Bill Clinton's Legacy

Bill Clinton's latest attempt to define his legacy is a 957-page book called My Life. Though panned by the New York Times as "sloppy, self-indulgent and often eye-crossingly dull," hard-core Clinton supporters still waited eight hours or more to have the former president sign their copies. As the line of autograph-seekers snaked around the corner of Broadway and Wall Street in lower Manhattan, [Brain-Terminal.Com] asked the Clintophiles for their thoughts on Bill, his book, and his legacy.

There is another, opposite danger in the seamless integration of the churches into the forces of social progress. This process raises the question of the “free spirit” and “honest animal” of a democrat who unexpectedly bursts in upon the argument of Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals:

Does the church today still have any necessary role to play [in aiding the progress of democracy]? Does it still have the right to exist? Or could one do without it?... Certainly it has, over the years, become something crude and boorish, something repellent to a more delicate intellect, to a truly modern taste.

Once encouraged to conceive Christianity primarily as a buttress for progressive morality, we might come to see it as superfluous. If we welcome religion only because we cherish liberal social policy, why can’t our commitment to the policy roll happily along on its own? Of course, the mainline churches have continued to participate in public debate. If anything, they have defined themselves ever more in terms of their social activism. What they have increasingly lacked is anything distinctively Christian to bring to the table. Thus, mainline religion, despite its efforts to please, has become merely incidental to the lives of so many who continue to profess it.

Clifford Orwin, "The Unraveling of Christianity in America"
The Public Interest, Spring 2004

"The Order" (2003)

"The Order" is the 'religious horror film' genre's equivalent of 'gigli' (Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez) -- so excruciatingly boring, so appallingly bad, you'll either be entertained by the fact that, just when it can't get any worse, IT DOES . . . or wind up flogging yourself for having wasted two perfectly good hours of your life.

It's hard to believe that Brian Helgeland, who wrote the screenplay for "Mystic River" and adapted "L.A. Confidential", could produce something so utterly ridiculous, so profoundly bad in every possible way.

May God forgive him for this aesthetic sacrilege.

Michael Moore and the "Dumbing Down" of the Left

Liberals are fawning over Michael Moore's "mockumentary" Fahrenheit 911 with a religious furvor akin to Catholic zeal for Mel Gibson's The Passion of The Christ. I found the sentiments expressed in this review by Stewart Klawans for The Nation oddly familar to those expressed by Christians exiting the theater after seeing Gibson's dramatization:

You don't much monitor your own reactions. But then, as you leave the movie house, you might notice that the sidewalk chatter sounds oddly muffled, the traffic looks a little blurred, as you begin to realize that your attention has not come outside with you; it's still in the dark, struggling with the feelings that Fahrenheit 9/11 called up and didn't resolve. Are you outraged, heartbroken, vengeful, morose, gloating, thoughtful, electrified? Moore has elicited all of these emotions and then had the nerve--the filmmaker's nerve--to leave you to sort them out. . . . I think there are two bundles of messages in Fahrenheit 9/11, one political and one emotional--and while the first is about as ambiguous as a call to take up pitchforks and torches and storm the castle, the second is too complex to unsettle those in power. It works to unsettle you. It's what makes Fahrenheit 9/11 a real movie.

Yes, I suppose in a way the discovery that the Bush administration engineered the war in Iraq with the sole motive of making profits off Arab oil and Halliburton labor contracts is something like a religious epiphany.

The reason I don't like Michael Moore is NOT because he's anti-Republican -- it's entirely possible to offer criticism of the Bush administration's handling of the war in a reasonable and civilized manner. The problem with Michael Moore is that he so effectively contributes to the dumbing down of the Left by his willing indulgence in radical conspiracy-theorizing and vulger anti-Americanism, as recently exposed by David Brooks ("All Hail Moore" New York Times June 26, 2004).

Here's Moore on how he really feels about Americans:

"They are possibly the dumbest people on the planet . . . in thrall to conniving, thieving smug [pieces of the human anatomy] . . . We Americans suffer from an enforced ignorance. We don't know about anything that's happening outside our country. Our stupidity is embarrassing. . . .

"That's why we're smiling all the time. You can see us coming down the street. You know, `Hey! Hi! How's it going?' We've got that big [expletive] grin on our face all the time because our brains aren't loaded down."

Here's Moore on the complexities of the U.S. - Iraqi conflict (in an interview with the Japanese press):

"The motivation for war is simple. The U.S. government started the war with Iraq in order to make it easy for U.S. corporations to do business in other countries. They intend to use cheap labor in those countries, which will make Americans rich."

And here's Moore -- in his message posted on his website, April 14, 2004 -- on the Islamic fundamentalists who are ambushing our troops and beheading hostages:

"The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not `insurgents' or `terrorists' or `The Enemy.' They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow -- and they will win."

This coming from a self-proclaimed "filthy-rich multi-millionare" who portrays himself on screen as a scruffy blue-collar "man of the people" while living in a posh apartment in Manhattan and demanding up to $38,000 in "speaking fees" for a single engagement at Kansas University.

In related news, Ralph Nader accused Moore of selling out his friends for the Democratic Party Establishment in an open letter to his website.

Related Links:

• Watching Michael Moore - new blog by yours truly.
• MooreExposed.Com
• MooreLies.Com

Noam Chomsky's blog "manufactures consent."

Blogger Pejman Yousefzadeh has figured out how radical political critic Noam Chomsky deals with unwanted commentators on his blog (i.e., those who disagree with him):

. . . In order to comment on the Chomsky blog--or on other ZNet blogs--one has to donate to ZNet. Since donations in all likelihood come overwhelmingly (if not exclusively) from people who buy into the ZNet editorial line, the only people who are allowed to comment on ZNet blogs like Chomsky's are people who by and large agree with him.

To call this arrangement intellectually cowardly is to unfairly malign intellectual cowards. If the whole effect of a comments system is simply to create an echo chamber, then any self-respecting blogger would refrain from such an arrangement. It appears, however, that the ZNet crowd is not so high-minded.

You mean there's good news from Iraq?!?

Blogger Chrenkoff has compiled the fourth installment of "Good news from Iraq". Those who need to catch up can read parts 1, 2, and 3.

Amusing spam of the week.

It's not every day that you get spam mail for Viagra beginning with the line:

Moreover, such was the scarcity of labor and the pecuniary inducements held out, that many poor people sold themselves in order to reach these shores.

Ronald Reagan 1911 - 2004

"Let me thank you, the American people, for giving me the great honor of allowing me to serve as your president. When the Lord calls me home, whenever that day may be, I will leave with the greatest love for this country of ours and eternal optimism for its future. I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead."

Ronald Reagan, Nov. 5, 1994.

• Ronald Reagan's Farewell Address. Given to the nation after his eight years as president, delivered in the Oval Office on January 11, 1989.
• Remarks by the President. President George W. Bush
• Reagan's Greatness, a look back by William Kristol. The Weekly Standard Nov. 10, 1997.
• Ronald Reagan's Rainbow, by Paul Kengor. National Review Online, June 5, 2004.

Cool blog. Cool band.

A really cool musically-oriented blog. They get a mention here simply on account of this wonderful post about an excellent band Swervedriver (particularly their album Mezcal Head). Yay!

Andy Kaufmann returns . . .

. . . yes, but how can we be sure it's really him? ;-)