Sarasota principle defends Bush from "Fahrenheit 9/11" portrayal

NaplesNews.com Article

"Michael Moore's film "Fahrenheit 9/11" criticizes President Bush for listening to Sarasota second-graders read a story for nearly seven minutes after learning the nation was under attack on Sept. 11, 2001.

But Gwendolyn Tose'-Rigell, the principal at Emma E. Booker Elementary School, says Bush handled himself properly.

"I don't think anyone could have handled it better," Tose'-Rigell told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune in a story published Wednesday. "What would it have served if he had jumped out of his chair and ran out of the room?"

"If Bush is another Hitler, what words are left to describe Hitler?"

In today's Wall Street Journal online edition, Bret Stephens asks a question that, were this world (or at least its' media) sane, wouldn't even need to be asked. Yet it does, and should be shouted from the proverbial rooftop. In case you are unable to access it, I have reprinted it in its' entirety below.

Just Like Stalingrad:
If Bush is another Hitler, what words are left to describe Hitler?

According to Sidney Blumenthal, a onetime adviser to president Bill Clinton who now writes a column for Britain's Guardian newspaper, President Bush today runs "what is in effect a gulag," stretching "from prisons in Afghanistan to Iraq, from Guantanamo to secret CIA prisons around the world." Mr. Blumenthal says "there has been nothing like this system since the fall of the Soviet Union."

In another column, Mr. Blumenthal compares the April death toll for American soldiers in Iraq to the Eastern Front in the Second World War. Mr. Bush's "splendid little war," he writes, "has entered a Stalingrad-like phase of urban siege and house-to-house combat."

The factual bases for these claims are, first, that the U.S. holds some 10,000 "enemy combatants" prisoner; and second, that 122 U.S. soldiers were killed in action in April.

As I write, I have before me a copy of "The Black Book of Communism," which relates that on "1 January 1940 some 1,670,000 prisoners were being held in the 53 groups of corrective work camps and 425 collective work colonies. In addition, the prisons held 200,000 people awaiting trial or a transfer to camp. Finally, the NKVD komandatury were in charge of approximately 1.2 million 'specially displaced people.' "

As for Stalingrad, German deaths between Jan. 10 and Feb. 2, 1943, numbered 100,000, according to British historian John Keegan. And those were just the final agonizing days of a battle that had raged since the previous August.

Mr. Blumenthal is not alone. Al Gore last month accused Mr. Bush of creating "more anger and righteous indignation against us as Americans than any leader of our country in the 228 years of our existence as a nation." Every single column written by the New York Times' Paul Krugman is an anti-Bush screed; apparently, there isn't anything else worth writing about. A bumper sticker I saw the other day in Manhattan reads: "If you aren't outraged, you're not paying attention."

There are two explanations for all this. One is that Mr. Bush really is as bad as Sid, Al and Paul say: the dumbest, most feckless, most fanatical, most incompetent and most calamitous president the nation has ever known. A second is that Sid, Al and Paul are insane.

The best test of the first argument is the state of the nation Mr. Bush leads. In the first quarter of 2004, the U.S. economy grew by an annualized 4.4%. By contrast, the 12-nation eurozone grew by 1.3%--and that's their highest growth rate in three years. In the U.S., unemployment hovers around 5.6%. In the eurozone, it is 8.8%. In a recent column, Mr. Krugman wrote that the U.S. economic figures aren't quite as good as they seem. But even granting that, the Bush economy is manifestly healthy by historical and current international standards.

There is the situation in Iraq, where the U.S. has lost about 800 soldiers in action over the course of more than a year, as well as several thousand Iraqis. The fact that events have not gone well over the past two months is somehow taken as proof that they've gone disastrously. Yet in the run-up to the war, the German Foreign Ministry was issuing predictions of about two million Iraqi deaths, making the actual Iraqi death a very small percentage of that anticipated total. As for the American rate, the U.S. lost more than 6,000 soldiers in Vietnam in 1966, the year U.S. troop strength there was comparable to what it is now in Iraq. That's about nine times as many fatalities as the U.S. has so far sustained in Iraq.

