The News Media Discovers an Independent Candidate for Governor

Kristin Davis held a press conference in Albany to publicize her campaign for governor of New York on the Anti-Prohibition party line. She was assured of some coverage due to her notoriety as the "Manhattan Madam," but that notoriety was also bound to make her campaign look frivolous. What surprised me about the coverage, based on a Google search, wasn't the extent to which anyone took Davis seriously but the fact that most reporters wrote as if her campaign had just started. Davis had, in fact, submitted petitions to secure her line on the November ballot several weeks ago, but her submission, and those of several other independent candidates, were overshadowed by Carl Paladino's. His claim of an independent line was newsworthy because he remains a contender for the Republican nomination, and his fresh determination to campaign actively as the Taxpayers candidate should he lose the GOP primary is deemed likely to make a difference in the general election. By comparison, Davis is dismissed as a potential factor in the final outcome, despite her protest that equal coverage from the media might level the playing field a little. As always, of course, newspapers and TV apportion coverage based on preconceptions of each candidate's chance of winning, rather than treating all candidates who've earned ballot lines equally. The Albany Times Union, at least, used Davis's press conference as an opportunity to remind readers that there are, in fact, more than three choices (Cuomo, Lazio, Paladino) for governor this year, getting quotes from Green candidate Howie Hawkins and Libertarian candidate Warren Redlich as well as Davis while acknowledging the existence of still more contenders. Regardless of whether the report seems condescending, the paper has at least performed a public service that it ought to repeat more frequently.

The Gainesville Hysteria (1st update)

It's come to this: channel surfing this morning I landed at MSNBC just as the "Morning Joe" panel was discussing the for-now suspended Qur'an burning in Gainseville, and I heard Pat Buchanan, no friend of Islam and as a paleoconservative presumably distrustful of executive power, recommend that the President invoke his authority as Commander-in-Chief to prevent the burning, should the situation require prevention, on national-security grounds, leaving the constitutionality of such action to be decided at a later time. Buchanan, not likely normally to offer favors to Democrats, suggested that Obama's approval ratings would rise rapidly if he took such action. I'm not sure about that, but I'm not unsure enough not to be chilled a little by the idea.

I wonder, however, whether the Gainseville saga hasn't taught Americans a little lesson about collective responsibility. Most of us don't like the idea normally, I suspect, because as individualists we feel that innocents shouldn't suffer for other individuals' misdeeds. The suggestion from Gen. Petreus that the troops would suffer for Rev. Jones's stand may actually have made people look at the distinction between personal and individual responsibility a little differently. I've been concerned that there'd be a backlash in Jones's favor based on Americans' resenting the fact that once again a free man might back down because Muslims made a stink. That might still happen, but it probably won't be for Jones's benefit. But at the same time, the Gainseville episode has thrown idealism against fact in a way that may have jolted our moral complacency. Americans may think that no other person should be held responsible for Jones's antics (or Fred Phelps's, if it comes to that), but we also seem newly convinced that someone will hold the rest of us responsible for a fellow American, whether we think that's right or not. The difference was probably made by our readiness to believe that someone would hold us all responsible. Without recommending that anyone emulate radical Islamism, I propose that our sense of collective responsibility in other matters might be more strongly felt if we also felt more strongly that those responsibilities, too, would be enforced. The sort of collective responsibility on which republics arguably depend is not some natural element or inherent facet of conscience. It has to be called into being and kept in being by people conscious of our mutual dependence and accountability. That necessary consciousness has gone slumbering lately, but the Gainseville story might have awakened it slightly.

Update, 2:45 p.m. While Buchanan was declaring a national emergency against him, Rev. Jones was working the morning talk-show circuit on the broadcast networks, appearing on all three programs. His storyline remains as I left it last night: the burning is suspended, not definitively canceled, and he's still pissed at Imam Musri for "lying" to him. He seems unmoved by the prospect of violent reactions should he burn the books, nor by the violence that has already occurred in some places. In Jones's view, it all proves his point about Islam's inherent violence, about which he declares himself more convinced than ever. He has told interviewers that all depends on whether Imam Rauf will receive him in New York tomorrow. Rauf says no such meeting is planned, nor should he feel pressure to plan one. His issue, Park51, has nothing to do with Jones's threats and Rauf is within his rights to resist all attempts at linkage. Meanwhile, from Afghanistan President Karzai opines that the "humiliation of the holy book represents the humiliation of our people." It's hard to begin detailing how wrong that sounds. No book should be so sacred to anyone. Such a confession only humiliates Hamid Karzai, just as the burning, if it happens after all, will only humiliate Terry Jones.

Jones vs. Islam: Endgame (3rd update)

The breaking news this hour is that Pastor Jones of Gainseville has cancelled Saturday's commemorative Qur'an burning and is now discouraging others from consigning their accumulated copies to the flames. There's one big catch: the pastor claims that he made his decision on the understanding that the Park51 community-center planners had withdrawn their plan to build the so-called "Ground Zero mosque" at their desired site. In New York, Imam Rauf denies making any deal with the pastor or any plan to move the community-center site. The owners of the site had earlier today rebuffed an offer from Donald Trump to buy the property and preempt its dedication to Islam.

It looks as if Jones is basing his action (or inaction) on the assurance of a Florida imam whom Jones presumes to have the ear of Rauf. As I write, ABC reports that a "bewildered" Jones has just told reporters that he had been lied to. The network also reports that Defense Secretary Gates spoke with Jones earlier today, after the pastor signalled that he might stand down if the Obama administration requested him directly to do so. Because the story seems to be very volatile at the moment, I'll reserve further comments until later as (or if) the situation clarifies.

Update (7:45 p.m.). It seems that Jones misunderstood what the Florida imam promised him. The imam himself says that he only promised to arrange a meeting in New York between Jones and Rauf. Whether the location of Park51 would have been subject to negotiation at such a meeting seems very doubtful, though I wouldn't be surprised if the Florida imam made the prospects look more promising than they now seem. For his part, Jones could just be a gullible yokel. But when I started this post 90 minutes ago I thought that he'd performed a cunning if not clever maneuver by putting the ball in Rauf's court and placing the burden of peaceful compromise on him. As far as I know, Park51 had had nothing to do with Jones's plans before -- he may have planned the Qur'an burning before the "Ground Zero mosque" controversy broke out -- but linking the two issues may have been his only way to attempt to save face in the face of mounting public pressure and rumored death threats.

As I write now, Jones hasn't reneged on his renunciation, but claims that he still wants to meet with Rauf on Saturday. Whether he continues to insist on that meeting may depend on whether he sees any chance of actually negotiating a relocation of the GZM or whether he thinks that such an encounter will be his proverbial 15th minute in the spotlight. He may prove content to complain, despite whatever clarifications follow, that he had kept his word while the Muslims lied. If the entire purpose of the bonfire, as I suspect, was to promote his anti-Islamic products, he has probably won as much publicity as he could get whether he carried out his plan or not.

