I'm Done Here

Snapping Turtle Agenda, which I think is much more attractive, dense, and worthwhile, can be reached here. I'll be referring back to these posts from time to time, but say goodbye dear readers - as we hear so often at graduation time, every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.

Facebook Fabulous

The latest stalking tool.

Gun Control and the Death Penalty

The Daily's take here.

What Am I Supposed to Be? All Apologies?

I’ve been hit hard these past two weeks – job, homework, death penalty debate, etc. I haven’t had much time for blogging, and I somewhat suspect that I’ve lost a significant portion of my tiny audience…c’est le vie. For those who still tap TBW from time to time, you can expect a great deal more starting Thursday (when the debate is over and my procrastination meter will be turned up in anticipation of finals):

· A short essay on the ethics of capital punishment.

· The exclusive on Spencer's essay on LDS.

· Trying to provoke another clash with Tyler over patriotism and American cosmopolitanism. And possibly The Aviator – man, did that movie suck.

· Thoughts on the immigration fiasco.

· Crazy linking to Pandagon.

· Preemptive plugging of my (soon-to-be acquired) new domain blog “Snapping Turtle Agenda”.

Do hope you’ll stick around.

Quiet Progress in the Arab World

Algeria is the classic case of the malaise infecting the Arab world: A former European colony brutalized by years of civil war, a brutish oil-funded military kleptocracy, and a recent wave of militant Islamic fundamentalism. But the New York Times reports that something extraordinary is happening:

Women make up 70 percent of Algeria’s lawyers and 60 percent of its judges. Women dominate medicine. Increasingly, women contribute more to household income than men. Sixty percent of university students are women, university researchers say.

Evidently, this radically positive phenomenon has been sneaking up on the country for generations. How did it happen?

Algeria’s young men reject school and try to earn money as traders in the informal sector, selling goods on the street, or they focus their efforts on leaving the country or just hanging out. There is a whole class of young men referred to as hittistes — the word is a combination of French and Arabic for people who hold up walls.

The trend is a long way from producing a wholesale revolution in the country. Any fleeting glance at history, however, illustrates how these power shifts can begin to grow organically, and just how powerful a liberalizing and liberating force this creeping modernism can become. Algeria’s story, like those of hundreds of other countries around the world, demonstrates that the best critique of the Iraq democratization project is the simplest one – modernity doesn’t to need to be force-fed to any society, even (gasp) Arab societies. It has an unseen but ultimately unstoppable force all its own, and that force operates most genuinely and most determinedly when left to own devices. In the truly short course of just two and a half centuries, that force has managed to overturn millennia of despotism and ignorance, and completely re-conceive and re-constitute the bases of legitimacy in human society. And it begins quietly – when, for instance, women slowly come to dominate the most influential and lucrative vocations.

We hardly even need patience. We live in the most revolutionary time in human history.

Line of the Day

House Minority leader John Boehner (R-OH) on the Kennedy-Bush immigration "compromise":

I promised the President today that I wouldn't say anything bad about ... this piece of shit bill ...

Rep. Boehner and I may not agree on how, but from what I can tell, it is a piece of shit bill.

More on Peretz's Poll

Glenn Greenwald on the necessity of providing context to "horrifying" poll numbers that indicate that some 13 percent of American Muslims believe attacks on civilians are "rarely", "sometimes" or "often" justified:

A rather substantial 24% of Americans thought that such attacks are justified "often" or "sometimes," while another 27% thought they were justified in rare cases. By stark contrast, only 11% of Iranians think such attacks are justified "often" or "sometimes," with a mere further 5% agreeing they can be justified in rare cases. Similar results were found with the series of other questions regarding violence deliberately aimed at civilians -- including women, children and the elderly. Americans believed such attacks could be justifiable to a substantially higher degree than Iranians.

Can we put the hysteria to rest now? Of course not.

More "Spine"-Tingling Nonsense

Not that I’m surprised.

Marty Peretz is deeply concerned about a Pew Poll that Reuters reported on yesterday. It seems that too many American Muslims are too fundamentalist for Peretz’s taste, and there’s so much anti-Americanism in these Muslim communities, and we ought to do something soon guys, and hey you should listen up ‘cause this is super-serious and why is nobody else freaking out about this?!

Let’s take a deep breath, and say first of all that we respect Peretz’s moral clarity on international human rights issues. Instead, let’s take issue with his judgment:

Now, here's a good number. Three quarters of the American Muslim population believe that "suicide in defense of Islam is never justified." That's a solid majority and, as the report's title suggests, very mainstream. But what about killing? Still, if only 76% abhor suicide, that means nearly a quarter would condone it?

Of course it doesn’t, and the poll tells you so – “13 percent of all U.S. Muslims felt suicide attacks could be justified often, sometimes or rarely”. Passionate as he is about the rights of majorities to use political power to institute their own way of life, he might want to take a look at the plank in his own eye and wonder how many Christian and Jewish extremists might feel the same way? But make way for another epic non-sequitur:

In fact, among American Muslims themselves, 61% are concerned about the (possible) rise of Islamic extremism in the United States and 35% of these are "very concerned." They know their community. If they are concerned, than why should other Americans not be?

Well, we are – I would count myself as “very concerned” at the rise of Islamic extremism in America. I simultaneously hold the view that such a thing is impossible. It’s not at all clear that the respondents are expressing fears that the rise of extremism is imminent; as with me, a great deal of that concern likely has more to do with a high degree of antipathy toward extremism than with a perception that the wolf is at the door.

Anyhow, none of this indicates that we poor, intimidated non-Muslims are under any threat from American Muslims. One of the great things about the United States is its ability to let extremists blow off steam at meetings and Koran/Bible/Mao/Mein Kampf readings once a week and then get back to watching television. We have real enemies in the world, but we should keep in mind that compared to the other threats we’ve faced down in our history, they are extraordinarily weak and disorganized. Why invent enemies where they don’t exist? I do hope Marty Peretz calms down and tries some falafel soon, for his own sake.

A Miracle… Right?

The Washington Post reports on the latest innovation in gynecology: A pill called Lybrel that eliminates menstruation altogether. You might say, of course, that generic birth control pills have been doing essentially this for quite some time now, but what’s an extra few hundred million dollars to American consumers…?

The article summarizes my instinctive ambivalence to this development pretty well. A medication that relieves a natural process that, for some women, is unbearably painful and “unpleasant” is completely fine by me. On the other hand, there’s a subtle insinuation of the [insert uncomfortable pause] mysterious, um, period as an ailment to be avoided – not exactly a victory for women everywhere.

Teaching About Faith

Maureen Trantham makes an excellent and salient point in today’s Daily: Too many educated people know absolutely nothing about the world’s major revealed religions, and this invites huge trouble. It’s simple:

And if — as we claim — we are attempting to educate the next generation of the world’s leaders, shouldn’t that education include the footnotes to some of the world’s greatest struggles?

