Month: December 2006

It’s Getting Hot In Here

by digby

So, McCain has Silvestre Reyes and Joe Lieberman backing his “plan” to send in 20,000 more troops and now we hear the president is seriously considering it.

I will merely reprise my earlier post on this from last month:

I do not want to see anybody sent into that meat grinder and I’m not sure they can do it. But if they do, it will stab St. John right in the back. His rationale for winning in 2008 hinges on his calling for more troops and the Bush administration not listening. (Whoever wins the Republican nomination in 08 must run against both Bush and the Democrats.)

McCain made a tactical error when he asked for a specific number recently. If they give him what he wants and it fails, which it will, his rabid support for the war becomes a huge liability:

Mr. McCain contends that the war in Iraq is worth fighting and is worth winning. He has said consistently from the start of the conflict that the only way to prevail is to send enough soldiers to do the job. His current proposal is to send 20,000 additional troops in hopes of bringing Baghdad and the restive western provinces under control.

The alternative, he said, is humiliation for the United States and disaster for Iraq.

He’s going to be left with no option but to call for even more escalation going into ’08 if they do this. I can’t help but wonder about the political implications. Perhaps it’s just a coincidence that the number is the same and that Abizaid famously said recently that the extra 20,000 weren’t necessary. If the Bush administration now “gives” McCain exactly what he’s asked for they are effectively passing off the war to him. McCain is positioning himself to be Lyndon Johnson in this thing without even becoming president.

Sending in more troops is a crazy idea, but it’s the kind of crazy idea that Bush is looking for. And it is the kind of crazy idea that will make the country turn on John McCain. I seriously doubt he ever thought it anyone would do this — and I doubt he thought through the political ramifications of calling for 20,000.

He be in big trouble if Bush decides to do what he wants. By ’08, this war will be a dead albatross around his neck. But then, McCain has always been too cutesy by half on this — he deserves to be strangled by his own arrogant posturing. Who did he think he was, claiming that he could have “won” this thing if only the country had listened to him. It was always unwinnable and he’s a lying, opportunistic piece of garbage. If Bush sticks the shiv in St. John’s back one last time before he leaves office, it will be poetic justice.

Sadly, however, it requires that 20,000 more Americans troops get stuck in the middle of hell on earth and I cannot hope for it, even as I know that all is lost anyway and all we have left is to put a non-crazy person in the White House in 2008. I still do not believe we will withdraw from Iraq until after January 20, 2009, no matter what Jimmah Baker or or anyone else says.

It’s a very unpalatable set of options these right wing failures have left us, isn’t it? Let’s hope they are taken out of the foreign policy loop for a good long time. If this mess doesn’t finally prove they are incapable in this area, nothing will.

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Fashion Police State

by digby

Kevin Drum discusses the media’s unnatural obsession with certain politicians’ sartorial choices, such as Jeff Greenfield’s bizarre notion that Barack Obama is apeing the style of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (Really.)

He writes:

Jimmy Carter, Hillary Clinton, and Nancy “Armani Suit” Pelosi can all sympathize. (And yes, as near as I can tell, “Armani Suit” must be Pelosi’s middle name or something. Not a profile goes by that doesn’t mention her attachment to Armani.)

Question: Does this demonstrate the moral frivolousness of the modern press corps, as Bob believes? Or is this mostly a reflection of human culture, which has been obsessed with demeanor and appearance ever since clothing was invented? Did the Roman press mock the subtle ecru highlights in Cato’s robes?

Tha latter, surely, but 24-hour cable news has turned it into the former. When fashion description was confined to occasional sentences in news stories, there was only a limited amount of damage it could do. But when cable news took over, with its addiction to images and its voracious appetite for something — anything — to fill up its 1,440 minutes per day, pop fashion demagoguery suddenly became a big deal indeed. That’s how you end up with deeply weird stuff like Greenfield’s take on Obama.

Why is it, then, that we don’t see any similar stories about Republicans. Odd, don’t you think?

