The Republic of Dissent

Journalistic and Puritan perversions

I agree with Glenn Greenwald on this:

This isn't a case of illegal sex activity or gross hypocrisy (i.e., David Vitter, Larry Craig, Mark Foley (who built their careers on Family Values) or Eliot Spitzer (who viciously prosecuted trivial prostitution cases)).  There's no lying under oath (Clinton) or allegedly illegal payments (Ensign, Edwards).  From what is known, none of the women claim harassment and Weiner didn't even have actual sex with any of them.  This is just pure mucking around in the private, consensual, unquestionably legal private sexual affairs of someone for partisan gain, voyeuristic fun and the soothing fulfillment of judgmental condemnation.  And in that regard, it sets a new standard: the private sexual activities of public figures -- down to the most intimate details -- are now inherently newsworthy, without the need for any pretense of other relevance.  I'd really like to know how many journalists, pundits and activist types clucking with righteous condemnation of Weiner would be comfortable having that standard applied to them.

It's astonishing to me that the media and most of America have trouble with the idea that sex can be perverted, destructive, and disturbing without being illegal and becoming a public matter. Nobody seems to be asking the question, why should the public are or rather why  is it something that should concern Weiner's constituents and that is because it is a private matter between a man who like most of the people I know lied stupidly when his private life was exposed for no reason. That's my opinion, but it may change if Anthony Weiner broke the law, but still this scandal is silly, childish and an indication that the media love sex stories because it offers it an excuse to become tabloidlike and because int the post 9/11 world  hasn't found ways to educate and to inform the American public on matters that affect the future of the US such as Afghanistan.

Grow up, America sex isn't always political!

I have to admit that I don't care about the Anthony Weiner's story. I don't even find it titillating and having to see clips of another public apology by an American politician succumbing to the child-like need that Americans have to believe that their leaders are cleaner/purer than them is creepy. I'm happy that Weiner didn't resign. He shouldn't have to for that would be enabling an American public that doesn't vote, that is apathetic to real politics and make it feel good about its ability to have the political class it wants without working for it, without getting involved.

In short, America should grow up, hopefully not into France when it comes to politics and sex, but into a mature country where lying about sex isn't the worst thing that a politician can do and where what matters isn't purity, but rather political deeds and principles.  Anthony Weiner lied about sex and honestly, I don't have the energy to care about that. As long as his conduct wasn't illegal and that the two adjectives to describe his behavior are stupid and destructive, he should remain a congressman. Jerks and flawyed people have the right to be politician as long as they do their job effectively and don't break the law.

The personal isn't always political and the fact that it is int the US gives America a poltical class that isn't up to par with its greatness.

Class, gender, and exhibitionism

Sugary of the day from Belle Waring slamming down Megan McArdle's arguments in favor of giving rich exhibitionists in hotels the benefit of the doubt:

She elides the fact that you, as a woman, know when you’re being flashed vs. when you accidentally walk in on someone who hasn’t heard your knock. Really. Big difference. A man showing you his penis on purpose has a certain way about him, let’s just say. Do I really have to go there? He is likely (thought not certain) to be visibly sexually aroused. And sauntering around looking at you weird, with his penis in his hand as often as not. This is not the behavior of the startled guest who shouts—”wait—don’t come in!” and begins pulling the sheets around himself in a fit of embarrassment. I honestly would have thought, here is a class of rich people whom not even Megan McArdle would defend! I begin to suspect the null set is involved.

I always find it fascinating that more often than not it is women making unbelievable arguments in sexual harassment and sex crime cases. To me, that fact show how icky and hard, it is to identify with the victim of a sex act no matter how believable she is because nobody wants to believe that not only shit happens, to put it bluntly, that it can be sexual and can place in the woman in a position where she is possessed/touched/harassed without having caused the situation.

In short, women are tougher on women victimized sexually because it is both empowering and reassuring.

DSK conspiracy believiers and birtherism

Interesting words from Ilya Somin on l'affaire DSK with which I agree:

Like America’s “birthers” and “truthers,” many of the French reflexively bought into conspiracy theories about the DSK case, despite the absence of any proof supporting them. They did so at least in part because there is little incentive for citizens to objectively evaluate political claims. Like many Americans, the French are more likely to accept political conspiracy theories that reinforce their preexisting political views. For example, some 70% of Socialist Party supporters agree that DSK is the victim of a conspiracy, compared to a much lower percentage of French rightists who think so.
In fairness to the French DSK conspiracy believers, we don’t yet have definitive proof that DSK was not the victim of a conspiracy. The New York authorities have only just begun to investigate the case. Thus, the belief that DSK’s arrest was the result of a conspiracy is not (yet) as ridiculous as birtherism or 9/11 conspiracy-mongering. Nonetheless, many of the French are still giving conspiracy claims far more credence than they deserve. Even if such theories can’t be definitively disproved, there is no evidence to justify the belief that DSK’s arrest was “certainly” (as believed by 22% of the French poll respondents) or “probably” (35 percent) caused by a conspiracy.

 

Anglo-saxon lessons

Sugary excerpt of the day from Mick Hume:

At a time when the UK courts and media are tying themselves in knots over celebrity scandals and super-injunctions, they are in no position to start lecturing the French over where the line between private and public ought (not) to be today. The French privacy laws are indeed a crime against freedom of expression, and they have no more place in a democracy than does the British state’s armoury of censorship rules, libel laws and judge-imposed privacy rulings or super-injunctions.
But that should not mean we demand that the French degrade their public life further and fill it in with sexual scandal and personalised gossip as has been done in the UK and much of the West. Especially as Sarkozy and Co appear perfectly capable of emulating that ‘Anglo-Saxon’ model these days without any help from us.
By all means let us have a proper debate about the respective roles of the private and public arenas in a civilised society - an issue which has nothing to do with what did or did not happen in that New York hotel room. And let us begin with the assumption that everybody quite rightly has ‘something to hide’. It is called our private life.

Just one question: is there no middle ground on this issue?

The dangers of subjective analysis

Jay Rosen on the Juan Williams's firing from NPR:

Here is what I, Jay Rosen, New York Jew, liberal Democrat, and professional student of the press think... Given its existing codes NPR was in an untenable position from the moment Juan Williams started working for Fox, where his job is to be a liberal foil for the conservative alternative in news. There was no way he could abide by NPR’s rules–which insist on viewlessness as a guarantor of trust–and appear on Fox, where the clash of views is basic to what the network does to generate audience, and where Williams relished the give and take with outsized personalities like Bill O’Reilly.

NPR recognized the problem but tried to finesse it by re-classifying Williams as an “analyst.” Big mistake. The job of analyst, as NPR defines it, is so tightly constrained that it excludes almost everything Williams was doing for Fox. So why didn’t NPR simply get rid of Williams years ago when he began to generate view-from-somewhere controversies with his appearances on Fox? The likely reason was identified by Farai Chideya, who used to work at NPR: a diversity problem. NPR had almost no black men on the air.

Jay Rosen is right, but I'm also convinced that the focus on the 'whys' of the Juan Williams episode is convenient because it puts the essential question on the back-burner and that question is what does it mean to be a journalist in America. There are a lot of bad and discomforting answers to that question, but no sustainable attempts to provide thoughtful answers.

