The news that Judge Richard Goldstone of South Africa has recanted on the issue of Israel and war crimes is stunning. He now absolves the country, in contrast to his accusations in the so-called Goldstone Report, issued in 2009.
Not that Israel’s enemies will know or care to read what he has to say now; his original report was influential and has served their purposes quite nicely already.
[NOTE: Interesting question: did the NY Times really refuse to publish his new op-ed? Or not?
This statement by Politco’s Roger Simon may just be the finest encapsulation I’ve heard recently of what’s wrong with the media today. Talking to Howard Kurtz at CNN about the fact that the press has been critical lately of Obama’s actions in Libya, Simon says:
The bloom isn’t entirely off the rose between Obama and the press, but reporters are starting to concentrate more than ever on what he says rather than how he says it. We will stipulate that he’s the greatest orator of modern times, but now we’re looking beyond that in every speech for what he’s actually telling us.
Here’s the video:
Such a fertile field for thought and reflection!
Is Simon talking about himself or the press in general?
Is his statement that Obama is “the greatest orator of modern times” something he believes to be so self-evident that it’s clearly true?
When does he believe “modern times” began? If 2008, then perhaps he’s right. If it includes the 20th century—well, there were a couple of minor orators such as Churchill, FDR, and (from the reports of native German speakers) Adolf Hitler to consider. Reagan wasn’t half bad, either.
I’d also like to ask Simon whether he thinks the art of oration includes content, or whether it’s purely an acting and delivery thing (either way, my personal opinion is that both are dreadful in Obama’s case, but I’m well aware that the majority of people would probably differ with me on that score). Can one be a great orator while uttering meaningless gibberish, for example? And if not, will empty platitudes voiced in a resonant voice do?
Simon appears to be aware that reporters are supposed to be skeptical; he says so right before the “greatest orator” remark. Simon’s admission that it’s only now that reporters are “looking beyond” the way Obama speaks to the actual content is both remarkable and disturbing. Is he saying that reporters make a habit of looking on the surface of things and pay no attention to substance? Or is he saying there’s something special about Obama that made them suspend their usual skepticism and be seduced by his smoothness and his supposedly self-evident eloquence?
In sum, is Simon saying that reporters are fools? Or is he saying they are knaves? Or perhaps that they are foolish knaves, or knavish fools? And do we care anymore which it might be, if in fact we ever did?
And how long, how long, will these people be listened to with any sort of respect by anyone?
Yesterday I was in New York visiting my 97-year-old mother at the assisted living facility where she’s lived for the past four years.
My mother has been looking thinner lately. Her broken hip and surgery last fall took a bit out of her, and she seems more frail and faded. But fortunately, she’s happy enough and still knows all of us and even manages to crack a few jokes.
I brought her a pizza. It wasn’t the greatest pizza—I’m limited to ordering from the little place down the street—but it was pepperoni, her favorite. And although she ate slowly, she ate steadily: a large piece and a half, and two glasses of water. She always was a woman who loved her pizza.
The place my mother lives now is one of those facilities where management believes it’s good for the residents to be around what might be called “companion animals.” In practice, that meant that we were sitting in front of a bunny hutch wherein resides a rabbit who is a ringer for Peter, munching adorably on a carrot and some lettuce. At our feet was a little dog who has the run of the place, but unfortunately he (like his predecessor canine) doesn’t really have the proper temperament for the job description. In other words, he likes to bark.
The walls of the establishment are decorated in what I’ve come to think of as old age home art. That is, there are prints of paintings that have some sort of hazy, romantic connection to the past. Victorian ladies and gentlemen. Children and their parents, circa late-1800s. Flowery flowers and homey cottages and swinging garden gates.
It all seems designed to evoke memories of the time right before the current residents were born, their parents’ generation really. I’m not sure why that’s the focus, but perhaps to make them feel protected and secure? Or maybe just because it’s the sort of nostalgic art that’s kitschy, popular, readily available, and cheap these days?
My mother was never really into art anyway. She was into people and books. And now, in the basket of her walker, she’s taken to carrying around with her as many books as it will hold. She sometimes reads them when she stops to rest on couches in the hallways as she makes her way about the place. Their presence seems to comfort and reassure her.
When I phone her, she usually reports that she’s been reading. And maybe indeed she has; I wouldn’t really know. I think that her personality is being distilled down to some of its essential elements, and for her that’s family, pizza, and books. Not a bad combo, really; one could do worse at 97.
A mob, whipped up to a homicidal frenzy by local Afghan clerics enraged at the recent Koran burning by a fanatical minister in Florida, kills twelve UN workers in retaliation.
And the Guardian’s poll asks whether the Florida pastor is responsible for the deaths, with the results neck and neck between yes and no. Simultaneously, many in the comments section to this article on the killings make a similar pernicious moral equivalence.
The continuing decline of the West—as well as logic and judgment—in full view.
I’ve been blogging now for six years.
Six long years under the moniker “neo-neocon.” And I was thinking the other day about whether I can really lay claim to the prefix “neo” any more.
After all, am I really still a newly-minted neocon? Haven’t I become just sort of a middle-vintage neocon? Or maybe even turned paleocon?
