GOODE, GOLDBERG, AND WOPS
Jonah Goldberg's latest L.A. Times op-ed is actually worth reading, if you want a sense of the mental gymnastics some conservatives might engage in to justify their abandonment of litmus tests and embrace of Rudy Giuliani in 2008. (Goldberg argues that Giuliani could be America's Pim Fortuyn; Fortuyn, of course, was a Dutch political leader who was far-right on immigration, a stance Goldberg sees as analogous to Mayor Giuliani's battles with the likes of Al Sharpton and squeegee men, and non-traditional in his sex life -- in his case, openly gay rather than thrice married.)
But near the end of Goldberg's op-ed, I'm brought up short by one sentence, regarding Giuliani's potential for mounting a "broader defense of American civilization":
Giuliani's cheery immigrant story and his personal liberalism make him a particularly formidable spokesman for such a vision.
"Cheery immigrant story"?
Excuse me: Rudy Giuliani was born in Brooklyn, to parents who were themselves born in this country. His grandparents were Italian immigrants.
What does Goldberg think -- that any American with a lot of vowels in his surname is living an "immigrant story"?
My grandparents (on one side) and great-grandparents (on the other) were Italian immigrants. I guess that means I personally have an "immigrant story," right?
The folk etymology of the word "wop" is that it stands for "without passport." I guess, to Goldberg, all Eye-talians are wops.
(I'll ignore the fact that, if you're named Goldberg, presumably you have at least some ancestors who didn't come over on the Mayflower.)
****
There seems to be a lot of this kind of thinking going around on the right. You probably know about the letter sent out recently by GOP congressman Virgil Goode:
...The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don't wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran.... I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped....
Today's New York Times quotes the response of that congressman-elect, Keith Ellison, regarding his plan to use a Koran in his swearing-in ceremony:
Mr. Ellison dismissed Mr. Goode's comments, saying they seemed ill informed about his personal origins as well as about Constitutional protections of religious freedom. "I'm not an immigrant," added Mr. Ellison, who traces his American ancestors back to 1742. "I'm an African-American."
But, to Goode, Ellison is just another wop.
****
The Times story, like many other stories about Ellison, notes that
the actual swearing in of those lawmakers occurs without any religious texts. The use of the Bible or Koran occurs only in private ceremonial events that take place after lawmakers have officially sworn to uphold the Constitution.
But it also notes that Goode
vowed to use the Bible when taking his own oath of office.
Which is fine. But I'm worried that Republicans are going to use this swearing-in ceremony to launch a Bible War. I fear that many GOP members of Congress are going to show up with the biggest, baddest Bibles they can, and are going to make a great show of waving them before the cameras, just to drive a wedge between those of us who want America to be open to people of all faiths who share its values and those who respond to Muslim-bashing.
I hope that doesn't happen, but I fear it will. Muslim-bashing seems to be the new gay-bashing, which was once the new black-bashing -- and black-bashing, of course, worked hand in glove with immigrant-bashing just around the time Rudy Giuliani's grandparents stepped off the boat.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Oh, dear. Are the Bush people positioning the president for halo shots again?
Not quite as dead-on as the halo shots the Bushies stage-managed a couple of years ago.
Even the propaganda is becoming progressively more incompetent, I guess.
(Suggested by this post at Shakespeare's Sister.)
Not quite as dead-on as the halo shots the Bushies stage-managed a couple of years ago.
Even the propaganda is becoming progressively more incompetent, I guess.
(Suggested by this post at Shakespeare's Sister.)
I love Steve Benen's Carpetbagger Report, but I think he has a much less jaundiced view of human nature than I do -- or at least a much less jaundiced view of the nature of some humans.
Today he responds to this steaming pile from right-wing columnist and blogger Debbie Schlussel:
Barack Hussein Obama: Once a Muslim, Always A Muslim
... even if he identifies strongly as a Christian, and even if he despised the behavior of his father (as Obama said on Oprah); is a man who Muslims think is a Muslim, who feels some sort of psychological need to prove himself to his absent Muslim father, and who is now moving in the direction of his father's heritage, a man we want as President when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam? Where will his loyalties be?
Is that even the man we'd want to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency, if Hillary Clinton offers him the Vice Presidential candidacy on her ticket (which he certainly wouldn't turn down)?
NO WAY, JOSE . . . Or, is that, HUSSEIN?
Steve says:
It's tempting to think this is some kind of bizarre joke, made up by a satirist to make conservatives appear foolish....
I can't help but wonder about a possible backlash. Many Americans are uneasy about the Middle East and Muslims, but there's a fundamental decency among most people in this country that, I suspect, reject the kind of hate Schlussel is espousing.
Maybe Schlussel and others like her believe they're doing the GOP a favor by smearing Obama before he even announces his intentions, but I think it's far more likely that they're simply embarrassing themselves and creating a degree of sympathy for Obama. The abject stupidity of the right-wing attack machine has its limits.
No, Steve. No, no, no, no, no.
What conservative pundit has ever "gone too far"? Bill O'Reilly accusing American troops in World War II of a massacre? Ann Coulter wishing a terrorist attack on The New York Times, calling for the poisoning of a Supreme Court justice, attacking a disabled Vietnam vet, or slandering 9/11 widows? Glenn Beck talking about his thoughts of killing Michael Moore, asking an incoming congressman whether he's a traitor, or calling Katrina survivors "scumbags"? None of these incidents led to widespread outrage on the right or banishment by the media. Why should this be any different?
And if this is different, if some people are put off by it, so what? The line of attack is out there -- the idea that Obama may be a crypto-Muslim (a crypto-jihadist!) has been put in the mix, successfully insinuated into a thousand dinner-table conversations.
Now, I hope nobody thinks Schlusser is a loose cannon. I hope nobody thinks this has Republican insiders upset. While Schlusser may be operating on her own, no one's going to step in and tell her to tone it down because she's very, very useful to the GOP. Schlusser and her ilk are like "enforcers" -- the players certain sports teams keep on the bench and send into the game to hurt opposing teams' stars, nastily and pointedly. Schlussel does the GOP's business with this vicious hit, but if public opinion does turn against her, she can be deemed a rogue lunatic, because she's not a GOP star and she's expendable.
Or to put it another way, Schlussel is, between campaigns, what groups like the Swift Boat Veterans are during campaigns -- she does the nasty work better-known figures can't do.
Now, how far out of the mainstream is she, really? Let's look at her bio:
... Schlussel is a frequent guest on ABC's "Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher" and FOX News Channel's "O'Reilly Factor," "Hannity & Colmes," "FOX News Live," "Beyond the News," and "Judith Regan Tonight," MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews," "Buchanan & Press," and "MSNBC Live," CNN's "Crossfire," "Talk Back Live" and "Weekend Wrap," and ESPN's "Outside the Lines."
... you can read her popular twice-weekly online column, "Debbie Does Politics," on the Internet, at the Heritage Foundation's www.Townhall.com and www.PoliticalUSA.com, where she is a Contributor/Columnist. Schlussel is also a frequent New York Post columnist. Her columns have often been read on the air by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, on whom she broke the Monday Night Football story. Schlussel's columns are also frequently reprinted and excerpted in several major newspapers, including The Washington Times and Detroit Free Press. She has also written columns for FOXNews.com.
... Schlussel worked for Fred Barnes, Editor of The Weekly Standard Magazine, host of FOX's "Beltway Boys," and a former regular on "The McLaughlin Group," and Mort Kondracke, also of the "Beltway Boys" and formerly of "The McLaughlin Group," when Barnes and Kondracke were Senior Editors of The New Republic. Schlussel also worked in Washington for several Congressmen -- including Rep. Phil Crane, Chairman, House Trade Subcommittee -- throughout high school (at one point, she was the youngest Congressional intern on Capitol Hill) and college....
However much resume-padding is in there, she's not a wild-eyed outsider, and this isn't punditry brut. She knows the how far she can go -- and it's pretty damn far.
Today he responds to this steaming pile from right-wing columnist and blogger Debbie Schlussel:
Barack Hussein Obama: Once a Muslim, Always A Muslim
... even if he identifies strongly as a Christian, and even if he despised the behavior of his father (as Obama said on Oprah); is a man who Muslims think is a Muslim, who feels some sort of psychological need to prove himself to his absent Muslim father, and who is now moving in the direction of his father's heritage, a man we want as President when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam? Where will his loyalties be?
