How much credit does Bush get for the anti-Syria protests in Lebanon?

The New Neo Posted on by

No surprise that we’ve seen the usual disagreements about how much credit Bush gets for the recent dramatic “Cedar Revolution” in Lebanon. For example, in the comments section of this post of Michael Totten’s, someone named Benjamin objects to Totten’s calling it a “revolution,” or tying it directly to Bush’s actions:

Although you [Totten] are anxious in your article to trumpet the apparent success of US foreign policy as regards Lebanon, you don’t acknowledge the internal dynamic of Lebanon’s politics which has been building since way before Dubya was President, and which is influenced by many other factors… Indeed, you are anxious to ‘claim’ the Arab street, just as the other lot did earlier. I am not sure how useful that is, or indeed accurate.”

Well, Benjamin, I hereby submit that it’s both useful and accurate. “Useful,” because it’s good to relate causes to effects, even if the causes might only be partial or contributing causes. “Accurate,” because simple logic indicates that there is some sort of causal relationship. True, we don’t have a classic experiment here in which we have an alternate universe as a control, a world in which the US never liberated (and yes, we can now say “liberated”) Iraq and Bush never criticized dictatorships in the Arab world, so we’ll never know for sure. But how useful or accurate is it to fail to connect some fairly obvious and close-together dots?

My take on it? Whatever gradual, step-by-step approaches Lebanon has taken since 1991 towards a more representative government free of the Syrian occupation, Bush’s contribution can’t be denied, unless one is desperately looking to deny it. It as though goods were being laboriously transported by mule pack through some steep canyon pass, and then suddenly a helicopter swoops down and hoists the mule, pack and all, aboard. The goods are going to get to their destination a lot sooner, and it doesn’t make sense to say, “Oh, well, the mule was carrying those packs there anyway, so what help was the helicopter?”

Just ask yourself: if not for Bush and the war in Iraq and most particularly the Iraqi elections of 1/30, do you think these anti-Syrian demonstrations would ever have happened? And, if so, how many people do you think they would they have drawn? The Iraqi war has energized and emboldened this new Arab Street, which may in fact represent a heretofore “silent majority” in the Arab world.

Comments are now more user-friendly–I hope

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve had a couple of complaints about the fact that this blog requires people to register fully with blogger before commenting. In the interests of becoming more comment-friendly (and because I finally figured out how to fix it), I’ve changed the settings and have now made it easier to comment here. Power to the people!

UPDATE: It’s come to my attention that, even though this represents improvement, there are still some folks who are having trouble posting. So, I offer this comments tutorial for those who are even more computer-challenged than I.

The following sounds complex, but it’s really very very easy. Trust me. Take a few deep slow breaths and I’ll walk you through it.

1) Click on “0 comments” (or whatever the number of comments happens to be) beneath the post, on the right. On the left of your screen, you will then be able to view whatever comments have already been made.

2) Click on “post a comment” on the lower left.

3) Write your comment in the blank box on the right of your screen under “leave your comment.”

4) Under that box, you are given three choices for signing in under “choose an identity.” You need to choose one of the three by clicking in the circle before your choice: “blogger,” “other,” or “anonymous.”
–If you choose “blogger”: this means you have to create an account with blogger. Those who already have an account, no problem. Otherwise click on “sign up here” and follow the instructions.
–If you choose “other”: this means you just sign in with a name of your choice. There is also a space to fill in your web page URL, if you want, but you don’t have to do this.
–If you choose “anonymous,” you’re all set to post a comment.

5) After typing your comment in the box and choosing your identity, you now can post your comment, or you might want to preview it first. If posting, just click “login and publish” (if you’ve chosen “blogger” as your identity), or click “publish your comment” (if you’ve chosen “other” or “anonymous” as your identity). That’s all you need to do.

