Journalism Archives

Forgetting the Girl

January 26, 2007 10:41 AM

From the online Euromag signandsight.com, a very important essay from the great French philosopher and social analyst Pascal Bruckner, responding to Europe's shameful ostracism of Ayaan Hirsi Ali. He loses me a bit in suggesting a parallelism between the outlook of Bush and Blair, on the one hand, and the perspectives of Ian Buruma and Timothy Garton Ash - two writers taken to task in the piece for enforcing intellectual segregation in the name of "multiculturalism." (The better criticism of Bush, at least, is precisely the opposite - i.e. that he believes some Western values are self-evidently universal, or ought to be.) But Bruckner knows his Europe, and is spot-on here:

Anyone with a mind to contend timidly that liberty is indivisible, that the life of a human being has the same value everywhere, that amputating a thief's hand or stoning an adulteress is intolerable everywhere, is duly arraigned in the name of the necessary equality of cultures. As a result, we can turn a blind eye to how others live and suffer once they've been parked in the ghetto of their particularity. Enthusing about their inviolable differentness alleviates us from having to worry about their condition. However it is one thing to recognise the convictions and rites of fellow citizens of different origins, and another to give one's blessing to hostile insular communities that throw up ramparts between themselves and the rest of society. How can we bless this difference if it excludes humanity instead of welcoming it? This is the paradox of multiculturalism: it accords the same treatment to all communities, but not to the people who form them, denying them the freedom to liberate themselves from their own traditions. Instead: recognition of the group, oppression of the individual. The past is valued over the wills of those who wish to leave custom and the family behind and - for example - love in the manner they see fit. ...

Out of consideration for all the abuses they may have suffered, ethnic, sexual, religious and regional minorities are often set up as small nations, in which the most outrageous chauvinism is passed off as nothing more than the expression of legitimate self-esteem. Instead of celebrating freedom as the power to escape determinism, the repetition of the past is being encouraged, reinforcing the power of collective coercion over private individuals. Marginal groups now form a sort of ethos-police, a flag-waving micro-nationalism which certain countries of Europe unfortunately see fit to publicly support. Under the guise of celebrating diversity, veritable ethnic or confessional prisons are established, where one group of citizens is denied the advantages accorded to others. ...

The Enlightenment belongs to the entire human race, not just to a few privileged individuals in Europe or North America who have taken it upon themselves to kick it to bits like spoiled brats, to prevent others from having a go. Anglo-Saxon multiculturalism is perhaps nothing other than a legal apartheid, accompanied - as is so often the case - by the saccarine cajolery of the rich who explain to the poor that money doesn't guarantee happiness. We bear the burdens of liberty, of self-invention, of sexual equality; you have the joys of archaism, of abuse as ancestral custom, of sacred prescriptions, forced marriage, the headscarf and polygamy. The members of these minorities are put under a preservation order, protected from the fanaticism of the Enlightenment and the "calamities" of progress. Those termed "Muslims" (North Africans, Pakistanis, Africans) are prohibited from not believing, or from believing periodically, from not giving a damn about God, from creating a life for themselves far away from the Koran and the rites of the tribe.

Multiculturalism is a racism of the anti-racists: it chains people to their roots. Thus Job Cohen, mayor of Amsterdam and one of the mainstays of the Dutch state, demands that one accept "the conscious discrimination of women by certain groups of orthodox Muslims" on the basis that we need a "new glue" to "hold society together." In the name of social cohesion, we are invited to give our roaring applause for the intolerance that these groups show for our laws. The coexistence of hermetic little societies is cherished, each of which follows a different norm. If we abandon a collective criterion for discriminating between just and unjust, we sabotage the very idea of national community. A French, British or Dutch citizen will be prosecuted for beating his wife, for example. But should the crime go unpunished if it turns out that the perpetrator is a Sunni or Shiite? Should his faith give him the right to transgress the law of the land? This is the glorification in others of what we have always beaten ourselves up about: outrageous protectionism, cultural narcissism and inveterate ethnocentrism!

Read the whole thing, as they say.

[ht: aldaily.com]

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What London Reads

December 19, 2006 03:04 AM

I'm often told that in order to get the "real news" about America - and particularly the Bush administration - you have to go to sources like the Guardian of London, which can bravely report the truths that American news bureaus dare not utter, presumably from fear that some third-tier policy dork at the Labor Department will no longer speak to them. So here goes.

