A Canadian newspaper called the Hamilton Spectator has declared me the absolute low in journalism in 2002 (note: while I think this guy is making fool of himself, he is right that my Crossfire appearance on Canada was not a highwater mark for me):

Looking back at the worst year in journalism since Joe McCarthy peaked, when the leaky multimedia vessels of the busted stock bubble floated themselves on a tide of jingoism and patriotic bilge, two names in particular stand out against the veritable cenotaph of expired integrity. Many journalists went into the warmongering business this year, but I want to single out Marcus Gee of the Globe and Mail and Jonah Goldberg of the National Review.

Goldberg's claim to fame was a National Review cover story wittily entitled Wimps, which argued in favour of an American invasion of Canada.

The piece falls somewhere between failed satire and genuine misanthropy, scraping together a few well-known (to Canadians) complaints about our high taxes, inferior military prowess and smug sense of superiority to arrive at the conclusion that we just don't deserve to live next door to imperial America.

Goldberg's ignorance was paraded in an appearance on a CNN shout show, where he demonstrated a bumbling lack of wit and intelligence that will be familiar to anyone, who has studied the decline of the English aristocracy. Worth preserving from his sack of grade-school spite is his contention that Rohinton Mistry -- the India-born Canadian resident who cancelled a book tour after being shaken down by security thugs in every U.S. airport he visited -- had been, well, asking for it.
"I have a real hard time believing that this guy wasn't looking to get pissed off," Goldberg later said to the Globe and Mail and, in roughly the same words, to CNN.
Goldberg is, of course, a member of the war party, that legion of hacks who, from behind their keyboards and stacks of White House press releases, campaigned for a swift and murderous application of America's global security ambitions. Chief among their attributes is ignorance of history and an easy braggadocio in matters of death and destruction.

Membership in all-white club isn't a "racially insensitive comment" of course. But, depending on the circumstances, it's not the greatest thing in the world either.

C - on the fair criticism scale.

Making fun of a liberal opponent for wanting to send money to Washington DC where the crack-smoking mayor is in all the headlines? Sounds like it'd be good politics if Barry was white.

D- on the fair criticism scale.

A heart surgeon who's had his arms in countless blacks' open-chest cavities says he doesn't want to get stuck by sharpened pencils. Good lord! Alert the NAACP!

Incomplete. Perhaps with effort could be bumped to F-

A supporter makes an ill-advised but hardly outrageous comment, which might have been bad if actually uttered by Frist himself.

F

Republicans want to discourage a core Democratic constituency from voting Democratic. In other words, they treat blacks like any other voting bloc. Frist gives some money to some candidates who do this.

F+

The New York Times frontpage profile of Bill Frist offers one of the lamest smear jobs I've ever seen. Contrasting him with other more experienced or ambitious men Senate Republicans could have chosen as majority leader, the David Firestone writes:

Instead they picked a 50-year-old man who is not, at first glance, an obvious replacement for the veteran Mr. Lott. He is so closely identified with the White House that some members fret about becoming a rubber stamp. He lacks the broad legislative and parliamentary experience that can be useful in fending off the inevitable thrusts from the Democrats. And he has been criticized for comments that were seen as racially insensitive.

Well into the jump we find out what these allegedly racially insensitive comments were. Here's the evidence as presented by the Times, in its own words:

1. From the late 1980's until he first ran for office, Mr. Frist was a member of the all-white Belle Meade Country Club in Nashville, where his family had been members for decades. He resigned in December 1993

2. On at least three occasions in his first campaign in 1994, Tennessee newspapers reported that he accused his opponent, Senator Jim Sasser, of sending local taxpayer money to Washington, home of Marion Barry. Mr. Frist dropped the line after Mr. Sasser said he was using it to inflame racial resentment.

3. Also in that campaign, Representative Harold E. Ford Jr., Democrat from Memphis, demanded that Mr. Frist apologize to African-Americans for remarks that he and a supporter made. Mr. Frist, going to a largely black march against crime, had asked a worker to obtain imprinted pencils to distribute, requesting unsharpened pencils.

"I don't want to get stuck," he told the aide.

4. A supporter also said the bus was getting "deeper into the jungle" as it approached a black neighborhood.

Mr. Frist said at the time that his remark was not racial and that he could not be held responsible for his supporter's remark. But some blacks said he had been racially insensitive.

5. Democratic officials also noted today that several senatorial campaigns on Mr. Frist's watch this year had been accused of working to reduce black voting strength.

