"Fahrenheit 9/11": Burning Bush

For all those wondering whether Michael Moore’s docu-satire “Fahrenheit 9/11” lives up to its hype, the answer is a resounding yes. Despite the brickbats being hurled from many directions—Disney, Newsweek, Bush surrogates, and Ray Bradbury himself, whose “Fahrenheit 451,” served as the inspiration for the film’s title—the film skewers the Bush administration non-stop for 116 minutes, and by its end generated uproarious applause from the audience with whom I saw it. Bradbury’s 1953 cautionary novel about the stifling of dissent, takes its title from the temperature at which books burn; Moore describes Fahrenheit 9/11 as “the temperature at which freedom burns.”

The carping and sniping about the film, which predictably began before anyone had even seen it, ranges from Bradbury calling Moore an “asshole” who “stole my movie title” to Bushites who charge that Moore exaggerates, distorts, and hits below the belt with his polemic. Actually, the Bushies are absolutely right. The movie does hit below the belt, but in a way that is utterly illuminating. The whole point of satire is to confront the subject with one of those carnival mirrors that distort and contort the features, while at the same time showing us something deeply true and recognizable about its hapless target. That is exactly what Fahrenheit delivers. Moore recently described his movie as an extended “op-ed piece.” His own description however, sells the film short. The film is not an op-ed piece; instead, it plays more like a two hour Herblock political cartoon, in which the attributes of his subjects are caricatured and fractured, only to better reveal to us their foolishness and foibles.

The movie starts out by reminding us of the surrealistic aspects of the Bush election in 2000. It then moves on to address the leadership style of the new president, who has a decided penchant for vacationing: according to Moore, in the eight months before 9/11, Bush spent 42% of his time on vacation. One of the sub-themes of the movie is just how lazy and unserious this president seems to be. When asked by a reporter in Crawford Texas what work he plans to do that day, Bush looks flustered before finally saying that Karen Hughes is coming over to “work on some things...You’ll see,” says Bush uncomfortably. Even when Moore offers footage of Bush being genuinely witty, he manages to turn the tables on the president. Bush is shown at fundraiser attended by his wealthiest supporters, telling them with a wide grin “We have here tonight the haves, and the have-mores. Some people call you an elite; I call you my base.” In context of course, this was meant as self-deprecating humor, and was probably pretty funny. However, as the film progresses, it strikes the viewer more as a literal and disturbing truth.

As the film moves on, Moore spends considerable time detailing the Bush family ties with Saudi Arabia in general, and the Bin Laden family in particular, charging that Osama bin Laden’s father and relatives had invested 1.5 billion dollars in companies in which the Bush family had a financial interest. Moore juxtaposes this with the fact that 142 Saudis were allowed to leave the country two days after 9/11, during a time when commercial aviation had been largely frozen. The issue of whether there was some conspiracy at work here is far less important, and less provable, than the simple fact that at the same time, a dragnet was in effect for any Arab who had the slightest irregularity with his or her immigration papers. During a time when many innocent Arabs were rounded up and held for months, the Saudis were being coddled. The unmistakable message is that money—and access—count big-time in the Bush administration.

There is quite a bit of candid footage in the film of Bush officials, footage of a highly unflattering nature: Bush with his characteristic vacuous smirk primping for a speech, Asst. Sec. of Defense Paul Wolfowitz putting spit in his hair in preparation for an interview, and Defense Sec. Rumsfeld smugly telling an interviewer that “we know exactly where the WMD are—near Tikrit.” Is it fair to show us such unguarded outtakes? Well, no, not by “60 Minutes” standards. But by the standards of satire, the scenes tap into something meaningful. They are both hilarious and profound. They show us individuals who are far less sure of themselves in private than their public personas would suggest, individuals who pretend to great knowledge, but who are in fact winging it, individuals who have far more arrogance and hubris than they do vision. Since it is now painfully clear to us that this is the gang that couldn’t shoot straight, we yearn to understand how they could have been so inept in planning the Iraq occupation. Indeed, every prediction that Bush, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz made—about troop strength, about the kind of greeting we would receive from Iraqis, about oil revenues paying for the occupation—turned out to be grotesquely false. By showing the Bush officials in goofy, unguarded moments, Moore is offering his own trickle-down theory: Led by a somewhat lazy, unstudious president, the administration has been permeated with sloppiness and incompetence.

An important reason that the film works is that the narrator and protagonist of the film, Michael Moore, is in his familiar role as Everyman. Who better to skewer the high and mighty, than this schlumpy, overweight guy, who makes no attempt to dress himself up, and even when on Capitol Hill, looks like he’s far more at home in Flint, Michigan? Moore’s many critics find it frustrating when they complain about his “left-wing agenda,” for the simple reason that he is completely up front about his agenda. When asked by the Today Show’s Matt Lauer whether the film was a “personal attack on the Bush family,” Moore didn’t mince words: “Oh, yeah, it’s that.”

