The 'Weak' in (National) Review AND Cuaderno Latinoamericano - Two for one, how 'bout that! The National Review Online has a rare piece on Latin America written by Guest Commentator Mike Krause. As a specialist myself on Mexican Politics, I must say that I found the article to be perplexing, if not misleading. As far as I can tell, Krause seemed to be railing on the PRI, lamenting the ex-ruling party's possible comeback, and hoping for some good electoral fortune for current Mexican President Vicente Fox's conservative National Action Party (PAN).

First, let me start with Krause's characterization of the current day PRI. He paints the PRI as a party of the "grassroots," allied with the Greens (enviros), and still true to its "socialist roots." By this description, one would get the impression that the PRI is a lefty (perhaps center-lefty) party. Actually, the party is much more complex and cannot be described in such simplistic terms. It is true that the PRI has had its socialist moments, but it has also been very corporatist and conservative, too. Defining the party by ideology - any ideology - is a wrong-headed way to think of the PRI. A better way is to think of the party's operational characteristic as opportunist and cooptive - communists and capitalists have all been able to find a home in the party. In point of fact, since the 1980s, the dominant wing of the PRI has been more properly economically neoliberal and socially conservative (at least by Mexican standards) than perhaps even the current PANista Fox Administration. After all, it was the PRI of de la Madrid, Salinas, and Zedillo that led Mexico to embrace neoliberal economic reform. And one should not forget that the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) was created and led by the more socialist-leaning members of the PRI, who - one might say - were "purged" from the PRI by the ascendant conservative, neoliberal, technocratic wing of the party. So, if ideology were relevant in characterizing the PRI of today, it would in my opinion be more a party of the center right rather than one of the center left.

Second, Krause relates his drive through the countryside of Mexico as being dominated by the PRI propaganda machine. Krause should recognize that the PRI is not the currently ruling party, and so its "campaign investments" in the countryside cannot properly be considered the result of graft or corruption emanating from some misuse of state funds. This was certainly true in the past, when the PRI controlled the Presidency and the state treasury, but doesn't make much sense under a PAN presidency. If it is true that the Fox administration is doling out federal money to the PRI-dominant countryside states (and state budgets are almost exclusively dependent on federal executive largesse), then it would be folly to assume that Fox would allow such state resources to be used for the political gain of his electoral opponents. Thus, one must assume either that the near exclusive PRI-presence that Krause notes in the countryside is because the PRI is concentrating its own legitimate campaign resources in these areas or that it is because Fox is a fool. I don't think the latter, so I must then go with the former. For Krause to thus conflate past PRI misuse of state funds to its current campaign strategy is somewhat dishonest. Besides which, if Krause believes that Mexico's is experiencing a vibrant nascent democracy, even a PRI victory at the national level in the next presidential election is not likely to witness a return to the blatant misappropriation of state funds for party use that characterized past PRI behavior.

Third, I don't know what Mexico Krause has been to recently, but in the Mexico that I've visited recently, Fox is nowhere near riding a wave of popularity as Krause suggests. There is more disillusionment among Mexicans about Fox and his inability to deliver what he has promised than at any point in his presidency to date. Fox's honeymoon with the Mexican people ended a good while ago. And my money is that this will be reflected in the recent upcoming elections.

Finally, If PAN does make any gains in this election, it will likely be in spite of Fox rather than because of him. Fox may fashion himself a PANista, but let's not forget that it is his own party that has raised some of the most vocal opposition to many of his policy initiatives.

I happen to think that the answer to Octavio Paz's question will never truly be answered until the PRI can come back to power through a free and fair election, and can demonstrate that it is truly committed to playing by the new rules of the game.

Blog Banter - As a hardcore liberal, I agree with Andrew Sullivan's position regarding sodomy laws and gay marriage, and it goes without saying that I was none too fond of Strom Thurmond; but even I think Andrew's gloating comment about the coincidence of Strom Thurmond's death and the SCOTUS decision striking down sodomy laws is a bit too much. In my opinion, Sullivan went way over the top. Frankly, I did not find his comment to be funny at all. I found it to be tasteless, obscene, disrespectful, and disgusting. I think Andrew should nominate himself for his own Sontag Award.

