IS MICHAEL MOORE DEFLATING? “Moore’s moral universe is in large part an illusion. . . . This self-serving distortion is a metaphor for the man. It follows a well-worn pattern of convenient distortion in his work.” This from the predictably anti-Bush Sydney Morning Herald. I imagine that the Kerry campaign won’t be happy being associated with this poster.

UPDATE: Steven Den Beste thinks that Moore may be the American Left’s Moqtada Al-Sadr. [Isn’t it inflammatory to compare Moore to a murderous anti-American cleric? –Ed. Not after Moore’s “Minutemen” comparison!]

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Paul Noonan thinks that the flag-burning poster linked to above is being misunderstood:

After looking at the flag burning cover that you link to, I find myself in the position of having to defend Moore. I recall that the cover of Fahrenheit 451 in my high school library featured a picture of books burning. Fahrenheit 451 does not advocate the burning of books. Therefore, I believe that Moore’s point is that the administration is responsible for the destruction of what the flag stands for, and is accusing them of “burning the flag.” He is in effect advocating NOT burning the flag.

Actually, I think he’s probably trying to have it both ways, showing a burning flag while maintaining plausible deniability. That would be in character. When a provocateur uses a provocative image, the likely reason is to provoke. But the point is worth noting.

MORE: Reader Shane Nichols isn’t buying the Moore defense above:

Okay, that was a valiant, but vain, attempt to defend another of Michael Moore’s indefensible acts. Bradbury’s book was a cautionary tale of the future in which the government’s control of information had gone unbridled and reached the point of book burning. U.S. flag burning, on the other hand, is an act that is most commonly engaged in by the target audience of Michael Moore’s movie. This poster, conspicuously depicting an American flag burning, was apparently directed to moviegoers in the Benelux countries. Does your reader really suggest that this poster is meant to strike fear in the heart of the average citizen of a Benelux country that U.S. flags will be burned — as the book burning in F451 was intended to do with respect to books? That is ridiculous. The purpose of the burning flag on the poster is to do what everyone who looks at it thinks it is supposed to do: inspire or fan hatred for the U.S. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck . . .

I think that Moore’s main goal was to get people talking about him, and he’s succeeded. That’s good for Moore. I’m not so sure it’s good for the Democrats. As reader Tom Fojtik emails:

I just read Steve Den Beste’s piece on al Sadr and Moore and am wondering if Moore is serving as the domestic equivalent of the “flypaper” theory some have used to describe our strategy in Iraq. All the folks that worship Moore are now out in public for everyone to see. Does Moore work for Karl Rove?

Moore an agent provocateur for Rove? I’m sure I could produce evidence that would compelling by Fahrenheit 9/11 standards!

STILL MORE: Thoughts on Tom Daschle and Michael Moore, from Daschle v. Thune, which says that Daschle missed a Joseph Welch moment.

MORE STILL: Hugh Hewitt says the Democratic party needs “electoral shock therapy.” But it’s had that before, repeatedly, since 1972 and it didn’t seem to help.

TIME OUT? Roger Simon responds to Mickey Kaus’s “time out” theory on the war, and this response to the original Peggy Noonan column, by John Rosenberg, is worth reading too.

UPDATE: Related thoughts here.

PROTESTS IN IRAN: Pejman Yousefzadeh is rounding up the news.

INTERESTING FCC DEVELOPMENTS, via the Political Diary email:

Did Nextel just get back from the federal government in spades whatever it spent last year to plaster its name all over the Nascar racing series, the cynosure of legions of red-state voters?

FCC Chairman Michael Powell threw his weight yesterday behind a deal to let the company trade its current cellphone spectrum for new spectrum that would interfere less with police and fire traffic. Mr. Powell, son of Secretary of State Colin Powell and once an emerging GOP star, said the battle produced “some of the most ruthless lobbying I have ever encountered.” Verizon, a Washington force with former Republican Attorney General Bill Barr as its chief counsel, pulled out the stops against what it called a multibillion-dollar giveaway. Jim Nussle, GOP House Budget chairman, wanted the new spectrum put up for auction. (Verizon offered a starting bid of $5 billion, which is well over twice the amount Nextel likely will end up paying.)

