Rob's Politics Blog

A true hero of human rights meets his idol. Gosh, he looks so happy. Anyone think he asked about Havana's political prisoners?

In the New York Times Magazine, James Traub's insightful examination of Dubyaphobia, Learning to Love to Hate, nicely situates it as a byproduct of the Clinton-hating of the 90s, although one might contend that many of the true Bush-haters were people who were indifferent to Monicagate. Ralph Nader actually said that he would have voted in favor of impeachment were he in the House (does he wonder why he remains marginal?).

Still, Traub takes the argument to a sound conclusion

It's satisfying; but I don't see how it can be a good thing, either for public debate or ultimately for the electoral prospects of the Democrats, to have liberals descend to the level of rabid conservatives. Maybe Al Franken has the right idea, since ''Liars'' is not so much an actual diatribe as a sly parody of conservative extremism.

Far more thoughtful and, inevitably, depressing is Richard Cohen's Return to Wannsee. I'll quote some as an inducement for you to click on the above link:

The use of such language, the support of such ideas, is too often a precursor to violence. The scenario of Germany and the rest of Europe cannot apply. Islamic countries have next to no Jews. But it does transform the opposition to Israel from a political-nationalistic dispute into a kind of vast pogrom in which compromise becomes increasingly impossible. In the end, such language could justify the use of the so-called Islamic bomb, an atomic weapon such as the one Iran is now developing and Pakistan already has.

Cohen fittingly frames this in the context to a visit to the Wannsee villa where the Holocaust was planned.


My own reaction to Mahathir is some profound doubt as to who and where the moderate Muslims the West needs to cultivate are. The classification of Mahathir as a moderate is clearly erroneous and wishful; that has been apparent since he decided to deem the Iraq war proof that the US opposes Islam. Embracing bin Laden's language should have ended notions of his moderation then and there.

Still, there were moderates in the room and they standed and applauded. Hamid Karzai was one. Megawati Sukarnoputri was another. I doubt that either of them intend to act in a way to undermine the US war on terror, or pour fuel on the flames of conflict in Israel and Palestine, but at the least the world does need individuals to speak up within these forums.

The point has been made that Mahathir was calling for nonviolent resistance, but he did so by reassuring Muslims that a vendetta against "the Jews" was justified, by reaffirming an intensely warped worldview. A Klansman hailing the contributions of whites to science and calling for more research and less cross-burning seems an apposite analogy.

Still, I'm inclined to view this event as a helpful reminder of the ideological currents that circulate in the Islamic world. The normally blasé Europe was compelled to condemn the outburst; Germany did so quickly, France stalled as long as possible. The world - so much of it in denial - needs these reminders every now and then. There is a certain reluctance to speak about prejudice that doesn't emanate from conservative white men; this does noone any favors. We can give the Palestinians 100% of the West Bank tomorrow, but it wouldn't mean anything if we let this particular cancer continue to metastasize.

By now, half the political blogosphere has written about this, and nothing I say will be new, but I felt I should chime in my disgust at Paul Krugman's recent stab at a column, Listening to Mahathir

It's been some time since I read Krugman regularly. Among columnists, he's a fairly bitter read. It's funny what a difference a change of administration makes, since Krugman reminds me of what Bill Safire was like during the Clinton Administration. Safire now seems peppier, with a spark in his eyes, and an unsettling habit of having conversations with the dead Richard Nixon. Krugman is remarkably bitter and angry and fixated by his Bush hatred.

So much so, that the lifelong anti-Semitism of Malaysia's Mohammed Mahathir is just another reflection of Bush's failings.

Let's quote, shall we?

The fact is that Mr. Mahathir, though guilty of serious abuses of power, is in many ways about as forward-looking a Muslim leader as we're likely to find.

In the last 5 years, Mahathir has clamped down rather viciously, including his imprisoning of his own deputy, Anwar Mohammed on a charge of sodomy. Compare him to King Abdullah of Jordan, or King Mohammed of Morocco - both genuine and heartfelt reformers. Or the emir of Qatar, whose tolerance for dissenting views has led to Al Jazeera.