I still wonder a little, however, whether he meant, when he said that the event would expose the nature of Islam, that he actually expected to be attacked or martyred on the spot by Muslims. Their violence, possibly, would have been his proof of their essential, "satanic" violence. If he thought that, I think he would have been disappointed. Of all men involved in the controversy, he may actually have been the least endangered. I don't know how well protected he's been lately, but I have to wonder how badly "extremists" or "Islamists" in this country want to prevent the burning if there haven't been attempts, that we know of, to stop it already. If they revere the Qur'an so much, shouldn't they be taking preemptive steps against Jones? If they haven't, it means one of three things. The first possibility is that Jones is, in fact, really well protected. The second is that there simply aren't any American Muslims motivated enough to go to Gainseville and stop the infidel. The third possibility is that such extremists as there are actually want the burning to take place in order to exploit it for maximum propaganda and as a justification for indiscriminate reprisals against random Americans. If so, then they're less interested in upholding the honor of their religion or the sanctity of their holy book than in stoking up their hatred and finding excuses to kill. Take your choice of these theories, or come up with your own.

10:00 p.m. The latest from Jones is that the burning is "on hold" or "suspended," not cancelled. The Florida Imam, Muhammad Musri, has tried to clarify his own position. He personally opposes the Park51 project, but obviously has no authority to relocate it. He says he only promised to arrange a meeting between Jones and Rauf in New York. Meanwhile, Rauf says that he has not spoken with Musri. Nor does he consider the site of the community center subject to bartering. Musri seems to be an inept meddler who may end up having made things worse. For starters, Jones now considers him a liar. Second, assuming collective responsibility, the pastor now expects Rauf to "back up one of his own men." Third, it's only through Musri's intervention that the burning and Park51 are linked. Rauf is not answerable for Musri's apparent stupidity, and is under no obligation to back the fool up. Jones has no right to make his behavior conditional on anything Rauf does or says. If he decides to go through with the burning, that's his prerogative, and the responsibility should be his alone. It won't be, however, and that's why this remains the hot story of the moment.

11:45 p.m. Into the presumptive breach leaps Rev. Fred Phelps and the infamous congregation of Westboro Baptist Church. The Land of Whatever blog informs me that Westboro has declared its intention to burn Qur'ans should Jones be intimidated into not doing so. It's unclear whether they'll stand down if Jones keeps his plans suspended. So far, Jones has not recanted his recommendation that no one else burn Qur'ans, but I doubt that would stop Phelps's flock when the fever is upon them. Ironically, Phelps probably has a greater affinity with the extremist advocates of sharia than his bigotry would ever acknowledge. Perhaps a meeting of minds can be arranged....

Does the Working Families Party have anything left to sell out? Andrew Cuomo thinks so.

In New York State, the right of a political party to cross-endorse another party's candidate is supposed to give independent parties some degree of influence over major-party candidates. In theory, once an independent party earns a spot on the state ballot through cross-endorsement, major-party pols are supposed to be impressed by how many people vote for them on the independent line. Since the cross-endorsing party remains theoretically independent, and thus capable of steering its voters away from a major party, the major-party pols should modify their platforms to make themselves more appealing to the third-party voters and thus maintain the cross-endorsement. Cross-endorsement by the Conservative party, for instance, should steer Republican candidates to the right, while cross-endorsement by the Working Families party should steer Democrats to the left.

In practice this year, the Conservative party endorsement, given preemptively before the Republican primary, has turned the primary campaign into a game of chicken, with a new party emerging to ensure that both leading aspirants for the GOP gubernatorial nomination will have third-party lines this fall, each potentially assuring the other's destruction in November. The Conservatives used their preemptive endorsement on behalf of the GOP establishment against an insurgent "outsider" who is, by most accounts, the more conservative of the two contenders. That decision may leave observers wondering how independent, or independent of what, the Conservatives really are.

Meanwhile, Democratic candidate Andrew Cuomo has held himself aloof from the Working Families party, which has nominated a placeholder candidate for the time being. It was believed that Cuomo kept his distance because of scandals surrounding the WFP. This week, however, Cuomo issued an ultimatum to Working Families during a radio interview. He will not accept a cross-endorsement from the WFP unless the party endorses his "New" Democratic platform. That platform would require Working Families to renounce its own tax-the-rich principles, since it commits Cuomo against raising income taxes and to capping future property-tax hikes. Cuomo doesn't really envision a cross-endorsement. He presumes a capitulation through which he would "head the party" by imposing his platform on the WFP. He has little to lose or gain from the ultimatum, while Working Families' coveted ballot line will be in jeopardy if they stick with the placeholder.

While I oppose the whole concept of state-assigned ballot lines that confer legitimacy on some parties and candidates while denying it to others, in this case I have to say that if Working Families can't hold its line with its own handpicked candidate, who would presumably represent the genuine party doctrine -- to the extent that it ever had one -- it doesn't deserve to keep the line. Cross-endorsement has always struck me as a dubious idea, and the endgame now playing out between Cuomo and the WFP only enhances my conviction. As practised by Working Families and the Conservatives, cross-endorsement is little more than lobbying with votes rather than money, conceding power to the major parties rather than challenging them. The practice was meant to influence major-party candidates, but with the WFP we now see the effect in reverse. It was probably the inevitable outcome of a strategy that sought to exploit the American Bipolarchy rather than replace it.

Giving and Taking Offense

In a column published locally today, Jonathan Gurwitz happily notes the recent peaceful opening of the ninth mosque in San Antonio, Texas. He's unaware of any anti-Muslim violence in the "Alamo City," and for him that's strong evidence that something other than Islamophobia or xenophobia fuels objections to the Park51/"Ground Zero Mosque" project in New York City. According to Gurwitz, the imam of the new San Antonio mosque agrees with him. In the imam's judgment, Islamic teachings require him to "respect my neighbors and friends and live in a respectful way." In practice, that means, "If I do something that offends you, I should look again and find a way not to offend." On that basis, the San Antonio imam, while acknowledging Park51's legal right to build, urges the planners to reconsider.

This concern with avoiding offense or provocation seems characteristic of Muslim cultures, if not of Islam itself. It contrasts starkly with modern-day western (or simply American) notions of personal responsibility and individual freedom. In simplest terms, while Americans preach "resist temptation," Muslims seem to say "don't tempt." In its ugliest form, this attitude leads Muslims (and many traditional cultures) to blame "provocatively" dressed women when they're mistreated by men. In its most obtuse form, the American attitude refuses to acknowledge any national responsibility for Muslim hostility toward the United States. Americans seem to feel that, no matter how provoked you may feel, you have an absolute and exclusive moral responsibility to restrain yourself, and whoever provoked you has no obligation to change his or her behavior as long as it's legal. By comparison, Muslims seem to have human nature on their side when they argue that pushing them will make them push back.