The 'Weak' in National Review - Byron York goes off on the growing chorus of criticism of Bush for how he made the case to go to war with Iraq. York specifically addresses the lengthy piece written by John B. Judis and Spencer Ackerman at The New Republic. But for all of York's bluster, he never once addresses the real point of Judis and Ackerman's article: the minimization by the Bush Administration of uncertaintly and ambiguity within the Intelligence community about Iraq's possession of WMDs. York seems to think that if WMDs are found, then the critics will have to eat crow. But I think the argument that Judis and Ackerman are making really does not rest on the outcome. It is rather an argument about the transparency of process. The central point is that Bush failed to relate to the American citizens that the intelligence community had some division and uncertainty about the subject. There was no clear intelligence on Saddam's actual possession of WMDs to justify going to war on that reason. That fact will not change regardless of whether we eventually dig up some WMDs - precisely because if we do find WMDs, it will be IN SPITE OF our intelligence, not BECAUSE OF it.

Blog Banter - Andrew Sullivan expresses his disgust with Maureen Dowd's column that attempted to address what she believes to be a bit of hypocrisy in Clarence Thomas's anti-affirmative action position. Dowd's argument is suspect in the sense that it attributes the success of every black person to affirmative action. I find this hard to believe. In any case, it does paint successful minorities into the corner of having no way to argue that their accomplishments can be attributed to something other than their race and racial preference policies. However, Dowd does make a good point that Clarence Thomas is oh-so-willing to use the race card himself, whenever it suits his interests and can contribute to his success. The fact that he DID equate his contentious Senate Confirmation hearing to a "high-tech lynching" clearly demonstrates both this point and the fact that Thomas himself believed his confirmation hearing was less subject to ideological politics than it was to racist politics. Some could argue that this is precisely the problem with affirmative action policies - that it creates a culture of playing the race card for preferential effect, even among such figures as Clarence Thomas. But one would expect Clarence Thomas, of all people, to rise above this. It's certainly an understandable position, and many liberals would even sympathize with this interpretation of the confirmation hearing. But it just doesn't suit Clarence Thomas to resort to it. This, I think, is the larger point that Dowd was making - not just regarding Clarence Thomas, but also about the Bush Administration's penchant for considering race as one factor among many in its decision-making processes, too.

Lagniappe - Sorry for the long delay in posting. I've been on the road quite a bit and working on other projects. I simply haven't had the time - and sometimes even the internet access - to post. I am afraid that this pattern will continue at least through August; but I will make an effort to put something up as regularly as possible for the very occasional reader that might pass my way.

Cuaderno Latinoamericano - Andres Oppenheimer laments the new low in U.S. government interest in what is arguably the most important region of the world to the U.S. economy. I simply don't understand it.

Kingfishery and Kingcakery - Free range chicken! Update in the Times Picayune.

Chickens will be able to continue roaming free in Louisiana after legislation to prohibit fowl or poultry from running into a neighbor's yard was defeated Monday in the House. HB 1930 by Rep. Gregory Fruge, R-Eunice, said that anyone who "knowingly, willfully, or negligently" allowed poultry to run at large on public or private property could be fined between $25 and $100, as well as being held liable for any damage the bird caused. Despite the chorus of chicken imitations when he came up to the podium, Fruge tried valiantly to persuade his citified colleagues that chickens running amok without proper senses of boundaries pose a serious problem. "They scratch in your flower bed, they eat vegetables in your garden, they eat your dog or cat food," he said. "If you have them, you should keep them on your property." The debate raised questions both practical and philosophical. Rep. Edwin Murray, D-New Orleans, wondered if chickens were branded, so the owner of the invading bird could be identified easily. Rep. Dan "Blade" Morrish, D-Jennings, asked, "If a chicken crossed the road, would he be in violation?" In the end, the bill failed, 38-56, prompting DeWitt to declare: "The chickens won."

Wrong! The Chick-fil-A cows win!!

Kingfishery and Kingcakery - Call the Chick-fil-A cows!! Seems like the Louisiana legislature is intent on thwarting their noble "Eat Mor Chikin" campaign.

Blog Banter - Andrew Sullivan has posted some interesting comments on what I think of as the myth of closet heterosexuality. We heterosexuals wear our sexuality on our sleeves publicly every day. Because of this, it is troubling to me whenever someone proclaims that gay men and women should keep what they do in their bedrooms to themselves. First, I have never known any openly gay person to say anything about his "bedroom" activity in public. Is an open, public admission of one's homosexuality the equivalent of bringing one's "bedroom" activity into the public domain? I say no more than the person who is "open" about heterosexuality through the mention of an opposite sex partner. When I speak to my friends and colleagues about my wife, they no doubt "assume" the details about my bedroom life, especially since we have children who clearly resemble both of us. Who knows? Maybe some of them even imagine or fantasize about such unspoken details. Yet, we accept this implicit recognition of "bedroom" activity for heterosexuals without question. So, for those who tell homosexuals to keep their sex lives to themselves, I say you are hypocritical and submit to you that homosexuals do keep their sex lives to themselves. Much more so than heterosexuals, actually, when you think about it. Why can husbands mention wives (and vice versa) without people complaining of bringing "bedroom" activity into the public domain, but gay men and women cannot even mention their companions as such without some homophobe saying "be gay if you want, but keep it to yourself."