Is that even the man we'd want to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency, if Hillary Clinton offers him the Vice Presidential candidacy on her ticket (which he certainly wouldn't turn down)?
NO WAY, JOSE . . . Or, is that, HUSSEIN?
Steve says:
It's tempting to think this is some kind of bizarre joke, made up by a satirist to make conservatives appear foolish....
I can't help but wonder about a possible backlash. Many Americans are uneasy about the Middle East and Muslims, but there's a fundamental decency among most people in this country that, I suspect, reject the kind of hate Schlussel is espousing.
Maybe Schlussel and others like her believe they're doing the GOP a favor by smearing Obama before he even announces his intentions, but I think it's far more likely that they're simply embarrassing themselves and creating a degree of sympathy for Obama. The abject stupidity of the right-wing attack machine has its limits.
No, Steve. No, no, no, no, no.
What conservative pundit has ever "gone too far"? Bill O'Reilly accusing American troops in World War II of a massacre? Ann Coulter wishing a terrorist attack on The New York Times, calling for the poisoning of a Supreme Court justice, attacking a disabled Vietnam vet, or slandering 9/11 widows? Glenn Beck talking about his thoughts of killing Michael Moore, asking an incoming congressman whether he's a traitor, or calling Katrina survivors "scumbags"? None of these incidents led to widespread outrage on the right or banishment by the media. Why should this be any different?
And if this is different, if some people are put off by it, so what? The line of attack is out there -- the idea that Obama may be a crypto-Muslim (a crypto-jihadist!) has been put in the mix, successfully insinuated into a thousand dinner-table conversations.
Now, I hope nobody thinks Schlusser is a loose cannon. I hope nobody thinks this has Republican insiders upset. While Schlusser may be operating on her own, no one's going to step in and tell her to tone it down because she's very, very useful to the GOP. Schlusser and her ilk are like "enforcers" -- the players certain sports teams keep on the bench and send into the game to hurt opposing teams' stars, nastily and pointedly. Schlussel does the GOP's business with this vicious hit, but if public opinion does turn against her, she can be deemed a rogue lunatic, because she's not a GOP star and she's expendable.
Or to put it another way, Schlussel is, between campaigns, what groups like the Swift Boat Veterans are during campaigns -- she does the nasty work better-known figures can't do.
Now, how far out of the mainstream is she, really? Let's look at her bio:
... Schlussel is a frequent guest on ABC's "Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher" and FOX News Channel's "O'Reilly Factor," "Hannity & Colmes," "FOX News Live," "Beyond the News," and "Judith Regan Tonight," MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews," "Buchanan & Press," and "MSNBC Live," CNN's "Crossfire," "Talk Back Live" and "Weekend Wrap," and ESPN's "Outside the Lines."
... you can read her popular twice-weekly online column, "Debbie Does Politics," on the Internet, at the Heritage Foundation's www.Townhall.com and www.PoliticalUSA.com, where she is a Contributor/Columnist. Schlussel is also a frequent New York Post columnist. Her columns have often been read on the air by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, on whom she broke the Monday Night Football story. Schlussel's columns are also frequently reprinted and excerpted in several major newspapers, including The Washington Times and Detroit Free Press. She has also written columns for FOXNews.com.
... Schlussel worked for Fred Barnes, Editor of The Weekly Standard Magazine, host of FOX's "Beltway Boys," and a former regular on "The McLaughlin Group," and Mort Kondracke, also of the "Beltway Boys" and formerly of "The McLaughlin Group," when Barnes and Kondracke were Senior Editors of The New Republic. Schlussel also worked in Washington for several Congressmen -- including Rep. Phil Crane, Chairman, House Trade Subcommittee -- throughout high school (at one point, she was the youngest Congressional intern on Capitol Hill) and college....
However much resume-padding is in there, she's not a wild-eyed outsider, and this isn't punditry brut. She knows the how far she can go -- and it's pretty damn far.
MICHAEL BROWN-ISM, AGAIN
From today's New York Times:
U.S. Cancels Order for 75 Million Doses of Anthrax Vaccine
In a major setback to the Bush administration’s biodefense efforts, the government announced Tuesday that it had canceled an order for 75 million doses of a new anthrax vaccine....
VaxGen, which has no other major customers and has never made a successful vaccine or drug, was supposed to deliver enough vaccine to inoculate 25 million Americans after an anthrax attack, each with three doses.
Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services terminated the $877 million contract Tuesday after VaxGen failed to start required clinical trials....
This is the second high-profile failure for VaxGen. The 11-year-old company’s planned AIDS vaccine was abandoned in 2003 after it proved ineffective....
It may be just as well that those clinical trials never happened. As Harper's recently noted:
VaxGen's past record when it comes to human testing doesn't inspire much confidence. To test its AIDS vaccine, the firm sent researchers to Bangkok. VaxGen used junkies as guinea pigs, paying them about $9 per clinic visit, and generously offered a bonus -- paid in rice -- to people who brought along friends for more tests. "It tracked addicts into jails if they were arrested during the experiment," the Washington Post wrote of the program in 2000, "so that shots and blood tests could be administered."
But let's backtrack. How did a company with no other major customers and no success at producing vaccines -- and that has been delisted by NASDAQ for poor accounting practices -- get this gig? Harper's again:
VaxGen's competitors suspected that the firm, in winning the anthrax contract, may have received a helping hand from Dr. Phil Russell, formerly a top contracting official at HHS who was involved in the BioShield project. Forbes describes Russell as a "long time acquaintance" of VaxGen CEO Lance Gordon....
And as The Nation pointed out last year, Russell was a top deputy to Stewart Simonson:
Meet Stewart Simonson. He's the official charged by Bush with "the protection of the civilian population from acts of bioterrorism and other public health emergencies"--a well-connected, ideological, ambitious Republican with zero public health management or medical expertise, whose previous job was as a corporate lawyer for Amtrak. When Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell, recently speculated, "If something comes along that is truly serious...like a major pandemic, you are going to see the ineptitude of this government in a way that will take you back to the Declaration of Independence," many of those professionally concerned with such scenarios couldn't help thinking of Simonson. They recalled his own unsettling words at a recent Homeland Security subcommittee hearing on government response to a chemical or biological attack: "We're learning as we go."
"Great. What we need in the middle of a crisis is somebody learning on the job at that high level of government," says Jerry Hauer, Simonson's immediate predecessor at the Office of Public Health Emergency Preparedness (OPHEP) and a veteran public health expert....
"He's a political hack, a sycophant," says Ed Garvey, a prominent Wisconsin attorney and the state's former deputy attorney general. "People just laughed when he was appointed to Amtrak, but when the word came out that he was in charge of bioterrorism, it turned to alarm. When you realize that people's lives are at stake, it's frightening. It's just one of those moments when you say, Oh, my God."
(Simonson resigned in March.)
No qualifications, please -- we're Bushies.
By the way, read the Nation story, which suggests that the Bioshield program is bound up in Dick Cheney's and Scooter Libby's fixation on biowar, which in turn was part of the effort to sell the Iraq War by persuading Americans that Saddam had WMDs. (Curiously, Libby's close friend Judy Miller makes a cameo appearance, participating in a war game in the role of a reporter covering a mock biological attack.)
From today's New York Times:
U.S. Cancels Order for 75 Million Doses of Anthrax Vaccine
In a major setback to the Bush administration’s biodefense efforts, the government announced Tuesday that it had canceled an order for 75 million doses of a new anthrax vaccine....
VaxGen, which has no other major customers and has never made a successful vaccine or drug, was supposed to deliver enough vaccine to inoculate 25 million Americans after an anthrax attack, each with three doses.
Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services terminated the $877 million contract Tuesday after VaxGen failed to start required clinical trials....
This is the second high-profile failure for VaxGen. The 11-year-old company’s planned AIDS vaccine was abandoned in 2003 after it proved ineffective....
It may be just as well that those clinical trials never happened. As Harper's recently noted:
VaxGen's past record when it comes to human testing doesn't inspire much confidence. To test its AIDS vaccine, the firm sent researchers to Bangkok. VaxGen used junkies as guinea pigs, paying them about $9 per clinic visit, and generously offered a bonus -- paid in rice -- to people who brought along friends for more tests. "It tracked addicts into jails if they were arrested during the experiment," the Washington Post wrote of the program in 2000, "so that shots and blood tests could be administered."
