Franklin might have coined.” Good catch, Jay! Franklin is indeed usually credited with the earliest use of the term.  In 1774, after Prime Minister Lord North had personally denounced Franklin, saying that his “radical Whiggery . . . amounted to nothing less than treason to the Crown of England,” Franklin replied that “those who defend every last Act of this arrogant King George, no matter how incompetent or intolerable these be, are very like the Wing-Nuts of a Machine of shoddy conceit, that spin so furiously as to fly cleanly off their Handles.”

Franklin’s response sparked what most scholars call the “pamphlet wars between Whiggery and Wing-Nuttery.” In fact, even for some years after the British surrender at Yorktown it was common for American patriots to speak belittlingly of the “wing-nuttery” of their opponents-- who, for their part, tended to be authoritarian believers in Divine Right, astonishingly ignorant not only of King George’s positions on the issues (as was shown by a study conducted at the time by researchers in Maryland) but also of his obvious degeneration into madness.  After the “Era of Good Feelings” during Monroe’s presidency, the term fell into disuse until it was revived by “bloggers” in the early 21st century.

This has been an Etymology Interlude!  Regularly scheduled blogging will resume sooner or later.

Posted by Michael on 10/23 at 04:35 PM
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Friday, October 22, 2004

The legitimacy of liberalism

The no-longer-nice blogger over at No More Mister Nice Blog seems to be furious that the New York Times has run a review of “Stolen Honor:  Wounds That Never Heal” by Alessandra Stanley.  The review begins,

“Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal,” the highly contested anti-Kerry documentary, should not be shown by the Sinclair Broadcast Group. It should be shown in its entirety on all the networks, cable stations and on public television.

But surely his anger, like that of the Swift Boat Veterans themselves, is misplaced.  The moral imperative to entertain and adjudicate among all points of view runs deep in the liberal tradition, and we should not betray that tradition today simply because we are offended by speech that some might find noxious-- or, as Stanley puts it, “histrionic, often specious and deeply sad.” Indeed, one is reminded here of the famous debate between Thomas Jefferson and James Madison on this question, at the very dawn of our Republic.  Who can forget Jefferson’s eloquent declaration that

There remains little Doubt among the opinions of Men, that the legitimacy of liberal Society rests on its willingness to support the Harangues of deranged and vicious Persons of the far Right, particularly if they be subsidized by media Conglomerates of vast Size.

A principle surpassed in nobility only by Madison’s equally eloquent rejoinder:

Nay, Thomas, I know of none who would doubt such a thing.  And yet these be but empty Words, if we of liberal Mind do not further seek to ensure that these well-subsidized Harangues of the “Wing-Nuts” be promulgated throughout the breadth of the Nation, by means of every Channel public and private.  For no Nation can long endure or prosper, unless it be sure to foster a mature political culture of Lying and Calumny.  Liberal citizens must lead in this as in every Respect, to undertake to promote those Means by which they might be slandered and vilified throughout the Land, preferably during prime hours of the Evening in those among our States that are most likely to “swing.”

Long may the gray lady hold aloft the banner of liberalism!

Posted by Michael on 10/22 at 09:08 AM
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Thursday, October 21, 2004

For a quiet revolution

Today’s American Street fare is here.  And it is guaranteed to be one hundred percent Red Sox-free.

But now would be a good time to mention that Albert Pujols’s adopted daughter Isabella has Down syndrome, and that Pujols himself is active in Down syndrome charities in the St. Louis area.  As is Nelly, for that matter.

From JockBio:

At a Latin dance club in Kansas City, he met a pretty 21-year-old named Deidre. Completely smitten, Albert lied about his age to get a date with her. When he eventually owned up to his fib, Deidre revealed a secret of her own. She had a daughter named Isabella who had been diagnosed with Down syndrome. Albert bonded immediately with the infant, and Deidre marveled at the maturity of her 18-year-old boyfriend.

Go Cards.

Posted by Michael on 10/21 at 12:06 PM
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