And the White House called to disinvite him from the same inaugural ball he organized?

Why?

But that's only a minor mystery. The bigger mystery, of course, is how the hell did Dennis Hopper become a "hard-core supporter of Bush"?

Dennis Hopper? Dennis F'n' Hopper? Easy Rider Dennis Hopper? "It's all duality, man, black and white, I mean you can't land on 3.7, right, what's a fraction, man?" Dennis Hopper? The guy who sucked laughing gas in Blue Velvet Dennis Hopper?

This is going to bother me all day. I'm glad to have him on the team, as it were, but it's sort of like finding out that Darth Vader is your father.

Posted by: Ace at 01:58 PM | Comments (21)
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Just about everyone on the Internet knows about this howlingly-funny site, but in case no one's ever sent the link to you, I heartily recommend you check it out.

A testimonial from one black woman who loves the fun white couple running the site:

Sally loves to touch my hair! She always asks me how I got my hair to do this. That makes me feel special. Like I have magical powers!

To those who would say we're not making enough progress in healing the wounds that still divide the races, I would just offer these stirring words from another black woman:

Sally always says things that make me feel special, like: "You're so cool, you're different, you're not like other Black people!"

I think I'm going to do my bit for racial concilliation and start paying similar compliments to the local black teenagers who throw beer-bottles and condoms filled with turpentine at me on a daily basis.

Sounds crazy, but it just might work!

Posted by: Ace at 01:38 PM | Comments (4)
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You all know this, of course.

Good news.

There's not much more to say about this... except.

No one is really happy that there are so many cameras out there, their unblinking eyes watching us and recording us at every ATM and cross-walk. Yes, it's all a bit Big Brother-ish.

But:

Pictures of four Chinese suspects released by the FBI were taped inside booths where subway tokens are sold by transit employees, and operators of underground parking garages started searching vehicles. Dong, the suspect in custody, was not one of the four in the pictures released by the FBI.

...you can't argue with results like that.

Yes, we are all being surveiled more, and our privacy can be invaded with greater ease-- in theory.

In reality, while the government has these tools at its disposal, it simply doesn't have the manpower (or inclination) to watch Joe Law-Abiding Citizen's daily movements just because it theoretically could.

There's so much information on all of us out there, available either freely or virtually freely. Anyone can find out an awful lot about a stranger just by hitting the right sites on the Internet.

It's not really a terrific situation, but law-enforcement officials, at least at the moment, are probably much less likely to invade your privacy than an ex-spouse or some computer geek you pissed off in a chat forum.

Posted by: Ace at 12:21 PM | Comments (6)
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"Cool mom" provides methamphetamines, pot, and booze to teenage boys, then has sex with them.

Read more about it in my new magazine, The Greatest F'n' Mom in the Whole Damn World.

Jeepers. My mom wouldn't even let me watch Family Ties, as she considered Nick to be a bad influence.

Before I Get Scolded... Yes, I realize that this is actually a serious offense and all. I'm just joking.

Sort of.

I'm just never going to be convinced that "statutory rape" of underage boys by women is anything near as bad offense as statutory rape of underage girls by men (or women, for that matter).

Teenage boys are horn-machines without conscious or remorse and with only one goal in life, 24/7. Sexual Terminators. Or would-be sexual Terminators, that is. Most, of course, spend all their time "practicing" at the, um, "firing range."

Clarification: I didn't mean to start a major argument, nor suggest that what this woman did isn't criminal and shouldn't be prosecuted. It is and she should be.

I was just being a bit defensive about making the joke-- which is the joke many men make in this situation, a sort of wink, wink, nudge, nudge type deal.

There is a law on the books, it's there for a reason, and the woman should be dealt with.

It may be that men without kids react differently about this kind of thing-- when we hear about, we think about ourselves and think "No big deal," while people with children don't think about themselves, but rather their own boys, and think "That is certainly a big deal, and the woman should be locked up."

