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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.

So, W.’s steamed that Congress wants us to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. “Complicates” things, don’t you know. I have ranted about this before, and will do so again, briefly: Every presidential election year, the candidates pledge — usually before a Jewish group — “And if I’m elected, the United States will have its embassy where it belongs: in Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, indivisible and eternal.” Big cheers and whoops. And when that candidate is elected — any of them — he says, “Oops, sorry: It’s just not the right time. Mañana.”

My hope is that candidates will simply cut the baloney and drop the Jerusalem stuff, since they don’t mean it. Of course, relocating our embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would be meaningful and right: It would say, “Israel is here to stay. It is not some temporary aberration. Give up your dreams of driving it into the sea. Or, as Marion Barry said when he was elected to a fourth term, after serving a term in prison for cocaine, ‘Deal with it, whitey.’” (He didn’t say “whitey” — but he did say “Deal with it.”) That, in the Middle East, would be a tonic. That embassy in Tel Aviv is sort of a hedge, a pair of American fingers crossed behind our back.

I give you Peter Jennings, talking to Sean Hannity: “It hasn’t been until the last decade and a half that there have been more conservative views in the media, and there still aren’t enough.”

The revo (or counter-revo) continues, bloods.

I give you the invaluable Pete du Pont — Pistol Pete du Pont — on Social Security reform, and new electoral gutsiness re same. Du Pont is the man. I don’t care if the first Bush calls him “Pierre.” “Pierre,” “Pete,” “Monsieur du Pont” — whatever. He’s an MVP of American politics. Now if only we could get him in W.’s cabinet.

(As someone pointed out, back in 1988, wasn’t it rich that du Pont was mocked on class grounds by someone who had been chauffeured to kindergarten in Greenwich? No kidding.)

As the Al Sharpton presidential campaign heats up — boy, it’s strange to write that sentence — you will see one name over and over: Rachel Noerdlinger. She is the Rev’s spokesman (or woman or whatever). And therein lies a tale. Which I might tell someday.

And, no, she’s no relation, although she’s sometimes asked about it, as I am.

Do you want to hear a perfectly worded TV ad? This from the Republican gubernatorial nominee in California:

Do you know me? [Very American Expressy.] I survived millions of dollars of Gray Davis lies and distortions. [Davis is California’s incumbent.] I was a federal prosecutor under Rudy Giuliani. I helped build a business that’s created thousands of jobs. My wife Cindy and I have a great family, and we’ve shared our good fortune by giving millions to charity to help people. Maybe because I’ve made money, I’m not corrupted by it, like Gray Davis. I’m not a politician, and I’m not perfect. But I will clean up Sacramento. I’m Bill Simon.

Given the circumstances of that campaign, I can’t think of a better ad. Every syllable is simply . . . perfect. It may not do the trick, because that trick is formidable, daunting. But what an effort.

Y’all know my love of Phil Gramm — my favorite office-holder — who said two days ago, in tribute to the retiring Jesse Helms, “He was conservative before conservative was cool.”

Walter Annenberg is dead, and I have one thing to say about that (besides that it was a great life and that he will be missed, by many): I always thought that it was the height of wealth that he owned his own golf course. I always thought, “That’s what it means to be really rich: to have one’s own golf course.” I sort of fantasized about that. No tee times, no six-hour rounds, no fuss and bother. Just step out into your backyard (or whatever) and stick it in the ground. (That’s a phrase meaning “tee it up,” by the way.)

If ever I have my own golf course: then I’ll know I’ve “made it,” to borrow from Norman Podhoretz. Of course, the way I’m going, I’m lucky to secure a spot at a muni. (“Muni” = municipal golf course, for the uninitiated.)

May I kvetch about pronunciation? The other night, I heard the indispensable and nearly perfect Condi Rice say “gutter,” for Qatar. That’s the new pronunciation, of course — more “authentic.” I’m still ticked about “cobble” for Kabul, too. For generations, we said “ka-TAHR” and “ka-BUHL.” In fact, the pronunciation of this latter was the subject of a contretemps — reported contretemps, I should say — between the secretary of state and the secretary of defense. Rumsfeld said (again, reportedly), “I don’t think America’s number-one diplomat should be mispronouncing the name of the Afghan capital: It’s ‘cobble.’” And Powell shot back (again, reportedly), “Where I come from, it’s ‘ka-BUHL.’”

I’m with the SecState on this one. Don’t say I never did anything but flay you, Colin. And don’t say I never did anything but plant smooches on Rummy.

I will continue my “Torino Watch,” as we barrel toward the ’06 Winter Olympics. “Turin” is out the window: The likes of Katie Couric are saying “Torino.” They say “Milano,” too. Of course, they don’t say Firenze, Venezia, or Roma (for Florence, Venice, and Rome). Neither do they say Köln instead of “Cologne.” Neither do they say al-Cahara (that’s my rough transliteration) instead of “Cairo.” Neither do they say “Par-ee” instead of “PAIR-iss.” Etc.

Maddening. Of course, we all remember Charles Krauthammer’s brilliant column on the Spanish pronunciation of Nicaragua: When Peter Jennings rolled that r, we knew he hated the Contras.

So, I say Ka-TAHR and Ka-BUHL forever. But we are leaving in gutter times, I’m afraid.

Did I mention Nicaragua? Read this letter from a college student, which I reprint because it’s so typical of the campus situation today (and always):

“I’m supposed to write a term paper this year on Nicaragua and the Contras. The Correct Position [I love those capital letters — she’ll go far], of course, is Firmly Opposed, since they were gusanos working for the evil Amerikans, etc. (this is a quote from one of my classmates. The prof seemed to concur). [By the way, gusano is the Spanish word for “worm,” and it is the term normally applied to all who oppose the Castro regime by those who support it.] Since the professor in question is the one who ordered all Latin America-related library books, I’m utterly at a loss for conservative or even non-Marxist works on Nicaragua, the Contras, the Sandinistas, and Latin American Marxism in general. Can you recommend any authors, or any professors elsewhere, who might be of help?”

One book on Nicaragua: Robert Kagan’s A Twilight Struggle. And, where Latin America broadly is concerned, thank God for the American Enterprise Institute’s Mark Falcoff.

Finally, a cute note from a political-science professor:

“Hey, Jay, just so you know, not all of us are left-wing. Yes, some of us are on the ‘Right’ path: We just can’t say much about it, owing to that nasty tenure thing. Want to get rid of Saddam? Just send in 100 conservative political scientists. We are stealthy, quick-witted, and above all masters of camouflage. Instead of the Marines, send the Mortarboards!”

Perfect.