What Massacre?

Hell's raging in so many places at the moment that it'll take me the better part of this week, and maybe next, to deal with it all -- assuming that I will. East Timor, Afghanistan, and as ever, Iraq, continue to burn and suffer to such a degree that the tappings of a single soul seem grossly inadequate, a tiny water balloon tossed at a rising wall of flame. Makes one want to go into hibernation mode, where the Real World is kept at bay or simply denied by absorbing the many apolitical diversions available to we lucky Americans. But then, that guarantees more criminal insanity will go unchecked, and there's plenty of stateside denial as it is, most recently applied to the Haditha massacre in Iraq.

That we are largely a brainwashed country should be beyond any serious debate by now; yet, being brainwashed, there's very little serious debate to begin with. Still, even in the flurry of justifications and bare-bones ass covering, one can find elements of the larger truth. In a recent NYTimes report on how Haditha is affecting the Camp Pendleton Marine base, Cpl. Michael Miller, who fought in Falluja and Ramadi, observed, "In Iraq, everything you do has to be cleared with a commanding officer. You just can't go clearing houses without the permission of higher-ups."

If what Cpl. Miller says is true, then there goes the "rotten apple" defense. And anyway, we know that someone in the chain-of-command knew this massacre would not play well with many observers, which is why there was an attempted cover-up. Frontline grunts don't have the power or reach to minimize or erase such a grisly deed, so it makes sense that their superiors would be actively involved in trying to divert the inevitable attention that comes when civilians, women and children among them, are executed in their own homes.

But acknowledgement of this reality doesn't necessarily inspire condemnation of the act. Cpl. Miller added, "I just think the marines did what they had to do. I don't know why innocent people are dead, but someone must have seen a gun." This sentiment seems to be the prevailing one at Camp Pendleton, where active duty and former Marines interviewed by the Times appear incapable of accepting the massacre on its face.

"In the heat of combat, you cannot hesitate; he who hesitates is lost," said Marine vet Jerry Alexander. "I would not prosecute these young men because they were just doing their jobs."

Lawrence Harper, another ex-Marine, explained, "When a bullet comes at you and you turn around and half your buddy's head is blown off, it changes the way you think forever."

I'm sure it does. But given who was murdered in those homes, one must ask, how does this translate into shooting a child pointblank in the skull? Is the sense of vengeance so extreme that everyone's a target, regardless of age or possible threat? And how do you execute women and children face-to-face in "the heat of battle"? (Of course, seeing your buddy's head blown off can also change the way you think in the opposite direction, as the growing roster of antiwar vets shows.)

It's somewhat understandable that those so invested in their military identities want to avoid thinking the worst about Haditha, but that doesn't excuse it. After all, this isn't the first -- and sure as hell won't be the last -- massacre of civilians at the hands of US soldiers and Marines in our glorious history. And yet whenever something like this occurs, domestic commentators appear perplexed that young Americans could do such horrific things, while both professional and amateur patriots either deny it, change the subject to "What about the beheaders?", or, if cornered, take pride in mass murder and warn people they'll never meet to not "mess with the US." Meanwhile, the mass of the population go about their debt-ridden lives, doing their best to avoid direct mention of the barbarism and misery that they pay for, wanting merely to be left alone to consume fast food and reality TV, and pretend that none of this really matters. Because if it did, what National Guard remains stateside would be on 24-hour guard outside the White House gates to keep angry, disgusted citizens from rushing it, and local representatives would be holed up in their offices, waving tattered white flags out of broken windows. Jefferson would understand, as would Grant, Twain, Emma Goldman and Malcolm X. But who in this land of endless strip malls would understand them?

MORE: On Haditha (with Geographix!) from Jon Schwarz, who recently went the ringer route by enlisting the help of heavy-hitters Seth Ackerman and Michael Pollak. Kinda like what the Yankees do, though Jon's site boasts a higher batting average.

Tony Whacks Iraq

Dunno how I missed this, but it seems that James Gandolfini has a Soprano-ish solution for the Iraq war:

"[R]einstate the draft, send 500,000 troops and finish it . . . I’d go. I’m too old and fat, but I’d drive a truck.”

And sell black market body armor to grunts out the back. I mean, if you're gonna play the part, play it right.

What a sick fucking joke. I guess Gandolfini hasn't seen enough of this and this. Not your neighborhood deli meatgrinder.

BONK!

I'm corrupting my son with slapstick.

Every parent pushes something on their kids, some more benignly than others, and in my case it's comedians who hit each other and fall or spill in spectacular ways. It began innocently enough, years ago while watching a few Buster Keaton shorts. The boy, just past post-baby, walked into the room and stared at the black and white action from seven-plus decades before. Keaton has rarely made me laugh out loud -- I smile more than anything else -- but the boy found the great Stone Face hilarious, laughing and jumping about. One thing I can say about my son is that he doesn't stem or fake his joy and enthusiasm, so his happy discovery of Keaton inspired me to see what else he might like in that vein.

Though the silent comedians are a necessary primer to best understand and appreciate American slapstick, and the Three Stooges an absolute necessity, the Hollywood cartoons of the 1940s and '50s really bring this home, six/seven minute bursts of animated frenzy and immaculate timing. I've written about this before, when the boy and I were exposed to classic cartoons while bowling; but he and I have privately watched dozens and dozens of these shorts, from the unmatchable Warner Bros. output to the bargain-basement Terrytoons and Van Buren Studios, the latter of which featured as its main comic character Molly Moo Cow, who spoke no human language or had any special skill, but simply rollicked and mooed thru cheaply-drawn pastures, encountering minor dangers that Bugs Bunny would simply brush aside. But it's Tex Avery's toons that the boy really loves, which gladdens but doesn't surprise me.

Avery pushed American animation to its limits (for its time), and possessed some of the finest and sharpest comic timing I've ever seen, toon and human alike. When the boy first watched Avery's work, he said it reminded him a little of some Cartoon Network shows. As well it should -- Avery's influence is everywhere, so it's nice to show my son what the original looks like, and how much funnier Avery's shorts remain.

(One of my better-paying speaking gigs was at Villanova, where I talked about Avery's cartoons, their cultural significance and influence. But the real fun was simply showing a few of his better shorts -- nothing like getting paid to screen Daffy Duck and Droopy cartoons. My son was amazed when I told him of this gig, and he said in all seriousness, "Hey Dad, that would be a great job for you!" Tell me about it!)

