A voice from the American street, the question of Clinton, hating pornographers, &c.

January 3, 2002 9:10 a.m.

et ready for an old theme: In a recent New York Times article, a Middle Eastern television journalist was quoted as saying, “Sometimes there is a naïveté in saying Arabs hate Americans. No. Arabs love lots of facets of the American way of life. But they’re not fond of American policies.”

Oh? Would you like to hear what I think of Arab policies? Of course not. No one cares about the Western view of Middle Eastern policies; we’re all nervous about what the saintly furriners think of us, the democratic-and-decadent sinners.

Well, here, nevertheless, is what I think of Arab policies, generally speaking: They’re cruel, war-mongering, soul-killing, prosperity-denying, corrupt, anti-egalitarian, racist, and damnable.

But again: No one cares what a pale-face thinks of Arab policies. We should understand, and accept, of course, a certain noblesse oblige: There is, indeed, a multilayered “burden” to be borne. But we should also have a certain self-confidence — or rather, confidence in liberal principles. And we should recognize that some principles are, in fact, universal. Phrases such as “Asian values” and “Arab values” can be just the excuse of oppressors to go on oppressing.

Until the Arab world — with its 22 states — produces its very first democracy, I wouldn’t be terribly nervous about what the “Arab street” thinks of us. Would be nice if some Arabs worried about what the American street thinks of them — if, in fact, our street can still think. And rise above the fatuousness of its miseducators and masters.

The media critic of the Washington Post is the much respected, much feared, much sucked-up-to Howard Kurtz. In a recent column, he excerpted a piece I have on Donald Rumsfeld in the current NR. To wit:

You can get too sociological about this, but Rumsfeld is the anti-Alda. In a feminized society — whose idea of a male sex symbol has been the Brad Pitt-style pretty boy — he is a relief, or a rediscovery. He has walked out of Father Knows Best, or some WWII flick. And just as he’s the anti-Alda, he is — as everyone says — the anti-Clinton. The ultimate anti-Clinton. Whereas Clinton was a pain-feeler, Rumsfeld is more a pain-inflicter, at least where the country’s enemies are concerned. And he must be the most uneuphemistic person alive. He is totally immune, and allergic, to “spin.” Says an old Rumsfeld hand, “He doesn’t like to be spun. He sees it in a second, and you’re dead if you try to do it. And he doesn’t spin other people.”

Then Kurtz comments: “Notice how some conservatives drag Clinton into everything?”

Well, we don’t quite drag him into everything, but we do — understandably and rightly, I think — drag him into a lot.

Let me mention a few reasons for a reflection on Clinton in a piece about Rumsfeld: 1) Comparison can be a useful way of thinking about something: of analyzing, understanding, expressing, and illustrating. 2) Bill Clinton has just gotten through with being president for a whole eight years. 3) Clinton had eight years in which to combat terrorism in general and al Qaeda in particular. As proven devastatingly by Byron York in the second-to-last NR — and also by the New York Times in a front-page story on December 30 that should give Clinton-defending Democrats the willies — Clinton did basically nothing, emboldening our enemies and priming them for the big strike. 4) Clinton was the dominant figure of his period in America. He filled it, imprinting himself on it, on just about everyone’s mind and psyche. 5) He was more dominating, more present, than most presidents — even two-term presidents — are. That is because of his immodesty. His presidency can be seen as one big personal psycho-drama: Everything was “about” him — his lifelong quest for civil rights, for the dignity of black people; his struggle for women (seriously now); his mission to beat back the narrowness and hang-ups of the Right (including the hang-up on the rule of law); his untiring fight to make the country as good and enlightened as he and his friends. 6) Clinton had a marked style, including an almost physical love of euphemism (the government “invests in” something, not spends on something; it depends on “what the meaning of ‘is’ is,” etc.). 7) If presidents make a mark on us, we think about them — “drag them into” things — for many years after they’ve departed the White House. FDR was still being talked about well into Reagan (and, in fact, Reagan revived discussion of that president). In the 1984 campaign, Walter Mondale invoked Harding and Hoover (really). Reagan is still talked about regularly: He was invoked almost daily during the 2000 Republican primaries, as he was likened to or contrasted with John McCain and George W. Bush. 8) The style of the current administration is pointedly and consciously opposite Clinton’s. But it’s not “style,” really: It’s more like character.

Clinton “obsession” can be a problematic and injurious thing; but to use Clinton as a point of comparison can be quite normal, even demanded.

Even so, I’m wary of trashing someone for the purpose of saying something positive about someone else. I remember, in 1989, when Barbara Bush “took over” as First Lady. Everyone in the media was quick to praise her: but it was always in contrast with her predecessor. No one — the Maureen Dowds — could say, “You know, I like Barbara Bush.” They all had to say, “Barbara Bush is a breath of fresh air, after that $@#! Nancy Reagan!” I remember noticing that; it has stuck with me.

Yes, I like Rumsfeld, quite apart from my dislike of Clinton. But my like of the one and dislike of the other are very much related, having to do with what it is I admire and disdain. I think that speaks for many of us knuckle-draggers, actually.

