What follows is my original letter to the triCity News. Passages which were omitted when my letter was published on December 22 are bracketed and in boldface below. "Justified Right" of December 8 follows my letter.
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December 11, 2005
To the Editor, triCity News:
JUSTIFIED RIGHT: “Out of Steam,” But Not Hot Air
On Thursday, December 8, conservative columnist David Brooks’ column, “Running Out of Steam,” took several swipes at today’s conservative movement: “For members of a movement that is supposed to be winning the battle of ideas, conservatives are in a mess….[When conservatism was in its most creative phase, there was a sharp distinction between conservatives and Republicans. Conservatives chased ideas,….A lot of the energy that used to go into ideas is now devoted to defending Republican politicians….(When conservatism was a movement of ideas, it attracted oddballs; now that it’s a movement with power, it attracts sleaze balls.)…There is greater social pressure to conform to the party’s needs. Even writers and wonks are supposed to stay on message….Conservative media success means intellectual flabbiness….Now conservatives can be just as insular as liberals, retreating to their own media sources to be told how right they are.”]
As I read Brooks’ column, any inclination I might have had to feel smug while reading what I already believe was overcome by my admiration for Brooks’ willingness to look critically his own side of the political spectrum.
Then I saw the title of Tommy DeSeno’s triCityNews column also published on December 8: “Saddam Still 2nd Worst Person on the Planet.” I wondered if Brooks had been following “The Conservative Alternative to the triCity” for the past few years.
New Ideas?
In December 2005, is there any person alive who doesn’t know that Saddam is a really bad, bad person? His character became a non-issue sometime between 1983 when Rumsfield shook hands with him and 1990 when he invaded Kuwait, yet DeSeno devoted seven of eleven paragraphs to tell us why Saddam is evil, exemplifying for me Brooks’ contention that there is a paucity of new ideas among many conservative writers. I‘ve Googled for Saddam images and can‘t find one picture of him with a halo.
Staying on Message
The obvious intent of DeSeno’s most recent column is contained in the two paragraphs which excoriate “Kerry, Clark and company” and, in Swift-Boat smear mode, question their patriotism. That “company” includes Congressman John Murtha and presumably former Senator Max Cleland of Georgia, both decorated war veterans, and anyone else who questions the neo-cons’ approach to fighting terrorism. Typically, DeSeno merely reiterates the talking points, the message, of the Rove-Rushian bloviators. [Neither Rush, Rove nor any of the neo-cons I know of ever served in the military, and while many on the left will criticize their tactics and ethics, I have never heard their patriotism questioned. DeSeno likes to rage indignantly at out-of-context phrases voiced by those he sophomorically calls Dummycrats, but where is his outrage when the next-in-line to be commander-in-chief defends his five deferments with "I had other priorities in the '60s than military service."]
Insularity
In the same week when Ibn al-Shaykh al Libi, a former Qaeda leader, admitted that he made up the story of a Qaeda-Iraq connection to appease his Egyptian torturers, DeSeno says he “can’t imagine why some claim no connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda.” Last week’s new news was actually old news to the Defense Department which warned in 2002 that Libi ''was intentionally misleading the debriefers'' in making claims about Iraqi support for Al Qaeda's work with illicit weapons. [DeSeno might be able to imagine why some have ideas different from his if he would simply break from the insularity of his own sources which, at least in this case, are using discredited information as fact.]
Intellectual Flabbiness and Sleaze
[1. DeSeno: “…you are either with us, or with the terrorists. I’m with us, Mr. President.” Any lawyer should be able to identify that textbook example of a “False Choice,” an oversimplification. Thinking citizens and most of our allies know that one can be against terrorism and still be opposed to this administration’s plans (or lack of) to fight it. 2. The “direct quote” from Joe Wilson’s interview with Saddam produces zero Google hits. 3. To associate the horned phrase “wants to cut and run,” which connotes cowardice, with Congressman Murtha, a Vietnam combat veteran and retired Marine Corps colonel, is a cheap shot which borders on sleaze. 4. The weak analogy to World War II is also a non sequitur in the paragraph which it concludes.
5. Who among us is not susceptible to the emotional “hot button” issues DeSeno likes to slather about in many of his columns. I too would react that hateful criminals should be denied trial and representation just as I would like to deny free speech to hate mongers among us, but I long for writers and politicians who do not pander to the reactionary in us all. Thankfully, there are still patriots, like John McCain and David Brooks among the conservatives, who remind us of the moral high ground for which this country was once admired around the world. They remind us, too, that “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,” especially in times like these when demagogues abound.]
Paradoxically, when Tommy DeSeno writes about Asbury Park politics and redevelopment, both in the triCityNews and on Yahoo, I find his thoughts to be anything but intellectually flabby. Anyone who would take him on in those arenas had better know what he or she is talking about because he will come back at you with chapter and verse and near perfect reasoning argued with integrity.
I suppose that’s why I find it sad that Brooks’ column is so relevant to “The Justified Right” when DeSeno postures on national issues.
