Eclectic Jukebox 1/10/08

Sarah McLachlan — "When She Loved Me"

Since I posted "Save Me" from Aimee Mann last week, here's another one of the Oscar nominees from that year, written by Randy Newman, who's playing piano. It's from Toy Story 2, where it's used for a Velveteen Rabbit-like sequence. It's much better than the song Newman finally won an Oscar for, some much more generic, forgettable song called... hmm...

Blues next week!

No More Tears, Please

No more tears, please. I don't mean from Hillary Clinton — I mean the media saying that she cried, which isn't accurate, as far as I could see. The Yahoo page yesterday showed the graphic above. If you can't read it clearly, it says "Debating the crying issue." "Analysts have turned Hillary Clinton's tears into a national debate." It also links a Huffington Post entry titled "Double standard?" and has a video link called, "See her tears."

(Good grief. Had it been a slower news day, one of the networks would've grabbed the post-Brit-Brit Dr. Phil for his special brand of obtuse comment wrapped in faux-folksy Texas cornpone psychobabble. But there's still time.)

There's other copies of the video out there, but check out this YouTube version:



She gets choked up, her voice quavers, she's emotional. But she doesn't have a public breakdown. And I don't see any tears. Do you? And really, is this that hard for the press to get right?

The media just luvs their narratives, truth be damned, and this week alone has provided a bevy of examples, most of them focusing on the Iowa Caucus, the New Hampshire Primary, and moments in-between, such as Hillary Clinton's show of emotion. ThinkProgress has a good roundup of some of the vapid reactions to it.

And this is how it always starts. A notion gets fixed in the public memory, whether accurate or not. This isn't far removed from the wildly over-inflated furor over the Dean "scream" or the media spreading the lie that Al Gore claimed to invent the internet. I've never fully understood all the hoopla over Bill Clinton's "Sister Souljah moment," which to me has always seemed ridiculously overblown by the media ever since. It's not as if criticizing her was difficult or required courage, even if it was calculated. (Any other takes?) But at least that actually happened. So often, the media's herd mentality has them trampling in a mad, happy rush over the truth. If you watch the ThinkProgress video, you'll see many pundits referring to Hillary Clinton's moment of emotion as a "Muskie moment." Now that she's gotten a boost in the polls, they're referring to it as an "anti-Muskie moment" or even an "Oprah moment." (I actually heard Oprah interviewed about Hillary's "moment." I've still escaped hearing Dr. Phil on it, though!)

However, it's wise to remember, thanks to our friends Bob Somerby and Digby, that even Ed Muskie didn't have a "Muskie moment." It looks like Muskie crying was mostly a media invention, by one reporter in particular. His name? David Broder. Some things don't change that much.

Of course, there's nothing wrong per se with crying. But the media imbues the most trivial occurrences with cosmic significance, and if there is a shallow angle to be taken, they will take it.

What's also ironic is that Hillary Clinton (if reports are to be believed) has gotten teary or at least "glassy-eyed" in public previously, as recently as December, as considered by Steve Benen. But it wasn't a big deal then, and to my knowledge, the press wasn't playing video of it constantly. The video is what put this moment into such big play, as did the video and audio for Dean's "scream," as did the video of George "Macaca" Allen. I only wish Cheney's "Go fuck yourself" to Patrick Leahy on the Senate floor was captured on a cell phone, but no such luck.

As I've written before (probably far too often these days), I'm not a big fan of Hillary Clinton. I'm probably overdue for explaining why in more depth in a separate post, but the big reason isn't a surprise — she's parroted some of the worst BS of Bush and Giuliani in relation to 9/11, Iraq and Iran, and she's been a saber-rattler with Iran. But I would like to see her challenged on that, and for other substantive reasons. There's no question she's been subject to some really misogynist bullshit over the years, and certainly she's received a fair amount of crap during her presidential campaign simply for being a woman. Chris Matthews and Tucker Carlson, among others, have shown it's still more acceptable in the national political discourse to be a sexist than a racist. There are so many genuine reasons to criticize Hillary Clinton, it's really pretty pathetic to attack her because of her gender.

Why is any of this important? Even if you dislike Hillary, even if you think she's a phony, even if you think her emotion was feigned, or if you simply don't think she'd be the best candidate for president, there are at least four key factors I see. One, more specific to this case of bad coverage but more general as an issue, there's a double standard for women, and sexism should be challenged. Two, the media should be able to get a simple fact right. Three, the media should be substantive rather than shallow. Four, most importantly, the media always do this, and the pattern they've followed for the past decade or two has been to rail on every Democrat, mainly for bullshit reasons, while sucking up to Republicans. That's been Bob Somerby's main point lo these many years, and many other splendid bloggers have dug into the same dynamic. The press continually try to play kingmaker, and they are consistently horrible at it. Why else would they have promoted Bush not once, but twice?!? They are not a bright bunch, nor do they have good judgment. It doesn't matter who the eventual Democratic nominee is. Maybe it will somewhat if it's Obama, since currently they mostly adore him. But we can't count on that, and theirs is a broken, shallow, vapid system. It needs to be challenged at every turn, because even if it occasionally eliminates someone you don't like, eventually, it will be turned against someone you do like. (Ya know, "first they came for the Al Gore supporters, and I did not speak up, for I was not an Al Gore supporter..." and all that.) One way of getting better candidates over time is demanding better coverage right now, and always.

