Flag Day (posted 4/10/03 6:24 p.m.)
It’s déjà vu all over again. The Bush team,
under-estimated and under-fire, emerges triumphant, its carping
critics routed and embarrassed and pretty much unrepentant. Yet as
was the case after it swept to victories last election day, the
message is the same: no gloating. But why? Modesty in winning is
one thing; but if its purpose is to appease the losers, what has
really been won?
Or take the knee-jerk reactions to the momentary display of the
American flag atop the Saddam statue that was about to be toppled.
When you come right down to it, has there ever been a more
meaningful symbol of freedom than the Stars & Stripes? The
Statue of Liberty, maybe, but it’s a little difficult to carry it
into battle or to plant it atop Iwo Jima. Triumph or no, our
dominant culture remains skittish about who were are. Think it’s
make any difference to the bullies on Arab Street whether it’s an
American flag they see atop Saddam or an American tank yanking him
down? Besides, they’ve been shocked and awed enough. For all we
know, they’re more likely at this point to see our flag as a
comforter.
Could it be the nervous nellies are still at the stage so
memorably captured in Whit Stillman’s film Barcelona in
which an American naval officer is not allowed to wear his uniform
in public for fear of upsetting local sensibilities (in a NATO
country, at that!)? How pathetic.
Moving on to what might be termed the “Now They Tell Us”
category, we can already measure the Arab Street reaction by
Thursday’s lead op-ed in the New York Times. The American
flag is the last thing on its author’s mind. His name is Mamoun
Fandy, an Egyptian who writes from the safety of London. Why no
anti-American outbursts in the Arab world during the recent war?
Because, Mr. Fandy explains, “most Arabs’ hearts were not in this
fight.” Anyway, it was old news. “No one was shedding tears as Mr.
Hussein’s statues came down,” he continues. “They knew about the
nightmare suffered by Iraqis during his 32 long years of oppressive
rule. The orgies of violence of Uday and Qusay, Saddam Hussein’s
two sons, have been widely reported.” For a moment you suspect Mr.
Fandy might really, really likes us.
Certainly more than most members of the Western left. The one
thing they won’t talk about is that U.S. troops liberated the mass
of Iraqis from barbaric, dictatorial rule. The experience of
freedom is not worth the death of a single civilian, in their
calculation. Maybe it would be easier to respect what’s left of the
left if it argued that it would have been better for the Iraqis had
they overthrown Saddam & Co. on their own. But when’s the last
time the left called for the overthrow of any anti-Western
strongman?
The German novelist Günter Grass was recently
profiled in the N.Y. Times. As the Cold War ended, he
showed his true colors by opposing German reunification on the
grounds that West Germany was too corrupt. Evidently he would have
been happy to keep the miserable East Germans walled in. Now he
dislikes the U.S. maybe even more than he did during the Reagan
years (at least he never compared Reagan to Osama bin Laden, as he
now does Bush), and he is part of the new wave that considers the
bombing of German cities late in WWII a war crime. But listen to
his argument:
He said he also believed the bombing was counterproductive.
“The Allies tried to break the resistance of the German people by
killing hundreds of thousands of people, but the resistance grew,”
he said. “Like today with the Iraqi people. Perhaps many of them
hate Saddam Hussein, but they will defend their country because of
this bombing. It’s so stupid.”
He’s wrong on all scores. By most accounts, once the U.S.
crossed into Germany local resistance crumbled. What resistance
remained was directed, for good reason, against the vengeful Red
Army. But more ridiculous is the analogy to Iraq, where because of
“this bombing” locals are now happy to hate Saddam openly. Most
appalling, though, is the refusal of Grass types even to attempt to
make a distinction between the indiscriminate bombing of cities
during WWII and the precision bombing of today. Smug, willfully
ignorant piety is all they seem to bring to the table.
But just to be on the safe side, if Günter Grass ever comes
calling, make sure you’ve put your American flag away.
******
Titles for Mrs. C. (Posted 4/9/03 12:24
a.m.)
Who said American literary life is moribund? Or that compassionate
conservatism is nothing more than a campaign slogan? What an
outpouring of book title ideas you’ve provided on behalf of the
most overpaid blocked woman writer in the United States Senate. The
finest of those first offerings are now posted.
But, I fear, there are more pouring in. Don’t some of you think
maybe you’re taking this charity work a bit too far? But not to
worry: all entries that missed today’s postings will be studied and
focus-grouped. A subsequent posting will follow before week’s end.
I’m confident Sen. Clinton would have me thank all of you for your
abiding interest in her pathbreaking career.
******
Coaching Genius (posted 4/8/03 2:27 a.m.)
