The debt ceiling crisis

The New Neo Posted on by

You may have noticed I haven’t yet written about the fight over raising the debt ceiling. That is probably because not only do I have a tendency to shy away from anything to do with economics, but also because I believe that some sort of compromise will be reached in time to avoid a huge August default crisis, and that a lot of what’s going on now is political theater and strategic maneuvering. If the objection to compromise is that it’s just a method of kicking the can down the road and solves nothing, my answer is that sometimes—when that can is filled with explosives—it is necessary to kick it down the road temporarily and deal with the main problems later.

Ay, there’s the rub. Unfortunately, the two sides are diametrically opposed on the solution for the main problems, and the atmosphere in Washington is so toxic that real solutions seem distant and perhaps impossible unless one side or other (depending on your political leanings) controls the whole shebang. In the meantime, this country is in deep financial trouble.

It is easy to blame Washington, and much of that blame is deserved. Both sides of Congress have been acting like a bunch of children for way too long, and President Obama has only widened the already-existing divisions with his incendiary rhetoric and fake compromises.

But the American people are to blame, too, for sending so many of the players back again and again, term after term—and for wanting the impossible from them: low taxes and high entitlements. Any politician who threatens that unworkable duo is probably going to be unpopular. So how is a meaningful and lasting resolution of this crisis ever going to come about?

[NOTE: tune in here for lots of discussion of the debt ceiling negotiations.]

A memorable Fourth of July

The New Neo Posted on by

[Bumped up once again: Happy Fourth!!]

Here’s one you might remember. I certainly do:

Fans of the movie “The Great Escape” (and I must confess that I’m one, big-time) will recognize the above as the Fourth of July celebration scene, featuring the incomparable Steve McQueen playing the flute and James Garner with the drum.

Anyone who hasn’t already seen the classic 1963 action movie should rent it immediately and settle in with some popcorn for the long haul. I was a teenager in 1963 when I first saw it on the widescreen, a stirring combination of male pulchritude (not a female in the cast, and what a cast!), suspense, wit, ingenuity, and tragedy.

Although the film’s script merges a number of real people into single characters, and takes a few liberties with time (and invents the fabulous motorcycle chase in which McQueen gets to strut his formidable stuff), it’s historically accurate in the extreme, especially for a Hollywood flick. Oliver Stone, it ain’t—fortunately.

The makers of the film were dedicated to making it as true to actual events as possible. The screenwriter had been a prisoner of war in a Japanese camp, and a former prisoner and expert tunneler from the prison camp depicted in the movie worked as an adviser to the director. Follow the link to read just how much of the film was actually true to life.

Donald Pleasence, who played the rapidly-going-blind forger Blyth, had been a prisoner of war in a German camp during WWII. Hannes Messemer, the German actor who managed to bring an extraordinary humanity to the role of the Kommandant of the camp (a person who in real life was apparently well-liked and respected by the prisoners), had been a prisoner of war in a Russian camp, as had several of the other German actors in the film (these facts are to be found here).

“The Great Escape” was one of the first films I ever saw that defied my sanguine expectations. There was so much humor in it, so many likable characters, and so much Hollywood-type action that I assumed it would likewise have a Hollywood-type ending, in which all turned out well. It doesn’t.

But the Fourth of July scene is delightful. And I wish you all—wherever you are and whatever you choose to do to celebrate today—a wonderful Fourth.

[NOTE: This is a slightly edited version of a post that appeared on this blog in 2005. I’m not sure why the video is so scrunched and makes everyone look skinny (maybe they’re on the Atkins diet?), but I can’t seem to fix it.]

Heroes vs. villains: Independence Day

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: This is a repeat of a previous post.]

Today is the Fourth of July, our Independence Day. Although the focus is on fireworks—a tradition I intend to perpetuate this evening—deep down, this particular holiday is really about American history.

John Adams, one of our founding fathers, knew this, although he was off two days on the date. As he presciently wrote to his wife Abigail on July 3, 1776:

The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.

“Forever more” is a long time, to be sure. But so far the celebration is holding.

History often seems inevitable after it happens, and we tend to forget it is not—and that, most especially, the outcome is not known to those who live through the events in real time. The United States had a precarious existence at first, and Francis Scott Keys’s uncertainty about America’s continuance was not a ploy when he wrote of the fledgling United States in terms of a question, not a statement, “O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave/o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”

Abraham Lincoln was determined to make sure the answer to Keys’s question would be, “Yes.” My old-fashioned education required that we fifth-graders memorize the Gettysburg address, and although at the time the I thought its opening phrase “Four score and seven years ago…”—referring back, of course, to 1776—sounded like a long time had passed, as I got older it occurred to me that when Lincoln spoke the nation was still relatively young and facing the greatest test of its existence, with the outcome unknown.

Lincoln wondered whether a nation devoted to liberty and the proposition that all men are created equal (and for “men” read “humans”) could continue to endure. He knew full well that such “equality” was imperfect under the law of the land; correcting flaws in its application to blacks was part of the reason for the Civil War that was being fought under his remarkable and eloquent aegis.

