Sine Qua Non Pundit |
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And what is good, Phaedrus, And what is not good -- Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?
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Saturday, March 30, 2002
Our Friends in England This is almost too tiresome to bother with, but allow me to introduce you to Mr. John Farrell who seems quite certain that the US is the focus of evil in the world. Naturally, Mr. Farrell's anti-anti-terrorism screed titled The Joys of War appears in the Wanker. Damnit, it is too tiresome to bother with. I had composed a few thoughts, but it's just not worth it. If you want to get your blood pressure up a little by reading something by someone not named Richard Cohen whose moral certainty has him intoxicated to the point that a phrase like "down with the facist, imperialist, capitalist, pig-dog war machine" would constitute insightful, witty political discourse, go read Mr. Farrell's commentary. Here's the conclusion: So our prime minister should explain to Bush that Britain can only go to war in extreme circumstances and when very precise criteria have been met. "I'm sorry George, but Britain can only bomb or invade a country where the leader has not been democratically elected and where the regime has recently executed British citizens. Oh no, hang on, that's America isn't it? We'd better think this out again." Gosh, that's so clever. Pity Zimbabwe Even the Guardian has virtually stopped writing about Zimbabwe this week with only two articles, one about Zimbabwean journalist Peta Thornycroft who has been arrested on charges of "publishing false statements likely to prejudice state security and inciting public violence," and the other about additional American sanctions. I sincerely doubt that life got much better this week for anyone in Zimbabwe, but world events have pushed them not just off the front page, but just about out of the paper altogether. Nonetheless, here's a list of lowlifes the US has imposed sanctions on as well, not that it will help much: Nolbert Kunonga - Bishop of Harare John Bredenkamp - Part-time UK resident Billy Rautenbach - Businessman who oversaw Mugabe's mining interests Mutumwa Mawere - Businessman who mostly lives in South Africa with close ties to Zanu-PF. Described as the ruling party's principal money launderer Philip Chiyangwa - Zanu-PF member of parliament who has openly coordinated political violence and attacks on white farmers Sydney Gata - Chief executive of the state electricity company and Mugabe's brother-in-law Webster Muriritirwa - Director of the national oil company He Shoots, He Scores! I don't know when it happened, but Charles Johnson has included me in his list of anti-idiotarians. I wear this merit badge proudly. Something Other Than the Middle East Juan Gato caught this nugget from the Democratic response to the President's Saturday address: When you look at your paycheck and see your FICA deduction taken out, you can rest assured that some CEO somewhere is paying less in taxes. Juan wasted no time in noting that: Ok, were FICA taxes cut for "some CEO"? No, your FICA taxes are all the same. And that CEO is paying a shitload more into it than most people reading these words. But lovely how he tried to, without actually committing the lie, say that we poor schlubs are paying for a CEOs Social Security because that mean ole Bush hates us. While it might be true that every CEO is paying more than most people reading those words, every CEO is paying no more in FICA taxes than I, because FICA taxes stop after you reach a set limit each year, $80,400 for 2001, and I'll bet that there's a lot of bloggers out there that fit into this category as well. This makes FICA the most regressive tax scheme the Federal Government has, since each taxpayer's relative contribution goes down as your income goes up once you hit the limit. And what's worse, it only applies to earned income, so if you are making all your spending money from your trust fund investments, you aren't paying a dime of FICA taxes. Isn't it funny that the extremist, redistributionist, hyper-progressive wing of the Democratic Party doesn't have a problem with this? I'd love to see Paul Wellstone explain his advocacy of this highly regressive tax system to the next meeting of the Young Democratic Socialists. Of course, any attempt to change this taxing structure to a progressive scheme would completely undermine the philosophical underpininnings of Social Security as it is proselytized today. But then again, the hobgoblin of these small foolish minds isn't consistency, it's the free market. Carry On? My friend Vince has mentioned that the Scourges are becoming predictable, though he puts the blame on Richard Cohen for having nothing new to say and not saying it in the most unimaginative way. If no one cares one way of the other, perhaps I should just move on. But, I'm inclined to keep scourging so that Richard cannot continue to use his A-list perch at the Washington Post to get away with his knee-jerk liberalism, elitism, celebrity culture fixation, condescension for anyone who disagrees with him, and most distastefully, his insatiable desire for everyone to join him in bending over yet again to take another one from Bill Clinton. Well, at least Eric Alterman respects him. It takes some effort to produce the Scourges, so any input is appreciated as to whether this is worthwhile. Arafat So Yassir is now saying: I swear to God, I will see (the Palestinian state), whether as a martyr or alive. Please God, give me the honor of becoming a martyr in the fight for Jerusalem As someone else noted somewhere, how does the Boston Herald get Arafat to speak parenthetically? I don't think he's going to see it alive, but if he really wanted to be a martyr, it ain't that hard. Would you buy a used fatwa from this man? As Good As It Gets As Jack Nicholson said as Melvin Udall, "What if this is as good as it gets?". What if worldwide terrorism remains a constant threat for the rest of our lives, so that the colors of Tom Ridge's Homeland Security Advisory System become ingrained in our children's view of the world supplanting the current meaning of red (stop), green (go), and yellow (go very fast)? What if airport screening cannot be improved any further, because the flying public is unwilling to pay the price in dollars or inconvenience to effect a real change that would provide more than the illusion of safety? What if the implacable hatred of Jews remains forever in the Arab world (and much of Europe), never allowing Israel to experience a state of peaceful coexistence? What if the golden age of representative democracy and free markets is in our rearview mirror? All it's going to take is a nuclear weapon going off in one of the major cities of the world to make this likely. Friday, March 29, 2002
Never Again The Nazi's started a propoganda war to inflame hatred and dehumanize the Jews, distracting the populace from their other crimes to further the Nazi goals of world domination and Aryan superiority. The Islamic world is in the midst of a propoganda war to inflame hatred and dehumanize the Jews, distracting the populace from their other crimes, to further Islam's goal of world domination and Islamic superiority. The Nazi's played a cat and mouse diplomatic game for years -- testing the boundaries, looking for signs of weakness, and exploiting the desire of other nations for peace and tranquility. The Arab League and the Palestinian Authority have been playing a cat and mouse diplomatic game for years -- testing the boundaries, looking for signs of weakness, and exploiting the desire of other nations for peace and tranquility. Popular reading in 1930's Germany was Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler. Popular reading in 2002 Palestinian Authority Areas is Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler. The Nazi's killed 6 million Jews in the Holocaust. The spokemen for the Palestinians are calling for the extermination of the 6 million Jews in Israel now. Insert your favorite Santayana or Marx quote here about history. I'm through trying to understand or placate the bastards. The righteous indignation we're hearing now is pathetic. "World leaders" saying that Israel is going to incite the Arab world with these acts. What cave have these people been hiding in -- and was OBL there with them? Mr. Den Beste is correct. They must be broken, and then they can be allowed to rejoin the human race. It is fascinating to note that after WW II, Germany and Japan were helped to rise from the ashes to join the world community. The Arab world, which was not destroyed similarly in WW II only continues to slide further into the past. And now they seem to want to recreate one of the singular worst aspects of it. To hell with the Europeans (and others) who are tacitly or candidly encouraging this bloodthirsty desire for genocide. And it is just that. Try to imagine any scenario that does not end in the slaughter of millions of Jews in Israel, should Arafat succeed. And now Saudi Arabia is making nice with Saddam. Fine, they've made their choice as well. Israel is widely rumored to have nuclear weapons. Does anyone think they are going to allow a second Holocaust? Does anyone think Israel will risk allowing these weapons to fall linto the hands of their enemies? Does anyone think the US is going to risk allowing these weapons to fall into the hands of our enemies? The US needs to help Israel bring these monsters to heel before Israel has to get medieval on their asses. I do not relish the pain and destruction consequent to following through with these acts. It may be horrible on a scale the world has not seen since WW II. But if we do not act, then damnit, the terrorists will have won -- and are you ready to live under their rules? Why Am I Not Surprised? According to this AP report: Hundreds of pro-Palestinian foreigners arrived in this West Bank town Thursday, offering themselves as human shields for Palestinians anticipating a massive military response by Israel to a suicide bombing that killed 20 Passover diners. About 