April 2004 Archives

The U.S. Senate is comprised of some of the most politically powerful people in America. Not only do Senators have the ability to make laws, they have the authority to ratify treaties, block nominees for Federal judgeships, and can even impeach the Chief Executive. These 100 men and women have an astonishing degree of influence, prestige, and political potency. So why can they not get elected President?

In the past sixty years, there have been fourteen Presidential elections:

Eight races included at least one Senator while only two

(Truman and Kennedy) have won.

No Senator has won an election in the past forty years (10 elections).

Former governors have won six of the past seven elections.

Former Congressmen have won the election four times, a retired Army General twice.

The last Republican Senator to win the Whitehouse was Warren G. Harding in 1920.*

Whether this data is representative of a particular bias against Senators or just an amusing piece of trivia is beyond my ability to discern. I think there is some significance, though, in the statistic that former governors are more likely than any other type of elected official (including vice-presidents) to advance to the Oval Office. Moving from executive branch to executive branch has to be easier than attempting to make the direct transition from the legislature or judiciary (oddly enough, no judge -- at least in this century -- has been a candidate for the Presidency).

If I knew nothing else about the 2004 election other than the fact that one candidate was a former governor and one a Senator, I would put my money on the governor winning the race. Judging from past election results, Kerry has his work cut out for him. He can, at least, take comfort in knowing that the last three Senator to become President were all Democrats. Perhaps, if that information had been pointed out to Bob Dole he would have been spared years of frustrating losses.

*Correction: I had mistakenly claimed that Calvin Coolidge had been the last Republican Senator elected president. Coolidge, however, was only a state senator and had previously been a governor. Thanks to Marty Keller for the correction.

A post by Canadian blogger Bene caught my attention last night:

Why do comment threads deteriorate or degenerate so much on a pundit blog? What is it I'm missing here?

Example: The Evangelical Outpost does a reasoned post on Pat Tillman, an Army Ranger who was killed while serving overseas. And the comments section runs amok.

Pardon my language, but why does punditry turn into a pissing contest?

What is in this post or US political posts in general that causes men to verbally debase themselves and others? The foolishness and rage is a form of obscenity to me.

When I first started this site I was amazed that some blogs didn’t allow comments. At the time I couldn’t fathom why they'd choose not to receive feedback from their visitors. I believed then (as I still do today) that providing an area for comments is an invaluable part of my blog. I welcome the corrections, the encouragement, and the criticisms and believe that the open dialogue has had a immeasurable positive effect on both my writing and thinking processes. This blog would be less interesting without the contributions of my readers, critics, and fellow bloggers.

In the seven months since I started this blog I’ve written 558 posts and received 4,055 comments. With the exception of spam, I’ve never intentionally deleted any comment. I’ve extended a great deal of latitude in allowing people to speak their minds since I thought that completely free expression was necessary in order to maintain the integrity of this venture. Now I’m not so sure that was the best approach.

Take, for example, the post on Pat Tillman that Bene refers to. Although it currently has 41 comments, I was only able to find 3 that were directly relevant to the subject I wrote about. Increasingly, every post -- no matter what the subject -- has degenerated into a spat over the Bush’s administration’s policies or the political differences amongst liberals, libertarians, and conservatives. At best the comments tend to veer off-topic; at worst they degenerate into unacceptable name-calling.

It has become so bad that even I don’t take the time to read most of the comments. I even actively avoid responding so I don’t appear to be endorsing the nonsense that goes on. But this is my blog and, like it or not, by keeping silent I am condoning the activity.

Until I take the time to draw up a formal comments policy I will use my discretion to delete any comments I find objectionable and invite those who make such remarks to leave. Anyone who doesn’t like this approach is free to start their own blog and say whatever they like. Currently, joecarterisamoron.blogspot.com is still available so you’re more than welcome to post your thoughts there.

As Bene asked, 'If you are a god-blog pundit, tell me why it's okay that men who claim the name of Jesus Christ can rip each other and others apart on your blogs."

The answer is that it’s not okay. Whether the people who leave comments are believers or not, they should conduct themselves in a civilized manner. I take the blame for allowing the problem to flourish and hope that others will be understanding of the measures that it will take for me to get it under control.

There is something oddly disconcerting about the way modern life has begun to resemble Arnold Schwarzenegger movies. Take, for example, the 2000 sci-fi thriller 'The Sixth Day" which featured a pet cloning company called RePet in which customer’s could graft their animal companion's DNA onto a pre-grown biological blank and within a matter of hours, have an exact replica of Spot or Fluffy. RePet promised pet owners: 'Should accident, illness or age end your pet's natural life, our proven genetic technology can have him or her back the same day, in perfect health, with zero defects, GUARANTEED."

While same-day service is not yet available, a California company has begun taking orders for clones of pet cats. According to the BBC, five customers have already plunked down $50,000 a piece to have Genetic Savings & Clone perform the cloning procedure. CEO Lou Hawthorne assembled a team comprised of scientists who were involved with Texas A & M University in creating the world's first cat clone, Cc, short for "Carbon Copy." Hawthorne claims that Cc is now a 'healthy and adorable two-year-old."

Customers may be disappointed with the results, though, since what they'll be getting for their money is not the pet they lost but a genetic replica. As Hawthorne notes,

Europe is rediscovering what America has always known -- Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gaddafi is a nut case. After European Commission president Romano Prodi went out of his way to meet the Colonel at the airport, Gaddafi had to go and embarrass everyone by, well, being himself. According to the London Daily Telegraph,

The Libyan leader, Col Muammar Gaddafi, dented his return from pariah status on his first visit to Europe yesterday in 15 years by warning the European Union that he hoped Libya would never have to go back to supporting terrorism.

In a 45-minute harangue in Brussels, flanked by a group of photogenic women bodyguards, he will have caused anxiety to those who have welcomed him back to the fold.

"I hope that we shall not be prompted or obliged by any evil to go back or to look backwards," he said after defending his past support for militant third world freedom fighters.

"We do hope that we shall not be obliged or forced one day to go back to those days when we bombed our cars or put explosive belts around our beds and around our women so that we will not be searched and not be harassed in our bedrooms and in our homes, as it is taking place now in Iraq and in Palestine."