There is the charge that, under Bush, the United States has qualified for most-hated-nation status. Maybe so. But it is not entirely clear why this should be so decisive in measuring the accomplishments or failures of the administration. President Reagan was also unpopular internationally back in his day. Nor is Israel an especially popular country. But that's no argument for Israel to measure itself according to what Jordanians or Egyptians think of it.

The point here is not that Mr. Bush has a flawless or even a good record or that his critics don't have their points. The point is that, at this stage in his presidency, Mr. Bush cannot credibly be described as some kind of world-historical disaster on a par with James Buchanan and Herbert Hoover, nor can he credibly be accused of the things of which he is accused.

This brings us to our second hypothesis, which is that his critics are insane.

This is an easier case to make. Mr. Blumenthal, for instance, is the man who described Bill Clinton's presidency as the most consequential, the most inspiring and the most moral of the 20th century, only possibly excepting FDR's. Mr. Krugman spent his first couple of years as a columnist writing tirades about how the U.S. economy was on the point of Argentina-style collapse.

What makes these arguments insane--I use the word advisedly--isn't that they don't contain some possible germ of truth. One can argue that Mr. Clinton was a reasonably good president. And one can argue that Bush economic policy has not been a success. But you have to be insane to argue that Mr. Clinton was FDR incarnate, and you have to be insane to argue Mr. Bush has brought the U.S. to its lowest economic point since 1932. This style of hyperbole is a symptom of madness, because it displays such palpable disconnect from observable reality.

If you have to go looking for outrage, the outrage probably isn't there. That which is truly outrageous tends to have the quality of obviousness.

So here is one aspect of this insanity: no sense of proportion. For Mr. Blumenthal, Fallujah isn't merely like Stalingrad. It may as well be Stalingrad, just as Guantanamo may as well be Lefertovo and Abu Ghraib may as well be Buchenwald, and Mr. Bush may as well be Hitler and Hoover combined, and Iraq may as well be Vietnam and Bill Clinton may as well be Franklin Roosevelt.

The absence of proportion stems, in turn, from a problem of perspective. If you have no idea where you stand in relation to certain objects, then an elephant may seem as small as a fly and a fly may seem as large as an elephant. Similarly, Mr. Blumenthal can compare the American detention infrastructure to the Gulag archipelago only if he has no concept of the actual size of things. And he can have no concept of the size of things because he neither knows enough about them nor where he stands in relation to them. What is the vantage point from which Mr. Blumenthal observes the world? It is one where Fallujah is "Stalingrad-like." How does one manage to see the world this way? By standing too close to Fallujah and too far from Stalingrad. By being consumed by the present. By losing not just the sense, but the possibility, of judgment.

Care for language is more than a concern for purity. When one describes President Bush as a fascist, what words remain for real fascists? When one describes Fallujah as Stalingrad-like, how can we express, in the words that remain to the language, what Stalingrad was like?

George Orwell wrote that the English language "becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts." In taking care with language, we take care of ourselves.

Mr. Stephens is editor of the Jerusalem Post, where this article first appeared.

Link to Article

Safire Assails 9/11 Commission Posturing

In his op-ed piece entitled The Zelikow Report, New York Times columnist William Safire (one of the few reasons to read The Slimes nowadays) assails the swiftness with which major media outlets jumped on the report of what the Commission stated was a 'lack of connection between Saddam Hussein's Iraqi Regime and the perpetrators of 9/11.

Did you know that the report detailing these findings was not the final report on the matter? Did you also know that contradictory information came out within twenty-four hours of this interim report? Not if you didn't read beyond the headlines of the Washington Post, the Times, or the Associated Press reports that headlined many of the world's front pages, you didn't.

A Unique "Eye" on Chicago

Chicago Sun-Times WeatherCam

This webcam is situated atop the Chicago Sun-Times building at Wasbash Avenue and the Chicago River. It's panoramic and fully controllable through a unique (I've never seen one like it) feature located below the live-updated image. Catch it while it's still there, folks, because come October 2004 the Sun-Times will be moving out so that The Donald can move in and build his latest phallic substitute (I'm kidding, as I kinda like Trump and his limitless chutzpah). It's his "Apprentice", Bill Rancic that I can't stand. Go to work, already!