But let's backtrack. How did a company with no other major customers and no success at producing vaccines -- and that has been delisted by NASDAQ for poor accounting practices -- get this gig? Harper's again:
VaxGen's competitors suspected that the firm, in winning the anthrax contract, may have received a helping hand from Dr. Phil Russell, formerly a top contracting official at HHS who was involved in the BioShield project. Forbes describes Russell as a "long time acquaintance" of VaxGen CEO Lance Gordon....
And as The Nation pointed out last year, Russell was a top deputy to Stewart Simonson:
Meet Stewart Simonson. He's the official charged by Bush with "the protection of the civilian population from acts of bioterrorism and other public health emergencies"--a well-connected, ideological, ambitious Republican with zero public health management or medical expertise, whose previous job was as a corporate lawyer for Amtrak. When Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell, recently speculated, "If something comes along that is truly serious...like a major pandemic, you are going to see the ineptitude of this government in a way that will take you back to the Declaration of Independence," many of those professionally concerned with such scenarios couldn't help thinking of Simonson. They recalled his own unsettling words at a recent Homeland Security subcommittee hearing on government response to a chemical or biological attack: "We're learning as we go."
"Great. What we need in the middle of a crisis is somebody learning on the job at that high level of government," says Jerry Hauer, Simonson's immediate predecessor at the Office of Public Health Emergency Preparedness (OPHEP) and a veteran public health expert....
"He's a political hack, a sycophant," says Ed Garvey, a prominent Wisconsin attorney and the state's former deputy attorney general. "People just laughed when he was appointed to Amtrak, but when the word came out that he was in charge of bioterrorism, it turned to alarm. When you realize that people's lives are at stake, it's frightening. It's just one of those moments when you say, Oh, my God."
(Simonson resigned in March.)
No qualifications, please -- we're Bushies.
By the way, read the Nation story, which suggests that the Bioshield program is bound up in Dick Cheney's and Scooter Libby's fixation on biowar, which in turn was part of the effort to sell the Iraq War by persuading Americans that Saddam had WMDs. (Curiously, Libby's close friend Judy Miller makes a cameo appearance, participating in a war game in the role of a reporter covering a mock biological attack.)
Will Defense Secretary Robert Gates be a voice of realism within the Bush administration? Or will he bend his knee to the ideologues?
--Dan Froomkin at Washingtonpost.com
No. Yes.
Or possibly yes to the first question, in which he will be reduced to the status of a potted plant within the administration (cf. Colin Powell, Paul O'Neill, Christie Whitman), while Dick Cheney acts as de facto secretary of defense. Maybe he'll be told to him busy himself with expanding the military, while Cheney guides Bush in running the war.
This has been another episode of obvious answers to simple questions.
--Dan Froomkin at Washingtonpost.com
No. Yes.
Or possibly yes to the first question, in which he will be reduced to the status of a potted plant within the administration (cf. Colin Powell, Paul O'Neill, Christie Whitman), while Dick Cheney acts as de facto secretary of defense. Maybe he'll be told to him busy himself with expanding the military, while Cheney guides Bush in running the war.
This has been another episode of obvious answers to simple questions.
WHEN YOU USE A WORD, IT MEANS EXACTLY WHAT I CHOOSE IT TO MEAN, NOTHING MORE OR LESS
President Bush tells interviewers from The Washington Post what the American people are thinking right now -- even if it seems like the exact opposite of what we're thinking:
...I think what the people want is -- they want a couple of things. They want to see Democrats and Republicans work together to achieve a common objective, and they want us to win in Iraq. A lot of people understand that if we leave Iraq, there will be dire consequences -- in other words, if we leave before the job is done. There are some, a fair number of people, who say, "Get out now." So I view the election results as people are not satisfied with the progress being made in Iraq and expect to see a different strategy to achieve an important objective.
But the election results seemed people wanted to bring the venture in Iraq to closure. That seemed to be the strong lesson. And what indications are there that you're actually listening to that sentiment?
Oh, Mike, look, I want to achieve the objective. I think the American people -- I know the American people are very worried about an external threat and that they recognize that failure in Iraq would embolden that external threat, and they expect this administration to listen with people, to work with Democrats, to work with the military, to work with the Iraqis to put a plan in place that achieves the objective. There's not a lot of people saying, "Get out now." Most Americans are saying, "We want to achieve the objective."
But there are a lot of people who are saying, "Let's get out with a phased deployment over a certain period of time."
If they felt -- if that leads to victory, it needs to be seriously considered. And I'm considering all options and listening very carefully to a lot of good people who have got different opinions about how to proceed.
There you go: Even if you're saying "Get the hell out," you're really saying "Stay the course." Bush tell us so, and he's the Decider.
President Bush tells interviewers from The Washington Post what the American people are thinking right now -- even if it seems like the exact opposite of what we're thinking:
...I think what the people want is -- they want a couple of things. They want to see Democrats and Republicans work together to achieve a common objective, and they want us to win in Iraq. A lot of people understand that if we leave Iraq, there will be dire consequences -- in other words, if we leave before the job is done. There are some, a fair number of people, who say, "Get out now." So I view the election results as people are not satisfied with the progress being made in Iraq and expect to see a different strategy to achieve an important objective.
But the election results seemed people wanted to bring the venture in Iraq to closure. That seemed to be the strong lesson. And what indications are there that you're actually listening to that sentiment?
Oh, Mike, look, I want to achieve the objective. I think the American people -- I know the American people are very worried about an external threat and that they recognize that failure in Iraq would embolden that external threat, and they expect this administration to listen with people, to work with Democrats, to work with the military, to work with the Iraqis to put a plan in place that achieves the objective. There's not a lot of people saying, "Get out now." Most Americans are saying, "We want to achieve the objective."
But there are a lot of people who are saying, "Let's get out with a phased deployment over a certain period of time."
If they felt -- if that leads to victory, it needs to be seriously considered. And I'm considering all options and listening very carefully to a lot of good people who have got different opinions about how to proceed.
There you go: Even if you're saying "Get the hell out," you're really saying "Stay the course." Bush tell us so, and he's the Decider.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
I'll be on the (virtual) air soon (10:30 EST) -- you can listen here.
*****
...Phew! Got through it. Thank you, Shaun....
*****
...Phew! Got through it. Thank you, Shaun....
Political strategist Dick Morris is so disgusted by the prospect of a Hillary Clinton presidency that he’s announced he’ll leave the country if she wins the Democratic nomination.
--NewsMax
Damn -- now I have to vote for her in the primaries.
--NewsMax
Damn -- now I have to vote for her in the primaries.
Hey, how come Donald Rumsfeld gets two photo essays of his last day in office on the Defense Department Web site, with dramatic Riefenstahlesque low-angle shots against the clouds, and Robert Gates gets just one boring photo essay of his first day on the job?
For those of you keeping score at home, the DOD site also has "Six Years of Accomplishments with Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld." (My favorite: "March 16, 2006 -- permanent Iraqi Government seated." No, really -- it says "permanent.")
For those of you keeping score at home, the DOD site also has "Six Years of Accomplishments with Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld." (My favorite: "March 16, 2006 -- permanent Iraqi Government seated." No, really -- it says "permanent.")
THE O'RUDY FACTOR?
This Washington Post article about the hurdles Rudy Giuliani is likely to face in a GOP primary battle might have persuaded me that he can't win -- if it didn't contain passages like this:
But in a measure of the party's divisions, other Republicans, such as California financier Bill Simon and talk show host Dennis Prager, say his social liberalism is of less concern. They are among a group of conservative activists who see in Giuliani a Reagan-like figure, sometimes wrong but possessed of unshakable conservative beliefs.
I don't care about Simon, but Prager? Dennis "Respect Judeo-Christian Values as I Define Them or Burn in Hell" Prager? Dennis "I Decide What Book a Muslim Congressman Swears His Oath On, and It Ain't the Koran" Prager? If people like Prager are comfy with Giuliani, that's going to help keep a number of wingnuts from rejecting him out of hand.
(Prager interviewed Giuliani a couple of weeks ago and Rudy said nearly all the right things: stay the course, Reagan was a saint, Islamofascists hate us no matter what we do. Prager's only quibble was that Rudy wouldn't criticize McCain-Feingold in truly harsh terms. I doubt that's a dealbreaker.)
