From The Kansas City Star:
Vick can evolve from hip-hop prison culture
By JASON WHITLOCK

Honestly, I don’t wish jail on the people who despise me the most. Incarceration is that dehumanizing.

So forgive me for lacking passion about the guilt, innocence and/or punishment of one-time franchise quarterback Michael Vick for his alleged involvement in a dogfighting ring. Hell — given that the state, if inclined, can make a blind witness’ vision 20/20 — I’m even willing to give Vick his presumption of innocence.

Why not? He is an American citizen, last I checked, and we don’t need to look any further than Duke lacrosse to see what can happen to a prosecutor when the media spotlight descends on a criminal case.

Nope. My desire is to see Vick evolve as a human being and for his troubles to serve as yet another wake-up call for black athletes to reject the hip-hop/prison culture that glorifies much of the negative behavior and attitude that has eroded the once-dignified and positive reputation of African-American athletes.

As much as I love dogs — and I really do have an affinity for them — this case primarily repulses me because I believe Vick got involved with breeding vicious pit bulls because rap-music culture made it the cool thing to do.

Listen, I don’t want PETA supporters upset with me. Animal cruelty is intolerable. But I’m wondering what could turn a human mind and heart so cold that a person would find pleasure in breeding dogs for cruel destruction in 2007.

Seriously, Vick didn’t do it for the money. The Atlanta Falcons gave him all the money he could ever hope to spend. Vick was involved in pit bull breeding (and quite possibly dogfighting) because he enjoyed it. He’s a product of a culture that makes the “profession” acceptable and honorable. It’s the same culture that has turned the dope dealer into mayor of the neighborhood.

This is a human tragedy, too.

It speaks to the grip the negative aspects of hip-hop culture have on young people. Vick is a millionaire athlete who has spent most of his NFL career trying to maintain his street cred. Despite lifetime financial security, Mike Vick stayed on the “grind,” hustling for that paper with his Bad Newz Kennels. Idiot.

Well, unless he plans on launching a rap career and releasing a solo “Dogfighting Was The Case,” I don’t see any of this ending well for Vick. Even if he’s not convicted or reaches a jail-evading plea bargain, Vick has destroyed his athletic reputation while trying to keep pace with T.I.

This is a cultural phenomenon that has swallowed a small percentage of African-American athletes, but a large enough percentage to significantly damage the overall perception of black, American-born athletes. As Dr. Harry Edwards told me two weeks ago, it only takes a few key people to hijack an entire culture.

N.W.A., the late-1980s rap group, hijacked hip-hop years ago, and calls to return it to something resembling decency and self-respect have fallen on Def Jam ear$. Allen Iverson and his sneaker/jersey sales hijacked the image of black professional athletes years ago, and out of fear of being labeled a racist or a sellout, few have even dared question the sanity of it … until now.

Now we can all see the stupidity. Gangsta-wannabe rappers masquerading as professional athletes is a public-relations nightmare waiting to tear apart sports franchises and leagues.

Vick’s employer is in an impossible position. The right thing for the Falcons to do is support Vick through his legal proceedings. But how can the organization? Vick is a human distraction now. Atlanta has a new coaching staff that will find it nearly impossible to operate smoothly in the environment/media circus Vick has created for the organization.

Heck, even Al Sharpton and Russell Simmons joined in the castigation of Vick and dogfighting, penning a joint letter with PETA that was sent to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and all of Vick’s corporate sponsors. True, the letter wasn’t all that harsh, but the fact that Sharpton would in any way publicly hold a black person responsible for any action is historic. And, if you have a scorebook at home, we now know that Russell Simmons is adamantly opposed to the killing and brutalization of dogs, but he is in favor of the glorification of killing black men in music. I’m just passing that along without any editorial comment.

OK, where was I? Yes, the Falcons might as well name Paris Hilton cheerleading captain.

If Vick were to play this season, the fan hostility directed at Vick will engulf Atlanta’s home stadium.

Vick needs a paid leave of absence to sort out his legal problems. He shouldn’t be suspended or denied pay because the Falcons and the NFL have invested too much in Vick to treat him like Pacman Jones.