Of course, what Nextel will end up paying is not easy to figure out. The company will bear a cost to relocate its own operations on the spectrum, plus will contribute to upgrading those of the emergency agencies. But there’s a reason to suspect the deal wasn’t a value maximizer for the taxpayer. The Bushies were eager to finalize a plan that would please police and fire chiefs in an election year. In fact, you have to hand it to Nextel, which managed to drape its “public safety” argument in post-9/11 patriotism.

And Mr. Powell? Rumors abound that he’ll be leaving the FCC. Two years ago, his next stop would have been a Senate race in Virginia. Now he’s likely to disappear into grateful anonymity at some investment bank or advisory firm. His stormy tenure embroiled him in one issue after another that seemed to be peculiarly inflaming to the left, right and center: Media ownership rules. Broadcast indecency. The “F word” as verb, adjective and noun. . . .

Mr. Powell burned his fingers on too many hot buttons, all ripe to be thrown back in his face in whatever primary or general election contest he entered, regardless of opponent. Even the Bushies will be glad to see him go. Too bad, because he had the right agenda for the country and was a tireless and good-natured proponent of the Internet cornucopia.

I don’t think he was quite that tireless.

THIS COLUMN BY MARK STEYN would seem to offer an answer to Mickey Kaus’s “time out” theory:

So we’re living through a period of extraordinarily rapid demographic and cultural change that broadly favors the Islamists’ stated objectives, a period of rapid technological advance that greatly facilitates the Islamists’ objectives, and a period of rapid nuclear dissemination that will add serious heft to the realization of their objectives. If the West – and I use the term in the widest sense to mean not just swaggering Texas cowboys but sensitive left-wing feminists in favor of gay marriage – is to survive, it will only be after a long struggle lasting many decades.

Now go back to watching Fahrenheit 9/11 and kid yourself that this will all go away if Bush, Cheney, and Rummy are thrown out this November.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Jacob T. Levy responds to critics:

It takes a different set of skills and virtues to break something than to build something. The war-on-terror argument for the war in Iraq was that the status quo in the Middle East needed to be broken. The Afghan state that was hopelessly entangled with al Qaeda had earlier needed to be broken. It might be that a Democratic President 2000-04 would not have done either. But reconstruction of both Iraq and Afghanistan is also crucial– crucial for, as Paul Wolfowitz and others always said, beginning any kind of political-cultural shift that weakens Islamism and moves the Muslim and Arab worlds toward civil society and democracy. And the Bush Administration has not shown any ability to manage those reconstructions successfully. This is not a call to hide from the war on terror for four years and hope it goes away. It’s a call to understand that overthrowing states is not the crucial skill oif the current phase of the war on terror; and that that’s the only skill the Bush Administration has convincingly shown that it has.

I don’t agree that the reconstruction of Iraq has been a failure — but even if you buy this argument, the missing part of Levy’s position, and Kaus’s, is an affirmative demonstration that a Kerry administration would do the job better.

Where’s the evidence for that?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Nolan Clinard emails:

I have a sneaking suspicion that if the Kerry prevails this fall that it will be because voters wanted him to tell them that there are no monsters under the bed, that everything will be OK. Sorry, but I just find it very difficult to believe it will be because they feel he will prosecute the WOT more effectively.

I certainly hope that, if Kerry is elected, he does a good job. But so far I’ve seen nothing to indicate that it’s likely.

MORE: Reader Jody Leavell writes:

I have to add something to the character of Mark Steyn’s column concerning the need for better “construction” efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. To borrow from someone dear to Democrats Mark should be asking Americans “what have they done to help the President succeed?”, and he should ask himself the question, too. I think too many people, journalists included, are hiding behind a superficial veil of morality when criticizing the President. After all, if Mark agrees that construction is the right thing to do why hasn’t he bent over backwards in his columns to help achieve that. Is the only legitimate reporting
negative and non-constructive criticism?

This applies to so much of the media coverage surrounding the President and his efforts to secure the country. So many see their job as de-constructing the Administration, especially in time of war, to provide that extra check on power that only the fourth branch of government can provide. But they forget that democracy is a team venture and that the President has been elected by that team to lead them to victory. Moving to a football analogy, they have elected to be on the team and he has been designated the quarterback. When will they stop blaming him for dropping the ball and when will they start blocking in
support?