600 activists, most of them European members of the Public International Protection group, arrived in Ramallah for 10-day stays with local families. The town is Yasser Arafat's West Bank headquarters. "We are going to stay here in Ramallah in particular to provide the Palestinians with protection," said French farmers' union leader Jose Bove. "The Israeli government and our governments all know that we are in Ramallah. (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon must understand that if he decides to bombard Ramallah he is going to bombard hundreds of foreigners." Sharon convened his ministers in Jerusalem into the small hours of Friday to discuss responding to Wednesday's suicide bombing by a Palestinian militant at a seafront hotel in Netanya. "I'm here to tell the Israeli government and to tell my government that the source of terror and violence is the Israeli government and racism," said group member Karrin Wheeler, of Pittsburgh. Another 200 other activists from Italy were turned back by Israeli troops at a road block at Kalandiya, just south of Ramallah. I'm curious, would M. Bove have been a proud member of the Vichy government in 1940? And I'm wondering whether this should remind me more of a South Park Bigger, Longer and Uncut Operation Get Behind the Bobos or a Monty Pythonesque Judean People's Front Crack Suicide Squad? Leak or Loon? Was Lindsey Graham asked to leak information about the US plans to attack Iraq, or did he take it upon himself to disclose information briefed to him in confidence in his role as a Congressman? If it was the former, aren't there better ways to do this? If it was the latter, he needs to resign immediately and the Republican party should be looking for a new candidate for the US Senate in South Carolina. Thursday, March 28, 2002
The Scourge of Richard Cohen, Vol. XIII (Ed. – The following is a bit of mean spiritedness that will be an on-going feature of this blog. Normally the author will endeavor to be reasonably fair, but this is an exception.) Scourge, the thirteenth! Where is Richard Cohen’s editor? Has Mr. Cohen reached such a level of untouchability that no one can let him know that his sleazy tactic of willful misrepresentation of the facts is not helping him or his causes, that his “love” for Bill Clinton is deluding him to believing what can most generously be called fantasies, and that his “hatred” for Bill Clinton’s enemies is blinding him to the fact that even they are sometimes right – and almost always human? I wonder if this column was written before the latest atrocity, since the gist of it is that what the world desperately needs more of now is Bill Clinton’s jaw-jaw. Richard must have taken my request in the last Scourge to heart, because he has certainly provided a bountiful feast this week with Calling Precedent Clinton: To begin, I must first say something nice. Richard seems to have been trying to make an effort to be clever with his column titles lately. This one’s not bad and makes the same sort of aural pun of which I am quite fond. But while Mr. Cohen means to laud Bill Clinton’s previous efforts to talk his way into a Nobel Peace Prize to burnish his legacy, simultaneously lamenting the “Bushies” abdication of this path to non-glory so brazenly blazed by Bill Clinton, I prefer to think this was a typo or a speck of misplaced Liquid Paper, and that the column title was really meant to read: Galling Precedent Clinton. Reading the morning papers, I start humming the old Irving Berlin tune "Harlem on My Mind." I do so because Harlem is where Bill Clinton hangs out when he's in New York and doing the hard work of doing nothing much. I think it is fascinating and hugely indicative of the true character of Bill Clinton that he cannot find anything useful to do, now that he has been stripped of his staff and scepter. Even Jimmy Carter has been able to help make the world a better place with his Habitat for Humanity, as long as he keeps quiet about things he doesn’t understand – like geopolitics, political leadership, and economics. And it is long past necessary reminding anyone that Richard Cohen worships the ground Bill Clinton walks on. Sycophant seems to be too weak a word to capture the essence of Richard’s fervent adoration for all things Bill. I envision him reading the papers as I do and smiling: See? I wasn't so bad after all. The smile -- both his and mine -- is triggered by the awful news from the Middle East. Smiling? This can’t be right. It would seem unabashedly evil to take any sense of enjoyment or satisfaction from the awful news from the Middle East? But, knowing the players, maybe this is why they are both smiling. We already know that Bill Clinton thinks he would do a better job than President Bush in the current period of crisis, since he told us so last year. Perhaps Richard is implying that Bill is secretly enjoying the schadenfreude of people dying, thinking something like, “fewer people died on my watch,” ergo, I was a better president. But, then again, perhaps not, since Bill Clinton also said he wished something like this had happened on his watch so that he could be a “great” president. The mind reels as Richard and Bill’s moral compasses lose their bearings. But still, smiling? I must be missing something. The only people I’ve seen smiling at news from the Middle East are terrorists and their supporters. None of it is funny, of course, since almost none of it is good. But buried under the headlines and between the lines is the rueful confession of the Bush administration that maybe -- just maybe -- Clinton was doing the right thing in the Middle East. He kept everyone talking. Of course! This is from what I like to call the “Conan the Barbarian School of Political Discourse.” Whereas Conan the Barbarian found it not only necessary to crush his enemy, but also to hear the lamentations of his women, Richard has to imagine that not only is the Bush administration wrong, but they must hate being wrong because that means that Bill Clinton was right. And even that’s assuming that I grant that Bill Clinton was right in this case – which I do not! Mr. Cohen seems to be have bought into the utopian concept that everything can be talked out. That there is a solution we can all agree to if only we can just sit down and talk, we can work anything out. This is the worst kind of therapeutic culture nonsense. How can you expect to talk through something where the people across the table will settle for nothing less than your extermination? Others have noted, much better than I, the failures of Bill Clinton’s strong arm approach to force Israel to accept an agreement at any cost with Yassir Arafat. In fact, when Yassir was offered virtually everything he had asked for, he backed away. Clearly, it isn’t just a Palestinian state he’s looking for. In his own slightly more virile approach to what he learned in the “Conan the Barbarian School of Political Will,” Arafat wants his Palestinian State … and the destruction of Israel. Always has, always will. At this point, even the Israeli people had tired of Yasser’s act and Bill Clinton’s proxy, Ehud Barak, and elected Ariel Sharon – which was unthinkable only two years earlier. We are frequently reminded of Winston Churchill’s maxim, “Jaw-jaw is better than war-war,” but that only works if both sides are willing to talk in good faith. Arafat talks in bad faith in English while the Palestinian Authority offers support and succor to the terrorists in Arabic. While the talking goes on – even while the Arab countries hold a conference to talk about Peace with Israel – a bomb goes off during the celebration of Passover killing 20 and wounding another 100. Meanwhile, Prince Abdullah commended the Palestinian intifada against Israeli occupation forces and said it was backed by all Arabs and Muslims. “The intifada highlights that the steadfastness will not wither, that bravery will not retreat, and that justice will prevail,” So much for talking our way to a solution. George Bush was going to have none of that. His policy when it came to the Arab-Israeli mess was essentially to be the anti-Clinton. There would be no meetings at Camp David, the Wye Plantation or some obscure air base. In fact, those meetings had done nothing but encourage the Palestinians to think that the pursuit of terrorism was the way to go. Damn straight. There’s a flash of insight here, a recognition of the truth, but somehow I just know Richard don’t really mean it. Logically, this approach isn’t so much anti-Clinton as a clear-headed rejection of failed policies that have, in fact, resulted in continued terrorist acts against Israel. Mr. Cohen isn’t trying to say that Clinton is synonymous with failure now, is he? And how can Bill Clinton’s efforts to broker a deal for peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority not be considered a failure? As far as Arafat’s concerned, what’s a few more dead Palestinian martyrs since it keeps pushing his ultimate agenda forward, and I know he doesn’t give a damn about more dead Jews. This thinking was contained in the Fleischer Doctrine. Ari Fleischer is the president's press secretary and not the sort, on his own, to make policy, not to mention a whole doctrine. But on the last day of February, Fleischer told the press that the Clinton administration's insistence on taking such a large role in the Middle East was counterproductive. "Actually, I think if you go back to when the violence began, you can make the case that in an attempt to shoot the moon and get nothing, more violence resulted," he said. This was because the Clinton administration had so raised expectations "that it turned into violence." And Richard’s point is what? That Clinton didn’t try to “shoot for the moon” or “that more violence didn’t happen” or that they got something other than “nothing?” I checked around and I can find no reference to the “Fleischer Doctrine” other than this column. This is merely another weak effort on Richard’s part to be sarcastic. By the afternoon, Fleischer had e-mailed a retraction. "No United States president, including Bill Clinton, is to blame for