All of this viewing has come in handy at his school's annual talent show, where the boy and I have performed brief physical skits to the delight of the assembled kids, but also to the consternation of a few parents who felt we were putting "unsuitable" ideas in the heads of the children. Our biggest crime came two years ago, when the lad played a strange, abusive magician and I his hapless assistant/victim. The visual punchline came when he was to pull a rabbit out of his hat, but instead produced a pair of men's underwear. I then began to shimmy and shake, reached into my pants and yanked out the missing stuffed rabbit, which brought the house down. The kids loved it; the teachers seemed split; some parents smiled, but others glared at me when I came off stage. Within days I heard from some teachers that they received several complaints about how kids were pulling stuffed animals out of their pants at home while referring to our act. This cast a mild pall over our talent show appearances since, with teachers telling us "no poop jokes, no references to butts, no hitting over the head, no kicking, and especially NO PULLING THINGS OUT OF YOUR PANTS." We still do well (I mean, the kid has a ringer for a partner -- and a director, a duty the wife handles), our most recent bit being a recreation of a simple handshake, crammed with all kinds of visual absurdity, ending with me getting creamed with a large Cool Whip pie. That old gag still works, at least with elementary school kids.

Here are a few of our fave cartoons for this extended weekend.

The first is a late Tex Avery short, when he finished his cinematic career at Walter Lantz's studios. This one really cracks us up, and is a streamlined version of some of Avery's earlier routines.



Here's the first Screwball Squirrel cartoon, Avery's violent reaction to all the cute and fuzzy animal characters that were popular at the time. My son loves Screwy, but Avery soon found the Squirrel so abrasive that he ditched the character after a few more outings.



And finally, an Avery MGM short that's the acme of extreme reaction shots.



Can't tell you how many times a week I feel like that wolf.

Whose Hero?

Arriving a bit late to the Jean Sara Rohe/Mark Salter/John McCain/New School mini-drama, which was picked apart by libloggers earlier this week. The consensus, overall, is that McCain's longtime aide Salter acted like an asshole in drubbing Rohe, who had the gall to question McCain's presence at her New School graduation ceremony. Rohe responded to Salter's attack by asserting her right as an American to question authority in a respectful manner, and that, so far, seems that.

Salter had his defenders, of course, though one rightwing scribe, Tom Bevan, offered some tactical advice. While he more or less agreed with what Salter wrote, Bevan thought it a bit much for a Beltway insider to whack a dopey liberal kid, and that Salter's anger, while understandable, gave Rohe more publicity than she deserved. Still, Bevan couldn't resist taking a few shots himself after quoting one of Rohe's commencement remarks:

"Finally, Senator McCain will tell us that we, those of us who are Americans, 'have nothing to fear from each other.' I agree strongly with this, but I take it one step further. We have nothing to fear from anyone on this living planet. Fear is the greatest impediment to the achievement of peace."

Knowing a softball when he sees it, Bevan responded: "This is the sort of mushy, 'kumbaya' leftist pablum that is deserving of derision, especially when it comes from a Greenwich-Village-ensconced student whose idea of hardship is having to forego an extra shot in her Starbucks latte, lecturing a war hero and statesman who can't lift his torture-riddled arms over his head about how the real problem in the world is that we can't join hands in a big circle with bin Laden and al-Qaeda and work out our differences."

Kumbaya. Pablum. Greenwich Village. Latte. Bevan crammed every cliché he could in that brief riposte, which is what rightwingers (and wised-up liberals like Marc Cooper) do on a regular basis. No surprise there. But what caught my eye is how Bevan, while extolling McCain, uses Osama and al-Qaeda to not only prove how dangerously clueless Rohe supposedly is, but show how a rugged McCain better understands the threat to our very existence. I've no doubt that McCain opposes Osama and all that he stands for -- today. But go back to the 1980s, when Osama and his comrades were terrorizing Afghan civilians, doctors and teachers in an effort to destroy what secular culture existed in that country, and you'll find that John McCain was cheering them on. As late as the 1988 Republican National Convention, McCain praised these "freedom fighters" for their assaults on women and children, then in the next breath, called for more American-backed terrorism against Nicaragua, which by that point had claimed tens of thousands of lives.

No mushy kumbaya peddler, he.

But that's simple American political hypocrisy and willful historical amnesia. Part of the daily fabric. The larger point, flogged by both Salter and Bevan, is that McCain's POW past makes him a better and wiser person than anyone who would dare question his political agenda, especially a liberal girl in Greenwich Village. This is the Medusa Head waved around by McCain supporters when they want to silence and shame his critics. It has worked consistently on the Liberal Media: when McCain ran for the GOP's 2000 presidential nomination, he openly and without apology tossed around terms like "gook" to describe the Vietnamese. Few, if any, in the media called him on it, preferring to lay petals at his feet and swoon before his Straight Talk. Part of this stemmed from the fact that the media, far from being the commie defeatniks of popular rightwing lore, largely supported the murderous assaults on Vietnam, stopping only to question whether or not these assaults were "working." The raw meat reality that the US slaughtered millions there never really registered with them, and hasn't still, so verbally degrading the Vietnamese was and remains no big deal, which is why McCain could get away with it. Also, compared to a draft dodger like Bill Clinton, McCain had more machismo -- he'd been in The Shit and was tortured for it, and this thrilled and continues to thrill a lot of liberals, both in the media and out. McCain is a War Hero, so he has a free pass to say pretty much anything he likes.

Making heroes out of those who cash in their Vietnam War chips for political gain is a pretty slippery business, especially so in McCain's case. Recall that McCain took an active part in Operation Rolling Thunder, where tons upon tons of explosives were dropped on Vietnamese cities and villages from 1965 to '68, killing God knows how many people, and maiming countless more. To call Rolling Thunder a war crime is a gross understatement, but McCain had no problem adding to the Vietnamese body count, flying 23 missions before being shot down over Hanoi in October, 1967. He survived the crash with some broken bones, was captured and sent to Hoa Lo prison where he spent five and a half years as a POW.

From the moment of his capture, when he was apparently beaten by a mob, to the years of torture during his incarceration, much has been made about McCain's resilience and bravery, and naturally this later beefed up his character profile when he entered US politics. Unlike a lot of Republicans and two-fisted libs like Alan Dershowitz and Jonathan Alter, I'm against torture across the board. I don't care who does it or for what reason. I've no doubt that McCain suffered horribly, but is anyone at all surprised? How do you suppose Americans would treat an enemy pilot who was part of an ongoing bombing campaign of US cities and towns? We've seen what soldiers will do to Iraqis not charged with any crime in their own country, so it doesn't take much of an imagination to conceive how guards in, say, Leavenworth, would handle foreign belligerents engaged in slaughtering millions of Americans, assuming that those prisoners made it alive to prison in the first place. This doesn't excuse mental and physical abuse of American POWs like McCain, but bombing the holy living fuck out of a smaller country that committed no aggression against yours is not exactly cost-free. And those, like Salter, Bevan, and McCain himself, who play the POW card in order to limit or cancel political criticism, do a severe disservice to what domestic debate exists, play down if not deny our criminal imperial past, and help to ensure that misery, death, and, yes, torture, continue for some time to come.

Jean Sara Rohe should have been much harder on McCain and Salter. Perhaps her experience will serve as a lasting post-graduate lesson, or better, the first lesson in the school of How The Powerful Really Operate. Welcome to The Show, kid.

