Fair and Balanced. Except sometimes.

The weblog of Gil Smart, writer, father and sometimes musician, of Lancaster, Pa.

This site is not affiliated with Lancaster Newspapers. Though you can peruse the Smart Remarks print archive if you like.

 
On hiatus: Which you, by now, have gathered.

Smart Remarks, or at least the weblog version of it, is going on hiatus for a while, for a variety of reasons. One of them being that it gets to be rather pressured, doing this sort of thing every day. You find an audience and you want to give to that audience, but it takes considerable time and effort that might, perhaps should, be spent on other things.

At the same time it does keep you sharp, both from a current-events perspective - as in those who write blogs tend to read blogs as well - and a professional one. Frankly, I think doing this has helped me become a better writer. Writing teachers ought to assign their students to blog. You read it here first.

But anyway. This particular leaf of the vine may wither, but there are others. Atrios, Billmon, Orcinus and Josh Marshall, in particular, keep the ball in play.

And you can always check the Smart Remarks print archive, updated weekly, if you start to jones.

And above all, thanks for reading. See you soon.
posted by Gil Smart at 24.9.03

 
Or as someone used to say, I am outta here!: That someone, of course, being Dennis Miller - who, last week, did a show in Reading, Pa.

How far the mighty have fallen.

Regardless: Vacation is mine. Nothing at all here until Tuesday the 16th, and probably not then, as I'll have to spend all day actually getting back to work and wading through a few hundred e-mails.

Cheers- and seeya soon. But before I go...

All for our children's crusade: So there are all sorts of stories on the wire today about 9/11, the anniversary of which, obviously, is coming up Thursday. Had this dawned on me during this past, relatively hectic week, I might have written about it for the print edition this week. But what might I have written.

How about this:

In the course of my occasional trolling of the LGF board, I caught a link to a recent Lileks screed on the idiocy of the left when it comes to the war on terror, as shown by a recent post on Metafilter, a post which, among other things, spoke to how we in this country have taken to using 9/11 as not just a rationale, but as an excuse:

Funny how it's easy to disregard the Rwanda and Bosnia genocides and yet remain the eternal victim because of 9/11.

James Lileks: What the hell does he have to be angry about? He's Caucasian, male, and living in the richest nation in the world. He has more opportunities in one day than a Third World citizen has in a lifetime. Is he being targeted because of his ethnicity? Is he being thrown into a camp and being repeatedly raped? Is he being buried alive in a pit by hateful condotierres paid a pack of cigarettes a day?

The 9/11 victimhood seems to me an excuse for the Angry White Male to make a comeback. Except this time it seems to be justified, even if you weren't anywhere near the WTC. And that's the sick cancer festering within the American psyche.

I've got mixed feelings about this sort of sentiment. Because 9/11 is still with me vividly, as it is with you. The gripping horror of watching it as it happened, the feeling that you, personally, were under attack, the sadness, the horror, followed by the determination.

9/11 victimhood? Yeah, a lot of people were victimized that day. And so was this country.

Lileks jumps all over this. Saying that he doubted the poster had kids - because if he'd had kids, he would feel differently, as Lileks did. Because Lileks has kids.

More on this in a bit.

James works himself into a fine fit. Money grafs:

Angry? Almost two years later I’m still f*#king furious about it, if you want to know the truth. I’m not sure what emotion these people want me to have. An appropriate amount of sadness mixed with an appropriate amount of shame mixed with a soupcon of perspective and a dram of self-hatred? Can you send me the precise recipe, please? Because from where I stand, I see the two forces I thought the left deplored: religious intolerance and fascism. Together at last! Swirled into one cone! If Kluxers had flown planes into the UN building, these people would be insisting that America was bubbling over with millions of Bubbanazis, and the failure of the networks to mount Second Anniversary specials would be proof that the media secretly embraced the White Power agenda.

Again, I’ll ask the question: when did I overdo it? January 14, 2002? August 23rd 2003, 11:34 AM? Was that the point at which we were supposed to pack it all away in a box and store it in the attic with the newspapers and Time magazines? I pass a house every day that still has a Wellstone! sign in the front window. Should I knock on their door, and ask why they have the sign up? They’re white, male, living in the land of opportunity. Stop grieving. Stop it!

