"Sitting around in my own mess, pissed off at the world, disdainful of the people in it, and thinking my contempt for things somehow amounted to something..."

"... had some kind of nobility, hating this thing here, and that thing there, and that other thing over there, and making sure that everybody around me knew it, not just knew, but felt it too, contemptuous of beauty, contemptuous of joy, contemptuous of happiness in others, well, this whole attitude just felt, I don’t know, in the end, sort of dumb."

Writes Nick Cave, responding to a fan who asked "When did you become a Hallmark card hippie? Joy, love, peace. Puke! Where’s the rage, anger, hatred? Reading these lately is like listening to an old preacher drone on and on at Sunday mass" — at The Red Hand Files. 

After his younger son Arthur, aged 15, fell off a cliff and died, Cave thought about "the precarious and vulnerable position of the world" and felt he ought to try to help the world, "instead of merely vilifying it, and sitting in judgement of it."

In 2022, his older son Jethro died, aged 31.

"The defense lawyers contended that Democrats were pursuing Mr. Trump out of personal and partisan animosity, using the word 'hatred' 15 times during their formal presentation..."

"... and they cast the trial as an effort to suppress a political opponent and his supporters. 'It is about canceling 75 million Trump voters and criminalizing political viewpoints,' [Trump's lawyer Bruce] Castor said. 'That’s what this trial is really about. It is the only existential issue before us. It asks for constitutional cancel culture to take over in the United States Senate. Are we going to allow canceling and banning and silencing to be sanctioned in this body?'" 

Write Peter Baker and Nicholas Fandos in the NYT, in an article that begins, "Former President Donald J. Trump’s legal team mounted a combative defense on Friday focused more on assailing Democrats for 'hypocrisy' and 'hatred' than justifying Mr. Trump’s own monthslong effort to overturn a democratic election that culminated in last month’s deadly assault on the Capitol."

"Hatred" is a strong word. We're told Trump's lawyers used it 15 times. I would like to understand the usage, but this NYT article doesn't give us even one of the 15 "hatred" quotes. Was it just a hot-headed substitute for partisanship? Trump antagonists "hate" him — don't they say that themselves? How much power does it have anymore? 

And here, I found the transcript. Here are some of the hatreds: 

"If you read his speech and listen to it carefully, much of it is thinly-veiled innuendo calling us white supremacists, calling us racists, calling us every name in the book, calling us people who don't tell the truth."

Said Rand Paul on Fox News last night, quoted in "Power Up: Unity in Washington will be harder than Biden makes it sound" (WaPo)("Some Republicans such as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) even trashed Biden's speech itself, which was widely-lauded for its appeals for Americans to set aside their political differences and work together for a better country"). 

If I had a little more time at the moment, I'd go through the speech line by line and look for every phrase that can be interpreted as saying that Rand Paul and whoever he thinks of as "us" are white supremacists, racists, liars, or whatever other names might be in that book. 

I'd do something like my post "The 7 most violence-inciting statements in Donald Trump's speech to the crowd on January 6th." Maybe later.

ADDED: Here's Rand Paul's Fox News segment with the "thinly-veiled innuendo" charge:

 

Paul cites a particular line in the speech: "And we must reject the culture in which facts themselves are manipulated and even manufactured." According to Paul, the "gist" of what Biden was saying there is that his political opponents manufacture and manipulate the truth.

AND: Without yet going through the comments to see your suggestions, I have read the speech to look for what can be characterized as the "thinly-veiled innuendo" Paul was talking about. Here's what I found:

"So it was a shock on Monday afternoon to see myself attacked in National Review as, essentially, a traitor to the white race."

"'Max Boot Fans the Flames of Racial Hatred' was the headline of an article by John Hirschauer. This was a response to a Post column I had written last week taking aim at the 55 percent of whites who in a 2018 poll said that discrimination against whites has become as big a problem as discrimination against blacks and other minority groups.... In reply, Hirschauer labeled me one of 'the self-loathing whites' who has adopted 'the politics of self-hatred.' He accused me of 'speaking in … totalizing racial language' that 'is stoking the flames of race hatred.' So telling whites not to be racists is an incitement to race hatred? How Orwellian.... I have no idea what 'totalizing racial language' means; it’s the kind of cant that [National Review founder William F.] Buckley, a stickler for precise language, would have mocked. What I do know is that this article employed the language of 'race treason' against me. Yes, Hirschauer attacked white supremacists in passing but he also engaged in moral equivalency and implied that, by denouncing racism, I was driving whites into their arms. ('Boot sets up a Faustian choice for ‘white’ readers: Side with the white supremacists and their detestable program, or sell your political soul to Max Boot and become one of the self-loathing whites.') This is part of a rhetorical strategy also employed by Trump, who occasionally denounces white supremacists but more often promotes racism while insisting his critics are the real racists."

From "National Review’s ugly attack on me reflects the Trumpification of conservatism" by Max Boot (in WaPo).

Trump enthuses over earmarks.

I've cued it up to the earmarks part. I recommend the video, because it allows you to watch for signs of dementia, but here's the transcript:

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Very well said. One of the reasons I’m here, Chuck, so importantly, is exactly that. I mean, normally you wouldn’t have a President coming to this meeting. Normally, frankly, you’d have Democrats, Republicans, and maybe nothing would get done.

