Sobering Thoughts |
|
|
Comments on politics, the culture, economics, and sports by Paul Tuns.
I am editor-in-chief of "The Interim," Canada's life and family newspaper, and author of "Jean Chretien: A Legacy of Scandal" (2004) and "The Dauphin: The Truth about Justin Trudeau" (2015).
I am some combination of conservative/libertarian, standing athwart history yelling "bullshit!"
You can follow me on Twitter (@ptuns).
Archives
|
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Olympics in perspective The Halifax Herald editorializes that Canadian whining about the poor medal count -- two fewer than we won in Sydney -- and calls for more government funding of athletics, diminishes those victories our athletes did achieve. And, as the editorial notes, while we didn't win some medals we expected to, we also won several we were not expecting to win. Florida Senate race "Moderate" Republican Mel Martinez will face "moderate" Democrat Betty Castor, with both fending off serious challenges for their party's nomination. The Miami Herald reported: "In contrast to Martinez, Castor ran a careful, mainstream campaign that avoided divisive social issues and focused on feel-good topics like improving health care and schools. Florida's former education commissioner picked up fundraising steam and enjoyed gangbuster support from Emily's List, a Democratic fundraising organization that helps elect women who favor abortion rights." Now get that -- she "avoided divisive social issues" but was supported by a radical pro-abortion group. Oh, yes, I forgot; divisive means being pro-life although one would presume that any issue that severely divided voters would have (at least) two sides. If it's good enough for Samizdata... Today's quote of the day -- a highly irregular feature on this site -- come to us via Samizdata: "War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." -- John Stuart Mill Ariel, build that wall faster Over at The Shotgun, Kevin Libin has a great post on the terrorist attack on Israel today and the relevance of Israel's security fence. How the hell did this happen Mediocre Cleveland Indians beat the New York Yankees 22-0. Worst loss in 101-year Yankee history. Yuck. It's a good thing that WaPo columnists don't decide the GOP nominee David Broder has crowned John McCain the leading Republican for 2008. I thought this paragraph, however, needed clarification: "The McCain phenomenon is remarkable. Rarely in modern political history has a man who failed to win the nomination of his party in one election loomed so large on the national stage in the next election." At the end of this 'graph should be the line, "or at least in the media's mind." Giuliani's speech David Mader has some observations about Rudy Giuliani's speech that are worth reading including noting America's Mayor made six references to Jews and Israel in his references to terrorism, including this one: "Terrorism did not start on September 11, 2001. It had been festering for many years. And the world had created a response to it that allowed it to succeed. The attack on the Israeli team at the Munich Olympics was in 1972. And the pattern had already begun. The three surviving terrorists were arrested and within two months released by the German government. Action like this became the rule, not the exception ..." In other words, World War IV had its Munich, too. Ron Silver's speech The full text can be found here but I want to draw attention to this section: "We are again engaged in a war that will define the future of humankind. Responding to attacks on our soil, America has led a coalition of countries against extremists who want to destroy our way of life and our values. This is a war we did not seek. This is a war waged against us. This is a war to which we had to respond. History shows that we are not imperialists ... but we are fighters for freedom and democracy. Even though I am a well-recognized liberal on many issues confronting our society today, I find it ironic that many human rights advocates and outspoken members of my own entertainment community are often on the front lines to protest repression, for which I applaud them but they are usually the first ones to oppose any use of force to take care of these horrors that they catalogue repeatedly." This is powerful not because some actor said it but because it is true. Judge these comments as you would any politician, and they would be found to be a great rallying cry to action. Indeed, I could imagine Dick Cheney reciting these words at an AEI event or George W. Bush giving it on the campaign trail as part of his stump speech. God bless Ron Silver for his courage and honesty in speaking the truth and for having the intellectually honesty to support his president after 9/11 despite the many differences on other policies. Moore's USA Today Michael Moore is a professional fact distorter so it is unsurprising that his column for USA Today covering the Republican convention manipulates the answers to questions he asked people who self-identify as Republican to come to the conclusion that almost all Republicans are RINOs (Republican in Name Only). Moore begins by saying that New York is hardly in hostile territory, that New York City is the centre of conservative media and corporate America and Republican politics (Pataki, Bloomberg and Giuliani, the death penalty, nuclear plants, Fox News, Sean Hannity, Wall Street and the Wall Street Journal, etc...). Selective facts to prove a tenuous thesis and he erroneously says that Rush Limbaugh's show "emanates" from NYC even though El Rushbo moved his broadcast to Florida several years ago; so far, par for the Moore course. But then Moore distorts facts only the way this masterful propagandist can: "I asked one man who told me he was a 'proud Republican,' 'Do you think we need strong laws to protect our air and water?' 'Well, sure,' he said. 'Who doesn't?' I asked whether women should have equal rights, including the same pay as men. 'Absolutely,' he replied. 'Would you discriminate against someone because he or she is gay?' 'Um, no.' The pause — I get that a lot when I ask this question — is usually because the average good-hearted person instantly thinks about a gay family member or friend. I've often found that if I go down the list of 'liberal' issues with people who say they're Republican, they are quite liberal and not in sync with the Republicans who run the country. Most don't want America to be the world's police officer and prefer peace to war. They applaud civil rights, believe all Americans should have health insurance and think assault weapons should be banned. Though they may personally oppose abortion, they usually don't think the government has the right to tell a women [sic] what to do with her body." You can take a few principles and find similiarities between conservatives and liberals, but by taking answers from broad principles (equal rights for women) to find agreement on specific policies (the right to an abortion) or vice versa, is silly at best. Every American will be for justice and freedom and security and civil rights and helping the poor. It is about how to achieve and apply those goals that conservatives and liberals disagree. Moore's thinking about this, like many liberals, illustrates that he (and they) believe that only the Left supports justice, civil liberties, peace, helping the poor and other such lofty principles. That USA Today would allow such a dishonest observer of politics a platform makes them culpable in his distortions. Shame on them. Looking at 2008 The day after Bob Dole lost to Bill Clinton in 1996, the media began mentioning then Texas Governor George W. Bush as the 2000 GOP presidential nominee. Dole was mentioned, along with then Texas Senator Phil Gramm, as the likely Republican presidential torchbearer the week after Clinton beat President George H.W. Bush. In 2004, we don't even have to wait until the election for the speculation over '08. John Fund as a good run-down of all the likely first and second-tier candidates, including New York Governor George Pataki, Tennessee Senator Bill Frist and Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, but the two likely front-runners are Colorado Governor Bill Owens and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani. I would guess that Senator John McCain will run also, but his time will have long passed by then (and I doubt McCain and Hagel would both run). Jeb Bush cannot run unless Hillary Clinton seems likely to be the Democratic presidential candidate because only the presence of a Clinton on the ballot could mitigate charges of dynastic politics in a Bush candidacy. One name that could pop up between now and '08 is California Congressman Christopher Cox and I wouldn't entirely rule out Vice President Dick Cheney. (It was refreshing not to see Condi Rice or Colin Powell's names mentioned. They are some people's list merely because they are black.) Over at NRO, Richard Brookhiser makes a compelling case for Rudy Giuliani. If I could wave a magic wand and create the 2008 GOP ticket right now, it would be Owens at the top of the ticket with Rudy or Cox as his veep but only because the electorate would not allow Cheney to remain on the ticket through a second president's adminstration. Owens-Giuliani or Owens-Cox would put someone in the White House who is serious about shrinking government, a reformist and socially conservative. Either vice presidential candidate would demonstrate seriousness about continuing the war on terror. Apologies When I left last week I said that among the blogs you should frequent is J. Kelly Nestruck's excellent On the Fence. Unforunately I didn't link to it and apparently putting "On the Fence" in a search engine is too difficult for some of you. Readers: some of you disappoint me. Anywhere, here's the link. I call especially to your attention, this post on focus-group testing the Throne Speech. (And yes, I realize that it would be easier to have a list of links on the side but apparently it isn't that easy; both times I tried to do it, I ended up screwing up the blog.) Hewitt on the blogs and politics Hugh Hewitt spoke with other conservative writers at an event in New York and he summarizes some of their observations about politcs. Several noteworthy ones: "*from [David] Frum and [John] Podhoretz: New media has won. Old media knows it. And old media are very unhappy ... *from me: The reason the new media is so powerful is that people with opinions no longer need to persuade people to be allowed to persuade