Accidental Blogger

Not Honest Enough for BYU

April 5, 2007

Dick Cheney’s travel plans have run into unexpected strormy weather. Invited to deliver the commencement address at two of the nation’s "safest" conservative campuses, West Point and Brigham Young University, he is likely to face protests at one of them. Some BYU students, faculty and members of the Mormon Church at Utah’s flagship educational institution, plan to protest Cheney’s visit and have demanded that he be "disinvited." They are not so much questioning "failed" policies, "lost" wars or other administrative minutiae. The protesters deem the vice president unsuitable as an honored guest at a university with "a heavy emphasis on personal honesty and integrity." Like Matthew Dowd, the Republican operative who has expressed public regret for supporting a flawed leader, the BYU protesters too are questioning the fundamental character of Cheney. They don’t think he measures up to setting a good example for the graduating class. The full story here.
On The Abuse Of Language (Joe)

April 5, 2007

Stop the presses: a physician just admitted that he believes in God!

At least, according to CNN that’s a publishable story. Francis Collins, "Why this scientist believes in God."

His argument boils down to "I believe in God because I want to believe in God; it’s a matter of faith, to which reason is (merely) not abhorrent." But I want to narrow in on a particular reference, which strikes me as misleading:

I had always assumed that faith was based on purely emotional and irrational arguments, and was astounded to discover, initially in the writings of the Oxford scholar C.S. Lewis and subsequently from many other sources, that one could build a very strong case for the plausibility of the existence of God on purely rational grounds.

C. S. Lewis is of course today best known for his (somewhat detestable) children’s books, The Chronicles of Narnia. But he was, in fact, an Oxford scholar. Not of science, mind you; not of religion. No, Professor Lewis was a professor of medieval and Renaissance English literature and language.

If I wanted to make a point about Beowulf, I might cite Tolkien (or a contemporary scholar–say, Liuzza). I would certainly not approvingly cite, for a proposition about the Old English poem, biologist Bruce Levin as merely "an Emory professor."
American Society of International Law (Dean)

April 3, 2007

Prompted by comments relating to Ruchira’s announcement that she intends not to post as frequently as usual, I thought I might at least contribute a cursory account of the conference I attended last week in D.C., the 101st meeting of ASIL. Let me note at the outset that Ruchira’s and Joe’s lapse into "blah"-ging has not gone unpredicted. The Gartner group released a study last year indicating that blogging is due to peak this year. (I can’t seem to find the actual report, so this news report will have to do.)

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Malkin: Totally a Terrorist (Joe)

April 2, 2007

Michelle Malkin is apparently speaking for the Jewish people now (see "The John Doe Manifesto" at Jewish World Review). Which is odd, because she’s not Jewish. To the extent that I identify with my Jewish heritage, I certainly don’t want her speaking for me. But Malkin is hateful and unhinged, and she did write a book (despite a serious lack of scholarly ability!) called In Defense of Internment (about WWII), and she does write an anti-Muslim, anti-Arab blog, and apparently that’s all you need to get published on JWR, which I can only assume is utter right-wing trash. Chris Kelly (HuffPo) describes her post, in which she is, as far as I can tell, trying to start something like a cross between the KKK and the Gestapo:

Most Americans just rolled over and surrendered when Arab terrorists
took over the government and the media, but not Michelle Malkin.

She’s fighting back. By starting a club.

All you have to do to join is report everyone you see who seems to
be a foreigner. Or who seems to tolerate foreigners. Or who may be
thinking foreigner-tolerating thoughts.

It’s like the Junior Spies in 1984, only totally fun.

It’s called The John Doe Movement and it’s got an oath and
everything. And if you join not only will you fight Islamofascism, but
you can also come to Michelle’s house after school, have a healthy
snack, and play with her Breyer Horses. Well, not play with them. But,
you know, look at them.

You also get a button. Wanna sign up?

Ms. Malkin even has a Manifesto!; she is apparently trying to draw on the cultural capital of Karl Marx. The John Doe Manifesto (sidenote: since she’s the author, shouldn’t it be Jane Doe?) looks exactly like what one would expect to be trumpeted by FOX as the terrorist-writing of an Islamofascist, if only we substitute "Jew" for "Muslim" and "Mohammed" for "John Doe." But that can’t be, because she’s unquestionably a freedom fighter, struggling desperately to save America from the liberals and/or terrorists — any similarities must be imagined by me.