violence in the Middle East." Is Richard really so self-delusional as to think that Ari Fleischer backing down from a controversial (though likely true) statement can be construed as a policy change by the Bush administration, tacitly acknowledging that Bill Clinton’s approach was right all along? I think that President Bush has done his best to keep the tone on this kind of talk suppressed, no matter what people may actually think. Ari Fleischer violated President Bush’s desire to set a higher tone, got called on it, and was forced to recant. It doesn’t mean he wasn’t right, though. Excuse me for believing that Fleischer was merely repeating water-cooler wisdom in the West Wing. This, clearly, is what the Bushies believed. The proof of that is their absolute refusal-cum-reluctance to even approximate Clinton's involvement in the Middle East. Works for me. But Richard’s never-ending refusal to treat President Bush and his administration with even the smallest amount of respect is growing tiresome. Bushies? It’s just so condescending and disrespectful. Gen. Anthony Zinni was dispatched to the region, but he is (1) retired and (2) obscure. (1) Retired general, so what. Does that mean he’s not qualified? Is Richard so dismissive of other retired generals in our nation’s past like, oh, say, Washington, or Eisenhower? How about retired senators like Mitchell or Moynihan. Should they just go away? (2) Richard’s elitism couldn’t be made clearer with blinking neon even if it was modeled by Monica Lewinsky. Apparently, who says something is more important to Richard’s way of thinking than what they say if I understand his criticism correctly of Gen. Zinni being obscure. Celebrity culture oozes onto the scene again, always valuing style over substance. What a complete prat Richard is becoming. My friend Buzz has advised me to go easy on the ad hominem attacks, and I’m trying really hard, but Richard is just so damn offensive to anybody who thinks for even a few seconds about this. What's good for Fleischer is good for Cohen. I, too, will not blame the president, any president, including, just for the record, Millard Fillmore, for the mess in the Middle East. So, that means that Richard will be apologizing for this whole column which effectively tries to blame President Bush for the lack of peace in the Middle East. If Ari Fleischer was wrong to try and pin it on Bill Clinton, then Richard Cohen is just as wrong to try and pin it on President Bush, right? I’d call this attempt at sarcasm feeble, but that would be insulting to feeble attempts at sarcasm. I will point out, however, that the administration has reversed itself. It recently dispatched Vice President Cheney to the region and prepared to send him there again should Yasser Arafat issue a statement in Arabic denouncing terrorism and promising never to engage in it -- again. Arafat, however, is willing to lie in English but not in Arabic. Cheney stayed home. Arafat’s multi-lingual duplicity was noted previously. In truth, no one can say what would have happened had the Bush administration followed the Clinton pattern of engagement. The Arab-Israeli dispute is complicated, intensely emotional and downright durable. True. And no one can tell what would have happened if Bill Clinton hadn’t been so damn preoccupied with his legacy that he tried to force a solution down Israel’s throat either. And no one can tell what would have happened if Bill Clinton (or George W. Bush pre-9/11) had placed more emphasis on taking a harder line towards terrorists either. It's possible that Clinton did indeed get too engaged and was in too much of a hurry to add a Nobel Peace Prize to his honors It's possible, maybe even probable, that Arafat was never going to accept any deal. His idea of a compromise is the whole ball of wax. Duh. Occasionally, even Richard can accept the facts as they are, though he must caveat them with “it’s possible.” If Richard is willing to cede these points, then how foolish is he to defend Bill Clinton's actions before and to now recommend that President Bush follow Bill Clinton's lead? But it is the job, the obligation and the duty of any American administration to do the hard, often fruitless work of the Middle East. It is the responsibility of any White House to keep the secretary of state frequently in the region, if only to keep the two sides from tearing each other apart. No, it's not. It is the obligation and duty of any American administration to protect and defend America and its interests. To the extent that that obligation and duty includes trying to keep the peace in the Middle East, it should do so. But it surely cannot mean that the US must bear any price to protect the Palestinians or the Israelis. And there are many other areas of the world the Secretary of State must also attend to. This is particularly true at the moment, because, as Yeats would have it, the center has not held. Foggy Bottom is the only center left. That’s a fascinating Freudian slip. No doubt that Foggy Bottom is center left, with all that entails. But isn’t Richard slipping into the abyss here by imagining that there is some utopian Nirvana attendant to the “center” no matter what? Doesn’t this plant Richard squarely into the morass of existential equivalence between the Israeli’s who defend themselves by preemptive strikes against self-professed freedom fighters (Reuters terminology – one man’s terminology is another man’s literary fingernails on the chalkboard) and the Palestinian terrorists who seek out civilians – to murder them – with no military objective other than to inflict abject fear. Incidentally, here are the next five lines from Yeats’ “The Second Coming”: Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. This makes a lot more sense in the wake of all the terrorist acts of the intifada than the snippet Richard took out of context to malign the Bush administration. And if I understand the gist of Mr. Yeats’ poem correctly, we are literally much closer now to the hour of the rough beast slouching towards Bethlehem than Mr. Yeats was literarily when he committed these words to paper. Next time, Mr. Cohen should strive for a fuller context than this, but that would require a little more thought and effort than the knee-jerk recitation of his retread grievances. It has taken the campaign against Iraq to get Cheney on his airplane. As he has found out, though, the states of the region have a hard time supporting a war against a fellow Arab country when it is Israel that so preoccupies the minds of their people. First things first, they say. It could be that the administration finally is listening. So now Dick Cheney is stupid … just like George W. Bush. What a tiresome riff. Since when did the states of the region start acting upon what their people want? You would have to be a fool to believe that Dick Cheney got on an airplane to try and convince anyone of anything. Does Richard know anything about negotiations and deal-making? The best way to fail is to show up hat in hand, unprepared, not knowing what the other side is going to say or do. Somehow, I think that Vice President Cheney was diplomatic enough to listen carefully and politely, but that wasn't the intent of the trip at all. Anybody could listen and gather information. Vice President Cheney got on a plane to deliver a message in person to everyone (and I hope they were listening) that the US is damn serious, and we are going to do what we believe is necessary to defend ourself. The tyrants of the Middle East can sit on the side if they want, since we don’t want to do any more than we have to, but, by God, if they choose sides against us, then we will not hesitate to roll over them as well. If so, it is high time Washington signaled that it is raising its commitment and profile in the Middle East -- and keeping it there for the long run. Otherwise, the broad alliance against Iraq will consist of maybe Britain, while the current mess in the Middle East -- atrocity after atrocity -- will continue. Maybe the Bushies ought to appoint a more high-powered, more experienced Middle East negotiator. I know. It'll never happen, but I can't help myself. We are visible and present, donating billions of dollars to all the members of the region trying to promote the peace. And as I just indicated, I believe Vice President Cheney just relayed the message that our presence in the Middle East will soon be gettting much larger and longer. Furthermore, if it wasn't for the US, who would (or could) be restraining Sharon from lobbing high explosives into the West Bank and the Gaza strip in retaliation, or just driving the Palestinian population into the Mediterranean and the River Jordan. Or does Richard mean visible, present, and defenselessly dead like the two UN observers? Richard lost me on the second part. How will having more members in the alliance stop the atrocities in a way that the US, the UK and Israel cannot? Is it really so hard to speak of the President and his staff without being so casually dismissive, condescending and insulting? As for a high-powered negotiator, whom does Richard have in mind? Retired Senator Mitchell? Retired Senator Moynihan? Retired President Clinton? Fat chance. I think Gen. Zinni is just fine. Richard can't help himself? Well, he wrote it, not me. I've got Harlem on my mind. As opposed to sensible, reasonable ideas about what is going on in the world and what we have to do about it. Might I suggest Richard begin humming “It’s the End Of the World As We Know It, and I Feel Fine”? It fits his worldview better, but not mine. Cause and Effect? When my browser came up on Yahoo the first story headline was: Israeli Tanks Ring Arafat's Headquarters -Officials The first sentence was: Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said that he was ready to immediately implement an unconditional cease-fire March 28, 2002. Coincidence? Wednesday, March 27, 2002
