Avedon Carol has a number of great posts up from the last couple of days and I urge you to go read them. This one, however, a letter from one of her readers taking issue with the ridiculous numbers used in Nicholas Kristof’s article about how the poor Christian right is treated in the media is particularly great.
I’ve gotta tell you, if Kristoff’s numbers were true, then the rest of us are buying porn and drinking whiskey and watching debauched television every single waking minute of the day because these industries are sure as hell making billions off of somebody.
It reminds me of the great story (possibly apocryphal) about a porno store owner in Utah who was busted and tried for violating community standards. However, his defense attorney was able to prove that some huge number of locals watched porno on their cable television and that the local hotels all carried it on their closed circuit systems. Ooops.
This entire line about America being the “most religious” country on earth is belied by what we see every day in our popular culture. (If you define shopping as a religion, then perhaps it’s true.) Otherwise, people are quite obviously defining themselves to pollsters as “religious” if they have even a vague belief in God or go to church on Christmas eve. I do not know how many truly devout religious people there are, and I’m sure there are many, but clearly this is not a majority and this constant citing of polls as if they mean something on a subject like this is absurd.
In a nation where the entire congress goes completely apeshit over the words “under God” in the silly pledge of allegiance, is it any wonder that people tell pollsters they are religious? I’m sure they even believe it. They also believe that watching “Secret Co-ed Web Cam” is a sacrament, apparently.
Tonight at 8 ET, President George W. Patton is having his second prime time press conference since taking office.
He’s reportedly going to break news by saying, “if Saddam Hussein does not disarm, with a coalition of the willing, I will disarm Saddam Hussein. I understand there are some who don’t believe that Saddam Hussein presents a true risk to the United State and we just have a difference of opinion.”
Unnamed White House sources said that the President also planned to tell the American people, “Saddam gassed his own people, he’s a cold-blooded dictator.”
With respect to al Qaeda, he will publicly reveal that “We’ve got ’em on the run. We will bring ’em ta justice.” But, he is expected to also remind the public, “I told the Murican people they were gonna have ta be patient, an I meant it!”
Reporters will undoubtedly give the president no quarter as they confront him for the first time in the formal East Wing setting since just after September 11th. It is assumed that they will ask such hard hitting questions as:
“Do you feel that exercise is important at times of stress?”
“How much did your heroic experience as a fighter pilot contributed to your understanding of the military planning in Iraq?”
“Do you think that your faith has played a part in your overwhelming popularity among the American people?”
“How does the first lady feel about all this snow?”
“Saddam Hussein is reported to have gassed his own people. How do you feel about that?”
“Is the current planned amount of badly needed tax relief for the hardest working most productive members of society really going to be enough, or do you plan to ease the terrible burden even more, so that this economy will continue to grow as you predicted it would?”
“Now that the United Nations has been proven irrelevant, do you plan to seize its assets and deport the anti-american diplomats who sought to humiliate you and failed?”
“What would you tell average Americans to do when they see a muslim terrorist in their neighborhood?”
“Are you glad that God has chosen you to eradicate evil on this earth?”
It should be exciting. Bush appearing before the public without his cue cards is always suspenseful. But then, he does benefit from the bigotry of low expectations. If he doesn’t vomit on somebody, he’s already outshown his father.
If you all are praying types, put one in for the washington press corp to grow some journalistic cojones in the next couple of hours. This President only answers wide ranging questions once every 18 months or so. We could be in nuclear winter the next time Karl decides he’s in sufficient trouble to require taking the chance that President Pom Pom will break into the “Barney” song and start singing “I love you, you love me” on national television. Let’s hope they make the most of it.
A Mediwhore’s Gotta Do What A Mediawhore’s Gotta Do
TBOGG’s back (whew, I was having withdrawal) and he quotes Chris Matthews on Imus:
Matthews: “It’s about changing these governments around so that they play ball with us and I think that’s what the game has been from Wolfowitz and Feith and Rumsfeld and Cheney — they’re all hardliners. You know, when they get off the air with me they always giggle, ‘You know, I hope they don’t disarm.’ That’s their worst fear, that Saddam Hussein will throw all his guns out in the street in front of ’em, then we can’t go to war and these guys will be miserable. It’s not about guns. It’s about ideology. These guys want to change that part of the world and they’re damned, they’ll come up with any excuse to do it. And look, that’s an idealistic Wilsonian notion. I think it’s squirrelly. It’s going to make every Arab kid grow up to hate our guts for the next thousand years, but that’s they’re (sic) point of view and I’ve got mine.”