And there is, of course, some validity to this. To suggest that the nation ought to just "get over" 9/11 - well, it's complete folly. You don't get over it; it colors who you are, to some degree, every day of the rest of our life.

But.

I was at work on 9/11. Along with the rest of my office, we watched all of it on the 13-inch TV screen above my boss's desk. Alex, my only child, was three weeks old at the time.

And when I got home that evening, I rememer holding him on my lap, tiny and helpless, as I watched the video of the plane fly into the second tower over, and over, and over again.

And I thought: What kind of world have I brought this little child into?

Fear - no hatred. A realization that something must be done to make sure this never happens again - but no thoughts of, "We've got to get the people who did this."

Of course we did have to go after the terrorists. But somewhere along the way, this morphed into something else. It became a matter of not just securing our own borders - but remaking the world as a whole so as to eliminate terrorism, it's roots as well as its branches, completely.

We went from going after those who did this to going after all of those who may ever do such a thing at any time in the future. We went from responding in kind to remaking the world.

Lileks, as a matter of fact, signed on to this. It was one of the reasons I stopped reading his Bleat every day. I was disappointed. Because he was beating the drum for war with Iraq. And for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what Iraq had to do with 9/11.

But to James and so many others, the link was self-evident. 9/11.

And it struck me at the time - it strikes me now - that we were using 9/11 as an excuse to go into Iraq.

An excuse for doing what we know the neoconservatives had long wanted to do, to remake the Middle East on a grand scale, to test their political theory, a sort of reverse Trotskyism (sorry, I stole that phrase but for the life of me I can't remember/find where I stole it from).

We were angry, we were grieving, we were wounded by 9/11. And because we had been victimized, many believed gave us carte blanche, wide berth, to "solve" the problem as we deemed fit.

Except there were those of us - even some of us with kids - who didn't see this as a wise course. Few of us protested when we went into Afghanistan - because there was a clear, direct link, a straight line, between 9/11 and the Taliban, which refused to give up bin Laden. But once we moved beyond straight lines and started basing our foreign policy on a dubious theory, lots of us jumped ship, me included.

We opposed the war, in part, on the basis of the fact that innocent people in Iraq were going to die because of this dubious theory, and they did. We also opposed the war because we believed the Administration wasn't being straight with the public about why they wanted to go into Iraq, and it wasn't.

And we wondered what would happen after "major combat operations" were over, and now it is evident that it was correct to worry.

So while some might foolishly argue that this nation should just "get over" 9/11, there are more who said, look, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan had far more to do with 9/11 than did Iraq - so why not go after them?

Those who also said, listen, Saddam Hussein deserved no mercy, but how about the thousands of innocent Iraqis who will be killed so we can road-test our reverse domino theory?

According to some sources, twice as many civilians in Iraq were killed as a result of the war as were killed on 9/11. This does nothing to mitigate the horror of the latter. But neither does 9/11 justify the former.

James, I was as cut-up inside on 9/11 as you were. Really. And I do have a child, and I want the world he inherits to be a safer place.

It's just that I think that the fiasco in Iraq has created the exact opposite.
posted by Gil Smart at 6.9.03

 
Rambling reaction to the Christian right on homosexuality: So OK. This is long, and extremely rough. The ending is cliched - actually, it is a cliche`. And pardon me as I slip into the second person halfway through. Happens sometimes.

I want to sand it down for use in the print version, possibly after I get back from vacation. It’ll probably go off like something of a bomb in this “conservative community.”

But it’s something that’s been brought to a head over the past few weeks, what with all the response to the past two print versions on the issue of gay marriage. The last two columns have brought more of a sustained response than anything I’ve ever written – well over 100 e-mails, plus the letters that are showing up in our paper, plus the private postcards and letters showing up in my work mailbox.

The pros are outnumbering the cons by about 3 to 1.

But amongst those who oppose what I’ve had to say on gay marriage is an anger and a desperation that I am coming to understand. There is a genuine fear at work here, a genuine concern over the movement to gain societal - if not governmental - approval for practices that, simply put, they consider to be sinful, things that run counter to the beliefs people have held strongly all their lives, beliefs that they believe are being mocked.