people. The gatekeepers are finished." How blogging has changed politics is not entirely clear, but certainly ideas, arguments, candidates' contradictions and flip-flops, etc., that have been ignored by Old Media in the past, are more likely to join the public discussion in a more mainstream way. This is good. The old gatekeepers are dead and there voters are able to become more informed. The question that cannot be answered -- to what degree has blogging changed voters' minds -- depends on how many Americans are willing to go looking for that information. Media coverage (of floor space) at the RNC Editor and Publisher has a list of the newspaper outfits at the Republicn National Convention and their allotted floor space: Tribune Co.: 11,100 USA Today: 10,050 The Associated Press: 7,830 Hearst Corp.: 7,000 The New York Times: 4,600 The Washington Post: 4,480 Newhouse: 4,072 Reuters: 3,531 The Dallas Morning News: 3,500 The Wall Street Journal: 2,500 The Boston Globe: 2,194 Cox: 2,000 McClatchy Co.: 1,941 Daily News, New York: 1,600 E&P also has a story on how the smaller papers -- the Danbury (CT) News-Times or the Bangor (ME) Daily News or the Daily Camera in Boulder, CO. -- cover the convention. They share two rooms with an internet hook-up and pay phone but no computers. Good news from Iraq There's lots of it. Chrenkoff has the links and details. (Read it all. If you don't have time, come back to it later.) Conservative celebs Interesting article on what some celebrities are doing to help the president. Interesting names including Ron Silver (a leftie who had his yes (partially) opened by 9/11), Lara Flynn Boyle, Dennis Hopper, Stephen Baldwin (the only likeable Baldwin, and I say that not only because he is the least liberal) and Angie Harmon, among others. Story notes: "John Rhys-Davies, who played Gimli the dwarf in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, said recently, 'You introduce a Republican to another in Hollywood, it's like a meeting between two Christians in Caligula's Rome'." Perhaps Hollywood (and the recording industry) is becoming a little more hospitable for Republican-leaning artists. One hopes so. From Ron Silver's speech tonight (on terrorism): "We will never forget, we will never forgive, we will never excuse." It's enough to forgive him for shilling for Canadian-style, government-run healthcare when he starred on Chicago Hope eons ago. Monday, August 30, 2004
Horny chimp gets ornery when she doesn't get sex Reuters reports: "Sexual frustration has turned a Chinese chimpanzee from a mild-mannered simian into a problem primate who smokes cigarettes and spits at visitors, the Xinhua news agency says." Which raises an interesting question: do animal rights activists defend the right of a chimpanzee to smoke or protect it from its "dangerous" habit? Just wondering. Canada and America: kin This post from the first week of July at Burkean Canuck looks at what Canada and the United States have in common and as much as Conservatives (and liberals) tend to view Canada and the United States as radically different countries, they share quite a number of positive attributes. Reading BC's list of such qualities as "a strong commitment to the rule of law, constitutionally, in statute, and by custom" and both countries laying "claim to being remarkable examples of representative democracy," I am pulled away from the Canada sucks thoughts that often (wrongly) dominate my thinking. Thanks Russ. Shocking headline I could not believe my eyes when I read this headline on Yahoo: "McCain, Giuliani Trumpet Bush Leadership." I thought a more fitting headline would be "Giuliani compares Bush to Reagan, Churchill," but why would the adversarial press want to raise that possibility, even if that is more newsworthy than two Republicans speaking at the Republican convention praising the Republican presidential candidate. "America's Mayor" was correct to make that comparison because the three leaders each saw an evil and faced it squarely. The AP reports that Guiliani said Bush "sees world terrorism for the evil that it is," but that "John Kerry has no such clear, precise and consistent vision." And that, folks, is why Bush will win. School's in for celebrity-pundits I have often noted here that celebrities have the right to speak out on political issues but 1) they must be willing to accept the consequences for doing so and 2) society should give their opinions as much credence as they deserve according to their argument's merits, not their status as pop culture icons. According to WorldNetDaily, Alice Cooper shares this view, although he appears to give a blanket dismissal of celebrity political opinion: "I call it treason against rock 'n' roll because rock is the antithesis of politics. Rock should never be in bed with politics. If you're listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you're a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock stars? Because we're morons. We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal. Besides ... when I read the list of people who are supporting Kerry, if I wasn't already a Bush supporter, I would have immediately switched. Linda Ronstadt? Don Henley? Geez, that's a good reason right there to vote for Bush." Sunday, August 29, 2004
I really don't know how to respond The Australian reports: "A GROUP linked to al-Qaeda promised today to spare the Vatican while focusing attacks on Italy and Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, for rejecting an ultimatum to pull Italian troops out of Iraq. 'We declare that the Vatican will never be one of our targets, as we will only strike in painful places which will force the vile Italian soldiers in Iraq to get out,' said a statement signed by the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades-European Battalion, and posted on an Islamist website." Obviously I'm relieved that the Vatican -- and this pontiff -- would be spared the horror of a terrorist strike from al-Qaeda. On the other hand, I am not very pleased that the terrorists don't think the Vatican a worthy target; whose side is the Catholic Church on? (Cross-posted at The Shotgun) Just a thought When America-hating Liberal MP Carolyn Parrish said "We are not joining the coalition of the idiots. We are joining the coalition of the wise," did she not imply that Canadians, too, are idiots? Senator Flippy strikes again This time on Cuba. Or more precisely, sanctions on Cuba. (Via Andrew Stuttaford in The Corner) Martin as bad as Chretien Many of us predicted that Paul Martin would be no better than Jean Chretien and history is proving us right. (Wait 'til Martin obstructs the work of the independent inquiry into Adscam, just as his former boss did during the APEC investigation.) In one area that Martin seemed to better than his predecessor, in actuality he is just as bad: foreign policy. Ezra Levant writes in the Calgary Sun that Martin's foreign affairs minister, Pierre Pettigrew continues the Chretien-standard of being on the wrong side in international affairs: "So it is appalling, but hardly unpredictable, that Pettigrew is as anti-Israel as his predecessor, the awful Bill Graham. Perhaps Pettigrew is worse -- he fancies himself a European, not a North American, and even models his clothing and hairstyle after the insufferable Dominique de Villepin, the French diplomat who shuttled around the world last year sewing together a coalition to defend Saddam Hussein against the U.S. at the UN. Vain, pompous, effete, socialist, disdainful of anything conservative or vigorous or military, utterly appeasing of terrorists and dictators alike, contemptuously dismissive of America and the anglosphere and its role as guarantor of freedom for a half century. There is no difference between Jean Chretien's anti-American, anti-Israel foreign policy and Paul Martin's -- Pettigrew was a minister in both men's cabinets -- except Chretien never pretended to be pro-American and pro-Israel, but Paul Martin did, at least during the election, at least to his big Jewish donors." Does Robbins really suffer for his politics? The Observer's Andrew Anthony interviews Tim Robbins and finds that in America it is not safe to be an artist with strong political opinions. Really? He has had his patriotism questioned, he has been disinvited to events (the Baseball Hall of Fame, in 2003) and people say, when he talks about his politics, "Here he goes again." Yes, American celebs face gulag-like conditions for speaking their mind. Also, he is burdened with the success of a theatrical production that satirizes the media during the liberation of Iraq. Not that the article is entirely biased in Robbins' favour. Indeed, Anthony questions Robbins on his knowledge of the issues on which he pontificates: "Various aspects of this speech strike me as naive or fantastic (not least the magical powers of special ops), but for the sake of historical accuracy I merely point out that there is a historical precedent for bombs and airplanes bringing democracy. 'How? When?' He sits up, suddenly rattled. I mention Germany and Japan in the Second World War. 'It seems to be that we always come back to that. I don't know it didn't happen without the determination of the people involved.' I point out that it didn't happen in East Germany, and he replies: 'I'd have to go into the history and the specifics of that. It came at the end of the gun but with the influx of a huge amount of money: the Marshall Plan. In Iraq, the money is going into war-mongering. It has nothing to do with democracy. It's about destabilisation. That's what Kosovo was about. It's the same thing any time there's a threat to US national security.' This is not the typical conversation one has with American film actors, and I feel a professional obligation to steer it back to more familiar territory such as marital infidelity and substance abuse (neither of which appear to loom large in the Robbins biography) but I recall something he had said in an interview some years back. 'The only responsibility I have to anyone is to make sure that when I talk about something, I know what I'm talking about, that I've done the research. I take that responsibility very seriously. I read a lot.' So I ask how Kosovo was a threat to US security. 'Ahm...' he hesitates. 'I believe... I'm not the right person to talk about this... but that region of the world, this is the way I've heard it put... Can I go get a cigarette?' He disappears and, as if having remembered his Noam Chomsky, returns a minute later with a ready-fit anti-imperialist answer. 