Monday night was a sad one for the University of Kansas, but at
least it proved that its clean-cut and seemingly ultra-proper Roy
Williams is a real coach. Did you hear what he said to CBS’s Bonnie
Bernstein in the post-game interview? She asked him if he was now
going to take the University of North Carolina job. He concluded
his up to then polite reply with this: “I don’t give a s—- about
North Carolina…” For the first time ever one could imagine how he
runs practices and gets his charges to work like the devil.
You have to feel for Kansas. If there’s been a constant in the
NCAA single-elimination tournament over the years is that the team
with star seniors would emerge as the likely winner. Didn’t happen
this time. Syracuse and its freshman stars held on. To Kansas’s
credit it came back when most others would have folded. But it was
clearly outmanned, and now life goes on. After what he said, it
would seem that for Williams it won’t be in North Carolina.
A lot will be made of all the missed free-throws that killed
Kansas’s chances, though the contagion soon affected Syracuse as
well, as if to suggest that the first team to hit a free-throw
wins. But consider the circumstances. Both teams by then were
reeling like fighters who’d thrown and absorbed too many punches.
These guys play incredibly hard. After five-plus months of this
it’s a miracle anyone is left standing.
Actually, two teams still are. On Tuesday night the women of
Connecticut will face their rivals from the University of
Tennessee. The ball and players are slightly smaller, but otherwise
it’s the same game, played with plenty of intensity of its own, and
probably much better free-throw shooting down the stretch. Though
who knows — Connecticut’s star missed two key free-throws in the
final seconds in Sunday’s semifinal, at a point in the game when
she was barely breathing. Parity pops up where least expect it.
Hillary Title IX
Drudge reports that Hillary Clinton is not only late with
submitting a manuscript of the memoirs that some $8 million
persuaded her to agree to write — but that she doesn’t even have a
title for the book. Don’t you think we should maybe help? Let’s
come up with an appropriate title for her. Once she clears that
hurdle, the writing will take care of itself. Send your title
recommendations to prowler@spectator.org. The
right choice could win one of us a free autographed copy once the
book appears, five or ten or thirty-five years from now.
A New Suffering Situation
From the rugged safety of Wyoming, our Bill
Croke today laments the latest signs of leftward drift in his
former home state of Vermont. As it happens, progress exacts a
price. A story in the N.Y. Times’ Sunday Styles section
two
days ago notes that Vermont’s famous civil union laws are
causing all sorts of trouble for out-of-state couples who traveled
to Vermont to contract a civil union but now want out of the
relationship. One year’s residence is required in Vermont before
such a union can be dissolved. We’re not even back in the fifties
in this regard, when people could travel to Reno or Mexico for a
(relatively) quickie divorce.
******
Michael Kelly, RIP (posted 4/7/03 1:21
a.m.)
All the good things being written about Michael Kelly are true,
even though it’s safe to say that the full impact of his horrible
death in Iraq will not be felt for another many months and years.
He really was that good.
Among liberal reactions a special tip of the hat goes out to the
New York Times. An editorial
last Saturday noted, “His death deprives us of a man who excelled
as a reporter, columnist and editor, as well as the generosity and
humor of a cherished colleague.” His friend and one-time colleague
Maureen Dowd’s Sunday column
was deeply felt and moving. Only once did she slip into her snide
mode, when she mentioned how Kelly “maintained an angry outsider
posture in his column even as he was embraced by the conservative
mandarins of Washington.”
But at least Dowd didn’t hold Kelly’s political views against
him. Not so at the magazine Kelly briefly edited, the New
Republic, where several former colleagues posted by and large
very friendly tributes to Kelly. Yet at the most human moment
possible, those few you even cared to write about Kelly were also
very careful to insist on the natural superiority of their own
political views to his. “Like many of my colleagues, I found much
of Mike’s writing politically disagreeable,” one wrote. Another
said, “If I had known him only as a reader I probably would have
hated him.” Or this: “The affection that I had for Mike came as a
shock to my friends, especially my liberal friends, who knew him
through his columns.” What is wrong with these people? Here a
friend has just died yet they can’t help thinking he was some kind
of freak.
But even that was nothing compared to the final tribute paid
Kelly by a New Republic colleague. For reasons best left
to liberals in the privacy of their superiority, the first three
TNR’ers passed on mentioning the unpleasant fact that their
magazine’s owner had fired Kelly for his strong criticisms of
indictable and impeachable Clinton-Gore. So leave it to the fourth
TNR-er, Gregg Easterbrook in this case, to have brought the firing
up in a manner that made him sound like toady of management if not
chief enforcer at the magazine’s re-education camp. As Easterbrook
puts it, there was Kelly’s “fiasco at The New Republic,
where he was fired after a year, and even those who loved him knew
the firing had to happen.” It was for his own good, you see. As
Easterbrook continues, “Mike examined himself, corrected his own
faults, and went on to do unqualifiedly magnificent jobs at both
National Journal and The Atlantic.” As I say,
what is wrong with these people?