Sweet Dixie

The first single from the new Dixie Chicks album, "Not Ready To Make Nice," has already pricked the shit kickin' faithful.

"It is, as one country radio programmer says [to Time magazine], 'a four-minute fuck you to the format and our listeners. I like the Chicks, and I won't play it.'"

Neither will a number of other country radio stations, it seems.

To quote some aging frat boy playing fighter pilot man -- Mission Accomplished.

The Chicks are back, gone the pop rock route, and have flushed that tepid, commercially-pressured apology for criticizing Dear Leader on the eve of his glorious war.

"I apologized for disrespecting the office of the President," says Natalie Maines in the same Time story. "But I don't feel that way anymore. I don't feel he is owed any respect whatsoever."

I'm not big on the Chicks sound, but the loud Fuck You to their erstwhile fans does make me smile. And while a good portion of the Chicks' renewed anger is market rebranding, you can sense that they truly mean what they say, especially Maines, who holds little nostalgia for their more acceptable, commercial persona.

"I never wrote anything from my point of view. Even if it was something that happened to me, I would write it like it was a character and I was telling someone else's story ... That's not very brave."

Martie Maguire adds, "I'd rather have a smaller following of really cool people who get it, who will grow with us as we grow and are fans for life, than people that have us in their five-disc changer with Reba McEntire and Toby Keith. We don't want those kinds of fans. They limit what you can do."

Considering how Keith, jingo cowboy supreme, crudely conflated the Chicks' mild dissent with a fondness for Saddam Hussein to the primal delight of his fans, Maguire's contempt is understandable. Music is the international language, but there are areas of contemporary country that are decidedly fenced-in and tone deaf to democratic debate, and acts like Keith profit shamelessly from this tribalism and ignorance. There are a lot of stupid, violent Americans who'll pay to have hacks shout their idiocy and aggressive fantasies back at them; and though the Chicks never took that twisted path, they did at one time play to these Americans, as the subsequent fallout (and death threats) showed. Small wonder, then, that they feel relieved to be away from this crowd.

By the way -- and please forgive my weakness here -- when looking at the above photo of the Chicks, I still cannot fathom what was going through Christopher Hitchens' fading mind when he called them "fucking fat slags." Perhaps, as with much of his public rhetoric, this was sheer projection. I've seen Hitchens naked -- trust me, not a pretty or healthy sight. Beauty may be relative, but I'll take the Dixie Chicks over that fat slag any time.

ENJOY: This segment from "Mr. Show," which parodies the type of Americans and country singers the Chicks have abandoned. And thanks to all those who showed my feeble tech ass how to post a vid clip.

USOhhh

Having given to the USO in the recent past, we naturally receive letters asking for more contributions. I never read these. I don't need to be told why it's a good thing to buy phone time for a young soldier or Marine so he or she can talk to loved ones back home. As much as I hate this fucking war, and the bullshit War On (Endless) Terror overall, I try not to lump all the grunts in with the criminals who lie to them and let them be massacred, shattered, broken and cynically used in pursuit of a geopolitical power play that's not in their interests. Yes, there are some twisted murderous thugs in the lower ranks (I knew a few back when I was in uniform) -- the executions of women and children in Haditha, among other areas that we know nothing of, is evidence of that. But a growing number of combat vets are actively against this war, and like those vets of conscience before them, they need to know that we're with them, that this brutal insanity affects us all. To a certain degree, the USO helps to make tangible this connection.

Of course, not everything the USO does furthers the cause. It's a terribly cautious organization, and tries to play down if not completely mute any political expression lest the grunts, who are on the frontlines of direct political reality, hear something that might hurt their "morale." I'm willing to bet that one's morale is gonna be hurt if not completely beaten to the pavement and strangled by the war itself, so catching a singer or comic dissing Bush and Cheney, most likely in an indirect or offbeat way, shouldn't make matters much worse. And what of über-nationalist celebs who praise the administration and support the war? Are they helping "morale"? Surely there are plenty of angry, confused or disgruntled GIs who have no use for those who put them in that hellhole -- how are their spirits lifted when they see a wealthy civilian who's going back to the States alive and unharmed beat a pro-war drum? While there are grunts who obviously love this sort of display, indeed, they may be in the majority, not everyone has the same view, as we've seen in various videos and films from Iraq where soldiers openly bemoan their situation and pine for home. So why must visiting entertainers pretend that these doubts, fears and utter hatred of the stated "mission" don't exist?

I know -- the USO is there to take young grunts' minds off Iraq's daily carnage. How that's done, if it's ever truly done, I cannot say. And as massacres, maiming, torture, executions and misery continue to swallow Iraq, even the USO, in its printed appeal for donations, must acknowledge what it doesn't want its performers to publicly admit: the war is going badly. As I said at the top, I never read these appeals, but my daughter opened the USO envelope and began reading the letter aloud as I wiped down the kitchen counter:

"It's no secret that there is increasing public opposition to the War in Iraq. At the USO, our fear is that some public opinion may turn against our troops and their families. Our job is to make sure that these magnificent men and women know that most Americans are still behind them."

Note the confusion and desperation of this appeal: opposition to the war may become hostility to the troops and those close to them. So pump up the patriotism, dear supporter, dig deep and negate this undeniable reality!

First and foremost, I've yet to see any serious trashing of the troops by those opposed to their deployment to Iraq. In fact, every anti-war gathering or fundraising event I've been a part of has featured either veterans or their family members, so I don't know when this "turn against our troops and their families" is to take place, or what it'll ostensibly look like. And while the USO appeal doesn't directly say that support for the war is the only Correct Position one can adopt to show "these magnificent men and women know that most Americans are still behind them," it sure as hell is implied, especially when contrasted against "increasing public opposition" to the war. More to the point, if an "increasing" number of Americans are against this madness, then how can "most Americans" show their allegiance to the troops without being at least somewhat critical of their presence in Iraq?

But the underlying reality being skirted here is that "most Americans" can be behind the troops while calling for their return home (and demanding Bush's impeachment as well). This is something the USO doesn't want to consider, much less explore, preferring to cling by splintering fingernails to a rather dated concept of "support." True, fundraising appeals aren't meant to double as political analysis, yet it's the USO that raises anti-war sentiment in an effort to thwart its effect while bringing in the bucks. For a supposedly "apolitical" organization, this is a curious way to elicit financial support. But given the reality that it grudgingly recognizes, the USO appears limited in its options. You can send out the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders only so many times before the pom-poms begin to tatter and fray.

Still Here

Apogs for the lack of posts. Busy in the offline world. But I'm happy to see that the Son's readership is rising, so I plan to post several times in the upcoming week in order to justify your visits. So come back Mon and I'll let 'er rip.

In the meantime, some visual filler from YouTube, to which I'm somewhat addicted.