Bush accused of gagging critic of Iran policy

Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Monday December 18, 2006
The Guardian

The White House yesterday faced fresh accusations of tailoring intelligence to suit its political viewpoint from a former CIA analyst barred from publishing a critical newspaper commentary on American policy towards Iran.

Flynt Leverett, a former Middle East analyst at the CIA and the National Security Council who has criticised the Bush administration for going to war with Iraq and for its handling of Iran, accuses the White House of pressing the CIA to demand sweeping cuts to an opinion piece he wrote for the New York Times on Washington's policy towards Tehran....

Mr Leverett said he was ordered to drop references to Iran's cooperation with the US on Afghanistan in the aftermath of the September 11 2001 attacks. He claims the White House has had no objections to similar assertions by less critical analysts.

Uh huh. The administration - no, I'm sorry, "Bush" - has not objected to other people saying the same thing Flynt Leverett wants to say, maybe because these other people are "less critical" of its/his policies.

So basically, Flynt Leverett believes that there's a gag order on Flynt Leverett (if that is his real name). News to me!

More news to me: The administration - or "Bush" - spends time trying to prevent negative portrayals of its/his policies from appearing on the New York Times op-ed page. I'll say it: Mr. President, this war is lost and forces must be redeployed immediately - to PBS!

GWEN IFILL: Is that at the root of the lot of this, just basic, old-fashioned lack of trust?

FLYNT LEVERETT: I think that's an inaccurate reading of the record. I think that Iranian cooperation with the United States on Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks was critical to the success of our efforts to get rid of the Taliban and stand up the Karzai government in its stead.

From an Iranian perspective, their reward for that was to be labeled part of the "axis of evil" in President Bush's January 2002 State of the Union address.

There is considerable distrust and historical baggage on both sides; that's part of what makes this a difficult issue to move forward. But to say that that baggage and that mistrust is a reason for not trying, when it is manifestly in U.S. interest to try, I think is a real strategic misjudgment.

Clear and hold, Mr. President. Clear and hold.

Link · American Politics | Iran | Iraq | Journalism | News Media | War on Terror

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Anna Politkovskaya

October 10, 2006 06:59 AM

There has been much written in the last two days about the despicable murder of Anna Politkovskaya - an act as depraved as it was, alas, predictable in Vladimir Putin's Russia. For its implications, one could do worse than this analysis by the always thoughtful Ron Rosenbaum. You may quarrel with his conclusions - even he does - but you cannot help but share his exasperation. The obituary from Novaya Gazeta, her newspaper, bears reprinting in full:

ANYA

On Saturday, October 7th, Anna Politkovskaya, correspondent of Novaya Gazeta was killed in the stairwell of her home

Novaya Gazeta, Moscow, Russia, Monday, October 9, 2006

She was beautiful, and through the years became only more beautiful. Do you do know why? At first we merely receive our countenance from God, and then the rest we make of it ourselves in the way that we live.

Still, they say that in maturity the soul begins to appear on face. Her soul was beautiful.

She was feminine. She knew how to laugh and joke and cry from injustice. Any injustice, no matter with respect to whom, she took as her personal enemy, and she fought it with all her strength.

She was amazingly courageous, much more courageous than those many macho types in their armored jeeps, surrounded by bodyguards.

They threatened her, they tried to intimidate her, and arranged shadows and searches. She was arrested in Chechnya by "our own" airborne forces, and they threatened to shoot her.

They poisoned her when she flew to Beslan. She clawed her way back to life, and, though afterwards she was never really as healthy as before, her conscience was all the stronger.

Many people, even well-wishers of Novaya Gazeta, now and then said: "Well, your Politkovskaya - she's too much already..." Not too much! She always wrote the truth.

It is another matter that this truth was frequently too terrible, that many people's consciences refused to accept it. And so, as a protective reaction, they said she was "too much already." Sometimes even our editorial staff.

For the average person, probably, the most difficult thing is to turn away from a terrible fact. But, if we were to look evil directly in the eye, it cannot remain; it will pass.