Amnesia Nigeriana

Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani on the Nigerian propensity to ignore bad news or rather to live with it as if it is part of the Nigerian normality

I’VE heard it said that we Nigerians are the happiest people on earth. We’re also accused of being passive about issues that would stir up revolutions in other countries. For instance, it’s been just over a week since ethno-religious violence left hundreds dead around Jos, a city in central Nigeria, but the slaughtering of our fellow citizens has already largely faded from our headlines and conversations.(...)Amnesia Nigeriana, someone called it: that tendency of Nigerians to blank out national trauma. As it happens, more than anything else, it is the reports that persist on the BBC and CNN that remind us that hundreds of innocent Nigerians, women and children, were slaughtered in their sleep that Sunday night. When I look up at the huge TV screen in the newsroom where I work, there’s usually a foreign reporter with a look of high seriousness, scenes of Jos in the background.
Every time Nigeria experiences an episode of violence, we seem to go quiet while the rest of the world becomes fixated. Perhaps it’s understandable that we begin to resent these foreign journalists and the constant focus on our disasters.

Something tells me that Amnesia Nigeriana is an affliction that does not plague uniquely Nigerians...

Charity and media saturation

I agree with Peter Singer on this:

Why do people give generously to earthquake victims, but not to prevent the much larger number of deaths brought about by extreme poverty, insufficient food, unsafe water, lack of sanitation, and the absence of even the most basic healthcare?
Media saturation obviously makes a critical difference. Scenes from Hurricane Katrina, the Asian tsunami, and now the Haitian earthquake were shown over and over again on all television news broadcasts. An earthquake in a remote part of Pakistan that killed 80,000 people received relatively little television coverage, and a much less generous response. The daily deaths of children in poor countries from diarrhoea, measles, and malaria are part of the background of the world we live in, and so are not news at all.
Suppose that a million children all in one place seemed likely to be swept away and drowned by approaching floodwaters. The media coverage would be enormous. Now imagine the jubilation if they were saved! And imagine the acclaim for the heroes who had saved so many children.

Haiti and Avatar

Thought provoking and more importantly necessary statements from Giovanni at Bat Bean, Beam (hat tip: Daniel Trilling) comparing Haiti and Avatar (which I haven't seen because I don't want to, I still haven't digested the overkill that there was for Titanic):

The comparison may seem outrageous, but note what these two sets of comments have in common: the idea that analysis is inappropriate, criticism and a sense of time or history not befitting the moment. A large-scale human tragedy calls for immediate action; a spectacular movie calls for immediate enjoyment. In both instances, reflection is grossly inappropriate, even offensive; thus Hallward and Calder are not chastised for being wrong, but for speaking out of turn.
I guess this would also not be the time to reflect on information as spectacle and entertainment, a concept so naturalised and ingrained that raising it in the most innocuous of circumstances is bound to get you labelled as a Neil Postman wannabe, or worse. Let alone at this moment, when the circumstances are all but innocuous. So I probably ought to refrain from pointing out what everybody knows, namely, that Avatar is owned by a company called News Corporation, whose principal, one Rupert Murdoch, is a fanatical supporter of Western imperialism, both military and economic. Yet the film passes, at least amongst a significant proportion of the people who - unlike Calder’s detractors - chose to take it seriously, precisely for a critique of imperialism. Regardless of the merits of that argument, which is not my intention to discuss here, did James Cameron just a few hours ago, in accepting his Golden Globe for best director, really speak Na’vi? What kind of gesture was that? What does it mean to pay homage to the struggles of a people that does not exist, and to do so right now, at this moment in history, when it is bound to be preceded in the news bulletins by footage from Port au Prince?
Now this obviously is a coincidence, and the release of Avatar was never meant to overlap with the Haitian earthquake. But what if it dulls its reality? What if that appeal to fictional indigenous rights criminally distract us, by creating a warped space of reflection on plights that aren’t real?

It is sad to assert but in our times, disasters and everything else need to be able to produce nice pictures, infomercials to catch and to keep the attention of America first of all and of Hollywoodized world. What has bothered about the continuing Haiti saga is precisely the lack of analysis and of thoughts because we are too busy feeling, being overwhelmed by the pictures of Anderson Cooper looking tanned in the middle of glamorous misery. 

Hell is reading others's people sleaze

After reading Jessica Dweck's article in Slate, I know that I'm going to hell:

In his new tell-all book, The Politician, Andrew Young claims to have discovered a sex tape recorded by John Edwards and his mistress, Rielle Hunter, in a box of trash. Although Hunter apparently tried to dismantle the video by pulling the tape out of the cassette, Young was able to restore it and view the footage with his wife. How do you destroy a sex tape so that it actually stays destroyed?

Are American political journalists still serious people? Or is that an unbelievably naïve question? What is the point of the sex tape "information" except to appeal to our basest instincts?

Moving past Blair

I agree with Agnès Poirier on her conclusion that Blair wouldn't make a good president for Europe:

There is a stronger argument still against Mr Blair’s candidature: he’s not the intellectual heavyweight and above-all-parties moral figurehead that we Europeans need to represent our old and proud continent. (...)What Europe needs is a figure that can incarnate the very idea of Europe, not a schemer who can pull his weight in the negotiations of banana exports. What Europe needs is a wise leader whose personal experience of the ordeals and triumphs of the 20th century makes for a commanding figure in the world, somebody who makes people stop and listen. Who would a busy Barack Obama take immediately on the phone? An Einstein or a Blair?(...) Tony Blair may be a talented and savvy political figure, but he shouldn’t be Europe’s first choice. Let’s aim higher. Europe deserves it.

I don't think that Blair is lightweight. I just thinks that he represents the past and that Europe needs somebody who doesn't have all of his political baggage to help it move forward and not to go back to some of the gray zones of Blairism. When I think of Blair, the first thing to my mind is the Yo blair incident in which he accepted to be treated with too much nonchalance by Bush (At least Angela Merkel was repulsed when Bush rubbed her shoulders in an inappropriate manner ). That episode and his actions in the later years of his time at Britain's prime minister force one to question his ability to question wrong actions motivated by good intentions and to not be religiously ideological.

Meaningless television

I haven't watched the much talked about "confrontation" between Jim Cramer and Jon Stewart. After skimming articles about it, I'm not planning to do it. I have stopped watching the Daily Show. I like Jon Stewart but I think his show is missing something which  is essential in these times when it is easy to be conventional and to be content with criticizing the media especially when you have become a part of it. The Daily show is great for people who don't watch the news and who still believe in everything that they read and see on TV, but for others, who expect better and more profound content, it is entertaining , but shallow just like a good old Disney family movie. To come back to the Cramer and Stewart showdown, it was meaningless television because it was petty, irrelevant and most of all a distraction. Jim Cramer isn't a journalist, neither for that matter Jon Stewart. It says a lot about the state of the America media and culture that two non-journalists are talking, bickering about its health, and the failure of its members to cover certain subjects because their biases and conflicts of interest.Where should we go for critical analysis of current events and of the news in America?