Now I’ll admit that I’m not to crazy about the idea of someone patting me down or going through my pockets. And I particularly hate having to take my shoes off at the airport. But I don’t think I’ve ever been irritated enough that I’ve thought, 'If they search me one more time I swear I’m gonna blow my car up." Nor have I ever said to my wife, 'That’s it honey, if the cops bust in our bedroom one more time while we’re watching 7th Heaven I’ll strap an explosives belt to the Serta." Maybe the Libyan’s need to cut back on their coffee consumption or take some yoga classes or something. They seem to be wound a bit too tight.

One of the most basic tenets of military strategy is never give up the high ground. For the past few months, John Kerry has followed that strategy and maintained the moral high ground by refusing to get sucked into the ridiculous controversy over President Bush’s service in the National Guard. But, for some inexplicable reason, he has changed his approach:

Then Kerry turned the issue against the president, saying for the first time that Bush was far more vulnerable on matters of Vietnam-era choices because of questions about whether he completed his service in the Texas Air National Guard. ''He owes America an explanation about whether or not he showed up for duty in the National Guard. Prove it," Kerry told NBC.

Big mistake. By continuing to make the Vietnam-era issue relevant, Kerry has made himself fair game for further scrutiny. It won’t be long before someone in the media (Hugh Hewitt, perhaps?) starts looking closer and asking questions about his time in the Naval Reserve.

Many people seem to be under the impression that Kerry’s military obligation ended when he was released from active duty. But on his DD-214 it shows that he was released from active duty and transferred to the Ready Reserve on 3 Jan 1970 with his terminal date from the reserves as 17 Feb 1972 (he was later transferred to the Standby Reserve - Inactive on 1 July 1972). According to the Officer Candidate Agreement that he signed, Kerry was obligated to serve in the Ready Reserve for five years before being transferred to the Standby Reserve. His service record does reflect that once he left active duty that he was assigned to the Naval Reserve in an inactive status. As his paperwork states, release from active duty did not terminate his status as a member of the U.S. Naval Reserve and he was subject to involuntary recall to active duty. He was also required to report any changes in health or address to the nearest NR command.

It should also be noted that, as the SecNav Instruction on Administrative Separation of Officers (para 6) makes clear, release from active duty does not affect an individual’s status as a commissioned officer.

So what does this mean? While it is unclear whether Kerry was obligated to continue in a drill status (from what I can tell I would say he wasn’t) it is clear that he was still considered a commissioned officer during the period of his anti-war activities (1969-1972). On April 23, 1971, the John Kerry who threw his medals away was not a civilian but an officer in the Naval Reserve.

If Kerry really wants to press the matter he might be able to show that Bush missed a few drill weekends with the National Guard. By dredging up this issue, though, he opens himself up to the criticism that, while still under obligated service as a commissioned officer in the Navy, he participated in conduct that brought discredit upon the Naval service. Throwing away your medals (and then lying about it) is shameful conduct for a former veteran. But such actions by an officer is utterly disgraceful.

(Hat tip: Kausfiles and JustOneMinute)

Last week, Slate columnist Will Saletan offered some advice to abortion rights activists:

It's a crucial moment for the abortion rights movement. Don't blow it.

Marches attract passionate advocates and concentrate them in one place. They foster the illusion that you and your sisters who have filled the National Mall represent a cross-section of America. You don't. Most Americans hate abortion and don't consider themselves feminists. You need the votes of these people. Praise abortion, shout about patriarchy, and you'll alienate them for another decade.

Saletan is no doubt shaking his head in sorrow after the recent march through the capital that ended with a rally at the National Mall. Though the numbers were impressive (estimates range from 500,000 and 800,000 people) it will undoubtedly end up being judged an unmitigated disaster. The protesters not only made light of abortion and decryed patriarchy but included both prostitutes and anarchists for 'choice."

Saletan should have advised them to call the whole thing off. In our time, protest marches, like war, are best avoided whenever possible.

Certain events have a way of irrevocably transforming the political landscape. The phrase 'post-9/11", for example, has become a form of shorthand which invokes all the shifts in policy, thinking, and attitude since that infamous date. The history of political protest has its own special date, not as ominous or well-known, but yet one that reflects a line of demarcation from the past: December 2, 1999 -- The Battle for Seattle.

The tragic death of Pat Tillman has invoked some stirring tributes from columnists, bloggers, and politicians. The outpouring of grief and admiration for the young man has been extraordinary. All weekend I’ve thought about this young soldier’s death, and while I don’t have anything particularly profound to say about him, I think his example says some profound things about our country, especially our priorities as a nation.

For instance, almost every mention of Tillman refers first to his role as a football player for the Arizona Cardinals and then, almost in passing, that he was a member of the elite Army Rangers. I have a long-standing love of sports and a special affinity for professional football. But football is a game. A game. While it’s certainly an honorable occupation, it pales in comparison to the achievement of serving in the Army, much less to being a Ranger.

Why is pride of place given to his achievements on the gridiron rather than on the battlefield? And what does it say about a country that esteems its entertainers more than its warriors? Devote your life to the protection of your fellow citizens and you’ll get respectful nods and a livable wage. Devote your life to the protection of a quarterback and you’ll be worshipped as a hero and paid a king’s ransom. The absurdity of it all would be laughable if it weren’t so depressing.

And then there’s the money. Sadly, in America, it always comes around to money. Let’s be honest. Unless you lived in Arizona or were a dedicated fan of the NFL, you probably had never heard of Pat Tillman before his untimely death. The chances are just as great that he would have remained an obscure figure, like the other 39 who have died in combat in Afghanistan, had it not been for a remarkable number -- 3.6 million.

The recent suggestion by Sen. Chuck Hagel that compulsory military service is needed has once again brought the issue of the draft to the fore. I’ve expressed before the pragmatic reasons why I think it’s an abhorrent idea, but I’ve been intrigued with some of the 'moral" arguments being presented by both liberals and libertarians on the issue. On post in particular that caught my attention was one presented by Ezra Klein (via Matt Yglesias):

Now, I don't want a draft. Being a healthy 19-year old, the prospect is pretty scary to me. But I must express puzzlement over Oliver Willis's assertion that one would be immoral. As long as there's a serious CO program contained within, think a draft would be significantly more moral than our current way of staffing our military.