'Where it's all flawed is this hegemonic belief that if you bring business to a country it will help them'." Very nice. Now the celebrity-pundits don't like this; when they are called to account for their blathering on political issues, they whine that they are being mocked or, worse, censored. They want the right not only to speak out but also the right not to be scrutinized. That is silly, although most in the media oblige this childish attitude. Andrew Anthony should be applauded for challenging the likes of Robbins; perhaps the actor in question, and his ilk, will turn his attention back to making movies and less to making news with his (ill-informed) opinions. Deafness and blindness Before going on vacation this week, Terry Teachout posted this quote from writer David Lodge: "I hate my deafness; it's a comic infirmity as opposed to blindness which is a tragic infirmity." I recall in university playing some silly game from a book of questions and one asked if you had to choose one, would you prefer to be blind or deaf. After some discussion (which is what these games are supposed to do) a majority of the participants concluded that it would be better to blind than deaf because while blindness cuts one off from the world, deafness cuts one off from other people. I think that is quite profound although at the time I remained outside the majority view. I still would not what I would choose -- not seeing my next born, or not hearing my children say "Daddy, I love you." Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Blogging from an undisclosed location, north of Toronto, in the woods Tonight is my first real chance to get on the computer. Read the news -- including that of the two new SCOC justices (unimpressed) -- and must say I don't really miss the internet/newspapers. However, my reading is a mixed bag. I just completed P.J. O'Rourke's Peace Kills (fantastic, I'll blog quotes when I return to the Centre of the Universe) but have also been reading a lot of Canadian history and recent Canadian politics (yawn). Might blog later. Then again, might not. Making Mississauga pround Carolyn Parrish thinks that Americans are not just bastards but idiots and that using the term idiot is acceptable even though she never meant that Americans are idiots. The context was the missile defense shield: "We are not joining the coalition of the idiots. We should be joining the coalition of the wise." No word on who composes that coalition but presumably it is mostly Old Europe and Old Iraq. Sunday, August 22, 2004
Taking some time off After a busy week that included the finishing bits of my forthcoming book Jean Chretien: A Legacy of Scandal, and before the beginning of the school year, I'm headed to cottage country for a while. While I'm there, I think I'm going to finish off a couple of reviews, complete a cover story for Business Report and begin work on my next book. My wife says that I won't have time because I'll be playing on the beach with the kids and hiking and all that fun stuff. In the meantime, check out TG Media (a useful round-up of interesting and under-covered news), On the Fence (artsy without the fartsy), Le Blog de Polyscopique (libertarian-leaning blog from Quebec), Relapsed Catholic (about religion and culture) and, of course, The Shotgun. A billion dollar bargain This AP story almost musters outrage that all among the various candidates -- presidential, Congressional etc... -- have spent a $1 billion on the election already and there are still two months to go. So what? Considering that other industries spend a billion on advertising, is it not fair that we learn just as much about the product (the candidates) being offered on election day? In fact, considering the stakes, the number of candidates and complexity of issues, $1 billion plus seems pretty good. Now, the question is, how much truth is there in that advertising? Unfortunately, unless you live in California (or a few other places), there is a no return policy. The Right Nation My review of The Right Nation appears in today's Halifax Herald. The review is focused on what (generally) the book says about why the conservative movement is successful in the United States and what the Canadian conservative movement can learn from it. Because of the limitations of space, I did not criticized some the errors of fact/interpretation, especially on social issues (abortion and capital punishment being the big ones) and over-simplications (notably in explaining the success of several non pro-life Republicans). Anyhow, here's the review. Right Nation: Conservative Power in America by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge (Penguin Press, $37.50, 450 pages) Review by Paul Tuns John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge are the U.S. editor and Washington correspondent respectively of the London-based The Economist and co-author of three previous (economics and business) books. In their latest offering they examine, as both historians and reporters, why the United States is a Right Nation, a country where conservatism is politically ascendent. It obviously did not happen overnight. In fact, according to the authors, it is based in the very roots of America's history: the founding and the frontier experience. The Coles Notes version: the constitution celebrated and institutionalized the idea of responsible liberty over welfare statism and the frontier experience led to a tolerance of the gun culture and retributive justice. Both have been deeply ingrained in the American psyche so when left-liberals advance their agenda, they are arguing against what many Americans instinctively think or believe. Micklethwait and Wooldridge are correct to note not just the long-term developments that influenced that have influenced today's successful conservative movement but also the more recent history. Over the last five decades, to use the words of Seattle Times editorial writer Bruce Ramsey, the Right has "out-thought, out-spent and out-organized its rivals." That is, they have an infrastructure of publications, think tanks and foundations -- "the R&D Department" as the authors cleverly put it -- that help disseminate ideas and persuade their fellow citizens of the merit of conservative policies, and grassroots organizations such as the Focus on the Family, the National Rifle Association and Young Americans for Freedom that provide a tens of thousands of people who can work on political campaigns, register voters, distribute literature, etc... None of this happened quickly. Because of the creation of large national think tanks in the 1910s (the Hoover Institute) and 1940s (the American Enterprise Institute) and smaller, sometimes regional ones in the last 35 years (such as the National Center for Policy Analysis and the Discovery Center), the launch of a magazine in the 1950s (National Review which the authors call "the Right's debating chamber"), the creation of grassroots movements in the 1970s (the Moral Majority) and 1980s (Christian Coalition) and political activists in the 1990s (the Club for Growth), conservatives were able to win the battle of ideas and the battle on the ground to mobilize voters. It would be difficult to overstate the importance of these developments. Hillary Clinton famously observed the groups working in a common cause and described them as a right-wing conspiracy out to get her and her husband; but this sinister interpretation misunderstands their importance in gaining ground for the Right in the battleground of ideas. It is not that conservative think tanks and publications control the debate but that they finally provided balance to their left-wing counterparts, liberal magazines such as The Nation or The New Republic or the liberalism of academia. What these and other conservative organizations and publications did was unite seemingly disparate conservative constituencies -- anti-communists, traditionalists and free market advocates -- and unite them both intellectually and as a voting block. Eventually the success of any group was intertwined with the success of the others thus reducing factionalism. With rare exceptions, American conservatives do not think of themselves as fiscal conservatives and social conservatives. As Michlethwait and Wooldridge recognize, not only were the disparate groups a part of a marriage of convenience, there was often truly overlap, noting of two high profile conservative meetings that take place in Washington today, that many of those that attend tax fighter Grover Norquist's Wednesday morning meetings also go to social conservative Paul Weyrich's Wednesday luncheons. So are there lessons for Canadian conservatives? Obviously there is nothing that can be done about the different histories. America's founding ideas are the celebration of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (private property) while Canada's are peace, harmony and good government. Canada's experience of moving West was different from our southern neighbour's. The advantages that America's history give to conservatives are simply no present in the Canadian experience. But conservatism was not always politically dominant in the United States; actually the authors rightly observe that the U.S. isn't the thoroughly conservative they might leave the impression of it being because it still has big government, large deficits and moral decay, being particularly fond of noting "the antics portrayed on Girls Gone Wild videos. Canada is where the United States was in the 1950s when to hold conservative views was impolite and a sign of a barely functioning mind; literary critic Lionel Trilling disparaged the very idea of a conservative intellectual. In Canada, questioning of liberalism -- universal state-run healthcare, abortion-rights, the gay agenda, our reflexive anti-Americanism -- is considered close to treasonous. But that is not (purely) the fault of the Conservative Party. Whatever might be said of the Conservatives, it must be noted that it is not reinforced by a conservative movement. Other than a number of pro-life groups, there is little in the way of grassroots organizations that create a network of readily available volunteers. Other than the Alberta-based Western Standard, there is no broadly conservative magazine. While there are several regional free-market oriented think tanks (including the Halifax-based Atlantic Institute for Market Studies), there is no non-hyphenated conservative think tank with a national scope providing intellectual sustenance to an idea-hungry movement. In short, other than a handful of conservative columnists, there is nothing to help the movement win the battle of ideas. The business of winning elections is about much more than political strategies, an area which the Conservative Party has much work on its hands. But it is also about winning hearts and minds, creating a substantial base (often a coalition) and getting a grassroots army of support. None of this is happening in Canada because there is very little in the way of a conservative infrastructure of think tanks, magazines, foundations and activist groups. If Canadian conservatives are looking south of the border as a model of success, they should heed Micklethwait's and Wooldridge's history lessons and begin building the infrastructure in Canada that their American cousins began building three, four and five decades ago. If the American experience and The Right Nation teaches anything, it is that meaningful political change is about more than winning elections and that it doesn't happen overnight. * Paul Tuns is a Toronto-based writer and editor and author of the forthcoming Jean Chretien: A Legacy of Scandal. Saturday, August 21, 2004
