MayerBlog: The Web Log of
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Fall-deral (and Fiddlededee) 2007
The leaves are falling from the trees, in my corner of the world, and so it’s time for another annual tradition on MayerBlog – my autumn “Fall-deral” essay, with some miscellaneous observations about recent developments in politics and popular culture:
n Hail, Columbia! (or should that be, To Hell with Columbia?) Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (aka “I’m-mad-and-I’m-in-a-jihad”) made headlines with his late-September visit to New York City, to give a speech at the United Nations. Of special interest was the Madman’s visit to Columbia University, where he had been invited to speak – a decision that, not surprisingly, was strongly criticized by some Columbia alumni and pro-Israel groups. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Ahmadinejad is today’s equivalent of Adolph Hitler: he’s the political leader of an Islamo-fascist state with the avowed intent of developing nuclear weapons, to destroy Israel and to establish an Islamic caliphate in the Middle East. His government actively sponsors militant Islamic terrorism, resulting in the deaths of American men and women serving with U.S. military forces in Iraq. He’s also a blatant anti-Semite who refuses to believe widely accepted historical accounts of the Holocaust. Columbia University president Lee Bollinger, in an apparent effort to appease both sides in the debate over Ahmadinejad’s invitation to speak at Columbia, introduced the Iranian leader with some extraordinarily blunt comments. “When you come to a place like this, it makes you, quite simply, ridiculous,” Bollinger said. “You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated.” (“Iran’s leader booed, laughed at during event,” USA Today, Sept. 25, 2007.) Although Bollinger’s comments were, in one sense, justified, what was truly “ridiculous” was the invitation to have Ahmadinejad speak at the university in the first place. The university’s president, of all people, ought to realize that by merely giving this thug an opportunity to speak at so prestigious an institution allowed Ahmadinejad to score political points back home in Iran. The credibility that the event itself gave to the Madman could not be properly negated by Bollinger’s critical introduction, however harsh. If Bollinger were less of an intellectual coward – if, in other words, he acted more like the president of a great university rather than a P.C. wimp – he would have canceled Columbia’s invitation to this dangerous thug. Calling him a thug and then giving him a platform on which to speak is the epitome of a foolishly unhappy compromise. At least Ahmadinejad’s speech helped some naïve leftist students and faculty at Columbia finally to appreciate the evil of this man – and his Islamo-fascist regime. A noteworthy moment occurred when Ahmadinejad was asked about repression of homosexual people in Iran, and he replied by denying there were any gays in his country. He was met with derisive laughter – which masked the horrid reality behind the Madman’s words. What he really meant was that his regime, like Adolph Hitler’s in 1930s Germany, aimed to eradicate all homosexuals from society. It’s telling that it took that point – and not the broader dangers posed by Islamo-fascism – that stirred the ire of some Columbia leftists.
n Algore’s Ig-Noble Prize When the Noble Prize committee selected Al Gore as the recipient of the 2007 Peace Prize (to be shared with the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), the committee confirmed what conservative critics have been saying for several years: that the only rational explanation for the committee’s decision-making process is that it reflects its left-wing political bias. As ludicrous as were some of the Peace Prize Committee’s earlier awards – for example, to Jimmy Carter and Kofi Annan, those appeasers of tyrants and Islamo-fascists – the award to Gore is particularly ludicrous. In awarding the prize to Gore and the U.N. panel for their work in publicizing the supposed dangers of global warming, the Norwegian committee said the stresses of a changing global environment might heighten the “danger of violent conflicts and wars within and between states.” That’s complete bullshit. The real reason for the award it that it was a symbolic slap in the face to the Bush administration, which has been receiving criticism outside the U.S. for not being radical enough on the issue of global warming. What makes the award so ludicrous is that it’s Gore and his ilk – the scaremongers whose propaganda created the myth that human-made carbon dioxide is causing dangerous global warming – who are the real agitators threatening global peace. They’re the ones who are pushing policymakers to use the coercive power of government to deny the benefits of modern technology to people in both developed and developing countries, all over the world. Their radical environmentalism is merely a mask for their real agenda, which is to undermine capitalism and industrial civilization – to undermine free markets, the only hope the peoples of the world truly have for peace. If Gore deserves any sort of prize, it ought to be one for hypocrisy. “Al Gore should probably get a prize for most travel in a private jet, but not the Peace Prize,” said Myron Ebell, Director of Global Warming Policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, in a recent CEI press release. “The energy-rationing policies he espouses would perpetuate the poverty and human misery associated with political instability and conflict.” As CEI’s press release notes, “Gore has garnered widespread media attention both for his book on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, and its film adaptation.” However, many critics have noted “factual inaccuracies, exaggerations, and misleading statements throughout” both Gore’s book and film. Indeed, a court in the United Kingdom recently held that the film could not be shown