A CLUELESS SHILL ABROAD

Sid Blumenthal on Karen Hughes in the Middle East:

After two undersecretaries of state for public diplomacy resigned in frustration in the face of the precipitous loss of U.S. prestige around the globe, Bush found a new slot for Hughes this year. She may be the most parochial person ever to hold a senior State Department appointment, but the president has confidence she can rebrand the United States.

This week, Hughes embarked on her first trip as undersecretary. Her initial statement resembled an elementary school presentation: "You might want to know why the countries. Egypt is of course the most populous Arab country ... Saudi Arabia is our second stop. It's obviously an important place in Islam and the keeper of its two holiest sites ... Turkey is also a country that encompasses people of many different backgrounds and beliefs, yet has the -- is proud of the saying that 'all are Turks.'"

Hughes appeared to be one of the pilgrims satirized by Mark Twain in his 1869 book, "Innocents Abroad," about his trip on "The Grand Holy Land Pleasure Excursion." "None of us had ever been anywhere before; we all hailed from the interior; travel was a wild novelty to us ... We always took care to make it understood that we were Americans -- Americans!"

Oy.

Update: Fred Kaplan has more.

Put the shoe on the other foot. Let's say some Muslim leader wanted to improve Americans' image of Islam. It's doubtful that he would send as his emissary a woman in a black chador who had spent no time in the United States, possessed no knowledge of our history or movies or pop music, and spoke no English beyond a heavily accented "Good morning." Yet this would be the clueless counterpart to Karen Hughes, with her lame attempts at bonding ("I'm a working mom") and her tin-eared assurances that President Bush is a man of God (you can almost hear the Muslim women thinking, "Yes, we know, that's why he's relaunched the Crusades").

ID

Will Saletan on Intelligent Design:

So here's what ID proponents are offering to teach your kids: They won't say how ID works. They won't say how it can be tested, apart from testing Darwinism and inferring that the alternative is ID. They won't concede it has to be falsifiable. All they'll say is that Darwinism hasn't explained some things. But that's what the first half of the Dover policy says already. So there's no need for the second half—the part that mentions ID.

At the very least there should be some mention of the competing theory of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

THE ROAD MAP

Ariel Sharon insists these aren't the droids you're looking for:

"There is no other plan besides the road map," Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said on Thursday a day after key officials declared their support for more unilateral steps.

Sharon, who addressed an economic conference in Tel Aviv, said, "This country is plagued by rumors. Yesterday such a rumor began circulating, a rumor which emanated from unfounded comments, as if Israel was examining other plans."

"Israel is not and will not examine any other plan; there is only one plan – the road map. It is the best plan for the future of Israel," Sharon emphasized.

Here we have Sharon sitting in a pile of Big Mac wrappers and declaring "I must stick to my diet!" when someone suggests a slice of pie. Despite Arik's sanctimony, the massive expansion of settlements , which was begun before the ink on the road map was even dry, puts Israel in violation of the road map's principles. This is why it's good to have stark raving eliminationist zealots as part of your government, you can always appear the more reasonable.

SUPERFICIAL, NAIVE

Via Crooked Timber, Ann Althouse offers this gleaming gem:

To be a great artist is inherently right wing. A great artist like Dylan or Picasso may have some superficial, naive, lefty things to say, but underneath, where it counts, there is a strong individual, taking responsibility for his place in the world and focusing on that.

Althouse is engaged in a bit of "South Park Republican" analysis here, ignoring mountains of disconfirming evidence in order to lay claim to an artist she likes as "right wing." Leaving aside the specious claim that there's anything inherently right-wing about being "a strong individual, taking responsibility for his place in the world," (which is the kind of thing you'd more expect from a fifteen year old who just read Atlas Shrugged for the first time), if Althouse thinks those things accurately describe "great artists," then she needs to get herself a library card.

I'm seriously not interested in arguments over artists' political tendencies, and I think that any political significance that attaches to art does so regardless of the particular views of the artist herself. The significance of Dylan's work, indeed of Dylan, is largely unrelated to who Dylan actually is as a person. But just to play the game for a moment, I think that a good artist is skilled at making and wearing masks, at representing different characters and points of view, and at highlighting ambiguity. Dylan is certainly a good example of this. If you want to consider whether these thing are left or right wing, have at it. I suggest that it has less to do with any particular character type that with how an artist serves his work.

OF GOD AND METH

Sometimes the Lord is a little slow showing up, so you have to turn to your stash of illegal narcotics:

Ashley Smith, the woman who says she persuaded suspected courthouse gunman Brian Nichols to release her by talking about her faith, discloses in a new book that she gave him methamphetamine during the hostage ordeal.

