Holy Foley
North Korea may well have let off a 20-kiloton nuke. Last week Iran’s Ahmadinejad ridiculed efforts to corral his own nuclear ambitions. The stock market was nearing an all-time high. The deficit is suddenly falling in near record fashion. Falling gas prices might hit $2 a gallon. In Iraq, the U.S. military was taking on the Shiite militias.
And what was Washington in response talking about?
A pederastic flirtatious Congressman who wrote soft porn emails to his targeted virtual sex victims. Yes, “Mark Foley” now warrants about 23,000,000 Google matches—or about four million more Google hits than for the founder of Western philosophy, the Platonically pederastic “Socrates.” Perhaps when one of Foley’s former pages–one now claims at 21 to have had relations with his mentor– pens a Republic or Laws we will duly appreciate this better known genius who earned more attention from our contemporary electronic world in a week’s worth of IM messages than poor Socrates had after some 2400 years. And after the Dick Cheney shotgun hysteria, the flushed Koran, and all the other nonstories, it is legitimate to ask whether the New York and Washington media are simply unhinged.
Or is the problem the nature of the 24-hour news itself, when lurid sex or violence is needed to pad the hours away. Imagine the following: ‘North Korea’s bomb deliberately phallic-shaped”; or, “Ahmadinejad still in love 26 years later with one of the American hostages”; or “Americans shoot it out with a gay platoon of Mahdists.’
Could both Republicans and Democrats then forget the gross Congressman Foley? Or could he only have been forgotten, had he introduced landmark legislation on health, security, or education? Perhaps that was the better way out than resignation—simply draft an important bill on the future of America and thereby put the nation to sleep.
Or is the nuttiness because most Americans below 30 are now so poorly educated that they don’t know, or care to know, the difference between Pyongyang and poontang? Or, given that these periodic fits of insanity about Dick Cheney’s shotgun or George Bush’s flight suit usually serve to denigrate some conservative, are these present pathetic efforts to hype a pervert to the level of a national crisis, just the frustrations of a liberal news media, angry that bright sassy minds like theirs have not been able to translate that self-proclaimed intellectual and moral superiority into political power?
This entire non-story could come right out of one of Dr. Zawahri’s nutty sermons about American perversity and our puerile attention span. In fact, I’m sure we will be reading about Foley in the next al Qaeda infomercial, just as bin Laden paraphrased Michael Moore’s invectives about President Bush reading a goat story to a little girl on the morning of September 11.
The Sierra
I spent the weekend at Huntington Lake, some 7200 feet above the San Joaquin Valley floor. It was around 70 degrees, clear—and not a soul in sight or a boat on the lake. The Sierra empties out at Labor Day, more as a habit or convention than anything else. The weather is still fine up here in September and most of October. When hiking around the lake today, it struck me that it is little more than an hour away from much of Fresno County. That is, for about $25 in gas, almost any of the 1 million plus of the greater Fresno area could be here in clean air, natural beauty, and grand vistas within minutes.
But none were. For all the worry of the Sierra Club over an endangered wildness, even the areas contiguous to the lake were deserted—never mind the great emptiness in the thousands of square miles above Huntington in the higher Sierra. The problem, it seems to me, is not that there are too many hoi polloi despoiling the wilderness, but far too few enjoying it. Somehow tens of thousands have not been educated about or encouraged to visit the Sierra, whose serenity would give them a much needed few hours break on a Sunday afternoon from the madhouse below.
Mega Pseudo-footnotes
I’ve been reading State of Denial. And while last time I noted that in both Cobra II and Fiasco the authors used the pseudo-footnote, that referred the reader to anonymous and unidentified sources, neither of those books has the audacity of Woodward’s.
Turn to the endnotes. At each chapter section here at the rear of the book you read, “The information in his chapter comes primarily from background interviews with 10 [sometimes Woodward says “7” or “12, etc.] knowledgeable sources…” But what does that mean other than it is Woodward’s own opinion that they are “knowledgeable” and that because they are anonymous they are usually hostile, and because they are hostile they are most useful to Woodward?
Perhaps some Ivy-League historians can write an open letter apprising us of the dangers when journalists decide to include footnotes to achieve the veneer of scholarship, but then offer therein no means to verify their sources of information. Are there tapes left to posterity of the “knowledgeable” sources that one day can attest that what they said was accurately reported, or offer some chance to ascertain the motive and accuracy of their disclosures? And wasn’t this sort of thing in the Nixon White House—having exclusive tapes of what others said, without disclosing such sources to the public—precisely in part what made Woodward’s initial revelations of unseemliness so convincing? But at least Nixon did not publish the tapes and then claim the transcripts came from “background sources.” Indeed, one of the many Watergate scandals involved the White House’s exclusive editing of sources, without the public’s right to ascertain whether they accurately represented the real conversation–and these at least were named people.
