As long as I'm being an ass, I may as well go the whole nine yards

I wrote in a post earlier this week about my general disdain for the new behemoth social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook, but allow me to take a moment to assert my contempt a little more forcefully.

I really dislike trying to boil myself down to a few sentences or graphics or, more annoyingly, a list of my favorite music, movies and books. What is that going to tell you, really, besides a very cursory glance at a few matters of personal taste and education? (And again, it's useful for the proverbial penis comparison, but little else). Look, I've written well over 1,000 blog posts in the past six years; if you really want to know what my interests are--and heaven knows why you would--then you've got plenty of reading material out there to keep you satisfied (though I haven't checked to see if it's still all there.)

These sites seem to be the internet representation of those people who like to boast of their wide array of accomplished friends, none of whom they really know at any level. I'm not impressed solely by reading a list of the media you like. I'm impressed if you can give me compelling reasons why you like it. But you can't tell me that if you aren't writing.

It's my misanthrropy talking

Garret Keizer's Notebook column on the death of privacy in the current issue of Harper's is well worth a read. Unfortunately it's not online yet, at least for non-subscribers, and I don't think any one passage is relevant enough for me to key it in. But it did resonate with something I've been feeling.

I know this may sound harsh, but when I'm out doing the meet'n'greet thing, it annoys me that everyone's initial query without fail is prying into your professional life. I realize, of course, that my reticence here is tainted by a desire to hide what a miserable failure I've been, but even if I weren't, it's really not any of your damn business what I do unless you're planning to marry me. I suppose it's the easiest way to find a conversation piece, and people think they're clever if they can pepper you with questions about your job, which I admit I've had to fight to hold my tongue in this regard as well.

Besides this, there's also a subtly competitive undercurrent at work in this practice, as if, rather than having an amicable conversation, you're sizing up an opponent for a verbal joust. And, naturally, it serves as a way to reach a quick, haphazard judgment on someone. (This is just to hopefully show that my consternation here is more than my own personal shiftiness.)

They naturally love the taste

It's been pointed out numerous times on the internet that Jim Adkisson, the man who killed two and injured seven others in a Unitarian Universalist church in Knoxville, TN on Sunday, was apparently an avid reader of Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, and Bill O'Reilly and wrote a four-page manifesto railing against "liberals in general, as well as gays." While it's interesting to see the barbaric rhetoric of right-wingers reach its inevitable tragic conclusion, I found this item to perhaps be more unfortunate in the totality of what it represents.

The man accused of shooting and killing two people in a Knoxville church Sunday wrote that he hated liberals and was bitter he couldn't find a job, police said Monday.

Authorities added he may also have been angry about possibly losing his food stamps.

Our royalist class ought to be raising a glass in celebration today on the thorough-going success of their efforts to disassociate the working class from their natural allies through up-is-downism propaganda. An obviously troubled man angry about losing his job and his social assistance responds by terrorizing the people among the most likely to be sympathetic to his struggle. How much more of a visceral realization could there be? This calls for some Victory Gin and a round of golf, comrades!

Unfinished business

Wrapping a couple of posts from earlier.

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First, concerning the Orwell excerpt from 18 July (really deserved to have more said about it at the time, but I was already wrecking the family computer just typing that much).

Orwell was not especially great with predictions, and his predictions on the effect of air warfare on war cheerleaders, while perhaps accurate for a time, has turned out to be quite the opposite in the context of modern American warfare. What he means to say, presumably, is that the introduction of long-range bombing of cities which began in the Spanish Civil War and reached a climax in World War II meant that it was no longer entirely safe for chickenhawks to egg on a conflict while remaining well out of danger themselves.

Of course, in our world, nothing could be further from the truth. The American mainland can't be threatened in any sustained way by its present enemies, and the overwhelming air superiority of the American military is a favorite catch-all solution to the problems of both liberal "humanitarians" and neo-cons as it solves their chief shared restriction on the use of force; how to rain death and destruction on their enemies with minimum loss of all-important "American lives."

