Running out of suicide bombers? Let’s hope

The New Neo Posted on by

Is is possible that the world of extremist Islamic/Baathist terrorism could have gone any lower? Apparently, yes, if the news in this article is true, and they are now drafting handicapped children for the privilege of becoming suicide bombers in Iraq.

Traditionally, when wars are going on, the side that is losing starts running out of able-bodied young men, and conscripts younger and younger and less and less fit men/boys to be cannon fodder. So, this is as good a sign as any that the terrorists might be running out of eager volunteers to blow themselves up and attain the “height of bliss” in the act of murdering others.

Why might this be happening? I can think of two reasons. Firstly, it must hard enough, even among fanatics, to recruit people for the task of exploding themselves–but still, somewhat easier when the cause seems to be going well. And I would imagine that recent events in Iraq are not going as well as that combination of nefarious factions (foreign and domestic Al Qaeda members, and out-of-work Baathists) that our MSM insists on calling the “insurgency” and Michael Moore considers the “Minutemen”–had hoped. The Iraqis seem to be going about their business in defiance of the fact that they could be blown up at any moment by these murderers.

Secondly, it is likely that there is actually a finite number of people fanatic enough to be recruited in this endeavor. Even in a culture that glorifies death, the human drive towards life is difficult to override in most people, and it takes a special sort to be willing to strap on a flotilla of bombs and detonate it. One of the good things about suicide bombing (perhaps the only good thing?) is that, by the very nature of the thing, each volunteer only gets one chance. So unless there is something to strongly motivate new recruits, the pool of potential volunteers for such an activity is going to shrink.

I just thought of one more good thing about suicide bombers. Their acts are so egregiously repulsive to all right-thinking people that they tarnish any cause with which they are involved.

What’s up with this “escalating violence” meme?

The New Neo Posted on by

On CNN, NPR, and in the MSM in general, you hear it nearly every time there is violence in Iraq–in other words, every day–“the death toll increases as…”; “in escalating violence,…”; and so forth.

So I have a simple, modest question–how could a death toll ever decrease? Short of discovering that they’d previously counted wrong, that is?

Note to the MSM: death tolls can’t decrease. They will always increase. And the word “escalating” ought to be reserved for a change in the rate of the killings. I’ve never seen this sort of analysis done by the MSM, although Belmont Club did something similar a while back for American forces and discovered that, at the time, the unrest wasn’t “spreading” (which was the meme of the day).

Now, it’s possible the death rate has gone up recently in terms of attacks on Iraqi civilians prior to elections–after all, that’s been a stated goal of the terrorists (I refuse to call them “insurgents”) who are out to terrorize Iraqis into staying away from the polls. The MSM, as usual, are playing right along by this “escalating” business, but why should I expect anything different, at this point?

And yes, of course, I deplore and detest the violence that is going on there, and one death at the hands of these murderers is far too many. But I’d like the media to put it in the proper perspective, historical and otherwise (well, I can dream, can’t I?)

The fine art of insulting half your audience

The New Neo Posted on by

It happens nearly every time. I’ll be reading a short story, let’s say, enjoying myself, lost in the experience—when suddenly, there it is: the gratuitous and mean-spirited and out-of-context slap at Bush, or at those who support him. It’s not as though the story is even tangentially about politics, either; it can be about anything at all, it doesn’t really matter.

The Bush-dissing will be thrown in when you least expect it, just to let the reader know—well, to let the reader know what, exactly? To let the reader know that the author is hip, kindly, intelligent, moral—oh, just about everything a person ought to be. And that the reader must of course be a member of the club, too—not one of those Others, the warmongers, the selfish and stupid and demonized people who happen to have voted for Bush.

Back when I was one of the gang, too, back when I was in with the in crowd (“if it’s square, we ain’t there”), did I notice when authors dragged in their political credentials from left field? Or perhaps it wasn’t quite as commonplace back then for them to do so?

At any rate, now it seems positively obligatory. I’m reading along, sunk deep within the story, bonding with the characters—and then, suddenly, it’s as though the author has reached a hand out of the pages of the magazine (OK, I’ll confess, sometimes it’s the New Yorker—yes, I still read it for the fiction, just as some people claim they read Playboy for the interviews) and slapped me across the face.

Authors, do you really want to do this? Because, with a single sentence, you’ve managed to alienate and offend (not to mention insult) up to half your audience.