I seem to have been lucky to have social studies teachers who felt the need to tell their student something about how human beings live. It was actually on September 11, 2001, that I learned in my high school world history class that Sunnis and Shiites split back in the seventh century over a struggle to succeed the Prophet Muhammad. I learned in sixth grade that Buddhists and Hindus tend to view time and history as cyclical rather than rectilinear. Reactionary religion and cultural chauvinism are the great anti-democratic and anti-internationalist forces of our time, and teaching the basics of world faiths – including, strangely enough, the majority religion in our own country – is crucial for training a tolerant and competent citizenry.

God Help Us

The New York Times reported just minutes ago on the latest Iraq War disaster to emanate from the Reid/Pelosi Congress. The architect of the Democratic Revolution of 2006:

“I view this as the beginning of the end of the president’s policy on Iraq,” said Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.

How elegantly revolting.

Reid announced this evening that the Democratic caucus has decided to remove the withdrawal mandate from the emergency war spending bill that Bush demanded back in February, that they initially delivered with withdrawal timetables. The new one takes the teeth out of the whole enterprise and gives the president the blank check he’s thrown a perfect tantrum to get. Don’t feed me any gibberish about the provisions for getting tough on the Maliki government – as a powerless farce, it is quite impervious to pressure from the Senate Majority Leader’s office. And the kicker? Nancy Pelosi says she will not vote for it. Well, it’s very admirable, Madame Speaker, that you’re willing to give the appearance of deep fissures in the Democratic bloc in order to stand on principle, but anyone can see that this nonsense would never have made it through committee without your calculated acquiescence.

The president hands the Congress one veto – one veto on a measure they were sent to Congress for the virtually expressed purpose of enacting – and they’re done? John Edwards and Bill Richardson have consistently demanded that congressional Democrats send the same bill back to the White House as many times as it takes. What is it about the halls of the Capitol that makes conniving scoundrels out of good people who have been given an unambiguous mandate?

I have a secret for my (supposed) Democratic representatives in Washington: Fully 65% percent of the country is demanding the showdown that you are unwilling to provide. We are demanding it now.

Wonder why Democrats are seen as the party of weak-willed opportunists? I’ve got an answer for that too:

The measure would also force the White House and Congressional Republicans to accept significant new spending. Democrats say there is about $17 billion beyond the president’s initial request, with about $9 billion devoted to extra spending on military programs and health care, veterans’ health care and military base realignment. The remaining $8 billion goes to agriculture programs, additional Gulf Coast recovery efforts, children’s health care and other Democratic priorities. The minimum-wage increase will represent a domestic victory for Democrats.

I’m no naïf. I understand that federal money is the grease that keeps the Washington machine churning out its fatuous merchandise. But in the aftermath of the political hay about pork-barrel spending that won the White House so much unnecessary support the last time we danced around this mulberry bush, really, you must be joking.

“We don’t have a veto-proof Congress,” Mr. Reid said. “But no one can say with any degree of veracity that we haven’t made great progress, and this bill is further proof of that.”

Come on now. I mean, come on. No one can say with any degree of veracity that the progress Petraeus has made is sufficient to entertain the notion that the Iraq project might be worth sticking around for. And in any case, no Democrat can say it with any degree of credibility.

Enough already. What are you all afraid of?

Line of the Day

Via The Plank. John McCain on Mitt Romney's position on the immigration compromise being forced through Congress this week (which, at the moment, is stern opposition):

"Maybe I should wait a couple weeks and see if it changes," Mr. McCain said of Mr. Romney's position on immigration this week. "Maybe he can get out his small varmint gun and drive those Guatemalans off his yard."

Do You Think It’d Be Alright/If I Could Just Crash Here Tonight…

The best voice of the left-blogosphere has given us yet another reason to adore him. Matthew Yglesias posted his Ultimate Nineties Alt-Rock Playlist today and, oh my lord, it has so many of my favorites. He includes two classic Goo Goo Dolls ballads, “Interstate Love Song”, “I'm Only Happy When It Rains”, even a K’s Choice. And I never thought I’d hear of Fastball’s “The Way” again. Some flops smuggled their way in (I cannot bear the lyrics of “Peaches” by the Presidents or the perplexing non-ironies that pepper Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic”), but if you want a quick and handy guide to The Broken Watch’s musical taste, check it out. Also, just because they're awesome:

This Man Is a Deadbeat

I have fallen far short of my solemn commitment to being right twice a day this week. The posting deficit has nagged at my heart as I'm sure it has nagged at yours. I did, however, expend a great deal of this week's blogging time training for my new job, which consists primarily of processing auto repair orders and selling death in cigarette and junk food form. I am proud to say, however, that on my first day the state health department targeted Newport Hills Chevron, sending in a wee 17-year-old to try to buy a pack of Marlboros. Ignoring the growing pack of customers annoyed at my slowness at the register, I suspiciously eyed this tiny creature and requested photo I.D. She diffidently produced it, revealing that she doesn't reach the age of 18 until late July. I had no choice - she had to be made to leave without the coveted cigarettes; gently but firmly, I told her so. Within a few moments the health cop entered the station and announced my success to the room, inspiring the (still quite long) line of customers to reward me with spatters of scattered, random applause. This small triumph, I think, trumps whatever contribution I might otherwise have made to the discourse.

I Like Quotations

"I can tell you, our grandchildren will laugh at those who predicted global warming. We'll be in global cooling by then, if the Lord hasn't returned. I don't believe a moment of it. The whole thing is created to destroy America's free enterprise system and our economic stability."

Guess who?

Strangely Satisfying

Via Pandagon, a neat little rejection of corporate pandering to sexual bigotry:

ev • a • nes • cence (n):

"the quality of disappearing gradually, vanishing, or fading away." Useful to describe the outcries of feigned sympathy and solidarity in the aftermath of the recent massacre-suicide. Today I signed into Facebook and saw this foul irony on the newsfeed:

Axxxxx xxxxxxxxxd has left the group Always remember VIRGINIA TECH.

Al Sharpton: Not Just a Bigot

Also a consistent coward, liar, hypocrite, master of post-hoc waffling, and purveyor of misdirection:

Christopher Hitchens is quite capable of defending himself, but obviously there’s a distinction to be made. Hitchens makes a specific, fact-based observation about the recent history of the Mormon faith. Sharpton responds by constructing an “other” out of a religious community, and then bounces around the networks denying that he meant what he said. Ick.

George F. Will on Hate Crimes

The House passed a bill this week extending the protection of hate crimes legislation to homosexuals, and I feel the urge to “vote for it before I vote against it.” I oppose any hate crimes legislation on principle – namely, the principle that the content of our thoughts is beyond the legitimate scope of government regulation. But so long as we have these shameful laws we ought at least to extend their benefits to the relevant groups; when the initial laws were passed, it was obvious to everyone that sexual minorities were deliberately excluded from protection.

And as with the legislation, I’m ambivalent about George Will’s column on the matter, which simultaneously contains interesting, principled points and creepy insinuations of white victimhood (dressed up, as they usually are, in the demagogic conceit of the “double standard”).

Basic truth:

Laws hold us responsible for controlling our minds, which should control our conduct. But government increasingly wants to inventory and furnish our minds, removing socially undesirable desires. Law has always had the expressive function of stigmatizing particular kinds of conduct, but hate-crime laws treat certain actions as especially wicked because the actors had odious (although not illegal) frames of mind.