Independence Day isn’t about being perfect and celebrating that perfection. It’s about acknowledging the wonderful and optimistic vision of the original founders, being thankful for those in the past who have preserved it, and trying to honor it in the future. There are those who think our present government to be so pernicious that it has perverted the intent of the Declaration of Independence. There are others who, like me, think our government flawed but basically sound and that no such perversion has occurred, although course corrections are sometimes required—and have always been required—in our not-so-long history as a nation.

Speaking of that history—I’ve written before about the fact that the criticism of Lincoln by his own contemporaries was at least as bad (and very similar) to that meted out to Bush. This does not mean I’m equating the two in terms of statesmanship or vision or judgment; I am not. But my high estimation of Lincoln—and yours—was not shared by most of his contemporaries.

Here’s a quote on the subject from the excellent book American Brutus, Michael W. Kauffman’s biography of John Wilkes Booth:

The Civil War was unlike anything known in modern times, and the nation came closer to collapse than most people realize today. Emancipation of slaves, confiscation of property, and the draft often led to deadly clashes between the public and civil authorities. The political storm threatened not only the federal government, but state governments as well”¦In the middle stood Abraham Lincoln, blamed for the war and fired upon from all sides. It was not just the fringe element who hated the president; judges, senators, editors, and otherwise respectable citizens left no doubt of their contempt for him as well. One senator compared Lincoln to the tyrants of history, saying “They are all buried beneath the wave of oblivion compared to what this man of yesterday, this Abraham Lincoln, that neither you nor I ever heard of four years ago, has chosen to exercise”¦”

As I’ve written before, this isn’t the sort of thing one hears about in grade school or even high school history classes. Ordinarily one has to be in college level courses to be exposed to these rather startling facts of history as it was actually lived. But most people stop taking history courses before reaching that point, unfortunately, and therefore have little of substance to refer to when attempting to compare our present situation to the past.

Some believe the teaching of the history of the United States should involved focusing on the bad—the errors and misdeeds—over the good, and that teaching the latter is somehow jingoistic. Some believe that anything offending the tender sensibilities of some child or group of children or parents should be excluded, as well, and that history should be a PC endeavor to cater to all interest and ethnic groups.

I would like instead to see the teaching of a realistic and representative balance between the good and the bad in our history; and an awareness of the fact that although this nation is indeed flawed, that is only a reflection of the flawed human condition rather than some special and unique failing of our own. On balance, the US has a more heroic and inspiring vision than most, and has lived up to it far better and far more often than one might have expected, given the nature of humanity. And this is something to celebrate.

Mark Steyn has written that Prime Minister Howard of Australia has said the teaching of history in that country should be taught as a “heroic national narrative.” That’s a novel thought, is it not? But I think our history could honestly be described that way. Remember, real-life heroes are not Supermen; they make errors and have weaknesses, and they struggle to overcome them. Our own Civil War was an example of one of these struggles to correct a major flaw in the execution of the concept that all are created equal, and to more perfectly fulfill the original vision in the Declaration of Independence. There will be other such corrections, no doubt, in our future—hopefully, neither as wrenching not as bloody.

But we must be careful not to overcorrect or overreact; the Fourth of July is not a day of national breast-beating. It’s as good a day as any, and better than some, to celebrate the remarkable and laudable vision under which this nation was founded, and to be deeply grateful for those who have preserved and expanded that vision. The fact that its execution will always be imperfect is no reason to consider ourselves the villains of the piece. There are enough true villains out there for comparison, if anyone cares to look.

The Catcher in the Sofitel

The New Neo Posted on by

Of all the hard-to-believe scenarios involved in the DSK case (and that includes all of them), this one reported by the NY Post might just be the most implausible so far:

Before she ever walked into Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s dazzling suite at the Sofitel, his accuser was well aware of his VIP status — and planning to get her hands in his deep pockets, sources told The Post.

“She figured he’s a rich dude, and she would get paid,” said a source close to the defense investigation. “She was told by the crew she ran with that this was a gold mine.”

The maid, who routinely traded sex for money with male guests, parked her cleaning cart outside Suite 2806 on the morning of May 14 and keyed her way into the room — knowing what he looked like from a photo hanging in a maid closet that identified him as an important guest.

Multiple versions have emerged of what happened next, but nobody disputes that the 32-year-old maid performed oral sex on the Frenchman known as “the Great Seducer.”

Sources now tell The Post that when the two were finished, the woman demanded cash from Strauss-Kahn — but he refused to pay…

The humiliating exchange sparked the maid’s anger, prosecutors suspect.

The woman’s lawyer has charged that DSK angrily grabbed her breast and vagina, leaving her with bruises to the groin area.

So, what’s so improbable about that? It’s not that she might be a hooker, or that DSK was amenable to a quickie with her before leaving town.