And while we're on the subject of Giuliani's relationship with half-mad wingnut radio hosts-slash-pundits who see themselves as Old Testament prophets, here's Hugh Hewitt:
There is an advantage in doing scores of events for radio audiences and Republican activists over the past two years: At each of them I get to conduct my straw poll. In early 2005, I offered audiences the right to vote for one of five possible nominees --Senators Allen, Frist or McCain, Mayor Giuliani, or Governor Romney.
Two years ago, Senator Allen usually won, but Mayor Giuliani was occasionally on top of the poll --the older the audience, the better he did-- though usually he came in second.
By the dismal end of the 2006 campaign season --and I have only done one large event since the election-- Rudy always wins and Romney is always second, and it is usually close.... Senator McCain usually gets about 2%.
Hewitt says that the "majority of the GOP primary electorate" is prioritizing "the war, the war, the war (and judges)." Giuliani's a solid hawk (see the Prager interview); Hewitt adds, "Rudy has a problem with the judges issue, but it is one the primary electorate will be willing to be persuaded about."
I'd say it's more than just the war. I'm sure I've said this before, but Rudy's a hater -- he despises his enemies and it shows, and I think GOP voters love that.
****
If you're having trouble imagining the far right warming to Rudy, consider the case of Bill O'Reilly.
You know O'Reilly doesn't always toe the conservatively correct line:
O'Reilly says he's pro gun control, against the death penalty, and supports civil unions, not just for homosexuals, but "for everybody."
He says he's for gay adoptions as a last resort: "I'd rather have nice, responsible gay home than the system for kids. What else?"
And about the environment? "Government’s gotta be proactive on environment," says O'Reilly. "Global warming is here. All these idiots that run around and say it isn't here. That's ridiculous."
You also know O'Reilly's life is not always G-rated. (Keyword: falafel.)
And yet he's the most popular guy on Fox News. Why? Because he hates. If he disagrees with you, he drops into that pained baritone, then quietly tears your head off. He and Giuliani share that subtly-vicious-poisonous-reptile quality, just as they share Long Island roots. O'Reilly's so good at quiet viciousness that he gets a free pass on the subjects on which he's out of step with the wingnuts. I think Giuliani might get the same reaction in early '08.
This Washington Post article about the hurdles Rudy Giuliani is likely to face in a GOP primary battle might have persuaded me that he can't win -- if it didn't contain passages like this:
But in a measure of the party's divisions, other Republicans, such as California financier Bill Simon and talk show host Dennis Prager, say his social liberalism is of less concern. They are among a group of conservative activists who see in Giuliani a Reagan-like figure, sometimes wrong but possessed of unshakable conservative beliefs.
I don't care about Simon, but Prager? Dennis "Respect Judeo-Christian Values as I Define Them or Burn in Hell" Prager? Dennis "I Decide What Book a Muslim Congressman Swears His Oath On, and It Ain't the Koran" Prager? If people like Prager are comfy with Giuliani, that's going to help keep a number of wingnuts from rejecting him out of hand.
(Prager interviewed Giuliani a couple of weeks ago and Rudy said nearly all the right things: stay the course, Reagan was a saint, Islamofascists hate us no matter what we do. Prager's only quibble was that Rudy wouldn't criticize McCain-Feingold in truly harsh terms. I doubt that's a dealbreaker.)
And while we're on the subject of Giuliani's relationship with half-mad wingnut radio hosts-slash-pundits who see themselves as Old Testament prophets, here's Hugh Hewitt:
There is an advantage in doing scores of events for radio audiences and Republican activists over the past two years: At each of them I get to conduct my straw poll. In early 2005, I offered audiences the right to vote for one of five possible nominees --Senators Allen, Frist or McCain, Mayor Giuliani, or Governor Romney.
Two years ago, Senator Allen usually won, but Mayor Giuliani was occasionally on top of the poll --the older the audience, the better he did-- though usually he came in second.
By the dismal end of the 2006 campaign season --and I have only done one large event since the election-- Rudy always wins and Romney is always second, and it is usually close.... Senator McCain usually gets about 2%.
Hewitt says that the "majority of the GOP primary electorate" is prioritizing "the war, the war, the war (and judges)." Giuliani's a solid hawk (see the Prager interview); Hewitt adds, "Rudy has a problem with the judges issue, but it is one the primary electorate will be willing to be persuaded about."
I'd say it's more than just the war. I'm sure I've said this before, but Rudy's a hater -- he despises his enemies and it shows, and I think GOP voters love that.
****
If you're having trouble imagining the far right warming to Rudy, consider the case of Bill O'Reilly.
You know O'Reilly doesn't always toe the conservatively correct line:
O'Reilly says he's pro gun control, against the death penalty, and supports civil unions, not just for homosexuals, but "for everybody."
He says he's for gay adoptions as a last resort: "I'd rather have nice, responsible gay home than the system for kids. What else?"
And about the environment? "Government’s gotta be proactive on environment," says O'Reilly. "Global warming is here. All these idiots that run around and say it isn't here. That's ridiculous."
You also know O'Reilly's life is not always G-rated. (Keyword: falafel.)
And yet he's the most popular guy on Fox News. Why? Because he hates. If he disagrees with you, he drops into that pained baritone, then quietly tears your head off. He and Giuliani share that subtly-vicious-poisonous-reptile quality, just as they share Long Island roots. O'Reilly's so good at quiet viciousness that he gets a free pass on the subjects on which he's out of step with the wingnuts. I think Giuliani might get the same reaction in early '08.
YOUR LIBERAL MEDIA
You probably know -- a lot of people are pointing it out -- that this week's Newsweek cover story on Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton omits, curiously, any mention of the results of a recent Newsweek poll showing Clinton beating McCain, Giuliani, and Romney, and Obama trouncing Romney while running neck-and-neck with Giuliani and McCain.
Atrios said,
I bet this poll won't get any coverage. In fact, I couldn't even find coverage of it in Newsweek itself, aside from the linked press release.
Newsweek certainly is suppressing this story -- but look who's got it on the front page:
(Story here; huge Post homepage Hillary splash here.) (UPDATE: Well, the splash doesn't feature Hillary anymore, but it sure did this morning.)
Of course, Newsweek buried the story because "many people like Hillary and would vote for her" isn't a story the "liberal media" likes. The "liberal media" likes the story that Hillary is "polarizing" and no one can bear ever to think about Monicagate again or think about the "psychodramas" of Hillary and Bill's "complex" marriage. And if it's a choice between a story the press likes or the facts, the press will choose the story it likes.
The Post has a different motivation, of course. Murdoch would no more suppress a positive poll about Hillary than Thomas Harris would kill off Hannibal Lecter, or Oceania would announce that Goldstein will no longer appear in Two Minutes' Hates because he's in custody and no longer threatens the social order. Murdoch ran this story about Hillary's triumph -- Obama's numbers are never mentioned -- to scare his audience and keep them scared. She's the #1 boogey(wo)man, of course. And he'll keep doing that. (I'm convinced that this was a big part of Murdoch's line of thinking before hosting that fund-raiser for Hillary -- this and, probably, a belief that you should keep your friends close and your enemies closer.)
From the Post story:
..."For people who say she can't win, these polls show she is winning, she is moving, she is growing in reputation nationally within the party," [Clinton pollster Mark] Penn told The Post, adding that for "the first time in this poll [she is] defeating the likely opponents."...
EEEEK! EEEEK! Run for your lives! Vote Republican!
****
LIBERAL MEDIA UPDATE: The New York Times cites the Newsweek poll today in a graphic sidebar to this article -- but only the questions about whether America is ready for a black, female, or Mormon president. The matchup poll numbers are ignored.
You probably know -- a lot of people are pointing it out -- that this week's Newsweek cover story on Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton omits, curiously, any mention of the results of a recent Newsweek poll showing Clinton beating McCain, Giuliani, and Romney, and Obama trouncing Romney while running neck-and-neck with Giuliani and McCain.
Atrios said,
I bet this poll won't get any coverage. In fact, I couldn't even find coverage of it in Newsweek itself, aside from the linked press release.
Newsweek certainly is suppressing this story -- but look who's got it on the front page:
(Story here; huge Post homepage Hillary splash here.) (UPDATE: Well, the splash doesn't feature Hillary anymore, but it sure did this morning.)
