Author: Jonathan Schwarz

From a column today by Georgie Anne Geyer:

…by all reports, President Bush is more convinced than ever of his righteousness.

Friends of his from Texas were shocked recently to find him nearly wild-eyed, thumping himself on the chest three times while he repeated “I am the president!” He also made it clear he was setting Iraq up so his successor could not get out of “our country’s destiny.”

Here’s the famous “crazy” section from The Final Days by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein:

On the Sequoia trip the night before, [Nixon’s son-in-law Edward] Cox said, the President had made it clear he was not going to quit…

Cox sounded distraught. He was worried about the President’s mental health. The President was not sleeping, and he had been drinking. The man couldn’t take it much longer, Cox said. The President had been acting irrationally…

“The President…” Cox began. His voice rose momentarily. “The President was up walking the halls last night, talking to pictures of former Presidents—giving speeches and talking to the pictures on the wall.”

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The newest issue of the New Yorker has a long piece by Jeffrey Goldberg about the future of the Republican party. At one point Goldberg goes to the White House to interview Karl Rove, who appears surprisingly optimistic:

“There are two or three societal trends that are driving us in an increasingly deep center-right posture,” [Rove] said. “One of them is the power of the computer chip. Do you know how many people’s principal source of income is eBay? Seven hundred thousand.” He went on, “So the power of the computer has made it possible for people to gain greater control over their lives. It’s given people a greater chance to run their own business, become a sole proprietor or an entrepreneur. As a result, it has made us more market-oriented, and that equals making you more center-right in your politics.”

Ebay is the primary source of income for seven hundred thousand people? That sounds implausible. And it is:

Entrepreneurs in record numbers are setting up shop on eBay, according to a new survey conducted for eBay by ACNielsen International Research, a leading research firm. More than 724,000 Americans report that eBay is their primary or secondary source of income.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess far more of these 724,000 Americans use eBay as a secondary source of income rather than a primary one. If the ratio’s 75/25, that makes 175,000 people whose primary source of income is eBay. Hard to spin that into a tale of impending Republican ascendancy.

This kind of thing drives me nigh unto madness. Journalists theoretically should be skeptical of what anyone says. They certainly should be skeptical of things that sound implausible. They certainly absolutely should be skeptical of implausible things political operatives say. They certainly absolutely definitely should be skeptical of implausible things political operatives use as a basis for an entire narrative that’s flattering to the operative. They certainly absolutely definitely always always always should be skeptical of implausible things political operatives say when those political operatives have a history of STARTING GIGANTIC WARS BASED ON LIES.

Not Jeffrey Goldberg and the New Yorker, though. If Karl Rove tells them something, they rush it into print without asking a single question.

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Tom Engelhardt has done something no one else has: track down the architects who are building our $600 million new “embassy” in Baghdad. Not only do they have a website, they’ve put up their sketches of what it’s going to look like.

For more details, see the article: “The Colossus of Baghdad: Wonders of the Imperial World”

Memorial Day began as a day to commemorate soldiers killed on both sides in the Civil War. After World War I, it was expanded to honor soldiers killed in all U.S. wars.

Speaking of World War I, this is from The Guns of August:

In August [1914], sitting at a cafe in Aachen, a German scientist said to the American journalist Irwin Cobb: “We Germans are the most industrious, the most earnest, the best educated race in Europe. Russia stands for reaction, England for selfishness and perfidy, France for decadence, Germany for progress. German Kultur will enlighten the world and after this war there will never be another…”

Talk of this kind for years before the war had not increased friendliness for Germany. “We often got on the world’s nerves,” admitted Bethmann-Hollweg, by frequently proclaiming Germany’s right to lead the world. This, he explained, was interpreted as lust for world domination but was really a “boyish and unbalanced ebullience.”

The world somehow failed to see it that way. There was a stridency in the German tone that conveyed more menace than ebullience.

Yurf:

Oprah Winfrey will be arriving in Israel for a solidarity visit in the near future, the queen of American talk shows announced Monday during an event at Manhattan’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel.

In the event, Winfrey was honored by the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity for her contribution to promoting humanitarian issues.

Wiesel called on Winfrey to visit Israel, where “the major war against terror is currently taking place.”

In her speech, Winfrey said she sympathized with the suffering of the people of Israel, and that she intended to accept Wiesel’s invitation and come with him to Israel.

Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Gillerman, who attended the event, said that a visit of a figure with such influence on the international media could help bring an end to the indifference towards the terror threat faced by Israelis.

In the abstract, of course, there’s nothing wrong with Oprah visiting Israel. Moreover, as strongly as I disagree with Wiesel in this area, I give anyone who lived through what he did a free pass to be as crazy as they wish.

But. If there’s one thing confused America doesn’t need, it’s Oprah giving them a one-sided presentation of this issue. In particular we better hope the Oprah Army doesn’t learn Israel is where “the major war against terror is currently taking place.”

So, peace groups in Israel are asking everyone to take a minute and write to Oprah to ask her to also visit the West Bank and Gaza…and then pass it along to as many friends as possible. Here’s what I said:

Dear Ms. Winfrey,

I’m writing to ask you to please visit the West Bank and/or Gaza as well as Israel during your upcoming trip to the area.

I commend you for your sympathy with the suffering of regular Israelis. However, it’s important to remember the even greater suffering of regular Palestinians. I urge you to use your program to give a platform to the many people on both sides who wish to live together in peace.

(Thanks to Dennis for telling me about this.)