in government schools in that country without a disclaimer message acknowledging that it was propaganda. (For more on the various lies in Gore’s film, see the excellent critique in Chapter 10 of the book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism, by Christopher Horner, a senior fellow at CEI.) “An Inconvenient Truth purports to be a non-partisan, non-ideological exposition of climate science and moral common sense. In reality, it’s a colorfully illustrated lawyer’s brief for global warming alarmism and energy rationing,” said CEI senior fellow Marlo Lewis. “It is an accusation hurled at modern industrial civilization.” If anyone truly deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for its work on the global warming issue, it’s the staff of the Competitive Enterprise Institute for their efforts to expose Gore for his fear-mongering. CEI recently has established Globalwarming.org, the website of the Cooler Heads Coalition, an international group of non-profit organizations dedicated to smarter thinking on the subject of global warming and climate change. And CEI has produced two 60-second television ads focusing on the alleged global warming crisis and the calls by some environmental groups and politicians for reduced energy use. The ads, aimed at directly countering the alarmists’ attempt to demonize carbon dioxide, highlight what’s good about the gas: it’s quite literally “the breath of life,” “the breath of civilization.” Another author who should be lauded for his efforts to encourage a more rational discussion of the topic is Danish economist Bjorn Lomborg, whose new book is entitled Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming. In a recent review of the book in the Columbus Dispatch, editorial-page editor Glenn Sheller describes Lomborg’s approach this way: “Armed with statistics and sweet reasonableness, he does two things. First, he surveys the science in every area affected by global warming and shows that in case after case, climate-change alarmists are telling only the negative half of the story or extrapolating wildly improbable scenarios from modest trends.” For example, Lomborg shows that sea levels are not going to rise by an apocalyptic 20 feet, as Al Gore prophesies, but more likely by 12 inches over the next century – precisely the sea-level increase the world has endured since 1850. “Second, he asks a fundamental question: Given that global warming entails some harm, what is the most cost-effective way of countering it? His answer is that in virtually every area, there are ways to mitigate or reverse the harmful effects of global warming at a fraction of the cost demanded by the alarmists.” After citing some apt examples, Sheller concludes, “His [Lomborg’s] plea is for global-warming alarmists to stop shouting down and demonizing anyone who questions their predictions and prescriptions, so that reasonable people can debate the trade-offs in global-warming policy. The danger of allowing alarmists to call the shots is that we will waste resources on unnecessarily expensive fixes that result in more human misery, not less.” (“Cooler heads needed in global-warming debate,” Columbus Dispatch, Sept. 30, 2007).
n Rush Limbaugh’s Last Laugh Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid got carried away with his demagoguery and made a real fool of himself earlier this month when, in a series of high-profile speeches on the floor of the U.S. Senate, he tried to smear conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. Reid and some fellow Democrats (most notably, Senator Tom Harkin) alleged that Limbaugh had called Iraq veterans who were critical of the war “phony soldiers.” In fact, Limbaugh was referring to soldiers who were indeed phony – persons who had fraudulently misrepresented their military service and have been prosecuted for their pretense, such as someone named Jesse MacBeth, whose story was told on ABC’s World News Tonight on Monday, September 24th, in a special investigative series by Brian Ross. Limbaugh’s comments to a caller, referring to the ABC News story, were blatantly taken out of context by Reid, Harkin, and other critics. Reid continued his campaign of misinformation against Limbaugh by writing a letter to Mark Mays, CEO of Clear Channel whose network broadcasts Rush’s radio show on many of its stations nationwide, criticizing Limbaugh’s comments as “unpatriotic and indefensible” and demanding that he apologize. The letter was an obvious attempt to silence Rush by pressuring an industry regulated by the government – a blatant attempt to abridge free-speech rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. (Even if Reid had not misrepresented Rush’s comments by taking them out of context – that is, even if Limbaugh actually had said the comments the Democrats alleged, calling U.S. military personnel who are critical of the war in Iraq “phony soldiers” – Rush ought to be free to express his opinion. Perhaps soldiers who undermine the war effort deserve to be called “phony.” Moreover, it’s highly inappropriate at best – and, actually, nothing less than a blatant abuse of political power – for any member of the U.S. Congress, let alone the Majority Leader of the Senate, to take the floor in order to publicly condemn any private American citizen for expressing his views, however controversial. The fact that Reid was attempting to smear Limbaugh with such falsehoods helps underscore how blatant was his attempt to censor Rush – to silence a popular conservative talk show host simply because he’s so popular and so effective a critic of the left. Limbaugh, by the way, has long ridiculed the Senator by nicknaming him “Dingy” Reid – an apt reference to the Senator’s dry manner of speaking and his gloomy demeanor.) Reid’s now-infamous 4-page letter, which was signed by “Dingy” Harry and 40 other Senate Democrats (including presidential candidate Hillary Clinton) was sent by Mark Mays to Rush Limbaugh, who put it up for auction on EBay, with the proceeds to