The poetry you know and the poetry you don’t know

The New Neo Posted on by

Some of you who’ve read this blog for a while may recall that I like poetry, and that as a child my school assignments included memorizing a lot of poetry.

And so it is that often when I’m thinking about a subject—even a political one—a poem or line of poetry comes to mind. It happened the other day with, of all things, Saddam Hussein’s trial and the poem “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath. And it just happened again with a comment to my nepotism post.

When I was composing that comment, I had to look up Thomas Gray’s poem “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.” I hadn’t read it in decades, and I was struck by the fact that in this single poem there are at least three famous lines–lines that have become, to a greater or lesser extant, part of the buzzing hum of sayings—cliches, really—that swirl in our heads and have become part of our popular knowledge base whether we’re aware of them or not.

Often, we haven’t a clue as to where these sayings come from or why we know them. But many come from poetry, even if we don’t know the poems any more.

Here are the lines (or, in one case, phrases) from Gray’s Elegy that I’ve tagged as famous. You may not know all of them, but I bet you know at least one, even if you detest poetry and have never read the poem:

The short and simple annals of the Poor.

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Far from the madding crowd‘s ignoble strife,

The same is true for Shakespeare, Robert Burns, countless other poets—their words have seeped into our culture and become so much a part of our language that they are almost indistinguishable from proverbs such as a stitch in time saves nine; waste not, want not.

As I was musing about this, it struck me that this fact is no longer true of recent poetry. Gone are the memorable and quotable phrases that become well-known—unless, of course, you count parodies such as the “who blew up da owl?” jokes at LGF and elsewhere, making fun (and rightly so) of the erstwhile poet laureate of New Jersey, Amiri Baraka.

Who can recall a single line from a poem written in the last fifty years that has become commonly known? And, lest you think the lack is just because it takes time for these things to catch on and percolate, who can nominate a line of recent poetry that you imagine has even a chance of living on for future generations?

One of the last poets who wrote such things may have been Frost, and perhaps Eliot. Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in; I took the one less traveled by; Not with a bang but a whimper; April is the cruelest month—there are quite a few.

But as I rack my brain trying to think of a more recent example of a memorable poetry line that has seeped into the public consciousness, all I can come up with is the first line of Ginsberg’s “Howl” (so far I can’t find the text online, so there’s no link to the full poem itself): I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness… As it serendipitously turns out, the poem was first declaimed by Ginsberg almost precisely fifty years ago: on Oct. 7, 1955, to be exact.

Practically everyone knows the line; almost no one has read the poem (have you? I haven’t). Ginsberg was somewhat of a one-trick pony, as far as I know–that line caught fire, but not much of anything else he wrote ever did, although he remained a celebrity for most of his life. It’s also odd that the line tends to be misquoted as “I have seen the best minds of my generation…” and, in that misquotation, is often used for the purpose of parody (see this for examples).

So perhaps we can date the death of the poetic quote as household word–and to poetry itself as having any sort of deep importance to most people outside of the narrow range of literary academia or a few stalwart diehards such as myself—to its swan song fifty years ago, Ginsberg’s “Howl.” If any of you can think of a truly famous line of recent poetry other than outrageous travesties such as Baraka’s, I request that you hereby submit them. And by “recent,” I mean within the last fifty years.

(And by the way, if anyone has in mind the vaguely famous line from “The Gift Outright” by Frost, recited at John Kennedy’s 1961 inaugural—“The land was ours before we were the land’s—no dice. The poem was actually written in 1942.)

Dinner party politics and how to avoid them

The New Neo Posted on by

I think I’m making progress.

A year or two ago, when I would go to a party and the inevitable comments would come up, apropos of nothing–Bush is evil, Michael Moore’s movie is the repository of Speaking Truth to Power, those Swift Vets are a pack of Republican lying scum and vicious attack dogs, etc. etc. etc.; I would turn red in the face and have to leave and go cool off.

And now? Now when I go to a party and the inevitable comments come up, apropos of nothing–Bush is evil, we are a pack of murdering marauders in Iraq, Abu Ghraib was the equivalent of the political killings and imprisonments in Iran under the mullahs, etc. etc. etc.; I turn red in the face and have to leave and go cool off.

