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These two men have had their chance; in foreign policy as in other matters, they gave it their best shot. And Carter’s op-ed piece in Sunday’s New York Times shows that he still “doesn’t get it” — just as he showed his woeful naïveté in his post-presidential book The Blood of Abraham (one of Carter’s many amateur — and amateurish — efforts, published only because an ex-president, or another giant celebrity, can get published pretty much whatever he wants). Carter’s hatred of Ariel Sharon is almost medical; would that he had a fraction of the ire for the Arab dictatorships that keep the Middle East in constant turmoil. Carter is known as a Middle East man, of course. Why’s that? Because Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin undertook to be almost unbelievably bold — and the man in the White House just happened to be Miz Lillian’s son. Jimmy Carter and now Bill Clinton are a little like Jesse Jackson — always wanting their face in the picture. Speaking of the Reverend, I saw him on the street the other day — standing outside CBS offices on 57th Street, with Charles Osgood, the TV-and-radio guy (the one with those rhymes — not Charles Kuralt, the double-marriage guy, who’s dead; I always sort of lumped the two together). Jackson looked almost angelic as he smiled at well-wishers, simply enjoying his celebrity. I had seen him once before, outside NR’s own building in New York. At the time, the Peruvian consulate was housed here, and Jackson was holding some sort of media event in support of Lori Berenson, the Shining Path babe who was caught. Jackson was wearing an African-dictator-style shirt — you know the kind I mean — and was sweating and gesticulating and fulminating, as he has made his career doing. The question arises, Is he the worst man in public life? Jackson has a lot going for him. There’s the gross hypocrisy, of course. But there’s also the fact that he has done his best to keep the racial-grievance pot boiling, and racial grievance is maybe the worst ailment that this country has. Problem is, Jackson now has the competition of Clinton. And the fact that they huddled on Super Bowl Sunday 1998, to plot Lewinsky strategy and “have prayer,” is simply too perfect. Speaking of lousy ex-presidents, we will keep our eyes on Jimmy Carter’s visit with Fidel Castro. It has almost become a truism to say, “Jimmy Carter has been a model ex-president.” It is closer to the truth to say that he has been dismaying. Sure, what he does with hammers is great, and politicians (and others) can be forgiven for attention seeking (although the truly great ex-presidents, in my view, turn to private concerns, those being, ultimately, so much more important than public ones). But do you remember how resentful and horrified Carter was when the Nicaraguan people, in a democratic vote, turned out the Sandinistas? He even wanted the victor, the democrat Violeta Chamorro, to share power with the Communists whom she had just defeated. Carter was almost as shaken and crestfallen over the whole thing as Bianca Jagger. When I think of this ex-president, I tend to think of that.
Here is something utterly typical, culled from a sermon preached by Saudi Arabia’s Sheikh Abdul-Rahman al-Sudais in the Grand Mosque at Mecca, and carried live by “several Arabic TV and radio networks,” according to the New York Post. The sheikh prayed to God to “terminate” the Jews, whom he described as “the scum of humanity, the rats of the world, prophet-killers, pigs, and monkeys.” This is sickeningly common, the Jews as lower animals. And Muslim leaders are very rarely called on it. Strange.
Funny — and quite telling — that Powell thinks of “the crisis” as the Israeli counter-attack. When the Israelis withdraw, “the crisis” will be over. Others of us think that the crisis is the ongoing PLO war against Israel, and the refusal of Palestinians to co-exist with that state: to negotiate with it, to compromise with it, to live with it. It would make a significant difference, to U.S. policy, if the secretary of state grasped the nature of the true crisis.