Africa is a mess The Independent reports that three years after Tony Blair said, "The state of Africa is a scar on the conscience of the world. But if the world as a community focused on it, we could heal it. And if we don't, it will become deeper and angrier," the situation on the continent can not really be said to have improved. Almost a decade before that, Paul Johnson had a solution. The New York Times sees an up-side to the, ahem, McGreevey affair The New York Times will never miss an opportunity to advocate for more government and it editorializes today that the Jim McGreevey resignation proves the need for a lieutenant governor. Not having one, the Times says, is undemocratic; the governor should not be someone the state's public never voted on. But quite a number of lieutenant governor's are not elected directly by voters but instead selected indirectly by virtue their running as a ticket. I don't think that is quite democratic, either; certainly few if any people vote for a ticket because of the candidate for lieutenant governor. All of which brings us to the only logical conclusion: the paper wants the creation of this new post because it increases the size of government. FLAME wrong this time Facts and Logic About the Middle East is simply off-the-mark on its latest ad on Egypt because is over-states the case: "What does the U.S. hope to accomplish by arming this mortal enemy of Israel, which is still bent on the destruction of the Jewish state? Since Israel is the one immutable ally of the United States in the entire region, a country we can always count on, it is hard to understand why our government would be participatory in Israel’s possible destruction. It makes no sense at all." I agree Israel is America's one immutable ally (Iraq is not there yet) but it is far from clear that Egypt is "still bent on the destruction of the Jewish state." It is too bad that FLAME's intemperate and overwrought language gets in the way of a serious analysis on the potential problems of the U.S.'s too-close relationship with Egypt and its possible affect on Israel's future. Proud dad Earlier today my 13-year-old son says to me, "Rush Limbaugh's book is really awesome." I think this is a sign that I'm going a great job raising our boys. My wife considers this child abuse. John Kerry, Man of the People (TM) AP reports on a string of fundraisers for Senator John Kerry (UltraD, People's Republic of MA) in the Hamptons, HQ for the Democratic side of John Edwards' Two Americas: "The festivities then move to 'Sex and the City' producer Darren Star's home in East Hampton for a $25,000-a-plate dinner. There also will be a separate dinner gathering for a younger, more budget-conscious crowd at the restaurant Jean-Luc East, where tickets are selling for $2,500 a person." You see, in that other America, a $2,500 Democratic-fundraising dinner is budget concious. The fundraising detour in the northeast comes after a non-political, no-speeches stop in hurricane-ravaged parts of Florida. And in my best Wizard of Oz voice I warn, pay not attention to the fact that he was accompanied by a plane-load of photographers and reporters. Copps a closet free marketeer Maybe not, but Jerry Aldini's post is amusing. He writes about Sheila Copps' latest column in the National Post: "So, from the Will Wonders Never Cease Department - the concluding sentence of her column is: 'What really matters is that business and politics don't mix.' I urge her to complete this thought next week and recommend the privatization of Canada Post and the other crown corporations. Reading her, I can't believe she has reached some alternative conclusion. Surely she is not so naive (or brazen) to say that government should be involved in these businesses, but that somehow politics should be made to disappear. ... Kudos Ms. Copps. I don't care which point you were trying to make; the one I reached is less government involvement in business, and it's well-argued by your column." America will win the peace because the race is long and we've only just begun A friend of mine says that the cliche about losing the peace is bovine excrement -- you win the war and that is that, you can't lose the peace. I guess, actually, you can when conflict serious and widespread conflict flares up again but the situation in Iraq is nowhere near that point. Anyway, Larry Diamond writes in the September/October Foreign Affairs a long essay on the situation in Iraq and he diagnoses a number of problems (although he is too quick to blame U.S. policy which is mostly to blame for not doing more of what the Left what's it to do less, namely get more involved in Iraq). He concludes: "The transition in Iraq is going to need a huge amount of international assistance-political, economic, and military-for years to come. Hopefully, the U.S. performance will improve now that Iraqis are in charge of their own future. It is going to be costly and it will continue to be frustrating. Yet a large number of courageous Iraqi democrats, many with comfortable alternatives abroad, are betting their lives and their fortunes on the belief that a new and more democratic political order can be developed and sustained in Iraq." That Iraqis with comfortable alternatives abroad are betting their lives (and fortunes) on a better future in their home country is the clearest testament to the fact that the U.S. and Iraq are winning the peace. (Crossposted at The Shotgun) Tearing us apart while bringing us together While examining why she blogs, Valerie Belair-Gagnon notices a curious paradox: "I don’t seek to validate my brilliance, nor do I want to do of writing a living (or at the least not with a blog). I could find futile answers such as ameliorating my writing skills, sharing my thoughts to the World Wide Web, or even keeping in touch with friends with whom it is hard to write a big e-mail everyday. But then, I think about it a little more and this blogging-habitus has the reverse purpose that it had to have in essence. While I think I am more connected to the world, I do write less to my friends and the message I am sending is divulgated in a vast area of information. Perhaps I am going a little bit far fetched, I do keep in touch with my friends and I don’t write on my blog until two in the morning. But still it is pretty astonishing that this alternative citizen-media culture is expanding this fast and has different effects on our interactions with other human beings." Now some of us may blog because it gives, or seems to give purpose to the endless hours that we spend on the internet anyway -- "Hey, I'm not wasting time. I'm doing "research" for my blog," or whatever. Many nerds, er, I mean bloggers, were not in touch with the few friends we had before blogging, although I am sure that Valerie does not fall into this category. But I think that she is correct to note that in the increasingly interconnected global village, where we can communicate and travel more easily than ever before, we are also more separated from our immediate communities (although "distracted from" might be a more accurate description). The Derb on his fellow New Yorkers John Derbyshire on the citizens of the Big Apple: "... a mouth-breathing lot with the collective political good sense of a Bonobo chimp colony." Wednesday, August 18, 2004
See ya on the weekend It seems that whenever I say I don't have time to blog, I still blog and sometimes even turn it up a notch. Not this week. (Until I do, that is.) But I really am busy: production week at work; going over the final, final, final manuscript of my forthcoming book Jean Chretien: A Legacy of Scandal; getting a start on a pair of reviews for the Halifax Herald (with two in the queue); finishing the cover story for the October Business Report; a going-away party for a friend of mine. Oh, yeah, my wife and daughter -- the boys are at their grandparents -- have asked me to schedule them in somewhere. I'll post on the weekend. In the meantime, check out Adam Daifallah's musings and the excellent assortment of Canadian blogs to which he links. And, of course, The Shotgun. Tuesday, August 17, 2004