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Secondly, I feel I should probably clarify note 5 on "The youth and beauty brigade" below, because I can see how it might sound like reverting to unreconstructed NiceGuyism. I'm not looking to be owed anything, I'm just looking for neutrality. That was just born out of some frustration I'd been feeling from being extremely cautious not to offend or embarrass anyone with the suggestion that I might be attracted to them (and what could you do to deserve that fate?) You don't have to feel grateful, or even the least bit flattered, but I have desires, too, and it's exhausting to constantly suppress them because of a fear of being offensive. Being respectful is a good thing, and I hope not to change in that regard, but I'm tired of being overwhelmingly deferential.

I feel like I'll have to clarify that some more in the future.

When reading isn't reading

The Sunday Times has a long article on the oft-debated effect of the internet on young people's reading ability. While it's somewhat tangential, this little note caught my eye.

But others say the Internet has created a new kind of reading, one that schools and society should not discount. The Web inspires a teenager like Nadia, who might otherwise spend most of her leisure time watching television, to read and write.

The topic of writing on the internet isn't discussed much, but I think it's important. I'd be interested to see an article on the effects of the web on kids writing for fun. I suspect it has increased noticeably. Granted, the current fads in social networking aren't as writing-intensive as earlier ones like Livejournal were, and there will always be protestations about the requisite bad grammar and usage, but that can always be corrected later. Getting kids comfortable with the idea of writing regularly is temporarily more important than flawless usage.

"Mudbound" SIR

Hillary Jordan's novel "Mudbound" has won the Bellwether Prize awarded by Barbara Kingsolver to literature promoting "social justice," and it's not hard to see why. This is the kind of ironclad didactic of liberal guilt that seems destined to find another life as a Paul Haggis screenplay.

There is still something to be said for it, however. Jordan's ambitious,. off-beat point-of-view rotation between six different characters mostly works. Unfortunately, while the six characters are easily distinguishable from each other, they aren't much distinguishable from their archetype. Only two really flower on the page; Laura, living an unexpected life as a servile farm wife, and Jamie, her suave, cocksure brother-in-law driven to near-madness by the Second World War.

The three African-American characters asked to carry the narrative are also a disappointment, primarily because Jordan can't write them as anything other than flawless martyrs. Were they lesser characters in the story this could be overlooked, but when given first-person narratives it comes out bland and easy. The book's main human antagonist, a gruff, sour old bigot, is also a caricature, but Jordan elects to leave his psyche untapped. That's too bad.

Verdict: C+

Marriage, Inc.

Author Kit Whitfield (known as Praline in Slacktivist comments; her book is available in paperback) has a post on her blog about the futility of having an affordable, sane wedding in London, though I imagine anyone in the United States faces similar obstacles.

The going rate for a wedding and reception seems to start at about ten thousand pounds. That's the baseline rate. For Pete's sake.

It was when the locations we checked out revealed that they only worked with certain catering companies, and those catering companies starting recommending photographers, and marquee hire companies, and lighting technicians, and string quartets, that I got a full sense of what we were up against. I knew the wedding industry was vast and profitable, but I didn't realise the extent to which companies strike deals with each other. Once you engage with any part of it, you're taking on all of it. Every location has ironclad deals with other companies; you simply can't get married in location X, it seems, without signing up for overpriced canapes.

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The wedding business depends on presenting as essentials stuff that you absolutely and truly don't need. I don't know whether any businesses use the word 'essentializing', but that's what seems to be going on. And in locations that actually have a civil license, they're right: they don't let you hire the place without their particular caterers - and caterers charge you for hiring everything, from staff to spoons.

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Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon has an interesting post on the dangers posed to egalitarian relationships by the institution of marriage. Her point is that accepting the label of "marriage" can subtly affect people into accepting the other traditional his-and-her gender roles that come along with it. The point is well-taken, but I don't quite agree. I don't believe the institution is so overwhelming that individual couples with understanding comrades can't put their own positive spin on it. I certainly understand the reasons why people would be skeptical, however.

