Sometime last night, or this morning, or next Tuesday (why can’t the Chinese operate on American time, like everybody else?), George Bush gave what he probably fancies as his “tear down this wall” speech. He excoriated China’s government for its human rights violations and encouraged that nation’s people to seek greater freedoms, using what his spokespeople call (and who ever questions their veracity?) his strongest language to date. And he boldly made these pronouncements in a location from which every last one of the 1.2 billion Chinese would be sure to hear him … Bangkok, Thailand.

Bush previously had said he wouldn’t speak out against China’s crackdowns on dissidents, support for the Sudanese government, or other such issues while actually attending the Olympic opening ceremonies, because he has so much “respect for the Chinese people.” Never mind that had he spoken such words anywhere in Beijing, Wal-Mart’s supply chain might have disappeared completely and China’s bankers might have called in our considerable debts. Or maybe his reticence had something to do with his plans for a glorious 41-and-43 reunion with Poppy, who just happens to be the former U.S. ambassador to … China.

Of course, these being the Bush years, details of the big China speech were forced to share space on the evening news with word of the latest glorious development in our own nation’s human rights shame spiral, the “War on Terror.” (These juxtapositions have become de rigueur as Bush’s hypocrisy continues to swing violently along the rip-line between tragic and laughable.) Not only did the Bushies fail to win a full conviction in the first terrorist show trial staged by the Pentagon’s kangaroo court — excuse me, “military commission” — but journalist Ron Suskind offered evidence in his new book that the entire basis for the Iraq War was not only a fraud, but a forgery as well.

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“Napoleon once said, when asked to explain the lack of great statesmen in the world, that to get power you need to display absolute pettiness. To exercise power, you need to show true greatness. Such pettiness and such greatness are rarely found in one person. I look upon the events of the past weeks, and I’ve never come so to grips with that quotation … Your leadership has raised the stakes of hate to a level where we can no longer separate the demagogue from the truly inspired.”
–President Jackson Evans (Jeff Bridges) in The Contender (2000)

Rod Lurie’s political films remind me of a college professor whose classes I simultaneously loved and hated: you had to sort through a lot of annoying bullshit to get to the brilliant insight at the end. (I figure I’m going to pay for that sentence in the comments section. Have at it!) Nevertheless, I happened to catch the last 15 minutes of The Contender on the tube Sunday morning, right after John Kerry nearly bitch-slapped the utterly deserving Joe Lieberman on Meet the Press, and that quarter-hour (like Lieberman’s performance) fairly reeked of the colossal stench John McCain’s campaign has been emitting for the past couple weeks.

In particular, the last line from Bridges’s speech begs to be viewed in the context of this presidential race. The Republican Party’s entire modus operandi, in the absence of any ideas that resonate with the American people, is now to render the electorate incapable of “separat[ing] the demagogue from the truly inspired.”

McCain once promised that things were going to be different this time. In April he said, point blank, “This will be a respectful campaign. Americans want a respectful campaign … they’re tired of the attacks. They’re tired of impugning people’s character and integrity. They want a respectful campaign — and I am of the firm belief that they can get it and they will get it if the American people demand it, and reject the negative stuff that goes on.”

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Nearly lost amid the fantastic PR (so far) and blind luck of Barack Obama’s Middle East tour – and the horror show that has been John McCain’s pathetic, flailing response to it – an astonishing story has developed in deepest Serbia this week. Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader who oversaw the rape of Sarajevo, the massacre at Srebrenica and the slaughter of more than 100,000 Muslims during the early 1990s, was finally captured in Belgrade after years in hiding.

The sizzle in this steak is partly in the circumstances: Karadzic, living under the name Dragan Dabic, was masquerading as a long-haired and bearded alternative-medicine guru who claimed to be able to treat everything from impotence to autism. (Thank goodness for that client who demanded an investigation after his erection not only lasted longer than four hours, but spent the whole time watching Judge Wapner and insisting it was “a very good driver.”)