You don’t see the difference, you say? Well, here’s the difference:

(a) The comments no longer surprise me.
(b) I no longer get quite as red in the face, and my cooloff period is shorter.
(c) When I return, I don’t try to argue with or convince anyone (i.e., I’ve given up on logic and facts, and have accepted that this is the way it is with certain people).
(d) The intensity of my need to talk about these things is somewhat mitigated by the fact that we’re no longer facing the possible election of John Kerry.
(e) The intensity of my need to talk about these things is somewhat mitigated by the fact that I have a blog.

All in all, I consider that progress. You may not. But at least it makes get-togethers a bit easier for me.

One thing it does drive home when it happens again–as it did last night–is that most intelligent liberal people still consider what they read in the MSM to be the simple, unadorned, basic Truth. And not just to Power.

[ADDENDUM: Oops! Sorry I failed to make myself clear. I’d alluded to this before, in my “about me” section, but from responses in the comments section I can see that, obviously, I need to say it again and say it clearly: I’m fully out of the political closet, perhaps even obnoxiously so. At last night’s get-together, everyone present knew full well exactly how I feel. I’ve had it out with all of them many times, and I’ve given up.

I’ve also spoken up with strangers, and I find that if there is a certain level of reasonableness to their comments, we can have a conversation. If they’re way over the top, I know at the outset–from bitter and repeated experience–it will be fruitless. Sometimes I don’t speak up then, and sometimes I just say a sentence of disagreement and move on.

Rest assured though, I’m one of the more vocal people on this issue. It’s cost me a lot of grief and I’ve gotten a lot of flak for it, and I soldier on–just not again and again with the same people.

And please don’t tell me to make new friends! Or rather, you can tell me, but my answer is that I like these people and enjoy their presence. They just turn into Jekyl-Hyde dimwits when politics rears its ugly head.]

Nepotism is okay as long as you keep it in the family

The New Neo Posted on by

Because of the Miers case (no, this isn’t about Miers, promise!), the word “cronyism” has been bandied about quite a lot lately. Via Roger Simon, I found this interesting article by Adam Bellow in the National Review on the subject of cronyism and its kissing cousin, nepotism.

Bellow isn’t especially interested in distinguishing between cronyism and nepotism; to him they are almost identical, since they both “offend our public creed of meritocracy.” According to Bellow, the problem with cronyism/nepotism is a possible conflict with our deeply entrenched idea that getting jobs or promotions or appointments should always be based on merit only. Cronyism/nepotism muddies the waters.

Sounds reasonable, and I agree with Bellow here. I think it’s true that appointing friends or family or even former colleagues to an important post can raise the suspicion that the person was chosen solely or at least primarily because of that relationship. As Bellow points out, the phenomenon is not at all unusual; cronyism/nepotism often plays at least some part in the making of a selection from among a bunch of applicants, whether in industry or in politics–perhaps especially in politics. Bellow calls it “a permanent feature of the American political landscape.”

One might generalize and say not just American politics–it’s probably, to a greater or lesser extent, a prominent and permanent feature of every political landscape, or of any other type of landscape where such choices are made. Unknown quantities are just that–unknowns, and therefore risky. And it is human nature to want to reward family, friends, and acquaintances, and to help them on the road to success. In politics, it’s understood that one of the benefits of past service is often an appointment, a sort of quid pro quo. And even if we should want to stamp out this behavior, it would be naive to think we ever really could.

So what, then, is Bush’s fatal flaw, according to Bellow? Not nepotism or cronyism itself, but cronyism without regard for the saving grace of merit:

[Bush] has made the common dynastic mistake of confusing loyalty and merit; in his eyes, the merit of people like Michael Brown and Harriet Miers consists in their being his friends. They are loyal to him, and their loyalty must be rewarded…His greatest failing is his inability to hold people accountable for their errors. Because they are his creatures, he seems unable to disown them or even to see their faults.

Putting aside the question of whether Miers lacks objective merit and is just a loyal “creature,” (remember, I said this post wasn’t going to be about Miers, and I’m sticking to that), I found Bellow’s article to be a bit disingenuous, given his own history–for Adam Bellow is the son of Saul Bellow, a fact he fails to mention either in the article or in the short bio that accompanies it.