Anti-Zionism Does Equal Anti-Semitism

From Little Green Footballs comes a must read:

Because They Are Jews:
Enemies of Israel insist their hatred has nothing to do with Israel being a Jewish state. Can this be true?

In BeliefNet online, Rabbi David Wolpe clearly and concisely outlines the reasons why those who claim to be Anti-Israel / Anti-Zionist but not Anti-Semitic are deluded at best, amoral at worst. One could call this essay "The LLL Alternate Universe for Dummies". The Rabbi tells it like it is. During the darker moments where I consider what it means to be an American and what it means to be an Isreali (and in the 21st Century they mean exactly the same thing - the alchemy of envy, hatred and intolerance made terrifyingly whole in terrorism), I really do think that God is testing the world. Not Jews and Americans, specifically, but those who would target and murder them.

"It may be happenstance that people who live in countries where Jews were hated for millennia are saying that only Jews should not have a country, or criticize that country exclusively, or ignore atrocities perpetrated by other countries, or have deep understanding of those who are moved to murder Jews. It may shows nothing but a sensitivity bordering on paranoia to be troubled at the juncture of ancient, enduring hatreds with modern censure. Criticism of Israel across Europe surely has nothing to do with the searing observation by David Cesarani in London's Guardian that "Indeed, the 'final solution of the Jewish question' was probably the only genuine pan-European enterprise of the 20th century." The last thing all Europe agreed upon was the elimination of Jews, and now it agrees on the unredeemable savagery of Israel. To assume a relation between the hatred that was and the vilification that is risks being called "a Zionist propagandist" one of those phrases designed not to describe, but to strangle discussion.

I know people in Israel whose children have been killed. Not because someone else was the intended target, not because of clumsiness or the heedless use of great force, but because the children were deliberately targeted. After all, the murderers last month of the Hatuel family stopped a pregnant woman and four children in a Jeep, and systematically shot each of them. Neither the mother nor the little children were armed. They were merely Jews. Imagine if it were done on the streets of a major American city. Here such a person is called Charles Manson; in the halls of the Hague, they are fighters for freedom.

Are Jews always the victims? Certainly not. Israel is in a grip of mutual despair with Palestinians who have suffered much, and their plight is intolerable. That is why more than 150,000 people showed up to demonstrate in Israel on May 15 in favor of a Gaza pullout, the only country in the area where such a demonstration could peaceably take place."

Read it all, and emerge with enough intellectual arms and armor to debunk any and all who would attempt to spew anti-semitic hatred as anything but.

From the "That's News To Me" department ...

In a deposition regarding sexual harassment of females by University of Colorado football players, the University of Colorado President, Elizabeth Hoffman claims (President)says slur can be "term of endearment" . Hoffman, a Medieval History scholar, asserts that the "C-word" (used to refer to a woman's private parts) hasn't always been a pejorative one. Perhaps this was so in 500 - 1400 AD, but there's no positive connotation in the 21st century:

In the deposition, Hoffman was asked whether the "c-word" is "filthy and vile."

She said she knows the word is a swear word, but "It is all in the context of what--of how it is used and when it is used."

She was asked, "Can you indicate any polite context in which that word would be used?"

Hoffman answered, "Yes, I've actually heard it used as a term of endearment."

Clearly, President Hoffman runs in a far racier crowd than I do.

Tammy Bruce in Townhall.com: President Reagan Changed Me

I haven't written yet about former President Reagan's passing, and for good reason. Reagan was President during my formative high school & college years, and during that time there was a certain degree of indoctrination that had taken hold in my still-forming socio-political psyche. It wasn't considered compassionate, or particularly intelligent, to allign oneself with an unabashed conservative. My views of feminism, as practiced at my small womens' Catholic college, caused me to think most of its' adherents were zealots of the 'Man Haters 101' ideology, but I still held hopes of its' being redeemed as a source of self-reliance. It was easy to think that the world, and the people who lived in it, could be perfected. I have changed since then, profoundly so.