However, if the film merely offered us a collection of provocative and negative facts about the last four years, it would have only been a somewhat funny, but uninspired editorial. What elevates the film to its level of excellence is the way in which it humanizes its subject matter. It does this by showing us a very special woman, indeed an Everywoman, through whom we experience all the anguish of the war in Iraq: Lila Lipscomb is a salt of the earth mother and wife from Flint, Michigan. Formerly a welfare recipient, by dint of hard work, Lila now proudly works at an agency that helps the unemployed. She is unabashedly patriotic, displaying the flag in front of her house every day. She is white, is married to an African-American man, and is a solid Flint citizen. She has always encouraged her kids to join the military as a way to educate themselves and escape the tough streets of Flint. Her daughter served in and survived Operation Desert Storm. However, after her enlisted son is sent to Iraq, she begins to have doubts about the wisdom of the Iraq war effort. One day, she gets a notice that her son has been killed, shot down in Karbala, southwest of Baghdad. We witness her inconsolable grief, and we hear her read the last letter she received from her son, an angry, despairing letter, in which he condemns the war and the pointlessness of his mission. We grieve along with Lila, for the senselessness and the finality of her loss. In five minutes Moore has done more to personalize the war for us than 500 newscasts have done. At that moment, the theater I saw it in was awash with tissues and tears. It is this potent combination of humor and grief that sends audiences from the theater slightly shell-shocked, but knowing that they’ve seen something special.

A virtual cottage industry has sprung up around Fahrenheit 9/11, fact-checking and nit-picking the assertions made in the movie. However, antagonists of the movie are on a futile mission. The movie does not stand or fall on this or that fact; again, it is not an op-ed piece. It is a satire, which succeeds or fails on the effect that it has on the heart, not the head. Will it have any meaningful effect on the presidential campaign? Yes, but in subtle, indirect, and varied ways. Next to scandal, the worst thing that can happen to a candidate is to be the widespread object of ridicule. Just as “Saturday Night Live” cemented in our minds the image of Gerald Ford as a bumbler, who couldn’t take two steps without hitting his head, just as the footage of Michael Dukakis in the tank highlighted for the nation his ineffectuality, so Michael Moore’s images of George Walker Bush are slowly seeping into the political conversation like some toxic industrial runoff. And such images can’t be countered by a neat collection of opposing facts. Moore’s movie affects us impressionistically more than it does with information. It is because of this fact that the frustrated Bush campaign has recently shot itself in the foot by releasing a web-ad that foolishly compares Michael Moore and Al Gore to Adolf Hitler.

The language of “Fahrenheit 9/11”is not the reasoned discourse of an essay. If reasoned discourse were the currency of the day, we never would have invaded Iraq in the first place. "Fahrenheit 9/11" instead takes an alternate route: The movie hits us below and above the intellect. In my audience, many viewers (including me) were tearful by the end, but we weren’t sure whether it was because the movie was so damned funny, or because it was so sad. Historians looking back at the presidential race of 2004 will find themselves commenting on the contribution made by “Fahrenheit 9/11.” A tip of the cap to Michael Moore, and to Lila Lipscomb.


- posted by jeffrowan111 @ 8:14 AM

 
Hillary, Bill, and a Little Help from Their Friends

It was truly the silly season on the Sunday talk shows yesterday, as I heard more inanities uttered in one day than I have in the last month. Perhaps it was the reemergence of Bill Clinton that caused the punditocracy to take leave of its senses; whatever the cause, it was lunacy on display. It began with NBC’s Chris Matthews show. Because the show is taped several days in advance, and is not driven by the up-to-the-minute news, the host seeks out broader themes with a longer shelf-life to address. One of Matthews’ topics on Sunday was Hillary Clinton and her presidential aspirations. During the discussion, Matthews raised the question of whether Hillary actually wanted John Kerry to win the 2004 election. Now one hears this sort of off-the-wall insinuation in the conservative media all the time, since it is conservative dogma that the Clintons can’t possibly have a benign motive for doing anything. However, it was a bit surprising to hear this canard raised on a mainstream talk show. But what really astonished me was the discussion that followed. Matthews egged on his panel of guests by asking, “Have you noticed her not doing her best for Kerry in the last couple months… have you noticed that she’s sort of out of it already?” Clarence Page, syndicated columnist for the Chicago Tribune, and a writer whom I respect greatly, jumped at the bait: “In her heart of hearts, Hillary does not want Kerry to win.” NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell joined in, allowing that the Clintons would campaign for Kerry, but at the same time implying that it would be more out of PR necessity than out of enthusiasm: “The worst thing she could do is to in any way be blamed if Kerry loses.” Washington Post writer John Harris also seemed to lend himself to the cynical idea that the Clintons have a rooting interest in Kerry losing.

I’m appalled by this notion of Bill and Hillary sitting around hoping that John Kerry will lose. The suggestion is far more odious (and slanderous) then anything leveled at the Clintons to-date. Say what you will about Monicagate, about Bill Clinton dissembling to his Cabinet, or about the pardon of Marc Rich--if you truly believe that the Clintons would prefer to see four more years of Republican rule at such a crucial time in the nation’s history, simply to improve Hillary’s chances of gaining the presidency, then your view of Hillary must be so low, so laden with contempt, that you must conclude that she's unfit for public office. Once you’ve taken that position, you are in effect saying that the Clintons’ regard for the welfare of country is so dwarfed by their personal interests, as to render the Clintons morally bankrupt. Moreover, in doing so you have taken out a membership in the Limbaugh-Hannity cabal, which holds that the Clintons would rather see four more years of misguided governance, so long as it served Hillary. Such an idea strikes me as preposterous, and raises the further interesting question: In the privacy of the voting booth, will Hillary then vote for Bush?