I have a request for Tommy DeSeno. In the next few weeks, please resist the temptation to waddle into the “Friend or Foe of Christmas” non-issue (“Holidays” vs. “Christmas”). It’s another culture war campaign used to distract us from real issues like jobs, education, health care, competence and ethics in government, and, in the wake of FEMA failures, real homeland security.
Merry Christmas AND Happy Holidays,
Mario DeStefano
Asbury Park
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The original column from triCity New, December 8, 2005 appears below:
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Justified Right
The Conservative Alternative to triCity - by Tommy DeSeno
Saddam Still 2nd Worst Person on the Planet
The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it. Ayn Rand
For me the worst person on the planet is Osama bin Laden. His disdain for modernity and wish for the deaths of all Christians and Jews is contemptible, and actively working toward that as on 9/11 guarantees him the worst person on the planet moniker [sic].
We haven’t heard from bin Laden in 14 months. He could be dead. I wish everyday we could find him, but I don’t begrudge my government for not having found him yet. When a person wants to hide in this big world, he can hide. It took 5 years to find Eric Rudolph and he was in North Carolina. It took a year to find Chandra Levy’s body and she was laying [sic] out in public in the middle of Washington D.C.
The trial of Saddam Hussein reminds us why he is the 2nd worst person on the planet and puts into perspective how necessary it was to topple him to fight terrorism.
Saddam’s credentials as a terrorist working beyond the borders of Iraq are not in dispute. He paid $25,000.00 incentives to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. It is estimated he paid more than $10 million to suicide bombers, leaving thousands of sorrowful families whose loved ones, including children, were cut down by cold-eyed killers financed by Saddam.
Saddam boastfully harbored other terrorists who killed Americans over the years. Abu Abbas, founder of the PLF and planner of the Achille Lauro highjacking [sic], where wheelchair bound [sic] American Leon Klinghoffer was shot and pushed overboard, was captured in Bagdad. Abu Nidal was a terrorist who killed more than 900 people, including Americans. Hijacking [sic] planes was the specialty of this friend of Qadaffi [sic]. He threatened the assassination of Oliver North and his family for the work North did against his group. Nidal was killed in Bagdad in 2002. Abu Musab al Zarqawi is the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq today. After being injured in Afghanistan, Saddam took him in and allowed him to be treated at Saddam’s private hospital. Of the 2,000 soldiers we have lost in the war, al-Zarqawi is responsible for a great deal of them, and his presence in Iraq comes courtesy of Saddam Hussein.
I can’t imagine why some claim no connection between Iraq and al-Qeada [sic]. Even if there were none, Saddam is a terrorist himself. After 9/11 the President did not say [sic] “We are going after just al-Qeada, and leaving the rest of the world’s terrorists alone.” No, he said we are going after ALL terrorists EVERYWHERE. He famously said you are either with us, or with the terrorists. I’m with us, Mr. President.
The recent attacks against America’s war on terror by the Democratic Party is [sic] a callous affront to our soldiers. John Kerry this weekend said our troops were “terrorizing” the Iraqi people.” [sic] We are the terrorists? Those soldiers you speak down to freed 50 million people, Mr. Kerry. They are heroes, not terrorists. Now former attorney general and generally unhinged liberal Ramsey Clark has joined Saddam’s team of lawyers, and is using the very words coming from American Democrats to defend Saddam. As I write this column on Pearl Harbor Day, I’m disgusted by Kerry, Clark and company.
What Saddam did to terrorize people in his own country is starting to come out in his trial. The testimony of that young woman this week about her suffering under Saddam’s men is heart-wrenching. Five thugs tortured her, and without being too graphic, she said they “held her legs in the air and used her as their own banquet.” She was 16. Yesterday, Saddam complained he has been forced to wear the same underwear for 3 days, and declared that treatment to be “terrorist.” God forgive me but I hate this man.
Still to come is the testimony about Saddam using chemical weapons on Iraqis. Nerve gas causes a death so painful words find difficulty describing it. First there is restricted breathing, nausea and drooling. Then comes loss of control of bodily functions, so victims will vomit, defecate and urinate. This phase is followed by twitching and jerking, and ultimately the victim will become comatose and suffocate from convulsive spasms. Saddam did this to thousands of people, and Ramsey Clark is defending him.
Saddam Hussein, in a meeting with Valerie Plame’s husband Joe Wilson, told him that America wouldn’t succeed in the Middle East because we “wouldn’t have the stomach to see 10,000 dead American soldiers in the desert.” He overestimated Democrats. There are 2,000 dead soldiers and already Howard Dean said this week we “can’t win” and Congressman Murtha wants to cut and run. It cost us 4000,000 Americans to win WWII.
Fortunately, America will continue to fight terror and make the world better. I’m disappointed they are treating Saddam as a criminal defendant with a trial. You don’t win wars with lawyers. He was armed when they found him, but asked to “negotiate” unlike his sons whom he ordered to fight to the death. We should have shot him as an enemy combatant and left him in the dirt hole where we found him.