The death of newspapers

I wish I could disagree with Kenneth Anderson, my second favorite law professor, who is giving up his New York Times subscription because he founds its coverage bias, but I cannot. One of the most difficult things for me in recent years has been to find newspapers, written either in French or in English (it is harder in English), whose coverage of the news I can trust. What is scary is that bias coverage of news events is even worse on Television, which is why I have stopped watching cable news channels and caring about what journalists think because it is painfully obvious that their opinion is restricting their ability to make informed analysis. I found myself missing the nineties, which were a time where at least news wasn’t essentially about opinion, gossip, endless chatter, and entertainment. Boy, how have things changed! Sugary excerpt:

Back in the ’90s, the Times decided to try and become the national general newspaper for elites across the country. In other words, become in the general newspaper category what the Wall Street Journal had already become in the national business category. Costs of printing and distribution had fallen greatly, thanks to improving communications technologies, and so the costs of national distribution were not completely off those of the New York City metropolitan paper. Combined with a rising, affluent urban elite in American cities, the strategy was far from crazy. I thought it very smart at the time. I even used to own shares of the New York Times corporation.

But what these elites sought nationwide was not so much information as attitude. They wanted confirmation of who they were, not merely news of the day. The basic justification of a daily newspaper — “this happened today” — is the fundamental assertion that the daily news doesn’t need to justify itself apart from saying, “it happened.” This wasn’t good enough for the emerging elite audience of a national newspaper.

The Times saw its target audience and with its desire to put sensibility over sense decided that instead of a daily newspaper founded around the facts of what happened, it would instead offer its readers a daily magazine.

Magazines are wonderful things. But there is a difference between them and daily newspapers. The newspaper says “this happened today,” and frankly that’s enough to justify the paper’s existence. The magazine, by definition, is an analysis and commentary on events — and for that reason, magazines are weekly or monthly events, not dailies. At their best, magazines are informed opinion — each of those a separate requirement. But they are always a matter of opinion. And that’s what the Times showcased on its front pages. A magazine of opinion.

Simple questions of bias and of competence

Alarming, but on point analysis from Michael Malone on the shameful inability of journalists do their jobs during this election cycle (hat tip: Jonathan Adler). The sad thing is that this American disease is spreading everywhere, which will cause in my opinion journalists to become irrelevant and journalism to become passé because it will no longer be they will no longer be able not only to provide the context, but also to analyze and explain it without falling in love with concepts. Sugary excerpt:

[…] for the last couple weeks, I've begun -- for the first time in my adult life -- to be embarrassed to admit what I do for a living. A few days ago, when asked by a new acquaintance what I did for a living, I replied that I was "a writer," because I couldn't bring myself to admit to a stranger that I'm a journalist.

[…] Republicans are justifiably foaming at the mouth over the sheer one-sidedness of the press coverage of the two candidates and their running mates. But in the last few days, even Democrats, who have been gloating over the pass -- no, make that shameless support -- they've gotten from the press, are starting to get uncomfortable as they realize that no one wins in the long run when we don't have a free and fair press.

I was one of the first people in the traditional media to call for the firing of Dan Rather -- not because of his phony story, but because he refused to admit his mistake -- but, bless him, even Gunga Dan thinks the media is one-sided in this election.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those people who think the media has been too hard on, say, Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin, by rushing reportorial SWAT teams to her home state of Alaska to rifle through her garbage. This is the big leagues, and if she wants to suit up and take the field, then Gov. Palin better be ready to play.

The few instances where I think the press has gone too far -- such as the Times reporter talking to prospective first lady Cindy McCain's daughter's MySpace friends -- can easily be solved with a few newsroom smackdowns and temporary repostings to the Omaha bureau.

No, what I object to (and I think most other Americans do as well) is the lack of equivalent hardball coverage of the other side -- or worse, actively serving as attack dogs for the presidential ticket of Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Joe Biden, D-Del.

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Barack, Bill, Hillary, and I

I am sick and tired of the Democratic primaries. I have stopped enjoying the whole thing because it doesn’t fell like an election anymore, but like a titanic struggle for the soul of a party, the Democratic Party who never had one in the first place. I have decided to stop watching until the whole thing is settled. Even as spectator I feel dirty just watching and more importantly, I feel cheated because I don’t like the narrative that is developing. I support Hillary, but I don’t hate Barack, and I’m not even bother by the fact that Bill is feeling compel to play as much of role in Hillary’s campaign as she did in his by being aggressive and by putting her before himself. I have to admit that it is hard to watch the whole thing and not to think of the Democrats as wimps who can be lovable at times, but also so irritating with their obsession with purity. They, with the French Socialists, are the only party members capable of turning what was supposed to be a blockbuster election into an all or nothing contest all just because they have just realized that Barack is Barack, Hillary is Hillary, and Bill is Bill. Suddenly, the narrative is that there is something wrong or deficient within some if not all of them because they are trying to win. I don’t know what is going to happen, but I feel that something has been broken, not irreparably, but broken.  The Democratic party and an apolitical electorate wants to find love within this election instead of just finding someone that is going to first do the j.o.b of president, before thinking of big ideas that have not effects on the lives of the people. I love politics, but I don’t like when it becomes like a religion where it is necessary either to have a messiah that will change America or to defeat the Antichrist who is the cause of all the wrongs of the country. So, I am doing more than turning the volume down, I am tuning out because I don’t want to watch the crash, the two cars colliding, even though I will be there at the end to pick up the dead and help heal the wounded.

Ze Interview

Here is most of the now famous or infamous Sarko interview. I had the strong urge to scream at Lesley Stahl while I was watching it to remind her of the obvious, that is that Sarkozy isn't Brad Pitt and that she would treat an American politician who had the ambition to change America so casually and almost dismissively as to say that only his person matters and that FRANCE doesn't.

Super-Sarko and journalism

Like all Red Sox fans, I was on another planet this weekend. Nevertheless, I took the time to watch the interview of Sarkozy on Sixty Minutes. It was difficult to resist the urge to watch it for the buildup was spectacular for it was known that at the end, Sarkozy was going to walk out  of the interview. I therefore expected sparks and to know more him and his policies, but I was disappointed when I saw that Sixty minutes was treating Sarkozy not like a politician, but as the next superstar that was going again to revolutionize France. For these reasons, the reporting was shallow and  simplistic and it was easy to see that Lesley Stahl, the journalist, was treating Sarkozy like a Pop Star not like the head of State for she seems to be more interested in him than in  France and in Sarkozysm.

So what did I make of the stormy walk-out? Not much. What bothered me was the fact that Sarko was insulting his press secretary in front of the cameras and that he could show restraint. But again, restraint and Sarkozy don’t go together and the French have decided with the election of Sarkozy that they want action even if it comes at the costs of protocol and of decorum.