I don’t think this even occurs to you. I think you just assume that anyone perceptive and intelligent and downright nuanced enough to be reading your fabulous work couldn’t possibly—no, say it isn’t so, Joe!!—support that disgusting, repulsive, lying POS Bush. Or maybe you just don’t care. Maybe you don’t want people like that for your audience.

It’s not just authors. It’s plays, concerts, performances of all kinds, even those given by friends of mine, people I know and otherwise respect, people with good hearts. It’s poetry readings most particularly. It’s gotten so bad that I go to all cultural events girding my loins and waiting for the blow to fall, waiting for my intelligence and judgment and ethics to be insulted. And this from people who consider themselves culturally and morally superior, although this sense of superiority doesn’t seem to reside in their needing to prove themselves to be well-informed or logical or knowledgeable about the issues—just in letting the world know that they’re on the right side of them (which would be the left side, naturalment).

The tsunami and the forgetting

The New Neo Posted on by

We hardly hear about the tsunami anymore, although for a while it dominated the news. The tsunami was videotaped in a staggering variety of manifestations: from the tall towering waves of Japanese art, to rolling swells that almost resembled a normal tide coming in–except for the fact that this particular tide just kept coming and coming and coming. We viewed forlorn beaches where villages had once stood, and saw keening mourners whose anguish was almost unbearable to watch even on the small screen.

Over and over, newspeople, relief workers, politicians, and officials declared this to be an unprecedented catastrophe. But in the annals of history there have been far greater catastrophes (at least in terms of number of deaths), and many of them have been almost utterly forgotten–although some of these have actually occurred relatively recently.

Why did this particular tragedy grip us so–at least, for a while–and why have so many of the others been forgotten, or nearly forgotten?

Only those of a certain age might remember the massive 1970 floods in Bangladesh which killed 300,000 people (see here). An earthquake in the city of Tianjin in China in 1976, in the bad old days when almost no news emerged from that country, was reported to have killed at least 255,000, and more likely 655,000. How many of us have even heard of the city, much less the earthquake? Those with longer memories than I might even recall the flooding of the Yangtze in 1931 that caused at least three million deaths–and this was in a time when the world’s population was far smaller than it is today.

Stranger still is the lack of common knowledge about the 1918-9 influenza epidemic that disrupted most of the world (with the exception of Africa and South America) at the same time WWI was ravaging Western Europe. It was an event medieval or even Biblical in its apocalyptic scope. How many people died worldwide? Estimates vary, but the most conservative state that the death toll was 25 million. Oher estimates go much higher, up to 70 million or even 100 million. And, as this transcript from a fascinating PBS documentary on the pandemic relates, “As soon as the dying stopped, the forgetting began.”

“The forgetting;” yes. Virtually forgotten by all but scholars or epidemiologists, although it happened within the lifetime of many people still living today: more US soldiers dead from flu than were killed in WWI, many US cities running out of coffins and burying the dead in mass graves, homeless orphans wandering through the streets, schools and factories closed, wild rumors (“the Germans started it”) and familiar theologic explanations (“it’s a punishment for sin”). Read the links to get an idea of the all-encompassing horror of the thing and then tell me, if you can, why my history courses (and perhaps yours?) failed to even mention it.

Although the tsunami caused far fewer deaths than these other natural disasters, it represented a rare concurrence of factors that have caused it to be perceived–at least for now–as more dramatic:

1) It was widely recorded in riveting images, and those images were played almost endlessly on the 24-hour news cycle.

2) It affected an enormous swath of the world over vast distances, but happened very suddenly. This makes it different from an earthquake (sudden but relatively localized) or a pandemic (widespread but occurring more gradually).

3) Most of the places it affected were described as having been like “paradise”–picturesque fishing villages, or lush tropical resorts. The medium was the ocean, a force of nature that the villagers traditionally connected with sustenance, and the rest of us connected with beauty and relaxation. Thus, the tsunami involved a nightmarish reversal of perception: from food-giving life force to death-dealing enemy; from scenic wonder to horror.

4) There were so many children who died, and so many people who lost vast numbers of relatives, as well as whole towns in which the majority of inhabitants perished. The tragedy of the survivors seemed even more intense for that reason–so many of them had lost so much.

5) A tsunami is inherently dramatic, like a tornado. Tsunamis also have the horrific elements of action at a distance; how could one imagine that an earthquake off the shore of Indonesia could wreak such havoc in Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, and even Somalia only a few hours and so many miles away, its ferocity nearly undiminished? It seems magical and demonic, even when the science is explained.

