MONDAY,  MARCH 24,  2008

IN AL QAEDA'S EYE

The superb Michael Ledeen examines a remarkable event that just occurred in Rome - the conversion to Catholicism, by Pope Benedict, of a leading Italian editor, who left Islam:

My friend Magdi Allam, the deputy editor of the Italian newspaper il Corriere della Sera, has converted from Islam to Catholicism and was baptized the night before Easter in a service conducted by the pope in St. Peter’s in Rome. It’s a courageous act, but then Magdi Allam is a brave man. His outspoken criticism of Italian Muslim radicals–especially their support for the Muslim Brotherhood and for Hamas–had already produced threats to his life several years ago, and, ever since, the Italian Government has protected him, his home, and his Italian wife Valentina. The increasingly sloppy Andrew Sullivan calls on his readers to pray for Magdi, who Sullivan says is NOW at risk, when in fact he is accompanied by carabinieri whenever he moves around Rome, and his house is under constant surveillance. So far as I know, no attempt on his life has been made. But, like Salman Rushdie and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, he is precisely the sort of elegant, sophisticated and thoughtful person that sets the Islamic fundamentalists’ teeth on edge.

He has long spoken on behalf of moderate Muslims, and greatly admires Pope Benedict XVI for his courage in simultaneously criticizing the lack of Muslim toleration and openness to human reason. And he incurred the wrath of both leftists and Muslims when he wrote a best-seller entitled “Viva Israele!” whose contents you can easily imagine. He had been a non-practicing Sunni Muslim, but anyone familiar with his writing can see that he had a religious vocation, and it is no surprise that he has found comfort in the Church.

Why did Magdi Allam choose this moment for his conversion?

I rather suspect that Magdi had been mulling this action for quite a while, but it also seems likely that he chose this moment in order to stick his thumb in al Qaeda’s eye. Just a few days ago, an al Qaeda video with a voice claiming to be Osama bin Laden’s denounced the pope for supporting a new “crusade” against Islam, and warned Europeans that there would be retribution (I think it’s a pony, of course; I think bin Laden’s dead and buried).

And yet, Ledeen is concerned about our attitude here in America toward such brave souls.  He finds our record less than stellar:

Both Rushdie and Hirsi Ali come to America with some frequency, even though the government of the United States does not provide them with security. Ayaan has been forced to raise private money for her protection; I do not know Rushdie’s arrangements. Ayaan in Washington cannot carry a gun, because of the city’s virtually total ban on private weapons (let’s hope the Supreme Court puts a stop to that, in a current case). But is it not intolerable that several of the West’s most distinguished intellectuals are forced to distort their lives because of threats from fanatics who seek to silence them by any and all means?

To put it a bit differently: the Constitution guarantees us all freedom of speech. But there is no such freedom if you’re going to face death threats for speaking your mind. Some will be brave enough to face the threats and continue their criticism of the fanatics. But you can be sure that many others will just shut up.

If we are serious about our Constitutional freedoms, we’re going to have to find a way to defeat those who are now challenging them so brutally.

Very well said.

March 24, 2008.  Permalink

A PART OF THE PROBLEM

Scott Johnson, my pal at Power Line, reports on that rare phenomenon - an apology by the BBC:

The Jerusalem Post reports that the BBC has apologized for significant errors in two recent stories on Israel, one involving a fabrication that the BBC has now "clarified." The BBC has yet to "clarify" how the fabrication came to be broadcast. There is nevertheless a pattern to the BBC errors that suggests an answer. These BBC errors add to a larger pattern I tried to draw some time back in "The disgrace of the BBC."

The BBC has been a disgrace for years.  Make that decades.  Even before World War II the beeb was hostile to those who thought defending Western values was a pretty good idea.  As Scott pointed out in his "Disgrace of the BBC," Sir John Reith, head of the operation in the 1930s, detested Winston Churchill and admired Adolph Hitler.

Today the beeb is dependably leftist, and very dependably anti-American and anti-Israeli.  It had the distinction of putting on the air, just two days after the 9-11 attacks, a viciously anti-American program that reduced the United States ambassador to tears.  It never apologized. 

The fact that BBC is now admitting mistakes may - stress may - indicate progress.  But as Scott notes, the broadcaster doesn't tell us how a fabrication came to be put on the air in the first place.  It happened, in my view, because BBC hires a certain kind of person with a certain kind of opinion.

Some liberal intellectuals in the United States love the BBC.  Liberal intellectuals fall in love with style, and the BBC has style.  Not much else.  But style sells.  Just ask CNN, which employs the British-accented Christiane Amanpour, a biased, shallow reporter who throws her accent at the microphone and babbles forth.

And this is what we depend on. 

March 24, 2008.  Permalink

NO WE WON'T

Well, I'm glad someone said it.  Bill Kristol, in today's New York Times, violates the liberal sanctity of that paper and rejects the idea of a national conversation on race.  He notes that Barack Obama suggested it in his speech last week:

The only part of the speech that made me shudder was this sentence: “But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now.”

As soon as I heard that, I knew what we’d have to endure. I knew that there would be a stampede of editorial boards, columnists and academics rushing not to ignore race. A national conversation about race! At long last!