The absurdity of this notion is highlighted when you apply the same thinking to other presidential aspirants: Can you imagine anyone suggesting that John Edwards wants Kerry to lose so that Edwards can make another try in 2008, or that Howard Dean is secretly rooting against Kerry so that Dean can make another try in four years? Such notions are complete nonstarters when raised about any other prospective candidate. While I’m sure that Rush Limbaugh believes this notion, the fact that serious journalists are giving lip service to it underscores the extent to which there is still a kind of mass hysteria that swirls around the Clintons. It was left to Gloria Borger of CNBC to inject some sanity into the discussion, as she commented on how the trashing of the Clintons has become a sport, a mindless reflex: “It’s a profession to question the Clintons’ motives; everyone questions the Clintons’ motives about everything…maybe I’m naïve, but I believe she will campaign hard for Kerry.” Thank you, Gloria, for setting the record straight.

An hour later, another bizarre episode occurred on the ABC show “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” The host had a seemingly easy task, that of getting the two top members of the 9/11 Commission, former Gov. Tom Kean, and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, to acknowledge that the Commission’s findings refuted the false claims of the Bush administration that there were working ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda. To the surprise of both Stephanopoulos and this viewer, both Kean and Hamilton became contortionists when asked about this, trying to avoid contradicting the administration. While I admire the Commission for wanting to appear nonpartisan and above the fray, this cannot be done at the expense of the truth. When Lee Hamilton says “So far as I know they [the Bush administration] are not claiming that there was a collaborative relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda,” he does severe damage to his own reputation as a truth teller. Stephanopoulos, to his credit pressed the two men, pointing out that on February 8, 2003, President Bush said, “Iraq has provided Al Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training, and an Al Qaeda agent was sent several times in the late 1990’s for help in acquiring poisons and gases.” Hamilton acknowledged, somewhat grudgingly, that the Commission had found no evidence to support Bush’s statement. Then Stephanopoulos played a television clip from just last week, showing a flustered Bush saying, “The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda, is because there was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda.” What Bush didn’t say is was that this relationship consisted of Al Qaeda asking Iraq for help, and either being ignored or rebuffed. To use an example, if Al Qaeda operatives called ABC news and asked for airtime and were rebuffed, would it be reasonable for someone to then claim that there was “a relationship” between ABC News and Al Qaeda? Of course not. I know it, you know it, and George Stephanopolous knew it. The two individuals who didn’t seem to get it were Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton. If the two commissioners want to be taken seriously, they need to stop all the tap-dancing, hair-spitting and apologizing for the remarks of Bush and Cheney. If the administration continues to mislead the public, that is its problem to repair, not that of the 9/11 Commission.

In the interest of ending on an up note, I do have something nice to say: Dan Rather’s interview with Bill Clinton on “60 Minutes” was excellent, capturing the intelligence, humanity and charm of Bill Clinton, as well as the personal demons that have tugged at Clinton for years. Ironically, just as there are many Clinton-haters out there, there are quite a few Rather-haters as well. To their great dismay, 2004 has been a great year for Dan Rather. Between the Abu Ghraib story and the Clinton interview, Rather has turned out two memorable pieces of journalism. Indeed, Rather was the perfect person for the interview with Clinton, as the southern folksiness of the two men played perfectly off of one another. While the interview was chock-full of insights into Clinton the man, the best line of the interview went to Rather. After he asked Bill how he had gotten Hillary to publicly stand up for him after the Gennifer Flowers affair, Rather continued, somewhat solemnly, “You see in many households, and I expect in my own, what the wife is likely to say is some version of ‘how do I reload this thing?’” Even Bill had to laugh. Kudos, Dan. The interview had more sizzle than a Galveston cook-out in July!

- posted by jeffrowan111 @ 6:06 PM

 
My Pick for Vice-President

Back in early April, I offered some vice-presidential suggestions for John Kerry. The suggestions I made, which included names like Dale Bumpers and Ralph Nader, were not so much serious recommendations, as they were provocative names meant to cause people to think “outside the box.” Some readers found my fanciful recommendations to be thought provoking and interesting, while others merely found them humorous. But as we now near that important moment when Kerry makes his decision, I am pleased to see that one of my out-of-the-box choices is now getting some serious consideration: Senator Joseph Biden, from Delaware.

Some may wonder why I designated Biden, a major player within both the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee, as “out-of-the-box” in the first place. My reasons were straightforward: Biden is a senator from a state with one of the smallest populations in the Union, moreover a state that has gone Democratic in the last three presidential elections. In other words, traditional Democrats would ask, “Who needs a vice-president from Delaware? What does he bring to the ticket?”

