Well, you just reduced the odds that I'll get out of bed tomorrow morning. And I've reduced the shazam of the previous sentence correspondingly.
Gee, thanks a lot. I have now relocated under the bed and am not coming out.
This actually doesn't surprise me much.
I'm with teo. Those in charge have done a fantastic job of lowering my expecations. Bully for them on that front.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but:
“If he is the executive in a counterterrorism operation in the post-9/11 world, he does not need to memorize the collected statements of Osama bin Laden, or be able to read Urdu to be effective. ... Playing ‘Islamic Trivial Pursuit’ was a cheap shot for the lawyers and a cheaper shot for the journalist. It’s just a gimmick.”
Cry, the beloved country.
The thing I also liked was the use of "radical" to mean "nationalists opposed to America", as in "one is more radical than the other".
I can never decide if the guys at the top are incompetent idiots who cannot be trusted to do the job they actually intend to do, or if they're very competent, know this whole thing is bullshit, and so don't waste time learning irrelevant information.
This is actually pretty important for them to know in at least one way I can articulate (there are a zillion more). Last weekend, I read through a bunch of the CSRT (Combatant Status Review Tribunal) transcripts for Gitmo prisoners. In many of them, the tribunal would read from a list of allegations: "The detainee is a member of Al-Qaeda." Over and over again, the detainee is like "how the hell could I be a member of Al-Qaeda? I'm a Shiite. They're not." It seemed to fall on deaf ears, seeing as that all of them were determined enemy combatants anyway. Seems like the tribunal didn't really understand the whole Sunni/Shiite thing.
At least that Shiite Crescent book hasn't managed to stir up the political class. Yes, I'm thanking god for the lesser blessings because this interview makes me want to cry.
“Now that you’ve explained it to me,” he replied, “what occurs to me is that it makes what we’re doing over there extremely difficult"
Holeey crap.
I also read Salon's interview with Andrew Sullivan, where he's *still* saying "we were completely deceived. It never occurred to me that they would not send enough troops to keep the peace or establish order, or, when presented with the evidence that they needed to do so, would simply refuse to entertain the argument."
How does shit like this *not occur* to people as something they should find out about in advance?
Ok, once again the bozos in charge have found a way to startle me with their incompetence.
Is Bush's lack of curiosity about the world catching? Is this the way the bureaucracy operates normally?
The Bushism that is catching is this: That crap about managers not needing to know detail stuff sounds like a parody of MBA talk to me, just as much of what Bush says.
Again, I bring up the case of Major Robert Bateman, US Army, and Greg Alterman's "Iraq correspondent" at Altercation, who was once asked whether the US had been learning from its British allies about how to deal with the IED threat, and replied: "No. The British Army has no experience with IEDs." (More or less equivalent to saying "The Vietnamese army has no experience in jungles".)
It may not be turtles all the way down, but it's sure as hell ostriches all the way up...
re:12 Something I've noticed among military men who are willing to engage and explain, like Maj. Bob or the occasional caller to liberal talk radio. There's usually a blythe denial of some common sense understanding within a few sentences, or else crashing non-sequiters. They may have not drunk the koolaid, but they've sipped it. I can only hope that those willing to engage, who call in or write or blog about the war on the basis of being military officers, are by that fact alone among those who must believe, and the mental gymnastics necessary to maintain belief are formidable. So that the armed forces have plenty of responsible officers at all levels who know it's bs just as much as we do, but from whom we won't hear for that very reason.
holy fucking shit. that's just incredibly stupid. like, mecha-godzilla stupid. the congressmen I can even sort of be not shocked by, but the FBI guy??!!??
Y'know, it's not whether the guy can name, off the top of his head, whether Iran and Iraq are Shi'ite or Sunni, that bothers me. Like the reporter says, it's easy to say 'gotcha!'.
It's this that freaks me out:
To his credit, he asked me to explain the differences. I told him briefly about the schism that developed after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, and how Iraq and Iran are majority Shiite nations while the rest of the Muslim world is mostly Sunni. “Now that you’ve explained it to me,” he replied, “what occurs to me is that it makes what we’re doing over there extremely difficult, not only in Iraq but that whole area.”
I'm hoping that the reporter is self-aggrandizing. I can understand not being able to remember which branch was which when pressed (like being bad with terminology or jargon, or being an expert on Russia), but knowing that there were differences that were important. But to be surprised? Gee, it might be harder than we thought given this information! Isn't that part of your job, o CEO leader, to know what kind of information is relevant even if you don't know the specifics?
Sadly, I'm not even a little surprised. We have created a government in our image. Those officials gave more informed answers than 90% of Americans could offer. Hell, our president is the epitome of the C- student.
Small quibble on that last point, about Bush as a C- student. Hell, I was a C- minus student quite a bit of the time. I remember reading that Bush's college grades were on average higher than Gore's, and whether or not that's true, it's clear that Gore has never stopped learning, while Bush is somehow unable to learn much.
I was listening this morning to people being asked on NPR what the US population was, and the guesses were wild — statistically 300M as of this morning. I feel that the attitude of the educated, constantly ranking people by how they do in school, using it as a metaphor for knowledge or basic intelligence, plays a role in provoking the hostility to knowledge that many Americans display.
Ogged, no one cares about the sand-nigger religions. Get on your camel and ride back home.
“Now that you’ve explained it to me,” he replied, “what occurs to me is that it makes what we’re doing over there extremely difficult, not only in Iraq but that whole area.”
-- Captain Obvious, R-AL.
17: I like the one that said 'Uh, two million?' But I don't think that elite smarty-pants hostility to the uneducated is the reason there's a strain of anti-intellectualism in the U.S. It's a very old strain, for one, that predates a lot of the standardized testing and competitive child rearing: triumph of the common man, Mark Twain's heroes, poor rural boy makes it big by besting the rich kids using common sense and pluck.
