The Fog of War

Buy or rent this DVD. It is really amazing.

It's Robert McNamara describing his experiences as Secretary of Defense under Kennedy and Johnson, and during the Viet Nam era.

You end up watching this man, a "talking head," for so long. While there are a handful of shots of him driving what looks like a Ford Taurus past the Pentagon and a number of other government landmarks, almost all footage showing a contemporary Robert McNamara seems to be a single-camera setup.

He is trying to be honest, but does not promise to be self-revelatory.

Others speculate that it is his shot at redemption. If you know his work at Ford, you know that he's not really a redemption kind of guy. Rather, he's more a scientist or engineer. He want's to contribute to a growing body of knowledge. He's [obviously] not afraid to make mistakes, so long as they are cataloged and recorded. So long as we all learn from them. That's why he made this film.

There are moments of emotion - for example, when he talks about John Kennedy's death. But it's not a confessional. He says more than once, "I'm not going to go into this," because it relates to private matters.

Watch his eyes. Watch how hard it is for him to do what he feels so strongly compelled to do: somehow add meaning to his experiences by teaching us. The pain his eyes express sometimes is at once awful and compelling.

I don't think he made this movie to earn absolution. He's the kind of guy who would claim absolution as a matter of right. No, he wants us to learn, and to enable that by as much lucidity and honesty as he can muster.

Most leaders don't care enough about us to take this effort. As much as a reasonable person could hate McNamara, I thank him for trying to teach us.

It's like hearing someone already in hell trying to offer a word of warning.

Live Free or Die

It's a very sunny Sunday morning in northern New Hampshire. Not a cloud in the sky today. Thin crown at church this morning; that may mean that it's just like way too tempting to ski or snowboard today.

...Because it snowed yesterday and the day before. People up here love their skiing and winter sports: cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, snowball fights, you name it.

What an interesting area. It attracts artistic types. Up here, many highly gifted photographers, graphic artists, writers, composers.

"Live Free or Die," it says on the license plates. Very independent people. All political varieties, although the "north country" is more conservative and Republican than downstate. It's all about freedom. They take it so much to heart that a citizen recently sued (unsuccessfully) to be allowed to buy a license plate without the words on it.

Freedom has been a tough idea for us in the course of our history: trying to figure out where freedom can be guaranteed and yet order can be maintained.

Do you remember "the Four Freedoms?" They were from a state-of-the-union address given by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, on January 6, 1941 when the new 77th Congress convened. So that's 64 years ago the day before yesterday. It was before Pearl Harbor was attacked. This might help you get ready for the 2005 state-of-the-union address.

Hey, let me know what you think... if I have any wisecracks I'll put them in bold italics.

I address you, the members of this new Congress, at a moment unprecedented in the history of the union. I use the word "unprecedented" because at no previous time has American security been as seriously threatened from without as it is today.

Since the permanent formation of our government under the Constitution in 1789, most of the periods of crisis in our history have related to our domestic affairs. And, fortunately, only one of these --the four-year war between the States --ever threatened our national unity. Today, thank God, 130,000,000 Americans in forty-eight States have forgotten points of the compass in our national unity. The politics of division?

...

What I seek to convey is the historic truth that the United States as a nation has at all times maintained opposition --clear, definite opposition-- to any attempt to lock us in behind an ancient Chinese wall while the procession of civilization went past. Today, thinking of our children and of their children, we oppose enforced isolation for ourselves or for any other part of the Americas. No foreign nation will dictate our security?

... Except in the Maximilian interlude in Mexico, no foreign power sought to establish itself in this hemisphere. And the strength of the British fleet in the Atlantic has been a friendly strength; it is still a friendly strength. Even when the World War broke out in 1941 it seemed to contain only small threat of danger to our own American future. But as time went on, as we remember, the American people began to visualize what the downfall of democratic nations might mean to our own democracy.

We need not overemphasize imperfections in the peace of Versailles. We need not harp on failure of the democracies to deal with problems of world reconstruction. We should remember that the peace of 1919 was far less unjust than the kind of pacification which began even before Munich, and which is being carried on under the new order of tyranny that seeks to spread over every continent today. Democrats can't effectively defend our interests?

The American people have unalterably set their faces against that tyranny.