Obviously, this sort of thing shouldn't happen, and there is the potential for a host of ills from it, including, I guess, psychological damage. Even for boys.

Still, I just don't think that boys are quite as likely to be messed up by this sort of violation.

Every neighborhood had a hot mom all the boys used to fantasize about. These fantasies usually involved shovelling out the snow in Hot Mom's driveway, being invited in for hot cocoa, and then being told she didn't have quite enough money for a proper tip.

In fact, some bands even write catchy pop songs about just this fantasy (search for Stacy's Mom; don't ask why the video features Rogue, Wolverine, and Jean Grey).

Just sayin'.

Posted by: Ace at 12:14 PM | Comments (53)
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I'm not talking about the blizzard dumping snow on the northeast. I can deal with that, I guess.

But this poor weatherman delivers the worst, most hands-over-the-eyes, cringe-y broadcast performance ever.

And I include my own radio appearance in making that judgment. And Admiral Stockdale's debate appearance. And Bush's September debate, which caused me to say, "Oh my, he's going to lose."

Trust me, this is worse.

Must watch. If you dare.

Blizzard Photoblogging: The New Vintage has some nice high-angle shots of snow in New York.

Posted by: Ace at 12:01 PM | Comments (21)
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I've been meaning to pose this question for some time.

I think we on the right -- and I include myself here -- have taken far too much pleasure in condemning those on the left who question the ME's suitability for democracy as being "racists."

It's a lot of fun to hoist them by their own petards, and use their language and their slogans against them-- "How can you be so racist and ruthless as to condemn entire nations to tyranny?"

But.

I would not say that the Middle East is not ready for democracy. I would not say that Arabs are incapable of praciticing it and mastering it, or that Islam is incompatible with democracy, human rights, freedom, and small-l liberal government and self-determination.

But I would say this: It remains an open question.

I'm quite sure there's nothing genetic about Arabs that might make democracy difficult for them; I'm not a racist. And I do know that several Muslim states are either semi-democracies or at least moving in the right direction.

Nevertheless, "democracy" and "freedom" don't grow in rocky soil. The ground must be prepared for them to blossom. Europe and America had the Enlightment, and science (by which, I guess, I mean a general philosophical empiricism), and banking, and secure contracts based upon voluntary agreements, and a host of other factors which made democracy and peaceful self-rule work; other cultures may not.

As dozens of conservative commentators frequently pointed out: there is an entire infrastructure of habits, practices, traditions and temperaments that are more or less necessary for democracy and peaceful self-governance. A paper constitution is not the answer, as we've seen dozens of times in Latin America and Africa. (Yes, I know, Latin America is moving in the right direction too.)

Again, I don't say that democracy is doomed to fail in Iraq, nor that Bush is acting wrong in attempting to bring that nation out of the dark ages. It's a noble project, and I hope and pray it works.

But I am, I guess, arguing with readers and commenters here who assume that this is closer to a lock than the gamble it is.

I want this work. I hope it will work. And I do hope that the beacon of freedom that Iraq provides will light the way for a dozen other countries.

I just think that, at least at the moment, the question remains very much open, and we shouldn't make assumptions about it.

There may be a dozen democratic dominoes about to fall; but the crucial one-- Iraq -- isn't quite even tottering over yet. So I worry about putting so much faith in an event we all desperately hope will come to pass, but has not yet done so, and may never do so at all.

And No, This Doesn't Make Me a Paleocon: But honestly, we on the right were just a year ago defending America's siding with Iraq in the Iraq-Iran war, for purely cynical -- but vital -- realpolitik reasons.

Are we ready to say that that was entirely a mistake? That the world has now changed so much? That we are all ready to abandon the idea that our security and interests come first, and that the idealistic, never-deal-with-thugs foreign policy so long advocated by the left is now the correct one, simply because the Left has now abandoned that policy and embraced a skeptical, ruthless brand of "let them all rot"?