(Cross-posted at The Blue Herald)

More on Charlie Wilson's War

In an earlier post, "Where's bin Laden?" I wrote about the changes to the script for the film Charlie Wilson's War, specifically, the removal of all mentions of bin Laden, al-Qaeda or 9/11. Mike Finnigan at C&L helpfully passed on a link to "Tom Hanks Tells Hollywood Whopper in 'Charlie Wilson's War'" by Melissa Roddy at AlterNet.

Now, via Jonathan Schwarz at A Tiny Revolution (here and here), come two good pieces on the real history behind the film Charlie Wilson's War.

First up is Chalmers Johnson with "Imperialist Propaganda: Second Thoughts on Charlie Wilson's War" at TomDispatch.com:

In a secret ceremony at CIA headquarters on June 9, 1993, James Woolsey, Bill Clinton's first Director of Central Intelligence and one of the agency's least competent chiefs in its checkered history, said: "The defeat and breakup of the Soviet empire is one of the great events of world history. There were many heroes in this battle, but to Charlie Wilson must go a special recognition." One important part of that recognition, studiously avoided by the CIA and most subsequent American writers on the subject, is that Wilson's activities in Afghanistan led directly to a chain of blowback that culminated in the attacks of September 11, 2001 and led to the United States' current status as the most hated nation on Earth.

Johnson quotes his review of the book Charlie Wilson's War for the Los Angeles Times:

The Central Intelligence Agency has an almost unblemished record of screwing up every 'secret' armed intervention it ever undertook. From the overthrow of the Iranian government in 1953 through the rape of Guatemala in 1954, the Bay of Pigs, the failed attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro of Cuba and Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, the Phoenix Program in Vietnam, the 'secret war' in Laos, aid to the Greek Colonels who seized power in 1967, the 1973 killing of President Allende in Chile, and Ronald Reagan's Iran-Contra war against Nicaragua, there is not a single instance in which the Agency's activities did not prove acutely embarrassing to the United States and devastating to the people being 'liberated.' The CIA continues to get away with this bungling primarily because its budget and operations have always been secret and Congress is normally too indifferent to its Constitutional functions to rein in a rogue bureaucracy. Therefore the tale of a purported CIA success story should be of some interest.

According to the author of Charlie Wilson's War, the exception to CIA incompetence was the arming between 1979 and 1988 of thousands of Afghan mujahideen ("freedom fighters"). The Agency flooded Afghanistan with an incredible array of extremely dangerous weapons and 'unapologetically mov[ed] to equip and train cadres of high tech holy warriors in the art of waging a war of urban terror against a modern superpower [in this case, the USSR].'

The author of this glowing account, [the late] George Crile, was a veteran producer for the CBS television news show '60 Minutes' and an exuberant Tom Clancy-type enthusiast for the Afghan caper. He argues that the U.S.'s clandestine involvement in Afghanistan was 'the largest and most successful CIA operation in history,' 'the one morally unambiguous crusade of our time,' and that 'there was nothing so romantic and exciting as this war against the Evil Empire.' Crile's sole measure of success is killed Soviet soldiers (about 15,000), which undermined Soviet morale and contributed to the disintegration of the Soviet Union in the period 1989 to 1991. That's the successful part.

However, he never once mentions that the 'tens of thousands of fanatical Muslim fundamentalists' the CIA armed are the same people who in 1996 killed nineteen American airmen at Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, bombed our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, blew a hole in the side of the U.S.S. Cole in Aden Harbor in 2000, and on September 11, 2001, flew hijacked airliners into New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Johnson also quotes himself from 2003:

For the CIA legally to carry out a covert action, the president must sign off on -- that is, authorize -- a document called a 'finding.' Crile repeatedly says that President Carter signed such a finding ordering the CIA to provide covert backing to the mujahideen after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan on December 24, 1979. The truth of the matter is that Carter signed the finding on July 3, 1979, six months before the Soviet invasion, and he did so on the advice of his national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, in order to try to provoke a Russian incursion. Brzezinski has confirmed this sequence of events in an interview with a French newspaper, and former CIA Director [today Secretary of Defense] Robert Gates says so explicitly in his 1996 memoirs. It may surprise Charlie Wilson to learn that his heroic mujahideen were manipulated by Washington like so much cannon fodder in order to give the USSR its own Vietnam. The mujahideen did the job but as subsequent events have made clear, they may not be all that grateful to the United States.

It's informative stuff that should be read in full. Johnson also links a film review by James Rocchi, who writes:

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was a brutal violation of international law; a grown-up would nonetheless ask if our cure was in fact better than the disease. Charlie Wilson's War doesn't. (Again, a line in Sorkin's script -- but not in the final film -- has Avrakotos noting "Remember I said this: There's gonna be a day when we're gonna look back and say 'I'd give anything if (Afghanistan) were overrun with Godless communists.'")

Rocchi probably read the same version of the script I did, because that line was in there, and he cites the same ending I read with a bit more detail (I need to try to get another copy, since I was going off memory for my post). He's also right, as noted in my earlier post, that the film never really questions whether this covert war is really the best idea, and whether Wilson's and Avrakotos' depicted subversion is really to be applauded. Rocchi also writes that:

Charlie Wilson's War isn't just bad history; it feels even more malign, like a conscious attempt to induce amnesia…

Charlie Wilson's War offers the bright glare of star power instead of any real illumination; it's a historical-political comedy without any history or politics. Nichols's cut, gutted version offers a few cheery, breezy moments of rat-a-tat comedy, but Charlie Wilson's War stops being funny when you realize we're living in the sequel.