TBOGG: So why doesn’t Matthews confront them about their off-screen comments the next time they come on? Is it Hardball or T-Ball?
I think the Boggster was out of town when the MSNBC circular was sent around. It went like this:
Donahue presented a “difficult public face for NBC in a time of war……He seems to delight in presenting guests who are anti-war, anti-Bush and skeptical of the administration’s motives.” The report went on to outline a possible nightmare scenario where the show becomes “a home for the liberal antiwar agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity.”
Chris, of all people, understand that the only thing standing between him and obscurity is a “liberal anti-war agenda.” As long as he remembers that he doesn’t even have to get ratings.
Mary, the estimable Natasha’s tag team partner over at The Watch has a nice dissertation on war and religion, Bush style.
I remain dumbfounded that this government would choose to ever discuss this war in religious terms, much less in terms of Bush being anointed by God. The enemy are religious fanatics in case anyone failed to notice. But, I guess we are too, now.
So, is everybody up for a good old fashioned religious crusade with a post modern nuclear twist? Oh goodie.
Calpundit posts an interesting observation about evolutionary psychology today:
“Evolutionary psychology attempts to explain why we do the things we do, and it succeeds better at some things than at others. But it certainly doesn’t suggest that innate behavior is either moral or desirable. In fact, since the entire goal of civilization for the past 10,000 years has been mostly to rein in and modify innate human behavior, this should be obvious too, and the lessons of EP can help us in this ancient and worthy effort. If research suggests a reason why little boys do one thing and little girls do another, for example, the lesson should not be that we are forced to accept this behavior even if we don’t like it, but that we should try even harder to modify it because it’s probably going to be a real bear getting the job done.
As indeed it is, a lesson we all learn daily. If only all those other guys could just listen to sweet reason…..”
This is interesting and quite true, but it should also be kept in mind that a lot of evolutionary psychology appears to conveniently uphold certain cultural expectations, particularly as it pertains to gender roles. Since the science is far from conclusive, and so much of it is used to buttress arguments favoring traditional roles, I don’t think it’s out of bounds to be skeptical of much of it for the time being. I have no doubt that it is a field well worth studying and that it will eventually provide some interesting insights into our behaviors, but considering the vacuousness of many of the conclusions so far, I am not signing on to any particular theory. I would imagine that we will be seeing some very interesting work coming down the pike in the next few years, however.
For instance, the excellent science writer, Natalie Angier, in her book, Woman: An Intimate Biography unearths numerous exceptions and alternative explanations to the current conventional wisdom that males are biologically driven to spread their seed far and wide while females are biologically driven to need security. DNA studies, for example, show that female chimpanzees risk “life and limb” and the lives of their offspring to cheat on their possessive mates. If women have lower sex drives than men, Angier argues, it may not be the fault of biology: Cultural mores across the centuries have punished women for their carnal interest.
I have to say that I too wondered why, if the conventional view of male/female evolutionary psychology were true, that so many cultures have gone to such great lengths to subdue female sexuality — clitoral circumcision being the most blatant and violent current example?
In any case, I agree with Kevin that evolutionary psychology does not make a value judgment about human behavior, no matter what the conclusion. Science isn’t right or wrong, in a moral sense. It just is. But, this particular science is highly speculative, as is much of the field of psychology generally, so there is no great sin in maintaining a healthy skepticism about its sometimes glaringly “obvious” conclusions. It’s going to be very hard to know how much biology, as opposed to culture, brought us to the point we are today, particularly since evolution is a reaction to environment rather than a cause.
I’m against policy being based upon this science’s conclusions just yet.
It is truly outrageous that our “President” is not required to hold open televised press conferences and that the press does not adequately cover what this dumbass says in the few instances they let him talk.
Yesterday, he met with several news services for about 35 minutes. What he said was un-befucking-lievable.