At least he had common sense. Of course it's not the only reason, but it's real enough, infuriating, and it cuts down communication, sympathy and respect. But maybe elite smarty-pants hostility is precious to some people, and one of the compensating joys of their existence..
21 -- Which does more harm, elite smarty-pants hostility or willful (and well armed) ignorance?
We have to choose? One is something we can and should do something about as individuals. Unless I'm right and snarking on people's ignorance is too important for people to give up
By contrast, I laughed out loud upon reading the final line of the quote.
Combine populist anti-intellectualism with the rich-boy sense of entitlement and you have a toxic mix.
Molly Ivins explains Bush in terms of three fundamental Texas values: anti-intellectualism, macho, and piety. (She talks about the rich-boy thing a lot too, but it isn't one of the three texas values).
Lind (Made in Texas) thinks that Bush's fundamental values trace to the Confederate plantation-owners of East Texas (and their cousins in Latin America).
Cala#15: yes. It would be disturbing if, at this time of tension in North-East Asia, senior officials were confused as to whether North or South Korea was the communist one that had just tested a nuclear weapon. But this is the equivalent of someone saying: "Holy cow! You're telling me there are two Koreas? Well, that explains why everything's so tense over there!"
Perople being dumb is one thing, being willfully ignorant while in a position of responsibility is another. The latter is fully blameworthy and we ought to scorn those ignorant fucks every chance we get.
21: You did get that the Connecticut Yankee was the hero of the story... the anti-intellectual, common man bootstraps guy is the hero. not the buffoon.
I think we'd be better off if the President's speech at Yale back in 2001 hadn't exulted that he was President and had only been a C student. Or that if his party wasn't currently trumpeting that those scientists don't know any better than the religious right wankers, so really, shouldn't we teach both kinds of science? Because quite frankly, I'm worried that my kids are going to be wishing they could afford to fly to Beijing because that's where all the good medicine is.
But I'm really not getting this 'I hate smart people, so they must have done something to deserve it' sort of rhetoric. Or from there to the inference that we shouldn't be worried or mock people who allege that they're smart enough to get by without those pesky constitutional regulations when they can't figure out that when someone says 'I'm Shi'ite, I'm not part of al-Qaeda' that he might being making meaningful noises.
Or maybe smarty-pants elitism is provoked by the proud and crashing ignorance of our compatriots. But I don't really care, because if you're going to go off killing people and remaking the world, and you don't bother to get a clue first, you're morally culpable.
26 is cracking me up. 'Ohhh, that's why we can't just get Seoul to talk to Pyongyang!'
Also, it's not smarty-pants elitism to laugh at the head of the FBI, who has a master's degree from Princeton. Again, I don't think the game of 'gotcha' is so important, as the guys who are grey-haired enough to be running things now focused on the threats that were actually there when they were first specializing. Gonna bet if you went to school for international relations in 1967 you probably didn't focus on Islam as much as Communism. It's more that not only does the article make it seem as if they can't keep the basics straight, it's more that they're coming across as not aware that there might be some important basics at all.
Does anyone find the last statement somewhat heartening? As though we could change the hearts and minds of the Republican leadership by information dropping their horse farms?
You know what really throws me about this? We are imprisioning people without trial and torturing them because we need vital intelligence from them. On the other hand, people in charge don't know important, necessary stuff you could find out in a local library (not the research branch or anything -- I bet my neighborhood NYPL branch has something that would explain the difference between Sunni and Shiite.) Shouldn't the information that can only be extracted by torture be a last resort?
33. The idea of people being waterboarded until they agree to give a course on Muslim Theology 101 would have a sort of Bunuelesque attraction if one didn't suspect it was actually happening as we speak.
32 -- My reaction was a mix of yours and Kotsko's.
The "elitism" divide is between successful people of one kind and successful people of a different kind. Often they even have formally similiar educations (e.g., Bush at Yale). There are a certain number of self-made men among the anti-intellectual group, but in many cases (Bush again) that's pure schtick. Self-madeness is a device used to validate ignorance.
I think that it's a theory / practice, humanities / applied divide. A lot of people have no interest in the "liberal arts bullshit" and only want hands-on stuff that gets things done, makes money, and puts them in power.
So the operative term in "cultural elite" is "cultural". It's a battle between the finance-engineering-military-media elite and a different elite.
The media are divided, but increasingly the people at the top are on the Bush side, and the people below are cynics.
If anyone wants to read a book that makes it clear how long the proud ignorance of America has been around, Fanny Trollope (Anthony Trollope's mother) came to America and wrote a book about her experiences.
It is not a flattering depiction, but it does make it quite clear that 'We're Americans! We don't have to know anything because we're special!' has always been a part of our glorious heritage.
17: Gore evidently screwed around freshman year [who didn't?] playing pool more that attending class, but managed to graduate cum laude.
I'm not surprised by the lack of knowledge in Congress - does anyone actually think that they read all those bills they pass, much less understand them? Or that most of them aren't more devoted to maintaining their own little fiefdoms than to doing the best thing for the country as a whole? [vide the Foley Follies, bridges to nowhere, the anti-science stance .]
Not surprised, but completely disgusted. As usual.
Congressmen are middlemen between their contributors, the voters, and the government. I doubt that more than half of them have any ideas to speak of, and my guess is that only 10-20% of them are really sharp on even a single issue (beyond being sharp at winning elections and delivering goodies to people who want goodies.)
My understanding (I can get a source for this later) is that Fanny's book is essentially fiction (at least for a number of the more gauche anecdotes) and that insofar as it's reported as fact, she's lying.
(Who didn't?)
*raises hand*: Did very, very well my freshman year and worked very hard; at the beginning of the subsequent year I attempted suicide and dropped out of college.