The second piece Schwarz links is "Reagan's Bargain/Charlie Wilson's War," by Peter W. Dickson at ConsortiumNews.com:

The movie opens with Wilson’s conversion to a sympathetic attitude toward Muslims while sitting in a hot tub with several naked women in the Fantasy Suite at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas...

According to the book by George Crile upon which the film is based, the hot tub scene took place in June 1980. Crile describes Wilson’s sudden conversion to a sympathetic position toward Muslims as occurring in October 1982 when the Texas congressman, fully-clothed, visited Lebanese refugee camps after the Israeli invasion of that country.

Previously a staunch supporter of the Jewish state, Wilson was shocked by what he saw in those refugee camps, instilling in him empathy toward Muslims that evolved into his zealous support of the jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Nuclear Blackout

But surely the most glaring omission in the film is the fateful trade-off accepted by President Ronald Reagan when he agreed not to complain about Pakistan’s efforts to acquire a nuclear weapons capability in exchange for Pakistani cooperation in helping the Afghan rebels.

On page 463 of his book, Crile characterizes this deal or understanding as “the dirty little secret of the Afghan war” –- General Zia al-Haq’s ability to extract not only “massive aid” from Washington but also to secure Reagan’s acquiescence in Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program via a congressional waiver of U.S. nonproliferation laws in December 1981.

This bargain may have been dirty but it certainly was no secret. Indeed, Washington’s acquiescence via the congressional waiver was the subject of continuing press coverage throughout the 1980s.

But this history remains a taboo topic for many within the Washington Establishment, especially those who look back favorably on the Reagan presidency.

[...]

Determined to protect the pipeline for smuggling weapons to the Afghan mujaheddin, Charlie Wilson also helped deflect attention away from the Pakistani nuclear program in 1987 and 1988.

Crile claims that Wilson made several successful efforts to blunt the impact of intelligence briefings about the status of the Pakistani nuclear program to congressional committees contemplating a cut-off of all aid at that time.

Speaking Power to Truth

Wilson’s alleged success in countering such briefings and blocking a congressional aid cut-off represented a classic case of the subordination of truth and law to raw power and political calculations.

The movie producers evidently concluded that scenes of Wilson’s desperate efforts to cover up Pakistan’s nuclear ambitions would not look too good in the film, so that part of the story disappeared from the cinematic version of history.

This deeper, darker saga would have conflicted with the filmmakers desire to highlight the heroic qualities of the movie’s main protagonist (Wilson played by Tom Hanks), not to mention the justness of the Afghan cause.

Unfortunately, the glaring omissions tend to reinforce the triumph of a false narrative about the dismal record of American involvement in the Middle East, including the Reagan-Bush administration’s indifference, almost blasé attitude about the emergence of a Muslim nuclear bomb.

Given Crile’s detailed discussion of this “dirty little secret of the Afghan war” in his book, the filmmakers surely can’t say they were unaware of this darker side of the story.

This piece, too, should be read in its entirety.

Charlie Wilson's War is a film I want to see again. I still greatly admire the script in terms of aesthetics and writing craft, and at least one of Sorkin's earlier drafts was much more honest. I also love Hoffman's performance. But the pieces by Johnson and Dickson give crucial details on the actual history I hadn't known. (I can blame some of that on being fairly young at the time, I suppose.) Yet this directly relates to two points of my earlier post. Like it or not, Americans get much of their history through pop culture, most of all from movies and TV. And you simply would not know many important points from the film alone, such as the bin Laden connection. While expecting accuracy from Hollywood is often folly, this team could handle it, and should have delivered. Sorkin at least tried to deliver, on some level. I'm still interested in more details of threatened lawsuits by Wilson and Herring, demands from Tom Hanks, the stance of Mike Nichols, and the position of the studios (although I can guess the last one).

While I'm waiting on more information about battles over the script development and film production, it seems like hitting the library for more reading on the actual history would be useful. I wrote an earlier post on The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright, a post that includes a link to a conversation between Wright and Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001. Chalmers Johnson has written a three-part series, "The American Empire Project": Blowback, Second Edition: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic. Finally, there's Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of Our Times, although it apparently paints a selective picture at times. Any other relevant book recs are welcome.

(Cross-posted at The Blue Herald)

Best Blog Posts of 2007 (Chosen by the Bloggers Themselves)

I wanted to highlight Jon Swift's epic post, "Best Blog Posts of 2007 (Chosen by the Bloggers Themselves)." Jon Swift contacted everyone on his prodigious blogroll, and then posted their submissions with a brief description for each. I'm still working my way through it all, but it represents a great deal of work by the Honourable Mister Swift. There are too many good blogs and too little time, and it's far too easy to miss worthy stuff ya don't know about. So thanks to him, and the other folks who make a habit of reading, linking and promoting others' work.

This also gives me an opportunity to link Jon Swift's superb satirical post, "Journalism 101," summing up many of the faults with our current media. You may have already read it before, since it justly received a fair amount of links. But it's one of those touchstone posts that I expect to be linked for some time to come.

I'd also recommend his follow-up post, "Swift Reactions 7." If you can bear to read Ann Althouse, follow Swift's link. Some of the back and forth in the comment thread is hilarious.

(Cross-posted at The Blue Herald)

Andy Olmsted, R.I.P.