I'm not terribly crazy about the mannequin show Paul McCartney's become, but I was impressed with this performance of "Helter Skelter" at the '06 Grammys. Not bad for a guy in his 60s, even though the song was his version of John Lennon's late-60s heavy-met style. The conventional wisdom is that Lennon pushed McCartney to have more of an edge, and judging from the lollipop tunes he cranked out with Wings, I'd say that was true.

But even McCartney admitted that Jimi Hendrix was better than The Beatles; and when you watch these prime performances by the late guitar wiz and his Experience (Mitch Mitchell is surely one of the most overlooked rock drummers ever), it's hard to deny McCartney's claim. And here's Hendrix on Dick Cavett's old show, from 1969. I plan to write soon about shows like Cavett's, many of which I've been watching for the first time since I was a kid, and about how, in those days, talk TV was much more intelligent, eclectic and interesting, as opposed to the shout & shill fests of our current time.

And speaking of old TV talk, if you haven't seen this intellectual dismantling of William F. Buckley by Noam Chomsky (also from 1969), then you're in for a treat -- unless, of course, you like Buckley. (Wonder why he never had Noam on again after this . . .) Noam's still bringing it, as last week's hysteria about him supposedly "hugging" Hezbollah proves.

A tech request: Does anyone know how to directly link videos to a blog page as is done at Crooks and Liars, where you simply click on the frozen image? This aging tapper would like to try it. Thanks.

Vengeance

[T]he passion for vengeance is a terrifyingly strong one, very easily and probably inevitably wrought up by such evidence, even at our distance. But however well aware I am of its strength, and that in its full immediate force and expression it is in some respects irrelevant to moral inquiry, I doubt that it is ever to be honored, or regarded as other than evil and in every direction fatally degrading and destructive; even when it is obeyed in hot blood or in a crisis of prevention; far worse when it is obeyed in cold blood and in the illusion of carrying out justice.

I think it has taken such strong hold on so many of us most essentially because we suspect the passion itself, and know that even if the passion were a valid one to honor there would be no finding victims, or forms of vengeance, remotely sufficient to satisfy it. We cannot bear to face our knowledge that the satisfaction of our desire for justice, which we confuse with our desire for vengeance, is impossible. And so we invent as a victim the most comprehensive image which our reason, however deranged, will permit us: the whole of a people and the descendants of that people: and count ourselves incomparably their superiors if we stop short of the idea of annihilation. And we refuse to grant that this war has proved itself lost--if indeed it ever could have been won--as surely in our own raging vengefulness as in that of the mob in Milan square. Indeed, we are worse than they and worse, in some respects, than the Nazis. There can be no bestiality so discouraging to contemplate as that of the man of good-will when he is misusing his heart and his mind; and there can be no trusting him merely because, in the long run, he customarily comes part way to, and resumes his campaign for, what he likes to call human dignity.

James Agee
The Nation
May 19, 1945

So wrote Agee, doubtless under clouds of unfiltered smoke in the dead of night, about American attitudes toward the defeated Germans, though these penetrating thoughts would prove more apt a few months later in the wake of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Agee was somewhat on the journo-fringe of his time, yet widely respected by his peers. I cannot imagine a writer like him making it in today's market, especially with musings like the above. The irony, if it can be called such, is that right after the 20th century's most destructive conflict, there was room for critical explorations of the victorious mood -- in fact, it was expected, if not embraced by all.

In our Terror Age, where World War II comparisons are freely tossed around, such explorations are commonly viewed as slanderous treason. Even those who aren't completely war crazy feel the need to honor certain military symbols and polish what passes for American "pride." Agee blew past these restrictions on a regular basis, oftentimes in the pages of Time magazine, back when the reactionary Henry Luce was signing his paycheck. Imagine today's Time publishing anyone remotely like Agee. Ana Marie Cox would giggle nervously while rattling her prop martini glass, and Andrew Sullivan would snort with upturned nose about Time's back page Fifth Column.

But this is not Agee's age. Lucky him. Still, it would be fascinating to see what he thought of Spielberg's "Munich," which I finally watched over the weekend. The film deals exclusively with the concept of nationalist vengeance that Agee explored 60 years ago, and I suspect he'd conclude that very little has changed.

Since its theatrical release, "Munich" has inspired acres of extremely bad writing, tortured analysis, and moments of sheer racism. The suggestion that Palestinians and Israelis are at all equal rankles many domestic commentators, Sullivan included (who endorsed this idiotic review as, apparently, his take on the film); and that Spielberg, along with screenwriters Tony Kushner and Eric Roth, doesn't show Palestinians crawling on all fours with dead Jewish children in their mouths is an outrage and clearly anti-Israel, if not anti-American, in intent and in practice.

Of course, thanks to "Schindler's List" and his work on remembering the European Jewish holocaust, Spielberg has received as many quizzical looks and remorseful sighs as he has direct assaults on his character. Tony Kushner, on the other hand, being gay, Jewish and decidedly left wing, has taken the brunt of angry, nasty reactions, which I'm sure he fully expected, given his history and the film's subject matter. I don't know how this personally affects him, if it affects him at all; but all I can say is, a Mazel on you, Tony. You've helped open the debate a little wider, and thus forced our domestic Phalange to become even more extreme in their public conduct. It's a disgusting sight, but it helps to clarify matters and show us just who-is-who in this dreadful time.

Not all attacks on "Munich" are from the war-loving right. I've heard some lefty carping about how the Palestinians in the film aren't shown debating their tactics and searching their souls as do the Israeli assassins, and that this reduces them to terrorist stereotypes. While it's true that the characters representing Black September (who carried out the slaughter of the Israeli athletes in Munich) and the PLO are not fully formed, the film really isn't about them -- it's about the dark side of what initially seems righteous and just retribution meted out by Israeli patriots, and the emerging realization that there's more going on than simple tribal tit-for-bloody-tat.

Like 9/11, the Munich massacre is used as political cover to take care of business unrelated to the original deed. And like 9/11, this other business ensures that more blood will spill and keep lubricated the cycle of vengeance. When Eric Bana's character Avner, the Israeli commando squad leader, tells his Mossad superior (played by the great Geoffrey Rush) that assassinating Black September members ensures that even more militant terrorists will replace them, his superior has really nothing of substance to say. Nor does he give Avner any evidence that the targets being eliminated had anything to do with Munich. Avner is a cog in a larger killing machine, and once he becomes aware of this, his patriotism and nationalism quickly wither. (And this was at a time when the Palestinian movement was largely secular -- imagine how Avner would feel if he knew that a few years down the road his bosses would be empowering militant Islamists.)

It is this type of introspection that pro-war critics of "Munich" violently object to, and for good reason: introspection is bad for their business. You cannot bomb cities, herd people into camps or torture centers, and demonize entire populations when the people chosen to enforce this hatred start thinking things through. Introspection means "moral equivalence" which leads to "national suicide," and the only way to stave this off is to kill, maim and torture without question. "Munich" asks questions and attempts to probe their possible meanings; and that a major Hollywood director put his name on this effort signals a possible shift in how the mainstream views the actual War On Terror, and not the sham version that continues to fall apart. It's a tentative step, but a positive one, and should be encouraged and expanded on whenever possible.