36: Of course. In a way, it's a recast of Arnold's Philistine/Sweetness-and-light divide. People whose values are entirely focused on doing, and who deprecate thinking or knowing. I'm with you there.
And there is nothing wrong with mocking the ignorance of people responsible for policy or discretion where that ignorance is obviously a serious cause of failure and catastrophe. They have a duty to inform themselves, and ought to be ashamed of not knowing basic facts.
What amazes me is how the reigning metaphor for knowing, for learning, for being curious, somehow manages to put us back in the classroom, smart kids vs. dumb, the eternal divide, success in that highly artificial environment determinative and characteristic of the very idea of knowing.
42 -- I think the problem is that the folks who have harnessed the ignorant as their path to power will always hide behind anti-elitism. Ridicule a dumb leader, and he says to his followers 'they think we're too stupid to run this country' -- I realize 'well, if the shoe fits' is something of a counterproductive response, we're caught between tolerating/venerating ignorance and being the snarky know-it-alls they say we are. Obviously there's some country in between, and I think you're right to say that's where we ought to live, but catering to ignorance (tolerating talk about ID, for example) has (a) no upside, because they know we aren't sincere and (b) unintended consequences in the undermining of all Enlightenment values.
But you've just admitted how harmful the binary quality of this divide is, then hastened to reassert it, as if not snarking in such a way were somehow catering to ignorance. Stupidity, pig-headedness and incompetence ought to be easy enough to point out without invoking this family of tropes.
Stupidity, pig-headedness and incompetence ought to be easy enough to point out without invoking this family of tropes.
I agree with the word 'ought.' I do not beleive that 'are' can be substituted. Because of the eagerness on the other side to see everything as code.
I think the problem is that the folks who have harnessed the ignorant as their path to power will always hide behind anti-elitism.
For those who don't follow "Get Your War On," the 2d strip from the top is the definitive statement on Bush and the "elitism" charge. Definitive for me, anyway.
I love GYWO.
Listen. Me like simple words. Make me feel strong. But simple words plus morally compromised geopolitical strategic framework not so great. Maybe? Or me bad citizen for think that?
43. So which is worse, cynically exploiting the rubes on your quest to power, or being one of the "true believers". Here we start to see the true genius of the Founders, who really didn't trust democracy all that much. As apparantly neither do you.
It's worth noting that nobody trusts a strict democracy much, which is why we explicitly limited the scope of potential mob rule. That the present Administration doesn't much respect those limitations doesn't mean that the limitations weren't (or shouldn't be or haven't long been understood to be) written in from the first.
Which is why it is better to be both a small r and capital R republican.
Which is why it is better to be both a small r and capital R republican.
Not the way you've structured your party recently. All the people most inclined to doubt the masses--all the least populist people--are streaming our way. Who do you think George Will's voting for this time around?
I don't read or watch Will. I find Barrone's barometer more finely tuned.
. I find Barrone's barometer more finely tuned.
And I think he (like Barnes, who was once my favorite TNR writer) has become a total psycho (of the overgrown D&D geek persuasion). So the different parties still serve some purpose.
You must be joking. The framers may have feared mob rule, but even moreso, they feared a supremely powerful executive. Which is why, regardless of capitalization, your party is a threat to the republic.
Barrone is too old to have played D&D, and I'll bet he is sory he missed that particular diversion. He was the first MSM columnist that I know of to regularly refer to blogs as sources of information and insight.
54. I agree about the unitary executive, and while I don't think the power grab is nefarious, I think it is dangerous and needs to be quoshed.
"I don't think the power grab is nefarious"
How can it not be? Seriously.
Here we start to see the true genius of the Founders, who really didn't trust democracy all that much. As apparantly neither do you.
The reason we have a bill of rights is that democracy is untrustworthy.
So which is worse, cynically exploiting the rubes on your quest to power, or being one of the "true believers".
There are two possible meanings for true believer in this sentence. One could be 'someone who thinks that earth is only some 6,000 years old,' for example. I have no problem saying that such a person is not 'worse' than the people who know it's not 6,000 years old, but pander to the people who think it is 6,000 years old to gain power. The question seems a no-brainer to me.
The other meaning of true believer is someone who thinks -- truly believes -- that the earth is several billion years old, and therefore thinks that the people who think it's only 6,000 are either deluded, misinformed, or stupid (not mutually exclusive categories). I do not see any logic by which someone would argue that such a true believer is 'worse' than someone who panders to those who believe in a 6,000 year old earth.
"I agree about the unitary executive, and while I don't think the power grab is nefarious".
I don't think that there are any nice power grabs.
It seems characteristic of Republicans to be very indulgent toward people they think of as good people, and very harsh toward those who the think of as bad people, and not be all nitpicky about what it is that either of them are actually doing.
Beyond the fact that power grabs are bad, I think that Bush is about the worst choice of an American President to grant unitary power. Stupidity, meanness, impulsivenss, stubbornness..... this isn't the Philosopher King.
59: Right about Bush's character. I'm actually amazed by how much the entire government mirrors his flaws and weaknesses, like the bumptious clowns in this post. No compensation, amplification. Cupidity and cowardice, too.
Whatever distinction you wish to make, if you think the power grab is dangerous, you cannot in good faith vote Republican this term.
The trick is to be smart, know your shit, and not be a snot about it Being able to explain complex things clearly in colloquial language and being able to demonstrate competence without arrogance are highly prized American virtues. Really, what we ought to look down on is not that people don't know the Sunni/Shiite distinction--after all, it's complex--but that the specific people the reporter's asking about it, by not having studied, are not doing their jobs. Ignorance is not the same as stupidity and sloth.
I'm sure there are complexities, but the fact that a distinction exists -- not complex. But B is right anyway.