Our Constitution requires Congress to 'raise and support Armies" in order to 'provide for the common defense." What it doesn’t specify, however, is how the military should be 'raised." There are, in fact, only three options available: all-volunteer, forced conscription, or some combination of the two. Currently, our military is an all-volunteer force which, according to Mr. Klein, is significantly less moral than instituting some level of conscription.

What is peculiar is that Klein believes that it would be more 'moral" for the government to force him to do something he's unwilling to do voluntarily. While conservatives are often the one’s to take a pessimistic view of the inherent goodness of humans, liberals are the often the first to use the power of the government to force them to do what they would not do on their own (i.e., paying a higher rate on state income taxes). Instead of addressing this curious phenomenon, though, I want to look at the underlying assumption behind Klein’s view, which I believe is shared by many people whether they are conservative, liberal, or libertarian.

Throughout the first half of the 20th century, Germany proved to be one of the most militaristic countries in the world and the instigator of two global conflicts. The rampant militarism was only stemmed after the country was defeated and divided into four occupation zones. Naturally, when the prospect of reunification became a reality in 1990, many people grew concerned that it would lead once again to a powerful and dominant German military.

Those people no longer need to worry:

German soldiers who are in relationships with each other will be able to sleep together in barracks and on foreign missions.

Peter Struck, the defence minister, said the new guidelines applied to homosexual as well as heterosexual couples. They were necessary to reflect "social normality". Until now, sex between married or cohabiting servicemen has been forbidden in barracks and on operations at home and abroad.

The change was announced after protests from several Social Democrat MPs who said that the ban on cohabitation in barracks was putting women off becoming soldiers. There was also growing criticism in military circles that the ban on sexual relations, which was imposed to safeguard order and discipline, was "hostile to life". Senior officers argued that married couples living in barracks should not face disciplinary proceedings if they had relations while they were off-duty.

The defence ministry dismissed a suggestion that the new rules would lead to a distraction from or a dereliction of duty.A spokesman said: "It is more likely that people would become distracted if this were not permitted and couples were not allowed to say goodnight properly. Sexuality is a part of being a human being regardless of whether you wear a uniform."

Let me begin by making a prediction: the Germans will reverse this decision within five years. That should allow enough time for the incidents of sexual harassment, sexual assault, sexual blackmail, and rape to reach a tipping point and scandalize the entire EU. Last year, women soldiers in their military made 83 claims of sexual abuse; I expect those numbers will easily triple within two years.

A recent article in The Arizona Republic notes a marketing trend involving a hip, popular icon: Jesus.

Not only is Christ popping up in movies (The Passion), books (The Left Behind Series, The Da Vinci Code), and magazines (a regular on the cover of newsweeklies such as Time) but he’s becoming the hot property on t-shirts. Hipster shops like Urban Outfitters, for example, sell shirts with “Jesus is My Homeboy” and “"Jesus surfs without a board." “If Jesus is so reverent that we can't laugh about him, then Jesus isn't in our everyday lives," says Daniel Richards, a priest at St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church in Tucson, AZ.

David Mills from Touchstone blog, however, takes exception to Richards’ claim:

One can just imagine the Apostles, whose successors an Episcopal minister claims to be, wearing such t-shirts around Jerusalem in the weeks after the Resurrection. One can imagine Perpetua and Felicity ordering one to wear in the arena. One can see crowds of Sudanese Christians standing before army firing squads in such t-shirts. One can . . . oh never mind.

One cannot imagine the young Mr. Richards wearing a similar t-shirt with a comic message about Martin Luther King or any feminist whatsoever, no matter how obscure.

Mills could have added other religious icons to the list of verboten imagery. Abercrombie and Fitch decided to stop selling shirts that showed a smiling Buddha figure with the caption "Abercrombie & Fitch Buddha Bash: Get your Buddha on the Floor" after controversy erupted in the Asian-American community. As David Vuong, a former Boston College student, protested:

Last December John Kerry made it clear where he stood on post-war Iraq:

"We need reasonable plan and a specific timetable for self-government. That means completing the tasks of security and democracy in the country -- not cutting and running in order to claim a false success."

As I pointed out last week, Kerry has backed off of the claim that establishing democracy should be our primary goal:

"I have always said from day one that the goal here … is a stable Iraq, not whether or not that's a full democracy. I can't tell you what it's going to be, but a stable Iraq. And that stability can take several different forms."

Kerry attempts to makes the audacious claim that his position has not shifted, but the Washington Post isn’t buying it:

Where once he named democracy as a task to be completed, and the alternative to "cutting and running" or a "false success," Mr. Kerry now says democracy is optional. Where once he warned against setting the conditions for an early but irresponsible withdrawal of U.S. forces, now he does so himself by defining the exit standard as "stability," a term that could describe Saudi Arabia or Iran -- or the Iraq of Saddam Hussein.

The editorial goes on to critique Kerry’s “stability” proposal:

Surrounded by mealy-mouthed bureaucrats who wrap their answers in politically correct diplomese-speak, Deputy Secretary Richard L. Armitage has always seemed out of place at the State Department. The burly veteran has done his time in the trenches – the Naval Academy, Vietnam, the Pentagon – and has never been afraid to speak his mind (defending Powell to a Washington Post reporter, he asked, “"Frank Gaffney, Gary Bauer, these pissants who have never served in uniform—who would you rather have represent the nation, them or Colin Powell?"). He may work for Powell but he talks like Rumsfeld.

The Deputy Secretary, who Jack Shafer refers to as “a Powell loyalist with a mouth (and body) to rival that of "Macho Man" Randy Savage”, recently let loose in a question and answer session with a group of pan-Arab print reporters:

QUESTION: -- about human rights in Iraq. There have been civilian casualties, women and children, in Fallujah. How can you promote democracy in the Middle East when you're sending out a message that it's okay to shoot at children and –

DEPUTY SECRETARY ARMITAGE: Oh, stop. Stop. Shame on you. I hope you were screaming about human rights during the time of Saddam Hussein. I didn't hear many in the region.

We are the most humane military in the world. We punish our people when they exceed bounds, and we do it transparently. We regret every single civilian life which is lost, and we do our utmost, even putting our soldiers at risk, to prevent those.

It is true that there are civilian casualties and it is true that these scenes are shown over and over, particularly on our Arab friends' television networks. Now we spend enormous amounts of time and put our soldiers and Marines at risk in order to try to prevent it.

