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By Weldon Berger, on December 31st, 2006
It is naive to attempt to characterize activities a President might authorize as ‘legal’ or ‘illegal’ without reference to the circumstances under which he concludes that the activity is necessary.
– Richard Nixon
Another bloody year draws to a close, which means it’s time to pay tribute to a few of the truly bloody-minded among us. This is by no means a comprehensive list, or one limited to this year; just a few enduring governmental and institutional press examples of cluelessness, cupidity, arrogance, greed and vampirism, beginning with the Vampires in Chief.
The Theory of the Urinary Executive
The formal designation is actually ‘Unitary Executive,’ but the alternate title more accurately conveys the odor and effect of it on our constitution and our increasingly fragile republic. In brief, the theory assumes that when the Founding Fathers repeatedly and emphatically declaimed against the dangers of an unfettered executive branch, they meant precisely the opposite. Hence wiretapping in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and whatever other illegalities we haven’t yet learned of, and hence the tsunami of bill signing statements in which the president makes clear that he regards any Congressional strictures on his actions and those of any government agencies run by political appointees as suggestions rather than imperatives. L’etat, c’est Bush; the law is meant for thee and me, not he.
Continue reading Bigots and Psychos and Killers, O My!
By Weldon Berger, on December 28th, 2006
The best US journalism on this country’s involvement in Iraq, both before and after the invasion, belongs hands down to McClatchy Newspapers. The former Knight Ridder chain was a voice in the wilderness during the runup to the invasion, with its Washington Bureau standouts Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel all too often offering the only non-credulous reporting from any major institutional press outlet — the chain was mentioned by name in the New York Times apologia for that paper’s grotesque Judith Miller-powered efforts — and has consistently provided some of the best reporting from post-invasion Iraq.
Among the chain’s top Iraq reporters is Hannah Allam, who served as Knight Ridder’s Baghdad bureau chief during the first two years of the occupation and consistently operated out ahead of the journalistic curve. She recently returned to the country and, in what has become an awful ritual for returning veteran reporters, has filed a story comparing the last days of her first tour with the first days of her second one, and cataloging the dead among the friends she had made. The story is a must-read effort from someone who has spent much of her working life in the Middle East and whose fine work is made all the more remarkable by the constraints she has faced as a female journalist in a country that has steadily become more dangerous for reporters in general and female ones in particular.
Continue reading Credit due McClatchy for great reporting in dangerous times
By Keifus, on December 27th, 2006
Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys (A)
Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume (B+)
Sean Stewart, The Night Watch (B+)
J. M. Coetzee, Elizabeth Costello (A)
Adam and Eve frolicked free and easy in the garden, knowing God, but not knowing what he knew. “Eat this fruit,” said Eve, “and we’ll be animals no more.” Gilgamesh took Enkidu aside, shaved his shaggy ass down and got him to the temple prostitute. When Enkidu was properly deflowered, Gilgamesh told him, “now you are a civilized man.” It is a tale as old as tales. But the fertile crescent is merely the beginning of civilization. We dropped down from the trees and started chattering at each other well before we settled down in those blocky cities.
Continue reading Gods and Animal Spirits, Man’s Place in the Pantheon: Four Books Reviewed
By Weldon Berger, on December 26th, 2006
A number of people are commenting on the report that the US is considering the establishment of overseas military recruiting stations. Some people may be wondering whence the idea sprang, and whether it’s a good one. The answer to the first question supplies the answer to the second.
The idea was first floated in a February, 2005 Los Angeles Times op-ed column by neoconservative Nostradamus Max Boot. Boot, a dogged proponent of American Empire who regards Rudyard Kipling as the premier foreign policy thinker of the modern age, suggested modeling the new enterprise after the French Foreign Legion — he dubbed it the “Freedom Legion” — in what must surely be the only recorded instance of a neoconservative publicly offering anything remotely resembling praise for that most obstinate of nations.
As you might expect from the source, it’s an unequivocally bad idea on any number of levels, as is the practice of basing one’s Grand Strategy on Kipling.
Continue reading The Triumph of Das Boot: Max Boot Gets His ‘Freedom Legion’
By Weldon Berger, on December 25th, 2006
Everybody knows that moods are infectious. Now, former New York Times science writer Daniel Goleman has explained why. His new book, Social Intelligence, details the neurological processes that help us transmit our moods and other social cues to those around us.
Once believed to be lumps of lonely gray matter cogitating between our ears, our brains turn out to be more like interlooped, Wi-Fi octopi with invisible tentacles slithering in all directions, at every moment, constantly picking up messages we’re not aware of and prompting reactions—including illnesses—in ways never before understood.
Continue reading Don’t worry, be happy, save the world with a viral smile
By Weldon Berger, on December 24th, 2006
President Bush made clear in the wake of the November elections his disappointment that American voters are clueless when he remarked that “I thought when it was all said and done, the American people would understand the importance of taxes and the importance of security.” They didn’t, and it’s none of his concern; he had his “accountability moment” in 2004, he no longer has to answer to voters on his own behalf or his party’s — to the limited extent he ever did — and he won’t.
Why, then, after the president has explicitly said that he doesn’t hold himself accountable to anyone who doesn’t tell him what he wants to hear, does anyone in the pundit industry hold out any hope that he’ll change his policy on Iraq in any meaningful way under any conceivable circumstance?