The Sunni / Shia distinction is not complex, but you have to be willing to spend a few minutes. Roughly:
1. Most Iranians are Shias, but there are many scattered Arab Shias. (And Iranians are not Arabs!)
2. The split goes back over a thousand years and is very entrenched, like Catholic / Orthodox. During some periods Sunnis and Shias massacred one another.
3. The split had to do with a disagreement about who was the true heir of Muhammed.
4. Sunnis tend to be a bit more austere, and Shias tend to be a bit more mystical.
5. Saudis are Sunnis and consider themselves to be the custodian of Muhammed's tradition, centered in the holy cities of Medina and Mecca.
That's not a lot, and it doesn't take long to learn, but you have to be willing to bother. It's not even 100% accurate, but good enough.
I would say that people who haven't bothered to figure out the difference should defer in some way to those who have bothered, and the fact that they don't is the infuriorating (sp) thing.
57. Not nefarious in the sense in trying to undermine the Republic. Dangerous in that it erodes the checks and balances. I'm sorry Mr. President, that you must get approval for the things you feel are important in prosecuting the War on Terror, but that is the way our system works. It will outlast you, and all of us commenting here, if we don't succumb to our base fears and trade expediency for principle.
59. I don't think that it is only Republicans who give their side the benefit of the doubt. But as I think I have said before, and as this post so poignantly points out, the problem I ahve with the current Administration is that they are not demonstrating the seriousness of the situation by their actions as well as their words. And until the Democrats words are serious about the War on Terror, I can not in good conscience vote for them, either. And by being serious, I mean more than carping on the conduct of the war, which they have done in spades.
"serious about the War on Terror"
I'm genuinely curious. What sort of animal do you think this is? Can you describe it in concrete terms?
Anyone who after 9-11 didn't sit down and read at least one serious book about the middle east doesn't deserve to be in elected office.
But John, you're eliding a lot, especially in 2-4. What caused the split? What's the argument over heritage based on? How did it become so entrenched? In what sense are austere and mystical opposites? What do you mean by "austere" and "mystical," anyway? If Iranians aren't Arabs, what are they? I mean, your points explain *that* these things matter, but not really why or how--i.e., the complexities that allow for actually beginning to understand something, as opposed to simply knowing it as a fact.
Right. Hilzoy just attempted a very short "things you shoulda learned in school" definition too. Quite concise, actually, though focused on the players/scorecard aspect. What about the guys interviewed who knew this distinction but not much more? Less silly but without receiving a lot of advice, no less dangerous.
64 -- are there Persian Shias?
Almost all Persians are Shia, right?
66. What I mean is all this crap about body armour and up armoured humvees is not serious, it's carping. Gen. Shinseki said we needed to be careful not to try to do the job of a twelve division army with ten divisions, so where is the bill to increase the end strength. All this crap about Bush letting N. Korea go nuclear, when 1. It has been ongoing for at least three Administration and 2. China has infinitely more influence than the US. If Tony Blair, who was Bill Clinton's buddy, can work with GWB, why is he toxic to everyone else other than politics? The partisanship goes two ways, I know, and Karl Rove governing as though there was a landslide infuriates those who look for consensus, but there ya go. I ranted a liitle too much and lost my way, but I haven't had my second cup of coffee yet.
B, those are the bare minimum things that people need to know but don't. For political analysis, they're most of what you need, with local details added according to time and place. You don't need to have a deep grok of the essence of Shia and Sunni, or the distinction between 12ers and 5ers, or the biographies of Ali and Hussein.
Decades ago I read Le Monde on the Lebanon civil war. I'd been reading imbecile reports in US papers for a week or more. Le Monde had a simple roster of players: Maronites, Syrian Orthodox, Druze, Sunnis, Shias, and Armenians, with their geographical strongholds and shifting alliances. It took about 5-10 minutes to read and had infinitely more value than everything I'd read up till that time. Any one of the Times-Post-AP reporters, if they had read that snippet, would have reported more intelligently. But they didn't bother.
67 -- Would you count Camus' "The Stranger"?
71 -- Yeah I was just trying to play with -gg-d's "Persian" / "Iranian" distinction, didn't really come off.
Sorry, you're blaming the Democrats who control neither the executive nor either house of congress for not successfully increasing troop strength and running the war in Iraq properly? Charlie Rangel introduced a bill for a draft -- is that serious enough for you?
Iranian and Persian are synonyms.
72: No, that wasn't my question. I understand what you meant by "carping." But we need to define what this "global war on terror" is, don't we, if we are going to decide what is and isn't "getting serious"? So: what is it, in your opinion?
I'm going to redact my response to TLL. That's as much comity as I'm capable of.
Iranian and Persian are synonyms.
And yet many Persian cats are not Iranian.
75. Cholly Rangel Draft bill was the least serious bill presented. That is exactly what I'm talking about. It was a cheap partisan trick, and everyone knew it. We do not need draft. We do not need a pool of several million to give deferments or special treatment. What we need is to get rid of stupid policies like don't ask, don't tell. And I am blammmng the one's in power for their failure. I just don't think the shadow government is up to the task, either.
TLL, based on your posts and stated beliefs, I think you'd be violating your own principles if you voted for anyone.
73 is absolutely right in every particular.
Also, if I were this journalist running around DC asking people if they knew the difference between the Sunni and the Shia, I would have a hell of a time restraining myself from throttling anyone in a position of responsibility who answered incorrectly.
Or just asking "Aren't you ashamed of yourself? Do you walk around all day feeling bad that you are doing a vitally important job, and you're too embarrassingly ignorant to have a hope in hell of doing it properly? Are you that ignorant because you're lazy, or because you don't really care? And if you aren't ashamed every waking moment, why not?"
all this crap about body armour
I can assure you that the shortage of body armor is not "crap" to the mothers of soldiers in Iraq who are frantically trying to raise money to purchase body armor for their sons.
TLL, based on your posts and stated beliefs, I think you'd be violating your own principles if you voted for anyone.