If you prefer to preview your comment before posting it, click “preview” intead. Afterwards, if you look on the lower left, you will see your comment in a yellow box. Look it over, and if satisfied, click on “publish this comment.” Otherwise, click on “edit comment,” and then fix the comment. Then click on “publish your comment” (or “login and publish,” if you’ve chosen blogger), and you’re all set.

Simplicity itself, isn’t it?

Anti-Bush bumper stickers: changing with the times?

The New Neo Posted on by

I live in a liberal Democrat “blue” town in a “blue” state. Back when I was blue myself, I wasn’t even aware of this; it was like background music. But this fact of blueness, or the characteristics that went with it, must somehow have been part of its attraction: good theater, open-minded people, great food, funky little clothing shops, tolerance, all that jazz.

In the build-up to the 2004 election, anti-Bush bumper stickers proliferated on cars like mushrooms on the lawns after a week of rain. My neighbors’ car sported, not just a Kerry bumper sticker, but a “Regime Change Begins at Home” bumper sticker. Almost overnight, before I even knew what it signified, the cars around me sprouted different versions of that “W” sticker with the black slash across it (for the first few days, I actually thought it was some sort of new municipal parking sticker). A good friend of mine, a lovely and ordinarily gentle woman, had one that read “Somewhere in Texas, a village is missing its idiot.” The only anti-Bush bumper sticker I saw that seemed to display any sort of wit was the one that read “Fermez la Bush.”

Pro-Bush stickers were few and far between, although sometimes I wondered whether those yellow-ribbon “Support the Troops” stickers were a coded way of supporting Bush, like a secret handshake. But I always imagined, without even thinking much about it, that after the election the stickers and signs would come down pretty quickly, no matter who had won.

Months later and I still couldn’t go for a drive without seeing them everywhere: a few bumper stickers for Kerry; but, far far more commonly, bumper stickers ridiculing and demonizing Bush. I couldn’t remember anything even remotely like this after previous elections. The closest I could recall were the bumper stickers I used to see when I lived in Boston right after Watergate: “Don’t blame me, I’m from Massachusetts.” But that was after the fall of a president, not the election of one.

It couldn’t be that these people thought Bush would magically go away and that Kerry would somehow still become president. No, something else must have been going on. It occurred to me that these stickers must be acting as a signaling device, sort of like the displays of birds in mating season, or the sonorous cries of humpback whales calling out to others of their ilk . The stickers said something about the driver, not about the election. They said, “I am good, I am wise, I am smart, I am sophisticated.” In particular, they said, “I am not fooled by the simpleminded simplicity of the simpleton Bush.” But, most of all, they said, “I am like you; I am not like them. Are you like me, too?”

They were a form of both communication and of fashion, like having a trendy haircut or cutting-edge clothes (or, for that matter, long hair, no makeup, and Birkenstocks). As such they worked very well, helping people to recognize each other from afar, and to feel comforted that, even though Bush had become President, they themselves had managed to live in a community of like-minded individuals who saw right through him.

But a couple of days ago I was parking at the local health food supermarket, usually a treasure-trove of cars sporting Bush-hating stickers, and I noticed something odd. The cars were bare, stripped of their messages.

What had happened? Had there been a recent special on sticker-scrapers? Or was it something else? Did everyone get the signal all at once–like when the leaves turn colors and drop from the trees because the days are getting shorter and the nights colder–that the time had come? Did it have something to do with the wave of demonstrations for democracy hitting the Arab world? Is there some sort of realization dawning, slowly but surely, that perhaps, perhaps, Bush isn’t so very awful after all?

UPDATE: Welcome, Ann Althouse readers!

Why I love the internet

The New Neo Posted on by

Because we can do these instead of these.

Remember whiteout, typewriters, erasable bond? And even further back into antiquity, remember carbons? (I have to say even I don’t remember carbons too well, but I distinctly recall watching my mother type with them. She was a pro.)

