Damn You, Gargamel!!!

Glory be. Previous greatest things ever yield before the true Greatest Thing Ever.

The people of Belgium have been left reeling by the first adult-only episode of the Smurfs, in which the blue-skinned cartoon characters’ village is annihilated by warplanes.

The short but chilling film is the work of Unicef, the United Nations Children’s Fund, and is to be broadcast on national television next week as a campaign advertisement.

The short film pulls no punches. It opens with the Smurfs dancing, hand-in-hand, around a campfire and singing the Smurf song. Bluebirds flutter past and rabbits gambol around their familiar village of mushroom- shaped houses until, without warning, bombs begin to rain from the sky.

Tiny Smurfs scatter and run in vain from the whistling bombs, before being felled by blast waves and fiery explosions. The final scene shows a scorched and tattered Baby Smurf sobbing inconsolably, surrounded by prone Smurfs.

I don’t know how much I’d pay to watch that. . . and I’ll probably see it for free. We live in a wondrous age.

Via Sullivan.

Game 5

I don’t have a very good feeling that the Greatest Manifestation of Evil on Earth will be vanquished tonight. Although they could have won, yesterday’s game reminded me of everything I don’t like about the Angels; terribly undisciplined atbats, atrocious baserunning. (And seriously, is Darrin Erstad moving up in the all-time Longest Career Somehow Milked Out of One Good Season list or what? I know he’s a good first baseman, but Jesus Christ he’s terrible.) Which isn’t to say, of course, that they can’t win; I figured they would win in 5 so I guess I can’t back away now. To state the obvious, they need to tee off on Mussina; even with their bullpen, with Johnson and Rivera set for the back three they’re in a world of hurt if they have to come from behind.

Ack, Mariano. While the Braves prove that bullpens are overrated in the regular season, they also prove that they matter more in the post-season; Rivera really is a huge part of the Yankees’ 4 titles, although he goes well beyond being a good closer. (It’s also worth noting that the Braves thought they had acquired a good closer–Danny Kolb had saved 39 games in 2004. Of course, he also struck out 21 in 57 innings. You worship at the altar of saves, you deserve what you get.)

Anyway, should be a good game. Let this serve as an open thread if anyone else is watching…

Rapture Index

Ooh, the Rapture Index was at 161, highest in a while. I didn’t know there was a drought in Spain. . .

If Karl Rove gets indicted, it will probably go up a couple points. Liberals and all. Mark of the Beast, you know.

Michael Moore is Not A Democrat

I know I’ve posted excerpts from this before, but since I continue to see assertions (and not just in our comments) that Michael Moore showing up in someone’s box at the Democratic convention makes him some kind of huge influence in the party, I think it’s worth returning to the definitive annihilation of that argument by Matt Welch:

Jeff Jarvis says “Michael Moore lost the election.” Roger Simon adds that Kerry blew “an obvious opportunity to win the election – the perfect ‘Sister Souljah’ moment,” i.e., denouncing Moore…

[...]

What do these fantasized Souljah moments have in common? Besides being demanded solely of the Democrat, they all call for the nominee to condemn someone who has no elective function or power whatsoever. We are now cycling around to Jeff Jarvis’ assertion that Michael Moore cost Kerry the election.

I heard more than 100 people during this election cycle say they intended, through their vote, to repudiate “the Michael Moore wing of the Democratic Party.” Here’s the deal: There is no such thing, at least of any significance.

Michael Moore did not even belong to the Democratic Party in 2000; his candidate was Ralph Nader, and Ralph Nader got a meager 2.7% of the vote. For the sake of argument, if you assume (wrongly) that every single one of those Nader voters, plus the 1.3% or so that defected from him in the last minute, represent “the Michael Moore wing of the Democratic Party,” you are talking about 4% of the electorate, and maybe 8% of the Democratic Party. The real figure is likely much lower.

What about this year? In the primary season, Moore endorsed Wesley Clark, who campaigned like a boob, won one primary, and bowed out. Howard Dean, who is assumed (wrongly) to have Moore-like values (despite being a fiscal hawk who supported the four previous U.S.-led wars), didn’t win a single primary. The Democratic candidate whose politics most closely mirrored Moore’s was Dennis Kucinich, who was beaten like a rented elf. The nomination went to the former prosecutor & War Hero, and he picked as VP the second-most hawkish candidate from the primaries. And the Democratic Party Platform contained few if any of the provisions that the Moore/Nader/Kucinich 8% wing have been advocating for lo these many years.

