The New Republican: Columbia Flashback

Are you a fan of the print media? I know I am. I love the internet, but it will never replace the ease, reliability, authority, and permanence of traditional publishing. Just yesterday I lovingly unpacked my 1973 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica; it's now sitting on the shelf right above my OED. I expect to use both on a daily basis.

And magazines! If you're a magazine lover, you know what I mean: the only thing harder than schlepping around a lot of old magazines, is throwing them out.

So it was quite a pleasure, last week, to unearth some old copies of The New Republic, some going back ten years. ("CNN Wrecked Television News"? Who knew?) And sitting before me now is the June 3, 2002 print issue, open to Michael Crowley's illuminating article "The Makeover". Back in the summer of 2002, in the heat of primary season, two rivals for the Democratic nomination crossed paths in Columbia, South Carolina - and, for one magic moment, shared the spotlight:

"... As they stand side by side beneath a dreary exit sign, Kerry looms over Edwards by several inches. He also overwhelms his adversary rhetorically. After Edwards delivers some brief and subdued words to the crowd, Kerry whips them up with a furiously ideological stem-winder that makes Edwards grimace as if he were suffering a sudden migraine. Afterward there is much speculation that Edwards was irked at having to share the stage with Kerry, not least because of their striking height difference - a difference Kerry's backers love to dwell on.

It's a small, perhaps petty, triumph. But these days the Kerry camp will take whatever it can get. For, in a sense, Kerry is the anti-Edwards. Where Edwards has become the darling of the national media, Kerry can't seem to catch a break. His press clippings record 18 years of journalistic wisecracks about his ego, his looks, and his self-promotion."

Crowley explains that the goal of Kerry's makeover is to dispel his image as an aloof, narcissistic aristocrat. The candidate himself allows that "I haven't really reached out to or met a lot of people in the press until the last couple of years." But his very aggressiveness highlights "a degree of personal manifest destiny and self-love rare even among politicians. Indeed, his biography suggests an almost liofelong grooming for power."

Crowley notes that Kerry is aware of his image problem - but, as with everything else about himself, a little too aware of it, and we get the impression he's trying just a little too hard to prove he's a regular guy. As an unnamed Democratic activist says, "It's the rebranding of John Kerry ... that arrogant jerk you've heard so much about is really just a regular guy."

Ah, but John Forbes Kerry has a secret weapon. And what, you ask, might that be? I'll give you a hint: It starts with a V and ends with "nam."

When I asked Kerry whether he worries that Republicans might find a way to use that old footage of Michael Dukakis riding absurdly in a tank against him, he grew defiant. "If they want to put up an image of Mike Dukakis in a tank," Kerry replied, his eyes narrowing, "I'll put up an image of me on a boat in Vietnam."

And Vietnam isn't only an answer to Kerry's ideological vulnerabilities; it's an answer to his characterological ones as well: Out-of-touch, selfish rich kids didn't risk their lives in the jungles of Vietnam. ...

Indeed.

Morning Report: August 27, 2004

Iraqi police secure shrine area in Najaf. Heeding the embattled Muqtada al-Sadr's call to join the "peaceful masses", remnants of the so-called Mahdi Army are leaving the Najaf shrine according to news reports. This came as a result of negotiations between Sadr and Ayatollah Sistani, Iraq's leading Shi'a cleric. "Sadr accepted the peace proposal in a face-to-face meeting Thursday night with the 75-year-old grand ayatollah. The interim Iraqi government also agreed to the deal, and U.S. commanders ordered their troops to cease fire in Najaf." But according to the latest bulletin from Debka, "Under 5-point plan negotiated by Ayatollah Sistani with radical rebel Sadr overnight, rebel stronghold towns of Najef and Kufa declared weapons-free, foreign troops leave, handing security to Iraqi police, compensation paid for damage of three-week conflict.... US forces who fought rebellion withdrew to edge of city. Not all militiamen hand in weapons. Sadr walks free under Allawi government amnesty." For a very informative background on Shi'a Islam, read Ali's April 10 post, "The Myth and the Reality". (IHT, ITM, Debka)

Russian air disaster called terrorism. Not that it was ever in much doubt, but the twin crashes, within 20 minutes of one another, of two Russian airliners are being considered the result of terrorism. The crashes killed 90 people. Russian officials say traces of explosives have been found on at least one of the wrecked planes, according to this report on the Russian plane disaster. According to the Debka report, 'al Qaeda has finally come forward with a claim of responsibility, published by the Islamic Minbar website associated with the Islamist organization.' A denial by moderate Chechen rebels begs the question of whether Chechen extremists were involved; some analysts consider it likely that the hijackers came from outside of Russia. Russian newspapers have already referred to the event as "Russia's September 11", inviting speculation that the planes might have been intended to target high-level officials. It is noteworthy that the event comes less than a week before both the Chechen presedential election (scheduled for tomorrow, Saturday) and the Republican National Convention.