be donated to a charitable group, the Marine Corps - Law Enforcement Foundation, a group that provides scholarships to the children of parents who die in the line of duty. Limbaugh also pledged to match the winning bid of $2.1 million, which was submitted by the Eugene B. Casey Foundation, a Gaithersburg, Maryland charity run by Betty Casey, the widow of a Washington-area real estate developer. On his October 19 radio show, Limbaugh announced, “At least $4.2 million will end up to the Marine Corps – Law Enforcement Foundation.” An EBay spokesman said that once the sale is completed, it would be the biggest charitable auction ever conducted on its Web site. Rush Limbaugh truly has had the last laugh. Not only did he succeed in exposing Reid and his fellow Democrats for their foolish effort to censor him, but he also was able to exploit their very instrument of intimidation – the Reid letter – in order to financially benefit the children of real soldiers who died in service to their country. In a striking display of shameless chutzpah, Reid even tried to take credit for the auctioning off of his letter, announcing last week that he was keeping tabs on the auction and was encouraging people to consider bidding on the letter, “contributing to this worthwhile cause.” But Reid did not say that either he or his fellow Democrat signers would join Rush in matching the winning bid. Such politicians may be masters at spending other people’s money – but they’d never even consider spending their own.
n Battle of the Mediocrities As I’ve commented in previous entries, it’s difficult to get enthusiastic, let alone interested, in the 2008 presidential campaign because the candidates from both major political parties – that is, both the “Demopublicans” and “Replicrats” – are generally so mediocre. (See my previous entry, “Labor Day BFDs” (Sept. 10) – “A Plague on Both Their Houses.”) The dismal GOP field is epitomized by the two frontrunners, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, both of whom suffer from the same basic problem: they lack the thorough, consistent commitment to individual liberty and limited government that many of us would like to see in the nominee of the “grand old party” of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Barry Goldwater. (Neither Giuliani nor Romney really challenge the premises of the regulatory/welfare state. Romney’s version of socialized medicine in Massachusetts – so-called “RomneyCare” – despite his attempts to distinguish it from Clintonian “HillaryCare,” is not essentially different at all because it perpetuates the fallacy of government control over health care.) One bright spot so far in the GOP campaign: the failure of John McCain. That failure is well-deserved because of McCain’s signature issue, advocating greater government regulation of campaign speech (particularly through the infamous McCain-Feingold law), and hence gutting First Amendment freedoms (not only freedom of speech and of the press, but also rights of assembly and petition). I’d like to think that Republican voters are smart enough to reject McCain because his position on that one issue demonstrates his lack of commitment to liberty and limited government. Not even Ron Paul, my favorite among the candidates because he’s the sole libertarian – is wholly satisfactory, for the reasons I discussed in my previous entry (principally, his weakness on foreign policy/defense issues). Paul is the only candidate who truly recognizes the fundamental principle that the Constitution does limit the powers of the national government and the president. And he may indeed be right, on policy grounds, in calling for cessation of the U.S. military occupation of Iraq. But he’s completely blind to the dangers that militant Islamic terrorism pose both to international peace (in the Middle East and indeed all over the world) and to U.S. national security. And he fails to recognize the real reason why the U.S. needs to limit its involvement in Iraq: to ensure our readiness to deal with the necessary (and, I fear, inevitable) threat coming from Iran. Having no single candidate about whom I can be excited for substantive reasons, I continue to root for Fred Thompson, who by now officially has thrown his hat into the ring. Although his first performance in a Republican candidates’ debate was uninspiring (pundits were right in saying he looked old and tired – although, to me, his relative lack of energy, or “fire in the belly,” is a plus rather than a minus), he was credible in the most recent debate in Orlando, Florida. What Thompson still has going for him is his experience – not so much his political experience (he had an OK career as a U.S. Senator), but his acting experience – which helps him compare favorably to the great Ronald Reagan. (Thompson will be at least as good as Reagan in the role of president, and in fact has already played it in a couple of movies.) And what better way to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged than to have a “Mr. Thompson” run as “Head of the State” in 2008! As for the Democrats’ side, it’s fairly evident that Hillary Rodham Clinton will be their nominee: the Clinton political machine at this point seems unstoppable. That’s scary because Mrs. Clinton isn’t just a mediocrity – she’s a dangerous, indeed an evil, mediocrity – as her record as both First Lady (Bill Clinton’s partner-in-crime) and junior U.S. Senator from New York demonstrates. Mrs. Clinton’s “It-Takes-a-Village” socialist/collectivist political philosophy threatens to further undermine individual rights and to increase the power of the national government to frightening new heights. If the Democrats follow the smart strategy of nominating Barack Obama as Hillary’s running mate – and thus solidifying their capture of the “black vote,” to counteract Hillary’s high negatives – the GOP will have an uphill battle in their effort to retain control of the White House and/or make inroads on the Democrat majorities in Congress after 2009.