Look, I used to work for these people, I have covered these people, I have certainly criticized these people, and from this extended exposure I can look you in the eye and say these people do not have a significant voice within the modern Democratic Party.

Yeah, you say, but what about Michael Moore wuz at the Democratic Convention in the skybox?? He was there at the invitation of discredited former president Jimmy Carter, the man who tasted the back of Bill Clinton’s hand quite often in the mid-1990s. At the Republican Convention, one could find strolling the halls and signing autographs for worshipful Republican delegates the likes of Jerry Falwell. Who, you may recall, reacted to the Sept. 11 massacre by telling a nodding Pat Robertson that:

[snip famous "the ACLU caused 9/11" quote]

Did Bush “miss a Souljah moment” by refusing to allow Falwell his seat at the RNC (which the Souljah-jonesers in the media demanded of Kerry and Moore)? Somehow, this didn’t come up.

Anyway, the main point is not to compare competing fringes, but mostly to point out that the Republicans’ extremist fringe includes powerful senior elected politicians from their own party. Moore, for all his sitting-next-to-people action at the DNC, was not invited on the podium. Rick Santorum, the senator from Pennsylvania who has described outlawing gay marriage as “the ultimate Homeland security,” gave a rousing speech to the Republicans. Tom Coburn, the new Republican Senator from Oklahoma, has advocated the death penalty for abortion doctors, and held up Fidel Castro’s forced AIDS camps as a model worth emulating. Jim DeMint, your new Senator from South Carolina, thinks that single pregnant women shouldn’t teach in public schools. If Bush wanted to deliver a “Sister Souljah moment,” embracing cross-over moderation at the expense of his own party’s fringe, he wouldn’t need to take a swipe at a non-politician like Ann Coulter — he could start in the august hall of the Unites States Senate.

So finally answering Jarvis’ question: Did Michael Moore cost Kerry the election? Answer: Maybe! (I think it’s impossible to ascribe one reason to a complicated election.) But if it’s true, it’s only because the people who voted that way didn’t know or didn’t care that Moore’s influence over the Democratic Party pales in comparison to Republican extremists’ over the Republicans. [my emphasis]

Look–it is plausible to infer, absent other evidence, that the president of NARAL represents the views of a significant number of pro-choicers (although not all, because there will always be internal disagreements among people with similar views.) This inference can be carried to major figures in political parties, although when you’re dealing with sprawling brokerage parties one needs to be more careful. But it’s ridiculous to say that Michael Moore “speaks for the Democratic Party,” starting with the fact he’s not even a partisan Democrat. As Julia noted in comments and Welch also points out, he was a crucial part of Nader’s ability to kneecap Gore and deliver the election to Bush. And only people with absolutely no understanding of how politics works would compare sitting in an ex-President’s box at a political convention to a serious power broker, let alone with a member of Congress or other important official. Holding up out-of-context Michael Moore quotes to tar Democrats is useless, except in providing strong evidence that the person making the argument is a hack.

…another oldie-but-goodie from Shakes Sis.

A Quarter Million Served

Thank you.

Blarg

One by one, our old friends are gone.

And I have just one thing to say about this:

Blarg.