Based on his posts and stated beliefs, I have to strongly encourage TLL not to violate his own principles. Stay strong!
LB, I have voted in every election since I turned 18. Not happy about some of the choices, but there you go. I think you just have to go with the lesser weevil. (unless cthulu does run, then be sure to vote for the greatest evil).
So, what I understand this to say:
And until the Democrats words are serious about the War on Terror, I can not in good conscience vote for them, either.
Is that you're going to vote for the Republicans who, having full control of the executive and the legislature, have royally fucked up the 'War on Terror', whatever you may consider that to consist of, rather than voting for the Democrats who have tried to stop them. And your basis for that decision is that you don't trust the Democrats to treat the 'War on Terror' seriously, and apparently you do trust the nitwits who have been screwing it up for the last five years.
Neat.
The Libertarians are looking strong this year, Leech.
LB I think that your phrase "tried to stop them" is the key. Had they "tried to help them".aybe it would be different. And my disctrict is pretty blue, so don't lose any sleep over my vote.
My tacit comity is slipping, but I really believe that TLL is beyond communication on this point.
His guy is stinking up the place as badly as any American president in history, and he's whimpering about details of individual Democratic bills, and about individual Democratic speeches that he doesn't like.
Democrats can't even get bills out of committee. They're sometimes not allowed to debate bills that are up for a vote, or offer amendments. In one or more cases they haven't even been allowed to read a bill before voting on it. Bush is cynically milking the war on terror for political advantage at the very time that he's botching it up terribly.
But the Democrats aren't serious.
Jesus, many members of Bush's anti-terrorism team have turned against him (Beers, Clarke, Plame, and one other), but it's the Democrats who aren't serious. Bush is sending incompetent Republican legacy kids to run Iraq, and the Democrats aren't serious.
And yes, I AM biting my tongue.
You haven't said a thing I disagree with.
Being 'serious' apparently doesn't require learning the difference between Shia and Sunni, or listening to generals who tell you how many troops it takes to control an insurgency, or having someone in charge of FEMA (which might be an agency that would be useful if, oh, THERE WERE A FREAKING TERRORIST ATTACK) who'd had a job in charge of something more demanding than the Arabian Horse Association or whatever it was called.
What on God's green earth TLL thinks 'seriousness' consists of, I can't imagine.
Tried to help them with what? Fighting a war in Iraq, which was not a terrorist threat? Or, you know, actually trying to do something to prevent or safeguard the US against *terrorism*, which the administration hasn't, as far as I can see, actually done anything substantive about?
It is a tragedy that we can not do better in our political class than to be led by these jokers. But the system weeds out all but the most crass and opportunistic. Believe it or not, the current politician that I admire most if Feingold. Not for his policies or positions, but for his integrity. He is not afraid to take an unpopular position if he thinks it is right. Everyone else seems to have a finger in the air, or up their (or someone else's) butt.
So if you vote for the Democrats, Feingold will have more power.
That bitterness you detect is the realization of unseriousness in the Republican party as well.
Who are the assholes who've decided that Feingold is an "unelectable" Presidential aspirer, and how can we get them to shut up?
Okay. (And while I'm being heated here, I'm trying not to be too much of a jerk about it. My apologies to the extent that I'm being rude; while I disagree with you about, apparently, almost everything, I admire your ability to keep your temper.)
But once you're saying that neither party is 'serious', you take 'seriousness' off the table as a method for deciding between the parties. At that point you have a choice between the party that, with full control of all the levers of power, has been royally screwing everything up for the last five years, or the party that has been (albeit in a manner that is less 'serious' than you would like) trying to stop them from screwing things up.
I have a hard time seeing how you get to a decision to vote for the first rather than the second party.
until the Democrats words are serious about the War on Terror, I can not in good conscience vote for them
This is a deeply unserious statement.
Well, we've got him to admit that the worst, most incompetent, most fraudulent, most irresponsible, most reckless, most vicious President in American history, the one he voted for twice, is just as bad as a Democrat. I really feel triumphant.
LB- probably the article that I saw on Kevin Drum's site yesterday, the one saying that you are "branded" by your political leanings in your 20's, esp. if there was/ is a popular President. For me that would be RR. I have been arguing with my left leaning friends about START, Pershing Missles, Star Wars, etc for a long time. Anfd for the record, I was not a Clinton hater. He bothered me personally, in a "the rules don't apply to me" way, but the DLC left- centerist was only marginally worse than a right-centerist would have been.
100: So you are saying that, blinded by the political `branding' you received via Reagon, you are unable to apply logic to your own positions today? And who `isn't serious' here?
To complain about Clinton as a `rules don't apply to me' sort of guy in the era of Bush junior has worn past thin, by the way.
Much as I love turning every thread into "why Leech isn't a Democrat", let me just say that the question LB asked was why one would choose one party over the other, all other things being equal, or at least equally unserious. And if the Democrats want to project seriousness, they should ditch Pelosi. Harman would be fine.
What, precisely, is the problem with Pelosi? I love her.
100: TLL, if I could manage the same transition by the middle of Bush's first term, you can do it now. All it takes is a willingness to admit that you were wrong about these guys. You can throw in all the qualifiers you want--raised Republican, loved Reagan, whatever--but at some point you have to get real enough to recognize that things that Emerson and LB (among others) are saying to you here are 100% true. Eventually, refusal to reconsider one's political allegiances despite overwhelming evidence of a need to do so eventually puts us into good German territory. There are differing opinions here as to how near or how far from such a scenario we may be, but we're further out on the slippery slope than we really ought to get.
103: Oh, come on. Surely you've noticed she's a woman from California. How could anyone take someone like that seriously?
Harman is from CA also. And Dave- I have had that "good German" talk with some friends of mine.