Five years too slow

I just had an unusual epiphany that made me smile, albeit ruefully. Just a little late, is all, but I suppose there's one thing I perhaps shouldn't say about myself anymore.

Spies!

A lawsuit brought by the ACLU in Maryland has revealed that the state had been placing informants to spy on a group of anti-death penalty activists. Lefty sportswriter Dave Zirin was among the members of the group who are now on file with Homeland Security.

In classified reports compiled by the Maryland State Police and the Department of Homeland Security, I am "Dave Z." This nickname was given by an undercover agent known to us as "Lucy." She sat in our meetings of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, smiling and engaged, taking copious notes about actions deemed threatening by the then-governor of Maryland, Robert Ehrlich.

Our seditious crimes, as Lucy reported, involved such acts as planning to set up a table at the local farmer's market and writing up a petition. Adding a dash of farce to this outrage, she was monitoring us in the liberal enclave of Takoma Park, Maryland, a place known more for vegans than violence, more for tie-dyeing than terrorism.

Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act and the ACLU, we now know that "Lucy" was only one part of a vast, insidious project. The Maryland State Police's Department of Homeland Security devoted nearly 300 hours and thousands of taxpayer dollars from 2005 and 2006 to harassing people whose only crime was dissenting on the question of the war in Iraq and Maryland's use of death row.

Green Left Infoasis has more links. Earlier this summer, the Minneapolis City Pages revealed an FBI effort to solicit moles to infiltrate groups planning to protest the Republican convention.

The playlist

Sounds

"L.E.S. Artistes" - Santogold

This record has been getting a lot of deserved praise, and this sassy, kicking opener may be my favorite tune of the year so far. I don't see the M.I.A. comparisons though, beyond mashing different musical genre together.



"Billy Liar" - The Decemberists

I don't know if anyone actually saw me with my knickers down while I was staying in the family's sun room last week, but the whole Christian world could have if it had the desire.


"Mr. November" - The National

Tucked at the end of "Alligator," this is the perfect tune to rock yourself to sleep at night sucking your thumb over failed potential. (Get the t-shirt)



"Constructive Summer' - The Hold Steady

...and the necessary song to snap out of the above stupor.

"Sodom, South Georgia" - Iron & Wine

You can't go to the South without a torrid tale of an eccentric murder, and no one weaves stories through the languid summer air like Sam Bean.



"Penetration" - Pedro the Lion

"Have you ever seen an idealist with gray hairs on his head?/Or successful men who keep in touch with unsuccessful friends?" Bazan hides his typically dark sarcasm inside this wall of noise that anchors his "Control" song cycle, a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of untrammeled
ambition.


"Choctaw Bingo" - James McMurtry

Sadly, the trip was nowhere near as exciting as the one described in this tune. (Perhaps I should say happily, as I doubt I'm the kind of guy to handle it.)



"Virtue the Cat Explains Her Departure"- The Weakerthans

Nothing thematic here; just one of the best songs ever about the relationship between a man and his runaway cat.



"American Wedding" - Gogol Bordello

See above. That Hütz is a hard man to please.

Colonialism distilled

John Derbyshire:

We should tell Maliki, loudly and in public, that he owes his job to us, and that further prosecution of our military operations in his country will be conducted with regard only to U.S. interests, as determined in consensus by our established domestic political processes. And if he doesn't like that, he can go to hell.

(via)

The youth and beauty brigade

Notes from the road:

1) Please, don't ever consider a cross-country Greyhound bus trip a good idea. The buses are always running late (sometimes dramatically so), the customer service is terrible, and you can call several stations before you find one that actually answers its listed phone number. If there's a fate worse than contemporary air travel, it's bus travel. By some stroke of luck, I made it back with all of my body parts and possessions, but there were many moments when that seemed unlikely.