We know the rules of this new in medio bello genre about Iraq: (1) give your version to the journalist in hopes it becomes the privileged narrative, while attacking enemies who have no chance to get back at you. And if you don’t talk, the likelihood is that someone else will anyway—without attribution and against you; (2) the anonymous source is almost always hostile to the war, but sympathetic to the views of the author. But we are never told whether the disgruntled general’s or former official’s views are typical or unusual among his peers; (3) write a military history in the middle of a war, not merely to offer lessons about the past, but to affect the ongoing course of events themselves—without much worry that usually the entire story of what really went on only emerges with time; (4) don’t use the word “anonymous” or “unidentified” but rather try out “on background,” as in antithesis to “on the record”—as if not naming someone who has terrible things to say about something else in the middle of a war is a normal journalistic practice without ethical implications.
A history does not always require footnotes, only—unlike autobiography, the memoir, or the journalistic report—the agreed-on presumption that others can check key sources to determine whether they are real or used properly. In the case of the Iraqi muckrakers, that is apparently impossible.
Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
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23 Comments
1. Improbulus Maximus:Woodward is just symbolic, and symptomatic, of a larger issue – partisanship above patriotism. As a member of the leftist cadre, it is his duty to whip up the gangs of workers who are undermining our national stability, so that our enemies may triumph. Woodward, like all other leftists, see our enemies as their allies because they both hate us, and believe that they can control our enemies once they have won, but their heads will be the first ones on the block.
Oct 9, 2006 - 4:40 am 2. John in Cincinnati:Treason and sedition are now not only fashionable, but profitable, and our poor, hapless, president can do nothing because the entire Federal government is riddled with traitors who see as their duty not the protection of America, but the downfall of Bush. I hate to think that it will take a nuclear bomb on our own soil to wake us up, but I’ve come to believe that the average American isn’t smart enough to demand that the government do its job now before it’s too late, and the media is doing its part to keep us as apathetic as possible.
First, sorry to mess up the column width by posting a long URL in a previous commment.
Regarding Foley, John Derbyshire, in his podcast for 10/6, says (at 2:21 in), “The silly old poof, who was generally a clergyman or schoolmaster, and usually (but by no means always) a bachelor, made a fool of himself by fawning over good looking young boys. The fawnees…responded mostly with mirth and derision, though they kept the mirth and derision among themselves for the most part.” Therefore, the Foley story didn’t interest him. “Adolescent boys can, I think, be depended on to deal with them in the right spirit… The Capitol pages seem to have done this.”
Regarding Woodward, I heard him on Fresh Air earlier and he did sound pretty convincing, and then I head him with Diane Rehm, and he sounded like a man with an agenda to push.
I’d rather have an intellectual point, but — this guy is creepy! He looks creepy, he talks like Mr. Rogers without the charm. He sets off those warning bells which are annoying because you can’t figure out what the cause is. A lot of what he says may be accurate, damn him, but I don’t even want to read him because I wouldn’t know what to swallow and what to spit out.
Oct 9, 2006 - 10:03 am 3. Jeffrey S Neher:Dr. Hanson,
You have put your finger on perhaps our single greatest constitutional problem we face in this nation….the first amendment protection that is the freedom of the Press. As the left in this country constantly hammer the supposed civil-rights violations of the Bush administration, we have a media in an ethic free-fall and a desparate need to affect public policy. The media still claim to be our, the peoples, watch-dog. But, are they “our” dog or someone elses? What good is a watch-dog if that dog belongs to another master? In this case, the master is a political philosophy, a political religion..liberalism. When you have members of the American Press refusing to take sides in the war on terror, folks you have a major, major problem. They claim they have a constitutional mandate to be objective, forgetting their mandate is only affirmed by that very constitution written and ratified in only one nation, the very nation they call home. If they really can take no side, truly be objective, then what will become of their objectivity and fairness when their nation loses the war? It’s akin to helping your Home Owners Association evict you from your home out of some silly sense of fairness or “duty”. Even the very constitution they use as a flag of convenience contains a provision to protect ones self from incrimination or self-harm. I believe it was Abraham Lincoln during the height of the Civil War who stated that the Constitution was not a suicide-pact. It seems as though our media believes the opposite. We have been treated to nothing but negative after negative when it comes to Iraq. No one believes that Iraq is a paradise, but can it be that there is nothing, absolutely nothing positive happening there? A general perusing of our print-media will tell you this is the case….Iraq is a living hell. Why is this? One of several