Smith did not share that detail with authorities at the time. But investigators said she came clean about the drugs when they interviewed her months later. They said they have no plans to charge her with drug possession.

In her book, "Unlikely Angel," released Tuesday, Smith says Nichols had her bound on her bed with masking tape and an extension cord. She says he asked for marijuana, but she did not have any, and she dug into her illegal stash of crystal meth instead.

Not that the facts of the story will have much effect on those who've turned Ashley Smith into an evangelical folk hero. Like the apocryphal tale of Cassie Bernall, it's already in the cultural bloodstream, and will persist, quite immune to anything as quaint as verifiable truth.

DING-DONG...

DeLay indicted.

A Texas grand jury on Wednesday charged Rep. Tom DeLay and two political associates with conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme, an indictment that could force him to step down as House majority leader.

DeLay attorney Steve Brittain said DeLay was accused of a criminal conspiracy along with two associates, John Colyandro, former executive director of a Texas political action committee formed by DeLay, and Jim Ellis, who heads DeLay's national political committee.

GOP congressional officials said the plan was for DeLay to temporarily relinquish his leadership post and Speaker Dennis Hastert will recommend that Rep. David Dreier of California step into those duties.

And our word for the day is schadenfreude.

23:5

Via Rob.

The title of my 23rd post was Is There a Third Choice? The fifth sentence was

I'll choose C: Sail the Caribbean while having my intestines chewed out by badgers.

And I stand by that.

1. Go into your archive.
2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to).
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.

Must infect Stacius.

I'M BACK

From the wilderness. Played some cards, won some money, met a new friend, Mezcal, which Frito brought back from Mexico. Had great success with some ribs marinated in soy sauce, crushed chopped garlic, a little black pepper, and a generous amount of dark brown sugar. Waded across a stream after stranding myself on a rock island. Weekend enjoyed.

I'M OFF

To the 3rd annual Gentlemen's Wilderness Bible Study and Poker Retreat. Wish me luck.

OF GIANT PINK BUNNIES

Via Professor Tim, a story that's so much like my dreams it's scary:

An enormous pink bunny has been erected on an Italian mountainside where it will stay for the next 20 years.

The 200-foot-long toy rabbit lies on the side of the 5,000 foot high Colletto Fava mountain in northern Italy's Piedmont region.

Viennese art group Gelatin designed the giant soft toy and say it was "knitted by dozens of grannies out of pink wool".

Group member Wolfgang Gantner said: "It's supposed to make you feel small, like Gulliver. You walk around it and you can't help but smile."

And Gelatin members say the bunny is not just for walking around - they are expecting hikers to climb its 20 foot sides and relax on its belly.

The giant rabbit is expected to remain on the mountain side until 2025.

As much as I wholeheartedly support the erection of giant pink bunnies wherever, whenever, I must admit to being troubled by this giant pink bunny's inappropriately seductive pose. We must protect the children.

Also, does the U.S. have any giant pink bunnies? We can't allow a giant pink bunny gap.

"I GUESS THIS MEANS WE'VE WON THE WAR ON TERROR"

Now here's an interesting use of crime-fighting resources:

Early last month, the bureau's Washington Field Office began recruiting for a new anti-obscenity squad. Attached to the job posting was a July 29 Electronic Communication from FBI headquarters to all 56 field offices, describing the initiative as "one of the top priorities" of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and, by extension, of "the Director." That would be FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III.

Mischievous commentary began propagating around the water coolers at 601 Fourth St. NW and its satellites, where the FBI's second-largest field office concentrates on national security, high-technology crimes and public corruption.

The new squad will divert eight agents, a supervisor and assorted support staff to gather evidence against "manufacturers and purveyors" of pornography -- not the kind exploiting children, but the kind that depicts, and is marketed to, consenting adults.

"I guess this means we've won the war on terror," said one exasperated FBI agent, speaking on the condition of anonymity because poking fun at headquarters is not regarded as career-enhancing. "We must not need any more resources for espionage."

Among friends and trusted colleagues, an experienced national security analyst said, "it's a running joke for us."

Pornography, the fourth horseman of the Republican apocalypse, along with evolution, gay marriage, and weed.

CONSERVATIVES ARE GROOVY! pt 291

This adult bookstore-owning heavy metal guitarist proves just how diverse and "with it" the conservative movement is!

“You know, I’m all for screwing or whatever, but I like that Bush has always been with Laura and is kind of boring. Clinton was a party animal who worked in as many ladies as he could, and look what that got us: A nuclear North Korea, Saddam spitting in our faces and Osama bin Laden having plenty of time to do whatever he wanted. Thanks, anyway. I’ll take boring any day.”