Get Well Soon, Lyle Lyle Lovett was trampled by a bull trying to help his uncle who had been flipped by it. Lyle is in surgery in a Houston hospital with a broken leg. Now he's a Black and Blue Cowboy Man. Get well soon Long Tall Texan, so you can get back to doing The Blues Walk. Bamboozled, or is it Gamgoogled? I Googled "sine qua non pundit Charles Austin" and I didn't even show up! Maybe that's because Google returned: Results 1 - 8 of about 9. Search took 0.29 seconds. Hmmm. Last week after the Professor mentioned my blog, I was the most popular "sine qua non" and the most popular "Charles Austin," even beating out this beauty. Now I don't even exist, despite a listing on Blogdex earlier today. How does this work? And why does Rowan Atkinson keep saying, "Baldrick, are you suggesting I become a Rent Blog?" Slogans Here's a couple slogans we hear from time to time: No Justice, No Peace If You Want Peace, Work For Justice OK, fine. Right now, justice looks like a JDAM on every PA structure and Iraqi bunker still standing. Justice looks like everyone willing to be a martyr becoming one against their will before they can take anyone else with them. Justice looks like the elimination of all those who would eliminate Israel. Justice looks like doing whatever is necessary to stop the terrorism within Israel. Then perhaps, we will have peace. Mini-Rall The St. Louis Post-Dispatch's political cartoonist, John Sherffius, aims for entry into the Axis of Feeble with his cartoon today that shows Ariel Sharon holding a dove labelled Saudi Peace Plan in his fist and saying ominously "Sorry, you're not going anywhere either." That mean old Sharon just won't give the time of day to a non-existent plan that would lead to the murder of most Israeli's within 5 years. What a complete jerk. As a Surburban Chicago Native, I Think I Can Safely Say "Vote Early and Often" Pop on over to the Possumblog Polling Place and pick your favorite Alabamian. Before you go there though, stop by the Ave Maria Grotto to learn more about my favorite Alabama eccentric. The pictures aren't detailed enough to do justice to the magical construction from marbles, cold cream jars, and anything else that Brother Zoettl could get his hands on as he created replicas of the places he had visited or seen in books. Vastly superior to the world's largest ball of twine. Then VOTE!!! Then VOTE again!!! Extortion-Man to the Rescue According to FOX: Rev. Jackson Offers to Mediate Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Remember when Jesse was asked to settle the Afghanistan conflict, then it turned out that he wasn't really asked but was merely trying to hone in on the action and publicity, but he insisted he was really asked, then it was all a mix up about a voice mail message, then it was a ... who cares!. For someone known to cavort happily with Arafat and who famously called the home of the WTC "Hymie-town", I think he ought to just stay the hell out of it. This isn't about him and any attempt to make it so is reprehensible. My apologies in advance for using that slur, but as it is with so many other things, Jesse gets away with his racial slurs when others don't -- and it's wrong. Just thought everyone ought to know up front that he's not an honest broker. Game Over According to this article from a news service better known as One Man's Painful Rectal Itch: Arab Summit in Disarray as Palestinians Walk Out Among the laughs in this story are: "This is an Arab summit, not a Lebanon summit," Kaddoumi added. "The summit is for all the Arabs and for the (Palestinian) Intifada and he (Lahoud) has no right not to listen to the Palestinian speech." He has no right to not listen to this speech. Amazing. Just imagine if Sharon had been invited to speak. Mr. Quick beat me to this pathetic piece of tripe chronologically here, but being Mr. Quick that makes sense now, doesn't it. I try to avoid doing this at my day job, which is another reason I don't usually try to keep up with the pros. But I digress. Maybe the Palestinian delegation knew something was coming and walked out to watch the CNN update as it happened on the Suicide Bombing at Israeli Hotel: A suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded hotel lobby in the coastal resort of Netanya on Wednesday evening, the start of the Passover holiday, police and TV reports said. As of the last report, 16 more innocent people have died. On March 25th I posted a question asking if anyone else was as sick of reading a new headline on the Drudge Report every 24-36 hours about another Palestinian gunman killing Israelis. Well, are you sick of it now, more than a month later? I think that perhaps Yassir Arafat should be the next martyr, most likely involuntarily. He has made it clear that he will not stop the terrorism. During an Arab Conference to discuss peace with Israel -- this happens. And if this isn't enough, there's always the ambulance with a bomb in it. Imagine for a moment if Israel were randomly lobbing high explosives into the West Bank and Gaza, just for effect. Stephen Green is already being lauded in the blogosphere for his expression of his current state of mind. But I don't think complete expulsion of the Palestinians that Stephen recommends or the killing of every Palestinian as some lunatics have suggested is the answer. However, I do believe that Israel (and the US!) should use all of their assets to delete the existence of Arafat, the PLO, the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, the Fatah Faction, the Al-Aqsa Brigade, Hizbollah, Islamic Jihad, the Iraqi leadership, the Iranian leadership, and any other terrorists that are responsible for the intifada. If you know who they are and where they are, just do it. Game over. Here's a disturbing site that catalogues many of the atrocities in Israel perpetrated by the terrorists since last year, including pictures of many of the victims. It's by a PR firm, it's a little jumbled up, and it isn't completely up to date, but that helps illustrate how long this has been going on and how utterly dreadful it is. We're #125, We'll Try Harder I Googled "Scourge Richard Cohen" and unbelievably came up as the 125th most popular site. This is very discouraging for THE Scourge of Richard Cohen. I can only hope my loyal readers will help me move up the charts until there is no question that I am, without reservation, the most popular Scourge of Richard Cohen. I think if everyone reading this will link to my blog using the text "Scourge of Richard Cohen" we can remedy this. I'll be keeping tabs on this! Thanks to Martin Devon for the tip. Tuesday, March 26, 2002
Correction In Scourge X, I made many references to the crime of pedophilia as it relates to the scandals erupting in the Roman Catholic Church. I have been mildly chastised by Tony Adragna and my friend Buzz, who have rightly indicated that most of the cases involve older boys and young man. To the extent that my error caused any grief, I humbly apologize. But, I also think that the actions of the priests and all their enablers in these cases remain terribly, terribly wrong. In most, if not all cases they should still be defrocked and sent to jail. The abuse of their trusted positions has damaged their institution, perhaps irreparably. And in the case of proven pedophilia, there are no punishments in this country today that are severe enough for what they deserve. The Scourge of Richard Cohen, Vol. XII (Ed. – The following is a bit of mean spiritedness that will be an on-going feature of this blog. Normally the author will endeavor to be reasonably fair, but this is an exception.) I’ve read this column three times and I still cannot figure out why he wrote it. Richard has channeled his deceased grandfather to converse about shredding documents at Arthur Anderson and noted how the resulting indictment is hurting those within the company who did no wrong. And that’s it. Well, there are a couple of gratuitous guilt by association shots at President Bush, but otherwise this column is a vast embarrassment for an A-list dinner party pundit. This column has 33 paragraphs, 780 words, and only one painfully obvious point. I wonder if he thought the title was clever enough to justify this waste of time. There is no way I can dissect this column in the usual sing-song way, since there’s nothing here I can take issue with, because there’s nothing here! But maybe that’s the point. Perhaps this is all part of Richard’s nefarious plan to fight back against the Scourge. Nah, that would be giving him too much credit – hard to believe, isn’t it. With everything that’s going on in the world, this is all he can come up with? Let’s pick it up some Mr. Cohen. A healthy Scourge cannot be maintained on the thin soup you have provided today. For the lowest of lo-cal punditry, read In the Company of Shredders: Just to give you an idea of how tedious this column was, here’s the very end, beginning with his channeled grandfather speaking first: "What do I know? You went to college. I never even went to school. But I do know that no file clerk in Chicago ordered anyone to shred anything and now that person, innocent of everything and guilty of nothing, is going to lose his job and his savings. I know that's not right. Write something. Promise me." "I promise." "Good. I'm gonna go now. Give your mother a kiss from me. I'm gonna tell Mr. Andersen that you'll write a column." He chuckled. "What's so funny?" I asked. "He hates when I call him Artie." As bad as that is, there is absolutely nothing of interest preceding it. So, can anybody tell me why Richard gets paid for this? Of the People, By the People, For the People We've all read that sentiment many times, but how often do we take it to heart? In NRO today, Susan Dudley has an article where she wonders if we are losing our proper sense of skepticism about government in the wake of 9/11. I think the problem is more serious than that. We have effectively lost the connection to the first part of Lincoln's statement, that our Government is "of the people.". The US Federal Government has never been farther removed from Joe and Betty Sixpack than it is today. Some of this is due to the complexity of the modern world, but I think the problem is driven by a loss of respect for the individual that has led much of the populace to buy into the nanny state. The idea