Our system lends itself to not getting things done, and I hear so much about earmarks — the old earmark system — how there was a great friendliness when you had earmarks. But of course, they had other problems with earmarks. But maybe all of you should start thinking about going back to a form of earmarks. Because this system — (laughter) —

PARTICIPANT: Yes, yes, yes. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: This system — (laughter) — but you should do it, and I’m there with you, because this system really lends itself to not getting along. It lends itself to hostility and anger, and they hate the Republicans. And they hate the Democrats. And in the old days of earmarks, you can say what you want about certain Presidents and others, where they all talk about they went out to dinner at night and they all got along, and they passed bills. That was an earmark system, and maybe we should think about it.

And we have to put better controls because it got a little bit out of hand, but maybe that brings people together. Because our system right now, the way it’s set up, will never bring people together.

Now, I think we’re going to get this done — DACA. I think we’re going to get — I hope we’re going to get infrastructure done in the same way.

But I think you should look at a form of earmarks. I see Lindsey nodding very hard “yes.”

SENATOR GRAHAM: Starting with the Port of Charleston. Absolutely. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: A lot of the pros are saying that if you want to get along and if you want to get this country really rolling again, you have to look at a different form, because this is obviously out of control.

The levels of hatred — and I’m not talking about Trump. I’m talking you go back throughout the eight years of Obama and you go before that, the animosity and the hatred between Republicans and Democrats.

I remember when I used to go out in Washington, and I’d see Democrats having dinner with Republicans. And they were best friends, and everybody got along. You don’t see that too much anymore. In all due respect, you really don’t see that. When was the last time you took a Republican out? Why don’t you guys go and have dinner together? (Laughter.)

But you don’t see it. So maybe, and very importantly, totally different from this meeting, because we’re going to get DACA done — I hope we’re going to get DACA done, and we’re going to all try very hard — but maybe you should start bringing back a concept of earmarks. It’s going to bring you together. You’re going to do it honestly. You’re going to get rid of the problems that the other system had — and it did have some problems. But one thing it did is it brought everyone together. And this country has to be brought together. Okay? Thank you. Yes, Lindsey?

"Racism is evil and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans."

Said Donald Trump today at the White House.



Bloomberg suggests that this as a walk-back from the much-criticized "many sides" statement Trump made on Saturday. But he's still saying "other hate groups" — which could include Antifa, and he also said:

“To anyone who acted criminally in this weekend’s racist violence, you will be held accountable,” Trump said, adding that he had just met with Attorney General Jeff Sessions and FBI Director Chris Wray for an update on a federal civil rights investigation into the incident.

“We must love each other, show affection for each other and unite together in condemnation of hatred, bigotry and violence,” he added.

Anyone who acted criminally... that too would include all sides. 

Note the triad — hatred, bigotry, and violence. Those are the same 3 words he put together in Saturday's "many sides" statement — "We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides."

"I see tone. You know the word 'tone'? The tone is such hatred."

Let's read the transcript of Trump's epic press conference. This went on for over an hour, with Trump picking up energy as he went, almost as if he absorbs energy from his antagonists in the room. I'll show you a few things that jumped out at me, including the places where he expresses his delight in bouncing off whatever they dish up for him.

The press has become so dishonest that if we don’t talk about [it], we are doing a tremendous disservice to the American people. Tremendous disservice. We have to talk to find out what’s going on, because the press honestly is out of control. The level of dishonesty is out of control....  I’m here... to take my message straight to the people...

The failing New York Times wrote a big, long front-page story yesterday. And it was very much discredited, as you know. It was — it’s a joke.... Wall Street Journal did a story today that was almost as disgraceful as the failing New York Time’s story.... And I’ll tell you something, I’ll be honest, because I sort of enjoy this back and forth that I guess I have all my life but I’ve never seen more dishonest media than frankly, the political media....

I don’t mind bad stories. I can handle a bad story better than anybody as long as it’s true and, you know, over a course of time, I’ll make mistakes and you’ll write badly and I’m OK with that. But I’m not OK when it is fake. I mean, I watch CNN, it’s so much anger and hatred and just the hatred....

Donald Trump's plan to use the presidency to propound and enforce American ideology.

Here's the full transcript of Trump's speech on terrorism. I've edited it down, adding boldface, to highlight the battleground that is the human mind:

In the 20th Century, the United States defeated Fascism, Nazism, and Communism. Now, a different threat challenges our world: Radical Islamic Terrorism....

We cannot let this evil continue. Nor can we let the hateful ideology of Radical Islam – its oppression of women, gays, children, and nonbelievers – be allowed to reside or spread within our own countries.

We will defeat Radical Islamic Terrorism.... Anyone who cannot condemn the hatred, oppression and violence of Radical Islam lacks the moral clarity to serve as our President....

In winning the Cold War, President Ronald Reagan repeatedly touted the superiority of freedom over communism, and called the USSR the Evil Empire. Yet, when President Obama delivered his address in Cairo [in 2009], no such moral courage could be found. Instead of condemning the oppression of women and gays in many Muslim nations, and the systematic violations of human rights, or the financing of global terrorism, President Obama tried to draw an equivalency between our human rights record and theirs....