Some highlights of our fearless leaders “thinking” on various current events:
“The president alternated between humor, determination, sarcasm and reflection throughout the 36-minute session held in the Roosevelt Room, pointedly opening the interview by calling attention to President Theodore Roosevelt’s Nobel Peace Prize on the mantel over a crackling fire.
The prize, he said, ‘is an interesting tribute to a president who had a vision about how to keep the peace and was willing to take risks to achieve peace.’ “
Obviously, Karl or Karen or somebody told Junior that he is going to win the peace prize, like that muscular Teddy Roosevelt, for invading Iraq. TR killed a lot of Fillippinos, to be sure, and he looked mighty good on a horsie, but his “vision” about how to keep the peace was the international tribunal in the Hague, a “League of Peace” and the use of arbitration treaties amongst all nations to avoid war. He won the Nobel for mediating the end of the Russian-Japanese war.
Somehow I don’t think President Legacy knows that. And, apparently, the press wasn’t inclined to ask him just what the hell he meant when he said it. Wouldn’t you think that a reporter would be interested in what the president meant when he talked about an “interesting vision of peace” and “the risks” he was willing to take, on the eve of an unprecedented preventive war? I know I would.
“I believe we can deal with this issue diplomatically by convincing China and Russia and South Korea to join us in convincing North Korea that it is not in their nation’s interest to be threatening the United States.”
But when asked if a diplomatic approach had been successful, the president replied carefully, “It’s in process.”
Reflecting the growing tensions, the president added, “If they don’t work diplomatically, they’ll have to work militarily. And (the) military option is our last choice. Options are on the table, but I believe we can deal with this diplomatically. I truly do.”
One wonders what he would have said if someone had forcefully pressed him on the contradictions between what we see happening with Saddam destroying missiles and what he is saying about North korea. We know how Ari dances around the issue, but I’d love to see Junior try it.
But he insisted that he has paid attention to the protesters.
“Of course, I care what they believe. And I’ve listened carefully. I’ve thought long and hard about what needs to be done,” he said. “And obviously some people in Northern California do not see there’s a true risk to the United States posed by Saddam Hussein. And we just have a difference of opinion.”
There you have it. Smirking smart-ass prick. It always comes through at some point. His essential Nixonness — the barely suppressed disdain for his fellow Americans. He really is not our president. Not because we say so, but because he does.
Asked about protests overseas, the president initially downplayed the extent of the problems he has encountered with normally friendly nations.
“There are two nations in Europe – France and Germany – who do not see Saddam Hussein as a direct threat. And we just have a difference of opinion. But there are a lot of other nations who do,” he said.
But pressed, the president acknowledged that sympathy for America has diminished since the days immediately after Sept. 11, 2001. He blamed some of the protests on lingering unhappiness over his early decisions against international agreements on global warming and an international criminal court.
“So, yes, I see the protests and I know they’re large at times. But I’m not so sure I’d jump to the conclusion that everybody in those parts of the world are anti-American,” he said.
No, they’re anti-Bush, clearly. And, yes his early decisions contributed to the problem, but his biggest problem is that huge majorities of the people in most countries of the world do not support a preventive war with Iraq if inspections are working. He clearly doesn’t understand that he is commander in chief of the Armed Services during wartime, he is not the commander in chief of the American people or the rest of the world at ANY time. This is something they failed to get through to him during his civics all-nighter before the inauguration.
“We’ll be disappointed if people don’t support us [in the security council],” he said pointedly.
With the Mexican press full of a debate over the ramifications of a vote against the resolution, Bush added, “But, nevertheless, I don’t expect for there to be significant retribution from the government.”
His emphasis was on the word “government,” raising the possibility of adverse reaction to Mexico from the American business community and average citizens.
Making that point, he cited what he called “an interesting phenomena taking place here in America about the French.”
With many Americans unhappy at French resistance to a war in Iraq, the president said there has developed “a backlash against the French, not stirred up by anybody except by the people.”
Nice. The President is lying blatently about the coordinated GOP movement to “punish” France and Germany, even to the extent that congressional representatives and Senators have taken up the cause. It’s a grassroots movement who’s roots begin and end at Grover’s Wednesday meeting. Looks like Mexico is next on the “hate” list (although it’s always been on it with his white supremecist nase.)