I'm one of the Corner's most loyal liberal readers, and I think you're probably pretty right that Martin Peretz is being a little whiny and backwards-thinking when he goes on and on about how unfortunate it is that Gore lost. However, take a look at this part of the passage you cited: "Gore never really asserted, or even suggested, that he had created the Internet. He knows, first of all, that the Internet is not something that is, mirabili dictu, invented. What he actually did say--that he played a critical role in the political process that made way for the Web--isn't simply plausible; it's undeniable. Still, the ludicrous assertion that he had claimed scientific paternity gained such currency with TV pundits, who do nothing if not repeat themselves and emulate each other, that charging Gore with untruths became national sport. "
While there's a bit of hyperbole at the end there, I can se how you can look at this and complain that it's whiny, but you don't make any effort to address the fact that it's, well, true. This same pattern happened over and over again - Gore got tagged as wholly inauthentic, as nothing but an opportunistic liar, based on the "invented the internet" thing and the "Love Story" thing and the like, and this perception tended to blur actual disputes on policy, which is where the battle should have been fought. The whole campaign got played up in the press as the battle of the dumb-but-nice guy versus the bright-but-dishonest guy, and nobody really strayed from that story line, regardles of whether the mofdel actually fit the world.
I generally enjoy - if rarely agree with - what you write, but I did have to take issue with the fact that you offered up this passage as an example of typical lefty whininess while disregarding the perfectly valid substance of it.

No political figure in living memory has been as targeted by the media as Gore, so relentlessly ridiculed for offenses invented mostly by the media itself. Gore never really asserted, or even suggested, that he had created the Internet. He knows, first of all, that the Internet is not something that is, mirabili dictu, invented. What he actually did say--that he played a critical role in the political process that made way for the Web--isn't simply plausible; it's undeniable. Still, the ludicrous assertion that he had claimed scientific paternity gained such currency with TV pundits, who do nothing if not repeat themselves and emulate each other, that charging Gore with untruths became national sport.

The brain of the West German leftist terrorist Ulrike Meinhof was, apparently, cremated yesterday - more than a quarter of a century after the rest of her. She was no loss and nor was her brain. If we discount reports that Hitler's brain has lingered on, that only leaves one other dead terrorist brain at large - that of Lenin, which can still be found in a Moscow scientific institute. The beastly Bolshevik's brain was sliced and diced by eager Soviet scientists not long after the monster's death, eager, presumably, to see if Ilyich's recipes for barbarism and economic catastrophe were somehow imprinted on his little grey cells. They weren't, naturally enough, but by that time it didn't matter - Lenin's evil ideas had already been absorbed by thousands of others - with, alas, lethal consequences that were to endure for decades.

Of course it's not only Lenin's brain that lingers on. His body's still with us too - still on show in that mausoleum in Red Square. It needs to go somewhere else, but where? Cremated with the ashes scattered in a sewer would, I think, be an appropriate finale for this disgusting creature. Maybe Corner readers have other, possibly more charitable, suggestions.

As for Lenin's Mausoleum itself, it should be left standing in Red Square, but this curiously beautiful structure, a masterpiece of Constructivist architecture, needs to find a purpose that can, somehow, redeem those years as a monument to oppression. Why not turn it into a memorial to the tens of millions murdered by the Soviet regime? The building that once 'buried' Lenin should now be used to bury his ideas.

In fact, of course, the 'C of E' has been on the left for decades, something vividly demonstrated by this story told to me by an old acquaintance who is a former Conservative Member of Parliament. At some time in the early 1970s a Soviet delegation had come to visit the provincial city then represented by my friend. The MP found himself sitting next to one of the visitors and across from the wife of a well known local cleric, a lady well-known for the stridency - and the stupidity - of her left-wing credo. Silence fell as she suddenly lent across the table and explained to the luckless Russian, "you know, it is now we Christians who are the real revolutionaries."

Stunned for a moment, the Russian, by all accounts a rather tough apparatchik, sunk back in his chair, unable to know how to reply. He then caught the Tory MP's eye and they both burst into loud - and sustained - laughter.

Nothing more needed to be said.

There's still chatter over here in the UK about the recent dim-witted remarks by Rowan Williams, the cassocked clown now presiding as Archbishop of Canterbury. Part of Williams' speech looked back to the virtues of some notionally more cozy, more collectivist past. Writing in the London Times, Matthew Parris remembers what those days, perhaps best typified by the 1970s, were really like, and then he asks this:

"Where was the Church of England then? Railing as she ought to have against Socialism and the selfishness of collectivist politics? Fighting for individual freedom, choice and the Christian virtues of venture, commitment, consequence and risk? I don't think so."

Indeed.

I've always thought that the Red Cross was an unmitigatedly good thing. Now I'm not so sure. In its British incarnation at least, the organization is clearly no longer worthy of quite so much public approval as in the past. The London Daily Mail is reporting that Red Cross staff "have been ordered to take down decorations and to remove any other signs of [Christmas} because they could offend Muslims." Banned items include nativity scenes and, naturally, that evergreen symbol of intolerance, the Christmas tree.

The Mail quotes a Red Cross spokesman as saying the following, " In shops people can put up decorations like tinsel or snow which are seasonal. But the guidance is that things representative of Christmas cannot be shown."

Reaction has been, I'm glad to say, enjoyably vituperative. A vicar in Plymouth has wondered if the Red Cross may need to change its (offensive?) logo to a 'red splodge' , while Lord Ahmed, one of the UK's more prominent Muslim politicians tells the Mail that "it is stupid to think Muslims would be offended."

No need to give to the British Red Cross this year, I feel.