Anya looked evil directly in the eye, and, perhaps, she remained the conqueror in the worst situations. Perhaps she remained alive where her lowered eyes would have meant her death.

For us she is still alive. We will be never accept the death of our Anya. Whoever undertook this brutal murder - in the center of Moscow, in broad daylight, we ourselves will search for the killers. We have a good idea where they can be located...

In Europe, and in America, right now the question is being discussed: what is the state of the independent media in Russia? Novaya Gazeta in recent years has had three of its leading journalists murdered.

Igor Domnikov. His killers - because of the efforts of honest detectives and this newspaper - were brought to court.

Yuri Shchekochihin. Even the authorities in his homeland refused to look at the results of his autopsy... but we are continuing our investigation, and his killers will be punished.

Now they have taken our Anya Politkovskaya... They killed not just a
journalist, not just a human rights advocate, or a citizen, they killed a beautiful woman and mother.

While there is still a Novaya Gazeta, her killers will not sleep quietly.

[Hat Tip: Morgan Williams & Action Ukraine Report]

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My two cents

October 3, 2006 06:37 AM

Let me say a word or two about Mark Foley, since I knew him well - professionally, never socially - for most of the 10 years I spent covering Congress in Washington.

Our association began in the mid-to-late '90s, when I was writing articles for the Hollywood Reporter and Foley was elected to chair the House entertainment caucus. The caucus is mainly a policy group - some would say a mutual suck-up society - that serves as the main point of contact between Congress and Hollywood. (Like the constituents they represent, lawmakers are basically star-struck in the presence of celebrities. With all the competing issues, you wouldn't believe the attention a John Travolta could bring to German government policy on Scientology, which it treats as a scam.) Foley relished the job. It seemed like each day would bring a new press release or phone call from his office, announcing some new initiative or event. Piracy was probably the main issue at the time. It might still be. I recall at one point spending the better part of a day with Foley as he shepherded various entertainers from meeting to meeting in the Capitol. If for no other reason, I am grateful to him for my introduction to EmmyLou Harris.

As many, including Andrew Sullivan, have already remarked, it was an open secret in Washington that Foley was "gay." He never hit on me, though. Perhaps I was too old. (Andrew, for one, seems confused over whether Foley was gay - a tragic victim of "the closet" who was forced to extremes by his secret - or a "sexually predatory creep," which is today's depiction on his blog.) I also never got the impression that Foley was making a great effort to hide his "secret." The last time I saw him, a couple of years ago, he was driving an ostentatious, light-blue BMW convertible, top down - not the kind of car you drive when you're trying to keep your head down and stay out of trouble. And there was a young man in the passenger seat. Presumably an aide. But I recall one of my colleagues remarking at the time that the young fellow was probably Foley's most recent quarry.

In any case, his secret - at least the one people believed he was hiding - was hardly a secret at all. For one thing, it was widely known on Capitol Hill that Foley was "outed" by a small newspaper in his district before the 2004 elections. I recall that at Roll Call, where I worked at the time, we struggled over the question of whether and how this matter should be reported. If he was "outed," it would presumably be a factor in his bid for re-election. But did a piece in a free paper with a small circulation qualify as an "outing"? And even so, weren't we really looking at a personal matter that ought to be no one's business? There were external efforts to force the issue into print. At one point, I recall one of our reporters receiving a press release from the "Gay Democrats of Broward County," a putative political organization, announcing its "endorsement" of Foley for re-election. Efforts to locate the Gay Democrats of Broward County came up empty, of course.

Foley was deeply, obsessively involved in child endangerment issues. I doubt that anyone who encountered him on Capitol Hill in the last four years came away without some kind of update on the progress of this or that initiative. There's a sickening foreboding about those encounters now. But at the time none of this struck me as odd, even after taking into account his supposed homosexuality. For one thing, I've known a lot of gay people, and they're fiercely insistent about the distinction between homosexuality and pedophilia. For all I knew, Foley's legislative crusade was part of an effort to underscore that distinction - as if to say, to all those who "knew" his secret, that he was gay, not a child molester. But he was also from Florida, where the battle against child abuse really took shape due to the activism of John Walsh, father of Adam, the namesake of the legislation that recently cleared Congress. Covering Congress, you often find that lawmakers are obsessive about two or three things that really ping the radar back home. Take a look at farm-state lawmakers and ethanol, for instance. Because of the Walsh saga, I assumed that child endangerment was just one of these things - basic constituent service. And, of course, I remembered the intensity with which he worked as chairman of the entertainment caucus. He was an intense guy - always friendly, but intense.