That’s right. I don’t believe in treating everyone the same. I believe in treating everyone fairly. Suspending Vick would be too prejudicial (legal term, not a race term) and inhibit his ability to receive a fair trial.

If he’s convicted of a felony, the Falcons probably have provisions within his contract that would grant them the right to release him and go after a portion of his signing bonus if they so choose.

Ray Lewis was at the scene of a double murder, failed initially to cooperate with police and eventually pled guilty to obstruction of justice charges. Ray used to be in love with his street cred, too. It took double-murder charges to knock some sense into one of the game’s best linebackers.

He evolved, and he’s certainly been an asset to the NFL ever since his evolution. Will the same thing happen to Michael Vick? I doubt it, but I certainly hope so.

From The New York Times:
No spoilers below, but confirmation of a satisfying conclusion.
For Harry Potter, Good Old-Fashioned Closure
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI

So, here it is at last: the final confrontation between Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, the “symbol of hope” for both the Wizard and Muggle worlds, and Lord Voldemort, He Who Must Not Be Named, the nefarious leader of the Death Eaters and would-be ruler of all. Good versus Evil. Love versus Hate. The Seeker versus the Dark Lord.

J.K. Rowling’s monumental, spell-binding epic, 10 years in the making, is deeply rooted in traditional literature and Hollywood sagas — from the Greek myths to Dickens and Tolkien to Star Wars — and true to its roots, it ends not with modernist, Soprano-esque equivocation, but with good old-fashioned closure: a big screen, heart-racing, bone-chilling confrontation and an epilogue that clearly lays out people’s fates. Getting to the finish line is not seamless — the last portion of the final book has some lumpy passages of exposition and a couple of clunky detours — but the overall conclusion of the series and its determination of the main characters’ storylines possess a convincing inevitability that make some of the pre-publication speculation seem curiously blinkered in retrospect.

With each installment, the Potter series has grown increasingly dark, and this volume — a copy of which was purchased at a New York City retail outlet today, although the book is embargoed for release until 12:01 a.m. this Saturday — is no exception. While Ms. Rowling’s astonishingly limber voice still moves effortlessly between Ron’s adolescent sarcasm and Harry’s growing solemnity, from youthful exuberance to more philosophical gravity, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” is, for the most part, a somber book that marks Harry’s final initiation into the complexities and sadnesses of adulthood.

From his first days at Hogwarts, the young, green-eyed boy bore the burden of his destiny as a leader, coping with the expectations and duties of his role, and in this volume he is clearly more Henry V than Prince Hal, more King Arthur than young Wart: high-spirited war games of Quidditch have given way to real war, and Harry often wishes he were not the de facto leader of the Resistance movement, shouldering terrifying responsibilities, but an ordinary teenage boy — free to romance Ginny Weasley and hang out with his friends.

Harry has already lost his parents, his godfather Sirius and his teacher Professor Dumbledore (all mentors he might have once received instruction from), and in this volume the losses mount with unnerving speed: at least half a dozen characters we have come to know die in these pages, and many others are wounded or tortured. Voldemort and his followers have infiltrated Hogwarts and the Ministry of Magic, creating havoc and terror in both the Wizard and Muggle worlds alike, and the members of various populations — including elves, goblins and centaurs — are choosing up sides.

No wonder then that Harry often seems overwhelmed with disillusionment and doubt in the final installment of this seven-volume bildungsroman. Harry continues to struggle to control his temper, and as he and Ron and Hermione search for the missing Horcruxes (secret magical objects in which Voldemort has stashed parts of his soul, objects that Harry must destroy if he hopes to kill the evil lord), he literally enters a dark wood, in which he must do battle not only with the Death Eaters, but also with the temptations of hubris and despair.

Harry’s weird psychic connection with Voldemort (symbolized by the lightning-bolt forehead scar he bears, as a result of the Dark Lord’s attack on him when he was a baby) seems to have grown stronger too, giving him clues to Voldemort’s actions and whereabouts, even as it lures him ever closer to the dark side. One of the plot’s key turning points concerns Harry’s decision whether to continue looking for the Horcruxes — the mission assigned to him by the late Dumbledore — or whether to pursue, instead, three magical objects known as the Hallows, which are said to make their possessor the master of Death.