Sudan: Deadline? What deadline? In the latest chapter in the unfolding tragedy in Sudan, Jane has some thoughts on the importance of UN-imposed deadlines.

Al-Qaeda/Hezbollah/Ba'ath link? This piece by FDD's Cliff May on Munah al-Abdullah suggests that the capture of an inter-organizational terror liaison may provide proof of collaboration between various fascist regimes.

Remarks. Events in Russia encourage questions as to whether islamo-fascist elements are turning their attention toward West/Central Asia. An article on Uzbekistan by Andrew Apostolou sheds some light on the challenges facing that region.

Goooooold!

US Women Beat Brazil for Olympic Soccer Gold Medal. Is this great or what?

ATHENS, Greece — An hour after the game, Mia Hamm was still on the field, hugging, crying, and posing for pictures with an Olympic gold medal around her neck.

Then, finally, she left.

After 17 years, 153 goals and 266 games -- including a grueling overtime finale -- it was time for her to go.

"There are few times in your life where you get to write the final chapter the way you want to," Hamm said. "I think a lot of us did that tonight."

Hamm and the rest of the Fab Five had just enough left in their thirtysomething bodies for one more triumph in their final tournament together. Led by two goals from the next generation, the United States beat Brazil 2-1 Thursday to claim the Olympic title. ...

Read the rest of the Fox News story at the link.

The Blogging Will Continue Until Morale Improves

Okay, so I took another mental health day. ("Asher, you need more than a mental health day." Thank you, that will be quite enough of that.)

No, really, I needed an extra mental health day, especially since I missed seeing Melissa in Portland last night. Honestly, I'll be fine, and the doctor says these scars on my wrists should heal very quickly.

And what happened while I was Away From Komputer? Well, the world went to hell in a handbasket, that's what. So Lenore The Little Dead Girl has returned to A Small Victory, but only as a harbinger of the blog's impending demise. Michele, I'll sorely miss you.

Oh, and al-Qaeda blew up two planes in Russia. Allawi is kissing Sadr's ass. Terrorists beheaded another Italian. The IRI thugs hanged a sixteen-year-old girl, and then dug up her body. I'm telling you, it's almost enough to make me want to give up blogging.

Hah! You should be so lucky.

Well, listen, here's something to cheer about: US women beat Brazil for soccer medal. I'll give this one its own post, too, but I just had to mention it here.

Finally, couldn't close this post without a tribute to Melissa. Now, I could go on about how gorgeous and sexy she is, but there's something in the Bible about "coveting thy neighbor's wife", and Tammy Lynn Michaels may not live in Portland but she's certainly my "neigbor" in principle. So I must keep it platonic.

From an interview with the local lefty rag, Melissa offers this:

Considering it's an election year, did you feel any pressure to put out a more politically motivated album?

The best thing I can do in this political climate is to be a good example. Be a strong person and live my life well.

Morning Report: August 24, 2004

Iraqi forces surround shrine. Urging militia members to surrender, Iraqi National Guard forces surrounded the shrine at Najaf. Iraqi Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan told reporters that "the decisive hours are near" for Muqtada al-Sadr's fighters.

Armed clash erupts in Tehran. 'According to witnesses and other reliable sources, on Sunday night [August 22], around 11:45, several members of security forces clashed with unidentified armed persons on Piruzi Avenue--Coca cola intersection—in the eastern part of the capital. Shortly after this confrontation a witness present on the scene told IRNA by telephone: “The unknown armed individuals, probably three or four in number, got away with a car.” This witness added: “Fierce gunfire between the security forces and these individuals lasted for some minutes,” adding that “according to the locals two members of the security forces were injured.” He added, “A couple riding a motorcycle were injured in the crossfire.”… IRNA news item (translation on Free Iran)