It is inconceivable that Speaker Hastert was unaware of the rumors that Foley was "gay." It wouldn't have made a difference: There was no ostracism or banishment of Jim Kolbe, from Arizona, when he came out years ago. But the business about the pages - I, for one, never heard anything about that. And I don't know what Hastert might have "known," or felt that he knew. Hastert might have thought Foley's associations with pages - including the emails and messages he saw - were of a piece with Foley's more general weirdness. He should clearly have ordered the contacts to cease. But, one can also imagine the Speaker telling himself: Foley is the obsessive sponsor of legislation to protect kids. What are the chances he was abusing those he was working to help? A House Speaker isn't a psychiatrist.

I hope Foley never took advantage of an opportunity to abuse minors, though I suspect that is a vain hope. Experience tells us that people with deep-set perversions are nothing if not resourceful. It is likely that he has destroyed some lives. Foley undoubtedly went on a number of Congressional delegations (CODELS) abroad, and probably to some places where American money can buy just about anything. It's not only the Justice Department that has some investigating to do.

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The Milibandite

September 20, 2006 03:34 PM

A great piece of writing (as always) from David Aaronovitch in the Times of London. He's puzzling over Gordon Brown's decision not to disown intra-party maneuverings intended to force out Tony Blair:

That’s what I have wondered all week. And in even wondering it, I sense the answer. I sense it in the knowledge that this article will be labelled as part of a Blairite attack on the Chancellor by his acolytes (many of whose devotions have been, to be fair, unsought) in the press and the Labour Party. They are, whether they know it or not, a terrible bunch of unimaginative bullies. In any case I am, I think, a Milibandite — partly because it sounds like something from the Cretaceous period, and partly because there are two Milibands, and that gives me wriggle room.

Fantastic.

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The Scholar's Lament

September 14, 2006 02:36 PM

The New York Times ran a story this week about contributions from the Wal-Mart family's foundation to conservative think-tanks, some of whose scholars have written favorably about Wal-Mart. Why this ought surprise the editors of a publication that relies on advertising dollars, I do not know.

In any case, my father is a scholar at AEI, and he has written or delivered much of the material at issue. He detests rent-seeking, and has argued thusly[$] as banking interests try to block competition in their sphere from Wal-Mart. (You can find an example of the banking industry's measured response to his views here. Scroll down to "The Orwellian World of Mr. Wallison.") So last week he fielded queries from one of the Times reporters as we rode the train to my grandmother's funeral. With his permission, I have posted the full text of the email exchange below, in reverse chronological order.

From: Peter J. Wallison To: 'barbaro@nytimes.com' Sent: Thu Sep 07 11:24:09 2006 Subject: Re: New York Times Inquiry

Michael: I have tried to answer your questions below. Peter

1. No.

2. I am not involved in fundraising, and with few exceptions don't know who contributes to AEI. In general, the scholars at AEI, in my experience at least, have no role in the fundraising efforts. I have been told by Chris DeMuth, the President, that my job is to think, write and develop policy ideas; his is to raise funds to support AEI.

3. Although I was not aware of any contributions by Wal-Mart, even if I were I would not have disclosed it. AEI, I believe, also gets contributions from banks and others who oppose Wal-Mart. These contribuitions come from people who believe in AEI's efforts to influence the public policy debate in Washington. They don't agree with everything the scholar says, just as they may contribute to political officials whose views they generally support without agreeing on every issue. Will you, or the editorial pages of the Times, inconnection with this article, disclose how much advertising the Times receives from banks each year? Do you doubt that this article will increase that advertising? After all, these banks, the largest in NY, are opponents of wal-Mart's application. If you believe AEI should disclose, don't you have the same obligation? I for one will be very surprised if I see such a disclosure in your piece.