And they are being mocked, though most who are offended by that cannot see that there is a reason for it. Time and again these past two weeks, I've come to realize that there is this blanket assumption out there that everyone is, or should be, Christian. I’ve gotten these letters asking, “What kind of Christian are you?” and the answer, of course, is that I’m no kind of Christian (not yet, at least).

And they do not fathom that this could be the case. Of course the person who writes for our local newspaper is Christian. Of course this is a Christian community.

This is, really, how they think.

Among those who realize that this idealized idea of a community where everyone is necessarily a conservative Christian was never real or slipping away if it was is a genuine desperation. I have received letters pleading with me to reconsider my position, begging me to read this Biblical passage or that.
One of the most heartfelt notes came from an older lady who directed me to five specific Biblical passages. I did as she suggested. I do not think I took from them what she wanted me to.

One of the passages, of course, was Leviticus 18:22; it is as damning a condemnation of homosexuality as you will find anywhere in the Bible. It is specific; it is clear.

It is, however, but a small part of the overall Mosaic Law - and to what extent are Christians today bound by this law? The most common answer is they are not. So why, then, do some continue to cherry-pick this particular scripture and use it as a club?

My correspondent directs me to Galatians 5:19-21: “The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. “

I fail to see where homosexuality is explicitly addressed by this, though you can make a compelling argument is falls under the “impurity” cause. But the remainder of this chapter speaks to the need to subjugate a person’s “passions and desires” to the spirit. As shown in the passage, of course, these passions and desires are not limited to sexual acts; are we to think, then, that the gay man has the market cornered on hatred and discord, selfish ambition and envy as well?

Rather, we are called to focus on the sexual aspect of this passage (though, to be fair, conservative Christians often pick ou the witchcraft and drunkenness parts as well). Why, though, is there not the same sort of invective for those who demonstrate selfish ambition – the businessman, say, who deserts his family in order to make more money? How about envy, which plays such a prominent role in our commercialized, televised lifestyle today?

Religious conservatives focus on the sexual aspects of passages such as this one – the homosexual aspects of it, for there is no corresponding campaign by religious conservatives against heterosexual promiscuity, the likes of which causes many if not more problems than does homosexual promiscuity (AIDS is one thing; verereal disease and unwanted pregnancies another). If there are similar campaign against this, it is not being waged with the ferocity of the campaign against homosexuality.

My correspondent also directs me to I Timothy 9,10 (”We also know that law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious; for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for adulterers and perverts, for slave traders and liars and perjurers – and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine...”)

Again, no specific reference to homosexuality, rather “perverts” – which religious conservatives would surely tell you means the same thing. I am not, however, prepared to take their word for it.

She refers me to Romans 1 24-28, and I Corinthians 9-10, which are far more explicit. In I Corinthians: “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

But I do not see where this is a matter of homosexuals looking to inherit the kingdom of God. I see this as a matter of homosexuals wanting the same rights as everyone else under our civil government. That is to say the religious conservative certainly can believe that gays and homosexual behavior is condemned by scripture – but where is it written that because of this, they shall be denied civil rights? You may think their unrepentant embracing of what you believe to be sin means they will be punished upon death – but why, then, do you seek to punish them in life?

I do not see where homosexuals are barging into your churches, demanding a place at your altars, demanding that you concede them spiritual equality in your own house of worship. Then I believe you would have an absolute right of resistance.

But you take if further than this. You define homosexuals as all who have given in to lustful behavior, when lustful behavior can be and is part of every relationship, gay or straight. You define these people by what they do rather than who they are. You see a gay couple holding hands and can think only of what they do behind closed doors – but all of us are behind closed doors sometimes, aren’t we?

As I read these scriptures I see a condemnation of people who permit their passions to control their lives, and I see value in that teaching. In my defense of homosexual marriage, never have I, nor would I, defend some of the seamier things that are common to those on the fringe of what might be called the homosexual lifestyle, the anonymous sex of the bathhouses, the wholesale embrace of hedonism.

But I would point out that this sort of thing goes on among heterosexuals as well, and you do not work yourself into as much of a lather over it. And beyond that, I would challenge you on your definitions. You seem to believe that all homosexuals engage in the fringe activities, that the unabashed hedonists define the community.

