Another thought concerning this post, which occurred to me in reading the further comments on Susie Madrak's original post, and in this post by Michael Hamar at Bilerico.
Well, OK, a couple of thoughts.
One thing that struck me about the comments from the Crooks and Liars post -- not so much at Bilerico -- was the tone of moral indignation in many of the comments, summed up most neatly in the comment of one person that "abuse of children is wrong under all circumstances," to which my response -- if I had made one -- would have been "Define 'abuse' and define 'children'." It's this sense of moral superiority couched in broad generalities that offends me, simply because it reeks of judgment based on near or complete ignorance, something that we seem to find both on the right and on the left.
Secondly, my real point in all of this, which I probably didn't state clearly enough, is simply that yes, there are abuses, obvious from the accounts of abduction and rape. To call for eliminating the institution on that basis is, I think, a grave mistake. Eliminate the abuses, to be sure, but before you demand that the institution itself be eliminated in toto, be damned sure you know what you're doing.
Showing posts with label reflexes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reflexes. Show all posts
Sunday, September 05, 2010
Friday, September 03, 2010
Misplaced Assumptions
This post by Susie Madrak sort of rocked me back on my heels this morning. Sadly, it seems that once again I'm proven correct: the PC left is just as blinkered and judgmental as the rabid right. It also demonstrates that "Save the children!" goes straight to the lizard brain, bypassing all higher cognitive functions.
Madrak's headline gives a good idea of the thrust of her post. (And frankly, I expected something more intelligent from Madrak.)
In Afghanistan, We're Looking The Other Way As Police, Tribal Leaders Commit Child Rape
After a brief nod to this article, which introduces the "abduction and rape of teenage boys"" mantra in passing as part of a broader group of abuses by the national police, Madrak focuses on this highly inhlammatory article by Joel Brinkley. The gist of the "scandal" is this:
Western forces fighting in southern Afghanistan had a problem. Too often, soldiers on patrol passed an older man walking hand-in-hand with a pretty young boy. Their behavior suggested he was not the boy's father. Then, British soldiers found that young Afghan men were actually trying to "touch and fondle them," military investigator AnnaMaria Cardinalli told me. "The soldiers didn't understand."
All of this was so disconcerting that the Defense Department hired Cardinalli, a social scientist, to examine this mystery. Her report, "Pashtun Sexuality," startled not even one Afghan. But Western forces were shocked - and repulsed.
For centuries, Afghan men have taken boys, roughly 9 to 15 years old, as lovers. Some research suggests that half the Pashtun tribal members in Kandahar and other southern towns are bacha baz, the term for an older man with a boy lover. Literally it means "boy player." The men like to boast about it.
"Having a boy has become a custom for us," Enayatullah, a 42-year-old in Baghlan province, told a Reuters reporter. "Whoever wants to show off should have a boy."
Madrak's framing gives it away:
So our troops are fighting and dying for child rapists in a warped fundamentalist theocracy. And we're protecting them? This is too much for my mind to comprehend. . . .
Don't look for any sort of rational discussion here. What we have is the lizard brain in full control, fueled by the assumption of cultural superiority.
The commenters, with one exception, are no better. The one exception at least had the wit to ask
So what I'm wondering is: what happens to the boys? Obviously they don't die from these relationships. Are they ostracized, or do they have a separate place in the society as they grow up, or do they just take on the other role when they themselves are men?
Now, I don't normally expect a lot from the comments on blogs (except here, of course, where the commenters are perspicacious and well-spoken, or if not, entertaining in their ineptitude), but the comments at that post are spectacularly ill-informed and injudicious.
