Posted
5/21/2003 05:54:41 PM
by Edward Driscoll
A JAYSON DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF CANNOT STAND! James Taranto writes that Jayson Blair imitates Seinfeld.
Actually, it's worse than that. Blair imitates...George Costanza.
Posted
5/21/2003 05:31:15 PM
by Edward Driscoll
FEW RISE TO DEFEND WHITMAN, as she announces her exit from the EPA. Which makes sense--environmentalists aren't going to like any Republican, and conservatives don't like anyone as squishy in their politics as Whitman.
On the other hand, she was apparently extremely helpful during Bush's 2000 campaign, and was due for some slot in the administration.
Orrin Judd writes, "This would be an ideal time for George W. Bush to strip the administrator of Cabinet rank and fold the agency into the Interior Department. Won't happen."
Posted
5/21/2003 02:44:00 PM
by Edward Driscoll
FLASHBACK: James Lileks, in January:
Nowadays, if you point out that someone’s a Communist, you might well be accused of - dum dum DUMMMM - McCarthyism. The term has morphed from its original meaning. It no longer means falsely accusing someone of being a Communist. It now includes correctly identifying someone as a Communist, or ascribing a taint to someone because they don’t reject the Communists in their midst. (I’ll admit there’s a significant difference between the two.)It's also come to mean any attack on the left by an organization that it disapproves of. Meaning, any organization (or person) is subject to being labeled with the "M" word. Flashforward to this article by Jonathan Calt Harris on Campus Watch:
* John Esposito of Georgetown University disparages Campus Watch as "the rantings of a self-appointed McCarthyite organization." * Asma Barlas, of Ithaca College finds that "It's precisely this kind of McCarthyism that is most detrimental to being a good citizen of America." * "A horrid form of cyber-McCarthyism" complains Columbia University's Hamid Dabashi. * "An exercise in McCarthyism," declares Ralph M. Coury of Fairfield University. * "All of this reeked of McCarthyism and I considered it a gross attack on the freedom of expression," intones Khaled Fahmy of New York University. * Laurie King-Irani, former editor of Middle East Report magazine, dubs it the "McCarthyist Campus Watch website." * Eric Foner of Columbia and Glenda Gilmore of Yale write in the Los Angeles Times that Campus Watch's call for outsiders to keep an eye on Middle Eastern studies "conjures up memories of World War I and the McCarthy era."As Harris writes, "Campus Watch has no intention that any scholars lose a position or be deprived of freedom of speech. Rather, it seeks to spur discussion of what it perceives as a faulty, extremist, intolerant, apologetic, and abusive record in Middle East studies." Jonathan Tabin recently wrote, "Administrators justify [commencement] speeches-- and condemn the walk-outs and boos that they are now drawing-- by saying that its their job to "challenge" students-- but by an amazing coincidence, these "challenging" speakers sure tend to reflect the bias of the administration. Funny how that works." And funny how they don't like to be challenged, themselves.
Posted
5/21/2003 02:28:00 PM
by Edward Driscoll
EXPLOSION IN THE MAIL ROOM AT YALE UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL: Not many details yet, according to AP.
UPDATE (3:00 PM): "A member of the responding bomb squad confirmed that the explosion was caused by a bomb."
UPDATE (3:06 PM): InstaPundit has lots of links and news.
Posted
5/21/2003 02:12:42 PM
by Edward Driscoll
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "He has the best possible actors. If you have a disagreement with them, you can always use them to wash your car."
--The late Zero Mostel, on Jim Henson and the Muppets.
Posted
5/21/2003 02:08:30 PM
by Edward Driscoll
SCHOOL BOARD SETTLES COMPLAINT BY PRO-GUN COALITION: "Public schools in Montclair, N.J., can't distribute gun control literature to students, then refuse to distribute materials explaining the other side of the story, a court has ruled", according to CNSNews.com.
Posted
5/21/2003 01:50:08 PM
by Edward Driscoll
900 LEFT FEET: Julia Gorin on why "diversity" trips up the Democrats.
(Link via Jay Bryant.)
Posted
5/21/2003 01:37:57 PM
by Edward Driscoll
THE WHICH BLAIR PROJECT: Scott Ott reports an momentous decision reached today by The American Professional Editors Society.