I’m not saying that Adam Bellow can’t write. Or that he’s not a fully meretricious fellow himself. I really don’t know, since this article is the only work of his I’ve ever read–although, having heard his name before, I immediately recognized his identity.

So when I read his article, I suspected that at some time in his life his name had probably opened a few doors for him that would have otherwise remained closed. And it’s often getting that first foot in the door that matters, because it turns out that the world is not really a strict meritocracy after all, as much as we’d like to think otherwise.

As it turns out, the internet is a wonderful thing. So it is that I was able to find this interview with Adam Bellow on a website devoted to information about family businesses. In it, Bellow talks about the role of nepotism/cronyism in his own life:

I didn’t grow up with my father because my parents divorced when I was two. So he served more as a model than someone who was hands-on and personally involved in my learning to write. He did have a powerful influence on me, and I was clearly drawn in his direction at an early age.

He had nothing to do with my getting into publishing, however… at least, not directly. That was more of an accident after I ran out of other options. I was thirty and just married and went to see a friend of my father for advice. He directed me to Erwin Glikes, publisher of The Free Press, who hired me as an editor. Over the course of my career I have not benefited at all as the son of Saul Bellow, even though my entry was definitely facilitated by the connection. I’m a good example of what I refer to in my book as the “new nepotism.”…

New nepotism is not the same kind of nepotism that people generally think of. It’s not the same as we have defined in years gone by. There are important differences. With the new nepotism, parents no longer pick up the phone and pull strings. Instead, it’s the children themselves who decide this on their own and they find their own way to exploit those connections.

I’m not so sure what difference it makes whether a parent makes the call or the child does–in fact, I’m pretty sure it makes almost no difference at all; it’s still the relationship that greases the wheels. After all, making one’s own phone calls to ask for hiring assistance from a parent’s friend is hardly a model of extreme initiative.

Don’t get me wrong–I’m not knocking it. I’d do it if I could, and so would most people, and I don’t think it’s a terrible thing at all. As I said earlier, it’s the way of the world, here and everywhere, and I’d be hard-pressed to figure out a benign way to stop it, even if I wanted to.

But this business of Bellow’s father having “nothing to do with” his son’s getting into publishing may be a case of “I fear the man doth protest too much.” Saul Bellow certainly had, as Adam Bellow himself points out, something to do with Adam’s entry into the field, and entry is often the most important hurdle. How could Adam Bellow know for sure that over the course of his own career he has “not benefited at all” as the son of Saul Bellow? Would people actually be telling him if his family connections had figured into their promotion of him?

The children of the very famous often encounter something like the old problem the very rich face: does he/she love me for myself, or for my money? Hard to tell. That’s why in folk tales the prince or princess sometimes dresses in commoner’s rags, just to see how people will treat them if their identity is hidden. Sometimes the results are not very pretty.

[CORRECTION: Ooops! I’ve been informed by a kind and careful reader that “meretricious” isn’t quite what I meant, not by a long shot. The word, of course, should be “meritorious”–having merit. A thousand pardons.]

Don’t make RINOs an endangered species

The New Neo Posted on by

Lately, there’s been a lot of rage going around at RINOs. (For those who aren’t familiar with the appellation, it stands for “Republicans in Name Only”–or what used to be known as “Rockefeller Republicans” in a somewhat less acronym-mad era).

Quite a few members of the dread “Gang of 14” are RINOs, assumed to have sabotaged hopes for the real conservative nominee for Supreme Court Justice that Bush could–and would–have chosen, if only the Gang of 14 and the RINOs didn’t exist.

So, get rid of ’em, who needs ’em? say many real conservatives in the Republican Party.

It wasn’t so very long ago that the Republican Party considered itself a “Big Tent,” a party in which moderates were welcome and considered an asset. The phrase was coined in 1988 by Republican National Committee Chairman Lee Atwater (as mentioned in this Time magazine article from 1999, which features an almost cuddly Karl Rove–the times, they have a-changed, haven’t they?). Interestingly enough, the Time article cites Rove himself as having transformed Texas from a Democratic to a Republican state by following Big Tent precepts.