Many of those memories I've reconnected with today have come as a result of reading Tammy Bruce's President Reagan Changed Me in today's online edition of Townhall. It's an especially compelling piece when you consider that Ms. Bruce, ten years ago, was the President of the National Organization for Women (NOW).

"Ronald Reagan was hated, and still is, in the feminist-establishment circles in which I grew up. That milieu subsists on enemies and hatred. I took my cues from the women around me, women I admired. They were strong and confident, and they knew. They knew who was out to get us. They knew who was determined to throw us back into the Dark Ages. They knew Reagan was evil.

I tell you this not as an excuse for my past actions but as a further illustration of what I’ve been discussing ... the way malignant narcissism is spread. You see, the seed of my politics, the politics I espouse now, were already manifested in my voting for President Reagan 10 years earlier. I liked him, and I believed he had the best interests of Americans in mind. During my involvement with NOW, however, what took over was my need to be accepted, the romanticization of my “victimhood,” and the power I could achieve by following the models of the women at the top. Those women were happy that Reagan was sick, so I would be, too.

The conditioning of the Left Elite works so well partly because the people attracted to that camp are looking for family, they are looking to belong; consequently people like that – people like me – are easy pickings. My emptiness compelled me to cheer when a decent man who followed his principles was struck down by an unforgiving assailant. Alzheimer’s had done what many feminist leaders fantasized about doing themselves, if only they could get away with it.

It's a long yet worthwhile essay, and I admire Tammy Bruce's ability to be true to her core beliefs, incl. stem cell research, and the right of a woman to choose an abortion, even if I do not agree in principal with those beliefs.

Why? Because she is able to do so, at least now, without the need to eviscerate the reputation of a those on the other side, be they politician, public figure, or a plebian like me who disagrees with her. She seems to be someone with whom I could engage in a sober and civil discussion about important issues we disagree upon.

Maybe that is what strikes me about this essay, not just her admitted admiration for Ronald Reagan or her political transformation. It's that so much of our political discourse has devolved into shrill and nihilistic raging from The Left, who regard all conservatives as "Right Wing Religious Fanatics". This is met by The Right, to whom much of The Left looks increasingly out of touch with reality. Civility is gone, and all differences are reduced to life and death struggles.

I would argue that most Neo-Cons (myself included), believe not in the sovreignty of the bible in all personal and political matters, but rather in the need to support existing democracies while establishing new ones where they are most needed as the only effective way to deal with the problem of terrorism. Many of us started out as Democrats, may still grudgingly call ourselves so, but the Democratic Party of the 21st Century, with it's continued obeisance to group-think and divisivenes, and its' continued denial of the threat we are facing, is not the one we grew up with.

Thinking about these matters, however, requires introspection into areas that are challenging, and scary, too. Humility is required, as well as listening to others whose views we have been conditioned to think of as foreign and therefore distrustful. Tammy Bruce went looking anyway, and her story is deserving of our attention.

Peggy Noonan on Today's College Graduates

It's commencement season, readers (all 3 of you, lol!), and Peggy Noonan takes an optimistic yet measured look at the next generation in today's online Opinion Journal:
Big Mike, No Message: Sizing up college grads, secular Europeans, antismoking zealots and John Kerry.

In this first portion of the piece, she remarks how struck she is by the number of young Ivy League graduates planning to go into television and journalism. What concerns her is their desire to be communicators, when they are unable to convey just what it is they want to communicate.

A short aside before you click on the link ... Peggy is an amazing writer, probably the best speech writer in the business (she wrote one of Ronald Reagan's most eloquent speeches - the one he delivered at the eulogy for the space shuttle Challenger astronauts), but she can sometimes wax a bit loony, as she does here when she writes: "I have been paying attention to the graduates of Ivy League universities. Every one I see the past few weeks is beautiful. They are tall and handsome and gay-spirited; they are strong and laughing and bright." Sometimes you have to take the goofy with the great, and her stuff is often times the latter:

I see no sign they are going to start thinking anything truly unusual for their time and generation--that religious conversion can be a wholly beneficial and life changing event, for instance, or that breaking with liberal orthodoxy might be the beginning of wisdom.

