Heretics' almanac

Bush coöperating

It was a big enough item that CNN sent out an e-mail alert: the White House was going to let National Security Advisor Rice testify - in public and under oath - before the 9/11 commission. The "under oath" qualifier may have been a bit of a red herring - it's not as if "with permission to lie" ever was on the table.

Still, this shouldn't have been such a news item. The Bush administration has promised to fully cooperate (or coöperate, as the New Yorker prefers to spell it) with the commission. It seems to me that Rice's appearance was mandatory if such cooperation were to have any meaning.

But as the New York Times points out today, there is this thing about executive privilege, and Rice serves at the pleasure of the president, not under the advice and consent of Congress. Of course, Congress could subpoena her and force sworn testimony, and that was probably a lever. But that wouldn't be pretty.

Rice has undoubtedly been rehearsing spin, and I'll bet that some of the commission members are accumulating information that'll put her on the spot.

The Bush administration has painted itself into a corner here - they simply can not credibly claim that their pre 9/11 take on Al Qaeda was better than the Clinton administration's, and they should stop trying. If they had said from the outset that while they took terrorist threats seriously, they were still sorting them out when the planes hit, it would have looked bad but believable. What's emerging is that the Bushies dismissed warnings about Al Qaeda simply because they came from Clinton folks.

This may be the deep psychological flaw in the Bush camp: the firmly held belief that Democrats - the enemy - have no merit, that they are morally impaired.

Sent from my Blackberry

AJ's future

Anthony Soprano, jr., is on the slippery slope. He's failing in school, his partying habits are irresponsible, and he's talking back to his mom. Fairly typical stuff, unless you're the son of a mob boss and a self-involved mom.

Carmela gives up and lets AJ move in with his father, who passes the evenings away drinking beer and watching TV with his pals. And AJ has a lot more fun hanging out with these guys, being a man, than studying with a halfhearted tutor. Who could blame him?

You have to wonder what's going through Tony's head when he accepts AJ's lame explanation of what went down that evening and chalks it all up to juvenile fun'n games. Maybe he was getting back at Carmela by bringing AJ closer - it worked, when you see how alone Carmela looks in that vast West Caldwell house. Or maybe he's given up on AJ's prospects of going straight and decides to matriculate his son at the school of (giving out) hard knocks.

There are indications that AJ is bound to follow in his dad's footsteps when Dr. Melfi reads out loud his apologetic letter to her supervisor, who in turn takes just a little too much pleasure in repeating the word "cunt." Tony is practically illiterate, a point that the writers drive home by having Tony say "antedote" instead of "anecdote" when he's chewing out Feech.

But you have to wonder about Carmela. What is she supposed to be thinking? AJ was a pain in the ass, to be sure, but now she's lost him - probably for good. AJ knows he can never be good enough for her and will probably do anything to make Tony proud. Even if that involves whacking someone.

This might be a little too similar to the Godfather premise (and there may even be a clue to that in the dialogue), so I expect a twist. For a while I thought Meadow was showing the sharp edge that would make her Tony's heir apparent, but she's apparently too busy being a sexually active coed at Columbia. Or maybe that's a deception, too.

Obsessing about pornography

I'm finishing up Laura Kipnis's book Bound and Gagged: Pornography and the Politics of Fantasy in America, and it's keeping me up at night. This is because it challenges some assumptions I've long held and that I suspect I have in common with many others.

It's this: pornography is shameful, isn't it? It's the ultimate guilty pleasure, depraved self-indulgence at best, at worst complicity in an industry that systematically degrades women. Porn is something to keep from kids, never let your wife know you partake in it, keep to yourself.

Or is it? When I think of all the things I want to protect my kids from, visual images of people actually having sex isn't the worst. Nor is it the prospect that even they one day might learn to masturbate. Between "reality" shows that glorify one-time, zero-sum games, dramas that solve all problems in one hour less commercials, comedies that celebrate flakiness, national news that is sensationalist, and local news that is gruesome, etc., overdone depictions of sex come pretty low on the list.

I sometimes wonder if all this fear of pornography and masturbation is related to the fact that most parents have no idea how to teach their kids about sex, and - as a corollary - that most of us parents are pretty confused about sex ourselves. We're afraid that lacking our guidance, our kids will actually believe that pornographic sex is "normal" sex.

Dole and economic statistics

Bob Dole was always a better politician when he forgot he was trying to be one. He was responsible for several reasonable bipartisan bills, most notably the very liberal Americans with Disabilities Act, which (among other things) affects the way this website is being presented.

He's written his take on the upcoming presidential campaign in a (rather dry) New York Times op-ed piece. I have a feeling that Senator Dole is trying to bring issues into the debate, rather than just personalities. Although Dole once tried to blame WWII on the Democratic party, he's a good guy who believes that disagreements should be honest.

