Snow Job

Why don't Fox News and the Bush White House just merge? Surely there would be some economies of scale.

A Measurable Improvement?

That was then:

I glance at the headlines just to kind of [get] a flavor of what's moving. I rarely read the stories...

I have great respect for the media. I mean, our society is a good, solid democracy because of a good, solid media. But I also understand that a lot of times there's opinions mixed in with news.

I appreciate people's opinions, but I'm more interested in news. And the best way to get the news is from objective sources. And the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what's happening in the world.

-George W. Bush, interview with Brit Hume of Fox News, October 17, 2003

This is now:

"I hear the voices and I read the front page and I know the speculation," the president told reporters in the Rose Garden. "But I'm the decider and I decide what's best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense."

-George W. Bush, quoted by AP, April 18, 2006

Now that's front page news. What'll he start reading next, I wonder. The sports page? Maybe the funnies?

If Iran the Zoo

As we relive the no-plan-to-attack-but-all-options-are-on-the-table phase of the propaganda campaign, here’s a reminder to liberal hawks.

The question is not, “Should we attack Iran?”

It’s “Can we trust the Bush Administration with another war?”

As we learned (the hard way) with Iraq, this is not an abstract proposition like, “Should something be done about Saddam?” or “Can we live with a nuclear-armed Iraq/Iran/North Korea?”

To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, you go to war with the administration you have, not the administration you want. If you consent to war, it will be George W. Bush’s war, not Kenneth Pollack’s or Tom Friedman’s or Joe Lieberman’s war. It will do no good to say you support an attack on Iran, just as long as it’s done the way you want. If it happens, it will be done the way George Bush wants, with no input from anyone outside his Midas-touch inner circle.

The evidence from Iraq is pretty clear that the Bush Administration cannot plan or manage the occupations of major Middle Eastern countries. It cannot competently assess the pros and cons of military action in relation to alternative methods of pressure. It cannot conduct public and private diplomacy in a way to isolate our adversaries, rather than ourselves. It cannot set realistic objectives or separate legitimate security interests from harebrained utopian fantasies. It cannot be honest about the costs and risks of war.

Under these circumstances, we would be fools to follow George W. Bush into another war if it can possibly be avoided.

In other words, can the Iranian nuclear program wait three years for a new American president? Or is it so advanced that it needs to be stopped now, even if that means war?

Of course, kicking the can down the road poses risks as well. (Unlike Iraq, Iran has an actual nuclear program.) But is it riskier than going to war again under Bush's leadership?

Bush is like a teenage driver who's wrecked the family car too many times. At a certain point, you've got to take the keys away, even if he has someplace really important to get to.

Constructive Engagement

Last weekend the Rolling Stones gave the world a lesson in how to engage China’s authoritarian government without kowtowing any lower than necessary. Like many Western business enterprises, the Stones were eager to grab a bit of the lucrative Chinese market with a concert tour. They submitted to the government’s conditions, including a ban on five songs: the classics "Brown Sugar," "Honky Tonk Woman," "Beast of Burden" and "Let's Spend the Night Together", as well as the more recent "Rough Justice".

China must be doing a bang-up job teaching English to its people, if it it worries that their morals will be corrupted by a line like "She blew my nose and then she blew my mind". It took me several decades as a native speaker to decipher the more lascivious lyrics of these Stones tunes. Still, you gotta wonder if bureaucratic prudery caused the government to take their eyes off the ball in compiling this list. I mean, how could these guardians of stability have missed “Street Fightin’ Man”?

Everywhere I hear the sound of marching, charging feet, boy
’cause summer’s here and the time is right for fighting in the street, boy

The proscription of five songs didn't put much of a dent into the Stones’ repertoire of salacious material. They managed to include “Bitch” on their set list, and that didn’t come close to exhausting the possibilities. (Think “Some Girls”, “Rocks Off”, “Parachute Woman”, “Stray Cat Blues”, “Midnight Rambler”, “Start Me Up”, "When the Whip Comes Down", “Let It Bleed” -- I could go on, and so could they.)

The irony was not lost on Mick Jagger. Noting that ticket prices were out of reach for most inhabitants of the Chinese capital, he quipped, “I'm pleased that the Ministry of Culture is protecting the morals of the expat bankers and their girlfriends.” Amen.

Not Your Party's Jesus

In his op-ed "Christ Among the Partisans", Garry Wills reaches the startling conclusion that Jesus would not have lined up behind the GOP agenda of tax cuts, moral posturing and ostentatious public piety. But he goes a step further, arguing that those on the left who would invoke Christ in support of anti-poverty programs are equally mistaken. Wills concludes that "Jesus brought no political message or program." In fact, by virtue of his "render unto Caesar" remark, Christ "was the original proponent of a separation of church and state."