Interesting, probably apt suspicion:

Local law enforcement organizations favor HR 1592, which promises money….Hate-crime laws are indignation gestures. Legislators federalize the criminal law in order to use it as a moral pork barrel to express theatrical empathy.

Gross overestimation of George W. Bush’s commitment to principle:

If the bill makes it to the president's desk, he probably will veto it because it is moral exhibitionism by Congress with no constitutional authorization.

Cloying, surreptitious, and weird suggestion that well-fed white people can’t get fair shake in modern America:

When in 1989, a gang of black and Hispanic youths went "wilding" in Central Park, raping and savagely beating a white jogger, was this considered a hate crime? No, because the youths also assaulted some Hispanics, so their punishment was not enhanced….Complications multiply, protected categories proliferate. Next? People who wear fur or eat meat? Some writings by the killer at Virginia Tech expressed hatred of the rich, but they are not a category protected in this year's hate-crime legislation.

Hmmm. Well, you tackle bad laws with the allies you have, not the allies you wish you had.

An Open Invitation

The quarterly debate between the University of Washington Young Democrats and College Republicans will be held at 7:00 p.m. on May 30, in Gowen 301. More information, via the Facebook invitation, can be reached here. Usually, they draw 100+ spectators and range in tone from a serious discussion of the issues to light-hearted partisan banter to caustic personal barb-trading. This quarter's (working) resolutions:

• Handguns should be outlawed in the United States.
• Capital punishment should be abolished in the United States.

I'm not sure if I'll actually be debating, but I'm slated to work on the capital punishment resolution. (Between you and me, dear reader, I'm pretty sure outlawing all handguns is grossly unconstitutional. But if anyone can make the case - and be very aggressive and entertaining in doing so - that person is Max Wagner.)

How Does Kaasa Feel About Marriage?

A myspace quiz once asked me, “Do you want to get married?”

I answered, “That’s like asking, Do you want to get divorced?”

It’s a philosophy that’s been driven home even more for me over the past few days. My parents were 19 and 20 when they got married. I’m 21, so I guess that means I’m breaking the cycle. Today’s P-I on the work of the feminazis:

The marriage rate in Washington is at its lowest in two decades. And so is the divorce rate.

[…]

But other trends also may be leading to fewer breakups, primarily that couples are waiting longer to get married. That gives them more time to mature, finish their education, start their careers and get to know each other, researchers said.

Go figure.

General David H. Petraeus

Whatever happens in Iraq over the next year, no one will be able to fault the mission’s commander for a lack of strength and leadership. Rarely has a civilian administration been quite so unworthy of the honor and integrity of this country’s military leadership. Gen. Petraeus wrote this letter to the men and women under his command, in response to the disturbing discoveries of a recent troop survey:

10 May 2007

Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen serving in Multi-National Force—Iraq:

Our values and the laws governing warfare teach us to respect human dignity, maintain our integrity, and do what is right. Adherence to our values distinguishes us from our enemy. This fight depends on securing the population, which must understand that we—not our enemies—occupy the moral high ground. This strategy has shown results in recent months. Al Qaeda’s indiscriminate attacks, for example, have finally started to turn a substantial portion of the Iraqi population against it.

In view of this, I was concerned by the results of a recently released survey conducted last fall in Iraq that revealed an apparent unwillingness on the part of some US personnel to report illegal actions taken by fellow members of their units. The study also indicated that a small percentage of those surveyed may have mistreated noncombatants. This survey should spur reflection on our conduct in combat.

I fully appreciate the emotions that one experiences in Iraq.

I also know firsthand the bonds between members of the “brotherhood of the close fight.” Seeing a fellow trooper killed by a barbaric enemy can spark frustration, anger, and a desire for immediate revenge. As hard as it might be, however, we must not let these emotions lead us—or our comrades in arms—to commit hasty, illegal actions. In the event that we witness or hear of such actions, we must not let our bonds prevent us from speaking up.

Some may argue that we would be more effective if we sanctioned torture or other expedient methods to obtain information from the enemy. They would be wrong. Beyond the basic fact that such actions are illegal, history shows that they also are frequently neither useful nor necessary. Certainly, extreme physical action can make someone “talk”; however, what the individual says may be of questionable value. In fact our experience in applying the interrogation standards laid out in the Army Field Manual (2-22.3) on Human Intelligence Collector Operations that was published last year shows that the techniques in the manual work effectively and humanely in eliciting information from detainees.

We are, indeed, warriors. We train to kill our enemies. We are engaged in combat, we must pursue the enemy relentlessly, and we must be violent at times. What sets us apart from our enemies in this fight, however, is how we behave. In everything we do, we must observe the standards and values that dictate that we treat noncombatants and detainees with dignity and respect. While we are warriors, we are also all human beings. Stress caused by lengthy deployments and combat is not a sign of weakness; it is a sign that we are human. If you feel such stress, do not hesitate to talk to your chain of command, your chaplain, or a medical expert.

We should use the survey results to renew our commitment to the values and standards that make us who we are and to spur re-examination of these issues. Leaders, in particular, need to discuss these issues with their troopers—and, as always, they need to set the right example and strive to ensure proper conduct. We should never underestimate the importance of good leadership and the difference it can make.

Thanks for what you continue to do. It is an honor to serve with each of you.

David H. Petraeus
General, United States Army
Commanding

(Via Andrew Sullivan)

The results of the survey were upsetting, of course, and intellectually I know that someone has to stand up and say something. But like most people, I’m instinctively loathe to criticize the people doing my fighting for me – the psychological toll of policing a complex guerilla/terrorist war as an occupying force, coupled with extended deployments and an uncertain mission, is certainly more than I think I could bear. Team trust and camaraderie is what keeps soldiers alive, and there’s no way to fight a war without subtly dehumanizing your enemy; if your enemy is able to fade in and out of the civilian population, then you end up dehumanizing and mistreating civilians as well. A message like this has to come from inside the military, from a well-known and trusted and honest commander, so that the troops know they’re being led and not lectured.

40 Year Old Virgin

It's a shame that I have a midterm tomorrow, because there are lots of things to post on today. I'll confine myself to this funny/sad little tidbit picked up via Andrew Sullivan. Meet Albert - and sympathize with his long, forlorn search for love.

This Sort of... Works

Via The Plank. Bill Richardson's new ad campaign manages to play up both experience and the "regular guy" trope - not an easy feat. Some viewers wondered if the candidate comes across as "presidential" enough; maybe not, but attention grabbers like these are just what second-tier candidates need if they want to have a shot at gaining on the pack leaders this summer.

100th Post

Truth be told, I thought this blog wouldn’t last a week. But here we are. We did it together. And we can’t stop now.

Seriously. While we stroke our egos here in Seattle, bloggers around the world are playing bigger and bigger roles in the struggles against their own lawless governments. Today’s inspiring story comes from Zimbabwe, where Robert Mugabe’s 27-year-old regime is slowly losing its grip on the country. Blogger Bev Clark of kubatanablogs is rallying the troops. Visit them here.

Good Lord, Is She Still on This?

