Shots In The Dark

Lend me your eyes for a second.

My conservative/libertarian friend Bruce thinks that I've been uncivil on the blog lately, even though I'm calling for more civil conversation in this country.

Perhaps he's right. Perhaps the stress of moving has finally gotten to me. Or perhaps it's just my sense that the country really is headed in the wrong direction and the president, along with those who work for him, are in deep denial about it, because they can not accept responsibility for the mistakes they've made.

But no matter about that now. I'm headed off tomorrow for a weekend away, and I want to wish all of you a happy 4th of July. Let's try to put partisan politics aside for a few days, and remember that this is still a remarkable country, and we all hope that its best days lie yet ahead. Let's give some thought to the men and women in Afghanistan and Iraq, and thank them for putting their lives on the line, whether or not we agree with the war.

And as we celebrate the 4th of July, let us celebrate most of all the freedom that we have—the freedom to engage in these arguments, to get pissed off at one another and argue without violence, to write blogs or post comments on them. It is this right—the First Amendment—that more than any other, I think, helps to preserve liberty even when—especially when—we disagree with those in power.

Red state, blue state; Democrat or Republican; gay or straight; black, white, or whatever...happy 4th of July, everyone.

"Jessica Simpson sits on the floor of a Los Angeles recording studio, golden hair tumbling, sundress hiked over honey brown knees, skin glowing in the aromatherapy candlelight. She's the picture of corn-fed health, voluptuous yet surprisingly petite. But a shade of unrest clouds her fine features...."
—from the new issue of GQ...

(Sorry, couldn't resist. And I actually like Jessica Simpson. As celebrity fembots go, she seems like a nice person.)

Well, part of it, anyway.

On the Open Democracy website, Gara LaMarche has a smart piece looking at how the right wing is attacking the foundations of a free society: broadmindedness, the culture of law, a free media, and independent science and academia.

The radical right, LaMarche warns, "is doing steady damage to key elements of open society, the very elements that can monitor and check the abuses of a power-hungry political majority. We ignore it at our peril."

He continues: "The current American political and social scene has not in memory seen so systematic an effort by a controlling party and ideology control to hobble all significant and potential sources of opposition."

Sound alarmist? Yeah, actually, it does. But when you read all the evidence that he compiles, it really does suggest that the American right-wing, that bastion of patriotism, doesn't have much love for the great institutions and traditions (courts, universities, the press, freedom of religion) that make this the world's greatest democracy. And really does want to put all of these things under theocratic control.

The section on how the right tries to bully and threaten universities was of particular interest to me, and LaMarche smartly makes this observation:

"The problems of Lawrence Summers, president of Harvard University, following his January 2005 address, offer an interesting contrast [to right-wing attacks on academic freedom]. There are ample grounds for criticism of his observations about women and science, though the vote of no-confidence in him by his faculty probably has more to do with an attitude and a series of imperious actions and comments. But in the right-wing press, Summers – despite his generally progressive views and service in the Clinton administration – is portrayed as a hero for taking on a politically-correct elite."

Just so....

Particularly as we head into the 4th of July weekend, this is a must-read.

I know Matt Cooper (pictured above, along with Judith Miller of the New York Times) a little bit, and he's one of the nicest guys you would ever want to meet. In a business with a lot of sharks, he's just a pleasure—friendly, supportive, warm, generous. And funny, too: Matt has a sideline doing stand-up comedy. (Although somehow I suspect it's been a while since he took the stage.)

But every time I see Matt now, he looks somber and stressed—not at all as I remember him. For his sake, I'm glad that this silly judicial ordeal is ending soon. I hope he's retained his ability to laugh at the ridiculous.

A few days ago, after I wrote that little item on John Kennedy and Princess Diana below, I got an e-mail from a British journalist named Joanna Walters, a New York-based correspondent for the Daily Express. Though she hadn't seen the blog, she wanted to interview me regarding the alleged tryst between John and Princess Diana.

I didn't want to talk to her, for a bunch of reasons. I'm not the appropriate person to give newspaper interviews on the subject, if anyone fits that description. Second, I have no desire to become known as the go-to guy for any interview on John Kennedy; I'm happy to speak about John and George, but otherwise, no. And third, I don't trust British journalists. If you folks think that American journalists have their ethical issues...

