Klein's Quips

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August 31, 2005

Not To Criticize the New York Times, but...

The middle of a mostly apolitical New York Times editorial on Hurricane Katrina in today's paper reads, "But this seems like the wrong moment to dwell on fault-finding, or even to point out that it took what may become the worst natural disaster in American history to pry President Bush out of his vacation."

I'll just leave it at that, because it's the wrong moment to complain that the New York Times can't write about the worst natural disaster in history without venting their visceral hatred for our president.

Posted by Philip Klein at 9:12 AM | Comments (0)

August 30, 2005

Che's Family Putting the Smack Down

So Che Guevara's family is pissed off that the image of the Communist leader has been turned into a consumer product.

Posted by Philip Klein at 1:53 AM | Comments (0)

Al Qaeda Targeting Korea?

South Korea is a likely terrorist target, my friend Mingi reports from Soeul:

The ongoing "war on terror" is often seen as a war between the West and Islamic fundamentalist groups from the Middle East. However, South Korean intelligence experts say the war on terror may become a larger part of East Asian lives in November, when the APEC meeting in Busan could possibly become the region's first target for an Islamic fundamentalist terrorist attack.

"A very high possibility exists that Al-Qaeda or related organizations will carry out an attack during the APEC meeting," said Chung Hyung-keun, a Grand National Party lawmaker on the National Assembly's intelligence committee. "Including world leaders, there will be around 100,000 people from many countries visiting Busan for the meeting." U.S. President George W. Bush is one of those expected to attend.

You can read the whole thing here.

Posted by Philip Klein at 1:42 AM | Comments (0)

August 25, 2005

Sheehan Won't Be Satisfied By Meeting With Bush

Cindy Sheehan has gone to great lengths to portray herself as a mother of a son who was killed in Iraq who just wants to meet with President Bush. "I want one answer: What is the 'noble cause' MY son died for," she wrote earlier this week. Later in the same blog post, she wrote: "I didn't ask (President Bush) to withdraw the troops, I asked him what Noble Cause did Casey die for."

However, a Reuters story following her press conference today reads:

"I'm just so honored that the universe chose me to be the spark that has set of ... a raging inferno" of anti-war sentiment, Sheehan said. "It's not going to end. If George Bush came out and spoke with me today and we went home, this wouldn't end."

I have avoided joining the chorus of angry conservatives seeking to demonize Sheehan, and I'm not going to change now. My heart goes out to her for the loss of her son, and she has every right to protest and can call Bush a liar all she wants. But at the same time, I don't think President Bush should be expected to meet with her (again). As her statement today demonstrates, that will not satisfy her. Sheehan does not see herself as just any grieving mother, but the anointed leader of a growing anti-war movement.

Posted by Philip Klein at 8:09 PM | Comments (1)

August 24, 2005

Oil and Terror

In this article, Fareed Zakaria takes a look at how Americans are indirectly funding terrorism through our dependence on oil. Though it is no big shocker, the article is worth reading.

In earlier posts, I wrote about the lack of post-9/11 sacrifice among Americans who are not in the military. Oil is the most glaring example of an area where shared sacrifice on the home front would help our war effort. What better way to send a message to the Saudis and Iranians to get serious on terrorism then to drastically reduce our usage of their oil?

Zakaria points out that gas-guzzling SUVs accounted for 5 percent of American automobiles in 1990, but 54 percent today. This has prompted Andrew Sullivan to mount an anti-SUV offensive, which I think he has gotten a little carried away with, posting reader suggestions for bumper stickers such as "U.S. troops died for your SUV -- Drive it proudly" and ""How many soldiers-per-gallon does your SUV get?" He suggests that families should get smaller cars and pile kids in the back like they did in the old days.

A self-described soccer mom took issue with him:

Yes, my mother didn't have an SUV when she was taking care of us in the 1970s. She used to pack four or five of us kids in the back of her Ford Maverick. You know what? The car seat laws are much stricter now. And the car seats are much bigger. And the kids are required by law to sit in them until they are much older. There is no way you could fit even one of today's car seats in my mother's old Ford Maverick. I wouldn't want to try. Kids are much safer in today's cars, with today's car seats, than they were when I was a kid. You say yesterday's kids thrived? I'll let you check on the car accident statistics, the survival rates, etc., and then you can get back to me on that. In the meantime, I will continue to schlep my kids and my kids' friends around in my Honda Oddysey minivan, with the three huge car seats inside.