I've been hearing from a bunch of younger conservatives who take issue with my column today (which was written rapidly in the immediate aftermath of the Lott announcement). They complain that they shouldn't have to feel any guilt or shame about what conservative did or didn't do forty years ago, since they weren't born. They are simply taking the colorblind position, as they would have in the 1960s, and therefor they have nothing to apologize for. It's certainly a fair point and I pretty much agree with it. That's certainly how I feel most of the time. I was born in 1969, but I'm supposed to be responsible for what people did or didn't do in 1964?

I guess my answer to my own rhetorical question is yes and no. Shelby Steele made the case more eloquently than I could about why this is so. But I will make one point he didn't. Conservatives need to be forthright on race because of the paranoia and silliness of so many liberals. Racial liberals are so quick to assume racism on the part of their opponents conservatives have to work extra hard to show that we're not. Why should we care about the misconceptions or obtuseness of liberals? Well, because politics is about persuading people. And if conservatives are right about race -- and I think they are -- they need to persuade liberals why they're wrong. It's really as simple as that. Is it unfair? Of course it is. But conservatism is the philosophy which recognizes life isn't fair.

From a reader. Southerners know well how authentic this paradox is. Northerners, in my experience, can't wrap their minds around it. But it's true:

"When my parents were married, my great-grandfather gave them the family
maid as a wedding present. Can you believe that...1960, and the man was
giving my parents another human being. Her name was Emma -- Aunt Emma,
and she raised me to be what I hope is a good person.

"This is the same great-grandfather who would leap out of his easy chair
in apoplexy when Family Feud's Richard Dawson would kiss the black women...and then kiss the white ones.

"Yet every evening, until the day he died, he and an elderly black
gentleman, who lived next door, would meet out in the tool shed, listen
to the ballgame or whatever on the radio, talk over the events of the
day, and drink Jack Daniels and Mountain Dew (Mountain Jacks).

"When he died, he left quite a sum of money to his next door neighbor.
Why? Well, because they were best friends.

"He was a strange man. But aren't we all.

Thanks for your story and for reminding us that none of us are black and
white, so to speak."

At the risk of sounding self-congratulatory, which I don't have any right to be, let me show you a letter from a "Miss Trixie" reader that makes it clear why all the anti-Lott campaigning by conservative writers over the past days was morally necessary:

"We're both Southerners (I'm from North Carolina) of roughly the same age, but from 'opposite' races. The South is such a peculiar an contradictory place that often only us natives really understand it. Its hard to explain to yankees, black or white, why it is that I love it so, yet felt the need to leave pursue my career (I'm a lawyer) elsewhere.

"While the South is certainly a-changin', there are really only a few
cities with a large black professional class (like ATL). On the other hand,
I'm much more comfortable dealing with southern Whites than Northern whites.
Partly because southern Whites of certain racist beliefs have little problem
sharing their feelings with you, while yankees all pretend to be enlightened
(to your face). But more importantly, despite years of segregation, southern Whites and Blacks still had lots of interaction - whereas in the North, while there may have been more integration in schools and offices, there was none outside of those places.

My grandparents spent the first 50 years or so of their lives living under Jim Crow, yet would identify some neighboring whites as among their oldest friends. Friends who, if they needed anything, from assistance in the fields, to a little money, would be right there. But friends who would never think of inviting them to, say, the wedding of a daughter that they were present for the birth of.

"As you so well know, many in the South still have ideas about a person's
'place.' One of the more painful memories of childhood for me came when
my supposed best-friend, a white kid, told me that I had to go home at
10pm, rather than spend the night at his house like our other friend, another
white kid, because I was black. Talk about devastating. Your Miss Trixie
story reminded me of that. And I think you're dead on in linking Trent Lott
to that way of thinking.

"I know this email is rambling, but I was trying to lay a foundation for why I've been so heartened by your comments over these last couple of weeks. A southern white willing to look the past dead in the face and proclaim it wrong (but not in a Bill Moyers type way) means a lot to those of us who sometimes struggle with our identities as Southern, Black, and conservative. Thanks a lot."

I don't expect that cricket's world cup (which is due to be held next year) is a subject that would normally be of interest to most Corner readers, but on this occasion it should be. Unbelievably, the ICC (the International Cricket Council rather than the equally obnoxious International Criminal 'Court') has just confirmed its decision to stage six of the matches in Zimbabwe, home of the Mugabe dictatorship. The country's embattled opposition is, unsurprisingly, appalled. Today's London Times reports some comments by Themba Nyathi, a spokesman for the MDC (Mugabe's main opponents):

"By agreeing to stage the World Cup in Zimbabwe, despite the humanitarian crisis and unprecedented levels of institutionalized violence, the ICC are sending a callous message to the people of Zimbabwe. Not only have they demonstrated indifference to the pain and suffering of hundreds of thousands of innocent people, they are also, albeit inadvertently, sending a message of hope to the despotic Mugabe regime."

Inadvertently?