Kristol makes the point...

Of course, memories are short. In 1997 President Bill Clinton announced, with great fanfare, that he intended “to lead the American people in a great and unprecedented [if he did say so himself] conversation about race.” That conversation quickly went nowhere. And just as well.

The last thing we need now is a heated national conversation about race.

What we need instead are sober, results-oriented debates about economics, social mobility, education, family policy and the like — focused especially on how to help those who are struggling. Such policy debates can lead to real change — even “change we can believe in.” “National conversations” tend to be pointless and result-less.

Or worse. Especially when they’re about race. In 1969, Pat Moynihan, then serving on Richard Nixon’s White House staff, wrote Nixon a memo explaining that “the issue of race could benefit from a period of ‘benign neglect.’ The subject has been too much talked about. ... We may need a period in which Negro progress continues and racial rhetoric fades.” Moynihan, who was reacting against the wild escalation of racial rhetoric on all sides, was unfairly pilloried when the memo was leaked in 1970. But he was right then, and his argument is right now.

Moynihan was also right in 1962 when he warned that something terrible was happening to the black family.  He was, of course, labeled a racist.  Had he been listened to, and some remedial action tried, we might have avoided many tragedies.

Kristol concludes:

Over the last several decades, we’ve done pretty well in overcoming racial barriers and prejudice. Problems remain. But we won’t make progress if we now have to endure a din of race talk that will do more to divide us than to unite us, and more to confuse than to clarify.

Luckily, Obama isn’t really interested in getting enmeshed in a national conversation on race. He had avoided race talk before the Reverend Wright controversy erupted. And despite the speech’s catnip of a promised conversation on race tossed to eager commentators, it’s clear he’s more than willing to avoid it from now on.

This is all for the best. With respect to having a national conversation on race, my recommendation is: Let’s not, and say we did.

Amen. 

Kristol is right.  A conversation on race is not needed, and any such conversation wouldn't be very honest.  It would simply indulge, as Kristol implies, the editorialists and professors who've made race (and gender and ethnicity) a well-paid industry.  It would also shift the focus away from the critical issue that Michael Ledeen refers to, in the first piece in today's Urgent Agenda: 

If we are serious about our Constitutional freedoms, we’re going to have to find a way to defeat those who are now challenging them so brutally.

That's the conversation we should be having.

March 24, 2008.  Permalink

A BLACK MINISTER DISSENTS

Regarding race, and race talk, a black minister writes on how she turned her back on the inflammatory rhetoric of Barack Obama's minister, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr.:

I've known preachers like the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., former pastor to Sen. Barack Obama. Like many of them, he no doubt sees his congregation as full of victims, and thinks that his words will inspire them to rise out of their victimhood. I understand that.

Once upon a time, I saw myself as a victim, too, destined to march in place. In the 1970s and '80s, as a clenched-fist-pumping black nationalist with my head wrapped in an elaborate gele, I reflected that self-concept in my speech. My words were as fiery as the Rev. Wright's. And more than a few times, I, too, damned America, loudly, for its treatment of blacks.

But I turned away from such rhetoric. Is it time that Wright and other ministers do, too?

And...

That other African Americans and I were able to overcome seemingly insurmountable hurdles is undeniably due, in part, to Wright-like prophetic speech. Like Negro spirituals, it helped us organize, motivate and empower ourselves.

But just as spirituals eventually lost their relevance and potency as an organizing tool against discrimination -- even as they retained their historical importance in the African American cultural narrative -- so, I believe, has Wright-speak lost its place. It's harmful and ultimately can't provide healing. And it's outdated in the 21st century.

Finally...

Perhaps Obama's campaign -- with its call for unity and for transcending the negative characteristics of race -- is part of breaking with a painful past. Many of us, blacks as well as whites, hope so.

There is good sense here.  Read the whole thing.  It's worth it.

March 24, 2008.  Permalink

HE DIED POLITICALLY WITH HIS SOCKS ON

Finally, I beg your forgiveness, but I must vent on the continuing saga of the governor's office here in New York.  The soap opera of a governor forced out by prostitution, and a successor in trouble because of extra-marital affairs, is now supplemented by the 21st century's required element - the psychological analysis.  It has been reported that our former governor, during his, uh, encounters, kept his socks on:

If former Gov. Eliot Spitzer really had sex with his socks on, it may have signaled a fear of intimacy during his trysts with high-priced hookers, sex experts said Sunday.

"Maybe keeping socks on is a symbol that he's not committing, that he's going to get up and leave afterwards, that this is a short tryst and not a long-term commitment," said New York-based Jamye Waxman, a sex educator and the author of "Getting Off."

Yes, absolutely.  I would agree that a man patronizing a lady of the evening will, in fact, get up and leave, and that he is not making a long-term commitment.  I say this with a high degree of confidence.

Do people get paid for this kind of analysis?  Really?  I mean, you can make a living by declaring yourself an expert and announcing that men will get up and leave?

For those of you looking for a career change....

No, no, no, don't do that.

I'll be back later. 

March 24, 2008.  Permalink