I agree with the general point, although I think a review of Mark Steyn’s columns will indicate that he has, in fact, been quite constructive.

UPDATE: Jody Leavell sends this correction:

I have to make a correction in a letter I submitted to you July 9, 2004. My letter was a retort to a column clipping of Jacob T. Levy, not Mark Steyn, and was, frankly, a bit of a knee-jerk reaction. As you noted about my letter, the general point was pertinent, but I made a “cut and paste” error when composing the message. I can only give myself credit for being consistent in the error and using Mark’s first name after that initial blunder. You were right to point out that Mark Steyn has been a very constructive critic and supporter of the President and the nation. If you replace Jacob’s name for Mark’s then you can see the correct target of my irritation.

I kind of thought that was what was going on.

KERRY: Too busy for terror briefings, — but not too busy to listen to Whoopi Goldberg make dirty jokes about Bush.

Like I say, he’s not serious. I wish he were, but he’s not.

UPDATE: On the other hand, the pre-election Edwards sounds positively Bushlike:

But I do think that the more serious question going forward is, what are we going to do? I mean, we have three different countries that, while they all present serious problems for the United States — they’re dictatorships, they’re involved in the development and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction — you know, the most imminent, clear and present threat to our country is not the same from those three countries. I think Iraq is the most serious and imminent threat to our country.

And I think they — as a result, we have to, as we go forward and as we develop policies about how we’re going to deal with each of these countries and what action, if any, we’re going to take with respect to them, I think each of them have to be dealt with on their own merits.

And they do, in my judgment, present different threats. And I think Iraq and Saddam Hussein present the most serious and most imminent threat.

A lot of people were saying that then.

HUGH HEWITT: “The influence of blogging on politics is nowhere more obvious than in South Dakota.”

THE INCREASINGLY-BIZARRE BASE: Victor Davis Hanson writes that the Michael Moore vote won’t do it:

Only belatedly has John Kerry grasped that his shrill supporters are often not just trivial but stark-raving mad. If he doesn’t quickly jump into some Levis, shoot off a shotgun, and start hanging out in Ohio, he will lose this election and do so badly. . . .

Kerry is only now starting to grasp that a year from now Iraq more likely will not be Vietnam, but maybe the most radical development of our time — and that all the Left’s harping is becoming more and more irrelevant. Witness his talk of security and his newfound embrace of the post-9/11 effort as a war rather than a DA’s indictment. It is not a good idea to plan on winning in November by expecting us to lose now in Iraq.

There is a great divide unfolding between the engine of history and the dumbfounded spectators who are apparently furious at what is going on before their eyes.

Read the whole thing.

EDUWONK LISTS five highly important and under-reported education stories.

JEFF JARVIS SAYS THAT THE DNC IS BLOWING IT WITH BLOGGERS: “Big time.” John Tabin has more, though with a suggestion at the end that they’re trying to fix things.

I expect teething problems, so I’m not going to be too hard on them. There’s still time for them to get it right.

RAJAN RISHYAKARAN POSTS A LINK-FILLED SUDAN GENOCIDE ROUNDUP, noting more about the involvement of French and Chinese oil concessions. And in response to an earlier Darfur post mentioning this, reader Ryan Jordan emails:

Looking at the map linked to in the reader email of Sudanese concessions, I note that there are a few companies from countries we would expect to support that sort of thing (China, the Sudan of course, and Qatar) but there are also concessions to companies from Canada, Austria, and Sweden, besides TotalFinaElf from France. Perhaps a boycott or some massive negative publicity is called for?

Sounds good to me.

UPDATE: Reader Patrick Hall notes this map from the Chinese — “the graphic pretty much tells the whole story.”

Nothing wrong with drilling for oil, of course — but if the Chinese join the French in trying to block action against the genocide there, we’ll have a pretty good idea of why.

MICHAEL TOTTEN IS BLOGGING from an oasis in the Sahara desert.