2) Walking amongst the world of the living can be an intoxicating experience for me. People are like museum pieces to me; I want to walk around completely unnoticed, turning them over in my hands looking for little cracks and crevices. Oftentimes it only exacerbates my misanthropy, but there are always enough pleasant souls to make the world go on. If you spend a lot of time around people and don't have an endless flood of ideas for novels, you probably ought to have your imagination examined. Actual communication with people is still an anxiety-filled experience for me, though. I don't have the faculty to process whether everything I say is going to be worthwhile and inoffensive.

3) It seems people have a thin line when it comes to finding others likable, and to me it's nearly invisible. Who knows why some people get on with you while others don't? Of course, I fall into the old habit of believing personality traits are qualitative, i.e., there's an ideal standard we are trying to reach which will make us all wildly popular and irresistible. And I suppose there is, if that's the sort of thing you go for.

4) The wedding was a modest production, but still affecting, which made me happy. (I say modest, though of course it wasn't my neck on the line.) The wedding industry and its junior partner the diamond industry are the best legal rackets going right now; using the social pressure on everyone, but especially women, to spare no expense in having a lavish, unforgettable wedding to rake in obscene fees.

5) Despite that, I've thankfully developed near immunity to the virus of pointless romanticism, which would have driven me off the rails at an earlier age. I still have to nurse a little crush back to health, but he's a wee one and won't bite if provoked. You can feel however you like about that, but I don't think 'insulted' should be on the table. I think I've stayed within my right.

6) One of the sad realities of our hyper-competitive capitalist world is the way parents remain ruthlessly ambitious on behalf of their children well into adulthood. That some kids may want to do something with themselves rather than acquire the most wealth possible is a foreign concept to some people. Wanting to see your kids wealthy is, I suppose, a natural response to years of struggling to get by in your own life. I may not agree with it, but I can't fairly object to the impulse. Having a B.A. and being the least educated person in a room is quite intimidating.

Back with a playlist shortly.

Sneaking some Orwell

The people who write that kind of stuff never fight; possibly they belivve that to write is a substitue for fighting. It is the same in all wars; the soldiers do the fighting, the journalists do the shouting; and no true patriot ever gets near a front-line trench, except in the briefest of propaganda tours. Sometimes it is s comfort to me to think that the aeroplane is altering the condition of war. Perhaps when the next great war comes we may see the sight unprecedented in all history; a jingo with a bullet-hole in him.

-Homage to Catalonia, p. 66

But what will I do with old Joey now?

From the Greyhound baggage guidelines:

Acids, ammunition, animals, combustible liquids, compressed gases, corpses, cremated remains, explosives, firearms of all types, fireworks, flammable liquids, furniture, hazardous materials (poisons, radioactive materials, etc.), materials with a disagreeable odor, matches, merchandise for resale, protruding articles, or any unsecured articles including those in plastic or paper bags are prohibited.

The blog will be going dark for a short time while I bus myself (sans corpses) to South Carolina for a wedding (not mine). Regular posting will resume on July 22nd.

Monday sounds

The G Spot (at least I can find it on the Internet) surveys Obama's potential veep picks. I pretty much agree with her that Sebelius is probably the best choice of those Obama is likely considering, although I don't think Brown is among those. I particularly like her assessment of our old friend Mr. Bayh.

Evan Bayh - At the moment, this is the choice I'm most worried about, because Bayh does really seem to be on Obama's short shortlist. I think he'd be an awful choice, and not just because he's a senator from a state (Indiana) with a Republican governor. Evan Bayh is one of the biggest Democratic corporate 'hos in the senate -- he's "fiscally conservative," voted for the bankruptcy bill, is a DLC Dem all the way. He is literally one of the Wall Street Journal's favorite Democrats. He also voted for the Iraq War and is quite hawkish overall. On top of all that, he brings nothing to the table in terms of being personable, being a good speaker, etc. Someone I know who met him said he comes across as completely plastic -- MItt Romney, he said, has more authenticity and soulfulness. If Barack picks this dude, it's going to be a very long four (or eight) years. Let's hope he has the good sense to choose someone else instead.