Harry’s journey will propel him forwards to a final showdown with his archenemy, and also send him backwards into the past, back to the house in Godric’s Hollow where his parents died, to learn about his own family history and the equally mysterious history of Dumbledore’s family. At the same time, he will be forced to ponder the equation between fraternity and independence, free will and fate, and to come to terms with his own frailties and those of others. Indeed, ambiguities proliferate throughout “The Deathly Hallows”: we are made to see that kindly Dumbledore, sinister Severus Snape and perhaps even awful Muggle cousin Dudley Dursley may be more complicated than they initially seem, that all of them, like Harry himself, have hidden aspects to their personalities, and that choice — more than talent or predisposition — matters most of all.

It is Ms. Rowling’s achievement in this series that she manages to make Harry both a familiar adolescent — coping with the banal frustrations of school and dating — and an epic hero, kin to everyone from the young King Arthur to Spiderman and Luke Skywalker. This same magpie talent has enabled her to create a narrative that effortlessly mixes up allusions to Homer, Milton, Shakespeare and Kafka, with silly kid jokes about vomit-flavored candies, a narrative that fuses a plethora of genres (from the boarding school novel to the detective story to the epic quest) into a story that could be Exhibit A in a Joseph Campbell survey of mythic archetypes.

In doing so, J.K. Rowling has created a world as fully detailed as L. Frank Baum’s “Oz” or J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Middle Earth,” a world so minutely imagined in terms of its history and rituals and rules that it qualifies as an alternate universe — which may be one of the reasons the Potter books have spawned such a passionate following and such fervent exegesis.

With this final volume, the reader realizes that small incidents and asides in earlier installments (hidden among a huge number of red herrings) create a breadcrumb trail of clues to the plot, that Ms. Rowling has fitted together the jigsaw puzzle pieces of this long undertaking with Dickensian ingenuity and ardor. Objects and spells from earlier books — like the invisibility cloak, Polyjuice Potion, Dumbledore’s Pensieve and Sirius’ flying motorcycle — will play important roles in this volume, and characters encountered before like the house elf Dobby and Mr. Ollivander the wandmaker will resurface, too.

The world of Harry Potter is a place where the mundane and the marvelous, the ordinary and the surreal co-exist. It’s a place where cars can fly and owls can deliver the mail, a place where paintings talk and a mirror reflects people’s innermost desires. It’s also a place utterly recognizable to readers, a place where death and the catastrophes of daily life are inevitable, and people’s lives are defined by love and loss and hope — the same way they are in our own mortal world.

In Iowa, Edwards speaks with conviction
about his lifelong distaste for bad things.

From The Onion:
John Edwards Vows To End All Bad Things By 2011

July 16, 2007

AMES, IA—In an effort to jump-start a presidential campaign that still has not broken into the top Democratic tier, former Sen. John Edwards made his most ambitious policy announcement yet at a campaign event in Iowa Monday: a promise to eliminate all unpleasant, disagreeable, or otherwise bad things from all aspects of American life by the end of his second year in office.

"Many bad things are not just bad—they're terrible," said a beaming Edwards, whose "Only the Good Things" proposal builds upon previous efforts to end poverty, outlaw startlingly loud noises, and offer tax breaks to those who smile frequently. "Other candidates have plans that would reduce some of the bad things, but I want all of them gone completely."

According to Edwards, his plan is composed of three steps. Everyday bad things, such as curse words and splinters, would be eradicated during his first six months in office. Next, very bad things, including child abduction, soil erosion, and resurgent diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis, would be ended by the the end of 2009. Finally, extremely bad things—plights such as genocide, species extinction, and virtually every form of cancer—would take a full two years to wipe out.

"Racism will soon be a thing of the past," Edwards said. "Same goes for being picked last for playground athletics, AIDS, robbery, not having enough spending money, and murder. Because these things are bad and not good, I promise they will be eliminated."