Seeing Karadzic’s pompadour and sloe-eyed mug again, after all these years, couldn’t help but place Obama and McCain’s squabbling over Middle East politics into a fresh context. After all, here was a guy who, at the time of his disappearance in 1995, had been supervising a ruthless campaign of ethnic cleansing for four years. Here was a guy who, in cahoots with his buddy Slobodan Milosevic, brought nearly a decade of war, rape and outright genocide to the former Yugoslavia in order to make that land safe for a single ethnic group.

These were guys, in short, who needed to be Gotten Rid Of, and fast. Sounds a lot like the argument against Saddam Hussein, doesn’t it? Sure, if we’re talking about the aggressive, gassy Saddam of 1990-91, and not the boxed-in, sanctioned-to-his-eyeballs, no-fly-zoned (and, let’s not forget, no-WMD’d) Saddam of 2002-03. (more…)

For four days now, the left side of the electorate has been scratching its collective head and asking itself, “Why don’t I think this is funny?” Of course, “this” is the cover of the current issue of the New Yorker; it has inspired all manner of hand-wringing and tsk-tsking – as well as a series of progressively more desperate attempts by the man who green-lit the gag, New Yorker editor David Remnick, to scream to the masses, “Would you people just lighten up?”

One general theme of the criticism is the fear that while the cartoon clearly was intended as satire, it might be “read” as true by a certain unsavory slice of the populace. This view is summed up in a cartoon by the Washington Post’s Tom Toles:

Another suggestion, particularly among lefties, is that the New Yorker has offended its target audience because it published an image that eventually might have been dreamed up anyway – by a magazine that caters to Obama haters rather than his likely constituents. Some have noted that they wouldn’t have been surprised to see such a cartoon, stripped of any ironic context, on the cover of National Review. Cartoonist David Horsey of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has lampooned such literalism, imagining a liberal’s fantasy of how National Review could offend its own audience: (more…)

On the day we celebrated my daughter Catie’s first birthday, my good friend Robert Simonson came out to the suburbs for the party and marveled at the mountain of toys piled up on the living room rug. “Why does she need all these toys?” he asked, half rhetorically. “You know, the Shakers gave each child one doll made out of cloth, and those kids used their imaginations and made out just fine.”

In my continuing consumerist sprint to reject Robert’s admonition, last month I took Catie (now 6) to see an opening-weekend screening of Kit Kittredge: An American Girl. And what a glorious day it was! Having already dressed ourselves up and taken ourselves to a matinee of Wicked at Hollywood’s legendary Pantages Theatre, Catie and I booked across town to the Grove for the perfect nightcap to our daddy-girl culture-fest. After a leisurely and purchase-filled roam around American Girl Place, the colossal retail center of the AG empire, we crossed the street and settled into a pair of newfangled multiplex stadium-seats to take in the doll franchise’s first big-screen adventure.

Yes, it was a special time – made even more special because Felicity and Julie came along. Felicity is a proper, well-bred lass from the 1770s who believes fervently in animal rights but isn’t so sure about revolution – at least not until her father’s brash apprentice convinces her that even young ladies have a role to play in securing their rights. Julie, on the other hand, is a hippie chick from the 1970s who is mighty concerned about conservation (she saves eagles!) and the nascent women’s lib movement (she plays basketball on the boys’ team!).

Felicity and Julie are, of course, inanimate objects. Yet I know all of these biographical details about them because we’ve read the tie-in books that play such a large role in the American Girls’ runaway popularity. Up on the screen that night was the filmic story of yet another archetype, the depression-era heroine Kit – scion of the only FDR lovers in conservative Cincinnati, friend and defender of hobos, crusader for social justice in the face of police profiling. The message of Kit Kittredge is one of tolerance, of forgiveness, of judging not lest ye be judged…and, of course, of Girl Power!

In other words, Phyllis Schlafly’s worst nightmare. (more…)

If you’ve watched the TV news carefully this week, you may have noticed that somewhere amidst the all-Russert-all-the-time lovefest there were other events taking place – some of which might have benefited from some Russertian analysis.

There are, of course, massive floods up and down the Mississippi River – a “500-year flood” that has taken out levees up and down the Iowa-Illinois border, according to the Army Corps of Engineers. The enormous damage to homes and lives has often taken a backseat to worries about the damage to the Midwest corn crop. (Less ethanol next winter! More food riots in Africa!)