Kevin’s analysis is correct, except for one major thing he left out. These fashion “stories” are planted by snotty GOP operatives to trivialize (and feminize) Democrats. All these liberals are a bunch of flaming metrosexual fashionistas, don’t you know, thinking about their looks all the time, staring in the mirror, spending tons of money on their appearances. (Remember “Christophe” and the 300 dollar haircut? John Kerry and the botox?)

Democrats are nothing but a bunch of bitches and girlie-men, haven’t you heard? This is not an accident or a coincidence, I guarantee it.

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Truth And Consequences

by digby

Back when George W. Bush was riding high Bob Woodward asked him how history would judge the war. He shrugged his shoulders and said, “History. We don’t know. We’ll all be dead.” He was a man of action, then, confident that he was ordained by God to rid the world of evil and that everyone worshipped him. (That’s the same interview where he says he doesn’t ask his father for advice because he appeals to a “higher father.”)

My, how things have changed. Bush is now counting on history to redeem him, and being the shallow little nitwit he is, he will probably rest easy into his dotage believing that no matter how much his presidency may have screwed up the world, ultimately everything will work out. It’s a shame about all the dead bodies, but sometimes that’s the price others have to pay for the priviledge of getting the American way of life.

Bush is described by another recent visitor as still resolutely defiant, convinced history will ultimately vindicate him.

“I’ll be dead when they get it right,” he said during an Oval Office meeting last week.

This is becoming a new theme in ruling class circles these days. Events have proven these people to be asses so they are hiding behind the fiction that if humanity manages to survive and Iraq progresses to something better than it is today, then they will have been proven right. David Ignatius popularized this convenient theory with his seminal column entitled: “Iraq Can Survive This” from July of 2005, in which he posited that even if it devolved into a civil war that lasts thirty years, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. After all, the odds are that someday it will turn into a peaceful nation, right?

Pessimists increasingly argue that Iraq may be going the way of Lebanon in the 1970s. I hope that isn’t so, and that Iraq avoids civil war. But people should realize that even Lebanonization wouldn’t be the end of the story. The Lebanese turned to sectarian militias when their army and police couldn’t provide security. But through more than 15 years of civil war, Lebanon continued to have a president, a prime minister, a parliament and an army. The country was on ice, in effect, while the sectarian battles raged. The national identity survived, and it came roaring back this spring in the Cedar Revolution that drove out Syrian troops.

What happens in Iraq will depend on Iraqi decisions. One of those is whether the Iraqi people continue to want U.S. help in rebuilding their country. For now, America’s job is to keep training an Iraqi army and keep supporting an Iraqi government — even when those institutions sometimes seem to be illusions. Iraq is in torment, but the Lebanon example suggests that with patient help, its institutions can survive this nightmare.

Only a pessimist could think that 15 yrears of bloody civil war is a bad thing. Why, in the end they had that awesome cedar revolution, with fine lookin’ babes and everything, the all-important institutions intact. No harm no foul. (Well, ok. Maybe they need a few more decades of bloodshed to fully appreciate how great it all is.)

By this logic, Hitler was history’s greatest European hero. Look at ’em today!

In fact, the Washington Post editorial makes that explicit argument today regarding Pinochet. After a few snide remarks about the “international left” who, it is implied, were misplaced in their outrage that Pinochet overthrew a democratically elected government and then went on to kill and torture thousands and thousands of people, assasinate his rivals and steal millions from the treasury, they point out that it was all to the good. After all, Chile’s economy is doing very well today:

Like it or not, Mr. Pinochet had something to do with this success. To the dismay of every economic minister in Latin America, he introduced the free-market policies that produced the Chilean economic miracle — and that not even Allende’s socialist successors have dared reverse. He also accepted a transition to democracy, stepping down peacefully in 1990 after losing a referendum.

Hey, you have to torture a few eggs to get a fluffy free market omelette 35 years later.

This is why accountability is so important. It is the epitome of injustice that allows war criminals and sociopaths like Pinochet to go unpunished for their deeds, allowing detestable apologists like Fred Hiatt to rationalize away the horrors he inflicted on his own people in the name of this abstract godhead “free-markets.”

