Maikimo.net taxonomy tags

Last night Josh Marshall recorded his thoughts on Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist’s accusations against Richard Clarke on the Senate floor, whereon Frist accused Clarke, as Josh puts it, “of being a perjuror and a profiteer on the blood of 9/11.”

I’ve watched these proceedings rather closely, and while my political savvy is almost infinitesimal next to Josh’s, I fancy I do know how to read body language somewhat, and based on what I’ve seen Sen. Frist’s accusations don’t seem likely.

I had already read that some Republicans are attempting to declassify Clarke’s July 2002 testimony in an attempt to discredit Clarke’s present testimony, and noted Sen. Frist’s participation. Sen. Frist is, of course, a Tennessee senator and therefore mine. As I think he’s making a serious mistake (and putting Tennessee’s honor in further jeopardy) I felt impelled to write him today via Congress.org:

After sending this message I read Josh’s observation earlier yesterday that

What this is about isn’t Condi Rice or Richard Clarke or even George W. Bush. It’s about what happened — finding out what happened.

One side wants to find out; the other doesn’t. This whole story turns on that simple fact. Why else try to destroy Clarke unless what he has to say is profoundly damaging? Liars are usually easily discredited; it’s the truth-tellers who need to be destroyed.

Josh concludes, as has Bob Graham, former Chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence and Co-Chair of the Joint Committee before whom Clarke’s July 2002 testimony was given,

Why guess? Let’s find out. Release all his testimony. All of it.

I find myself persuaded that’s a good idea, and hence would alter my next-to-last paragraph to Sen. Frist if I hadn’t already sent it.

2004-03-28 update: Clarke himself recommends releasing his earlier testimony, along with all his email and memos. I’m not sure the Republican smear machine knows how to attack people who have, apparently, nothing to hide.

Is it too much to ask that government leaders display some character, openness, and restraint? Richard Clarke showed me this week what that looks like. While I have no preexisting reason to support him one way or the other, or even to agree with his hawkish views, I’m thankful to him for reminding me that character in government is still possible, even unto apologizing for the government’s mistakes and asking forgiveness.

And I will never be satisfied with anything less. I think the time of accepting lowered expectations is drawing to a close. We can do so much better than this.

a few hours later …

Whereas I was thinking Sen. Frist’s mistake lay in smearing a decent man, risking national security, and risking his own legacy, Stirling sees his mistake more expansively: that Frist has accidentally opened the floodgates of scandal in the direction of deluging Bush’s Isengard (okay, Stirling says “floodgates,” I picture LotR):

When Senator Bill Frist called for declassification of Clarke’s earlier testimony, [alleging], or at least implying, that perjury could be in the offing — he opened the floodgates. …

By trying to attack Clarke for having been a loyal soldier of the Executive earlier — [Frist] tells every functionary in that Executive Branch that they are marked for destruction — personal political destruction — should they waver. And that their previous service would be used against them. Anything you say in support of Bush can, and will, be used against you by Bush.

Wow, fascinating analysis.

2004-04-02 update: Yes, I’m veiling what I really think about Sen. Frist in a thick bubblewrap of Southern politeness, but John Nichols isn’t. John kicks ass and takes names in yesterday’s Frists of Fury.

I got distracted during LotR: The Return of the King as I suddenly realized its most literal interpretation has been adopted by the neoconservative hijackers of democracy in our country:

“We declare that all of them are evildoers, and we, blameless keepers of the flame, bearers of the light, are exercising our duty and divine calling in wiping them out. See? — it’s eagles that defeat the Nazgul. See? — those Arab-looking riders of the oliphaunts are evil. See? — the ‘Men of the West’ are the last hope for the world. What we have here is an allegory for America.”

I’m not a Tolkien scholar, but I don’t think literal interpretations suit his work or convey his intent. And I doubt that Peter Jackson, a New Zealander, aimed to craft a pro-America masterpiece.

As my distraction lengthened, I finally found a trace of empathy for those who think this way. If someone truly believes violence can be redemptive in this physical world, as many do, then a literal interpretation of LotR affirms present U.S. foreign policy.

Unfortunately for Christians who believe in this myth of redemptive violence^†, Jesus emphatically does not. According to him, nonretaliatory love is what redeems, violence never does. A literal interpretation of LotR — and by extension, of U.S. action in the world under the Bush administration — cannot be made to square with following Jesus.

Now where the lessons of LotR swell into truth is on the spiritual level. We are to resist evil. We are to be warriors against darkness just as imaged in the film. But against spirits and dominions and powers only, not against people. According to Jesus, we are to care for everyone the Father cares for, even the “ungrateful and the selfish and wicked” that the Father is “kind and charitable and good” to (Luke 6:27-36, AMP).

None of us are wholly good and the “enemy” is not wholly evil. The potential for — and reality of — evildoing lies in all of us. We must recognize this in ourselves. We must see the deception and greed and injustice and retribution that inhabit us in our prosecution of this war on terror. And we must repent. Our leaders must repent. To do otherwise is to bring down judgment on ourselves.

The truth is this: God has never appointed us policemen of this world. What he appoints us to be [is] its stewards and its servants. If Jesus is right, our present tack of meeting violence with violence will never work. If Jesus is right, meeting people’s needs from out of our abundance will.

I know several Bush supporters who are determined to see George as Aragorn, rightly enthroned as king who beats back the hordes of darkness. I think this is purest fantasy. At best our president is Boromir — not a king but a steward, one who despite possible good qualities is unable to resist the Ring of Power. And it is driving / has driven him mad. At worst I see George & Co. as Ringwraiths, wreaking division and death and destruction upon the world, once men but now made hollow where their souls once were, long ago sold for the Power of a Ring.

(I use “we,” “us,” and “our” as shorthand for my U.S.-oriented point of view. I use “Bush” as shorthand for the multiple [Bush-]like-minded persons and powers inhabiting our government.)

[Denethor was the last ruling Steward of Gondor, father of Boromir and Faramir. He was subject to depression and denial, maladies I recognize in myself and the Christian Right, more or less respectively. I’m pretty sure we both can be healed. Eventually.]

2003-12-31 update:
Charles Sebold, someone I’ve enjoyed virtually knowing for some years now, observes in his review of the first LotR movie something that (as long as I’m trying to be generous) sets me thinking George may be more analogous to Tolkien’s — not the movie’s — Saruman:

Saruman [in the movie] is so one-dimensional that it will make the purist cry. Tolkien’s Saruman is the victim of good intentions, overestimation of his own abilities, and a subtle corruption of power that extends over time — he is never really the ally of Sauron.

Regardless of intent and nature of alliance, I note that the devastation wrought is the same.

^†Interesting related reading:

• Martin Hattersley: The Myth of Redemptive Violence

• Walter Wink: Myth of Redemptive Violence

• Walter Wink: Babylon Revisited: How Violent Myths Resurface Today

• Gutless Pacifist: Redemptive Violence for a Just War

• First Congregational Church (UCC), Closter, NJ:
  The Civic Religion of Redemptive Violence
  The Ring of Tolkien: The Magnification of Power by Technology

• National Catholic Reporter: Candy ain’t dandy in this classroom