Well, maybe not Phnom Penh. Maybe Orange County. But the Instapundit and I were just on Hugh Hewitt's Show discussing the escalating Cambodiagate Scandal. How deep a hole is Kerry in here? Well, it may depend on what your definition of "near" is. The Kerry Campaign, in apparent disarray when confronted by Carl Cameron of Fox News, insisted that Kerry only said he was "near" Cambodia, despite numerous instances to the contrary, including this record of a Senate speech, in which the geographicaly-challenged Senator stated he was in Cambodia on Christmas of 1968. The Kerry Campaign, unable to deal with their candidates own "statements," told Cameron they would be back later with an update.
It's hard to believe the Kerry Campaign was so clueless not to have a response to an accusation made in a book that has been hovering around number one on Amazon for the last week. [Maybe no one's figured out a good lie yet.--ed. May-bee.]
Hugh wanted to know if Glenn and I thought the mainstream media (other than Fox) were going to deal with this story thoroughly. We both thought it would take a few days for them to get their fingers out of their ears, but that they had little choice. As Glenn pointed out, the mainstream media ignore stories like this at their peril. They may benefit (or think they benefit) in the short run, but in the long run, it is another chink in their "armor of trustworthiness" if they don't cover it.
UPDATE: Another point Glenn mentioned was that Kerry spoke in the Senate about being fired on by the Cambodian Khmer Rouge that Christmas of '68. Reynolds wondered aloud if the Khmer were even in existence then. I wondered quietly, not wanting to get trapped on a history question. Well, according to this article at least, the Khmer Rouge n'existait pas until 1970. Maybe they were firing on Kerry through a time machine.
MORE: Some of Glenn's readers have interesting info on the Khmer Rouge as well. One says they existed in 1968 but weren't active as a fighting force until 1970. A ver, as we say in Spanish.
Despite John Kerry having brought this on himself by making his four months of Vietnam service in the sixties the centerpiece of his campaign for president in 2004, so far it seems only bloggers and the usual right-wing mainstream media suspects are carrying water in the Swift Boats vets campaign to unmask Kerry. But I predict this will soon be changing because the accusations are too important and too well documented. Some are already doing it.
Many of the accusations seem to center around Kerry's medals. His commander, Grant Hibbard, is quoted as saying: ''I didn't recommend him for a Purple Heart. Kerry probably wrote up the paperwork and recommended himself.'' Well, if true, that's pathetic and makes Kerry something of creep. But he's not the first creep to be elected President, alas, and much as it, well, "creeps me out," I'd give him a (rolling eyes) pass and move on.
But I won't move on from his lying about Cambodia (on the Senate floor and elsewhere). If true, that is an impeachable offense in advance.
Now them's fighting words, so I'm going to take a moment to explain myself. Some have accused me of going to the right, but that is only true in a limited area (and that depends on your definition.) I support Bush for reelection because of the War on Terror. I oppose him on gay marriage (I'm considerably to the "left" of Kerry on that issue; he recently even backed the Missouri amendment!). I support a woman's right to choose. I think the War on Drugs is a ridiculous mistake and support the legalization of marijuana (although I don't lose any sleep over the issue). So am I some kind of right winger anxious to nail a "liberal" candidate? Well, it is so if you think so.
But let's move on to the impeachment issue. I thought the attempt to impeach Clinton was a partisan charade. Even though the man was highly insulting to the public and hugely disprespectful to the people who voted for him (like me), not to mention his family, all he did was lie about a private matter, if under oath. For me that is not enough to overthrow an election, because it has nothing to do with state policy.
What John Kerry allegedly said on the floor of the US Senate in 1986 (not that long ago, actually)had everything to do with state policy. He was using his own supposed experiences in Cambodia to advance a political agenda that would have changed the position of our government in a life or death situation of immense importance (Nicaragua). Only according to what I've read so far, Kerry was never in Cambodia.
I am astounded that much of the mainstream media, even the conservative media, is choosing to ignore this. Kerry should be dogged by questions at every campaign stop. "Were you ever in Cambodia?" "If you weren't, why did you lie to us about that?" "Will you lie to us about such things in the future?"
Enough.