that the Government is – and should be – above and apart from us, acting as some omniscient ombudsman parceling out benefits and righting wrongs, where we are nothing more than its charges, has broadly taken hold. Looking carefully at our national political processes today, is this the way we choose to conduct our affairs in any other spheres of our lives? Nepotism seems to be creeping even more rapidly into the higher echelons of our elected leadership. We are rightly a meritocracy in many respects, but the meritocrats are becoming more insular and despotic as their connection to the great unwashed masses becomes more tenuous. Look at the great cultural divide between the red and blue states, the coasts and flyover country, the "elite schools" and everyone else. Each of our elected representatives now has over 600,000 people to represent. Instead of “of the people, by the people, for the people,” perhaps we should now say “of the collective, by the chosen, for the special interests.” Most people now speak of the Government as something other than themselves; faceless, bureaucratic, the "other." The fact that the Government is populated by these same people is largely beside the point. We all know people who work for the Government. There is nothing inherently bad about this at all, but how much do they consider themselves as working for you, the public, in the broadest plural sense of the word? One could perhaps argue that this does constitute "by the people" but I'm not even sure about that. Is it just another job? The best evidence I have for this thesis is the declining rate of voter interest. We even have some bloggers who are advocating not voting. How much more detached can you get in a representative democracy? Once the Government is no longer "of the people," how can it possibly be "for the people?" Bureaucracies, like people tend to act in their own rational self interest. The healthy skepticism built into the US Constitution with its checks and balances is in recognition of this fact. As the Federal Government gets ever larger and we collectively treat the US Constitution as a malleable document – through judicial activism rather than legislated amendment – will we wake up one morning and find that the last, best hope of the world has gone? I Would Like to Thank the Academy The inevitable backlash has begun concerning what some are effectively labelling the Affirmative Action Oscars. I must first state that I have no idea whether Halle and Denzel deserved their awards since the only nominated movie I think I've seen this year is The Lord of the Rings. (An aside -- I predict LOTR will continue to get the low-grade Oscars but not any of the major awards until the series is complete, and then Peter Jackson, et al, will get some sort of special achievement Oscar for the entire effort. Which is a shame, since I haven't felt that good about watching a movie since the first Indiana Jones movie came out a long, long time ago, in a theatre far, far away. And I am much happier taking my oldest daughter to see LOTR than any of the dreck aimed at her demographic group.) It pains me to write this since I once cared about the cinema. I was even the chair of my University's campus film group that selected what films we would show each semester. But Hollywood and I have taken somewhat different paths in the last 20 years. Back on message. Now, Denzel and Halle, and everybody else, can never be sure whether they really earned it or whether they were stand-ins for their group who just happened to be in the barrel at the time when that group's number was picked. This is what is so insidious about Affirmative Action as we know it today. Did it help or hurt in the long run? Who knows? First of all, we are still in the short run and even when we have passed the long run marker I have a feeling that there will be little agreement about what it all meant. Have black actors and actresses been screwed before by the Academy? Sure, but so have white actors and actresses, and "red" actors and actresses, and Asian actors and actresses, and vertically challenged actors and actresses. What's the point? I am not sure that it is ever possible to provide adequate redress for past injuries like this. The best we can probably hope for is to march forward from this moment with a commitment to be as fair and honorable in our conduct as we can be. To recognize and acknowledge problems were they exist and to try and continue to make things better. I only watched about ten minutes of the program at the end. I find celebrity culture insidious and revolting and do my best to avoid it the way some people scrupulously avoid buying anything made in China -- and their quest is probably harder than mine. I can't criticize any of the acts since I have no idea what they said or did, but Donald Sutherland and Glenn Close performing as Don Pardo sure seemed a little weird to me. As to the Oscars themselves, of course the industry has the right to congratulate itself and reward its achievers. All of us strive for the respect of our peers and why should entertainers be any different? And, of course the industry will use this opportunity to hype themselves and their products. Why wouldn't they, and why shouldn't they? The problem seems to be that everyone knows the game now, so they are caught in a spiral of always trying to out-do or out-bizarre the last act, to take it "to the next level" (jeez, what a tiresome phrase). Was this part of Halle's act? Was she tring to displace Sally Field and Julia Roberts as the most emotional Oscar recipient ever? Compare her act to Denzel's -- and yes, they were "acting." Denzel acted like he had been ther before, but perhaps that was because he had been there before. But, then why did the Academy have to resort to Affirmative Action? Oh, never mind. Downdate: Remember when Julia Roberts married Lyle Lovett and people wondered what was wrong with her? When I heard they were married, I remember wondering what was wrong with him. Monday, March 25, 2002
The Republic of Arabotamia Check this out: Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said Israel should be replaced by a democracy called "Isratine" where unarmed Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace. Isratine? How about we first merge all the non-democratic Arab (and Persian) states from Algeria to Iran and from Syria to Yemen into one big country with free elections, where the rule of law would be established, where they can live in peace with each other, where they could use the oil revenue to help them all move into the 21st century, where internecine religious feuds would be fought with words instead of bombs, where freedom of speech would be encouraged, where women could move forward into an equal position with men, and where Israel would not be threatened with suicide bombers every day. We can call it the Republic of Arabotamia. Or if the don't like that name we can call it the Republic Of A Bunch of Dysfunctional, Crazy-Ass Dynasties That Had To Be Destroyed For The Betterment Of Their Own People And The Rest of the World. I found the first link on lgf. Public "Servants" Maryland wants to pass a law in response to 9/11 that should really start to worry civil liberatarians. But here's my favorite part: "I realize that this bill basically says you can tap someone's phone for jaywalking, and normally I would say, 'No way,' " said Del. Dana Lee Dembrow (D-Montgomery). "But after what happened on September 11th, I say screw 'em." Glad I don't live in Maryland, where they are willing to trade freedom for a "feeling" of security. Or where they elect people who drop the pretense of "serving" the public. George Must be Distracted Maybe, just maybe, President Bush is a little distracted by the war and that's what is behind him raising steel tariffs and signing the Incumbent Protection Act, uh, I mean the CFR. Or, perhaps he's convinced that the Republicans are going to break a historical trend and capture seats in the House and Senate in the off-term elections and then the Incumbent Protection Act will kick in just in time to cement the gains. With respect to the steel tarriffs, I think President Bush still has a long way to go before some of the criticism I've read lately will be valid that he has lost credibility lecturing the third world on free trade. Sure, his actions of late on this front have sucked, but we've built up on awful lot of goodwill we can still tap into. And this reprehensible idea that the US needs to pay poor countries to help avoid terrorism is what we normally call extortion. Hopefully, the President and his administration are letting some folks have it behind closed doors since they have been reluctant thus far to embarrass them in public. Sick People Someone hit this site today after querying for "rolie polie adult humor". Perhaps the VodkaPundit wants to add this to his site next time he shamelessly trolls for hits by trolls. Pump Up the Blog, Pump It Up, 'Til the Sitemeter's Jumpin I have now been hit by someone in 23 time zones. Considering the vast extent of the Pacific Ocean, I find that pretty damn amazing. And after the Professor mentioned me last week, my Sitemeter monthly log looks like the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. That little blip on Tuesday must be the Hawaiian Islands. Sunday, March 24, 2002