6) Events of recent years, especially 9/11 for us Americans, have made people think more apocalyptically.

So, will this disaster follow the course of so many others, in which “as soon as the dying stopped, the forgetting began”? And why, in fact, does that sort forgetting happen?

The transcript of the aforementioned PBS program on the influenza epidemic offers the following explanation:

CROSBY: It is in the individual memory of a great many of us, but it’s not in our collective memory. That, for me, is the, is the greatest mystery: how we could have forgotten anything so horrendous, so massively horrendous, as this, this epidemic which killed so many of us, killed us so fast and our reaction was to forget it.

FANNIN: Why? Why wasn’t that part of our memory? Or of our history. I think it’s probably because it was so awful while it was happening, so frightening, that people just got rid of the memory. But it always lingers there. As a kind of an uneasiness. If it happens once before, what’s to say it’s not going to happen again.

What they are saying is that we don’t like to remember how vulnerable we are, and that perhaps that is the most significant reason for this “great forgetting” of seemingly unforgettable catastrophes. There is also the fact that large numbers of deaths are simply too overwhelming for the human mind to encompass. As none other than Joseph Stalin–one of the greatest experts on (and instigators of) such carnage–once remarked: “A single death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic.” What makes the tsunami deaths a tragedy to us right now is that videotape allowed us to see so many of the sufferers as individuals, and thus as tragedies. But years from now, when that memory is blurred, the deaths will probably come to seem more like statistics. That process appears to be well underway.

But, even if barely remembered or totally forgotten, truly cataclysmic events can cause changes that still ripple and reverberate down the ages. Our stongest memory of the European Black Death of the Fourteenth Century may now be the children’s rhyme it bequeathed us (“ring around the rosie”). But the Black Death, causing the death of between one-third and one-half of Europe’s population, sparked major and lasting changes and realignments in European society, including the decline of feudalism. How many remember anything about the great Lisbon Earthquake, fire, and tsunami of 1755, which struck at 9 AM on All Saints’ Day and virtually destroyed a city that was one of the major capitals of the world at the time, collapsing churches filled with worshippers, and filling Europe with horror? The earthquake struck not only at the city and its inhabitants, but at the attitude of optimism that had characterized the first half of that century, and caused many to question their previously unshakeable faith in divine providence, advancing the Enlightenment and the science of seismology.

Will the recent tsunami have similar far-reaching effects, even if “the great forgetting” reduces this enormous event to a tiny and nearly-forgotten footnote, as has happened so many times before? All we can safely say is that the 2004 tsunami will have devastating–and, it is hoped, short-lived–local effects on the countries that have been particularly hard-hit, and will no doubt result in the installation of some sort of tsunami warning system (long overdue) in the Indian Ocean. For the rest, we will have to await the judgment of history, and of time.

The health care is always greener on the other side

The New Neo Posted on by

This review of the book Miracle Cure, appearing in Commentary, reminded me of something I’ve long thought: that the Canadian health care system isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I used to be active on a forum that dealt with health issues, and over and over again I heard the same complaint from Canadians—unconscionably long waits for testing and treatment, and often-inadequate treatment even when it finally arrived. This was especially true of chronic pain patients, who usually waited through months or even years of intense suffering for a precious MRI, diagnosis, and treatment. When I would hear Americans touting the wonderful Canadian health care system, I would wonder where they were getting their information.

But, as the Commentary article states, I think it’s a classic case of “the grass is always greener on the other side of the border.” It’s nice to think that top-level health care could be had by all. But it just doesn’t appear to be realistic. It’s easy to see the flaws of one’s own system, and to ignore the flaws of the system across the border, especially when one doesn’t have personal and bitter experience of those flaws.

Socializing anything, including health care, tends to lead inexorably to wider availability of a more mediocre service. I am reminded of the drab high-rises of eastern Europe under the Soviets, the norm of tiny apartments shared by multiple families, the hackneyed art, the lack of variety in the stores, the dullness of reduced expectations for everyone. Everyone, that is, except the elites.

For, as even a casual observer of human nature is forced to admit, ye shall always have the elites with you. The Soviet elites got whatever they wanted, Communism or no Communism–spacious apartments, fancy clothes, plentiful food, dachas on the Don (or wherever dachas are). In the US, the rich certainly get better health care, which is one of the many reasons people want to get rich—to have access to better food, clothing, shelter, vacations, and health care. And in Canada, the rich also get better health care—the only difference is that they have to travel to do it, mostly to the US. And travel they do. As Miracle Cure points out, the Canadian health care system might not be able to function even at its current level if not for the safety valve afforded by the exodus of the rich to the US for their health care.