However, the most important thing about the Sixty Minutes piece was the complicity that Sarkozy tried to create with the journalist by for example taking her note pad. To me, that poses the question of the relationship or rather of the distance that should be between journalists and politicians. In France, it is known and even accepted that Sarkozy like to have close relationships with political journalists, that he calls them by their first names and even uses “tu” instead of “vous” with them. The problem is that this lack of distance makes critical reporting difficult. Sarkozy takes criticism as a personal attack. Journalists whom he treats as personal friends know that by asking tough questions not on his personal life (which is hypocritical for they all try to find a reason to violate this French rule when the story is juicy) but on his policies, that they will be chastise. Journalists know that they will to pay a steep price by losing both access, and the complicity with the King of France, which is necessary to get important stories.

At the end of everything, I am left with a bitter taste in my mouth. After if not even a serious new magazine such Sixty minutes can’t do a deep and serious piece on Sarkozy, then we are condemned to content ourselves with images and other sweeties, which have nothing to do with substance. If Sarkozysm is indeed a revolution, shouldn’t the focus of news coverage be on its consequences instead of obsessing with the image of the revolutionary?

On the New York Times and France

The best post I read this week was written by my second favorite law Professor (after Jamin Raskin) Kenneth Anderson on the New York Times’s coverage of France. Professor Anderson points out that the New York Times focuses purposely on trivialities and avoids discussing real subjects. Sugary excerpt:

My French friend, who doubtless would prefer not to be named, finds the coverage of France by the New York Times utterly insipid and infuriating. "Does the Times think we are children?" he asked me (I paraphrase from memory) back at the time of the election. "America's leading newspaper seems unaware there are serious issues of economics, politics, state policy, and all its Paris correspondent thinks about is making cliched comparisons between France and the United States about women, divorce, affairs by politicians. Does she know anything else? New York liberals think we are Disneyland. At least American conservatives want to talk about real things."
[…]. He describes himself as a center-left Gaullist - but what matters, he says, is the Gaullist part. French Gaullists and American Gaullists clash, he says, because what they share is that neither one is in the least bit apologetic for speaking for the interests of his country and, more importantly, its honor. He adds, still annoyed, that the "best way America and France could immediately improve relations would be for the Times to replace Elaine Sciolino with someone who understood more finance and less fashion." Banish her, he said, to where she really belongs, in the "Style section and Travel."
I doubt he has yet seen today's Week in Review in the Times, in which Sciolino has a major front page story on - the reform of the French economy? Non. The impending strike and its consequences? Non. Olivier Roy's new book on Islam and French secularism? Non. It is, instead, yet more cultural trivialities about Sarkozy and divorce - always the same shtick - the sophistication of the French versus the vulgarity of the Americans. "L'Amour Has Little to Do With l'Etat." The justification at the offices of the Times, I suppose, is that it has calculated, probably correctly, that this blather is what its Manhattan readership, and its cognates across American cities, want to read over Sunday brunch.

The problem with the New York Coverage of France is that it is covered by journalists who never integrate French society and remain purposely on the periphery in order to remain as Gene Kelly, Americans in Paris and for  France to remain exotic and foreign to them even if it means never really knowing it. Good examples of this phenomenon are Roger Cohen’s columns on France, which are so predictable and mundane that they could have been written in the 50s. My point is that clichés are easy especially when the reality is difficult to grasp especially for Americans journalists who like nothing more than to feel at home away from home. I am reminded of Tom Friedman, which explained in the Lexus and the Olive Tree that when he was the foreign affairs columnist or the New York Times what he was able to be a tourist with an attitude and to request that the world adapt to him. Friedman liked to export his own homely comfort, which meant that he likes to stay in the same fancy international hotel chains and to eat the same food, which included oranges, which he wanted to be cut the same. What is the point of knowing the world and of experiencing new things to get beyond clichés and stereotypes if you can get a taste of America anywhere?

I think that the coverage of France by newspapers such as the New York Times would be better if they took the risk to hire French Journalists who have an American education or Francophone people who have been educated in France and who understand American society. The point is that for some reason, American journalists are unable or unwilling to get beyond the glitz because they believe, I am making a gross over-generalization here, that the world has been Americanized and only trivialities matter.

France, code of silence, and the private lives of politicians

Nicolas Sarkozy got divorced on Monday and I don’t care! I think that it is about time that France and other countries admitted and accepted that a politician doesn’t have to be married to be a good Head of State. The need that modern democracies have to have political spouses play the ungrateful and objectifying role of first mate is ridiculous, anti-modern, and even cruel . This gruesome need reminds me of the appalling notion of human sacrifice. Sarkozy is entitled to a private life.

However, what bugged me about the whole episode was the attitude of the French media who flatters itself of being more ethical and more respectful than the Anglo-Saxon media when it comes to the private life of its politicians. They violated their self-imposed code of silence when the information about the state of the French president’s private life left their control and that French bloggers got a hold of it. French Journalists feigned surprised and suddenly pretended that the French had the right to know about their president’s private life when it was clear that it had no impact on his ability to govern the country. The whole affair became needlessly a spectacle because there was a competition between journalists, newspapers, and bloggers to be the first to provide the juicy details of a personal matter. I didn’t like this tabloidization of French politics because it placed the emphasis on the personal as if it was more important than politics itself and the day to day duties of the president.

Although I hate the fact that in America, journalists are free to prey on the private lives of their politicians and to hound their spouses, I hate it even more when the fact that in France there is a code of silence that is willingly broken when the information is juicy and sexy and thus, sells papers.

I hope that I will never have to write, even indirectly, on the private life of Sarko again.

News Books and newspapers

Elisabeth Shifton makes the following point, which I think is a good one, in the Columbia Review of Journalism about the difference between News books and newspapers, which explains why the first succeeds better than the latter do not:

W hat draws readers to good news books is, beyond the narrative excitement, the thematic coherence they impose on an incoherent public world. Even though they may arrive late, they bring important events into focus, and give them authoritative personal clout. News editors once strived for this kind of constancy in the news pages, too. But today one gets the impression that it’s no longer a prime goal, perhaps thought of as old-fashioned and slowpoke, even though the news media’s resources and traditions are uniquely well suited to composing this famous “first draft of history,” the meta-narrative of events, people, and movements that unfolds daily and is understood over the week, month, or year. Today, newspapers (or their corporate owners, for sure) seem to prefer meeting the torrent of TV and Internet news head on, matching the sometimes hysterical buzz around evolving stories with new-found sprays of relevant information or featured color pieces on hot topics or obscure peculiarities, covering the stuff when the public pays heed but dropping it thereafter—all at a breakneck pace.

Of course, newspapers are trying, in their panicked way, to deal with the fact that, thanks to the decline and aging of their readership, the advent of the Web, and the money crunch created by falling circulation and loss of advertising revenue, their old ways of doing business are defunct. But they’re also showing a loss of confidence in the virtues of print itself, as if they would be doomed unless they match the nonprint media’s emphasis on things that don’t really matter. If so, then they’re forgetting a basic truth: print media have never been easy to make money in, and the only publishers who stay in the black are those who actually believe that print publication can accomplish something that nothing else can—whether high-minded or basely commercial, whether for the public interest or for private gain, whether for readers of true news, art, and history, or for consumers of profit-driven entertainment and marketing.

