The Cheney Enigma

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I need to get down on the record Vice President Cheney's latest wild move to evade the law and the tenets of good government. As I understand it, dating back to President Clinton, an Executive Order gives the National Archives the authority over the Executive Branch to oversee its classified documents. Well, Cheney now maintains that he does not have to deal with that law, declaring that the Vice President is not part of the Executive Branch, making much of the fact that he presides over the Senate. Maureen Dowd highlights the hypocrisy of this move:

Cheney and Cheney’s Cheney, David Addington, his equally belligerent, ideological and shadowy lawyer and chief of staff, have no shame. After claiming executive privilege to withhold the energy task force names and protect Scooter Libby, they now act outraged that Vice should be seen as part of the executive branch.

Even dumb Dubya had to laugh over that one. Though, that hasn't stopped our so highly moral president from backing up Cheney's absurd move. What a joke these people make of our Constitution and our country, and in such serious times.

( Dowd column )

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The Cheney Enigma

♠
I need to get down on the record Vice President Cheney's latest wild move to evade the law and the tenets of good government. As I understand it, dating back to President Clinton, an Executive Order gives the National Archives the authority over the Executive Branch to oversee its classified documents. Well, Cheney now maintains that he does not have to deal with that law, declaring that the Vice President is not part of the Executive Branch, making much of the fact that he presides over the Senate. Maureen Dowd highlights the hypocrisy of this move:

Cheney and Cheney’s Cheney, David Addington, his equally belligerent, ideological and shadowy lawyer and chief of staff, have no shame. After claiming executive privilege to withhold the energy task force names and protect Scooter Libby, they now act outraged that Vice should be seen as part of the executive branch.

Even dumb Dubya had to laugh over that one. Though, that hasn't stopped our so highly moral president from backing up Cheney's absurd move. What a joke these people make of our Constitution and our country, and in such serious times.

( Dowd column )

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The Old Hegemon in a Changing World

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David Ignatius notes, "When foreign policy gurus Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft all start saying the same thing, it's time to pay attention." These men are not all of one party, but the line of agreement on the future is also pretty general:

"The international system is in a period of change like we haven't seen for several hundred years" because of the declining power of nation-states, said Kissinger, who was secretary of state under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. "We are used to dealing with problems that have a solution," but Americans have to realize that "we're at the beginning of a long period of adjustment."

Brzezinski described the changes taking place as a global political awakening: "The world is much more restless. It's stirring. It has aspirations which are not easily satisfied. And if America is to lead, it has to relate itself somehow to these new, lively, intense political aspirations, which make our age so different from even the recent past." Brzezinski served as national security adviser for President Jimmy Carter.

In this new, "very different world," explained Scowcroft, "the traditional measures of strength don't really apply so much. . . . It's a world where most of the big problems spill over national boundaries, and there are new kinds of actors and we're feeling our way as to how to deal with them." Scowcroft was national security adviser for Presidents Ford and George H.W. Bush.

... Scowcroft urged America's next leader to declare, "I think that we are a part of the world, that we want to cooperate with the world. We are not the dominant power in the world, that everyone falls in behind us." Brzezinski offered a similar formulation: "The next president should say to the world that the United States wants to be part of the solution to its problems" and that it will be "engaged in the quest to get people in the world the dignities that they seek today." Even the sometimes brusque Kissinger agreed that the next president should express a willingness "to listen to a lot of other countries about what they think should be done. He should not pretend that he has all the answers."

What this is supposed to mean is not very clear, except that President Dubya should not be our model for future presidents and foreign policy. It is not a new message that America cannot dominate global affairs as much as it could in the decades following World War II, but she still has a big leadership role to command and all the art is in what to do with that, beyond listening more to others.


(Source: David Ignatius for The Washington Post)

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The Old Hegemon in a Changing World

♠
David Ignatius notes, "When foreign policy gurus Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft all start saying the same thing, it's time to pay attention." These men are not all of one party, but the line of agreement on the future is also pretty general:

"The international system is in a period of change like we haven't seen for several hundred years" because of the declining power of nation-states, said Kissinger, who was secretary of state under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. "We are used to dealing with problems that have a solution," but Americans have to realize that "we're at the beginning of a long period of adjustment."