I say they do not, I say there is a tremendous swath of the gay community that is no more hedonistic than you. I say you are painting with too broad a brush - and I say that's wrong.

For how would you feel were I to treat you in a manner that suggested you were on your way to bomb an abortion clinic? Surely you would protest were I to classify you, all of you, as uneducated and unintelligent, easily led, prone to violence, intent upon establishing a theocratic nation?

Of course you would take offense at this; it is a generalization that might indeed be true in some cases – but does not in any way apply to the vast majority.

So how, then, do you define an entire class of people by simple sexual act, how do you tell yourselves that because they commit this sexual act, they are therefore ruled by their lusts, they are therefore all the same?

Where is the justice in this?

You would point to the Bible, but I would point to the Bible as well and say that you are skipping over many parts of it, are missing the point of others, are taking things literally that I don’t believe can be taken literally. And if you would insist that it all must be taken literally, I’d ask you how much pork you’ve eaten lately and how dare you, I’d ask you how many cotton-blend shirts hang in your closet and how dare you, I would pin you down on all of the things that are written right there next to some of your most cherished verses which you now would explain away in various manners.

I say you are missing the point. I say we all have a stake in making sure that this nation does not become a slave of its basest desires, but your literal definitions have blinded you to the broadness of the threat, have caused you to misdirect your energies. I say you slander the innocent while painting with your broad brush, I say you miss far greater dangers right before your nose.

I say that the day you spend as much time worrying about the encroaching sexuality and vulgarity on television, about the trend in this society by which we overvalue work and devalue our children and families as you do fretting about what two mild-mannered gay people do behind closed doors will be a breakthrough day.

I say that the day you spend as much time worrying about social justice as you do sexual matters is the day you and I can find a broad range of things to agree upon.

But until then, I don’t see where we have a whole lot to talk about. You can keep sending me those letters in which you cite this specific verse or that specific verse.

It won’t change my opinion that you simply cannot see the forest for the trees.
posted by Gil Smart at 5.9.03

 
The worst covers, uncovered: Music fans will definitely want to read "The Strange Potency of Bad Music," wherein Spectator writer Marcus Berkmann dissects the guilty pleasures or outright horrors of listening to the likes of Whitney "The Human Foghorn" Houston's version of Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You," - which "blighted the lives of millions" - to "the grim terror that was Phil Collins’s ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’." Or maybe Paul Young's disembowelment of Ian Curtis's "Love Will Tear Us Apart," a "gutless travesty" with "horrible synthesised drums and a gloopy bass (probably played by someone with rolled-up jacket sleeves)."

It was the eighties, after all.

I would promptly like to nominate Madonna's blasphemous rendition of "American Pie," with a quick second to Britney Spears' amazingly hubristic choice to do the Stones' "Satisfaction," which contains this adaptation of Jagger-Richards:

When I'm watchin' my TV
and that girl comes on to tell me
how tight my skirts should be
well she can't tell me who to be
cause I've got my own identity.
I can't get no, oh no no no

Oh no no no, indeed.

posted by Gil Smart at 5.9.03

 
Thank you sir, may I have another: Ah, well, this is about right. Over on righty boards such as LGF they're all incensed that the French and Germans didn't gratefully, sycophantically accept our draft U.N. resolution. Shows what buggers those folks are, goes the conventional chickenhawk wisdom.

I quite think Gary Kamiya over at Salon.com captures it more accurately:

Let me make sure I've got this right. After being insulted, belittled and called irrelevant by the swaggering machos in the Bush administration, the United Nations is now supposed to step forward to supply cannon fodder for America's disastrous Iraq occupation -- while the U.S. continues to run the show?

In other words, the rest of the world is to send its troops to get killed so that a U.S. president it fears and despises can take the credit for an invasion it bitterly opposed.

The rest of the world may be crazy, but it ain't stupid.

It's hard to know what to think the move by the administration means. On one hand, it makes complete sense - as long as you aren't a fire-breathing, unilateral nationalist. As many, Sullivan among them, have argued, what needs to be done right now is make the reconstruction of Iraq work, take the targets off the backs of American servicemen and women. (And actually, I'll concede Sullivan a lot of credit for failing, in his words, to provide "reflexive defenses of everything the administration does.")