107: I recognize that you're struggling with it and that it's hard. But what seems to be holding you back now is tribal identity stuff rather than the merits. That's perfectly natural, but it's getting ugly in the United States of 2006.
OT: I see that there's a DaveL who's not me commenting at Sausagely's. Not too surprising, but now I suppose I'm going to have to come up with a handle of my very own.
Leech, can you say what it is we've got to get serious about? So far you haven't. Let me repeat my question again: what is this war on terror we're supposed to be serious about? If you can't say what it is, how can you determine who's serious or not about it?
There are worse things than this alleged "unseriousness'. I listed some of them in #99. "Unseriousness" is a soundbite cliche propagated by hacks. From time to time someone explains what the Democratic plan would be, and it's in one ear and out the other.
Again, I don't think this guy is worth bothering with, and that's what I say after biting my tongue. He seems to think that being a Republican is like a tattoo, but tattoos can be removed, if there a will. And it's a fucking ugly tattoo.
It’s not all so grimly humorous. Some agency officials and members of Congress have easily handled my “gotcha” question. But as I keep asking it around Capitol Hill and the agencies, I get more and more blank stares. Too many officials in charge of the war on terrorism just don’t care to learn much, if anything, about the enemy we’re fighting.
How many? Which ones? Did 10% get it right and 90% get it wrong? Or did 90% get it right and he just reported the ones that got it wrong? No D's listed in there. And there is going to be a minority leader on every committee. Did they get it wrong too?
How many D's (then majority party, or use R's during the same period when discussing Communists) would've been able to discern the difference between Italian Fascism and Nazism during World War II? Or the local ethnic distinctions between North and South Vietnam? Or been able to identify the differences between, say, left and right 'deviationists' or Maoism and Leninism?
If you have any tears left, this would be a good time.
This is the intellectual version of scare stories on the local news about the deadly dangers of lawn darts. Where they close at the end explaining there while there have been scary incidents, there have been no actual deaths or injuries due to lawn darts....but there COULD BE...SUCKER.
Saddam Hussein MIGHT have had chemical weapons you know. Maybe.
max
['Oy.']
109: That kind of highlights the problem I always have when I try to come up with something more creative than firstname/initial or initial/lastname: it feels like I have to pick something about myself that I want to highlight and I can never decide what. I'm a haole boy in Hawaii, but that doesn't feel like the thing that I want to put front and center. But nothing else does, either, so I end up stuck.
Max, ciould you muddy up some other well? I'm not completely sure exactly what you're trying to say, but I don't want to know. A valuable activity for you would be sniffing up a Democratic child molester in Congress. That might win the elections for you.
Or perhaps Levity, but it still lacks that certain je ne sais quoi of a Sausagely or a Jesus McQueen.
116 -- Oooh -- the assonance between "LevaD" and "Levity" is very nice indeed.
where is the bill to increase the end strength.
Unless there are historical counterexamples that I'm not thinking of, a bill which required the President to employ more troops than he had chosen to strikes me as obviously unconstitutional. The President could request funds for more troops, if he needs the funds. If you, TLL, wanted more troops, you should (and perhaps you did, I can't recall if you've stated who you voted for in 2004) have voted for the Presidential candidate who included it in his campaign platform.
If a person can't define the primary term of his argument, there's no use talking with him.
Who's most serious about the National Unicorn Federation? My precious vote hinges upon the determination.
w/d: Alexis de Tocqueville also wrote about the American rejection of intellectualism. I don't believe that was fiction, although obviously he had his own issues with our Great Nation.
I am voting for the National Unicorn Federation because they are serious about terror. They have even got a plan to inspect every cargo ship entering the US with selkies.
Far be it from me to claim that there wasn't a rejection of intellectualism in early America. There was just also a cottage industry in exaggerated stories of it. There's a bunch of good stuff about this in Bill Bryson, Made in America.
98- you're right, I'm not serious. I guess that means I can vote for a Democrat after all.
Woohoo! Your clown shoes and bowtie are in the mail.
I've always said it really cost Kerry when he said that Bobcat Goldthwaite would be his special representative in the Middle East.
But who was his Royal Envoy To The Grave And Magestical Global International Society Of The Federation Of Unicorns? Did he even have one?
Seems Taranto is leaving the sinking ship as well:
Then again, maybe they are enough. It now seems within the realm of possibility that Democrats will take one or both houses of Congress in three weeks, even though they are campaigning on not much more than not being Republicans. But the Republicans are campaigning on not much more than not being Democrats. To our mind the Republicans have the better of this argument, but there is something to be said for punishing the party in power if its performance has been subpar.
TLL, I think that you're describing only your own mind.
"even though they are campaigning on not much more than not being Republicans."
How can I trust a person's judgment on this--or anything--if that person can't even say what the Great Global International Serious And Terrible War On Terror consists of?
Emerson- I quoted James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal. My mind, or lack thereof doesn't enter into it.
Text, the Great and Serious War against Terrorists, Islamic fascists and other assorted Bad People was started by Osama Bin Laden several years ago, with escalating provocations including the attack on the US Embassy in Kenya, the attack on the USS Cole, the first attack on the WTC, and 9/11. In response, the US and the Coalition of the (un) Willing invaded first Afghanistan, and later Iraq. We are currently openly involved in hostilities in both places, and clandestinely elsewhere, such as the Phillipines. Maybe you've noticed.
Now I'm wondering if we invaded Iraq because we didn't get the difference between Shi'ite and Sunni.
If I were Winston Churchill redrawing the map of the Middle East I think I would have made Iraq all Shiite Arab, so that moving West to East you would have KSA- Sunni Arab; Iraq Shiite Arab, Iran Shiite Persian. Nothing ever works out quite as neatly in real life.
I would've put Israel in Montana. Wouldn't have to go anywhere for the second coming, either.
