The Bosque Boys

I have assumed for some time, based on anecdotal evidence, that what passes for gay culture in the MSM is a sanitized version. For a very unsanitized version Little Green Footballs links to a photoessay from the Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco. WARNING: the photographs are not safe for work and should not be viewed by anyone under 18.

It must be nice to have enablers like the MSM to present more acceptable images to the public, while the reality remains under-reported.

I don't think I'll leave my heart in San Francisco.

I find it significant that Gay Patriot, who is as his blog title suggests, has had no success in getting gay groups to protest the fact that children are allowed at the fair.

I refrained from extensive commentary concerning the "General Betray Us" ad. Briefly and indirectly, on a few occasions, I made a few cursory and cryptic observations regarding the unfortunate incident. But I also predicted that the ad would have no long-term meaningful impact on the 2008 election.

However, I certainly could have commented on the NYT's hypocrisy and blatant partisanship for facilitating the ludicrous attack. I could have commented on the calculating Democratic presidential candidates who painfully contorted themselves to avoid incurring the wrath of the irrational radical fringe within their party now so vital to securing nomination. And I could have written about the cowardly silence of Democratic Party leaders, who ruinously enable that same cretin-like and corrosive coterie within their ranks.

Why did I lay off the "General Betray Us" ad?

Frankly, the entire imbroglio was beneath our mission and my talent. To quote myself: "The Okie Gardener and I envisioned this blog as an electronic salon where reasonable and earnest people might come and exchange beliefs and impressions regarding important issues."

The "General Betray Us" ad was not an important issue. It was an abomination and an embarrassment and a national humiliation--but it did not quite rise to the level of worthwhile political discourse. For me, the "General Betray Us" was akin to walking down the street and encountering hoodlums engaging in vile language. Should we take the time to instruct these barbarians in civil conduct--or do we just keep walking, choosing not to cast our pearls among swine. What really is there to say to MoveOn? And who is there to persuade who is not already immutably convinced one way or the other?

But then things got stickier. The opposition struck back. Media Matters and other liberal "watchdog" groups regularly troll the airwaves of conservative radio, listening to hundreds of hours of conversation per week, and looking for something incendiary to use against Republicans. This week they hooked a big fish: Rush Limbaugh.

They caught Rush intimating that servicemen who speak out against the war are somehow less loyal, worthy, and/or patriotic: "phony soldiers."

Lefty blogs and Democratic Party leaders in Congress, raw from the "General Betray Us" excoriation, gleefully pounced on the Rush assertion. Rush claims that his persecutors have the quote out of context.

An aside: Rush is right about this incident. The quote is out of context and much ado about not much. More importantly, a thoughtless characterization in the midst of a heated and unrehearsed conversation is categorically different from a full-page ad placed in the New York Times. Having said that, it is also true that Rush is a flamethrower and often imprecise in his speech.

As Steny Hoyer said on the floor of the House this week, "what’s good for the goose is good for the gander."

The Democrats are anxious (perhaps desperate is a better word) to make a point. They want to send a message that Republican politicians are similarly vulnerable to guilt by association. MoveOn.org did not invent calumny. In truth, Rush and Sean et al are as good at political vituperation as any member of the party of Jackson. In the words of Robert Deniro's Al Capone, "somebody messes with me, I'm gonna mess with them." Are the Dems going to the mattresses? Maybe.

Nonetheless, "let not your hearts be troubled." Rush is safe. We take care of our own. Not because we are cravenly beholden to talk radio like the Democrats are to their lunatic fringe--but because Rush has earned our loyalty over nearly two decades of stalwart service to conservatism. He is a hero of the revolution.

Granted, Rush is not an intellectual wellspring for conservative thought, but he is a bright, self-educated, entertaining, and articulate "popularizer" of the faith, and he deserves our admiration and protection. Before there was a blogosphere, a conservative cable news channel, or a vast network of right-wing talkers, there was Rush. Standing fearless in the face of the enemy like a stonewall, Rush broke the liberal monopoly on the mainstream media. When pressed, the hip progressives who liked to pal around with Don Imus gave him up like a bad habit. That won't happen to Rush. We owe him too much. And that brand of personal allegiance still means something in Red-State America.

Australia and The Netherlands to send more troops to Afghanistan. Contrary to the left-wing chorus, we are not acting unilaterally in the world. Though sometimes it may indeed be necessary to go it alone.

Details are emerging of a recent merger of a U.S. technology firm with a Chinese company that endangers U.S. defense technology. Story here from Bill Gertz of The Washington Times.

Unbridled capitalism has no moral compass: its creed is "Anything for a buck." Some regulations are needed, especially for anything that would endanger national security.

The Burmese democracy movement is being crushed by the bloody fist of the ruling junta this week. From Der Speigel online (in English). From The Times (UK) online. Gateway Pundit has this roundup, including links to video.

In a sinful world, talk alone accomplishes nothing. Only the credible threat of force or other unpleasant consequences dissuades evil governments. Just "being nice" to the bad guys of the world will not turn them into nice guys. Niebuhr was right.