In the US, we don’t lack for proposals to solve our health care system’s problems, but my guess is that all of them are flawed because they all involve difficult choices about allocating resources. I think most people would agree (although not the most extreme Social Darwinists) that we need to have some sort of bottom line health care for everyone, although we don’t agree on how to provide it, how much is enough, or at what point it would kick in (at death’s door, or preventatively, or somewhere in between?). The answers to these questions depend on the answers to the larger questions: how far are we willing to go towards health care equality, and how low will our standards of general health care have to dive in order to attain it (and isn’t it the case that the rich will always find a way to get better care under any such system–and, might that not even be a good thing in some ways, since it provides motivation and energy for work and achievement )?

FAQs

The New Neo Posted on by

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Well, maybe not so “frequently.” And maybe not “asked,” exactly. But they are questions.

1) Why do you call yourself “neo-neocon?”

See here.

2) Why are you anonymous?

See here.

3) What’s up with that green Granny Smith apple you’re holding in front of your face in your photo?

The apple is meant to be a reference to this painting by Rene Magritte. According to UCSF, the painting was “the closest he was willing to come to answer a request for a self portrait. That tells us how little this marvelous artist cared for self-promotion and publicity, even though he was delighted to sell his work widely.” Well, I may not be a “marvelous artist,” but I share the desire to maintain my privacy while simultaneously wishing to have my work read. I also happen to like the color of the apple, although I couldn’t find one with a similar stem and leaves, and I couldn’t get it to float in front of my face the way his does. Bummer. I also decided to dispense with the bowler hat and the overcoat.

4) Are you a practicing therapist?

As I wrote in my profile, I have a Master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy. In the interests of clarity, I want to add that I am not at present practicing as a therapist. When I began this blog I had tentative plans to open a private practice, but I’ve been concentrating on my writing and free-lance editing instead.

5) What is your e-mail address?

It’s also in my blogger profile: jaybean33@yahoo.com.

Back in business

The New Neo Posted on by

My post-election hiatus was fun, but if I don’t get back on this horse soon, I probably never will. So, here goes–

I’ve spent the last ten days doing some editing (for pay, supposedly), and I’m exhausted with the whole idea of writing, and particularly with the idea of checking my work. But it occurs to me that, since virtually no one except perhaps a few close relatives and friends reads this thing, I really can dispense with the editing and the checking. Editing is the sort of thing that tends to get out of control anyway–I have no idea how anyone does it full-time without going stark raving mad. It reminds me of a day I once spent as a teenager weeding dandelions (stay with me here) for about eight hours. Weeding, weeding, weeding. When I went to bed that night and closed my eyes, all I could see were dandelions, and my hands, and the tool, and pulling them out of the ground, one by one, over and over and over. Like counting sheep, except that it wasn’t the least bit restful (but then again, I never felt that counting sheep was soporific, either (see, I’m not even going to look that word up to see whether I’ve actually used it properly). And editing is like weeding dandelions–if you do too much of it, it can kind of take over.

At any rate, I think I’m finally beginning to decompress from Nov. 2, now that it’s been over a month. I went to a party last weekend and I realized afterwards I was not on edge the entire time waiting for someone to make the obligatory “Bush is an idiot, of course, and anyone who votes for him is likewise” comment. Such a relief!!

Dodging the bullet

The New Neo Posted on by

It could be painful to watch if the Bush administration now steers sharply to the hard right domestically.

But, seriously, how anyone can read the Newsweek Nov. 15 special election series about Kerry and not think a Kerry presidency would have been an utter disaster is beyond me. And remember, Newsweek is pro-Kerry.

But even Newsweek can’t hide the character defects of the man that would have affected any Kerry presidency big time: in particular, his inability to lead even his own entourage, the dithering, the arrogance, the inneffectual strategizing. His other character flaws, such as the tiny fact that he is a pathological liar and a consummate narcissist, were already on full display in the still-not-discredited Unfit for Command. And then there’s the little matter of his voting record and his non-leadership in the Senate, and his dangerous foreign policy (global test, UN, possible withdrawal from Iraq, ban nuclear bunker buster development, give fuel to the mullahs of Iran, bilateral talks with N. Korea, initial recommendation of Carter and Baker as envoys to the Middle East).

