alternative hippopotamus

In his post Adventures in Obscenities the Carpet Bagger touches on a piece of a bigger issue. While he discusses recent Republican outbursts in terms of casual (and inappropriate) use of profanity, I’d like to suggest something more to the point of the Republican style:

The more I thought about it, the more I remembered similar examples from recent years — all of them regarding elite Republicans. Dick Cheney, on the Senate floor, told one lawmaker to “go f— himself.” During the 2000 campaign, Bush told Cheney, “There’s Adam Clymer, major league asshole from the New York Times.” In 2002, Bush poked his head into a national security meeting to announce, “F— Saddam, we’re taking him out.” In 1987, Bush approach the Wall Street Journal’s Al Hunt and, in front of Hunt’s 4-year-old daughter, said, “You no-good f—ing son of a bitch, I will never f—ing forget what you wrote.”

The point of the outbursts is not that the author of the remark has lost control. No, the point is that it’s part of a bogus macho posturing. Bush, Cheney, Scalia, etc., are doing their best Tony Soprano imitation. I’m the boss, see. If you got a problem with that I may just have to rearrange your face.

There’s a good article in Arab News about how this bogus macho posturing, while part of politics since the world began, is particularly acute in the US right now:

None the less, the tendency of some US voters to dismiss Kerry, despite all his medals, as “French” — which for Americans, as for Britons, is often a euphemism for effeminate — and to be impressed by George Bush’s bluster, his wearing of a Stetson, a leather jacket and cowboy boots on his ranch, and images of him chain-sawing trees, suggests at the very least a degree of confusion about what does constitute masculinity.

This is surely one reason why the Republicans — and, indeed, some Democrats (think of Bill Clinton’s busy sexual adventurism) — have been tempted in recent times to use postures of masculinity to such a crass degree. They are not acting this way because Americans possess a strong and confident cult of the masculine virtues, but rather because many are anxiously uncertain about just what these virtues are.

These uncertainties stem in part from America’s own domestic situation. In some respects, female emancipation has progressed further there than in Europe. At present both the Republican and Democratic parties possess powerful female figures who may well come into play in 2008, in Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton.

One of the reasons I bring this up is that I often hear Democratic leaders dismissed as “spineless.” And, make no mistake, there are times when that is just the right word. The lack of support among key Democrats for Feingold’s censure proposal is an example of this, imo. Often, though, I wonder if the “spineless” gauntlet is being thrown down in a pique of bread and circus. By this I mean, that the crowd wants to see a flexing of the muscles. To be sated in a display of machismo.

The other reason I bring this up is in preparation for the 2006 elections. The Republicans have squat. They have failed in their duties to preserve, protect, and defend the country. To add insult to injury they’ve taken bribes for doing squat. The only they’ve got is to throw salt in our eyes. To use the confusion of sexual identity against the electorate.

Recently, on my way to Constantinople, I dropped in an area we had recently liberated in Baghdad, where I took this shot of a supposedly “war torn region” on the brink of “civil war.”

Already you can see the difference in Iraq when democracy is spread at gunpoint. Despite what all the bedwetters say, the world is a safer place with Sadam Hussein no longer in power.

We’re just not hearing the good news coming out of Iraq.

Like Glenn Greenwald says in his post Various Matters, I see the flag-wavers on the right and know not what to say. The issue being discussed is who is waving which country’s flag, in what manner they’re waving it, whether the flag is right-side up, or up-side down.

As she-who-shall-not-be-linked puts it in her post THE AMERICAN FLAG COMES SECOND (yes, I know the caps-lock typing hurts your ears, but Michelle really hasn’t learned to use her inside voice yet):

I predict this stunt will be the nail in the coffin of any guest-worker/amnesty plan on the table in Washington. The image of the American flag subsumed by another and turned upside down on American soil is already spreading on Internet forums and via e-mail.

The battle for borders and immigration laws that actually mean something, however, hasn’t even begun.

So, here’s my question: how is it that the folks who are so anxious to export democracy to other parts of the world would prefer to keep at a distance those wishing to experience our democracy first hand?

Maybe an analogy would help to clarify the question. Let’s say your mother makes the best lasagna. It’s so good that you go around telling people how good it is. If someone says that their mother makes better lasagna, you laugh in their face. Or, if you’re the Vice President, maybe you shoot them. You go around nailing the recipe on people’s doors. You sport a magnet on your car saying “This Lasagna Doesn’t Run.”