I suppose that every realist knows that the democratic way of life is at this moment being directly assailed in every part of the world --assailed either by arms or by secret spreading of poisionous propaganda by those who seek to destroy unity and promote discord in nations that are still at peace. Anything like this happening today?

During sixteen long months this assault has blotted out the whole pattern of democratic life in an appalling number of independent nations, great and small. And the assailants are still on the march, threatening other nations, great and small.

Therefore, as your President, performing my constitutional duty to "give to the Congress information of the state of the union," I find it unhappily necessary to report that the future and the safety of our country and of our democracy are overwhelmingly involved in events far beyond our borders.

Armed defense of democratic existence is now being gallantly waged in four continents. If that defense fails, all the population and all the resources of Europe and Asia, Africa and Australia will be dominated by conquerors. And let us remember that the total of those populations in those four continents, the total of those populations and their resources greatly exceeds the sum total of the population and the resources of the whole of the Western Hemisphere --yes, many times over.

In times like these it is immature-- and, incidentally, untrue-- for anybody to brag that an unprepared America, single-handed and with one hand tied behind its back, can hold off the whole world. Well, times have sure changed, haven't they?

No realistic American can expect from a dictator's peace international generosity, or return of true independence, or world disarmament, or freedom of expression, or freedom of religion-- or even good business. Such a peace would bring no security for us or for our neighbors. Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Tough talk from a liberal wanker...

As a nation we may take pride in the fact that we are soft-hearted; but we cannot afford to be soft-headed. We must always be wary of those who with sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal preach the ism of appeasement. We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American eagle in order to feather their own nests. Long before Halliburton got so heavily into the defense biz...

I have recently pointed out how quickly the tempo of modern warfare could bring into our very midst the physical attack which we must eventually expect if the dictator nation win this war.

There is much loose talk of our immunity from immediate and direct invasion from across the seas. Obviously, as long as the British Navy retains its power, no such danger exists. Even if there were no British Navy, it is not probable that any enemy would be stupid enough to attack us by landing troops in the United States from across thousands of miles of ocean, until it had acquired strategic bases from which to operate. Yeah, times have sure changed...[sigh]. We'd thought we were immune in 2001. All the terrorists required was less-effective airport security. As Firesign Theatre's Joe Beets once said, "Well, think it over...and then take off your shoes." Those guys were psychic.

But we learn much from the lessons of the past years in Europe-- particularly the lesson of Norway, whose essential seaports were captured by treachery and surprise built up over a series of years.

The first phase of the invasion of this hemisphere would not be the landing of regular troops. The necessary strategic points would be occupied by secret agents and by their dupes-- and great numbers of them are already here and in Latin America. As long as the aggressor nations maintain the offensive they, not we, will choose the time and the place and the method of their attack. And that is why the future of all the American Republics is today in serious danger. That is why this annual message to the Congress is unique in our history. That is why every member of the executive branch of the government and every member of the Congress face great responsibility-- great accountability. Look for this theme in the 2005 speech...

The need of the moment is that our actions and our policy should be devoted primarily-- almost exclusively-- to meeting this foreign peril. For all our domestic problems are now a part of the great emergency. Just as our national policy in internal affairs has been based upon a decent respect for the rights and the dignity of all of our fellow men within our gates, so our national policy in foreign affairs has been based on a decent respect
for the rights and the dignity of all nations, large and small. And the justice of morality must and will win in the end. He believed in multilateralism, and suffered for it; look at how much face he lost because of Yalta, for example. That's the trouble with a conscience-based foreign policy; you're always at risk of having the other guy stick it up your butt...

Our national policy is this :
First, by an impressive expression of the public will and without regard to partisanship, we are committed to
all-inclusive national defense. OK...

Second, by an impressive expression of the public will and without regard to partisanship, we are committed to full support of all those resolute people everywhere who are resisting aggression and are thereby keeping war away from our hemisphere. By this support we express our determination that the democratic cause shall prevail, and we strengthen the defense and the security of our own nation. Note that reference to "partisanship" ...it's not accidental.