UPDATE: To be clear, when I say "impeachable offense," I am not talking in the strictest legal sense. I realize many have lied on the Senate floor (sigh). But in the case of a lie like this, I believe it rises to the level of someone who should never be allowed to become President -- hence the idea of impeachment (perhaps a tad too metaphorical, but I am a novelist). I didn't mean this post to devolve into impeachment legalisms.
The Politicianus Hackus Americanus can be pretty amusing during a normal electoral season - only this isn't a normal electoral season. We are at war. So when Sen. Charles Schumer said he was "troubled" by the decision to indentify putatitve Al Qaeda computer whiz Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, I was more than a little "troubled" with the Senator.
Schumer knew perfectly well what was going on and was obviously whoring around to exploit it. [I thought they cleaned up Times Square.-ed. Not enough.] But let's review. Several days ago the administration announced a serious terror alert revolving around financial institutions in NY and NJ. Momentarily, some "great progressive" (probably an embittered intell agent) tells some "Sons of Liebling" at the NYT and elsewhere that this is all based on three or even four-year-old intelligence. Never mind that most part time viewers of cable television know that most such terror actions are years in the making, the Sons of Liebling rushed to their word processors in an obvious attempt to take down the administration for ginning up terror alerts during an election. It worked. Running scared, the administration leaked a corrective that was perhaps more than the presserati anticipated. An important informanant was outed early. How early we don't know. Smart? Probably not, but certainly understandable the way the game was being played.
Now Schumer knows all this, but persists in continuing the game nevertheless. What does a man like this tell himself when he goes to sleep? I can tell you what I would tell him. There's a perfect Yiddish word for my landsman -- schande (shame).
Jay Rosen has a fascinating post on the recent Unity Convention of minority journalists, which had a record turn-out of over seven thousand: "The Crowd's Reaction Made Some Unity Delegates Uncomfortable." A high degree of "group think" was apparently in evidence (as it is almost everywhere), but his last example caught me up short:
Group think in journalism education takes no notice of the fact that in most J-schools--including NYU--women are 70 to 80 of the class. Courses are routinely taught with one man or none. That's pretty unrepresentative. Is it a problem? No, not a problem. When the newsroom is unrepresentative-- that's a problem.
If I'm not mistaken, the stats on law and medical schools are not wildly dissimilar. Get ready. This is a social change much more far reaching than anything to do with skin color.
Francis Turner, an Englishman who lives on the Cote d'Azur and blogs under the rubric L'Ombre de l'Olivier [Don't be jealous.-ed. Moi?], shares the same concerns I do over MSM reportage of the recent terror alerts. He cites articles from MSNBC and the always "impartial" Reuters that lend credence to the idea that MSM (mostly New York Times in this case) drumming on the administration about "politicized" terror alerts forced the administration to reveal the true nature of their information early -thus compromising possible further intelligence.
Makes sense to me. It certainly goes with the MSM narrative -- homicidal Islamists bad, Bush worse. Am I being extreme in this analysis? Well, as Nixon said, watch what I do, not what I say. And virtually every decision these people at the MSM make seems to follow that principle. Take a look at the lead graph of this morning's top-of-the-fold NYT article Diplomacy Fails to Slow Advance of Nuclear Arms.
American intelligence officials and outside nuclear experts have concluded that the Bush administration's diplomatic efforts with European and Asian allies have barely slowed the nuclear weapons programs in Iran and North Korea over the past year, and that both have made significant progress.
In a tacit acknowledgment that the diplomatic initiatives with European and Asian allies have failed to curtail the programs, senior administration and intelligence officials say they are seeking ways to step up unspecified covert actions intended, in the words of one official, "to disrupt or delay as long as we can" Iran's efforts to develop a nuclear weapon.
This makes it sound as if the Bush Administration has failed. Yet those have been following the situation in Iran know it is far more complex and that the Europeans frequently obstruct administration efforts to isolate the mullahs diplomatically. This, however, does not fit with the Times' narrative in which more consultation with our European allies is seen as "progressive," even if the Europeans (alas the British, too, in this case) arguably have been bought and paid for by the mullahs with decades of cheap oil. This is not to say the Bush Administration has done everything it should on Iran. But in a certain way I think they have been boxed in by the same MSM that was so eager to say "gotcha" over last week's terror alert.