So, what’s happened? Perhaps certain Republicans have forgotten that they didn’t get where they are today by alienating the middle. Of course it’s also true that–as Jerry Falwell points out in this article–they didn’t get where they are today without the evangelical Christians and other cultural conservatives, either. The problem now is how to keep both under that shrinking tent.

I’m neither a Republican nor a conservative, but I do have an opinion (trust a blogger to always have an opinion). I don’t think the answer is to replace RINOs with traditionally conservative Republicans in states where the latter simply have no chance of winning. I happen to know about one of those states, from which two of the most prominent and vilified RINOs of all hail: Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, Senators from Maine and RINOs extraordinaire.

Perhaps the fact that Maine has a long Republican history blinds many conservatives to the fact that it is a solidly Democratic state in many ways, and that the only Republicans who have a chance of being elected there are RINOs. Maine is not New Hampshire (another state of which I have more than a passing knowledge), which is fairly evenly divided, and whose two Congressmen and two Senators are all Republicans in more than name, as opposed to Maine’s two RINO Senators and two Democratic Congressmen.

Take a look at Maine’s results in the 2004 presidential election. A landslide for Kerry, despite the fact that the Bushes have ties to the state. Does this seem like a place where a conservative Republican could win? Don’t think so.

To drive the point home further, look at this map of counties in Maine and how they voted in 2004. You would be hard pressed to find a bluer state–and keep in mind that the south is where the people are (same is true of New Hampshire, by the way; and in Vermont there just aren’t any people). Those two lone light pink counties in Maine are very sparsely populated.

Compare it to the map of New Hampshire in 2004, a state in which the vote was very close indeed. Not only are the counties far more evenly divided, but some of the areas that voted for Bush are quite populous. This is a state where conservative Republicans have a chance, although it’s not easy.

So, please explain. I don’t get this failure to look at things pragmatically. Is it that ideological purity thing again? Would very conservatives Republicans rather a candidate be “right” than elected? Would they prefer the election of a clearly liberal Democrat to that of a person who is in fact a centrist? I don’t see how that would benefit them–but hey, it’s not my issue. Just trust me when I say that throwing Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins to the wolves and replacing them with non-RINOs (love those animal metaphors!) will probably lose you two Senate seats, if that’s what you’re after.

The justice of a trial

The New Neo Posted on by

In my last post, about Saddam as press hero, I wrote about transmuting the very human desire for personal revenge into the desire for a different sort of justice, the justice of a trial.

No sooner said than done, apparently. I just came across this wonderful post by Mohammed of Iraq the Model, entitled, “Let Justice Be Served.” In it, he describes that exact process taking place as he and his friends watch the trial:

“Why do we have to listen to this bull****?” said one of my friends.
“I prefer the trial goes like this:
Q:Are you Saddam Hussein?
A:Yes.
Then take this bullet in the head.”

Everyone could find a reason to immediately execute a criminal who never let his victims say a word to defend themselves “let’s execute him and get over this” sentiments like this were said while we watched the proceedings which were rather boring and sluggish for the first half of the session.

At the beginning we were displeased by the presentation of the prosecution which was more like a piece of poetry in the wrong time and place and this is what encouraged the defense to give us a worn out speech about objectivity and how the court must not go into sideways; the thing which both the prosecution and the defense were doing.

Anyhow, the prosecutor began reading the facts and figures about what happened in Dijail. The defendants went silent but Saddam objected on some details and then prosecutor said “Do you want me to show the film where you said and did that?” Saddam stopped talking and the prosecutor asked the court to allow showing the film, we don’t know if it was played there as transmission was paused for a while.

As the prosecution went deeper into details and facts, the way we viewed the trial began to change and those among us who were demanding a bullet in Saddam’s head now seemed pleased with the proceedings “I don’t think I want to see that bullet now, I want to see justice take place as it should be”. We were watching an example of justice in the new Iraq, a place where no one should be denied his rights, not even Saddam.