It must leave them finding it a challenge to speak of their beliefs in an interesting way. They often seem to fall back on attitude--wit, irony, poking fun at the thick-witted--in place of sustained thought, or meaning. And still they want to communicate for a living. I think of this problem as "big mike, no message." They are trained in the finest points of communication, but when they turn on the microphone, they have nothing serious to say.

I'd be interested to know if you are in agreement with her general sentiment, as I am.

The Onion comes to the rescue with Tornado Safety Tips!

A little humor as we head into the first weekend in June - Yippee!

Sorry to admit that I am clueless about photo-hosting for the site, so I will have to link up to my favorite The Onion infographic in many moon: Tornado Safety Tips

My personal favorite?

"In the event of a tornado, lie down in a ditch. If you are already lying in a ditch, do not attempt to sit up."

Walter Williams: "Three Cheers for the Cos"

In today's Townhall.com columnist Walter Williams weighs in a the controversy surrounding Bill Cosby's recent statements at a service commemorating fifty years since the landmark "Brown v. Board of Education" decision. Williams provides a good intro:

" May 17 saw several gatherings commemorating the 50th anniversary of the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court school desegregation decision in Brown vs. Board of Education. But the event held in Washington, D.C.'s Constitution Hall will be the one to be remembered because of Bill Cosby's remarks, which won him scathing criticism from some in the black community.

For years, I've argued that most of the problems many black Americans face today have little or nothing to do with racial discrimination. For the most part, the most devastating problems encountered by a large segment of the black community are self-inflicted. Bill Cosby mentioned several of them, such as black parents who'll buy their children expensive clothing rather than something educational, poor language spoken by many children and adults, and criminals who prey on the overwhelmingly law-abiding residents of black neighborhoods."

Many in the audience apparently agreed and laughed and applauded at Cosby's chutzpah. The reaction of the NAACP leaders, however, was one of horror. Horror that Bill Cosby would make statements outside of what the NAACP deems appropriate and acceptable.

In a recent column, my colleague Thomas Sowell explained, "Bill Cosby and the black 'leadership' represent two long-standing differences about how to deal with the problems of the black community. The 'leaders' are concerned with protecting the image of blacks, while Cosby is trying to protect the future of blacks, especially those of the younger generation."

Go and read it. It says a lot about why the NAACP and other orgnaizations that claim to represent black americans are probably those least suited to alter the landscape of the black working-class / innercity experience.

Just when I think I can't take my job anymore, some little thing makes it all worthwhile ...

Yes, I work in a hospital. No, it's not very interesting work, as I am not a clinician (medical staff). Once in while, though, the comedic value of this place outweighs all other considerations. Case in point?

This morning the caffiene intake from my morning joe isn't proving sufficient, so I head over to the vending machines in the Emergency Room waiting area to grab a Diet Coke. To get to the machines, I circumvent the security check-in, where a young man is removing all metal objects from his pockets. Smells like an ash tray. So far, nothing new.

However, his T-Shirt caught my eye. It's caption:

Will Work For Weed

I kid you not.

Jose Padilla is right where he belongs

Seems like a fairly strong emotion for someone I do not know personally, hmmm? After all, say the LLL's, I am affected more by his denial of civil rights than his murderous plans. To hyper-intellectualized (or perhaps dissociated is a better word) asshats, this may be true; to me, Jose Padilla is a direct threat that's been neutralized, and that's a very good thing.

U.S.: 'Dirty bomb' suspect planned to blow up apartments

``Padilla and the accomplice were to locate as many as three high-rise apartment buildings which had natural gas supplied to the floors,'' the government summary of interrogations revealed. ``They would rent two apartments in each building, seal all the openings, turn on the gas, and set timers to detonate the buildings simultaneously at a later time,'' the papers alleged. The documents said al-Qaida officials were skeptical of Padilla's ability to set off a dirty bomb but were very interested in the apartment operation. Top al-Qaida officials ``wanted Padilla to hit targets in New York City, although Florida and Washington, D.C. were discussed as well,'' the summary said.