However, to the substance. My own comment brought up the fact that we are dealing with another culture with its own standards and mores. (And I have to confess that I am basically dismissing both articles that Madrak cites -- the first made a passing reference to the "abduction and rape of teenage boys" as part of the list of abuses perpetrated on the civilian population for no reason that I can detect other than a deliberate attempt at titillation --the article is basically about political corruption and the drug trade -- the second is so horribly slanted and smugly superior that I can't credit any conclusion the author draws.) Brinkley's article cites it as a centuries-old tradition; it may, in fact, be far older. The best-known example of similar relationships is, of course, among the ancient Greeks, but there is evidence of similar practices among the ancient Albanians and Irish (the hero Cuchulainn took a male lover, and it's good to remember that in spite of his prowess as a warrior, at that point he was still a boy), and possibly even the Vedic Indians, to the extent that some researchers have posited that such relationships were a pan-Indo-European cultural institution.
And nowhere in either of the articles, or in Madrak's post, is there any investigation of the attitudes of the Afghanis, other than to note that they are accepting of this practice. I would assume so -- traditions that do not meet with acceptance never have the chance to become traditions. One aspect that is notably missing is any revelation of the actual forms of the practice and the degree to which the boys have autonomy. (This is something I touched on my my review of the anime series Loveless: the automatic labeling of this phenomenon as "child rape" is, aside from being inflammatory and prejudicial, a means of avoiding any real examination. And it's worth noting that Japan, at least in pre-Meiji times, is another one of those cultures in which it was common practice for a man to take a younger man or youth as a lover.) There is also the question of what constitutes a "child" in this sense. The age of consent varies widely throughout the world -- as low as 13 or 14 years -- but does someone want to try to convince me that a thirteen-year-old is somehow more capable of what one commenter called "enlightened consent" than a twelve-year-old? By what criteria? And quite honestly, when dealing with other cultures with different traditions, and particularly different attitudes toward sexuality, that kind of question, founded on a concept that is solely the fruit of Euro-American legal practice, becomes pretty much irrelevant.
There is also the question of the quality of the relationship, which Madrak and most of her readers automatically assume is exploitive and/or abusive, on the basis of no evidence whatsoever. That's merely assertion, and of no value. I would not be at all surprised to find out that the boys involved are the recipients of gifts and that there is a degree of affection involved, even if the participants are not willing to call it "love" -- that's much more likely than the image called up by characterizing them as "rape."
I did find a link to the study by AnnaMaria Cardinalli, "Pashtun Sexuality", noted in Brinkley's article. The document itself is somewhat problematic, particularly in its somewhat loaded terminology and the conflation of circumstances that are objectively classifiable as "rape" with those that may not be. There is a strong cultural bias (and more than a little underlying homophobia, but the study was, after all, done for the U.S. military, which, true to form, selected a woman to do a study among Islamic men) that is quite blatantly obvious throughout, leading me to question the study's value for any purpose other than propaganda. There's also the not-so-deeply-buried homophobia in Madrak's characterization of this whole thing as a "toxic stew." And, interestingly enough, in the child abuse column, no one brings up the question of the age at which Afghani women are considered ready for marriage, leaving the whole issue in the realm of that favorite scare mantra of the far right: Teh Gays are going to steal your sons!
Yes, I'm disappointed in the articles, the blog post, and the comments, but not for the obvious reasons: I'm sadly disappointed in the intellectual flabbiness and assumption of superiority displayed by almost all concerned, not to mention the complete insensitivity to the cultural traditions of other peoples.
Does this practice need to be stopped? Based on the evidence presented to date, who knows?
Note: read the follow-up to this here.
Madrak's headline gives a good idea of the thrust of her post. (And frankly, I expected something more intelligent from Madrak.)
In Afghanistan, We're Looking The Other Way As Police, Tribal Leaders Commit Child Rape
After a brief nod to this article, which introduces the "abduction and rape of teenage boys"" mantra in passing as part of a broader group of abuses by the national police, Madrak focuses on this highly inhlammatory article by Joel Brinkley. The gist of the "scandal" is this:
Western forces fighting in southern Afghanistan had a problem. Too often, soldiers on patrol passed an older man walking hand-in-hand with a pretty young boy. Their behavior suggested he was not the boy's father. Then, British soldiers found that young Afghan men were actually trying to "touch and fondle them," military investigator AnnaMaria Cardinalli told me. "The soldiers didn't understand."