Andrew makes the even more important point that it's not even about sex. It's about all the other things that enrich a relationship and make people happy as human beings. I'm with Andrew all the way on this issue.

Lagniappe - Hugh Dellios and E.A. Torriero, of the Chicago Tribune, present the most detailed report on the Jessica Lynch rescue that I have read to date. It paints quite a different picture of what actually took place than what we were initially fed by the media as well as the official U.S. government/military information sources. I can't say that any of the initial story was intentionally fabricated, because I can easily understand how details and perceptions in an uncertain and tense environment can get exaggerated and distorted and how the story could have morphed into a bit of mythology in the transmission of it from one source to the next. My feeling is that there was an over-eager News Media craving the mythical hero story, and willing to report it as such; but I also think that there was some unsubstantiated and careless story-telling by the soldiers and their command leadership. Is this acceptable given the circumstances of the moment? I think so. But what's not tolerable is to hold on to an obviously exaggerated and misleading representation of the reality when the dust settles and better, more clear-sighted information about the actual event becomes known.

The Weak in (National) Review - Jay Nordlinger's most recent Impromptus touch on the issue of race in the Jayson Blair scandal at the New York Times. And it offers a revealing, if unintentional, glimpse into Nordlinger's own color-tinged world view. Before going any further, I want to be very clear that I do not in the least think that Nordlinger is racist. Quite the contrary, his earnestness in promoting a color-blind world is very honest, sincere, and real; but, like Howell Raines and all of us other white supporters of Affirmative Action who are painfully conscious of the need to address the awful legacy of racial discrimination, Nordlinger cannot escape the fact that his world view IS shaped by race - as much as he'd like to think and hope that it is not. The sad thing is that Nordlinger doesn't see this in himself. And this is clear in his column. For instance, as he deals with the issue of race in the Jayson Blair affair, Nordlinger writes:

[T]he idea that the Blair case had nothing to do with race and affirmative action is nutty. I wish it were otherwise. If it weren't for affirmative action, it would be just another personal tragedy, or a crisis for a newspaper. Instead, it is a national tragedy. This is what affirmative action does. No one should blame people like me for pointing it out. Race preferences are a poison that infiltrates the workplace, the college campus — America itself. Remove this poison, agree to equality of opportunity, decide to judge people on qualities other than skin color, and we can all be something more like human beings, instead of pawns in a racial game.

A few sentences into the very next paragraph, Nordlinger continues with this theme:

Obviously, the affirmative-action issue arouses a lot of hurt. But the blame should be placed on affirmative-action policies themselves, not on those (of us) impolite enough to bring them up. And who knows? If we had more discussion of affirmative action and its consequences — for blacks and whites alike — we might all be better off, even if there is great discomfort in the short run.

Clearly, Nordlinger is troubled by the fact that skin color does matter; and he wishes it weren't so. Nordlinger pines for a society in which judgments of people are made "on qualities other than skin color." But the very next paragraph in his column shows precisely how impossible it is to avoid "judgments" based on skin color. He writes:

Look, I feel tremendous sympathy for black journalists. I wish Blair had been white (and for that matter, I wish Willie Horton — the murderer, not the ballplayer — had been white; it was a good and defensible issue). No one should have to live with the burden of race; we should be free to live as individuals.

It's very subtle, but Nordlinger's "sympathy for black journalists" - no matter how you slice it and dice it - plays directly into the race issue. My question to Nordlinger is what does this "sympathy" lead him to do, how does it condition or change his own behavior? Does Nordlinger just shrug this sentiment off? I don't see how he can "suffer with" black journalists - precisely because they are black - and just "leave dumb ol' pigmentation behind."

Nordlinger's single-minded opposition to affirmative action has really blinded him to the fact that racial difference exists and that this difference has meaning. The issue is how we grapple with this difference and the meanings attributed to it. It seems to me that Affirmative Action embraces the reality of this difference and attempts to deal with what this difference has meant. Nordlinger's antipathy to Affirmative Action is tinged with a color-blindness that seems, essentially, to reject the reality of this difference and its meaning.