Third, by an impressive expression of the public will and without regard to partisanship, we are committed to the proposition that principle of morality and considerations for our own security will never permit us to acquiesce in a peace dictated by aggressors and sponsored by appeasers. We know that enduring peace cannot be bought at the cost of other people's freedom. In the recent national election there was no substantial difference between the two great parties in respect to that national policy. No issue was fought out on the line before the American electorate. And today it is abundantly evident that American citizens everywhere are demanding and supporting speedy and complete action in recognition of obvious danger. There's the "P" word again. A mandate for action is a serious thing, not to be squandered.

Therefore, the immediate need is a swift and driving increase in our armament production. Leaders of industry and labor have responded to our summons. Goals of speed have been set. In some cases these goals are being reached ahead of time. In some cases we are on schedule; in other cases there are slight but not serious delays. And in some cases-- and, I am sorry to say, very important cases-- we are all concerned by the slowness of the accomplishment of our plans. The Army and Navy, however, have made substantial progress
during the past year. Actual experience is improving and speeding up our methods of production with every passing day. And today's best is not good enough for tomorrow.

I am not satisfied with the progress thus far made. The men in charge of the program represent the best in training, in ability and in patriotism. They are not satisfied with the progress thus far made. None of us will be satisfied until the job is done. No matter whether the original goal was set too high or too low, our objective is quicker and better results. To give you two illustrations: We are behind schedule in turning out finished airplanes. We are working day and night to solve the innumerable problems and to catch up. We are ahead of schedule in building warships, but we are working to get even further ahead of that schedule. To change a whole nation from a basis of peacetime production of implements of peace to a basis of wartime
production of implements of war is no small task. The greatest difficulty comes at the beginning of the program, when new tools, new plant facilities, new assembly lines, new shipways must first be constructed before the actual material begins to flow steadily and speedily from them.

The Congress of course, must rightly keep itself informed at all times of the progress of the program. However, there is certain information, as the Congress itself will readily recognize, which, in the interests of our own security and those of the nations that we are supporting, must of needs be kept in confidence.
New circumstances are constantly begetting new needs for our safety. I shall ask this Congress for greatly increased new appropriations and authorizations to carry on what we have begun. Too bad he didn't know about Star Wars.

I also ask this Congress for authority and for funds sufficient to manufacture additional munitions and war supplies of many kinds, to be turned over to those nations which are now in actual war with aggressor nations. Our most useful and immediate role is to act as an arsenal for them as well as for ourselves. They do not need manpower, but they do need billions of dollars' worth of the weapons of defense. The time is near when they will not be able to pay for them all in ready cash. We cannot, and we will not, tell them that they must surrender merely because of present inability to pay for the weapons which we know they must have.

I do not recommend that we make them a loan of dollars with which to pay for these weapons-- a loan to be repaid in dollars. I recommend that we make it possible for those nations to continue to obtain war materials in the United States, fitting their orders into our own program. And nearly all of their material would, if the time ever came, be useful in our own defense. Taking counsel of expert military and naval authorities, considering what is best for our own security, we are free to decide how much should be kept here and how much should be sent abroad to our friends who, by their determined and heroic resistance, are giving us time in which to make ready our own defense. There goes them liberal Democrats, taxing and spending and making government bigger.

For what we send abroad we shall be repaid, repaid within a reasonable time following the close of hostilities, repaid in similar materials, or at our option in other goods of many kinds which they can produce and which we need. Let us say to the democracies : "We Americans are vitally concerned in your defense of freedom. We are putting forth our energies, our resources and our organizing powers to give you the strength to regain and maintain a free world. We shall send you in ever-increasing numbers, ships, planes, tanks, guns. That is our purpose and our pledge."

In fulfillment of this purpose we will not be intimidated by the threats of dictators that they will regard as a breach of international law or as an act of war our aid to the democracies which dare to resist their aggression. Such aid is not an act of war, even if a dictator should unilaterally proclaim it so to be. And when the dictators --if the dictators-- are ready to make war upon us, they will not wait for an act of war on
our part. They did not wait for Norway or Belgium or the Netherlands to commit an act of war. Their only interest is in a new one-way international law which lacks mutuality in its observance and therefore becomes an instrument of oppression. The happiness of future generations of Americans may well depend on how effective and how immediate we can make our aid felt. No one can tell the exact character of the emergency situations that we may be called upon to meet. The nation's hands must not be tied when the nation's life is in danger. An interesting interpretation of multilateralism but, of course, this was about aid to other combatants, not direct US military action. Does this have any application today? Great hypothetical: would Roosevelt have waited for UN approval before invading Iraq?