Meanwhile the Daily Telegraph correspondent, Simon Briggs, skewers ICC chief executive, Malcolm Speed, who is maintaining the position that the cricket can be divorced from the politics:

"Asked whether the ICC would have been happy to stage matches in Nazi Germany, Speed stared glassily ahead and replied: "That is a hypothetical question. We simply don't make political judgements, they're for politicians."

No word on what Speed thinks about moral judgements.

The inestimable Instapundit clarifies that he’s not a conservative, and he is a former liberal. Fair enough, but my point that those on the Right – and Glenn, let’s face it, you are on the Right – beat the supposedly especially outraged neocons to the punch still holds.

From the South, a professional Republican operative we know has been reading Trent Lott's tea leaves, and writes:

"The more it appears Lott won't do the right thing and step down, and the more he seems to be picking up supporters among his colleagues -- the more I have to come face to face with the possible horrible reality of him emerging victorious from that Jan. 6 meeting, and remaining Senate majority leader. It fills me with almost the same amount of pain and revulsion I felt, as a Catholic, throughout Bernard Law's being allowed to remain Boston's cardinal.

"And there are similarities now between the respective dreads: to discover Law's malfeasance was a horrible blow but nothing compared to the full-blown despair upon seeing him propped up and defended from the Pope on down the hierarchy, alas with indications that many, many others were guilty of similar sins, while still others merely seemed to put careerism or clubby cronyism over principle.

"Likewise, while right now Lott's problem has well passed becoming a Republican problem, if he were to step aside gracefully hindsight could still afford to see it as a Lott problem that Republicans dealt with properly. On the other hand, should his colleagues vote to keep him, it necessarily becomes a problem for the entire party. It will mean that everything BUT principle and moral leadership has triumphed among Republicans, and that the party is now fully on the record -- not just winking at but -- condoning racism in their ranks.

"I am a conservative Republican, in fact make my living as one, but if such a situation comes to pass, the disappointment and embarrassment will make it incredibly difficult for me to remain 'proudly' Republican.

"Which makes me wonder if Senate GOPers have really absorbed just how significant is the question facing them at present. Bill Kristol today demands they stop being coy and come out and declare themselves. But before that (lest one by one by one they come out for Lott), I'd ask these Senators some other questions: If Trent remains, what does the world look like come January 7th? More pointedly, do you envision a time when the President can again appear in the same room with the Senate majority leader? (I can't.) Can you then justify electing a leader who subsequently becomes for the president his party's own Yasser Arafat, with whom he will never meet nor shake hands? Will you put the President in that horrible position?

"Forget about the passing of a conservative agenda -- can the party or the conservative movement themselves hold together and withstand that strain?

"So, in the end, if Lott is incapable of doing the right thing, who will? And if the answer is, not nearly enough to make him go, then what? My sense is: GOP despair, dividedness, destruction, self-inflicted death. Of course, I may be overstating things. But what if I'm not?"

Christopher Lee is interviewed in today's London Times. Apparently he has been in "more than 255 films, even he's not sure how many."

Now that's what I call epic.

On a sadder note, the Daily Telegraph's obituary section also features Colin Clark, younger son of Lord ('Civilization') Clark and the brother of Alan Clark, the author of the finest political diaries seen in Britain since, well, who knows when.

Alan Clark, of course, was a famous Lothario. His brother does not seem to have been cut from the same cloth. In 1956 Colin found himself working as a 'third assistant director' (a title so lowly that it makes one of my earlier job descriptions - 'articled clerk' - seem positively titan-like) on a movie starring Marilyn Monroe. Prompted by concerns that Marilyn had taken too many sleeping pills, Clark climbed in through her bedroom window to find her sleepy, but welcoming. He joined her in bed and then, well, the story does not end in the way you might expect. I'll let the Daily Telegraph take up the tale.

""You are like a beautiful force of nature, Marilyn," he told her, forever out of reach."But Colin," she protested, "I don't want to be out of reach. I want to be touched. I want to be hugged. I want to feel strong arms around me. I want to be loved like an ordinary girl, in an ordinary bed. What's wrong with that?"

Clark did not take the hint, and after a pious lecture on how she had "Mr. Miller" to take care of her, he went to sleep."

Other delights from this obituary (which proves, yet again, that this section always has the potential to be the most entertaining part of any newspaper) include the revelation that his mother was prescribed a nasal spray mixture of morphine and cocaine ("for hysteria"), which she inhaled from a 'puffer'.

The late Queen Mother, on the other hand, had more conventional tastes. When young Clark offered her a choice of "dry martinis in long fluted glasses or iced Champagne", the Queen Mum simply replied, "Oh, they look so delicious. I think I'll have both."

And so she did.

Several readers, like the one below, aren't too in to the whole conservative label thing. I can sympathize. I've been meaning to do a serious piece for a magazine to remain nameless on how outdated the "neoconservative" label really is. I'll get around to it soon. In the meantime, here's a column I wrote a couple years ago that explains some of the labels. I would quibble with some of the things I wrote, but it should help anyone who's totally out of the loop on what these things mean.