The six (apparently brain-dead) “jihadists” who were planning a commando assault on a New Jersey military base were turned in by a Circuit City clerk. It seems he was disturbed that the group asked him to convert a jihad training video from VHS to DVD. Enter Michelle Malkin, who is still plugging her largely non-existent “John Doe” vigilante “movement," proving that that repulsive conservative machismo infects Republican women as well as Republican men.

Check out the “John Doe Manifesto,” and don't forget Chris Kelley’s mockery of it.

William Jefferson Clinton

Good things can happen when he employs his extraordinarily talents in the service of people who are not... Bill or Hillary Clinton. I vastly prefer him as an ex-president.

Questions Spiderman Should Ask Himself

Dilbert Blog is fun because Scott Adams has a knack for simple, individualistic, utilitarian wisdom. A better name might be Wally Blog:

I also ruled out any profession that involved risking my life to save other people. I ask too many questions for those sorts of jobs. For example, before I rush into a burning building to save someone, I want to know if that person is more deserving of life than me. If not, there’s no point in getting incinerated just to make the world a worse place. Recently I gave a talk to a classroom of 9-year olds. It wasn’t hard to identify the ones who would do a cost-benefit analysis before rushing into the burning building. That shit starts early.

Sympathizing with George W. Bush

A spat of graded midterms has been handed back to me recently, and I can't help but wonder if this was how good ole George Jr. felt in the aftermath of his recent midterm test:

I'll be honest. This was a thumpin'.

Ethics of Porn Watching

Neil the Ethical Werewolf posts a summation of the interesting “Great Porn Conversation” that’s been taking place on Ezra Klein’s site recently. He concludes with an appeal to principled consistency:

As a utilitarian and a generally compassionate person, it strikes me as terribly wrong that any woman in porn faces social disapproval for actions that caused no harm and only pleasure to others. We should all do what we can to bring about a time when this stigma is erased. Those of us who, in times of loneliness, have relied on porn for our primary means of sexual release have particularly strong obligations in this regard. We should oppose those who condemn the women of porn and sexually active women generally, and never engage in similar condemnatory behavior ourselves. It's unmanly, ungrateful, and immoral to bite the hand that you wank to.

It’s the least you can do.

Solidarity With Tehran's Reformist Students

Now this is what being a student - and a citizen - is all about.

The Wrong Way to Greet a Sarkozy Victory

Marty Peretz seems to think Nicolas Sarkozy is quite the political juggernaut, anticipating “significant change” on “at least three” major fronts. The first two – predictions of nation-saving economic revival and an “exhilarating” strengthening of the Euro-American alliance – are strained enough on the night of the election, but the last is downright nauseating:

The third will be the initial experiment among the western powers in dethroning the cult of multiculturalism. Majorities have a right--even an obligation--to preserve their own ethics, norms, cultures and histories. They have a right to define the qualifications for membership in and even admission to their societies. This will be the struggle of the 21st century. And not just in France.

I never grow tired of saying this, which is good because evidently I’m going to be saying it well into the 21^st century: Tradition is not its own justification. Majorities and minorities alike have a right to “preserve” their identities in the realm of free dialogue. An election, or anything having to do with state power, should be completely beside the point. The realm is what the state imposes on the society, the realm is the only legitimate sacred cow, the realm is what deserves our collective protection.

This is so exasperatingly basic. I suggest we get everyone to agree on this before we fight our next battle against radical Muslims who believe that “majorities have a right--even an obligation--to preserve their own ethics, norms, cultures and histories” with state power and violence.

UPDATE: Matthew Yglesias points out that Peretz is likely to be disappointed if he's looking for a European culture warrior in Sarkozy.

Sarkozy Elected, Gul Withdraws

The son of Hungarian immigrants wins the highest office of a country whose politics have been marked by cultural anxiety and xenophobia in recent years. He campaigned on revitalizing the French economy and on the tough-guy image he garnered in his response to the immigrant slum riots of 2005, and won 53-47 in an election for which 85 percent of voters turned out. In his victory speech, he made peace offerings both to the Muslim minorities and to his new “American friends”.

Jacques Chirac is out, George W. Bush is an über-lame duck, and Tony Blair will soon be replaced by Gordon Brown*. The dynamics of the Atlantic alliance will be changing rapidly over the next 18 months; let’s hope it’s a period characterized by a bit more amity than we’re used to, eh?

Meanwhile, Geoffrey Wheatcroft at Slate points out that the French election and the Turkish presidential mess have big implications for one another – foremost among them that Turkey won’t be admitted to the European Union anytime soon. Abdullah Gul, the leader of the country’s pseudo-Islamist party and (inexplicably) a candidate whom no one is running against, withdrew his candidacy after a second parliamentary vote failed to produce a quorum. The Turkish military has a long tradition of not tolerating religious politics – it’s launched four pro-secular coups since 1960, the most recent in 1997 – and despite the highly-publicized protest last week, the general consensus seems to be that the bulk of the pressure to keep Gul out of office is coming from the ranks and not from the streets.

You’ll be hard-pressed to find a greater advocate for secular politics than me, and my sympathy lies squarely with my secular Turkish comrades who are navigating the current crisis through democratic channels. But democracy means democracy, even if we don’t like the result. Religious chauvinism is a threat to any modern society, but it can’t violate secular legal tradition until it has the opportunity to wield state power; and until it does violate a bedrock secular institution, it can’t legitimately be denied the power the Turkish people have given it. Political Islamism is cringe-worthy even in its dilute, cryptic Turkish form, but military thuggery of this kind is a shamefully furtive and universally repugnant thing.

(*Yes, this did originally read "Gordon Smith", and I have yet again revealed my deep-set and reticent ignorance of the world outside America's borders. For shame, Kaasa.)

Savor These Numbers

The polling gospel of Newsweek:

· Clinton beats McCain 50-44

· Obama beats McCain 52-39

· Edwards beats McCain 52-42

· Clinton beats Giuliani 49-46

· Obama beats Giuliani 50-43

· Edwards beats Giuliani 50-44

· Clinton crushes Romney 57-35

· Obama crushes Romney 58-29

· Edwards crushes Romney 64-27

DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY PREDICTIONS: If any man have an ear, let him hear, for this is wisdom. Redux 2004 – Obama is the charismatic political reformer in the Howard Dean tradition, and will become entangled in a brutal Iowa fight with Clinton, the establishment candidate in the Dick Gephardt tradition. Edwards will become everyone’s second choice in the John Kerry tradition.

In the Iowa caucuses, a candidate has to achieve a 15 percent floor to win any delegates at all. When the Gephardt 2004 campaign realized it couldn’t muster those numbers in most of the counties, it instructed its delegates to throw their support behind Kerry, the big-name candidate who was more electable than Dean. We’ll see the same pattern this summer and fall – Obama will gain a major fundraising and polling edge through December, but a feud with Clinton will eventually take its toll. On caucus night, Clinton will tell her supporters to move to the tried-and-true Edwards camp, and the Iowa momentum will carry him to the nomination.

This time the right man will win the election. It’s a year-and-a-half out, sure, but every political bone in my body tells me the Republicans don’t stand a chance of regrouping before 2008.