Andy Olmsted, who blogged as G'Kar at one of my favorite sites, Obsidian Wings, was killed yesterday while on active duty in Iraq.

Hilzoy's posted the piece Andy wrote to be published in the event of his death. It's very moving.

Several commenters have asked if there's any way to do something for his family, and I'll post an update if there is. If you comment in the Obsidian Wings thread, please read the comment guidelines within the post itself, to respect Andy's wishes not to politicize his death. I don't think it's political, though, to say it's a tragic loss, it was a jolt to hear, and my thoughts are with his family and friends. Condolences.

Update: A follow post is here.

(Cross-posted at The Blue Herald)

Eclectic Jukebox 1/3/08

Aimee Mann — "Save Me"

I felt like a little Aimee Mann tonight. Some people prefer "Wise Up," but this is still my favorite tune from Magnolia, where it's fantastically used.

(We used to play this song in a band I was in, actually... I learned the chords by watching Mann play it on the Late Late Show one night. If you want the original key, capo at the third fret!)


(What is the post, you ask? I've been doing the Club Blue picks at The Blue Herald on Thursdays for over a year now. I decided to compile my new picks and recap the old set at a side blog, Eclectic Jukebox, mainly to keep track of 'em all. I was debating whether to post any of them here, or keep everything separate, but let's give it a try. For more music, besides Club Blue, check out Crooks and Liars' Late Night Music CLub and Skippy's Music Club... and quite a few other blogs!)

Richard Cohen and the Fabulous Hair

I've been compiling material for a post on Richard Cohen for a while now, mainly because he's emblematic of a certain brand of thinking set of attitudes among the Village punditocracy. His column yesterday, "The Mendacity of Hope: What We Want to Believe About Obama" starts with a doozy:

John Edwards lied about the cost of his haircuts. Fred Thompson lied about lobbying for a pro-choice outfit. John McCain insists that the United States was founded as a "Christian nation." Mitt Romney concocted the story about how his father marched with Martin Luther King Jr. And Rudy Giuliani is a one-man fib machine -- everything from why he had to provide police protection for his then-mistress to the survivability rates for prostate cancer in Britain. Yet it is something Barack Obama said that bothers me most of all because Obama is a new kind of politician. He is supposed to be coolly authentic.

What the hell is he talking about when he says Edwards "lied about the cost of his haircuts"...? As Greg Sargent notes, both Steve Benen and Atrios have correctly called Cohen's claim false, and Sargent has written Cohen for an explanation.

As it so happens, I've got a good idea of what Cohen means. He made the same ridiculous claim in his column on 7/24/07, "He Just Plays a Straight Shooter." In that piece, Cohen starts by calling out Fred Thompson for lying about his lobbying for a "family-planning outfit." Then, showing Broder-esque "balance," Cohen writes:

Lest you think I am some sort of partisan hack, I have similar misgivings about John Edwards and his $400 haircuts. Here, too, the issue is not what he paid his barber but his apparent willingness to trim the truth. He can't -- I can't stop myself -- brush that away.

Not that Edwards hasn't tried. His spokeswoman, Colleen Murray, also attempted the old disparagement trick, comparing the haircut imbroglio with matters of cosmic importance. "Breaking news -- John Edwards got some expensive haircuts and probably didn't pay enough attention to the bills," she said. "He didn't lie about weapons of mass destruction or spring Scooter Libby; he just got some expensive haircuts."

Yes, he did. And he got them over and over again, sometimes summoning hairstylist Joseph Torrenueva of Beverly Hills to appointments on the campaign trail. When that happened, Edwards had to pay not only for the haircut but for Torrenueva's airfare and hotel as well. A session during the 2004 race cost $1,250. On at least one occasion, Edwards paid the $400 personally.

Contrast this detailed account of Edwards's relationship with Torrenueva with the candidate's initial explanation. Edwards said he had no idea that the haircuts were so expensive and -- in a reprise of Bill Clinton's reference to Monica Lewinsky as "that woman" -- called Torrenueva "that guy." You do not talk about your hairstylist like that. "When he called me 'that guy,' that hit my ears. It hurt," Torrenueva told The Post's John Solomon.

Edwards and Thompson have something in common: They both are all image. Neither has accomplished very much in public life.

This is mind-numbingly insipid stuff. Not only is Cohen obsessing about inconsequential trivia like a third-rate gossip columnist, he doesn't even prove his case. As far as I can tell, Cohen claims Edwards "lied" about his haircuts because Edwards didn't include the airfare when talking about the cost, and because he distanced himself from Torrenueva. In Cohen's world, this is a "lie," and morally equivalent to misrepresenting one's anti-abortions bona fides to the GOP faithful to get their votes or lying about weapons of mass destruction to start a war. It's the sort of maddening false equivalency major media figures traffic in all the time.

But Richard Cohen is no "partisan hack." No, one has to be supposed liberal at a major media outlet, such as Cohen or Joe Klein, for work of this quality.

I doubt many readers of liberal blogs are unfamiliar with the obsession at The Washington Post, Politico and other outlets over John Edwards' haircuts, but if you want a quick recap of some of the recent lunacy, here's Messrs. Benen, Sargent and Somerby (with a Somerby follow-up here).

