October
4, 2002 10:25 a.m. Der
“Homeland,” His Eyebrow-ness, “Oil, that is,” &c.
o you want to hear a statement defined as “rich”? Sen. Lieberman
— Joltin’ Joe — says, “I worry that we are being stopped
from achieving an agreement on [the Department of Homeland Security] for
reasons that have something to do with the election.” When Democrats
accuse the administration of “politicizing” such matters, this
is pure . . . what do the psychologists call it again? Transference or
projection. I always forget. But either term is handy.
Then Ari Fleischer
comes along with, “From the president’s point of view, it would
just be unimaginable for the Senate to leave town without having taken
action to protect the homeland.”
Ugh. “To protect
the homeland.” “Homeland” is such an un-American word.
How did we ever get into this? It’s too late now. The word will even
be imbedded in the name of that department: Homeland Security. Sounds
like bad science fiction, or a mockery of our WWII foes. (Remember when
Archie Bunker would literally pronounce out “W-W-2”?)
Well, I guess it’s
better than “Fatherland.”
And the substance
of Fleischer’s remark was groan-inducing too: like the creation of
this new department would “protect the homeland” anyway. (That
was just slightly Valley Girlish, but you know what I mean.)
A reader sent me this remarkable datum about the president’s spokesman.
You recall that Mr. Fleischer spoke of a single marksman who might effect
“regime change” in Baghdad all by himself. The reader pointed
out that Ari Fleischer’s name spells “A rifle is cher.”
Amazing — but
vrai.
In recent times, we’ve been writing about how the Left whines that
debate is being “stifled” . . . whenever it is losing. An open
debate, defined by certain liberals, means a debate in which no one talks
back to them, or does so only weakly.
So here is what Jim
McDermott says: “The right wing doesn’t want to hear any dissent.
That’s what this furor is all about.” Very comforting: that
you’re not just loopy and semi-traitorous, but a brave dissenter
— a real Solzhenitsyn! If these people are “stifled,” how
come they’re on TV every second?
And David Bonior
— the other Baghdad Democrat — says, “I regret there isn’t
more debate.” What he really means is: I’m sorry more Americans
don’t agree with me, and I’m getting my a** kicked.
Remember.
Poor Dick Gephardt. I feel sorry for him. I really do. He stands with
the president on Iraq, and the Democrats say, He’s undercut us! He’s
a poor leader! He’s left us stranded! Rep. Jose Serrano (big Castroite):
“Members are saying it was kind of a shock to see the display of
unity on the White House lawn, when so many of us are still grappling”
with Iraq. Rep. Maurice Hinchey (don’t know his views on Castro,
but he’s another New York Democrat, so I worry): “His attitude
is, ‘Everybody’s on their own.’ There’s no position
on behalf of the Democratic party or Democratic members of Congress —
which I think is an odd way of addressing this, really.”
But before, people
were saying, There should be no party discipline. This is a matter of
conscience. Everyone should be able to decide for himself. How can you
do party enforcement over a matter as vital as war: life and death?
Gephardt is really
damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t. So I feel sorry for him.
But that can’t
last more than . . . seconds.
Democrats are perpetually lamenting that, with the debate over war, they
can’t talk, on the campaign trail, about the economy, jobs, etc.
They call these “kitchen-table issues.”
My question is: Can’t
war be discussed over the kitchen table? Why isn’t how to confront
terror and the weapons of mass destruction possessed by rogue states a
“kitchen-table issue”? Why will no one resent the Democrats
for their implication?
Or maybe they will.
I’m tempted to bow deep to Tony Blair. At his Labour conference the
other day, he said, “America stands strong and proud, but at times
resented. For all the resentment of America, remember one thing: The basic
values of America are our values too, British and European, and they are
good values: democracy, freedom, justice.”
But then Blair was
absolutely atrocious on Israel, which he clearly doesn’t understand.
This brings home a truth that has been dawning on me about Europe: There
are pockets — sometimes big ones — of pro-Americanism. But Israel
is utterly friendless. Or so it seems.
Another word on the
Labour conference: Bill Clinton turned up, in a flashy way (natch). Once
more, I’m reminded of that great expression: “He must be the
bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral.”
Earlier in the week, the New York Times did something unusual:
It published, on its op-ed page, a piece
by Anthony Swofford, a Gulf War vet who has written a book, Jarhead:
A Marine’s Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles. It was
a fairly gripping account of war in the desert (I’m talking about
the op-ed piece). There was nothing to further the Times’s
agenda in it. I wondered why it was there.
(That’s a little
heavy-handed, but you know what I mean — and I don’t have the
time, or the discipline, to refine it.)
When I got to the
final words, however, I thought I knew why — this was the money sentence,
as far as the Times was concerned (or so I conjectured): “I
watched the fallout from the burning oil wells coat my uniform, and I
knew that I was breathing into my lungs the crude oil I was fighting for.”
Oh, yes: the War
of Oil, “No Blood for Oil!” etc. That old chestnut.
I share with you
a vignette from my recent trip to Greece (about which I have written for
the current NR, along with thoughts on Albania and other important
places): I was sitting, and arguing, with some young Greek journalists
late into the night. (It wasn’t late for them — it was standard.
But it was late for me.) (And about these SOBs, who screwed me big-time
in their article about me, I’ll write later, if I’m feeling
especially vindictive and bitter.) So we were talking, and it came to
the subject of the Gulf War, and why the U.S. and its allies fought it.
I rehearsed several
reasons. And then this young girl — pretty, working in the international-affairs
department of a major newspaper in northern Greece — said, “Come
on, it was the oil, admit it.” She said it with a look and tone that
said, “How can you be so gullible! Either that or deceptive! Please,
you’re not foolin’ anyone, you poor sap!”
That’s the attitude
— when they’re being nice. Such people won’t entertain
any other reason for fighting a war like the Gulf War, or the one we’re
about to enter. Their thinking is entirely crude (get it?) (Sorry.)
One more bit that
stuck with me from the Anthony Swofford excerpt: “At the border,
while we awaited our orders to fight, helicopters outfitted with tape
players and powerful speakers flew overhead and played 1960’s rock
music — Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, the Rolling Stones — all day,
to harass the nearby enemy.”
That would make me
whip out my white flag, too.
On the subject of music: A reader writes, “Please please please tell
me you’ve also defended the horribly maligned Carpenters, Karen and
Richard. [This was after my plug for Barry Manilow.] [Maybe plug’s
not the right word.] Not only was Karen’s voice straight from heaven,
but she was (culturally if not overtly) conservative, and Richard was
(and so far as I know still is) on the right side of American politics.
Heck, they sang for Nixon once and were savaged in the press. Their staggering
success is all the sweeter given how much the Left hated them.”
Here here (or is
that “hear hear”? I always forget — I can just hear Denis
Thatcher saying it). The Carpenters were a ray of light in a time of din
and darkness.
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o you want to hear a statement defined as “rich”? Sen. Lieberman
— Joltin’ Joe — says, “I worry that we are being stopped
from achieving an agreement on [the Department of Homeland Security] for
reasons that have something to do with the election.” When Democrats
accuse the administration of “politicizing” such matters, this
is pure . . . what do the psychologists call it again? Transference or
projection. I always forget. But either term is handy.
A reader sent me this remarkable datum about the president’s spokesman.
You recall that Mr. Fleischer spoke of a single marksman who might effect
“regime change” in Baghdad all by himself. The reader pointed
out that Ari Fleischer’s name spells “A rifle is cher.”