All of this was so disconcerting that the Defense Department hired Cardinalli, a social scientist, to examine this mystery. Her report, "Pashtun Sexuality," startled not even one Afghan. But Western forces were shocked - and repulsed.
For centuries, Afghan men have taken boys, roughly 9 to 15 years old, as lovers. Some research suggests that half the Pashtun tribal members in Kandahar and other southern towns are bacha baz, the term for an older man with a boy lover. Literally it means "boy player." The men like to boast about it.
"Having a boy has become a custom for us," Enayatullah, a 42-year-old in Baghlan province, told a Reuters reporter. "Whoever wants to show off should have a boy."
Madrak's framing gives it away:
So our troops are fighting and dying for child rapists in a warped fundamentalist theocracy. And we're protecting them? This is too much for my mind to comprehend. . . .
Don't look for any sort of rational discussion here. What we have is the lizard brain in full control, fueled by the assumption of cultural superiority.
The commenters, with one exception, are no better. The one exception at least had the wit to ask
So what I'm wondering is: what happens to the boys? Obviously they don't die from these relationships. Are they ostracized, or do they have a separate place in the society as they grow up, or do they just take on the other role when they themselves are men?
Now, I don't normally expect a lot from the comments on blogs (except here, of course, where the commenters are perspicacious and well-spoken, or if not, entertaining in their ineptitude), but the comments at that post are spectacularly ill-informed and injudicious.
However, to the substance. My own comment brought up the fact that we are dealing with another culture with its own standards and mores. (And I have to confess that I am basically dismissing both articles that Madrak cites -- the first made a passing reference to the "abduction and rape of teenage boys" as part of the list of abuses perpetrated on the civilian population for no reason that I can detect other than a deliberate attempt at titillation --the article is basically about political corruption and the drug trade -- the second is so horribly slanted and smugly superior that I can't credit any conclusion the author draws.) Brinkley's article cites it as a centuries-old tradition; it may, in fact, be far older. The best-known example of similar relationships is, of course, among the ancient Greeks, but there is evidence of similar practices among the ancient Albanians and Irish (the hero Cuchulainn took a male lover, and it's good to remember that in spite of his prowess as a warrior, at that point he was still a boy), and possibly even the Vedic Indians, to the extent that some researchers have posited that such relationships were a pan-Indo-European cultural institution.
And nowhere in either of the articles, or in Madrak's post, is there any investigation of the attitudes of the Afghanis, other than to note that they are accepting of this practice. I would assume so -- traditions that do not meet with acceptance never have the chance to become traditions. One aspect that is notably missing is any revelation of the actual forms of the practice and the degree to which the boys have autonomy. (This is something I touched on my my review of the anime series Loveless: the automatic labeling of this phenomenon as "child rape" is, aside from being inflammatory and prejudicial, a means of avoiding any real examination. And it's worth noting that Japan, at least in pre-Meiji times, is another one of those cultures in which it was common practice for a man to take a younger man or youth as a lover.) There is also the question of what constitutes a "child" in this sense. The age of consent varies widely throughout the world -- as low as 13 or 14 years -- but does someone want to try to convince me that a thirteen-year-old is somehow more capable of what one commenter called "enlightened consent" than a twelve-year-old? By what criteria? And quite honestly, when dealing with other cultures with different traditions, and particularly different attitudes toward sexuality, that kind of question, founded on a concept that is solely the fruit of Euro-American legal practice, becomes pretty much irrelevant.
There is also the question of the quality of the relationship, which Madrak and most of her readers automatically assume is exploitive and/or abusive, on the basis of no evidence whatsoever. That's merely assertion, and of no value. I would not be at all surprised to find out that the boys involved are the recipients of gifts and that there is a degree of affection involved, even if the participants are not willing to call it "love" -- that's much more likely than the image called up by characterizing them as "rape."