Of course, Newsweek buried the story because "many people like Hillary and would vote for her" isn't a story the "liberal media" likes. The "liberal media" likes the story that Hillary is "polarizing" and no one can bear ever to think about Monicagate again or think about the "psychodramas" of Hillary and Bill's "complex" marriage. And if it's a choice between a story the press likes or the facts, the press will choose the story it likes.
The Post has a different motivation, of course. Murdoch would no more suppress a positive poll about Hillary than Thomas Harris would kill off Hannibal Lecter, or Oceania would announce that Goldstein will no longer appear in Two Minutes' Hates because he's in custody and no longer threatens the social order. Murdoch ran this story about Hillary's triumph -- Obama's numbers are never mentioned -- to scare his audience and keep them scared. She's the #1 boogey(wo)man, of course. And he'll keep doing that. (I'm convinced that this was a big part of Murdoch's line of thinking before hosting that fund-raiser for Hillary -- this and, probably, a belief that you should keep your friends close and your enemies closer.)
From the Post story:
..."For people who say she can't win, these polls show she is winning, she is moving, she is growing in reputation nationally within the party," [Clinton pollster Mark] Penn told The Post, adding that for "the first time in this poll [she is] defeating the likely opponents."...
EEEEK! EEEEK! Run for your lives! Vote Republican!
****
LIBERAL MEDIA UPDATE: The New York Times cites the Newsweek poll today in a graphic sidebar to this article -- but only the questions about whether America is ready for a black, female, or Mormon president. The matchup poll numbers are ignored.
Monday, December 18, 2006
THROW EVERYTHING AT EVERY DEMOCRAT. SOMETHING MIGHT STICK.
The right-wing "news" site American Thinker is now whining that the Obamas are too rich.
Following the usual unnatural Satan-inspired Democratic gender-role pattern, it's Mrs. O who's particularly worrisome -- she's a Harvard Law graduate who makes about $300,000 a year (the nerve!). Oh, and the senator bashes Wal-Mart, while his wife is on the board of directors of ... no, not Wal-Mart, but a company that sells to Wal-Mart. Outrageous! And he has the gall to actually make money from his two #1 bestselling books! Unspeakable!
This is the #2 story at Lucianne.com as I type. Millionaire McCain, multi-millionaire Romney, and Rudy "I Made $20 Million the Year After 9/11" Giuliani were apparently unavailable for comment.
The right-wing "news" site American Thinker is now whining that the Obamas are too rich.
Following the usual unnatural Satan-inspired Democratic gender-role pattern, it's Mrs. O who's particularly worrisome -- she's a Harvard Law graduate who makes about $300,000 a year (the nerve!). Oh, and the senator bashes Wal-Mart, while his wife is on the board of directors of ... no, not Wal-Mart, but a company that sells to Wal-Mart. Outrageous! And he has the gall to actually make money from his two #1 bestselling books! Unspeakable!
This is the #2 story at Lucianne.com as I type. Millionaire McCain, multi-millionaire Romney, and Rudy "I Made $20 Million the Year After 9/11" Giuliani were apparently unavailable for comment.
ASKING FOR IT
Today's New York Times has a story aboutDavid Paszkiewicz, Matthew LaClair, a high school student in New Jersey who caught a Christianist teacher on tape proclaiming that a specific Muslim student was going to hell, that dinosaurs were aboard Noah's Ark, and that belief in evolution and the Big Bang is unscientific -- in a public-school history class.
I love the early reaction to the story by commenters at Ann Althouse's ersatz-centrist right-wing blog:
... this smells like a sting. If the story is accurate, how very convenient that the kid just happened to be the son of a secular humanist lawyer. I'd want to know if that's true, and if so, has the father previously litigated issues like this? Is he someone actively hostile to religion? The record is replete of examples where the left uses their children as a battering ram for their political causes: in recent memory, Michael Newdow and Cindy Sheehan spring to mind.
*****
how very convenient that the kid just happened to be the son of a secular humanist lawyer
Yes, I was on board til I got to that little factoid.
*****
This, also, from the story: "Matthew [is] a thin, articulate 16-year-old with braces and a passion for politics." I don't think it takes much of a stretch to guess what kind of politics he subscribes to. What we've got here, by the terms of the story, is a teacher who has no previous record of this sort of thing, who suddenly -- out of the blue! -- decides to start evangelizing in class. And by nothing more than sheer coincidence, it just happens to be in the presence of a passionately political secular humanist (who, as even the NYT admits, was asking leading questions), who happens to have a tape recorder and father who could even litigate the matter. How extraordinarily convenient. Instant ACLU cause celebre - just add outrage.
Come on - you have to admit that this story smells fishy.
*****
Ok, so both the teacher and the kid and his parents are not very smart, in the case of the teacher, or very honorable, in the case of the kid and his parents.
Wouldn't it be great if we could fire the teacher and kick the kid out of school for the rest of his life? I'd be jiggy with that....
So the kid is the bad guy, hunh? (The kid and his parents, and, incidentally, maybe the teacher also.)
Er, how different is this from assuming that a rape victim was "asking for it"? (The kid wanted it! He was wearing provocative ideas!)
To give Althouse's readers their due, cooler heads eventually prevail.
(Via Memeorandum.)
Today's New York Times has a story about
I love the early reaction to the story by commenters at Ann Althouse's ersatz-centrist right-wing blog:
... this smells like a sting. If the story is accurate, how very convenient that the kid just happened to be the son of a secular humanist lawyer. I'd want to know if that's true, and if so, has the father previously litigated issues like this? Is he someone actively hostile to religion? The record is replete of examples where the left uses their children as a battering ram for their political causes: in recent memory, Michael Newdow and Cindy Sheehan spring to mind.
*****
how very convenient that the kid just happened to be the son of a secular humanist lawyer
Yes, I was on board til I got to that little factoid.
*****
This, also, from the story: "Matthew [is] a thin, articulate 16-year-old with braces and a passion for politics." I don't think it takes much of a stretch to guess what kind of politics he subscribes to. What we've got here, by the terms of the story, is a teacher who has no previous record of this sort of thing, who suddenly -- out of the blue! -- decides to start evangelizing in class. And by nothing more than sheer coincidence, it just happens to be in the presence of a passionately political secular humanist (who, as even the NYT admits, was asking leading questions), who happens to have a tape recorder and father who could even litigate the matter. How extraordinarily convenient. Instant ACLU cause celebre - just add outrage.
Come on - you have to admit that this story smells fishy.
*****
Ok, so both the teacher and the kid and his parents are not very smart, in the case of the teacher, or very honorable, in the case of the kid and his parents.
Wouldn't it be great if we could fire the teacher and kick the kid out of school for the rest of his life? I'd be jiggy with that....
So the kid is the bad guy, hunh? (The kid and his parents, and, incidentally, maybe the teacher also.)
Er, how different is this from assuming that a rape victim was "asking for it"? (The kid wanted it! He was wearing provocative ideas!)
To give Althouse's readers their due, cooler heads eventually prevail.
(Via Memeorandum.)
LATEST VICTIMS OF THE P.C. NAZIS: O.J. AND HIS PUBLISHER
You probably know that Judith Regan lost her publishing imprint on Friday after being fired. Today, in the New York Sun, Robert Asahina -- who brought Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho to Simon & Schuster when he was a book editor back in the early '90s (and who also acquired books by William Bennett, Allan Bloom, and Bill O'Reilly) -- tells us that the whole thing is just East Coast snobbishness and political correctness run amok:
It's difficult to avoid the conclusion that Ms. Regan was fired not for her legendarily difficult personality -- and not, or not just, because of her longstanding rivalry with [HarperCollins CEO Jane] Friedman -- but for her repeated affronts to the bland conformity of New York publishing....
Too frequently, book publishers today are prisoners of received opinion, all too eager to act as gatekeepers rather than as promoters of free speech. Would Ms. Regan be considered even remotely controversial if she had published, say, Noam Chomsky, Al Franken, and Karen Finley? By this measure, Ms. Regan's chief sin seems to have been that her authors sold millions of books to exactly the kind of readers that New York publishers wish weren't their customers.