I find little comfort in the fact that he apparently intended to target buildings on the East Coast. As some of you may remember, Padilla (a Chicago native) attempted to enter Chicago's O'Hare International Airport via Pakistan, not Mexico or Puerto Rico, as the Chicago Tribune article states. How do we know that Chicago apartment buildings were to be spared? We don't, and that makes me angry and scared.

I'm not angry at the Bush administration, nor the Department of Homeland Security or the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA). They did their difficult job well, and caught this former Humboldt Park gangbanger-turned-terrorist creep before he could carry out his (and Al Qaeda's nefarious plans). I'm angry at the people who continue to pretend that we aren't in a fight for our very lives, and sad for myself and my friends who live in apartment buildings here in Chicago and throughout the US. These apartment buildings are our homes, and it is where we live with our loved ones, be they spouses, boyfriends, children or pets. I take it personally when someone means to do us in.

So should the LLL's.

A little note of explanation ...

I have been a bit remiss in making sure to post at least one article each day, I'll be the first to admit. To be frank, I have been trying to remain a little detached from the goings on of this contentious day and age. The level of vitriol in this country, especially among those who occupy opposite ends of the political spectrum, is not only disheartening to me, it's astonishing. I know all of the reasons and rationales, but it still shocks me when I buckle in and dive down in the trenches of what constitutes contemporary discourse.

I firmly believe that each of us has an obligation to be aware of what is going on here, and I'm not saying the LLL's (Looney Leftist Liberals) aren't doing just that. It's what they do with that awareness; the filtering of fact that when rendered in no way resembles what it once was. Organized political disinformation has created a cluster bomb from a model airplane, if you will.

Some might say that this is payback for Republican harassment of former President Clinton, and "payback's a bitch", ad infinitum, ad nauseum. There is some truth to that, but I am not convinced that what President Bush faces today is a fair approximation of that which beset President Clinton. The Republicans who made it their life's work to muckrake all and sundry aspects of Bill Clinton's life were few in number: they were vocal and determined, but they never constituted a majority of the party. Those Democrats who dog President Bush, however, are manifold. And they are financed in a way that would have made Trent Lott, Dan Burton and their ilk salivate like an english mastiff. Not a pretty image: forgive me.

Part of this blame goes to the Internet. There are no fact checkers at Indymedia, a site whose stated purpose is that of being a "alternative news source" (started by the truly odious Bill Moyers, a devil in parson's clothing if one has ever existed). Indymedia is in fact a site where the most bizarre and nefarious rumors can be posted as established fact, and in some instances these stories have made their way into mainstream media such as the New York Times and CNN.

George Soros' MoveOn.org and its' affiliate PAC (Political Action Committee) is used as a legitimate news source by a surprising number of print and television media outlets, and no admission as to the nature of MoveOn and it's mission is made at any of these points of publication. It's a pretty damning indictment of conventional media, but everyone seems to be looking the other way. Except my fellow bloggers, of course.

When I look at the weblogs of of truly accomplished bloggers, such as LGF's Charles Johnson, Glenn Reynolds' Instapundit, Bill Whittle's Eject!Eject!Eject!, and Roger L. Simon's eponymous site, I am humbled and a little intimidated at even attempting to imitate what they do far better than me.

But I must also admit that I am encouraged by the "upstarts", newbie bloggers who thrive when presented with the challenge inherent to publishing one's thoughts and opinions on the 'net:
Colt's "Eurabian Times", the inimitable humor that is Iowa Hawk", or the unique military perspective of former Air Force officer Baldilocks". Each of these people, and countless more, are changing how I look at goings on in America, Europe and the world at large. If by tiny chance you have made it here to my blog, take special care to make sure you also look at theirs, as I cannot promise to be as productive nor as articulate as they are.

But I'll sure as hell try.

Zachary Selden in WSJ's Opinion Journal: What Europe Doesn't Understand

What Europe Doesn't Understand: Neoconservatism is neither neo nor conservative. It's just American.


A portion of this wise and illustrative essay ...