Just as it is wrong to have allowed Pinochet to die a free old man, the leadership of this country should not be allowed to continue their comfortable lives without suffering any consequences in the here and now for their ongoing rationalization of American perfidy in Iraq. History will not redeem them any more than it has redeemed Pinochet and they should not be allowed to sit in the comfort of their riches and power like a bunch of decadent potentates and live as if it already has.

Where Destinies Cross and Hearts Intermingle

by poputonian

From a Salon article about Obama:

But few in Democratic politics still believe that Obama is just aimlessly window-shopping outside the White House. A major Democratic strategist, who is affiliated with another presidential candidate, ran into Obama on Capitol Hill last week and was told by him, “I hope that when your conflict-of-interest period is over, we can work together.” The easy translation: “After your candidate loses in the early primaries, I hope that you will sign on with me.”

So, who is the major Democratic strategist?

Not Quite Sure

by digby

Food for thought:

Multinational surveys have often reported that Americans are much more likely to believe in God than people in most other developed countries, particularly in Europe. However, a new Harris Poll finds that 42 percent of all U.S. adults say they are not “absolutely certain” there is a God, including 15 percent who are “somewhat certain,” 11 percent who think there is probably no God and 16 percent who are not sure.

These are the results of a Harris Poll conducted online by Harris Interactive® between October 4 and 10, 2006 with a nationwide sample of 2,010 U.S. adults.

Important difference between online surveys and surveys conducted by telephone interviewers

Over the last few years, several different surveys have found that more people admit to potentially embarrassing beliefs or behaviors when answering online surveys (without interviewers) than admit to these behaviors when talking to interviewers in telephone surveys. They are also three times more likely to say that their sexual orientation is gay, lesbian or bi-sexual. Researchers call this unwillingness to give honest answers to some questions in telephone surveys a “social desirability bias.”

It is therefore no surprise that in this online survey, more people say they are not absolutely certain there is a God than have given similar replies in other surveys conducted by telephone.

Differences between different religious groups

Not everyone who describes themselves as Christian or Jewish believes in God. Indeed, only 76 percent of Protestants, 64 percent of Catholics, and 30 percent of Jews say they are “absolutely certain” there is a God. However, most Christians who describe themselves as “Born Again” (93%) are absolutely certain there is a God.

Differences between different demographic groups

Demographic groups that are more likely to say they are absolutely certain that there is a God include:

* People in all age groups 40 and over (63% of those ages 40 to 49, 65% of those ages 50 to 64 and 65% of those ages 65 and over) compared to people in age groups under 40 (45% of those ages 18 to 24, 43% of those ages 25 to 29 and 54% of those ages 30 to 39);
* Women (62%) slightly more than men (54%);
* African Americans (71%) compared to Hispanics (61%) and Whites (57%);
* Republicans (73%) more than Democrats (54%) or Independents (51%);
* People with no college education (62%) or who have some college education (57%) compared to college graduates (50%) and those with post-graduate degrees (53%).

Frequency of attending religious services

Approximately one-third (35%) of all adults claim to attend a religious service once a month or more often, including 26 percent who say they attend every week or more often. Almost half of all adults (46%) say they attend services a few times a year or less often, while eighteen percent say the never attend religious services.

Those who attend religious services once a month or more often include 48 percent of Protestants, 46 percent of Catholics, and 12 percent of Jews. However, more than two-thirds (68%) of Born Again Christians attend Church once a month or more often.

Are believers declining?

Three years ago, in an identical survey, 79 percent of adults said they believed in God and 66 percent said they were absolutely certain that there is a God. In this new survey, those numbers have declined to 73 percent and 58 percent respectively.

Dazed And Confused

by digby

There is a ton of chatter about this absolutely ridiculous blogger ethics piece on Greater Boston this past friday. If you haven’t read about it, you can get all the skinny on C&L and The Horses Mouth.

The most egregious error, of course, and the one that everyone is chortling over, is that the man who looked down his long professional nose at unethical blogging activity is the same man who took satire for reality and didn’t bother to do any fact checking before he reported it as true. It is almost hilarious in its goofiness. Almost.