She’s reacting, you see, to the "six publicity-seeking imams" (odd for a media whore to accuse others of being publicity-seeking, isn’t it?) who filed a lawsuit after being forcibly detained, prohibited from flying, and questioned for seven hours because they were seen praying in the airport terminal before their flight boarded.

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A Smoldering Paradise

April 2, 2007

A lovely piece of travel writing by Usha Alexander here. Her article has been included in The Best Travel Writing for 2007 by Travelers’ Tales. Alexander recounts her days as a Peace Corps volunteer in the remote region of the archipelago of Vanuatu.
Another Severe Case of Buyer’s Remorse

April 1, 2007

Unfortunately, electing a president doesn’t come with a lemon law clause. Short of an impeachment (hardly a likely scenario), we are stuck with nearly two more stultifying years of the most inept, corrupt and arrogant administration in recent US history. Those of us who knew what lay in store after the 2000 election and shuddered in fear, grit our teeth, scream at our TVs and vent on our blogs. But at least we know we were right. The situation is more pathetic for those who were Bush’s cheerleaders and instead of looking down contentedly from the shining city on the hill, find themselves staring bleakly out of the stinking garbage dump where Bush-Cheney-Rove have landed America. Many have come out publicly and expressed regret for having supported this administration. But for most of them, especially the chastened neo-con warmongers, the argument seems to be that the core philosophy of the administration was not wrong. It was how it was executed that was flawed. In other words, given half a chance, a willing political vehicle and a patient ear, they would again try to perpetuate their destructive world view of world domination through reckless use of military power. Very few have come out as true penitents and admitted that they made a fundamental mistake about Bush’s character and it was wrong to have supported a man who was wholly unqualified for the job he now holds. Not many of Bush’s supporters would admit that they put a crown on a mediocre fool and hoped he would rule as a shrewd and visionary statesman. Until now.

Matthew Dowd, a top Republican operative who crossed party lines to become an ardent Bush supporter in 1999, is a bit different. Dowd has admitted that he misjudged Bush. Blinded by "love" he saw traits in Bush’s character that were really not there. Betrayed, he expresses much sorrow for the wasted hope and passion he harbored for his severely flawed and deficient object of love. So despondent and disillusioned is Dowd that like a true penitent, he is even considering going to a poor African or South American nation and spend time doing social work to make up for the harm he has done. So how did Dowd come to this painful realization? Some highlights of the events that knocked his idol off the pedestal that was built more on wishful thinking of the worshipper than any real building blocks of capability, sound judgement or moral fiber of the idol.

Mr. Dowd was impressed by the pledge of Mr. Bush, then governor of Texas, to bring a spirit of cooperation to Washington. He switched parties, joined Mr. Bush’s political brain trust and dedicated the next six years to getting him to the Oval Office and keeping him there. In 2004, he was appointed the president’s chief campaign strategist.

Looking back, Mr. Dowd now says his faith in Mr. Bush was misplaced.

In a wide-ranging interview here, Mr. Dowd called for a withdrawal from Iraq and expressed his disappointment in Mr. Bush’s leadership. “I really like him, which is probably why I’m so disappointed in things,” he said. He added, “I think he’s become more, in my view, secluded and bubbled in.”

In speaking out, Mr. Dowd became the first member of Mr. Bush’s inner circle to break so publicly with him. He said his decision to step forward had not come easily. But, he said, his disappointment in Mr. Bush’s presidency is so great that he feels a sense of duty to go public given his role in helping Mr. Bush gain and keep power.

Mr. Dowd, a crucial part of a team that cast Senator John Kerry as a flip-flopper who could not be trusted with national security during wartime, said he had even written but never submitted an op-ed article titled “Kerry Was Right,” arguing that Mr. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and 2004 presidential candidate, was correct in calling last year for a withdrawal from Iraq.

“I’m a big believer that in part what we’re called to do — to me, by God; other people call it karma — is to restore balance when things didn’t turn out the way they should have,” Mr. Dowd said. “Just being quiet is not an option when I was so publicly advocating an election.”