Military, cyber and financial warfare will all be essential in dismantling Islamic terrorism. But we must use ideological warfare as well. Just as we won the Cold War, in part, by exposing the evils of communism and the virtues of free markets, so too must we take on the ideology of Radical Islam.

While my opponent accepted millions of dollars in Foundation donations from countries where being gay is an offense punishable by prison or death, my Administration will speak out against the oppression of women, gays and people of different faith. Our Administration will be a friend to all moderate Muslim reformers in the Middle East, and will amplify their voices.

This includes speaking out against the horrible practice of honor killings, where women are murdered by their relatives for dressing, marrying or acting in a way that violates fundamentalist teachings. Over 1,000 Pakistani girls are estimated to be the victims of honor killings by their relatives each year. Recently, a prominent Pakistani social media star was strangled to death by her brother on the charge of dishonoring the family. In his confession, the brother took pride in the murder and said: “Girls are born to stay home and follow traditions.”

Shockingly, this is a practice that has reached our own shores. One such case involves an Iraqi immigrant who was sentenced to 34 years in jail for running over his own daughter claiming she had become “too Westernized.” To defeat Islamic terrorism, we must also speak out forcefully against a hateful ideology that provides the breeding ground for violence and terrorism to grow....

A Trump Administration will establish a clear principle that will govern all decisions pertaining to immigration: we should only admit into this country those who share our values and respect our people. In the Cold War, we had an ideological screening test. The time is overdue to develop a new screening test for the threats we face today.

In addition to screening out all members or sympathizers of terrorist groups, we must also screen out any who have hostile attitudes towards our country or its principles – or who believe that Sharia law should supplant American law. Those who do not believe in our Constitution, or who support bigotry and hatred, will not be admitted for immigration into the country. Only those who we expect to flourish in our country – and to embrace a tolerant American society – should be issued visas....

The Ft. Hood Shooter... proclaimed that “we love death more than you love life!” These warnings signs were ignored because political correctness has replaced common sense in our society.

That is why one of my first acts as President will be to establish a Commission on Radical Islam – which will include reformist voices in the Muslim community who will hopefully work with us. We want to build bridges and erase divisions. The goal of the commission will be to identify and explain to the American public the core convictions and beliefs of Radical Islam, to identify the warning signs of radicalization, and to expose the networks in our society that support radicalization. This commission will be used to develop new protocols for local police officers, federal investigators, and immigration screeners....

But just like we couldn’t defeat communism without acknowledging that communism exists – or explaining its evils – we can’t defeat Radical Islamic Terrorism unless we do the same.

This also means we have to promote the exceptional virtues of our own way of life – and expecting that newcomers to our society do the same. Pride in our institutions, our history and our values should be taught by parents and teachers, and impressed upon all who join our society. Assimilation is not an act of hostility, but an expression of compassion. Our system of government, and our American culture, is the best in the world and will produce the best outcomes for all who adopt it.
This approach will not only make us safer, but bring us closer together as a country.

Renewing this spirit of Americanism will help heal the divisions in our country. It will do so by emphasizing what we have in common – not what pulls us apart.

This is my pledge to the American people: as your President I will be your greatest champion. I will fight to ensure that every American is treated equally, protected equally, and honored equally. We will reject bigotry and oppression in all its forms, and seek a new future built on our common culture and values as one American people.

"Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on."

"According to Pew Research, among others, there is great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population. Most recently, a poll from the Center for Security Policy released data showing '25% of those polled agreed that violence against Americans here in the United States is justified as a part of the global jihad' and 51% of those polled, 'agreed that Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to Shariah.' Shariah authorizes such atrocities as murder against non-believers who won't convert, beheadings and more unthinkable acts that pose great harm to Americans, especially women. Mr. Trump stated, 'Without looking at the various polling data, it is obvious to anybody the hatred is beyond comprehension. Where this hatred comes from and why we will have to determine. Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life. If I win the election for President, we are going to Make America Great Again.'"

So says a press release from Donald J. Trump.

ADDED: What are people saying about Trump's statements? Condemnations all around? But what if — perhaps today — 10 sleepers awake in 10 towns in the United States and there are 10 San Bernardinos? What if 100?

"Over the course of centuries, black churches served as 'hush harbors' where slaves could worship in safety..."

"... praise houses where their free descendants could gather and shout hallelujah... rest stops for the weary along the Underground Railroad; bunkers for the foot soldiers of the Civil Rights Movement," said President Obama in his eulogy for Clementa Pinckney.

... We do not know whether the killer of Reverend Pinckney and eight others knew all of this history. But he surely sensed the meaning of his violent act. It was an act that drew on a long history of bombs and arson and shots fired at churches, not random, but as a means of control, a way to terrorize and oppress. An act that he imagined would incite fear and recrimination; violence and suspicion. An act that he presumed would deepen divisions that trace back to our nation’s original sin.

Oh, but God works in mysterious ways. God has different ideas.  He didn’t know he was being used by God. Blinded by hatred, the alleged killer could not see the grace....