Johnathan Carroll actually believed this and reported it:

Armstrong bragged this week that the other bloggers he’d farmed out his website to, were in reality, him, writing under those aliases the entire time. And the blogrolling didn’t stop there: Armstrong also posed as liberal blogger Scott Shields, who posted for pay for yet another Democratic candidate

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That Armstrong in an ironman, isn’t he?

The problem is that Carroll didn’t just make a fool of himself on that aspect of the story — he botched it even before he got to that part. He spliced in an interview segment with David Kravitz of Blue MassGroup out of context (which Kravitz objected to here), and he also sets forth a total misreading of the NY Times piece on which he based his segment:

Carroll (narrating): …The undisputed high point for the bloggeratti came last summer in Connecticut when they whipped up support for moneybags newcomer Ned Lamont who then whipped Senator Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primary.

(video) “My name is Ned Lamont and I approved this message! Thank you!”

Carroll(narrating): As it turns out some of Lamont’s money in that campaign went to — wait for it — political bloggers. The New York Times published a “pay for praise” chart showing which bloggers got paid which money from which candidate.

Local blogger David Kravitz of BlueMass Group, says there’s a delicate balance involved here:

Kravitz: I don’t have a problem with campaigns paying bloggers or campaigns paying anybody else to do whatever they want as long as they’re transparent and up front about it.

Carroll (narrating): Some yes, some no. According to the New York Times some of the “kept bloggers” appeared on some of the left wing’s glamour web-sites. From the Huffington Post to Daily Kos to MYDD.

Here is what the NY Times story actually said:

But this year, candidates across the country found plenty of outsiders ready and willing to move inside their campaigns. Candidates hired some bloggers to blog and paid others consulting fees for Internet strategy advice or more traditional campaign tasks like opposition research.

After the Virginia Democratic primary, for instance, James Webb hired two of the bloggers who had pushed to get him into the race. The Democratic Senate candidate Ned Lamont in Connecticut had at least four bloggers on his campaign team. Few of these bloggers shut down their “independent” sites after signing on with campaigns, and while most disclosed their campaign ties on their blogs, some — like Patrick Hynes of Ankle Biting Pundits — did so only after being criticized by fellow bloggers.

Throughout the segment and the roundtable, Carroll insisted that liberal blogs were offenders in this unethical non-disclosure, when in fact, the liberal bloggers were not implicated by non-disclosure at all in the New York Times piece. He got it completely backwards. The scenario in which bloggers are paid to secretly shill for a candidate on their own site happened one time that I’m aware of (aside from Hynes) and it was the notorious conservative Thune bloggers in South Dakota. I suppose it may have happened on the liberal side in this last election, but if it did, it was not revealed by that NY Times article or anywhere else. The dark speculation about the “kept” bloggers of the “left-wing’s glamour web-sites” simply has no basis.

But there’s also a very confused supposition that underlies both the NY Times article and John Carroll’s piece. They suggest that bloggers ought to give up their own sites if they sign on to a campaign and I can’t for the life of me think why that would be ethically necessary.(On a practical basis, I understand it completely.)

They seem to think that bloggers have some obligation to be “objective” like newspapers, when we are already openly partisan or ideological. They also seem to think that in the same way a writer for The New Republic cannot work on campaigns, neither can a blogger.

But suppose a writer for the New Republic did go to work for a campaign and disclosed in the magazine that she was working for candidate X and her readers could take that into account? I realize this makes professional journalists uncomfortable, but what would be the ethical problem? These writers are assumed to have an ideological point of view, so nobody expects them to be politically neutral. Indeed, their ideological status adds to their credibility. If anyone thought they were just political mercenaries, hiring out their writing and argumentation skills to the highest bidder, they would be shunned. Except for the obvious dilemma as to which employer the person answers to and to whom they owe their ultimate loyalty (something that doesn’t affect bloggers), I honestly can’t see the problem. It happens on op-ed pages of newspapers every day (when they bother to disclose, that is.) I can see why the magazine would not want to do this for many reasons, and don’t expect that they would, but I don’t see how the writer is personally ethically compromised unless she writes lies or fails to disclose.