The woman has a fair point. And I did look up the accident data. This table put out by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration shows fatality rates for children under 5 and 5-9 have gone down considerably, whether you chart it from 1975 or from 1990 (when the big increase in SUV usage started, according to Zakaria). I'd have to do further research to see how prominent a role larger car seats and SUV usage played relative to other factors such as stricter drunk driving laws.

My main beef with Sullivan is that he draws no distinction between people with big families who may have a ligitimate need for an SUV and the type of people who drive Hummers around the Hamptons becuase they think it makes them look cool.

I think in the intermediate term, the boom in hybrid cars and the introduction of hybrid SUVs is a positive start. But longterm, we are going to have to develop an alternative energy source, perhaps fuel cells?

Posted by Philip Klein at 7:47 PM | Comments (0)

August 23, 2005

Left Fears American Ayatollahs

Daliy Kos has this absurd post, analogizing Christian conservatives and the likes of the Taliban and Ayatollahs. He cites an LA Times article, which reads:

Nearly every Monday for six months, as many as a dozen congressional aides -- many of them aspiring politicians -- have gathered over takeout dinners to mine the Bible for ancient wisdom on modern policy debates about tax rates, foreign aid, education, cloning and the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

Through seminars taught by conservative college professors and devout members of Congress, the students learn that serving country means first and always serving Christ.

So, 12 congressional aides out of thousands have a weekly bible meeting and suddenly this is the crux of an LA Times story, which leads Kos to conclude:

Is there any doubt that the American Taliban has more in common with our Islamic fundamentalist enemies? They're cut from the same cloth -- the belief that a system of secular rules and laws must be replaced with "God's laws".

And while the religions may be different, the core of them is not -- opposition to rival faiths, hostility to science, interference in people's private lives, control over women's bodies, an irrational belief in the supremacy of the male over female, militancy, anti-intellectualism and a rejection of logic, an unassailable belief in their own righrousness, and the deifying of certain unelectable, unaccountable individuals as "spokesmen for god", be it Pat Robertson or the Ayatollahs.

I think this post does a good job of demonstrating how absolutely irrational leftists can be sometimes, when their anger allows them to lose all sense of proportion. While I am against any efforts to impose religion on society and often take issue with the Religious Right, to compare them to the Islamic government of Iran would be like me saying that anybody who supports welfare programs is the equivalent of Joseph Stalin because both advocate redistribution of wealth. You may say that Christian conservatives who view fetuses as human lives seek "control over women's bodies," but in Iran, women are forced to wear Islamic dress, denied divorce and child custody rights and arrested as enemies of the state if they protest against the government. They may both have "opposition to rival faiths," but Christian conservatives are not arguing that members of certain other faiths be denied the right to practice their religion. I can go on and on.

While this is one example of how the far left has lost all sense of proportion, it represents a pattern. Because of abuses at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib, the U.S. is just as bad as our enemies who chop people's heads off in front of a video camera. Sept. 11 was a tragedy, but the U.S. government is responsible for killing civilians throughout the world. Saddam might have been bad, but Bush is just as much if not more of a danger to the world. It's not uncommon to hear this type of nonsense from the mouths of the far left.

Posted by Philip Klein at 11:16 PM | Comments (0)

Army Exceeding Recruitment Goals?

In today's NY Post, Ralph Peters argues that, contrary to the popular belief, the Army is actually exceeding its recruitment goals for the year. He writes:

Now, as the fiscal year nears an end, the Army's numbers look great. Especially in combat units and Iraq, soldiers are re-enlisting at record levels. And you don't hear a whisper about it from the "mainstream media."

Let's look at the numbers, which offer a different picture of
patriotism than the editorial pages do.

* Every one of the Army's 10 divisions — its key combat organizations
— has exceeded its re-enlistment goal for the year to date. Those with
the most intense experience in Iraq have the best rates. The 1st
Cavalry Division is at 136 percent of its target, the 3rd Infantry
Division at 117 percent.