"It's Complicated"

Spiderman 3

Critics I normally trust aren’t impressed. But I take the Matthew Yglesias stand. Hell, man, I think it rocked.

Aye-yi-yi

I love America. I’m just frustrated by the knowledge curve of its people – namely, the apparently widespread inability to remember more than two decades of history at any given time.

A new Newsweek poll reports that President Bush’s approval ratings have slipped to 28 percent, which of course we might have expected the week that he vetoed a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq. But the pollsters also asked another interesting question, and received some depressing answers:

When the NEWSWEEK Poll asked more than 1,000 adults on Wednesday and Thursday night (before and during the GOP debate) which president showed the greatest political courage—meaning being brave enough to make the right decisions for the country, even if it jeopardized his popularity —more respondents volunteered Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton (18 percent each) than any other president. Fourteen percent of adults named John F. Kennedy and 10 percent said Abraham Lincoln. Only four percent mentioned George W. Bush. (Then again, only five percent volunteered Franklin Roosevelt and only three percent said George Washington.)

[Sigh…] Alrighty then, the left and right are nostalgic for their recent heroes and seem to believe that eight years without any major calamities is synonymous with political courage. Well, such a presidency is usually a sign of being a gifted salesman, not principled inflexibility. Reagan based his presidency on cutting taxes and annoying the Soviets – not exactly politically toxic moves – and in any case did everything he could to hide the process by which he made tough decisions. Clinton was many things (notably intelligent, competent, and charming) but “political courage” was not part of his repertoire – i.e., his changing stances on health care and welfare reform, the indefensible carnage caused by Sudanese air strikes, and his own little perjury mishap.

Who we should have seen at the top of the list: Abraham Lincoln, John Adams, Grover Cleveland, Andrew Johnson.

'Democracy' According to Bush Republicans

The blogosphere was aghast this week at Harvard professor Harvey Mansfield’s egregious little rumination on the necessity of having a “strong executive” during “stormy times”. (No, I insist - read it for yourself.) After all, he says, don’t we need a war-chief who will brush aside weak, second-guessing legislators when the threats come to the fore? Wouldn’t you rather be ruled by the “best man” than the “best laws”? Haven’t we taken the whole civil liberties thing a bit too far, conflating them with inalienable inborn rights? Mansfield, in his own words:

The case for a strong executive begins from urgent necessity and extends to necessity in the sense of efficacy and even greatness. It is necessary not merely to respond to circumstances but also in a comprehensive way to seek to anticipate and form them. "Necessary to" the survival of a society expands to become "necessary for" the good life there, and indeed we look for signs in the way a government acts in emergencies for what it thinks to be good after the emergency has passed. A free government should show its respect for freedom even when it has to take it away. [emphasis added]

But don’t take it from a pro-rule of law, pro-civil liberties sissy liberal like me. He spells it out for us very clearly: “necessity” is an inherently elastic term, and can be used to justify almost any extralegal executive prerogative for any length of time.

I don’t particularly feel the need to scratch out a systematic theoretical rebuttal to this article (although I certainly will if some errant member of this blog’s tiny audience wants to defend it). The entire American project is a standing rebuttal to thinking of this kind. No privilege, no exceptions – no one is above the law.

But the most mind-boggling part of this piece is Mansfield’s bizarre repeated insistence that in dangerous situations, it’s better for a republican government to be led by the unchecked “wisdom” of a single individual rather than the mitigated, compromised wisdom of, say, Congress. It’s as if he’s missed the past six years’ incredible string of enormous screw-ups in the exercise of executive power. Personally, I don’t plan on even considering vesting more power in the imperial presidency until I’m convinced that the people in charge 1) can prevent a massive terrorist attack, 2) know the difference between good intelligence and bad intelligence, 3) prepare adequately for the wars they start, 4) believe in modern environmental and biological science, 5) are capable of responding to natural disasters, 6) do not staff high-level jobs with incompetent leader-worshippers, etc., etc., etc.

Mansfield’s affection for "Machiavellian" politics is frightening, especially if this is the Bush Administration's theory of executive power (as Glenn Greenwald suspects it is). But don’t take it from a habeas corpus-touting leftist whiner like me. Mansfield, in his own words:

Such [an executive] will have the greatest incentive to be watchful, and to be both cruel and merciful in correct contrast and proportion. We are talking about Machiavelli's prince, the man whom in apparently unguarded moments he called a tyrant.

“Apparently unguarded moments”? Is this Harvard faculty member really trying to remove from the excesses of executive power the unpleasant connotation of the word "tyrant"?

Seriously. This is all the more staggering because Machiavelli himself vastly preferred the limited republican model of government, seeing tyrannies as unstable and unsustainable. We can mark the imperial presidency of 2001-2009 as another point in his column.

'Democracy' According to the Azerbaijani Government

The Azerbaijani government jails two journalists for comparing Christian and Muslim values and denigrating the Prophet Muhammed. The BBC reports on the government's response to international criticism of a recent free speech clampdown:

Seven journalists are now in prison in the country, but authorities say there are no problems with free speech in Azerbaijan as long as journalists obey the law.

Cute.

Not Exactly Hitch's Finest Hour

A little cranky at an L.A. book panel. Somebody get this man a drink:

The Madness of King Hugo

Petroleos de Venezuela, Chavez’s blistered, bloated, and increasingly bankrupt state oil company, took control of several extraction projects from American companies today. Oil analysts are not optimistic – Chavez’s management has coincided with a ten-year productivity decline of about 35 percent, plus a general strike of the company’s management protesting the president’s interference in day-to-day operations. I’ve already posted on why leaving the projects in control of U.S. oil companies might (might!) be better for Venezuela than entrenching the power of the red-clad demagogue’s lumpen cartel state.

Fog of War – Brought to You by Incompetents

For The Daily blogs, Shaun Moore’s clever turn on the current administration’s amateur Orwellianism:

Over the last four years, the Bush administration has done their part to bury the pain of war under jargon, such as warping “torture” in to “interrogation techniques”. They’ve also proven to be ahead of the curve when creating new euphemisms for euphemisms they previously created.

Read the rest. I respect a man who quotes George Carlin at length.

“You Know, I Like the Feel of a Board Moving Smoothly Against a Sharp Saw…”

AQI Leader Killed

The BBC reports that Abu Ayyub al-Masri, Zarqawi's successor to the mantle of leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, has been killed:

According to Iraqi officials, al-Masri was killed in an "internal battle" between militants.

The clash took place on Tuesday in northern Baghdad, an interior ministry official said on Iraqi television. The official said that he was "100% sure" that al-Masri had been killed.

Live by treachery, die by treachery - I think I read something like that in a long, gory holy book. Now we wait to see which head will take over this noxious serpent next.

AT&T, Microsoft, and Black Robes

Spencer asked me to comment on a story I would normally find prohibitively boring. He has bravely defied the corporate behemoth that employs him by questioning whether today’s Supreme Court decision, which favored Microsoft in its patent dispute with AT&T, is actually destructive of intellectual property rights.