ALSO: If you haven't already, please pick up and watch "Paradise Now," which offers a Palestinian perspective on vengeance, nationalism and the idea of whether or not killing The Other is morally right or even tactically sound. I'm sure it surprises a fair number of racist assholes that, yes, Palestinians debate and deliberate about life and death issues as well. A perfect companion piece to "Munich."

Rock-A-Buy, Baby

Though I played outside more often than I stared at TV, some of my earliest memories are video drenched. It was a time of B&W shows, four channels to choose from, blurry images amid static and test patterns -- faded pencil stick figures compared to today's hi-def digital onslaught, so I cannot imagine what flashes thru a contemporary child's televised mind. And now with the debut of BabyFirst TV, the fragmentation and further commodification of young American minds receives an earlier kickstart.

Not to seem cynical, which is tough to avoid most days, but is this any real shock? Toddlers have long been left in front of TVs, and some of their first discernable images, apart from (one hopes) their parents, are usually commercial symbols and the jingles that sell them. This is simply a sad reality of our apolitical culture, and it carries long term negative effects if not altered or undermined by parents and educators. Americans in large part are becoming more clueless and uninformed, and one need only look at mainstream culture to understand why and how. We are consumers, not citizens, and nothing emphasizes this more than a pay network that is specifically aimed at 6 month old babies.

The good people at BabyFirst TV insist that their product will help, not hinder, a child's creative and intellectual growth. For one thing, it's commercial-free. Of course it is. That's why you pay for the network, and frankly, that's the least worry any parent should have, given the endless bombardment of ads that hit us every second of every day. The B-Firsters would be marketing idiots to add to this noise, which is why their pitch openly states that kids are gonna watch TV sooner than later, so why have yours exposed to the visual poison of the marketplace when you can purchase a safe video pocket for the children to nestle in. It's about the only way you can convince a new parent to buy into the concept, and I suspect a large number will, if the loitering crowds of parents holding their kids at the video store are any indication. Having grown up on the tube, most young parents will doubtless see nothing wrong with their toddlers watching "good" TV, prepping their developing brains for a lifetime of corporate penetration.

Now, lest I sound holier than thou on this topic, I must confess that both my kids watched TV while still in diapers and slobbering on teething rings. To date, this hasn't affected their ability to read and discuss books, stories and fables (and now with our teen daughter, political history), but then, both kids have grown up with two writers as parents, surrounded by mountains of books, newspapers and mags. I don't know if this type of environment is common in most American homes, but it wasn't where I grew up, and judging from some of my relatives' houses, there are more screens than books, so I'm guessing that TV and computers are the main venues for what passes as educational information.

I've known several militant parents who wouldn't let their kids watch any TV whatsoever (a position the wife shares, but to a lesser ideological degree), and while I see their blunt point, the fact remains that we live in a crushing audio-visual age which, save for some ecological disaster that wipes out a large portion of humanity, is only going to get heavier. I agree that kids should be limited in their screen exposure, and when they are exposed, that their fare not be strictly consumerist crap. But to completely quarantine them from a major part of the modern world is unrealistic, and dampens their ability to understand and subvert the propaganda thrown at them. Exposure allows a strong intellectual and critical immune system to emerge. I suppose my despair about targeting babies as a TV demographic is rooted in this inescapable fact. Kids aren't allowed to be kids any longer -- they're commercial game, hunted by marketers from birth. At least we can teach them how to turn the images around, and find truth in the maze of glittering lies.

Yalieban

Yale's been the target of reactionary bile of late, so much so that I'm actually growing sympathetic to an Ivy League institution. There is of course the ongoing slander campaign against Juan Cole by those who want to bar him from teaching in New Haven. And then there's the uproar over Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, the former Taliban mouthpiece who's currently attending Yale and seeks to move into a degree-granting program as a Sophomore. This has outraged our domestic authoritarians, always looking for a chance justify their ideological rigidity. In Hashemi they clearly feel they have a real winner. After all, the guy was a Taliban ambassador and Bin-Laden apologist. How juicy can you get?

The familiar creatures have been howling for Hashemi's head, from John Fund at the Wall Street Journal on down to Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter, who recently wondered aloud why Hashemi hasn't been beaten to a pulp by patriotic skinheads. Of course, as is the case with most of Coulter's work, this violent fantasy was a "satirical" and "ironic" critique of the Liberal Mindset (because, see, it's the Campus Liberals who are the real thugs, throwing pies and shouting insults at the likes of Coulter, Michelle Malkin and David Horowitz, none of whom seem to get a word in these days); but then with performance artists, even those as crude as Coulter, you never really know when the act ends, if it ever ends. So maybe she's kidding, or maybe she isn't, and after about five minutes, the sand weighs down one's eyelids.

Perhaps the most robust Hashemi heckler is Clint Taylor, a Yale alum and, surprise surprise, a regular at National Review and Townhall. While his fellow reactionaries are simply doing their part to keep the noise machine at full volume, Taylor has made Hashemi's case a personal odyssey. To him, Yale is giving into "cultural relativism" which, as every patriot knows, is the fast track to tyranny and despotism; and by allowing Hashemi to take classes and perhaps even earn a degree, well, that just slickens the track even more. Doesn't Yale care about what the Taliban did to Afghan women? Have they forgotten 9/11? Thankfully, Taylor is here to put matters into proper historical context. His recent op-ed in USA Today ends, "Hashemi has no more business at Yale today than would Josef Goebbels in 1944. Get him out of here."

Hashemi = Goebbels? Yeah, I remember how the Taliban, who built and oversaw a mighty industrial state, launched countless invasions of neighboring countries, their advanced bombers and fighter jets pounding and strafing defenseless cities while glossy propaganda films, overseen and approved by Hashemi, uplifted loyal Afghanis, who regularly massed in Kabul to witness choreographed martial rallies. As any intelligent student of history can plainly see, Hashemi was indeed equal to Goebbels, and if not for the US invasion and overthrow of the Taliban regime, he might have gone on to top the late German PR genius (who at least had the decency to kill his wife and children before committing suicide). That Taylor isn't teaching history at Yale is further proof of the university's degradation and submission to totalitarian thinking.

When it comes to coddling fascists, Yale could do better, especially when you contrast Hashemi's admittance to the US government bringing stateside a large number of German Nazi scientists and medical officers at the end of World War II. Under the title Operation Paperclip, hundreds of those once loyal to the Third Reich (some more loyal than others) were ushered into the US to work at various labs and medical schools. Many of these former Nazis had their criminal histories erased from their records by US intelligence in order to expedite their transition to more democratic pursuits like studying and developing germ and chemical weapons. Among them were Walter Schreiber and Kurt Blome, both of whom were involved with medical experimentation on concentration camp prisoners, and who became valued assets to US military research. (Blome was later arrested by the pacifist French, convicted of war crimes and sentenced to 20 years in prison -- another sickening case of Franco-subversion). All of this was done on the public dime, something that usually sends reactionaries into hysterics, but only when taxpayer money is spent on the humanities. Federal funding of inhumanity is a different story altogether.

