At the airport, watching Rick Sanchez on CNN as he pounds home the issue that the Pentagon report on Saddam and terrorism ‘puts to rest the original justification for the war’.

Um, not quite:

This ought to be big news. Throughout the early and mid-1990s, Saddam Hussein actively supported an influential terrorist group headed by the man who is now al Qaeda’s second-in-command, according to an exhaustive study issued last week by the Pentagon. “Saddam supported groups that either associated directly with al Qaeda (such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led at one time by bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri) or that generally shared al Qaeda’s stated goals and objectives.” According to the Pentagon study, Egyptian Islamic Jihad was one of many jihadist groups that Iraq’s former dictator funded, trained, equipped, and armed.

I can imagine that there are political rationales for not taking this falsehood on. But this does show the basically supine posiiton the Bush adminsitation has been taking.

Well, this has been kinda depressing.

I’m on record as supporting Obama, and continue to support him. But his viability as a candidate is about to hit major midair turbulence, and the question now is how he’ll be able to fly the giant cumbersome machine of his campaign through it.

Look, part of my view of Obama is that he’s a post ’68-er; he grew up on the other side of the shockwave that split American politics, and as a consequence there’s a chance that he can find new frameworks to understand issues and create policies that aren’t entirely driven by the relatively stupid positions taken by my cohort back when we were smoking a lot of pot and working out our anger issues with out parents.

His appeal thus is in part post-racial; he’s someone who isn’t neatly pigeonholed as a ‘black man’ or a ‘Harvard man’ or anything else. As someone who sees himself as a ‘mutt’, and thus as ‘a Californian’, I like that a lot.Sadly, with this we discover that he’s aligned himself – at least in some serious ways – with the worst kind of Afrocentric communities out there.

I’m not shocked that there are African-American preachers who say things like this. But – speaking as someone who probably has spent more time in black churches than any other kind – I know preaching like this isn’t the only kind that exists in black churches, and I know that it doesn’t help black people; and I don’t think it represents values that help America (or the world).

It represents the worst kind of conspiratorial thinking – where 9/11 is a comeuppance, if not an inside job; where the real struggles faced by many black people aren’t structural outcomes of choices by both black and whites but are deliberate; where AIDS is the white man’s way of depopulating Africa.

I’ve written about this a bit:

I know two really bad parents. One is a couple that simply refuses to control their children; they love them totally, and so, they explain, they love everything they do. Unsurprisingly, they are raising two little monsters. The other is a single mother who explains that everything bad in her life is the fault of her child, and that everything he does is wrong. Unsurprisingly, her child is depressed, withdrawn and equally badly damaged.

I’ll define patriotism as ‘love of country’. Both the parents above (all three of them, actually) claim to ‘love’ their children. But to blindly smile and clean up when your child smashes plates on the floor is not an act of love. And blindly smiling and waving flags when your country does something wrong is not an act of patriotism.

But – there is a point where criticism, even offered in the guise of love, moves past the point of correction and to the point of destruction. It’s a subtle line, but it exists. And my friend (who is less of a friend because I can’t begin to deal with her fundamentally abusive parenting) is destroying her child. And there are liberals who have adopted an uncritically critical view of America. Who believe it to have been founded in genocide and theft, made wealthy on slave labor and mercantilist expropriation, to be a destroyer of minorities, women, the environment and ultimately they argue, itself.

I’m sorry but their profession of love for America is as hollow to me as that mother’s profession of love for her son. Are those things true’ As facts, they are an incomplete account of this country’s history. As a worldview, they are destructive and self-consuming.

I obviously don’t support those values and beliefs, and bluntly, there is no way that anyone who embodies those values is going to be elected President.

The problem, of course, is that while it’s indicative – it doesn’t tell us what Obama himself believes.

But neither has Obama.

Here’s something from his first statement at Huffpo on Wright:

Let me say at the outset that I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy. I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies. I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it’s on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue.

He goes on to explain that 1) he’s never heard anything like this in the church; and 2) gives a history of his association with the church.

He rejects the words that are “at issue”?

You know, that doesn’t it. It reminds me of Zelazny’s ‘Possibly Proper’ prayer:

Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after the destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure your receiving said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen.

What Obama needs to do – to make me feel confident in my support of him – is what John Kerry needed, and failed to do. He needs to explain the arc of his beliefs, and how it is that he could sit in a church where outrage and hyperbole seem to be the stuff of conversation, and at the same time embody a politics of unity. How is it that he attends a church that seems to be energized by the politics of ’68 and hopes to lead the country past it?

And how will he make this explanation and do it without alienating the black community who will feel offended? Or without alienating the deeply progressive Democratic base?