What a petty little backbiter he is. And nobody in the press corp says a word.
If Mexico – or other countries – oppose the United States, he said that “there will be a certain sense of discipline.” But he quickly added, “I expect Mexico to be with us.”
Yeah, well people in hell want icewater, too. Last I heard, Mexico was a sovereign nation that was not required to meet the US President’s “expectations” or submit to its “discipline.” Maybe if President Brat hadn’t treated his good friend Vicente like shit, particularly at the meeting in Cabo where he shut down the press conference in a snit, then maybe things would go easier for him. Maybe Vinnie wouldn’t look like Bush’s abused chihuahua. Somebody (Bar?) forgot to teach Junior any manners.
He said he also is sustained by his own prayers, noting, “I’m reading the Bible every day.”
I’m sure that will make a good recruiting slogan for the islamic fundamentalist terrorist movement. It’s a great idea to cite religion as much as possible when we are at “war” with religious fanatics. Let the Bible be our guide. They are on the side of evil, after all, and we shall smite them sayeth the President. Excellent.
He added, “This is a difficult decision for any president to make. I’ve thought about the consequence of doing nothing. I’ve thought about the consequences of military action.”
This is so typically Bush. He tells us he’s thought about all this. And we should be impressed that he has done so. Period. No need to discuss it further. It would be wrong for the press to ask for further explanation of those “thoughts.” Anti-american, in fact. He is their commander in chief, after all.
But he said the blame for any war falls on Hussein for his failure to abide by 12 years of U.N. demands for disarmament.
The president also insisted that his policies on Iraq are based solely on what is good for the United States. He bristled slightly at a question suggesting he was motivated by Hussein’s past attempt to assassinate his father, former President George H.W. Bush, and current first lady Laura Bush in the early 1990s.
“The fact that he tried to kill my father and my wife shows the nature of the man … he’s cold-blooded. He’s a dictator. He’s a tyrant,” said Bush. “And the decision I’m making, and have made, to disarm Saddam Hussein is based upon the security of the American people.”
Asked if he harbored personal anger toward Hussein, he replied, “No. I’m doing my job as the president based upon the threats that face this country.”
Well, guess that clears that up. That “he tried to kill my father and my wife” thing sure will make a nice headline in Arab papers, though, don’t you think?
I take back what I said. He should be kept from the press at all costs. It can only hurt the country to let him speak.
These damned Islamofascists are really starting to get Hitchypoo hot under the collar, especially the democratically elected allies in Turkey. They are humiliating his hero, Captain James T. Bush who is not to be faulted for selling out those Kurds, oh no. (He is, after all, the only man on the entire planet who who sees the world in the same childlike Manichean terms as Hitch.) Those Turks are imperfect and, therefore, are not worthy of our great goodness.
The situation with the Kurds is extremely complicated. Neither the Turks or the Kurds are our enemies (indeed, until recently they were fervent allies) but we have somewhow managed to make them so with just a few stupid words from Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz.
Of course we shouldn’t let the Turks go in and “clean out” Kurds in northern Iraq. But, neither should we even think of abandoning the only real democracy in the region because…well…I thought that was the whole goddamned point!
It may now be argued that, in order to shorten the period of hostilities with Saddam Hussein and minimize casualties, the Iraqi border should be secured from all directions. But the Turks do not propose to help guarantee this border or to protect those who live within it. Rather, they propose to cross the frontier for no better reason than to aggrandize themselves and to prolong the subjection of their own Kurdish population. This doesn’t just disgrace the regime-change strategy. It actually destabilizes it. And it’s humiliating to see the president begging and bribing the Turks to do the wrong thing and to see them in return reject his offer. He should take their ugly egotism and selfishness as a compliment to his policy, cut off their aid, leave them to put their own case to the European Union, and tell them to get out of Cyprus into the bargain. Then we could be surer that we were really “remaking” the region
Hey, Hitch. Why stop there? Let’s remake the entire world in your image. Then it will be a confused, unkempt, incoherant, aggressive mess.
And yet Mr. Bush not only sounds more certain than ever that he is about to lead the United States into war — he also talks almost as if Mr. Hussein has already been deposed.