On the other hand, this is a humiliation, it is an admission that what Kamiya calls "the grand Cheney-Rove-Wolfowitz adventure" has not gone off as well as planned. It is an affirmation that those who counseled caution - and were ignored - were right. Fat lot of good that does us now.

In a nobler world, France and Turkey and Germany and Russia would forget all those nasty things that Bush officials (and their mouthpieces in the Murdoch media empire) said about them and send tens of thousands of troops to bail us out. But the real world does not work that way. The "axis of weasels" is now enjoying every minute of it while the Bush regime squirms.

And what choice is there now? Now that we have sought U.N. help, can we continue to be bullheaded and go on without it if need be? Or will the humiliation be complete when we are forced to bend to U.N. demands?

Wouldn't it have been far, far better to have had the U.N. on board in the first place, rather than going off half-cocked on the basis of what have turned out to be blatant public falsehoods and dubious, under-thought political theories?

Unilateral nationalism has failed us - not, as some would have you believe, because of our "internal divisions."

But rather, because it was always destined to fail in the first place.
posted by Gil Smart at 4.9.03

 
Hit me with the stupid stick one more time: Wait. So now Britney's a Republican?

"Honestly, I think we should just trust our president in every decision that he makes and we should just support that," she said.

Because, you know, we've got other things to think about. You know, like... um.... stuff.

Honey, don't you know our president isn't real fond of girls who kiss girls?
posted by Gil Smart at 4.9.03

 
A strange sort of syndicated "enlightenment":So I’m driving around this morning looking for “Maginot mailboxes,” as an article in the Atlantic called them, basically mailboxes that have been vandal-proofed, for a newspaper story. Drove around a bunch of neighborhoods in the wealthy suburb where “mailbox baseball” seems to be a favored pasttime, saw a couple decent specimens, rang a couple doorbells - in the freaking pouring rain - but no one was home. Whatever.

In between, NPR’s Morning Edition wound down, and rather than listen to classical music or, worse, Clear Channel’s rock and roll, I trolled over to the AM dial, thinking I might find some news.

I found, instead. Glen Beck.

That’s syndicated radio blabber Glen Beck, sort of a junior league Rush Limbaugh who, according to the opening credits of his program, promised to entertain and enlighten me.

Enlighten me.

You know, I’ve been writing a newspaper column on and off for more than a decade, and never once have I promised to “enlighten” anyone. I mean, I shoot for compelling, well-reasoned arguments and let people take it from there. To come out and actually say that you are going to enlighten people has to be one of the more pompous things I’ve heard in, oh, the last 15 minutes.

Beck’s program this particular morning – maybe things are different on other mornings, but I tend to doubt it – was all half-baked opinions and rants unsupported by actual facts. He contradicted himself on several occasions. I could tell his spittle was flecking the microphone as he railed away.

In 40 minutes of listening to Beck, during which the primary target of his bile was the California recall situation, here’s what I learned:

1. Though the California gubernatorial candidates seem to be focused exclusively on the economy, it’s not just about the economy.

2. Except when it is.

3. We didn’t worry about the economy on 9/11.

4. We have terrorists in this country, too, like the eco-terrorists who target SUVs in California. And Paul Hill, the abortion guy.

5. Why aren’t the California gubernatorial candidates worried about terrorists?

6. Terrorists are bad.

7. So is Gray Davis.

8. Democrats think business is “evil.”

9. Business creates jobs. So it isn’t evil.

10. Democrats might be evil.

11. There’s a simple way to keep taxes down: “Cut costs.”

12. Though California’s artificially created “power crisis” resulted in millions of consumers being ripped off, the power companies who manipulated the market aren’t really to blame.

13. Gray Davis is to blame.

14. Because Gray Davis is bad.

15. Gray Davis runs campaign commercials that don’t even mention his name. Can you imagine that!

16. Anyone who throws an egg at Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn’t have a serious political message.

And on and on we went in a nonsensical Mobius strip sort of way until I had to turn the damned thing off.

Any one of Beck’s points could have been thoroughly refuted by anyone with half a brain who has paid any attention whatsoever to the California situation. There’s no “enlightenment” here.