Brzezinski described the changes taking place as a global political awakening: "The world is much more restless. It's stirring. It has aspirations which are not easily satisfied. And if America is to lead, it has to relate itself somehow to these new, lively, intense political aspirations, which make our age so different from even the recent past." Brzezinski served as national security adviser for President Jimmy Carter.

In this new, "very different world," explained Scowcroft, "the traditional measures of strength don't really apply so much. . . . It's a world where most of the big problems spill over national boundaries, and there are new kinds of actors and we're feeling our way as to how to deal with them." Scowcroft was national security adviser for Presidents Ford and George H.W. Bush.

... Scowcroft urged America's next leader to declare, "I think that we are a part of the world, that we want to cooperate with the world. We are not the dominant power in the world, that everyone falls in behind us." Brzezinski offered a similar formulation: "The next president should say to the world that the United States wants to be part of the solution to its problems" and that it will be "engaged in the quest to get people in the world the dignities that they seek today." Even the sometimes brusque Kissinger agreed that the next president should express a willingness "to listen to a lot of other countries about what they think should be done. He should not pretend that he has all the answers."

What this is supposed to mean is not very clear, except that President Dubya should not be our model for future presidents and foreign policy. It is not a new message that America cannot dominate global affairs as much as it could in the decades following World War II, but she still has a big leadership role to command and all the art is in what to do with that, beyond listening more to others.


(Source: David Ignatius for The Washington Post)

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Jewish Humor

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In the old joke, two rabbis are sitting in a cafe. One is reading a Jewish newspaper, but the other opens a notorious neo-Nazi rag. The first, stunned, says, "Why would you read that?" The second replies: "In your paper, I read how Jews are being harassed and persecuted and endangered. In this one, I read that Jews are rich! Jews are clever! Jews run the world! I prefer good news."

-- Steve Chapman for RealClearPolitics.com

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Jewish Humor

♠
In the old joke, two rabbis are sitting in a cafe. One is reading a Jewish newspaper, but the other opens a notorious neo-Nazi rag. The first, stunned, says, "Why would you read that?" The second replies: "In your paper, I read how Jews are being harassed and persecuted and endangered. In this one, I read that Jews are rich! Jews are clever! Jews run the world! I prefer good news."

-- Steve Chapman for RealClearPolitics.com

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Mark Steyn on the Rushdie Controversy

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This is where we came in two decades ago. We should have learned something by now. In the Muslim world, artistic criticism can be fatal. In 1992, the poet Sadiq Abd al-Karim Milalla also found that his work was "not particularly well-received": he was beheaded by the Saudis for suggesting Muhammad cooked up the Quran by himself. In 1998, the Algerian singer Lounès Matoub described himself as "ni Arabe ni musulman" (neither Arab nor Muslim) and shortly thereafter found himself neither alive nor well.

-- Mark Steyn for The Orange County Register

I had to get Steyn's fiery commentary on the issue...

( Steyn )

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Mark Steyn on the Rushdie Controversy

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This is where we came in two decades ago. We should have learned something by now. In the Muslim world, artistic criticism can be fatal. In 1992, the poet Sadiq Abd al-Karim Milalla also found that his work was "not particularly well-received": he was beheaded by the Saudis for suggesting Muhammad cooked up the Quran by himself. In 1998, the Algerian singer Lounès Matoub described himself as "ni Arabe ni musulman" (neither Arab nor Muslim) and shortly thereafter found himself neither alive nor well.

-- Mark Steyn for The Orange County Register

I had to get Steyn's fiery commentary on the issue...

( Steyn )

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Blonde

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I've finished chapters two and three of Iliad and am ready to begin Joyce Carol Oates's "Blonde" tomorrow. It's only been two days since finishing "Odd Thomas". It is hard for Monk to spend too much time away from his fun novels, especially when we are now talking about an Oates novel depicting the well-sexploited Marilyn Monroe (a more tragic Helen, more real).

