SATURDAY,  MARCH 22,  2008

THE POMPOSITY WATCH

There is pompous, and then there is very pompous.

Roger Cohen, who often does some perfectly respectable work for The New York Times, proves to a legal standard why the mainstream media is so disliked in so many truly thoughtful circles.  Cohen grew up in South Africa and can provide vivid testimony to the impact of race and racism in a nation.  Fair enough.  But he carries his experiences too far in a column on Barack Obama and Obama's speech this week.  The arrogance just flows.  Consider:

Progress, since the Civil Rights Movement, or since apartheid, has assuaged the wounds of race but not closed them. To carry my part of shame is also to carry a clue to the vortexes of rancor for which Obama has uncovered words.

I understand the rage of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, however abhorrent its expression at times. I admire Obama for saying: “I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community.”

Honesty feels heady right now. For seven years, we have lived with the arid, us-against-them formulas of Bush’s menial mind, with the result that the nuanced exploration of America’s hardest subject is almost giddying. Can it be that a human being, like Wright, or like Obama’s grandmother, is actually inhabited by ambiguities? Can an inquiring mind actually explore the half-shades of truth?

Yes. It. Can.

The unimaginable South African transition that Nelson Mandela made possible is a reminder that leadership matters. Words matter. The clamoring now in the United States for a presidency that uplifts rather than demeans is a reflection of the intellectual desert of the Bush years.

The intellectual desert.

Bush's menial mind.

They can't resist, can they?  Cohen is a descendant of the "intellectual" tradition that called Lincoln a baboon, decried Theodore Roosevelt as a little boy, called Franklin Roosevelt a second-rate intellect, was appalled by the gruffness of Harry Truman, belittled the legislative record of Lyndon Johnson because he went to the wrong schools, and ridiculed Ronald Reagan as a movie actor and a front man for mysterious forces.

These were the same people who, in the 1950s, fainted regularly because the American people rejected the "intellectual" Adlai Stevenson in favor of "the Army man," Dwight D. Eisenhower.  But history teaches that Stevenson was actually a shallow and somewhat bigoted man, whereas Eisenhower served the country well, and intelligently.  Eisenhower was far better read than Stevenson, but lacked the speaking style that phonies love. 

Whether one agrees with Mr. Bush or not, and I've been in both places, he is far from stupid, and some of his speeches on democracy have been among the best delivered by an American president.  He has many shortcomings.  But history may say of him that he got the one great thing of our time right - the battle between democracy and radical Islam.  That is not something that impresses "intellectuals," for they run from any idea embraced by those they consider beneath them.

Most real intellectuals I've known rarely sound the part.  Many sound almost hesitant, for they know that real intellectualism starts with humility, an understanding of what one doesn't know.

Mr. Cohen apparently rejects that notion.  He, like too many journalists, knows all and understands everything.  Unlike the president, he will not be remembered.

March 22, 2008.  Permalink

WHOOPS

A funny thing happened to the Obama campaign on the way to finding an issue.  In the initial hours of the story, reporters thought that the breach of Obama's passport records would become a major issue.  Dreams of Watergate.  Dreams of FBI probes.  Dreams of congressional hearings.  Dreams of...victimization, the ultimate honor.

The funny thing was discovering that the records of Hillary Clinton and John McCain were also breached. 

Now a funnier thing:  Bill Gertz, superlative reporter for The Washington Times, and colleague Jon Ward, report that the State Department probe into the breaches focuses on a contract employee who...well, you've got to read it to believe it:

The State Department investigation of improper computer access to passport records of three presidential candidates is focusing on one remaining employee — a contract worker with a company headed by an adviser to the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama.

The probe by State's inspector general will include polygraph tests for supervisors in the passport section to find out whether the three contract employees who accessed the records had a political motive or were part of a political operation to obtain personal data on Mr. Obama, Sen. John McCain or Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Two of the three contract employees had been fired before The Washington Times first reported Thursday on security breaches involving Mr. Obama's passport records. The furor expanded yesterday to incidents involving the passport records of Mr. McCain and Mrs. Clinton.

The third employee, who has not been fired, worked for The Analysis Corporation (TAC), which is headed by John O. Brennan, a former CIA agent who is an adviser to Mr. Obama's presidential campaign on intelligence and foreign policy.

Well, I'll be. 

Now, obviously class, we must wait for details.  This could all be nothing.  But, on the other hand, it could be something.  (Oh, I truly hope.)  I can just hear the question raised by the McCain campaign:  "What did Senator Obama know, and when did he know it?" 

Frankly, I doubt if he knew anything about this, but I'm not so sure about his advisers.