Among separate combat brigades, the figures are even more startling,
with the 2nd Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division at 178 percent of
its goal and the 3rd Brigade of the 4th Mech right behind at 174
percent of its re-enlistment target.

This is unprecedented in wartime. Even in World War II, we needed the
draft. Where are the headlines?

* What about first-time enlistment rates, since that was the issue
last spring? The Army is running at 108 percent of its needs. Guess
not every young American despises his or her country and our
president.

* The Army Reserve is a tougher sell, given that it takes men and
women away from their families and careers on short notice. Well,
Reserve recruitment stands at 102 percent of requirements.

* And then there's the Army National Guard. We've been told for two
years that the Guard was in free-fall. Really? Guard recruitment and
retention comes out to 106 percent of its requirements as of June 30.

I'd have to read more to find out how accurately Peters is portraying the numbers, but given the situation in Iraq, it is quite admirable that soldiers have the guts to be reinlisting on such a mass scale. It also says a lot about the character of our nation, per the previous discussion of the home front.

Posted by Philip Klein at 11:02 PM | Comments (0)

August 19, 2005

Sheehan Soon To Be Forgotten

I feel bad for Cindy Sheehan. Not just because her son was killed in Iraq and not because her mother had a stroke. I feel bad for her because she is being puffed up by a bored media, and will go through withdrawal once she is forgotten about after Labor Day.

The Cindy Sheehan story is what you get when you have dozens of White House reporters camped out in the middle of Texas without any news to cover. Shortly after Labor Day passes, Bush will go back to DC, Congress will get back into session and suddenly the media will forget about Sheehan. Sure, Michael Moore, Moveon.org and the rest of the angry left will try to keep her story alive for awhile. But a month from now, we won't be hearing much about Cindy Sheehan. I hope she's prepared for this reality, but I don't think so.

A New York Times article earlier this week says Sheehan believes her protest is "'only the beginning' of what she described as a growing national movement to bring all American men and women home from the war."

Posted by Philip Klein at 3:29 PM | Comments (0)

Gay Rights and Golf

An article I wrote for the Washington Examiner is now available here.

Posted by Philip Klein at 11:25 AM | Comments (0)

Abbas on Deck

I hope Mahmoud Abbas is taking notes.

The gut-wrenching images of Jewish settlers being evacuated from their homes in Gaza is a striking display of the lengths Israel will go to in confronting the most extreme elements within its society. Ariel Sharon has torn his country apart, seen members of his government resign, risked political defeat and weathered assassination plots all as part of the disengagement plan.

Once the Israelis pullout completely, it will be Abbas's show. Hamas terrorists have claimed the Israeli withdrawal as a victory of their resistance and will be asserting themselves. Abbas must follow the example that Sharon has set and forcibly disarm the terrorist groups. Confronting the terrorists is not only essential for becoming a reliable peace partner, but it is essential should the Palestinians ever achieve statehood. There is simply no way any Palestinian state could be viable if a government is competing for control with armed terrorist groups.

When Israel was founded in 1948, David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, forcibly disbanded several paramilitary organizations and he even sunk a ship filled with weapons that were purchased by one of these groups. The controversial move claimed 82 lives.

Terrorists may see the Israeli withdrawal as a victory, but they are deluding themselves. Should they step up their war against Israel while Abbas sits on the sidelines, Sharon will not hesitate for one minute to send tanks into Gaza.

To borrow a line from the Godfather, Part II, Sharon will essentially tell Abbas, "If you don't take care of this, I have to."

Posted by Philip Klein at 10:49 AM | Comments (0)

August 16, 2005

Big Government Republicans

Pejman Yousefzadeh writes about how Republicans will suffer politically in 2006 or 2008 if they continue to embrace big government as in the case of the recently passed highway bill. I am a small government voter who voted for President Bush because of national security--even though I was sickened by the expansion of the government in his first term (especially with regard to the prescription drug plan). But voting for Senators or House members is different, because the Congress does not have as much control over national security matters. With security less of an issue, I really would have no reason to vote for a Republican over a Democrat. What do I really need with a Republican who embraces pork and is too much of a wimp to support private accounts and other Social Security reform measures?