Hello 1814 and 1861. Chattanooga is the site of this year's Secessionist Convention, a gathering of groups and individuals who wish to see their state and region secede from the United States. Noteworthy is the coming together of the modern New England secessionist movement, centered in Vermont, with the Southern secessionist movement, exemplified by the League of the South. Other secessionists are expected from Hawaii, Alaska, and Texas. Story here. Link from Drudge.
The complaint that links these groups together--Yankee liberals and Neo-Confederates--is that the Federal government has grown overbearingly strong in relation to the states.

While secessionist movements may be fringe groups at present, we need to listen to them, because they do have a point. For the last 100 years the Federal government has gained power at the expense of the states. Today that power is exercised especially through money. The Feds collect taxes that are then given back to the states and localities through grants--that have strings attached. What would it be like to cut Federal taxes by the amounts that flow through the grant process, including administrative costs, and let the states decide to tax or not to make up the difference?

This week our basic cable service is carrying a few days of Showtime to entice us to add this premium cable service. I have taken the opportunity to watch a few episodes of Penn and Teller's show B*LLSH*T (the show does not use asterisks). Much of the time the stage magicians put on a great show skewering some aspect of modern life or thought, such as a black academic at a university ranting about institutional racism at the school. Response "That's B*llsh*t!"

The other evening, though, they did a segment attacking right wing Christians, Protestant and Roman Catholic, who would limit marriage to a man and a woman. Penn and Teller brought out a couple of academics from obscure corners of academia to pontificate that there has never been a stable definition of marriage in human history. Now that is B*LLSH*T.

While there have been differences such as whether a man may have one wife or many, and whether concubines are allowed on the side, or whether divorce is permissible and if so under what circumstances, these academics did not cite a single example of a society recognizing marriage between two members of the same sex in past history.

Come on Penn and Teller, you are smart guys. Don't let your ideological agenda cause you to spew your own B*llsh*t.

2 October 2007

"Ahmadinejad controls no legions."

"The Iranian President's words had no practical, only symbolic, global import. He has very little real power in Iran, none over foreign policy or the nuclear program."


Mostly, I read TIME Magazine for the laughs and fodder for the blog.

One of my favorite foils is Joe Klein, who is mostly a harmless kook.

To pass the time, I enjoy breaking down his blustering essays in search of logical fallacies and contradictions. It is sort of an intellectual version of "Where's Waldo." And, of course, Waldo is everywhere.

For your review, an extended piece in that vein from April here.

Since that particular rage against the machine, Klein has pronounced Mitt Romney a superficial phoney. Not long after that he praised John Edwards as a fellow with big ideas not afraid to laugh at himself. Somewhere along the way Klein asserted that bloggers were ruining the country. All this political stuff should be left to the pros (like Joe Klein). He has proclaimed Iraq a disaster for years--and then recently he went to Iraq during a time of widespread grudging optimism and found--drum roll, please--Iraq was a disaster. Most recently, he loved Hillary Care.

As I have said before, the crazy thing is that this guy made a good living for years posing as a marquee political reporter and dispassionate wiseman concerning national politics.

This Week in TIME ?

"Inflating a Little Man. The neoconservatives want you to think Ahmadinejad is another Hitler. That's dishonest, and plumps for war."

Full TIME article here.

Klein declares that Ahmadinejad (and presumably Iran) presents "no existential threat to the United States."

Why do so many misguided Americans think he is important?

Easy. The neoconservatives have created another boogey man, Klein reveals, by "taking him literally." That is, dastardly neocons like Norman Podhoretz (and other neocons like Mort Zuckerman) falsely claim that Ahmadinejad's myriad scary threats ought to be addressed as serious statements of intent. Klein calls foul: "This is incendiary foolishness." Klein knows better.

An aside: Klein assumes that if Bush said it, the neocons must have thought it, and if the neocons thought it, it must be wrong.

While that certainly works sometimes, it is a shaky assumption upon which to base your entire worldview.

Notwithstanding, I agree with Klein, at least in part. We have a tendency to exagerate the institutional power of the Iranian president when it suits our purposes. On the other hand, Ahmadinejad is the elected leader of Iran, he is the spokesperson for the ruling Mullahs, and, most importantly, no one really knows for sure how crucial his role will be in the future of Iran.

The two major themes from Klein:

1. Ahmadinejad is no Hitler. We are "inflating a little man."

2. He advises us to laugh him off. Laughter is our most powerful defense against the threat of Iran and its leader. Klein: "But to be found ridiculous? How devastating. How delightfully Western."

Ironically, Klein's certainty that Ahmadinejad is too dimunitive and ridiculous to be threatening is in itself laughable. Even as Klein bemoans the comparison to Hitler, his position invites another similarity: the reluctance of the West to accept that the "Little Corporal," in the early stages of his ascendancy, competing for power in a chaotic and depressed Germany half a world away, could possibly pose a "an existential threat to the United States."