Then, when someone says: “You’ve convinced me. I’d really like to come over for dinner so I can check out your mother’s lasagna,” we build a big wall to keep everyone away from the lasagna. If they surreptitiously get some lasagna, we throw them in prison. And, if they tell us that they’re proud of their mother’s lasagna too, but admit that our lasagna is better, we mock them. Or, if we’re the Vice President, we shoot them.

There’s a different line of reasoning I’d recommend. It’s a little less reactionary than the Malkins and Powerline’s of the world. As Thomas Paine put it: (Rights of Man)

In stating these matters, I speak an open and disinterested language, dictated by no passion but that of humanity. To me, who have not only refused offers, because I thought them improper, but have declined rewards I might with reputation have accepted, it is no wonder that meanness and imposition appear disgustful. Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.

As I’m sure many of you know, Karl Rove has been cooperating with the Fitzgerald investigation: (Raw Story)

Karl Rove, Deputy White House Chief of Staff and special adviser to President George W. Bush, has recently been providing information to special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in the ongoing CIA leak investigation, sources close to the investigation say.

According to several Pentagon sources close to Rove and others familiar with the inquiry, Bush’s senior adviser tipped off Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to information that led to the recent “discovery” of 250 pages of missing email from the office of Vice President Dick Cheney.

The most straight-forward read on this is that Rove is rolling over on the office of the Vice President to avoid prosecution.

Commenters at JustOneMinute have a completely different take on where things are at with respect to the investigation. They’re looking at a potential civil lawsuit from Libby against his critics:

I haven’t considered it in depth , but in line with the Lee and Hatfill cases, if the case is dismissed without trial, perhaps Libby should consider civil suits against the NYT, Kristof, the WaPo and Pincus for initiating the false reports which led to this case.(Then we can see why Kristof and Pincus ignored Wilson’s “I was misquoted” claims.)

That was from Clarice Feldman, a regular poster on JustOneMinute. When I say regular, what I mean is that the comment thread is largely Clarice Feldman.

I’ll make a confession, here. When I first saw Clarice’s posts on JustOneMinute a few months ago, I wondered if she was a creation of Tom Maguire’s imagination.

I’ll look into it and see what I can come up with.

In comments Jimmie D asks a very interesting question:

Why do you “AltHippo” think the president authorized the NSA spying program?
What do you think President Bush’s goal was?

George Lakoff’s answer would be that Konservatives* tend to look favorably towards strong authority figures. If someone wanted to unfairly paraphrase Lakoff, you might say that Konservatives have a Daddy Fetish. The tendency towards authority has resulted in the current situation where Bush, Rove, Cheney et al have been trying to increase the power of the Executive at the expense of the Legislative and Judicial branches.

Does the Legislative branch have the ability to make laws that regulate the Executive branch? The Unitary Executive theory says no. Instead, this theory says that each branch of the government has the right and obligation to interpret the law. Since the Executive branch isn’t going to interpret its own actions as violations of the law, the effect is that Congress does not have the power to regulate the Executive.

The answer to Why? therefore has two components: 1.) domestic espionage gives more power to the Executive which on its own is a good thing. 2.) Why not? Meaning, since Congress and the courts have no check on the President, why shouldn’t he do damned well as he pleases?

This LA Times story brings up an additional element. We learn that the FBI has been spying on violent terrorist groups. Like the Quakers:

Denver-area activists said that since the surveillance documents became public, there had been a subtle chill, with some people avoiding protests for fear of ending up in an FBI file. Some activists think the FBI has been watching their groups to intimidate them.

“We’ve kind of gathered up our skirts and pulled in,” said Sarah Bardwell, who works for the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group. Along with some activist roommates, she has also volunteered for Food Not Bombs.

Why would the DOJ authorize domestic groups to be spied on? For a number of reasons, among which I would include control by fear and intimidation. If the consequences of attending a protest or meeting (for instance, not being able to get a job for the rest of your life) far outweigh any potential benefits (for instance, higher wages), then people are going to stay home and try as hard as possible not to be seen.