n Flushed with Embarrassment: The Continuing Saga of Larry Craig In my September 10 “Labor Day BFDs” entry, I also discussed the case of U.S. Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho). As I noted there, “The real outrage in this sad story is that Craig was arrested in the first place.” His conduct (allegedly soliciting sex in an airport men’s room) may have been offensive to some people, but he violated no one’s rights and therefore did not do anything that ought to be a crime, in a free society. No doubt because of his personal embarrassment (the reasons for which, one can easily guess, have more to do with conservative Republicans’ homophobia than with any supposed hypocrisy over pseudo “gay rights”), Senator Craig pleaded guilty to a lesser offense – one misdemeanor count of indecent conduct – but then, when the story came out, tried unsuccessfully to withdraw his guilty plea. The latest twist in the story is that he now has reneged on his pledge to resign from the Senate, choosing instead to complete his term (that is, to serve until January 2009), both to continue his long-shot efforts to appeal the Minnesota judge’s decision refusing to allow Craig to withdraw his guilty plea and to maintain his innocence in the face of a possible Senate ethics investigation. Craig’s stubborn refusal to bow out gracefully has left his Senate Republican colleagues in a dither. Senator John Ensign of Nevada, chairman of the Republicans’ Senate campaign committee, has said, “It’s embarrassing for the Senate; it’s embarrassing for his party.” And Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has said Craig’s future was in the hands of the Senate Ethics Committee and “will be dealt with by Sen. Craig and the Ethics Committee.” (“Craig says he’s staying in the Senate,” USA Today, October 5.) I think Craig should be applauded for his obstinacy. (You go, girl!) Factually, he did nothing that warrants a Senate ethics investigation. (He pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor of disorderly conduct. So what? Most of his Senate colleagues, on both sides of the aisle, have done far worse.) The two best commentaries I’ve read on the whole Larry Craig scandal have been published – not surprisingly – in libertarian magazines. Reason editor Nick Gillespie has an excellent op-ed in the November 2007 issue (“Get Government Out of the Bathroom! How the GOP should respond to the Larry Craig scandal,” p. 17). And Liberty editor Stephen Cox has a splendid commentary, in that magazine’s November issue (“Out of the water closet,” p. 8). Nick Gillespie observes, “It’s a shame that [Craig] didn’t draw on his own political principles to defend his right to engage in consensual sex in toilet stalls with men.” As a strong supporter of property rights, “he could have added that the owners of said facilities should decide what behavior is allowed in their powder rooms.” And as a critic of the PATRIOT Act who weakened some of its worst provisions during last year’s renewal vote, Craig “clearly understands the need to keep the government from snooping on its citizens.” Gillespie’s broader point is that the Craig scandal gives the Republican Party – “battered into minority status after years of domestic and foreign overreach” – a “golden opportunity” to recover its minimal-government heritage – the heritage of the late Senator Barry Goldwater, to whom government did not belong “either in your boardroom or your bedroom.” “Goldwater, who inspired Ronald Reagan and helped lay the groundwork for the rise of the Republicans to majority status in the late 20th century, preached a small-government gospel that was appealing and logically consistent,” Gillespie observes. Since the opening of Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial in 1998, when House Speaker designate Bob Livinston (R-La.) announced his resignation after his adultery came to light, “the GOP has shot itself in the foot repeatedly in the regulation of sexual activity.” Instead of trying to recapture the magic of Ronald Reagan, he suggests, Republicans ought to seek inspiration from the man who inspired Reagan – Barry Goldwater, who was not only a longtime proponent of reproductive rights but also an outspoken defender of gays and lesbians, “noting during the original gays-in-the-military debates of the early 1990s that `you don’t have to be straight to serve’; `you just have to shoot straight.’” Stephen Cox agrees with me that Craig’s alleged infraction in the airport men’s room was not at all criminal. “If the cops arrested everyone who annoyed me, or even endangered me, in a public restroom, the jails would be full,” he observes. “My first candidate for prosecution would be the idiots who piss on the toilet seat, thus rendering it unusable for anyone else. No one mounts a sting operation to get those people.” Cox also bluntly addresses the “but oh! What about the children?” argument, noting – among other cogent observations – that men’s room sex is typically clandestine and thus far less likely to offend the sensibilities of supposedly innocent kids than the kinds of open sexuality they’re exposed to everyday on mainstream TV. “The Victorians weren’t the last people to be hypocrites about sex. Our culture is soaking in hypocrisy.” He concludes, “If you’re the proprietor of a store or the manager of an airport, and you don’t like what some of your customers are doing in the restroom, kick them out. If you don’t like what your senator is doing in Washington, kick him out, too. But what made Sen. Craig’s actions subject to legal retribution was simply the American public’s ineradicable anxiety and stupidity about sex.” I’d add simply that what has made Craig’s case so embarrassing to fellow Republicans is that it exposes their own hypocrisy, in espousing a “social conservative” view of government that’s inconsistent with modern American culture as well as the Republican Party’s own best traditions. Nick Gillespie is right about the “golden opportunity” the Craig case gives Republicans – sadly, an opportunity they’ll almost certainly pass up – to become again the party of minimal government, rather than the party of sexual hang-ups and homophobia.