Posted by Philip Klein at 11:51 PM | Comments (0)

August 11, 2005

Home Front, Continued

My friend Jerry adds this on the issue of the Quiet Home Front:

One of my history professors said that the modern age of the nation-state began with the institution of the levee en masse in August of 1793. With the institution of conscription, wars engaged entire nations, not just armies; thus, the major conflicts of the twentieth century owed much to a pattern developed in the eighteenth. If this is true, then one might say the nation-state passed into its post-modern phase in July of 1973, when the draft bill expired and the United States began transitioning to an all-volunteer force.

While ending the draft was a politically brilliant move by Nixon, it also boded ill for the health of the democratic nation-state. When they didn't have to worry about being forced into the service themselves, many ordinary Americans stopped caring about what their military was being asked to do in their name.

This, then, is the post-modern world we are living in: as Andrew Bacevich writes, serving one's country has become "strictly a matter of personal choice," little more than a drab option in a dizzying array of bright potential careers. Given that fact, should it surprise anyone that there is such a rift between the civilian world and the military one? Or that the military is being stretched to the breaking point, whipped nearly to death by its civilian taskmasters with nary a protest from the public that is supposed to be overseeing everything?

His point is certainly backed up by my recent trip to Israel, where everyone is required to serve two years in the military (though women also have a national service option). While I don't yet support something like this in the United States, there is no doubt that it does help foster a "we're all in this together" attitude, where the citizenry is more willing to tolerate disruption in their lives as part of the ongoing struggle against Palestinians and Arab nations. Everyone in Israel has either served in the military or has friends or family currently serving in the military. I remember at one point on my trip I went into a supermarket with a soldier on a road outside Jerusalem. Before we entered, the soldier flashed his military ID card to a security gaurd. He told the gaurd that I was with him. As we were walking through the supermarket, I asked the soldier if you had to show ID to enter, and he said that if he hadn't they probably would have searched our bags. It was surprising to me that they'd be searching bags at what was essentially the equivelent of a suburban Kroger. When the soldier saw by the look on my face that I thought this was a bit odd, he matter-of-factly responded, "It's a store." It was no big deal to him. All part of going shopping. In NYC, they are doing random bag searches in the subway, an ideal terrorist target, and you have the ACLU hyperventilating.

But how much of this is a "chicken or egg" scenario? Is a society's willingness to sacrifice a condition that must be met for a government to impose something such as a draft? It's no coincidence that Nixon ended the draft during the unpopular Vietnam War. Israelis tolerate mandatory military service (and other disruptions to everyday life), because they know it is all a matter of their survival. They have their backs against the Mediterranean Sea, and are surrounded by enemies. Americans simply do not see the war against terrorism as one of survival.

Posted by Philip Klein at 1:24 PM | Comments (0)

August 10, 2005

Fly Me (Almost) To The Moon

I was considering forking over the $100 million for a trip to the moon, but then I read that you don't actually get to walk on the lunar surface. What a bummer.

Posted by Philip Klein at 1:57 PM | Comments (1)

August 9, 2005

Hillary Slayer?

You knew that the tabloids were going to have a field day with this:

Jeanine Pirro, the tough, media savvy Westchester D.A. has thrown her hat into the ring against Senator Clinton. An absolute gift to New York's dailies, and Clinton obsessed Dick Morris, who already chimed in.

Clinton has a 30-plus point lead in the latest Quinnipiac University poll, which was released last week, before Pirro's announcement. But it's a long time until election day and Pirro at this point remains unknown to most voters. Pirro's biggest liability is her husband, who went to jail for tax fraud and allegedly has mob ties. But this liability would be neutralized in a Senate race. Is Hillary really one to argue that a female politician should be held accountable for the transgressions of her husband?

Pirro wasted no time in attacking Clinton:

"When Mrs. Clinton first came to us and said she wanted to be a New Yorker, she asked New York to put out a welcome mat and we did,” Pirro added in a separate statement issued by campaign aides. “But now she wants us to re-elect her even though she won’t promise to serve out her term and wants to use us as a springboard to the presidency. She’s asking us to become her doormat. I believe we deserve better."

Stay tuned.