These differences have implications for international relations, but how should they play out when Muslims and non-Muslims live in the same community, and particularly when Muslims are a minority? In the give and take of politics, especially when people's positions are influenced by religious or cultural traditions, lively debate is likely to give offense to some. In the public sphere, for an atheist to say "there is no god" is bound to offend many. Our commitment to free speech requires those offended to swallow their offense. On the other hand, it's one thing to say "there is no god" and another to say "all religions are stupid." A commitment to civility might encourage the atheist to stop short of the second comment, but civility is not to be enforced by physical threats from other people.

In the past, some Americans were as easily provoked to violence as anyone else, and as quick to blame the violence on the provocateur. In the early days of the republic, however, it was personal honor, not the honor of a religion, that provoked duels -- or mere beatings, as in the infamous case of Congressman Preston Brooks and Senator Charles Sumner, when the person provoked did not regard the provocateur as his social equal. Honor is the common quality in all cases: the feeling that one is obliged as a man or a member of a group to respond to insults. In the U.S., honor grudgingly yielded to the rule of law, and maybe to the idea that aristocratic honor codes didn't belong in a democracy. Nor does any code that entitles believers to use violence in defense of religious honor belong. But do such assertions license Americans to offend whom they will while requiring the offended to take it? We probably ought to acknowledge a middle ground position that forbids people from taking violent offense while discouraging them on civility principles from consciously and deliberately giving offense. I'd like to think that such distinctions can be drawn, and I still say that the irrational offense felt by New Yorkers over the mosque plan should not require the planners to back down. Whether liberty or civility should prevail in the impending Qur'an-burning case is another matter. No Muslim has a right to attack the Florida congregation, but Muslims and their non-Muslim friends share a prerogative to find civil means to shame the church into reconsidering its incivility. All such suggestions depend on a reasonable populace, of course, and what might be necessary to enforce reasonableness is a question for another time.

Paladino Goes All the Way; Now He Wants Your Money

With a week to go before the Republican gubernatorial primary in New York, right-wing insurgent Carl Paladino is raising the stakes by going back on an earlier promise to stand down from his newly-created Taxpayers Party line should he lose the GOP nod to Rick Lazio. Paladino now says that he will campaign actively as the Taxpayers candidate if Lazio wins the Republican primary. Squinting between the lines, I sense some failed negotiations between the contenders. Paladino's side gives Lazio's expected continuance on the Conservative line as the explanation for Paladino's change of mind. Had Lazio promised to stand down in favor of Paladino, depending on the Republican outcome, I suspect that Paladino would have been more willing to maintain the same promise to Lazio.

Coincidentally -- or not -- comes a report that Paladino, who had boasted of his readiness to spend of much of his own money as necessary to beat Lazio, is now soliciting donations starting from $25, having apparently drained his campaign fund in order to buy TV and radio ads for the last two weeks of the primary campaign. Lazio, the supposedly poorer candidate, reportedly still has half a million in reserve, though he probably hoped to save that as starter money for the general election against plutocratic nominee Andrew Cuomo. I don't watch much local news, but when I have I haven't seen any Lazio ads lately. He's still leading in the polls, and I still expect him to win, but if Paladino sticks to his new resolve and finds fresh funds for that resolve, Lazio will stay in a world of trouble from now through November. Conservative New Yorkers, however, will have something resembling a real choice this fall.

Collective Responsibility and Qur'an Burning

In an extraordinary statement, General Petreus has advised the congregation of a Florida church to reconsider its plan to burn copies of the Qur'an on Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the U.S. The general claims that the planned demonstration will inflame anti-American feeling in Afghanistan and place the American troops there in even greater danger than they face now. In response, the pastor and representative congregants declare themselves resolved to carry out the conflagration, but implicitly leave open the possibility that during their constant prayer on the subject that God might tell them to stand down.

The concept of a private citizen and his personal responsibility apparently doesn't occur to those Muslims who may punish other Americans, in uniform or not, for the planned action of the Florida yahoos. Few Americans, if any, would accept responsibility for what the Qur'an burners intend -- I know I wouldn't, and I even endorsed their right to do it a few weeks ago. In their tribal minds, so Gen. Petreus assumes, irritable Afghans and Pakistanis will not see a small congregation but rather the entire American people burning their holy book, no matter how many Americans have spoken against the project. Such a reaction would be no different from the American assumption that a mosque near Ground Zero can only be some kind of monument to the Islamist terrorists of 2001. I could argue that the Qur'an burning itself will be another provocation premised on collective responsibility, with the burners spiting the majority of peaceful Muslims in order to reproach the actually offensive ones -- except that I feel pretty certain that the pastor is driven by hate rather than blame. In any event, Muslims and Americans seem trapped in an irrational vendetta that requires each group to make reprisals indiscriminately against members of the other for the acts of quite specific individuals, when ideally those individuals alone should be held to account who have actually offended either group. I should not have to ask or order the Floridian clowns not to stage their circus in order to save my own skin or protect my military representatives from even partly misdirected anger. But if we have to think in terms of collective responsibility for the troubles in the Muslim world and the potential troubles here, then that responsibility extends to Muslims and Americans alike. When conflict has reached this stage, neither side deserves to win or lose; both must change.

In the Belly of the 'Land Beast'

Outside the downtown post office stands a plastic dispenser for free publications. A local Seventh-Day Adventist church fills it with monthly issues of Signs of the Times, a publication of the Pacific Press Publishing Association. The current issue's cover story asks, "is the United States in Bible prophecy?" and the question tempted me to look inside. Inside was the typical wishful exegesis, with an unexpected twist at the end.

Marvin Moore's answer to the cover question is yes. The U.S., he argues, is the "land beast" described in chapter 13 of the book of Revelation (New International Version), one of "two powerful beasts that will dominate the world at the end of time." Moore explains that Adventists have identified the U.S. as the land beast for the past 150 years, on the grounds that the beast symbolizes a political power, that it is said to have "global political authority" (it "made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast" according to Rev. 13:12), and that it must be a present-day superpower, since Adventists hold that we are living now in the "end time." To drive the point further, Moore emphasizes that the land beast has "two horns like a lamb." Since the word "lamb" is identified exclusively with Jesus, the presence of lamb-like attributes on the land beast indicates that it represents a Christian superpower. Since Moore, ignoring the European Union, sees "no other candidates" that match the description, he concludes that his country is a beast of Revelation.

What role are we to play in the end time? Moore predicts that since the land beast's business is to "enforce its false worship with an iron fist," the U.S. will someday abolish "this nation's historic separation between government and religion." Curiously, however, Moore is less concerned with the nature of the "false worship" (Islam? Environmentalism? Obama-ism?) than with the threat posed to religious freedom by fellow Christians.