We smiled seeing the news anchors lower their voices and nodding down when the prosecution grew stronger and more reasonable and convincing and they also abandoned the previous poetic sentimental tone that couldn’t stand in the face of facts and figures…

We’re drawing the outlines of a change not only for Iraq but also for the entire region and I can feel that today we have presented a unique model of justice because in spite of the cruelty of the criminal tyrant and in spite of the size of the atrocities committed against the Iraqi people, we still want to build a state of law that looks nothing like the one the tyrant wanted to create.

Exactly.

A new press hero: Saddam, defendant

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve been looking forward to the sight, and here it is: Saddam on trial.

I watched a bit of coverage, enough to assure me that Saddam was playing his outraged defiant role, as expected, and that the judges are among the bravest men on the face of the earth to let their faces be shown and their names be known.

The sight brought back memories of the joy I felt the morning I learned Saddam had been captured alive, and of the photos of the Iraqi press corps whooping it up on hearing the news. But the danger always was that a living Saddam standing in the docks would try to turn his trial into a showcase for himself, a la the interminable Milosevic trial, and in the process turn himself into that most unlikely of things: a victim.

Makes a person wonder what would have happened had Hitler not killed himself. We’ll never know, but times and attitudes were certainly different then.

As for Saddam, it seems that some media outlets are already taking up his case–the case for the defense, that is. Well, if not the defense exactly, then certainly the case of criticizing the prosecution and the court, and of a sort of sneaking admiration for Saddam’s moxie and “defiance,” a word I’m already heartily sick of.

To paraphrase Sylvia Plath (of all people), in her poem “Daddy”:

Every [left-leaning journalist] adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.

Well, it doesn’t scan well as poetry, and yes, it’s hyperbole, but it comes to mind these days when I read things like the NY Times editorial highlighted and discussed today by Captain’s Quarters.

The Times is criticizing the Iraqi court for–oh, well, for just about everything. Being American puppets, for starters; not having a big international tribune trying the case; being bloodthirsty for wanting the death penalty to be a possibility for Saddam; not having a comprehensive trial for all his crimes but taking the easiest charge first (as, by the way, good prosecutors always do: earth to NY Times), saying it looks like a show trial, and so on and so forth.

Can the Times spare a word in the editorial for any sort of satisfaction that the day of reckoning has come for one of the worst murderous tyrants of recent memory? No. On this momentous day of the trial’s beginning, it seems our Blue-Gray Lady’s editorial board can’t manage to muster up even a smidgen of happiness, only a tongue-scolding for the all-too-imperfect prosecution.

And what of the news wing of the Times? The ordinarily relatively fair John Burns and Edward Wong write the story today. It’s an interesting document, which describes Hussein and the court proceedings and then segues into a recounting of objections much like the ones outlined in the editorial–criticisms from Human Rights Watch and the like, as well as opponents of capital punishment; allegations that the US was too involved (for example, the US provided the money for the especially-secure courthouse and has aided the investigation process–horrors!). The article ends with a quote from a group purporting to be spokesmen for the pesky insurgents, condemning the trial.

But to me what was most telling was the article’s failure to give much space to the reaction of the Iraqi people on this momentous day. The following constitutes the sum total of what this lengthy lead article has to say on that subject (keep in mind as you read it that Dujail is the town where the murders for which Saddam is currently being tried took place):

This morning, images on one Iraqi television network showed residents of Dujail calling for Mr. Hussein’s execution. Meanwhile, in Mr. Hussein’s home town of Tikrit crowds gathered to show support for their former leader, chanting slogans such as: “You are still the son of Iraq.” They appeared to be in a frenzy, waving Iraqi flags and photos of Mr. Hussein. Iraqi police, wearing blue uniforms and carrying Kalashnikovs, walked through the crowds but did not appear anxious to break up the demonstration.

So, one TV station showed some anti-Saddam demonstrations–and only from the very town where the massacre occurred. But the Times must balance that tiny little piece of news with a bulletin from Saddam’s homies demonstrating for him.

I’ll not go on too much longer about all of this; the wonder is that it still has the power to surprise me.