Yes, and we must prepare, all of us prepare, to make the sacrifices that the emergency --almost as serious as war itself-- demands. Whatever stands in the way of speed and efficiency in defense, in defense preparations at any time, must give way to the national need. A free nation has the right to expect full cooperation from all groups. A free nation has the right to look to the leaders of business, of labor and of agriculture to take the
lead in stimulating effort, not among other groups but within their own groups. A favorite phrase of Roosevelt's leadership: "needed efforts." Freedom means a right to expect cooperation among citizens during national emergency. I've believed that to mean that if the nation calls us to do something, we have a solemn duty to do it, regardless of our political beliefs. It gets tough if you don't personally believe that such an emergency exists...

The best way of dealing with the few slackers or trouble-makers in our midst is, first, to shame them by patriotic example, and if that fails, to use the sovereignty of government to save government. Wow. Roosevelt disliked slackers...

As men do not live by bread alone, they do not fight by armaments alone. Those who man our defenses and those behind them who build our defenses must have the stamina and the courage which come from unashakeable belief in the manner of life which they are defending. The mighty action that we are calling for cannot be based on a disregard of all the things worth fighting for.

The nation takes great satisfaction and much strength from the things which have been done to make its people conscious of their individual stake in the preservation of democratic life in America. Those things have toughened the fiber of our people, have renewed their faith and strengthened their devotion to the institutions we make ready to protect. Certainly this is no time for any of us to stop thinking
about the social and economic problems which are the root cause of the social revolution which is today a supreme factor in the world. For there is nothing mysterious about the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy.

The basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems are simple. They are [are you ready for this??]:

1. Equality of opportunity for youth and for others.
2. Jobs for those who can work.
3. Security for those who need it.
4. The ending of special privilege for the few.
5. The preservation of civil liberties for all.
6. The enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living.

Don't let Sean Hannity hear this. Numbers 2 and 4 practically make Roosevelt a class warfare terrorist. Numbers 1, 3 and 5 make him an advocate of class warfare, right? It gets worse below...

These are the simple, the basic things that must never be lost sight of in the turmoil and unbelievable complexity of our modern world. The inner and abiding straight of our economic and political systems is dependent upon the degree to which they fulfill these expectations.

Many subjects connected with our social economy call for immediate improvement. As examples :

1. We should bring more citizens under the coverage of old-age pensions and unemployment insurance.
2. We should widen the opportunities for adequate medical care.
3. We should plan a better system by which persons deserving or needing gainful employment may obtain it.

These would be severely punished by today's politics, wouldn't they? Each and every one of these would now be labeled socialistic. And they were advanced by the 20th century's greatest president*.

I have called for personal sacrifice, and I am assured of the willingness of almost all Americans to respond to that call. A part of the sacrifice means the payment of more money in taxes. Think we'll see this one in 2005's State of the Union address?

In my budget message I will recommend that a greater portion of this great defense program be paid for from taxation than we are paying for today. No person should try, or be allowed to get rich out of the program, and the principle of tax payments in accordance with ability to pay should be constantly before our eyes to guide our legislation. What other president has cut taxes during war time, besides GWB? I'm sure there was one someplace...

If the congress maintains these principles the voters, putting patriotism ahead pocketbooks, will give you their applause. In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression --everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way-- everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants --everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor --anywhere in the wold.

These four freedoms constitute my core personal beliefs about the highest aspirations of any civilization. The next part just about makes ya cry, when you realize he said it in 1941, and said it about the era we now live in...

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called "new order" of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.

To that new order we oppose the greater conception --the moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear. Since the beginning of our American history we have been engaged in change, in a perpetual, peaceful revolution, a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly, adjusting itself to changing conditions without the concentration camp or the quicklime in the ditch. Like in the Ukraine, for example...fear-mongering creates nothing worthwhile.

The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society. Not unilateralism.

This nation has placed its destiny in the hands, heads and hearts of its millions of free men and women, and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights and keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose.

To that high concept there can be no end save victory.