War is dangerous and it is difficult times, but when you ask that question, I would hope that you'd reflect on your own writing over the past, say, 30 years and see what you've said about human rights in Iraq.

An excellent answer and one that was long overdue. We could use more people in government like him who aren’t afraid to speak the truth. Though it would be a step down for him, he should be appointed as the White House press secretary. Seeing Armitage taking on the Washington Press corps would be like watching WrestleMania on C-Span.

(Hat tip: Ben Domenech)

M. Sean Fosmire, who helms the interesting new blawg Logos, found an interesting amicus curiae brief on a West Virginia Supreme Court case dealing with the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The brief was filed by H. John Rogers on behalf of…

The Squirrel Party, U.S.A. (hereinafter referred to as "SPUSA") is a venerable social and political organization, which traces its origins to U.S. Senator Rush Dew Holt (D. W.Va.), the youngest person ever elected to the U.S. Senate. . . SPUSA is registered with the West Virginia Secretary of State as a political organization. Its by-laws limit its activities to matters dealing with 'principles, not personalities."

While its unclear how many other member the Squirrel Party has (other than the quirky former Harvard Law School graduate), they do have an interesting reason for appealing on behalf of the plantiffs. The brief explains that since the New York newspapers reported the Hatfield-McCoy dispute, West Virginians have been seen as “barefoot hillbillies” and the “regular butt on (sic) incest jokes.”

It has been said by some that the official motto of our State should be 'Thank G-d for Mississippi", the subtext being that if it were not for the Magnolia State we would be 50th in all national rankings, or nearly so. Even allowing for a little poetic license, this statement is perhaps close to the mark. SPUSA would respectfully suggest that a case such as the instant one offers our Supreme Court of Appeals, and by indirection the entire State, the opportunity to be in the vanguard of at least one social movement within our collective lifetime, rather than trailing the pack like a Sunday jogger in the Boston Marathon.
...
The Honorable Court could do more to advance the image of our State as a progressive, literate and humane place to live than any $800,000 outlay for a minor bump on the PGA tour. Instead of being the butt of jocular conversations on both coasts (and everything in between), West Virginia would now be on the cutting edge of what is clearly the civil rights movement of the first part of the 21st Century.

Being a Native Texan, I don’t have first-hand experience of being from state with an inferiority complex (my brother, who was born in Arkansas, would be more understanding). I am, however, sympathetic to the plight of West Virginians. I’m just not sure that being on the vanguard of this particular social movement will be much help. After all, legalizing same-sex marriages won’t stop the incest jokes about hillbilly boys marrying their sisters. It will just change the punch lines to them marrying their brothers.

At the end of last month John Kerry took President Bush to task over the increase in gas prices:

"George Bush ran for president pledging to pressure OPEC to relieve high prices, but on his watch the problems have gotten worse and the solution has been surrender," he said.

Kerry is referring to the Bush’s statement in the 2000 campaign that it was the president's job to "jawbone" OPEC producers by getting "on the phone with the OPEC cartel and say we expect you to open your spigots." Instead of calling them on the phone, however, Bush recently met with Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan at the White House and discussed rising gas prices. The Saudis agreed that they wanted to push the per-barrel price of oil, which is now topping $33, to between $22 and $28 a barrel throughout the rest of the year. Such an agreement would help both the American and Saudi economies and be a boon to everyone involved.

So what was Kerry’s reaction?

"If ... it is true that gas supplies and prices in America are tied to the American election, tied to a secret White House deal, that is outrageous and unacceptable to the American people," Kerry said during a campaign stop in Florida. "If this sounds wrong to you, that's because it is fundamentally wrong."

Let’s examine the facts to see if they truly are “outrageous and unacceptable”:

Which controversial group has done the most to protect the environment? Greenpeace? Earth First? The Sierra Club? Not according to Robert Nova, a regional president for Planned Parenthood, who recently spoke to the Roanoke Times:

Nova argues that Planned Parenthood, which promotes family planning and provides abortions, is an environmental organization because of its effect on population.

"If you looked at the level of consumption of Americans and the level of unintended pregnancies prevented ... you could argue that Planned Parenthood has done as much for environment as any organization in history," Nova said. [empasis added]

I wasn’t aware that 'unintended" children consumed more resources than other people. That’s certainly news to me. Perhaps instead of wasting time planting trees on Earth Day we should be encouraging pregnant women to have abortions.

What does it say about a country that makes it is illegal to destroy a form of milkweed yet allows its own infants to be slaughtered in the womb?

(Hat tip: World magazine blog)

David Brooks is a brilliant columnist whose work I’ve always appreciated. But even the brightest pundits can be wrong at times, and Brooks is certainly no exception. In his latest column, he makes claims that are so shamefully naïve that they border on willful ignorance:

The first thing to say is that I never thought it would be this bad. I knew it would be bad. On the third day of the U.S. invasion, I wrote an essay for The Atlantic called "Building Democracy Out of What?" I pointed out that we should expect that the Iraqis would have been traumatized by a generation of totalitarianism. That society would have been brutally atomized. And that many would have developed a taste for sadism and an addiction to violence. On April 11, 2003, I predicted on "The NewsHour" on PBS that we and the Iraqis would be forced to climb a "wall of quagmires."

Nonetheless, I didn't expect that a year after liberation, hostile militias would be taking over cities or that it would be unsafe to walk around Baghdad. [emphasis added]

One of Brooks most endearing characteristics is his ability to make connections that others sometimes overlook. So it’s unfortunate to see his skill failing him now. He has missed the perfect opportunity to place recent events in their proper perspective. Perhaps if he had re-read the news reports from a year ago he would have picked up on a clue to the current troubles: the fact that before the war, Saddam released over 100,000 hardened criminals from prison. When you take into account that approximately 1 out of every 200 Iraqis is not only a criminal but a convicted rapist, robber, murderer, etc., it starts to make sense why Baghdad is not a safe place to take a stroll.

[Note: Though I’ve collected several links, I’ve forgotten to post an EoWR for the past two Fridays. Since many of the links deserved attention I’ve decided to go ahead and pass these on.]

Nobody Here But Us Chickens If you’re the type of person who likes to have a chicken obey their every whim (and let’s be honest, who isn’t down with subservient poultry?), you'll want to check out this oddly amusing link.

Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? Chris Suellentrop of Slate takes a look at the many ways people try to define the 'real" Jesus.

Overrated Andy For a long time now I’ve thought that Andrew Sullivan was highly overrated. His status as one of the most popular 'conservative" bloggers, though, made me wonder if I wasn’t simply misjudging him. After reading the assessment of Fraters Libertas blogger Saint Paul, I realize what it was that bothered me: Andy just isn’t much of a conservative.

Cheap Shot Owen from Southern Appeal has an amusing 'fake interview" with John Kerry. Sample line - Kerry: 'Being a veteran is akin to being Jesus."

New Blog Alert Jason Roberts’ new blog, Our Daily Thread, has two recent posts worth pointing out: The Apprentice and Affirmative Action and Safer to be a porn star than promiscuous

Dactylographic Monkey Praise I have to give some overdue praise to the boys over at Infinite Monkeys. They are genuinely great guys. They're the type of buddies I'd have if I actually had a life and spent time with other people rather than with my computer.

Brad and RobbL have long been two of my favorite bloggers. Both are smart, erudite, witty guys who never fail to impress me with their insight and humor. They’ve also been a great source of encouragement and support.

While I don’t know them as well, I’m also fond of Ben and David, two very sharp, very funny writers. Reading them is like reading Fraters Libertas -- only without the daily rants about the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

And then there’s Dr. Monkeystein. What can I say about the Doctor that hasn’t been said many times before at one of his probation hearings? I think that he’s either drunk or insane. Possibly both. He’s one strange monkey.

While they haven’t banged out the works of Shakespeare just yet, these monkeys always have something worth reading. You won’t find a better group of monkeys in the blogosphere so be sure to check them out.

Baylor professor Francis Beckwith has recently come under fire from the crowd over at Panda’s Thumb for his writings on the Establishment Clause. One curious criticism from Pacific Legal Foundation attorney Timothy Sandefur is that Beckwith is espousing an 'extreme view" of separationism that clashes with conservatism. In response, Beckwith posts on his blog:

I am first a Christian and then a conservative. And whenever the former conflicts with the latter, I lean toward the former. I’m more convinced that Jesus was right than I am about William F. Buckley, Jr.’s opinions. Part of my understanding of Christian theology and its relationship to the state is that the state should not be in the business of coercing people to be Christians, either directly or indirectly. It should respect the rights of all believers and unbelievers to believe as they will and to make life choices consistent with these beliefs as long as they do not violate the public good or infringe on the rights of others (I know that there is a can of worms here with 'public good," but I’m just articulating the general principles). So, in that sense I am a church-state separationist.*

This corresponds with both my own uneasy alliance with conservatism and with my view of religious liberty. As fellow blogger David T. Koyzis writes in his excellent book Political Visions and Illusions,

I've always been impressed by the uncanny ability many libertarians have in spotting flaws in logic and reasoning. Whether the arguments come from the Right or the Left, the libertarian critique is often intriguingly rational, even if not always convincing. Unfortunately, they often fail to use this particular gift when evaluating their own ideological conclusions.

Take, for example, the latest uproar over the Justice department’s 'war on porn." There is something about regulating pornography that causes even the most prurient libertarian to become apoplectic. Glenn Reynolds, a law professor and reasonably logical fellow, though certainly no prude, rants, 'And if the Administration thinks that this is a good use of their "computer forensics" experts, then they must have decided that terrorists aren't a threat any more." Reynolds analysis of other people’s statements is typically rather sharp. So why does he stumble into such an obviously false dilemma?

As Justin Katz notes,

Six "specialists" are working on something other than terrorism, and that's a signal that the War on Terror has been abandoned? Ms. Sullivan doesn't give us more of an idea of the cost than "millions," which is a pretty broad range, but how many millions not devoted to the multibillion-dollar effort of national defense indicate unduly skewed priorities? [emphasis in original]

Reynolds, though, isn’t the only one that falls for this line of reasoning. Alphecca, another skilled debater and critical thinker, adds:

According to the LA Times, John Kerry believes that 'stability" is a more important goal for Iraq than freedom:

"I have always said from day one that the goal here … is a stable Iraq, not whether or not that's a full democracy," the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee told reporters after conducting a town hall meeting at the City College of New York in Harlem. "I can't tell you what it's going to be, but a stable Iraq. And that stability can take several different forms."

This position isn’t just at odds with President Bush’s policy, it also contrary to his own party. The platform adopted at the 2000 Democratic National Convention states that:

American values and freedoms are a beacon unto nations, and we should use the power of our ideals to foster democracy, human rights, rule of law, and civil society throughout the world. …We will continue to press for human rights, the rule of law, and political freedom. We will continue to support the spread of democracy across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East and the development of judiciary, legal systems, media and civil society organizations. [emphasis added]

As Mickey Kaus asked, 'Who's Kerry's foreign policy adviser--Henry Kissinger? Brent Scowcroft? James Baker?" Indeed, it’s odd to find Kerry taking a foreign policy stance that is closer to the position of paleoconservatives than to his own party.

Update: Robert Tagorda, who has an interesting analysis of Kerry's statement, thinks that Bush comes closer to liberal internationalism -- to using American power for the spread of democratic values -- than Kerry does.

Among the many activities listed under John Kerry's photo in the Yale University yearbook of 1966 is membership in Skull and Bones, the Yale Young Democrats, the Liberal Party and…the Yale Young Republicans?

According to the AP story, both the Kerry campaign and the club's president at the time think the listing is either a mistake or a prank. Of course it has to be some sort of joke or screw-up, right? After all, who can imagine that Kerry would be on both sides of a political issue?

(Hat tip: Wizbang)

There is something rather embarrassing about seeing 'progressives" nostalgic for the past. While we've grown accustomed to finding social conservatives longing for a mythical Mayberry-era that never, in fact, actually existed, we expect liberals to be perpetually forward-looking. Which is why seeing them constantly pining for the Sixties is rather disconcerting.

In vain, the lefties attempt to recreate the past by rolling out the same tired tropes and imagery. Their wistfulness for cultural iconography has even begun to border on the absurd. ('Tell me I didn’t just see Bob Dylan in an ad for Victoria’s Secret…") But few conceits have suffered the ravages of time quite like the concept of 'radical chic."