Typing was hard, kids. And when you made a mistake, you swore and tore your hair out, cause it meant typing the whole page over. If you were anything like me, you’d come into your dorm at curfew (yeah, curfew–eleven PM on weekdays, twelve-thirty AM on weekends) sit down in that hard little wooden chair in front of your hard little wooden desk, pack of cigarettes by your side, favorite form of caffeine at the ready, and start typing.

Ten page assignment? Okay. Back to the wall, time running out, no outline and no plan, I’d sit down and type page after page, and when I’d reach that magic number ten, I’d simply stop. Finito.

Those Lebanese protestors have got nothing on this liberty babe

The New Neo Posted on by

By now you’ve undoubtedly seen the photos of those attractive Lebanese girls in the anti-Syria demonstrations. That male-dominated institution, the blogosphere, has done quite a bit to guarantee their–errr–exposure. The blogosphere seems to approve of the liberty babes of Lebanon, not to mention their pulchritude.

But plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose. Impressed by the cleavage of the flag-waving pro-liberty women of Lebanon? Well, they’ve got nothing on this babe in that department (even if she is an older woman):

The buzz about women bloggers

The New Neo Posted on by

It seems to be a hot topic today: Jeff Jarvis and Roger Simon are both writing about Steven Levy’s charge that the blogosphere is a white male bastion of power.

As that rara avis, a female blogger (although, in the interests of full disclosure I also hereby state that yes, I am white–mea maxima culpa!), I thought I’d weigh in on the subject. Levy’s article seems to suggest it’s an old-boy-network sort of thing. And it’s true that, in the blogosphere, there is a bit of the “I’ll scratch your back you scratch mine” arrangement going, at least in terms of blogrolls.

But it’s really not much of a factor. Most bloggers (even lowly ones such as myself) only link to people they genuinely like and admire. The blogosphere is indeed a meritocracy. The writing is pretty much everything.

On the other hand, as in anything else, there are certain elements influencing which writing is likely to attact the greatest readership. I hereby submit (at the risk of being Larry Summersed for being un-PC) that there is something about the meritocracy of the political blogosphere that appears to favor male writers, but that it’s not any sort of discrimination, nor is it something to be condemned.

Here’s my disclaimer: I’ve done no research on this, it’s just my personal observation, yada-yada. If fewer women write political blogs it’s because fewer women want to, for whatever reason. Maybe they have better things to do with their time; I don’t know. Maybe more women tend to favor the more comtemplative medium of the blog devoted to personal observations. At any rate, the fact that fewer females decide to enter the particular arena of political blogging is no one’s fault, and so what if they don’t?

But “arena” it is. There are so many political bloggers (and I assume this is the area Levy is really speaking about) that to emerge from the pack one needs to have something really distinctive. Sometimes it’s a specialized audience, sometimes it’s just really fine writing, sometimes it’s the quality of the thinking. But I’ve noticed a tendency that favors the quick sharp jab, the brief but pungent remark; and perhaps (note the qualification, folks; I really don’t know) this comes more naturally to men than to women. There’s also a number of angry in-your-face blogs that seem to fit a need and attract a lot of readers, and perhaps (there’s that “perhaps” again–I’m just speculating here, so be kind!) that’s a more natural mode for men, too, although it certainly doesn’t rule out women.

If in fact this is true, it’s no one’s fault, nor does it need remedying–it’s simply the nature of the medium. People have only a certain amount of time to read blogs, and they select them on the basis of what appeals to them. If the work of men appeals to more people, so be it.

The volume gets turned up in Lebanon

The New Neo Posted on by

Today’s demonstrations in Lebanon by anti-Syria forces dwarfed last week’s pro-Syria rally, which in turn had trumped the anti-Syria one preceeding it.

This crowd was estimated as having been close to a million. This is a big crowd by anyone’s standards. But by the standards of Lebanon, population 3.5 million, this isn’t a crowd, this is practically a census.