Capitano or "The Braggart Soldier" is one of the stock figures of ridicule in commedia dell 'arte. (I had to memorize them, alas, when John Kerry and I were at Yale.) Actually this figure goes back to Roman times, as does much of commedia, to Plautus and "the swaggering soldier." So there is nothing particularly new about Kerry in the history of military braggadocio, but it is unique, I imagine, that such a man is running for President of the United States. Do I exaggerate? Well, you decide. Apparently, Mr. Kerry did tell the US Senate he had fought in Cambodia, after all:
Mr. President, I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the President of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia.
I have that memory which is seared-seared-in me, that says to me, before we send another generation into harm's way we have a responsibility in the U.S. Senate to go the last step, to make the best effort possible in order to avoid that kind of conflict.
Seared into you, Capitano? Let's hope you weren't tooting your own horn a bit...
UPDATE: Well, apparently you were, Capitano mio, at least according to this footnoted excerpt from a letter from the Swift Boat veteran's attorneys. It was sent to the Station Managers at television stations that had previously received the letter from Kerry forces threatening to sue the stations if they ran their anti-Kerry ad:
C. Christmas In Cambodia
The story is a total preposterous fabrication by Kerry. Exhibit 8 is an affidavit by the Commander of the Swift boats in Vietnam, Admiral Roy Hoffmann, stating that Kerry's claim to be in Cambodia for Christmas Eve and Christmas of 1968 is a total lie. If necessary, similar affidavits are available from the entire chain of command. In reality, Kerry was at Sa Dec -- easily locatable on any map more than fifty miles from Cambodia. Kerry himself inadvertently admits that he was in Sa Dec for Christmas Eve and Christmas and not in Cambodia, as he had stated for so many years on the Senate Floor, in the newspapers, and elsewhere. Exhibit 27, Tour, pp. 213-219. Sa Dec is hardly "close" to the Cambodian border. In reality, far from being ordered secretly to Cambodia, Kerry spent a pleasant night at Sa Dec with "visions of sugar plums" dancing in his head. Exhibit 27, p. 219. At Sa Dec where the Swift boat patrol area ended, there were many miles of other boats (PBR's) leading to the Cambodian border. There were also gunboats on the border to prevent any crossing. If Kerry tried to get through, he would have been arrested. Obviously, Kerry has hardly been honest about his service in Vietnam.
I have never been much for proselytizing, whether by Scientology or Amway. The cult-like quality of this behavior is all too evident, if sometimes comic. But this morning it wasn't so funny when I read on LGF that the US Navy sailor whose email turned up on the computer of a terrorist in Britain told his British compatriot he wanted to "keep up the dawah."
What is dawa? For those who don't know, it's proselytizing for Islam, "an obligatory duty (fard) for Muslims." This is the kind of obligatory duty, of course, that encourages a fanatic to write email to homicidal lunatics with the locations and counter-terror strategies of naval vessels (or anything else, for that matter... like where you go to work). I am tired of the War on Terror euphemism. This is mind-cult enemy which must named. This is a War on Islamofascism. You wouldn't fight AIDS by calling it a War on Sickness.
UPDATE: Belmont Club has a characteristically brilliant post in which he posits the possibility that we may be closer to winning this war (whatever we call it) than we think, then jumps ahead to what this all might mean. The Sam Harris book linked below is mentioned. (BTW, Wretchard's theory seems contingent on the premise that Al Qaeda in and of itself is the enemy. I think that may be too limiting.)
...has become one of those indispensable resources I turn to every day to monitor the developing struggle between the mainstream media and the blogosphere on the Swift Boat veterans and related matters. Let's call it the "honesty in campaigning issue," if such a thing were remotely possible. Tom is a more assiduous fact-checker than I (too much fiction/screenwriter in me)and I rely on him for a more thorough approach. He deals with Le Mystère de la Cambodge, recently discussed on this blog, here and with the Kranish Perplex here.