It actually strikes me as more ethical and honest than what we saw in the Scooter Libby case where it was revealed after many months that many in the Washington press corps knew more than they ever reported, out and out lied to the public and protected powerful people who blatantly used them for partisan political gain. So many of these phony constructs of “objectivity” and “impartiality” and “journalistic ethics” have no common sense to them. In fact, they seem to be rules that are designed to obscure the truth rather than reveal them — and keep control of the political discourse in such a way that the people have to interpret their morning newpapers through far more than simple political bias; they have to try to decipher an arcane language that requires the kind of specialized skill that is more common to Egyptologists or tarot card readers. “Bias” can have much more insidious shadings than simple partisanship.

When you watch the whole Greater Boston segment, you realize that the problem isn’t just Carroll, it’s every person in the group. They may be taking their colleague’s word for it that many liberal bloggers are on the take and using aliases to get paid by different campaigns for their nefarious deeds, but their knowledge of the new media is also nil in every other respect. Their comically pompous attitude, considering that they are, with every word, revealing themselves to be completely foolish, is a sight to behold.

They took Carroll’s misleading report even further than he did. A “payola” meme gained steam, until liberal bloggers ended up being compared to Armstrong Williams. They were incoherent on the subject of blogs endorsing candidates, which they equated with being on the candidate’s payroll. They seem not to be able to grasp that a political site might endorse a candidate the same way newspapers or unions or citizens groups endorse candidates — because they believe in them. Instead, they seemed to think that when an independent partisan blog endorses a candidate, that blog loses its credibility for some reason. They tut-tutted that when the liberal BlueMassgroup blog endorsed Deval Patrick, the campaign was disappointed because now it looked like the site was a shill for their campaign. That’s makes no sense at all, unless they were also disappointed when the liberal editorial page of the Boston Globe also endorsed him. Carroll did make it clear later in the program that BlueMassGroup was not on the payroll, but failed to explain why they should be assumed to be shills when they endorsed Patrick.

The fundamental question (again) is whether bloggers should disclose whether they are on the payroll of campaigns or any other entity that is related to the subjects they write about. Yes, they should. We all agreed long ago that this is the best way to keep order on this issue. It’s the same standard that’s required of op-ed writers and columnists, although you hardly ever see it applied to anyone who appears on the cable shoutfests. Many of those “strategists” who make television appearances and opine on all matters political really do fail to disclose their web of financial ties to the political establishment. I suppose that might be a simple matter of practicality. After all, the list of people and companies many of them take money from would be so long there would probably not be time for an actual show.

None of this disclosure stuff is a problem for readers and bloggers. It just seems to be a problem with certain journalists, who apparently can’t wrap their minds around the idea that if bloggers adhere to a basic disclosure rule, readers and voters use their eyes and ears and minds to fairly judge their credibility. You don’t have to create a bunch of highminded complicated ethical restraints — they figure it out all by themselves.

And don’t journalists know that everybody’s got a blog these days?

The blog at Greater Boston posted a correction and announced that the error will be addressed on next week’s program. Stay tuned.

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Eventually, We’ll Get To It

by poputonian

I’ve been reading a fabulous book called Dissent in America: The Voices That Shaped a Nation. It was compiled and edited by Ralph Young, a Temple University professor who teaches a very popular course on the history of American dissent. The book contains “400 years of speeches, articles, letters, and songs that made a difference.” I found the petition below interesting. It was written almost 100 years before the Civil War, and almost 200 years before the time of MLK. Professor Young writes an intro:

The notions of “freedom” and “liberty” that were echoing throughout the colonies in the 1770s sufficiently encouraged slaves that they began petitioning colonial legislatures for their own freedom. A few petitions were requests to be sent back to Africa, but most argued for either immediate or gradual emancipation. This 1777 petition to the Massachusetts Bay Colony legislature was a appeal for gradual emancipation. Notice that the writers are apparently familiar with the Declaration of Independence.
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TO THE HONORABLE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY, JANUARY 13, 1777