There’s a natural incongruity between left wing political views and the privilege of the wealthy, cultural elite. The uneasiness produced by this tension makes the lure of 'elegant slumming" an obvious attraction for the Beautiful People. After all, there is no better purgative for assuaging White Liberal Guilt than a good old fashioned mau-mauing.

The standard was set by Leonard Bernstein who became the envy of New York society by inviting members of the Black Panther Party to a soiree at his Park Avenue duplex . The idea of serving brie and foie gras to black radicals no doubt still stirs the imagination of the Left. Actually doing so, though, would be a difficult undertaking since it would be…well, it would be so dangerous.

So it should comes as no surprise that modern mau-mauing duties fall to a self-proclaimed nerd and Jesuit school graduate from the Maryland suburbs whose greatest influence was Monty Python. Aaron McGruder, who pens the controversial cartoon 'Boondocks', may not be the archetypical Angry Black Man -- he is, after all, a cartoonist -- but he is black and, well, he’s definitely angry. Most of all, though, he is willing to play the role. As Larry Elder recently noted, '[McGruder] decided to be the black guy that makes money by saying the things that white people want black people to say." The young cartoonist even admits as much, 'This isn’t the days of the civil-rights era, where you can change the world with a picket sign. You gotta get your money up."

But being radically chic isn’t what it used to be as some old lefties recently found out. The New Yorker relates an amusingly revealing story about McGruder and his speech for the 138th birthday of the venerable, leftist weekly The Nation:

Last night the President was asked a series of questions from about 15 reporters. See if you can pick out the underlying theme:

“...some people are comparing Iraq to Vietnam and talking about a quagmire. Polls show that support for your policy is declining and that fewer than half Americans now support it. What does that say to you and how do you answer the Vietnam comparison?"

"How do you explain to Americans how you got that so wrong?"

"Two-and-a-half years later, do you feel any sense of personal responsibility for September 11th?"

"One of the biggest criticisms of you is that whether it's WMD in Iraq, postwar planning in Iraq, or even the question of whether this administration did enough to ward off 9/11, you never admit a mistake. Is that a fair criticism? And do you believe there were any errors in judgment that you made related to any of those topics I brought up?"

"Do you believe the American people deserve a similar apology from you, and would you be prepared to give them one?"

"Will [continuing the mission in Iraq] have been worth it, even if you lose your job because of it?"

"After 9/11, what would your biggest mistake be, would you say, and what lessons have you learned from it?"

"...with public support for your policies in Iraq falling off the way they have -- quite significantly over the past couple of months -- I guess I'd like to know if you feel in any way that you've failed as a communicator on this topic?"

"I guess I just wonder if you feel that you have failed in any way? You don't have many of these press conferences, where you engage in this kind of exchange. Have you failed in any way to really make the case to the American public?

We could brush this off as another example of liberal media bias. But I think it goes deeper than that. Ever since Watergate, the Washington media has been obsessed with the Woodward and Bernstein approach to Presidential coverage. You can't make a name for yourself by covering "great" leaders nor can you be assured that the President you cover is destined to fail. It becomes necessary, therefore, to do everything possible to ensure the President can at a minimum be perceived as a failure. You can't win a Pulitzer by "exposing" success. But failure means that someone is to blame and that a story lies buried, waiting for an intrepid reporter to uncover it.

The media, of course, cannot create failure. Fortunately for them, though, that's not required. As Vietnam showed, it isn't necessary for failure to be the reality, only the generally accepted perception. Once the perception takes hold of the public they will be willing to buy the media's "products" -- exposes, investigative reports, op-ed pieces. Journalists aren't evil, just ambitious. But by leaning their ladder of success against the wall of false perceptions they have failed us all. A Republic needs an honest and true press in order to ensure its survival. When the media forsakes its duty it puts our entire system of government in jeopardy.

What the media fails to realize is that they are the ones, not Bush, who are failing us. They are the ones who need to apologize for such biased and shoddy work. They are the ones, not the President, who have become the "miserable failure."

A new survey on evangelicals regurgitates much of the same information we've seen from dozens of previous reports (yes we still oppose gay marriage, no we don’t all attend mega churches). But this one has an amusing twist:

The media often look to Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell to speak on behalf of all evangelicals, yet less than half of all evangelicals themselves (44%) have a favorable view of Falwell, and only a slight majority (54%) view Robertson favorably. In contrast, evangelical leaders Franklin Graham and James Dobson are both viewed favorably by 73% of all evangelicals, and Pope John Paul II is viewed more favorably by all evangelicals (59%) than either Falwell or Robertson.

Falwell and Robertson? That’s so 1976.

Pope John Paul? Well, that’s different. Once you look past all that Roman Catholic doctrine stuff, it’s clear that he’s our kind of guy.

(Via: Christianity Today blog)

No political party or ideology has a monopoly on racist rhetoric. It's possible to dreg up examples -- be it Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative -- in which a member of that category has made a demeaning comment based on racial stereotypes. Neither liberals nor conservatives are any more prone to prejudice than other groups and to argue otherwise is, in my opinion, an example of committing the fallacy of composition. The requirement to denounce such comments, though, should be a bipartisan effort. Liberals aren't required chastise only conservatives or conservatives to scold liberals; the duty to declaim such statements is the duty of every civil and just human being.

I make that lengthy prolegomenon in order to ensure that my point is not misunderstood. For while I don’t believe that racism is indicative of the political Left, I do find that some liberals have become afflicted with a tourette's-like reflex that causes them to resort to slavery-era metaphors, particularly the charge of Uncle Tomism.

What is most shocking about the use of these terms and images is the relatively nonchalant manner in which they are bandied about. The unstated premise is that they are simply stating a fact rather than tossing out a scurrilous epitaph. While its use by someone from the Right would be immediately construed as racially motivated, the same does not hold when the slur comes from the Left.

Now that the hype and controversy over 'The Passion" has settled and the film has become the 8th top grossing movie of all time, it seems fitting to finally ask the question that has been bubbling beneath the surface since it was first released: Is 'The Passion" a great film?