I haven’t gone back to read the Times coverage of the trial of these guys, but I imagine it might have been a bit different:

But back to today. As soon as one turns to the far-less-renowned but also less liberal New York Post, one notices the change in coverage. In the following excerpt, the Post doesn’t neglect to balance the happy responses of some Iraqis with the reactions from an area of Saddam sympathizers. But at least it gives due weight to the anti-Saddam feeling of what must be the majority of Iraq’s people:

Many Iraqis gathered around TV sets to watch the proceedings.

“Since the fall of the regime, we have been waiting for this trial,” said Aqeel al-Ubaidi, a Dujail resident. “The trial won’t bring back those who died, but at least it will help put out the fire and anger inside us.”

In Baghdad, Shiite construction worker Salman Zaboun Shanan sat with his family at home in the Shiite neighborhood of Kazimiyah, having taken the day off from work to watch the trial.

When Saddam appeared on television, his wife Sabiha Hassan spit at the screen.

“I hope he is executed, and that anyone who suffered can take a piece of his flesh,” said Shanan, who was imprisoned during Saddam’s rule, as was Hassan and several of their sons.

But across the Tigris River in the mainly Sunni Arab district of Azamiyah, some were embittered by the trial of Saddam, whose regime was dominated by Sunni Arabs who have now lost their power.

“Saddam is the lesser of evils,” said engineer Sahab Awad Maaruf, comparing Saddam to the current Shiite-Kurdish led government. “He’s the only legitimate leader for Iraqis.”

In particular, the Shiite Muslim majority and the Kurdish minority – the two communities most oppressed by Saddam’s regime – have eagerly awaited the chance to see the man who ruled Iraq with unquestioned and total power held to justice.

“I’m very happy today. We’ve prayed for this day for years,” said Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi, an anti-Saddam opposition leader in exile for years and now one of the fiercest proponents of the purge of Baathists from the new government.

In closing, I’ll return to that Plath poem “Daddy.” It contains another image, one I think captures the understandable sentiment of so many Iraqis who had come to hate Saddam and all he stood for:

There’s a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.

This is the very human desire for revenge, a desire that is transmuted from its primal savagery into the desire for the accounting and punishment that comes with justice–the justice of a trial. It would be good if our MSM could find it in their hearts to applaud the fact that the Iraqis are on their way to the latter satisfaction rather than the former.

[ADDENDUM: I just came across this NY Times article on their webpage. It deals specifically with the reaction of ordinary Iraqis to the trial and its images. Those of you who are registered with the Times can read the article and see for yourself how, despite paying lip service to the fact that some Iraqis despise him, the thrust of the article is that a) many, many Iraqis still adore him; and b) even those who dislike Saddam have little faith in the trial, but many criticisms of it–almost as many as the Times itself. How very extraordinary.]

[ADDENDUM II: Michelle Malkin has a roundup of coverage and commentary. Michelle highlights the following quote from an article in the Boston Globe, which I thought particularly relevant in light of my final words on the Plath poem and the understandable human desire to take personal revenge:

“We want to eat [Saddam] alive,” said Salimah Majeed Al-Haidari, 60, who spent more than four years in detention, then waited 17 more to learn that her husband and two sons, hauled off by security officers, had been executed. “We wish they would cut him to pieces and hand them out to us and families like us.”]

Vietnamization vs. Iraqization

The New Neo Posted on by

Even though Vietnam and Iraq are far from the same, there are certainly similarities–although they’re not necessarily the ones the “quagmire” crowd would cite. We are now engaged in a very intense part of the “Iraqization” phase of the current war, very roughly similar to the “Vietnamization” phase of the Vietnam War (I’ve written about the latter here).

Seekerblog has an edifying post on the trajectory of the process of Iraqization, and why there’s every reason to believe it’s building geometrically, and will continue to do so.

Coincidentally, in the newly-released issue of Foreign Affairs, none other than Melvin Laird, Nixon’s Secretary of Defense, discusses the topic of Vietnamization, and compares it to the current situation in Iraq. Of course Laird, as the architect of Vietnamization, is defending his own record when he writes that Vietnamization (contrary to MSM spin) was actually going rather well until Congress pulled the funding plug in 1975. But I’ve read other pieces on much the same theme, (such as this one), and I find their arguments quite persuasive.