The petition of a great number of blacks detained in a state of slavery in the bowels of a free & Christian country humbly sheweth that your petitioners apprehend we have in common with all other men a natural and unalienable right to that freedom which the Great Parent of the Universe hath bestowed equally on all mankind, and which they never forfeited by any compact or agreement whatever. But they were unjustly dragged by the hand of a cruel power from their dearest friends and some of them even torn from the embraces of their tender parents–from a populous, pleasant, and plentiful country and in violation of laws of nature and nations–and, in defiance of all the tender feelings of humanity, brought here to be sold like beasts of burthen & like them condemned to slavery for life among a people professing the mild religion of Jesus–a people not insensible of the secrets of rational beings nor without spirit to resent the unjust endeavors of others to reduce them to a state of bondage and subjection. Your honours need not to be informed that a life of slavery like that of your petitioners, deprived of every social privilege, of every thing requisite to render life tolerable, is far worse than nonexistence.

In imitation of the laudable example of the good people of these states, your petitioners have long and patiently waited the event of petition after petition by them presented to the legislative body of this state and cannot but with grief reflect that their success hath been but too similar. They cannot but express their astonishment that it has never been considered that every principle from which Americans have acted in the course of their unhappy difficulties with Great Britain pleads stronger than a thousand arguments in favour of your petitioners. They therefore humbly beseech your honours to give this petition its due weight & consideration & cause an act of the legislature to be passed whereby they may be restored to the enjoyments of that which is the natural right of all men–and their children who were born in this land of liberty may not be held as slaves after they arrive at the age of twenty one years. So may the inhabitants of this state, no longer chargeable with the inconsistency of acting themselves the part of which they condemn and oppose in others, be prospered in their present glorious struggle for liberty and have those blessings to them, etc.

Lancaster Hill, Peter Bess, Brister Slenser, Prince Hall, Jack Pierpont, Nero Funelo, Newport Sumner, Job Look

Massachusetts abolished slavery three years later in 1780. I wonder what took the rest of the country so long? Perhaps the politicians were running the political calculations and just couldn’t come up with anything compelling.

Not Our Problem

by digby

Atrios links to this article which explores the idea of the US accepting Iraqi refugees. I’ve thought about this quite a lot over the last two weeks; as we contemplate the consequences of the violent, chaotic occupation that led to their civil war, it seems to me this is the least we could do.

Of course, for political reasons, the Bush administraton will have none of it:

Arthur E. “Gene” Dewey, who was President Bush’s assistant secretary of state for refugee affairs until last year, said that “for political reasons the administration will discourage” the resettlement of Iraqi refugees in the United States “because of the psychological message it would send, that it is a losing cause.”

But Dewey said a tipping point has been reached that is bound to change US policy because so many refugees are convinced that they will not be able to return to Iraq. That tipping point was further weighted by Wednesday’s report by the Iraq Study Group that called for the eventual withdrawal of most US forces.

“I think there will increasingly be a moral obligation on the part of the United States” to allow resettlement by Iraqis here, Dewey said.

Fat chance. Here’s the problem. There are a whole bunch of people in the United States who think of Iraqis as terrorists, including a fair number of the military who have been taught to use that language. Even the Democratic Party uses that term.

Here’s a headline from World Net Daily a few years back: “Iraqi terrorists head to U.S. via Mexico?” As recently as last summer, the Harris Poll reported, “sixty-four percent say it is true that Saddam Hussein had strong links to Al Qaeda” and “sixty-one percent of adults agree that invading and occupying Iraq has motivated more Islamic terrorists to attack the United States.” When Pete Hoekstra and Rick Santorum came out with that silly, bogus report that the WMD had been found, a large spike in the polling showed up due to the relentless flogging on wingnut radio. Kathryn Jean Lopez once gleefuly reported on The Corner that Americans “get the war on terror” because 70% believed that Saddam Hussein was tied to 9/11.

So, with right wing radio still going strong, the GOP being in the rabid minority once again whose only raison d’etre is the GWOT, a debate already raging about immigration and plain old racists like Trent Lott saying things like “they all look alike to me,” I doubt that the US will be taking in an influx of arab immigrants. It’s beyond the imagination.

It’s not like we haven’t been here before, is it?