But what hooker doesn’t negotiate a price before rendering services? And what would be DSK’s motive for not paying up? Unless she was asking for some exorbitant amount in payment, what would be the point of his refusal? And if she knew who he was, and wanted that kind of money, then why not blackmail him instead? After all, she had the semen on the dress, and could threaten to go to authorities. Wouldn’t blackmail be far more lucrative? But that has not been alleged so far by anyone connected with the case.

DSK is on record as having suspected earlier that he would be set up for some kind of sex scandal (specifically, a false rape accusation) in order to derail his campaign. If so, then why was he not more on the alert when this woman presented herself? And even if he succumbed to temptation despite his wariness (which he clearly did) and had Clintonian sex with “that woman,” why would he not then pony up the dough, knowing how vulnerable he was to false charges of rape? Why run the risk of angering her? And then why rough her up in the bargain?

I’m not exactly conversant with the world of prostitution in high-priced hotels (or low-priced ones, for that matter), but DSK would be. His alleged behavior makes no sense if a man is trying to protect himself, and hers also makes no sense for the woman in such a situation.

Why have I written so much about this case? I think the fascination with the story of DSK and the maid is that it contains a mystery—actually, several mysteries. It also touches on a number of ancient and modern themes: sexual relations between the high and mighty and the lowly, “he-said she said” scenarios and the near-impossibility of ever knowing the truth in such situations, hints of dark conspiracies to bring a political man to ruin, his cooperation in that possible downfall through character flaws of his own, and differences between American and European attitudes towards philandering.

These latest allegations also put me in mind of a famous scene from Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye (hey, I’m a literary sort; what can I say—and the following may not be perfectly accurate, since I don’t have a copy of the book at hand). Holden wasn’t a rich French politician, but he did contract (with the elevator operator Maurice) for a prostitute’s services in the seedy hotel where he was staying in Manhattan. When the hooker—a very young woman named Sunny—arrives, Holden is flummoxed and loses all interest, although he offers to pay her the contracted-for five dollars (yes, there’s been quite a bit of inflation in the over-half-century since the novel was written). She says the fee was ten, and they have an argument, after which she goes off in a huff. Later that night, after Holden falls asleep, she and Maurice return to claim the money, and Maurice roughs Holden up a little.

One can understand Holden’s refusal to pay—he’s not rolling in dough, and in the end he didn’t even ask her to do anything sexual. But what would be DSK’s excuse?

Good catch

The New Neo Posted on by

A mother performs a heroic act to save a child.

Somebody else’s mother, and somebody else’s child.

The girl, named Zhang Fangyu but known by the nickname Niu Niu, was in the care of her grandmother Saturday afternoon when the older woman left the 10th-floor apartment outside the eastern city of Hangzhou to run an errand, CCTV said.

Neighbors saw Niu Niu dangling from the apartment window for several minutes, Xinhua said, and when the girl fell, Wu Juping “kicked off her high-heeled shoes” and ran to catch the child.

“It was so urgent. I saw her when she was about to fall and rushed there, and after tens of seconds she fell off,” CCTV quoted Wu as saying.

A 31-year-old mother, Wu told CCTV that when she saw the hanging girl she thought of her own seven-month-old son who had once fallen from a high chair and cut his mouth: “I thought to myself ‘I should stretch my arms to her. Because I am right here, I must get her.’ Then I made it. I caught her in my arms.”

The impact knocked Wu out and sent her crumbling to the ground along with breaking her left arm, the reports said.

The Atkins diet and me

The New Neo Posted on by

While we’re talking about diets (and we were, yesterday), let me just say that I don’t think much of the Atkins diet. It’s an eating plan a number of commenters touted on yesterday’s thread.

I’m sure it’s fine for some people, maybe even for many people. But it sure isn’t for everybody. Years ago when it first came into vogue, I decided to try it. I wanted to lose the usual fifteen or so pounds, and I was pretty young, so you’d think it would have been relatively easy. I went on the diet and followed it without cheating.

But I felt lousy. Protein foods are not my favorites, so the prospect of chowing down almost unlimited meat, chicken, cheese, and the like did not appeal. I certainly didn’t overdo those foods, and I drank all those glasses of water with ease. What I craved was fruit; I used to dream about it, actually. And I won’t even speak about what the diet did to my digestion; let’s just say it didn’t improve it.

But worst of all, I didn’t lose weight. You’re supposed to keep to the most restrictive part of the diet for two weeks, and “[t]he Induction phase is usually when many see the most significant weight loss ”” reports of losses of 5 to 10 pounds per week are not uncommon when Induction is combined with daily exercise.” I was exercising up a storm, because this was back in my ballet dancing days. I even stayed on the diet for an two extra weeks, because I couldn’t believe the weight wasn’t dropping off.

But it wasn’t. I think I lost a total of a pound in those four weeks.

One of the conclusions I’ve come to about diet and weight loss is that everybody is different, often very different. Some quite overweight people I know just don’t eat all that much. Even a normal amount is enough to put weight on for them. Some thin people who aren’t all that active simply cannot gain weight no matter what they eat or how hard they try. Some diets work for some people and not at all for others—although there does seem to be a general tendency for bigger people to lose weight faster, and for men to lose weight more easily on diets than women.

