THE WANDERER, AUGUST 10, 2006
JOSEPH SOBRAN'S
WASHINGTON WATCH
Dog Days
August is here for sure, with temperatures over 100 in
our nation's capital leaving us limp and stupid, asking
ourselves whether Al Gore is right about global warming
after all. Haunting question! Gore has long advocated
"reinventing government," which seems to mean making it
far bigger and more intrusive than ever in order to save
the planet from the human race, the internal combustion
engine, and every remaining trace of unregulated liberty.
I'm too weak and exhausted to argue. He's worn me
down. The combination of this weather and his dogged
propaganda has taken all the fight out of me. Why does it
only seem to invigorate him and other prophets of doom?
The latest war in the Mideast has taken all the fun
out of a summer that wasn't too much fun to begin with.
Condoleezza Rice has made a short and pointless trip to
the region, hoping to stop the violence but not the
Israeli attacks on Lebanon. Just what did she and her
boss have in mind?
Congress joined the administration in blessing the
Israeli action and sending a new shipment of the latest
American weapons to help the cause. The rest of the
world, already anti-American and anti-Israel, withheld
its applause at U.S. peacekeeping efforts after an
Israeli strike killed dozens of Lebanese, mostly
children. Yet nothing seemed to deter Hezbollah from
continuing its own assaults, and it has been holding its
own against the mighty Israeli army while winning more
support from even Christian Lebanese. All sides are
ignoring the Pope's pleas for peace.
Meanwhile, Democrats in this country are preparing
to recapture Congress this fall. Curiously, the first
political casualty may well be a Democrat, Connecticut's
Joe Lieberman, who has enraged the party's rank-and-file
voters by supporting the Iraq war, which even Republicans
have lost their stomach for.
If he loses to his anti-war opponent, Ned Lamont, in
the imminent primary, he promises to run as an
independent, but the war will have become a "wedge issue"
dividing the parties and, given President Bush's
unpopularity, which extends to the rest of the GOP,
probably signaling a congressional realignment in
November.
The Republicans are having their own problems with
their base. Pollsters keep finding that the Republicans'
morale is as low as the Democrats' is high. Voters of
both parties are angry at their leaders, but especially
at Bush, which means that turnout will be crucial in
November, with Democrats much more likely to bother
voting. Republican strategists and tacticians have their
work cut out for them.
Karl Rove's plan to win by accusing Democrats of
wanting to "cut and run" in Iraq no longer looks like the
way to rouse voters. On the contrary, the whole country
is sick of the war and worried about the spread of the
terrorism it was supposed to vanquish. The Republicans
are paying for their embrace of neoconservatism and their
abandonment of the older conservatism of Ronald Reagan
and Barry Goldwater.
After six years of Bush, the federal government is
bigger than ever. And more futile.
After Fidel
In nearly half a century, during which he has
outlasted nine American presidents and the Soviet Union,
Fidel Castro seems to have found the elusive secret of
stable government: murderous tyranny. It also helps if
your country is an island, from which escape is difficult
and which foreign influence can hardly penetrate.
Miami's Cuban exiles exulted in the news that ill
health has forced the old dictator, going on 80, to
surrender power to his kid brother Raul, 75, at least for
the time being. Is the end finally near?
Unfortunately, Raul is no sweeter than Fidel. He's a
ruthless Communist who earned his status not by mere
kinship but through desert, "by merit raised to that bad
eminence." He supervised the bloody executions in the
early days of the Revolution, and time hasn't mellowed
him.
If Fidel dies, he will leave a worthy successor,
ready to do whatever it takes to preserve Communism.
Yet Fidel's death, whenever it comes, is bound to
bring some pressure for change. He is the great symbol
and embodiment of a nationalistic brand of Communism, a
corrupt, moribund, and evil system. How long can it
survive without him? American sanctions have probably had
the reverse of their intended effect, feeding the
anti-Americanism that Communism thrives on, even as
anti-American feeling has become global and horror of
Communism has faded.
The Castro brothers also have a generous new ally in
Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, who subsidizes them with oil
money.
ABC NEWS reports an odd twist in the story: Many
aging Cuban exiles are already having second thoughts
about going home. Even if the hated regime perishes, it
seems, they could lose the Medicare payments they enjoy
in this country! Cuban Communism may be bad, but American
socialism, it seems, is indispensable.
Foxman's Revenge
How could Mel Gibson have made Abe Foxman any
happier? After being accused of anti-Semitism by Foxman
(and countless others) for filming the Gospel account of
THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, Gibson got himself arrested
for drunk driving (at twice the speed limit) and treated
the polite cop (Jewish, as it happens) to an obscene rant
about how "the [expletive deleted] Jews" are "responsible
for all the wars in the world," et cetera.
After sobering up, Gibson was contrite about his
"despicable" outburst, but by then Foxman (and countless
others) had already weighed in with entirely predictable
claims that the incident merely proved -- in vino
veritas, you know -- that Gibson was the bigot they'd
always said he was. His attempts at reconciliation were
flatly rejected.
Under the circumstances, his mortified admirers
could hardly deny the charge. It was incredible; by which
I mean, alas, all too credible. You could hardly blame
his worst enemies for making the most of their
opportunity.
I could think of neither an excuse nor an
explanation, but a wise priest of my acquaintance,
speaking with some personal knowledge and insight,
suggests that Gibson is in a very fragile spiritual
condition and needs our prayers. His behavior is so
self-destructive that we may suspect that he has been
singled out for special diabolical attention. After all,
he has produced the only explicitly anti-diabolical film
in recent memory.
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