truefiction.org

Does anyone know what the terror alert level is today?

J @ Omphalos pointed me in the direction of this lovely article at Foreign Policy, in which Joshua Muravchik writes a neocon apologia, trying to figure out how to recoup after the massive losses of last week. It hits all the major neocon points–hey, we were campus lefties who saw the light!–acknowledges both that the transformation of the military was a bad idea (but Iraq wasn’t) and that America needs to rely more on its diplomatic corps. And then, amazingly, this bit:

Make no mistake, President Bush will need to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities before leaving office. It is all but inconceivable that Iran will accept any peaceful inducements to abandon its drive for the bomb. Its rulers are religio-ideological fanatics who will not trade what they believe is their birthright to great power status for a mess of pottage. Even if things in Iraq get better, a nuclear-armed Iran will negate any progress there. Nothing will embolden terrorists and jihadists more than a nuclear-armed Iran.

Isn’t that sweet? While the small-government fiscal conservatives and the big-government social conservatives are busy chewing their own arms off, trying to figure out how that one-decade-stand could possibly have gone wrong, the neoconservative movement is sticking to its principles, and its guns. Because its principles, as far as I can determine, are these:

10 Bomb the shit out of something.

20 Call anybody who disagrees with them “anti-American.”

30 GOTO 10

It amazes me how few ideas the movement actually has left. Sure, Mr. Muravchik mentions that America needs to use its diplomatic prowess more than just military force. Specifically, he mentions aiding Mideast moderates in a new fashion that is somewhere between useless and making them look like “American stooges.” But that doesn’t work, because any group in the Mideast that isn’t an American stooge is, by their definition, not moderate. Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, instead of being engaged through diplomacy and slowly transformed into non-combatant political groups, such as the progress with the IRA and S”nn Fein over the past fifteen years, are cut off from any geopolitical process entirely. You could try to influence the Arab street, driving them towards more “moderate” parties, but if you could tell me which party that is in, say, Palestine, that would be awesome.

At some point, you have to swallow the bitter pill and sit down with groups that make you nauseous. You have to find some bit of common ground, however small, that both parties can agree upon. You have to have full faith in the dialogue in order to make it work–it can’t just be a series of show summits en route to a shock and awe campaign. I mean, come on. Iranian officials want to speak to the US. Syrian officials want to speak to the US. But nowhere in Mr. Muravchick’s “comeback story” does it actually mention sitting down and talking with these rogue governments tyring to come back in from the cold. The diplomatic corps is looked at primarily as a weapon to combat–you guessed it!–anti-Americanism, by utilizing talking points and telling people how great the West is. In moderation? A fantastic idea. Sign me up. But on its own, with no tangible dialogue taking place between the US, Iran, Syria, and North Korea, it cannot be a successful policy. Without it, all we’re doing is taunting these countries, occasionally waving a 500-pound-bomb-stick. The only carrot we offer is not to impose more sanctions than we already have, which isn’t really the most powerful incentive. Even Reagan sat down with the Soviets.

Inciting simple dissatisfaction amongst the people is not the way to go here. These regimes have already held on longer than the former Soviet Republics, so mere resentment will likely not be enough to overthrow their regime. And hopes that new media will overwhelm state-run channels, prompting rebellion, are hard to justify when Iranians have access to the internet and email already. Most don’t like the regime, either, but you don’t see them rising up to throw the mullahs off.

The best weapon that we have to fight anti-Americanism, jihadism, extremism–whatever the hell you want to call it–in the middle east is the weapon we’ve been loathe to use: talking with them. Opening up diplomatic channels, instead of acting as a giant bully, is the key to minimizing the threat of rogue states. Leaving Iran and Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah, North Korea and so on, to stew in their own juices only makes them more likely to lash out. That’s bad. Failing to speak to them means that America is neglecting its duty as a world leader. And neglecting the country’s role as a world leader is something that everybody–especially Mr. Muravchik–can agree is the worst of all possible options.

. . . for the first time in three years, I woke up believing that I might actually live to see my thirtieth birthday. Even though it was overcast, the day seemed brighter, the colors more saturated, the air more sweet. The world swirled with possibilty, and everything truly felt like it was going to be O.K. And I’m merely describing how it felt to finish my official career at The Declaration.