Other bad things the 2004 vice-presidential nominee vowed to end include the housing crisis, skinned knees, frowns, steep staircases, jailbreaks, water that is too cold to swim in, pain, traffic, being tired in the morning, sprained ankles, hunger, not having enough energy at night, teen pregnancy, cases of the blahs, thunder, the high cost of admission to events, type 2 diabetes, games of tic-tac-toe with no clear winner, the lack of parking in urban areas, forgetting birthdays, child prostitution, and confusion.

"Imagine a world free of procrastination, class disparity, and itchiness," Edwards said. "It will only be possible if we try."

Edwards told the gathered audience that the second half of his presidential term would be devoted to a $125 billion effort to supplant the abolished bad things with good things, such as flowers, the laughter of children, butterflies, sunny days, financial stability, Skittles, and medicine.

Though some Democrats are applauding the positivity of Edwards' pro-good agenda, critics say that the wealthy former trial lawyer is, at best, paying lip service to the issue.

"This is certainly a step in the right direction, but it's not enough," Daily Kos contributor BitchingPoints wrote hours after Edwards' announcement. "Where in Mr. Edwards' list of bad things does it mention poisonous snakes, nasty red wine stains on rugs, trolls, and noisy neighbors? Edwards has left the door wide open for a rival candidate to outflank him on his own issue by introducing a comprehensive plan that fills these gaping holes."

Republican front-runner Rudolph Giuliani attacked Edwards Tuesday for labeling things as bad when they may actually turn out to be good in the long run.

"Is 'shooting' always a bad thing?" Giuliani said. "I think such a position would undercut not only our soldiers in Iraq, but also law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line every day, not to mention our basic Second Amendment rights."

Added Giuliani: "On a personal note, I rather like cloudy days, and I don't want to live in a world where they don't exist."

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

A Film Review by James Berardinelli

With its fifth cinematic outing, the Harry Potter film series has ascended to another level. In addition to providing a self-contained, well-paced adventure, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix also begins to coalesce the epic ether that has been building over the past four films (especially the last two). With this movie, we sense that we're on the brink of something big, dark, and ominous. "By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes…" For a franchise that began under the lightweight guardianship of director Chris Columbus, these pictures have gotten progressively darker. The Order of the Phoenix is easily the gloomiest yet. The movie is not suitable for young children (although, considering that Harry's core audience has aged considerably since the release of the first book in 1997, that shouldn't be a big problem).

This may be the first Harry Potter movie that cannot stand on its own. There are too many references to past events and too many characters from the earlier films for a neophyte not to get at least a little lost. This is a welcome development, since it signals that the series has passed the setup point and is getting into the meat of the good-versus-evil battle. Although The Order of the Phoenix does not end in cliffhanger style, there's more than a passing sense that the undercurrent is beginning to bubble and churn. We can be thankful that there's only an 18 month wait for the next installment (or, for those who can't stand the suspense, the book isn't hard to find).

The Order of the Phoenix is the first Harry Potter feature not adapted by screenwriter Steve Kloves, who moved straight from The Goblet of Fire to The Half-Blood Prince. Michael Goldenberg does an admirable job filling the breach. He streamlines the overstuffed novel into a compact package that fills only about 2 1/4 hours worth of screen time without losing any of the main plot points. To be sure, much is lost, but fans of the books will find that the movie is faithful, if not slavishly so, to the text. For those who have gotten their Harry Potter fix entirely through the cinematic incarnation, the script is lucid and fast-moving. There's no sense that reading the book is necessary to the understanding of the plot.

Director David Yates becomes the fourth man to sit in the series' director's chair. (He will also helm The Half-Blood Prince.) Of the four, Yates has the least impressive pedigree, having spent the majority of his career working in British television. His vision of Harry Potter's world is much like Mike Newell's (The Goblet of Fire). It's a gray, dreary place where darkness has overspread everything. The wonder of magic evident in the first two films is gone. Magic is now more than likely something dangerous and to be feared.