Still No Bias Here, None of the Time In today's online version of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a poll is featured that asks: Should Missourians be able to have guns in their cars? Your two possible responses are: YES--People need protection on the mean streets NO--The state shouldn't turn into the Wild West You may have noticed that these two are not quite the opposites of each other. But I guess that's ok as long as: Surveys are unscientific and for entertainment only. Kind of like the St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial page, in fact. More Guardianista Nonsense Check out this blurb from the Guardian: Frustrated EU governments are starting to speak out more bluntly about the violence in the Middle East - and America's failure to intervene Do you think the EU really wants America to intervene ... like we did in Afghanistan? Be careful what you ask for. Read this next bit carefully: Europeans have been left wondering what to do. Spain's response, the prime minister, Jose Maria Aznar, explained to visiting Brussels-based correspondents, is this: if Washington cannot stop the unrelenting violence in the Middle East, the EU will not fill the void by a high-profile attempt to get Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table. "We take a dim view of the Middle East situation," said the Spanish conservative, but he argued that conditions were simply not right for a repeat of the dramatic Madrid conference of 1991, which two years later led to the Oslo breakthrough. Oh yes, the Oslo breakthrough. Very dramatic. But at least someone still has his head on straight: It is all a depressing reminder that the EU of 2002 may be an economic giant with its own currency and ambitious plans to enlarge; but that its search for an effective global role will be a long and difficult one. And that it still plays second fiddle to a truly indispensable America. This Week in Zimbabwe From the Guardian, there is news that Robert Mugabe is losing support rapidly. But even so: There is no evidence that Mugabe can be pressured to abandon his increasingly repressive strategy to hold on to power. Last week, the Zimbabwean government said it intended to curb critical press coverage by licensing all journalists and requiring that only Zimbabwean citizens work for foreign news organisations. And what about the plight of all those who were left holding the bag when the EU led the way with strong sanctions, including prohibiting Mugabe from traveling in the EU: Waves of violent retribution and repression are shuddering through Zimbabwe in the aftermath of the discredited presidential election as Robert Mugabe defies international pressure by entrenching himself for another six years in power. More than 10,000 Zimbabweans are on the run, hiding from the beatings, torture and killings of suspected opposition supporters by Mugabe's forces, according to human rights monitors and opposition officials. Liah Makoni's bright red lipstick and makeup cannot disguise her swollen, bruised face . She was beaten after the elections by the youth militia and her Gokwe shops destroyed because she was identified as an MDC supporter. 'They told me to go to Tony Blair because they would kill me here in Zimbabwe. I was lucky to escape. The police would not help me,' she said. She is one of 80 people staying at the Kadoma house. The women sleep inside, while the men take turns on watch and sleep on newspapers and long grass outside. Like hunted prey, their eyes brim with fear. They rush forward to blurt out stories of terror. 'It is frightening,' said Makoni. 'Even here at this house, we don't know when they will attack us again. Please do not forget us.' Looks like those sanctions aren't quite having the desired effect. Compare and contrast the effect of sanctions on Zimbabwe with something a little stronger in Afghanistan. I heard on NPR Friday that schools are back in session for girls in Afghanistan. Your move EU. Or are you too busy complaining about US actions at Guantanamo Bay? No Bias, None of the Time Check out this headline about the FBI raiding Islamic group's offices from The Wanker: FBI raids pro-Republicans Uh, sure, ok. James Carville tried to warn us that Grover Norquist is a dangerous man. A 21st Century Twilight Zone Episode According to Forbes, the top 25 wealthiest people have a total of $373.2 billion at their disposal. After massive increases since September 11, the GFY 2003 budget for the Department of Defense is $379.0 billion. What would happen if those 25 people could check their egos at the door, pool their resources and decide to take over the world, or at least the US which would nominally be about the same thing? They could probably even keep about a billion or two apiece out of the collective pool, since they wouldn't be carrying the pension burdens or some of the other costs that DoD must bear from the past. And it wouldn't much matter if they were broke afterwards, since they wouldn't have too much trouble recouping their expenses if they won. Before you get too concerned, this would require Bill Gates and Larry Ellison to get along, so I wouldn't get too concerned. Quid Pro Quo After just over a month, I am still amazed at the whole blogging phenomenon. It is a sincere pleasure reading and conversing with a fine group of intelligent folks literally around the world. The folks I read and those that read my thoughts are all over the map, literally and figuratively, but that's what makes it fun as long as it remains civil and intellectually honest. One aside, I try to keep my blog PG-13 since my daughters might get into my blog at any time. I certainly don't want to inhibit anyone's thoughts or expressions, but it is a consideration some folks might take to heart, or at least recognize the constraints that some of us work under. At the very least, warnings are merited before some pictures appear. The following are the folks whom I know have blogrolled me (in no particular order): Mind Over What Matters Patio Pundit Vodka Pundit The Blogs of War The Illuminated Donkey Daimnation! Midwest Conservative Journal It came from the Blorg Mark Byron Inappropriate Ye Olde Blogge War Liberal On the Third Hand Possumblog Kyle Still Free Press No Watermelons Allowed Jon Jerome The Kolkata Libertarian The Insolvent Republic of Blogistan Daily Pundit Ranting and Roaring Capital Influx The Ole Miss Conservative protein wisdom little green footballs If I have missed someone, please drop me an email and I will rectify it as I build my new website. The following folks haven't blogrolled me, but being mentioned on their sites has got my Sitemeter thumping: USS Clueless Instapundit The Edge of England’s Sword Thanks to everyone for blogrolling and mentioning me, but most of all for reading! The Scourge of Richard Cohen, Vol. XI (Ed. – The following is a bit of mean spiritedness that will be an on-going feature of this blog. Normally the author will endeavor to be reasonably fair, but this is an exception.) Martin Devon, the Patio Pundit beat me to the punch on this column, but I refuse to be dis-Scourage-d so easily. I’ll take this opportunity to thank Mr. Devon for mentioning me and saying nice things about the Scourges. Mr. Devon has even blogrolled me as “Scourge of Richard Cohen.” I am again humbled and honored. But not so humbled that I will desist from taking a harsher approach to Richard Cohen than Mr. Devon took in the column titled What We Don't Know: I can’t even wait for the first sentence this time to dig in. Richard once again implicitly leaps to the conclusion that “we” agree with him. But, of course! Sen. Hillary Clinton was "very mad." Why the quotation marks? Well, I never said I was going to be fair. Her colleague, Sen. Charles Schumer, was critical as well. This is news? New York's mayor, Mike Bloomberg, was not happy either, and neither was New York's governor, George Pataki. Bipartisanship at its best. No solution in sight, but at least we all agree. As for myself, I am painfully perplexed. For once, the right answer eludes me. Once? Once? If Richard keeps writing statements like this, he’s going to put me out of work since you won’t need a Scourge to point out the fluorescent lunacy of someone whose moral certainty has him intoxicated. I am referring now to the report, first published in Time magazine earlier this month, that the feds back in October received a tip that terrorists were planning to detonate a small nuclear bomb in New York City. The information came from an agent code-named Dragonfire, whose reliability was deemed "undetermined." I’d bet that the “feds” get tips like this all the time. They have the incredibly difficult job of then trying to decide whether to act upon it. I am quite certain that they do not possess the manpower necessary to fully track down all of these tips, especially when under severe time constraints. And as to the reliability of Dragonfire, it would certainly seem to me that the “feds” had him pegged just about right. What so vexed New York's elected officials was the fact they were not notified of this threat. They all insisted they should have been. The threat of a nuclear bomb going off in New York is not really a matter for the Mayor of New York City, the Governor of New York State, the junior Senator from New York State or the senior Senator from New York State. It is most correctly a matter for the President of he United States as it represents an escalation of hostilities to a level that can only be dealt with at a national level. And would the Democrats and the Republicans each not seek to take advantage at the expense of the other with this information somehow? Given Chuck Schumer’s propensity for seeking out every camera within a half-mile radius, can he really be trusted to do the right thing here? And wouldn’t the Republicans be motivated to try and beat Senator Schumer to the punch to appear to be the more “caring” elected officials? The former mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, said that he should have been told so he could alert the police -- "at a minimum, and maybe others." This would have given him an additional 40,000 or so sets of eyes to look for something suspicious. Uh-huh. And 120,000 immediate family members fleeing the city in a hurry, and all their extended relatives, friends and neighbors trying to flee as well. When we are talking about a nuclear bomb, staying in your homes is not your best chance of survival. If you know something really bad may be about to happen in your immediate vicinity, are you going to leave and not tell all your friends and neighbors to do the same? What about the people you are responsible for in your business, church, or school? It also would have alerted every living thing for miles around that officials were searching for a nuclear bomb. And exactly how efficaciously could the authorities conduct a search with the roads