I kid, I kid. Yesterday was like Democrat Christmas, with the Party Formerly in Exile returning home to the House and hopefully the Senate as well, Rummy resigning, and a reinvigorated, “Is that thumpin’ without a G” Press Corps. Somehow, after two months of freaking out about encroaching fascism and vote manipulation and the endless abyss of evil that is Diebold, the American people did the right thing and threw the bums out of office. They revealed that Bush and Rove’s certainty that they would win the midterms wasn’t so much evidence of wrongdoing as it was of ignorance. It’s enough to make me jump up and start singing and dancing. But I don’t want to gloat too much. That’s for Republicans to do.

And did you see the photo of Santorum’s kids crying? Schadenfreudtastic!

Sorry. I’m done gloating. Seriously.

Up after classes: what the Dems need to do to hold on their majorities in 2008.

“I don’t intend to challenge President Bush to a contest of who’s a more regular guy,” Mr. Kerry writes in his new campaign autobiography, “A Call to Service,” even as he does so. In the same book, he boasts that he’s “the son of a public employee” (in the diplomatic service) and “a charter member of one of the most selective but fastest-growing sports clubs in the world: the Nascar fans of Massachusetts.”—Frank Rich, The New York Times, 23 November 2003

Listen: I know John Kerry doesn’t really watch NASCAR. You know John Kerry doesn’t really watch NASCAR. The American people know that John Kerry doesn’t watch NASCAR. John Kerry is a blueblooded, Massachusetts liberal. He does not watch NASCAR anymore than I watch NASCAR, and while I appreciate the sight of Democrats trying to reach out to our Southern brethren, this is not the way to go about it. People don’t like to be talked down to, and the first time Kerry’s in South Carolina and someone asks him about an obscure car—like, say #47—or driver that he hasn’t been briefed on from the one guy on his staff who went to Emory, this whole thing is going to blow up in his face.

Or is it? I mean, sure, I don’t watch NASCAR, and no one I drink with watches NASCAR, but surely lots of people around the nation are in love with it. Right? I mean, it’s got rising ratings, and an almost complete lack of black people, so people in the South have to love it. It’s in the state constitutions!

But I don’t buy into this. I think people watch NASCAR for the same reason I watch football: I have no idea what the hell is going on beyond the vaguest of parameters, but it’s still a lot of fun to kick back with your friends and watch two differently dressed groups of players run lots of complex plays that clearly mean something if you pay attention to it long enough and drink beer and smoke cigarettes. Substitute “cars in circles” for “football players” and I think you’ll see where I’m going with this. You’re watching the game/race, and you’re paying attention, but more than anything else it’s hanging out with friends that’s the important thing. It’s only when women got involved that they had to make up excuses for it.

This, I think, is key to how NASCAR started:

Wife: Hey, what are you boys up to?

Husband: We’re watching Joe and Danny drive around in circles in the backyard.

Wife: Oh. Is it a race?

Husband: Um. A race? Yeah. They’re racing.

Wife: Well, that’s nice. Y’all want any sweet tea?

And from that point they had to keep making up more and more stuff, and paint numbers on the cars, and start analyzing statistics and finally come up with the Winston Cup circuit in order to add the necessary legitimacy. Guys hanging out and talking and watching people drive around in circles? Weird. Guys hanging out and talking and watching sports? Fantastic.

They’re all in on it, y’know: everyone who really watches NASCAR is saying the same thing: “Feck off. Feck off to my wife. Feck off to the people in the North. Feck off to college students who write highly sarcastic articles about NASCAR. We all gonna watch some cars drive around. Really fast.” Every time someone buys into the hype and takes it seriously, they laugh. Every time some Northern politician uses it to prove he’s “just like them,” they’re going to laugh their asses off. Because they know better.

Which brings us back to Kerry and the problem of Southern Democrats. Angry White Males, or NASCAR dads, or whatever it is we’re calling them now, aren’t going to be fooled by a sudden switch in Kerry’s demeanor. It took Bush fifteen years to erase the stigma of his roots, and he had to become a born-again Christian. Clinton was a Southerner. Kerry and Dean are from New England, and it’s going to take a lot more than shallow declarations and Harley-Davidsons to overcome forty years of Republican propaganda. Hammer home on Enron and corporate scandals. Beat the free-trade drum and the loss of American jobs (and to the North, play it as “the exploitation of poorer countries”). Play the services card—if not universal health care, think of something else. Play the economy card. But for Christ’s sake: leave NASCAR alone. It’s only when you don’t really see the appeal of it that you understand that appeal for the first time.