The alleged killer could not imagine how the city of Charleston, under the good and wise leadership of Mayor Riley... how the state of South Carolina, how the United States of America would respond — not merely with revulsion at his evil act, but with big-hearted generosity and, more importantly, with a thoughtful introspection and self-examination that we so rarely see in public life.

Blinded by hatred, he failed to comprehend what Reverend Pinckney so well understood -- the power of God’s grace.... As a nation, out of this terrible tragedy, God has visited grace upon us, for he has allowed us to see where we’ve been blind. He has given us the chance, where we’ve been lost, to find our best selves. We may not have earned it, this grace, with our rancor and complacency, and short-sightedness and fear of each other — but we got it all the same. He gave it to us anyway. He’s once more given us grace. But it is up to us now to make the most of it, to receive it with gratitude, and to prove ourselves worthy of this gift....

I've highlighted the most religious part, including the brief exploration of the notion that God used Dylann Storm Roof pursuant to his famously "mysterious" ways. I've left out the material that was more specific to the individual man, Clementa Pinckney, and the various policy proposals — take down the Confederate battle flag, improve the schools, deal with possible racial bias in prison systems and in policing and job hiring, restrict guns. You can read all that at the full transcript at the link.

"Right after the French Revolution, France abrogated its old laws making blasphemy a crime—and so Charlie Hebdo’s blasphemous depictions of Muhammad are not a crime."

"At the same time, France’s press laws, which date to the late nineteenth century, make it a crime to 'provoke discrimination, hatred, or violence toward a person or group of persons because of their origin or belonging to a particular ethnicity, nation, race, or religion.' In other words, you can ridicule the prophet, but you cannot incite hatred toward his followers. To take two more examples, the actress Brigitte Bardot was convicted and fined for having written, in 2006, about France’s Muslims, 'We are tired of being led around by the nose by this population that is destroying our country.' Meanwhile, the writer Michel Houellebecq (whose new novel was featured in the issue of Charlie Hebdo that came out just before the attack) was brought up on charges, but acquitted, for having said in an interview that Islam 'is the stupidest religion.' Bardot was clearly directing hostility toward Muslim people, and was thus found guilty, while Houellebecq was criticizing their religion, which is blasphemous, but not a crime, in France."

From the New Yorker article "Why French Law Treats Dieudonné and Charlie Hebdo Differently."

"Bears, beer and horse heads: What exactly is going on with the leader of the free world?"

What exactly is going on with the leader of the free press? That's the first line of a Washington Post story that is the top item on the site's home page. Has WaPo turned against Obama? I'm going to guess no and that this article is actually supportive, but let's check it out:

On a single day this week in Denver, President Obama scarfed down pizza and drinks with strangers, shot pool with Colorado’s governor and shook hands with a guy on the street wearing a horse mask. His top staffers are promoting these stops on Twitter with the hashtag #TheBearIsLoose — a term one of Obama’s aides coined in 2008 when the candidate would defy his schedule....

So... this is easy: Obama is campaigning. It's what he does well, and he wants to be seen in a good light. He wants these photo ops to be used as WaPo mostly uses them: To revive old love and to make journalists decry gridlock in Washington.

But can the Obama-for-President routine play when we've got that children-crossing-the-border crisis? Obama is traveling about, doing political theater, and when he was questioned about his avoidance of the scene near the border, he said: "This is not theater." That is, it's a problem to be solved in a serious way, and that to visit the detention camps would be theater. He's right about that. It's not the kind of theater he wants. He's not denying that pizza-scarfing and horse-mask-guy greeting are theater. So the showman chooses what show to mount. 

The president... seems genuinely impatient with the limitations of his office.

We have limited government. Love it or don't serve in it, conlawprof.

He has started walking around D.C. for short stints, referring to himself in the third person as “the bear” as he walks across Lafayette Park or heads to a nearby Starbucks....

Maybe one morning he'll awaken before 4 a.m and wander down to the Lincoln Memorial to talk with the young people. His chief of staff might write in his diary "I am concerned about his condition" and call it "the weirdest day so far." The President might dictate notes to be shared with "anyone else who may have raised questions": "Even when I'm tired, I do not talk about nonsensical things," and talking with the young people was an effort "to lift them a bit out of the miserable intellectual wasteland in which they now wander."

I hope that (your) hatred of the [what's going on these days], which I could well understand, would not turn into a bitter hatred of our whole system, our country and everything that it stood for. I said that I know probably most of you think I'm an SOB. But I want you to know that I understand just how you feel.

Nah. That was Nixon. The young people don't think Obama's an SOB, and Obama has never had to entertain the slightest notion that the young people think he's an SOB.

Council of Croatian Community in France files suit against Bob Dylan in a Paris court, accuses him of racism.

"He was without any doubt inciting hatred against Croatians," according to the Council of Croatian Community in France. What did Bob do? In an interview with Rolling Stone, he said (as quoted at the link): "Black people can sense Klan blood, Jews can sense Nazi blood and Serbs can sense Croat blood."

What does that mean "sensing blood"? Talking in terms of blood does have a racist feeling to it. He's a poet though, so there's that tendency to use vivid metaphor. Blood is one of the great metaphors — used in 49 Dylan songs — but it's complicated and refers to many different things. The word "sense" is vague, unlike say "smell" or "taste," and tied to "blood," it can cause too much confusion, and I don't recommend judicial relief.