There is the Bush-McCain pas de deux on oil drilling, with both men suddenly insisting that Congress open the waters off our shores to “exploration and exploitation” (as McCain put it) for the first time in 28 years. Failing to do so, one of them said (I can’t remember which – it’s hard to tell them apart), would doom our nation to many more years of gas prices like we’re seeing now ($4.63 at the local Chevron this afternoon).

And then there is the re-emergence of Rudy Giuliani to shore up McCain’s dipping foreign-policy numbers and to rationalize his slipping appreciation for American values. In the wake of last week’s Supreme Court decision restoring some measure of habeas corpus rights to Gitmo detainees – and with his 9/11 blinders enabling him to ignore the resurgent violence in Iraq and Afghanistan – Rudy trotted out an oldie but goodie, accusing Barack Obama of…wait for it…reverting to a “September 10 mindset” when it comes to applying the (god forbid) Constitution to our treatment of “enemy combatants.”

The media has treated these three developments separately, but to me they’re all part of the same story. Simply put, our nation’s disastrous energy policy is breaking us financially – and when it’s not busy doing that it’s getting us killed around the world, or avoiding the middleman and ravaging us at home via the type of extreme weather that just might portend a climate-change apocalypse. Out-of-control oil prices, Middle East instability and global warming are related problems that require a unified solution. It inevitably will be the task of the next president, even if it’s John McCain, to begin the long-delayed process of weaning this nation (and eventually the world) off of oil and other fossil fuels. (more…)

This was a tough weekend for political junkies – particularly those whose televisions generally find themselves tuned to NBC-related channels. Tim Russert’s death on Friday at the far-too-young age of 58 was nothing less than a cataclysm in this riveting campaign season. He was not just a fixture among the TV commentariat – he was the unquestioned Lord God King of on-air political analysis, the most credible voice on a Tuesday election night as well as the most reliable among all the Sunday-morning quizzers of politicians and pundits.

The weekend was a wall-to-wall weepfest on MSNBC, starting with the raw emotions of Friday evening (when Keith Olbermann’s makeup people couldn’t keep enough pancake on his cheeks to hide the tears, and the pain showed through even on Andrea Mitchell’s surgically improved and/or heavily Botoxed face). By Saturday, an hourlong tribute hosted by Tom Brokaw was running on a loop, and on Sunday Brokaw moved over to the mothership to serve as ringmaster for a televised wake on Meet the Press.

Even after all that catharsis, a huge hole remains evident in the “political culture” that this column aims to explore. Don’t worry, I’m not going to pursue the general hagiography of Russert, what a great guy he was and what a wonderful son; you can find that elsewhere (and besides, I’ve seen enough of “Big Russ” this weekend to last me my whole life). What concerns me is the fact that Russert was such a uniquely talented inquisitor and commentator, that his words and deeds had such an impact on the political scene – and that there is no one currently in the TV-journo profession who stands even a ghost of a chance of filling his shoes.

Russert, quite simply, was the definitive voice of this political age – from his dressing-down of David Duke in 1992 to the whiteboard reading “Florida, Florida, Florida” on election night 2000, and straight on to his dramatic pronouncement after last month’s North Carolina primary that “we now know who the Democratic nominee is going to be, and no one’s going to dispute it.” Hillary Clinton didn’t like that last proclamation, nor did she abide by it, but she was practically the only one who didn’t; though she went through the motions for four more weeks and racked up $20 million of debt, Russert’s was the last word on the campaign for many millions of Americans. (more…)

Yesterday afternoon I was shopping around for a new mattress for my son’s bedroom, and I happened upon a brand-new America’s Mattress outlet in my town with a flashy “Grand Opening” sign out front. Business wasn’t exactly brisk on a Wednesday afternoon, so the store manager, whose name badge read Sue-Z (no kidding), happily took her time showing me the “plush-but-not-pricey” mattresses I had asked to see.

Sue-Z had some nice things to show me, was quick to whip out a calculator and engage in some on-the-spot price slashing when she felt me hesitate, and she cheerfully offered to give me her business card when I said I needed to think things over (i.e., compare her prices with other stores). We headed to her desk — and there, on a table, was a big ol’ stack of Bibles.