4. The funding hasn't influenced me, not only because I was not aware of it but also because the views I expressed have always been my views. I never write an op-ed for payment of any kind, and have turned down requests to do so because I don't want any implication that my views are for sale--not because I think it's wrong to be paid for expressing my views. Many of my articles are likely to be opposed or favored by AEI contributors, and it has never occurred to me or any other AEI scholar, I would guess, that this should be a consideration. Certainly, no one in the management of AEI has ever said anything to me about pulling my punches or favoring a particular company or idea, and I would be amazed if one of them ever did.

If I may make an editorial comment here, I think it is destructive to debate on important policy issues that the press, and particularly your newspaper, tries to demean substantive positions by implying that they are infleuenced by contributions. Even if they were, the positions should be debated on their substantive merits, not impugned by suggestions of bias.

Peter J. Wallison

Sent from my Blackberry

----- Original Message -----
From: barbaro@gmail.com
To: Peter J. Wallison
Sent: Thu Sep 07 09:54:04 2006
Subject: Re: New York Times Inquiry

Peter,

I am so very sorry to be pestering you on a day when you are attending a funeral. But in the interest of fairness, I do want to ask you these questions.

Our story will focus on the Walton Foundation's giving to think tanks, which has increased in recent years, and the disclosure -- or lack thereof -- of this funding stream from scholars at those think tanks who write about Wal-Mart. AEI has received significant funding from the Walton Foundation and so I am reaching out to several people there who have written about the company.

Here is what I would like to know (mind you these are thematic, sort of boilerplate questions; this story does not focus on you or AEI exclusively.)

(1) Were you aware that AEI has received funding from the Walton Foundation ($80,000 in 2003; $30,000 in 2004)
(2) If not, why?
(3) If so, why did you not disclose this fact in your op-ed pieces, interviews with reporters and testimony before the FDIC? (Or did I overlook such disclosures?)
(4) Do you feel this funding has influenced your thinking -- or that of any AEI employee?

Many thanks,

Michael Barbaro
The New York Times



On 9/7/06, Peter J. Wallison wrote:

It will be difficult for me to contact you today. I am on the way to a family funeral. If you have specific questions, I would be pleased to answer them with my blackberry between events. If you have seen my writings, you know that I believe the attack on Wal-Mart--like the idea of separating banking and commerce-- is an effort to fend off competition. In this case, it is the banking industry that is seeking protection. In other cases, such as the realtors, it's an industry trying to fend off the banks. Regards, Peter Wallison


Peter J. Wallison

Sent from my Blackberry

----- Original Message -----
From: barbaro@gmail.com < barbaro@gmail.com >
To: Peter J. Wallison
Sent: Thu Sep 07 09:17:14 2006
Subject: New York Times Inquiry

Peter,

I am working on a story with my colleague here at The Times about Wal-Mart and its relationship with think tanks. We plan on touching upon several of your writings -- and testimonies -- in the story and would like to speak with you as early as possible today. I know you are on the road but please give me a call. My work phone is 212-556-XXXX and my cell is 202-321-XXXX. [X's mine]

Many thanks,

Michael Barbaro
The New York Times
barbaro@nytimes.com

None of this discussion was included in the Times article. Dad is not even mentioned in the piece, though it's his work that's being attacked by Wal-Mart's opponents.

On the contrary, the Times quotes another scholar from AEI who says he might disclose Wal-Mart's support for the think-tank in an upcoming book about the company. This, of course, leaves the impression that there might in fact be something to disclose here - a notion my father explicitly rejects and addresses directly in his correspondence with Barbaro.

So why, if it's his work at issue, and he directly rebuts the canard raised by his critics, did the Times leave Dad out of the story? I emailed Barbaro on Thursday to find out. (I accidentally called him "David" in the message. As my late grandmother might have said - Hey, if they didn't want him called David on occasion, his parents shouldn't have named him Michael.) I received an auto-reply saying that he would be out of the office, and unreachable, through Friday.

So let me hazard a guess: I think the Times started with the idea that conservative scholars were guilty of having "failed" - the Times' word - to disclose the Walton Foundation's sneaky effort to buy them; the only question was the degree to which they would acknowledge their awareness and culpability. The editors were not interested in answers that upset this premise. My father's point - which ought to have been obvious - was that AEI probably collects funding from Wal-Mart's opponents in the banking sphere as well. This was inconvenient to the theme of the article. As was the point that news outlets don't find it necessary to disclose their relationships with advertisers who are cited in the editorials they publish.