As I wrote earlier,

I believe that one of the reasons this “purple finger revolution” has been able to move with such rapidity is that the worldwide media are able to spread those images quickly and effectively to people who in years past would never have had access to them. These people see those images, do the same sort of processing, and come to their own changed conclusions: it’s possible; we can do this, too.

Well, that was just speculation on my part. But in the AP article about today’s rally, here is evidence of the seminal role of modern communications, particularly the Internet and cellphone messaging:

In recent days, opposition ads for Monday’s rally have been running on television, and activists in towns and villages arranged buses to the capital. E-mails and telephone text messages referred to Prime Minister Omar Karami’s claim that the Hezbollah demonstration showed the government had the support of the majority.
“Prove him wrong,” the messages flashed across cellphones and computers.

And they did. Now, we await Syria’s next move in this game of chess writ large. I don’t think that this is checkmate. Not yet.

The extraordinary clothed in the ordinary: Ashley Smith

The New Neo Posted on by

Watching yesterday’s interview (I can’t locate the video at the moment, but here’s a report ) with Brian Nichols’ ex-hostage Ashley Smith, I was struck by the reaction of the newspeople to her story. Not only was she allowed to talk for twenty uninterrupted minutes, but the anchors and reporters that I saw (Fox, CNN) seemed spellbound, riveted, mesmerized, and all but speechless. It takes a great deal to jar them (and many of us, as well) out of either cynicism or stock and facile responses to heroism, and into something approaching awe. Ashley Smith seems to have done it; we know we are watching the real thing.

The power of her story was in her sincerity, her courage, and her own belief in redemption. Whether or not you yourself are religious, there is no escaping the power of her belief, and its effect on what appears to have been the already-weary Nichols. This story could have gone differently–we all expected it to go differently–and the fact that it didn’t is owed in large part to Ashley Smith, an extraordinary woman who looks like any young mother you probably pass every day in the supermarket.

And what of Nichols? He remains a mystery. But one of the things I heard Ms. Smith say about Nichols caught my attention, so much so that I wrote it down verbatim: “He said, ‘Look at me, look at my eyes, I am already dead.'”

If you’ve read my piece on Mohammed Atta’s Eyes, you’ll recognize this is the same phenomenon criminologist James Gilligan reports most murderers exhibiting and feeling, the same deadness in the eyes and in the heart. But Ms. Smith’s “amazing grace” under pressure was to have somehow convinced this man (who in some sense did seem already dead) that he is still alive, and that his life retains some purpose. No small feat.

Of course, he will have to pay the price, as Ms. Smith told him. His crimes were heinous. But to me, this extraordinary story indicates that there was still some part of him that remained reachable, and this woman managed to reach it, at least for a moment, at least long enough to save her own life and the lives of others.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has kindly linked to the video of Ashley Smith’s interview.

And we were all at Woodstock, too

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m getting very tired of the Ward Churchill story, but it retains a certain mesmerizing slow-motion train wreck fascination as his modus operendi becomes more clear. This isn’t about academic freedom anymore; it’s about an academic con artist, as I wrote earlier.

But this latest twist in the tale (via Little Green Footballs, from Pirate Ballerina, who seems positively Javert-like in his/her monomaniacal pursuit of Mr. Churchill) involves an allegation that Churchill appropriated another man’s Vietnam combat story. That’s what caught my interest.

I’ve noticed that inflating one’s service in Vietnam, or even making it up entirely, has been something of a cottage industry for quite a while. The Vietnam War, dreadful though it was for many soldiers who actually were there, seems to have attracted a host of tall tale tellers. Sometimes their motivation is to get sympathy, or they act out of an overwhelming sense of guilt, or both. There is evidence that a number of the Winter Soldier testimonials of the early 70s may have been of this type, involving confessions of terrible wrongdoing, some of them given by men who may have never served there–or (like Churchill) who served there, but were apparently never in combat.