The truth is apparently, er, a bit more complicated:
Rupert Murdoch personally ordered the dismissal of Judith Regan, the publisher of a widely criticized O. J. Simpson book, after he heard reports of a heated conversation Ms. Regan had with a company lawyer on Friday that included comments that were deemed anti-Semitic, according to two people familiar with the News Corporation's account of the firing.
Mark Jackson, a lawyer with HarperCollins, a division of the News Corporation that includes Ms. Regan's imprint, reported the alleged comments from a phone conversation with Ms. Regan to Jane Friedman, HarperCollins’s president and chief executive.
... Ms. Regan’s alleged comments, which came in the midst of a tense conversation in which she berated Mr. Jackson, were directed at him and Ms. Friedman, who are Jewish, as well as toward other Jews, one of the sources said.
Oh, that P.C. fascist Rupert Murdoch -- always getting hypersensitive about Jews!
More:
Ms. Regan first responded to public opprobrium over the Simpson project with an unhinged eight-page defense of her interview. And then, after the plug was pulled on Nov. 21, she failed to accept the decision. (When Mr. Murdoch says something is dead, put away the paddles and pull up the hearse.)
Instead she railed against HarperCollins, the News Corporation book division that owns her ReganBooks imprint, while taping her Sirius Satellite Radio show, according to Ron Hogan, an editor at GalleyCat, which is a book-oriented blog. And finally, she made offensive remarks in a phone call to one of the company’s lawyers on Friday, according to a report in The Los Angeles Times.
"I think someone looked a little bit down the road and saw train wrecks everywhere," said a HarperCollins executive who declined attribution because the case might end up in litigation.
She started attacking her boss in public and she was fired. How P.C.! How East Coast snobbish!
Did that executive say "train wrecks"? Perhaps he/she was referring to matters such as this:
Judith Regan and executives from HarperCollins and News Corp. may be deposed as part of a lawsuit that could be filed this week by the family of murder victim Ron Goldman.
One attorney described it as an attempt to "get to the bottom" of the internal decision-making process surrounding the aborted publication of "If I Did It," O.J. Simpson's hypothetical tell-all on how he would have killed his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Goldman....
The lawsuit would likely be based on the legal premise of "fraudulent transfer," which in this case would contend that News Corp. executives knowingly conspired to assist Simpson in subverting a civil judgment against him....
Firing someone who spearheaded a project that's resulted in a possibly expensive and highly public, highly embarrassing lawsuit -- only a liberal would do that!
Yup, I guess Asahina's right.
****
(GalleyCat, as noted above, has wall-to-wall coverage of all this. You can read Regan's "uninged eight-page defense of her interview" here, here, or here. And regarding Asahina's "Noam Chomsky, Al Franken, and Karen Finley" remark, the good Roger Ailes says, "Regan published books by Ralph Nader, Michael Moore, and Joe Trippi. Isn't that the exact same thing?")
****
Under ordinary circumstances, Asahina's article would set the terms of the debate -- all other inconvenient facts would be banished from memory and there'd be hand-wringing in the media about "Judith Regan: victim of political correctness?" What's different in this case is that she offended Rupert Murdoch, whose media outlets tend to be the principal carriers of P.C.-bashing, liberal-bashing memes. So I'm not sure how this will play out. The fact that Regan published Rush Limbaugh's two bestsellers makes me suspect that the "Chardonnay-swillers got her fired" version of the story could get traction.
****
UPDATE: From the subscription-only Publishers Lunch:
While the last month's worth of stories have always said how financially successful Regan has been as a publisher, none of those characterizations have noted that 2006 has been a disappointing year for the unit's frontlist, with books like Kimora Lee Simmons' FABULOSITY, Jim McGreevey's CONFESSION, Rain Pryor's JOKES MY FATHER NEVER TAUGHT ME and Kevin Week's Whitey Bulger book a far cry from last year's JUICED [by Jose Canseco], Scott Peterson trio and other Regan hits.
So they're firing her for insulting the boss, embroiling the company in a laswsuit, insulting Jews, and not making enough money. Only a liberal would think that way!
You probably know that Judith Regan lost her publishing imprint on Friday after being fired. Today, in the New York Sun, Robert Asahina -- who brought Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho to Simon & Schuster when he was a book editor back in the early '90s (and who also acquired books by William Bennett, Allan Bloom, and Bill O'Reilly) -- tells us that the whole thing is just East Coast snobbishness and political correctness run amok:
It's difficult to avoid the conclusion that Ms. Regan was fired not for her legendarily difficult personality -- and not, or not just, because of her longstanding rivalry with [HarperCollins CEO Jane] Friedman -- but for her repeated affronts to the bland conformity of New York publishing....
Too frequently, book publishers today are prisoners of received opinion, all too eager to act as gatekeepers rather than as promoters of free speech. Would Ms. Regan be considered even remotely controversial if she had published, say, Noam Chomsky, Al Franken, and Karen Finley? By this measure, Ms. Regan's chief sin seems to have been that her authors sold millions of books to exactly the kind of readers that New York publishers wish weren't their customers.
The truth is apparently, er, a bit more complicated:
Rupert Murdoch personally ordered the dismissal of Judith Regan, the publisher of a widely criticized O. J. Simpson book, after he heard reports of a heated conversation Ms. Regan had with a company lawyer on Friday that included comments that were deemed anti-Semitic, according to two people familiar with the News Corporation's account of the firing.
Mark Jackson, a lawyer with HarperCollins, a division of the News Corporation that includes Ms. Regan's imprint, reported the alleged comments from a phone conversation with Ms. Regan to Jane Friedman, HarperCollins’s president and chief executive.
... Ms. Regan’s alleged comments, which came in the midst of a tense conversation in which she berated Mr. Jackson, were directed at him and Ms. Friedman, who are Jewish, as well as toward other Jews, one of the sources said.
Oh, that P.C. fascist Rupert Murdoch -- always getting hypersensitive about Jews!
More:
Ms. Regan first responded to public opprobrium over the Simpson project with an unhinged eight-page defense of her interview. And then, after the plug was pulled on Nov. 21, she failed to accept the decision. (When Mr. Murdoch says something is dead, put away the paddles and pull up the hearse.)
Instead she railed against HarperCollins, the News Corporation book division that owns her ReganBooks imprint, while taping her Sirius Satellite Radio show, according to Ron Hogan, an editor at GalleyCat, which is a book-oriented blog. And finally, she made offensive remarks in a phone call to one of the company’s lawyers on Friday, according to a report in The Los Angeles Times.
"I think someone looked a little bit down the road and saw train wrecks everywhere," said a HarperCollins executive who declined attribution because the case might end up in litigation.
She started attacking her boss in public and she was fired. How P.C.! How East Coast snobbish!
Did that executive say "train wrecks"? Perhaps he/she was referring to matters such as this:
Judith Regan and executives from HarperCollins and News Corp. may be deposed as part of a lawsuit that could be filed this week by the family of murder victim Ron Goldman.
One attorney described it as an attempt to "get to the bottom" of the internal decision-making process surrounding the aborted publication of "If I Did It," O.J. Simpson's hypothetical tell-all on how he would have killed his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Goldman....
The lawsuit would likely be based on the legal premise of "fraudulent transfer," which in this case would contend that News Corp. executives knowingly conspired to assist Simpson in subverting a civil judgment against him....
Firing someone who spearheaded a project that's resulted in a possibly expensive and highly public, highly embarrassing lawsuit -- only a liberal would do that!
Yup, I guess Asahina's right.
****
(GalleyCat, as noted above, has wall-to-wall coverage of all this. You can read Regan's "uninged eight-page defense of her interview" here, here, or here. And regarding Asahina's "Noam Chomsky, Al Franken, and Karen Finley" remark, the good Roger Ailes says, "Regan published books by Ralph Nader, Michael Moore, and Joe Trippi. Isn't that the exact same thing?")
****
Under ordinary circumstances, Asahina's article would set the terms of the debate -- all other inconvenient facts would be banished from memory and there'd be hand-wringing in the media about "Judith Regan: victim of political correctness?" What's different in this case is that she offended Rupert Murdoch, whose media outlets tend to be the principal carriers of P.C.-bashing, liberal-bashing memes. So I'm not sure how this will play out. The fact that Regan published Rush Limbaugh's two bestsellers makes me suspect that the "Chardonnay-swillers got her fired" version of the story could get traction.