I did find a link to the study by AnnaMaria Cardinalli, "Pashtun Sexuality", noted in Brinkley's article. The document itself is somewhat problematic, particularly in its somewhat loaded terminology and the conflation of circumstances that are objectively classifiable as "rape" with those that may not be. There is a strong cultural bias (and more than a little underlying homophobia, but the study was, after all, done for the U.S. military, which, true to form, selected a woman to do a study among Islamic men) that is quite blatantly obvious throughout, leading me to question the study's value for any purpose other than propaganda. There's also the not-so-deeply-buried homophobia in Madrak's characterization of this whole thing as a "toxic stew." And, interestingly enough, in the child abuse column, no one brings up the question of the age at which Afghani women are considered ready for marriage, leaving the whole issue in the realm of that favorite scare mantra of the far right: Teh Gays are going to steal your sons!
Yes, I'm disappointed in the articles, the blog post, and the comments, but not for the obvious reasons: I'm sadly disappointed in the intellectual flabbiness and assumption of superiority displayed by almost all concerned, not to mention the complete insensitivity to the cultural traditions of other peoples.
Does this practice need to be stopped? Based on the evidence presented to date, who knows?
Note: read the follow-up to this here.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
It's Not Just Ignorance
Very interesting post at Mahablog that starts off with climate change deniers and goes some very interesting places:
For many, faithfulness to the doctrine of climate change denial is an integral part of their ideological tribal loyalty, and tribal loyalty in turn is part of self-definition. A threat to the doctrines of the tribe is experienced as a threat to oneself. Admitting to the truth would bring on a massive existential crisis. So the more evidence for climate change, the more angrily, and frantically, they will denounce it. . . .
At the Guardian, Sue Blackmore writes about the often-noted correlation between high levels of religiosity and societal dysfunction — the “strong positive correlations between nations’ religious belief and levels of murder, teenage pregnancy, drug abuse and other indicators of dysfunction.”
These results don’t necessarily show causality. Does religiosity cause dysfunction, or do people cling to religiosity as a way to cope with dysfunction? We see here in the U.S. that the “Bible belt” states long have had the highest rates of divorce, teen pregnancy, etc. Where is cause and where is effect?
Good question, but I think the part about ideology and identity comes very close to pinning it down: religious belief and ideology are not necessarily entirely separate phenomena, and as Maha goes on to point out, religious belief in this country often translates into religiosity:
I am using the word “religiosity” rather than “religion” because I think much of what passes for religion in America is really superstition (I make a distinction between religion and superstition at the other blog). The overwhelmingly Christian hyper-religious of America on the whole are remarkably ignorant of basic Christian doctrine. Few can recite the Ten Commandments if put on the spot, and I suspect most wouldn’t recognize the Sermon on the Mount if they bumped into it outside of church. Instead, much of the country is infested with a social pathology in which religious totems — the cross, the Bible, tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments — get mixed together with extremist political beliefs and magical thinking to create a toxic and impenetrable ignorance.
She is not the first to note the appalling ignorance of so many Christians about the basics of Christ's teachings, or for that matter the whole of the strictures in Leviticus. For my own part, I can't confess to any great surprise that when people don't know the basics of their own religion, they are so easily swayed into perverting its message.
The heartbreaking thing is that most of these people don't want to do better. They have their validation from their gurus and the reinforcement of their identity as teabaggers or whatever, and that's sufficient. I will confess that I don't understand the attitude -- it's incomprehensible to me that anyone would not want to learn something new or sample different points of view. If you don't give yourself that experience, how can you expect to judge what is right for you, much less for your society? And how can you hope to avoid becoming a dupe for some snake-oil salesman?
At any rate, read that post, and do follow her links -- it's worth it.
For many, faithfulness to the doctrine of climate change denial is an integral part of their ideological tribal loyalty, and tribal loyalty in turn is part of self-definition. A threat to the doctrines of the tribe is experienced as a threat to oneself. Admitting to the truth would bring on a massive existential crisis. So the more evidence for climate change, the more angrily, and frantically, they will denounce it. . . .
At the Guardian, Sue Blackmore writes about the often-noted correlation between high levels of religiosity and societal dysfunction — the “strong positive correlations between nations’ religious belief and levels of murder, teenage pregnancy, drug abuse and other indicators of dysfunction.”