Better tidings are, as so often, to be found in newspapers' obituary sections. To Huu is dead! Huu was, the Daily Telegraph explains, the 'poet laureate' and chief propagandist for the North Vietnamese regime.

Here is an example of his work (written on the occasion of Stalin's death):

"Oh Stalin! Oh Stalin,

The love I bear my father,

My mother, my wife, myself,

It's nothing beside the love I bear you.

Oh Stalin! Oh Stalin!

What remains of the earth,

And of the sky!

Now that you are dead."

What remains, of course, is a lot more than would have survived if the old butcher had lived on. Good riddance to him and the poet who sang his praises.

Back in the old country for Christmas to be greeted by a depressing series of newspaper front pages. The London Times announces that "intelligence chiefs say al-Qaeda is active in Britain" and then adds to the gloom by publishing a rather frightening photograph of the new Archbishop of Canterbury with what looks like half an orange halo hovering behind his head (no link, fortunately available).

The Archbishop himself, a wildly over-promoted parson of leftish views, has just made what the Times describes as "one of the most intellectually ambitious and far-reaching speeches from an Archbishop of Canterbury for thirty years." Now that's not saying much, but it still seems generous praise for comments that, amongst other low lights, appear to reveal a real disdain for the notion of parental choice in education.

Conventional wisdom amongst the Right in Britain seems to be that the Archbishop is a good man, but misguided. Well, he's certainly misguided.

Special Thursday Goldberg File

The guy who said affirmative action is not racism must not have understood that the racism comes from the people who implement the policy. Affirmative action says that black people can't compete so we must give them an advantage based on the color of their skin. It's the same attitude that says, "of course Muslims will act like animals and go on a slaughter spree when Mohammed is insulted. They can't help themselves. We must make exceptions for them, the poor things."

They're Iraq's biggest weapon supplier.

Sorry for the delay, I had to do a radio interview. I hope people don't think I actually agree with the post below "Affirmative Action isn't Racism." I just didn't have time to compose a response. This guy, one of my most reliable liberal gadflies, plays a fun trick here. He defines racism in just such a way that proves affirmative action can't be racist. He makes a fine point in the process -- that affirmative action isn't necessarily the worst form of racism. But he obscures the larger point.

We are constantly told by black and liberal spokespeople that any suggestion of racial difference is racist. The reader says "Racism entails acting upon the belief that one group is entitled to power and privilege because it is inherently superior to other groups." Well, who says (other than a few Marxists and critical race theorists)? That's not what my dictionary says. Here's the Dictionary.com definition:

1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others. 2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.

What hateful prick you are! You make this sh*t up about women and blacks and expect people to buy it! You are a typical gay Jewish neoKKKon! You know women and African-Americans are better then you and you can't handle it! Pig!...."

I have heard conservatives attest that "affirmative action is racism." Racism entails acting upon the belief that one group is entitled to power and privilege because it is inherently superior to other groups. Even many conservatives will today admit that this belief is wrong and immoral. Affirmative Action entails an attempt to assist members of groups that have been historically disadvantaged by the enactment of racist policies to overcome the damage done by providing them with rehabilitative opportunities that recognize the harm that has been done to their aspirations by racism. It can be plausibly argued that Affirmative Action is not a good remedy for past racism in hiring practices, school admissions, etc. Alternative solutions should be proposed and tested. Affirmative Action cannot be called 'racism', however, because it does not imply a belief in the inherent superiority of those persons it attempts to empower; it in fact implies disadvantage and the need to receive a helping hand from individuals in a superior position. "Affirmative Action is Racism" is doublethink propaganda.

Men and women are indubitably different, but that doesn't justify segregation/discrimination. Neither does male discomfort. If it did, the Taliban would be able to justify their horrific abuse of women by saying seeing a women without a burka makes them uncomfortable or makes men act differently. Come to think of it, they did claim that. Does that mean you think they were correct and within their rights? Sorry, but the male discomfort/act differently argument has been made in almost every defense of sexism and yet, when the sexists have lost, it has turned out that most men were able to adjust after all. And at any rate, limiting the rights of one group in order to make another group happy is a legal disaster, because where does it stop? Would it be okay to forbid men to drive because male drivers are often more aggressive, and may make female drivers nervous and uncomfortable? Somehow I doubt you would think so, and I certainly don't. So perhaps sexism and racism are rather less different than you believe.

"To illustrate your point that the culture view of race is far different from that of gender one needs to look no further than sports where the racial integration of baseball is considered a giant step forward while the separation of men and women in profession sports such as golf is also considered enlightened progress."

Thats EXACTLY the kind of racist behavior I would expect from some pampered white republican. Well WE have a problem on our hands in the inner cities! What are WE going to do about it. UNEMPLOYMENT up to almost depression era percentages for black mens, ONLY black mens, not white, not asian, but BLACK! You sit pretty with your writing job and your well fed dog but you don't know the plight of the black man in the white man's world. You ought to be ashamed for saying those things. Your mother would be sick to hear that!

Readers will recall that Kerry position on the death penalty is a pet peeve of mine.
The Boston Globe is on the case.