****
UPDATE: From the subscription-only Publishers Lunch:
While the last month's worth of stories have always said how financially successful Regan has been as a publisher, none of those characterizations have noted that 2006 has been a disappointing year for the unit's frontlist, with books like Kimora Lee Simmons' FABULOSITY, Jim McGreevey's CONFESSION, Rain Pryor's JOKES MY FATHER NEVER TAUGHT ME and Kevin Week's Whitey Bulger book a far cry from last year's JUICED [by Jose Canseco], Scott Peterson trio and other Regan hits.
So they're firing her for insulting the boss, embroiling the company in a laswsuit, insulting Jews, and not making enough money. Only a liberal would think that way!
Sunday, December 17, 2006
This culture-war story from the Week in Review section of today's New York Times is fluffy and silly, but one aspect of it annoys me enough to make me want to take it seriously: The author, Randy Kennedy, points out that Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins contentedly celebrate Christmas even though they're the authors of two recent anti-religion bestsellers; Harris says it makes sense because Christmas "has been entirely appropriated by the secular world," while Dawkins says he "unhesitatingly wish[es] everyone a Merry Christmas," "understanding full well that the phrase retains zero religious significance."
Kennedy then writes:
Such obliging feelings toward Christmas will undoubtedly serve as another piece of evidence for those like [Bill] O'Reilly and conservative Christians who feel that the holiday has been hijacked -- so much so that even atheists are now comfortable getting into the spirit.
Hunh? That isn't what O'Reilly and the other Christian-right culture warriors have been saying about Christmas at all. In fact, Dawkins in particular is satisfying the principal demand of O'Reilly et al. with regard to the holiday season: He's saying "Merry Christmas" even though he doesn't believe Christ is God. (The only way O'Reilly would be happier, I suspect, is if Dawkins did so not "unhesitatingly," but because he felt dragged into it, kicking and screaming. The point, for O'Reilly and the rest, is that this is their society, dammit, and everybody should defer to their preference and stop grumbling. With regard to Christmas, Dawkins and Harris are deferring, but they're not grumbling nearly enough.)
Shouldn't Randy Kennedy know that the culture warriors want all holiday greetings other than "Merry Christmas" banished, want the greenery of the season to be called "Christmas trees" rather than "holiday trees," want Christmas (identified as such) celebrated in "the public square," and so on, and that it's not the degree of belief that matters to them but the degree of linguistic deference? If you get paid to write about the culture wars for the most important newspaper in America, shouldn't you have this stuff down cold? Shouldn't you have more than a vague, half-accurate sense of the arguments made by the people you're writing about?
Kennedy then writes:
Such obliging feelings toward Christmas will undoubtedly serve as another piece of evidence for those like [Bill] O'Reilly and conservative Christians who feel that the holiday has been hijacked -- so much so that even atheists are now comfortable getting into the spirit.
Hunh? That isn't what O'Reilly and the other Christian-right culture warriors have been saying about Christmas at all. In fact, Dawkins in particular is satisfying the principal demand of O'Reilly et al. with regard to the holiday season: He's saying "Merry Christmas" even though he doesn't believe Christ is God. (The only way O'Reilly would be happier, I suspect, is if Dawkins did so not "unhesitatingly," but because he felt dragged into it, kicking and screaming. The point, for O'Reilly and the rest, is that this is their society, dammit, and everybody should defer to their preference and stop grumbling. With regard to Christmas, Dawkins and Harris are deferring, but they're not grumbling nearly enough.)
Shouldn't Randy Kennedy know that the culture warriors want all holiday greetings other than "Merry Christmas" banished, want the greenery of the season to be called "Christmas trees" rather than "holiday trees," want Christmas (identified as such) celebrated in "the public square," and so on, and that it's not the degree of belief that matters to them but the degree of linguistic deference? If you get paid to write about the culture wars for the most important newspaper in America, shouldn't you have this stuff down cold? Shouldn't you have more than a vague, half-accurate sense of the arguments made by the people you're writing about?
MARY CHENEY AND PETER AKINOLA
Frank Rich today:
The 2006 midterms left Karl Rove's supposedly foolproof playbook in tatters....
This time around, ballot initiatives banning same-sex marriage drew markedly less support than in 2004; the draconian one endorsed by Mr. McCain in Arizona was voted down altogether.... To further confirm the inexorable march of social history, the only Christmas season miracle to lift the beleaguered Bush administration this year has been the announcement that Mary Cheney, the vice president's gay daughter, is pregnant. Her growing family is the living rejoinder to those in her father's party who would relegate gay American couples and their children to second-class legal or human status.
Yeah, gay-bashing is going the way of the dinosaur.
Except a few people didn't get the memo:
As many as eight conservative Episcopal churches in Virginia are expected to announce today that their parishioners have voted to cut their ties with the Episcopal Church. Two are large, historic congregations that minister to the Washington elite and occupy real estate worth a combined $27 million....
In Virginia, the two large churches are voting on whether they want to report to the powerful archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola, an outspoken opponent of homosexuality who supports legislation in his country that would make it illegal for gay men and lesbians to form organizations, read gay literature or eat together in a restaurant. Archbishop Akinola presides over the largest province in the 77-million-member Anglican Communion; it has more than 17 million members, dwarfing the Episcopal Church, with 2.3 million.
A sampling of the wit and wisdom of Archbishop Akinola:
* "To opine that, unknown to humans, God had hitherto created some people to be homosexuals and lesbians (i.e., sexual orientations) is tantamount to creating God in our own image and introducing a cancerous element into the fabric of the African understanding of marriage and family."
* "Homosexuality and lesbianism, like divorce, breed a society of single parents which gives rise to a generation of bastards. And in the context of much poverty and lack of education, this further produces an ill-bred generation of hooligans, portending much terror to the peace and stability of the society."
* "In a society where many women are finding it difficult to have husbands of their own due to depletion of men by many factors, homosexuality will exacerbate the disequilibrium, leading to much social unrest."
* "By your victory at the polls, you have put to shame the revisionists and their agenda in the Church of Christ, and particularly in the Episcopal Church of United States of America (ECUSA). I hope that by your election victory, these ordained men and women will feel rebuked and be forced to repent of this grievous sin of repudiating the word of God, and to seek genuine restoration." (From An Open Congratulatory Message to the President George W. Bush)
Oh, and earlier this year, in response to rioting by Muslims in several Nigerian cities, the man of God said:
"May we at this stage remind our Muslim brothers that they do not have the monopoly of violence in this nation".
Rick (Purpose Driven Life) Warren defended this remark in Time magazine:
He has been criticized for recent remarks of frustration that some felt exacerbated Muslim-Christian clashes in his country. But Christians are routinely attacked in parts of Nigeria, and his anger was no more characteristic than Nelson Mandela's apartheid-era statement that "sooner or later this violence is going to spread to whites."
(Never mind the fact that Mandela was a freedom-fighter, not a minister of Christ.)
Warren adds:
I believe he, like Mandela, is a man of peace and his leadership is a model for Christians around the world.
That last part is what I'm afraid of.
Frank Rich today:
The 2006 midterms left Karl Rove's supposedly foolproof playbook in tatters....
This time around, ballot initiatives banning same-sex marriage drew markedly less support than in 2004; the draconian one endorsed by Mr. McCain in Arizona was voted down altogether.... To further confirm the inexorable march of social history, the only Christmas season miracle to lift the beleaguered Bush administration this year has been the announcement that Mary Cheney, the vice president's gay daughter, is pregnant. Her growing family is the living rejoinder to those in her father's party who would relegate gay American couples and their children to second-class legal or human status.
Yeah, gay-bashing is going the way of the dinosaur.
Except a few people didn't get the memo:
As many as eight conservative Episcopal churches in Virginia are expected to announce today that their parishioners have voted to cut their ties with the Episcopal Church. Two are large, historic congregations that minister to the Washington elite and occupy real estate worth a combined $27 million....
In Virginia, the two large churches are voting on whether they want to report to the powerful archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola, an outspoken opponent of homosexuality who supports legislation in his country that would make it illegal for gay men and lesbians to form organizations, read gay literature or eat together in a restaurant. Archbishop Akinola presides over the largest province in the 77-million-member Anglican Communion; it has more than 17 million members, dwarfing the Episcopal Church, with 2.3 million.