In his discussion of Michael Kranish, the Boston Globe journo in various "blogosights" yesterday for distorting the non-retraction retraction of Swift Boat Captain George Elliott, we see Maguire at his best, first attacking Kranish full bore, accusing the reporter of that greatest of journalistic sins, the Dowd-like use of ellipses, and then pulling back slightly as the blogger learns more. This is what blogs do well, refining their thoughts for accuracy as the story clarifies. Newspapers, lumbering vehicles that they are, cannot do that. But that does not exonerate Kranish from an explanation for his distortions. The public deserves it. His honor requires it. This is a serious matter.
UPDATE: Do not miss the personal observations of Texas attorney William "Beldar" Dyer on this matter. Although I assume most have seen the link on Instapundit, I'll add my praise to this other first-rate blog.
MORE: The Globe bangs its shoe here. Of course, what is missing is a reprint of the affadavit itself, letting us here in the "unwashed" decide for ourselves. Newspapers, especially the NYT, used to do that with some frequency, as I recall. No longer. That is why I prefer CSPAN to all cable networks. [Aren't you the impartial one?--ed. Who asked you?]
When military action heats up in Iraq, I turn to the Iraqi bloggers and Zeyad of Healing Iraq is certainly among the best. From Zeyad's perspective, the current US military action against Sadr was planned. He adds this interesting tid-bit:
One also can't help but wonder about the timing of [Ayatollah] Sistani's departure from Najaf to London for treatment. The man is known for his subtle messages, could this be a sign for his tacit approval to finish Sadr and his militia once and for all? The remaining Hawza clerics are highly unlikely to issue a collective statement in the absense of Sistani, even more so when they have been threatened and attacked by Sadr's supporters on many occasions. An aide of Sadr mentioned today on Al-Jazeera that Sistani was forced to leave Najaf and that the medical report of his ischemic heart condition was forged.
UPDATE: This BBC report offers curious support to Zeyad's theory: "The ayatollah suffered a health crisis related to his heart a few days ago," his spokesman in Beirut, Sheikh Hamed Khafaf, told the Associated Press news agency.
"A team of specialist doctors are treating him and providing care," he said of the ayatollah, who is the prime marja, or spiritual reference, for Shias.
He added that although the ayatollah needed special treatment, he was not in a serious condition.
UPDATE: Read this disturbing comparison between the MSM and Iraq Blogs re: recent events in that country.
I read with interest, as I always do with Christopher Hitchens, the journalist's latest thumb-sucker: Safe Cracking - The Silliness of Security Alerts. Much of it makes sense, but his conclusion is problematic:
The only assurance that one can decently demand of the administration and of Congress is the assurance that we are actually at war and that all measures are being taken to achieve victory. To couple this with the demand for personal safety is surely to be self-evidently absurd, not to say pathetic. Just as you don't have to go to Afghanistan or Iraq to be in danger from Islamist bombs and bullets, so you don't have to go there in order to demonstrate a little fortitude. "Safe sex" may now be a platitude, but "safe war" would be the silliest oxymoron of the whole lot.
I want to agree with the first part, but how indeed is the public to understand that we are at war if there are no terror alerts from the administration? From the Congress, the talking heads...? Let's be serious. That ain't gonna happen. If it is not brought home to the populace in a relatively graphic, even though extremely imperfect, manner, they will soon forget - if they haven't already. [Until the next attack.-ed. Yup.]
Hitchens glosses over another point when he writes: But what possible good can it do, on the receipt of such "specific information," to put armed men on the streets and in the subways? Assuming as we must that such high-profile attacks would be conducted by suicide-killers, in what respect do more "visible" measures make any difference, except to alert the potential perpetrators?
But what if that is the very point? What if the idea is to warn the Islamists that we are watching those specific sites and to stay away, even with their "suicide killers"? This would disrupt their plans, at least for the moment, and leave them open to counter-attack, I would think. Of course I write with no personal knowledge of what the intention here was, nor does Hitchens. That's the problem when commenting on intelligence matters - you just don't know what really happened. And I must say in Hitchens' defense, I have rarely seen him rely on unnamed intelligence sources whose need to have their axes ground seems endless. Read it all, of course.