completely packed, general panic among the populace, reporters everywhere pestering anyone who has a more serious task in front of them, and Chuck Schumer trying to nudge everyone aside whenever that little red light came on above the cameras? What would have happened next? Panic. A mass flight out of the city… This would create gridlock, chaos and then, almost certainly, loss of life. Exactly. And then we would have found out it was a false alarm. And then the efforts to affix blame would begin. Spare us, please. We now know, if we think about it, that we live on the brink of catastrophe. We have been living on the brink of catastrophe for a long time. It is only recently that Richard Cohen has come to accept it. The Axis of Feeble (Moore, Chomsky, Rall, Sontag, et al) still haven’t caught on yet. It just so happens that the nuclear alert turned out to be a false alarm. Ya think? I figured as much since I hadn’t seen any headlines publicizing the utter destruction of New York and the subsequent nuclear detonations in Baghdad, Mecca, Gaza, Islamabad, New Delhi, etc. The purported tipster was characterized by federal officials as a "fabricator" with "delusions of grandeur." “Delusions of grandeur?” “Delusions of apocalypse” sounds better to me. (Sounds like a politician to me.) (Sounds like Richard Cohen to me.) But the feds, while dubious, did not know this at the time -- otherwise they would not have issued any alert at all. It took time to check him out. In the meantime, it paid the feds to be alert. As my daughter might say – “like, duh.” Why is there this inherent sense of distrust of federal officials? If they had a truly credible threat where the risk of not notifying the public exceeded the huge risk of notifying the public, don’t you think they would have acted on it? I know some “feds.” They have been on alert a long time now. Richard should try a little harder to stop projecting his inadequacies on others. I pity Tom Ridge. His new color-coded warning system is easy to ridicule, but it's hard to envision a better one. It's harder yet -- maybe impossible -- to come up with a way to know when a panic can be risked. I don’t pity Tom Ridge. I try to understand and respect the difficult job he has and trust that he will execute his job responsibly and imaginatively. His job is made much harder by the sniping and heel-biting of people like Richard Cohen who feel to criticize even while admitting that they don’t have an answer either. It would not have been in October, because Dragonfire turned out to be a phony. But it was impossible to know that at the time -- to know with absolute certainty. Bingo! Richard again demonstrates his utopian mentality by asking for absolute certainty before acting. Leaders rarely get to act on complete knowledge of a situation. They must determine a best course of action with the information they have. Note that I wrote the best course of action, since there may not be a good course of action in every case. Unlike Clinton or Bloomberg or any other of New York's elected officials, I'm glad they were kept in the dark. With respect to this issue, I concur. But it is likely that some protocol needs to be worked out so that these officials can be informed in the future, but they have not yet demonstrated the capacity to act responsibly with such information. The risk just seems to high to have too many people in possession of such information. Had the word gotten out, New York would have suffered a grievous blow. Sept. 11 has taught us all that terrorism is not some theoretical threat. But the word, in this case, is the threat of terrorism rather than terrorism itself. If we paralyze ourselves, will the terrorists have won? It's imminent. It’s even immanent. An alert would prompt us to flee. Two alerts or so and New York City itself would be crippled. Who would stay? Only people who absolutely have to. I sincerely doubt that most of them would stay, not that they would be able to get out for many days. The others would leave -- take their laptops and do business elsewhere. The damage has already been done. Businesses are leaving New York. In some sense, this may not be an entirely bad thing, but it is unfortunate that it is happening this way. New York's politicians responded to the Time magazine piece with anger at the feds. I can understand that. I heard the same dismay from ordinary people. They said they deserved to know about the threat. They were parents. They were children with elderly parents. They wanted information so they could make decisions for themselves. They wanted control over their own lives. This is just too damn weird. Does Richard believe that the “feds” can give you control over your own life? This is one of my pet peeves, that modern-day liberals like Richard believe the “feds” are, or at least should be, in charge of everything, including what you think and feel. And as for making decision for themselves, I am reminded of The Life of Brian, where everyone says in unison, “we are all individuals.” Then of course, they would have all decided to do exactly the same thing and flee New York, making it nearly impossible for any of them to accomplish this feat. And then, of course, it would somehow be Tom Ridge’s fault. So I went back to the politicians and asked what they would have done. Clinton didn't return my phone call, but Schumer did. He was, as usual, thoughtful. His answer, if I may paraphrase it, is that there is no answer. The public has a right to be informed. Government has an obligation to avoid a panic. "There's got to be a balance," Schumer said. This is thoughtful? How about “I want to have my cake and eat it too” or “Democrats are responsible for every good thing that happens and Republicans are responsible for every bad thing that happens” or anything else that Chuck Schumer has said or Richard Cohen has written lately? I'll bet Mrs. Clinton not returning his call has Richard very concerned, by the way. I paraphrase again: God only knows what it is. But I’ll bet Richard comes down hard on him when Tom Ridge fails to divine the future perfectly. Color him -- color us all -- perplexed. The use of crayons seem apropos when dealing with Richard’s opinions. (Ed. Note – Please scroll on to the next (actually the previous) Scourge, which you might otherwise miss, since they have both been posted somewhat belatedly due to real life interference. Thank you.) The Scourge of Richard Cohen, Vol. X (Ed. – The following is a bit of mean spiritedness that will be an on-going feature of this blog. Normally the author will endeavor to be reasonably fair, but this is an exception.) Periodically, even Richard Cohen gets it (mostly) right. In this column, Richard uses Church, Catholic, and Catholic Church interchangeably. I have tried to be more explicit in the Scourge and write Roman Catholic Church to be precise. Other denominations may have a similar problem, but to date, nothing has come out anywhere that even begins to approach the scale of the problem the Roman Catholic Church has today with pedophile priests. Why? Who knows completely or exactly? But it is probably a broad, complex conflation of a lot of trends in the Roman Catholic Church and society at large than have allowed a bad thing to take root and fester unchecked for a long time. The Scourge will note a few egregious examples of convoluted logic or rhetorical excess on Richard’s part, but will serve more as an opportunity for me to weigh in on the matter of Church and Children: The prescribed way to begin a column about the Catholic Church and its problems with sexual abuse is to refer to one's Catholic education, or maybe set the scene in one's church. I can do neither since I am not Catholic, but I do have one credential to admit me to this debate: I was once a boy. The prescribed way to begin a Scourge of Richard Cohen is to begin the vivisection with the first sentence. While he doesn’t state so here, I assume that Richard is largely nonreligious or attends a synagogue. Like Richard, I am not a Catholic. I was raised a Southern Baptist (it’s an Axis of Weevil thang), but do not currently adhere to any form of organized religion. It is important to remember that this entire discussion and the current scandal are related to religion – not God. As to Richard’s primary credential for commenting on this, well, I was once a boy too, but I think it much more pertinent that I am an adult and a father (but not a Father). Strictly speaking, having once been a boy is not a great rationale for offering intelligent, reasoned commentary unless your sensibilities have matured beyond those you possessed at the age of 8. Hmmm, maybe I’m on to something there. But even if I had been a girl, I would still insist that the sexual abuse of children is not just something for Catholics and their church to agonize over but a problem for us all. What if Richard had been a boy, but was now a girl? Stranger things have happened. You don't have to be Catholic to have standing in this matter. You just have to be appalled. Concur. Before the Reformation, the delineation of responsibility regarding most crimes where clearly drawn between the civil authority and the ecclesiastical authorities. While the boundaries have shifted somewhat, it was clear that there were reasonably explicit zones of control and that everyone knew them. Part of the reason this scandal has gotten so bad is that the Roman Catholic Church seems to have decided to usurp the civil authority when dealing with priests that were violating the law by abusing children. Whether it was for noble purposes (love the sinner, hate the sin) or ignoble purposes (protecting the institution at all costs), this is probably much more critical in the long run than the individual crimes. But do not mistake this as being soft on the pedophiles. They will ultimately inhabit a rung of hell lower than those still wondering where their 72 raisins have gone. And those that enabled and protected these pedophiles will be there with them, even if they never engaged in such behavior themselves. The Roman Catholic Church cannot take the law unto itself with its members any