But “neo” is my name, and my nickname too. What would I do without it? What would I call this blog? What would I call myself?
However, in the interests of honesty, truth, justice, and the American way, I’ve decided I can no longer be known as neo-neocon. Casting about for a substitute, I realize that it’s time for a geographic change, too; this weird April First snow/rain/yuck storm has come just in time to get me thinking that I really should set out for warmer climes.
And what could be warmer than—Brazil? Yes friends, there’s been an exciting development in the life of neo(ooops! old habits die hard)-neocon. I will soon be taking up permanent residence on the beach at Copacabana. Or maybe the beach at Ipanema—after all, I’ve written about it already.
I plan to move down there once I learn enough Portuguese to get by. And of course I’ll have to get bikini-ready by availing myself of some of the famous body-sculpting surgeons of Brazil.
And then, and only then—well, just call me Rio-neocon, my new name.
Remember those death threats against the Republican legislators in Wisconsin, the news the MSM played down? Now 26-year-old Wisconsin preschool teacher Katherine Windels has been charged with sending those emails to 16 Republicans in the Wisconsin legislature:
Windels was charged with two felony counts “bomb scare” and two misdemeanor counts of “computer message-threatening injury/bodily harm.” If convicted, each felony count carries a maximum penalty of three years and six months in prison and a $10,000 fine, and each misdemeanor count carries a maximum penalty of 90 days in prison and a $1,000 fine.
I would like to see her get the maximum. You think that’s too harsh? I don’t. Ms. Windels may be a gentle molder of tender young minds by day, but by night (and by computer light) she’s a union thug—at least, in her fantasies. She seems to have watched too many “Godfather” movies; take a look at the sentiments in her teacherly missive:
Please put your things in order because you will be killed and your families will be killed…So, this is how it’s going to happen: I as well as many others know where you and your family live, it’s a matter of public records.
We have all planned to assault you by arriving at your house and putting a nice little bullet in your head. However, we decided that we wouldn’t leave it there. We also have decided that this may not be enough to send the message to you. So we have also built several bombs that we have placed in various locations around the areas in which we know that you frequent.
This includes your house, your car, the state capitol, and well I won’t tell you all of them because that’s just no fun. Since we know that you are not smart enough to figure out why this is happening to you we have decided to make it perfectly clear to you…
In another one of those ironies we’ve grown so accustomed to (and which is no surprise at all), it seems the real climate of hate was stirred up, not by the Tea Partiers, but by unions and union sympathizers.
Charles Krauthammer thinks Hillary’s statement about Assad of Syria may represent some sort of new low for the Obama administration:
Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he’s a reformer.
”” Hillary Clinton on Bashar al-Assad, March 27Few things said by this administration in its two years can match this one for moral bankruptcy and strategic incomprehensibility.
However, later in his piece, he suggest a strategy that might be behind it:
This delicacy toward Assad is dismayingly reminiscent of President Obama’s response to the 2009 Iranian uprising during which he was scandalously reluctant to support the demonstrators, while repeatedly reaffirming the legitimacy of the brutal theocracy suppressing them.
Why? Because Obama wanted to remain “engaged” with the mullahs ”” so that he could talk them out of their nuclear weapons. We know how that went.
The same conceit animates his Syria policy ”” keep good relations with the regime so that Obama can sweet-talk it out of its alliance with Iran and sponsorship of Hezbollah.
Pretty funny.
It occurs to me that, if Hillary really has any notion of running in 2012, the opposition might consider running an ad featuring a clip of this particular quote.
I disagree with Krauthammer in one respect, though. I think there are many things the Obama administration has done has that have matched Hillary’s Assad remarks. This sort of moral and strategic bankruptcy—or perhaps a better word for it would be perversity—in foreign relations was demonstrated long ago, almost from the start of Obama’s presidency.
But it was Obama’s reaction to Honduras (beginning in late June of 2009) that indisputably revealed which way the wind was blowing, on both Obama’s and Hillary’s part. In fact, I wrote the following back in early July of 2009:
During her presidential campaign [Hillary] seemed to have a grip on the fact that the United States stood for something””for example, speaking out against tyrannies such as we’ve seen the last week or so in Iran, and speaking up for the rule of law in places such as Honduras against those such as Zelaya who would go against its constitution.
And she sold whatever was left of her self-respect so cheaply, too. Secretary of State, presiding over Obama’s muddled “I never met a dictator I didn’t like, or a human rights violation I couldn’t wink at” mentality? Who would want that job? Is it merely a stepping stone to something else, or an end in itself?
I still don’t have an answer to that last question.
One more call, and then I’ll shut up about this for a while. But I am deeply grateful to every single one of you who contributes. Every bit—large or small—adds up, and helps me immensely in continuing the blog.
To all who have already contributed by clicking that “Donate” button on the right—and you know who you are—I thank you from the bottom of my heart. In many cases, by the way, I don’t even know who you are, since the names on the donations are often quite different from the names by which I know you.
Bot with a special sort of truth:
The magnonomous truth about this article is, that it spoke to me greatly.