A couple of days ago I wrote that I had become inured to synanogue bombings. I lied. Even though I am not religious, they still make me sick. People who do that are trying to kill my family and friends for no reason other than their religion or ethnicity. And now, this sickness is not far away, just up the five freeway in that haven of tolerance San Francisco. In case you haven't heard, some demented racists have been painting swastikas all over the campaign posters of man named Heller running for office up there. Here's a video report.
I can't say I'm surprised. The Bay Area, which we associate with so many freedoms, has been overwhelmed by a cultural relativist orthodoxy, which allows Berkeley professors to teach "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" as if it were fact. Such things had consequence in the past and they still do. And they have been going on for a while. This particular article by Berkeley student Daniel Frankenstein caused something of a stir a year or so ago. Let's hope the latest desecration in the Board of Supervisor campaign will be a wakeup call. It's certainly needed.
UPDATE: Meanwhile in New Zealand, police have revised upwards their estimates of recent Jewish grave desecrations at a Wellington cemeter. What is it about these "progressive" bastions? (hat tip: Boker Tov, Boulder!)
I just finished reading the sample chapter from the current No. 1 hit on Amazon. I also read the transcript of the interchange between Judy Woodruff, Jim Rassman and Larry Thurlow linked by Instapundit. And of course I saw the now infamous ad.
The chapter, not surprisingly, is the most detailed and undoubtedly the most important substantively. (The CNN interchange was on the usual banal he said/she said level one gets on cable.) In our lives we have seen a lot of political nastiness from both sides of the aisle, most of it repellent and brainless. But this is different. The chapter touches on a great number of matters. A whole series of events revolving around Kerry's purple hearts and medals are reported upon. I have no idea how many of them are true--or if any of them are--but even a small percentage being accurate would constitute a damaging, if not devastating, portrait of the candidate and the man.
For some reason, among the many stories, a subchapter entitled "Christmas in 'Cambodia' - Vietnam, December 1968" struck a special chord with me. Apparently, on the floor of the US Senate in 1986, Kerry asserted he was ordered into Cambodia in Christmas 1968. As he later told the Boston Herald, "I remember spending Christmas of 1968 five miles across the Cambodian border being shot by our South Vietnamese allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas. The absurdity of almost being killed by our own allies in a country which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops was very real."
Never mind that Nixon was not yet president at Christmas of 1968, a whole slew of people, quoted in the chapter say it was impossible for Kerry to have been within fifty miles of Cambodia. They also say where he was and what he did. (It wasn't pretty.) Are they lying? Well, consider this. Despite having been repeated by Kerry many times over the years, this story (according to the chapter) is curiously absent from the Senator's recent laudatory campaign bio Tour of Duty. Why, if it was so important to him, so meaningful?
Now why do I find this kind of petty prevarication so disturbing? Well, I don't like the idea of having a man who sounds like a pathetic barroom blowhard (and that's what he sounds like to me) becoming President of the United States in a time of war. People like this start to believe their own lies. Maybe the greater good of Kerry's "policies" outweighs this for some people. They'll have to explain that to me. But they'll also have to explain all the rest of this book... in detail.
UPDATE: A retraction has come in from one of the Swift Boat veterans. More of these will be good news for Kerry on this matter. I will now shut my mouth about this as I intended to do earlier and wait and see. On to contemporary matters.
OOPS: Now that same veteran, Elliot, is saying the Boston Globe got it wrong. Where is this all headed and will the Mainstream Media report it fully? Time will tell.
MEANWHILE: Hugh Hewitt has more on the mysterious incursion into Cambodia.
A new book (August) by Sam Harris -- THE END OF FAITH -- has been called to my attention as something that might interest the readers of this blog.
It certainly interested me. Neuroscientist Harris has written a challenging book on a subject that must be discussed and confronted. Are we in the midst of a great conflict between reason and religious faith? Though Harris sees obvious distinctions among religions - noting that today we confront Muslim, not Jain, terrorists - it is all religious orthodoxy that is in his crosshairs as the enemy of progress.
Now this is a huge subject and I am not posting this to get into a protracted discussion of it on here. And Harris' book is distinctly a young man's work, given to the extremes of youth. [Doesn't everybody do their best work when they're young?--ed. Oh, shut up.] But those are necessary extremes for us all to confront at this time. I commend the book to you.