I made a comment a while ago:

One of my best friends spent years as a community organizer for parks in New York City. She is a fountain of funny stories and ‘on-the-ground’ political wisdom, and one of her truisms is: dog doo ends all meetings.

That is to say, much like Godwin’s Law, as soon as dog waste is brought up, the meeting is effectively over. The room divides, the tempers get hot, and constructive discussion flies out the window.

I’ll suggest a corollary of this, which is: race ends all Democratic politics.

God, I was hoping we were past that…

The “Winter Soldier II” conference is on, and I’ll have a lot more to say about it later today. For now, let me suggest that you read two things:

Wintersoldiers.com – ‘Busted by the Historians,’ an account of how the original Vietnam-era ‘Winter Soldiers’ claims were pretty thoroughly eviscerated. Which makes one wonder why, exactly, IAVA chose to wave that flag.

Democracy Project – ‘Washington Post Duped Instead of D.U.P.E.S.‘

I’m certainly not shocked that IAVA is raising the stakes on the war at a time when it might et them political leverage; Move America Forward is doing the same thing. I am more than a little shocked that they would hitch themselves to as discredited an example as the John Kerry/Winter Soldier drama. And I’m deeply shocked that the Washington Post is doing such a piss-poor job of covering it.

More later.

“…spinning like Iranian centrifuges…”, from Charles at LGF

That Long Beach Opera is doing another performance this weekend – you can still go tonight at 8pm or tomorrow at 4 and see film star Michael York make everyone in the theater cry with his impassioned recital of Tennyson’s Enoch Arden (accompanied on piano by Lisa Sylvester playing Strauss), and then make everyone in the audience laugh uncontrollably (yas, I remember my post from yesterday) playing in a multmedia piece with shadow puppets, a short film starring a Superman doll (and Robin!), real puppets, a small orchestra (with a blogger!) and amazing dancers from the Rogue Artist Ensemble. York even blows up and pops paper bags – that’s not something you’ll see a major star do every day!

Seriously, it’s an amazing performance. LBO (disclosure: I’m on the board) fully did it again. If you’re looking for something to do this weekend and you want to be moved, see something you’ve never seen before … and get to shake a movie star’s hand (I kept seeing him as the Gascon d’Artagnan in Richard Lester’s great Musketeers movies).

Go buy tickets and have a great time.

Four years ago today, TG and I were married in the garden at Disney Hall in downtown Los Angeles.

Tonight, we had a marvelous dinner, and then went to the hall for a LA Philharmonic concert (we go about once a month).

It was a great concert; Rachmaninoff and Shostakovitch (his “Leningrad” concerto) immaculately and passionately performed. (Interesting thought about Shostakovitch and morally bent people doing great work – think Heidegger. And Rachmaninoff died about five blocks from where I grew up.)

But I want to take a moment while TG cleans up to rant. About the audience.Look, it’s possible that many people there have never been to a classical concert – or any live performance before. But it’s unlikely.

So it’s obvious that no one showed them the rules.

I’m happy to help.

1) No talking. Ever. I don’t care if your pet ferret leaps out of your handbag and starts gnawing its way to your vitals – sit there and die in silence like a music fan. Tonight some woman started narrating the piano solo in the Rachmaninoff piece. I came as close as I’ve ever been to beating down an old lady. And I wouldn’t have felt bad about it if I had…

2) There is no way it takes you a minute and 45 seconds to unwrap your throat lozenge from the crinkly plastic wrapper. I don’t care if you can only use one hand. Do it quickly and quietly. Better still, here’s a trick – unwrap three or four before the damn performance starts.

3) Don’t tap your ***ing feet. No, you’re not a percussionist, nor are you Savion Glover – and if you were, I’d still be pissed because it wasn’t a Savion Glover concert. It sounded like the freaking Rockettes tapdancing their way through the music tonight.

4) Classical music pieces are often made up of sections, called ‘movements’. Don’t clap between them. If you’re not sure whether to clap or not, don’t until 3/4 of the audience is clapping (in LA, if you set the bar at 1/2, people will clap all the damn time). It’s not that hard; look in the program and see how many movements there are in the work being played. Clap then that number of pauses plus one comes along. Use rubber bands like football refs do if you need to. Just don’t clap between movements, OK?

You paid a lot of money for that seat and the experience of listening to the music. You didn’t pay to do audience participation. And I didn’t pay to listen to you. So sit still and listen, mmmkay?

h/t Middle Guy…

LOLPresident

A letter published by the NY Times:

Re “To Revive Hunting, States Turn to the Classroom” (front page, March 8):

Shame on West Virginia if it approves a bill that allows hunting education classes in public schools to become law.