In The Order of the Phoenix, the battle lines are being drawn, with Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) and his legion of Death Eaters and twisted creatures on one side, and Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) and his friends on the other. Harry is supported by schoolmates such as Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint), Hermione Granger (Emma Watson), Cho Chang (Katie Leung), Luna Lovegood (Evanna Lynch) and Ginny Weasley (Bonnie Wright), and by adults such as Hogwarts' Headmaster Dumbledore (Michael Gambon), Professor McGonagall (Maggie Smith), Professor Moody (Brendan Gleeson), and Sirius Black (Gary Oldman). But there are those who distrust Harry's pronouncement that the Dark Lord has returned. The Ministry of Magic sees a conspiracy in this and sends Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton) to Hogwarts as an Inquisitor to sort things out. After usurping Dumbledore's position, she sets her sights on neutering Harry. But evil forces are abroad and Harry must teach his fellow students how to defend themselves or risk annihilation. Umbridge wants Harry's secret magic lessons stopped and she will do whatever is necessary to accomplish that aim. Meanwhile, Voldemort's plans take root.

The Order of the Phoenix continues the character development that has been in evidence throughout the series. Individuals who started out life as bundles of carefully grouped stock characteristics have become complex and interesting. Jealousy, rage, envy, and sexual attraction have all reared their heads. In a much-publicized scene, Harry gets to experience his first kiss. The movie never threatens to turn into a romance or after-school special, but it highlights that there's more to these characters than reciting Latin words and taming giants. At the center of the story isn't the struggle against Voldemort, but the friendship between Harry, Ron, and Hermione. They're teenagers now, and they interact differently than in the early films, but the passage of years has only strengthened their bonds.

Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint have developed into fine actors. Radcliffe had an opportunity to show his range (and a few other things) in a much publicized stage performance while Grint has honed his talent in the British film Driving Lesson. Emma Watson remains the weak link in the cast; not coincidentally, the only role she has ever played is Hermione. As has been the case for all the films, the adult cast is a "who's who" of British cinema. Cast members Michael Gambon, Maggie Smith, Ralph Fiennes, Emma Thompson, and Alan Rickman are joined by Harry Potter virgins Imelda Staunton and Helena Bonham Carter. Rickman once again proves that ambiguity can be more chilling than pure evil. His Snape is a lot more frightening than Fiennes' Voldemort. When it comes to generating unparalleled audience hatred, however, no one does it better than Imelda Staunton, and that's in part because the smile rarely drops. She could shoot a man dead at ten paces with that smile.

It's my impression that the Harry Potter movies have been getting progressively better. In the beginning, the filmmakers were too intimidated by the books. Over the years, they have taken more liberties, allowing the features to achieve a unique identity - related yet not yoked to J.K. Rowling's hugely successful series. I have heard it mentioned in some quarters that The Order of the Phoenix is regarded as one of the weaker novels, yet it is arguably the best film. Though Yates' style may not be on par with that of Alfonso Cuaron (The Prisoner of Azkaban), there is more substance. The movie flows and moves. There's a sense of adventure and the progression of events is not predictable. The special effects aren't the best of the summer, but they're more than good enough to get the job done, and several shots are breathtaking. I walked out of The Order of the Phoenix feeling like I had experienced something rather than being pummeled senseless by explosions and soulless robots.

When Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone debuted in 2001, it felt like a watered-down, children's version of The Lord of the Rings. Six years later, Tolkien's trilogy is done but Rowling's longer serial is just hitting its stride. With The Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter has truly come into his own, fulfilling the promise of The Prisoner of Azkaban and The Goblet of Fire. These are no longer cute stories of wizards and magic and things that go bump in the night. They are dark tales where the themes and creatures become increasingly distorted as the frames whiz by. The Order of the Phoenix is the best on offer to-date from the Harry Potter cinematic franchise, and one of the few reasons during the summer of 2007 to venture out to a multiplex.