The video du matin: Nothing comes easy in the Middle East

In this short excerpt from Yesterday's Meet the Press David Brooks and Tom Friedman talk about the notion that Iraq isn't going up to flames and that it is a just of matter of adding some troops on the grounds for things to get better. It is an interesting clip because it shows that in international affairs, when a government believes that that a policy objective is easy to achieve, it is not only going to make a mistake, but going to lose its ability to adjust and to change course.

The leftist European media

“I'm always slightly taken aback by it whenever I'm here [Britain], is that the TV news is overwhelmingly left of center. And you know, it's actually even worse on the Continent. I mean, a European discussion, a panel discussing, say, the American politics, or the war in Iraq, will have an interviewer, and then it'll have a panelist from the left, one from the far left, and one from the lunatic left. And that would be what European television would regard as a balanced panel. The debate, I think, is...you get the feeling, particularly at the BBC, where I think there is a real hostility among a segment of the British people that just feels its views are not represented on television, not part of the cultural discourse. And I think that's a real difference. People may loathe a lot of aspects about the American media, and certainly the newspapers are very dull. But the power that the BBC exerts over British TV news, I think, is terribly unhealthy.” Mark Steyn.

The video du jour: Reporting the good news from Iraq

Well what can I say about this video? Nothing except just to tell you to watch it. I hope that the person who made it, Glenn Beck was trying to be funny.

Forcing Britain to choose between the US and the EU

According to her foreign policy adviser Gilles Savary, Ségolène Royal would ask Britain to choose between its special relationship and the European Union if she becomes president of France next year. The plan is to ask Britain to commit finally to European integration by signing a new treaty that would bring it closer to France, Germany, and other major European countries in order to help the EU to get out the malaise and immobility it is plunged since the rejection of the European Constitution by France and the Netherlands. Money quote:

Great Britain is absolutely indispensable to the European Union. It is great nation, a global power. But the question the English have to answer is – do the English consider the English Channel to be wider than the Atlantic? We on the continent have the right to deplore the fact that Great Britain appears to consider the Channel is wider. (...) Europecan be relaunched with Germany, Italyand Spain. It is perfectly possible to have treaties within the treaty, among four nations," he said. "If other nations want to sign up, that's good. But we cannot have a Europewhere one part goes to war in Iraq, another part does not, and we all end up paying the bill.

I like the idea because I think that Britain has to play an essential role in Europe and that it must stop to use its relationship with America as an excuse to remain on the sidelines of the European Union. Britain cannot have one foot inside of Europe and outside of Europe. Although, I don't like the formulation of forcing Britain to choose between the US and the EU because it assumes that those two sides are in opposition, I think that Britain has to choose finally to become a true European country by opting in European integration and by accepting to take on the challenge of making the EU a viable and important supranational organization. The key is to allow this proposal to intensify anti-American sentiment in Europe and within the EU by choosing to view the US as an unavoidable rival rather than as partner and an ally. For those who want to read a bias and I will add ignorant take on this subject, you can read Tammy Bruce's post. My advice for her wouldn't be to start to learn French for it think that it would be too difficult for her, but actually to learn about France before writing about. By the way, Ségolène is actually 53 years old. She is moderate and modern and has some actually conservative social views. Tammy Bruce would have known these small but important facts if she valued information and culture and did not to put prejudice and ideology before everything else.

At last, Murdoch does the decent thing

I don't want to comment extensively on the whole OJ affair, because I think that there is such a thing as toxic scum, which you can't talk about without becoming sick. But I'm glad that Murdoch put an end to this masquerade even though I wonder what he allowed it to start. The only question that I have is what ever made him or whoever had this "idea" think that it would be worth it.

Food Thought: Her name is Ségolène, Ségolène Royal

“The choice of the French socialists to copy Britain's Labour party and go for a one person, one vote selection process, in contrast to the back-room deals and manoeuvres of choosing a presidential candidate by means of a party congress decision, has been vindicated. Royal - known simply as Ségo (pronounced "sago", as in the pudding) - has captured an enthusiastic support among party members, including 60,000 new or returned members who signed up on the net for just 20 euros to take part in the vote. […] The Royal victory - and her name itself may be worth half a million votes, as a French president is the closest the world has to an elected monarch - is also a big defeat for the old way of doing politics on the French left. […] The important winner is the notion that a woman can occupy the post of president of France, which combines and concentrates state and political power in a way that no other major western democracy does. This is not happenstance as when Margaret Thatcher emerged from nowhere in 1975 to seize the Tory leadership from Ted Heath, nor the similar putsch organised by Angela Merkel against the tired Kohl machine in German Christian democracy earlier this century. Royal's emergence is the fruit of 20 years' effort by French socialists to promote women and women's issues in politics.” Denis MacShane, “Casino Royal.”

Ed Bradley and la force tranquille

Like almost everyone, I loved Ed Bradley even though I’ve never met him and even though I know nothing about his personal life. However, I loved him because he showed that it was possible to be a serious and an outstanding journalist without interfering with the story and without becoming the center of the attention of his reports. Thus, he never became the story and always stood on the side of the subject matter of the stories he was covering while putting it in perspective for the viewers and by asking questions that would enable them to get more information. Ed Bradley had what we called in French, la force tranquille (quiet force), an expression is so often used to qualify Francois Mitterrand the deceased French President who was know for his finesse and his intelligence. This force gave him enough confidence in his ability as a journalist that he never tried to become something more or to fight with celebrities and others to steal some of the spotlight. I'm going to miss Ed Bradley because I know that he is irreplaceable and that in an age where to become a force in the media one has to be loud, forceful, and ruthless, he was a competent gentleman who knew that all that mattered was excellence and application. Rest in Peace, Ed Bradley.

The video du jour: fraud, elections and democracy

I'm neither a fabulist nor a conspiracy theorist so I don't look for reasons to believe that people are going to steal elections and that votes won't be counted. I believe of course in dirty tricks, which would make partisans call voters to dissuade them from voting or misdirecting. However, I am a bit jittery about electronic voting because for one it is new and because as this clip shows it makes it easier to disrupt elections or to try to steal them.

Justice, Saddam, and America

The most disturbing article I read this money was Robert Fisk's column in the Independent making the unconvincing point that the guilty verdict in the Saddam Hussein trial is also one condemning America. Money quote:

I and my colleagues watched this tragedy. I travelled on the hospital trains that brought the Iranians back from the 1980-88 war front, their gas wounds bubbling in giant blisters on their arms and faces, giving birth to smaller blisters that wobbled on top of their wounds. The British and Americans didn't want to know. I talked to the victims of Halabja. The Americans didn't want to know. My Associated Press colleague Mohamed Salaam saw the Iranian dead lying gassed in their thousands on the battlefields east of Basra. The Americans and the British didn't care.

But now we are to give the Iraqi people bread and circuses, the final hanging of Saddam, twisting, twisting slowly in the wind. We have won. We have inflicted justice upon the man whose country we invaded and eviscerated and caused to break apart. No, there is no sympathy for this man. "President Saddam Hussein has no fear of being executed," Bouchra Khalil, a Lebanese lawyer on his team, said in Beirut a few days ago. "He will not come out of prison to count his days and years in exile in Qatar or any other place. He will come out of prison to go to the presidency or to his grave." It looks like the grave. Keitel went there. Ceausescu went there. Milosevic escaped sentence.