Of Tacitus and Contradictions

I’ll try to keep my reply to Tacitus’ response to my post about the contradictions in the policies of the American pro-life movement brief, partly because once you boil off the evidence that he’s read my Blogger profile–irrelevant whether it is merely an ad hominem attack or an attempt at reprehensible Horwitzian intimidation–there’s not a lot of content left. His primary objection seems to be that I characterized his argument as identifying an internal contradiction within the position of pro-choicers, when in fact he merely meant to identify a contradiction between his arguments and pro-choice arguments. I certainly don’t think this is clear–readers can judge for themselves–and I thought the former construction was more generous, since if there isn’t an internal contradiction then the “consistent life ethic” concept is an empty shell that can encompass any combination of positions on the underlying issues. But since it’s irrelevant to any of my substantive points, I’ll happily concede that Tacitus merely meant to argue that the “ethic of life” compels the acceptance of pro-life premises if you accept pro-life premises, and I apologize to readers if I obscured this monumental insight. He seems similarly agitated that I did not attach any weight to his use of the word “probable” to qualify his claim about the “humanity of the innocent child.” But there’s no reason to, since the argument doesn’t have any discernible consequences (and, of course, is not inconsistent with my argument that many pro-lifers lack the courage of their supposed convictions.) First of all, I don’t see what meaning the use of the language of probability can have with respect to an argument that is, at bottom, moral and ethical as opposed to empirical or predictive. Even leaving that aside, Trevino argues that being certain about this “humanity” and believing it is probable should lead to…the same outcome. And, similarly, the qualification does not make the argument that the 13-week-old fetus is the equivalent of a baby an iota more plausible to me, since I am certain that it is not. And even if I were to accept the “probable” equivalence of fetus and baby, I would still believe that the (certain) human rights of the woman would trump the (possible) rights of the fetus, and for reasons I will reiterate imminently I would not support the criminalization of abortion absent a strong social consensus that the fetus was the same as a child. So, I will continue to ignore this qualification, because it contributes nothing of value or interest to the discussion; like the invocation of a “consistent ethic of life” itself, it leaves all a priori positions as it found them.

What is most important to emphasize is that with respect to my central arguments–that the arguments of most mainstream American pro-lifers are riven by substantial internal contradictions, that the opposition to choice is bundled up with extremely reactionary conceptions of gender roles and human sexuality, and that these contradictions manifest themselves in attempts to criminalize abortions and lead to other bad policy outcomes–Trevino is either silent or concedes the point. His only response to these arguments is to argue that “[t]he world is messy, and political movements are cobbled-together monsters that make little sense in the details — even as they are crystal clear on the One Big Thing.” This response is unsatisfactory for a couple of reasons. First of all, the argument about the need to finesse disagreement in broad coalitions can explain compromises within major political parties, but it cannot explain contradictions among pro-lifers themselves. More importantly, these contradictions are important precisely because they fatally undermine the claim that pro-lifers are “crystal clear on the One Big Thing.” As moral questions go, the moral status of killing children is a pretty easy one, and in fact we already have laws in place that express universal condemnation of the practice. The unwillingness of most pro-lifers to accept the logical consequences of the claim that abortion is like killing a baby means that either 1)they do not really believe the One Big Thing they purport to believe, or 2)they are unwilling to apply this logic with an even minimal level of consistency, which combined with their general preference for patriarchal sexual regulation when it conflicts with the protection of fetal life greatly undermines the defensiblity of laws that criminalize abortions. (Using state coercion to force women to carry pregnancies to term in order protect the life of a child is potentially defensible; using it to compel women to make sexual choices that reactionaries consider appropriate, rather less so. And perhaps the next installment in the “consistent life ethic” series can explain why so many pro-lifers would prefer that women die of cancer as opposed to giving them immunizations that could mean that they will have sex more often.) In addition, these contradictions are not merely academic. I maintain the position–however unfashionable in the age of Bush–that liberal democracy requires a prohibition on self-exemption from general laws, and just as I don’t believe that we should apply drug laws to poor people if we’re unwilling to apply them to Rush Limbaugh, nor should we leave poor women at the mercy of back alley butchers and coathangers when we all know that affluent women will be able to quietly obtain safe abortions regardless of the legal regime. The fact that there are some pro-lifers who are genuinely principled and would be willing to treat women as responsible moral agents and apply the law consistently–something I have never denied, and people to whom my previous post was obviously not directed–is beside the point. As both the unwillingness of a majority of pro-lifers to apply the logic of their underlying position consistently and the historical unwillingness of states to enforce abortion bans rigorously make quite clear, such principled pro-lifers are a minority within the pro-life minority, and in the current cultural and political context any bans on abortion would be subject to grossly inequitable enforcement. (As Mark Graber says, if pro-lifers have a strategy for enforcing abortion laws less arbitrarily than they were when social norms against abortion were far stronger, it’s the best-kept secret in American politics.)

So we are back to where we started. Needless to say, I am unmoved by his assertion-without-argument that my judgment that abortion is not in any way comparable to killing a child is a “profoundly foolish position.” And until Tacitus and his fellow travelers are able to convince the people who ostensibly believe it that fetuses within women’s bodies are no different than children, I see no reason to engage with the claim.