On the surface, the Presidential Campaign is shaping up as a battle between two Ivy League Dullards (as one who went to Dartmouth and Yale, I can promise you I've run into more than a few). An Ivy education is no guarantee of intellectual prowess, especially when you get into the lower end of the class rankings. We have long heard this about Bush, the ne'er-do-well son who had some problem getting into law school and ended up at Harvard Business. But now Kerry is being questioned. Boston College Law School, currently ranked twenty-nine on the US News scale (yes, I know its shortcomings), is quite a comedown from number one ranked Yale Law (attended, with distinction, by Bill and Hill). Several explanations come to mind for this relative academic decline (one of them unlikely to be a "economic need to go to night school"), but we will have to wait for the candidate (or his proxies) to tell us. But never mind. Kerry may not be the next Walter Russell Mead when it comes to scholarship, but he is a war hero, right?
Well... the news on that this morning is not good. If even a quarter of what is alleged is true, the war that Kerry was a hero in was his own version of "Apocalypse Now" and he seems to have been playing the Robert Duvall role. Since he has raised the subject... again and again... we now need a full airing, alas -- something that is going to be boring, partisan and terrible for the country.
UPDATE: I notice John McCain is condemning the ad by Kerry's former Naval colleagues (and the book, I would imagine) as dredging up the divisive subject of Vietnam. I would agree with him, had not Kerry "reported for duty" at the convention. But he did.
MORE: The Kerry Campaign is threatening to sue stations broadcasting the "libelous" ad. We shall see.
I Take It Back [Is that a first?-ed. You know it's not.]
Earlier today, just two posts down, I said I wasn't much concerned by John Kerry's behavior over thirty years ago. But it seems that a lot of people who were there feel differently. In fact, as of now, only one of the twenty odd of his co-swift boat pilots are backing him up.
This reminds me of a story that Ned Tanen, Universal's head of production in the eighties, used to tell the writers and directors on the lot then when they were having problems with their movies: If one person says you're drunk, ignore him. If six people say you're drunk, sit down. I don't think Kerry is going to sit down, but maybe he should. And as Instapundit notes, the candidate asked for it by making his supposed heroism in the Vietnam War, of all things, the centerpiece of his presidential campaign in 2004. As most know, I was never supporting Kerry. After viewing this ad... and normally I find ads pointless... I'm not about to reconsider. He better have a good answer to these allegations, other than the ad being paid for by Bush People, because that dog don't hunt. We need the truth.
(Warning: the ad linked under "feeling differently" is quite popular at the moment. When you finally see it, you'll know why.)
I was reminded today of the old saw (is it Mencken?) "When they say it's not about the money, it's about the money" when I read this report from ABC News: Bryant Alleged Victim's Lawyers Speak Out. Apparently Kobe's accuser may now not testify for the prosecution because of all the leaks, which, as we know, are not entirely flattering to her behavior. Still, despite a welter of apparent DNA evidence to the contrary, her attorneys, Mssrs. Clune and Wood, continue to insist the young lady did not have sex with a third party between her encounter with Bryant and her reporting the alleged rape to the police. Instead they are banging the drum for victims' rights. [Do you think they really care?--ed. Come on.]
"The net effect is to say they've literally rewritten the law of rape," Wood said. "To say that 'Unless you're a virgin, keep it to yourself. Don't come forward, deal with it yourself.' ...That's not the right message to send to women around this country and to other young girls who might find themselves victims of rape, particularly date rape and acquaintance rape."
Methinks the legal gentleman doth protest too much (it's his job, after all). The real culprit here regarding victims' rights is Mark Hurlbert, the boneheaded and ambitious DA of Eagle, CO who never should have brought the case in the first place. But no matter. From here on in, it's going to be about money -- how much can be extracted in a civil suit or by the threat thereof from Kobe Bean Bryant. I'm not betting on a lot, but those lawyers are going to try their best.
Double full disclosure: Pauline Kael once called me a "well known author of pop drivel" and the writer of the article I am about to link is an old friend who said kind words about me in a book of his about American Jews (now, alas, out of print). [How're you gonna prove it then?--ed. My good name, sir. Uh-huh.]