Speaking of which, let's not forget that Hashemi's old comrades and heroes were privately funded and publicly embraced by American rightwingers, Ronald Reagan chief among them. Throwing acid in women's faces and destroying co-ed schools was then-called "freedom fighting" by rightist politicos, pundits and publications like National Review, for which, as earlier noted, Clint Taylor writes. In fact, so enthralled was our domestic Phalange by the brutal actions taken by Osama bin-Laden and friends that some viewed this clerical fascism as an extension of American conservative values. Reviewing the Reagan era in 1989, Adam Meyerson, then-editor of Policy Review (the publication of the Heritage Foundation), listed "One Hundred Conservative Victories." And what, according to Meyerson, was the Final Triumph?

"February 15 (1989). Pullout from Afghanistan. Soviets apparently complete military withdrawal from Afghanistan, the first Soviet military retreat since departure from Austria in 1955. A major victory for Reagan Doctrine of providing aid for anti-Communist resistance forces."

"Anti-Communist resistance forces." Has a nice ring, yes? And we know how that "major victory for Reagan Doctrine" served the Afghan people in subsequent years. Clearly a cause for celebration all around.

Oh, and what university did Meyerson attend? Yale, of course. Class of 1974. Maybe there is something about New Haven that stirs the Islamofascist soul. Look at the Bush family -- a Yalie nest -- and its close ties to Saudi theocrats, who are not known for their pro-woman policies. Given all this, one wonders why Taylor is so vexed by Hashemi studying the Western canon. If anything, that's an improvement and should be encouraged, as USA Today sensibly opines.

But for Taylor, Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi will forever be The Savage Other, even though I'm sure they share a mutual distaste for socialism, among other topics. Still, Taylor's not as extreme in this case as is Ann Coulter, whose "call" for Hashemi to be physically assaulted received a slight rebuke from him:

"We don't beat up people for no reason. There's no stronger advocate of expelling him and deporting him than I am, and I won't lose a wink of sleep if he ends up recounting his days advising Mullah Omar in a cell in Guantanamo Bay, but he should pass his time here free from violent harassment from vigilantes."

Don't beat him up on campus, but throw him in Gitmo and torture his sorry ass. On second thought, it seems that Coulter is the moderate here. See what Yale can do to people? Skull & Bones indeed.

More Human Than Human

Damn Darfur peace accord. Ruins everything, at least for now. Maybe soon it'll break apart (we're talking Africa here), the tribes and militias will renew the mutual slaughter, and the concept of sending US troops to Sudan will become a reality. Because only we Americans know how to settle complicated foreign matters like Darfur. Take a look at the Middle East if you have any doubts.

Whatever it is that Western Humanitarians ultimately desire, it's clear that the Bush admin has no stomach for military intervention in Sudan. Bush and Condi couldn't wait to announce their happiness with the recent accord, couched in peace & UN-lovespeak and the genuine hope that they won't have to revisit this hellhole anytime soon. No surprise there. But what I did find interesting was the cinematic language employed by Bush's man on the ground in Africa:

"As the midnight deadline approached last Thursday in Abuja, Nigeria's capital, Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick finally lost patience. After three days of intensive talks, the leader of the largest Darfur rebel faction, Minni Minnawi, had earlier that evening privately pledged to Zoellick to support a peace agreement. Now he announced he opposed it, in full view of African leaders and international mediators at the presidential villa.

"'I'm disappointed in you. I expect people to keep their word,' Zoellick icily told Minnawi, according to observers. 'I can be a very good friend, but I am a fearsome enemy.'"

Somehow, "fearsome" doesn't come to mind when looking at Zoellick.




But then, back in my Hoosier youth, some of the toughest, craziest guys were skinny with wispy moustaches. They usually repaired cars and motorcycles, drank PBR, and had nothing to lose when fighting. Maybe Zoellick is of the same stock. On the other hand, he is speaking on behalf of a violent law-breaking superpower, so that probably lends more weight to his threat than just being a crazy white boy or may or may not be bluffing.

Recent discussion about Darfur and What To Do about the madness has pretty much followed the standard, self-serving script. The Save Darfur liberals invoke the Holocaust, which naturally requires that they highlight Elie Wiesel, one of the greatest living moral frauds, as he belts out his usual number: "How can I hope to move people from indifference if I remain indifferent to the plight of others? I cannot stand idly by or all my endeavors will be unworthy."

Of course, when over 17,000 Palestinians and Lebanese where being slaughtered by the Israeli military and its Phalangist clients in 1982, Wiesel stood idly by, telling the New York Times, "I don't think we should even comment." And he didn't, and hasn't since, unless the mass murder in question helped to keep his profile, and his books, well within mainstream public view. That the Save Darfur libs are "inspired" by this guy gives you a pretty good idea where they're coming from.

The other notable feature of the Save Darfur libs is their selective horror at what they claim is "genocide." Now, there is no doubt that Sudan has been a killing field of a serious order, and I'm certainly not saying that people shouldn't act to stop it. But where was all this public anguish when Indonesia, armed to the teeth by the US and given political/military cover, was wiping out a third of East Timor's population? If what is happening in Sudan can be labeled "genocide," then what happened in East Timor definitely rates as such. Yet I don't remember celebrity-studded rallies calling attention to this obscenity, which, as I've mentioned here before, continued for 24 years. And one key difference between Sudan and East Timor is that with the latter, you wouldn't need an invasion to stop the killing. Sustained public pressure on the US government to halt its financial support of the Indonesian aggressors would've done a lot to help the Timorese, which finally occurred in 1999, long after the worst massacres took place, when a reluctant Bill Clinton was forced to allow East Timor some room to breathe.

Again -- does this mean that concern over Darfur is manufactured or otherwise phony? Not necessarily. But it does remind us that some "genocides" are more fashionable than others, especially if said "genocide" is not heavily financed by those who are protesting it.

You'd think that given their fidelity to acceptable outrage, the Save Darfur libs would be embraced by other Western Humanitarians. Ah, but that would be naive, and there's nothing Real Humanitarians hate more than naiveté.

Mark Steyn, swivelchair commando fave, mocks "do-gooder" celebs like George Clooney, a Save Darfur lib, for not going the full nine and simply, flatly calling for direct US military intervention in Sudanese affairs. This is Steyn's shtick, and what derisive laughter he must elicit from his sedentary fans as he pokes libs for believing in the humanitarian Tooth Fairy. Only Real Humanitarians like Steyn know that it takes Daisy Cutters and white phosphorus to get the job done, and anything less than a full-fledged assault is a surrender to "thug regimes." The ethnic/tribal politics of a chosen region is pretty much an afterthought, if then. Only the "projection of American power" is seriously worth considering, but not for too long, as that would cut into the killing time.