It is, of course. The case was basically this: Microsoft (ahem) appropriated some AT&T technology that turns your voice into digital code and implanted it in Windows, a blatant violation of U.S. patent law for which Microsoft has already paid massive damages. At issue was whether patent protections could be extended to – and thus additional damages collected for – the Windows PCs manufactured overseas. The Court decided 7-1 that they could not, leaving AT&T extraordinarily and understandably pissed.

To my (admittedly untrained) eye, the decision was the legally obvious one. American patent law rules America, “but does not rule the world” - if Microsoft behaves badly outside U.S. jurisdiction, there's just not much the Feds can do about it. Spencer is quite right, though, that this decision poses a salient threat to intellectual property rights in the brave new global economy. Urged on by pharmaceutical companies, the U.S. government has been pressing the world for more comprehensive IP regulation, largely to no avail – indeed, it’s just one more of the many ways the world is slowly chipping away at American hegemony in guerrilla retaliation for our recent foreign policy.

I'll Trust His Judgment

My movie buff friend has ranked the top mainstream movie characters of all time. I hated Ian Malcolm, but otherwise it makes sense, in a Tyler sort of way.

Chad

My brother gave us this critique of religion via Facebook (which actually has some workable blogging tools, by the way). He’s getting good at that reductio ad absurdum, no? In its simplicity, this is the intellectual indictment of year, as far as I’m concerned:

Has there ever been an institution which has taken sadistic glee at the obstruction of human progress comparable to that of the Roman Catholic church? This is the same organization that has continued its hallowed tradition of supporting the Nazis by declaring a former Hitler Youth to be infallible. The Catholic League of America recently puffed out its offended-feathers at a sculpture in chocolate of a naked Jesus of Nazareth. Can you guess what its main objection was? Yes, the fact that the lord and savior's package was visible. They are, presumably, offended by the numerous depictions of the holy tallywhacker in great Renaissance art.

Keep churning these out, boy-oh. While you're there, you may as well check out his informed commentaries on contemporary music too.

I’m a Seattle-ite, as Seattle-ites Go

Ezra Klein took a trip to Seattle this week and wanted to know all the great places to go in our green, lefty, über-cultured little metropolis. I checked out the suggestions and was proud to find that I’d been to most of them.

NOTE: Zack Hewell is possibly the best tour guide in the city.

Caption Contest (4/29/2007)

It's a tried and true blog meme.

West on Obama

Yet again, via Andrew Sullivan. Apparently, Cornel West was irked that the first viable black presidential candidate in the history of the United States decided that it was more important to announce his candidacy than to participate in this ego fest for minority media scoundrels and self-righteous faux intellectuals. Another chapter in the neverending narrative of West's ignorance, doublespeak, narcissism, and general phoniness:



Will we never be free of the mindless platitudes of this patronizing leech? Just wait till he gets to the part about the kinds of campaign donations - is it "black" money? "white" money? "Jewish" money? - that Obama has been receiving.

How Freedom Dies

Not just at the hand of despots from above, but also at the hand of sadists from below. The BBC reports that a suicide bombing at a rally in Pakistan, already a bastion of state brutality, has killed 22 people and injured many more, possibly including Musharraf’s Interior Minister.

Hannah Arendt had a cunning and invigorating definition of power: The ability of a large group of diverse people to work in common cause, held together by mutual trust and mutual respect. Power is almost synonymous with freedom, and it’s certainly not same thing as violence; indeed, they are stark opposites. From On Revolution:

…For power can of course be destroyed by violence; this is what happens in tyrannies, where the violence of one destroys the power of the many, and which, therefore, according to Montesquieu, are destroyed from within: they perish because they engender impotence instead of power.

Tyrants, suicide bombers – the effect is the same, replacing action and trust with stunned silence and fear.

It’s Official: I’m All Man

Via Andew Sullivan. According to this neat little gizmo, I blog like a Male.

I will admit, however, that the longer the post I submitted, the proportionally higher my Female score got.

One Hell of a Legislature

Here’s the kind of rare story that gets you pumped about separation of powers:

In 1543, George Ferrers, a member of the House of Commons from Plymouth, England, was arrested for debt while on his way to Parliament. Members of Parliament (and members of Congress) are protected from arrest for debt during the sitting of the legislature, so the House of Commons sent its sergeant to demand Ferrers' release. The jailers holding Ferrers impolitely declined, and a melee ensued: As one 16^th-century account puts it, the sergeant's assistant was "stroken down." Outdone, the sergeant retreated to the House of Commons, which suspended all other business to tend to this challenge to parliamentary power. The lord chancellor, a Crown official, offered to provide the sergeant with a royal writ for Ferrers' release. But the House turned him down, insisting that the sergeant should act "without writ, only by shew of his mace"—that is, on the authority of the House alone. The sergeant was sent back to the jail, more heavily armed this time, and the jailers caved in and handed over Ferrers. [my emphasis]

Bush and Co. have stretched the power of the executive to an extent not seen since the Johnson/Nixon/Vietnam years. Shame on them, of course, but it wasn’t done in a vacuum. In order for the separation of powers to work correctly, each branch has to do more than just protect its own institutional power – it has to try to encroach on the other two as well. From 2002 to 2006-ish, partisan loyalty trumped institutional loyalty (the notable exception being the Republican Congressional leadership's intervention in the Bill Jefferson investigation). The Gonzalez and Rice subpoena fights aren’t really Dems vs. Pubs, they’re Congress vs. the imperial Presidency.

Olbermann on Giuliani

As angry, abrasive, and right as ever:



Let's be clear - I only endorse this as an angry rant on the behalf of citizens, not on the behalf of Democratic politicians, who ought to be defending themselves. Via Andrew Sullivan, Kevin Drum makes an excellent point:

So I was curious: how would the Dem candidates respond? With the usual whining? Or with something smart? Greg Sargent has today's responses from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton over at his site and the verdict is in: more whining....

Unbelievable. Neither one of them took the chance to do what Rudy did: explain in a few short sentences why the country would be safer with a Democrat in the Oval Office. Is it really that hard? Giuliani's position is clear: more war, more domestic surveillance, more torture, and fewer civil liberties. And while it's true that the liberal position on making America secure is a little more complicated than the schoolyard version of foreign affairs beloved of Bush-era Republicans, it's not that complicated. So instead of complaining about how mean Giuliani is, why can't Obama and Clinton just tell us what they'd do?

Indeed.

Bush’s Bumbling Meets Putin’s Paranoia

We’re all familiar with the counsel never to attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity. Russians have undoubtedly heard this maxim. Russians do not seem to care for it.

Or at least, the KGB-smelted brutes that have installed themselves as the country's ruling clique do not care for it. Today’s menacing illustration is Vladimir Putin’s state of the nation address, in which he denounced the Bush Administration’s plans to bring its missile defense fantasies to Poland and the Czech Republic and announced that Russia will respond in kind by putting a “moratorium” on compliance with the 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty:

Mr. Putin said, the Kremlin would use its future compliance with the treaty as a bargaining point in the dispute with United States over American proposals to install missile defenses in Europe.