We should not use public schools to try to reverse the inexorable decline in the “sport” of hunting.

The killing and maiming of animals for sport is a cruel and violent activity that is the antithesis of what schools should be teaching. Furthermore, in the context of a dramatic increase in school violence in recent years, to teach hunting is ludicrous.

We should be teaching our children how to be better citizens of the community, and that certainly does not include taking up arms against other living beings.

Brad Goldberg
President, Animal Welfare Advocacy
Mamaroneck, N.Y., March 8, 2008

It would be great if, say on their website, they published all the letters they received on the article. Maybe they could even have – comments – on their articles. Meanwhile, we get predictable cant.

Maybe someone can send him a copy of Dirty Hands.

There’s been a whole and interesting discussion on public diplomacy going on at the “smaht kid” blogs, Abu Aardvark, Mountain Runner, et al.

Note that I think that public diplomacy – meaning stepping up and engaging in the war of ideas and the stories and images that express those ideas – is one of the Bush Administration’s greatest failings (and I’m no johnny-come-lately to that bandwagon. Here’s what I wrote in March, 2003:

But Bush has failed to sell this war in three arenas.

He has failed to sell it (as well as it should have been) to the U.S. people. The reality of 9/11 has sold this war, and our atavistic desire for revenge is the engine that drives the support that Bush actually has.

He has failed to sell it diplomatically. Not that he could have ever gotten the support of France or Germany; as noted above, even with an AmEx receipt for the 9/11 plane tickets signed by Saddam himself, France would find a reason to defer this war. But he should never have let them get the moral high ground, which they have somehow managed to claim.

He has failed to sell it to our enemies, who do not believe today that we are serious about achieving our stated goals. This is, to me the most serious one, because the perception that we are not deadly serious is a perception that we are weak; and we will have to fight harder, not because we are too strong, but because we will be perceived as too weak.

I won’t try and summarize the discussion. Just start here, then go here, then go here, then go here,then go here, and finally, here.

Let me add my “dumb guy” spin to the discussion however.

Reading it, one interesting thought popped into my head, which was encapsulated well in this comment on AM’s first post:

McCain appears less interested in public diplomacy than in what we used to call advocacy and is now called strategic communication. His interest is in the “war of ideas” and advancing American objectives in the global information battle-space.

The author, it appears, was Donna Marie Oglesby, a counselor for USIA in the Clinton Administration. Here’s the dumb-guy question:

If the purpose of public diplomacy isn’t to ‘advance American objectives in the global information battle-space’ – what the hell is it?

Here’s the dilemma as I see it.

I’ve been arguing for a long time that modern Leftism (as opposed to, say pre-1968 “Old” Leftism) has roots in the Romantic, anti-Enlightenment “Bad Philosophy” movement. There has been a whole lot of discussion among we “decent” lefties about how much of the Left today – and much intellectual life today – is defined simply by blind opposition to America and Western society and values – which are seen as uniquely dangerous and evil.

Here’s the rub. To the extent that the above is even partially correct, we have this problem: The people who are supposed to be doing the fighting in the realm of ideas on our behalf may not believe much in what we stand for – and instead believe that we are uniquely evil, or that there is no substantive difference between Abu Ghreib as it was run by Saddam and – at an extreme – Guantanamo – are we really sending the right people into battle? And what do we expect to happen when that battle is joined?

In basic, I think we need to resolve some of the core values questions in order to engage in the battle. And since we need to win this battle in order to minimize the other, harder-to-clean-up kinds of battles we may have to fight otherwise (or, more accurately, that my son may have to fight), I think it’s important that we start dealing with these core issues of values right about now.

Update: I put the wrong quote from myself in; fixed it.

At a hastily scheduled morning press conference at the headquarters of New York’s exclusive Emperors Club prostitution ring, high priced call girl “Kristen” announced that she would temporarily step aside in the wake of charges that she had engaged in sex with New York Governor Eliot Spitzer.

“I made a serious mistake and betrayed the trust of my co-workers, my many clients, and my pimps,” she said in a quiet voice cracking with emotion. “I will be taking a leave of absence to earn their forgiveness, and redeem myself in the eyes of the entire expensive whore community.”

The embattled prostitute did not mention Spitzer by name, and stopped short of offering an official resignation. But longtime sex industry insiders say that it will be difficult for Kristen to return to her post in light of mounting federal wiretap evidence that she had sexually serviced the Governor on at least two occasions.

It’s Iowahawk, so you know he’s just getting rolling.

National-level politicians can be seen as many negative things – except ridiculous. That’s why Spitzer is toast.

I think it was Warren Beatty who said that he had the choice of bedding lots of women or going into politics…more politicians need to keep that in mind.