As for laughter being the best medicine, I am not persuaded. Charlie Chaplin got some good ones in on the "Great Dictator," but Patton, Ike and Bradley ultimately proved more convincing.

1 October 2007

This morning, in celebration of the First Monday in October, traditional opening day of the Supreme Court season, C-SPAN's Washington Journal featured a discussion of the Court's docket with LA Times court reporter, David Savage.

For the most part, Mr. Savage proved perfectly pleasant and informative.

A few moments, however, proved worthy of a raised eyebrow:

1. He echoed the increasingly ubiquitous praise of Justice John Paul Stevens. This will be a theme of the session. I will have more on this phenomenon coming soon.

2. He also reflected the obligatory dismissiveness of Clarence Thomas. Savage generously called his personal story "heartwarming," but he wondered why he is still so angry over the events of 1991. Savage also observed that Thomas often takes on a "woe is me" attitude, intent on dwelling on that trying period in his life.

Two humorous moments:

In response to a clip from 60 Minutes in which Thomas railed against political leaders in the black community intolerant of dissenting opinions, Savage seemed absolutely perplexed that there might be a party line for African Americans or a so-called black gospel.

Savage: "I am not at all sure what he is talking about."

The Times reporter went on: "He seems to be saying that people dislike him for being an independent thinker. I don't know anybody who is against independent thinking."

I think Savage means I don't know anyone who is against independent thinking as long as they think independently along the same lines as I do.

That is, I am wondering how many fellows in the LA Times newsroom are big supporters of the war in Iraq--or consider Ronald Reagan to be the best president of their lifetime.

One other funny thing:

Asked about this upcoming memoir that Thomas is promoting, Savage again went blank, racking his brain for anything remotely like this in the history of the court and then finally pronouncing the memoir completely unprecedented.

A few callers later Savage was forced into admitting that the Sandra Day O'Connor memoir was somewhat similar to Thomas's memoir--but merely in the sense that it too was a memoir.

Sunday Night was Episode Five of The War, the Ken Burns documentary on WWII: "FUBAR."

If you don't know FUBAR, you can consult this wiki entry.

A couple of themes keep jumping out at me in The War.

1. War is Hell. Innocents die. Good men do bad things. Hearts get broken. Families Grieve. Normal life as we know it stops. War is Hell.

2. FUBAR. SNAFU. TARFU. Things go wrong in war. Communication is dreadful and inevitably a beat or two behind the moment of truth. Very few people seem to know what is really going on, and they are unable to communicate with the ones who need to know the most. Oftentimes, the least confused (rather than the most organized) side prevails. Things go wrong in war.

3. War is especially hard for a democracy. We the people are impatient, often unforgiving, and easily stampeded. FDR understood well that oftentimes military necessity must conform to political reality. He was a great war president in his ability to entreat, inspire, persuade, and balance.

Fighting a War in a Democracy.

An FDR would be nice--but we also need more Ernie Pyles.

Pyle was an embedded reporter, who absorbed the souls of the men about whom he wrote, relaying their lives, everyday heroism and desires to eager consumers of news back home. War correspondents during WWII represented the fighting men and the national cause. Regardless of whether this support for national objectives violated journalistic ethics or compromised objective reporting, newsmen invested in American victory proved beneficial to the Allied cause.

Of course, this sense that we were all on the same side came crashing down during the Vietnam Era when a new generation of reporters, publishers, and editors embraced a much more nuanced sense of the public interest. In the old days, the press often ignored the ugly and emphasized the heroic. The post-Vietnam media covers the myriad mistakes and attrocities of war and mostly ignores the nobility of the cause and the warriors.

An Ernie Pyle archive via the Indiana University School of Journalism here.

Today we have a few Michael Yons and Bill Roggios--but they are by necessity completely outside of the mainstream media. As Katie Couric intimated a few days ago--without much fanfare or reaction--picking sides in a war is just not good reporting.

Is the MSM responsible for our misfortunes in Iraq? Of course not. On the other hand, the mainstream media presents serious obstacles to prosecuting a successful war, which the Bush administration struggles mightily to navigate.

Whose fault is that? Where does the buck stop?

This is a fair question.

Ultimately, it is the President's job to overcome minefields and pitfalls and win wars. Just win baby.

Does democracy present all kinds of extra disadvantages for a war-time leader? Sure. This was true for FDR and his age as well--although we all admit much has changed since then. No matter, it is far too pessimistic to insist that these disadvantages prevent the USA from winning a modern war. Such a pronouncement is akin to assuming an especially brilliant person, likely to be distracted by his curious mind, is at a disadvantage in college. While the preceding statement rings true on its face, the advantage of a brilliant and curious mind is a tremendous plus in higher learning that ought to overwhelm the lesser problem of distraction.

Our freedom of the press is an obstacle (more so now than then, even more so when brandished by cynics happily uninvested in victory). No matter, the power of a free society dwarfs the drawbacks.

One obvious answer: We are desperately in need of leadership adept at marshaling our advantages to overcome our disadvantages.

We could learn a lot from The War in that regard.