I don’t know why I’m talking about diets today, though. It’s a holiday, or at least the beginning part of a holiday—although it’s a holiday that would fit in quite nicely for those on the Atkins diet. Just grill up some steak or burgers or chicken or fish or whatever you happen to like, and you’re good to go.

And don’t forget those deviled eggs:

The Strauss-Kahn accuser and female genital mutilation

The New Neo Posted on by

Strauss-Kahn’s accuser appears to be quite a piece of work. She’s a serial liar and an operator, at least as far as her immigration story goes. She said she was gang-raped in Guinea, and apparently this was not the case. And in this country, she’s in tight with drug dealers.

We still don’t have any idea whether Strauss-Kahn raped her or not. But in her taped conversation with her prison-residing boyfriend, she told him a version of the rape story that was very similar to the one she told authorities—and the discussion was in their native Guinean tongue, which authorities translated from a “unique dialect of Fulani” into English. This points to at least some credibility on this score.

Now that this woman has been exposed as a habitual liar, it’s hard to evaluate the following for its veracity. But if true, it’s an ironic twist in the case:

…[I]f the woman’s application [to enter the US] was based on fraud, the Justice Department could seek to reopen the case and have her thrown out of the country. Her attorney Kenneth Thompson said she went to prosecutors to tell them the truth, and she had initially feared she’d be deported if she told them why she really left: because she was a victim of genital mutilation and she didn’t want her daughter, now 15, to be similarly affected, Thompson said.

Whether or not the accuser has been a victim of FGM (female genital mutilation, rampant in north Africa) would be an easy enough fact for the court to determine. But it is indeed likely that this women has been genitally mutilated, because the practice (according to this study of Guinea in 1998-1999) is so widespread there as to affect virtually all of the woman in the country: 99%. Guinea may actually have the highest rate of FGM (called the more neutral FCC, or “female genital cutting,” in the study) in the world.

What’s more, in 1998-1999, respondents reported that the cutting was occurring at a younger and younger age to girls there, often performed by the age of 9. The accuser’s daughter is reportedly 15 years old now, and the accuser’s application for political asylum to the United States was made in 2004, which would mean that her daughter would have been about eight at the time. That would be the age at which FGM was imminent, and it tends to support the accuser’s new story on the true motive for her emigration, which is at least as sympathetic as her original story of gang rape.

This woman represents a conundrum for feminists and the left. Originally she was the perfect victim: black, poor, and sexually abused by a man. She’s still black, but it seems she’s not so poor, since hundreds of thousands of dollars have been deposited in her bank account by the drug-dealing boyfriend and his confederates. As for abuse, if the accuser’s FGM tale is correct (and it is very very likely to be), she has most certainly been sexually abused, although paradoxically it would have been by women, who tend to perpetuate the practice, although the motivation is to be “pure” enough to be accepted in marriage by a man.

In 1969 the practice was made a crime in Guinea, but no one has ever been prosecuted there for it. There are varieties of FGM, some of which are more mild than others, but the milder forms are exceedingly uncommon in Guinea and elsewhere. I will be a bit graphic here: according to the 1998=1999 study, only 1% of women in Guinea (mostly members of a certain tribal group that is predominantly Christian) are unmutilated, and only 2% of women undergo a mild nicking of the clitoris. Eighteen per cent of Guinean women have had a partial clitoral removal, while 28% have had a total clitoral removal, and 50% a total removal of the clitoris and the labia minora as well (that is, the entire external genitalia of the woman and the significant organs of pleasure). At the time of the study, 80% of the girls there were operated on at age 9 or younger. In the Fulani group (to which the accuser seems to belong) the figures are 12% undergoing partial removal of the clitoris, 35% complete removal, and 50% complete removal of both clitoris and labia minora.

If FGM was indeed the woman’s motivation for immigration, and if she lied about that motive on her application, it would be ironic, because FGM itself is grounds for an asylum application. It is incredibly hard to know the truth about went on with this woman, but her lawyer says she was unaware that FGM would have sufficed as a reason for asylum, and was told by a friend to invent the gang-rape story to buttress her case.

Of course, none of this excuses anything she may have done or the lies she’s told. But a culture that does this to its women is even more inexcusable. I don’t care about the custom’s antiquity and its origins; it is a brutal and violent outrage.

[NOTE: I have previously written two posts on FGM, here and here.]

[NOTE II: And don’t come on this thread and compare FGM to male circumcision. There is absolutely no analogy, except to the mildest form of FGM that is very seldom practiced (1% in Guinea, and uncommon elsewhere). If you want an analogy, try comparing the process to removing all the external male genitalia. Fortunately, this is not a regular practice of any culture any earth—and if it were, that culture wouldn’t last long.]

[ADDENDUM: The plot—and the accusations against the accuser—thickens. Now an unnamed informant told the NY Post that she’s a hooker. If so, and if the NYPD didn’t find this out right away, I think they could be accused of negligence.

And then there’s this, reporting that DSK used other prostitutes in the past who complained about his roughness and aggressiveness and refused to see him again. Make of it what you will.