The sad truth is that we have probably managed to make at least some Iraqis hostile enough to the US that they have turned to radical Islamic fundamentalism and have decided that we are The Enemy, even if their Shia or Sunni rivals are “the enemy.” As with so many things about this godforsaken war, it has many parallels to Vietnam — but it is more complicated and more dangerous by a factor of ten.

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Libertarian Lapdance

by digby

I have often felt that most of what is wrong with modern conservatism could probably be traced to the boys and girls of the right’s salad days when they stared dreamily into the dark, dark night thinking of the hottest man and sexiest woman they ever saw brought to the page: Dagny Taggert and John Galt. ***sigh*** They read “Atlas Shrugged,” found their adolescent self-absorbsion and callowness affirmed by a philosophy of greed and self-interest and that was it. “If I behave like an asshole, I will be doing the moral thing” (and hot chicks and dudes will want me!)
It is the last time many movement conservatives ever examined their beliefs again.

It turns out that the Ayn Rand Institute is busy indoctrinating another generation of 101st keyboarders, “libertarians” and wingnut welfare queens who will believe in magical thinking and politics as soap opera. They hold an Ayn Rand contest for teen-agers and college students and pay some pretty good prizes (for a contest that doesn’t actually produce anything useful in the world.)

It is quite serious — not in the mode of the Hemingway contest which delights in taking the minimalist master’s style to its most absurd. It’s possible that some of the contestants are just good All American opportunists who did it for the money. If so, good for them. (Talk about being hoist with your own petard.) But sadly, I suspect these kids are going to be the Kathryn Jean Lopez’s of their generations.

Behold, the winner of the “Atlas Shrugged” college essay contest, written in answer to this question: At his trial, Hank Rearden declares: “The public good be damned, I will have no part of it!” What does he mean? How does this issue relate to the rest of the novel and its meaning? Explain.

Throughout his life, Hank Rearden has been conditioned to accept guilt. He feels guilt because he cannot bring himself to value Lillian or Philip or his mother on the pretext of duty when no real value exists. He feels guilt because he is not capable of granting love undeserved. “You’ve got to be kind, Henry,” his mother insists. “You wouldn’t want me to think that you’re selfish” (433). This condemnation of selfishness oozes like poison from the world around him, overflowing his every accomplishment. He is trapped by the false conscience instilled in him: all that is done for the illusionary “public good” is virtuous; all that is done for the individual good is evil.

Hank Rearden’s most selfish act is his relationship with Dagny. Although his most noble ideals draw him to Dagny, he can at first see their relationship only as society views it: an immoral act fueled by the animal selfishness that is lust. “I don’t love you,” he declares after their first night together at Ellis Wyatt’s house. “I’ve given in to a desire which I despise” (238). Although Rearden recognizes his actions as “wrong,” he also knows that he cannot give them up. Subconsciously, he realizes that he is pursuing something of great value, but still he despises himself for being too weak to resist the “ugly weakness of man’s lower nature” (106), as he has come to acknowledge it. He is caught in the doctrine that he must always feel guilty for his pleasures, that joy in itself is sin

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It’s always the hot stuff that gets ’em. Selfishness and sex. Can you imagine what an utter disaster these people must be in bed?

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Why Can’t They All Get Along?

by digby

Last night I wrote a snarky (and controversial) post about Sandra Day O’Connor getting something wrong and I was soundly chastised for ignoring the basis of the original Kevin Drum link which was an embarrassing interview in Congressional Quarterly with the new Democratic chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Silvestre Reyes. The truth is that I just didn’t have the time last night — I’m not at home — and didn’t get a chance to fully appreciate how embarrassing that interview is. It’s a cringer.

Here’s a little excerpt:

To his credit, Reyes, a kindly, thoughtful man who also sits on the Armed Service Committee, does see the undertows drawing the region into chaos.

For example, he knows that the 1,400- year-old split in Islam between Sunnis and Shiites not only fuels the militias and death squads in Iraq, it drives the competition for supremacy across the Middle East between Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia.

That’s more than two key Republicans on the Intelligence Committee knew when I interviewed them last summer. Rep. Jo Ann Davis, R-Va., and Terry Everett, R-Ala., both back for another term, were flummoxed by such basic questions, as were several top counterterrorism officials at the FBI.