End of speech. See you at this year's State of the Union!!

http://www.whitehouse.gov/stateoftheunion/2004/history.html

* Anybody who wants to debate that point, match these:

1. A president who oversaw the recovery from the worst economic depression in our entire history.
2. A president who led us through the most calamatous and threatening war we'd ever experienced.
3. A president who created such an amazing collective sense of hope, even among those who despised him (of which there were many).

JFK: The President We Got...

...instead of Jeb Bartlett in The West Wing.

Our fascination with JFK continues. Even now, there are still aspects of his life and career which remain hidden from public view.

He came from a brutal and psychotically competitive family, an aloof and cold mother of too many children who accomodates her husband's self-centeredness by a peculiarly Catholic form of emotional abandonment. This remove, however, strikes her own children as collateral damage from her intended assault on her husband.

So, a family of highly competitive people, with singular ambition. The theory is not hard to establish: the ambition is to attain mom's love (which is unattainable) and to impress dad. The story is archetypal of America in the mid-20th century. We achieved so much because of qualities of competition, ruthlessness and self-interest. We also learned to worship glamour and celebrity.

Wasn't Kennedy the best-looking president by far?

I never understood him better than after reading "JFK: Reckless Youth" by Nigel Hamilton, not to mention Seymour Hersh's "Dark Side of Camelot." How could this man, whom we loved so well when he was in office, have been so deeply compromised?

We've been led by men for the whole of our history. These men have been flawed and have made terrible mistakes. We followed them, though, because we elected them and have a need to trust and respect them. I never respected a president more than JFK. After reading Hersh's treatment of him, in a weird way my respect increased. He managed to make the decisions he made under the burdens of drug usage, painkillers, and possibly advanced VD. Helluva guy!!

I believe that he was addicted to sex and prescription drugs, and that we knew way too little about how to treat addictions back then.

They accused George Bush of cocaine use once, although it was never proven. For sure, George Bush used to drink too much. If he reverted to those behaviors in the White House now, we would know the signs and know how to deal with it, promptly and effectively.

Right?

Are Stepford Husbands Democrats or...?

On the DVD edition of last year's "The Stepford Wives," we learn that the term "Stepford Wife" has entered our vocabulary with a meaning created by the original movie. However, many people who've never seen the original know what the term means by use-context.

Each interviewee on the DVD's special features therefore defines the label a bit differently. And if you watch the movie, you learn that none of these contextual interpretations is really correct.

"Stepford Wife" means any person who lives in a persistent unfulfilled state, with an inability to adjust cravings and ambitions to the context of what life dishes up to you.

We live in a country which promises that all our ambitions can be realized, a perfectable society. If that's true, why are we not happy*?

Stepfordism is created by a rejection of imperfection. It's also created by what I guess you could call the exact opposite of a Zen state: perpetual uncenteredness. This state is what produced our dogged pursuit of technological happiness. Of course it's all a shadow. If happiness is the same as contentedness (and I say "if"), nobody can be happy in America. We define our success by our restlessness.

The best of our people are never satisfied and constantly pursue something 'better.' People who are "satisfied" are condemned by both right and left, liberal and conservative, as irresponsible slackers.

The new "Stepford" movie is witty and paced well, and functions OK as satire. When the film was over, though, I felt left with the saddest happy ending I ever saw. America's promise is a limitless horizon and the freedom to pursue your own idea of happiness, and the movie ends up with Larry King. How many wives has he had?

----

*If you're happy and you know it, my congratulations. You can read the rest anyway, if you want...

Michael Moore, Large Figure

Michael Moore's first serious film, "Roger and Me" was really, really funny in its own way. You did not have to like Moore's politics to appreciate the skillful wit displayed in that movie.

Let's be honest: the guy's a Communist. In a day when Communism has been proven to be an abject failure as a philosophy and political system, why get mad at him? It's like being outraged at someone for being a Zoroastrian.

We're all entitled to our opinions in our country. Moore is entitled to his, and wants us to hear all of them. And he's won some awards, and he's making plenty of money.

But honestly, he's better when he's funny. In "Bowling for Columbine," for example, there is some funny stuff, but it is really a seemingly honest exploration of three things:
1. Why do we like our guns so much?
2. Why do we use them to kill each other so frequently?
3. Moore [a successful creature of the media] wants to know why the media fascinate us so much. Weird.