JOHN EDWARDS ON TRADE: Robert Tagorda says that libertarian hawks are fooling themselves if they think he’s much better on this issue than Gephardt. “Nobody believes that Edwards adds to the Democratic Party’s national-security profile, right? He brings excitement, charisma, and message — the ‘Two Americas,’ of which a skeptical attitude toward free trade is a part.”

Meanwhile, Virginia Postrel, following up on her post yesterday, observes: “Vote for Kerry if you must, folks. But don’t pretend you’re doing it because Bush’s economic policies are insufficiently free market or fiscally responsible.”

Well, they are, actually — but Kerry’s very likely to be worse, not better.

BUSH VS. KERRY: Sean Hackbarth tries to resolve a burning question.

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JUDAS? Yep.

KERRY LIED! Apparently, his claims of “better hair” are not borne out by %20&STORY=/www/story/07-08-2004/0002207030&EDATE=,”>survey evidence.

May the best candidate win, but when it comes to the best presidential hair, George W. Bush has America’s vote, according to Wahl Clipper Corporation’s 2004 Grooming Survey and First Ever “Index” on men’s grooming habits.

Despite John Kerry’s recent claim that the Kerry-Edwards ticket has the best hair, Wahl’s survey found that the majority of Americans overwhelmingly voted for Bush’s hair over Kerry’s (Bush — 51 percent; Kerry — 30 percent; neither — 10 percent; don’t know — 9 percent.)

Hmm. Bush may beat Kerry, but I suspect that the composite hair score for Kerry/Edwards beats the composite for Bush/Cheney. (Edwards had better hope so!) I eagerly await more data.

I SENT AUSTIN BAY A DIGITAL CAMERA before he set out for Iraq, and he’s started sending me pictures. (Your donations at work!) Here’s one — I’m setting up a gallery over at Exposure Manager soon, but not tonight.

UPDATE: What camera? It was one of these — cheap, rugged, and good. I sent this fancier one with my secretary, but he’s still at Camp Pendleton. I’m hoping to get some video from him, bandwidth permitting.

DARFUR UPDATE: Here’s a page from Human Rights Watch, saying that France — last seen trying to block U.S.-initiated sanctions against the genocidal Sudanese government — holds perhaps the largest oil concession in Sudan: “the concession, by far the largest in the south at 120,000 square kilometers, is owned by the oil multinational TotalFinaElf, and encompasses Central Upper Nile and beyond.” Screw ’em — I say no blood for oil!

UPDATE: Reader John Cunningham emails with a map (click “more” to read it)

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LOOKING FOR SOME NEW BLOGS TO READ? Check out the new blog showcase, which, er, showcases new blogs.

MICKEY KAUS is chiding the Los Angeles Times, calling the Bremer/Alissa Rubin correction “defensive and un-mensch-like.”

And I’m going to twist the knife a bit more by quoting Iraqi blogger Omar on this:

It seems that some people in the major media still think they’re the only ones who have eyes and ears and cameras and that ordinary people cannot have access to the information except from the major media outlets. They underestimated the prevalence and the effect of the internet in connecting people to each other and making the readers in direct contact with real eyewitnesses at the scene of events. I hope this will serve to make them more careful in the future on what to report, or make sure that they report from a place in which there are no bloggers.

Heh. Of course, it’s worse than that — as it turns out that part of the speech was actually broadcast on CNN

The new Iraqi government which took office today will shepherd the country to elections by January 31, 2005. Ambassador Paul Bremer formally ended the U.S.-led occupation by turning over sovereignty to Iraqi leadership today, two days ahead of schedule. Bremer then left the country. But before he did, he had a farewell message for the people of Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

L. PAUL BREMER, FRM. IRAQI CIVIL ADMINISTRATOR: The future of Iraq belongs to you, the Iraqi people. We and your other friends will help, but we can only help. You must do the real work.

The Iraq your children and their children inherit will depend on your actions in the months and years ahead. You Iraqis must now take responsibility for your future of hope. You can create that future of hope by standing fast against those who kill your police and soldiers, who kill your women and children, who wreck Iraq’s pipelines and power lines, and then claim to be your champions.

You can create that future of hope by supporting your government and the elections they are pledged to bring you. You can create that future of hope in a thousand different ways by sharing through your words and deeds a personal commitment to a stable and peaceful Iraq.