Maybe the country would have survived Kerry, but I, for one, didn’t want to roll the dice and take the chance of finding out. I’m not happy with Bush’s domestic policies, and we may have to do some suffering about some of them, but that’s the bargain I and many other lifelong Democrats made to insure that one of the worst presidential candidates ever nominated, Kerry, did not become our president.

Democrats, quit whining about evangelicals, and those flawed exit polls that you think expressed a “truth” that the actual vote didn’t (somewhat like those CBS memos, no doubt). You covered yourselves with shame in this election, nominating such a man, promoting lies about the draft and countless other issues, smearing the swift vets instead of forcing Kerry to sign a 180 and answer their actual charges, and trashing the war on terror in hopes of winning short-term political gains.

Forget the far right, you’ll never win them over. But what about the goodwill of people such as myself, which you have squandered? And your post-election behavior is squandering it still further, I’m afraid. Your arrogance, elitism, and rage is not a pretty sight.

So take some responsibility, for a change. Also, you might try the novelty of common sense. Reform, and some of us will return. But the way most of you are behaving right now, I don’t see us prodigals returning any time soon. And moderates such as myself make the difference in any election, in case you hadn’t noticed.

Ironic endorsements

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m tired of Andrew Sullivan. I’ve sparred with him in his LETTERS section, and thought about him way too much. I’m trying to swear off having anything to do with him anymore, because he has simply become an unserious thinker. I wonder whether he ever really was anything else.

Others–most notably, Lileks–have excoriated Sullivan far better than I ever could. And now that Sullivan has finally done the inevitable, almost endlessly-telegraphed-in-advance thing–endorsed Kerry, with convoluted “reasoning” that gives this reader a headache–I would like to finally sign off on him. We’ll see if I succeed.

But Hitchens is another story. All around the blogosphere, people are scratching their heads at Hitchens’ recent endorsement of Kerry in Slate. I’m scratching my head, too, but that’s because I don’t read his piece as an endorsement, especially since he had (slightly) endorsed Bush in the Nation just a few days earlier.

I may be utterly alone in thinking this, but it seems to me that Hitchens has set up a sort of ironic math puzzle or game of logic, offering an arch challenge to the reader. “You figure it out, if you’re so smart,” he seems to be saying.

So, here’s my score sheet: Hitchens postulates three types of endorsement, and offers a Bush and a Kerry evaluation under each type, for a total of six.

Subjective

–Bush gets it, for confronting the enemy

–Kerry loses it, for being unprincipled

Objective

–Kerry gets it (albeit somewhat backhandedly), as his election would

force the Dems to “get real” about Iraq

–Bush loses it, for poor planning

Ironic –they both get it (although this hardly counts, since this category

would seem to be a joke)

So, the score is even, two endorsements for each. There’s a slight edge for Bush, though, because he receives what I would call the only serious vote, the one in the “subjective” category, for confronting the enemy.

Which leaves us with a slight edge for Bush, completely consistent with what Hitchens wrote in his Nation piece.

So perhaps Hitchens has set up a puzzle here, with clues. It would certainly suit his contrarian, superior, sarcastic nature if he’d done so.

Update 11/1/04: It appears (if I can trust this article), that Hitchens agrees with me. For now. Apparently, the Slate piece was meant to be a Bush endorsement, but the editors screwed up by labeling it for Kerry. Ah, editors! I’ve had a little trouble myself with them in the past, so I can well believe it.

Later: and now, straight from the horse’s mouth, as it were.

Stop me before I lie again

The New Neo Posted on by

Why is Kerry still lying about General Shinseki’s “firing?”

It seems puzzling, because it’s not even a “nuanced” lie–that is, there’s no way to spin it. It’s just a simple fact that Shinseki wasn’t fired for saying there should be more troops, and this can be easily proven, so Kerry is just flat-out lying through his teeth. In addition, Kerry no longer has the defense of having made an honest mistake, because it’s gone on way too long. Even his buddies in the mainstream media have called him on it, although not as loudly as they should have .

But tonight, in the second debate, there it was again: the Shinseki “firing.” So the mystery remains: why lie? Most liars lie for strategic reasons, and, when found out in their lies, they make excuses, or come up with another lie. But Kerry’s lies are only partly strategic, designed to win an argument. The rest is driven by his character disorder, narcissism, which often involves the trait of compulsive lying. Essentially, Kerry is a habitual liar who is simply in the habit of lying and perhaps even has difficulty distinguishing between lies and truth.