The 1st world nations with the highest levels of belief in God, and the greatest religious observance are also the ones with all the signs of societal dysfunction. These correlations are truly stunning. They are not “barely significant” or marginal in any way. Many, such as those between popular religiosity and teenage abortions and STDs have correlation coefficients over 0.9 and the overall correlation with the SSS is 0.7 with the US included and 0.5 without. These are powerful relationships. But why?
These results don’t necessarily show causality. Does religiosity cause dysfunction, or do people cling to religiosity as a way to cope with dysfunction? We see here in the U.S. that the “Bible belt” states long have had the highest rates of divorce, teen pregnancy, etc. Where is cause and where is effect?
Good question, but I think the part about ideology and identity comes very close to pinning it down: religious belief and ideology are not necessarily entirely separate phenomena, and as Maha goes on to point out, religious belief in this country often translates into religiosity:
I am using the word “religiosity” rather than “religion” because I think much of what passes for religion in America is really superstition (I make a distinction between religion and superstition at the other blog). The overwhelmingly Christian hyper-religious of America on the whole are remarkably ignorant of basic Christian doctrine. Few can recite the Ten Commandments if put on the spot, and I suspect most wouldn’t recognize the Sermon on the Mount if they bumped into it outside of church. Instead, much of the country is infested with a social pathology in which religious totems — the cross, the Bible, tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments — get mixed together with extremist political beliefs and magical thinking to create a toxic and impenetrable ignorance.
She is not the first to note the appalling ignorance of so many Christians about the basics of Christ's teachings, or for that matter the whole of the strictures in Leviticus. For my own part, I can't confess to any great surprise that when people don't know the basics of their own religion, they are so easily swayed into perverting its message.
The heartbreaking thing is that most of these people don't want to do better. They have their validation from their gurus and the reinforcement of their identity as teabaggers or whatever, and that's sufficient. I will confess that I don't understand the attitude -- it's incomprehensible to me that anyone would not want to learn something new or sample different points of view. If you don't give yourself that experience, how can you expect to judge what is right for you, much less for your society? And how can you hope to avoid becoming a dupe for some snake-oil salesman?
At any rate, read that post, and do follow her links -- it's worth it.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Letters From Wonderland
I wasn't going to post today -- nothing in the news was really stirring up the juice, y'know? But this exchange at Andrew Sullivan was just too ludicrous to pass up. Let's do some analysis.
From one of Sullivan's readers:
In his speech yesterday Rudy Giuliani got one thing right: "The Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us."
Well knock me down. And what did anyone expect him to say? That the Republicans have blown it? Come on -- the man is hoping to run for president against a Democrat, and he's still beating the "Democrats are soft on national security" drum. Quelle surprise!
Offhand, I'd say that the Democrats seem to understand the nature of terrorism far better than the Republicans do. As a matter of foreign policy -- and it is -- the Democrats understand very well the value of international cooperation on international problems. The Republican idea of foreign policy has come to be "Talk tough and screw your allies." This is not a "war" in any real sense of the word, unless you're talking about the kind of "dirty war" that occupied most of the last half of the last century. It's an intelligence war, not a military exercise. That much should be obvious. The "War Against Terrorism" is just another empty Bush catch phrase, like "No Child Left Behind" and "Clear Skies Initiative." Rhetoric, pure and simple.
And I cannot think of a single Democratic politician who has made a speech about the Islamist jihadist threat in-and-of-itself, unless it is to criticize Bush's response to it. What's the Democrats' big signature issue right now? Global warming. You seem to regularly underestimate the level of denial at the heart of contemporary liberalism, its need to remain comfortable with it's own fantasies. Today's Democratic Party today is not Truman's. They don't get the existential threat posed by jihadists because they don't want to get it.