It is true that Biden would provide no regional boost to the ticket (although any influence he might have over neighboring Pennsylvania would be welcome). Nor would the liberal Biden offer any measurable ideological balance or centrism to the ticket. At first look, these factors would seem to doom Biden’s chances, as the Washington Post is reporting today, “Kerry has privately expressed confidence that voters see him as sufficiently strong on national security.... but wonders whether he needs a moderate or conservative Democrat on the ticket to improve his centrist credentials.” If this is Kerry’s current thinking, I find it alarming, because I believe that Kerry is dead wrong about this: Strength on national security will be the defining issue in this election, and any candidate, particularly a Democrat, can never have too much of it. This is precisely what Biden offers the ticket, defense credentials which are unparalleled in the Democratic Party. Not only is Biden the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the more troubled the war in Iraq has become the more Joe Biden's stature has risen. Not only has he been a consistently insightful commentator on the conduct of our foreign policy, he has elicited great bipartisan support, often appearing on public affairs shows with Republican Senators such as Dick Lugar and Chuck Hagel. The ability to challenge the Bush foreign policy but still maintain bipartisan respect and cooperation is a great credit to Biden and would be a boon to Kerry in the election campaign.

Much has been made lately of a possible Kerry-McCain ticket, dubbed a “unity ticket,” by those who were promoting it. I've thought from the start that such an idea was gimmicky, would be fraught with problems in its execution, and would only bolster the stereotype of Kerry as a guy who wasn’t firm in his beliefs. Conversely, a ticket with Joe Biden as the running mate would be a far more effective unity ticket, because Biden’s liberal beliefs have in no way diminished his ability to work constructively with Republicans.

A second benefit that Biden offers the ticket is his personality. Biden is tough, smart, solid, and resolute. These are extremely important traits, because regardless of the outcome of the election, Kerry will continue to be dogged by his image as a flip-flopper. Why? Because there is a kernel of truth to the stereotype. Try as he might, Kerry simply can’t stop himself from hedging every bet. A recent example includes the preposterous notion of not accepting the nomination at the convention in Boston, to allow himself more time for fundraising. Another is the idea of the McCain vice-presidency itself, which is the ultimate example of an ideological flip-flop. If principles like abortion rights, a just tax policy, universal health care, and the make-up of the Supreme Court are that negotiable, it doesn’t speak well for the firmness of one's worldview. Picking a figure like Biden would add some ballast to the elusive Kerry persona.

Beyond his geographical shortcomings, does Biden have drawbacks? Well, it is said that he has a temper, but paradoxically, that also would be a plus, adding some genuineness to the overly packaged Kerry image. Indeed, with respect to temper, Biden went a little over the top just last week in his dressing down of Attorney General Ashcroft over the Justice Department’s torture memos. Frankly, Biden's moment of pique suited me fine; to his credit, Biden cares deeply about the issue, in part because he has a son in the armed forces.

One dismaying report in today's Washington Post article indicated that Kerry is interested in a running mate who is “unlikely to upstage or overshadow him on the campaign trail or in office.” Let’s hope this isn’t a major criterion, because candidates who pick running mates guaranteed not to upstage them tend to make themselves look small in the process. If anyone doubts this, I have two words to offer: Dan Quayle. Picking Biden, a no-nonsense, blunt speaking, articulate, veteran, studied expert of both foreign relations and law enforcement would be just the tonic that the Kerry campaign needs. Furthermore, could anyone doubt that Biden is ready to assume the duties of president if need be?

Is John Kerry likely to take me up on my recommendation? Uh, no. So, let’s take a quick tour through the other prospects. John Edwards? Perhaps the smartest, most charming, articulate guy in the field, with regional appeal to boot, Edwards, would be a sure asset to the Kerry campaign. Let’s hope that Kerry is not put off by Edwards’ charisma. Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, an extremely smart guy with strong defense credentials, a centrist who opposed the war when it wasn’t fashionable to do so, would also be a great choice. Let’s face it: All Democrats salivate at the prospect of getting some payback by picking off Florida this time around!

Frankly, that’s it for my short list. Dick Gebhardt has been around the block a few too many times, and frankly has not shown himself to be a particularly impressive campaigner. Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa is so unknown that I shudder at the thought of people getting to know him at the same time they’re still learning about John Kerry. Retired Gen. Wesley Clark was a flop during the primary season, showing precious few political skills. And Sen Evan Bayh of Indiana is the kind of mushy centrist—he voted for Bush tax cuts and was gung ho for the Iraq war—that would send disappointed Democrats running into the arms of Ralph Nader. Kerry needs to keep in mind that the Nader candidacy is not going away, and further deterioration in Iraq may only strengthen it.