The rest of Mr. Dowd’s sorrowful mea culpa here.
A Tale of Two Bloggers (Sujatha)

March 29, 2007

I was not surprised to hear Pres.Bush citing two bloggers from Baghdad yesterday as evidence of normalcy returning to Baghdad to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. Though incompetent in most other respects,this administration has been most adept at inserting cherry-picked phrases into speeches. To go by those carefully selected words, you would think all is normal on the streets of Baghdad, which are safe enough for Americans to walk on, as echoed by Sen.John McCain on The Situation Room. The actual lines from the Iraqi bloggers in a March 02, 2007 post below:

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Putting On The Brakes

March 29, 2007

Regular A.B. readers may have noticed that fresh posts no longer appear daily as clock work here. I have decided to take a little break from break-neck blogging. The choice came down to either stop, go on a hiatus or slow down considerably. Since I still enjoy the upkeep of the blog, I decided on the last option. I will no longer post with the kind of diligence that readers may have come to expect from me. There are several reasons for my wanting to slow down. The most important is that blogging has taken a big bite off my personal reading time. From a respectable rate of 4-5 books a month, I find to my dismay that I can now only manage to read about 2 books in the same period. My book shelf is creaking with new books that I continue to buy but take longer and longer to get to. The conflict between reading and blogging has started to bother me a lot and I had to find a happy middle ground which translates to less blogging.

Another important factor that has played a role in this decision is my sudden lack of desire to write on political matters. I very much enjoy writing on cultural issues, book reviews being the favorite among them. But strangely enough, it is the political commentary which essentially kept my blogging juices flowing. A well written political piece enhances my desire to write enthusiastically about other stuff also. But the unchanging bleak political picture is fast losing its allure as an impetus for sharp commentary. Also, the congress having changed hands, one feels that perhaps some justice will at last be done on the political front. I sometimes find myself shirking all manner of serious blogging because I cannot bring myself to compose a tightly written political piece. I intend to write detailed and meaningful posts from time to time. But from now on I will also to resort to writing lighter pieces and linking to compelling stories by others more frequently than I have done in the past. Since this is not a niche blog where we disburse inside information or any special wisdom, there is not much else to fall back on. In a few months I will revisit the matter and take stock of the state of blogging at A.B. From there I will decide which way things will go.

I understand that the slow down might result in loss of readership. But that too is something I have decided not to worry about. A.B. has seen some very exciting times and if things quieten down, so be it. As long as most of our regular readers check us out from time to time, the blog will continue to be published for the foreseeable future. So, unless my co-bloggers find the time to post, you can expect to see fewer fresh posts here than has been customary until now. I hope that we can settle into the new rhythm without losing the interest of most regular readers. But that is something I don’t have much control over. As always, thanks for reading.
Life Stories – Big and Small

March 28, 2007

A partial list of biographies I have read in recent months. I won’t attempt in-depth reviews except to say that I enjoyed all of them, some more than others.

Galileo’s Daughter by Dava Sobel : The title of the book notwithstanding, this book is not about Galileo’s daughter but an excellent profile of her illustrious and famous father. Maria Celeste, oldest of Galileo’s illegitimate children, was a cloistered nun from her early teens and maintained a loving relationship with her father throughout her brief life. Maria, whose own life was devoted to following God’s laws in order that she would ensure a safe passage to the metaphysical heaven of her faith for herself and her flock, adopted her spiritual name as a tribute to her father’s life time of work charting the scientific laws governing the physical heavens. An account of mutual love, dependence and occasional role reversal, the father-daughter tale is masterfully handled by author Dava Sobel.

While Maria devoted her life to serving the Catholic church, Galileo spent much of his fighting it. But never was that an issue of contention between the two. Sobel’s research on Galileo’s life and work casts a wide net to capture the zeitgeist of 17th century Europe – of the burgeoning clash between science and faith. But the personal side of Galileo’s life, his quotidian concerns about health, money, employment and personal relations are revealed largely through the numerous letters that he wrote to his daughter. The correspondence was clearly a two way traffic but we get to see only one side of it. The letters that Maria wrote to her father were not found among the copious quantities of scholarly paper work that Galileo left behind. But his own letters to Maria were all lovingly preserved by her and were discovered among the meager belongings of the young woman when she died at the age of thirty three. From Galileo’s letters we often get a sense of what Maria may have written to him. It is very touching to discover that while Galileo often poured out his frustrations and despair over worldly matters in his letters, Maria Celeste, the devoted servant of the Catholic church, encouraged her father to summon his courage in validating his scientific claims that ran so afoul of the very ecclesiastical institution she herself had vowed to unquestioningly serve and obey.