Mr. Putin’s announcement, made in his annual address to Parliament, underscored the Kremlin’s anger at the United States for proposing a new missile-defense system, which the Bush administration insists is meant to counter potential threats from North Korea and Iran.

The missile defense program of the 1980s was a scientific daydream that became a budgetary fiasco that a dim but lucky president warped into a useful diplomatic tool. The missile defense system of today is a scientific daydream that has remained a budgetary fiasco that a dim and jinxed president has warped into diplomatic mayhem.

It worked in the first place because the Soviets were convinced that Yanqui technology was essentially indistinguishable from magic, a deeply flawed assumption that has persisted and been mixed with the Napoleon-on-Elba complex of post-Soviet Russia. More than anything, the Kremlin is a devotee of classic realpolitik and aspires to resurrecting itself as a great power. Any ideologically-driven action in the region is interpreted as an en passant the Pentagon planned eight moves ago, an encroachment on the Kremlin’s sphere of influence and an insult to Russia – in amidst his ranting about phantom technology, Putin “also chided the West for what he called meddling in Russia’s domestic affairs in the guise of democracy-promotion efforts.” Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International being, of course, natural allies of the Bush Administration.

Worried yet? Wait till you see how Condoleezza Rice responded to Putin’s paranoia:

“The idea that somehow 10 interceptors and a few radars in Eastern Europe are going to threaten the Soviet strategic deterrent is purely ludicrous, and everybody knows it,” Ms. Rice said before a meeting of NATO foreign ministers expected to focus on the missile-defense dispute.

“The Russians have thousands of warheads,” Ms. Rice said. “The idea that you can somehow stop the Soviet strategic nuclear deterrent with a few interceptors just doesn’t make sense.” [Emphasis added, naturally.]

I would like to believe that this is some clever back-channel diplomacy, a way of subtly but forcefully telling the Russians that if they want to fume about starting a new cold war they’d better be damn serious, that the U.S. government knows what it’s doing and we’re ready to face them down old school.

But I’ve learned a few things about this Administration over the past six years. I’m not quite prepared to attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity.

This Could Be Fun

The Daily has started blogging. Emboldened by the fact that at least one person I've never met has visited this site, I intend to start making waves. But for now, I rather enjoyed this little introductory narrative by (soon to be ex-) law student Allison Peryea:

For those of you who are looking for a very expensive way to feel like crap about yourself, I highly recommend law school. But to really maximize self-loathing, I suggest combining law school with two years in a studio apartment featuring the square footage of a contact-lens case and a panoramic view of the southern wall of a teriyaki joint. I followed the above advice and the decision has made me the person I am today – bitter, enraged and addicted to candy.

Read more.

Tyler and Chris Argue, Finis

Tyler:

I still fail to see how you assert the US to have always been about egalitarianism. If you ignore women's rights, slavery, and gay marriage, I guess, yes, America has "always" been about egalitarianism.

And I maintain that the point is, this story is harmful. It is fuel to the ignorant American fire. Spencer, I believe the point IS that they are New Yorkers. If the hatred for the middle east doesn't have the greatest false reassurances in New York, I don't know where else.

And the reason this story is not about Patriotism is because the man is not standing up to something only people from other countries do. He is standing up to something that American people do all the time. We get back to the beginning. The man IS standing up for a woman's rights. Say some guy from a backward town in the south comes and does the same thing, is it still Patriotism?

The thing that got me going on this whole thing is the fact that this story is PRODUCTIVE as a women's rights story. (Ignoring the fact that the girl herself doesn't stand up to the prince.)

It is destructive as it is.

What burns me up is that this is the kind of story that gets tacked onto chain mails from pro-war nuts. It's the kind of MySpace bulletin post that you see from right wingers as an example of why we're in the middle east. This is the kind of story that rallies the ignorant.

That's my entire point, that's the only reason this pissed me off. This post just reminded me of that "rally around the flag of hate" bullshit that I have to face from people I consider a lot less intelligent. So, maybe Chris, this story coming from your standpoint of having read this person's blog for a long time comes off in a different light, but when you post JUST this excerpt, then I react to JUST this excerpt. And when you post JUST this fraction of the whole picture, I am telling you that it comes off with strong anti-middle eastern sentiment, STRICTLY for the reason that it becomes a story of "patriotism" in the face of a Saudi in New York of all places. Because instead of feeling like a man, standing up for a woman (if you can consider following your boss around taking action), he felt like a patriot, standing up for his country.

To the first point, I can only answer that yes, I am quite aware of the anti-egalitarian crimes of the past and present. My response is that the United States is founded upon the institutional tools needed to rectify them, which it has at a historically impressive rate. That the global cause of human and civil rights has advanced so swiftly during the past three centuries is due in large part to the ideological coherence and practical experience the United States has provided.

I should have been clearer when I first posted the story; it took place during the 1991 Gulf War, not the latest. But I still think you’re missing the crux of the story. The sexism isn’t necessarily important – it’s a stand-in for any form of encroachment on someone else’s rights. The important aspect is that the prince’s party justified the abuse by appealing to an illegitimate source of authority. Insofar as America is a standing reproach to traditional power, rejection of invocations of traditional authority is patriotic.

I’m willing to defend that view to its counterintuitive extreme. The Dixie dandy that harasses the waitress in a similar way? If he appeals to identity, and not to reason, to justify himself, then ridiculing his claims to superiority is an act of uniquely American cosmopolitan patriotism.

Your concern that the story could be exploited by bigots is well-taken. Anything, of course, can be abused by the ignorant, so I’m wary of balancing what I post and what I say against the potential for manipulation by fools. In the meantime, it’s counterproductive and somewhat vicious to try to find chauvinism lurking behind every piece of cross-cultural critique. Holding principles you believe to be universal will, sooner or later, bring you into conflict with some distant culture, and adhering to them is crucial to your integrity as a thinking human being.

Mmm-mmm-good. Debates like this are one of the reasons I started this little monument to my own ego. Let’s do it again soon.

UPDATE: The author of the original story has discovered this exchange and generously weighed in, clarifying his use of the term “patriotism”, relishing a hypothetical confrontation with British royalty, and reminding us that jingoistic nationalists rarely hold – as he does – dual citizenship in Canada.

I Thought We’d Settled This

Yet again, Victor Davis Hanson takes issue with the use of the term “civil war” to describe the, um, late unpleasantness in Iraq:

But a civil war — two clearly defined sides, each striving to seize power, with antithetical ideologies and agendas — is hardly Iraq, where Sunni tribal elders, Shiite clerics, an elected government, and coalition forces all try to stop 10,000 or so nihilists from murdering so barbarously that they incite a backlash from Shiite gangs or a general sense of hopelessness among the population at large that both loathes and is fearful of these terrorists. There is a reason that histories of the Civil War have a special chapter on Quantrill with the assorted specialized vocabulary like "raiders," "outlaw," "bushwacker," "Jayhawker." What culminated in Lawrence, Kansas — arson, shooting of civilians, settling grudges, targeted assassinations, and general mayhem — was something different from Grant, Lee, etc.

I agree - “civil war” is lacking. The reality is much, much worse. Some suggestions, free of charge: tragic bloody morass; sanguinary catastrophe; chaotic backstabbing; Lord of the Flies with homemade bombs; hellish mayhem.