Character disorders are usually constant throughout life. They are not particularly amenable to treatment or intervention–that’s why they’re called “character disorders,” meaning that the flaws are deeply embedded in the basic character of the person.

As for narcissistic personality disorder, which I believe Kerry suffers from (although I must say that with a character disorder, it’s usually the people around the character-disordered person who are doing most of the suffering)–the following are the relevant traits. You be the judge as to whether they fit Kerry–I think it’s a slam dunk :

The disorder begins by early adulthood [Swift Vets, anyone?] and is indicated by at least five of the following:

1. An exaggerated sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)

2. Preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love

3. Believes he is “special” and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)

4. Requires excessive admiration

5. Has a sense of entitlement

6. Selfishly takes advantage of others to achieve his own ends

7. Lacks empathy

8. Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him

9. Shows arrogant, haughty, patronizing, or contemptuous behaviors or attitudes

And this is also spot on:

…a narcissistic individual has a shifting morality–always ready to shift values to gain favor… [Flipper?]

…Their tendency is to form friendships or romantic relationships with only those that can enhance their self-esteem or advance their purposes. [Teresa, mega-heiress?]

…A narcissist presents a false self to the world. Under his inferiority is a preoccupation with fantasies of outstanding achievement, ideal love, and an aimless orientation toward superficial interests…[wind-surfing?]

…The narcissist uses others to aid him in any tasks he undertakes and will frequently take credit for work which others have done. [Bronze Star #2?]

…The narcissistic individual may be more successful at his chosen field of work than some of the other personality disorders. This is because his work can be advantageous to the narcissist especially if it provides narcissistic supply. [well, the guy is a Senator, after all]

…Lying is an integral part of the narcissist’s behavior [Bingo.]

Kerry the narcissist plans ahead

The New Neo Posted on by

I noticed on Hugh Hewitt’s blog today some quotes from a recent Kerry interview, quotes that made my blood run cold. Here’s the exchange:

Q. “If you are elected, given Paul Bremer’s remarks, and deteriorating conditions as you have judged them, would you be prepared to commit more troops?”

A. “I will do what the generals believe we need to do without having any chilling effect, as the president put in place by firing General Shinseki, and I’ll have to wait until January 20th. I don’t know what I am going to find on January 20th, the way the president is going. If the president just does more of the same every day, and it continues to deteriorate, I may be handed Lebanon, figuratively speaking. Now, I just don’t know. I can’t tell you. What I’ll tell you is, I have a plan. I have laid out my plan to America, and I know that my plan has a better chance of working. And in the next days I am going to say more about exactly how we are going to do what has been available to this Administration that it has chosen not to do. But I will make certain that our troops are protected. I will hunt down and kill the terrorists, and I will make sure that we are successful, and I know exactly what I am going to do and how to do it.”

In a moment, I’m going to “psycho-fisk” Kerry’s statement, sentence by sentence.

I’m hardly the first to point out that Kerry appears to have narcissistic personality disorder. That seems to be the source of his strange quality of speech, since every word is uttered not because of personal conviction, but to produce a particular effect. Now, all politicians do this, certainly, but Kerry does it to an extent I have never seen before in any politician. It seems as though every single one of his utterances follows the rule: is it good for Kerry? And, furthermore: is it bad for Bush? It doesn’t matter whom he insults (generals, allies, Allawi) and truth or falsehood is not an issue (his statement about General Shinseki is false, and it’s been pointed out often enough that Kerry must know that fact and not care) as long as he is puffing himself up in the process.

Taken sentence by sentence, his answer is quite a masterpiece of strategic expression. The question was so simple: “Would you commit more troops?” But the answer is not simple at all, as Kerry’s answers never are.

SENTENCE 1: “I will do what the generals believe we need to do without having any chilling effect, as the president put in place by firing General Shinseki, and I’ll have to wait until January 20th.”