I told Walters that I wouldn't give an interview, but I had written something relevant on my blog. In fact, if you look down about an inch, you'll see exactly how I felt.

Now I've seen the story, and I deeply regret telling her even that. Because Walters took what was written here and used it as if I had given her an interview. Her story has several quotes crafted to make it look as if she and I spoke about this subject. We did not. Period. Not off the record, not on background, nothing.

Though the quotes are innocuous, I'm livid about this sleazy piece of journalism. In fact, I feel kind of like Jessica Simpson, about half an inch down.

So Time has announced that it will turn over reporter Matthew Cooper's notes to keep him from being sent to jail in the Valerie Plame matter.

I agree that this is a horrific precedent which will have the effect of discouraging people from talking to reporters; no longer can reporters assure them that their identity will be protected.

On the upside, I can't wait to find out which White House figure was doing the dirty-dishing....

Was it Scooter Libby? Karl Rove? Guesses, anyone? And what will President Bush do when the identity of someone who's endangering the security of a CIA agent is exposed?

I love it when chickens come home to roost....

Alessandra Stanley doesn't think much of Tucker Carlson's new chat show on MSNBC, "The Situation with Tucker Carlson."

She says it's shallow, superficial, sarcastic, and has the effect of making Carlson seem dumber than he is. (In fact, he's not dumb at all.)

"And he is surprisingly churlish," Stanley writes. "He interviewed Lory Manning, a retired Navy captain, on whether military women should be allowed to work in combat zones and slapped down her reasoned arguments with schoolyard sarcasm, dismissing her position as, 'Mutilation is a woman's right.'"

Two points about this.

I barely know Carlson, but I'm not at all surprised by the churlish part, judging from my one real encounter with him. It was a few years ago, when I was the exec editor at George. Carlson had written a piece for us, I don't remember what about, but it was fine. (My predecessor had assigned it.) But for some reason, the subject of George came up on Crossfire, and Carlson just trashed the magazine, saying how terrible it was.

A couple days later, I picked up the phone and called him. I said something like, Tucker, why'd you say such harsh things about the magazine? You seemed happy enough to cash our check.

I mentioned the specifics of what he'd said.

Carlson claimed that he hadn't said that.

I mentioned that I had the transcript of the show in front of me.

He hemmed and hawed and backpedaled like mad, and said something about how sometimes on TV you say things you don't mean.

I'm sure this is true. I've been on TV enough to know the pressure you feel to say things that are more pointed, more extreme, and less nuanced than your real beliefs. Still, I found the whole episode pretty unimpressive.

Here's the second point: Carlson's style of interrogation—the smarminess, the easy put-down, the sneer, the sarcasm, the glibness, the eye-rolling—has become typical of the vernacular of American conservatives in, say, the last ten years. (If you need any evidence, just look at some of the posters on this site.) Like that line, "mutilation is a woman's right"—you just want to groan and say, Tucker, why so immature? The woman's trying to make a point.

Is it just possible that this style is wearing out its welcome?

It's never been particularly enjoyable, of course. Listening to Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity is like eating at McDonald's; it can taste good in the act, but afterward, you think, Why did I just do that? Yuch.

But more important, it seems particularly ill-suited to a time of great seriousness in American history. It's more about scoring cheap debating points than about finding common ground or resolving problems, and it's certainly not about actually listening to people who hold differing opinions.

During the Clinton administration, that approach led to transforming a stupid sexual piccadilloe into a constitutional crisis.

Now there's a war on—a war started by conservatives—and the conservative debating style just seems defensive, anxious, and increasingly irrelevant.

So Rick Santorum is now blaming priest pedophilia on the fact that many priests...live in Boston. No, for real. You think I'm making this up; you think that surely a United States senator could not be such a horse's ass; but you can't make this stuff up.

In an article on the website Catholic Online, Santorum writes about why the priest-child abuse scandal is actually a good thing: "I see in this fall an opportunity for ecclesial rebirth and a new evangelization of America," he proclaims.

But before he can say why, Santorum has to limit the damage from the scandal. He does so by—what else—blaming liberals.

He writes: "It is startling that those in the media and academia appear most disturbed by this aberrant behavior, since they have zealously promoted moral relativism by sanctioning "private" moral matters such as alternative lifestyles. Priests, like all of us, are affected by culture. When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm."