I am frankly troubled by the profound hostility some Christians in America hold toward the principle of church-state separation, which is the foundation of religious freedom. Church-state separation simply means that government and religion operate in distinctive spheres, each recognizing the unique responsibilities of the other. They are separate in the sense that neither should ever control the other. And yet history shows that the line of separation is not neatly drawn. Challenging issues sometimes bring the policies of the state into direct conflict with the values of the church and vice versa. It is at this intersection of public and private life that the judicial branch of government seeks to protect the church from the state and the state from the church, preserving both the rights of government and liberty of conscience.

A secular liberal would be challenged to put it better. For extra measure, Moore warns that "Should the United States ever abandon its commitment to the principle of church-state separation, persecution of dissenters will inevitably follow." While Moore concludes pessimistically that "Revelation's prophecy about the land beast suggests that this will indeed happen someday," he counsels that "we should defend, for as long as possible, the principle that government and religion operate in separate spheres, neither dictating the laws that govern the other." Although I can't admire his credulity, I compliment Moore's spirit. He has, for all intents and purposes, warned Christians that they might be the beast they're waiting for, to reuse some old political rhetoric. Better yet, he has not allowed his belief in prophecy to demoralize him to the point of passive fatalism. At a time when too many Christians scoff or rage at the idea of church-state separation, Moore remains a true believer in the true American faith.

'Symbolic Belief': Talking the Talk Without Walking the Walk

New York Times columist Ross Douthat has some interesting comments today about what seems to be a rising tide of paranoia in the United States. Provoked by comments describing the Discovery Channel hostage taker of last week as both a left-wing terrorist (because he was an environmentalist) and a right-wing terrorist (because he opposed immigration), Douthat has reached a point where he finds it hard to take conspiracy-mongering seriously. He believes he'd be justified in not taking most of it seriously by the analysis of one Julian Sanchez, who describes conspiracy theories as a form of "symbolic belief." Sanchez describes symbolic belief as an assertion that "either work[s] as a public expression of some associated attitude or play[s] some role in defining the holder's self-conception." In other words, asserting a symbolic belief is like a confession of faith that identifies you with a group of fellow believers. The crucial aspect of symbolic belief, however, is that people don't really act on it as we'd expect, given the alarming nature of some such beliefs. "A subconscious lack of commitment to the truth of the belief renders it behaviorally inert," Sanchez writes. As a political example, he offers the failure of "truthers" to take the sort of actions that would seem to be required by their belief that George W. Bush somehow orchestrated the September 2001 terror attacks, while Douthat notes the failure of "birthers" to act appropriately on their belief that Barack Obama is an illegally elected alien President. In each case, their beliefs should make the believers act as if they faced a national emergency, but in most cases the only action proposed is voting for a particular political party.

Sanchez and Douthat are on to something, but neither explores the concept as fully as they might have. I'd agree that the sort of symbolic beliefs they describe are a form of belonging, of declaring yourself for a particular cause as well as denouncing a menace. I'd add that symbolic beliefs have a more obvious negative aspect. They are insults to the other side. They enable truthers to imply that all supporters of Bush were traitors. They enable birthers to treat Obama's supporters the same way. But that leaves the other question begging: why don't symbolic believers act according to the implications of their claims? They like to call people traitors, but why don't they treat people like traitors?

Sanchez suggests that symbolic beliefs are held shallowly, if not falsely, that "there's some part of you that knows better" and keeps you from getting into "practical trouble." Since the symbolic belief is essentially a form of insult, it doesn't compel the believer to take the drastic actions that would seem to follow from the belief. It might clarify things to remind ourselves that most symbolic beliefs are conspiracy theories. A common effect of conspiracy theory, I suspect, is demoralization. Someone convinced of conspiracies so immense, subtle and fanatical as those asserted in recent times might understandably also believe that he and any group of likeminded people he might find are utterly powerless to cope with the conspiracy. Since conspiracy theorists fear complex systems, assassinations or other decapitation strikes might seem useless to them, while prosecuting conspirators through legal channels would seem laughably hopeless. Conspiracy theories may arise to explain feelings of helplessness as well as inculcate them. Symbolic beliefs probably serve a similar function. Birther-ism blossomed only after Obama was elected, for instance, while trutherism most likely really got going once America's path to war seemed inevitable and irresistible.

Douthat notes that conspiracy theories can be found everywhere, not just on the right or on the anti-statist fringe. Democrats and Democratic constituents seem to have more or less strongly held conspiracy theories of their own. Douthat thinks of the Discover Channel attacker as a conspiracy theorist, but wrote his column to assure us that most conspiracy theorists are unlikely to act as that man did. Since he's something of a conservative by Times standards, Douthat warns that "elites" may blow conspiracy theories out of proportion in order to discredit legitimate dissent against the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress. He notes, however, that Republicans played the same game in Bush's time. His conclusion, that "Americans still have more to fear from the folly of establishments than from the paranoia such follies summon up," is nonpartisan in application. What happens, however, when we have a paranoid establishment that has no reason to feel powerless when dealing with conspiracies or treason whose existence may only be symbolic? We may have less to fear from paranoids than from the establishment, but that doesn't mean we should vote for paranoids.

Why are 'Many in the Tea Party' Attacking Carl Paladino?

That's the question I've been asking since the candidate's new TV ad started airing this week. I couldn't find a copy to embed here, but you can follow this link to Paladino's own site and watch the ad. You'll hear him distinctly say, "Now, like many in the Tea Party, the liberal elites are attacking me unfairly."

Did I miss something? The last time I checked, Paladino was the favored candidate of the TPs, or so he claimed. When did they start attacking him all of a sudden?

I can only conclude that neither the candidate nor his handlers considered how his grammar implied a hostility toward him on the part of his own presumed base. But there's a radio ad that gets the grammar right, and the desired point across, by saying something to the effect of "Like many in the Tea Party, Carl is under attack by..." Who, however, was going to correct the great man as he spoke his lines for the camera? Whoever dared would probably have seen Paladino's vaunted managerial skills in action.

We should have expected nothing different from a candidate who told the editors of my paper that being governor was a "magnanimous" job. At this rate, it may not be a problem for Rick Lazio, Paladino's rival, that he lacks money for a major ad campaign this month. Let Paladino swamp the airwaves with ads like this one, and Lazio should be a sure thing on primary day.