Although there are notable exceptions, many European commentators and much of the public are resorting to conspiratorial theories to explain the direction of U.S. foreign policy and somehow overlook the fact that American public opinion runs in favor of the president's handling of foreign affairs. Perhaps more important, however, they overlook the deep historical roots of the current direction of American foreign policy. It is not driven by a "neocon cabal." Rather, it is that certain individuals associated with the neoconservative label have been particularly articulate in expressing a set of policies that flow from two ideas that resonate deeply in American public opinion. The first is a belief that the United States has a responsibility to spread its vision of individual liberty. The second is that the primary and perhaps exclusive task of the federal government is to protect its citizens from external threats. Whatever the actual causes of U.S. action in any particular instance, those principles loom large in the public debate and shape how and when the United States becomes involved in other countries' affairs.

If you really want to understand where neoconservatives are coming from, and I count myself among those who accept the label, this piece will help you to understand the principles that form the basis of neoconservatism. It's worth the read, and written in an accessible way that most people can understand.

Bill Cosby's Right

First of all, I will admit that I am a white, upper-middle class woman. I didn't grow up in the concrete jungle, but I am the product of one of the most racially mixed suburbs in the Chicago area, so I know at least a little bit of whence I speak. I also spend one night a week working with teen girls who are incarcerated in the juvenile detention system, so I'm at least clued in to Ghetto: its' culture, its' code of honor, its' priorities, if my connection to these young women counts for anything. And it's left me agreeing, albeit amazedly, with Bill Cosby's comments, spoken at a Washington DC rally commemorating the 50th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, are right on the money:

As Cos tells it, we ain't learnt nothin' yet

"Ladies and gentlemen, the lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal," he said Monday night. "These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids - $500 sneakers for what?

"And they won't spend $200 for 'Hooked on Phonics.' ...

"They're standing on the corner and they can't speak English," he said. "I can't even talk the way these people talk: 'Why you ain't.' 'Where you is.' ... And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. And then I heard the father talk. ... Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. ... You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth!"

Of Course, NAACP President Kweisi Mfume and NAACP legal defense fund head Theodore Shaw were present at the event, and Shaw made the pointed comment (to paraphrase) "that most people on welfare are not African-American, and many of the problems his organization has addressed in the black community were not self-inflicted".

It should be noted that at no point in the speech did Cosby specifically claim that blacks alone were those he saw fit to admonish.

The girls I volunteer with are Black, Caucasian and Hispanic, and they are the first to acknowledge that screwed up priorities are colorblind, and that the things their parent(s) by them, if they buy them anything, are often impulse purchases. This would seem to bear out Cosby's claims. Gifts are bought to satisfy a temporary need or to soothe hurt feelings, not to foster intellect or encourage ambitions beyond sports stardom (this goes for all groups).

Secondly, if the NAACP thinks that the problems in the black community are not, at least in part, self-inflicted, then their purpose is in fact a ruse.

Dr. Martin Luther King spoke and wrote very movingly about the role of racism in holding blacks back.

* He did not absolve Americans, regardless of color, of their own transgressions or failures in race relations.

*He did not absolve whites of judging others on the color of their skin: he implored us to look at who people were and what they made of themselves, first and foremost.

*He did not absolve black men, women and children of their part in creating the characters upon which they would, in a just world, be judged.

This is how I understood his speeches and writings, and Mfume and Shaw's statements lead me to wonder how out-of-touch the organization he once headed has become.

Christopher Hitchens is a man you want on your side ...

Unfortunately, for the LLL/anti-war/root-causes crowd, he's not in their camp. The man is playing on our team, and he's batting .1000:

Christopher Hitchens/Slate: What Went Wrong - The flaw in Seymour Hersh's theory, and lo and behold Michael Moore makes a cameo appearance:

I ask this because, in the news cycle that preceded the Iraq atrocities, the administration was being arraigned from dawn until dusk for the offense of failing to take timely measures against the Taliban and al-Qaida. I hardly need to recapitulate the indictment here. We had our chance to see it coming, and to see where it was coming from, and the administration comprehensively blew all these chances, from the first warnings of suicide-hijacking to the cosseting of Saudi visa applicants. I might add that I completely agree with all these condemnations and wrote about many of them (including the spiriting of the Bin Laden relatives out of the country during a "no-fly" period imposed upon the rest of us) at the time.