Lots of reporters on the war beat are booked in Kuwait hotels for the first week of January.

That Nevada's Senator Reid and Connecticut's Dodd are jockeying for the Minority Leader position if Daschle resigns to run for president. I think the best scenario is Daschle runs and Dodd wins. New England liberal is a much better -- and authentic -- face for the Democratic Party than a Western state guy.

A reader makes a fair point in response to my column:

Affirmative actions law ARE based around the idea that blacks can compete with whites - if given a chance. The laws arose not out of a concern over the genetic differences between the two races, but over the societal differences that had risen over the past 150 years.

So when you say, "Affirmative action is based upon the assumption that blacks cannot compete with whites. But if I say that blacks can't compete with whites, I'm a racist," you are drawing a false analogy, because your hypothetical remark is based on the idea of an innate inequality between blacks and whites, while affirmative action is based of eliminating the social inequalities between blacks and whites to allow the innate EQUALITY between the two surface.

My response: He's right that this was the original idea behind affirmative action. And, if by affirmative action you mean advertising in black media for job openings, I'm all in favor with affirmative action. But the problem is that affirmative action no longer means that. At the University of Michigan prospective students get 20 points for being black and 1 point for writing a good essay. Affirmative action originally meant an even playing field for competition. It doesn't any longer. Hubert Humphrey declared that if the Civil Rights Act lead to quotas he'd eat the pages it was printed on. Well, if he were alive today, he'd have to do just that.

And it is long. The NRHQ peeps are swamped, but it is out of my hands. In the meantime I'm going out to lunch. A rarity for me. I will do my bit to enliven the Corner when I get back.

Another reader notes:

Your "offended" e-mailer got one major detail wrong. Rodney King was not alone. His passenger, also an African-American, listened to the instructions of the police and was not harmed at the least. It is an often ignored fact by those who claim the police were seeking opportunities to assault minorities. Rodney King may have been mistreated (I believe he was) but it was not action against a random african-american, but against one who had blatantly broken the law and refused to submit peacefully to arrest.

A reader is very cross with me:

I am not sure which of your statements is more shocking and disturbing, that you think the civil rights community opportunism makes the remarks some how lessens the racist content of Lott's remark to the point that he should be allowed to stay (and I note that certain NRO commentators especially Jim Robbins- appear to have switched from "I can't believe he said that.." to "How dare the democrats or the public be so upset that they demand or make political hay out of Lott's seemingly racist (repeated) remarks") or that you apparently think that Rodney King's deserved to be beaten like an animal by four cops, after being tazered twice while surrrounded by several other cops with their guns drawn- you sound disturbingly like those jurors who apparently after slowing the video of the beating down think he some how didn't get his ass whipped or somehow deserved the beating for the high speed chase- him being unarmed and alone and such a danger to 12 or so armed cops (after being tazered twice) the whole tapped at any speed show that a R. King was unjusitified brutalized by cops..... AND that the two are compareable, as if some how showing the entire video of him complimenting Strom will some how lessen his words- first many people believe that because they were off handed makes them MORE not LESS likely to be his true feelings, and if we had any doubt to give to a man, his prior statements and life to date reinforce the notion that he meant exactly want he said.

It appears that conservative outrage over Trent's seemingly racist remarks and anger over his hurting the GOP and their plantform,has morphed into anger and resistance because the other party and civil rights leaders are attacking him for those remarks and playing up some of the GOP less minority friendly eposides. I understand that their is no real "victim" here, but still it appears that conservatives at NRO are starting to defend Lott out of annoyance AND worse play down the significance of his remarks which it appears that NRO contributors got more so than most other folks and sooner. Instead of acting quickly and with determination by calling for Lott's outster it appears that the GOP and some commentators have gone back to let the story die down over the holidays and leave poor Lott alone...HAD the GOP in the Senate quickly rebuted Lott and called for his removal, the GOP would have shown blacks and other minorities that we are welcome and they do want our votes and participation, instead they look annoyed and like they would prefer to keep Lott and his remarks are both not a big deal and probably generaly reflective of the party but are being forced by overblown outrage on the party of blacks, democrats and suburban soccer moms.

This is all nuts. First I said I think Lott should still go. Second, opportunism by racial activists doesn't change what Lott said, but what Lott said doesn't justify the opportunism. Third, anybody who read Lou Cannon's book on the Rodney King incident knows that the videotape was selectively edited for a desired effect. Which is why the two circumstances are comparable in the manner I suggested. If Lott's notorious comments are sandwiched between jokes about Hooters and Viagra, it certainly helps underscore his point that he was joking around. It doesn't excuse the joke. But the CBC and the New York Times would have us believe that the entire GOP should throw out all of it's policies to atone for the buffoonery of one man.

I think I'm with Rod. But I do find this process agonizing and the opportunism of the "civil rights community" disgusting. One thing I think television media must do is play the extended clip of Lott's comments. We learned after the fact from the full Rodney King video that the situation was much more complicated than it seemed. If we're going to see the Lott video 8 billion times, we should at least see the jokes he told before and after his Thurmond comments to get a sense of the man's levity. I still want Lott gone, but we don't need to cooperate in national myth-making.