Now, I’ve become accustomed to seeing Bibles for sale in the book department at Target; I’ve spent a bit of time in Christian bookstores (mostly as a teenager, if I remember correctly, because one such store was on my paper route); and it’s not unusual to see the occasional Judeo-Christian trinket (not to mention a Buddha or any number of feng-shui fountains) in a boutique or tchotchke shop. And I’ve heard about the trend toward businesses that wear their religion on their sleeves, from realtors to banks to hair salons. (There was even an article about such businesses in Time a few years back.) But this was a new one for me: Bibles being given away in an otherwise seemingly non-religious store, much less a mattress shop.

My first response was a mental leap to the place where one usually finds a Bible next to the bed – and thinking of hotel rooms and Gideon’s Bibles always sends me into a couple of sung-to-myself verses of “Rocky Raccoon.” But I must admit that I was put off by that stack of religious literature – so much so that I gave serious consideration to not returning to the store, even though its prices were extremely competitive and Sue-Z (I can’t stop writing her name!) was even offering free delivery.

I am an agnostic. That’s an unfashionable term these days, I know; in addition to the scorn and/or proselytizing it traditionally provokes from believers, agnosticism has recently come in for derision from trendy atheists as well, who demand that agnostics get off the fence and call us cowards for refusing to admit that God doesn’t exist. In my case, I find it impossible to rule out the existence of some kind of guiding force in the universe. What I have definitively ruled out is devotion to any particular set of religious principles, or attachment to any creed that excludes or rejects the beliefs or devotion of any other creed. I firmly believe – despite the good works performed by countless people and institutions in the name of their faiths – that organized religion is divisive, delusional bullshit. But that doesn’t mean I reject the possibility of God. (more…)

15. His trash-talking during high school basketball games inspired White Men Can’t Jump

14. Until 2004, his last name was X

13. His actual grandmother? Oprah

12. He’ll only put his hand on his heart at Sanford and Son conventions

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The strange case of Joe Lieberman just gets curiouser and curiouser. Had things gone slightly different in Florida eight years ago, the current “Independent” senator from Connecticut might be wrapping up the Democratic presidential nomination as Al Gore’s anointed successor. In such a bizarro world, Lieberman might be preparing for a general-election campaign against Republican nominee John McCain; instead, as events have transpired in the “reality-based” world, he has transformed into a former Democrat whose Droopy Dog mug is perpetually seen in McCain’s shadow at rallies, and who lovingly corrects McCain’s Sunni-Shi’a senior moments during Iraqi photo ops.

Lieberman seems to have had the same reaction to 9/11 as, say, Dennis Miller – and each man has completely lost his bearings as a result. (Neither is very funny these days, either.) Most recently, Lieberman has become front man for the latest assault on Internet free speech, in his guise as chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. (Why Democrats are allowing him to chair anything more significant than a Passover seder at this point is beyond me.) Among other things, he has written a letter to Google CEO Eric Schmidt demanding that YouTube – which, in case you’ve forgotten, is now part of the Google empire – remove dozens of videos that “disseminate [terrorist] propaganda, enlist followers, and provide weapons training.”

Lieberman’s panel has released a staff report entitled “Violent Islamist Extremism, the Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat,” which documents the ways in which Al Qaeda and other groups use the Web to attract new members and disseminate information. It’s part of the push to enact a bill called the “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007,” which already passed the House overwhelmingly. The act would create a new National Commission on the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism, which would have broad powers to propose new laws curbing the “radicalization” of U.S. citizens by foreign groups, and to investigate Americans suspected of involvement in subversive activities overseas or at home.

It would be, at heart, an “Un-American Activities Committee” for the 21st century – and Lieberman’s first salvo in this effort is aimed at the world’s largest distributor of user-generated online video. What makes YouTube/Google appealing to Lieberman, of course, is its stature as the biggest fish in a very big sea – one that is responsible to corporate shareholders who might place concerns over their stock values above the (almost) anything-goes ethos of YouTube and the Internet in general. (more…)