TLL "until the Democrats words are serious about the War on Terror, I can not in good conscience vote for them"
Ah, now it's clear. He wants leaders who may or may not be serious (and judging someone's seriousness by their actions is hard work. Hard, hard work) but whose words are serious. Who sounds serious. Who exudes steely, squint-eyed, seriosity.
While clearing brush.
I've noticed there's a war on Iraq and another in Afghanistan. I've noticed that Al Qaida has committed acts of terrorism. I don't from those three pieces of information deduce a Global Anything.
132- Arizona was discussed, as wellas Baja. But the Zionists, for some reason insited on Palestine. I don't know why.
I've yet to understand what we need to get serious about.
About Al Qaida? I could see justification for a war against them. But the Serious Republicans didn't declare one. In any event, what would a war against a loose organization look like? Is war the right war for that? Or--shudder--a police action? By all means, let's get serious about Al Qaida.
Hostilities in Aghanistan. Sort of related to your proposed war against Al Qaida, in that they were once based there. But there is and always has been unilateral support for this war. How serious has the executive been about executing it? You be the judge.
Iraq. What this ever had to do with Global Terror, I can't say. But I think recent history shows that its civilian planners were deeply unserious in all respects.
"Nothing ever works out quite as neatly in real life."
Indeed not, dear Winston. So much for the Great And Terrible War On Everybody. It looks to me like we've got some troops in Afganistan--not many--and more in Iraq. Meanwhile, there's a criminal organization that we are bringing down through criminal investigation. And we're torturing people, but that's not doing any actual good.
I don't know quite what you mean, still, by "getting serious" about such things. It seems to me like, that's what the Democrats have been doing.
Or by "getting serious" do you mean opening it up, looking for more bits of terror to get at?
"Text, the Great and Serious War against Terrorists, Islamic fascists and other assorted Bad People was started by Osama Bin Laden."
Even though--I assume--written partly in fun, this highlights something interesting. Do you propose that Osama Bin Laden could start a war on behalf of all "terrorists, islamic fascists, and other assorted bad people"? To start a war on behalf of people don't you have to, you know, have some control over them?
134 gets it right. Yes, terrorism is a strategy that is used by a lot of different groups of people, for a wide variety of different ends and in a lot of different situations. That doesn't make "a global war on terrorism," any more than the old principle that we had to be able to fight two (or was it three?) major wars at the same time amounted to planning for "a global war on armies" or "a global war on war." It's partly the Republican insistence on seeing these different local situations--some of which, yes, communicate with each other and share resources, but are still spearheaded by different groups and have different goals--as part of some vast global conspiracy that makes them the unserious ones.
IMHO.
I fully admit to drinking the kool-aide on the invasion if Iraq. I truly believed that deposing the tyrant and allowing the people of Iraq a chance at representative government would defuse our longstanding support of tyrants in the area, like the Shah, the House of Saud, etc. and I still think that that chance was there. I did not count on the "unseriousness" of this Administration to the project. I think if we had issued shoot to kill orders regarding the initial looting, showing that there was a new sheriff (sherif?) in town might have nipped this civil war in the bud. Neglect of Sistani, allowing Badr to increase influence, albeit through Iranian money, these are things that not only should have been seen, but were predicted. But the people that I deem unserious not only did not support the invasion of Afghanistan, telling us that it was the "graveyard of empire", for both the Soviets and the British, but also the invasion of Iraq. "Clap harder" was what I read on Atrios. Partisan sniping, but ultimately it is the Administration who should be blamed for missed opportunities. I still think that it is salvagable, so I am clapping harder.
90: TLL is making me fall in love with Emerson all over again.
In the war of words, the GWOT was a poor attempt to not specifically mention any one group. Al Queda, meaning "the base" was trying to support a loose network, actively where possible, passively when necessary. I don't think that Osama called Sadaam to get the OK for 9/11, but to say that they wouldn't or couldn't work together in some circumstances is not credible.
the war of words is not a war of words. global war on terror was obviously an attempt to stretch conflict as far as it could. and it worked only because we are all such credulous fools, some of us more credulous than others.
when you declare war on an entity it does not entail war against anyone who would or could passively support that entity. that is not what it means to declare war. you see, definitions are important.
you use a term that, you admit, doesn't mean what it says it means. that's a bad idea. don't trust people who make up words that don't mean what they say they mean.
Todays Belgravia Dispatch is what I mean by serious. I would post a link if I knew how, but I a ma bear of little brain.
The professionals that I know are referring to this conflict as "the Long War". More apt, less descriptive.
The problem with the GWOT is that it's intended as an 20-year+ war against an undefined enemy which cannot possibly surrender -- since in many respects it doesn't exist (no leadership, no territory, no chain of command).
And during this war Bush thinks that it's necessary for him to have a wide range of special powers, many of them unprecedented.
And during this period Bush also intends to ram through a long list of fundamental domestic changes having nothing whatsoever to do with the War on Terror.
It's a fraud frontwards, backwards, upside down, and sideways.
And on top of that, nothing he's done since Afghanistan in any area of the war on terror has been successful or comnpetent, and there's never been any plausible possibility of success.
And the Democrats are not serious.
Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia. I believe that I am on record here, if not elsewhere as being opposed to the unitary exectutive.
I just skimmed the Belgravia dispatch piece, but it doesn't seem so much different than what some of the Democrats have said. By now, everybody is just scrambling to cut losses. Djeranian (sp?) talks about Iraq like it was Bosnia, which is certainly a completely different ball game than the one we started with or planned on. He wants a multinational conference, which Democrats have been asking unseriously for since day one.
TLL, have you actually looked at the Democratic proposals and concluded that they're not serious? Or are you just listening to flaks and hacks saying over and over again that the Democrats aren't serious?