This reader is obviously a raving lunatic, with a major disconnect to reality. If he/she has paid any attention to what's going on in Washington in the past few months, he would see that the Democrats are very concerned with terrorism and the war in Iraq, but Iraq right now is by far the worse crisis. Once we can get ourselves out of Iraq, we might be able to do something effective against terrorism -- if we can rebuild our international standing. The response to terrorism itself on the part of the administration has been to undercut American values in favor of a nascent police state. "Existential threat"? Yeah, we have one -- it isn't wearing a turban.
The "global warming" trope is a red herring. Global warming is just another crisis that Bush and the Republicans have ignored that has to be dealt with. This person's just bent out of shape because his favorite crisis isn't everyone's favorite crisis, that's all.
Sullivan's response is lame. I'm suprised he dignified this nonsense with a response, truth be told. His parting shot:
And we should absolutely demand positive policies for winning the war from the Dems. But after the mess Bush has made of the war thus far, I don't see why all the defensiveness should be coming from the Dems. Maybe it's telling that it still is.
I think that when the Democrats have had a chance to start fixing some of the mess that Bush has created, we'll see policies. Of course, Bush will fight them tooth and nail. His policy against terrorism is to go fight a ground war someplace else. We had fairly effective policies under Clinton. At least he didn't ignore national security briefings. (It strikes me that "policy" in this context is a misnomer. What we need is effective strategies. We don't have them. A "policy" on terrorism is a no-brainer.) Defensiveness? No, sorry. The Democrats aren't at all defensive about terrorism, any more than they are about any other partisan attack. (Which is to say, too much in general, although that's certainly ending.) It's the Republicans who are on the defensive now, because they've manage to botch the whole thing completely. You can tell by the shrillness of their attacks.
Also via Andrew Sullivan, on the whiny Democrats, this post from Kevin Drum:
So I was curious: how would the Dem candidates respond? With the usual whining? Or with something smart? Greg Sargent has today's responses from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton over at his site and the verdict is in: more whining. Obama: "Rudy Giuliani today has taken the politics of fear to a new low blah blah blah." Clinton: "One of the great tragedies of this Administration is that the President failed to keep this country unified after 9/11 yada yada yada."
I wouldn't characterize that as whining. I'd characterize it as dodging, which is another reason I'm not enthusiastic about the Democratic front runners. I agree with Drum on one point: articulate a position on national security clearly and succinctly. Duh. (Read the comments on Drum's post -- they're pretty intelligent. Favorite:
So if we don't elect Guiliani or a Republican, we're in danger of more attacks like the one that happened in NYC when Giuliani was mayor and a Republican was president?
Makes sense to me!)
It's about the sound bites, stupid.
Update:
A reader TPM says it all:
All of the Democratic responses to Giuliani's "white flag" fear appeal were inept -- unfortunately and somewhat surprisingly, Dean's "should be ashamed of himself" was the worst. The opposite reaction would have been best. No advice on how Rudy should feel, instead simply pointing out that this is the real Giuliani, a Bush clone employing the same failed rhetoric to prop up the same disastrous ideas. Who wants another 4 years of that?
Update II:
Over at Election Central, Greg Sargent notes John Edwards' response to Giuliani, which is as close to bare knuckles as the Democrats come. He also refers to Kevin Drum's post -- intgeresting, isn't it, that Drum left Edwards' response out of his whining? (If you'll pardon the expression.) Read the whole post -- Sargent eviscerates Drum in the nicest possible way.
From one of Sullivan's readers:
In his speech yesterday Rudy Giuliani got one thing right: "The Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us."
Well knock me down. And what did anyone expect him to say? That the Republicans have blown it? Come on -- the man is hoping to run for president against a Democrat, and he's still beating the "Democrats are soft on national security" drum. Quelle surprise!
Offhand, I'd say that the Democrats seem to understand the nature of terrorism far better than the Republicans do. As a matter of foreign policy -- and it is -- the Democrats understand very well the value of international cooperation on international problems. The Republican idea of foreign policy has come to be "Talk tough and screw your allies." This is not a "war" in any real sense of the word, unless you're talking about the kind of "dirty war" that occupied most of the last half of the last century. It's an intelligence war, not a military exercise. That much should be obvious. The "War Against Terrorism" is just another empty Bush catch phrase, like "No Child Left Behind" and "Clear Skies Initiative." Rhetoric, pure and simple.