Sullivan on Giuliani

24 makes for some exciting television, but it’s no way to run a real-live republic. Andrew Sullivan on why progressives - indeed, all Americans - should fear the socially liberal Republican:

I think Giuliani will run as the Jack Bauer candidate. It's in his DNA. There isn't a civil liberty he wouldn't suspend if he felt it was necessary for "security." And there isn't a dissenter he wouldn't bully or silence in the interests of national security. There is a constituency for this - a big one. It has been primed by pop-culture to embrace torture and the suspension of habeas corpus. It is a constituency with scant respect for any civil liberties when a war on terror is being waged. If that's the path Giuliani wants us to take, we have to be very clear about what it means. We have to ask ourselves: after the next terror attack, what powers would a president Giuliani assume? And what would be left of the constitution after four years of the same? Give Rudy the office that Cheney has created - and America, already deeply altered, will become a new political entity altogether.

Spencer Draws His Pen

Mr. Baldwin gets in on the action:

I'm torn between both of your associated sides to this pretty pointless story. To begin, I read this story as power posturing. The Prince comes in and attempts to assert and perpetuate the notion of his power by making inappropriate passes to this woman. His sense of power is then nullified when he is asked to leave, and transferred to Paul when he gets the guy a cab at the end. There is something so satisfying to common-folk about watching the rich and powerful fall. I read this as someone feeling satisfied that he had been a part of reducing a member of a monarch down to the same level as everyone else because now throughout their life of privilege they have no authority over a commoner.

However, Middle Easterners are often perceived (and some cases rightly so) as having diminutive attitudes with respect to women's rights. There does seem to be a little bit of anti-Middle Eastern sentiment with these people, however, many of the individuals in these societies show a complete lack of regard for females: consider if you will, the prevalence of “honor killings,” or “honor suicides.” These are both terrible with respect to both women’s rights, and human rights, and prevalent throughout the world. Not all individuals participate in such a practice, but some countries have such “rights” protected by law – and are specific to females. Consider the killing of the Saudi Arabian Princess Misha'al, ordered to death by her own grandfather. This is the sort of thing that the American people hear about Middle Easterners. What they do not hear is that those that are ignorant of Islam enact the killings.

With that being the typical (American) perception of Middle Easterners in mind, it is not surprising that they acted so negatively towards the prince. They did everything that they could to please this dick, and then he turns around and treats one of the employees like a commoner, as if she does not deserve the respect that a regular person is entitled. This almighty prince thinks that he can treat US Citizens like surfs, so they treated him like one and threw him out. There was a little hatred of the Middle East in their attitudes I believe, but I do not think that they would have treated a Prince of England much better if he had done the same thing… keep in mind that they are New Yorkers. I think that more so than race, it was a hatred of those in power.

As far as the patriotism goes, I think that that has to do with a perception of an anti-democratic type of government (monarchy), and standing up to that government. I would feel patriotic if I threw any autocrat out of my restaurant and onto his ass – even if that person is the Prince of England or a Saudi. And that is what I believe that they were rallying behind, not a hate for Middle Easterners, more a hate for those that misuse their power.

Well, kinda... but it’s not about Americans or New Yorkers versus Middle Easterners or Saudis or Brits. It’s not even about monarchy versus democracy. And it's not pointless, ya bastid.

This story is about privilege confronted by reason. There are some kinds of ressentiment that are completely justified – straightening out errant royalty isn’t just a right, it’s a duty.

Tyler and Chris Argue, Part 3

Tyler:

The point is that the story in the hands of Chris Kaasa is different than in the hands of the American people, or for that matter the teller of the story. I don't mean to imply that you saw the story as a reason for hate, but rather that I believe the story is being told from a standpoint of a person whom I believe to be establishing his patriotism based on the fact that this was a Saudi. Do you honestly believe that, given the voice of the person telling the story, that he would really have felt the "most patriotic" of his life if the guy had been a member of British parliament? Do you think that the restaurant owner would have reacted so disrespectfully to an assertion of royalty if he had been prince of England? While this story may strengthen some, it emboldens others, and I am getting fairly sick and tired of American hatred of people from the middle east.

And because the reaction of the restaurant owner would quite clearly be different in the face of a different person of status, it IS a personal attack on the Prince. And how, in the sense of equal rights, do you assess the US to be leading the way? Europe has long been the pioneer of equality, with us remaining backward far beyond a reasonable point. And really, are you REALLY going to say you believe the owner was attempting to fulfill a unique historical mission and not just sticking to national loyalty?

Well, I thank you for the benefit of the doubt. And of course I can’t know for sure whether the author of this story is a principled egalitarian or a jingoistic simpleton – having read this particular individual’s musings for a long time, my sense is that he’s probably the former. But I don’t think it’s clear at all that “the reaction of the restaurant owner would be different in the face of a different person of status”, or that the author would have felt less patriotic spiting British royalty. (I don’t know, I would expect feelings of patriotism to be enhanced by a small reenactment of 1776; we’ll leave to one side the fact that unlike the inimitably thuggish House of Saud, the House of Windsor has generally gotten over the instinct to justify its more odious vices by blurting, “Don’t you know who I am?!”) In fact, it’s sort of a nasty insinuation, one that frankly, friend, has to be justified by something more substantive than a wink and a nudge.

One deplorable aspect of the public diplomacy between the U.S. and the Middle East is the ubiquitous conflation of social structure, culture and ethnicity – a denunciation of a social structure is not a denunciation of an ethnic group. To assume that it is an ethnic attack poisons the dialogue and accentuates enmity on all sides.

In any case, there is only one good way to respond to claims of royal (or ancestral, or tribal, or religious, or racial, or blue-eyed, or left-handed) privileges: With DISRESPECT for the entire notion. I’m quite sure that you’ll agree that there is no such thing as God-given birthright to superiority – the “prince” that claims such a privilege as a cornerstone of his identity has, I’m afraid, a FLAWED IDENTITY. The burden of proof is always on the individual who makes demands for special treatment. If he can give no reason, he deserves to be rebuked when he tries to take advantage of his false superiority.

And he doesn’t just deserve to be rebuked in America, either – this just happens to be one of the relatively few places on earth where “because I am ME” is not an acceptable reason. I assess the U.S. to be leading the way in that its organizing principle is not loyalty to an ethnicity or religious creed or language group, but adherence to a set of universally applicable ideas. America has never been about occupying an ancestral motherland. It has always been about a peculiarly egalitarian - and I think peculiarly better - way to live, or at least working to make that egalitarian and cosmopolitan way of life possible.

Europe has long been the pioneer of equality? Really? Are we talking about the same kind of equality? If you’re talking about economic equality, I’m with you. But if you’re talking about inborn rights and privileges, Europe has only truly hopped on that train since the end of World War II. We’re certainly behind on gay rights, owing to the sort of religious demagoguery that tainted Europe for so long. But the Old World is slipping back into its old habits of apartheid and reactionary identity politics – Middle Easterners and their descendants, one will have to conclude, are bound to experience far less hatred and persecution across the pond.