Dole is right - the economy makes a big difference in the way people vote. But I'm not sure that the Democrats have to "convince voters that the economy is not doing as well as it is." For most Americans, the economy is still very uncertain. The reason the misery index is low is because inflation is virtually non-existent. Unemployment is still too high for most people to feel confident about their personal outlook, and the expanding deficit is making them nervous. And a lot of economists will start explaining - for the Democrats' benefit - that these deficits will lead to more inflation over time. They will also explain that in order to pay off the deficit, real interest rates will rise, making mortgages more expensive and causing deflationary pressure on real estate. "Poof" goes the equity you built up in your American dream. And so on.

The thing is, most Americans judge the economy by their own situation. And it won't be hard to convince them that Bush's efforts to get the economy going has largely benefited the wealthiest Americans. Call this "supply side," "trickle-down," or "voodoo" economics - it will seem unfair to people that rich people - who can afford to save money - get huge tax relief, while they are blowing away their savings to make ends meet and pay their medical bills. Add greater uncertainty about Medicare and Social Security, and all of a sudden the future looks mighty scary.

There's only a few of us who pay attention to economic statistics, and fewer yet who pretent to understand what they mean. And among those few, there isn't consensus where precisely the economy is headed. Most Americans will choose slightly higher taxes over a greater risk of unemployment.

European perversions and the identity crisis

Bjørn Stærk is bewildered. The March 11th bombing in Madrid, followed by the long overdue demise of Sheik Yassin, should have created clarity in Europe that terrorism is the enemy of civilization, not just one or two political systems. Instead, the animus toward the US and Israel has increased and newspaper editorials have perversely sided with Hamas against Israel while indirectly blaming Bush for creating the hate that spawned M-11. And these tendencies aren't limited to flaky left-wing intellectuals. They're running rampant and unopposed in the mainstream press.

Why is this? Is there something in the logic of this massive public opinion that eludes us, or have a bunch of statesmen, politicians, and journalists taken leave of their senses?

The psychology of European (or any regional) politics is complicated stuff, so it's hard to say anything definitive. But I'd like to offer a hypothesis.

The European identity is something still in formation. European nation-states have in the past shaped their self-image by being distinct from each other - by "virtue" of language, religion, history, model of state, or any combination of such factors. Not too long ago colonies were conquered and wars were fought in order to assert these differences and prove the superiority of one language (e.g., French), one history (e.g., not Catholicism), one historical legacy (e.g., the English), or one model of state over another. European states sustained themselves on the basis of legacies, not for the sake of their citizens. Alliances were formed and dissolved among European states only for transient political necessity.

Bloody war after bloody war has caused Europeans to ask some obvious questions, such as: why can't we work together toward a common future? And shouldn't that future be as great as anyone else's? Aren't European ideals of liberal democracy worth cultivating?

But there are few answers to be found in Europe's past. All of Europe's great contributions to civilization either occurred before the Middle Ages (i.e., Greek philosophers) or were largely conceived in defiance of nationalism. Beethoven, Piaget, Ibsen, Shakespeare, Mozart, etc., did not primarily identify themselves as Europeans, but neither was their genius particularly German, French, Norwegian, British, or Austrian either. They were cosmopolitan and made their mark precisely because they untied themselves from the pressures of nationalistic conformity. They were more similar to each other - and to geniuses anywhere else in the world - than they were to anything particularly European

And the distinctly European historical legacy is scarcely anything to be proud of. Silly, bloody wars; genocide; fruitless, plundering Empire-building; the Eurovision Song Contest.

The awful truth is that everything Europeans consider uniquely European is being done better elsewhere. The US - for all its faults - is a more robust liberal democracy than any European state. Europe houses no undisputed capitals for arts or sciences anymore. With the exception of the United Kingdom and Germany, no European power has shown any military capability to speak of.

There are three current issues that remind Europe just how far it is between their ideals and reality:

One is the atrocities in the former Yugoslavia. Europeans know that ethnic divisions in the former Yugoslavia are greater (to be sure) but not materially different from ethnic divisions elsewhere in Europe. There are countless regional minorities that want autonomy and feel pretty strongly about it. Bosnia, Kosovo, etc., could conceivably happen elsewhere in Europe.

Then there is the dominance of the US in practically everything. Not only is the US the biggest economic and military power - Americans are doing distinctly European things better than the Europeans. (A possible exception being auto manufacturing). And European consumers are eating it up, figuratively (Baywatch) and literally (McDonald's).

Then there are the Jews. In spite of (at best) discrimination and (at worst) genocidal persecution, European Jews have for centuries, no millenia, defied pressure to assimilate and become European. Not only that, as a collective they have outperformed non-Jewish Europeans in every field they've entered. Israel - for all its faults - can rival most European countries for its cultural scene, its technology development, and even its human rights record. And they've won every war they've ever fought, even against overwhelming odds.