So what's with the anti-Semitism? Almost surely it's part of Mr. Mahathir's domestic balancing act, something I learned about the last time he talked like this, during the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98.

Examination of Mahathir's record by others indicates that this is a rather heartfelt sentiment on his part. As was commonly joked during the currency crisis, there weren't enough Jews in Malaysia to fill a synagogue. If these appeals are useful politically, it's because he has worked to make them so, not because they constitute a "Get out of Jail Free" card he can play every 5 years and leave alone otherwise.

Now Mr. Mahathir thinks that to cover his domestic flank, he must insert hateful words into a speech mainly about Muslim reform. That tells you, more accurately than any poll, just how strong the rising tide of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism among Muslims in Southeast Asia has become. Thanks to its war in Iraq and its unconditional support for Ariel Sharon, Washington has squandered post-9/11 sympathy and brought relations with the Muslim world to a new low.

How does he know what Mahathir thinks? He clearly doesn't know jack, either about Mahathir or his record. For starters, Mahathir is retiring at the end of the month - his incentive to make these appeals is what again?

Worse is the automatic linkage between Mahathir's base appeal and Bush and Sharon (the term "unconditional" while US pressure is the only force keeping Yasser Arafat at liberty shows how much Krugman knows about the Middle East) reveals a shockingly shoddy analysis. By refusing to engage the question of Mahathir's record - or for that matter, the torrent of bigotry spewing from the Islamic world - Krugman shows us that he is incapable of thinking past his phobia toward Bush. By diverting his column at the end to the fundamentalist US General William Boykin, he hammers that home.

Some things in this world occur independently of Bush and Cheney. They demand hard analysis, even criticism independent of one's views about Bush. Paul Krugman is too mediocre a columnist to rise to this responsibility.

Ed Asner - not a Stalinist.

I have elected to delete a post concerning comments by the renowned actor that Stalin was "deeply misunderstood." Denial about the extent of Stalinism is something that troubles me deeply, since there remain so many who would advocate Stalin's goals without acknowledging his methods. Or for that matter, Mao. The guy was responsible for starvation deaths in 8 figures, and yet he gazes benignly from many a dorm wall poster.

Still, it appears that the quote was erroneous, nay just plain fraudulent. In a revised version of the article, Asner is reported as saying the following:

Well, you know something, they've played Hitler, nobody has ever really touched Stalin, it just occurred to me. It's not because I am a liberal or anything like that. Stalin is one big damn mystery, I wonder why nobody has tried it? Many people, you know, speak of the fact that he killed more people than Hitler – why does nobody touch him? It's strange. So, and he was about my size, my height – with a wig I probably could do it.

That rather does change everything and I won't be touching anything written by Kevin McCullough with a ten foot pole. Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Reynolds, from whom I originally noted this item, have also issued corrections.

Perhaps I should refrain from considering the alleged views of longtime TV stars a headline item. It's not as though the rest of the world isn't tossing out news faster than I can read it.

Still, Asner is wrong: there was an HBO film on Stalin starring Robert Duvall. I tried to watch it once on A&E but lost interest. Also, the villain in John Cusack's Better Off Dead was named, not coincidentally I think, Roy Stalin. Ed Asner could definitely contribute to helping us envision "Uncle Joe."

Possibly the most heartening news you'll read from Iraq is in the Washington Post: 'A Gift From God' Renews a Village. Few arguments for deposing Saddam are as moving as what he did to the environment and inhabitants of the marshes of southern Iraq. I probably would have supported the war on the basis of this alone.

After the decade Saddam spent trying to destroy a way of life that goes back thousands of years, the flow of water into the marshes has resumed - there isn't nearly enough there yet to restore them, but it is a vital start.

And there are some Iraqis who most certainly will not despise us:

"Everyone is so happy," Kerkush said as he watched his son stand in a mashoof and steer it like a gondolier with a long wooden pole. "We are starting to live like we used to, not the way Saddam wanted us to live."