FANTASY
United Kingdom/United States, 2007
U.S. Release Date: 7/11/07 (wide)
Running Length: 2:15
MPAA Classification: PG-13 (Violence, frightening images)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1

Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Michael Gambon, Imelda Staunton, Gary Oldman, Ralph Fiennes, Brendan Gleeson, Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, Robbie Coltrane, Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter, Katie Leung, Evanna Lynch, Bonnie Wright
Director: David Yates
Screenplay: Michael Goldenberg, based on the novel by J.K. Rowling
Cinematography: Slawomir Idziak
Music: Nicholas Hooper
U.S. Distributor: Warner Brothers

© 2007 James Berardinelli

From The New York Sun:
‘Prince of Darkness' Chronicles Novak's Life in Journalism
BY SETH GITELL

July 13, 2007

A glance at the index of "The Boys on the Bus," the story of the reporters who covered the 1972 presidential campaign, turns up a list of names full of journalistic talent, most of whom are either out of the business of daily journalism or no longer with us — Jack Germond, Curtis Wilkie, Martin Nolan, R.W. Apple, Jules Witcover, and Theodore White. While most of the others have moved offstage over the years, Robert Novak is still making news with his columns. Mr. Novak, rivaled perhaps only by David Broder of the Washington Post for longevity covering goings-on inside the Beltway, is now, at age 76, out with a 638-page memoir, "Prince of Darkness." The book chronicles his years of Washington reporting, television hosting, and general trouble-causing. Attached as bookends to this personal history of reporting, much of it set at the now-defunct Washington bistro Sans Souci, are two chapters that recount Mr. Novak's role in the Plame affair.

The story of Mr. Novak, who was born and raised in Joliet, Ill., to Jewish parents, begins in earnest with a stint at the Wall Street Journal, where he wrote both news stories and "edit-pagers" — longer reported columns on the editorial page — and picks up steam when he joined forces with a WASP from the Philadelphia Main Line, Rowland Evans, commencing a career as a syndicated columnist. The story is filled with private moments of the powerful, his entrée into a senators' cocktail hour hosted by Everett Dirksen of Illinois, his helping a drunken President Johnson into a taxi to get home from the bar at the National Press Club, getting a sporty drive home from President Kennedy. Through it all is a relentless drive to get scoops. It is this characteristic, above all, that keeps Mr. Novak's name on the lips of Washington politicos even as the news business endures entrenchment and younger reporters often look beyond sometimes-mundane source building as they strive to propel their careers forward.

"I think journalists are smarter, better educated today, but they're so interested in getting an angle, they miss a lot of stories," Mr. Novak said. "I'm always stunned at how many stories just aren't covered on the Hill. I don't think they cover what's happening on the floor of the House. They are all looking to be Woodward and Bernstein." Mr. Novak cited a "big battle" over earmarks on Capitol Hill that involved a Democratic effort to single out for termination only one earmark — offered by a Republican congressman, Rep. Patrick McHenry of California. This story, he suggested, reflected the cynicism of legislators. As far as the community of Web commentators goes, Mr. Novak said he wasn't impressed. "The bloggers bloviate. They give their opinions. They don't try to find things out."

In preparing his book, Mr. Novak revisited the pages of the newspapers of the day. He said he was surprised by what he discovered. "I was just amazed at how straight the stories were in all the papers. There was no editorializing, no commenting," Mr. Novak said. "It was a good picture of what happened the day before."

As sourced up as Mr. Novak was in the early stages of his career, he said the trick to staying current is to constantly strive to find people who are in the know right now, such as Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, with whom, he said, he has a good relationship. He recalled a "great old reporter for the Washington Post" who took a day off from a trip to California to see a source in Los Angeles. The source had not been active in California politics for several years, and the piece the reporter turned in subsequently was offbase. "That was a good lesson for me," Mr. Novak said, adding that no matter how senior, a reporter has to seek out new sources. "You have to call them up, take them to lunch."

For much of the past three decades, Mr. Novak became as well known for work on television — "The McLaughlin Group," "Crossfire," and "The Capital Gang" — as for his newspaper work. "I enjoyed television. It makes you a ham. It ruins your privacy, but it brings in a lot of money," Mr. Novak said, explaining that television also helped him get his calls returned by big-name sources. "Germond said he didn't make an oath of poverty when he became a journalist, and neither did I."

Mr. Novak's book is not laced with compliments for politicians, although it contains a transcript of a remarkable interview that he and Evans conducted with President Reagan, who, unstaffed, rattled off the names of obscure economic philosophers, such as Claude Frédéric Bastiat, John Bright, and Richard Cobden.