Clown of the Week: Ann Coulter

First, some disclaimers: I'm well aware that Ann Coulter is one of those political writers who plead immunity whenever called to account for offensive or obnoxious statements, on the ground that they are actually humorists. I also concede that those who share Coulter's particular sense of humor will be amused by her rescue of the President from the charge that he's a secret Muslim, since she clears Obama's name by declaring him an "obvious" atheist. It may also fall within the realm of humor for Coulter to claim that the only substantial evidence for Obama's professed Christianity is his past attendance at Jeremiah Wright's church -- which doesn't count as Christianity for Coulter, both because Wright professes that "liberation theology" that was anathematized and excommunicated by the authoritative Glenn Beck and because Wright allegedly hates particular groups of people. Of course, if hatred disqualified people from Christian communion it'd be a small religion, but Coulter is at least expansive enough in her condemnation to likewise interdict poor Fred Phelps and his congregation -- whom reactionaries love to kick in order to show that they're not haters. I'll even admit her right to question the sincerity of any self-proclaimed Christian's proclamation of faith. Accepting all these things, I'm still not sure if her claim that "all liberals are atheists" is a joke or the fervent outburst of an imbecile. Coulter's acolytes will probably appeal to the gnostic mysteries of the great woman's books for proof of her charge, but to mundane minds like mine the charge is so self-evidently false that it throws even her sense of humor into question. I'm going to make a wild guess that she bases the charge on some liberals' failure to respect certain rules set down in the Old Testament. I'll guess further that Coulter, like many Christians, feels more bound by those rules than by the instructions of Jesus of Nazareth. Any student of the Bible could easily set up a test of faith or practice that would exclude almost every Christian from the true religion. What makes Coulter's tests, whatever they may actually be, more valid than anyone else's is unclear. Still, on the assumption that the liberals-are-atheists claim is just as much a "joke" as anything else she writes, I give her the special designation of Clown of the Week rather than Idiot, though given her own rhetorical style, which encompasses calling MSNBC personalities "North Koreans" and dubbing one Obama supporter his "butt-boy," I could just as well anoint Ann Coulter the Anorexic Bottle-Blond Nazi Crackwhore of the Week. I just didn't think that was very funny.

Can Conservatism Be Predicted?

For the past week I've been mulling over a profile of the brothers Charles and David Koch that appeared in the last New Yorker. The article by Jane Mayer strongly insinuates that the Kochs, oil-based industrialists, provided the "astroturf," so to speak, for the Tea Party movement as patrons of think tanks like the Cato Institute and sponsors of new organizations, e.g. Americans For Prosperity. The author probably overrates their role in fueling the anti-Obama reaction, which would probably have started at a grass-roots level without any pump-priming by money men or their spokespersons. I was more interested in the brothers themselves, whose combined fortune is said to rival those of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. While those two billionaires are notorious for insisting on the social responsibilities of their class, to the point of calling for higher taxes on themselves, the Kochs are said to be dogmatic libertarians. Philanthropists and patrons of the arts in their own right, the brothers vehemently oppose the regulatory state.

The Kochs' position as super-rich reactionaries conforms to a certain stereotype of right-wingers, and of the right wing as the cause of the super-rich. The stereotype is often belied by facts. The Republican party, for instance, may be the party of the rich, but it isn't necessarily the party of the richest. As Mr. Right often points out to me, many of the richest either support the Democratic party or are active Democratic politicians. My own research has led me to speculate that the entrepreneurial conservatism that has characterized the American right for the last fifty years is more representative of new money than old money, or appeals more to people who feel they haven't yet made enough money than to those who think they do have enough, or more than enough. The Koch brothers would appear to prove that class or relative wealth can't accurately predict a person's ideology.

Mayer implicitly identifies the Koch's anti-statist, anti-regulatory ideology with their status as willful polluters, but also notes that their father was an original John Bircher who was also embittered against the Soviet Union by personal experience in Russia. David and Charles are heirs rather than first-generation entrepreneurs, but they are only two of their father's four sons. They bought out the other two brothers after bitter battles over control of the family fortune. Did that competitiveness contribute to their hardcore political views? It's hard to say.

It might be nice to find a magic "meme" that inclines people to reactionary opinions and attitudes but could somehow be bred out of humanity, but I doubt the possibility. Reaction seems to emanate from many different social, cultural and psychological sources. In my own experience I know people whom I'd call "poor" who nonetheless identify with the so-called party of the rich. Critics might want to dismiss such people as "stupid," but there are people with Ph.D.s who also espouse reaction in academia and in think tanks like those funded by the Kochs. Some may be tempted to identify religion as the common element, but history shows us outright atheists like H. L. Mencken who were also politically heartless reactionaries on social and economic issues. Mencken himself might suggest that it comes down to morals. As a Nietzschean, he'd probably draw a distinction between the "slave morality" of the left and whatever he chose to call his own worldview. His analysis might not have been accurate, but we may as well recognize some kind of plurality of morality, with one morality placing an absolute priority on individual liberty, another on collective well-being, and others with different priorities. Some people reason their way to one morality or another, while others go on gut feelings of right and wrong to the same destinations. These differences may not be as irreconcilable as opposing exponents sometimes believe; anyone who believes in democracy should at least hope so.

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Democracy, however, has a morality of its own, or at least an ethics of its own. While ideally it would never dictate how to think, by definition it tells people how to live. Democracy depends on any minority accepting the majority's will on matters of collective interest. It may be an inadequate vehicle for anyone convinced that the direction society must take is not a matter of popular whim. It can't force a resolution of the intellectual disagreements underlying political issues, but does it require minorities or individuals to suppress their disagreements, for a time or forever, in the name of peace or progress? When we bring questions to this level, I doubt that a person's income, education or religion will determine the answer. But if nothing automatically determines how a certain kind of person will answer, should we assume that everyone can be persuaded one way, or at least that everyone is capable of tolerating a collective choice for any direction? Is democracy possible as long as anyone believes that going in some direction,-- left, right or other, -- is intolerable? When we get to this level, we might get each individual to speak for himself or herself without suspecting that it's the money or the region or the race talking. We might be better off if politicians debated these questions instead of tax rates, or at least if we didn't try to categorize each person's opinion before he expressed it.

A Genuine Environmentalist Wacko

A would-be American terrorist stormed the Discovery Channel building and took hostages today in what's understood as an attempt to force the channel to air programming espousing his extreme environmentalist viewpoint. Workers at the building apparently recognized the man as a crackpot who had frequently picketed there and had once been arrested for disorderly conduct. He is believed to be the founder of the Save the Planet Protest group -- if it was ever more than himself -- and this is believed to be his list of demands. He was mortally wounded by police and his hostages were rescued.

There was something retrograde about this whole episode. The perpetrator seemed to think that he could compel Discovery to publicize his views just as major newspapers had published the Unabomber's manifesto, without realizing that the Unabomber's demands were compelling because he had already demonstrated a power to kill and maim people. Even the Unabomber didn't demand that newspapers change their editorial policies, however, while the late hostage-taker rather imperiously insisted that Discovery conform all its programming to his viewpoint. Nevertheless, his views will be more widely publicized now than they were in his lifetime, especially if right-wingers follow up on early reports that the dead man claimed to have been inspired by Al Gore. Having left an extensive trail of opinions on the internet, the man might have been expected to let those speak for him after a more lethal confrontation with the Discovery Channel. More typical of our time would be the man who flew his plane into an IRS office earlier this year after leaving a farewell manifesto on a website, or the Virigina Tech amoklaufer who mailed videotaped rants to TV for posthumous broadcast. Today's terrorist was most likely not prepared to die for his beliefs. The evidence suggests, at first glance, that he craved the satisfaction of seeing a cable network comply with his will. He died like an amoklaufer or suicide terrorist, but probably not with anything like their presumed sense of satisfaction.