When the culture is sick, every element of it becomes infected.

Republicans are supposed to be the party of individual responsibility, right? Apparently not. Priests who molest children are just the victim of their "sick" cultural environment. They must be watching too much MTV. The point is, it's not their fault.

And Boston? Has Rick Santorum ever even been to Boston? If he had, he'd know that it's socially a profoundly conservative city. Think Irish Catholic, senator. Think Italian and Catholic. Think...well. just think Catholic. I mean, if the culture of Boston is sick, whose fault is that exactly?

(All right, there are some African-Americans—quite religious in Boston—and high WASPs thrown in. Not exactly cultural radicals.)

You know, senator, Philadelphia's a pretty liberal city too. Hasn't had a Republican mayor since Reconstruction, probably. Quite a few universities.

Maybe the one thing that saves Philadelphia from having as many priest child molesters as Boston is...hmmmm....because there aren't as many priests?

Now that Condoleeza Rice has come to New York to say what a great place this would be to host the 2012 Olympics, my enthusiasm for New York doing so has just diminished.

Certainly the Olympics would do many fine things for this city. But there's no place in New York for the kind of jingoistic, America uber alles attitude of Rice and her compatriots in the Bush administration. The Republicans already came here for their political convention. We were good hosts, I think and hope, but let's face it: New York City and the Republican party don't have much in common. We're tolerant. They're not. We're diverse. They're not. We live comfortably alongside people from other nations. They want to conquer other nations. Especially the ones they know nothing about.

Okay, I'm being hyperbolic. But people on both sides of this line can concede that New York was a very odd place to host the GOP convention.

In fact, the only reason the convention was held here to was to turn Ground Zero and memories of 9/11 into a political advertisement.

That's exactly what the Republicans would want to do with the Olympics, and that's why Condoleeza Rice came here.

The people of this city—people from all over the world—are a great reason to have the Olympics in New York. Would the Bush administration really understand anything about that?

I've been so busy that I haven't really had time to keep up with the brouhaha over Ed Klein's new book about Hillary, which I'm not going to link to as I wouldn't want anyone to actually buy it. But reading up on the controversy, I am amazed that anyone published this book. It sounds vile.

David Brock's organization, Media Matters for America, has compiled a list of the mistakes and inaccuracies in the book that is remarkably damning.

(Brock, by the way, is the author of a slightly dull but surprisingly balanced—surprising given Brock's politics at the time—biography of Hillary, The Seduction of Hillary Rodham.)

Here's one line of Klein's that jumped out at me:

"[Hillary] said she was passionately in love with her husband, but many of her closest friends and aides were lesbians."

I mean, where to begin?

Here's another interesting story, by journo Michael Tomasky, about how Klein lifted a quote from a book Tomasky wrote and changed it to make it more sensational.

The Media Matters chart of inaccuracies goes on so long it's almost overwhelming. Can anything about this book be trusted?

It's possible that Ed Klein has done what I wouldn't have thought possible: take Swift Boat sleaze one step further; to take it so far, in fact, that he's delegitimized it (not that it was every particularly legitimate).

But Klein's book does point up a larger issue: publishers don't fact-check. They pay libel lawyers to go over the material for potentially defamatory statements, but otherwise, they don't much care if a book is accurate. Accuracy, it turns out, usually doesn't have enough of an impact on sales to justify the expense of paying fact-checkers.

Writers who care about accuracy have to hire their own fact-checkers, which is an expensive proposition when you're reviewing an entire book. But it's worthwhile. I hired fact-checkers for both my books, at a cost of a few thousand dollars each time. A few minor mistakes crept by nonetheless; they always do. But no one challenged the fundamental accuracy of either work, which, given how controversial they both were, is something I'm proud of.

Did Ed Klein factcheck The Truth About Hillary? It's hard to believe he did. It's like that old journalism saying: some stories are too good to check. Or, in this case, too bad.

So Donald Rumsfeld thinks that the Iraq insurgency could last for twelve years, despite the fact that it lacks "a Mao or a Ho Chi Minh."