n The Ultimate Elizabeth I haven’t yet seen the new Cate Blanchett movie, Elizabeth: The Golden Age.” I do plan to see it, and soon (before it’s pulled from first-run theaters because of its poor box-office take); but although I generally like historical epics, I expect to be disappointed (except perhaps for the special effects, especially in the Spanish Armada battle scenes). I did not like Cate Blanchett’s performance as Elizabeth I in her earlier Elizabeth film, and I really disliked the way that film played fast and loose with key historical facts. I have low expectations for the new movie, anticipating the same unbelievable performance by Blanchett and similar distortions of history (particularly in the film’s main premise, a wholly fictional romance between the Queen and Sir Walter Raleigh). (By the way, I have no problem generally with Cate Blanchett’s acting abilities – I thought she was quite believable as a young Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator, and I thought she was excellent playing opposite Judi Dench in Notes on a Scandal – but I just don’t find her plausible as Elizabeth I.) Queen Elizabeth I, “Gloriana,” the “Virgin Queen” has always been a popular subject for Hollywood: consider, for example, the classics of the 1930s and 1940s: Errol Flynn starring in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939) and The Sea Hawk (1940), playing opposite Betty Davis and Flora Robson, respectively, as Queen Elizabeth. In recent years there has been a virtual plethora of films about Elizabeth or the Elizabethan age: 1997’s Shakespeare in Love, with Judi Dench winning an Academy Award (Best Supporting Actress) for her brief portrayal of Elizabeth; 2006’s HBO two-part series, Elizabeth I, with Emmy Award winner Helen Mirren as a quite plausible Elizabeth (although, in my opinion, the best performance in the HBO series was Hugh Dancy’s, in Part II, as the Earl of Essex); and the recent PBS Masterpiece Theater production, Elizabeth I: The Virgin Queen, with a mediocre performance in the title role by Anne Marie Duff (who’s almost as implausible as Cate Blanchett). None of these actresses have done so splendid a performance as Elizabeth as British actress Glenda Jackson, in what I regard as the definitive portrayal of the 16th-century English queen: Elizabeth R, a six-part, 9-hour miniseries produced by the BBC and broadcast on U.S. television on PBS’s Masterpiece Theater in the early 1970s. Jackson superbly portrayed Elizabeth in all the periods of her life, from her youth, during the reigns of her half-brother and half-sister, Edward VI and Mary, to her death, at age 70, after her own legendary 45-year reign. And the episodes were all extremely well-written, historically accurate and full of terrific performances by the cream of the crop of British actors and actresses, notwithstanding the films’ modest budgets and sets. (It was, in short, typical of the “golden age” of BBC dramatizations of history.) Jackson reprised her role as Elizabeth, playing opposite Vanessa Redgrave in the title role, of 1971’s Mary,Queen of Scots, a film just released on DVD, in a twin set with the classic Anne of the Thousand Days. Although not as well-written as the Elizabeth R episodes, Mary, Queen of Scots is a generally historically accurate telling of Elizabeth’s troubled relationship with her rival and cousin, Mary Stuart. (And Jackson was as superb in the film as she was in the BBC series.) Glenda Jackson still is – and is likely to remain, for the foreseeable future if not for all time – the definitive Queen Elizabeth.
| Link to this Entry | Posted Thursday, October 25, 2007 | Copyright © David N. Mayer |
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