Posted by: Ace at 01:40 PM | Comments (44)
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The Pleased-as-Punch Left, perhaps? The Just-Being-Cool,-Chillin'-n'-Groovin' Left?

CAPTION: Sgt. 1st Class Jeff Due, right, a U.S. Army recruiter, is surrounded by protesters at Seattle Central Community College, Thursday, Jan. 20, 2005, in Seattle. After about a 10-minute standoff during which protesters tore up U.S Army literature, the protesters were successful in getting Due and another recruiter to leave their table under escort by campus security officers. Several hundred students walked out of classes at several Seattle colleges and universities to protest the inauguration of President Bush.

Their respect for free speech and choice seems rather, let us say, "context-specific."

Thanks to William.

Posted by: Ace at 01:21 PM | Comments (26)
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First, the raves.

Fred Barnes:

First, it was eloquent, noting that freedom lights "a fire in the minds of men" and represents both "the hunger in dark places [and] the longing of the soul." More important, the speech laid out an extraordinarily sweeping and ambitious foreign policy for the nation. In doing so, Bush broke down the barrier between the foreign policy idealists, of which he and President Reagan are the most notable, and the realists, who include his father and his father's two chief advisers on foreign affairs, Brent Scowcroft and James Baker.

The most significant statement in the speech was simple and not lyrical at all: "It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world." That's quite a declaration, one likely to unnerve tyrants and autocrats and even a few allies around the world. But Bush wasn't kidding or just riffing.

Dick Morris (from O'Reilly last night; I'm sure he'll have this in his next column): He called it the greatest inaugural speech since JFK's famous "bear any burden" speech, and perhaps one of the five or six greatest inaugurals of all time.

Jon Podhoertz seems to appreciate the message, but stresses that this wasn't exactly a new theme for Bush:

IF you were listening to the commentary after President Bush's speech yesterday, you kept hearing the same adjectives and analyses from friend and foe alike: "Incredibly ambitious."

The president, everyone said, went farther than any of his predecessors in evangelizing for democracy and freedom abroad — in a way that places us on a direct path to conflict not only with the remaining regimes in the Axis of Evil but also with Russia, China, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

...

Still, the insta-comments were unanimous. Bush's speech was something new, something unexpected, something momentous.

Ehhh . . . not really.

The speech was certainly a rhetorical knockout, and will solidify the reputation of Bush scribe Michael Gerson as the most important crafter of presidential words in the modern era (even as Gerson transits out of the speechwriting job into a key role as a policy adviser).

But it was really nothing new for Bush.

The president's faith in what he called "the transformational power of liberty" in his 2004 convention speech has been manifest in almost every major address he has given since 9/11.

And now, an pan from Peggy Noonan:

The inaugural address itself was startling. It left me with a bad feeling, and reluctant dislike. Rhetorically, it veered from high-class boilerplate to strong and simple sentences, but it was not pedestrian. George W. Bush's second inaugural will no doubt prove historic because it carried a punch, asserting an agenda so sweeping that an observer quipped that by the end he would not have been surprised if the president had announced we were going to colonize Mars.

A short and self-conscious preamble led quickly to the meat of the speech: the president's evolving thoughts on freedom in the world. Those thoughts seemed marked by deep moral seriousness and no moral modesty.

...

To the extent our foreign policy is marked by a division that has been (crudely but serviceably) defined as a division between moralists and realists--the moralists taken with a romantic longing to carry democracy and justice to foreign fields, the realists motivated by what might be called cynicism and an acknowledgment of the limits of governmental power--President Bush sided strongly with the moralists, which was not a surprise. But he did it in a way that left this Bush supporter yearning for something she does not normally yearn for, and that is: nuance.

...

Ending tyranny in the world? Well that's an ambition, and if you're going to have an ambition it might as well be a big one. But this declaration, which is not wrong by any means, seemed to me to land somewhere between dreamy and disturbing. Tyranny is a very bad thing and quite wicked, but one doesn't expect we're going to eradicate it any time soon. Again, this is not heaven, it's earth.