A sampling of the wit and wisdom of Archbishop Akinola:
* "To opine that, unknown to humans, God had hitherto created some people to be homosexuals and lesbians (i.e., sexual orientations) is tantamount to creating God in our own image and introducing a cancerous element into the fabric of the African understanding of marriage and family."
* "Homosexuality and lesbianism, like divorce, breed a society of single parents which gives rise to a generation of bastards. And in the context of much poverty and lack of education, this further produces an ill-bred generation of hooligans, portending much terror to the peace and stability of the society."
* "In a society where many women are finding it difficult to have husbands of their own due to depletion of men by many factors, homosexuality will exacerbate the disequilibrium, leading to much social unrest."
* "By your victory at the polls, you have put to shame the revisionists and their agenda in the Church of Christ, and particularly in the Episcopal Church of United States of America (ECUSA). I hope that by your election victory, these ordained men and women will feel rebuked and be forced to repent of this grievous sin of repudiating the word of God, and to seek genuine restoration." (From An Open Congratulatory Message to the President George W. Bush)
Oh, and earlier this year, in response to rioting by Muslims in several Nigerian cities, the man of God said:
"May we at this stage remind our Muslim brothers that they do not have the monopoly of violence in this nation".
Rick (Purpose Driven Life) Warren defended this remark in Time magazine:
He has been criticized for recent remarks of frustration that some felt exacerbated Muslim-Christian clashes in his country. But Christians are routinely attacked in parts of Nigeria, and his anger was no more characteristic than Nelson Mandela's apartheid-era statement that "sooner or later this violence is going to spread to whites."
(Never mind the fact that Mandela was a freedom-fighter, not a minister of Christ.)
Warren adds:
I believe he, like Mandela, is a man of peace and his leadership is a model for Christians around the world.
That last part is what I'm afraid of.
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Time Person of the Year: You
(Subhead: "Yes, you. You control the Information Age. Welcome to your world.")
I love it.
And I loved it even more a week ago, when it appeared in The New York Times under the title "2006, Brought to You by You."
****
Oh, and Time gushes about "Web 2.0" in its cover story -- several days after this cover story hit the stands:
(Subhead: "Yes, you. You control the Information Age. Welcome to your world.")
I love it.
And I loved it even more a week ago, when it appeared in The New York Times under the title "2006, Brought to You by You."
****
Oh, and Time gushes about "Web 2.0" in its cover story -- several days after this cover story hit the stands:
JESUS LOVES THE LITTLE CHILDREN, ALL THE LITTLE CHILDREN OF THE WORLD ... EXCEPT YOU IN THE HEADSCARF
This story has a few people riled up:
Gov. Phil Bredesen has given an unusual twist to his family's Christmas card: He is marking a Christian holiday with a card depicting a Muslim girl.
The card's cover is a print of a painting by the governor of a young woman he met when he toured Afghanistan in March.
"May the peace and joy of this Christmas season be with you and your loved ones throughout the coming year," the card reads.
"While it may seem odd to put a portrait of a young Muslim woman on a Christmas card, this Season reminds us that He loves His children most of all," Bredesen stated on the back of the card....
The negative comments at the story's comment board are generally mild, but there is this charming response:
What's next Phil, the Grand Wizzard of the KKK on next year's card?
(Oops........that would cost votes)!
But Ed at Captain's Quarters is truly peeved:
If Bredesen thought this would mollify those who want more religion in their Christmas, he's going to be sorely disappointed. Christians want religion in their holiday, all right -- but they prefer it to be Christianity. We know God loves all his children, but Christianity has plenty of its own imagery for the holiday; we hardly need to borrow from Muslims for holiday greetings, especially these days....
It's hard to understand what Bredesen was thinking with this choice, except for mindless political correctness. The message from Tennessee this holiday appears to be, "Have Yourself A Dhimmi Little Christmas."
Now, I'm a bit confused. Right-wingers have been insisting that a Muslim should use the Christian holy book in his congressional swearing-in, and that shopkeepers should say "Merry Christmas" to non-Christians -- including, presumably, Muslims in traditional dress. So I guess the rule is: Mixing of Christianity with other religions is unacceptable -- except when it's a deliberate attempt to piss off Muslims, in which case it's mandatory.
(Via Memeorandum.)
This story has a few people riled up:
Gov. Phil Bredesen has given an unusual twist to his family's Christmas card: He is marking a Christian holiday with a card depicting a Muslim girl.
The card's cover is a print of a painting by the governor of a young woman he met when he toured Afghanistan in March.
"May the peace and joy of this Christmas season be with you and your loved ones throughout the coming year," the card reads.
"While it may seem odd to put a portrait of a young Muslim woman on a Christmas card, this Season reminds us that He loves His children most of all," Bredesen stated on the back of the card....
The negative comments at the story's comment board are generally mild, but there is this charming response:
What's next Phil, the Grand Wizzard of the KKK on next year's card?
(Oops........that would cost votes)!
But Ed at Captain's Quarters is truly peeved:
If Bredesen thought this would mollify those who want more religion in their Christmas, he's going to be sorely disappointed. Christians want religion in their holiday, all right -- but they prefer it to be Christianity. We know God loves all his children, but Christianity has plenty of its own imagery for the holiday; we hardly need to borrow from Muslims for holiday greetings, especially these days....
It's hard to understand what Bredesen was thinking with this choice, except for mindless political correctness. The message from Tennessee this holiday appears to be, "Have Yourself A Dhimmi Little Christmas."
Now, I'm a bit confused. Right-wingers have been insisting that a Muslim should use the Christian holy book in his congressional swearing-in, and that shopkeepers should say "Merry Christmas" to non-Christians -- including, presumably, Muslims in traditional dress. So I guess the rule is: Mixing of Christianity with other religions is unacceptable -- except when it's a deliberate attempt to piss off Muslims, in which case it's mandatory.
(Via Memeorandum.)
FINDING THE GOOD
Hugh Hewitt:
The young blogger is best served by "finding the good and praising it," to borrow from author Alex Haley, rather than to slag and singe opponents or denounce other people's positions.
Hugh Hewitt, three paragraphs later:
Though the anti-military left has thrown around the term "chickenhawk" in an attempt to damage the political careers of many Vietnam-era politicians who did not serve in the military, it has never had traction outside of the fever swamp, and even within that narrow slice of American politics, the charge marks the user as one of the nutters, given that the premise of the American republic is civilian control of the military, and especially as veterans rarely --and active duty men and women never-- make that charge, understanding it to be both typically duplicitous in that it is offered by many who do not esteem the military, and deeply at odds with the basic structure of the country.
Contradiction? What contradiction?
****
(By the way, the point of Hewitt's column is that even though people who talk of "chickenhawks" are "nutters," young conservatives who want to run for office in the future should enlist in the military now -- not because it's hypocritical not to, but because it will be harder for them to get elected if they didn't serve in the Great Patriotic Total War. I don't know why he believes this, especially given the fact that we may be on the verge of electing President Giuliani or President Romney, which would give us our third straight presidential election in which a star-spangled baby-boomer Republican reached the Oval Office despite having avoided combat in Vietnam.)
Hugh Hewitt:
The young blogger is best served by "finding the good and praising it," to borrow from author Alex Haley, rather than to slag and singe opponents or denounce other people's positions.
Hugh Hewitt, three paragraphs later:
Though the anti-military left has thrown around the term "chickenhawk" in an attempt to damage the political careers of many Vietnam-era politicians who did not serve in the military, it has never had traction outside of the fever swamp, and even within that narrow slice of American politics, the charge marks the user as one of the nutters, given that the premise of the American republic is civilian control of the military, and especially as veterans rarely --and active duty men and women never-- make that charge, understanding it to be both typically duplicitous in that it is offered by many who do not esteem the military, and deeply at odds with the basic structure of the country.
Contradiction? What contradiction?
****
(By the way, the point of Hewitt's column is that even though people who talk of "chickenhawks" are "nutters," young conservatives who want to run for office in the future should enlist in the military now -- not because it's hypocritical not to, but because it will be harder for them to get elected if they didn't serve in the Great Patriotic Total War. I don't know why he believes this, especially given the fact that we may be on the verge of electing President Giuliani or President Romney, which would give us our third straight presidential election in which a star-spangled baby-boomer Republican reached the Oval Office despite having avoided combat in Vietnam.)
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