Posted
5/21/2003 12:17:18 PM
by Edward Driscoll
OUT FROM THE SHADOWS OF MOTOWN: My (lengthy) interview with Allan Slutsky, the author of Standing in the Shadows of Motown, and the prime mover behind the film, is online at Blogcritics.org.
Posted
5/20/2003 11:51:22 PM
by Edward Driscoll
ARI FLEISCHER IS LEAVING THE WHITE HOUSE. Could Christie Whitman be next?
Frankly, I hope the next head of the EPA isn't as squishy an environmentalist as she's been.
UPDATE (3/21/03, 12:10 PM): She's resigned.
Posted
5/20/2003 10:12:25 PM
by Edward Driscoll
"SHEEPLE": Can't say I heard the word before, but James Lileks brilliantly deconstructs it--and Robert Sheer--in a typically excellent Bleat.
Posted
5/20/2003 08:31:08 PM
by Edward Driscoll
ACUTE SAHS CARRIERS: Arnold Beichman, writing on the spiffy new revamped Washington Times Website, has identified a virulent condition, more dangerous than SARS.
What is SAHS? Well, Norman Mailer, Margaret Drabble and Susan Sontag are all carriers.
Posted
5/20/2003 08:25:49 PM
by Edward Driscoll
"MEMO TO DEMOS": Rich Galen, a "Double Secret Undercover Operative" for the Democratic party, has released a double-top secret memo concerning the 2004 presidential campaign. Here's the executive summary:
I believe we have a great opportunity to be victorious in the Presidential election of 2004. We just have to find a different country to run in.But do read how he reached that conclusion.
Posted
5/20/2003 06:38:08 PM
by Edward Driscoll
TACITUS HAS AN EXCELLENT ESSAY, TITLED "Why I am not a Democrat".
Read the--I know it's a cliche, but just do it, huh?--whole thing.
(Link via Patrick Ruffini, who has several new items himself.)
Posted
5/20/2003 03:11:05 PM
by Edward Driscoll
THE NEW YORKER: It's so right-wing, according to the Nation!
UPDATE: Orrin Judd has more.
Posted
5/20/2003 02:25:15 PM
by Edward Driscoll
THERE IS NO ANTI-AMERICANISM AT THE NEW YORK TIMES: And when I say there is none, I do mean that there is a certain amount, to paraphrase Monty Python. Stanley Kurtz writes:
Howell Raines is not the real issue, and getting rid of Raines won't solve anything. The problem is Arthur Sulzberger Jr., and he's not going away. In his wonderful book, How I Accidentally Joined the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy (and Found Inner Peace), Harry Stein lays out the disturbing facts about "Pinch" Sulzberger. (Sulzberger's father was nicknamed "Punch," and the none too flattering nickname for Junior is "Pinch.") Pinch was a political activist in the Sixties, and was twice arrested in anti-Vietnam protests. One day, the elder Sulzberger asked his son what Pinch calls, "the dumbest question I've ever heard in my life." If an American soldier runs into a North Vietnamese soldier, which would you like to see get shot? Young Arthur answered, "I would want to see the American get shot. It's the other guy's country." Some Sixties activists have since thought better of their early enthusiasms. Pinch hasn't. [emphasis mine--Ed] Sulzberger once remarked that if older white males were alienated by the changes he was making to the Times, that would only prove "we're doing something right." Clearly, by Pinch's standards, the Times has lately been doing very well indeed. Around the time Sulzberger Jr. took over the reins of the Times, then Executive Editor Max Frankel admitted (with no apparent shame) that he had put a halt to the hiring of non-blacks and "set up an unofficial little quota system." So it's wrong to put the Blair affair entirely onto Howell Raines's well-known white guilt. Sulzberger has been imposing these policies on the Times since well before the accession of Raines. It would be easy to dismiss Pinch Sulzberger as an ideologue and a lightweight, who just happens to have inherited the world's most powerful paper. The nickname invites ridicule. So does the stuffed moose that Pinch and others at the Times haul out whenever they want to talk about sensitive topics. An ideologue Pinch may be, but a lightweight he is not. On the contrary, Sulzberger has steered his paper to ever greater heights of business success. Sulzberger's accomplishments need to be taken seriously.Last fall though, the Times' readership fell over five percent. And that during the DC sniper crisis, the run-up to the war in Iraq, (and of course before the Jayson Blair fiasco). It will be very, very interesting to read what the Times' numbers are in a few months.