In a deliberate and risky strategy, Mr. Bush appears to be dropping out of the public debate over whether there is value in further inspections or any alternative to ousting Mr. Hussein, or sending him into exile.
“The United States has no intention of determining the precise form of Iraq’s new government,” Mr. Bush said in his Saturday radio address, skipping past the question of how he plans to remove the current one.
It was one of many phrases, one of his senior aides said this weekend, that “reflect the leapfrog strategy,” an effort to jump over French, German and Russian objections, Turkish intransigence, North Korean provocations, anxiety from the Arab League, and hand-wringing by Americans who are nervous about a go-it-alone approach.
“In his mind, the old debate about whether Saddam will disarm is over,” one of Mr. Bush’s senior aides said late last week. “We’re on to the next phase, even if everyone else isn’t there yet.”
[…]
White House aides argue that the president cannot talk about casualties without scaring Americans. If, however, either the war or — after the presumed American victory — the occupation of Iraq goes badly, such a failure to hint at the problems may come back to haunt the president.
Nonetheless, Mr. Bush has been relentlessly optimistic. In his speech last Wednesday and again on Saturday, he talked of an occupation that would resemble the American liberation of Germany and Japan. But both of those were well-defined nations before their conflict with the United States.
Iraq is not — and could blow apart. “Of course, in our internal discussions we raise the Yugoslavia analogy,” one administration insider said.
“We talk about what happens if there is score-settling. But this isn’t the moment for the president to be talking about that risk.”
It doesn’t seem as if the President is much interested in talking about any risks.
It’s not relentless optimism. As Thomas Carothers of the International Endowment for International Peace said in last Sunday’s NY Times Magazine, “It’s called Magical Realism, Middle East style.”
Celebrated Dada author and diviner of notions, Peggy Noonan, reveals to viewers the intimate thoughts of unwary fares as they motor along with her, in the her magic taxicab, through the busy streets of the nations capitol. This week, Peggy channels the convictions of an aging Republican supply-sider couple visiting from Charlotte North Carolina, who silently long for the bygone halcyon days of right wing latin American death squads, Jim and Tammi’s waterslide and the lost splenders of the Shining City giftshop on the Hill.
Next in the cab is a black couple from Baltimore, who reveal to Peggy, through a series of psychic gospel rhythmns, their soul deep regrets at ever having heard of that philanderer priest Jesse Jackson or Tavis Smiley or the NAACP, and their quiet agonized yearning for the buccolic lost splender of the plantation porch swing.
Next Peggy mirrors for us the supressed regrets of an old hippy who wrestles with horrific naked lunch flashback nightmares of long ago candlelight peace vigils and lurid fleeting Hollywood images of a scantily clad tattooed Goldie Hawn wiggling around like a distempered sex-viperess on the Rowan and Martin Show.
Peggy excitedly babble-channels the expectations of a yet unborn child when an unwed nineteen year old lesbian playwright enters the cab and alarms Peggy with the opinion that Bill Bennett is a fat old patent leather busybody pecksniff with tiny feet and big old stupid sanctimonious puritanical morality fetish. Peggy becomes unglued when the young woman’s twenty year old blonde haired girlfriend from Lincoln Nebraska begins recounting their previous summer adventures bartending at the Pied Piper in Provincetown and their brief encounter with arch media blog-feind Andrew Sullivan and his French sailor-friend who were slobbering over garlic knots in front of Spritus Pizza at 3 am. Now clearly distressed and half crazed with the haunting shrieks and tortured wails of long ago buried Daughters of the American Revolution chickenhawk dinners Peggy unloads the giggling Sapphics in front of the Washington Memorial, takes a couple of swigs of Old Gipper, points her cab at the sniper alley I-66 Western road… and careens through the early autumn night toward an undisclosed secret destination in Fort Royal Maryland.
I have no idea what happened in Fort Royal. My psychic eye has gone dark. I hope the Peggy is ok, all alone out there in the wilds of the Shenandoah, with the roving Marxist wolves of labor and the bong pirates and the camo-hillbillies for a better whup-ass Jesus. We’re praying for you Peggy. Praying like jerkers in the service of the Reign of our Sovereign Lord, Rove Inc., Texas and Kennebunkport the forty first, and of Crawford the forty third. Anno Domini, 2003. (or whatever)