Almost every Christian who has seen Mel Gibson’s work will agree that on many levels the movie was effective. But what about when judged on it aesthetic criteria? Would a fair appraisal determine that Gibson had created a work of greatness? The question is ripe for examination and the boys at Infinite Monkeys should be commended for being one of the few to address it head on. On their blog they’re carrying on an interesting dialogue amongst themselves in which they examine that question.

My own take is that the movie was a viscerally powerful and emotionally draining work. The movie works as a form of propaganda (and I mean that in the best sense of the word) but it never reaches, in my opinion, the level of a great work of art. While watching 'The Passion" I felt a sense of detachment even as I was being emotionally pummeled by the images on the screen. Within days after leaving the theater the effect had faded away. Weeks afterward I realized, to my dismay, that the controversy and discussion the film had sparked had a more lasting impact on me than had the film itself.

After the skirmishes in Iraq last week Delaware Senator Joe Biden decided to take to the Senate floor to provide a little historical perspective:

"Do you know what this reminds me of?" Senator Joe Biden asked his Republican colleagues. "Only one similarity to Vietnam - the Tet offensive."

Since Biden was in law school during Vietnam and doesn’t he doesn’t have first hand knowledge of the incident, we can look at the same facts that he must have used to draw this connection:

When a Marine is killed or seriously wounded, the duty of notifying the next of kin falls upon the Casualty Assistance Calls Officer (CACO). Normally the tasks of the CACO team (comprised of a senior NCO, a commissioned officer, and a chaplain) are carried out by the same people. But the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have increased the need for more CACO teams and so I’ve been added to the roster of those assigned the morbid duty. Since my unit is one of the few active duty commands in the state, we’ve been assigned a large swath of Texas and are responsible for notifications over an area that spans hundreds of miles. Normally a command can expect to make 'casualty calls" a year; we made that many this week alone.

Marines are, of course, no strangers to death. While we would rather see the enemy be the one to 'die for his country" we realize what sacrifices we may be called to make and take a stoical acceptance of our fate. But though we may be able to face our own mortality, nothing prepares us for the chore of carrying such news to the family of a fallen comrade.

No training can adequately prepare us for all the factors that can go wrong as we carry out the mission. For example, my unit was recently forced to call upon a mother who, upon seeing a trio of Marines in dress uniform standing on her porch, began to break down sobbing. When the officer asked the woman’s name he found it didn’t match the next of kin for the deceased. There had been a mix-up in the addresses and after a few frantic phone calls it was confirmed that the mother‘s son was still alive, the correct address was a home across town. After profuse apologies the Marines left, leaving the woman to be alone with the guilty relief that somebody other than her would be grieving the loss of their child.

In almost any field of study, Harvard University ranks near the top in terms of prestige, reputation, and academic excellence. So it's especially ironic that a school whose founding mission was to produce Christian religious leaders has one of the most banal and lackluster divinity schools in the country. What is even more surprising is that out of a nation comprised of millions of conservative evangelicals, HDS cannot find a single one to put on their faculty. While it is understandable that a prominent evangelical professor would not want to waste his career at such a school, the faculty could certainly use someone on the staff who took Scripture seriously.

When the faculty gathered recently to discuss Mel Gibson’s 'The Passion", the reaction was unanimous -- they hated it. That in itself is probably to be expected since claiming an appreciation of the movie would have required taking a courageously contrarian stance. But the attitude toward the reference material is rather peculiar and disturbing:

After a wasting an several hours tonight debating issues of science I was reminded of ne of my favorite anecdotes. In his book 'A Brief History of Time", astrophysicist Stephen Hawking relates a story about a well-known scientist who gave a public lecture on astronomy:

He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.

At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise."

The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?"

"You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down."

Like the old lady in this tale, I find that many people are flustered when you ask what their philosophical foundations, their 'tortoise" if you will, is 'standing on." Rather than examine their presuppositions they become defensive and resort to name-calling and character assassination. I'm not particularly surprised by this tactic. After all, Francis Schaeffer, who called this intellectual exercise of pushing people toward the logical conclusions of their presuppositions 'taking the roof off", warned that it causes people psychological pain.

This latest post from Brian Leiter is rather instructive:

If you haven't had your fill of the ignorant peddlers of ID creationism being eaten alive...then do check out this demolition of one of VanDyke's defenders. (Those who think rough rhetoric--like noting that VanDyke, or now his defender Joe Carter, is intellectually incompetent--involves an ad hominem will benefit in particular from the explanation of what the ad hominem fallacy actually is. And perhaps we should remember that insulting names, just like other names, have referential content: complaining that they are "names" (as in "name-calling") does not show that they are not true descriptions.)

The irony of Leiter claiming that others should read an explanation about an ad hominem fallacy while dismissing my argument because I am "intellectually incompetent" is priceless. He seriously doesn't have a clue, does he? And to think that this guy is a professor of philosophy at the University of Texas. My home state should be ashamed.

Perhaps since Leiter took the time to post this ad hominem rant he will also take the time to answer the question in this post. I highly doubt it, though, since all he appears able to do is insult and bluster. I would be embarrassed if my child acted like this and yet he is supposed to be a respected professor of law and philosophy?

Update: Leiter has provided his own clever update in which he states:

No doubt, he'll start complaining soon that I called him "intellectually incompetent," not noticing the accumulating evidence for that descriptive proposition.

I suppose that would provide the premise he was missing in order to avoid a charge of committing the ad hominem fallacy. How convenient. I'm sure he didn't see this post prior to adding that, did he? Oh well, I'm actually rather disappointed that I wasn't able to inspire more vitrol. Coming from a guy who loves both Nietzsche and Chomsky I would consider it an honor. I remember back in the day when he used to be a bit more pompous. (And yes, this is a cheap shot.)

My recent criticism of Brian Leiter has stirred quite a debate about the merits of Intelligent Design theory and has produced numerous thoughtful comments, both on this blog, at The Panda‘s Thumb and Letters of Marque. Unfortunately, the debate has turned away from the original argument and drifted off into other areas. While I hope to be able to provide a response to the critics of ID, I don’t want to lose focus on the main point of contention.

Leiter has repeatedly stated that proper scientific methodology (particularly 'naturalistic methodology) relies on a posteriori rather than a priori reasoning. If this is the case, naturalistic methodology should have no problem differentiating between what is produced by undirected natural causes and that which is produced by intelligent causes. After all, we can’t presume that an intelligent being didn’t design part or all of our universe until we scrutinize the hypothesis by scientific means.