You, Iraq’s Kurds and Arabs, Shi’a and Sunni, Turkomen and Christian, you are more like each other than you are different from one another. You have a shared vision of how a united Iraq can, again, be a beacon of hope to the region. You have a shared hatred of the violence inflicted on you by those who abhor your vision. And you have a shared love of this wonderful, rich land.

Let no one pit you against each other. For when Iraqis fight Iraqis, only Iraqis suffer.

I leave Iraq gladdened by what has been accomplished and confident that your future is full of hope. A piece of my heart will always remain here in the beautiful land between the two rivers with its fertile valleys, it’s majestic mountains and its wonderful people. ‘ (END VIDEO CLIP)

(Via Free Will Blog.) So they didn’t just fail to notice something that was on Iraqi TV — and snark about it in an uninformed but nasty “news analysis” piece that accused Bremer of leaving without making a speech, and said he was afraid to look Iraqis in the eye — they missed something that was on CNN. Why do we listen to these guys?

Increasingly, of course we don’t. And judging by the L.A. Times’ “defensive and un-mensch-like correction,” they’re afraid to look us in the eye. And they should be.

UPDATE: In a related matter, Powerline features an email from the Washington Post’s Baghdad bureau chief, giving his side of the story. “The bottom line here is that I did not know anything about the taped remarks when I wrote that Bremer did not deliver a farewell address. Knowing what I now do, thanks in part to media watchdog bloggers, The Post has corrected the record. It’s too bad, though, that the CPA did not do a better job in informing the Western and Arab press about the broadcast.”

VIRGINIA POSTREL writes on “growing anti-Bush sentiment among some libertarian hawks.” These people are kidding themselves, she says.

Sadly, I think she’s right. I’d actually love to think that I could trust Kerry on national security. But the only way I could do that, at this point, would be via self-delusion.

UPDATE: Reader Karl Bade has more thoughts here. Click “more” to read them.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Matt Welch isn’t persuaded. Bill Quick is, but he doesn’t like it.

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JAMES MOORE writes on why we should call Darfur a genocide before it’s done being one:

President Bush will take a truly historic step of world leadership if the US government labels Darfur a genocide. Human Rights enforcement will never be the same. A new Bush Doctrine, of prevention of crimes against humanity, will stand alongside the doctrine of prevention of terrorism.

I’m all for pre-emption.

EVERYONE KEEPS EMAILING THAT I SHOULD LINK TO JAMES LILEKS’ PIECE ON MICHAEL MOORE TODAY: And they’re right. I should just write a script that will make the first post of every day a link to Lileks.

But here’s a bit: “He wants the flag to stand for clean water. This from a man who waddles up to the deep well of American freedom, fumbles with his zipper, and” — you’ll have to follow the link to find out how the rest of it goes.

WIRED NEWS reports on blogging burnout. Howard Owens, an ex-blogger who sent the article, emails:

Though burnout isn’t exactly why I quit. It has more to do with the demands of a promotion, but talking with other bloggers who have quit for reasons having nothing to do with burnout or frustrations with certain segments of the audience, [they] feel a sense of relief after they get over the withdrawal. That’s certainly been my experience.

It’s a major effort. For me, it’s still a fun effort, but it’s nonetheless a lot of work.

UPDATE: Reader Benjamin Skott emails:

Before the war in Iraq, I would imagine you were usually considered a centrist. Now, whenever I see you mentioned in the media, it’s “Conservative blogger Glenn Reynolds.” I thought the media was supposed to be “nuanced” and not black and white like the good versus evil attitude they always accuse the right wing of having. Now, however, if you are for the war, no matter how liberal your other beliefs are, you are conservative. If you are against the war, you are normal. What gives?

I’ve pretty much given up fighting it, because yes, that seems to be the definition. Pro-gay-marriage, pro-choice, pro-drug-legalization, but pro-war? You’re a “conservative.”

But I guess that makes fair to call Pat Buchanan a “liberal.” Heck, he’s getting along pretty well with Ralph Nader these days. . . .

THE COACHINATOR: Could Mike Ditka be the Arnold Schwarzenegger of Illinois?