It's a fine movie, containing nowhere near the intentional missatements of fact that plague "Fahrenheit 9/11." And it has some funny moments in discussing such serious subjects...but:

In this movie he celebrates a "win:" because he brings Columbine shooting victims to K-Mart, K-Mart agrees to quit selling ammunition. What's really enlightening is that this moment reveals something of Moore: while he expresses appreciation, he does not seem much happy. In fact, his affect (not his words) expresses a measure of disappointment. So, his emotional game is never to be happy. And never to project happiness. He is a chronically dissatisfied person.

This chronic dissatisfaction, like Jerry Seinfeld's, can be a source of really considerable amusement. But now, in and after "Columbine," Moore takes himself very, very seriously, and this film marks one of those significant transitions.

Moore thus has begun walking the road to his own doom. He has begun believing his own press releases. He sees himself as a social symbol larger than he can ever possibly be as a human being.

See, he lacks optimism and generosity of spirit - two qualities essential for any true leader. You cannot be followed or respected solely by villainizing other people. You can, however, be funny, and Moore's no longer content with that media identity. He wants to be a serious dude, and thus he's condemned to be our next Ralph Nader - a pain in the ass who will never amuse anybody nor make any real difference in our society. Nader and Moore both lost the election last year.

Unless Moore decides to do something next to water his humor-based roots, he's on his way out. And I'll miss him; I like him and think our society really needs his presence.

So, Mike, the choice is yours: Will Rogers or Ralph Nader. What's it gonna be?

The West Wing

This is the big one: certainly the best TV writing, acting, character development, execution, continuity, directing - just the best in ten years. If you're bored by politics, you'll like this series anyway.

Operating in a cynical system, the senior White House staff are portrayed as fundamentally decent and idealistic people, above all incredibly intelligent. At times they're shown as falling victim to their own vanity, arrogance or insecurity. My favorite moments from Season 1:

When press secretary learns her Secret Service code name.
When the president greets children for Christmas.
When a senior staffer arranges a veteran's burial in Arlington (you'll cry just like we did).
When we meet The First Lady for the first time (I've always been a sucker for Stockard Channing).
When the team pulls together and maximizes their incredible talent and wit.

The show refuses to apologize for being unsentimental and intelligent. That alone makes you so proud to have people like this leading our country. Consider the president, as played by Martin Sheen.

My friend described President Barclay as the president we wished Bill Clinton had been. He is a principled New England catholic who doesn't need multiple women. (H'mmm. Maybe he's the president we wished John Kennedy had been.)

Anyway, Sheen did such a good job in the first season that they wrote a lot more stuff for him here in the second season. He struggles here with more ethical concerns, many of which occur close to home. My favorite second-season moment: when he tells a trusted advisor who operates as an ethical canary-in-the-coal-mine to shut up.

But, again, the series was really about the senior White House staff: the operatives, press handlers, and political muscle men. It teaches at the same time as it entertains - somehow avoiding a fatal cynicism, we're fascinted by both how little and how much can be done within our system. Worst thing about Season Two: Season One. The bar was set so high by the first season that you begin to see a little deterioriation here. A gradual descent into cheaper entertainment occurs, especially soap opera type stuff and lurid plot twists. That said, though, you won't be disappointed.

I don't like politics, really. If anything, the show seems "poll heavy," which I initially wrote off to Pat Cadell's job with the series. However, I'm naive: politicians live and die by polls, so their significance is not to be underestimated.

You won't regret buying these DVDs for keeps; it's the best non-PBS television we've seen in the last ten years - no kidding.

Reading Al Franken

Al Franken refuses to be bullied by loudmouths, which is the very heart of our idea of a great American.

I've been reading his book, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them." It "outs" some of the nasty tactics that have predominated recent American political debate, and promises some possibility of a return to civil discourse.

Simple lessons:

1. Always suspect someone who labels people, especially by saying things like "this is why X [label] hates America." Being labeled is a heartbeat away from being persecuted for belief, and is inherently anti-American.

2. People who yell or shut off microphones do so because they are losing a reasoned debate. Mayor Richard J. Daley used to do it in Chicago (oops - a Democrat).