Hentoff on liberal dupes Nat Hentoff, writing in the Washington Times, says that if nothing else, Iraq is better because the official state-sponsored terrorism committed against Iraqis has ended. Liberals, however, don't get this: "And, on July 1 of this year, Albert Hunt, the resident liberal on the Wall Street Journal editorial pages, wrote: 'For many Iraqis it's a more dangerous country than even (under) the brutal Saddam regime.' Does he include the families of those whose Saddam's regime murdered, who continue to sift through the mass graves hoping to find the identifiable shards of those bodies?" Gay marriage's undemocratic roots in Canada REAL Women has the scoop on how Martin Cauchon, the erstwhile Justice Minister, and three unelected officials, brought gay "marriage" to Canada. The July/August issue of REALity reports: "This story was revealed by former Minister of Justice Martin Cauchon during a speech he gave when he accepted an award from a U.S. homosexual organization, Equality Forum, in Philadelphia on May 1, 2004. During his speech, Mr. Cauchon revealed that, politically, there were actually only four individuals who were instrumental in bringing about same-sex marriage in Canada. Besides himself, Mr. Cauchon singled out the work of Paul Genest, who was policy advisor to former Prime Minister Chrétien, who, according to Mr. Cauchon, played "a key role" in the same-sex marriage question. Mr. Cauchon stated that he met with Mr. Genest on a daily basis to talk about how he should manage the approach and the strategy on the same-sex marriage issue. Mr. Cauchon also related that Mr. Genest heavily lobbied former Prime Minister Chrétien on a daily basis to get his support for same-sex marriage. Once he got Mr. Chrétien on side, everything fell into place since Mr. Chrétien ruled as a semi-dictator over his Caucus and rubber stamp Cabinet. Mr. Genest, by the way, was also in attendance at the homosexual award ceremony. The two other movers and shakers on the issue behind the political scene were Alex Himelfarb, Clerk of the Privy Council, and the Deputy Minister of Justice, Morris Rosenberg. Mr. Cauchon stated that, 'the four of us have been a fantastic team that allowed the delivery of the draft bill on same-sex marriage before the Supreme Court'." As REAL Women notes, it is frightening that four men could have so much power: "Canada is to be pitied that a mere handful of individuals - that is, one apparently manipulative politician (Cauchon) plus three public servants (Alex Himelfarb, Deputy Minister of Justice Rosenberg and Paul Genest from the Prime Minister's office), had the personal power and influence politically to bring about same-sex marriages. There is little integrity and little democracy when this can be achieved by the manipulation of so few." Perhaps it's a strategy to look for future Democratic voters in space New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson says that whatever happened at Roswell should be investigated -- again. (Hat Tip to K-Lo in The Corner) Dying for free enterprise Costco is going to market caskets directly to consumers. The Cato crowd will be happy (actually, so am I). Last year in their excellent magazine Regulation, David E. Harrington wrote an article on the state restrictions on the casket trade (and other funeral services). Sunday, August 15, 2004
The truth about McGreevey Mark Steyn writes about the truth about the McGreevey, em, affair: "For Jim McGreevey, his truth is that he's a gay American; for others in the Garden State, the truth about McGreevey is that he's a corrupt sexual harasser who put his lover on the state payroll in a critical homeland security post, and whose I-am-what-I-am confessional is a tactical feint that distracts the media sob sisters from the fact that, as his final service to the Democratic Party, he's resigned in such a way as to deny the people an early vote on his successor." In the short-term, which is the attention span of most journalism, McGreevey's trick worked. Take two examples, both from the Globe and Mail on Saturday. Lawrence Martin, an old school chum of the soon-to-be-former New Joisey Governor, said it's a bloody shame that McGreevy had to resign because he was gay: "But Thursday's announcement, that he was resigning because of an extramarital homosexual affair, was an astonishing piece of soul-cleansing theatre, too difficult to imagine from even someone as raucous as the Jim McGreevey we knew. Some Americans were comparing his performance to Richard Nixon's Checkers speech. The gay-rights community has a new cause. If the affair had been with a woman, would he have resigned?" The paper's editorial made much the same point before finally acknowledging that there was actual wrong-doing on McGreevey's part: "The initial news was that Mr. McGreevey was stepping down -- effective Nov. 15, late enough to let another Democrat complete the term that ends in November of 2005 -- because he had been adulterous and because he is bisexual. On that front, it seemed both unnecessary and unfortunate that he should quit." But the point is that McGreevey didn't step down because he had an adulterous affair, gay or whatever. He resigned because he hired his former -- what's a gay mistress? -- for positions for which he was not qualified. He abused his office, a point that the Globe and Mail grants but only as an after-thought to the gay angle. I am convinced, as it seems Mark Steyn is, that McGreevey opportunistically outed himself at this time to blunt criticism of his abuse of power. In 2004, it is infinitely better to be known as a homosexual slime ball, than just a slime ball. Saturday, August 14, 2004
Victory in the War on Terror With attention focused on the Middle East, we miss stories like this one; the AP reports that a Philippines court has sentenced 17 member of the Al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf terrorist group. With four were sentenced in abstentia following a jail break, it sends a clear signal that the War on Terror proceeds apace, problems in southern Iraq notwithstanding. I'll take Canadian politics for $200, Alex A minority government. What the most negative, attack campaign and $444 million will get you. Correct. You pick again. I'm sick of Canadian politics, I'll take classical music for $1000. The National Post reports (subscription required) that the Liberal government handed out $444 million through its regional development agencies in the three months before the election. Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, for instance, ramped up its contributions to Canada's corporate welfare state from $3.3 million in handouts in January and $8 million in February to $22.5 million in March, $28.4 million in April and $32 million in the first three weeks of May before the election was called. Announcements of handouts averaged about two a day, compared to one every other day in the first two months of this year. In 2003, ACOA averaged an announcement every day, so perhaps the election had nothing to do with the increased pace and amount of handouts as the agency was just trying to catch up. Perhaps. But the Western Economic Diversification and FedNor (northern Ontario) also increased their payoffs, er, handouts. WED went from 7 and 5 announced projects in January and February respectively (totaling $7 million) to 20, 14 and 15 in March, April and May (worth $80 million, $92 million and $91 million respectively. FedNor went from six projects worth $1.5 million in January and three worth $471,000 in February to 83 total projects worth $5 million in March, $13.4 million in April and $7.4 million in May. It would seem that only the Liberals' "investments" in Atlantic Canada paid off. Wonder how much they'll spend next time in their attempt to regain a majority. Obviously the most pressing issue facing mankind today Planet Out has a story, "Olympics open without visible transgender participation." I'm sure the Globe and Mail will have an article on it in a day or so. Olympics are on, who cares I got a glimpse of part of the opening ceremonies which is more than I wanted to watch. I'll skip NBC and CBC when channel surfing to ensure that doesn't happen again. At the end of the two weeks or however this travesty lasts, I'll look at the sports page to see how many medals the United States beats China and Russia by and how many liberated Iraq and Afghanistan won. Other than that, no Olympics for me. David Brock sucks Adam Daifallah reviews Brock's cruddy little book The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It [sic] Corrupts Democracy in The American Spectator. The point of which is, essentially, how seriously can you take seriously anyone who says the "organized Right has sabotaged not only journalism but also democracy and truth." Daifallah criticizes Brock: "Brock rips into one conservative luminary after the next, each time using the same modus operandi: questioning their motives, linking them to some shady person or group, or finding the worst possible quote and using it out of context." Now I haven't read Brock -- Daifallah has more patience than I -- but I would guess that he accuses the right, which in his book includes CNN, of these same tactics. Morgentaler sued for malpractice LifeSite Daily News reports: "Prominent Canadian abortionist Henry Morgentaler is in the spotlight again with his Ottawa abortion center being sued for $185,000 plus costs, for an alleged "botched" abortion occurring on August 8, 2003. Documents filed with the Ontario Superior Court last week name one doctor and five nurses and claim that the abortion was performed without anesthetic due to an inability to insert in IV. ... Court documents note that immediately after the abortion she experienced cramping and bleeding which continued for weeks. A nurse at the abortuary contacted a week after the operation said such symptoms were normal, says the report. However, on August 23 the woman was admitted to an Ottawa hospital to have a placenta and remains of the baby removed. The document says the woman's periods remained irregular for seven months and she continues to experience bleeding. The woman and her husband are suing for the 'negligent' abortion and its resulting strain on their marriage, its interference with her fertility and the trauma it caused." The Canadian Press story on this, which is on the wire, is extremely difficult to find on any paper's website. No one seems to be picking this up. You can be sure if some abortionist was threatened, it would be all over the place. LSN has a number of links to earlier examples of Morgentaler's abuse of women. WaPo surprised at phenomenon they've covered for at least two years Washington Post headline: "Al Qaeda Showing New Life." At least in every freaking newspaper story in the East/Left Coast papers. This is hardly shocking considering the endless reports from the New York Times, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, etc., about terrorist attacks on Western and insufficiently Muslim targets over the past two years. As Ralph Peters notes in the New York Post: "The terrorists need to stage spectacular events to convince the world of their power, to reassure their supporters of their continued viability and to draw fresh blood to the movement. Few flock to join a fugitive in a basement, but an Osama bin Laden allowed to appear triumphant — the Clinton administration's approach — is a magnet for every psychopath in the Muslim world. Yet when the terrorists do conduct dramatic attacks, they earn brief fame, but unite ever more of the world against them. Had al Qaeda and its surrogates laid low after 9/11, instead of creating strategically random carnage, they'd be in vastly better shape today." Friday, August 13, 2004