Or maybe there is. And if there is, I have to wonder about those who are indeed “enlightened” by the likes of this.

Which is not a knock on Beck’s conservatism – necessarily. It is, rather, a knock on the sort of fast-food opinions that you find on your radio dial, occasionally elsewhere as well, that taste great but tend to be devoid of any sort of intellectual nutrients.

Take the line about keeping taxes low by cutting costs. Sounds great. I’m all for it. But which specific costs are we going to cut, hmmm? How many local/state/federal employees are we going to let go, how many agencies are we going to close, can we farm the responsibilities out to other agencies, do the remaining employees have the time and wherewithal to take on the additional responsibilities?

But specifics tend to glaze the eyes of this crowd. Does not compute. Hey, cut costs – that’s all we need to do. Except that it isn’t.

But Beck is nationally syndicated. So I have to think that here or elsewhere, people drive down the road listening to this stuff, nodding their heads. Thinking, He’s got it right.

Maybe there really are people who are “enlightened” by this sort of thing.

Lord help us all if that’s really the case.
posted by Gil Smart at 4.9.03

 
Shock & Awe: New addition to the blogroll over at the left, go check out Shock & Awe by Kynn Bartlett. Bartlett had a piece on "Christianism" a few weeks ago that I commented on here; among other things, he regularly calls right wing Christian zealotry to account, reason enough for him to be linked here - if not also for his pieces on the continuing debacle in Iraq. Go give him some traffic.
posted by Gil Smart at 4.9.03

 
Bring 'em on, indeed: This is a helluva'n idea, though the general consensus on MeFi, where I found it, is that it would never fly, the networks would never agree to air the ads.

But just imagine if they would:

Consider the following scenario: a series of TV ads begin to appear nightly immediately after the Republican convention is over next year. They will be negative ads. They will promote no Democratic candidate. They will therefore not be under the tight restrictions of the Federal Election Commission.

Each ad will begin with a video clip of President Bush's "Bring 'em on!" challenge. Then the screen will shift rapidly to the burned-out remains of a building or a Humvee. Underneath will be these words: a date, a location, and a death count.

Then a black screen with white print will announce: America needs a new policy.

There will be an ID of some kind: "Citizens for a Lasting Peace" or "Mothers to Stop the Bloodshed."

There will be no bodies on screen. There will be only bombed-out buildings and equipment.

Each ad will last no longer than 15 seconds.

There will be a new ad every night – same time, same station.

Every night. Same time, same station.

On three networks. But not Fox.

The Republican National Committee will scream bloody murder. That, of course, is precisely the problem: bloody murder. Every night. Same time, same station.

People will tell pollsters that they don't want to see these ads. But they will watch them in remote-clicking paralysis, no matter what they say to pollsters. If it bleeds, it leads.

Night by night, the message will be repeated: America needs a new policy.

It would be interesting to see how the country would react to such an ad campaign. Because I perceive the public mood to be shifting on the Iraq question. People I know personally who were wholeheartedly for war now sit on the fence, worried that we have frittered away an opportunity by being too unwilling to accept or seek multilateral aid - though that is now changing - by the unraveling of the public rationale for war, by the cost, in terms of both money and human lives.

America needs a new policy. Because America's current policy is not working. Or, as Fareed Zakaria says this week in Newsweek, "It might already be too late to achieve a great success in Iraq. But it is not too late to avoid a humiliating failure."

For the Bush administration. But for the country as a whole, too.
posted by Gil Smart at 3.9.03

 
And more linkage: Tom Tomorrow has a tremendous recent post on the situation in Iraq and how we continue to bark up the wrong Middle Eastern tree.

To wit, Tomorrow cites this Paul Wolfowitz op-ed in the Wall Street Journal under, appropriately enough, the headline "Support the troops": In it, Wolfowitz, who was so wrong on his predictions before the war, continues to get it right after the war (or maybe "during" is a more appropriate word), stating that Iraq is but one battlefield in the war on terror, that a direct line can indeed be drawn from 9/11 to what we are now doing on the ground in Iraq, that there is a clear connection, and, better than that, the troops on the ground know it - so why don't you?

I am simply amazed at the display of delusory hubris. More of the same from Wolfowitz and his neocon colleagues in arms.