But Try Walking For Two Hours In Someone Else’s Cliches

Roger Ebert just claimed that In Her Shoes is a “great” film. Maybe it is. But given that it’s a movie about a pretty-but-of-course-dumb-and-naive woman and her smart-and-therefore-ugly sister (played, of course, by a conventionally attractive actor who has put on 10 pounds and wears glasses) discovering Important Life Lessons and/or True Love after a Serious Conflict, I’ll certainly never find out. (Stephanie Zacharek is rather more persuasive.)

None of which is to deny that Curtis Hanson is one of the most skilled mainstream Hollywood directors currently working; as far as middlebrow genre-hopping goes, he sure beats Ron Howard, and he makes the kind of movies that Hollywood studios should be able to churn our efficiently, but don’t. I do think, though, that sometimes his virtues can be overstated. (I exclude Wonder Boys, which I haven’t seen yet but is by most trustworthy accounts outstanding, from the charge.) In particular, LA Confidential–a perfectly entertaining film–got enormous praise (including the utterly inexplicable Oscar to Kim Basinger) and seems to crop up on a lot of best-of-the-decade lists. Eh. It’s a very well-made genre film, but nothing more than that. And anybody making Chinatown comparisons needs to identify the point at which the earlier film turned into a Chuck Norris movie because Towne and Polanski had no idea how to wrap up the story. (And this is pretty common for the movie’s writer, Brian Hegeland, who has stuff like The Postman and Payback and A Knight’s Tale to his discredit.)

Ducks!

5-1! Big victory at Arizona State.

Their pathetic second half performance against USC notwithstanding, the Ducks are having a very solid year. With the exception of a home game against California, they don’t face a ranked team the rest of the way. They have a decent chance at running the table from here on out.

My hatred of the Washington Huskies aside, I’ve been genuinely surprised by the level of ignorance in Lexington about college football from other parts of the country. I understand that the SEC dominates all attention, and that basketball is really the UK thing anyway, but you would expect more people to at least be aware that Washington was, very recently, a dominant football power.

Mmmmmmmmm, Burger

Eric Muller notes what may be the best evidence yet of Miers’ utter lack of qualifications:

Today’s Washington Post:

****
In an initial chat with Miers, according to several people with knowledge of the exchange, Leahy asked her to name her favorite Supreme Court justices. Miers responded with “Warren” — which led Leahy to ask her whether she meant former Chief Justice Earl Warren, a liberal icon, or former Chief Justice Warren Burger, a conservative who voted for Roe v. Wade . Miers said she meant Warren Burger, the sources said.”
****

Did she also say she’s a big fan of Horace, Willis, and Mahlon?

What an absurd answer. On every level. It is absurd to think that she typically refers to Supreme Court justices by their first names. It is absurd to think that Earl Warren is one of her favorite justices. And it is absurd to think that any astute student of the Court would view the disorganized, vain, petulant, and mediocre Warren Burger as a favorite.

It is, indeed, impossible to know which answer would be more embarassing; either she doesn’t really know anything about Earl Warren, or she admires one of the most notorious hacks in the recent history of the Court. Or maybe she thought that Warren Zevon served briefly as an associate justice while waiting for a record deal. In fairness, maybe it’s just that what little knowledge she’s obtained about the Supreme Court comes from King of the Hill, and she admires Earl Warren for breaking the glass ceiling:

HANK: I thought you were busy teaching girls to blow up basketballs. When did this turn into a desire to ruin wrestling?
PEGGY: Oh, give me a break. I don’t see how having a girl on the team would ruin it. Did a woman judge ruin the Supreme Court?
HANK: Yes, and that woman’s name was Earl Warren.

From a stragetic perspective, I continue to believe that Miers is not a terrible option for progressives, for a reason Matt sums up pointedly: “…far and away the most important thing about a Supreme Court justice is the way he or she votes.” But certainly, this profoundly embarassing nomination tells you pretty much all you need to know about George W. Bush’s management abilites.

…iocaste notes this Althouse post, which says that according to the National Review Leahy cut her off; she was actually trying to praise Burger’s adminsitrative abilities. Leaving aside how trusworthy you consider NRO’s anonymous sources, this really doesn’t help; Burger’s administration was generally considered even worse than his jurisprudence…

Big Unit, Big City, Big Flop

Well, I’m pretty happy to have been wrong when I said that Johnson would shut down the Angels. The headlines in tomorrow’s papers will be fun…