...

And yet such promising moments were followed by this, the ending of the speech. "Renewed in our strength--tested, but not weary--we are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom."

This is--how else to put it?--over the top. It is the kind of sentence that makes you wonder if this White House did not, in the preparation period, have a case of what I have called in the past "mission inebriation." A sense that there are few legitimate boundaries to the desires born in the goodness of their good hearts.

One wonders if they shouldn't ease up, calm down, breathe deep, get more securely grounded. The most moving speeches summon us to the cause of what is actually possible. Perfection in the life of man on earth is not.

I don't quite side with Noonan, but I do understand what she's getting at.

Let us stipulate that a "forward strategy for freedom" is a perfectly good idea in the abstract, and certainly wonderful rhetoric.

The problem is that, no matter how sweeping and powerful Bush's rhetoric or idealism, realpolitik will always be an important part of our foreign policy. For two hundred years, we have sided with bastards on the theory that they were at least less ruthless or dangerous than the other bastards who opposed them; certainly Bush doesn't intend to abandon that strategy now, does he?

I've had this argument with numerous "idealistic" (read: non-reality based) lefties a hundred times. They are forever blaming us for dealing with Saudi Arabia, Iraq, etc.; they just never seem to grasp or at least admit that the world is frequently one of bad choices, choices between bad and worse, not bad and good. Sure, we'd all like to side with the Moral and Democratic Angels in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and pre-war Iraq; but where are they?

The "idealistic" take on foreign policy -- a Chomskyite one, quite frankly -- supposes a Good Option for each foreign policy question, and yet rarely is able to announce what that Good Option might be. We shoud always side with the White Hats, they say; but when asked to point out where the White Hats may be, they quickly change the subject to Rumsfeld's handshake with Saddam Hussein.

So: What are we to make of Bush's rhetoric? I find it preposterous that he's going to stop dealing with the bastards who are actually helping us in the War on Terror-- Pakistan, of course, and, less so, Saudi Arabia. I can't imagine he will make enemies of those who are (ahem) allies, simply because they treat their people viciously and non-democratically.

And, let's face it-- do you really want a truly democratic Saudi Arabia or Pakistan? I hate to piss in the punch bowl, but I fear what those countries would become if their people really had their way.

So the rhetoric was good. And yes, it's important public diplomacy; there will be some oppressed people, and hopefully some people determined to grasp freedom, who will take courage from Bush's words.

But what, ultimately, does it mean? We really will not be fighting tyranny all over the world. We can condemn it; we can make it a central rhetorical point; but we won't be taking active steps to fight tyrants in any but a handful of countries--- countries which actually threaten us, of course, like Iran and Syria.

And that's just realpolitik, not idealism.

And we certainly will not be pushing for free and open elections in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia any time soon.

So while Bush's basic point may be an interesting one, I think it was greatly overstated. Perhaps that's excusable, when one is making a thematic address. But to the extent he means it, it's truly a Mission Impossible and not one, I have to confess, I'm especially eager to undertake.

And to the extent it's empty rhetoric-- well, he can be excused for that, but in that case it isn't especially meaningful.

Although Bush has always been championing freedom as an answer to the ever-popular question "Why do they hate us?," I think the Administration has backed into putting forward this theory so vigorously due to the failure to find WMD's in Iraq. Without proveable stocks of WMD's, the Bush Administration needed an alternate justification. And yes, while they always talked up spreading freedom to those living in resentment and misery, it seems to have transformed from a secondary theory to the primary one, and very nearly the only one.

Let me put it another way. For a long time I've taken the following position on foreign policy: America's interests first, hopefully when combined with an objectively humane purpose. But, where America has strong interests, the humane purpose requirement can be relaxed. (Works the other way too: If there's an enormously important humane purpose, of course America should help out, even if it only marginally serves our interests.)