But meanwhile, Tomorrow says, as we continue to think that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11, we are completely missing the fact that other nations, indeed, were involved in 9/11 on a far greater scale, have displayed far greater mendacity towards this nation than Iraq had ever done. He cites a piece in the current Time magazine, in which we find no ties to Iraq - but plenty of ties to other sovereign nations:

When questioning stalled, according to Posner, cia men flew Zubaydah to an Afghan complex fitted out as a fake Saudi jail chamber, where "two Arab-Americans, now with Special Forces," pretending to be Saudi inquisitors, used drugs and threats to scare him into more confessions.

Yet when Zubaydah was confronted by the false Saudis, writes Posner, "his reaction was not fear, but utter relief." Happy to see them, he reeled off telephone numbers for a senior member of the royal family who would, said Zubaydah, "tell you what to do." The man at the other end would be Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, a Westernized nephew of King Fahd's and a publisher better known as a racehorse owner. His horse War Emblem won the Kentucky Derby in 2002. To the amazement of the U.S., the numbers proved valid. When the fake inquisitors accused Zubaydah of lying, he responded with a 10-minute monologue laying out the Saudi-Pakistani-bin Laden triangle.

And the piece - and, ultimately, Gerald Posner's new book "Why America Slept," goes on to name names - none of which are Iraqi.

So why are we in Iraq? Because Iraq was the most convenient starting point, not the endgame but merely the first move of the pawn in what Wolfowitz and his neocon colleagues see as a lengthy and costly tournament in which those who were actually culpable for 9/11 may, eventually, be confronted - if not militarily, then by the specter of what Wolfowitz calls "an example to all in the Muslim world who desire freedom, pointing a way out of the hopelessness that the extremists feed on."

That sounds grand, idealistic. But at this point, I'm inclined not to trust Mr. Wolfowitz. Check out this post from Josh Marshall for a clue as to why.

Mendacity and hubristic idealism do not sound foreign policy make. But so long as the likes of Mr. Wolfowitz are calling the shots, that's about all we've got to work with.
posted by Gil Smart at 3.9.03

 
Cuts like a... mandolin slicer: And so in helping the wife last night slice zucchini chips (don't ask), both she and I managed to slice ourselves. Band-Aid over the pinky finger makes it damned hard to type, but still we plow ahead, showing the doggedness that all have come to expect from this feature....

And the letters we get: Ah, well, you knew it was going to come. More monkey mail from the literalist crowd. In this business, when you get postcards with scribbling on both sides, you know, first, that the correspondent is old, and two, exactly what they are going to say.

So it is with both of today's missives, neither of which was signed. You have to love someone who feels compelled to stand up for religion, as long as he or she can remain anonymous.

The first guy (I'm assuming it's a guy) simply photocopied Bible verses and pasted them to the card, underlining certain parts. I'm converted!

The other letter was a real winner:

Aren't you proud of yourself - all the letters you got from gays supporting your "liberal" views about perversion. Now they're going to move here from NYC and pollute Lancaster more than it already is.

Got that? Gays are "polluting" Lancaster. Because, you know, Lancaster would be pure as Ivory soap without them. Or not.

I think they all should move to your neighborhood and start their own churches and their own schools. Then your little boy could attend and watch their parades.

Again with the parades. I don't know what it is, but your average gay-hating, Bible-thumping literalist seems to spend a lot of time worrying about gay parades. Are they going to these parades or something? Been refused a spot in one?

Honestly, I don't think I'd want to go watch a gay pride parade, either. But neither would I want to go to a snake-handling religious service. Frankly, I don't sit around worrying about either case. And neither should you.

By the way, does your wife have the same attitude as you do? I hope not, for the sake of your son.

Ah, yes, for it would be a horrendous thing should my child grow up in a home where we teach him to love his neighbor, where we tell him that the dignity of all people should be respected, that all men and women are created equal. Better I should take a page from my correspondent's book and tell the kid that it is his duty to hate those who are different, who "pollute" the landscape by daring to exist and not toe the literalist line.

That there are parents out there who teach their kids this, I have no doubt. You know what? It's wrong.