Here's the Rolling Stone interview (which came out last year). Check the context and the actual verbatim quote:

Do you see any parallels between the 1860s and present-day America?

Mmm, I don't know how to put it. It's like . . . the United States burned and destroyed itself for the sake of slavery. The USA wouldn't give it up. It had to be grinded out. The whole system had to be ripped out with force. A lot of killing. What, like, 500,000 people? A lot of destruction to end slavery. And that's what it really was all about.

This country is just too fucked up about color. It's a distraction. People at each other's throats just because they are of a different color. It's the height of insanity, and it will hold any nation back – or any neighborhood back. Or any anything back. Blacks know that some whites didn't want to give up slavery – that if they had their way, they would still be under the yoke, and they can't pretend they don't know that. If you got a slave master or Klan in your blood, blacks can sense that. That stuff lingers to this day. Just like Jews can sense Nazi blood and the Serbs can sense Croatian blood.

It's doubtful that America's ever going to get rid of that stigmatization. It's a country founded on the backs of slaves. You know what I mean? Because it goes way back. It's the root cause. If slavery had been given up in a more peaceful way, America would be far ahead today. Whoever invented the idea "lost cause . . . ." There's nothing heroic about any lost cause. No such thing, though there are people who still believe it.

The statement "He was without any doubt inciting hatred against Croatians" incites... negative opinions against... the person who makes that statement... in that I'm left thinking he's not too good at reading. But reading's an emotional thing. I'm continually amazed at what happens to words when they're swirled around with the readers' emotions.

"QUESTION: Why Is Class Hatred Morally Superior To Race Hatred?"

A post, at Instapundit.

QUESTION: Why is that supposed to be at all a difficult question?

Al Gore would like you to lie back and accept what the government decides is good for you.

The other day I said:

I see the analogy between global warming and the weapons of mass destruction used to justify the Iraq war. Those who planned the war believed there were other good reasons to go to war with Iraq, but they made a decision to use weapons of mass destruction as the reason to go to war, because they thought people could understand this reason and unite behind the war effort. But then, when the WMD were not found, the war looked like a big mistake.

... [P]eople [who] support the policies that are supposed to deal with global warming [may have] other reasons they have for wanting those policies [but may] rely on the global warming prediction rather than those other reasons....

Now, here comes big Al Gore with a huge op-ed in the NYT that begins with a fat juicy piece of evidence that I was right:

It would be an enormous relief if the recent attacks on the science of global warming actually indicated that we do not face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it.

Of course, we would still need to deal with the national security risks of our growing dependence on a global oil market dominated by dwindling reserves in the most unstable region of the world, and the economic risks of sending hundreds of billions of dollars a year overseas in return for that oil. And we would still trail China in the race to develop smart grids, fast trains, solar power, wind, geothermal and other renewable sources of energy — the most important sources of new jobs in the 21st century.

He wants the policies that are sold under the name "global warming" whether the prediction of global warming is right or wrong.

[T]he crisis is still growing because we are continuing to dump 90 million tons of global-warming pollution every 24 hours into the atmosphere — as if it were an open sewer....

The "pollution" is carbon dioxide, which is what flows out of our noses and mouths when we exhale. Do you think of your breathing passages as spewing shit? There's nothing dirty or toxic about carbon dioxide. The problem has only to do with the greenhouse effect. But isn't it so much more effective — i.e., scarier — to make people think we're still talking about filth?

What do you make of these meanderings about capitalism and socialism?

The decisive victory of democratic capitalism over communism in the 1990s led to a period of philosophical dominance for market economics worldwide and the illusion of a unipolar world. It also led, in the United States, to a hubristic “bubble” of market fundamentalism that encouraged opponents of regulatory constraints to mount an aggressive effort to shift the internal boundary between the democracy sphere and the market sphere. 

When someone writes like that, I get suspicious. I want to rewrite it in plain English: After the fall of communism, people placed more trust in the market and were wary of government-dictated solutions.

Over time, markets would most efficiently solve most problems, they argued. Laws and regulations interfering with the operations of the market carried a faint odor of the discredited statist adversary we had just defeated.

Yeah, that's what was already in my translation of your previous windbaggage. Maybe this piece is just padded. Maybe it's a devious plot to bore us into submission.

This period of market triumphalism coincided with confirmation by scientists that earlier fears about global warming had been grossly understated. 

Oh? Just a coincidence? Al Gore has unwittingly tweaked my suspicion that the scientists are politicos.

Not only did the fall of communism make the work of the government regulator much more difficult, according to Al, the mainstream media also became less supportive:

Simultaneously, changes in America’s political system — including the replacement of newspapers and magazines by television as the dominant medium of communication — conferred powerful advantages on wealthy advocates of unrestrained markets and weakened advocates of legal and regulatory reforms. Some news media organizations now present showmen masquerading as political thinkers who package hatred and divisiveness as entertainment. 

Quick: Name a showman masquerading as political thinker. You said "Al Gore," right?