I’ll also note that this question came up recently on a WaPo chat with Noam Chomsky. Here’s what he had to say: (WaPo)

Wellfleet, Mass.: Mr. Chomsky:

Many fear the country is moving towards a “police state” where the Executive acts according to its desires, without constraint. What possibilities do you see, if any, for the trend towards consolidation of power in the Executive to be thwarted?

Noam Chomsky: The concerns are justified. Thus in this morning’s press it was reported that after signing the new version of the Patriot Act with grandiose flourishes, President Bush quietly issued a “signing statement” that exempted him from its requirement to notify Congress of FBI actions that go beyond court authorizaton. That is yet another brazen affirmation of executive power. There are many others. There is little doubt that this administration is at an extreme in seeking to establish a powerful state executive, free from interference by Congress or public awareness of its actions. The justification is the “war on terror,” but that can hardly be taken seriously. Terror is doubtless a very serious threat, but it is all to easy to demonstrate that it does not rank high in administration priorities.

* annoying spelling due to a lack of the right word. Use of the word “conservative” in this context is inexact. I don’t really believe that the folks that are running the country right now can be defined as conservative in its historical sense.

The notion of “variety of viewpoints” is a canard. Take any subject from current events. For instance, the NSA/domestic espionage saga. No one is looking for a “variety of viewpoints” on domestic espionage. They want to get the facts: 1.) did Bush spy on civilians? 2.) If so, was this legal? 3.) If not, should the administration be held accountable? 4.) Can a program be designed that is both Constitutional and allows for increased domestic security?

Instead, what “variety of viewpoints” means in this context is various pundits waxing on and on over whether this issue will help our hurt the Republicans politically, help or hurt the Democrats politically.

So, that’s one reason why “variety of viewpoints” is not realizable in this time and place.

Here’s another reason: the role of a journalist needs to include the notion of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. Yet, it’s come to mean finding a way to parse Bush/Cheney statements before the war so they didn’t really say that Iraq had WMD, or that Iraq was connected to Al Queda. See, my point here is that Bush and Cheney are very comfortable. They’re the ones that need to be afflicted, not their critics. The problem is not that we lack sufficient variety of views. The problem is that Bush and Cheney are getting with murder, and the 4th estate is not holding them accountable.

What “variety of viewpoints” really means to our wingnut compadres on the right is a variety of their views.

Take the teaching of evolution in our public schools. My mouth dropped as I read this discussion with Gov. Mike Huckabee on the Arkansas Educational Television Network: (Arkansas Times)

Student: Many schools in Arkansas are failing to teach students about evolution according to the educational standards of our state. Since it is against these standards to teach creationism, how would you go about helping our state educate students more sufficiently for this?

Huckabee: Are you saying some students are not getting exposure to the various theories of creation?

Student (stunned): No, of evol … well, of evolution specifically. It’s a biological study that should be educated [taught], but is generally not.

Moderator: Schools are dodging Darwinism? Is that what you …?

Student: Yes.

Huckabee: I’m not familiar that they’re dodging it. Maybe they are. But I think schools also ought to be fair to all views. Because, frankly, Darwinism is not an established scientific fact. It is a theory of evolution, that’s why it’s called the theory of evolution. And I think that what I’d be concerned with is that it should be taught as one of the views that’s held by people. But it’s not the only view that’s held. And any time you teach one thing as that it’s the only thing, then I think that has a real problem to it.

If you read the article you’ll find that the issue is not evolution being taught alonside creationism. Which, by the way, is not permissable under Supreme Court decisions. No, the issue is evolution is not being taught at all in Arkansas.

Is the meaning “variety of viewpoints” now a little more clear?

If not, let me put it like this: the right views the left as “the enemy.” (The left views the right as a kind of freak show, but that’s another story.) How sincerely do you really expect someone to want their enemy’s viewpoint presented?

In the process of gloating over Benji Demenech’s recent resignation, I happened to run across this reaction on NRO:

Second, regardless of whether the plagiarism charges make it impossible for Domenech to continue as the WaPo’s “Red America” blogger, the WaPo would be foolish and craven to bow to this mob — for whom attacking the blogger was just a means to an end — by abandoning the project altogether.

Adding a conservative blog was a smart editorial decision to widen the variety of viewpoints on offer at Washingtonpost.com — not a “sop to the right.” But jettisoning that blog, and thereby limiting the viewpoints on offer, would indisputably be a sop to the left.