John Kerry, on the other hand, may or may not be (depending, of course, on what you think of the Swift Vets) an excellent example of a different type of tall tale teller, one motivated by narcissism. Roger Simon mentioned a while back that this self-aggrandizing type is a stock figure in commedia dell’arte, called “the braggart soldier.” Baron von Munshausen made his name by telling these sorts of tales. Ward Churchill would most likely fall into this category of the braggart soldier.

When dramatic events happen, whether wonderful or terrible ones, there is a tendency for people to claim they were part of them (we were all at Woodstock, right? Sure we were!). Shakespeare mentions this desire in his famous St. Crispin’s Day speech from Henry V (I suggest you read the whole thing if you’re not already familiar with it; it’s awfully fine):

And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s Day.

Ward Churchill, con artist

The New Neo Posted on by

Ward Churchill started out merely as an offensive windbag. Then, revelation by revelation, it became clear that he was a liar; and then a habitual liar. He appears to have lied about nearly everything: his ancestry, his job offers, his artwork, and now his writing, plagarizing the work of a Professor Cohen at Dalhousie.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s official; he’s a con artist (definition: a person who deceives other people by making them believe something false or making them give money away). Not to mention a bully, threatening the professor whose work he had appropriated.

Is there anything about Mr. Churchill that’s true? Until his whole house of cards came tumbling down, he must have been pretty convincing, like most con artists. Now his con could pay off even more handsomely, because there’s a chance he might end up not only getting his payoff and his golden parachute, but becoming even richer as a hero on the campus lecture circuit. Unless Professor Cohen decides to sue the pants off him for plagarism. Or unless the University of Colorado decides to stop feeding this particular alligator.

Question for soxblog and other Red Sox fans: Does the tale of Churchill’s hiring–that he was given the position without the proper vetting because he had received a competing offer from another college, and Colorado was loathe to lose him–remind you of the story the Sox told when they hired Butch Hobson as manager in 1992? I distinctly remember they said they were hiring the relatively young, unknown, and untested Hobson (he was pretty cute, though) because he was such a hot commodity that other teams were about to steal him away. Wonder if that tale was any truer than Ward Churchill’s?

UPDATE: Looks like Ward may be having a bit of trouble opening that golden parachute. See here. The article contains allegations (unproven as yet) that Churchill may also have a longstanding habit of threatening those he feels are about to blow the whistle on his con. Curiouser and curiouser.

The alleged accused suspected suspect is in custody

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m very glad he’s in custody. But I’m not commenting on the case itself, I’m commenting on the news coverage.

Yesterday on the radio I heard the newsman refer to Brian Nichols, the guy who murdered three people at an Atlanta courthouse in front of a bunch of horrified witnesses, as the “alleged” killer. Today, watching both CNN and Fox News announce the good news that he’s been captured, there it was again, “alleged” and “suspect.”

If this particular set of circumstances isn’t enough to allow us to refer to him as a killer and not a suspect, I don’t know what would be. But language has become so neutered, and journalists so hesitant, that this sort of careful weasel language has become commonplace.

Commonplace? Yes. I checked. You can check, too, if you’re interested–I won’t bore you by going through the all details, but they’re there. Typical was yesterday’s Boston Globe article: “A huge manhunt swung into motion across the Southeast yesterday as officers searched for a rape suspect accused of overpowering a sheriff’s deputy in an Atlanta courthouse and then using her gun to kill a judge, a court stenographer, and a second sheriff’s deputy who had chased the alleged assailant into the street.” It’s true that Nichols is a rape suspect (although, somehow, I’m starting to believe the guy just might be a tad guilty of that crime, too). But he’s certainly not just accused of overpowering a sheriff’s deputy, nor did the second sheriff’s deputy chase the alleged assailant. By that time the guy was very much an actual assailant.