Meh, all my problems should be as sweet.

I went to the used dealers to buy a hardcover edition of "Blonde". Nobody was offering one that promised to be unread, but I got a good one. This copy probably was only read once and then sold back, and this one reader respects books. I'm glad I got it, and am dying to get into it tomorrow.

I should be living with this novel for some time as it is a hefty volume of seven-hundred pages. And it's Joyce Carol Oates. About Marilyn. I'm looking to get lost in this one. A good way to close out June and take us into July.

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Blonde

♠
I've finished chapters two and three of Iliad and am ready to begin Joyce Carol Oates's "Blonde" tomorrow. It's only been two days since finishing "Odd Thomas". It is hard for Monk to spend too much time away from his fun novels, especially when we are now talking about an Oates novel depicting the well-sexploited Marilyn Monroe (a more tragic Helen, more real).

Meh, all my problems should be as sweet.

I went to the used dealers to buy a hardcover edition of "Blonde". Nobody was offering one that promised to be unread, but I got a good one. This copy probably was only read once and then sold back, and this one reader respects books. I'm glad I got it, and am dying to get into it tomorrow.

I should be living with this novel for some time as it is a hefty volume of seven-hundred pages. And it's Joyce Carol Oates. About Marilyn. I'm looking to get lost in this one. A good way to close out June and take us into July.

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The Dangerous Book for Boys

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I thought I was the only one sick of non-competitive sports days and playgrounds where it's practically impossible to hurt yourself. It turned out that the pendulum is swinging back at last. Boys are different from girls. Teaching them as though they are girls who don't wash as much leads to their failure in school, causing trouble all the way. Boys don't like group work. They do better on exams than they do in coursework, and they don't like class discussion. In history lessons, they prefer stories of Rome and of courage to projects on the suffragettes.

-- Conn Iggulden for The Washington Post

Mr. Iggulden is the author of "The Dangerous Book for Boys". It has been taken up in our culture wars with respect to education and gender. Boys have been lagging in school these years, and Iggulden represents the approach that part of the reason may be that school has become too sissified. You can perhaps appreciate the controversy. He opens this column with a boysy story:

When I was 10, I founded an international organization known as the Black Cat Club. My friend Richard was the only other member. My younger brother, Hal, had "provisional status," which meant that he had to try out for full membership every other week. We told him we would consider his application if he jumped off the garage roof -- about eight feet from the ground. He had a moment of doubt as he looked over the edge, but we said it wouldn't hurt if he shouted the words "Fly like an eagle!" When he jumped, his knees came up so fast that he knocked himself out. I think the lesson he learned that day was not to trust his brother, which is a pretty valuable one for a growing lad.

Boys will be boys...

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The Dangerous Book for Boys

♠
I thought I was the only one sick of non-competitive sports days and playgrounds where it's practically impossible to hurt yourself. It turned out that the pendulum is swinging back at last. Boys are different from girls. Teaching them as though they are girls who don't wash as much leads to their failure in school, causing trouble all the way. Boys don't like group work. They do better on exams than they do in coursework, and they don't like class discussion. In history lessons, they prefer stories of Rome and of courage to projects on the suffragettes.

-- Conn Iggulden for The Washington Post

Mr. Iggulden is the author of "The Dangerous Book for Boys". It has been taken up in our culture wars with respect to education and gender. Boys have been lagging in school these years, and Iggulden represents the approach that part of the reason may be that school has become too sissified. You can perhaps appreciate the controversy. He opens this column with a boysy story:

When I was 10, I founded an international organization known as the Black Cat Club. My friend Richard was the only other member. My younger brother, Hal, had "provisional status," which meant that he had to try out for full membership every other week. We told him we would consider his application if he jumped off the garage roof -- about eight feet from the ground. He had a moment of doubt as he looked over the edge, but we said it wouldn't hurt if he shouted the words "Fly like an eagle!" When he jumped, his knees came up so fast that he knocked himself out. I think the lesson he learned that day was not to trust his brother, which is a pretty valuable one for a growing lad.

Boys will be boys...

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