This, of course, is remarkable coming from NRO, an activist site strictly for right-wing partisans. Can you imagine the Cornerites inviting Dan Froomkin into the shrill echo-chamber they blog from to provide that illusive balance? I thought not.

Second, I find it interesting that these pre-adolescent pundits make no effort to appeal to a love of truth. In their world, there is no truth, just a “variety of viewpoints.” They are like Creationists who believe that the geological history of the planet Earth needs to be balanced by a reading from Genesis. Again, so that we may be exposed to a “variety of viewpoints.”

Finally, I’ve never understand why right-wing partisans are so rabidly opposed to any form of affirmative action. Except, of course, in the case of conservative bloggers. They need to be made a special case of, be given a role on the pages of prestigious journals. Not because they have any particular skill as the recent “Red America” shows us. If Demenech had any real talent or skill, it was his ability to crib from such a wide variety of authors on such a wide variety of subjects.

Lunchtime, I always have to figure out if I’m going to buy a sandwich from the Safeway or the Whole Foods. Safeway’s prices are better, and I’ve trained the woman who makes my Italian sub not to use mayo (In DC they actually substitute mayo for olive oil on Italian subs. Troglodytes.) Plus, the Safeway has Fritos, while Whole Foods just has their crappy low-salt tortilla chips.

On the other hand, the check out people at Whole Foods have superior repartee. Like, they’ll say “Paper or plastic?” And then, I’ll say: “I’d prefer something in a gold mesh.” Then, they’ll say: “Did you try our Ralph Lauren department?”

Which is funny. ‘Cause everyone knows Ralph Lauren doesn’t make anything in a gold mesh.

But, yesterday, when the woman said: “Paper or plastic?” I said: “I wonder if the terrorists are just isolated kind of people that are angry and took out their anger with an attack.”

I just blurted it out. I could tell the “Ralph Lauren” woman was embarassed, and tried to pretend that I had made such an obvious gaffe.

Then later I heard Bush say:

“Now, I understand some say, well, maybe they’re just isolated kind of people that are angry and took out their anger with an attack. That’s not how I view them.”

As you can imagine I felt duly chastised.

Then today I read the Carpetbagger who said:

As Dan Froomkin responded, “Question for the White House: Can you name one political leader who has said any such thing?” I’d add that if we expand the question beyond political leaders, can the White House name any American anywhere who’s made this argument?

I am that American. God, I feel so stupid.

I’m sure that like you, I saw this quote from (allegedly) Ben Domenech, and wondered about a few things. Here’s the quote:

I just have this specific and deep-rooted dislike for everything Dan Froomkin says and does. He’s one of the dozen or so people in the world that I just detest - along with Noam Chomsky, Eric Alterman, Louis Farrakhan, Barbra Streisand, Kate Michelman, Mitch Albom, Michael Irvin, David Duke, Peter Singer, and Rick Reilly.

Now, I have no idea what the hiring practises are at the Washington Post. Usually, if you interview somewhere, and you tell the interviewer that you have “deep-rooted dislike” for the staff, you get written off pretty quickly. On the other hand, that could make for an interesting news room. Perhaps Jim Brady is trying to create a staff where new hires have nothing but contempt for the old hands.

Ricky Gervais, are you listening? This could be the start of a whole new “Office” spin off. A news room, where only the worse case toadies get hired. It could be hysterical.

From E&P:

• He was home-schooled growing up in Virginia, inspiring a CNN segment with his mother on this subject back in 1997. The popular blog Eschaton even published a transcript, with little Benjamin declaring, “My mom really does make sure we learn something. I mean, you can’t just go halfway.”
• His father, Douglas Domenech, a Republican party activist, also has worked for the White House. Ben announced it himself on his own blog, The Ben File, on Jan. 20, 2002: “My father is now the White House liaison for the Interior Department.”
• Ben once ranked George W. Bush as the fourth greatest president of all time, a notch ahead of Calvin Coolidge and just behind Ronald Reagan. Liberal bloggers helpfully directed Domenech’s new fans and non-fans to his Web site, which carried links to dozens of articles, including one that called all war protests “horrendous and vile” and another that hailed the moral superiority of Claude Allen, the Bush aide recently busted for extensive, if creative, shoplifting.

When you care to hire the very best.