One Democrat of whom Mr. Novak spoke highly is Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson of Washington. "I love Scoop," Mr. Novak said, lauding Jackson's status as a staunch anti-communist. "I would have voted for him for president any time. The left wing of the Democratic Party just hated him. They just thought he was a fascist."

The man who beat Jackson for the nomination, President Carter, doesn't fare as well under Mr. Novak's analysis. "For a guy like that to be elected president, he was a very clever political tactician," Mr. Novak said, going on to criticize Mr. Carter's post-presidential career. "For a former president to go abroad and attack the sitting president on a war is terrible. I think he was the worst president of my time, even worse than Nixon."

One constant bugaboo between Mr. Novak and some on the right is his status as a critic of Israel, which is not listed in the book's index. Mr. Novak, who converted to Roman Catholicism in 1998, said that for much of the tenure of the column, the Middle East was Evans's territory. He did acknowledge that following the demise of the Cold War, his interests with some fellow conservatives, such as Richard Perle, diverged. This, however, did not stop Mr. Novak from recounting anecdotes that show Mr. Perle as a superior source, for example, handing Mr. Novak a seven-page State Department cable that provided the determination of Helmut Sonnenfeldt of the department to concede Soviet dominion over Eastern Europe. (Mr. Novak, in the book, attributed President Ford's flub during the 1976 presidential campaign — "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe" — to a desire to roll back the memo.) Mr. Novak also took credit for helping to persuade Mr. Perle against a plan to open up a national chain of restaurants serving soufflés, Mr. Perle's culinary specialty.

Mr. Novak's book is further illuminating in the division of labor between himself and his partner, who was a personal friend of Robert Kennedy. "I didn't like Bobby at all," Mr. Novak said. "I thought he was completely wrong on Vietnam because his position was that what we needed to do was get a coalition government in Saigon. The Commies didn't want a coalition government in Saigon, they wanted to take it over." It was only through research that Mr. Novak learned how close Evans and Kennedy really were. Evans almost ended his writing partnership with Mr. Novak after the latter penned a column criticizing Kennedy's Vietnam proposal. What Mr. Novak learned only through an oral history Evans gave to the Kennedy Library regarding his relationship with the assassinated president was that Evans telephoned Kennedy and went out to his home at Hickory Hill to mend fences with the New York senator.

As much as he has been identified as a television commentator, Mr. Novak said he relishes his role in the writing game. "I've always considered myself mostly a writer," he said.

Mr. Novak's longtime friend and ideological opposite, Mr. Germond, praised Mr. Novak for his work ethic. "He works so hard. That's what it is," Mr. Germond said, speaking from his home in West Virginia. "He's willing to suspend himself."

Martin Nolan, formerly of the Boston Globe, added: "It's a magic, four-letter word, ‘w-o-r-k.'"

From Dhimmi Watch:
Fitzgerald: The dismaying General Petraeus

In an interview published in the Christian Science Monitor dated July 13, General Petraeus declares:

"If we pull out there will be greatly increased sectarian violence, humanitarian concerns.... You don't know what could happen in terms of dangerous conflicts, what could happen along the Kurdish/Shiite/Sunni fault lines, or how [Iraq's] neighbors will react."

What is wrong, from the point of view of the American and larger Infidel interests that are now engaged in a largely-unrecognized war without end, with "increased sectarian violence" in Iraq? What is wrong "in terms of…what could happen along the Kurdish/Shiite/Sunni fault line"? Why should it matter? Would we not find that the Camp of Islam would be weakened if Iraq dissolves into something like its original constituent parts, those three former Ottoman vilayets -- Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra (more picturesquely, Bassorah) -- roughly corresponding to the Kurdish, Shi'a, and Sunni areas at present, with the Christians possibly to find an American-sponsored haven in the existing Assyrian villages in the north in what would then be a completely autonomous, possibly independent, Kurdistan?