The entire piece is worth a read. Wills' real target is not Republican theocrats, whose twisted and cynical use of religion is all too obvious. Rather, he challenges the growing consensus that secular-dominated Democrats must re-learn how to frame their agenda in the language of Christian values, and that such an approach might actually work.

What about all those Biblical passages usually invoked to support the "Social Gospel"? Wills has some fancy footwork ready:

But doesn't Jesus say to care for the poor? Repeatedly and insistently, but what he says goes far beyond politics and is of a different order. He declares that only one test will determine who will come into his reign: whether one has treated the poor, the hungry, the homeless and the imprisoned as one would Jesus himself. "Whenever you did these things to the lowliest of my brothers, you were doing it to me" (Matthew 25:40). No government can propose that as its program. Theocracy itself never went so far, nor could it.

The state cannot indulge in self-sacrifice. If it is to treat the poor well, it must do so on grounds of justice, appealing to arguments that will convince people who are not followers of Jesus or of any other religion. The norms of justice will fall short of the demands of love that Jesus imposes. A Christian may adopt just political measures from his or her own motive of love, but that is not the argument that will define justice for state purposes.

To claim that the state's burden of justice, which falls short of the supreme test Jesus imposes, is actually what he wills — that would be to substitute some lesser and false religion for what Jesus brought from the Father. Of course, Christians who do not meet the lower standard of state justice to the poor will, a fortiori, fail to pass the higher test.

Whether Wills' view of Christ as an other-worldly figure, unconcerned with justice on earth, is theologically defensible or not, I cannot judge. But surely Wills is wrong to say that citing Jesus' words in support of social justice is substituting a "lesser and false religion" in the place of the real one. Particularly since he goes on to imply that such a commitment to "state justice" is a minimum duty of Christians. If so, isn't it appropriate to point this out? Even if Christ's words are not themselves a sufficient basis for public policy, aren't they at least relevant when people claiming to be Christians routinely invoke God in support of tax cuts and a more porous social safety net?

If so, then Wills' ultimate conclusion is not quite right:

The institutional Jesus of the Republicans has no similarity to the Gospel figure. Neither will any institutional Jesus of the Democrats.

It's hard to imagine the Democrats creating an "institutional Jesus" on a par with the Republicans' manly crusader. But if the Christian Left does succeed in resurrecting Jesus as an advocate of peace, compassion and social justice, would he really bear "no similiarity to the Gospel figure"? While such a Christ may not strike everyone as theologically complete, surely he would be a closer approximation than the vindictive avenger favored by many on the Right.

A more practical objection is simply that we cannot expect America's right wingers to stop invoking religion in support of their radical politics, notwithstanding Wills' argument. For Democrats to ignore the ample support available in the Christian tradition for a more just (and sane) approach to government would be spiritually and politically negligent.

Bringing It All Back Home

In his NYT op-ed today, John Kerry proposes getting out of Iraq by the end of the year. In contrast to some of the senator's earlier efforts circa 2004, not to mention the Bush administration's continued vagueness, the plan has the virtues of clarity and simplicity. Kerry offers two simple deadlines: one for the Iraqis to form a government, and another to complete our withdrawal.

The plan's underlying assumptions are that avoiding civil war is the Iraqis' problem (fairly obvious) and that we can live with the consequences if they fail (somewhat less obvious).

Ironically, Kerry is not president today largely due to George W. Bush's biggest mistake. As disasterous a choice as invading Iraq was, it was successful in flummoxing the Democrats in general (and Kerry in particular) for the past three years. Kerry's problem in 2004 was two-fold: he was unable to unite the Democrats (or his own mind) about whether the war was wrong in the first place, and unable to offer a future plan for "victory" that differed dramatically from Bush's. He was reduced to saying that he would have done "everything" differently, while somehow achieving the same aims. The result was a mess of arguments. Each true in itself (i.e., Saddam was dangerous enough to merit the threat of war, but not war itself; we sent too few troops to control Iraq, but we should not increase them), yet they formed an incoherent critique as a whole. Meanwhile, Bush's arguments were false in nearly every particular (i.e., Saddam had WMD, Iraq was the central front in the war on terror, we had international support, progress was being made), but they had the virtue of internal consistency.