And what is this "hatred and divisiveness"? It's just criticism and debate. Al Gore is distressed that the media don't propagandize for government regulation as they did back in the good old days of communism.

And as in times past, that has proved to be a potent drug in the veins of the body politic. Their most consistent theme is to label as “socialist” any proposal to reform exploitive behavior in the marketplace.

As in what "times past"? Is the lively public debate of today somehow akin to the racial bigotry that stalled civil rights legislation? Because worrying about socialism isn't expressed as hatred. Really, Gore seems to expect people to lie back and accept whatever the government decides is good for us.

From the standpoint of governance, what is at stake is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption. 

What?! I knew this was religion! We're supposed to believe. And please don't use "rule of law" as a synonym for government regulation.

Later this week, Senators John Kerry, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman are expected to present for consideration similar cap-and-trade legislation.

And we should just lie back and take it.

I search in vain for the part of the article where Al Gore notes his personal financial interest in this regulation. So, supplemental reading: "Gore’s Dual Role: Advocate and Investor."

Critics, mostly on the political right and among global warming skeptics, say Mr. Gore is poised to become the world’s first “carbon billionaire,” profiteering from government policies he supports that would direct billions of dollars to the business ventures he has invested in.

Representative Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, asserted at a hearing this year that Mr. Gore stood to benefit personally from the energy and climate policies he was urging Congress to adopt.

Mr. Gore says that he is simply putting his money where his mouth is.

The mouth, is, as noted, a sewer.

“Do you think there is something wrong with being active in business in this country?” Mr. Gore said. “I am proud of it. I am proud of it.”

So the market is great... when it's making you a billionaire.

ADDED: In the comments Paul draws my attention to the NYT's post-script identifying the author, which includes: "As a businessman, he is an investor in alternative energy companies."

Gore Vidal turns against — among other things — Barack Obama.

The Times of London asked how he thought Obama was doing:

“Dreadfully. I was hopeful. He was the most intelligent person we’ve had in that position for a long time. But he’s inexperienced. He has a total inability to understand military matters. He’s acting as if Afghanistan is the magic talisman: solve that and you solve terrorism.” America should leave Afghanistan, he says. “We’ve failed in every other aspect of our effort of conquering the Middle East or whatever you want to call it.” The “War on Terror” was “made up”, Vidal says. “The whole thing was PR, just like ‘weapons of mass destruction’....

Vidal originally became pro-Obama because he grew up in “a black city” (meaning Washington), as well as being impressed by Obama’s intelligence. “But he believes the generals. Even Bush knew the way to win a general was to give him another star. Obama believes the Republican Party is a party when in fact it’s a mindset, like Hitler Youth, based on hatred — religious hatred, racial hatred. When you foreigners hear the word ‘conservative’ you think of kindly old men hunting foxes. They’re not, they’re fascists.”

Another notable Obama mis-step has been on healthcare reform. “He f***ed it up. I don’t know how because the country wanted it. We’ll never see it happen.” As for his wider vision: “Maybe he doesn’t have one, not to imply he is a fraud. He loves quoting Lincoln and there’s a great Lincoln quote from a letter he wrote to one of his generals in the South after the Civil War. ‘I am President of the United States. I have full overall power and never forget it, because I will exercise it’. That’s what Obama needs — a bit of Lincoln’s chill.” Has he met Obama? “No,” he says quietly, “I’ve had my time with presidents.” Vidal raises his fingers to signify a gun and mutters: “Bang bang.” He is referring to the possibility of Obama being assassinated. “Just a mysterious lone gunman lurking in the shadows of the capital,” he says in a wry, dreamy way.

Today religious mania has infected the political bloodstream and America has become corrosively isolationist, he says. “Ask an American what they know about Sweden and they’d say ‘They live well but they’re all alcoholics’. In fact a Scandinavian system could have benefited us many times over.” Instead, America has “no intellectual class” and is “rotting away at a funereal pace. We’ll have a military dictatorship fairly soon, on the basis that nobody else can hold everything together. Obama would have been better off focusing on educating the American people. His problem is being over-educated. He doesn’t realise how dim-witted and ignorant his audience is. Benjamin Franklin said that the system would fail because of the corruption of the people and that happened under Bush.”

Presented without comment. Say what you will.

"To equate what I said with what this racist bigot has said from the pulpit is unbelievable," said Geraldine Ferraro.

"[Obama] gave a very good speech on race relations, but he did not address the fact that this man is up there spewing hatred."

No word yet about how Obama's white grandmother liked the way he equated her occasional private remarks — whatever they were — with Jeremiah Wright's years of stoking hatred as he led a large attentive crowd.

Race and religion, Barack Obama and Clarence Thomas.

It's 3 a.m. ... And Ruth Anne Adams — commenter extraordinaire, historian of the Althouse blog, and Maternal Optimist blogger — is sending me email:

I spent a good bit of time reading the thread and the comments ["Barack Obama responds to the criticism over Jeremiah Wright"]. I kept thinking about Clarence Thomas' description of the nuns who, in the face of a segregated South, instilled in the students that they were all God's children, all worthy in dignity to learn and grow up in God's grace. I just think that there's something to chew on/turn over/mull. How did these two very prominent Black men look at the evil that is America's history with race and see it manifested in their personal religious worship? Clarence Thomas, as you may not know, has returned to full Communion with the Catholic Church. He did a fabulous interview with Raymond Arroyo of EWTN [Program #6, nun talk begins at 5:50 minutes into interview] when his book was published last year and he talked of the bitterness and hatred he could not carry. And I see Pastor Wright fomenting that bitterness and hatred.