And that the haters should insinuate that I'm a bad parent for teaching my kid tolerance, let me be even more specific. They are bad parents for teaching their children to ostracize. They are bad parents for picking and choosing their spiritual lessons to back up their spiteful predjudices.

I cannot tell you how many people, over the past few weeks, wrote in and advised me to look at Leviticus 18:22. Leviticus 18:22 indeed speaks of the wickedness of homosexuality. But Leviticus elsewhere speaks of the wickedness of many things that your average bile-spewing, anonymous correspondent doesn't much worry about.

There's a pretty well-known piece circulating on the Internet on this, written to Dr. Laura Schlesinger after the radio host condemned homosexuality using Leviticus 18:22. In great smart-aleck style, the writer wonders about a number of Biblical mandates:

Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend
of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?

Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die? ...

My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? - Lev.24:10-16. Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev.20:14)

Mocking? Yes, it's mocking. And it makes an absolutely valid point: To demand that a literal interpretation of but one aspect of Mosaic Law be adopted as our civil motivation is to permit predjudice to triumph over common sense.

Let's not do that, OK? Let us say that religious faith will have an impact on policy, should have an impact on policy. But this nation is not a theocracy. Neither should it be the type of nation where dogmatists who back their assertions with Scripture taken out of context are mistaken for honest patriots, rathern than being seen for what they are, and ultimately, what they represent: unsigned missives filled with bile and idiocy, betraying a viciousness that, were it to gain political ascendency, might make the Taliban proud.
posted by Gil Smart at 3.9.03

 
Return of the blogging native: Hey, Andrew Sullivan's back, and with a dead-on piece about how the war in Iraq has gone horribly wrong - and this, from a conservative who very much supported that war.

Sullivan is one of my favorite bloggers, though I disagree entirely with him much of the time. He writes well, is (relatively) intellectually honest, eloquent, and backs his opinions with solid, if partisan, reasoning. At times he practically gets me screaming at what I've read. But I keep coming back. If only to see how wrong he's gotten it this time around.
posted by Gil Smart at 2.9.03

 
Long weekend: ... and the countdown to one of the most desperately needed vacations in years begins.

Highlight was the road trip with an old bud from Pittsburgh to Cleveland - a city which, for all the years I lived in Pittsburgh, I managed never to visit - to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Which was definitely worth the time and money - though I couldn't believe how little there was on the Beatles, arguably the most important band in the history of rock and roll itself. There was twice as much on display for Jim Morrison as there was for the Fab Four. Perhaps because collectors won't part with the stuff, but still. Kind of disappointing in that respect.

But for a person (me) who likes to pride himself on being something of an amateur rock historian, there was much to drink in, from the footage of bands like the Byrds performing, footage which I didn't know existed, to the actual outfits worn on stage, to the actual guitars and drums used. Fascinating stuff. And that's not to even mention the I.M. Pei-designed building, worth the trip to get a gander at that alone.

My old bud and I partied in the hotel bar until 2 a.m., something neither of us had done in years. And don't want to do, again, for many more years. There was a bachelorette party in the same bar. Someone left a phone number on our table. We didn't call it. We're both old and married with toddlers. We don't do things like call anonymous numbers anymore. Or hang out in bars until 2 a.m.

Luckily, I remembered to bring much aspirin.

And before and after the trip, much time was spent with the in-laws, including of course the armed father-in-law. Who isn't, specifically, trying to drive me crazy, though he just might.

Best - or worst - of all, is the fact that next week, on vacation, our in-laws will be there for most of the week. Meaning an entire week of listening to my father-in-law hint that if he were me, he'd cut down that big oak tree out front. Or that if he were me, he wouldn't park the car where I just parked it, because that big blue van there looks like it might have been used to transport kids, and who knows what they might do to our vehicle.

A whole week. I can't wait.

I don't suppose I have much choice.
posted by Gil Smart at 2.9.03

 
Hey all, blogging is going to be light to non-existent for the next few weeks for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that I'm away this weekend - fantasy football draft with the old fraternity chums in Pittsburgh - then back for a week, then gone for a week of desperately needed vacation. Chicoteague, Va., with wife and child - and, for a portion of the week, the in-laws. Including the armed father-in-law.

Meaning by the time I get back from one vacation, I'll be in need of another.
posted by Gil Smart at 29.8.03