Betraying Spinoza by Rebecca Goldstein: Before I read Rebecca Goldstein’s book, I had only a vague notion of Spinoza’s philosophy and almost none about his personal life story. Goldstein sets about to put flesh on the meager bones of the "personal" side of Spinoza’s life. Her approach is to not just examine Benedictus Spinoza (his adopted name) the 17th century European philosopher, but also Baruch Spinoza, the European Jew whose life story was molded to a large extent by the history of the Catholic inquisition of Iberian Jews. According to the author, that Spinoza, the most famous Jewish heretic, lived his life from age twenty three onwards as neither Christian, Jew nor Muslim, was a remarkable fact in itself. But she also argues that his concept of the universality of life and the universe would not have been possible had it not been for his special experience and education as a Portuguese Marrano Jew in the progressive Christian nation of the Netherlands. Goldstein, a professor of philosophy, weaves a very interesting (and convincing) tale of the Marrano Jews, their persecution, death, forced conversion, escape, reconversion to the faith of their ancestors and their influence on Spinoza’s subsequent views. But Goldstein keeps going back to this history once too often to make the connections, making her arguments a bit repetitive. She also provides a lucid explanation of Spinoza’s world view in a slightly pedagogic fashion in the manner of Philosophy 101 which is very useful for readers like me who lack a background in the formal study of the subject. On the whole, a good read.

Two Lives by Vikram Seth: I thoroughly enjoyed this book by Vikram Seth whose other enormously popular opus A Suitable Boy, I wasn’t able to plod through. This one too is a weighty tome – 500 pages of densely written chronicle but Seth makes almost every observation relevant and interesting. Two Lives is actually Three Lives. Apart from being the biography of Seth’s Indian born uncle Shanti and his German Jewish wife Henny, it is also partly Seth’s own memoir.

I will not go into too many particulars of the lives whose stories and histories are interwoven seamlessly in this book and which unfold in three different countries – India, Germany and England. The lives of the uncle and aunt are recreated from a series of interviews that Seth conducted with Uncle Shanti after Henny’s death and from a secret treasure trove of letters and photographs belonging to Henny which Seth found in the attic of the London home that Shanti and Henny lived in during their marriage. Shanti and Henny’s lives came together long before they became man and wife. Uncle Shanti had arrived in Berlin, Germany in 1931 from India to study dentistry. He became a boarder in the home of a Jewish family, the Caros, which at that time consisted of Gabriele Caro a widow, and her three children Lola, Henny and Heinz. The three Caro children were close to Shanti’s age and he became their friend, especially of the two Caro sisters. Shanti’s life in Germany was an enjoyable sojourn comprising a successful education and a busy social life in the company of Lola, Henny and their German friends. Shanti and Henny’s early friendship in Germany had no hint of a romance or physical love. Only after 1939 on the eve of WWII, when both find themselves as uprooted individuals in England (for very different reasons) and rekindle their earlier friendship that we begin to see a more intimate relationship emerge. Seth’s account of the relatively peaceful and prosperous marital life of his aunt and uncle and the rarely spoken but tragic end that befell Henny’s German Jewish family is very well written. Two Lives is a tale of love, war, marriage, companionship, friendship and trust. The reader will be often surprised by the unlikely places where one finds one and doesn’t find the other.

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Atheism in the American Public Square: Slim Pickings

March 26, 2007

Peter Stark, a US congressman from Freemont, California since 1973 has done the unthinkable. He has publicly declared his non-belief in a Supreme Being. His "courageous" announcement has caused much rejoicing among atheists, secularists and other assorted godless groups. Until Stark "came out," the highest ranking public official to identify him/ herself as a "non-theist" was a spunky school board president in Berkeley, California!

The American Humanist Association applauded Rep. Pete Stark for publicly acknowledging he does not believe in a supreme being. The declaration, it said, makes him the highest-ranking elected official — and first congressman — to proclaim to be an atheist. The organization took out an ad in Tuesday’s Washington Post, congratulating the California Democrat for his stance.

”With Stark’s courageous public announcement of his nontheism, it is our hope that he will become an inspiration for others who have hidden their conclusions for far too long,” executive director Roy Speckhardt said in a statement.

Associate director Ron Millar told the Los Angeles Times that the group wanted to highlight the difficulty that politicians have declaring they don’t believe in God. A member of American Atheists California nominated Stark.