So should Kerry have offered this plan in 2004? Would a deadline for withdrawal have allowed him to draw a sharper contrast with Bush, and thereby win the election? I doubt it. In November 2004, the public learning curve on Iraq was still pretty steep. It was just beginning to sink in that the war had been launched for fraudulent reasons and should never have happened. But the sentiment was still strong that once in, we had to see it through. Kerry (and Howard Dean, for that matter) had no choice but to accept American responsibility for ensuring Iraq's future stability, regardless of how difficult that task would prove to be.

War supporters will no doubt seize on Kerry's new plan as confirmation of their charge that if elected he would have "cut and run" from Iraq at the first opportunity. It's more likely that Kerry didn't announce this plan for the simple reason that it wasn't yet his plan. Had he taken office in January 2005, I bet he would have given war one last chance, even if it rested on the shaky notions that allies could be re-enlisted in the cause and that an effective Iraqi army could be quickly formed to assume the burden of the fight. The difference is that Kerry would have been in a position to change course if facts proved these assumptions wrong, while Bush has made a stubborn refusal to observe (let alone react to) reality into the cornerstone of his Iraq policy.

It's possible, then, that the election was fought on the right issue. America chose the stubborn guy, and we can look forward to many more years in Iraq as a result.

As John Kerry tries to position himself for another run in 2008, he can only hope that Bush's failures don't sink him yet again. Today's op-ed is refreshingly free of nuance. The question is whether it is a position Kerry can stick to, defend, and rally his party around. That leadership question is still unresolved.

Exterminator

"You make a nice cup of tea Mrs Murphy . . . Sure I'll be taking care of your roaches . . . Oh don't be telling me where they are . . . You see I know Mrs Murphy . . . . experienced along these lines . . . And I don't mind telling you Mrs Murphy I like my work and take pride in it."

"Well the city exterminating people were around and left some white powder draws roaches the way whiskey will draw a priest."

"They are a cheap outfit Mrs Murphy. What they left was fluoride. The roaches build up a tolerance and become addicted. They can be dangerous if the fluoride is suddenly withdrawn . . ."

-William S. Burroughs, Exterminator
(1973)

TIME: Your smiling mug shot—what made you think of that and what do you think the consequence of that has been?

DeLay: Oh, I don't know. I said a little prayer. First of all, you only get one take. It's a very humiliating thing, to be booked. And I said a little prayer before I actually did the fingerprint thing, and the picture. And my prayer was basically: "Let people see Christ through me. And let me smile." Now, when they took the shot, from my side, I thought it was fakiest smile I'd ever given. But through the camera, it was glowing. I mean, it had the right impact. Poor old left couldn't use it at all. They had all kind of things planned, they'd spent a lot of money. It made me feel kind of good that all those plans went down the toilet.

-Time Magazine, Tom DeLay Explains His Decision (2006.04.03)

Before today, it had never occured to me to look for Christ in Tom DeLay's fraudulent smile. If the Gospels are to be trusted, even Jesus was unable to muster a grin at his arraignment.

My guess is that Tom will get another take on the mug shot, what with a second top aide copping a guilty plea and metamorphing into a federal witness. It's hard to imagine how he could be a more jovial subject the second time around, with neither a majority leader's office nor even a congressional seat to fall back on. DeLay might have thought he could survive Ronnie Earle's state money laundering charges, but he must have reason to believe that a second round of indictments, this time on a federal rap in the Abramoff affair, would be a fatal dose.

The sudden self-squishing of the Bug Man leaves a much-needed void in the Culture of (Non-Insect) Life, just as the empty tomb was bad news for the Culture of Death. Still, there's more whimper than bang in this denouement. In his previous vows to fight to the last, DeLay had seemingly promised, if not a Calvary, at least a Hammerdämmerung. Instead, he has apparently opted for a condo in Virginia.

True believers must obviously be crushed. Less obviously, so too are some of those who have become addicted to the spectacle of DeLay's inexorable political fumigation. The prospect of making the Bug Man a poster boy for Republican corruption and misrule in 2006 had finally attracted the imagination of Democratic campaign strategists (better late than never, I guess). Viewed in this light, the more determined legal flailing from corruption-encrusted GOP incumbents over the summer, the better. So amidst the satisfaction of having finally seen DeLay's demise--which once seemed so improbable--there is perhaps a whiff of disappointment that the man turned out to have so little fight in him.

Such disappointment is misplaced. Any steps which ushers this man closer to the exits of our public life should be welcomed with banners and parades. As for the timing, it cannot be helped.

And as anyone who has ever seen a zombie movie can attest, you don't have the luxury of assuming that the dead aren't going to come back. If DeLay does return, you can bet he won't be looking anything like Jesus.