One impediment the Democrats have keeoing them from being regarded as serious, besides their utter powerlessness, is their difficulty in getting media coverage. A second difficulty is the wave of kneejerk demagogy that is pumped out by Republican spokesmen, aided by the media, whenever the Democrats say anything at all. These are people who have succeeded in smearing Murtha as a coward.
I will admit to not having unfiltered access to any Democratic proposals, and troll "lefty" sites like Atrios, Kos, DU, Yglesias, Drum and others to find our what the cool kids are saying. This sometimes gets a kneejerk reaction from this reactionary. I believe in American exceptionalism, but know that not everyone has a pure heart.
it doesn't seem so much different than what some of the Democrats have said
And this is the very point. It's exactly what many Democrats—and ZERO Republicans—have been proposing all along. The unserious approach is believing that stationing armored divisions in Iraq for a decade constitutes a serious response to a bunch of Saudis and five other non-Iraqis flying airplanes into buildings in New York City. How you'd take this to be the default serious position, failing merely by dint of poor execution, is a confounding mystery.
troll "lefty" sites like Atrios, Kos, DU, Yglesias, Drum and others to find our what the cool kids are saying
Maybe you'd be better off reading what actual Democratic officeholders are saying.
I believe in American exceptionalism,
I never know quite what this means. I think this is the greatest country on earth by a long shot, with the sort of inborn decency that is, for many other peoples, an unaffordable luxury. But I don't think it makes us less stupid or any set of individuals less venal; I definitely don't understand the implications for foreign policy. The most I can get out of it is "city on a hill." And the present Administration has fucked that up pretty good.
to say that [Bin Laden and Saddam] wouldn't or couldn't work together in some circumstances is not credible.
Okay, well, they didn't. So hypotheticals of this nature are ridiculous nonsense.
Max, ciould you muddy up some other well?
Eh?
I'm not completely sure exactly what you're trying to say, but I don't want to know.
No doubt; it might spoil the flavor of the KoolAid.
A valuable activity for you would be sniffing up a Democratic child molester in Congress.
I thought every Congressman was a child molester?
That might win the elections for you.
The United States is screwed no matter who wins, so it's academic (heh) to me.
max
['Such a charming voter outreach program you have there.']
Max, I had no intention of reaching out to you. I hope that there was no misunderstanding about that.
Internet trolls are obviously the least promising of all demographics for anyone trying to find someone to persuade.
This post of yours is about as pointless as the previous one. I do believe that I detect hostility again, and I suppose that you also had some sort of cognitive content in mind, but why bother?
to say that they wouldn't or couldn't work together in some circumstances is not credible
This is true in the same sense that saying that Bush and Saddam wouldn't or couldn't work together in some circumstances is not credible. Or Bush and Ahmadinejad. Or Bush and Assad. Or Bush and McManus, for that matter.
The question is whether it was likely enough to justify invading Iraq and unleashing whatever furies lay dormant there before having defeated bin Laden and his network utterly and totally. The answer is no, and everyone paying any attention at all knew it in 2002, 2003, and knows it today.
I believe that I am on record here, if not elsewhere as being opposed to the unitary exectutive.
I'll take your word for that. But if you continue to vote for candidates who aren't opposed to such a notion and everything it entails, then it doesn't matter much what you believe, does it?
Vote Libertarian if you can't bring yourself to vote for a Democrat. You can keep your purity and still send a message to the Republicans.
Or, there's always the Unitary Unicorn write-in.
I was thinking about this this morning, and I have a hypothesis/question: does "not serious" mean "don't have a unified platform"? Is the appeal of the Rs that, no matter how stupid their platform is, it's clear and they have party discipline? They'll get *something* done, even if it's something unproductive or counterproductive? Whereas the Ds seem more reactive, more issue-by-issue?
Because that, I can understand--hell a lot of folks on the left think that--and I guess that makes sense to me as a reason why someone who thinks that Bush administration has basically been a failure would still vote R. Also, it would be worth talking about.
I'd certainly be willing to consider that this might be true, because it would help explain otherwise incomprehensible preferences. Why the Democrats' non-ideological, pragmatic, case-by-case way of dealing with issues, which I consider a virtue to the decree it's an accurate description, looks like a deficiency to many other people.
That many other people, with whom I would love to be able to establish mutual respect, draw nearly opposite conclusions from facts and situations than I do is borne in on me every day.
I think "not serious about X" means "Not willing to make X the top priority overriding all other issues; not willing to organize your whole political position around X; not willing to cave in whenever someone claims that X requires that they get their way on everything."
There's a lot of baggage that comes along with "serious about X" , and that meme carries a lot of water for the Republicans.
Incidentally, my conclusion about the German interwar period ending in 1932 is that the drtioud thinkers like Schmitt and Strauss were worse than the lightweights and cynics. I may be wrong, of course.
"serious thinkers". I'm learning to touch-type, but inaccurately.
Well, that's why I'm asking TLL, to see what he means by it.
learning to touch-type, but inaccurately
Where do you find such a course? "drtioud" was an excellent typo.
I think that 159-161 are mostly right. I don't like the WWII analogy, but we focused somrthing like 50% of our GDP into the war effort. I think that had someone like Pelosi stood up and said "You know- those A.N.S.W.E.R. guys are full of shit. We stand for X, " I might feel differently. Perhaps this is unfair, branding mainstream politicians by their fringe group supporters. But if there weren't some truth to it, it wouldn't stick.
"Drt" is off-by-one to the right for "ser".
You know what, though? Not only aren't the A.N.S.W.E.R. guys Democrats, they don't even vote for them.
But if there weren't some truth to it, it wouldn't stick.
Hmm, you mean like this? See, I might vote Republican, if y'all would just start distancing yourselves from your neo-Nazi supporters. Maybe that's unfair, but it wouldn't stick if it weren't true, right?
166 -- yeah, picked up on that. That's why I called it excellent.
I hate Illinois Nazis