Fafblog, of course, has a more cynically humorous version of a similar list.

JOE BIDEN:
Pros: one of the Senate's oldest and most respected experts in the field of Joe Biden; vast bullshit reserve could be tapped for its methane, powering nation for decades; fondness for partition and ethnic cleansing could be a valuable asset during the Second American Civil War of 2013
Cons: as a wholly-owned subsidiary of DuPont, may be ineligible to hold office

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From The Baseball Project



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Sharon Smith on Marxism and identity politics.

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Dog bites man.

Readers of liberal blogs were clustered at the far left, and readers of conservative blogs were bunched at the far right. There was little, if any, overlap between them on these issues. The two sides have less in common politically than, say, liberals who watch PBS and conservatives who watch Fox News.

One caveat, however: We don't know if blogs polarize their readers, or if highly ideological readers gravitate to blogs that reflect their partisanship.

There is a third, unconsidered, possibility, which is that highly politically aware people are more likely to congregate toward opposite ends of the political spectrum, blogs or no blogs, on the basis of actually possessing coherent political beliefs as opposed to go-along-to-get-along salad bar moderation that defines the great mass of the less active. Regardless, the hand-wringing from Serious Thinkers over bloggy extremism strikes me as a bit rich; the blogosphere's ascension came about as a direct result of the undying veneration of Compromise Centrism by the mainstream press and pundits that shuts out and ridicules anyone on the left.

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Great Moments in Seriousness

Today in NIMBY

A group of resourceful teenagers in Greenwich, CT decide to remake a grown-over lot into a wiffle-ball field, and what does the community do? Loses its damn mind, is what.

The regular players, mostly high school boys but including Tara Currivan, 15 (who swings a mean bat and brings lemonade to the field), and Scott Atkinson, 13, seem a little befuddled by the whole thing. “They think we’re a cult,” said Jeff Currivan, 17. “People think we should be home playing ‘Grand Theft Auto.’ ”

And they seem to get the fact that many adults are taken with the idea of kids’ doing something that’s not structured, not organized and not oriented toward improving your SAT scores.

“It’s just old-fashioned fun,” said Vincent Provenzano. “We did it on our own. Maybe people think that’s unusual.”

What are these kids doing learning co-operation! They are wasting time which should be used to compete tooth and claw to crush the inferior spawn of my half-wit neighbors! Onward, my child, KILL KILL KILL!

And that lot was worth $1.25 million. Kids these days with no respect for the authority of capital. *shaking head*

(via)

Breaking news!

Leaked video of McCain's economic team's policy meeting.

Hump day nuggets

Great powers v. Small powers, cont.

The US Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama, called for tighter sanctions on Iran today after it fired nine test missiles that were capable of hitting American and Israeli bases.

"Iran is a great threat. We have to make sure we are working with our allies to apply tightened pressure on Iran," the Illinois senator said.

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It's good to know I wasn't the only one who hated The Female Brain. And there are scientifically valid reasons, as well.

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Labor Notes on educating union members about immigration.

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If the New York Times magazine wants to call Rush Limbaugh a "public intellectual" I don't see a problem with it. How much of a better illustration could there be that conservatism must be losing its legs than that it considers vapid gasbags like Limbaugh and Jonah Goldberg intellectual titans.

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Quelle surprise. Perhaps the full story of the "daring rescue" of hostages from FARC isn't being told by the American press.