Laird notes an important ideological and tactical difference between Vietnamization and Iraqization, and thus has saved me the trouble of writing my own post on the subject, because–astonished though I may be to find myself agreeing with Nixon’s Secretary of Defense at this late date–it’s a distinction I’d been thinking of pointing out myself:

Those who call the new Iraqi government Washington’s “puppet” don’t know what a real puppet government is. The Iraqis are as eager to be on their own as we are to have them succeed. In Vietnam, an American, Ambassador Philip Habib, wrote the constitution in 1967. Elections were choreographed by the United States to empower corrupt, selfish men who were no more than dictators in the garb of statesmen.

Little wonder that the passionate nationalists in the North came off as the group with something to offer. I do not personally believe the Saigon government was fated to fall apart someday through lack of integrity, and apparently the Soviet Union didn’t think so either or it would not have pursued the war. But it is true that the U.S. administrations at the time severely underestimated the need for a legitimate government in South Vietnam and instead assumed that a shadow government and military force could win the day. In Iraq, a legitimate government, not window-dressing, must be the primary goal. The factious process of writing the Iraqi constitution has been painful to watch, and the varying factions must be kept on track. But the process is healthy and, more important, homegrown.

Funny how the old man has gotten so much smarter over the years. I suggest you read the whole thing.

I said no more Miers, but I just couldn’t resist this

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s a song to brighten your day. Pretty clever, I think.

(And here’s the original for comparison).

And, since the author has solicited new stanzas, here are my offerings (the last one is based on the final stanza of the original):

Pundits, oh! they think I’m dumb,
They wish they could carry me home,
Next I’ll nominate my mum,
Coming for to carry me home.

The brightest day that I can say,
In front of the Capitol dome,
’09 Inauguration Day,
Then I’m gonna carry me home.

Reuters gets dizzy over the Iraqi vote

The New Neo Posted on by

Reuters is spinning so much here, I’m surprised it doesn’t get vertigo.

This is the entire text of the article, which originally caught my eye because of its positive headline, “Iraq voters seen approving constitution”:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi voters have probably approved a new U.S.-backed constitution, overcoming fierce Sunni Arab opposition in a vote Washington hopes will boost its beleaguered strategy in Iraq, results showed on Sunday. Early counts from Saturday’s referendum indicated the vote split as expected along largely communal lines, reflecting the bitter ethnic and religious tensions that have cost thousands of Iraqi lives since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

These two sentences show an economy of expression that is truly impressive, a remarkable ability to compress a large number of negative thoughts into a relatively small number of words. Check it out:

“U.S.-backed constitution”–Nothing about how hard the Iraqis worked to hammer out a compromise, or how this vote was widely seen even by Sunnis as a way for Iraqis to participate in the formation of their own government. No; just “U.S.-backed,” as in “U.S. tools and puppets.”

“fierce Sunni Arab opposition”–it will be interesting to see what the actual statistics are. Opposition has indeed been fierce by many Sunnis, to be sure, but when last I checked, the majority Sunni party was backing the constitutional compromise and telling its followers to vote “yes.”

“Washington hopes will boost its beleaguered strategy in Iraq”–need I even bother to tackle this one?

“bitter ethnic and religious tensions that have cost thousands of Iraqi lives since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.”–All the Iraqi postwar deaths are chalked up to ethnic and religious differences rather than terrorist attempts to sabotage the Iraqi people’s efforts at democracy. Yes, there’s ethnic strife, to be sure. But Reuters hasn’t a clue how much of the mayhem in Iraq is due to that factor, and how much to terrorists hoping to thwart the US and the Iraqi people as a whole. And of course, Saddam and the deaths he caused (and the ones he would have continued to cause which have now been prevented by that “U.S.-led invasion”) are nowhere to be seen. As far as Reuters is concerned, the U.S.seems to have invaded Michael Moore’s happy kite-flying land, and caused all the subsequent strife and destruction.

One would think that this referendum news would be cause for celebration. I, for one, plan to savor and enjoy it if the constitution is indeed passed. Would that Reuters could spare a moment to do the same. Or are they suffering from the same sort of depression as the NY Times?