I don't think I've changed my mind on that simply because the President has announced the sort of completely-idealistic foreign policy I used to scoff at. If it was a silly theory when spouted by Chomskyites, how does it become valid just because a conservative President for whom I voted announces it?

I take solace in the fact that I don't think Bush truly meant every word he said in his speech, much like most Presidents don't really mean every word they say in every inaugural ever given. Shifting the emphasis to freedom-- fine. Actually making the fight for freedom the central American mission-- sounds a bit too grandiose to me, and destined to fail.

The world is what it is. We will continue supporting thugs and bastards so long as the keep worse thugs and bastards under control. And "forward strategy of freedom" or not, I don't expect that to change.

And I don't know that I'd want it to.

Update: Scrappleface's Cliff's Notes on the speech are humorous, but he means every word.

Thanks to "Someone."

MSM Update: The Washington Post notes the disconnect between the breadth of Bush's rhetoric and the deals he needs to cut in the real world.

Reader Reactions... are definitely anti-Ace:

Someone writes:

Ace, I call bullshit. Those are the only two types of people currently likely to sniff power. The others are silent, underground, or in prison as dissidents. These people will thrill in the dark to hear Bush's words, as Sharansky and other gulag inmates did to Reagan's "Evil Empire" declaration. In this light I find Noonan's reaction -- and yours -- depressingly small.

Besides, we found Hamid freakin Karzai, did we not?

Ouch-- depressingly small.

Yes, we found Hamid freakin' Karzai, and we installed him-- after a war.

I don't think we'll be going to war frequently. Which means we will, yes, have to deal on a friendly basis with the governments in power in some of the worst states in the world.

As a shift in emphasis, I don't mind Bush's speech. As a long-term goal, it's commendable. My major quibble is that, in my humble opinion, it's plainly at odds with practicality.

At the moment, we need the Saudis. That may change; it could be that a democratic, non-Islamist alternative to the House of Saud emerges. And sure, were such a wonderful situation to arise, we can talk seriously about undermining the Saudi regime.

But until then-- we need to deal with the sort of people that Bush's speech would indicate we should shun and undermine like there's no tomorrow.

R. Dennis Corrigan cites a book by Sharansky, which I'm embarassed to say I've never heard of:

BushÂ’s landmark speech can only be understood and appreciated fully by referring to Natan Sharansky's compelling book, The Case for Democracy, now required reading for Bush's inner circle.

From this book, p. 88:

"...the mechanics of democracy make democracies inherently peaceful, the mechanics of tyranny make nondemocracies inherently belligerent."

True, but in the short to medium term, we have tyrannies in the world. It would be preferrable that they emerge into democracies; but what do we do in the meantime while we're waiting for that to happen?

Obviously, it serves our interest to undermine a clearly hostile tyranny, as in Iran and North Korea; but what about non-hostile, or even somewhat freindly tyrannies? Do we alienate them when we most need them?

"When FreedomÂ’s skeptics argue today that freedom cannot be 'imposed' from the outside, or that the free world has no role to play in spreading democracy around the world, I cannot but be amazed. Less than one generation has passed since the West found the Achilles heel of the Soviet Union by pursuing an activist policy that linked the rights of the Soviet people to the USSR's international standing. The same formula will work today."

Again, this is a hope that will unfold, if at all, in the longer-term. What about the next five to ten years?

He then offers himself:

American troops in pursuit of UBL had to stand aside while indigenous elements took over the task. After months of no progress, Pakistan, still ruledby a military coup, declared that it was just too much bother, too upsetting to the locals to effectively prosecute the search and seizure of the most wanted man on earth.

Cozying up to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and not insisting on their recognition of the rights of their citizens, has proved to be ultimately a failed policy.

"Failed" in the sense that we obviously have not gotten all we wanted from these regimes.

But I can imagine worse failures-- such as Islamists completely taking over these countries.