Cohen often offers logic worthy of Jonah Goldberg, but it's worth noting the similarities between the July column and the one yesterday. Although some of the specifics differ, Benen's critique of yesterday's piece applies quite well to both:

One gets the impression that Cohen, who’s been around long enough to know better, just casually threw in some accusations of dishonesty in the hopes of achieving some kind of “balance.” Regrettably he did so a) without getting his facts straight; and b) in a column about the importance of people getting their facts straight.

It’s really not a good way to start out the new year.

And what of Obama’s “lie” [that there are more young black men are in prison than in college]?...

Now, if this is right, and Obama repeated a bogus statistic, he’s in the wrong, no doubt about it. There have been far more dramatic lies from presidential candidates, and this one seems largely inconsequential, but would-be presidents should strive for 100% accuracy, regardless of party…

But Cohen applies a standard here that doesn’t make a lot of sense.

When John McCain sticks to his insistence that the Constitution established the United States as a “Christian nation,” I don’t like it, but I know McCain and I know his character. He has a record in public life going back, essentially, to 1967, when he was shot down over Vietnam and repeatedly tortured by his captors. Back in 2000, I might have gotten a bit “delusional” over him, but I had my reasons.

I see. So, McCain lied, even though he didn’t, and that’s fine, because Cohen has known him for a long while. Obama cited a bogus statistic, and that’s worth an entire column, because Cohen hasn’t known him very long.

Cohen seems to be invoking some sort of Droit de seigneur, whereby he doesn't need to make a coherent argument, only assert his authority (as well as McCain's). That's important because there's one other key similarity between July's column and the current one. It's this paragraph from yesterday, where Cohen writes:

After all, it ought to be true that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. It ought to be true that he had ties with Osama bin Laden. It ought to be true that aluminum tubes were intended for a nuclear weapons program, and it ought to be true, really, that none of this mattered since what mattered most of all was a larger truth: Hussein had to go and the Middle East had to be urban-renewed for the sake of democracy.

I'm uncertain as to what exactly Cohen means by "ought" here, but by every interpretation I can see, he's wrong. It's not true that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, nor is it true that they should have had them. The same goes for the rest of his claims. If anything, the real "ought" is that we ought not to have invaded Iraq in the first place. Oh, and the Bush administration "ought" not to have lied, and Cohen "ought" not to have believed them. American troops and Iraqis "ought" not to be dead. But Cohen's construction here absolves him of culpability. Note that Cohen poo-pooed the whole "lying about WMD" back in July, too.

Cohen, of course, was an ardent war hawk disdainful of those who weren't, and he was snowed by the Bush administration's case for war, although many of us weren't. When he says "ought," I believe he really means "I wish I had been right, and I had good reason to think that." The truth is, there were plenty of reasons to distrust the Bush administration's arguments, even for those of us not privy to classified intelligence (that's not to mention the importance of a general skepticism toward war in the first place). The truth is, the cost of a haircut or statistics about African-Americans in prison versus higher education are not nearly as important as starting an unnecessary war, and the resulting, devastating cost of treasure, prestige and most of all, human lives. Even if we grant Cohen that all three are "mistakes," it's extremely offensive to equate them. Pretending all lies are the same, feigning that all mistakes are the same, harping on Obama and libeling Edwards doesn't erase Cohen's own sins.

The supposed point of Cohen's piece, about Obama, is trivial at best. However, his subtext and asides are extremely important, because they betray those Beltway pundit attitudes and ethics Cohen so perfectly embodies. Cohen blithely, falsely accuses Edwards of lying, and since he leads with that, apparently he feels no need to explain it. Meanwhile, it seems he still hasn't learned much from his disastrous judgment on the Iraq War. Steve Benen's exactly right; it's going to be a long year.

(Cross-posted at The Blue Herald)

Where's bin Laden?

It's a better question for George Bush, actually. But where's bin Laden in Charlie Wilson's War?

I read a draft of the script last year, and while most of it hasn't changed much, there were a few notable, disappointing omissions.

Let me be clear: Charlie Wilson's War is an excellent film, one of the best I've seen all year. Overall, the cast is superb. The film combines substance with wit to spare. Aaron Sorkin is a master of exposition, using it as ammunition and often off-setting it with comedy and other activities: sitting in a hot tub, a belly dance, the old West Wing walk and talk, a dance of dueling meetings reminiscent of the Marx Brothers. Director Mike Nichols knows the medium well, but he's also an actor's director, well beloved by them. Hanks is quite good as Wilson. I still think Julia Roberts is miscast, but I understand why she was cast (huge box office draw). I was ecstatic to see Phillip Seymour Hoffman cast as Gust; it's a perfect fit and one of his most enjoyable performances, and that's saying a lot. His first scene alone is worth the price of admission, and he and Hanks have great chemistry. Ned Beatty plays a small, key role. The film even has Amy Adams, splendid as always (see Junebug if you haven't), although a friend of mine noted, she should have been sporting big hair for the era (as most American women in the cast are).

As the film notes at the start, it's based on the true story (chronicled in the book of the same name) about our funding of a covert war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, largely spurred by an unlikely figure, inveterate boozer and womanizer Charlie Wilson, Democratic Congressman of the Texas 2nd. The film's gripping and entertaining, and sometimes quite moving. There's a brief scene where Wilson speaks with some child victims of bombing in Afghanistan, and it's tastefully done, but it certainly hit me in the gut. (Sorkin and Nichols even humanize the Russians a bit.) Charlie Wilson's War's impressive because it's pretty damn ambitious, covering a vital but largely unknown chapter of our recent history, being extremely informative while avoiding what Sorkin once called the "eat your broccoli" feel. It's a very enjoyable watch.