things, none of these comforting. Either incompetence, laziness, or a political agenda has our media in it’s grip. It’s a combination of the three. You start with a political template, mis-educate as a youth and instead indoctrinate these youngsters that become the watch-dogs for our freedoms, thus encouraging them to not think for themselves. Taking away individual thought and enterprise has left us with a pack-dog media rather than a watch-dog media. Read your morning dailys, watch your evening news broadcasts and not only are the stories the same, but they are covered in the same fashion. If it bleeds it leads, the mantra we’ve been treated to constantly since the beginning of the Iraq war is a convenient way of diverting attention from the pack-mentality and political-agenda driven media that guards our civil-liberties. We have a fox, the media, in the proverbial hen-house. The NY times has done it’s best to help our enemies, from tipping them off on the foreign-surveillance program to the asset and money following program. We had the AP faking pics during the Hezbo-Israel fiasco. Reporters were actually admitting that Hezbo was staging funerals and supposed attacks on civilians by the Israeli’s. When did they acknowledge this? After media outlets reported these incidents as fact. I heard a CNN report declare terrorist-prisoners as “associates” of terrorists holding hostages in Iraq. Their demand was that these prisoners be released, so CNN called these prisoners “associates”. The media call terrorists insurgents, while other media outlets refuse to use the word terrorist at all. They elevate the likes of Nasrallah to legitimacy by writing puff-pieces on his “great social-works”. Day after day we are treated to a non-stop drum-beat of negativity, defeatism, and hopeless-ness. We are protrayed as the real evil in the world why the true evil is ignored, coddled, and even made out to be the victims in all of this. Yes, fox is a threat, but it’s not the Fox News Channel it’s the “fox” in the hen-house………..
Oct 9, 2006 - 10:17 am 4. Mike H.:Just for grins here is a link to the earthquake page at the USGS. It lists a quake in North Korea. Click on map in the first column and you’ll be shown the location.
Oct 9, 2006 - 10:29 am 5. Eric Mendoza:The media coverage of the Foley scandal has just been nauseating-so much so that I have no choice but to ignore the story altogether. More-imperative issues-such as that of the North Korean nuclear threat-require more attention. I cannot help but agree with the brilliant Mark Steyn in his latest column:
” It’s a good basic rule of thumb that no matter how bad a scandal is, the political class’ response will be worse, largely hysterical and lacking any sense of proportion. But, even by those minimal expectations, this last week has been unbecoming for a serious nation…That the governing party of the world’s only superpower could be felled by one creepy pervert’s masturbatory e-mails and IMs is an event historians will marvel at. Granted that the Roman Empire in its death throes got hung up on gay sex, the American hyperpower seems set to be the first to collapse over gay non-sex. “
Oct 9, 2006 - 11:44 am 6. The Pulchritidinous Patriot:As always, you are right on the money, sir. I find it frightening that some people will give credence to Mr. Woodward’s unattributed sources; sources that any honest professor would disallow on any paper submitted for grade or serious consideration.
It’s merely propaganda passing for fact.
Oct 9, 2006 - 12:57 pm 7. Manual Laborer in Selma:Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
“But who will watch the watchers themselves?”
Oct 9, 2006 - 4:00 pm 8. JMS:–Juvenal, On Women
Yes, indeed sir. Who will watch the watchmen?
Oct 9, 2006 - 9:43 pm 9. Harvey Hagman:HDH
Oct 10, 2006 - 3:47 pm 10. David Thomson:I am amused that everyone wants to negotiate with an enemy that says, we will not negotiate.
The West’s answer to Islamic terrorism is the U.N. Why? Because everyone can say, we’ve done everything we could. And then head to to a bar or club in New York City that most Americans, and certainly the average soldier fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan, could not afford. And not worry about parking tickets. It’s a win-win proposition until ….
The dust is starting to settle on the Mark Foley mess. We have already found out that the e-mails were very boring. They are not even slightly salacious. Look at this link—and take the time to actually read the e-mails:
http://tinyurl.co.uk/cxfh
Only the instant messages were sexually explicit—and Dennis Hastert did not know about them. They apparently were kept hidden by left-wing activists funded by George Soros.
Far too many conservatives leaders overreacted to the initial news accounts. Their mouths was shifted into gear before their brains were even minimally functioning. In the future, these folks have got to take a chill pill before speaking to the media.
Oct 10, 2006 - 5:08 pm 11. Andrea in NY:The media is not so much focused on Foley as on his effect on Republican voting.
Honestly, what idiots are they talking about who would stay home and not vote simply because they don’t like what Foley has done?
Wishful thinking on their part.
Oct 10, 2006 - 6:10 pm 12. Dick Bird:This nails it: “just the frustrations of a liberal news media, angry that bright sassy minds like theirs have not been able to translate that self-proclaimed intellectual and moral superiority into political power” – that’s m-m-m-my generation, grew up with Watergate, and imagine themselves to be Woodward and Bernstein. Now Woodward imagines himself to be Woodward.