Intellectual slovenliness of this caliber befits, well, Paul Krugman.

In fact, there's a base absurdity to the whole premise of the Times article. It is embedded in the suggestion that free-market scholars who would likely pull far greater salaries in the corporate world are instead grubbing for Wal-Mart dollars at think-tanks. One wonders which is the greater offense: The suggestion that they could be bought - or the suggestion that they would sell so cheaply.

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The Lady Doth Protest

June 29, 2006 11:49 AM

Split decision (5-3) on Guantanamo from the Supremes. But you wouldn't know that from the rhetorical effusions coming from one Europe-based human rights group. (My highlights)

The ruling, a strong rebuke to the administration and its aggressive anti-terror policies, was written by Justice John Paul Stevens, who said the proposed trials were illegal under U.S. law and international Geneva conventions....

The court's ruling was a resounding loss for the Bush administration. Justices also rejected the administration's claim that the case should be thrown out on grounds that a new law stripped their authority to consider it.

I know, I know - it's the job of these groups to seek to influence public perception by hyping the impact of favorable developments. Fair enough. Only, the two grafs above weren't written by a European human rights group; they come from a report on the ruling from the AP's Gina Holland.

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Progress?

April 27, 2006 02:58 AM

"The New York Times reported Friday that in addition to possible charges directly involving the revelation of Valerie Wilson's identity and related perjury or conspiracy charges, Fitzgerald is exploring other possible crimes. Specifically, according to the Times, the special counsel is seeking to determine whether anyone transmitted classified material or information to persons who were not cleared to receive it -- which could be a felony under the 1917 Espionage Act....[snip]

All such speculation about criminal indictments must be tempered with caution. Nobody outside Fitzgerald's office can be certain what charges he is considering or whose fate he is mulling over. Even the highest-ranking figures in the Bush White House, which would deprive others of their constitutional rights and has already done so, deserve the presumption of innocence.

But certain persons in this government committed a serious offense against the national security of the United States to serve political partisan ends -- and they don't deserve to get away with it." - Joe Conason, Salon.com 10/7/05

***

"The Justice Department has warned that its leak investigations may result in subpoenas to reporters, seeking to force them to expose their sources. Leading Republicans on Capitol Hill have urged that anyone who discloses or publishes classified information should be hauled before a grand jury.

And certain figures in the media have amplified those threats, notably including the virtue guru, superpatriot and degenerate gambler William Bennett. He thinks Ms. Priest and James Risen, the New York Times correspondent who broke the story of warrantless wiretapping by the National Security Agency, should be given prison sentences, not prizes.

Despite such confident denunciations from the right, however, determining which leaks are bad and which are good can be a murky process." - Joe Conason, NYO 5/1/06

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They love not to know

April 17, 2006 03:59 AM

The NYT officially enters the farce era of its narrative arc with yesterday's editorial endorsement of, well, ignorance.

Mr. Bush did not declassify the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq — in any accepted sense of that word — when he authorized I. Lewis Libby Jr., through Vice President Dick Cheney, to talk about it with reporters. He permitted a leak of cherry-picked portions of the report. The declassification came later....

Obviously, we do not object to government officials talking to reporters about important matters that their bosses do not want discussed. It would be impossible to cover any administration, especially one so secretive as this, unless that happened. (Judith Miller, who then worked for The Times, was one of the reporters Mr. Libby chose for this leak, although she never wrote about it.) But the version of the facts that Mr. Libby was authorized to divulge was so distorted that it seems more like disinformation than any sincere attempt to inform the public. [Emphases mine]

Oh dear. So the Times would prefer no information at all to "cherry-picked" information that is not declassified in an "accepted sense of that word." Even when the information would otherwise be kept secret, or could shed new light on a president's decision to go to war. The Times will just curse the darkness, thank you very much.