Frankly, it hadn’t come to my attention that Democrats “fear” Cuban-Americans. They certainly don’t act like it (see Janet Reno). And isn’t it interesting that Keller, and all like him, call them “right-wing”? They are certainly anti-Communist, as any decent person is, just as any decent person is anti-Nazi. They are pro-democracy and pro-human rights. Amazing that, in the Cuban context, to be pro-democracy and pro-human rights is to be “right-wing,” but it is. To oppose torture is to be a real far-out nut. Keller, along with everyone else in his class, also calls Cuban-Americans “zealots.” Of course, in any other context — say, the South African — to be zealous for democracy and human rights is considered rather positive. Odd, too, that Keller thinks that Cuban-Americans control the Florida vote. The truth is, there is no great danger in angering the Cuban-Americans. They are plentifully hated by a) “Hispanics,” b) blacks, and c) “Anglos.” Cuban-Americans are not only about the most hated group in the state, but the most envied. (I explored some of this in my March 6, 2000, piece for NR, “In Castro’s Corner: A Study in Black and Red.”) It is further odd that Keller would describe the embargo as a “macho symbol of our disapproval” (and he says “disapproval” in such a way as to make me, for one, wonder whether he himself disapproves). So the embargo is “macho”? Interesting word choice there. In a different context, that would be described as “stereotypical,” if not “racist.” I wonder how Bill Keller would describe the Congressional Black Caucus’s special interest in Haiti policy (and didn’t we sort of go to war there, because Randall Robinson wanted to, and Bill Clinton was especially responsive to . . .? Never mind)? I hadn’t noticed, either, that “non-Cuban Latinos” are “tired” of being overshadowed. That is a very strange assertion. “Hispanics” are constantly written about, analyzed, sympathized with, fawned over. They are a national darling and obsession. And Cuban-Americans are never grouped with the “Hispanics.” They are never even anointed with the holy name “minority.” How come? I believe the reason is not very anthropological or taxonomic: It’s that the Cuban-Americans tend to be entrepreneurial, self-sufficient, patriotic, and Republican — which makes them deeply suspect in the eyes of the Democrats and the Left broadly. Several people have remarked that the Cuban-Americans are the one ethnic group and the one minority whom liberals feel free to despise — I mean, even openly. A shame.
Republicans are tempted to do this, of course, because the Left (again, broadly speaking) has made racial sensitivity and insensitivity the be-all, end-all of American life. Not long ago, an editor at a prestigious liberal publication was berating me over the telephone, and he said, “You know what you’re acting like? You’re acting like a Communist!” (Stunned silence from me.) He then said, “I said that, because I was trying to think of something that you’d consider really bad.” (I know this seems impossible, from a grown man with an important position, but it happened, trust me.) Well, Republicans say things like “anti-Hispanic” because they’re “trying to think of something that [the Democrats] consider really bad.” And yet, I will defend the Republicans this far: I believe that a conservative black person or a conservative Hispanic person is a threat to a certain worldview — the one that says that race is destiny, that skin color determines thought, that there is a “black view,” a “Hispanic view,” etc. Miguel Estrada and Clarence Thomas — and millions of others, though less noted — badly upset this apple cart. That is why they are such a threat, why they must be denounced, pounced on, with a particular ferocity. In Thomas’s case, he must be condemned as an “inauthentic black,” as an Uncle Tom. In Estrada’s, he is . . . what’s the Hispanic equivalent again? I do remember a couple of things from my Ann Arbor upbringing: Conservative women were called “Aunt Toms” (this might have been a Betty Friedan coinage, I can’t remember); and non-radical American Indians were called “Uncle Tomahawks.” Also, they were sometimes called “apples”: red on the outside, white on the inside. Ah, racial cruelty — one of the most disgusting traits of this often-disgusting country. I wish the Republicans would consent to be the party of transcendence-of-race. Skin color: Let the Democrats have it.
Stands to reason, doesn’t it? That a newspaper that won’t call the Cleveland Indians the Cleveland Indians won’t call clear terrorists terrorists?
A reader writes, “My problem, alas, with this rather icky policy is not of the moral/ethical variety; it is a problem of logistics. My daughter is a little girl we adopted in China, the very picture of Asian grace and beauty. My wife and I are tall, dorky white people. So you see my quandary: Do we attend the meeting for the Asian parents or the white parents? Our daughter is certainly Asian, so maybe we should go to the Asian meeting. On second thought, I think we would be more comfortable with the white parents. You know, it occurs to me that the only fair solution is to have a meeting for every parent/child race combination present at the school. My wife and I would feel very comfortable at the white-parents-of-Asian-children meeting. Sure, it’s more work for the principal — he’s going to have to hold a lot of meetings! His appointment book will fill up fast, especially if there are mixed-race marriages as part of the equation.” That’s all for now, folks. Back with Le Pen, Tavis Smiley, and some other characters later. |
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immy Carter
and Bill Clinton want badly to insert themselves into what we still call
— why is this? — the Middle East peace process. This shows the
colossal egos of the two men, as if they, through the force of their personalities
and wonderfulness, could make a positive difference at this point. (True,
some kind of ego is necessary to run for president.)
As
regular readers know, I have spent a good long time wading through the
materials supplied by the Middle East Media Research Institute, which
provides translations of newspaper articles, television transcripts, sermons,
textbooks, and the like. (The site is www.memri.org.) One of the things
that stand out in these materials is something that is seldom mentioned,
by name: racism. I mean, really virulent, violent racism — not “racism”
in quotes, the kind with which we are so familiar.