And am I the only one who thinks the mainstream press and the National Enquirer have recently merged?]

Are snacks the culprits in overweight?

The New Neo Posted on by

There’s evidence that one of the main reasons people are more overweight these days is that they eat more snacks. I can believe it.

Remember when we were young, and people weren’t supposed to eat between meals? When was the last time you heard that advice? Such practices seem to have gone the way of the dodo.

I also think that extra-meal food is a lot better in general than it used to be, and a lot more available. There are more ethnic treats and vendors, and a lot more variety of all sorts.

It’s like sneakers (or tennis shoes, if you’re from a different part of the country) used to be: just Keds. And Oreos were once just Oreos. But now it’s been pointed out to me—even though I never eat them any more, because of my problem with chocolate—that Oreos and variations on the Oreo theme have commandeered nearly a whole aisle to themselves these days, with a burgeoning multiplicity of Oreo choices.

By the way, when I was a child and loved Oreos, I used to eat them by the time-honored technique of separating the halves (always a risky and delicate moment, sort of like separating an egg), savoring the frosting first, and then either eating the wafers on their own or discarding them (surreptitiously, of course). How about you?

Strauss-Kahn’s accuser: sex, lies, and audiotape

The New Neo Posted on by

The case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK) is in grave jeopardy due to huge problems with the general credibility of the alleged victim. She’s lied repeatedly—mostly about drug and immigration-related matters, but also about how soon after the alleged attack she reported it (she apparently cleaned another room and then Strauss-Kahn’s before making her allegation). In addition, she admits she had cried rape falsely in the past, lying in her application for political asylum from Guinea when she’d claimed to be the victim of a gang-rape there.

The alleged victim seems to have a boyfriend involved in the drug business, as well, and the Times article indicates there is a recorded phone call with him (post-rape-accusation) in which she discusses getting money (actually, the word the Times uses is “benefits,” but I’m assuming that means money) from pursuing the charges against Strauss-Kahn. But whether this money was supposed to be gained from a civil suit, a settlement, or selling her story (all of which are legal means, and might be reasonable to discuss even if the allegations are true) or some sort of blackmail is not specified.

Does all of this mean she couldn’t have been raped by Strauss-Kahn? Of course not. But in legal terms it does what is called impeaching the witness. In other words, these facts make her general veracity exceedingly suspect and therefore cast doubt on her allegations in this case as well. Her charges could still be true, but we are much less likely to believe them if there is no independent corroboration. This is precisely why we refer to crimes and criminals as “alleged” until we hear more (note, for example, how many times I say “alleged” and “if true” in my previous post about Strauss-Kahn, here).

However, what is not disputed is that the accuser and DSK had sexual contact, and that there is undeniable physical evidence of that. This fact, along with what was described initially as the maid’s seeming trustworthiness in the work place and lack of other problems, as well as her shaken demeanor and even some bruises, meant that prosecutors had to take the charges extremely seriously. Here’s more:

The woman was in Strauss-Kahn’s room only briefly before the alleged attack, his semen was found on her uniform, and she quickly reported the alleged assault and told a consistent story about it to investigators and prosecutors, the official said. Prosecutors have also said in court that Strauss-Kahn seemed on surveillance tapes to be in a hurry as he left the hotel, though his lawyers have said he was merely rushing to lunch.

I’m not of the school that women don’t lie about this. They do, and that’s what makes a charge of rape or other inappropriate sexual contact so hard. False accusations occur in cases of alleged incest and child abuse as well, and many tend to come down to “she-said/he-said” conundrums. It is, quite frankly, a mess, because of inherent difficulties with proof. That is why credibility is so hugely important.

My own deepest wonderment and amazement in this case has to do with the risk Strauss-Kahn took in having sex of whatever type with a woman he hardly knew. He was aware of his position; he knew himself to be exceedingly vulnerable to false charges and even to entrapment.

So why did he step right into a possible trap? This is, if nothing else, reckless and foolish behavior in terms of his own political survival. It’s also the reason people used to be more concerned with protecting their reputations (both men and women) by not putting themselves in potentially compromising positions.

Trying to determine whether a rape happened here or not is probably irrelevant at this point, because the accuser’s credibility is now so dreadful that it’s hard to see how a case could proceed against DSK. If a rape actually did occur (which as of now I must say I strongly doubt), it would be a sad thing indeed if the victim were to have screwed herself (metaphorically speaking) by her previous lies. Allahpundit wonders, and rightly so, whether prosecutors are now doubting her DSK rape story despite that initial credibility, or whether they are just thinking they may have trouble convicting with a witness so generally unreliable.

It will be fascinating to see how this develops.

[NOTE: One question I have is, if the sexual encounter and rape allegation was some sort of set-up or perhaps entrapment of Strauss-Kahn, did the accuser have prior knowledge of who he was? Did she, for example, have earlier dealings with him in this hotel? If so, will she be prosecuted?