There's something inhuman, or maybe just inhumane, about the "Save the Planet" ultimatum. It reads like the work of a primitivist anarchist, only more misanthropic. Some people may find parts they sympathize if not agree with, but too much of it is along these lines: " Saving the Planet means saving what's left of the non-human Wildlife by decreasing the Human population. That means stopping the human race from breeding any more disgusting human babies!" Someone can make an objective case for population control or even gradual population reduction, but "disgusting" is not an objective case. It'll be easy to dismiss the author as a madman or simply sick, but given how his sickness found political expression, it might be wise to ask whether his sickness is a symptom of a larger social disorder.

Does America Have a Two (Tea) Party System?

Senator Murkowski of Alaska has conceded the closely-contested Republican primary to her challenger, Joe Miller, after a week of tense counting of stray ballots. While I've discussed already the extent to which Murkowski's defeat is a personal victory for Sarah Palin in her feud, the news media continues to describe the event as a major triumph for the "tea party movement." They need to be more specific.

For people with short memories, there was a schism in the movement this summer. The National Tea Party Federation expelled the Tea Party Express for its failure to repudiate spokesman Mark Williams after his briefly-infamous "Letter to Lincoln" implicitly accused the NAACP of desiring a return to slavery in the form of welfare dependence. Williams subsequently resigned from his association with the Express, but his move doesn't appear to have led to a reconciliation between the two organizations.

To be specific, then, it was the Tea Party Express, the organization that wouldn't repudiate a race-baiter and presumably endorses his view that welfare is morally equivalent to slavery, that gave Joe Miller the most support and is taking credit, along with Palin, for his narrow victory. Emboldened by success, the Express is targeting other states for intensive campaigning during the remaining primary season and the general elections this fall. Whether an Express endorsement means that Miller or any other candidate so blessed is more "conservative" or "extreme" than a run of the mill "tea party" candidate isn't perfectly clear, but in our shifting political landscape it may clarify things to keep the Express in mind as a distinct entity different by dissociation from other TPs. The Express may exploit Miller's success to assert itself as the real representative of Tea Partiers, or at least the biggest and best of Tea Parties, but for the moment the leadership if not the identity of the movement is still up for grabs. Opponents of Tea Parties and Republicans will want to emphasize the Express's disreputable recent history, at which point Miller, in his own defense, may stress a broader base of TP support. At the same time, it may prove that the Express is making claims for its role in Miller's rise that won't stand up to scrutiny. Many Alaskans who identify with the movement could have supported Miller without identifying with the Express, after all. They probably will be identified with the Express, whether they like it or not, and that may force them to identify with the Federation, whether they like that or not, in order to avoid guilt by association. However things develop, Alaska will remain someplace to watch this fall.

On a third-party note, many reports suggest that Murkowski gave up only when Alaska's Libertarian Party made it clear that they would not only refuse to give her their line for the general election, but would strongly consider giving it to Miller had he lost the Republican contest. Whether Libertarians should welcome politicians who wanted to be Republicans is up to partisans in each state to decide, I suppose, but you'd think they'd know better.

The Bipolarchy of Olden Days

At under 200 pages of text, Charles W. Calhoun's From Bloody Shirt to Full Dinner Pail: The Transformation of Politics and Governance in the Gilded Age is a concise and clear history of political and partisan issues in the period between the end of the Civil War and the turn of the twentieth century. It offers ample proof of the historic inconsistency of the two major parties that still dominate American politics. Calhoun portrays a Republican party convinced of the economic benefits of government intervention, especially in trade policy, and a Democratic party dominated by a fiscal conservatism that would seem extreme to Tea Partiers today. Grover Cleveland, the lone Democratic President of the era, would stand well to the right of anyone planning a presidential run in 2012. He was fond of saying that it was the people's duty to support the government, but not government's duty to support the people. His party claimed to champion the poor, as it claims to do today, by trying to reduce consumer prices by lowering tariffs. Republicans claimed to champion the poor by maintaining high tariffs, which they claimed kept Americans at work. Calhoun does a good job explaining the importance of the tariff and the money supply as the key issues of the period, but he also shows how Republicans, in particular, played the bipolarchy game of lesser-evilism. For decades after the Civil War, the GOP warned that Democratic victories would put Confederates in power; this was called "waving the bloody shirt." Democrats did little to dispel that impression, being for all intents and purposes complicit in terrorism to suppress black voting in the South. But Democrats had support outside the South from people who hoped to benefit from free trade and others who worried that measures proposed to tame the South would expand federal power to a dangerous degree.

Calhoun disappoints a little in his dismissive treatment of third parties, particularly the Peoples/Populist party that waged perhaps the most formidable assault on the Bipolarchy ever in the 1890s. While acknowledging Populist successes, he rejects their claim that Republicans and Democrats fought battles irrelevant to the interests of ordinary Americans. He cites high election turnout as proof that Americans took the tariff and silver issues seriously, and the facts inescapably prove that the majority rejected Populism. Calhoun's point in writing the book was to get people to take the issues of the Gilded Age seriously, as if the Populist critique had prevailed in retrospect. He does give us a good idea of the stakes involved in those issues, but the fact that they mattered to many people doesn't mean that they mattered most to everyone, or even to a majority of the electorate -- many of whom may have voted Republican or Democrat for sectional or ethnocultural reasons. Given the unflattering portrait he paints of a nation divided between the grafters of the North and the terrorists of the South, he might have made more of an effort to step outside the Bipolarchy box and see it from an alternative viewpoint. But I can't complain very much after admiring the book's brevity in the first place. Calhoun deserves credit for laying out the facts in a way that at least leaves you asking questions, even if he has neither the time or the inclination to answer all of them.

'Collective Salvation' is what Civilization is All About

Theologian Glenn Beck has determined that the President of the United States is not a proper Christian. The radio talker is not saying that Barack Obama is a secret Muslim. Rather, he claims that the Chief Executive is a sort of heretic. Beck can tell this because Obama has said on at least one occasion that "my individual salvation depends on our collective salvation." Beck, a Mormon, believes that this sentiment distorts Christianity's proper emphasis on individual salvation, each soul taking personal responsibility for saving itself.

Googling the heretical phrase reveals that the future President uttered it most notably in 2008, when he delivered the commencement address at Wesleyan University. Immediately afterward, the New York Times published an excerpt including the terrible clause. Here are the candidate's un-American words:

It's because you have an obligation to yourself, because our individual salvation depends on our collective salvation. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential and discover the role you'll play in writing the next great chapter in America's story.