With great parsimony, Kerry combines in this one sentence: a) passing the buck (“I’ll do whatever they tell me”) about any decision he might actually make some day; b) the gratutitous insertion of the lie about Shinseki’s firing, in order to slam Bush; c) the idea that he would love to act now because he’s just chomping at the bit to rectify the mess, but unfortunately he’ll have to wait till his inauguration. Since it goes without saying that he can’t act till his inauguration, why does he say it? To set up the following thought, which can be summarized as, “Whatever happens, don’t blame me; blame him!” (see sentences 2 and 3)

SENTENCES 2 and 3: “I don’t know what I am going to find on January 20th, the way the president is going. If the president just does more of the same every day, and it continues to deteriorate, I may be handed Lebanon, figuratively speaking.”

The phrase “the president” is repeated for emphasis, to implant in the listener’s mind the idea that it’s all Bush’s, fault, and that Kerry can’t be blamed for whatever deterioration might happen between now and January 20, since that imbecile Bush is in office till then. So Kerry is effectively absolving himself of all responsibility in the future. He is creating the excuse he will use if he is elected and things don’t go well in Iraq when he, Kerry, is in office. It will all be Bush’s fault. Of course, if Kerry is elected and things happen to go well, rest assured that Kerry will take full credit, saying he has done it despite the mess Bush handed him. For a narcissist, all possible failures are blamed on another, all possible accomplishments are credited to the self.

SENTENCES 4 and 5: “Now, I just don’t know. I can’t tell you.”

These short sentences are a kind of filler. Like another person might say “hmm” or “uhhh,” Kerry says, “I don’t know, I can’t say.” It’s reflexive, and represents his profound inability to commit to a position or even make a statement.

SENTENCES 6 and 7: “What I’ll tell you is, I have a plan. I have laid out my plan to America, and I know that my plan has a better chance of working.”

Here Kerry rouses himself to snap out of the reflexive waffling of sentences 4 and 5 with his mantra, “plan.” The word “plan” has become the substitute for an actual plan. Saying the word will stand for the thing itself, and give the appearance of decisiveness and action. Kerry now defines himself as the man with the plan. That’s all ye need to know. But he’s also the man with the plan who’s been accused of never being specific about that plan, so now he is careful to correct that misapprehension: he’s the man with the plan that he has “laid out to America” so see, you can’t accuse him of not being specific! And of course he knows, he just magically knows, that his plan has “a better chance of working.” He doesn’t have to say why it has a better chance, he just knows it does and we should trust him because he is who he is. And notice he doesn’t say it has a “good” chance of working; he says it has a “better” chance of working. Inherent in the word Kerry uses here is a comparison, the idea that Bush’s plan is worse. Kerry never misses an opportunity to criticize someone else while puffing himself up.

SENTENCE 8: “And in the next days I am going to say more about exactly how we are going to do what has been available to this Administration that it has chosen not to do.”

Another packed sentence. Kerry won’t say more about this plan now, because he hasn’t a clue what he means. So he defers the description of the plan to some unspecified later time when he knows he’ll never have to answer the question (“in the next days”). But at that hazy future time he will say exactly what he is going to do, because once again he is making sure he is perceived as decisive and specific by using a word like “exactly.” And that very specific and exact thing that he can’t say now but will of course say later is not just something that he himself has come up with, it’s something that “has been available to this administration”–again, Kerry must define himself only in comparison to Bush’s perceived failings. And this unspecified inexact but exact available thing that Bush has failed to do, and that in a few days will become exact, is not a simple failure. It’s a failure of choice; Bush could have done this exact and successful thing, but has “chosen not to do” it. Which makes Bush exceptionally bad, since he could have done a successful thing but chose not to.

SENTENCES 9 and 10: “But I will make certain that our troops are protected. I will hunt down and kill the terrorists, and I will make sure that we are successful, and I know exactly what I am going to do and how to do it.”

Here we have only two sentences, but the word “I” is used five times. Kerry is painting a picture of himself as a man of action. And this man of action is an individual who will do those things by himself, magically unassisted. Notice how he doesn’t say, “I will appoint a better Secretary of Defense” or “better generals” or “reform the intelligence community” or “rally the troops” to do any of those things. No, he, personally, Kerry himself by himself, will protect those troops and kill those terrorists. I picture him as Rambo, chasing down Osama and shooting him with his trusty deer rifle. (Those who have read Unfit for Command will immediately recognize this aspect of Kerry’s personality). Kerry will be successful and he knows how to do it: exactly how to do it. There’s that word “exactly” again, and it’s no accident that it’s there. It’s there for the same reason it was there before—to make it seem as though there is something firm and specific in his mind, even though he isn’t telling us and will never tell us. In fact, the entire passage is incoherent.

Well, it’s been fun. But exhausting.