I found this tucked in the Buzzflash article:

The rescue also comes at a curiously propitious time for the Bush Adminsitration and its "made man" in Colombia, President Alvaro Uribe. He is seeking to pass a plebiscite to allow him an unprecedented third term. Furthermore, Uribe is being used by the U.S. as a proxy opponent to Chavez in terms of leadership in South America. In addition, let's not forget that the controversial Columbia "Free Trade Pact" is stalled in Congress. Finally -- and most curiously -- John McCain inexplicably showed up in Colombia around the time of the "rescue." (emphasis mine)

*gasp!* Oh noes, the creeping dictatorship! Who will oppose this grievous erosion of democracy? (Oh wait, he's our guy, so it's not the same.)

Great powers v. small powers, etc.

Via LGM comes this chart from the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, showing the grave existential threat, in the words of Holy Joe Lieberman, we currently face from Iran.

	UNITED STATES	IRAN
Population	303,824,646	65,875,223
Gross Domestic Product (GDP)	$13.8 trillion	$0.75 trillion
Defense spending fiscal year 2009	$711 billion	$7.2 billion
Total troops	2,580,875	895,000
Main battle tanks	8,023	1,613
Reconnaissance vehicles	348	35
Armored infantry fighting vehicles	6,719	610
Armored personnel carriers	21,242	640
Artillery units	8,041	8,196
Helicopters	5,425	311
Submarines	71	6
Principal surface combatants	106	5
Patrol and coastal combatants	157	320
Mine warfare ships	9	5
Amphibious ships	490	21
Fighter aircraft	3,538	286
Long-range bomber aircraft	170	None
Transport aircraft	883	136
Electronic warfare/intelligence aircraft	159	3
Reconnaissance aircraft	134	6
Maritime patrol aircraft	197	8
Anti-submarine warfare aircraft	58	None
Airborne early warning aircraft	53	None
Nuclear warheads	~5,400	None

Obviously, if we don't close the yawning gap in vintage, horse-drawn Great War artillery pieces, we are certainly doomed.

Raise what's left of the flag for me

I'm not going to go into a lot of detail on Obama's speech on patriotism last week. I'm too beaten-down, I suppose, to offer much beyond the standard reply that no one who's allowed to ascend the heights of mainstream American politics will be allowed to respond any better. However, there are a couple important fallacies here that need to be dealt with sternly.

For example, Obama says:

Meanwhile, some of those in the so-called counter-culture of the Sixties reacted not merely by criticizing particular government policies, but by attacking the symbols, and in extreme cases, the very idea, of America itself - by burning flags; by blaming America for all that was wrong with the world; and perhaps most tragically, by failing to honor those veterans coming home from Vietnam, something that remains a national shame to this day.

This is, of course, the ritual excoriation of the hippies that's required before you can make a Serious statement on loyalty to America. Mainstream pundits will treat it like a station of the cross, a ritual threshold that doesn't merit close scrutiny. But it's completely wrong from start to finish, and happily internalizes right-wing talking points and Sensible Liberal concern trolling.

Admittedly, I'm not thoroughly versed on leftist writing of the contemporary era, let alone that of the 1960s. But I have a hard time believing Obama, or anyone else, can produce someone other than a mental patient or deranged cultist who ever said America was responsible "for all that was wrong with the world." This is a favorite false frame of rightist nationalists who want to assume America as wholly righteous by projecting the opposite belief on any critics of American policy. But making up nonsense about Old Dirty Hippies isn't going to get Obama in any trouble for the same reason Hillary Clinton's leaked put-down of MoveOn.org members never gained any traction; the mainstream press was too busy nodding in agreement.

I believe those who attack America's flaws without acknowledging the singular greatness of our ideals, and their proven capacity to inspire a better world, do not truly understand America.

If you've been around righties at all, you've probably heard some variation on the following: "Susan Sarandon/Michael Moore/etc. should be happy they live in America where they have freedom to criticize the government!"* That there might be other countries out there with freedom of speech seems entirely, well, foreign to them. Obama, apparently, agrees with them. If America hadn't come along with our "singularly great" ideals, the search for freedom, justice, equality, democracy and all that would have forever languished in the ether of possibility. You can't get much more Exceptionalist than that.