What bothers about Fisk's arguments is that he is implicitly making the argument that the hands of America and of Britain are so dirty that they cannot pass judgment or even depose Saddam Hussein. His argument is one of the original sin, which cannot be redeemed. I don't agree. I am not one of those people who believe that the Iraq war was wrong because Iraq was a one-time ally of the US or which points to the fact that Rumsfeld once shook his hands to argue that he cannot be trusted. I think that countries make wrong decisions based on real politick believing that it serves their national interests. However, this fact doesn't mean that it cannot try to correct its mistakes and to do what is right, that would mean that Germany could never be trusted to do something right because of Hitler for example. In other under this twisted and moralizing view of international politics, purity makes right and once a country makes the wrong decision, it can never be trusted again. The Iraq war wasn't wrong because of America's past, but because of the motives and the incompetence of those who planned that war who were just too bound by ideology to think about history and to take into consideration local reality. America is one of the greatest countries in the world because it never shies away from its history and because its people are never afraid to make a judgment about the mistakes and the errors of judgment of its leaders. America wants so much to be good that its people always come forward when they realize that it isn't served right by its leaders. For example, the reason why most of the American people today believe that the Iraq war was wrong and don't trust the Bush administration on the Iraq issue is because they believe that they didn't tell them the truth when it came to Iraq and that more importantly that they didn't conduct this war competently. Fisk is wrong because he is so obsessed with questioning the motives of America that he fails to see the forest through the trees. It is true that the Saddam Hussein wasn't a model and I have always argued that it was a mistake not to let him be judged by the International court of Justice in The Hague. Although one may question the Bush administration's motives, they cannot indict  America as a whole and argue that it is as guilty as Saddam Hussein is because at one time in its history it was silent during his commission of the atrocities for which he was judged and condemned. I for one doesn't believe in that absolutist view because I make a difference between guilt and responsibility and more importantly because I believe that the most important is not to never make mistakes or get one's hands dirty but to refuse to correct one's mistake and to never try to learn from history.

The videos du jour: hate, fanaticism, and humor

The first video shows some of the anti-gay pride riots which took place last weekend. The second is a clip from Bill Maher's show real time in the summer at the time when the gay pride march was supposed to take place (it was postponed due to the Lebanon war).  Both clips show how religion can be used to excuse the inexcusable and to justify hate and violence.

Webb and literature

Jim Webb, the Democratic candidate in the Virginia Senate race is under fire for some salacious parts of his novels, which involve of course sex and incest. Is it just me or is this campaign more entertaining and more creatively nasty than usual? I wonder what is the point of the Allen campaign pointing to Webb's books, are they trying to say that his writing reflects his values? I know it is rhetorical question, but I’m just stunned by the fact that they are able to make this argument and to get away with it. However, I think that what is going to make the implicit charge that Webb is a lewd character is that his writing is just going to confirm his portrayal in Allen's negative ads and that is that he is a sexist pig who can sees sex everywhere for he once said that the Naval Academy was a horny woman's dream. I will make the following prediction, Allen is going to win the race by 2% unless Webb is able in the next two days to come back with some graphic proofs that confirm the image of Allen that he has tried to create and that is the one of insensitive, corrupt and out of touch Bush Republican. I can't wait for the election.

Food for thought: Censorship and Iraq

“The government of the United States has no right to send our people off to war and keep secret that which it has no plausible military reason to keep secret. After all, American blood and treasure is being spent. Americans should know how our soldiers are doing, and what they are doing while wearing our flag. The government has no right to withhold information or to deny access to our combat forces just because that information might anger, frighten, or disturb us.

By allowing only a trickle of news to come out of Iraq, when all involved parties know the flow could be more robust, the Pentagon is doing just that. Although the conspicuous media vacuum can be partly explained by the danger--Iraq is arguably more dangerous for journalists than Vietnam or even World War II, when reporters were allowed to land on D-Day--some of the few who will risk it all are denied access for no good reason.” Michael Yon, “Censoring Iraq.”

Food for thought: The death of the republic

“In other words, we have to be confident that George W. Bush is so competent, all-knowing, and inherently just that we can just trust him. If he says someone is an enemy combatant, then he or she is. No need to check with a judge about why he or she is being held. And then Bush can have the suspect tortured to make him confess, and can convict him on the basis of the coerced confession, all in secret. […]I look out my window. I don't see a general Rebellion or an invasion by a foreign power. The conditions, under which the right of the imprisoned to demand that a court establish whether there are genuine grounds to hold him is suspended, are absent.” Juan Cole, “Year One of the Empire, Bush: Resistance is Illogical.”

Madonna, Adoption, African orphans, and the World’s Hypocrisy

I didn’t want to have to comment on Madonna and her adoption of a Malawian little boy, but given the fact that all of what I’ve read so far have failed to say what I think needs to be said, I think that I am going to have to say a few words about this unbelievable stupid controversy. First in the order of fairness, it is important for me to disclose the fact that I am a huge Madonna fan. Second, I know a lot about African on the contrary of all the professional snipers who have decided to use the adoption of Madonna to vent their frustration and their anger over I don’t know what issue. It is necessary to explain why so many African orphans need a home. The first one is that their parents have died of Aids and other diseases. The second and most important one is that adopting is not just part of the African tradition. In Africa, blood is sacred and adopting a child is not part of the culture even though people show their generosity by other means. It is for that reason that I think that African children must be allowed to go wherever they are wanted and wherever they will have a family. I heard a caller on the BBC talking about Madonna’s adoption as an act of aggression and I heard Malawian Child Charities talking about preferential treatment and my question to them is have you gone mad? Are you going to argue that culture and tradition are everything? Can you argue with a strait face that Madonna doesn’t deserve preferential treatment given the fact that it is obvious what she can provide for the child? I think that people are so willing to judge and to snap that they forget the most important issue is Africa and its orphans. The people who use grand words such as the child being just another Madonna’s accessory and about the fact that taking the child of Africa is cruel should be ashamed of themselves for putting ideology before human lives. Africa is not a sacred place full of children who, to remain pure, need to stay where they were born even it means living a miserable life. Africa needs help any kind of help that it can get. If celebrities want to come to Africa, build orphanages, and adopt African kids, I say to them get in the water is fine. I would even like to see Paris Hilton going to the slums of Douala or of Bangui is that meant that it would bring Africa the attention and the money that it deserved. I found it hard to believe that people who have never been to Africa, who have no idea what it means to be an orphan is a land where you will most likely never find a family, dare to criticize Madonna because she has chosen to take on the huge responsibility of raising a Malawian orphan knowing full well the criticisms that she would incur for that actions. And to Malawians who are now focusing on preferential treatment and to the Child’s father who suddenly discovered that it was in his interest to criticize Madonna rather than to praise you, I say Shame on you. Your country has a chance to attract the world’s attention to its orphans and you are blowing it up by acting as if Madonna was a clean enough celebrity and as if Malawi was too good of a place for her. She had pledged to build orphanages to help kids your government can always provide for and you are accusing her of kidnapping a kid, who you know she will love and do her best to care for him. I know it is easy to skeptical and to take the easy road by arguing that Madonna buy a child, but the issue is this case is too grave for demagogy and grandstanding. I wonder how many of the purists are giving money to charities so that Africans orphans say in the only place where they believe that those kids belong in an orphanage. I wonder how many of them would have been willing to take on the lifelong commitment to care for a child that is different and that they would have to paid special attention because the world would have blame them if he turns out badly. My hope is that African countries realize that their orphans can only have a future if they are allowed to be raised in a home where they are wanted and welcome. It is for that reason that I am totally in favor of inter-country adoption because I believe that whoever in the world wants to help give an African child a future should be allowed to do so. Madonna could have gone anywhere to adopt a child. She could have gone to China or to Cambodia. She chose to go to Africa and I for one am grateful that she made that choice because I know that an African child will have a chance not just for a better life, but later on to help his native country become a better place.