”We didn’t think we’d have any member of Congress come forward,” Millar said.

Stark, whose district is in the San Francisco Bay-area town of Fremont, confirmed his belief in a statement to The Associated Press late Monday. He said he was ”a Unitarian who does not believe in a supreme being.” ”I look forward to working with the Secular Coalition to stop the promotion of narrow religious beliefs in science, marriage contracts, the military and the provision of social services,” he wrote.

Ellen Goodman writes and I agree that it will take more than the declaration of "non-theism" by a 75 year old congressman from a secure and liberal voting district to change the entrenched "god" culture of American public life, made into a litmus test and a trial by ordeal in the last thirty years by right wing religious groups like the Moral Majority. Writes Goodman:

Some described Mr. Stark’s admission as "coming out of the closet." Others rued the fact that God was not on his side. A spokesman for the Concerned Women for America unabashedly bashed him, saying that "a Christian worldview is proper for a politician to have."

Not surprisingly, Mr. Stark has no ambitions for the presidency. In one of those endless polls surveying whether we are "ready for" a black, a woman, a Jew or others to be president, only 14 percent of Americans believe we’re ready for an atheist. What Mr. Stark has done, however, is open a fresh chapter in this year’s hefty book on presidential politics and religion. ……

…… Until the Stark moment, what captured media attention had been the subtle and not-so-subtle focus on Mitt Romney and his Mormon faith. Will his religion hurt his chances for the Republican nomination? How much? I’ve been especially struck by this because I was a young reporter in Detroit when Mr. Romney’s father, George, was governor of Michigan. I barely heard a peep about George Romney’s faith even though at the time his church still banned blacks from the priesthood. I didn’t even know George’s grandfather had five wives. In 1967, this Romney’s campaign to be the moderate, anti-war Republican president foundered after he admitted being "brainwashed" about the Vietnam War. It had nothing to do with faith.

What happened between 1967 and 2007? How did the matter of someone’s religion get back into the dead center of the public square, not to mention the cable shows and the blogosphere?

As a society we need to have conversations about right and wrong. But in this increasingly pluralistic country we also need to uphold the idea that morals are not the exclusive property of any one religion. More controversially, we need to welcome the idea that values are not the exclusive property of religion itself.

Pete Stark denies that it takes courage to become the first admitted non-theist in the House. "What is courageous," he adds, "is to stand up in Congress and say, ‘let’s tax the rich and give money to poor kids.’ "

There are many ways to be a true believer.
“Truth shall prevail” – Update on A School District Saga (Sujatha)

March 23, 2007

An update on what’s happening with the School District Saga: Currently, Judge Wettick of the Court of Common Pleas, Allegheny County, PA denied a motion for a protective order moved by the Upper St.Clair School District and the School Board majority (BM).(newspaper article link) The BM were trying to conceal the facts behind the IB (International Baccalaureate) removal-reinstatement brouhaha by burying it in litigation designed to keep the records out of the public eye.
After having given in to the terms of a settlement to reinstate the IB program with the worst possible grace, the BM engaged in a war of attrition, accusing the plaintiffs in the suit against them of lying and false accusations.( Sound familiar? It seems like a mini-replay of the larger tug-of-war between the Congress and the White House.) They pulled no stops in defaming respectable USC residents through accusation and innuendo. To cover their tracks regarding a shameful episode where an ‘offer-you-can’t-refuse’ was made to the then-superintendent Dr.Lombardo, they filed a motion to classify the depositions of Dr.Lombardo and others,among other court documents in the original case, so that it could no longer be part of the public record.
Judge Wettick, on reviewing the merits of this motion, decided that it would be in the greater interest of the USC citizenry to have these documents available in the public record, and issued a ruling denying the motion for a protective order.
The May primary elections are hotting up, with two new slates announced- RestoreUSC with five candidates (the moderate faction, trying to restore Unity, Sense and Civility and VoteSmartUSC, with three candidates (owing allegiance to the current Board majority, and equally hell-bent on killing the IB, special-ed, school transportation, needed repairs/renovations to middle schools, you-name-it-and-they-oppose-it, unless it pours money into their or their friends’ pockets).
As a start of the political squabbling this season,there has already been a mini-battle of sorts in the local newspapers, with one school board candidate taking op-ed potshots at her rivals, without admitting that she was a candidate. This has already precipitated a flurry of responses pointing out the irregularity of criticizing rivals without disclosure.