Chrenkoff: more good news from Afghanistan. 'But optimism is back, and since the overthrow of Mullah Omar's regime almost three years ago it has been making a slow but steady comeback. For all the continuing security problems and sporadic fighting with the Taliban and al Qaeda remnants, Afghanistan's resurrection has been an unheralded success story of the recent times. Huge challenges remain, to be sure, but for the first time in a generation there is real hope that the country is finally breaking out of the cycle of violence and succeeding in its first steps on the road to normalcy. The Afghans know it's happening, but we in the West, looking at Afghanistan through the prism of mainstream media coverage, are far less aware of all the positive developments taking place over there. Here is some good news from the last four weeks that you might have missed while the media, true to their form, continued to focus on the negatives. ... ' Read the rest here: Arthur Chrenkoff - Good News from Afghanistan (Hat tip: Omar at ITM.)

Al-Qaeda Plot Thwarted in Pakistan

Terrorists were planning massive attacks in Pakistan for earlier this month, but were prevented from doing so by key arrests by Pakistani authorities, according to this news item on Pakistan arrests which I've been able to find only on Netscape.

Headline of the Day

From the CNN front page, presented here without further comment:


Bible study class meets at Hooters to reach 'unchurched'

Morning Report: August 23, 2004

Arson destroys Paris Jewish center. A Jewish community center in Paris was destroyed by arson in a pre-dawn attack Sunday. The incident harmed no one but gutted the six-story building. Thanks to Charles at Little Green Footballs for the link.For the New York Times spin, and its disturbing implications, read the news analysis at LGF and follow the discussion thread.

Leftist cyber-strike backfires. And speaking of LGF, the great minds at Indymedia had the bright idea to threaten a Denial of Service (DOS) attack on LGF and several other sites not to their taste. They also boasted of having hacked into Protest Warrior's mailing list. Read the rest of the story - original post and the unfolding saga of the comments section - at the link.

A hate crime? No certain motive has yet been found for the execuation-style killing of Lindsay Cutshall, 23, and her fiance Jason Allen, 26, as they slept on the beach in Sonoma County, California. No evidence of suicide, sexual assault, or robbery was found. But a Sonoma County Sheriff's spokeswoman, calling the slayings "very odd", indicated that the young couple may have been victims of a hate crime - murdered for their evangelical Christian beliefs.

Morning Report: August 22, 2004

Iran regime's West Asian arm-twisting betrays desperation. Amid an ever-increasing bluster of threats, the Iranian regime bullied two Western-allied nations into reducing their strategic cooperation with Israel, according to this Debka report. 'When Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdogan visited Tehran in late June, he was informed in no uncertain terms by spiritual ruler Ali Khamenei and president Mohammed Khatami that if he wants good relations with the Iranian regime with concomitant economic benefits, such as cheap oil and gas, he must end Turkey’s military ties with Israel. Erdogan agreed to bar Turkish air space to Israeli warplanes stationed in Turkey or incoming from Israel for use as a corridor for striking Iranian nuclear and military installations.' Debka notes that Erdogan's stance has shifted away from Washington and Jerusalem in recent months. The article also discloses that during a recent visit to Azerbaijan, ostensibly to discuss bilateral security and trade issues, a group of Iranian intelligence officers also appeared in Baku to demand that Azerbaijan end its strategic cooperation with Israel. The article concludes that Israeli Prime Minister Sharon may be hindered from dealing effectively with the Iranian threat by domestic worries over his disengagement plans, which have generated fierce opposition within his own Likud party. (Comment: possibly Washington was seeking to ease the pressure on Sharon when it softened its demands on the evacuation of Jewish settlements.)

"I tell ya, I wuz there, man!" The Belmont Club deconstructs the cultural meta-message of the Najaf shrine standoff, which is, yes, still going on.

Kerry, in his own words. Jane at Armies of Liberation predicts that reaction to John Kerry's Vietnam images will result in a backlash against the officer-turned-war-protester-turned-senator-turned-presidential-candidate.

Fugitive Marzook denies charges in Damascus, media mum on CAIR link. Little Green Footballs supplies one of two little green details missing from an AP story on Mousa Abu Marzook, deputy chief of the Hamas political bureau. Read the item, and follow the discussion on the CAIR-terror link.

Rights and Privileges

Dhimmi Watch gets it just right when noting that lefties might think twice before comparing opponents of gay marriage to the Taliban. That is to say, let's keep a sense of porportion, especially when we learn that Zanzibar bans gay sex.