Nordlinger is not a racist, but he is white - and this means something. One of the things it means is that he is on the giving end of sympathy to black journalists. And he can't escape the fact that only white (or perhaps better-said "non-black") journalists can occupy this position. His skin color matters, and his very own comments emphasize this point.

The Weak in (National) Review - The stuffy William F. Buckley Jr. goes on record defending the call of Christian evangelicals to "meet the problem [of Muslim militancy] head on." Buckley defends his position by writing:

[T]he Christian face of the ongoing struggle simply has to show itself, and its strengths are great. The doctrine of human love and responsibility for others should not be thought of as intrinsically offensive to a Muslim, and sincerity in preaching the doctrines of Christ has naturally to follow from advocacy of the lessons of the New Testament.

Fine and good. But Buckley misses the point that the purpose of evangelical Christian missionary activity is not just to advocate the "doctrine of human love and responsibility for others" but to demonize other faiths and to demand conversion, or else face the eternal fires of hell. Buckley is either a fool or simply naive to think evangelical Christianity separates the two; and it is the latter mission that is "intrinsically offensive" to a Muslim. Quite frankly, I find this essentially intolerant evangelical mission as neither an example of the "doctrine of human love" nor a behavior that embraces a "responsibility for others."

Lagniappe - Just a thought on Annika Sorenstam's participation in the Colonial... In my mind it's perfectly acceptable for a woman to have the right to play in a "man's" golf league, but to exclude men from participating in the corresponding "woman's" golf league. Why? Because a woman golfer will by no means participate with an "undue" advantage in the man's league, whereas the opposite will most certainly be true. Sorenstam, by far the best female golfer in the world today, is ratcheting up, and there's no harm nor threat to any man in her doing this. Tiger Woods playing in the LPGA would be ratcheting down just to take advantage, and this would be wrong. I mean, high school wrestlers can compete in higher weight brackets if they so choose, but not in lower. Bright students can skip grades upwards if their intellect warrants it, but never can they regress to lower grades just so they can win the less demanding spelling bees with their more extensive vocabularies. You get the drift. Read this for a similar take on Sorenstam's right to play in the Colonial.

Liberal Lighthouse - Peter Bienart nails the Bush Administration on its duplicity and its abuse of power. After outlining serious and blatant falsehoods and power abuses over the past 8 months alone supported by the Bush Administration, Beinart ends with this observation:

These stories of Bush administration dishonesty and abuse have not been denied in the conservative press as much as they have been ignored. In researching this column, I could not find a single substantive defense of Bush's UAV claim, or his filibuster plan, or his uranium allegation, in any elite conservative publication. Fred Barnes last week defended the Texas redistricting plan in The Weekly Standard but, incredibly, never acknowledged the key issue: that states traditionally limit themselves to one redistricting per decade. For conservatives, it seems, this administration's decency and honesty are ideological axioms that require no empirical defense. President Bush is not President Clinton. That's all they need to know.

If the Democrats stay on this message, there is hope for the party in the 2004 elections.

Kingfishery and Kingcakery - "The psychics didn't see it coming. The painters thought it was a thing of beauty." Funny little article on the struggle for sidewalk space on Jackson Square in the French Quarter.

Cuaderno Latinoamericano - Interesting piece in the Washington Post on dissatisfaction among Cuban policy hardliners with the Bush Administration. Will this negatively affect Bush's chances in Florida in '04? Will Bush pull some election year stunts to capture this constituency that proved so decisive to him in the last election? Where is the voice of NRO's Jay Nordlinger on the Bush Administration's Cuba policy?

Cuaderno Latinoamericano - Andres Oppenheimer evaluates Brazil's push not only for regional supremacy within the region, but also for a rejection of the notion of a regional "Latin America" in favor of an even further sub-regionalization. Interesting concept, though it is not unprecedented and probably won't really amount to anything substantive. The ties that bind are much too deep. In other news, can it be true that Venezuelan democracy will triumph? Chavez and the opposition have apparently agreed to a referendum based on constitutional process. That this agreement would come without any catches is hard for me to believe; but maybe -- just maybe -- Venezuela's touted (but stressed) political culture of democracy will win the day. Should the referendum take place, the true test will be whether or not the loser will accept it as legitimate. In the end, a peaceful and constitutional resolution of this crisis agreeable to all parties involved would be a major success for Venezuela. And it seems that the country is headed in this direction.