If this was the first time DSK had stayed in the hotel while she was working there, and she had no way to know in advance that his visit was planned, it’s hard to believe that she had enough information to have plotted this specifically with him in mind. However, even if she didn’t know in advance who he was, it’s possible that she had a general plan to have intercourse with some rich guy and shake him down, although it seems rather serendipitous that she caught such a big fish. But if extortion and money-making was the original idea, why go to the authorities so soon? Why not go to the guy she had intercourse with, tell him she’s got the evidence (semen-stained dress; hey, it’s been done before) and then try to blackmail him with a threat to go to the police if he doesn’t pay up?]

Obama and the jets

The New Neo Posted on by

I didn’t watch President Obama’s press conference yesterday. But many of those who did noted his continuation of the class war that is one of his very favorite ploys, as well as his hypocrisy, and his discomfort at answering questions that contain any sort of challenge at all.

Jim Geragty, for example, wrote:

Today [Obama] mentioned a tax break for corporate jets six times. He didn’t mention that he signed legislation preserving the tax code provision into law, or that the grand total of the savings of ending that tax break would be about $3 billion over ten years.

The man who flies anywhere he wants, anytime, cost-free, complained at great length that other people’s private jets are insufficiently taxed. Tomorrow, Obama will fly on Air Force One to Philadelphia, Pa., to attend two DNC fundraisers, where he will probably again denounce the current tax rates on corporate jets, without anyone remarking on the irony.

What I think this reveals is that Barack Obama is not used to being challenged.

Anyone who has followed Obama for any time should be completely unsurprised by all of this. So color me unsurprised.

As for Obama and the those jets—let’s have a little traveling music:

[ADDENDUM: Commenter “CV” has an even better idea for the title of this post: “Barry and the jets.”

Now, why didn’t I think of that?]

Child support: the law is an ass?

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: The following is a reprint of an old post of mine. I thought that it would be an interesting one to revisit, in the light of the spotlight shed on the institution of marriage lately.]

Dean Esmay wrote a short post with the following statement that caught my eye:

…I still note with some mild annoyance that apparently it’s okay to loudly proclaim for “a woman’s right to choose,” and evil and wicked and oppressive to say that her right to choose might have limits, that she should use birth control and be more prudent… but if a man doesn’t want to be held fiscally and socially responsible for a woman’s choice for 18 years, he’s an evil scumbag who should keep it in his pants and use birth control and if he doesn’t like it too bad. He made his “choice” when he chose sex. She gets her choice well after the fact, and gets to hold him responsible for her choice whether he likes it or not.

Although I think I understand where Dean is coming from—on the face of it, it certainly seems an unfair situation, doesn’t it?—his words made me take a little stroll down memory lane, along some paths I haven’t visited in quite some time. Thus, this post.

One of the benefits of being a little (just a little!) older is being able to remember when things were very very different, and trying to apply that perspective to the issues of the day. I’m well aware that nothing I say here may convince Dean (or anyone else, for that matter) to see this issue any differently. But please hear me out.

I’ve done a bit of work off and on over the years in the fields of custody, child support, and the rights of fathers and mothers. Way back when I was first learning about this stuff, abortion was illegal, and divorce was granted on fault grounds (adultery, desertion, battery; that sort of thing). In fact, the family law of Massachusetts, the state I knew best, embraced some very strange principles, so strange that when I write about them you may not believe they were operating as recently as the late 60s and early 70s .

In fault divorces one person was the plaintiff and sued the other, alleging a marital offense; the other often countersued and alleged a different offense on the part of the original plaintiff. So the couple wasn’t just suing for a divorce, they were suing to see who would be judged the guilty party and who the innocent one.

Condonation was a possible defense against fault charges, and was defined as:

the act of forgiving one’s spouse who has committed an act of wrongdoing that would constitute a ground for divorce. Condonation generally is proven by living and cohabiting with the spouse after learning that the wrongdoing was committed.

So, to be crystal clear: if spouse A hit spouse B, this would ordinarily constitute a marital offense and B could sue A for divorce and win. But if A could successfully claim that at any time after the blow—even if it was months after—the two had slept together, then B could be denied a fault divorce on these grounds.

Then there was “collusion.” In a state such as New York, for example, adultery was one of the only grounds for divorce, and people often faked adultery in order to obtain a divorce. In those days there was actually a fairly lucrative business trafficking in women whom one could hire to go to a hotel and pretend to have an assignation with the husband for this very purpose.

So, collusion was:

an agreement between two or more persons that one of the parties brings false charges against the other. In a divorce case, the husband and wife may agree to use adultery as a ground in order to obtain a divorce more quickly, knowing full well that adultery was not committed. Collusion is illegal.

Illegal—meaning, if found to have occurred, no divorce.

And then there was a third strange legal principle. Memory fails me (and Google does, too; I can’t find the term anywhere) as to what it was called. But the idea was that if both parties alleged fault on the part of the other, and the court found that both their claims had merit, they could be judged to cancel each other out. Two wrongs apparently could make a right—and then, no divorce.