Uh...never mind.

HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE

I finally got around to watching this movie the other night. As I watched, I thought it vaguely reminded me of a book by Douglas Adams which I'd once read. Lance Mannion does good work pointing out some of the major problems of the film, notably the transformation of Arthur Dent into your standard movie romantic hero schlub. Bleh. I strongly concur that Alan Rickman was great as Marvin ("I've been talking to the main computer...It hates me.") and that Zooey Deschanel should be allowed to sing in every movie she's in.

That said, taken as a movie unrelated to any book, it's still a mess. I'd see another movie featuring Sam Rockwell's character, though.

TIM COLLINS

Via Eric Alterman (who also offers a good, concise review of last Wednesday's Galloway-Hitchens 2005 Sodden Windbag Invitational Debate, of which I could only watch about ten minutes before passing out under the weight of the participants' magisterial self-regard), Tim Collins, a British former Colonel who gave a famously stirring speech to his troops on the eve of war, writes in the Guardian:

When I led my men of the 1st Battalion the Royal Irish Regiment across the border into Iraq we believed we were going to do some good. Goodwill and optimism abounded; it was to be a liberation, I had told my men, not a conquest.

What I had not realised was that there was no real plan at the higher levels to replace anything, indeed a simplistic and unimaginative overreliance in some senior quarters on the power of destruction and crude military might. We were to beat the Iraqis. That simple. Everything would come together after that.

The Iraqi army was defeated - it walked away from most fights - but was then dismissed without pay to join the ranks of the looters smashing the little infrastructure left, and to rail against their treatment. The Baath party was left undisturbed. The careful records it kept were destroyed with precision munitions by the coalition; the evidence erased, they were left with a free rein to agitate and organise the insurrection. A vacuum was created in which the coalition floundered, the Iraqis suffered and terrorists thrived.

It is time for our leaders to explain what is going on. It was as a battalion commander trying to explain to his men why they would embark on a war that I came to public notice. The irony is that I made certain assumptions that my goodwill and altruistic motivations went to the top. Clearly I was naive. This time it is the role of the leaders of nations to explain where we are going and why. I, for one, demand to know.

Me too.

HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE

Cathy Young on the unfortunate attempt by British Muslims to downgrade "Holocaust Memorial Day" into "Genocide Memorial Day," and to include the Palestinians as victims of genocide.

Come on. There is no doubt that a grave crime was committed against the Palestinians in 1948, one for which the state of Israel has never properly been held to account. It is, however, plain stupidity to think that there's some measure of justice to be gained for the Palestinians by de-emphasizing the singular crime of the Holocaust. Neither is it any good to equate the experiences of the Palestinians in al Nakhba to European Jews in the Shoah, as it hardly needs to be pointed out that, as tragic as was the former, the latter was, by any possible measure, larger and more sinister in scope.

This isn't to say that there aren't disturbing parallels between the two events, there are, or that there hasn't been an ongoing effort by Israel to violate Palestinian rights, there has (through a process which Israeli scholar Baruch Kimmerling has termed politicide), but any argument which starts off by casting the Israelis in the role of Nazis seems to me to be a loser. Yes, the irony is hard to resist. Please try.

CRONYISM

Noam Scheiber: There's cronyism, and then there's cronyism.

THE END

Is nigh.

HUNDREDS OF TERRORISTS?

Always one to look on the bright side, he is after all one of the Bush administrations head water carriers, Victor Davis Hanson offers this praise for Bush's anti-terrorism efforts:

Hundreds of terrorists and their sympathizers, from Lodi and Portland to New Jersey and Florida, have been arrested or deported for either planning attacks or seeking to spread their venom.

Wow, that paragraph is impressive in its imprecision. Hundreds of terrorists and their sympathizers, does that mean hundreds of terrorists plus some sympathizers, hundreds of terrorists and sympathizers, or a few genuine terrorists plus a bunch of people who overstayed their visas? Were they planning attacks, or just bad-mouthing the U.S.? Is "spreading venom" covered under the Patriot Act? Given that Hanson is a guy who accuses those who point out Bush's manifest incompetence of weakening our resolve and helping the enemy, it's really not clear at all.

DOWNFALL

This film, about Hitler's last days as the Russians closed in around Berlin, painted as subtle and merciless a picture of hell as I've ever seen in the movies. I found the portrayal of the relationship between Hitler and Albert Speer particularly interesting.

As good as Bruno Ganz is as the Fuhrer, and he's astoundingly good, Ulrich Matthes' Goebbels steals most of his scenes with barely any lines, just a chilling glower.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

B.B. King.