In summary, the two vice-presidential prospects who are best able to embrace and embody progressivism, populism, and solid family values, are Joe Biden and John Edwards. Both would be excellent choices. I’ll take the guy with the most seasoning.
- posted by jeffrowan111 @ 11:31 AM

 
The Pledge: On the Issue of “Legal Standing,” the Supreme Court Stumbles

Contrary to conventional wisdom and the instant analysis of the pundits, the Supreme Court’s ruling yesterday, voiding the challenge to the “Pledge of Allegiance,” gave litigant Dr. Michael A. Newdow a victory of sorts. In the face of widespread ridicule and condemnation of his lawsuit to have the words “under God” removed from the Pledge of Allegiance, five of the justices refused to take a position on the merits of his argument, instead throwing the case out on a technicality. Had this case been the slam dunk that many pundits predicted it would be, the Court would have simply upheld the constitutionality of the Pledge as it is, and ruled against Dr. Newdow on the merits. It did not. Only four of the justices, O’Connor, Rehnquist, Thomas--and in earlier, public remarks, Scalia--are on record as supporting the Pledge as currently written, leaving wide open how the other five judges would have voted on this matter. While the absence of a ruling on the core issue of the case was an anticlimax that leaves the current Pledge intact, the implications of yesterday’s ruling are by no means clear-cut. There are many fascinating wrinkles—political, religious, and legal—to yesterday’s opinion:

First, the convenient use of the concept of “legal standing” to avoid ruling on the case strikes me as both cowardly and intellectually dishonest. Clearly the liberal wing of the court—justices whom I normally respect—got a bit weak-kneed at the thought of siding with litigant Newdow during a time of war when nationalism is running high, and said to each other “let’s take a powder on this one!” In fact, the questionable view that Newdow lacked “legal standing,” due to the fact that he isn’t the primary custodial parent of his daughter, was mocked by conservative Chief Justice Rehnquist as being “novel,” “ad hoc,” and so clearly tailored to this particular case that it seems “to be, like the proverbial excursion ticket - good for this day only." Ironically, Rehnquist got it right this time. The five moderate and liberal judges didn’t want to wade into this thicket, not because it wasn’t appropriate, but because it wasn’t politic. Their timorousness further underscores Newdow’s point, that the explosive, controversial, and often non-rational character of religion is precisely why the Framers attempted to keep church and state separate from one another. As Rehnquist's remark suggests, the use of the doctrine of “legal standing” is a cop-out, a way for the liberal judges to steer clear of a political firestorm. Furthermore, the very concept of “legal standing” is flawed and overly restrictive, and needs further examination. Let’s look at this doctrine more closely.

In the eyes of the law, in order to file a suit questioning the constitutionality of a government action, one needs to show a direct injury from that action. In this case, that would mean having a child in the Elk Grove school system who suffered injury from the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. There are several problems with this reasoning: First, a violation of the establishment clause of the Constitution injures all citizens, not just one party. Second, Newdow is not contending that his daughter, herself, objects to the pledge; he is contending that he is injured by having his daughter receive a religious message in school that contradicts his own religious instruction to her. The fact that she is getting the indirect message that “your father’s religious viewpoint is wrong, and he is not a good American,” represents an injury on its face, one that should be worthy of the Court’s attention. Based on the Court’s definition of “legal standing,” one could envision an entire class of individuals victimized by an unconstitutional action, but too afraid to speak up, who suffer in silence because no one else has the standing to speak for them.

Another flaw in the Court’s doctrine of “standing” can be seen in the following example: If the state of Virginia began issuing license plates with Biblical verse on them, I would find it to be highly innapropriate. Would my right to challenge such a practice be preempted by the fact that I’m a D.C. resident, who does not use Virginia plates? Likewise, would my legal standing be similarly limited if I were a Virginia resident who didn’t have a driver’s license? Such pinched definitions of "standing" would hadly serve the public good, because we all have an interest in protecting the integrity of the First Amendment. Not only should Newdow have standing to sue, any citizen should have standing to sue in this case. Further, to expect a 9 year-old girl to stand up and protest in this case, begs the question of what the case is all about: Children in that situation do not have the emotional wherewithal to object to the Pledge—unless they want to risk the kind of opprobrium that Dr. Newdow has received.

It is also interesting to look at the opinions of O’Connor, Thomas, and Rehnquist, the three judges who affirmed the constitutionality of the Pledge. The closer one looks, the less agreement one finds among them: O’Connor falls back on the tired notion that the phrase “under God,” is simply “ceremonial deism,” a superficial use of the word “God,” conveying no religious meaning. Such a view is starkly contradicted by the intense reaction of the religious community to Dr. Newdow’s lawsuit; it is also contradicted by the very motive for Congress’ insertion of the words into the Pledge on Flag Day, in 1954: to distinguish the United States from “godless Communism.” To say that the phrase "under God" carries no real religious significance is a fiction, and it is surprising that Justice O'Connor still clings to this notion. If anyone has any doubts about the religious intent of the message, I suggest that they read Dr. Newdow’s hate mail.

Justice Thomas, however, approaches the matter from a completely different angle. Thomas maintains that given the recent rulings of the Court, Newdow’s suit does make sense. After all, if it is impermissible for teachers to lead students in prayer, why is it ok for them to lead students in reciting a pledge that invokes God? As a result, Thomas takes the position that the Court needs to review all relevant precedents, with an eye to overturning its previous rulings on school prayer, publicly sponsored nativity scenes, and other government-sponsored expressions of religion. One has to praise Thomas for his consistency here. Unfortunately, his thinking has the shortcoming of being consistently wrong. All of these examples involve a dangerous commingling of church and state, one that ultimately serves to restrict rather than promote pluralistic religious expression.