...still... I think Zev Chafets makes solid points in the NY Daily News today, while doing something I wouldn't have the guts to do at the moment -- predicting a Bush victory. The President, after all, seems to have ninety percent of the media against him. Yet Kerry is an odd choice in today's world. As a Democrat, I would have voted for Lieberman and even considered Edwards, but there is practically no chance... barring some strange revelation... that I would vote for Kerry. And it is not because of the allegations in the new book detailed by Drudge, disturbing as they may be if true. Ultimately, I don't care what a man did thirtysome years ago. I have to allow him to grow and change, if I am to allow that for myself. I care about where the man is today... and this man seems nowhere.
The MSM outdid itself in reactionary foolishness this morning, the major papers falling over each, competing to dismiss the recent terror alerts because many of the newly-discovered files instigating these warnings were (alas, alack) three years old. Never mind that one of them had been revised in January 2004. Even if it hadn't, these faux-progressives of our isolationist press should hang their heads in shame. They barely make an attempt to do their homework, allowing themselves to be uncritical mouthpieces for every disgruntled intelligence agent with a cellphone. Don't these journalists have children? There's a war going on. What would they do if charged with the nation's security and in receipt of this "hoary" three-year old information? Forget about it? Well, Lawrence Wright, in his latest brilliant New Yorker piece sets them straight:
One of the most sobering pieces of information to come out of the investigation of the March 11th bombings [in Spain] is that the planning for the attacks may have begun nearly a year before 9/11.
So much for three years.
But let's go on to the most fascinating and scary material in Wright's article -- the creation of a virtual ummah for disenfranchised Muslims on the Internet. Just as through the blogosphere every man or woman can now be a pundit, through the Internet a thousand Bin Laden's are blooming, publishing manifestoes and plotting stratagems. Meanwhile, cyberspace has replaced Afghanistan as Al Qaeda's training ground. For some the goal is recapturing Al Andalus (Spain or most of it), for others all of Europe is in their sights. And they are talking to each other about it, all the time, everywhere, even this second at an IP near you. Yikes!
Don't missing reading all of Wright. But don't expect to sleep easily.
UPDATE: Most readers of this blog will not be shocked to learn the NYT is now changing its tune on the terror warning, telling us there was new material. Unfortunately, much of the public still does not read blogs and believes organs like the NYT literally. They have been trained to do so all their lives. And in situations like this the MSM (and blogs too to a lesser scale) become advertent/inadvertent spokespeople for anonymous leakers with highly personal "issues." As the playwright said, "Attention must be paid..."
Pundits from Dick Morris to MK (that's Mickey Kaus, not Member of Knesset) are sucking their political thumbs today about why the new Donkey-in-Chief got no-to-negligible bounce from his convention. The curiously silent Voices of Experience (mainstream media) are ascribing this... when they're talking... to the CW that the electorate is already polarized, but the aforesaid gentlemen aren't buying... as well they shouldn't.
The Mickster sez Kerry did a good enough job for him and opines: If even Kerry's best didn't help him much, what's a Democrat to do? ... Hint: Rhymes with "Titanic."
And "Le Roi of Realpolitik" himself... Morris... says: Voters don't want a lieutenant for president. They want a commander-in-chief.
The heart of the problem seems to have been Kerry's obsession with Vietnam to the exclusion of anything else (after Clinton, Obama, et al had pointed the way back to domestic issues, usually favorable to Democrats). This blog, as some will recall, (warning: back-patting) was not impressed with Kerry's speech or his bland war movie, but Catherine Johnson, writing in the comments here, had what I think is the most original explanation for the "no bounce." As she reiterated to me today in email:
The one thing I haven't seen anywhere, though, and that makes me wish I were a political writer, is the fact that Kerry chose to spend an entire speech associating himself with a military defeat.
Military defeats are horrifically traumatic for countries and peoples, and no one has picked up on this.
I think she's spot on. And on top of this Kerry is confusing the electorate. How are they supposed to react to a man who is endlessly trumpeting his heroism in a war that he thought we never should have fought even before he volunteered for it? No matter how you stand on Vietnam, that's puzzling. And as the linchpin of a presidential campaign in 2004, it's absurd.