Posted by: Ace at 09:24 AM | Comments (44)
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So says Taranto, and I believe him (last item):

And here's some statistical evidence: UC Berkeley recently completed what a press release describes as "the first attempt to compare measures of mental health and general well-being among California's general population on a county-level basis." The study (link in PDF) finds that the two counties with the lowest "mental health scores" are Alameda, which includes Berkeley, and San Francisco, which is coterminous with the city. (See page 30 of the PDF document, which is page 21 of the printed report.)

What else do these counties have in common? They are the California counties where John Kerry did best: 83% of the vote in San Francisco and 75% in Alameda. You don't have to be crazy to oppose President Bush, but it doesn't hurt.

Now, that's just a little fun baiting, of course. But it's preposterous for David Corn and others to maintain that there's a "myth" of the Angry Left. The Left is angry; in fact, it's addled.

Those who got so much mileage out of tossing out the term "Clinton-haters" to demean anyone who opposed Clinton can hardly complain about similarly demeaning terms now.

Posted by: Ace at 09:19 AM | Comments (15)
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Ron Rosenbaum wants Dan Rather to step down-- and take blame. And do so in order to spare his employees their firings, which of course is ultimately his fault.

It's a nice thought. Won't happen, of course. "Courage" only goes so far.

But actually the piece contains a more interesting passage. Rosenbaum explains how network news -- and news generally -- has come to so frequently appeal to emotions, usually in a partisan manner:

I witnessed the birth of the "Theory of Moments," which changed the very nature of broadcast news[,] which was devised by then–CBS News President Van Gordon Sauter. Mr. Sauter believed that broadcast news, the evening news, should reconceive itself from an anchor, like Mr. Cronkite, reading descriptions of events accompanied by illustrative film to a broadcast that offered us visually dominated emotional "moments." Moments in a filmed report that wordlessly reflect the emotional depth left out of news-reading reportage. Feelings. That TV news had a mission not just to give us Mr. Cronkite’s "That’s the way it is" but something more, something that only the camera can communicate: "That’s the way it feels."

...

I think, in fact, it might be worth dwelling on the origin of the Theory of Moments, since it plays an often-unacknowledged role in the way broadcast-news stories are structured: reaching for Moments— moments of feeling, moments of visceral emotion—no matter how manipulative.

...

It was a time of transition in broadcast news, and "Moments" was just one of the ways in which Mr. Sauter defined the reorientation of the Rather broadcast: "We moved the broadcast out of Washington. We emphasized stories from across the country where we could tell national stories through human experience and human perceptions more than through statements of bureaucrats and politicians. We tried to find the stories which responded to what the aspirations and apprehensions of the American people were. We emphasized storytelling, both verbally and visually."

Ah, "storytelling": It seems to be the new self-congratulatory mantra of TV news. As if storytelling were some purely neutral process, as if, like Moments, storytelling didn’t involve selection, point of view, not to mention the introduction of narrative techniques such as dramatic and emotional structuring. As if there were a "pure storytelling" without context—without the context of what is omitted and why. As if storytelling equals truth. Storytelling often, for instance, offers a false closure that reality never does.

In a way, it was storytelling that got Mr. Rather in trouble: He and his people were so convinced of the "essential truth" of the Bush National Guard–dodging story that they didn’t realize the documents looked too good to be true. Proved their "story" too perfectly.

As the outside report on the Memogate scandal concluded: "Mapes and her team were not focussed on any particular topic, [they] were trying to identify a viable story line regarding the PresidentÂ’s military service."

Good storytelling is almost always a virtue in fiction—but in nonfiction? It requires someone to select what stories are the stories that America will hear every night and why, as well as how those stories will be shaped and how much those values derived from fiction—drama, narrative drive, closure—will affect them. Not to mention emotion, so easy to manipulate.

And, by the way: Jonathan Klein, the new head of CNN, has announced that CNN will rise to ratings prominence by pursuing "storytelling" over, you know, actual news.

Posted by: Ace at 09:06 PM | Comments (4)
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