Don't worry honey, it's not genocide, just murder AfricaBlog on the on-going UN/EU debates over whether the slaughter in Sudan is technically genocide: "If it isn't genocide, is it somehow more acceptable?" Apparently, it is and thus white Europeans can feel less guilty about not doing anything. As AfricaBlog concludes, "The politics of defining 'genocide' is a nasy, brutish business that has little regard for the lives lost." Why worry about the lives of Africans if one's conscience can stay clean. I think that AfricaBlog misses the point: Europe's moral posturing is all about themselves not the ostensible subject of the moral posturing. Guardian gives the Lewinsky treatment to Robert Redford Silly story on the Hollywood actor in The Guardian. Loved this part on Redford's liberal politics stemming from Europe's liberation of the beloved actor from wicked, right-wing California: "He spent 18 months, in Florence and Paris, living in penury - he was used to that - painting on pavements. Europe, he says, politicised him, saved him in a way. 'If I'd stayed in California, who knows, I might have been brainwashed into becoming a Republican. Don't forget I grew up in a state that had Nixon for senator'." Yes, living in the Golden State could have brainwashed him -- just like it did all of the other state's inhabitants over the past five decades. The security fence works Ha'aretz has an story on the effectiveness of the security fence following the first bombing in Jerusalem in six months. Hey, that's progress. The paper reports: "This lull was achieved by an improvement in the IDF and Shin Bet's intelligence capability and the coordination between them, but also by two very unpopular means: the separation fence and IDF roadblocks." The story concludes: "In the justified criticism of the injustices caused by the fence and roadblocks, one should remember that the relative quiet in the center of the country is no coincidence; it is the result of a huge effort by all the security branches." If only Al-Qaeda had a basketball team Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Max Boot diagnoses what is wrong with the Olympics in 2004. Or, more properly, what causes what is wrong with the Olympics in 2004, namely that it is interminably boring: "Ironically, the very fact that most countries are engaged in peaceful competition — the Olympic ideal — renders this Olympics uninteresting." Boot admits that sports has value -- the intrinsic good of orderly competition, the virtues it inculcates in both the participant and spectator (an appreciation of physical and moral courage, discipline, hard work, etc...) -- but says that comprehending and caring about this value is easier to do with the sports that we follow regularly and love: "Sports like football, baseball and basketball have intrinsic appeal to millions of people because their fans follow them all the time and know the players. We see most Olympic events only once every four years. It's like meeting some long-lost cousin. Are you going to gush over her? It's true that all the Olympic sports are contested year in, year out, but few receive any coverage, at least in this country. Yet every four years we're supposed to get worked up over who does and who does not snare a gold medal." Nor does it help that the International Olympic Committee has not been seen to live up to the ideals it would like its athletes to: "The International Olympic Committee may be the most scandal-ridden organization this side of the United Nations' oil-for-food program, but it continues to justify its existence with the need to spread the 'Olympic spirit.' Which is what, exactly? That you should pass up no opportunity for a payoff?" How do you like McCain-Feingold now? If you're a Democrat, probably a lot. Charles Krauthammer explains why the ultra rich are more important to the political process than ever before and how President George W. Bush can't legally ask the Swift boat vets to stop attacking Kerry over his Vietnam record, even if he wanted to. A sign of progress in the Middle East The Washington Times reported yesterday that a report by the Palestinian Legislative Council found the Palestinian Authority ultimately responsible for much of the chaos that afflicts the Palestinian people. I hope and pray that the Palestinian leadership takes to heart what the five-member panel said and does not, instead, decide to punish them to their honesty. The revolving door CBC reporter goes to work for Scott Brison. Hat tip to Adam Daifallah. A comment in Daifallah's post on this says: "You wonder how long this has been in the works. She really pushed the "hidden agenda" nonsense when I saw her talking about the election a few times on TVO." Good question. Will probably never know the answer. Put this in a 96-point headline: NYT notices Oil-for-Food scandal It seems that the folks at the New York Times have finally read a copy of the Wall Street Journal as it finally reports on the scandal that Claudia Rosett has been on top of for ... how long now? Forever. Rosett, by the way, deserves a Pulitzer for what she has reported on this story. Her most recent column in the WSJ is here. (Hat tip to K-Lo in The Corner) Henninger on the party of Two Americas Wall Street Journal columnist Daniel Henninger says that the Democrats are "looking more and more like a two-tier party -- one for VIP Democrats and one for bridge-and-tunnel Democrats." The VIP-Ds are celebrities as, Henninger notes, "Hollywood's become a town of Demophiliacs." And while the Democrats talk about being a party of the people, they clearly are not. Sowell's random thoughts As always, Thomas Sowell's column of unrelated (other than for their common sense) observations, quips and quotes, is a complete delight. Some examples: "Of all ignorance, the ignorance of the educated is the most dangerous. Not only are educated people likely to have more influence, they are the last people to suspect that they don't know what they are talking about when they go outside their narrow fields." "People do not become either 'brilliant' or 'stupid' just because the media keep describing them that way. The high correlation between people's supposed brilliance or stupidity and their agreement or disagreement with liberal ideology should warn us against taking such characterizations seriously." "The media often mention 'ultra-conservatives' but never 'ultra-liberals.' Have ultra-liberals become extinct, gotten lost, or met with foul play? We cannot ignore the fate of fellow human beings, even if we differ with them politically. At the very least, we can report them as missing persons." "Before this year, had you ever heard anyone claim that four months in combat makes someone qualified for four years as President of the United States -- with no questions asked about what they did in the intervening decades?" Thursday, August 12, 2004
If London were hosting the Olympics instead of Athens The editors at the Spectator imagine how it would be different: "Like the victorious athletes of ancient Athens — who were guaranteed a free lunch in the city hall every day for the rest of their lives — our ‘minister for the Olympics’ would soon have been consuming large lunches as he met all the ‘stakeholders’. Lords Foster and Rogers would have rapidly received a personal invitation from Tony Blair to design the stadium, and several quangos would have been established to ensure the ‘diversity’ of the Games. Two years later it would have emerged that the government had somehow managed to sign a contract which allowed the builders to set whatever price they wished, and that the costs had risen tenfold. What’s more, where the Greeks went ahead and dug their rowing lake in the face of protests from the World Wide Fund for Nature — which complained that 110 species of birds would lose their homes — the organisers of a British Games would spend months rehousing every sparrow." It's not about gay New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey resigned because of corruption in his administration and giving his gay lover a job for which he wasn't qualified. Also, having an affair -- of the gay or straight kind, it doesn't matter -- usually has a negative effect on policians. In 2002, then Kentucky Governor Paul Patton's (D)heterosexual affair cost the Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ben Chandler a chance at Governor's Mansion in that state. To be honest, I thought McGreevey could have used the gay angle to his advantage as I'm surprised that he didn't use his status as a part-time gay to play the victim card. The Arnold (non) Factor USA Today has a story which highlights the divisions between California's GOP Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and President George W. Bush. The point of the article is that reports on the division between the two might be exaggerated. Nonetheless, the paper takes part in the fun of speculating why Schwarzenegger won't campaign with the prez outside the California and why the governor's popularity isn't going to help Bush in the Golden State. USA Today reports: "...Mark Baldassare of the Public Policy Institute of California, a non-partisan think tank that does statewide polling, says Bush isn't benefiting from Schwarzenegger's popularity. 'Schwarzenegger has governed as an independent, as an outsider," he says. "His appeal to voters outside his party comes from saying, "I'm not part of the establishment." Bush is part of that establishment'." Sensitivity training Senator John Kerry says he will fight a more sensitive War on Terror. Vice President Dick Cheney responds: "America has been in too many wars for any of our wishes but not one of them was won by being sensitive. A sensitive war will not destroy the evil men who killed 3,000 Americans. The men who beheaded Daniel Pearl and Paul Johnson will not be impressed by our sensitivity." Libertarian dreams I happen to agree with everything Tyler Cowen suggests for a second Bush term, but considering the more ideological Gingrichian Republicans didn't do it, I doubt there is much hope for this any time soon. As Cowen concludes his 12-item list, "What I liked about Bush, way back when, was that he seemed willing to talk tough truths and then follow through. Where has that gone?" McGreevey resigns, media forgets his party affiliation Anyone paying attention to US politics will have seen that New Jersey's Democratic Governor Jim McGreevey resigned today because of corruption allegations. He also announced that "My truth is that I am a gay American." Or a married father of two who had an affair with a man. So he's actually bi which as Dennis Miller noted long before he was identified as a conservative is just plain greedy. Anyway, VodkaPundit notes, "Interestingly, not one of the three stories I found on the web mentions which party McGreevey belongs to. In fact, the only story to mention political affiliation at all says that 'Republicans and newspaper editorials' were the ones 'questioning McGreevey's judgment'." BTW, the WaPo story linked to above, does mention McGreevey is a Democrat. The New York Times coverage does not. Thus far the best joke is Jonah Goldberg's in the Corner: "The governor from the swing state." Kerry tougher than Bush Maybe his rhetoric is -- for now. But his Cold War record would indicate otherwise. And then there are the lessons of history, as Joshua Muravchuk recounts in the Los Angeles Times: "Since 1972, when McGovern jettisoned the tradition of Harry Truman, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson and made the Democrats the party of dovishness, only two Democrats have won the White House. Both of them, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, presented themselves as more hawkish than their Republican opponents. In 1976, Carter targeted the detente policies of Gerald Ford. In 1992, Clinton lambasted George H.W. Bush's refusal to defend Bosnia or criticize Beijing. Once in office, each pursued softer foreign policies than the Republican he had defeated." Wednesday, August 11, 2004