The New York Times and LA Times exhibited similar back-and-forth confusion. But this is most definitely not just about the liberal press; not at all. The wording is pervasive. The NY Post’s lead article today is headlined “Police capture Atlanta slayings suspect,” and its first line begins, “A man accused of killing three people at a courthouse…”

Why do these writers bend over backwards to avoid stating that Nichols murdered these people, when the fact is not in dispute? Is it simply habit? Is it fear of legal proceedings against the journalist for false accusations, as I suspect? What gives?

I did some research into the subject, but all I could find online was this eminently sensible set of guidelines for radio reporters, which discourages the overuse of hedgey words such as “alleged” and suggests the use of phrases such as “witnesses say” or “police say.” Sounds simple, doesn’t it? This is a solution to the problem that makes sense to me, protecting both the “suspects” and protecting the journalists. These phrases are in fact used intermittently in these articles, but they don’t seem to be used anywhere near as consistently as common sense and the guidelines would suggest they should be.

Another thing. All of us probably wondered, when we heard the news of the murders, why Nichols wasn’t handcuffed as a security measure as he was going into the courtroom. Turns out that he was not allowed to be handcuffed in order to protect him from looking bad in front of the jurors and thus prejudicing them against him. It would appear to me that a defendant who had already been caught going into court with hidden knives, as was true of Nichols, should be considered to have waived that right. But maybe that’s just me.

Well, as I said, I’m very glad he’s in custody. It must have been frightening to have been anywhere near the Atlanta area yesterday.

Presidential longevity

The New Neo Posted on by

Former President Bill Clinton is now recovering from surgery to remove some nasty scar tissue left by his previous open-heart surgery.

I was stunned a while back at the announcement that he needed open heart surgery in the first place. He always seemed so young and healthy, positively boyish (not to mention immature). In fact, he is pretty young, at least for heart disease.

Then I started thinking, and I realized there was another reason the news had shocked me so much. I’d gotten used to Presidents living to a ripe old age. And I mean old age–really, really old age. When I look at all of the Presidents who were alive at some point during my lifetime, the extent of their longevity seems pretty astounding.

Here’s a list of those Presidents, including each one’s age at death (or present age, if still alive):

Hoover (90)
Truman (88)
Eisenhower (79)
Kennedy (doesn’t count, for obvious reasons)
Johnson (64–the sole exception to the longevity rule)
Nixon (81)
Ford (91 and going strong–have you seen the man?)
Carter (still fighting off attack rabbits at 80)
Reagan (93)
GHW Bush (at 80, he appears healthier than traveling companion Clinton)
Clinton (’nuff said)

It’s hard to get a good comparison to the general population, or especially to the population of rich white men (the population from which most of these people–Harry Truman excepted, since although he was white he wasn’t rich–seem to have come). But if you take a look at average life expectancy tables for comparison, the life expectancy of a white male child born in 1930 was 59.7, and that of one born in 2001 is 75. So, something definitely seems to be going on here with all these mega-elderly ex-Presidents.

So, what gives? Presidents are certainly under far more stress than the average person, and stress is supposed to undermine health, so why all this longevity?

I’ve got two theories. Neither of them is all that great, but here they are:

a) There’s something about the arduous process of campaigning for and then being President that winnows out the weak. Not only do only the strong survive, but only the strong can get elected President in the first place. A person has to have the constitution of an ox. Johnson, one of the longevity exceptions, was an exception in this regard, too, since he was known to have had heart disease way before he ever became President, having had his first heart attack–a serious one–in his forties. But remember, Johnson was picked by Kennedy as a running mate and was catapulted into the Presidency by Kennedy’s assassination. Perhaps he wasn’t subject to the usual winnowing process, and perhaps the circumstances under which he became President made for unusual stress.

b) There’s some research indicating that stress-related illnesses are more common in people with high-stress/low-control jobs rather than high-stress/high-control jobs, although it’s a complex issue and the jury is still out on that. But if it is true that being in control helps to reduce stress, then the Presidency would certainly seem to be a job that qualifies.

Get well, President Clinton, and keep these longevity stats going strong!