The Times is doing something cute now: They are referring to bin Ladenite extremists in Saudi Arabia as “the religious right”! This is from Douglas Jehl’s 12/27 article, datelined Riyadh: “Choosing accommodation over confrontation, the government shied away from a crackdown on militant clerics or their followers, a move that would have inflamed the religious right, the disaffected returnees from other wars and a growing number of unemployed.”

Does “the religious right” make any sense at all in that context — or is it simply that that which is bad and threatening deserves to be labeled “religious right,” conjuring up our liberal establishment’s (and Sen. McCain’s) worst nightmare: Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell?

I wonder if you’ve noted the difference between Pakistan’s Musharraf and “Palestine”’s Arafat. Pakistan and India moved toward war after the attack on the Indian parliament by al Qaeda-like militants from Pakistan. Musharraf responded that Pakistan was prepared for war if it came to that: but he made unmistakably clear that the Pakistani militants were enemies of Pakistan itself. He said that such militants had engulfed the country in a “nightmare.” He said that Pakistan faced an “internal challenge” as much as an external one. He said, “No wicked, bigoted extremist will be allowed to derail us, and we, the vast, silent majority, must vow not to be voiceless, passive onlookers to our own internal destruction.”

You won’t often find me tipping my hat to a military dictator: but it’s hard to see how anyone could “ride the [Pakistani] tiger” more ably or more daringly than Musharraf is doing it now. And let us hope that he is right about that “vast, silent majority” part. I suspect he is. But they had better recover their voice. Perhaps, through this dictator/leader, they are.

Who is your most maddening politician? I’m not sure I have one — a single one — but John Kerry would be very high (low?) on my list. I’ve noticed that his new PAC — though he has always postured as anti-PAC — is called “the Citizen Soldier Fund.” That’s Kerry: Now that we’re in wartime, it’s all “soldier.” When it suits him, he’s anti-soldier — an anti-soldier soldier. He is Mr. Toss-His-Medals-Away, Mr. Anti-war. And when it suits him to be identified as a fatigues-wearing hombre, he’s that.

Look, I’m (very) far from dewy-eyed about politicians: I know that they’re opportunistic, and I know that they exploit (hell, we all do). John Kerry is not exactly unique in using a military record. But I wonder if anyone has ever used one so double-mindedly — so inconsistently. He wants to be Jane Fonda to the Left, the Good Soldier to those more moderate. I’ll have a lot more to say about Kerry, as he rises (or continues to rise); I’ve had my eye on him for years, and he is a prize piece of work. But suffice it to say for now: If he reaches the White House, we may be comparing him unfavorably to Clinton.

In yesterday’s column, I mentioned a few “heartwarming” (to me, at least) Christmas stories. I don’t know if this one’s heartwarming; it’s more like chilling. I was looking at a refrigerator (the outside of one for a change, not the inside), and there was a card bearing a photo of two proud parents and two little ones (who may have been twins — I’m not sure now). My host said, “Those kids saved his [the father’s] life.” What do you mean? “On September 11, he was in Russia, adopting them. He would have been at his desk in the Trade Center.”

Oh. As I said, chills. Why do I repeat it? I don’t really know — maybe it’s because the mass murder that came to New York and elsewhere still bears pondering, as the national anger subsides.

Finally, I’d like to say a couple simple words to pornographers: I hate you. My e-mail is deluged with porn, and I can’t block them fast enough. One e-mail has on its subject line “Sisters.” And the message: “Incest at Its Finest. You have never seen a family like this one: mother/son, daughter/father, grandfather/granddaughter.” One has on its subject line: “Sorry about the late Christmas gift.” And inside: “Girls F***ing Animals After School” and “Teen Sluts Covered in Sperm.” One e-mail address is “teeniesuckathon.” Another e-mail informs, “We have selected a list of the 25 best pay sites in the preteen industry!” I even had an e-mail from Korea — my first ever — and it was, of course, an offer of porn (as the pictures told me, amid the indecipherable characters).

As this porn floods in, the emphasis on pedophilia, bestiality, and incest is . . . I would say “shocking,” but is anyone shocked anymore? It is perhaps still outrageous.

Again, to pornographers: I hate you. (I feel sort of like Sally Field: I hate you! I really hate you!) And we are not powerless against them. That’s one thing they’d like us to believe, and it’s one of their most potent weapons: the lie that our laws and values hamstring us from doing anything about pornographers, especially those of them who traffic in children. I explored this subject in a recent NR (Nov. 19). And if I didn’t have a day job, I just might devote myself to anti-pornography (and to anti-pro-Castroism and any number of other things). There are few people in the country I admire more than the anti-porn activists. They are constantly disparaged as prudes and killjoys and Bill of Rights haters. And they do invaluable work, for all of us, really, even if we don’t know it. One problem, they tell me, is that too few of their fellow citizens are willing to join them, because the subject is so awful — most people (including me, really) would rather just turn away from it.

So, my feeling is: Thank God some are willing to stand and face it, and face it down. To get their hands dirty. To dwell with it daily, for the purpose of combating it.

I feel the same way, incidentally, about human-rights activists: It’s no fun to listen to one more torture case from Cuba, one more Christian from China talking about what they did to his pastor, etc. But thank God some nuts and obsessives — some warriors and saints — do this. The rest of us, in our Laz-Y-Boys, can at least cheer them on, or at least not abuse them.