All this is to say that while Europeans desperately want to believe that being European is something unique and good, they are constantly reminded that the good things about Europe aren't unique, and the unique things about Europe aren't that good. If you don't believe me, see if you can maintain for more than two minutes a rational discussion with a European about the differences between Europe and the US.

As grown-ups, we quickly see the fallacy in thinking that way. We learn that it's less important to be unique than to be good, and that we will discover our uniqueness as we pursue what we think is right. Europe consists of liberal democracies that value the rule of law and social justice, that cultivate economic prosperity, and that bring a rich and diverse cultural heritage to the human enterprise. That should be enough, but it obviously isn't. Europe wants to be something more than that and above all something better than the US.

Let's face it: collectives are rarely as mature as individuals. We tend to regress toward the mean, or maybe even the lowest common denominator.

How does this help Bjørn make any sense of the European reactions to M-11 and Yassin's demise?

First of all, let's understand that the Middle Eastern terrorism scares the shit out of most Europeans. It's hard enough maintaining the stability of welfare states through economic cycles, and then on top of that making the EU work in ways that don't invite animosity among the European states. But if Europe attracts a dangerous, murderous enemy, all bets are off. Each country will develop its own policy. France is likely to want to appease the terrorists by offering some of them safe haven; the UK is likely to confront them; Germany won't know what to do; and so it'll go.

But in order to believe that Europe is not a target for Middle Eastern terrorism, Europeans must convince themselves that they don't invite the kind of hatred the US and Israel does. So it becomes important to make clear distinctions between Europe and these two primary terrorist targets. This results in fanciful but persuasive caricatures: Europe favors dialogue where the US favors confrontation; Europe cares about Palestinian human rights where Israel seeks to undermine them. Bush is a cowboy and European politicians are intellectuals. Sharon is a bully and European leaders are compassionate. And it includes some projection that Freudians would relish: Israel is ethnocentric and colonialist; the US is arrogant and belligerent.

The alternative to this model is unbearable for the already frail European ego. It would mean that Europe is just as exposed to terrorist attacks as the US and Israel are, and that there is no choice but to follow American and Israeli policies. It would also mean that Europe must expose itself to danger by siding with the US and Israel.

Of course, the model doesn't hold up well to reality. By all standards, US foreign policy (with all its faults) has vastly outperformed European foreign policy since WWII. The US attracts admiration and envy throughout the world, but European states mostly attract contempt. Even the radicals that hate the US hate Europe only slightly less. Israel has made peace with Egypt and Jordan by soundly defeating them in war, and the era between 1967 and the Oslo accord will likely go down as the golden era in Israeli-Palestinian relations.

This is a massive case of cognitive dissonance.

But since it would be unbearable to concede that they're wrong, the Europeans must look for ways to "prove" that they were right all along. You can't admit that Spain was terrorized into leaving Iraq, so you perversely claim that the swing in popular opinion following M-11 was a victory in the war of terrorism. You can't admit that confronting and pissing off terrorists by killing their leaders is a good thing, so you decide that Hamas isn't really a terrorist organization and Yassin was only an old blind man in a wheelchair.

And above all, you have to make others responsible for your misfortune. If the US hadn't invaded Iraq and coerced Spain into participating, M-11 would never have happened. If only Israel could give the Palestinians what they want, there will be peace. If the US didn't meddle in foreign affairs, the World Trade Center would still be standing.

It's the only way to make sense of the world - if you're a European, and fiercely proud of it.

Naomi, Laura, and guys hitting on girls

Naomi, Laura, and guys hitting on girls

Run-on sentence coming: Naomi Wolf and Laura Kipnis - two women who would have made my version of "Women We Love" list if I ran Esquire (and therefore entitles me to refer to them by their first names) - face off as a result of Naomi's recent article in New York Magazine.

Naomi recounts an incident years ago, while she was a student at Yale. It seems a professor put his hand on her thigh over (or rather under) a candlelit dinner. Not only did this gross Naomi out so badly that she immediately barfed right in front of him. It was so traumatic that she got C's, D's and F's in some classes and (horrors!) failed to get a Rhodes scholarship.

Naomi still feels bad about this, and ignoring the precepts of lashon hora, nevertheless attributes her need to expose this professor's name to a feeling of guilt that came upon her at Yom Kippur. (It may have been a sin of commission to not alert Yale to this kind of "abuse," Naomi, but it was a sin of commission to name the prof.) Naomi feels that Yale should have guidelines by now to prevent and punish this kind of "sexual encroachment."