So let me say at this at outset of my remarks. I will never question the patriotism of others in this campaign. And I will not stand idly by when I hear others question mine.

Coming from Obama, who previously said he would choose not to wear a flag lapel pin because of his personal definition of patriotism but is now wearing one, this is not a threat as much as a plea. Please don't question his patriotism, because he'll be forced to cave in and comply with your demands, and that will make him look bad.

*I've always wondered about this. People should be thankful to those who died defending their free speech by voluntarily giving it up? Untie that convoluted logic, and you win a pony.

SEE ALSO: Bats Left, Throws Right and Open Left.

Wow

Well, I enjoy being right, even if the outcome wasn't what I was hoping for. Full credit to Nadal, who played an unbelievable, unrelenting match. He just never allowed Roger any room to breathe. That tiebreaker in the fourth set, though, was the stuff of legend.

I'll be interested to see how this plays in the American sports press, if indeed anyone bothers to notice since t'weren't no "Muricans involved, and the two guys don't hate each other, throw temper tantrums, or provide much fodder for tabloid gossip. Boring!

Best way to reinvigorate tennis for an American audience? In lieu of either a fifth-set tiebreak or continuing the match until someone wins by two, deadlocked matches will be decided by players fighting it out with their rackets in an octagonal cage!

Pour me another round

As everyone wanted and expected, it's Nadal v. Federer again in the Wimbledon final for the third year in a row and the sixth time overall in a major. Both players have blown through the tournament losing only one set combined (Nadal, to talented Latvian youngster Ernests Gulbis), Rafa like a hurricane, Roger like a slow, rising flood. They've only faced three tie-breaks apiece. Federer has had his worst season since 2003, but coming home to the lawns where he's won five straight titles seems to have made him whole again. Nadal, meanwhile, continues to improve his grass-court game, and more than a few observes think he's ready to punch the ticket and knock off Federer after taking him to five sets in last year's final.

If you're even a little bit of a tennis fan, you just cannot afford to miss this match. It's one of the great sports rivalries of our time; the perfect clash of elegance and athleticism. And, with Federer likely facing the downside of his career, you can't take for granted how many more matches you'll see them play in their prime. I don't think it's hyperbole to say this could be one of the all-time great matches in tennis history. It's already one of the most anticipated.

Iran now?

Laura Rozen has been hosting a roundtable at Mother Jones (parts 1, 2) on the likelihood of an imminent U.S./Israel attack on Iran. It comes on the heels of another article by Sy Hersh in the New Yorker asserting Congress and the President have negotiated funding for continued covert action inside Iran. While I don't want to dismiss Hersh's long and praiseworthy career in journalism, he has been beating a similar drum for a couple of years now with no proven action yet. And most of Rozen's expert panel seems to agree with my skepticism. That said, perhaps it's always best to err on the side of caution.

Also, via Juan Cole, no less than Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, has warned about the potential consequences of a military strike on Iran.

"L'État, c'est moi"

I should add that one of the beneficial outcomes of the Clinton loss, and an important reason why I opposed it initially, is that it represents a setback, however temporary, for the creeping monarchical tendencies in American politics. And yes, this likely means I would have voted against Bobby Kennedy as well, before someone asks. I'm anti-royalist on principle; I don't support them unless I have no other choice.

This topic gives me the chance to plug the excellent documentary "Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore?" which political junkies should really enjoy. Spoilers are basically unavoidable anyway, so I'll tell you that it's a great portrayal of the near-impossible odds you face when going up against inherited political office.

The ID politickers' Dolchstosslegende

The Mahablog links to this article at the Guardian's Comment is Free blog by two American bloggers dragging out the argument that traitorously sexist liberals cost Clinton the Dem nomination. (This is a favorite saw of McEwan in particular; Stalinist purging of 'faux-gressives' insufficiently loyal to her brand of feminism is pretty much all she does these days.)