All this would be funny, if it weren’t so deadly serious!
Iraq As Safe As Detroit … And Chicago!

March 22, 2007

With two million citizens displaced from their homes, at least half a million killed, hospitals, schools and civic amenities in shambles and a bloody civil war raging, Iraq is no more more unsafe than Detroit, Chicago or any other big US city. This according to Tim Walburg, a Republican US congressman from Michigan. He finds that "encouraging." So do I. If Americans can survive in Chicago and Detroit, so will the Iraqis in Iraq. Why are we then sending in more troops?

DETROIT: A Republican congressman from Michigan said parts of Iraq are no more dangerous than Detroit, drawing the ire of the mayor’s office and the state Democratic Party.

During an interview Monday with WILS-AM radio, Rep. Tim Walberg said the returning troops he has talked with "indicate to me that 80 to 85 percent, in a conservative fashion, of the country is reasonably under control, at least as well as Detroit or Chicago or any of our other big cities. That’s an encouraging sign."

Remarked program host Jack Ebling: "I’ve never heard Iraq compared to Detroit before."

Walberg responded: "Well, in fact, in many places it’s as safe and cared for as Detroit or Harvey, Illinois, or some other places that have trouble with armed violence that takes place on occasion."

Detroit and Chicago had higher rates of murder and some other crimes than the United States as a whole in 2005, according to FBI statistics. Harvey is an economically depressed Chicago suburb with about 30,000 residents.

It’s absurd to compare Detroit and Iraq in any way," said James Canning, spokesman for Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, on Wednesday. "Unfortunately, for years people have beat up on the city of Detroit. Detroit is the word for negative. We are working very hard to transform that image of our city."

A spokeswoman for Harvey Mayor Eric Kellogg said he had no immediate response.

Walberg was born and raised in Chicago. He is in his first term in the U.S. House.

"These soldiers have expressed optimism to the congressman about the safety and security of the majority of Iraq," said Walberg spokesman Matt Lahr. "There are still major challenges in Iraq, especially in the Anbar province and Sadr City."
Hot Tub Tom

March 22, 2007

Readers may have wondered why with ever unfolding shocking news about the Bush administration’s shenanigans, I have mostly stayed away from politics in recent days. I have been writing about books, art and other "soft" stuff while Bush-Cheney-Rove’s "a scandal a day" administration comes under congressional and journalistic scrutiny. The reason for the paucity of political posts is not that I don’t care and am not angry. I am furious, disgusted and appalled. I am also exhausted and totally disheartened that the top players of the most corrupt administration in the history of the US will probably pay no price for their wanton law breaking except to let some fall guys fall by the wayside (Libby, Rumsfeld and perhaps now Alberto Gonzales). The "guilty as hell" president, vice president and presidential "brain" Rove will most likely live out the rest of their term without facing the music for their misdeeds. I see no prospect of indictments or impeachment. Had the US congress not changed hands, we wouldn’t even have had any hearings on Capitol Hill.

Impeachment has been on my mind recently for two reasons. One is that I have never seen another president who was more deserving of the contempt of the American people as George Bush. His scoff law and immoral tenure should have been ripe target for impeachment hearings. Yet just a few years ago, the US congress impeached President Clinton for a tawdry personal failing which had nothing to do with how he had governed and all things considered, he had governed quite well. The second reason why I think back upon Clinton’s impeachment is that some of the panting hound dogs of the Republican Party who went after his blood, have now come out and confessed their own moral lapses as a means of political rehabilitation. Recently, Newt Gingrich went on James Dobson’s radio show to plead mea culpa on having indulged in extra marital canoodling with a young congressional aide (now his third wife) at the very same time that he was lecturing the nation about Clinton’s moral failings and seeking his impeachment ! Now, the other standard bearer of right wing morality and seeker of impeachment of Clinton, Tom "The Hammer" DeLay, who blames all the evils of the world on liberals, has published a memoir about his own "wild’ life. Shameless as he is, DeLay has gleefully trashed his own Republican colleagues (Gingrich, Armey and even Hastert) in his book while making some sweepingly cavalier statements about his own personal lapses. Tawdry, disgusting, hypocritical and wholly unsurprising – this latest attempt at revenge and rehabilitation by a corrupt and arrogant man who had been expelled from Baylor College for "unknown" reasons and during his days in the Texas state legislature, was nicknamed "Hot Tub Tom" by a local columnist.