Laura - who has written on sex between faculty and students before - basically says "lighten up." It's tough growing up and it involves getting used to not just flattering but disgusting sexual advances. Especially if you're a smart hottie like Naomi was - and (dare I say?) is. After all, Naomi's "no" and (profuse vomiting) obviously gave her professor the right idea. And he left her alone forever, making a sour grapes kind of comment as walked out. He ended up looking the shmuck, in more than one sense.

The fact that this professor wanted to have sex with her, made Naomi so uncomfortable that she in Laura's terms was left "demean[ed] and disempower[ed]" by the experience. She had expected that this professor judged her solely by the product of her minds.

But it seems to me that it was Naomi's realization that this professor wanted her that disturbed her so much. The physical contact was uncomfortable, but it was knowing his urge that upset her rather than the experiencing his advances.

So let me give a guy's perspective here, and let me construct a plausible hypothesis to illustrate my point. Naomi and I are about the same age. While she was at Yale, I was at San Francisco State. As far as I know, I have never been within eyesight of her, but I know this: if she and I had met in the early 80's, I would never have had the courage to hit on her, or even talk with her. Not that I think I was a particularly loathsome guy, but women like Naomi (smart, feminist, beautiful Yalies) intimidated the hell out of me. Why? Fear not just of rejection, but humiliation. (Though I have to say that a woman throwing up because I hit on her went beyond even my most terrifying scenarios).

It seems to me that it's at least possible that this particular professor had a thing for smart, attractive, sexually confident women. So a) who could blame him for that? and b) isn't that precisely the image that Naomi projected at that time? In other words, even if the act was inappropriate (which it certainly was), is she right to judge his impulse so harshly?

I'm going out on a limb here in assuming that Naomi has been hit on often. She's welcomed some of these advances; others she's probably declined but felt flattered by; and some have probably disgusted her. From a man's point of view, this array of responses is utterly bewildering, and it doesn't help that men seem to be hardwired to misinterpret cues. For well-meaning men who occupy that large middle range of attractiveness, following our desires is dangerous stuff. We may get our egos gratified by getting laid or demolished by being humiliated. So it's not all fun and games for men, either.

I'm all for questioning gender roles, but I think it's too much to expect that men - even professors! - should be able to control what attractions and impulses they experience. (There should be limits on our conduct, for sure. Doctors shouldn't hit on their patients; bosses shouldn't coerce their subordinates to have sex with them; professors shouldn't make attractive students nervous about their grades; married men shouldn't hit on anyone but their wives.) But what's expected of us is to refrain from unwanted advances, not advances altogether. If a woman is attracted to a man, he's doing right by hitting on her; if she's not, he's a jerk, a sleaze, or whatever. It seems that a woman's inviolable right to say "no" isn't enough - she should also have the right to be spared the need to say no.

What's more, Naomi also seems to believe that this professor simply was a pig and that the attributes she cultivated had nothing to do with his attraction. To me, this demeans men (or at least a lot of men) quite a bit. I doubt many of us can precisely deconstruct the bases for our attractions, but there is no question that for the editors of Esquire (and me) sexual allure is more than skin deep.

Bushian and Clintonian fallacies

The 9/11 hearings demonstrate an interesting contrast between Bush and Clinton's approach to foreign policy.

What we're learning is that Clinton's people accurately assessed the threat and proceeded against it too cautiously. Bush's people discounted the threat because it came from Clinton's people and apparently were shocked that Clinton wasn't lying.

(I haven't been following the hearings live on TV, but I caught one piece of Rumsfeld's testimony at the train station yesterday: when confronted with a long list of known plots to fly airplanes into buildings, Rumsfeld pointed out that none of these specifically involved hijacked passenger airplanes. I mean, is that such a leap? Rumsfeld is a very smart man, and I can only imagine he would have dealt with any of his staff if they had tried to make that kind of excuse. I was halfway expecting one of the commission members to wave a Tom Clancy novel in the air and ask if Rumsfeld was familiar with the part where a Japanese terrorist flies his JAL 747 into the Capitol. But that would have been in bad taste, since I think the hearings were conducted in the Capitol.)

Key take-aways are this: Clinton's cautionary approach may have kept the US in good graces with the Europeans, but didn't do enough to stop terrorism. Bush's childish attitude toward anything Clinton did even less to stop them. Clinton was too accomodating; Bush was too childish. I'll leave it to the reader to decide which is the greater sin, but we are left with the unmistakable conclusion that prior to 9/11, Bush was too busy causing diplomatic incidents with China to give Al Qaeda more than "study."

I also want to point out that we'll never know how Gore would have responded to 9/11. I can guarantee that he would have given an inspiring speech, would have showed up on Ground Zero, and would have bombed Al Qaeda to pieces in Afghanistan. I am less sure that he would have used special forces to such spectacular effect that Rumsfeld did. I am pretty confident that he would have been more inclusive and more consultative with our "allies," and also that Iraq would have been low on his list.

Would that have been better or worse? We'll never know.