And I cannot think of a single Democratic politician who has made a speech about the Islamist jihadist threat in-and-of-itself, unless it is to criticize Bush's response to it. What's the Democrats' big signature issue right now? Global warming. You seem to regularly underestimate the level of denial at the heart of contemporary liberalism, its need to remain comfortable with it's own fantasies. Today's Democratic Party today is not Truman's. They don't get the existential threat posed by jihadists because they don't want to get it.
This reader is obviously a raving lunatic, with a major disconnect to reality. If he/she has paid any attention to what's going on in Washington in the past few months, he would see that the Democrats are very concerned with terrorism and the war in Iraq, but Iraq right now is by far the worse crisis. Once we can get ourselves out of Iraq, we might be able to do something effective against terrorism -- if we can rebuild our international standing. The response to terrorism itself on the part of the administration has been to undercut American values in favor of a nascent police state. "Existential threat"? Yeah, we have one -- it isn't wearing a turban.
The "global warming" trope is a red herring. Global warming is just another crisis that Bush and the Republicans have ignored that has to be dealt with. This person's just bent out of shape because his favorite crisis isn't everyone's favorite crisis, that's all.
Sullivan's response is lame. I'm suprised he dignified this nonsense with a response, truth be told. His parting shot:
And we should absolutely demand positive policies for winning the war from the Dems. But after the mess Bush has made of the war thus far, I don't see why all the defensiveness should be coming from the Dems. Maybe it's telling that it still is.
I think that when the Democrats have had a chance to start fixing some of the mess that Bush has created, we'll see policies. Of course, Bush will fight them tooth and nail. His policy against terrorism is to go fight a ground war someplace else. We had fairly effective policies under Clinton. At least he didn't ignore national security briefings. (It strikes me that "policy" in this context is a misnomer. What we need is effective strategies. We don't have them. A "policy" on terrorism is a no-brainer.) Defensiveness? No, sorry. The Democrats aren't at all defensive about terrorism, any more than they are about any other partisan attack. (Which is to say, too much in general, although that's certainly ending.) It's the Republicans who are on the defensive now, because they've manage to botch the whole thing completely. You can tell by the shrillness of their attacks.
Also via Andrew Sullivan, on the whiny Democrats, this post from Kevin Drum:
So I was curious: how would the Dem candidates respond? With the usual whining? Or with something smart? Greg Sargent has today's responses from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton over at his site and the verdict is in: more whining. Obama: "Rudy Giuliani today has taken the politics of fear to a new low blah blah blah." Clinton: "One of the great tragedies of this Administration is that the President failed to keep this country unified after 9/11 yada yada yada."
I wouldn't characterize that as whining. I'd characterize it as dodging, which is another reason I'm not enthusiastic about the Democratic front runners. I agree with Drum on one point: articulate a position on national security clearly and succinctly. Duh. (Read the comments on Drum's post -- they're pretty intelligent. Favorite:
So if we don't elect Guiliani or a Republican, we're in danger of more attacks like the one that happened in NYC when Giuliani was mayor and a Republican was president?
Makes sense to me!)
It's about the sound bites, stupid.
Update:
A reader TPM says it all:
All of the Democratic responses to Giuliani's "white flag" fear appeal were inept -- unfortunately and somewhat surprisingly, Dean's "should be ashamed of himself" was the worst. The opposite reaction would have been best. No advice on how Rudy should feel, instead simply pointing out that this is the real Giuliani, a Bush clone employing the same failed rhetoric to prop up the same disastrous ideas. Who wants another 4 years of that?
Update II:
Over at Election Central, Greg Sargent notes John Edwards' response to Giuliani, which is as close to bare knuckles as the Democrats come. He also refers to Kevin Drum's post -- intgeresting, isn't it, that Drum left Edwards' response out of his whining? (If you'll pardon the expression.) Read the whole post -- Sargent eviscerates Drum in the nicest possible way.
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