Looks like typical commencement-speech banality to me. What it doesn't look like is a theological statement. Beck has chosen to read a religious context into Obama's use of the word "salvation," but in context there's nothing here to suggest that the Senator was speaking about the salvation of the soul. In cliched language, Obama was saying something the Founders would agree with: a person's character finds its highest expression in public service and civic virtue. It is a relatively recent innovation in the history of Western thought to believe that public service subtracts from a person's freedom or corrupts his character. Where Jesus would stand on the issue is irrelevant.

In a civilized society, the only proper object of a state's existence is the collective salvation of its members. Any state not committed to that end inevitably ends up favoring one class of people, however constituted, over others. Why Christians (or Mormons) should favor that sort of state rather than one dedicated to collective salvation in the secular sense of the words is a question I leave for Glenn Beck to answer.

The 'Ground Zero' Mosque Imam is Wrong About Something

Feisal Abdul Rauf gave an unfortunate interview today in which he complained that the protests against his proposal to build a community center, with a prayer site included, near the Twin Towers site in New York City, were essentially political in nature -- which is to say implicitly partisan. "There is no doubt," he told an Arab newspaper, "that the election season has had a major impact upon the nature of the discourse." The comments are unfortunate because Rauf is currently traveling in the Middle East on the State Department's dime as part of an "educational and cultural program." That will make his comments appear to be those of a political hireling. If anything, that will do more to politicize an issue that has cut across partisan lines. I've seen Democratic elected officials speak out against building the "mosque," and I've read Republican columnists writing in favor of Rauf's project. Even someone as partisan as Mr. Right observed that the issue was not a partisan one when he had an occasion to comment on the subject last week. Islamophobia is not an exclusive tendency of the Republican party, the Christian right, or any of the usual bad guys. It's an all-too reflexive response to the irrefutable fact (conspiracy theorists notwithstanding) that the September 2001 terror attack on New York was perpetrated by a group of Muslims, acting as self-appointed defenders of their faith. Many Americans who hate Republicans probably hate Muslims as well. Many Americans who despise Christianity automatically despise Islam as well. To the extent that they accept that the terrorists attacked New York because they were Muslims -- and their religion is a necessary but not a sufficient cause of the attacks -- all these Americans feel that each and every Muslim is a proper object of suspicion. It's the same mentality that condemned Japanese-Americans to internment camps during World War II, and that cut across party lines as well. It's simply wrong to suppose that this anti-Muslim sentiment depended on partisan instigation by "very small [yet] loud and vociferous voices] to flare up as it did this summer.

While Rauf should not have to answer for the 2001 terrorists and doesn't need to prove that he disagrees with their motives and goals, he could have gone further to acknowledge that the terror attacks have something to do with the opposition to the Park51 plan than he did in the interview excerpts I've seen. He's quoted saying that "we have radicals in the other faith traditions as well" while acknowledging that "the issue of radicalism is a threat to us all." But the problem isn't "radicalism" but terrorism, the fact that certain Muslims feel entitled to commit mass murder. All I'm asking is that Rauf say something as simple as "people are angry at Muslims because of 9/11" before explaining why they shouldn't be angry at all Muslims.

Rauf also noted that Muslims aren't the first religious group to fall under widespread suspicion in American history. He's absolutely right on that. Roman Catholics, in particular, were accused of conspiring to subvert American democracy in favor of papal hegemony, and to the extent that Catholic immigrants were blamed for incidents like the New York Draft Riots of 1863 we can say that Catholics were blamed for mass murder as well. American anti-semitism, which Rauf also mentions, never came close to the fear felt toward Catholics in the past or the fear felt toward Muslims today. Like Islam now, the Catholic version of Christianity was widely assumed to be incompatible with the values of a democratic republic. It took the fear a long time to die, and a search on the internet might reveal that it isn't completely dead, but the Catholics simply overwhelmed the old suspicion by settling here in numbers that could not be repelled by nativists or ignored by politicians. On that model, the remedy for Islamophobia should be more Muslims and more mosques in America. We have no more reason to assume that they'd impose the Sharia if they got the chance than Protestant morons had reason to assume, for instance, that a Catholic President would take orders from the Vatican. But if that's a chance you're not willing to take, you don't really believe in democracy. You either welcome Muslims and trust them to become Americans like every other immigrant group, or you don't. That's the political dividing line in New York City and the rest of the country, and Imam Rauf misses the point of the moment if he tries to draw the line somewhere else.

For the record, here's the full text of Imam Rauf's interview with the English-language Abu Dhabi paper.

Populists Can't Be Bigots, Can They?

Charles Krauthammer's latest column is a case study in the cynical manipulation of perceived populist sentiment in the country. He wants to incite people by suggesting that the Obama administration and the Democratic party consider them "the great unwashed." The proof of this contempt, Krauthammer claims, is liberals' attribution of any opposition to liberal policies to bigotry. Any charge, any suggestion that bigotry persists in some quarters, the columnist asserts, is just liberals' sour-grapes way of explaining the public's considered rejection of the liberal agenda.

Krauthammer applies this analytic tool across the board. He claims, in effect, that liberals ascribe all opposition to Obama to bigotry, though he can offer no evidence that liberals have said this. The only liberals quoted in the column are President and Mrs. Obama, who are denounced anew for daring to say that some Americans are "bitter" or "mean."

Getting down to specifics, Krauthammer considers the three issues most recently provocative of populist sentiment: the Arizona illegal-immigration controversy, the court rulings regarding gay marriage, and the agitation over the "Ground Zero mosque" in New York City. The first of these is ultimately a question of jurisdiction that has been manipulated cynically by left and right alike. Bigotry is a factor in the controversy but not a decisive one. Krauthammer, however, goes out of his way to endorse bigotry in this case. It's not enough for him to state that Americans have a right to believe that "illegal immigration should be illegal." He goes on to assert for the presumed majority a right to "determine the composition of its immigrant population." That is, he would see nothing wrong with Americans passing laws excluding certain nationalities (or faiths?) from the country for any reason they please. As far as I can tell, Krauthammer wants to give more scope for bigotry than most opponents of illegal immigration have even asked for.

Meanwhile, neither homophobia nor Islamophobia are bigotries as far as Krauthammer is concerned. On the gay-marriage question, he writes: "is it so hard to see why people might believe that a single judge overturning the will of 7 million voters is an affront to democracy? And that seeing merit in retaining the structure of the most ancient and fundamental of all social institutions is something other than an alleged hatred of gays — particularly since the opposite-gender requirement has characterized virtually every society in all the millennia until just a few years ago?" Simple answers follow. Many civil-rights milestones in this country have overturned the will of voters. Antiquity is not inconsistent with bigotry. The struggle for homosexual equality is the civil-rights struggle of the 21st century, and resistance to equality in civil rights is bigotry by default.