3. Our country founded by Christians, but on freedom of religion. This was to avoid establishment of any state religion and separate church and state. This was done for an excellent, historically-sound reason. We need non-Christians of any kind to keep us on track with this one, and should thank them for telling us when Christians say things that create a religious government content. Honestly, if you want theocracy, consider relocating to Iran.

4. Al Franken is also prejudiced, opinionated and, in my view, wrong about a bunch of things.

But he's smart. And he's funny, and funny in a way few conservatives appear capable of emulating.

Quick question: if you're conservative, who do you dislike less: Al Franken or Michael Moore? :)

Democrats Unite!

Since I'm a newly-minted Democrat, it's time for me to help my party pick up its tattered remnants of dignity and get on with the important process of seizing power again.

First, in my last post I forgot to mention how much I like "The West Wing." Now that that's done...

Here's some excerpts from George Packer's wonderful piece in the December 20-27 issue of The New Yorker...he compares democracy in the Ukraine to democracy in Iraq with great effect.

President Bush has put the idea of spreading democracy around the world at the rhetorical heart of American foreign policy. No one should doubt that he and his surviving senior advisers believe in what they call the “forward strategy of freedom,” even if they’ve had to talk themselves into it. Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, and Bush himself are latecomers to the idea; in earlier incarnations, they sounded a lot more like Henry Kissinger than like Woodrow Wilson. By now, though, it’s clear that, however clumsy and selective the execution, Bush wants democratization to be his legacy.

So when his critics, here and abroad, claim that his rhetoric merely provides cynical cover for an American power grab, they misjudge his sincerity and tend to sound like defenders of the status quo. And when the Administration tries to wring every last sweet drop of partisan gain from its foreign policy (sincerity is not the same thing as honesty), critics are driven to conclude that “democracy” is just another word for “neoconservatism.”

This is not a good position for the opposition to be in, either morally or politically. [Emphasis added] The best role for critics in the President’s second term will be not to scoff at the idea of spreading freedom but to take it seriously—to hold him to his own talk. The hard question isn’t whether America should try to enlarge the democratic order but how. It’s a question that the Administration seems to have thought about very little, yet it makes a big difference. Look at the two examples from the week’s front pages: where the approach has been subtle and collective, the outcome seems hopeful; where it has been noisy and unilateralist, it does not.

The popular uprising in Ukraine has now secured a new Presidential election, the previous vote having been discredited by huge fraud. There’s a quiet American story behind that achievement. For years, beginning in the nineteen-nineties, governmental and non-governmental organizations poured millions of dollars into Ukraine’s politics, building up the parties, training civil-society groups and journalists, establishing election monitors. These efforts helped strengthen the opposition against a corrupt government, but they were nonpartisan: technical support was given to all parties. The work in Ukraine built on earlier experiences in Serbia and Georgia, where groups like the National Endowment for Democracy and the Open Society Institute contributed, behind the scenes, to popular movements that eventually seized the moment to overthrow strongmen. Three peaceful democratic revolutions in ex-Communist countries in four years—a tremendous success, and few Americans even know that part of the credit belongs to this country.

Not surprisingly, the outgoing President of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma, and the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, have complained about American meddling. So has an unlikely tandem in this country. “Ukraine has been turned into a geostrategic matter not by Moscow but by Washington, which refuses to abandon its Cold War policy of encircling Russia and seeking to pull every former Soviet Republic into its orbit,”The Nation claimed, once again taking the Russian side of the Cold War. And Pat Buchanan declared, “Congress should investigate N.E.D. and any organization that used clandestine cash or agents to fix the Ukrainian election, as the U.S. media appear to have gone into the tank for global democracy.”

But in Ukraine the meddlers have done nothing worse than help guarantee a people’s right to choose a government freely. The effort succeeded for two reasons: there was a democratic movement already in place; and outside support did not come with a “Made in America” label, because the Organization for Security and Coöperation in Europe also played an important part. “The thrust of the campaign is to oblige Ukraine to have a free and fair election,” Thomas Carothers, a democracy expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says. “This is a human right. It’s not American. It’s not unilateralist.”