This case is an object lesson in why the First Amendment exists in the first place. Given the powerful influence of the religious lobby, it took enormous courage to file the suit in the face of certain condemnation; it took enormous character for the 9th Circuit Court to affirm the merits of the suit in the face of contempt and ridicule; and it would have taken great leadership for the Supreme Court to rule this case on the merits. I tip my hat to Dr. Michael Newdow. He didn’t win his case, but he made a significant step toward a time in the future when we will all look back and see how strange it was when the government once promoted religion in our schools, on our money, and in the halls of Congress.
- posted by jeffrowan111 @ 11:59 AM

 
Reagan on the Ten Dollar Bill!? Stop the Presses!

Good grief. The Reagan tributes, testimonials, and initiatives are raining down upon us like locusts: Put Reagan on Mount Rushmore; put Reagan on the $20 bill, replacing Democrat Andrew Jackson; put Reagan on the dime, replacing FDR; egads, put him on the $10 bill, replacing Alexander Hamilton. The hagiography of Ronald Reagan is in full swing. I won’t contest the fact that the man was damned charming. Regardless of the season or setting, Reagan always had a way of seeming to be everyone’s favorite uncle. That basic affability helped him survive many trials, and lifted him (and his constituency) throughout his presidency: When he angrily declared in 1980 at the Republican debate in Nashua, “Mr. Green (the man’s name was actually Breen), I paid for this microphone,” he immediately became a right-wing folk hero, for his toughness under fire. (It is now long forgotten that the remark was made in the interest of letting other primary candidates crash the debate so that Reagan could avoid a one-on-one encounter with George Bush the elder.) That same line, if uttered by one of Reagan’s competitors, would have probably come off as harsh, churlish, and over-the-top. For example, when Bob Dole told Ted Koppel on national television in 1988 to “Tell him (George Bush) to stop lying about my record,” Dole reinforced his image as a candidate with an anger management problem. Those same words, however, if uttered by “the great communicator,” would have been softer, nuanced, and probably caused us to chuckle, rather than recoil. Reagan always seemed to be in emotional balance. In fact, Reagan did indignation better than just about anyone. His famous line in 1987 at the Brandenburg Wall in West Berlin, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” however overblown in its significance, was great political theater at the time.

As I’ve watched all the retrospectives of Reagan, I’m struck by one simple fact: I’m far more charmed by this assortment of archival clips than I ever was during his presidency, and the reason is clear: Whether Reagan’s everpresent, genial optimism qualifies as leadership or as chronic denial, depends entirely on the context in which it is offered. Because Reagan was so stubbornly indifferent to the many blemishes of American society, his optimism was often misplaced, too often serving as a rather transparent fig leaf placed over serious social problems.

So let’s put a hold on the minting of new coins, and on the resurfacing of Mount Rushmore: the verdict of history of Reagan will be a great disappointment to those true believers still around to witness it. Ronald Reagan’s legacy will bump up against one stubborn fact: History is relentlessly and irrepressibly liberal. The reason for this is simple: All historical judgments are by definition, made in and by the future, where today’s prejudices, injustices, and blind spots are viewed under the keenest of microscopes. Seen in this manner, today's ills appear sometimes quaint, occasionally petty, and all too frequently barbaric. The judgments of posterity have consistently been very unforgiving, for example, of politicians and judges who deemed Dred Scott to be a non-person, or who mocked the notion of women voting. History has taken a dim view of those who favored interning the Japanese, or who blocked the school doors to black children, or who railed against racially integrating the armed forces. Those who filibustered the 1964 Civil Rights Act, or the Voting Rights Act, have not faired well under the sharp scrutiny of subsequent generations. Let’s look at some of the themes and failings of Reaganism that will not survive the harsh glare of history:

1) “Reagan’s Southern Strategy.” History may give Reagan the most demerits for his backward-looking racial politics. Reagan’s antipathy to civil rights was consistent, in areas both small and large. He shocked many by opening his presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, promoting of all things “states rights,” in the town that was infamous for the murder of three civil rights workers in 1964. In 1980, while campaigning for the presidency, Lou Cannon reports that Reagan offered a chilling preview of the sort of leadership on race that he would exercise as president, by referring to the landmark “Voting Rights Act of 1965” as “humiliating to the South.” Reagan went on to lobby for tax breaks for Bob Jones University, despite its explicit policy against racial intermarriage. The plan of the Reagan White House to continue funding schools that practiced discrimination was blocked by the Supreme Court in 1983. In 1987, Congress passed the Civil Rights Restoration Act, which expanded civil rights protections to include not only public entities, but private institutions receiving federal funds. Reagan vetoed the legislation, which was subsequently overridden by the Congress. History will take no less dim a view of Reagan’s budget cuts on Medicaid, food stamps, and aid to families with dependent children. And the attempt by his Agriculture Department to define ketchup and relish and vegetables would be funny if it weren’t so offensive. Finally, let us not forget that Reagan’s opposition to sanctions against South Africa has been proven to be soundly on the wrong side of history.