In Memoriam: The US Constitution September 17, 1787-October 17, 2006

Today died the US Constitution after the signing of the Military Commissions Act of 2006. It may seem extreme to say that the passage of a bill of Congress and its signature by the President is enough to kill the document, which represents the essence of American Democracy, but this bill is so badly and so recklessly written that it has wounded the principle that America's identity and values shouldn’t change because of the dangers of our times. Securing Americashouldn’t come at the cost of killing its Constitutional principles by making diluting their values and soiling their sanctity. Terrorism wins when it changes the people, which it threatens and in case, it just did. My hope on this sad fall morning is that the US Constitution is resurrected when the governed and their leaders realize that some exceptions and compromises are unacceptable when by their sole existence they make the point that the end justifies the means.

Crime and Punishment: Lynn Stewart's sentence

Lynn Stewart was sentenced to 28 months in prison yesterday. The Judge (John Koeltl) decided that given Mrs. Stewart's age (67) and health giving her a stiffer sentence wouldn't have been fair. The question that many are asking is whether the sentence was too light considering her crimes (providing material support to a convicted terrorist among other crimes). My answer is that I don’t know. It may seem like a cop-out and in a way, it is, but I think that the key issue is this matter is whether a tougher punishment was warranted in this case not just to punish Mrs. Stewart, but also to send the message that her actions were reprehensible and dangerous. The Judge had to reach a balance between the need to sanction dangerous crimes and the need to take the facts of this case into consideration and it is fair to wonder if he succeeded.

The video du Dimanche: the North Korean misery, which Nukes can't hide

The video du jour: Ted Turner uncensored

There are a lot of criticisms that can be made of Ted Turner, but one of them isn't that he isn't outspoken and eccentric. This clip shows some of his answers to questions after his speech at the National Press Club a few weeks ago.

The vote of a lifetime

Better late than never so here is the list of the Senators who voted NO on the “bill to authorize trial by military commission for violations of the law of war, and for other purposes.”

Akaka (D-HI) Baucus (D-MT) Bayh (D-IN) Biden (D-DE) Bingaman (D-NM) Boxer (D-CA) Byrd (D-WV) Cantwell (D-WA) Chafee (R-RI) Clinton (D-NY) Conrad (D-ND) Dayton (D-MN)

Dodd (D-CT) Dorgan (D-ND) Durbin (D-IL) Feingold (D-WI) Feinstein (D-CA) Harkin (D-IA) Inouye (D-HI) Jeffords (I-VT) Kennedy (D-MA) Kerry (D-MA) Kohl (D-WI) Leahy (D-VT)

Levin (D-MI) Lincoln (D-AR) Mikulski (D-MD) Murray (D-WA) Obama (D-IL) Reed (D-RI) Reid (D-NV) Sarbanes (D-MD) Schumer (D-NY) Wyden (D-OR)

Among the Senators who voted yes were Mary Landrieu of Louisiana Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, Susan Collins of Maine, Bob Menendez of New Jersey, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut. Olympia Snow of Maine didn’t vote.

Hastert and Foley

Dennis Hastert has written a letter to the Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez to request that he investigate the whole Mark Foley affair. I'm having trouble viewing this scandal as a political one because I'm not sure how much Hastert and the Republican leadership knew about Foley's failings. My guess is that they didn't know how serious the matter was and simply thought that the matter just involved inappropriate emails. But of course, I could be wrong, but for now, I am viewing the Foley affair as the sad and tragic fall of another powerful man who couldn't bear to be himself.

Food for thought : Art , fear, and religion

“The sensitivity of many Muslims with respect to the Prophet and insults against him has unsettled our understanding of artistic freedom. There's an upside to that: the unsettledness has lead to a heightening. The debate on the Muhammad caricatures didn't only frighten Western artists, it also made them more aware of the effectiveness of art than they had been for a long time. What unholy fury art can release in societies that have yet to dissociate art from seriousness! For this and other reasons, cultural respect of religious feelings has grown markedly. In the midst of modern society, art accrues religion - Christianity included - as a kind of forgotten relative, viewing it with scepticism, new-found respect or animosity.” Harald Jähner, “Self-censorship in major and minor.”

“The artistic director of Berlin's Deutsche Oper, Kirsten Harms, has cancelled a performance of the Mozart opera "Idomeneo" that is critical of religion. The reason: She could not rule out that such a production would represent a danger for employees of the opera, or the public. 

These fears are based on a danger-analysis done by the state criminal police. The analysis was carried out upon request of the state interior minister. According to the report, the opera – which was already performed three years ago, without fanfare – represented an "incalculable risk." (…) If this supposition is true, then it is because Muslims could feel that their religious feelings were hurt or insulted. But above and beyond the acknowledgement that it is regrettable to insult anyone's religion, many questions come to mind in this instance: Will Muslims' feelings really be hurt? What about Christians? Buddhists? And what about people who believe in Greek mythology?” Marcel Fürstenau, “Beware of Slippery Slope.”

Food for thought: Truth and biases

“Clinton, on the other hand, is a narcissist who finds it difficult to grasp in any real sense that there is a place where his "inner man" ends and the rest of the world begins. Clinton's stock phrase, "I feel your pain," is really the insistence of a man who does not truly feel anyone else's pain, does not truly understand that there are other inner realities as urgent as his own.
Take Clinton's misuse of women. One way to understand it is as a symptom of his inability to come to terms with anything that would not conform to his own desire, imagination and grandiose sense of himself.
To put it in his own terms, Clinton has never understood what the meaning of "is" is, the fact that some things happened and others didn't, that some things are true and others simply are not. He believes that his legacy will be created in the spin cycle of history rather than in the fitful but persistent human search for history's truth.”Andrew Klavan, “Clinton Doth Protest Too Much.”

Bin Laden dead ?

A small regional French newspaper, L'Est Républicain is reporting that Saudis are convinced that Bin Laden is dead (Hat tip: All Things beautiful). I’m having a hard time believing it, but at the same, it is frustrating to realize that five years after 9/11, he is still out there and that more than likely he will never be captured alive. Unfortunately, the death of Bin Laden will just contribute to the mystification of the character by making him a holy man to many people in the world who will continue to believe in his ideas. It is for that reason that the solution is to capture him alive, but it may no longer be possible to do.