(I've got some slight spoilers of a sort here, although if you're familiar with the basic history, they shouldn't be.)

About three-quarters into the script in the version I read, the CIA tells Wilson about new developments with the Mujahideen, and they mention Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden. It's a striking moment, because the names have massive significance for us, but it's really just one more piece of interesting information for them at the time. I thought it was well handled, but it's not in the released film.

The film as released does touch on the surge of religious extremists. A late scene between Charlie Wilson and Gust uses a parable to consider the unpredictability of outcomes. A couple of other scenes on denying reconstruction funding and a ending quotation also suggest what was to come.

Still, it feels like a copout to axe the mention of Al Qaeda and bin Laden. After all, the film still mentions Jack Murtha and Rudy Giuliani by name, both prominent figures today, but much less central to both the subject matter and the theme. Cutting a few scenes of Wilson performing a drunken hit and run made some sense — besides Hollywood's aversion to making its protagonists unlikable, that sequence was about the mess of Wilson's personal life, which is interesting but not crucial. In contrast, the rise of bin Laden and Al Qaeda during the war with the Soviets, and the role of the Mujahideen in world events since, is pretty damn important. You would not know any of that by watching the film alone. It deserved at least a nod.

(A spoiler of sorts I suppose) In the version I read, the script actually ended on 9/11, with Charlie Wilson in his apartment, which has a view of the Pentagon. He has another woman over, and hears the explosion, sees the smoke, and the script ends on the look on his face — alarmed, and suspecting the truth even if he's not sure. I was wondering if that would survive to film, because it was powerful but might wrench the rest of the story. That cut seems more justified. It might even have been filmed, but didn't make the final version.

I'm just wondering to what degree those changes were aesthetically versus politically motivated. I'll be interested to check out the various interviews and the eventual DVD extras for more information. Did the studio fear some bizarre uproar? Did Nichols feel it knocked the film off-kilter? I don't know. But considering how daring the film is in many ways, and how willing it is to show the warts of war, ethnic divisions and backroom deals — not to even say the names just felt both irresponsible and, well, gutless.

I find myself thinking of Bush claiming back in 2002 or so that Saddam Hussein was dangerous because he had 'gassed his own people,' never mind that he did so in the late 80s during the Iraq-Iran war, when the Unites States was still doing business with Iraq. That gassing also occurred before Rumsfeld went to meet with Hussein to reassure him (as famously photographed, and as Rumsfeld claimed to only dimly remember). And it was before the first Gulf War. Whether one supported the invasion of Iraq or not, Bush did not speak of our previous alliance with Hussein and Iraq. I suspect his administration thought it would implicate us and introduce a level of complexity they didn't want with their cartoonish "Axis of Evil." It's one of many reasons I'd argue Bush made the case for war dishonestly, and one of the clearest early signs he simply wasn't to be trusted. Similarly, none of the crowd saber-rattling for war with Iran mentions the role of the U.S. and U.K. in covertly supporting a coup of Iran's democratically-elected government in 1953. Our current relationships with foreign powers often have important history attached. They don't exist a vacuum.

The reason I bring all this up is, like it or not, pop culture is where a great number of Americans get their history. While entertaining, Charlie Wilson's War is so much more than a popcorn flick. It's a very good film, and I intend to buy a copy when available. But I feel it could have been better still. And I really do want to hear what the decision-making process was for those elements.

Here's a cinematic example. All the President's Men is a great film, but it ends a bit oddly, with a news ticker summing up Nixon's resignation. Since the film came out in 1976, the thinking was that the audience was familiar with everything that happened, so why not just end quickly. William Goldman, the screenwriter, has since said it was a mistake. The speed wasn't a bad thing per se, but they should have been more cinematic, perhaps used some footage or something, because nowadays the ending doesn't play as well.

Interestingly enough, The History Channel special, The True Story of Charlie Wilson's War, is much more direct about bin Laden than the film is. The show is one of those joint movie studio-cable ventures, fairly fluffy, intended to promote the film. No one, for example, bothers to ask whether it's really a good idea for a lone congressman and a rogue CIA agent to set foreign policy and wage a covert war. Still, it's interesting to hear from Wilson himself, several of the other players, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, and to learn which of the details in the film are true. The bin Laden section comes in the last five to ten minutes. (For background, Carol Shannon is a Texas belly-dancer and a friend of Charlie's who features in the story, and Azizullah Din Muhammed was an Afghan rebel who met Charlie a few times during the covert war.) I transcribed the section in question:

[Footage of the smoking twin towers.]

Narrator: Today, Charlie Wilson's war must be seen in the context of September 11, 2001.

Aaron Sorkin: The two biggest threats ever, to our security, were the spread of Soviet Communism and the rise of Islamic fanaticism. Charlie is a guy who had a hand in stopping one, and accidentally starting the other.

Narrator: Though all of the 9/11 hijackers were Arabs, the operation was planned by a terrorist organization sheltered in Afghanistan.

[Footage of bin Laden.]

Charlie Wilson: We bear responsibility, because we didn't try to rebuild Afghanistan.

Azizullah Din Muhammed (Afghan Rebel): European countries and the U.S., they thought that once the Soviet Union was defeated, the job was over. They did not think about setting up a government in Afghanistan.

Wilson: We left a vacuum, and the vacuum was filled by the Taliban and by Al Qaeda.