more than my company can with its employees. The Bishops, Archbishops, and Cardinals seem to have forgotten Sir Walter Scott’s admonition: “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.” If those responsible within the Roman Catholic Church had never tried to hide and protect these criminals, the pain would have been much lower than it is now for all involved. To begin with, just imagine how many fewer children would have been abused by the repeat offenders. And perhaps, a less permissive, less therapeutic culture within the Roman Catholic Church would have prevented so many who brought their sickness into the seminaries with them from ever taking the vows to begin with. But ultimately, the bedrock faith of the laity and the trust of those outside the Roman Catholic Church in the Roman Catholic Church and its leadership would have remained intact, whereas today their current leadership all the way up to the Holy See is held in contempt and disgust. How did they imagine that this would help? How many times did a pedophile priest have to be moved around before it became clear that this was not a viable solution? How many millions of dollars had to be paid out in settlements that could have been used to advance the Roman Catholic Church’s missions, its efforts to feed the poor, its parochial schools, and its need to recruit decent human beings into its service? The numbers are downright unbelievable. A single priest alone, Boston's now-defrocked John Geoghan, allegedly molested 130 children. In the Boston archdiocese, more than 80 priests have been accused of sexually abusing children over the past 40 years or so. Indeed, they are. And they indicate that the problem is systemic within the Roman Catholic Church. I cannot go so far as to believe that anything like this was encouraged, but it certainly was not condemned. When the shepherds turn out to be the wolves, the flock is in mortal danger. And the wolves seem to have engendered more wolves. The incidence of pedophilia in the priesthood has to be hundreds of times higher than in the general populace. If this doesn’t cry out for a need to implement draconian reform, what would? There is much we do not know. (Ed. Richard Cohen plagiarizes himself in his next column.) In the first place, we do not know the extent of the problem, since, to say the least, the church has not exactly been forthcoming. As indicated above, the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church is strongly implicated in these crimes. Just imagine how Richard Cohen might be acting if it turned out the Enron had this problem, but for reasons known only to him, Ken Lay had tried to help the offenders get treatment, shift them around, and pay out hush money. It’s past time to take the gloves off. The Roman Catholic Church does not merit any special treatment in this case. We also don't know if the church has more of a problem than other institutions where adults deal with children -- the public schools, for instance. Actually, I think we do. It is inconceivable that the same rate of pedophilia currently infecting the priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church exists in our public schools, or any other element of society at large. For one thing, the administrators of public schools would not react as the Bishops have. This is primarily due to the fact that the administrators of the public schools are ultimately answerable to the public and any administrator caught trying to protect a pedophile would have his career destroyed. The Bishops, on the other hand, seem to not be answerable to anyone except their superiors in the Roman Catholic Church and this has made it easier for them to try and hide their problems rather than effectively deal with them. And we also do not know if the problem comes with the job description -- something to do with celibacy. I doubt it, but I do not doubt experts when they say that the church has been a refuge for troubled men with troubling sexual proclivities. No sex might seem like a cure for inappropriate sex. Richard is spot on here. Whatever the merits of celibacy as a prerequisite for being a priest, it is completely unrelated to this problem. Wouldn’t a corollary of this argument be that rape is only a sex crime? Without trying to go into the arguments the Roman Catholic Church has with homosexuality per se, celibacy as manifested in an avoidance of sexual intimacy regardless of whatever may be going through the mind of an individual is quite clear and unambiguous. Andrew Sullivan and others need to be very careful here and they could be offering support to those who think that homosexuality is in fact deviant because a presumably much higher percentage of “homosexually-minded” priests have been unable to control their urges than the “heterosexually-minded” priests. The crimes seem to be much more related to priests abusing boys than girls. Interestingly, Richard seems to be making an argument that perhaps abstinence would work in this case, though somehow I don’t think he would be caught dead imagining that children and teenagers should be reaching the same conclusion in their own lives. But there is one thing we do know -- or can assume with some confidence. Just as there was an anything-goes culture at Enron, there was a culture of toleration for pederasty within the Catholic Church. Wouldn’t it be nice if Richard could address something on its own merits (or demerits) without trying to tie Enron – Ken Lay – George W. Bush – Texas into it somehow? The conclusion is inescapable: The church valued its priests more than it did its kids. It seemed to take a what's-the-harm posture. The kid'll get over it but the priest will be ruined. Richard is close to the truth here, but I think it has more to do with the crisis the Roman Catholic Church has in recruiting and retaining priests. There was a time when the Roman Catholic Church offered a career to those who lacked opportunities because of poverty, politics, or primogeniture. With a secularized, full employment economy, the attraction of a job in the Roman Catholic Church in the first world has fallen considerably. I think I read somewhere that most new seminarians are coming from the third world and that there is some real concern about what this means in the long run. Some of that may be racially motivated, but it might also be a concern for a loss of cultural continuity. The Roman Catholic Church may be facing a demographic crisis that could severely damage or perhaps destroy it if it cannot attract the quality people to which it is accustomed to populate its offices. But if this rationale is driving the decision to protect the shepherds at the expense of the flock, then the soul of the Roman Catholic Church has already been mortally wounded. I doubt that Cardinal Bernard Law, for one, would have kept Geoghan moving around if he fully appreciated what was happening to the kids. But as a sexually naive man himself, he focused instead on what he knew and whom he knew -- Geoghan and the harm it would do to him. This is where his sympathies lay. I don’t know what Cardinal Law thought or knew or when he knew it, but I don’t find the attribute “sexually naïve” very convincing. Being celibate does not mean being sexually naïve. In any case, he was responsible so if he didn’t know, he surely ought to have known. What’s good for the goose (Ken Lay-ing rotten eggs) is good for the gander. If we were talking about any other institution, politicians would be demanding an investigation: What did the hierarchy know and when did it know it? But this is the church, a religious body, and so we all back off -- defer, demur. Not all of us. As mentioned above, the Roman Catholic Church deserves no special treatment here. If this were Enron, the doors would be locked and guarded, all computers and files would have been confiscated, and all senior managers would be sitting in a jail cell already awaiting trial. The protestation of piety as an excuse to offer protection to the priests only serves to damage the Roman Catholic Church and its hierarchy further, especially as we learn more and more about their actions. This is appropriate even though, I hasten to add, the church is a mighty political force with lobbyists in state capitals and Washington and with its hand out for the public's money. Still, I prefer to let it clean its own house. I am almost willing to give them a chance, but not quite. They have demonstrated that they are part of the problem! This is much worse than Enron and we need to be acting that way. Normally Richard Cohen is more than willing to lambaste lobbyists for causes he doesn’t like. Why the reticence here? There is some indication that is being done. The five New York City-area dioceses have begun to reassess how they handle charges of sexual abuse. Similar reassessments are underway elsewhere in the country. Too little, too late. One almost gets the feeling that this would have continued to go on for a long time until it finally became public. It seems they are more sorry it has been exposed than that it occurred. But it's hard to have confidence in a reform effort led by the very men who tolerated pederasts for so long or, for that matter, in a Vatican which has yet to say anything substantive about the problem. Exactly. The Roman Catholic Church has not yet admitted that the problem is as serious as it is. Can you imagine Richard thinking that the folks at Enron and Arthur Anderson need to be given time to try and sort out their problems internally? And that was just about money – this is about children! Why aren’t we demanding the arrest and prosecution of the pedophiles and their enablers … for the children? Cardinal Law has to go. Directly to jail. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. The Vatican has to speak up. It’s going to take a lot more than words to fix this. This fish, as they say, rots from the head. For various reasons, this is an extremely unfortunate choice of words. But if you want to know more about what I think Richard is trying to make an allusion to, go here. 
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