Cragg Hines of the Houston Chronicle reviews DeLay’s book here. See the excerpt below and you will understand why the injustice of it all is driving me nuts.

Surely confession plays some role in Tom DeLay’s brand of hyper-religiosity. If so, there’s faint testimony to the principle as regards politics in the former House majority leader’s self-serving new book, No Retreat, No Surrender.

DeLay has a lot to be sorry for. As he says not quite half-way through the book, "In short, I had become a self-centered jerk." Fighting against almost all the external evidence, DeLay would have us believe there came a point when that wasn’t the case. On that basis the book belongs in the "new fiction" display.

Overall, DeLay offers himself up for canonization in the Church of St. Ronald the Reagan as a result of suffering the slings and arrows of persecution from the devilish Democratic troika of Reps. Nancy Pelosi, Rahm Emanuel and Patrick Kennedy. Of the three, only Emanuel is anywhere near DeLay’s league. … All things being equal, you’d have to stand in awe of DeLay’s chutzpah.

About the only hint that there was some error to DeLay’s more than two decades in Washington — as first a plain, old U.S. House member from Sugar Land but quickly a leading Republican strategist as his party moved to its 12-year roughshod reign — is his admission of continued catting around once in the Federal City.

He’s upfront about it. It’s even indexed. Under "DeLay, Tom, as womanizer."

It’s all pretty generic, though let’s pause to delight in one fairly chaste sentence about his days as a state legislator: "I was away from home for weeks at a time, I wasn’t bad looking, and I got my share of female attention." This makes it sound like he was in the French Foreign Legion instead of Austin.

That leads up to DeLay describing how, in his Austin heyday he acquired the nickname "Hot Tub Tom," which he says was coined by Beverly Carter of the Fort Bend Star, and how he deserved it. "I slept with women I wasn’t married to."

I guess I would have said DeLay’s position had been all that stopped when he got to Washington. Au contraire, whatever may have been his previous stand on the point.

We’re still in "my usual dozen martinis during an evening of revelry" territory (which I’d guess even DeLay’s worst enemy is happy he put behind him. I know I am). "There were also women," he writes elliptically.

My upbringing cautions me against doubting anyone’s religious convictions, so I’ll not go into my take on politically expedient turnarounds.

I’ll only note that, given his railing against Bill Clinton’s sexual adventures, there’s at least one big section missing from the book. It would be indexed: "DeLay, Tom, as hypocrite."
Too “Uncomfortable” to Say Sorry

March 21, 2007

This time the victims don’t want money. They want an apology and it is not forthcoming.

Japan, for all its picture postcard beauty and colorful traditions, often has the most colorless, boring and sometimes corrupt politicians. That image was burnished by Japan’s recently retired prime minister, the charismatic baby boomer Junichiro Koizumi who was given to breaking into Elvis songs when he felt happy. The flamboyant and confident Koizumi’s worst legacy may have been supporting George Bush’s immoral Iraq war in defiance of the fervent opposition from a majority of Japanese citizens. But he was popular at home for his domestic reforms. When Koizumi handed over power to his seemingly capable successor Shinzo Abe six months ago, it appeared that Japan would remain on a forward looking path on domestic and international affairs. Mr. Abe started promisingly enough – saying the right things at home and abroad. He asserted that he would choose policies that would make the Japanese proud of their "beautiful country." Then he stepped into the quagmire of Japanese imperial history and stubborn pride – a trap that awaits every elected leader of Japan. (Even his suave predecessor Koizumi had ruffled Chinese and Korean feathers by refusing to suspend visits to the Yasukuni shrine which honors the Japanese war dead, some of whom were war criminals in the eyes of its neighbors).