Today's video: Colbert on Torture

Fighting words

Here are some of the anti-French comments I gathered from some blogs after the announcement by Jacques Chirac yesterday on Iran. President Bush met with Chirac today in New York before speaking to the UN and he said this on this issue, “France and the United States share the same goal, (emphasis added) and that is for the Iranians not to have a nuclear weapon. Secondly, we share the same goal; we'd like to solve this problem diplomatically. And we understand working together is important. And the Iranians have got to understand we share the same objective, and we're going to continue to strategize together.” Chirac responded by saying, “I hope I've been very clear -- and let me take this opportunity once again to say that the present views of the United States and I again see eye to eye on this one(emphasis added). I totally agree with President Bush. We are both determined to push forward on this one, to move ahead in a constructive manner. And the first thing we need to do is to find a solution so that, indeed, and end be put to the uranium enrichment activity being engaged in, and then we can move on to finding solutions to the other problems that arise and stem from this issue." I invite (politely because of my French culture) all of those bloggers who just wanted an opportunity to bash France to have a glass of French wine and some brie to reflect on how much stupid and ignorant, their anti-French sentiment is making them look.

“Only Francecould manage to lose a war in which it did not fight.” Hot Air

“Bush needs to announce an “axis-of-ass****s” with France as the only member. ” Rosetta, a commentator on Hot Air.

“While France continues to rollover to terrorists, we must forge ahead! With friends like France, who needs enemies!” Right Voices.

“Many countries have been state sponsors of terrorism, but France has just become the first state sponsor of hostages.” Confederate Yankee.

“There is no way we actually believed in the Fwench right? There is no way we thought they would behave any differently than they have historically right? They are spineless, di*kless wonders, the opposite of everything admirable and respected in the  indomitable American spirit.
Just promise me when we save the world (again), this time, we don't save the French. Sleep with dogs ..............” Atlas Shrug.

Words or Genocide? What is more outrageous?

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown has a great column in today's Independent titled, “Where are the Muslims protesting about Darfur?” She laments the fact that the Muslims are most outraged about the harmless words of the Pope than the deaths of hundred of thousands of Muslims in the Darfur region of Sudan. She writes, “Where is the shrill outrage when Muslims kill and ethnically cleanse other Muslims from their meagre homes? Why is the anti-African racism of the Arab Sudanese government and militia not damned by Muslims? Where are the perpetually appalled Muslims today?” The fact that the answer is nowhere speak volume about Muslim solidarity and about the fact that it is easier to demonstrate and vent against the West and Non-Muslims than to demonstrate against the genocide of Darfur. The point isn't that that Muslims aren't entitled to their outrage for they are and as I have argued the words of the Pope were regrettable and even responsible. The point is that outrage to keep its moral dimension and to remain legitimate must be consistent. The words of the Pope are nothing compared to the genocide that is happened in Darfur and that will certainly continue because the world isn't prepare to do everything that it can to make it stop. Tomorrow, most of the world leaders will be at the UN for the start of its General Assembly, I wonder if one of them will speak to Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and say, “Have you no decency, Sir?”

The best of Yesterday

The best article, which I read last weekend, was the Sunday's Times article on the biggest news story of last week Lonelygirl15 pondering whether it was a prank or art. Here is the money quote:

There is nothing new about the simulations of Lonelygirl15 except the technology,” said the author E. L. Doctorow, whose own novels are well known for manipulating the tensions between reality and invention by placing historical figures and circumstances alongside fictional ones. “There will be more and more of this genre blurring and some genuine art could come out of it.”

And what of Lonelygirl? Can it be called a false document, and thus gain some credibility as a work of art?

“If the author wants to truly fool his or her audience, it’s not a false document,” said Eileen Pollack, an English professor at the University of Michigan. “If the intent is just to say ‘gotcha,’ it’s a prank.”

I believe that the whole think was a prank, whose purpose was to attract a lot of attention, to create a buzz and eventually to make a lot of money. Of course, one doesn't need to have noble motives to create a work of art, but the intention of the creator combine with the fact that the clips on youtube will stop to matter a year, a month from now tells me that this whole affair wasn't about art. If anybody remembers this scandal in the future, it won't be because of the content of the video, but rather for the fact that it was a scam, which worked.

The best of yesterday

The best article I read yesterday was an article published on the website of the Wall Street Journal titled, “A Self-Inflicted Defeat Why we might not break the next Khalid Sheikh Mohammad.” It argues that if congress does not go along with the Bush administration and “reinterpret” Common article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, it will make it impossible or very difficult to break the next terrorist who has information, which can stop terrorist attacks and thus ensure the security of the United States, Here is the money quote:

There's a legitimate debate to be had over waterboarding and other tactics. But part of our problem with the McCain Amendment was that Congressmen refused to engage in an honest debate lest they be accused of approving "torture," which no one sanctions but is a word used to slur anyone who wants aggressive interrogation.

The result was legislation that may have made everyone feel better after Abu Ghraib, but that also probably undermines our ability to get vital information from the next KSM we capture. That ability will be further damaged if the Administration's interrogation flexibility is again limited during current negotiations on Capitol Hill over the treatment of detainees. We hope the next "9/11" commission doesn't have to explain why the U.S. stopped employing interrogation methods that were both lawful and successful.

What makes the arguments of this article unconvincing is that they don't even acknowledge that torture is immoral, but suggest that torture is in the eye of the beholder and that what matters more than anything is to break hardened and dangerous terrorists such Khalid Sheikh Mohammad. I strongly disagree. The United States and its allies have rightly chosen to fight terrorism by arguing that it is wrong because there are such things are universal principles and values, which apply to all of humanity. The fight against terrorism is not just about winning a war or breaking or killing terrorists. If it was so, then it would not the struggle of our time. Fighting terrorism is also about convincing parts of the world which exports terrorism that this fight concerns them too and that terrorists are just threatening America, but are threatening the world by attacking values, which we all have in common no matter where we come from and no matter our race or religion. To narrow the focus of the fight against terrorism as the Wall Street Journal does Americanize it and more importantly threaten the moral authority of the United States by undermining its claim that it is fighting against people who struggle universal values such liberty. The most important reason why international law exist is to reinforce the common interest, which all countries have to live in not only a safe, but in a just and orderly world. The Wall Street Journal seems to suggest that justice and morality no longer matter now that the United States is threatened and that it should change what has make it great in order to survive. But we all know what happens when a great country compromises its own values; it becomes ordinary and thus, condemns its citizens watch helplessly as the symbols of its greatness become dead representations of the past. To paraphrase Tocqueville, I will say that if America stops being good and its values become unreachable ideals instead of remaining daily principles, then it will have accept the fact that it will no longer lead the world and to see the empire crumble.

Food for thought

“Every country has its own way of torturing people. In Russia, they beat you up; they break you straightaway. But the Americans had their own way, which is to make you go mad over a period of time. Every day they thought of new ways to make you feel worse.” Rustam Akhmiarov, a 26-year-old Russian who was arrested in Pakistan and ended up in Guantánamo.

The wound remains open