The utter absurdity of much of this underlines the timeless truth of the famous statement made by Charles Dickens’s character Mr. Bumble, about a different but highly related matter (that the law presumed a wife to be under her husband’s control):

Mr. Brownlow: The law assumes that your wife acts under your direction.

Mr. Bumble: If the law supposes that, then the law is a ass, a idiot! If that’s the eye of the law, then the law is a bachelor. And the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience.

Fault divorce had its—well, it had its faults, to be sure. Now that it has nearly gone the way of the dodo, I don’t think too many people mourn it. At any rate, I’m certainly not one of them. The once-flourishing industry that provided fake mistresses (and real photographers to document the occasion) is no more, as well. But remnants of the old system remain in our family laws, like some sort of vestigial organ.

What was the point of all of this, anyway? The law was thought to have a strong interest in marriage because the institution constituted the bedrock of society and of childrearing. Breaking up a marriage was meant to be difficult, and only to be available under certain quite egregious circumstances. The lack of easy availability of divorce was often painful for everyone involved, and it led to terrible hardship—although, of course, the remedies making it easier have also led to terrible hardship.

I’m not suggesting we go back. But it’s useless to pretend that the law can ever solve the dreadful problems inherent in the fact that people are flawed, love doesn’t always last, and that the children of such unions need to be protected as much as possible from the mistakes of their parents.

The following is an illustration of just how far the law used to be willing to go to protect the children. There was a rule in Massachusetts that all divorces were conditional when granted, and that they only became official six months after the final hearing. The reason? Way back when this rule had been written, there was no way to be certain that a woman wasn’t pregnant at the time of the divorce, and the court didn’t want to make bastards of the children born after the hearing, if in fact the pregnancy had occurred during the marriage. Back in those quaint days, being illegitimate had huge negative ramifications for the child, and the court would go far to prevent a child from being placed in that legal no man’s land.

What’s more, there was another odd and related rule: a man was (and in many cases, still is) “estopped” from claiming he was not the father of any child born of his marriage—that is, conceived within the time frame of the marriage. And this not only included cases in which the child was not in fact his because his wife had had an affair, it included pregnancies that began when he was away from home and could not have possibly been the father.

Talk about lack of father’s rights; a man was (and, as I said, often still is) actually required to support a child that was not his! And why was/is the law being such a dreadful, abominable ass? The rationale behind the idea, archaic though it may seem, was that (a) the rights of a child to be legitimate were paramount, and (b) when you got married, you made your bed and had to lie in it (even if someone else had been lying in it as well).

I am most definitely not saying I approve of such laws. I’m merely trotting them out from the dustbins of memory (and please, let me know if I’m wrong about any of this, because I’m doing this entirely from my own recollection) to illustrate just how far the pendulum has swung in recent years towards protecting the rights of parents versus those of the child.

Yes, with abortion and birth control and divorce on demand and most of the people involved in these cases not ever having been married in the first place, it does seem as though a man should be able to say, “Whoa! I never bargained for this! You got pregnant, you decided not to have an abortion (the solution I would have preferred), you decided to keep the baby. Why should I have to pay for the next eighteen years?”

This is the way it used to be explained, anyway: when two people sleep together, both of them—man and woman—are presumed to assume the risks that go along with the act. And what are these risks?

The first is that every single act of intercourse might end in pregnancy (unless the woman is past menopause, which of course is irrelevant to these cases). Despite birth control, despite assurances that all is taken care of and that it can’t happen, despite whatever people tell themselves and each other, despite truths and despite lies—it’s still possible. And everyone is presumed to know it’s possible. And if they don’t, they very well should.

But all is not equal. By the act of sleeping together (with or without birth control), the man and the woman assume different risks, and there’s no way around some of those differences, because they are rooted in biology. The woman runs the risk of becoming pregnant. Pregnancy means a woman is faced with the associated health risks, which can be considerable; the associated decisions (because—and there’s no way around this—she carries the fetus around within her body) as to whether to bear or not bear the child and whether to keep the child, if borne (if she gives birth and wants to give the baby up for adoption, the father can in many cases sue to block the adoption and raise the child himself. But that’s a different situation than we’re faced with in Dean’s example, in which the father neither wants the child nor wants to pay for it).

In addition to the risks and responsibilities of pregnancy itself, the mother who chooses to give birth and give the child away bears the pain associated with that. And, if she chooses to keep the child and raise it, she—no less than the father—takes on the responsibility of supporting it financially. As custodial parent, she takes on the task of raising it as well, in the emotional sense.

The father takes on a different responsibility, and different risks. He knows he does not have any chance of becoming pregnant (at least that was true when last I checked). But he knows he runs the risk that his partner might, and that if she does she’ll have the right to make the major decisions about that pregnancy. He also knows that, if she happens to decide to keep the baby, he will be required to support it financially, although his emotional connection to it cannot be forced. And he knows, and assumes the risk, that she might even keep the fact of a pregnancy from him, and/or abort the baby without his knowledge.

That’s a lot of freight associated with one act of sex, isn’t it? Not too many people think about it that way—and, to be realistic, they probably never will. It’s perhaps the very last thing most young people think of when they hop into bed together.