Sorkin: There's no question that the Afghan victory and 9/11 are holding hands with each other. Is it Charlie Wilson's fault? No, don't be ridiculous. No one's responsible for 9/11, except for a bunch of twisted [bleep]suckers.

Narrator: CIA officers maintain that they never trained or armed the foreign volunteer fighters that would one day form Al Qaeda. During the 1980s, it was the Soviet Union that represented the gravest threat to U.S. national security. Like many Americans, Charlie Wilson lived much of his life with the omnipresent threat of a Soviet nuclear attack.

Carol Shannon: He had a lot of nightmares. And I hope they're over now.

Narrator: History will show that the evil empire was brought down by a colorful cast of characters, led by a hard-drinking, skirt-chasing Texas congressman.

Sorkin: President Zia-ul-Haq of Pakistan, when asked how in the world did the Afghans beat the most powerful army on the face of the world, President Zia responded:

President Zia: Charlie did it.

They don't even mention bin Laden or Al Qaeda by name, but do show video footage of him. Still, apart from that, and the narrator's hype (especially saying "the evil empire"), they offer a reasonably accurate, fair account (if severely truncated). While Wikipedia is far from definitive, its article on "Allegations of CIA assistance to Osama bin Laden" ain't bad, and offers more information on the subject. A key passage relays that:

Robin Cook, former leader of the British House of Commons and Foreign Secretary from 1997-2001, wrote in The Guardian on Friday, July 8, 2005,

Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians. [8]

Meanwhile, the same article notes, as did the History Channel narrator, that the CIA have denied that they directly funded or trained bin Laden. Reporter Peter Bergen, among others, believes this, and the article lists several reasons for it. I can buy that there wasn't direct funding or training, since bin Laden had his own sources, but the U.S. or its proxy Pakistan were funding and training plenty of those fighting the Soviets. Meanwhile, it's undeniable that the U.S. and Al Qaeda were fighting on the same side back then. Simply mentioning that doesn't endorse a theory of "blowback" for 9/11, and even a theory of blowback doesn't excuse those who perpetrated 9/11.

The book The Kite Runner, also a film now, deals with some of the same period in Afghanistan. As one character notes in the book, at first many in Afghanistan cheered the Taliban, because they were replacing the Russians and took care of some criminals and scoundrels. But then, the edicts started, and the Taliban were feared and despised by many that first welcomed them. Politics and foreign affairs are seldom black and white.

Portraying that reality is what makes Charlie Wilson's War a good film, and also the reason I feel it falls short on this one matter. Perhaps I'm being uncharitable, and I'll look forward to learning more about the decisions behind the scenes. Overall, Charlie Wilson's War presents a pretty complex, sophisticated view of the world, where small decisions can snowball, and policies that seem wise at the time can lead to other complications, some predictable, some unseen. But see the film, and decide for yourself.

Update: Thanks to Mike of Mike's Blog Roundup for the link at C&L, most of all for also linking "Tom Hanks Tells Hollywood Whopper in 'Charlie Wilson's War'" by Melissa Roddy at AlterNet. Roddy apparently read an earlier version of the script too, and has much more detail on a few of the specific changes. I find it interesting that, apparently, the real Wilson was willing to be more candid with the History Channel special promoting the film than he was with the studio on the film itself. Of course, one's going to be seen by many more people (although I expect that a special edition DVD of Charlie Wilson's War will include the History Channel special, will probably include deleted scenes and might well discuss the script changes). I continue to be interested in more information about this.

Update 2: I have a follow-up post with more information about the actual history omitted from the film.

(Cross-posted at The Blue Herald)

This I Believe, on Faith and Grief

I've been meaning to do a post on the NPR series This I Believe for some time now. If you're not familiar with it, here's their own description:

This I Believe is a national media project engaging people in writing, sharing, and discussing the core values and beliefs that guide their daily lives. NPR airs these three-minute essays on All Things Considered and Weekend Edition Sunday.

This I Believe is based on a 1950s radio program of the same name, hosted by acclaimed journalist Edward R. Murrow. In creating This I Believe, Murrow said the program sought "to point to the common meeting grounds of beliefs, which is the essence of brotherhood and the floor of our civilization"...

In reviving This I Believe, Allison and Gediman say their goal is not to persuade Americans to agree on the same beliefs. Rather, they hope to encourage people to begin the much more difficult task of developing respect for beliefs different from their own.

There's plenty of installments I haven't heard, but of those that I have, "My Husband Will Call Me Tomorrow," by Becky Herz, is easily the most powerful and moving. It speaks of the role faith can and does play for many people. For me, it's a secular faith, and one consciously chosen. (There's far more to write on the subject, but just listen to the piece.)

The second piece that's stuck with me is "A Way to Honor Life," by Cortney Davis, a nurse practitioner sometimes faced with upset or grieving people, and here I shall roam far a field. I'm including it because I'm grateful for the realization she shares in it. Honestly, when I first heard Davis describe how she used to act, I felt a bit annoyed, because frankly, I've had to deal with such people my entire life. As she writes/says:

Once, I would have rushed to comfort these people. Uncomfortable myself with their grief, I'd want to ease their sadness with my cheer and consolation. I'd hug a patient and tell her to "try to get pregnant next month." I would reassure the widower, telling him, "Your wife had a long life." I'd enter the burned child's room in intensive care with a smile, rather than encouraging the mother to weep in my arms.