2) “There is a free lunch.” One of the interesting ways in which Reaganism turned traditional conservatism on its head, was by selling the public on the idea that there were easy answers to problems, that the society could reach its goals with no sacrifice. We could cut taxes, build up defense spending, and generate trillions of dollars of debt with nary a concern about the consequences. Indeed, superficially, Reagonomics often did seem pain-free, because the people absorbing the pain were always the ones with no voice, the poor and disenfranchised. This legacy is firmly entrenched now within the Bush administration: we fight wars that we make no contemporaneous attempt to pay for, we fudge the numbers on prescription drugs until the legislation has passed, we pretend that certain tax cuts will expire, simply for the sake of meeting phony budget targets. At the core of conservative economics is the notion “let’s kick the can down the road aways; let someone else pay for it.” Ronald Reagan was the godfather of this selfish notion of letting the next generation pay for our programs. This will not be favored by history.

3) “Let’s defund the government.” The second phase of Reaganite tax cuts for the wealthy is as predictable as the sunrise. Conservative lawmakers rise up to lament, “Oh my, we have no money; we’d better cut social programs.” This has been going on for so long, it’s hard to think of it as a surprising and unintended byproduct of tax cuts; rather, it’s a premeditated policy. For the right wing, this works out quite nicely, thank you: The more they shrink the treasury, the less there is to spend on programs they never liked in the first place. George W. Bush has executed this strategy with precision, underfunding health care, education, the environment, and infrastructure rebuilding, ostensibly because of the war on terrorism. It’s a cinch however, that if there were no such war, these areas would get short shrift anyway.

4) “What, AIDS, a problem?” The HIV virus took the society by storm in 1981, as everyone was forced to rethink sexual attitudes and etiquette. The Centers for Disease Control, among many other scientists, warned that unless we took this problem seriously, a humanitarian disaster was looming. Despite the fact that this incurable disease terrified Americans, and generated tremendous publicity, President Reagan waited seven years before giving his first speech about the disease. This is an extraordinary failure of leadership, and is only explainable when we look at the climate of opinion in the 80’s: During those first years, AIDS was stigmatized as a gay plague. For Reagan to have taken an appropriately proactive stance would have been to collide head-on with right wing ideology, by appearing to show sympathy for a population—gay men—who were held in contempt by conservatives. Interestingly, Reagan’s inner circle has taken great pains to tell us that they never heard Reagan utter a single homophobic word. History, however, expects far more from a president than the absence of hate speech. It expects leadership. By the time Reagan spoke out about the disease (after Rock Hudson died), 36,000 American had been diagnosed, and a shocking 20,849 had died. Reagan’s own Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop spoke of “the political meddlers in the White House” who had hindered Koop’s efforts to address the disease. Ironically, now that AIDS has swept through both Africa and Asia, few people think of AIDS as a gay plague anymore.

5) “Who’s in charge here?” Ronald Reagan’s lax handling of the reins of power was a major contributor to the Iran-Contra scandal, in which a secret, shadow government traded arms to (terrorist) Iranians to help secure the release of American hostages, and then funneled the proceeds illegally to the Contra-rebels in Nicaragua. It is not so important to remember that 14 officials were indicted, or that 11 were subsequently convicted. What is important is that Reagan denied any wrongdoing and took no responsibility for this scandal for months. During the investigation, Reagan’s mantra was “I want to speak out so much, but they say I can’t until this investigation is over.” However, when he gave his deposition in 1990, Reagan uttered the words, “I don’t recall” or “I don’t remember” 130 times. Despite all the conservative talk about Reagan’s “leadership,” Ronald Reagan was the godfather of the absentee presidency. He turned ignorance of his own subordinates’ actions into an art form, and made a mockery of Harry Truman’s notion, “the buck stops here.” Here is Reagan’s famous quote in 1988, after months of denials of what happened during the Iran-Contra affair: “A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.” A president who wanted to know could have gotten this information in an hour, not the year it took Reagan. Currently, the nation is experiencing the bitter fruit of this government by denial in the Torturegate scandal: No top official seems to know anything, nor has the initiative to know anything. History will severely pan such stonewalling.

Finally, it is instructive to remember that Harry S. Truman had a 28% approval rating when he left office in 1953. History has subsequently boosted the little haberdasher on its shoulders and is carrying him aloft in celebration of his presidency. Ronald Reagan will get no such treatment.

- posted by jeffrowan111 @ 4:32 PM

 
The Nader Paradox: The Wrong Candidacy, but the Best Candidate

Let me begin this blog entry by reassuring the reader: Come November, I would never cast my vote for Ralph Nader. However, I do think the Democratic Party establishment would do well to give the Nader candidacy some serious study, because by following his lead, the party could greatly invigorate itself.

Several weeks ago, after Nader went public on CNN with the fact that the Kerry campaign was not returning his phone calls, Kerry and Nader finally met on May 19. The meeting provided great fodder for the late-night comedians. Leno quipped that when the two men met “it created what astronomers called ‘a charisma black hole.’” Letterman weighed in that if one had been a fly on the wall, “you would have been the most charismatic thing in the room.” The problem with both of these jokes is, while they both reflect conventional wisdom, as is so often the case, conventional wisdom is wrong. Whenever I see Nader—which is not often, given his limited media exposure—I am struck by how much charisma he actually has. No, it isn’t the Teddy Kennedy, golden-throat type of charisma. What Nader does, rather, is bowl you over with content and passionate commitment to real issues.