Let's put aside the question of accuracy. (The information, cherry-picked or otherwise, was in fact an accurate reflection of the intelligence community's consensus on Iraq at the time. The NIE just happens to have been wrong.) Does the Times really believe there are disinterested sources in the political world who, out of the goodness of their hearts (presumably), set aside time to leak complete, unbiased and otherwise secret information to reporters? Perhaps the editorialists consult an oracle. Or manatees! (link to video)

The unhappy reality is that there are sources who basically give you the full picture... and then there is the source who doesn't reveal that he was recommended for an intelligence mission by his wife, who works at the CIA in the very area he was sent to investigate. He also doesn't tell you that he serves as an unpaid adviser to one of the incumbent president's potential challengers in the next election, and uses your credulity to press his agenda. And when he is later revealed to have all the credibility of a carnival barker, your decision to believe him makes you look foolish. Yes, that's the type of source that can really burn you. At least reporters knew where Libby was coming from....

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Truth to be told

April 6, 2006 06:19 AM

There's so much sound wisdom and pure common sense in this piece from Timothy Garton Ash in today's Guardian of London newspaper that, for just one moment, you may wonder if he's secretly American. This point is especially well taken:

Roughly one in three Ukrainian voters, mainly in the more Russian-oriented east of the country, chose Yanukovich. That's about 10% less than he probably got in the rigged presidential election of 2004 that sparked the orange revolution. The so-called orange vote was split between the now feuding leaders of the orange revolution, Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Timoshenko, but their combined vote exceeded that for Yanukovich. Voters, except in the pro-western western end of the country, punished Yushchenko for disappointed hopes, economic mess, continued widespread corruption, dealing badly with the Russian gas squeeze at the beginning of the year, and falling out with Yulia. Fair on some counts, less so on others. But the essential point remains: the people could choose in a free and fair election. They can bring an old rogue back, if they want; then they can chuck him out again. It's democracy, stupid.

Ash also touches on an issue that had likewise occurred to me in the days following Ukraine's vote, when a Ukrainian friend noted that some political parties were alleging fraud at the polls. This was her way of suggesting that Ukraine had relapsed into its customary, non-democratic ways. Let's leave aside the issue of whether it's possible to have 45 political parties on a ballot without any of them claiming improprieties after the vote -- and we'll even concede that various types of fraud may have occurred here or there throughout the country, though not on any scale that should compromise the result. The fact is, the vote itself was probably less susceptible to fraud and manipulation than the balloting in any typical American election. And I say that as a certified jingoist! Granted, we Americans are always to expect a certain amount of chicanery because of the premium on turnout -- that is, parties can't take it for granted -- as well as the wide variability in ballot types and voting procedures. That's not to excuse it, but only to suggest that Western countries might strive to achieve "Ukrainian standards" in something, for a change.

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echo of yesteryear

February 25, 2006 12:35 PM

On the 50-year anniversary of Khruschev's "secret speech," which began the de-Stalinization of Soviet Russia, Seamus Milne of London's Guardian newspaper revives the voice of the useful idiot.

But in any case, none of this explains why anyone might be nostalgic in former communist states, now enjoying the delights of capitalist restoration. The dominant account gives no sense of how communist regimes renewed themselves after 1956 or why western leaders feared they might overtake the capitalist world well into the 1960s.

True, you don't hear much these days about how we once hilariously believed the Soviet Union would pose an economic threat to the West. Ten minutes here in Kiev would have dispelled that nonsense. Some of us no longer fear the Cuban economic miracle, either.

For all its brutalities and failures, communism in the Soviet Union, eastern Europe and elsewhere delivered rapid industrialisation, mass education, job security and huge advances in social and gender equality. It encompassed genuine idealism and commitment, captured even by critical films and books of the post-Stalin era such as Wajda's Man of Marble and Rybakov's Children of the Arbat. Its existence helped to drive up welfare standards in the west, boosted the anticolonial movement and provided a powerful counterweight to western global domination....[snip]

So you're telling me I can learn to read, hold a job, experience "social and gender equality" and strike a blow against western hegemony -- and all I need to do is submit to the whims of the state, live in permanent terror of denunciation and maybe lose half my family in one misguided social experiment or another? Where do I sign up?

Part of the current enthusiasm in official western circles for dancing on the grave of communism is no doubt about relations with today's Russia and China. But it also reflects a determination to prove there is no alternative to the new global capitalist order - and that any attempt to find one is bound to lead to suffering and bloodshed....[snip]

Of course. That must be what They really want. As Stalin himself might say, that's why they must be killed.

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