That dynamic makes me think of a scene from Shakespeare's Hamlet:

KING CLAUDIUS
How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

HAMLET
Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not for ever with thy vailed lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust:
Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.

HAMLET
Ay, madam, it is common.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
If it be,
Why seems it so particular with thee?

HAMLET
Seems, madam! nay it is; I know not 'seems.'
'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
That can denote me truly: these indeed seem,
For they are actions that a man might play:
But I have that within which passeth show;
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

[1.2, 66-86]

I've always loved Hamlet's "I know not seems," and I've found it resonates with a fair number of teenagers, actually. Many are familiar with others' focus on appearances, and how a given emotional state of theirs can be seen by others primarily as an inconvenience. There's a difference between treating someone as a problem to be solved versus a human being who needs to be listened to, someone who might need a genuine moment of connection. The latter requires vulnerability, and risk. "Attention must be paid," as the line from Death of the Salesman goes.

I mention all this because Davis, in her former way of doing things, was interacting with others to make herself feel better, not them.

That's not to say she was a bad person, and clearly she meant well. She's also working in a job that requires a certain amount of emotional armor for most people, because otherwise burnout is inevitable. Some folks use gallows humor to cope, some go cheerful like Davis, and others take a still different route. I heard a doctor lecture on AIDS once, years ago. His delivery was surprisingly flat. However, I also knew that he was a very good man and doctor, who had dedicated his life to helping others. Because of his specialties, he had treated AIDS patients starting in the 80s, when little was known, little could be done, and the survival rate was poor. Perhaps some of his delivery was due to his own personality, but I suspect that dealing with as many terminal cases as he had just took a toll. I believe he had to create a persona or emotional space to deal with that much death and still do his job effectively.

All that said, I feel grateful when Davis says, "I no longer comfort others with false cheer," and feel sympathy when she describes dealing with the death of her parents. I also agree with her when she says:

When I grieve, when I stand by others as they grieve, even in the midst of seemingly unbearable sorrow, grief becomes a way to honor life — a way to cling to every fleeting, precious moment of joy.

That, too, like Herz, expresses a type of faith. Both pieces are lovely, thoughtful and thought-provoking.

Everyone grieves in his or her own way, and in his or her own time. I've never thought that America, which possesses a heavy amount of "if you don't feel good, take a pill!" in its culture, deals with grief that well, or depression, or perhaps simply emotional non-conformity. I find, dealing with the death of my father a year ago now, that there are times I want to keep busy, that it's fine to laugh, and there are times the grief sneaks in — or strides in quite directly! — and I need to honor that. Attention must be paid. When I hear a family member's been told s/he really should move on despite it being less than a year, I want to slug the advice-givers, or at least curse them out. It's not quite as bad as the trite platitude a friend and colleague of mine diagnosed with cancer was told by someone "trying to be helpful." But no one chooses their feelings, only how they react to them, and grief doesn't plot neatly out according to a locomotive's timetable.

For example, I had a high school classmate who was killed by a drunk driver the day after we graduated. It was a freak occurrence, completely random, as he and a friend were driving to pick up a pizza. We're weren't close friends, but we knew each other quite well, as did everyone at that school and in our class. He had been a guy I just knew I'd run into later in life. His death was brutal on his family, of course. Personally, I was stunned, I was devastated, I thought and wrote about it quite a bit, and talked about it with classmates. I was trying to deal with it consciously and pretty directly. Still, almost two years later, it struck me how much I was still carrying it, and how much it had colored my thinking on an unconscious level. That realization was significant for me. But that process couldn't have been rushed, not even by me. Likewise, my current feelings do and will take their own course, and I wouldn't have it otherwise.

Since I've shifted into a more personal post, I should mention that I personally haven't felt much of the annoyance I've felt on others' behalf regarding grief over my dad's death. Some people fumble for what to say, but that's fine. The gesture is what's important, not the words themselves, and it's all appreciated. After witnessing some true vileness in the political sphere these past several years, I'm concerned at times about becoming too hardened in reaction, since it's not something I'd like to let spill over to allies and friends. ("Battle not with monsters" and all that.) As Davis used to in her professional field, it can be tempting to offer the easy answer versus the honest one in the personal realm, to give the pat response versus the riskier, genuine one. It's important for me to remember sometimes what all those people who showed up for the viewing and funeral and before and since have demonstrated. Death touches us all. And people are kind. They can be very, very kind. This I believe.

In Memoriam

It's now been a year since my dad's untimely death. Needless to say, my family and I still miss him terribly, most of all my mom.

I had been debating writing a longer, personal post, and/or posting the eulogy I wrote. However, at least one family member felt a bit uncomfortable with that, so on top of my mixed feelings, it didn't feel completely right for this year. I will say that among the many legacies my dad left, I'm most grateful for his sense of humor, love of cinema, music and other arts, commitment to fairness, insatiable curiosity, puckish sense of play and generosity of spirit. I hope to honor those best qualities in my own life, and to improve on my own faults.

The specifics differ from my own life, but I think the following poem is one of those quintessential Father's Day picks for a reason. I've met many people who, like me, couldn't read it without thinking of their father:

Those Winter Sundays
By Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early
And put his clothes on in the blueback cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?

Meanwhile, this was one of my dad's favorite classical pieces. The video skips a bit and the fidelity ain't the greatest at points, but there's a depth of feeling, and for this, that's really what's most important.



Rest in peace.