And yet, in the very same interview, he defends Dick Cheney's assertion that the insurgency is in its last throes. "If you look at the context of [Cheney's] remarks," Rumsfeld said yesterday on Fox, "last throes could be a violent last throe, just as well as a placid or calm last throe. Look it up in the dictionary."

All right. Here's how my dictionary defines "throe":

1 A severe pang or spasm of pain, as in childbirth. (See Synonyms at pain.)
2 throes A condition of agonizing struggle or trouble: a country in the throes of economic collapse.

Not much about placidity or calm in those definitions, is there? Just a lot of nasty stuff about pain and agony, spasms and struggles.

It's increasingly obvious that the macho men in the Bush administration, who so like to project the image of overwhelming competence, simply have no idea how to win this war in Iraq. (Hell, they can't even buy armored Humvees.)

When they can't convince us that they know what they're doing, how can they possibly expect young men and women to volunteer to go to Iraq for the next decade?

I used to think that all those Iraq-is-Vietnam analogies were facile. But when the secretary of defense starts to talk about a decade-long insurgency, and practically invites the rebels to come up with their own Ho Chi Minh....

A new book claims that John Kennedy, my old boss, slept with Princess Diana in a New York hotel room.

I'm hardly an expert on John's sex life, and it's not something I wrote about in my own book, American Son.

But about this particular innuendo, trust me—it just ain't so. It's just the kind of thing that people say about people who aren't around any longer to defend themselves. And in this case, it's a kind of celebrity sex fantasy. Because their lives seemed similar in various surreal elements...and they certainly would have made an attractive couple, wouldn't they?

Here at "Shots in the Dark," we really are a big tent. Unlike, say, some political parties that I could mention.

My criticism of Jonah Goldberg seems to have struck a nerve; the comments section of that post is a hotbed of anti-RB vitriole. Why, even Jonah himself has gotten into the act, insulting me, my (first) book, my (last) name—but not actually responding to my criticism of his argument.

What strikes me about some of the posters is the way that they stubbornly hold certain ideals sacred and inviolable: Harvard is a bastion of liberalism (not really), Ted Kennedy is the devil (seems a bit strong, no?), Cornel West is a fraud (would they say this if he were white?), and Eric Alterman is truly unpleasant.

Well, maybe that last one....

I have mixed feelings about this column by Jonah Goldberg in National Review Online.

On the one hand, I consider Jonah Goldberg a loathsome character, a self-satisfied ball of snark untempered by warmth, maturity, kindness or wisdom.

On the other hand, he's certainly clever (if prone to showing off his cleverness, as in this column, when he throws in references to Cafe Vienna, the Bronze Age, and the Blues Brothers, as if to say, "Look at me! I can go high! I can go low!".)

And Goldberg is clever enough to note the awkwardness of the recent study purporting to show why Jews are smart versus the outrage over Larry Summers' recent remarks purporting to show why women are dumb.

(I'm simplifying, but you get the point.)

Goldberg writes, "The flames of the Summers auto-da-fe cast a useful light on the cognitive dissonance, schizophrenia, and bad faith dotting the intellectual and political landscape today when it comes to genetics."

("Auto-da-fe" being a phrase Goldberg tosses out to show off his whippersnapper-smarts while suggesting that those who criticize Summers constitute an Inquisition.)

Well...no.

It's certainly true that the subject of genetic differences between genders, races and ethnic groups makes people uncomfortable. It should. A study showing "superior" intelligence in Jews makes me squeamish for myriad reasons. A university president suggesting that men may be genetically superior to women in math and science—you bet, that makes me shift uneasily in my seat.

I think I'll be nervous when the day comes that such topics do not make us a little uncomfortable.

But as with every single conservative who's blabbed on about this brouhaha, Goldberg makes his point by creating a straw man: that it was the mere suggestion of genetic differences which aroused such ire among women and the Harvard faculty.

Not so.

It was Summers' unambiguous suggestion that such differences were a greater contributor to the paucity of women in science than was discrimination. Coupled with the fact that tenure rates for women had dropped dramatically during Larry Summers' four years as president. Both of which presented the idea that Larry Summers was using cockamamie genetic theories to justify denying tenure to women.

In closing, let me quote Goldberg one more time:

"The animal kingdom is replete with enormous male-female disparities. Even among the branch of humans we call feminists, it's a widely held view that men and women think and behave differently."