So what is the 'explanatory filter" (to borrow a phrase from the ID’ers) that naturalism uses in order to distinguish between what is 'designed" by an intelligence and what are, in the words of Richard Dawkins, 'designoids", phenomena that only have the appearance of being designed? Since ID theory claims to have a method for differentiating one from the other, I presume that naturalism does as well. Perhaps someone can enlighten me as to what the method involves.

For a legal scholar and professor of philosophy, Brian Leiter has a remarkably poor grasp of basic logic. For the past week Leiter has been bashing a defender of Intelligent Design theory using his typical rhetorical style of bullying and bluster. Instead of thinking up creative new ad hominem attacks, though, he should be paying closer attention to his reasoning. He makes a particularly weak attempt to argue that methodological naturalism is based on 'evidence and experience" rather than an a priori adoption of philosophical naturalism:

Should the following theory about evolution be used in a high school’s curriculum?

Design evidence. Adaptations are problem-solving machines, and can be identified using the same standards of evidence that one would use to recognize a human-made machine: design evidence. One can identify a machine as a TV rather than a stove by finding evidence of complex functional design: showing, e.g., that it has many coordinated design features (antennaes, cathode ray tubes, etc.) that are complexly specialized for transducing TV waves and transforming them into a color bit map (a configuration that is unlikely to have risen by chance alone), whereas it has virtually no design features that would make it good at cooking food. Complex functional design is the hallmark of adaptive machines as well. One can identify an aspect of the phenotype as an adaptation by showing that (1) it has many design features that are complexly specialized for solving an adaptive problem, (2) these phenotypic properties are unlikely to have arisen by chance alone, and (3) they are not better explained as the by-product of mechanisms designed to solve some alternative adaptive problem. Finding that an architectural element solves an adaptive problem with "reliability, efficiency, and economy" is prima facie evidence that one has located an adaptation (Williams, 1966).

Design evidence is important not only for explaining why a known mechanism exists, but also for discovering new mechanisms, ones that no one had thought to look for. [Proponents of this theory] also use theories of adaptive function heuristically, to guide their investigations of phenotypic design.

Before you answer I should point out that this probably isn’t what you think it is.

In 1929, the American linguists Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf introduced the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis which popularized the idea that language is used not only to express our thoughts but to shape them as well. As Sapir wrote in "The Status of Linguistics as a Science":

Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection. The fact of the matter is that the 'real world' is to a large extent unconsciously built upon the language habits of the group. …We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation. (Sapir 1958 [1929], p. 69)

In lingusitics, this explanation for the way that language relates to thought is known as a 'mould theory" since it 'represents language as a mould in terms of which thought categories are cast" (Chandler, 2002, p.1). While there are innumerable examples of how our thought processes are shaped by the language we use, one particular example recently caught my attention:

First, let me say thank you to my local radio station KSKY-AM 660 for finally bringing Hugh Hewitt and other esteemed radio personalities (Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, Bill Bennett) to the DFW area. For far too long, talk radio in our area has had a dearth of intelligent commentators. KSKY has now become my favorite local station and I will be doing everything I can to ensure that our community provides it with the ratings it deserves.

That being said, I have a quarrel to pick with KSKY: First, splitting Hugh’s show in two, with the first hour on from 5-6 p.m. and the last two from 9-11 p.m., is a huge mistake. We’ve been waiting for the show to come to the area for a long time and deserve to hear it uninterrupted. Second, sandwiching Michael Savage in between (from 6-9 p.m.) is disgraceful. His vitriolic ranting just doesn’t fit in with such a respectable lineup. But when you take into account that Savage is already on another station at the exact same time, the decision is simply inexplicable.

Any readers from this area should call or email general manager Pete Thompson (myopinion@ksky.com / 214-561-9674) and let him know that we want all three hours of the Hugh Hewitt show.

Now, I have to get back to listening to the show. Maybe now I’ll get to call in sometime…

David Adesnik, in attempting to correct the his fellow Oxblog cohort Patrick Belton, claims that “placing collective blame on the Jewish people for the death of Christ is an integral aspect of the Gospels' theological agenda.” He goes on to add,

In recent decades, progressive Christians have reinterpreted the Gospels in order to mitigate the violent anti-Semitism that they have provoked. After all, even according to the Gospels, not all Jews were complicit in the death of Christ. Yet the message of the text seems clear: that only those Jews who abandon their own religion and become followers of Christ can overcome the burden of guilt that the Jewish people took upon itself by sentencing Him to death.

In this sense, the Gospels are fundamentally anti-Semitic. This does not mean that they are responsible for the violence and hatred associated with the phrase 'anti-Semitism'. After all, the Gospels were written at a time when Judaism was an established and influential religion whereas Christianity was a tentative and persecuted faith. Nonetheless, the fundamental purpose of the Gospels is to delegitimize the Jewish faith.

There are so many things wrong with his assertions that it's difficult to decide where to start...

One of the most underrated books about one of the most underrated art forms is Scott McCloud’s 'Understanding Comics." Behind the seemingly mundane medium of comics lies a fascinating art form and McCloud provides an excellent explanation for how visual imagery and symbolism create communicate in sequential art. While the book provides many concepts that could be transferred to the realm of film, one of its most illuminating explanations is the role of representation and symbolism.

In his book, McCloud provides a map of visual iconography (i.e., pictures, words, symbols) that he calls the Big Triangle. On one end of the triangles base lies a spectrum of images that spans from visual resemblance (e.g., photography and realistic painting) to iconic abstraction (e.g., cartoons). The closer the visual representation comes to the level of iconic abstraction the more the observer is able to use their imagination to 'fill in the details" and allow themselves to identify with the image. Visual resemblance narrows the level of identification while iconic abstractions broadens it. Think, for example, which smile is more representative of a particular emotion: the complex smirk on the face of the Mona Lisa or the simple curve of the 'Have a Nice Day" face?

This notion of identification is useful for understanding the core problem with sexual imagery in cinema. As images become more graphic or visually iconic the viewer becomes less able to directly identify with the characters involved. On the most extreme end of the spectrum, the purely p*rnographic movie, the concept of identification borders on the absurd. No one who watches such a film can 'identify" with the characters since they have been reduced to mere objects.