Let me make myself really clear here. I am not impressed with those who claim to be fighting for the rights of women, gays, and ethnic and religious minorities in America, while ignoring the oppression of minorities, gay people, women, and human beings in general in other parts of the world. If you care only about the rights of American gays, American women, American minorities, then you are not fighting for "rights" at all, but for privileges.

Do I support gay marriage? Yes, absolutely, without a doubt. But what do gay people in Zanzibar - or Iran, or Algeria - care about your right to marry when their right to freedom, perhaps their very right to live, is in jeopardy?

The New Republican: Mirror Image

Continuing its valiant attempt to portray the Democratic party as viable and relevant, The New Republic offers us a glimpse inside the Democratic National Convention in the August 2 and August 9, 2004, print issues.

In the August 2 issue (TRB, p. 6), Peter Beinart offers his thoughts in advance of the Democratic and Republican conventions. "The two parties' conclaves are shaping up as mirror images of one another", he writes. Citing the lineup of moderate and even liberal Republicans slated to speak in New York (John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Michael Bloomberg, Rod Paige, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Zell Miller - oh, wait, he isn't even a Republican), Beinart explains that this is evidence of the GOP's "ideological insecurity".

This is quite interesting, because it was Beinart who told us just two weeks earlier that John Kerry displayed "true self-confidence" by choosing the sharply contrasting Edwards for a runningmate. (Edwards, to whom the party's left wing, "represented by groups like MoveOn.org", "gave their hearts" once bereft of Howard Dean.)

But if Beinart can manage a wry sneer at the Republican convention, he can't conceal his outright worry over the prospect of this year's Democratic event. "If Bush Republicans lack ideological self-confidence, the Kerry Democrats may have too much of it," he says uneasily of a "shockingly realistic picture of what the Democratic Party really is. And that means liberalism is on tap virtually every night."

"I doubt the Kerry campaign tried to stock the podium with liberals. They simply chose the people in the party with mass appeal, great promise, or both. ... And, unsurprisingly, it produced a convention roster that looks - and sounds - like the Democratic Party." That, Beinart says, is the problem: he contrasts this year's convention with earlier events in which "each [speaker] represented the party not as it was, but as it might have been had liberal interest groups not exercised such control over the nominating process."

If Peter Beinart wrote in blogspeak, he'd say: "What's up with all these f***ing moonbats?" Or something like that.

The DNC will present an "admirably honest" picture of today's Democrats. "But just because it's honest doesn't make it wise." So Beinart says of the Democratic Party; but looking at the GOP, Beinart discerns a left-of-Republican-center lineup that can only mean "a party unwilling to reveal its true face to the nation." So which is it, Peter?

What really worries the Democrats is that the upcoming Republican convention just might be the "true face" of the Republican Party: one that values principled individuals and inclusive organizations; one that sees tolerance and responsibility not as opposing, but as complementary; one in which unity is born of diversity. This is why so many former Democrats are now Republicans.

Are the two conventions - and by extension, the two parties - really "mirror images" of one another? In some ways, yes: the Republicans have become the party of responsible change, progress, and human rights; while the Democrats have become the reactionary, anti-democratic party, now reduced to defending third-rate dictators.

But the symmetry is not complete. Many of the positive changes that liberals of the last generation fought for have become part of the mainstream. Other battles, like gay rights, have yet to be won, but now enjoy support within the Republican party, where conversation on such issues is most meaningful. What do the Democrats have left to offer? Very little - only the rhetoric of dissatisfaction.

More on the Iraqi football (soccer) players ...

Take a moment to examine this report on the incident from al-Jazeera-on-the-Thames. The leader for this piece asserts that "Iraq's successful Olympic football team has launched an outspoken attack on US President George W Bush." But the article provides no evidence that "the team" did any such thing. The piece quotes the coach and two of the Iraqi soccer players - Salih Sadir and Ahmed Manajid (the latter from Fallujah) - with anti-American comments. With a single cursory sentence it dismisses the Ba'ath regime's notorious abuse of Iraq's olympic team: "The team said they were glad Iraq's former Olympic committee head Uday Hussein - Saddam Hussein's notorious son killed by US forces after the invasion - was no longer in charge."

But did any of the other footballers express different sentiments? The Ba'athist Broadcasting Corporation is not interested in that question. But Omar wonders: "all the reporter could come up with were comments from 2 players and the coach out of 22 players and several trainers, medical staff...etc So if those were the 'best' comments he could get, I'm interested to know what were the comments of the others ..."