Sometime in the last decade, her liberal foes evidently decided that whole "malevolent, power-mad shrew" thing sounded pretty good, too.

Throughout the course of the Democratic primary, it was neatly repackaged as "wildly ambitious person who will do anything in her voracious quest to win including destroying the Democratic Party while cackling monstrously and whose womanness totally doesn't matter we swear." The classic misogynist charge once used against Clinton by the vast right-wing conspiracy became the rallying cry of large swaths of the erstwhile reality-based community.

I try not to be one of those people who think feminists will recast any and all criticism of a woman as being somehow sexist, but this is stretching it. If it looked to you like Clinton ran a disorganized, entitled campaign that became increasingly destructive and desperate for ideas the further behind she fell, it's evidently because you were just thinking with your penis. Sexist tropes can still be true in individual cases, otherwise the descriptions become meaningless. To suggest a woman can never be power-mad is itself a curious perversion of feminism; claiming women aren't vulnerable to the same vices as men.

The rest of the article is a hodgepodge of accusations that liberals supposedly defended Bill for certain things they then used to attack Hillary, thus proving we are OMG Teh Sexist! This is a gross oversimplification of the way many liberals felt about the Clinton presidency. While many may have defended him from the more extreme wild goose chases of the right, a sizable portion was tepid about it, and felt that their enormous influence in dragging the Democrats rightward ought to be stopped. I felt at the start of the campaign that anyone who could manage to emerge as a serious alternative to Clinton would get a major boost from liberals looking to exorcise the Clinton stranglehold on the party, and that's precisely what happened.

Obviously, there was a great mass of sexist slop dumped on Clinton by the mainstream press, far more than would be directed at any other female politician, which I've never really understood. And women candidates in general have to deal with frequent double-standards in press coverage (I have to groan every time I hear some journo go on and on about what a female politician is wearing; as if they'd have the same enthusiasm for clothes on a man). But none of that is really germane to what's being argued here; that pernicious liberal sexism did Clinton in.

All of this posturing ignores the staggering fact that Clinton lost to an African-American man. Named Barack Obama. In America. Whatever votes she may have lost to sexism, there's compelling reason to believe she gained scores more from racism. But people neck-deep in identity politics have a history of getting caught in the snare of the Oppression Olympics; competing with like-minded factions to see whose narrow theodicy will win out.

Res ipsa loquitur

There's probably more to say about Obama's patriotism speech, not all of it bad, but this day belongs to the Doughy Pantload soiling the pages of McPaper.

Definitions of patriotism proliferate, but in the American context patriotism must involve not only devotion to American texts (something that distinguishes our patriotism from European nationalism) but also an abiding belief in the inherent and enduring goodness of the American nation. We might need to change this or that policy or law, fix this or that problem, but at the end of the day the patriotic American believes that America is fundamentally good as it is.

There you have it, kids. Real live proof from a bona fide Conservative Intellectual that the myopic and dangerous "my country right or wrong" bravado isn't just a figment of my lefty-addled brain.

Passing it along

"It may be said with rough accuracy that there are three stages in the life of a strong people. First, it is a small power, and fights small powers. Then it is a great power, and fights great powers. Then it is a great power, and fights small powers, but pretends that they are great powers, in order to rekindle the ashes of its ancient emotion and vanity. After that, the next step is to become a small power itself."

-G.K. Chesterton

Only in America

It's a testament to the unconditional adulation and reverence offered to the military in this country that these comments by Wesley Clark are being pitched about the media as high blasphemy. Any sane person can see the obvious truth in the statement that McCain's status as a POW doesn't give him any inherent qualification for the presidency. But because it might sound vaguely critical of the military to someone hanging upside down cross-eyed, Clark--who was the former commander of NATO forces in Europe and thus hardly a DFH--is getting raked over the coals.

You shouldn't need to guess by now how Obama responded, by reinforcing the media nonsense that Clark somehow failed to respect McCain's military service, which he went to great lengths not to do.