A murder in Tehran Adam Daifallah has an column on the Kazemi murder in the New York Sun. Daifallah says that Canada's reaction to one of their own by the Iranian regime has been pathetic (although, I would add, predictable): "At a minimum, Canada should expel Iran’s ambassador to Ottawa, impose strict economic sanctions, and push for a censure of the mullahs at the United Nations Security Council. None of these actions is likely to be pursued, however. At fault is Canada’s overly cautious approach to international affairs, known as 'soft power,' which is also favored by most European governments. Soft power’s central tenet is a fundamental and naïve belief that all international disputes can be resolved through dialogue. Canada is unwilling to confront the Islamic Republic in any meaningful way. And judging by the way Tehran has dealt with this matter, it’s well aware of that. Meanwhile, the man who was Canada’s prime minister at the time of Kazemi’s murder, Jean Chrétien, recently traveled to Iran on business as a consultant to PetroKaz, a Calgary-based oil company." Soft power is not only the inability to affect other the course of other nations but even to express true outrage at injustice committed against one's own citizens in a foreign country. That's why they call it the Golden State The Los Angeles Times reports "Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry has raised more money from California than any candidate has ever collected in one state in any election." Kerry, the DNC and liberal groups have raised almost $50 million there. And because California is not (really) being contested, most of that money is going out of state. First marriage, not soccer The Guardian reports : "There are now thousands of bona fide gay footie fans, from Newcastle to Southampton, and Manchester to Millwall. The Gay Football Supporters' Network (www.gfsn.org.uk) is growing faster than some gay dating sites. Football is coming homo." On a serious note, according to the paper this is part of the masculinizing of homosexuality, of a segment of the gay population rejecting gay stereotypes. Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Just checking in to say goodnight Reality TV heaven -- or hell, depending on your perspective. Last Comic Standing, Amazing Race, Joe Schmo 2. See ya'll tomorrow, probably later in the evening. Being right is wrong for Keyes I have been critical of Alan Keyes for his lack of judgement, although certainly not his views. Exhibit A: Today. He must understand that no matter how true it is that abortion is like slavery, calling Barack Obama's views on abortion akin to the slaveholder's philosophy is just bad politics. To be clear: good comparison, bad politics. It is a regrettable fact of life that too often what is true is impolitic. More success in the War on Terror This Day (Lagos) reports that among those arrested in Pakistan this week were "Top al-Qaeda terrorists [who] were sheltered by former Liberian warlord Charles Taylor while they built up a war chest from trading in diamonds." Over at The Shotgun Got a couple of posts at The Shotgun including this one on evidence of the Toronto Star's political bias in its food reporting. Admittedly, it is a story about Laura Bush and THK's cookies, but c'mon guys. Lott's interviews self Jeremy Lott is always fun to read because he is serious even when he is joking. He has posted self-inteview #2 and while it is all worth reading, there are two points I want to draw attention to. The first, on being a libertarian: "If being a libertarian means that you either have to avoid making normative moral judgments, or having to preface said judgments with "Of course, as a libertarian, I think people should be free to do blah, blah, blah" then count me out. My one little contribution to this small-p party is to insist that I'm a pro-life libertarian and write about it, inviting other people to come out of the closet. A lot of libertarians, it turns out, are pro-life, but are still learning that it's OK to talk about it." Read more about this in Lott's guest column in The Interim, "Yes Virginia, there are pro-life libertarians." The second, on what journalism and conservatism needs more of: "The American Spectator, when it's doing its job, is about life: the jokes, the frustrations, the controversies and messy little details that most other political journals write off as unimportant because they don't advance an agenda. To too many people in D.C. it's all about the Movement. If there was one thing I'd like to tell right-wing journalists, it would be that journalism has value in itself. It doesn't always need to fire up the troops or foment change. You can tell a joke or tell a story just for the hell of it." Oh, not that kind of diversity The Toronto Star is once again looking for community editorial board members and stresses that, as always, it is concerned about diversity. Trudeaupia notes: "So, if you're liberal lesbian, or a liberal gay, a liberal aboriginal, a francophone, a liberal feminist, a liberal Italian, a liberal Indo-Canadian, a liberal Muslim or a liberal Jew they want you to increase their diversity of opinions. Somehow I don't think they're interested in diversity of thought, though. So, any Evangelical Christian pro-American conservatives in the GTA willing to give it a try?" So if the powers that be at the Star -- or at least the powers responsible for the community editorial board -- read Sobering Thoughts, I'm available. I'm a conservative, pro-American and Catholic. And not the Michael Higgins variety, either. Even the British Left has reservations about Kerry Simon Tisdall writes in the Guardian that "Those who understandably desire, above all else, to see the back of Bush should not be blind to the weaknesses of his would-be replacement." He then lists his concerns. They are, if one is a left-liberal, substantial. If one is a uncommitted or non-partisan American, Tisdall's devastating candour should be enough to sign up for a Bush-Cheney 2004 lawn sign. Are wind farms responsible for Jack Layton's hot air? Over at The Shotgun, Kevin Jaeger notes that even eco-fanatic Prince Charles understands that wind farms are a scam. Jaeger says: "Personally, I have nothing against wind farms if an entrepreneur thinks he can build them without government handouts. But no one I'm aware of has ever considered it a sensible way to generate electricity profitably. But it's been a very convenient way to harvest government subsidies." True, but Prince Charles' complaint that they are a blight on the landscape still stands. Furthermore, you think environmentalists might oppose them. (Read the comments section to find out why.) Bernard Levin, RIP One of the giants of journalism in the last half century has passed away. Read the obits in the Guardian and the Telegraph. The Guardian reports, "Lord Rees-Mogg, editor of the Times when Levin was its star columnist, said, 'He was as brilliant a columnist as we have had in Britain since the last war'." And among the tidbits we learn in the Telegraph is that one of the women with whom the never-married Levin had a "serious, deep and important" relationship was Arianna Stassinopoulos, who would later move to the United States and marry Michael Huffington. If time permits me to peruse some of my collections of English journalism, I might have more on Levin later. In lieu of anything substantial, I will offer a cliche that is nonetheless true: we will not any time soon see the likes of Levin again in journalism. He was smart, fearless and witty; he pricked the pretensions of the establishment and exposed liberal shibboleths. Journalism would be much better if there were more Bernard Levins, or at least journalists who shared his commitment to the truth and opposition to cant. Blair is soft on terror Opinion Journal has an excellent piece on England's soft approach to animal-rights extremism. WaPo against Alan Keyes The Washington Post editorializes against the carpetbagging by Alan Keyes who will be a candidate halfway across the country from his Maryland home. Funny, I don't recall the Post condemning Hillary Clinton for running in New York, a state with which she had no connection (her lies about cheering for the Yankees as a youngster notwithstanding). And while the Post can be charged with hypocrisy, their assessment of the situation -- and the GOP candidate -- is right on the mark: "It's clear by now that Mr. Keyes loves the limelight and to hear himself speak, notwithstanding his rejection by voters in two U.S. Senate races in Maryland and two runs for the GOP presidential nomination. So it comes as no surprise that he would drop everything and hustle out to Illinois where he has never lived, to run for an office he can't win, and for a cause -- his own -- that deserves to lose. But that Mr. Keyes would allow himself to be drafted because of his skin color is beyond anything we would have expected, given his own long-standing vocal opposition to race-conscious decision making. Who out there believes for one second that the Illinois Republican Party would have reached halfway across the country for a candidate with Mr. Keyes's losing track record if the Democratic candidate were not African American? That Mr. Keyes succumbed to their blandishments is a sad commentary on the needs of his ego and the desperation -- or shall we say apparent defeatism -- of a Republican Party that turns to a Marylander with a track record that almost rivals that of Harold Stassen." In the Daily Standard Republican consultant Mike Murphy indicts not just Alan Keyes but the party that recruited him: "I'd pity them, except you must remember: They invited Keyes to run." Sunday, August 08, 2004