But the law doesn’t really care; it’s that much of an ass, and a party pooper as well. Because the law still contains that remnant—that vestigial organ, as it were—of being more interested in the welfare of the child than the rights of either parent.

You may disagree with the results—I don’t like the results all that much myself. But my observation is that there’s no good solution and probably never will be, human nature being what it is. And the law we’ve got right now is as good as any I can come up with, I’m afraid—even though it may still be an ass.

[NOTE 1: For all you English majors out there: yes, I know the original quote is “The law is a ass.”]

[NOTE 2: In my research, I found this unrelated NY Times article with the amusing title “If the law is an ass, the law professor is a donkey,” about the prevalence of Democratic professors in law schools.]

Are Jews getting wary of Obama?

The New Neo Posted on by

Today’s Politico has an article that suggests that maybe, just maybe, many of Obama’s Jewish supporters are realizing that he’s not quite what they’d thought he’d be, at least on the subject of Israel.

They’re getting into arguments about Obama at dinner parties. They’re having to increasingly defend him, and finding it harder and harder to do so. They’re regretting their support of Obama rather than Hillary.

It’s not that this group—and it’s impossible to know how large a percentage of Jewish Democrats it represents—has turned on the Democratic Party, or liberal principles as a whole, or even Obama’s other policies. It’s just that his behavior on the Israel/Palestine question has made them question the sincerity of his more benign rhetoric on the same subject.

And that behavior of Obama’s isn’t based on just one incident. The evidence has been piling up over time in a way that has stirred more and more doubt about both his knowledge of the conflict and his intentions regarding Israel.

It doesn’t sound as though this group of Democrats is extrapolating from Obama’s hypocrisy on Israel to his hypocrisy on other matters—at least, not according to the article’s author Ben Smith, who purports to have conducted several dozen interviews with leading Jewish Democrats and donors on the subject of Obama and Israel. Nor is it explained why these seemingly intelligent and savvy people were fooled by Obama’s rhetoric in the first place, when it’s clear that many of them were a bit wary of his stance on Israel even during the campaign. But it seems they were very easily reassured back then. Here’s a typical tale:

“When Obama was running, there was a lot of concern among the guys in my group at shul, who are all late-30s to mid-40s, who I hang out with and daven with and go to dinner with, about Obama,” recalled Scott Matasar, a Cleveland lawyer who’s active in Jewish organizations.

Matasar remembers his friends’ worries over whether Obama was “going to be OK for Israel.” But then Obama met with the community’s leaders during a swing through Cleveland in the primary, and the rabbi at the denominationally conservative synagogue Matasar attends ”” “a real ardent Zionist and Israel defender” ”” came back to synagogue convinced.

“That put a lot of my concerns to rest for my friends who are very much Israel hawks but who, like me, aren’t one-issue voters.”

Now Matasar says he’s appalled by Obama’s “rookie mistakes and bumbling” and the reported marginalization of a veteran peace negotiator, Dennis Ross, in favor of aides who back a tougher line on Netanyahu. He’s the most pro-Obama member of his social circle but is finding the president harder to defend.

“He’d been very ham-handed in the way he presented [the 1967 border announcement] and the way he sprung this on Netanyahu,” Matasar said.

Some of them are even considering—gasp!—voting Republican for the first time in their lives. But many still seem easily reassured by a little talking to:

David Cohen, a Comcast executive and former top aide to former Gov. Ed Rendell, said questions about Obama’s position on Israel have been a regular, if not dominant, feature of his attempts to recruit donors.

“I takes me about five minutes of talking through the president’s position and the president’s speech, and the uniform reaction has been, ”˜I guess you’re right, that’s not how I saw it covered,’” he said.

This seems naive, somewhat akin to the wife who finds evidence of infidelity all over the place and yet believes the husband’s reassurances that nothing’s amiss because she wants to believe. For many liberal American Jews, Obama was a dream come true. He is black, and Jews have historically been in the forefront of the civil rights movement (until they were tossed out in anger by black power advocates during the 60s and 70s). He is an intellectual (or at least plays one on TV), a role Jews tend to admire. His liberal credentials and voting record were impeccable. The combination was powerfully seductive.

Will this group actually turn on Obama and vote Republican? My guess is that a few will, but not many. Voting for the nominee of the “enemy” party can be surpassingly difficult, especially for members of cultural, racial, or religious groups that vote overwhelmingly for one party or another, as Jews tend to do. Here’s a quote from the book A National Party No More: the Conscience of a Conservative Democrat by Georgia’s Zell Miller (not a Jew) on the subject:

I was born a Democrat. It’s not simply a party affiliation; its more like a birthmark for me and many of my fellow mountaineers. There’s actually a small pinkish spot on the back of my neck just like my father’s. Both the birthmark and allegiance to the Democratic Party have been handed down in my family from one generation to the next. Time does not erase it. It is part of our DNA. I would no more think of changing parties than I would think of changing my name. To change would be like walking on my mother’s grave.