Oct 10, 2006 - 7:24 pm 13. Grey Archer:Brilliant…but then I have come to expect no less from you. I keep thinking the intellectual well surely will run dry but yours has no limit to its depth and the quality of its water. Keep up the good work; I am depending on it.
Oct 10, 2006 - 8:07 pm 14. Larry:Lived in Merced in the 70’s, only 1 1/2 hours from the most beautiful place on Earth, Yosemite Valley.
Old Dem slogan: We’re not Bush.
New Dem slogan: We’re not Bush. Some of us are not Foley.
Oct 11, 2006 - 4:36 am 15. Angelos:I seem to remeber a frenzy about sex, maybe 8 or so years ago?
Republicans sure enjoyed that one.
Oh, but when it’s Republicans doing the diddling, what’s all the fuss about? OK.
Oct 11, 2006 - 11:38 am 16. Lesley:Hysteria? Nuttiness? Over reaction? No, this is payback.
Yours is the party that shrieks its moral superiority at every turn, that clamped its jaws on Clinton’s ass for a peccadillo. If anything, the volume, the gales of laughter and scorn should be turned up on you hypocrites.
Oct 11, 2006 - 1:03 pm 17. cleek:did you people happen to sleep through the Clinton presidency ?
tell me, which direction does Bush’s penis bend ? because, everybody in the country knows which way Clinton’s bends, thanks to the non-stop rehashing of the Starr Report by the so-called “liberal media”.
Or is the problem the nature of the 24-hour news itself, when lurid sex or violence is needed to pad the hours away.
tell me, you does your own medicine taste ? for the last half of Clinton’s term, the Republicans used sleaze, smut and the salacious Starr Report non-stop, in order to drive the Democrats from office. don’t like it when the attention points in the other direction?? too bad. suck it up.
take responsibility for something, for a change.
Oct 11, 2006 - 1:07 pm 18. lucifer:what about chalabi? and the goof in germany?
Oct 11, 2006 - 2:48 pm 19. lucifer:you can’t pick and choose whom is knowledgable and who isn’t.
who died from woodwards lies if they are
hey john in cincy, didn’t mark, dennis, tom, jeff, (god, there is so many) teach what to swallow and what to spit out
Oct 11, 2006 - 2:55 pm 20. Jack Shellac:Remeber when the evil President Clinton was busy dealing with Iraq back in the day while the evil left wing media were taking him to task for getting a blow job from Monica? Remember the dress? The cigar? The penis shape?
Of course you do, you’re just to much in thrall of the morans (sic) running the white house to bother mentionning it.
And, btw, before you brand me as some left wing, bicycle riding moonbat (or whatever you people refer to lefties as these days) know that I too would like nothing better than to see that fat little arsewipe in North Korea go mano a mano with Clint Eastwood and settle this issue once and for all.
Of course, you’re too much of a chicken shit to post these words, like all you fscking blowhards.
Oct 11, 2006 - 3:00 pm 21. susan:Dr, Hanson
Oct 12, 2006 - 5:35 am 22. Blue Chip:Based on the last five comments you sppear to have enraged a truther swarm.
Regarding Mr. Foley:
Apparently instant messaging is the new Viagra for men – with 24-hour tech support.
Shouldn’t men his age be home watching Book TV and calculating social security mortality tables?
I’ve met Mr. Foley’s type before and always found them disturbingly odd: middle aged men who are desperate to relive to their mis-spent youth. Puffy, shinny men with clothes from the Gap, quick to buy you a drink while complaining the music is too loud. They’re always much too grateful to make your acquaintance – assuming you look like Toby McGuire.
This whole scandal is like a cross between ‘Lolita’ and ‘You’ve Got Mail’ – too creepy for it’s own good, but at least you don’t have to watch Meg Ryan play ‘cute’.
I’m only slightly more miffed over the ‘drunk defense’. I suspect Mr. Foley is drying out his Lycra boxer briefs and not his liver.
Lets hope the rehab isn’t located anywhere near boy’s town.
I can take only so much depravity from my elected leaders.
Oct 12, 2006 - 6:17 pm 23. John in Cincinnati:I am not familiar with Mark, Dennis, Tom, or Jeff. Kind of odd: you’d think I’d know someone with one of those names.
I do like a change from the usual “Herr Doktor Professor Hanson, what an incredibly brilliant post and I agree with everything you said,” but surely we could find a happy medium between these two extremes.
I would like to use that “In Thrall of the Morans” as a title for something someday…
Oct 12, 2006 - 8:00 pm