But there is no serious way of having this cake and scarfing it. I remember a debate I had with Michael Moore—the newly crowned king of the Cannes Film Festival—at the more modest location of the Telluride Film Festival in 2002. Ridiculing the Bush administration's policy, he shouted that it had gone into Afghanistan to get Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Omar. "Mission NOT accomplished!" he added, to roars of easy applause. I asked myself then, and I repeat the question now: Would the antiwar camp have approved the measures necessary to ensure those goals? If they will the end, will they will the means? Would they taunt that lawyer in Tampa, as they taunt the supporters of regime change, with living a quiet life at home while others die in the field? Isn't the refusal to take out the leaders of al-Qaida a bit of a distraction from the struggle against al-Qaida?

Read it all: it's worth it.

Michael Moore & The Politcs of Entertainment

I think Rachel Lucas had it right in her opinion of Michael Moore:

PIG! PIG! PIG! PIG! PIG!

Have I made it clear how I feel about Monsieur Moore? Good.

In today's Opinion Journal: Daniel Schwammenthal exposes the less-than-honest goings-on of the porcine mockumentary director at Cannes, the post-Oscar festival of self-aggransizement that takes place in the south of France:

WSJ: Michael's Manipulations: Moore of the same at Cannes.

CANNES, France--On his way to the next film-festival interview, movie maker Michael Moore, self-declared champion of the downtrodden, lent his support to protesting show-biz workers on the Croisette, Cannes's beachwalk. He took a megaphone, screaming "a job is a human right, a living wage is a human right." Never mind that the protests were about neither jobs nor wages but small cuts to France's generous welfare checks for artists. He hasn't become a millionaire filmmaker by being too fussy with the facts.

We all know that the winner of Cannes' grand prize, the Palme D'Or, was decided before any films were actually screened: as Schwammenthal deftly illustrates, the glitterati will once again consume itself in a conflagration of anti-Americanism and award the Golden Palm to "Fahrenheit 9/11".

The LLL's will of course trample themselves to see it when it opens here in the US.

A Little Fun & Games ...

Too much going on to do much in the way of blogging, so I'm putting in a friendly diversion to pass the time.

Back soon!


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Barbara Amiel Kicks Some Media Ass

The inimitable Barbara Amiel, one of my heroes, has written yet another sharp-focused and insightful (or perhaps, to the British LLL's "inciteful") Op-Ed piece on the manipulation of public opinion and scandal-mongering inre: Abu Gharaib ...

The Telegraph: "War is a minefield for any democratic government"

This week's Economist cover screams, "Resign, Rumsfeld". With the tide of condemnation over American mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq and the charge that it will be a "permanent stain on America for years to come" (sic), the events at Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad seem a story judged.

The admonition of the Economist leader that "the pictures of abuse, especially the one… of the hooded man wired as if for electrocution, stand an awful chance of becoming iconic images that could haunt America for years…" shows how news organisations are doing their damnedest to make sure just that happens. The iconic photo takes up the entire cover of the Economist.

From "The Pot Calling the Kettle Black" files, a New Entry!

Poor little Tommy Daschle.

Mainstream US politics have become "too mean". From the Aberdeen (SD) News comes: Senate minority leader sees 'startling meanness' in politics


The money quote is this one:

"There are things that matter more than political parties," Daschle said. "There are lines we should not cross regardless of the advantage we think it may give our party at times."

He continued: "Demonizing those with whom we disagree politically does not serve the interests of democracy. It does not resolve differences."

Granted, senator, but where's does recognition of your own behavior fall into this statement?

Repeatedly filibustering senate sessions, participating in smear campaigns on federal judicial nominees, and perpetuating the destructive lie that George Bush "stole" the presidency does not constitute "dirty politics", but legitimately defeating a democrat senator (Max Clelland) who just happens to be a triple-amputee is. Then again, I don't think Daschle gets it, and I hope South Dakotans go for the double and defeat Daschle in his next re-election campaign.

And by the way, senator: citing MoveOn.org as a left-wing example of mean politics won't gain you any favor with me. That one's so obvious it doesn't count as insight. Fish in a barrell, I say.