Fierce national pride, the main impetus behind Japanese imperialism, atrocities and eventual downfall is a quality that has not quite vanished even after the physical and psychological humiliation of WWII and a conscious national decision to pursue the path of peace and pacifism. While Japan wants to move forward and be a good neighbor to other Asian countries, some of the victims of Japanese war time atrocities have not forgotten their physical and mental anguish. Among them were hundreds of thousands of women from Korea, the Philippines, China, Taiwan, Indonesia and Burma who had been kidnapped and imprisoned during WWII by the Japanese military to provide sexual services to its soldiers. Some of the women were as young as fourteen and fifteen at the time. Euphemistically called the "Comfort Women," they were herded into brothels and condemned to sexual servitude, an experience that left them battered physically and emotionally. After years of living in shame, in the 1990s, some of the women at an advanced age, felt bold enough to speak out about the humiliation of the sexual slavery they had suffered at the hands of the Japanese imperial army. The Japanese government first denied their claim, destroyed war time records and even tried to bribe them through private donors in order to shut them up. But more and more women came forward and it is no longer a matter of dispute that the "Comfort Women" too were prisoners of war. Most of all what they want is an acknowledgement of and an apology for their plight.

Prime Minister Abe has been severely tarnished as a statesman by questioning the claims of the women (whether they were coerced) and quibbling over the number of enslaved women (whether there really were 200,000 "Comfort Women"). With breath taking insensitivity, Abe has suggested that the women’s claims have no veracity even when first hand evidence has mounted in the last decade. Mr. Abe has begun to sound like a man who stubbornly refuses to acknowledge past mistakes to preserve national pride while adding fresh insults to the already long list of injuries to the victims. This is not a patriotic cause of sticking up for false national pride, nor a formal diplomatic apology to world leaders and other wronged nations. These are just unwitting women, mostly poor, who were caught in the cross fires of a great war among world powers some sixty years ago. To call them liars and deny their suffering hardly befits the leader of a powerful, prosperous and "beautiful" nation. How hard is it to say sorry, Mr. Abe? It could be as easy as taking a deep bow and saying, "Sumimasen."

Note: Once again, Ellen Goodman and I agree.
Four Futile Years

March 19, 2007

On March 19, 2003, I was in snowy Banff, Canada, enjoying a nice holiday. My husband and I watched BBC news (quite different from the coverage by CNN) with horror as round the clock reporting of the invasion of Iraq filled the TV screen with video game like imagery. (I have repeatedly wondered, if amateurs like me and my husband knew the war was wrong, why didn’t the experts?) We all know how that game unfolded and where the score stands four years later. The chest thumping, self-serving lies and misleading braggadocio by the Bushies are now mostly history as are some of the major players and planners of the criminal undertaking. But George Bush is still averse to admitting mistakes in Iraq. He is desperately looking for that elusive "victory" and threatening Congress to act on behalf of US "national security" or else! From the macho and fraudulent "Mission Accomplished," his claim now has transmogrified to a pathetic and wishful "the war can be won." Whom is he speaking to and who’s listening?

Asserting that the war in Iraq "can be won" with U.S. resolve, President Bush appealed to the American people today for patience as he pursues a plan to tamp down violence in Baghdad, and he warned that national security would suffer a "devastating" blow if U.S. troops were to withdraw from Iraq next year as demanded by congressional Democrats.

In a brief televised speech to the nation on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Bush hailed what he said were signs of progress in a joint U.S.-Iraqi operation to secure the Iraqi capital from mounting insurgent and sectarian violence.

"Four years after this war began, the fight is difficult, but it can be won," Bush said toward the end of his five-minute speech. "It will be won if we have the courage and resolve to see it through."

He cautioned that the Baghdad security plan "needs more time to take effect," and he warned that there will be "good days" and "bad days" as it unfolds. But he said the Iraqi government was making "good progress" toward meeting political and economic benchmarks aimed at achieving national reconciliation, although he acknowledged that "there is a lot more work to be done."….

…..

Listing the "devastating" consequences that he said would flow from a pullout of U.S. forces, Bush warned that "a contagion of violence could spill out across the entire country," eventually engulfing the rest of the Middle East.

"The terrorists could emerge from the chaos with a safe haven in Iraq to replace the one they had in Afghanistan, which they used to plan the attacks of September 11, 2001," Bush added. "For the safety of the American people, we cannot allow this to happen."

I don’t understand why the Al Qaida would bother to move with bag and baggage to Iraq to seek safe haven. It is already operating with much comfort and impunity from a place called "western Pakistan" just outside the reach of the US miliary. Read the rest of Bush’s delusional and deceitful address here.

Update: Today’s Houston Chronicle has reprinted an editorial, from four years ago expressing doubts and concerns about Bush’s invasion of Iraq. It is amazing that a regional paper like the Chronicle saw through the deception and the New York Times shilled for the war.

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