Moore is less For all the hoopla about Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 being so successful, there is this tidbit: it was the poorest showing of any movie that debuted at number one this summer. The Meaning of Sports My review of The Meaning of Sports by Michael Mandlebaum appeared today in the Halifax Herald. The Meaning of Sports: Why Americans Watch Baseball, Football and Basketball and What They See When They Do by Michael Mandlebaum (New York: Public Affairs, 332 pages, $40) Review by Paul Tuns It is sometimes said that sports is over-analyzed and intellectualized. Critics of such a cerebral approach say sports are mere entertainment, a way to pass time and nothing more. Defenders of deep thinking about past-times such as baseball or football for instance, George F. Will in his 1990 Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball or Michael Novak’s 1988 The Joy of Sport: End Zones, Bases, Baskets, Balls and the Consecration of the American Spirit -- say that such a comprehension deepens our understanding and thus our enjoyment of sports. Being a spectator also helps the fan appreciate or contemplate the beauty of orderly competition which depends upon virtues that both successful athletes and good citizens require such physical and moral courage, discipline, persistence, hard work, etc…. The latest such intellectual treatment of the world of sports is The Meaning of Sports: Why Americans Watch Baseball, Football and Basketball and What They See When They Do by Michael Mandelbaum, a professor U.S. foreign policy at the Johns Hopkins University of Advanced International Studies in Washington. His method is largely anthropological as he examines the role three distinctly American team sports baseball, football and basketball -- play in society and why. He says that Americans enjoy sports in which they see their own life experiences or the virtues they exalt being replicated in the game being played. Mandelbaum asserts that each of the three team sports reached the zenith of their popularity during three different stages of recent American history. Baseball was the sport of agrarian age, football the sport of the industrial or machine age and basketball the sport of the post-industrial or information age. Each sport spoke to Americans by mirroring the qualities necessary for success in each age. But no sooner does Mandelbaum make his thesis than he alters it. Baseball was born during the early days of the industrial revolution but because it was played in grass parks and without a clock it harkened back to a time of open spaces and timelessness. This was a form of escape for Americans as they sought refuge from the hurly burly of increasingly urbanized and time-clocked life. Baseball was popular precisely because it did not mirror life but instead provided respite from it by feeding the sentimentalism of by-gone days. Mandelbaum returns to his thesis when he notes that football, for example, required the specialization and collectivization that animated the life of the factory or basketball needing "the chemistry of teamwork" of a less rigidly defined and specialized skills that mirror many modern workplaces. Despite Mandelbaum's mistaken enthusiasm of baseball's "Golden Age," the section on baseball is the strongest of the three sports because he is on stronger ground arguing that sport is an escape from everyday experience than when he argues that some aspects of a sport that mirror society or that society values account for its popularity. The author wastes a lot time correlating football to the military that passes downfield are called long bombs, that coaches are like generals, that both are dangerous and violent, that both practise repetitive drills -- without relating why fans would be attracted by football's martial aspects. He over-reaches by far when he observes that "during the golden age of football, the American presidency was held by men who had served as junior offices in World War II," namely John Kennedy and Dwight Eisenhower. Such observations are interesting but useless in explaining the popularity of the sport (or either president). Furthermore, Mandelbaum is correct, however, to note that enthusiasm for basketball surpassed that of football, when, after Vietnam, respect and awe for military affairs declined. But are the two truly related? Such observations illustrate the limits of the anthropological approach. Neat coincidences are often assumed to be more significant than they are. Correlation is not causation. The anthropologist is able only to observe, not to explain. This inability to explain rather than just describe leads to a more important problem with the book: it never lives up to its promise. Mandelbaum describes, sometimes accurately but sometimes less so, how these three team sports mirror society. However, that is not the same as exploring what each sport means to a society. Despite its flaws, the book if full of interesting anecdotes, insights and comparisons. Using the anthropological approach, Mandelbaum is able to excavate new approaches to comprehending, appreciating and thinking about each sport. For example, in noting that football is more of a team game he observes that there are few individuals widely known by their nicknames. Unlike baseball with its Splendid Splinter and Sultan of Swat, football monikers are often used for groups of players such as the "Purple People Eaters" for the defensive line of the 1960s' Minnesota Vikings or the "Steel Curtain" of the 1970s' Pittsburgh Steelers. (Unfortunately, Mandelbaum undermines this observation on the next page by noting that Lou "The Toe" Groza was the most famous place kicker of the '70s.) Even with its faults the The Meaning of Sports is rewarding reading for the intense and casual fan or those who wish to understand the excitement and enjoyment such fans get from being a spectator to the action on the field or court. The book would have been better if it was less broad in scope, providing less an encyclopaedic treatment with lots of short examples than an in-depth examination of aspects of sports that mirror society to explain their significance. As it is, The Meaning of Sports is a fascinating but ultimately unpersuasive exercise in over-intellectualizing the enduring interest with sports. Corporations are the new commies Actually, the Washington Post reports that Evil Inc. -- which appears to be any company that makes a profit -- has been a popular target of Hollywood since the 1920s. Still, they are coming back into vogue as the emblematic symbol of villiany: "In the remake of 1962's 'The Manchurian Candidate,' in theaters now, the original's communist villains have been replaced by a more timeless bogeyman, the evil corporation. Manchurian Global, the remake's antagonist, is a multinational conglomerate whose revenue exceeds the European Union's and which has designs on controlling the White House. It is the latest of a long line of corporations, factual and fictional, that have served the cinema as capitalist villains, either as active agents of evil or omnipresent dehumanizers of the human soul." However, reporter Frank Ahrens misses the point when he says "as many of the 20th century's evils have been dispatched -- communism, Nazism, fascism -- barely restrained capitalism-gone-bad has persevered as a go-to hobgoblin." But for Hollywood, any capitalism, not just the unfettered kind, is the go-to hobgoblin. But I'm sure that just "reflects reality" rather than Hollywood's liberalism. Saturday, August 07, 2004
Advance the gay agenda, get out of jail free As almost everyone now knows, if you are great Canadian like Svend Robinson, you crimes don't matter. When Justice Ronald Fratkin said that on balance the credits outweigh Robinson's debits, he might have been talking about how Robinson has punished himself enough already by embarrassing himself, one can't help but to think that he is also making a judgement on Robinson's "public service" advancing a radical gay, feminist and socialist agenda. That certainly is what Robinson's high-priced lawyer (or as polite newspapers call them, "high-profile lawyer") Clayton Ruby means when he said, "Mr. Robinson feels a deep sense of shame and remorse ... He's grateful that the court's judgment reflects an understanding of the role of the exceptional stress under which he has laboured and the role of a life of unusual accomplishment." Unusual is the not the abjective I would have used to describe Robinson's accomplishments, but certainly it is clear that Ruby is saying that a radical MP should not have to live by the same rules as those he represents. Prize for the best comment on the injustice of our insane justice system goes to "Sean" who was commenting on Kevin Libin's post on the issue at The Shotgun: "The slap was as limp as the wrist." Also worth reading is the CP coverage by Amy Carmichael. Numerous Canadians -- David Suzuki, Peter MacKay -- wrote the judge to plead that he, in Carmichael's words, "not ... torture Robinson further." Among those making a plea for this oppressed victim was Stephen Lewis, Macleans 2003 man of the year, "hand-wrote Fratkin a two-page letter of appeal while travelling in Africa": "It seems to me that in coping with the avalanche of public ignominy, he has already experienced the force and weight of judgment. I profoundly hope that the end of his ordeal is in sight." The Windsor Star reports that Robinson has not given up on a life in politics. The University of Victoria's Norman Ruff thinks that Robinson can re-enter politics at his pleasure: "If one looks at the results of the last election you can argue that the vote for the NDP in his former riding was, in part, an empathy vote for Svend Robinson." And: "In politics the first hurdle one has to overcome in facing the electorate is name recognition, and he certainly is not lacking in name recognition." Well, in that case, stealing the ring was a great career move. (Cross-posted at The Shotgun) |