Posted
5/20/2003 11:06:54 AM
by Edward Driscoll
MAYBE THEY SHOULD HAVE INVITED DANNY GLOVER: Chris Hedges, a New York Times reporter, was booed off the stage Saturday at Illinois' Rockford College’s when he tried to give an antiwar speech during the graduation ceremonies:
Elinor Radlund of Rockford read Hedges’ book on war and was horrified at what she said was the audience’s rude behavior. She was indignant she couldn’t hear the speaker. “They were not behaving as people in an academic setting, where you’re supposed to be open to a great many ideas,” Radlund said.It's understandable that kids go into college as tabula rasae, but I thought by the time you got out of college, you should also have some ideas--and ideals--of your own. (Not that I did, until I left Soft America for Hard America, to use Michael Barone's analogies.) SERIOUS UPDATE: Here's a review of Hedges' book by Orrin Judd. VERY SILLY UPDATE: Here's a transcript of Hedges' speech by Scott Ott.
Posted
5/20/2003 10:41:04 AM
by Edward Driscoll
CITIZEN BLAIR? Jayson Blair is looking for a book and movie(!) deal for his side of the story.
I suppose Pixar could do a CGI moose, but who will play Howell Raines?
Posted
5/20/2003 10:37:14 AM
by Edward Driscoll
TEST SNOBS: Why do affluent parents oppose standardized student testing? Joanne Jacobs, linking to Debra Saunders, has some thoughts.
Posted
5/19/2003 10:39:37 PM
by Edward Driscoll
DANNY GLOVER UPDATE UPDATE: I haven't read anybody else mention this yet, but it's pretty staggering that MSNBC, a cable channel left for dead when it had Phil Donahue as one of its "stars", apparently has enough viewers on the right to get MCI to sit up and take notice. No wonder they've finally gotten enough sense to try and co-opt Fox New's audience--it's where the numbers are!
Posted
5/19/2003 09:03:57 PM
by Edward Driscoll
THIS YEAR'S MOOSE MEME: Last year, the Moose was a suburban police chief tasked with apprehending the DC sniper. This year (or at least this week), he's the Beanie Baby symbol of all that is royally SNAFU at the New York Times. James Lileks writes:
Adults no longer run the Times. To me the most interesting revelation of l’affair Blair hasn’t been the way a rising star was coddled and cosseted; it’s the Moose. The Beanbag Moose. As I understand the story, some of the Timespersons were on a retreat in a rural conference center. During one of the meetings, a moose wandered into the grounds, and everyone watched him out the window - but no one mentioned him, because it wasn’t germane to the subject of the meeting. This story has become Legend, and has taken on the form of a Beanie Baby, come to enlighten those of us who see the Moose but dare not speak His name. It’s a metaphor, you see. A metaphor for unnoticed mooses. (Anyone who's ever been on one of these retreats knows exactly what would have happened if you'd interrupted a meeting on synergistic strategies to say "hey, how come no one's talking about that big moose out there?" Four words: Monday morning drug test.) Now at the Times if you wish you cut to the quick, you place on the table your company-issued beanbag herbivore to symbolize your desire to speak freely. Grown-ups do not behave this way. Unless they are running a day care. It’s a cute anecdote for a retreat, but applied to the real world, to the newsroom, is a sign of how infantile management theory has become. The introduction of the moose splits the staff into two groups: the brown-nosers who put the moose on top of their computer monitor and give it seasonal decorations, and the cynics who stuff the damn thing in their bottom drawer next to the employee manual, the healthcare benefits package, and the rest of the crap the company expects you to read. They look at that moose, and think: if I get fired tomorrow, they’ll ask for the moose back. It’s their moose. It ain’t mine. I put this moose up on eBay, I’m going to be covering Trenton zoning meetings for the next ten years. Screw the moose. There’s probably a secret Times subculture of Moose Abuse. No doubt the Moose has been photographed in a stripper’s cleavage, face down on a bar in a puddle of New Amsterdam lager, sitting in Thompkins Square with an anarchist’s A photoshopped on his chest, standing outside the building with a cigarette in his mouth.The moose made an appearance last week at the Times' infamous Astor Plaza movie theater meeting:
On the empty stage, Sulzberger, Raines and Boyd sat side by side. They got no applause and no catcalls, though some audience comments were cheered. In a surreal moment that reminded one staffer of Shari Lewis' old TV show, Sulzberger produced a stuffed toy moose that he sometimes trots out as a symbol of open communication. Its use struck some in the audience as a tone-deaf and patronizing gesture. Sulzberger handed the moose to Raines, who laid it aside.As Lileks wrote, "grown-ups do not use metaphorical mooses to break the ice." But then, as he also wrote, "adults no longer run the Times".