(AP) ....The announcement of Trent Lott as the Rev. Al Sharpton's vice-presidential running mate stunned Washington insiders this week. Nonetheless many analysts said this could be a very shrewd move. "Trent Lott brings to this ticket precisely what Sharpton lacks: appeal to Southern white men, legislative experience in Washington, and less threatening hair," quipped Norm Ornstein. Others were more enthusiastic. "Truly, the grandchildren of slaves and slaveowners have come together for a better future," editorialized the New York Times in favor of the move.

Mr. Lott, a late convert to Mr. Sharpton's civil rights agenda, was an improbable sight last week at Harlem's Apollo Theater in New York, the location for Sharpton's announcement. "This is the dream team for justice my brothers and sisters!" Mr. told the cheering audience. Mr. Lott promised to "carry on the fights of Dr. King, Minister Malcolm, and my dear friend Reverand Sharpton." The loudest applause came when Lott shouted: "You want reparations? I know where the money is burried! Together we can do it!"

Mr. Lott got into considerable hot water late in 2002 for suggesting that things would be better if former segregationist Strom Thurmond had been elected president in 1948. But since then Mr. Lott has worked hard to make amends with the African-American community. He apologized 612 times over the following year, according to a chart on Senator Lott's website. He hosted a popular weekly televsion program on Black Entertainment Television called, "Trent Apologizes" which allows African-American callers to blame the Mississippi Senator for anything from bad weather to the Masonic symbols on the U.S. dollar.

While most observers were shocked by Lott's announcement, some suggested they saw this coming. "I knew Lott was up to something when he started talking about how Tawana told the truth," says Mickey Kaus, who runs a website called "Kausfiles.com.".....

From Congressman Bennie Thompson's December 12 statement on Trent Lott:

"Trent Lott’s words have been received as very insulting and hateful by African-Americans and others who have stood up for equal opportunity and fought to bring an end to the plague of segregation and discrimination that continues to stifle our Nation. Even though his apology came five days late, he can show to those of us who were offended by his lack of sensitivity a potential to rehabilitate by supporting legislation aimed at improving the plight of people who felt the brunt of policies and practices advanced by the Dixiecrats.

"Sen. Lott can help to reverse the effects of his harsh and hateful language by pushing to raise the minimum wage, increase the stock of affordable housing, providing a prescription drug benefit to seniors and securing healthcare for the 44 million Americans who don’t have it."

Rod, Shea makes a perfectly fine point about the moral complexities of LOTR. However, in my defense, I used the word "triumph" simply to mirror the Reuters review. I suppose a better word would be "battle" as in a theme of Tolkien's is the battle between good and evil. But Rod, you misquote Shea. It is not too simplistic to say a theme of LOTR is "good versus evil." LOTR is most certainly about good versus evil. The whole book is about the conflicts between good and bad, in Middle Earth and in our own souls. Shea's objection is to the notion that good triumphs over evil in LOTR. And, to be sure, good never triumphs over evil permanently in LOTR. But, Shea concedes there are temporary victories. Which is why I think Shea's being a bit tendentious -- if I'd used "battle" instead of "triumph" I wouldn't be budging on this at all.

From his review in the Washington Post:

"But underneath it all is the same issue that defined Tolkien's life, the battle between Western democracy and monsters who wanted to destroy it. Read into it what you want, or read nothing into it, but it's really the oldest story of all. It's the one about a band of free men on a hilltop with nothing to get them through the night but their belief in themselves and their cause and the long steel they carry in their scabbards"

"For all the special effects wizardry, the movie sticks to Tolkien’s themes of friendship, loyalty and the triumph of nature over industry — a fact that should please most die-hard fans of the novel that many consider the book of the century."

A man has sex with a nativity scene sheep. What's next? Banning smoking in movie theaters? (Link thanks to Drudge.)

If Lott resigns from the Senate entirely, the seat doesn't necessarily go Democratic, even though the Governor is a Dem. According to Mississippi law , there has to be a general election within 90 days of the vacancy so long as there's more than 1 year left in the term. So, yes, it's possible the governor could appoint a Dem who could win a special election, but it's not as though Mississippi has become a demonstrably Democratic state over the last few years. And it's not as if Mississippi voters will be psyched to elect a Dem. Odd that we haven't heard thos mentioned much.

Breaking on the wires:

Former Vice President Al Gore, who announced Sunday night that he would not seek the presidency in 2004 declared today that he is legally changing his name to "Al Gate." Insiders say one of the chief reasons he wanted to run in 2004 was that he liked the rhyming scheme of "Gore in '04!" As a consolation for not running, his wife Tipper suggested the name change. "Let's just hope he wins in 2008," an aide close to Gate said. "'Al Gwelve' sounds just awful."

Just raitifed the Kyoto treaty. Coming next: A new push for the Kellogg-Briand Pact.