And what is Steyn's model for US military strikes in Sudan? Let's just say that the letters "IQ" frame the word, which might be funny if, at this late bloody date, it weren't so fucking criminal.

Oh, the Humanity.

A Day Or Two Please

Busy at the moment, so my balanced and well-reasoned take on those who wanna go Kosovo/Iraq on Darfur will have to wait another day or two. But fret not -- in place of shrewd political analysis, I give you two funny sketches from Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie's old BBC show, and one of my fave Betty Boop cartoons, an early one with Cab Calloway as a singing walrus ghost in a cave. Many of my dreams look like Betty Boop cartoons, which might explain why I bounce in place when awake, and why I think that flowers urge me to eat when I'm sad.

Verdicts

So Zacarias Moussaoui was found Guilty, escaped the needle, and will spend the rest of his life in a tiny windowless concrete cage, a solitary damnation for hovering in the shadows of the 9/11 terror attacks.

God bless us all.

I have no special feelings for Moussaoui -- he seems a dim zealot who ineptly tries to paint himself as some fearless jihadist. And if he's anything like his portrayal in the film "The Hamburg Cell" (which I recently caught for the first time on HBO and highly recommend), he's an obnoxious asshole as well. He certainly lived up to this rep through his courtroom taunts and outbursts, but in the end he's simply a pathetic figure, given far more importance than he actually had in the real world.

But someone had to stand-in for those who incinerated themselves and their hostages on 9/11, and that is Zacarias Moussaoui's assigned role. Though he killed no one on that day and had really nothing to do with the attacks (which is what several jurors came to believe), he was addressed by those who lost relatives and loved ones as if he was behind it all, and this of course fed Moussaoui's fantasy self-image. Even U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema got into the act, quoting T.S. Eliot of all people (under the circumstances, I would've preferred Nietzsche), and engaging in a brief "I Won!/No You Didn't!" exchange with Moussaoui. Seemingly bizarre at first glance, but given 9/11's effect on the national consciousness, perfectly in line.

Reaction to Moussaoui's life sentence was pretty much what you'd expect, with Bush, Rudy Giuliani and Peggy Noonan, among the many like-minded in blogland, bewailing the jury's "mercy" on this ruthless terrorist for whom only the most painful death is deserved. But I was mildly surprised by Billmon's assessment -- part of it, anyway. Reviewing the final verdict, Billmon says:

"I'm not, and never have been, a philosophical opponent of capital punishment. Moussaoui is at least as good a candidate for lethal injection as Timothy McVeigh, and I certainly wasn't upset to see that son of a bitch dispatched to the infernal regions."

What is it about American liberals and Timothy McVeigh? He's the one Approved Villain over whom libs can pound their chests and declare their undying hatred. I suppose libs need to show that they, too, can get Medieval, and McVeigh serves that purpose, as does David Koresh, whose execution by the Feds (alongside some 85 Branch Davidians, 17 of them children) McVeigh ostensibly tried to avenge, criminally so. I've yet to come across a Clinton liberal who believes that their beloved icon and his button-person, Janet Reno, deserve to be "dispatched to the infernal regions" for mass murder. It's one of the areas of American life where liberals allow themselves to be as bloodthirsty as their reactionary cousins, suggesting that perhaps the differences between these tribes aren't as profound as advertised. Still, Billmon does his best to make distinctions:

"The difference between me and the lynch mob over at Little Green Footballs, I guess, is that I'm not filled with primal rage because we're not going to kill Moussaoui. There are, after all, counterarguments for life imprisonment -- not giving the jihadists a propaganda martyr at a time when America's image in the Islamic world is already in the toilet probably being the strongest one. So, sure, let's bury Moussaoui alive in a 'Supermax' prison, and let him spend the next 40 or 50 years staring at a cement wall, obsessing over all those people he didn't get to kill. Last year, when I was fantasizing about giving Karl Rove roughly the same treatment, I argued that a couple of decades in a place like that could make death look like a blessing. I'm perfectly willing to let Zacarias Moussaoui find out whether that's true."

So Billmon prefers slow, solitary torture over immediate execution. Who says liberals coddle criminals?

To be fair, Billmon makes some solid points, many of which I agree with ("Of course, if we're going to start handing out life sentences for war crimes, there are a number of other people who probably should be in the dock -- the President of the United States being one, the Vice President another and the Secretary of Defense a third"), but he proves that even the finer minds have their savage flashes.

The World Socialist Web Site also has an interesting take on the Moussaoui verdict; and while I don't agree with every point (sticking Moussaoui in a cement veal crate is a "humane and intelligent action"?), the author Patrick Martin digs beneath the trial's surface to show, as if we need reminding (or maybe we do), that the War on Terror is bullshit, a prolonged attempt to control us while justifying mass murder, torture and theft. Yet despite this horrid reality, Martin concludes on an optimistic note:

"Rosemary Dillard, whose husband died at the Pentagon on September 11, told a press conference that she respected the jury’s decisions. 'We showed the world what we do to terrorists,' she said. 'We’ll show them respect no matter how much disrespect they show us. It makes us a finer society.'

"Such attitudes, expressed by relatives of the victims and acted upon by the Virginia jury members, demonstrate that no matter how much the media, not to mention the government, has attempted to debase popular consciousness, they have not been able to stamp out democratic sentiments and humanity in the American people."

Socialists love to romanticize The People. Let's hope in this case he's right.

Maps Are Un-American

Years ago, while subbing for Jay Diamond on his afternoon radio show in New York, I interviewed Steve Allen, comedian, Beat composer (as Patti Smith once dubbed him, referring to his collaborations with Jack Kerouac), and author of countless books about how America is going to hell and why everything is coming apart. During this particular segment, Allen spoke with visible annoyance about how stupid and uneducated young people were, and how it was getting worse. I agreed with him to a point, but for some reason he dragged in Howard Stern, who apparently had a hand in dumbing down American youth. Our discussion then became a debate about comedy and "bad taste," and we never really returned to the kids and why they don't know nuthin'.

I thought of the late Mr. Allen yesterday while reading a report in USA Today about "geographic illiteracy." According to a Roper poll of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24:

•One-third of respondents couldn't pinpoint Louisiana on a map and 48% were unable to locate Mississippi.

•Fewer than three in 10 think it important to know the locations of countries in the news and just 14% believe speaking another language is a necessary skill.

•Two-thirds didn't know that the earthquake that killed 70,000 people in October 2005 occurred in Pakistan.

•Six in 10 could not find Iraq on a map of the Middle East.

•While the outsourcing of jobs to India has been a major U.S. business story, 47% could not find the Indian subcontinent on a map of Asia.