Posted
5/19/2003 06:37:52 PM
by Edward Driscoll
REGIME CHANGE: The troops are massing at the border. Their general is champing at the bit. The next regime change is about to begin.
Posted
5/19/2003 04:36:17 PM
by Edward Driscoll
RISKY TALK: Shell of Across the Atlantic Fisks actor Danny Glover, who is upset that he may be dropped as a spokesman by MCI because of his anti-war and anti-American comments.
(An actor who's anti-liberation and anti-American. As another famous actor once said, I'm shocked. Shocked!)
As Jonah Goldberg recently wrote:
None of these people are being censored. They are being criticized. And only people so pampered, so spoon-fed with praise and encouragement, could confuse the free speech of others with the chilling of free speech in America. No other profession in America has this confusion, journalists included. If I wrote a column supporting the Taliban or pedophiles or whatever, I would suffer professionally in the form of dropped columns and canceled speaking engagements. If a plumber wrote "Down with America" on the side of his van, he would lose customers. Only Hollywood types believe that we should applaud speaking out as courageous but that those who speak out shouldn't face any consequences or criticism for what they say. Courage without risk isn't courage; it's play-acting. And -sorry, Madonna -a society where elites with huge fortunes and PR machines are immune from criticism isn't a democracy, it's an aristocracy for Hollywood know-nothings who spew nonsense whenever they open their mouths.Ironically, when Elizabeth Hurley crossed a SAG picket-line in 2000, Robbins responded by saying:
"We are bringing Hurley to trial," he foamed, "She will not get away with it." Note that "we." As Mr. Robbins, a prominent supporter of the strike, well knows, his comments are likely to resonate with those union officials responsible for deciding the former fembot's fate. The consequences of a "guilty" verdict could be serious. The equally influential Ms. Sarandon has supported calls for a lifetime ban on "scab" actors. If the case goes against Ms. Hurley she may never work in Hollywood again.Cross a SAG picket line, risk being banned from your career for life. But speak out in favor of keeping a brutal dictator in power, expect no consequences. What an astonishing mindset in Tinseltown. UPDATE: Glover has apparently since been axed as a spokesman for MCI, via a campaign orchestrated by MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, about which Andrew Sullivan writes:
As a matter of principle, I loathe boycotts and the screeching and self-righteous rhetoric that often accompanies them. I even defended Dr Laura's show against the mau-mauing gay left. So Scarborough's campaign leaves me with not a little distaste in my mouth. Still, it's not McCarthyism. The government is not involved; the argument is a valid one; no-one has a right to be a spokesman for corporate America, without public controversy or opposition. Glover hasn't been silenced; and he's free to continue to be an actor, where his views are likely to help, not hinder him. No one would complain if a similarly extreme right-winger were passed over by a major corporation. I don't like Scarborough's tactics. But Danny Glover can choose between his views and his corporate contracts. Perhaps, for his ideological consistency, it's about time he did.Sullivan's absolutely right on that last point, but...ideological consistency? From Hollywood?! Speaking of "self-righteous rhetoric", I'm sure Glover's comments about being released as a spokesman by MCI will at a minimum, echo the shrillness of Robbins', when he was recently disinvited to speak at the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Posted
5/19/2003 03:41:24 PM
by Edward Driscoll
"THE FLORESCENCE OF THE ROT": Winds of Change looks at the death of socialism.
See also this recent post by Charles Johnson on the same subject.
Posted
5/18/2003 12:19:42 PM
by Edward Driscoll
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