John Dickerson isn’t the rube I once mistook him for, and he recognizes, if belatedly, that Bush is operating from a parallel universe, but he apparently thinks, or finds it necessary to pretend to think, that Bush is capable of change and that some among the public, 70% of whom favor a complete withdrawal from Iraq within a year and 30% of whom long ago bought a one-way ticket to BushWorld, might be willing “to give him one more chance” if he confesses his sins and does penance in the form of traveling back to the squalid universe most of us live in.
Continue reading Come back, George: All could be forgiven
By Eric Brewer, on December 21st, 2006
Last Friday while listening to the news on the radio I had the pleasure of hearing our president say these words: “History will record that the first major ground battle in the 21st century involving American forces began with a Calvary charge. I guess that’s what you get when you bring together a President from Texas with a Secretary of Defense who actually remembers when America had a Calvary.” . . . → Read More: Send in the Calvary
By Weldon Berger, on December 20th, 2006
For whatever reason, the New York Times has published yet another puerile op-ed column on Iraq. The column, written by Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, proposes that 2007 will be the year we finally learn whether or not the invasion and occupation of Iraq will be proved a success and packages everyone else’s lame notions — with the exception of those who think we should, like, leave — into an exposition that wanders between the spectacularly dull and unintentionally hilarious and is wrapped in a delightfully cheesy graphic.
It’s a good news-bad news scenario in the Brookings collective mind. More children are being immunized, but more children are getting blown up and otherwise traumatized. Unemployment is down almost 40%, but it’s still almost 40%. The number of insurgents is up 500% from November of 2003, but only 20% from November of 2005. Shiite militias boast 1000% more members now than in 2003, but only 250% more than a year ago. There are now 115,000 “technically proficient” Iraqi security forces, up from none in 2003, but 105,000 of them are contributing to the chaos. And so on.
Fortunately there’s potential light at the end of the tunnel, potential hope just around the corner, a potential prize at the bottom of the Crackerjacks box if you can just squinch your fingers past the improvised explosive device. All we need is “some combination of the options now being offered the president by the Iraq Study Group, the Pentagon and others — a large program to create jobs, a surge of perhaps 25,000 more American troops to Iraq to improve security in Baghdad, an ultimatum to Iraqi political leaders that if they fail to achieve consensus on key issues like sharing oil, American support for the operation could very soon decline.” And if that doesn’t work, we’ll just have to divvy up the country into sectarian and ethnic enclaves and “help people move to where they feel safer within [it].”
Continue reading Some people look at Iraq and see a giant Crackerjacks box
By Weldon Berger, on December 16th, 2006
From the pages of Time Magazine comes a Christmas tale of anarchy, death and destruction leavened with a dose of Frank P. Church. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, or at least a confederation of elves prepared to stand in for him, or if not exactly a confederation and not exactly prepared (and not exactly elves), at least potentially so (excepting the elves).
A few months back Time hired Real Clear Politics blogger Tom Bevan on the theory that the magazine’s readers were clamoring for a right-of-center voice to balance the liberal rantings of Andrew Sullivan. The sharp-eyed Bevan spotted a column by retired Colonel Ken Allard in the San Antonio Express-News citing a press briefing by the outgoing commander of US troops in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli. We’ll call this connection Tinkers to Evers to Chance, but you can substitute “Not A Freakin’ Prayer” for “Chance” if you like.
What got Bevan’s attention was Allard’s praise for Chiarelli, whom Allard calls a military genius (he quotes Swift to back him up). What Chiarelli said that Allard found so revelatory is that Iraq needs not more US troops but the integration of civil and military efforts from the US, aimed at providing reconstruction aid and rebuilding civil and social institutions along with providing security, and a willingness from Iraqis to set aside their religious and partisan disputes. Not 130,000 more troops, in Chiarelli’s view, but 130,000 more jobs. Which is smart thinking, because we don’t have 130,000 more troops; might as well go with the jobs.
Continue reading The sport of extreme optimism, or how we can win in Iraq
By Ghassan, on December 15th, 2006
From the Israeli perspective, the situation is dire. Sharon must have seen the writings on his wall and perhaps the vision finally felled the big man: the polyglot Zionist vision that found a reality in Israel is unsustainable in its present form and function. Something has to give, but all options appear to be open, including accelerating the pace of the creeping genocide in Palestine. Or perhaps Iran truly represents the next step from Iraq. . . . → Read More: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not Adolph Hitler
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Word of the Decade Ignoranus: An ignorant asshole.
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Bigots and Psychos and Killers, O My!
It is naive to attempt to characterize activities a President might authorize as ‘legal’ or ‘illegal’ without reference to the circumstances under which he concludes that the activity is necessary.
– Richard Nixon
Another bloody year draws to a close, which means it’s time to pay tribute to a few of the truly bloody-minded among us. This is by no means a comprehensive list, or one limited to this year; just a few enduring governmental and institutional press examples of cluelessness, cupidity, arrogance, greed and vampirism, beginning with the Vampires in Chief.
The formal designation is actually ‘Unitary Executive,’ but the alternate title more accurately conveys the odor and effect of it on our constitution and our increasingly fragile republic. In brief, the theory assumes that when the Founding Fathers repeatedly and emphatically declaimed against the dangers of an unfettered executive branch, they meant precisely the opposite. Hence wiretapping in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and whatever other illegalities we haven’t yet learned of, and hence the tsunami of bill signing statements in which the president makes clear that he regards any Congressional strictures on his actions and those of any government agencies run by political appointees as suggestions rather than imperatives. L’etat, c’est Bush; the law is meant for thee and me, not he.
Continue reading Bigots and Psychos and Killers, O My!