The story states:

Calls to the Obama campaign about Mr. Brennan were not returned.

Given this latest development, I can understand.

I believe they call this a reversal of fortune.

March 22, 2008.  Permalink

ROVE ON SECURITY

Speaking of security issues, Karl Rove - who is way up in the Michael Barone league of political analysts - examines the Democratic Party's problem with national security.  He finds it troubling:

One out of five is not a majority. Democrats should keep that simple fact of political life in mind as they pursue the White House.

For a party whose presidential candidates pledge they'll remove U.S. troops from Iraq immediately upon taking office -- without regard to conditions on the ground or the consequences to America's security -- a late February Gallup Poll was bad news. The Obama/Clinton vow to pull out of Iraq immediately appears to be the position of less than one-fifth of the voters.

Only 18% of those surveyed by Gallup agreed U.S. troops should be withdrawn "on a timetable as soon as possible." And only 20% felt the surge was making things worse in Iraq. Twice as many respondents felt the surge was making conditions better.

And...

Just a year ago it was almost universally accepted that Iraq would wreck the GOP chances in November. Now the issue may pose a threat to the Democratic efforts to gain power. For while the American people are acknowledging the positive impact of the surge, Democratic leaders are not.

Further...

Asked by CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Feb. 9 if she was worried that the gains of the last year might be lost, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi shot back: "There haven't been gains . . . This is a failure." Carl Levin, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee told the Associated Press the same month that the surge "has failed."

This passionate, persistent unwillingness to admit what more and more Americans are coming to believe is true about Iraq's changing situation puts Democrats in dangerous political territory. For one thing, they increasingly appear out of touch with reality, a charge they made with some success at the administration's expense before the surge began changing conditions in Iraq.

More...

For another, Democrats appear to have an ideological investment in things going badly in Iraq. They seem upset and prickly when asked to comment on the progress America is making. It's hard to see how Democrats can build a majority if their position on what they claim is one of the campaign's central issues is shared by less than a fifth of the electorate. They'd be better off arguing success allows America to accelerate the return of our troops rather than appear to deny the progress those troops are making.

There are more problems for Democrats on national security. Led by Ms. Pelosi, House Democrats are digging their party into even deeper difficulty by holding up the bipartisan Senate Protect American Act reauthorization. The reason? House Democrats want personal injury lawyers to be able to sue telecommunications companies for having the audacity to cooperate with the government in monitoring terrorist communications after 9/11.

Finally...

Elections are rarely decided over just one issue; to win, candidates don't need to have a majority of Americans agreeing with them on every big issue. But when it comes to choosing a president, Americans take seriously the candidates' views and experience on national security. Voters instinctively understand a president's principal constitutional responsibility is protecting the country.

The Democrats have two candidates with less national security experience and fewer credentials than the presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain. And they are compounding these difficulties with positions on Iraq and terrorist surveillance that are shared by a shrinking minority of Americans.

Are you listening, McCain campaign?  Come out swinging.  The press will be against you, but the people will be for you.

March 22, 2008.  Permalink

SONG OF NORWAY

That was the name of an operetta I remember from my youth.  Never mind.

The global warming issue may turn out to be legitimate, or one of a series of scientific missteps and exaggerations we've experienced.  But in a well-reported piece in today's New York Times, Elisabeth Rosenthal reports that hokum and sleight-of-hand are not foreign to the handling of the subject, even for sovereign nations:

OSLO — Last year, as United Nations scientists were warning of the perils of man-made climate change, this small country of fjords and factories reacted with an extraordinary pledge: by 2050 Norway would be “carbon neutral,” generating no net greenhouse gases into the air.

Norway’s bold promise raised the bar for other nations, which were mostly still struggling to figure out how to reduce emissions, by even a fraction. Then, in January, the Norwegian government went a step further: Norway would be carbon neutral by 2030, it said.

But as the details of the plan have emerged, environmental groups and politicians — who applaud Norway’s impulse — say the feat relies too heavily on sleight-of-hand accounting and huge donations to environmental projects abroad, rather than meaningful emissions reductions.

That criticism has not only set off anguished soul-searching here, but may also come as a cold slap to the many countries, companies, cities and universities that have lined up to replicate Norway’s example of becoming carbon neutral — with an environmental balance sheet showing that they absorb as much carbon dioxide as they emit.

Calling Al Gore, calling Al Gore.  Were you aware of this inconvenient truth?

Read the whole piece.  Very enlightening.  The righteous-sounding aren't always righteous. 

And, righteous or not, I'll be back later.

March 22, 2008.  Permalink