Posted by Philip Klein at 2:54 PM | Comments (0)

August 4, 2005

Golf Rights

From the AP:

SAN FRANCISCO -- California's highest court ruled Monday that country clubs must offer gay members who register as domestic partners the same discounts given to married members -- a decision that could apply to other businesses such as insurance companies and mortgage lenders.

The California Supreme Court decision dealt with a policy at the Bernardo Heights Country Club in San Diego that allows the children, grandchildren and spouses of married members to golf for free.

Birgit Koebke, 48, an avid golfer, challenged the policy after being told that her longtime partner, Kendall French, could play as a guest only six times a year while paying up to $70 a round.

Because of my belief in limited government, I support allowing homosexuals to marry legally. My reasoning is that same-sex marriage does not affect anyone other than the two people involved. I have not been swayed by arguments that allowing gays to marry would weaken heterosexual marriage or otherwise harm society.

Gay rights advocates often use limited government arguments to further their cause, chiding conservatives who "want to regulate people's bedrooms." But this case is an example of how gay rights advocates are disengenuous when they speak of wanting government to butt out of people's business. What really irked me was a quote by the lead plaintiff:

Of the ruling, Koebke said: "We just wanted to play golf together, and we just really felt we had every human right to do that."

Koebke and her partner have every right to leave the country club for another golf course, or pay the extra fee, or lobby other members of the golf course to change the bylaws to allow them to receive the special marriage discount. But since when do we have a "human right" to play golf at a course of our choosing under terms of our choosing?

Wanting the government to butt out of our lives cuts both ways. If you oppose the government moving into people's bedrooms, you shouldn't support a government that butts into the policies of a private country club. As a Jew, I would find it offensive if my local country club were restricted, but as a supporter of limited government, I believe a private club should have every right to bar Jews.

You can read the California Supreme Court's decision here and decide for yourself whether the court was bound by existing California laws to reach the decision it did.

My issue is mainly with those gay rights activists who will seek to use the courts to interfere with private businesses. It seems that we can look forward to endless litigation on this front in the coming years. From the article:

Jon Davidson, legal director of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, predicted that the ruling would also affect mortgage lenders, insurance companies and other businesses that have separate policies or fees for married and unmarried customers.

The more gay rights advocates pursue this route, the more they will lose allies like me who are with them when they are on the side of getting government to butt out of people's lives.

Posted by Philip Klein at 11:25 AM | Comments (2)

August 3, 2005

Ideology of Death

I recently watched the documentary Death in Gaza, based on the footage of filmmaker James Miller, who was accidentally killed by fire from an Israeli tank while making this movie about the lives of Palestinian children. While I had problems with the portrayal of Israelis as big, bad, bullies, I found that the film was worth seeing to gain perspective on the terrorist mindset. Specifically, how Palestinian children are raised in a culture that celebrates death and seeks to exploit how Israelis cherish life.

In one scene, we see a twelve year-old boy hanging out with a group of black-masked terrorists (or "militants," as they are referred to in the film). One of the terrorists says, "Let's see what you look like with a rocket launcher." He then hands the weapon to the child and demonstrates the proper way to hold it. When the interviewer asks if the boy is too young to be involved in the resistance, another terrorist replies that if the child were to die, "there are a thousand more kids like him."

While this movie focused on Israel, the ideology of death can just as easily be seen in the 9/11 hijackers or the 7/7 suicide bombers in London. But the scary part is that not only do these people revel in death, but they aim to take advantage of the fact that the civilized world values life above all else.

At a rally for martyrs featured in "Death in Gaza," a voice speaking through a loudspeaker can be heard saying, "You desire paradise, they are eager to cling to life." Later in the movie, the militants explain why they use a young boy as a lookout by saying, "This job is perfect for a little boy because nobody suspects him." These cretins put a child in the line of fire, because they know Israeli culture values the lives of children. Terrorists employ children, and then if a Palestinian child is caught in Israeli crossfire, they cry outrage that Israel killed an "innocent" child, and the rest of the world rises up to condemn Israel. They exploit the compassion of the rest of the world, who are their "useful idiots."

All of this is really disturbing to me, because it makes me wonder if it is possible to defeat militant Islam without employing tactics so brutal that any civilized person would find them hard to stomach.

Posted by Philip Klein at 1:31 PM | Comments (1)