•While Israeli-Palestinian strife has been in the news for the entire lives of the respondents, 75% were unable to locate Israel on a map of the Middle East.

•Nearly three-quarters incorrectly named English as the most widely spoken native language.

•Six in 10 did not know the border between North and South Korea is the most heavily fortified in the world. Thirty percent thought the most heavily fortified border was between the United States and Mexico.

Surprised? Not me. There are a variety of reasons for this ignorance, of course (as USA Today recently reminded us, class and wealth play a part); and the poll findings help to explain why the US is in such lousy intellectual shape. But let's not dump all this blame on the young. I'm willing to bet that the majority of American adults are equally ignorant, if not more so. Mix in fundamentalist religion and you'll get a populace that not only is largely stupid about vital matters, but arrogantly proud of it. There are millions of exceptions, I know. There'd be utter chaos if there weren't. But tap into the mainstream American vibe and see what you find. Perhaps this was always so, and if that is indeed the case, then we're damn lucky to still be here -- or not, depending on your temperament.

Hitch Slapped

Juan Cole tears into Christopher Hitchens today, and I'm sorry he had to take the time to do it. There is no bigger waste of energy these days than responding to the sad drunken joke that Hitchens has become. But when you are a public historian with a large readership like Juan, I suppose you can't ignore slanderous attacks on your character, especially when they're launched by Hitchens, who's well-known for getting basic facts wrong when he simply isn't lying.

Juan's response begins:

"Christopher Hitchens owes me a big apology.

"I belong to a private email discussion group called Gulf2000. It has academics, journalists and policy makers on it. It has a strict rule that messages appearing there will not be forwarded off the list. It is run, edited and moderated by former National Security Council staffer for Carter and Reagan, Gary Sick, now a political scientist at Columbia University. The 'no-forwarding' rule is his, and is intended to allow the participants to converse about controversial matters without worrying about being in trouble. Also, in an informal email discussion, ideas evolve, you make mistakes and they get corrected, etc. It is a rough, rough draft.

"Hitchens somehow hacked into the site, or joined and lurked, or had a crony pass him things. And he has now made my private email messages the subject of an attack on me in Slate. (I am not linking to the article because it is highly unethical and Slate does not deserve any direct traffic from my site for it.) Moreover, he did not even have the decency to quote the final outcome of the discussions."

And gets better as Juan picks up steam. Check it out.

As you know, I no longer read Hitchens, and I haven't read his attack on Juan (who I'm sure knows that he'll receive no apology from Hitchens). Nor do I have any intention of doing so. The old wreck's a scratched CD at this point, and based on Juan's riposte, it appears that Hitchens is playing the same fractured tune. It's also clear that he'll do anything to get noticed, no matter how low he has to crawl. Again, my commiserations to Juan for having to spend time in Hitchens' gutter.

Colbert'd

Stephen Colbert's sizzling performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner Saturday night has all of liblogland cheering and throwing confetti, so allow me a few belated tosses of torn paper as well.

Unlike a lotta libs, I'm not a huge fan of Colbert's Fox News character -- not that I don't respect what he's doing, or that he hasn't made me laugh very hard on more than one occasion. It's just that for me, the fake sincerity bit, especially when aimed at rightwing shills, is incredibly limited and thus prone to immediate repetition. Mocking the obvious lasts thirty seconds tops, and that Colbert has stretched it over five years, most times quite effectively, is a testament to his comic talent and a sign of the squalid times in which we live. In a healthy political and social era, a caricature like Colbert's would make no sense, save as some abstract reminder of a deservedly forgotten age. Sadly, we are mired in endless bullshit and blood; and given our national "character" and collective inability to extract ourselves from this mess (poll numbers do not equal political action), it appears that this dreadful period will continue for some time. This reality enriches only a handful of constituencies: weapons dealers, corporate criminals, and political satirists. Colbert and his former colleagues at "The Daily Show" have plenty of carrion on which to feed, perhaps too much. A steady diet of rotten flesh does little to sharpen your appetite.

All that said, Colbert really brought it Saturday night. And if his performance won him countless new fans and viewers, it also may have marked his character's prime. Once you humiliate and shame your targets to their faces, the President of the United States included, your job is pretty much done. All subsequent performances are for those who are in on and share the joke -- a reinforcement of their political prejudice. Colbert seems on the verge of mass acceptance; and when "60 Minutes" gives you the soft profile treatment, what's the point of your satire?

Still, you had to love the tepid nervous laughter from the DC insiders who withered under Colbert's none-too-subtle assault. And watching Bush's pissed off expression was glorious. (Good thing for Colbert that this isn't the Middle Ages, or his head would've been on a pike before the banquet tables were cleared.) From what I could see, Colbert bombed, but righteously so. And the shocked, angry silence that followed this bit --

"I've got a theory about how to handle these retired generals causing all this trouble: don't let them retire! Come on, we've got a stop-loss program; let's use it on these guys. I've seen Zinni and that crowd on Wolf Blitzer. If you're strong enough to go on one of those pundit shows, you can stand on a bank of computers and order men into battle."

-- must have been as gratifying as a standing ovation. Lesser comics would've panicked in that vacuum; but Colbert, at least on the surface, remained calm as he flipped through the pages of his script. I thought that perhaps he had more in this vein, but decided to skip ahead to someone a little less controversial, in this case, Jesse Jackson. When in doubt, knock Jesse Jackson, always a favorite with upscale white audiences. But to his credit, Colbert didn't linger on the Reverend, using him as a segue to one of the better jokes of the night:

"Haven't heard from the Reverend in a little while. I had him on the show. Very interesting and challenging interview. You can ask him anything, but he's going to say what he wants, at the pace that he wants. It's like boxing a glacier. Enjoy that metaphor, by the way, because your grandchildren will have no idea what a glacier is."

Of course, once Colbert finished his act (ending with a very funny if too long video of him playing Bush's Press Secretary), the official explanations and dismissals began. (In this morning's New York Times, Elisabeth Bumiller completely omitted Colbert's act from that which is Fit To Print.) According to Editor & Publisher:

"Those seated near Bush told E&P's Joe Strupp, who was elsewhere in the room, that Bush had quickly turned from an amused guest to an obviously offended target as Colbert’s comments brought up his low approval ratings and problems in Iraq.

"Several veterans of past dinners, who requested anonymity, said the presentation was more directed at attacking the president than in the past. Several said previous hosts, like Jay Leno, equally slammed both the White House and the press corps.

“'This was anti-Bush,' said one attendee. 'Usually they go back and forth between us and him.' Another noted that Bush quickly turned unhappy. 'You could see he stopped smiling about halfway through Colbert,' he reported.

"After the gathering, [Press Secretary Tony] Snow, while nursing a Heineken outside the Chicago Tribune reception, declined to comment on Colbert. 'I’m not doing entertainment reviews,' he said. 'I thought the president was great, though.'”

A line worthy of Colbert's creation. You can make this stuff up.