In the Catholic Church, there are a few 'out there' parishes and the faithful know where they are. They are magnets for unorthodoxy of all kinds. If I were a politician and gaining some credibility because I called myself Catholic but I was going to these wayward parishes, I would justifiably get lots of flak. If I belonged to a 'Christian' white supremacist church, especially for 20 years, I couldn't wipe away that stink fast enough to become a credible candidate. Why is the reverse not obviously true? Is there a difference with John McCain accepting an endorsement from a daffy Catholic-hating powerful pastor with a brief visit and Barack Obama entrenching himself in his home parish? I think the Anchoress makes some reasonable points, but I think she's too generous to Barack. We're starting to see a pattern of America hatred with those people who are close to Obama. Glints of it appear when Michelle speaks [hey! has she been muzzled?] Most voters can't abide hating America to that extreme.

I bounced these off of you because I remember you simul-blogging Thomas' memoirs in the fall and I suspect you have a good basis to answer these questions that I'm merely musing about.

Glad you're back in Madison! The blog is so different there.

Ruth Anne :)

Thanks! And the blog's different without Ruth Anne in the comments, but I think she — and someone else you've probably missed — will be back in a week or so.

"I am pleading for the future; I am pleading for a time when hatred and cruelty will not control the hearts of men."

Harold Schechter, author of "The Devil's Gentleman: Privilege, Poison, and the Trial That Ushered in the Twentieth Century," picks five books that describe great murder trials.

1. "The Murder of Helen Jewett" by Patricia Cline Cohen (Knopf, 1998)....

2. "Dead Certainties" by Simon Schama (Knopf, 1991)....

3. "The Minister and the Choir Singer" by William M. Kunstler (William Morrow, 1964)....

4. "Compulsion" by Meyer Levin (Simon & Schuster, 1956).

In May 1924, self-professed Nietzschean supermen Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, the pampered sons of two prominent Chicago families, set out to prove their intellectual superiority by committing the "perfect crime." They abducted and killed Loeb's 14-year-old cousin, then stuffed his nude body into a drainpipe. Despite the supposed brilliance of their plan, they were arrested less than two weeks later. The highlight of their prosecution--which had been immediately (and rather prematurely) trumpeted as "The Trial of the Century"--was the summation by their lawyer, the formidable Clarence Darrow, who delivered an eloquent 12-hour attack on the death penalty. His clients were convicted but spared execution. In "Compulsion," Meyer Levin's 1956 best-selling account of the case, the author thinly disguised the story for legal reasons, producing what many critics consider the prototypical "nonfiction novel"-- a genre that Truman Capote would take credit for inventing a decade later.

5. "Kidnap" by George Waller (Dial, 1961)....

Kind of a harsh stab at Truman Capote, but don't you want to read "Compulsion"?

Alternatively, we can dig out the old DVD of "Rope" and watch it one more time. That's always great fun:



And can you imagine a lawyer today subjecting the jury to a 12-hour attack on the death penalty? Can you imagine the lawyer being considered brilliant and eloquent for doing so? Can you imagine a jury today getting roped in by a lot of high-flown talk about the death penalty after hearing evidence of a brutal, senseless murder? Frankly, it's outright unfair to decide who gets the death penalty based on what the lawyer said about the death penalty in general. All that brilliant talk would be equally applicable in any capital trial.

Here's the text of Darrow's summation, helpfully divided into titled sections. From the final section:

I have stood here for three months as one might stand at the ocean trying to sweep back the tide. I hope the seas are subsiding and the wind is falling and I believe they are, but I wish to make no false pretense to this court. The easy thing and the popular thing to do is to hang my clients. I know it. Men and women who do not think will applaud. The cruel and the thoughtless will approve. It will be easy today; but in Chicago, and reaching out over the length and breadth of the land, more and more fathers and mothers, the humane, the kind and the hopeful, who are gaining an understanding and asking questions not only about these poor boys, but about their own,--these will join in no acclaim at the death of my clients. These would ask that the shedding of blood be stopped, and that the normal feelings of man resume their sway. And as the days and the months and the years go on, they will ask it more and more. But, your Honor, what they shall ask may not count. I know the easy way.

I know your Honor stands between he [sic] future and the past. I know the future is with me, and what I stand for here; not merely for the lives of these two unfortunate lads, but for all boys and all girls; for all of the young, and as far as possible, for all of the old. I am pleading for life, understanding, charity, kindness, and the infinite mercy that considers all. I am pleading that we overcome cruelty with kindness and hatred with love. I know the future is on my side. Your Honor stands between the past and the future. You may hang these boys; you may hang them by the neck until they are dead. But in doing it you will turn your face toward the past. In doing it you are making it harder for every other boy who in ignorance and darkness must grope his way through the mazes which only childhood knows. In doing it you will make it harder for unborn children. You may save them and make it easier for every child that some time may stand where these boys stand. You will make it easier for every human being with an aspiration and a vision and a hope and a fate. I am pleading for the future; I am pleading for a time when hatred and cruelty will not control the hearts of men. When we can learn by reason and judgement and understanding and faith that all life is worth saving, and that mercy is the highest attribute of man.