Sunnis inside and outside Iraq refuse to acquiesce in the new arrangement. They cannot conceivably accept the idea of permanent Shi'a dominance of fabled Baghdad, a place that is so important to their history-haunted view. Their view of the world depends so much on what happened, or rather what they think happened, more than a millennium ago. In that quasi-real quasi-mythological past, Baghdad was the first city of Islam for four hundred years (and the Abbasid Caliphate of Iraq, its capital first in Samarra and then in Baghdad, the most important in Arab history). It is impossible for the Sunnis to see the Shi'a, those "Rafidite dogs" whom many Sunnis have always regarded as heretics, quasi-Muslims, in control in Baghdad. For many in Al Qaeda in Iraq, and as Al-Zarqawi clearly believed, the Shi'a are worse than regular Infidels because they are more treacherous.

And how can the Shi'a, on the receiving end everywhere of Sunni aggression, not least in modern Iraq, ever give up what they have gained? After all, when the Americans were inveigled into removing Saddam Hussein, it was Shi'a in exile who did the inveigling. Some of them were no doubt like Al-Maliki, deliberately deceiving the Americans about their intentions, as someone who knew Al-Maliki in Syrian exile said. Others, such as Kanan Makiya, no doubt were naïve. They were naive about the nature of their own countrymen and country, because in their Western and secularized and cossetted world they had forgotten what Islam, what societies and peoples suffused with Islam, are like. They actually did think there was hope for Iraq under benevolent American tutelage and sway.

It can't happen. And General Petraeus should be more than a mere "counter-insurgency expert." He should look outside the narrow confines of Anbar Province, with those tribes that are for turning, and outside Baghdad and the damned "surge," and think clearly. Bush doesn't. Rice doesn't. No one at the civilian top is doing so, which means that the generals must do so. They must begin to analyze and then question and then see right through the damn "mission" -- and realize that the best thing he can do, the best way to weaken the Camp of Islam and Jihad, is to work for the immediate withdrawal ("immediate" will take months, in any case) of American forces, so that exactly those things he now deplores, because he now does not understand their value, will come to pass. But this requires General Petraeus to be more than he has so far been. He needs to remain unaffected by this or that local Iraqi, of the winning Gunga-Din variety, and think more coldly about this war. It is not a "long war," not a "war that will last several generations." Rather, it is a war that will last as long as Islam exists, with that central duty of Jihad, Jihad to spread Islam until it dominates everywhere and everywhere Muslims rule. This duty does not disappear, but sometimes subsides when Muslims are too weak. It always remains ready to be implemented, in whatever way is possible, at any time.

At the moment Muslim states cannot engage in outright warfare; they are too weak. The chosen and effective instruments of Jihad, along with the greatly-exaggerated "terrorism" that Bush seems to regard as the Enemy (the "war on terrorism"), are the Money Weapon (which pays for mosques, madrasas, influence of all kinds), campaigns of Da'wa, and demographic conquest. When there are not twenty million Muslims in Europe, but fifty million, or one hundred million, how easily will the people of Western Europe make their own domestic and foreign policies without fear of Muslim reaction? How easily do they do it even now? How easily will they resist Muslim demands for changes in their own legal and political institutions, and social arrangements? How easily do they do it even now? Nothing good can possibly happen if the peoples of Europe continue to admit Muslims, and continue to support, through Infidel-paid welfare systems, large Muslim families. Nothing good can come of allowing the Saudis and other rich Arabs to pour money in to pay for an ever-expanding number of giant mosques and madrasas -- and to subvert, through all kinds of bribery, various influential Westerners. That includes those who are supposed to study and instruct us about the nature of Islam.

These are the kind of things that General Petraeus may not realize in the hectic vacancy of daily trying to create an alliance here, a compromise there. Those temporary compromises and local victories mean, in the end, very little. For if they were to help fulfill the "mission," when that "mission" makes no sense, makes the opposite of sense, they would merely harm American interests by helping the Camp of Islam to avoid the kind of sectarian and ethnic strife that one should see not as damaging but as promoting the cause of the Infidels. When General Petraeus expresses worry about that "Sunni/Shia/Kurd fault line" and about what Iraq's "neighbors" may do, he simply alerts us to his failure to grasp the larger picture. And he is hardly alone. But he has gotten such a press, such a buildup, and is clearly more intelligent than Bush -- so this, yet one more sign of the limits of his understanding and therefore of his usefulness in the war of self-defense against the Jihad, dismays.