We've already considered Krauthammer's Islamophobic stand against the mosque, but here's a recap: "This smug attribution of bigotry to two-thirds of the population hinges on the insistence on a complete lack of connection between Islam and radical Islam, a proposition that dovetails perfectly with the Obama administration's pretense that we are at war with nothing more than 'violent extremists' of inscrutable motive and indiscernible belief." Never mind that Obama's pretense was Bush's as well; simply observe that Krauthammer's defense against the Islamophobia charge is to reassert his own Islamophobia! To review: you are an Islamophobe if you believe that every Muslim has to prove his innocence of complicity in either the September 2001 attacks or a conspiracy to impose the dreaded Caliphate on America. The "insistence on a complete lack of connection between Islam and radical Islam" is what we Americans call a presumption of innocence. The denial of this presumption of innocence to any Muslim is Islamophobia. On this issue in particular, where there is no refuge in a positive argument for the necessity of the heterosexual couple for parenting purposes, there really is nothing but bigotry and its opposite, except for those few touchy-feely bleeding-heart types who may not be Islamophobes themselves but want us to be oh-so sensitive to the Islamophobia of the bereaved from 2001. Krauthammer does not belong to the latter group.

Personally, I've never blamed all the opposition to Obama on bigotry. Selfishness and crackpot economic notions have been constant factors in the right-wing resistance and certainly count for more, for most opponents, than mistrust of the President's race or suspicions about his religious affiliation. But I can't agree with what Krauthammer writes, because he charges falsely that liberals blame all opposition on bigotry, and implies quite smugly that none of the opposition is based on bigotry of any kind. In his eagerness to ride with the herd to an expected victory in November, Krauthammer is offering an indiscriminate endorsement of populist majoritarianism that he might regret later. Today, because "the great unwashed" appear to agree with him, he declares implicitly that they, the presumed majority, are always right. When they stop agreeing with him, I suspect that no amount of rhetorical soap will make them less "unwashed" in his own eyes.

Fearmongering: Glenn Beck's Iceberg Test

C-SPAN was running live coverage of Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally from the National Mall today, but I only had time to watch a little of it as it happened. I did get to see what I considered an unobjectionable video tribute to Martin Luther King, whose appearance at the same site 47 years ago has made Beck's appearance today controversial in some eyes. In the little I saw of the event I saw more black people in front of microphones than in the audience, though the C-SPAN cameras made a point of showing as many black spectators as possible. Since Al Sharpton's counter-event had not yet started, it'd be natural for some of his cohort to stroll over and see what the fuss was about. A little bit later, I caught some of Beck's own speech.

Beck was in a defensive mood when I saw him. He noted with some indignation that he has been called a "fearmonger." He denied the charge, arguing, to paraphrase, that when someone on the deck of the Titanic calls out that he sees an iceberg dead ahead, that isn't fearmongering. That point is inarguable. The question for the year 2010, however, is whether there is an iceberg. If there isn't, the man who cries iceberg is a fearmonger. We shouldn't have to wait until the iceberg hits, of course, but there should be ways to verify its imminence without having to take one man's word for it, especially when the man is as interested in steering the ship in a particular direction as in avoiding the iceberg. For all we know, his proposed course will put us on a collision course with an iceberg, -- only don't take my word for that.

In any event, Beck doesn't think of himself as a fearmonger, and since I don't watch or listen to him I won't venture an opinion. He argued today that fear is inadequate by itself to motivate people in a necessary direction. He believes that the nation united immediately after the September 2001 terrorist attacks, but that the moment of unity passed quickly because it was based mostly on fear. He offered another instance of the inefficacy of fearmongering: the story of Jesus. Beck assumes that the Disciples must have been scared when they spent the night in the garden of Gethsemane, what with the authorities hunting them and all, but their fear wasn't enough to keep them awake. By the time Jesus woke them up, it was too late to escape Judas and the gathering soldiers. The Disciples only gained long-term resolution, Beck explained, following the Resurrection. This left open the question of exactly what he thought might inspire a new sense of resolution today, but I had places to go and couldn't wait to find out.

The Lincoln Memorial: 'Ground Zero' for the Civil Rights Movement?

Glenn Beck is holding one of his rallies in Washington tomorrow. Sarah Palin will be there to stir up the yahoos. Beck himself has been there before as an organizer of last year's "9/12" march. This time, however, prominent black activists are denouncing Beck for his scheduling of the "Restoring Honor" event on the 47th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington. For Beck and Palin to speak on the same steps where Martin Luther King delivered the "I Have a Dream" speech, some say, is an affront to Dr. King's memory and the civil-rights movement as a whole.

Beck's response to criticism has evolved from disingenuousness to defiance. After initially claiming that he had not realized the historical significance of the day he chose for his rally, the demagogue has claimed his own right to the King legacy. He has invited a niece of King, who has accepted the invite, to speak at the rally. He argues, rightly in my opinion, that King's legacy belongs no more exclusively to black people than Abraham Lincoln's legacy belongs exclusively to white people. Predictably enough, Beck identifies King's legacy almost entirely with that single famous reference in the famous speech to "the content of our character. Like many reactionaries, Beck believes that King's dream vision of a time when every American will be judged solely by the content of his character rather than by superficial details like race, gender, etc., requires the immediate institution of a "color-blind" society through the abolition of all "affirmative action" programs. Whether an 81 year old King, were he alive today, would agree that compensatory programs could be done away with now is quite debatable, but Beck has every right to make the claim, just as Rev. Al Sharpton, who is holding a counter-demonstration tomorrow, has every right to dispute it.

The latest Beck brouhaha makes an interesting companion story to the ongoing contretemps over the proposed 'Ground Zero mosque' in New York City. It's another instance of hypersensitive backlash against a properly inoffensive exercise of civil rights. I can defend Glenn Beck's right to hold a rally where and when he pleases, as long as the law permits it, without endorsing any of his reactionary views. He is under no more obligation to defer to the sensitivity of some black Americans than the Park 51 planners are to defer to the irrational sentiments of some New Yorkers. A similar mental impulse animates both disputes. The aggrieved New Yorkers visualize the Twin Towers replaced by a mosque and their sensitivity is violated. Sharpton and others look to the Lincoln Memorial and see King displaced and replaced by Beck, as if the site would no longer "belong" to the civil rights movement but would be conquered and occupied by right-wingers and reactionaries, if not by outright racists. They identify the Memorial steps, if not the entire National Mall, with the sacred moment of 1963, so that its occupation by anyone believed to disagree with King or oppose his legacy, all of Beck's disclaimers notwithstanding, becomes a desecration. It is all perfectly irrational, and probably as cynically political, to an extent, as much of the outrage over the mosque plan.

Sharpton is within his rights to counter-demonstrate, as he probably would if opportunity allowed whenever and wherever Beck held a rally. Everyone has the right to use the occasion to criticize or simply insult Beck, Palin and the doctrines they stand for. But to suggest that Beck has no right to speak from the Lincoln steps on a particular day, or even to challenge the "wisdom" of his schedule, is unacceptable. This isn't about right and left or black and white; it's about an attitude that seems to be all too common in this country but ought to be less so.