With some regret and some hope, I note Bob Graham's withdrawal from the presidential race. I liked Graham in general, since he has a lot of strengths that a successful Democrat would need in the main election. He's very sharp on security issues in a way that Howard Dean isn't; at the same time he can legitimately attempt to appease the party base by claiming that he opposed the Iraq war. The fact that he hails from Florida is a nice plus – I am convinced that any viable Democratic nominee has to be able to challenge Bush in Florida and other Southern states that voted for Clinton: Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana and Kentucky, and be competitive in North Carolina and Virginia - both of which have strong Democratic parties and regions. Plus there's his experience as a governor in the pre-Jeb years.

The Washington Post notes that Graham may emerge as a solid candidate for Vice President. I'd welcome that. If Dean wins the nomination, he'd be well-advised to take Graham, Clark or Edwards as his VP.

A nice piece by a former UNSCOM inspector in today's Post: No Weapons Doesn't Mean No Threat:

The apparent absence of existing weapons stocks, therefore, does not mean Hussein did not pose a WMD threat. In fact, fragments of evidence in Kay's report about ongoing biological weapons research suggest that Hussein may have had a quick 'break-out' capacity to threaten his neighbors and, indeed, the United States with biological agents (possibly including infectious agents).

Everyone has good cause to wonder why Bush and team proclaimed that there were weapons onhand, whether because of their misreading intelligence, being deceitful, or being taken in by Saddam's attempt to establish a deterrent by claiming weapons he didn't have. But all this celebratory hooting by the anti-war left seems premised on the notion that Saddam never had weapons. Given his own history of using them, and the discoveries made during the inspections regime, that is a bizarre position to take. If one honestly takes the question to heart, it is not "where are they?" but "why aren't they there?" Few would be so bold as to posit that Saddam had a change of heart.

A close reading of the evidence that has emerged would indicate that his strategy for obtaining these weapons changed, but his basic intent did not. This puts one in the position of defending the infamous sanctions regime against Iraq, which was a poor second place to deposing him altogether. But that requires taking more interest in the topic than the hard Left (not the Left as a whole) is generally capable of expressing. By all means, let's find out what the roots of pre-war misintelligence were; but let's recall that we were far from alone in perceiving a threat from Iraq. This is a sober-minded task, not a witch-hunt.

On the third anniversary of the initiation of one of the most profoundly self-destructive campaigns in history, one Palestinian leader concedes that the intifada has not improved the condition of the Palestinian people. Mohammed Dahlan is safely out of office and in a position to be frank, but one hopes that his remarks are published in Arabic as well as in English.

The Achilles Heel of the Palestinian national movement has historically been an inability to separate questions of justification from questions of efficacy. One usually expects national movements to construe the rightness of their actions very broadly, but the more successful ones go beyond self-reassuring questions to ask if taking an action actually helped. The Palestinian national movement has failed to ask that question at various points.

Even today, I doubt that many Palestinians think that the decision of the Mufti to violently oppose the creation of the state of Israel, rather than accept a partition of the country was a bad move. Few would reconsider the movement's earlier rejection of the Creel partition plan, which gave them most of the country. Considering the grief that the image of Palestinian-as-terrorist has caused the movement, there has been very little rethinking of the efficacy of actions like Munich and Ma'alot. Now, as Dahlan ponders this question, there is the usual round of chest-thumping self-congratulation about the intifada that brought Sharon to power and destroyed the Palestinian economy and the Palestinian authority. Whatever misery this has caused Israel - and the grief has been substantial - the Palestinians are unlikely to reap any benefit from three years of bloodshed that they could not have attained through continued negotiation. American support for Israel has generally hardened in the wake of 9/11 (though the foolish blusterings of Sharon these days may dampen it) and the strategic balance in the region still favors Israel, all the more so following Saddam's fall.

Israel has made its share of mistakes, but it has survived them for the abundance of space that self-criticism and self-analysis enjoy in its public sphere. In the pages of Ha'aretz, the country's leading newspaper, columnists who want to see the survival of Israel freely criticize the errors of its government. The frank and open nature of Israeli public discourse is one of the country's greatest strengths. Many Palestinians recognize this, but Arafat is not one of them. Consequently, dissident Palestinians are threatened for speaking out, as Khalil Shikaki was for suggesting that Palestinians may be amenable to compensation in lieu of returning to their former homes.