In other words, the United States did in Ukraine exactly what it failed to do in Iraq: it upheld international standards in conjunction with democratic allies. The consequences of this failure in Iraq will always haunt the American effort there. The war has grown so destructive that Afghanistan, where Hamid Karzai was just inaugurated as the first democratically elected President, has become the Administration’s success story almost by default. But Karzai’s victory only ratified a political consensus that had been hammered out by anti-Taliban parties, under United Nations auspices, in Bonn in 2001, and had won immediate international recognition. In Iraq, the United States has tried to stage-manage the political transition alone, and has seen every plan overtaken and nullified by events. Lacking legitimacy in the eyes of both Iraq and the rest of the world, defying international standards and declaring its own, the Administration has had to base its claim on good intentions. But in the war of perception between that claim and the daily stories of tortured prisoners and civilian deaths America is losing. According to Carothers, who has just co-edited the first technical book on democracy promotion in the Middle East, the Iraq model has set back the cause of Arab reformers.

At this point, the Administration seems ready to hold an election and declare victory. Meanwhile, the insurgency looks increasingly like a civil war. An election, though politically necessary, might only worsen the conflict. Shiite politicians and clerics are organizing a unified ballot that will guarantee the majority Shiites a vast share of next month’s election spoils at the expense of the country’s alienated Sunnis. The elected parliament, which will write a constitution, isn’t likely to be truly representative, or to create a political consensus out of this violent polarization. More probably, the losers will opt out and the civil war will intensify. The alternative of delaying elections, advocated by some Sunni and Kurdish politicians and, privately, by some Administration officials, would only antagonize the leading Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the one indispensable man in Iraq today. Delay would also perpetuate the occupation. As always in Iraq, America is faced with bad choices.

Not every country is lucky* enough to be Ukraine, where internal opposition and quiet outside help will likely succeed in replacing a bad regime. But the ordeal in Iraq has shown that a war of liberation is a crude instrument for setting a country free. Democracy is not the absence of tyranny. It has to grow from within over time, and it requires far more care and feeding than Washington seems able to give.

— George Packer

So, my friends, name your poison: would we rather take credit for Ukraine, or for Iraq??

* What a perspective!! - JB

Outed

As William Bendix used to say on "The Life of Riley," what a revoltin' development this is.

I had a great conversation with a friend this evening. He voted for Bush, and I voted for Kerry. Despite that, we're still friends. Anyway, he called me a Democrat.

Not liking to be labeled, I denied it (not hearing the cock crow yet).

He said, "Oh yes you are. Look at your own blog."

So I searched below and found references to voting for Democratic candidates, but no evidence of declaring myself as a Democrat. This reasoning was, though, unacceptable to Rob. "Nope. You're busted, pal," was all he could say.

Not wanting the conversation to flag, I changed the subject.

A few thoughts after the fact:

1. I don't regard myself as a Democrat.
2. However, why would I mind if someone thought I was a Democrat?

Why, indeed. There appears to be some shame assocated with being a Democrat, and much schadenfreude in calling someone else a Democrat.

So I've decided to become one. This event has changed me fundamentally.

I felt sort of like being called a nigger-lover in the 50s, or being called a commie hippie in the 60s, or being called a Republican after Nixon.

I don't like being called anything. But what does it mean to reject a label so strenuously and then revert to principle about it?

So I tried it on for size, albeit gingerly. If I'm a Democrat, then...

1. I favor big government, apparently for its own sake.
2. I believe in welfare and entitlement programs.
3. I think gay people should be allowed to marry.
4. I support Democratic presidents who preside over unprecedented economic expansion.
5. I like unions.
6. I think it's OK not to be Christian; you can be Jewish, Muslim or anything you want.
7. I live in the Pacific Northwest, the upper midwest, or New England.
8. I think rich people should pay more income taxes than working poor.
9. I think America should secure international support before invading other countries, unless they attack us first.
10. I believe in freedom of the press.
11. I think we should relax our immigration standards (although Bush wants to, also).
12. I don't mind paying estate and inheritance taxes.

Well, I don't like 1.
2? I do think the measure of any civilization is how it treats its least fortunate.
3. Why shouldn't they have the chance to be unhappy, too?
4. Yep.
5. Nope.
6. Yep.
7. Right now, yes.
8. Yep.
9. Yep.
10. Yep
11. Yep
12. Yep.

So that's 10 yeps vs. 2 nopes. Rob said I'm busted.

Just don't make me vote straight party lines all the time, and I'll be glad to admit that I'm more Democrat than Republican, at least.

I'm out.