I thought it only right now to pose the same questions to a Democrat, especially one who will take charge of the Intelligence panel come January. The former border patrol agent also sits on the Armed Services Committee.

Reyes stumbled when I asked him a simple question about al Qaeda at the end of a 40-minute interview in his office last week. Members of the Intelligence Committee, mind you, are paid $165,200 a year to know more than basic facts about our foes in the Middle East.

We warmed up with a long discussion about intelligence issues and Iraq. And then we veered into terrorism’s major players.

To me, it’s like asking about Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland: Who’s on what side?

The dialogue went like this:

Al Qaeda is what, I asked, Sunni or Shia?

“Al Qaeda, they have both,” Reyes said. “You’re talking about predominately?”

“Sure,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

“Predominantly — probably Shiite,” he ventured.

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Al Qaeda is profoundly Sunni. If a Shiite showed up at an al Qaeda club house, they’d slice off his head and use it for a soccer ball.

That’s because the extremist Sunnis who make up al Qaeda consider all Shiites to be heretics.

Al Qaeda’s Sunni roots account for its very existence. Osama bin Laden and his followers believe the Saudi Royal family besmirched the true faith through their corruption and alliance with the United States, particularly allowing U.S. troops on Saudi soil.

It’s been five years since these Muslim extremists flew hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center.

Is it too much to ask that our intelligence overseers know who they are?

This is pretty basic stuff that doesn’t require a working knowledge of Muslim theology or even history, ancient or recent. What do these people, (Reyes isn’t alone) think is meant by the term “sectarian violence?” Aren’t they even curious about which side is which and why Iraq is splintering? How can you possibly try to make sense out of what is going on without even a rudimentary knowledge of the tribal and religious factors that feed the turmoil.

I think what amazes me the most os this is familiar to anyone who has been reading newspapers since the 70’s, at least. The religious rivalries have been around for centuries, of course, but the United States has been intimately involved in mid-east politics for decades and the press has been writing about it. We had the Iran hostage crisis and Iran-Contra and Lebanon and the first Gulf War and the rise of terrorism and 9/11. There always seems to be a crisis of some sort. You do not have to be a mid-east scholar or an expert to have simply absorbed the contours of the disputes — all you had to do was read the paper regularly. And that every member of the government didn’t immediately read up on bin Laden and his movement after 9/11 is simply irresponsible.

But then, look at the president, who didn’t know the difference between the Shia and the Sunni on the eve of the invasion. Or former CIA director George Tenent who was quoted in Woodward’s book “Bush At War” saying “The Iranians may have switched sides and gone to side with the Taliban.” (It’s not impossible,of course, but under current conditions it would be shockingly unexpected. It would be on the par of the Palestinians and the Israelis suddenly deciding to ally themselves.)And then there’s this guy who shows what appears to be a pretty common understanding of the complexities of the situation:

“One of the things I would do if I were President would be to sit the Shiites and the Sunnis down and say, ‘Stop the bullshit,’” said Mr. McCain, according to Shirley Cloyes DioGuardi, an invitee, and two other guests.

It’s hard to understand why so many members of the government haven’t bothered to educate themselves on this important topic, but it seems that they haven’t.

Well, in many cases, it’s hard. For some, it’s perfectly obvious:

Trent Lott, the veteran Republican senator from Mississippi, said only last September that “It’s hard for Americans, all of us, including me, to understand what’s wrong with these people.”

“Why do they kill people of other religions because of religion?” wondered Lott, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, after a meeting with Bush.

“Why do they hate the Israelis and despise their right to exist? Why do they hate each other? Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference?

“They all look the same to me,” Lott said.

Update: Emptywheel at The Next Hurrah has a great idea: A pop quiz for lawmakers. I also think the Democratic leadership would do well to organize some tutorials and lectures on the middle east and require the elected officials and their staffs to attend. I’m not kidding. This is a grave problem and since the administration is led by an idiot and run by a bunch of faith based magical thinkers, it behooves the Democrats to do better.

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