Think of the children!

From Meyer Levin's book — which you can search inside at Amazon:

When someone asked if Nietzsche's superman philosophy justified murder, Judd perversely replied, "It is easy to justify such a death, as easy as to justify an entomologist impaling a butterfly on a pin."

The room became quiet. Danny Mines of the News said, "We all had a little Nietzsche in college, Steiner, but that doesn't mean you have to live by it."

"Why not?" Judd demanded. "A philosophy, if you are convinced it is correct, is something you live by."

We all studied our menus. "The herring is excellent here," Judd announced to McNamar, "but I suppose you don't like herring — you aren't Jewish."

Throughout the meal he continued to flash his erudition and against my will, I was being pushed by the others, set up as the antipode — for I too was a university graduate at eighteen.

Hmmm... Do you like novelization?

If not, read the confession of Nathan Leopold:

When we planned a general thing of this sort was as long ago as last November I guess at least, and we started on the process of how to get the money, which was the most difficult problem. We had several dozen different plans, all of which were not so good for one reason or other....

The next problem was getting the victim to kill. This was left undecided until the day we decided to pick the most likely-looking subject that came our way. The particular case happened to be Robert Franks. Richard was acquainted with Robert and asked him to come over to our car for a moment. This occurred near 49th and Ellis Avenue. Robert came over in the car, was introduced to me and Richard asked him if he did not want to help him.....

"Richard who?"

Richard Loeb. He replied no, but Richard said, well, come in a minute. I want to ask you about a certain tennis racket. After he had gotten in, I stepped on the gas, proceeded south on Ellis Avenue to 50th Street. In the meantime Richard asked Robert if he minded if we took him around the block, to which Robert said, no. As soon as we turned the corner, Richard placed his one hand over Robert's mouth to stifle his outcry, with his right beating him on the head several times with a chisel, especially prepared for the purpose. The boy did not succumb as readily as we had believed so for fear of being observed Richard seized him, and pulled him into the back seat. Here he forced a cloth into his mouth. Apparently the boy died instantly by suffocation shortly thereafter. We proceeded out to Calumet Boulevard in Indiana, drove along this road that leads to Gary, being a rather deserted place. We even stopped to buy a couple of sandwiches and some drinks for supper....

ADDED: Leopold and Loeb pleaded guilty, and Darrow's harangue was directed at the judge. Here's Judge Caverly's opinion, which rests not on a general opposition to the death penalty, but on the youth of the defendants:

It would have been the task of least resistance to impose the extreme penalty of the law. In choosing imprisonment instead of death, the court is moved chiefly by the consideration of the age of the defendants, boys of eighteen and nineteen years.

Hating the President.

The other day, I was watching one of the old Larry King interviews that CNN has been running lately. There was King, in 1992, with Richard Nixon. Talking to my son, I worked the theme: you can't understand how much people hated Nixon. But my son has seen how people have hated Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. No, that was different. Nixon-hating was far beyond all of that. Today, I read this in a NYT book review, written by Alan Ehrenhalt of John F. Harris's ''The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House'':

The passion of the Clinton haters is a phenomenon without equal in recent American politics. It is not based on any specific policies that Clinton promoted or implemented during his years in office. It is almost entirely personal. In its persistence and intensity, it goes far beyond anything that comparable numbers of people have felt about Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan or either of the presidents Bush. It surpasses even the liberals' longstanding detestation of Richard Nixon. The only political obsession comparable to it in the past century is the hatred that a significant minority of Americans felt for Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Sorry, I am not buying that. Clinton-hating and (G.W.) Bush-hating are at about the same intensity. Nixon-hating was wholly different. But it's quite clear that Ehrenhalt's real point is that Clinton didn't deserve it. Nevertheless, I stand by my point: if we're talking about visceral, emotional, nonrational loathing: Nixon got the most. Ehrenhalt highlights the author's explanation of why Clinton inspired this hatred that he didn't deserve:

If, as Harris believes, Clinton was in the most important ways a competent president -- and certainly not a combative or ideological one -- then the conundrum of Clinton-hatred remains essentially unsolved. Harris does try to explain it. He suggests -- as others have -- that Clinton, not entirely through his own doing, suffered as the embodiment of a generation and a set of values that much of the country had never understood or been willing to accept. He was the tangible symbol of the Baby Boom, its conceits, its self-absorption, its lack of discipline and failures of responsibility. He was a child of the 1960's preaching to millions of people who had never come to terms with the 1960's and didn't want to be reminded of them.

It's an interesting theory, really. It goes with my point that Nixon was hated on a more personal level. The theory that Clinton embodied the Boomers will probably stick. It fits the facts well enough, and it has a satisfying breadth. The theory saves us from needing to think about the historical details of the period -- what happened in Bosnia? -- and allows us to contemplate American culture. Let's think about the 60s! Ah, dammit, I'm back to thinking about Nixon again.