Remember the famous line of sociologist Marshall McLuhan, “the medium is the message?” What Nader does is turn McLuhan’s notion on its head: For Nader, message, content, and detail are everything; style be damned! While Nader does have a dry, appealing sense of humor, it is an afterthought, not a focus of his delivery. Nader’s presentation is the triumph of seriousness of policy, detail, and truth-telling over gimmicky and fake personality. In fact, Nader represents exactly what ordinary citizens—disingenuously, to be sure—tell pollsters that they want from a candidate: “more focus on the issues, someone who tells us the truth, less negative campaigning.” The problem is, when people tell pollsters these things, it is much akin to Nielsen families who say that they watch nothing but Masterpiece Theater: The average voter doesn’t follow the issues very closely, feasts on false promises, and, to steal a line from Jack Nicholson, can’t handle the truth. Nader, uniquely and refreshingly, treats the electorate as adults, offering serious answers to serious questions.

So what exactly is Nader’s message? First, he gives important recognition to the many Americans who work, but habitually struggle to make ends meet. These are the people, says Nader, who work, but have no health insurance, the single moms who despair over managing a career and child care simultaneously, not to mention the reservoir of marginally poor young men and women whom we now ask to fight our wars. Nader asks that we provide a “living wage” for all these citizens, an idea so breathtakingly ethical, neither major party will address it head-on. He bolsters this notion by calling for real universal health care, not the jerry-rigged, overly complicated, token programs that are now part of the political debate. The piecemeal approaches to health care have been abysmal failures, as the existence of 40 million uninsured Americans attests. Has anyone noticed, for example, the reaction of seniors to the Bush prescription drug program? It has been greeted by the elderly with a gigantic yawn. Given an opportunity to sign up for it, seniors are ignoring it in droves. Why? Because its details are far too complex, and its benefits far too minimal. Nader would place universal health care at the top of his agenda, instead of talking about it on the margins, as John Kerry does, or ignoring it, as Bush does.

Nader is outspoken and forthright about the defects of our criminal justice system, including the pressing need for prison reform in the U.S. which has the highest rate of incarceration in the Western world, aggravated by a 50% recidivism rate. When was the last time you heard a politician from a major party address the scandal that is the American prison system? No politician dares brings it up for fear that he/she will get “Willie Hortoned” in the subsequent election. The events at Abu Ghraib, 6200 miles away, serve as a painful reminder of the inhumanity that prevails also in the all too closed universe of our own domestic prisons. Instead of treating prison abuse and rape as foreordained parts of incarceration, we should have rid our prisons of these outrages long ago.

With respect to foreign policy, Nader makes an important pledge that puts him at odds with both Bush and Kerry: He promises not to pander on the subject of the Middle East conflict. In the battle against terrorism, there is no more important issue. During this election cycle, there are two salient and underreported facts about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: 1) John Kerry has actually positioned himself to the right of George Bush in his support of Ariel Sharon; 2) The refusal to condemn such Israeli practices as targeted assassinations, collective punishment of communities, demolition of homes, and its refusal to negotiate with the democratically elected leader of the Palestinian people, has harmed rather than helped Israel. These policies have done more to foster terrorism than has even the war in Iraq. Nader has the courage to state this openly and clearly. Until we begin to serve as proactive and honest brokers in this conflict, our foreign policy will continue to be a leaky vessel that takes in more water than we can bail out.

Finally, beyond specific policy recommendations, Nader makes the same demand of the Democratic Party that Howard Dean did: He asks that it recover its soul and its self-esteem. Ever since Howard Dean self-destructed and left the stage, the vision of the Democratic Party as a force for social justice has been atrophying, as the party drifts back to the center. The disappearance of the word “liberal” from the Democratic lexicon and the absurd flirtation with John McCain indicate that many in the party lack confidence that they can win without playacting being Republicans. Has anyone looked at McCain’s views on taxes, on health care, on abortion lately? Has the Democratic Party become so despondent that it believes that two real Democrats can’t win a presidential election? The Nader candidacy is an exhortation to the Democrats to reclaim their legacy.

To be sure, Ralph Nader is starting to feel the heat from the antipathy to his current campaign. It’s evident that he feels a bit guilty and ambivalent about the role he is playing. Why else would he be dispensing advice to John Kerry in major interviews? He told George Stephanopoulos that Kerry should pick either John Edwards or Dick Gephardt as Kerry’s vice presidential choice. In fact, he spent so much time talking about what Kerry could do to improve his prospects that Nader was forced to quip, “I didn’t know I was coming on your show as an unpaid consultant to the Kerry campaign.”

While I do not support Nader’s current presidential campaign, my respect for him is undiminished. I hope that when Kerry does prevail in November, he finds a position for Nader in his cabinet.

- posted by jeffrowan111 @ 12:06 PM