"Roger L. Simon is a
gifted writer. I think the most brilliant new writer of private
detective fiction who has emerged in some years. His vision of
Los Angeles--fresh, new, kaleidoscopic--gives up perhaps the best
recent portrait we have had of the great multi-cultured city where
the future is continually being born--halfway between a love-lyric
and an earthquake. The Big Fix, like The Big Sleep, should become
something of a landmark in its field." --Ross Macdonald
"Moses Wine is back with all his wit and
wisdom exposing crime and
the movie industry to the respect it deserves and proving that Roger
Simon is better than ever.”
-- Tony Hillerman
"A terrific read! What a pleasure
to have Moses Wine walking
down these
mean streets again."
-- Sue Grafton, author of Q is for Quarry
"As irresistible as movie popcorn. Moses Wine is the slyest, most entertaining
gumshoe anywhere."
-- Martin Cruz Smith
"Where was Moses when the lights went
out? Up to his schnoz in an anthrax bath--but as might be expected from
Roger Simon, the tawdry Tinseltown toxins
pour like
vintage Wine."
-- Tom Robbins
"Mordantly funny... Simon's satiric humor thrives on absurdity; and once Moses is
in the director's chair, trying to salvage a project that will eventually (by hook and by crook) make it to Sundance,
this sendup of Hollywood greed and bad taste wins the jury prize."
-- Marilyn Stasio, NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
"…realistic and amusing. I read the whole thing in two sittings and enjoyed it very much. He
offers insight into the world of filmmaking that readers will find hilarious."
-- Glenn Reynolds, MSNBC.com
"The initial boos from the left—for whom Wine has been a hero since his first appearance
as the one radical detective in the 1973 The Big Fix—and tentative cheers from the right will have faded by the end of the
book, when both are laughing too hard to care. Moses hasn't changed his political stripes all that much, and the main target
of his creator's satire is one everybody enjoys ridiculing: the motion picture industry."
-- Jon L. Breen, THE WEEKLY STANDARD
"On his first day as head of security for a movie being shot in Prague, Moses
Wine (making believe he's a Variety reporter for reasons too complicated to summarize here) meets the city's Grand Rabbi, who
asks him, 'Perhaps you would like an exclusive interview with the only screenwriter in Eastern Europe who gives kabala
classes to foreigners on a riverboat cruise ship with catered kosher dinners in the style of the Vilna ghetto?' That lovely
snatch of tossed cultural salad sums up the wacky pleasures of Roger L. Simon's eighth book about Wine -- the Berkeley
radical who literally changed the face of mystery fiction in 1978's 'The Big Fix.'"
--Dick Adler, CHICAGO TRIBUNE
"'Director's Cut,' with its footloose plot and its wisecracking lead, is about
as serious as a Marx Brothers movie--which means that Moses Wine gets to do his patriotic bit after all. In the darkest
days, they also serve who make us laugh."
-- Tom Nolan, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
"A particularly relevant plot, then, filled with action and suspense and
set against arresting Czech backgrounds. Recommended."
-- Library Journal
"Simon's savvy Hollywood satire raises troubling questions about our B-grade
domestic preparedness efforts."
-- Booklist
"Director's Cut is a timely thriller, loaded with absorbing insider snippets about
the film industry, humorous jabs at governmental bureaucracy and a general disregard for icons of any sort."
-- Bruce Tierney, BookPage
"Roger L. Simon is a talented writer who can always be counted on to deliver
a chilling thriller."
-- Harriet Klausner, Allreaders.com
"Like a fine wine, Moses just keeps getting better and better. It's one heck of a surreal roller coaster
ride full of the sophisticated satire and wry wit Roger L. Simon is famous for."
-- Anne Barringer, Old Book Barn Gazette
"A quarter of a century after he first appeared in the
now-classic The Big Fix, Moses Wine remains a private investigator par excellence."
-- In Other Words, Mystery
August 09, 2004
Capitano or "The Braggart Soldier" is one of the stock figures of ridicule in commedia dell 'arte. (I had to memorize them, alas, when John Kerry and I were at Yale.) Actually this figure goes back to Roman times, as does much of commedia, to Plautus and "
And it is not because of the allegations in the new book detailed by 