Lagniappe - It appears that Texas Republicans are getting deeper and deeper into a scandal involving the use of a federal agency to do their partisan bidding - primarily by providing misleading information. Credit where credit is due: this report comes courtesy of Rod Dreher who has been critically assessing and following the affair on National Review Online's blog, "The Corner." It would be worthwhile for cocky GOPers to read Andrew Sullivan's cautionary piece, Hubris Ascendant.

Lagniappe - DPS-Gate widens. Texas Republicans, molded by ex-Texas Governor and current President Bush, are bringing shame and scandal on the GOP. I wonder if this scandal will "trickle-up" to the White House in any way?

Blog Banter - Mickey Kaus, in his blog dated May 19, 2003, claims that welfare reform's success lies in the fact that "life is getting better in America's 'underclass' ghettos." His argument rests on a Robert Pear article which refers to researcher Paul Jargowsky's finding that "Concentrated poverty — the share of the poor living in high-poverty neighborhoods — declined among all racial and ethnic groups, especially African-Americans." Kaus claims that Pear's explanation of the reasons for Jargowsky's findings is the result PRIMARILY of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act. Kaus writes:

Pear rightly credits welfare reform, in part, with this success. The reasons seem obvious: welfare reform produced a dramatic jump in the participation of single mothers in the labor force. When you work, you not only get richer--you also tend to get out of your neighborhood and discover the rest of your city. Working also breaks down stereotypes of lower income, single mothers--especially African-American single mothers-that may underlie resistance in non-poor areas to having such people as neighbors. Not to mention the gauzier benefits of working, like "role-modeling" and the effect of the disciplined rhythm of work on home life and school performance.

Though Kaus hedges with his "in part" qualifier, the centrality of welfare reform to his own argument is indisputable. But the fact is that Pear himself never credits welfare reform as the cause of the decline in concentrated poverty. The only reference in the report to welfare reform as a partial explanation for the deconcentration of poverty comes from Bruce Katz, director of the Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy at the Brookings Institution, whom Pear quotes as saying, "The decline in concentrated poverty represents, in part, the triumph of smart federal policies that demolished failed public housing, rewarded work and overhauled welfare." In fact, Pear's article really seems to be saying that the primary reason for the deconcentration of poverty is NOT welfare reform, but rather the razing of public housing projects and the population dispersions that came with this. In fact, Pear starts his article by writing:

Poverty in the United States became far less concentrated in the 1990's as public housing projects were torn down and millions of poor people left urban slums for other neighborhoods, a new study of Census Bureau data says.

As someone who has paid close attention to this process in my home town of New Orleans, I can confirm that the deconcentration of poverty has come from precisely this "razing of public housing projects" policy. However, I can also confirm that this "deconcentration of poverty" has most definitely NOT meant that life is getting better for those removed from public housing. It certainly doesn't mean that they leave their homes in the "ghettos" because they have better jobs. They are being kicked out of their homes without any concern for whether or not they have of jobs. In fact, evicting them often means they risk losing jobs because of relocation to areas that lack adequate transportation to get them to their jobs. And even if they do have jobs (which, by the way, they probably had before "welfare reform" or before being evicted from their homes in the public housing projects), they are still likely to end up poorer because their income is the same, while their rents are likely higher. Sadly, many who have jobs and are struggling to break the cycle of poverty find themselves entering the ranks of the homeless because of these disruptions and through no fault of their own. And, as you might imagine, it is hard to be homeless and hold on to a job.

The simple fact is that absolute poverty has grown, not diminished. In fact, even in Pear's article one finds the following tidbit that Kaus conveniently overlooks: "Despite the strong economy, the number of people classified as poor in the 2000 census was slightly higher than the number counted a decade earlier." So, the upshot is that poor people aren't better off. In fact, as I pointed out, they are likelier poorer. And, as Pear pointed out, there are even more people poor today than before welfare reform. It's simply that these greater numbers of poor people are just more spread out, moving to and living on the streets of your neighborhood and mine (since they can't afford the rents), and less concentrated in the one area where they can afford the rent - all of which makes it even more difficult for social agencies, even privately-sponsored ones, to address the problem effectively.

Kaus sees the "deconcentration of poverty" that has resulted essentially from forced evictions as a positive sign of the success of welfare reform. I see the increase in "absolute poverty" and the hugh societal disruptions caused by the "deconcentration of poverty" and the dispersion of poverty as even more problematic. And welfare reform, if it has anything at all to do with it, tends to exacerbate the problem. If "absolute poverty" has increased over the years, I certainly don't see where Kaus gets off saying that welfare reform has helped.