NRO contributor Allison Hayward writes:

I saw the exchange with Ms. Malveaux, and your post reminded me of something. Not that it will come up again, but professional grudge-holders like her forget -- or never knew -- that the Klan didn't lynch only blacks.

My great-grandfather's memoirs have several pages of harrowing tales of being hunted by Klansmen in the 1890s while in South Carolina as a Mormon missionary.

(They weren't just crazy about Jews, etiher, but at least your people had the good sense not to be out walking from farm to farm proclaiming your allegiance to the church of polygamists.)

Conor Cruise O'Brien, writing in the Sunday Independent (a Dublin newspaper) on the Washington-London-Bogota-Dublin circuit of the War on terror (There's a free sign-on thingy to go through.) The Cruiser argues that Colin Powell's recent visit to Bogota was in part to ask the Colombian govt. to go slow on the prosecution of the three IRA men being held their on charges of training Colombian anti-govt terrorists. Tony Blair is wooing the IRA (a.k.a. "Sinn Fein") and making further concessions to them, so that bombs won't go off in London--the main point of Blair's Irish policy. A conviction in Bogota would embarrass him. The Bush-Blair alliance does not need that embarrassment right now. When Iraq is settled (says the Cruiser), Bush will pressure the British govt, & also the irish, to deal decisively with the IRA. Neither is particularly willing to do this.

As a potential response to Robert George's assertion that Gore had no 1962 California loss as a "final straw":

Last month was a rejection of Gore.

It can be argued that the '02 midterm elections repudiated the the Clinton/Gore model of nationalized Democratic campaigns & policies. Many pundits have said that the '00 presidential race was "finally decided" with the Republican victories of last month.

Therefore Gore knows that although he was not on the ballot, he (and the Clinton/McAuliffe democratic machine constructed to get him elected) was the de facto future presidential candidate with the most to lose.

Remember the aborted rumblings immediately post-election about getting rid of McAuliffe? To the average partisan Democrat, Gore has now taken the fall for the party's midterm failure and they can now "start fresh" against Bush in '04.

You are wrong about the Bishop of Lichfield and the terrorism comment. He did not describe the three wise men as part of an assassination plot, he followed the Gospel of Matthew in describing them as pawns. The Telegraph got the story wrong by misreading his letter. The bishop's letter seems to me a fairly straightforward and sensible Christian interpretation of Christmas. The bishop's actual letter is at http://www.lichfield.anglican.org/pressr/articles/021213a.htm

From the 'Corrections' section in today's New York Times magazine:

"An article on Nov. 10 about animal rights referred erroneously to an island in the Indian Ocean and to events there involving goats and endangered giant sea sparrows that could possibly lead to the killing of goats by environmental groups. Wrightson Island does not exist; both the island and the events are hypothetical figments from a book (also mentioned in the article), ''Beginning Again,'' by David Ehrenfeld. No giant sea sparrow is known to be endangered by the eating habits of goats. "

Well, that's a relief.

Is it a conspiracy? First it was Gillian Anderson with her rather zany views on the current international situation, now it's David Duchovny with his. He features (along with Anderson) in an advertisement on the back of today's New York Times as one of the 'Artists United to Win Without War'.

The only thing more hysterical than Krugman's article, is the laughable attempts by certain jews to carry the "right-wing water bucket". It's OK for you to cry about anti-semitism or the holocaust, but liberals are hypocrites when they decry racism. Remember one thing Mr. Goldberg: the "Trent Lott's" of the world hate you a lot more than they hate blacks. You're just so deep in denial, you can't see it.

The Trek aesthetic? A reader writes in with her memory of a review of one of the Trek movies. Apparently, the crew's outfits were described as a "combination of pyjamas and marching band uniforms".

Perfect.

Cherie Blair has found herself in a spot of bother (it's a long, long story...) over the past couple of weeks. Tony's solution? Apparently, he's going to "spend more time with her".

Yikes.

Judging by this report in the Sunday Telegraph, religious education in the UK is not what it was in my day (I am the proud holder of a Divinity O level: grade 6). Terry Sanderson, the vice-president of the National Secular Society, is, apparently, unconcerned. He's quoted as saying that ignorance over the basics of Christianity is "not the least bit surprising. There's no doubt that children at school are not interested in this topic and we think it is scandalous that it is forced on them". He couldn't be more wrong. Children can, in the end, draw their own conclusions as to what to believe, but if they are not taught at least the essentials of the Bible's narrative, large chunks of western culture will remain inaccessible to them.

And that's something that would be truly 'scandalous'.

According to this article in the Sunday Telegraph the Russians have created a new breed of dog to help detect terrorists and drug smugglers. It's a good idea, I guess, but this extract from the report may suggest that Moscow needs to work on its incentive programme:

"Inside one airliner, Mr Sulimov demonstrated the dog's skills. A briefcase full of guns and grenades was hidden on the plane. Mirka, the sniffer dog, was let loose, and went straight to the case, nudging it and whining. It was rewarded with an Aeroflot biscuit."

An Aeroflot biscuit? I've tried one of those and, believe me, it's a punishment, not a reward. Poor Mirka.