I'm not sure, but I think that Goldberg is, in a sneering, deliberately-deniable sort of way, suggesting that feminists are a lower form of animal.

Lower than a pig, Jonah?

In fact, I did buy a new iPod, as previously discussed. I couldn't find my old 20-gig model; it'll either be in the last box I unpack, or one of the moving guys is enjoying it even now. Truth be told, it had almost reached the end of its storage space anyway. Since my sister and brother-in-law were kind enough to give me an Apple gift certificate for Christmas, I was itching to get a new one.

I got the 30-gig model, which not only plays music but also displays photos. It's knocking my socks off. My former iPod was about two years old, and it was considerably heavier than this new one, even though it held only 2/3 of the music. I love the new color screen and the way the iPod displays album covers along with the song that's playing (as long as you bought the song off iTunes).

People say that Apple's competitors are going to catch up sooner or later. Maybe. But it's hard to imagine a product more exquisitely engineered than this one, and to me, all the other digital music players look like clunky knock-offs. Bill Gates says that MP3-playing cell phones will topple the iPod, but I'm not so sure of that either. With the exception of the Motorola Razor, cell phone design has grown stagnant. I've wanted to replace my old Samsung for about a year—I can't stand the operating program—but haven't seen anything that seems both highly functional and aesthetically pleasing; I'm spoiled by my iPod. (My carrier, Verizon—argh!—doesn't carry the Razor.) So can cell phones really add an entire new function without multi-task overload? Most people don't use all the functions cell phones already have.

The only solution? For Apple and Motorola to hustle out with that iTunes-compatible phone they've been whispering about for some time now....

This week the Ethicist (a.ka. Randy Cohen) fields a question from Roberta Osborne of Toronto:

"I have M.S., for which there is at present no cure. My doctor has invited me to participate in studies of existing and potential treatments. I admire those who volunteer for such research, but I am concerned about the potential long-term health consequences. Is it ethical to benefit from medicines developed through research studies but not participate in them myself?"

The Ethicist's answer: No one can be forced to volunteer for medical research, but Roberta should give back to the M.S.-medical community in some way. "It would be parasitical for any of us to benefit from a community without contributing to its well-being. But the particular means of giving back are left up to us."

"Look at it this way," the Ethicist continues. "You may walk over the Brooklyn Bridge without shame even though workers suffered and died in its construction while you did not pitch in (what with your not being from around here or being born at the time)."

The Re-Ethicist's response: Wrong!

Well, half-wrong, anyway.

We shall begin by pointing out the essential silliness of Cohen's Brooklyn Bridge analogy.

There.

Now, Cohen is of course correct that no one can or should be forced to "volunteer" for medical research. We know where that road leads.

Nonetheless, he is letting Roberta off the hook rather too easily for her fear of science. The question of her participation in research directed at helping her and millions of other people isn't just a question of compulsion, it's a question about the quality of one's life, about one's attitude towards living. Will Roberta conquer her fear? Will she overcome her instinct for self-preservation by rising to a higher standard of spirituality and living?

Because let's face it—what Cohen is really doing is saying that while it's unfortunate for Osborne to act in a cowardly fashion, no one can force her to be courageous.

And so it is. But we can encourage Osborne to be brave.

It's a bit like checking the organ donor box on your driver's license. No one can force you to do it—but that doesn't mean that it's all right not to. People should be encouraged to conquer their irrational fears. Because sometimes, living an ethical life isn't just about playing by the rules; it's about doing the things that scare you but benefit others.

A postscript: Incidentally, you can get a hint of Roberta's (quite understandable) fear in her language. She writes: "I have M.S., for which there is at present no cure."

Extraneous words in a sentence often indicate an emotional hedge, a reluctance to confront a difficult truth. Notice Osborne's use of the words "at present." Omit them. The sentence now reads: "I have M.S., for which there is no cure."

Means exactly the same thing, right? And yet it's tougher, more honest; the "at present" is a flinch, a way of implying that a cure is right around the corner.

I would certainly not fault anyone with a terminal disease whose fear seeps into her language. But I would have admired Osborne particularly had she written "I have M.S., for which there is no cure." And I wonder if we don't see her flinch not only in her language, but also in her fear of volunteering in medical tests.