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The Part About Nidal Hasan Being Muslim

It was, depending on your perspective, bound to happen or incredibly insensitive and prejudiced. Once Nidal Malik Hasan's name was out there as the shooter at Fort Hood, somebody was bound to note the name... and leap to a conclusion. And clearly, some did.

As it turns out, Dr. Hasan was apparently an observant Muslim who followed religious traditions. He prayed every day. He wore traditional clothing. He was aware, and resentful, of anti-Muslim prejudices that became apparent after 9/11.

... And none of that makes him an example of "home grown terrorism."

Time and investigation will tell if there's any connection to be made, or other indication to consider, but for the moment, nothing about Nidal Malik Hasan suggests a connection to terrorist organizations, or that his act had a terrorist component. And I doubt it will - his family, who seem to have no need to hide or not talk about the man they knew, describe a sad, lonely person who they can't imagine resorting to violence.  Which speaks volumes, I think, more about what we see, and don't see, when we describe another's mental health.

In our quest to make mass shootings about something, anything but the mental health of the person doing the shooting, we all pick distractions. In the case of Seung Hui Cho, many liberals honed in on the ability to acquire guns easily in Virginia, while conservatives resisted any talk of gun controls... both sides ignoring more obvious solutions like improving campus mental health services, or identifying the steps the University could have takemn to separate Cho from the school.

With Nidal Hasan, we get the distraction of knowing that it was a Muslim soldier who resorted to violence, despite the fact that we know that all sorts of soldiers with mental health issues are doing the same thing. Ironically, the military aspect may have robbed liberals of their usual fallback of blaming the gun; we can do lots of things to rein in some gun sales... but military soldiers and weapons are likely to be together no matter what we do.

And so liberals have had to counter the "ohmygodmuslimradicalislamterror" moment with admitting the obvious - that Hasan probably acted alone, and that some sort of mental health issue was probably involved. Which leads, uncomfortably, to the discussion of soldiers and mental health issues and treatment problems we've been trying to avoid for a long, long time. Which may be why, despite little else happening in the news, the Fort Hood shooting is quietly sinking to the bottom of the news coverage pile, now the place of tributes, memorias, and video montages to sad music.

For all the rejection of snap judgments about Islam=Terrorism, we shouldn't, and we can't, just ignore that Hasan was Muslim, and that his life in a religious minority was somehow not a part of him or what happened. We need to talk about this in order to make, at least, a couple of obvious points: that if we plan to class Hasan as "Muslim terrorist" we've just made the "War on Terror" impossible to fight or win, and that, if we plan to hold these kinds of views of Muslims, we should be asking ourselves far more thoroughly just what it is we're still doing in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Middle East. Because if we can't ratchet down or deal with these prejudices and false assumptions, we're nowhere in figuring out how we plan to coexist with the Islamic world. And no matter what crazy conservative war types suggest... we're not going to defeat the whole idea of Islam with our Army - an Army that contains Americans who are themselves Muslim.

It's easy to call the revelations about Hasan's religious beliefs a distraction, even the unnecessary invitation to expression of unwarranted fears and prejudice. But the liberal inclination to tamp down any discussion of a difficult topic for the potential of some extreme to offend doesn't help us deconstruct, demystify or figure out the relevant aspects of the story. We have to find a way to deal with the part about Nidal Hasan being Muslim so that we can put his actions into a context, sort out what matters, and what doesn't. And than, I keep hoping, figure out how all of this context helps us to better understand the mental health issues that really need to be explored.

The Post I Keep Writing After A Mass Shooting

...but first: so much for that "Republican Revival" after Tuesday's election. If your "incredible momentum" can be stalled simply by a major news event sweeping you off the front page... perhaps tales of a Republican Renaissance are a bit premature.

I don't mean to minimize the horrific events in Fort Hood or trivialize them into a political discussion... but yesterday's mass shooting, as these things do, made a quick reordering of priorities possible, and made clear that much of the noise in politics lately has been irrelevant to the real struggles in our real lives. Watching Representative Joe Carter - whose district includes Fort Hood - or Kay Bailey Hutchinson deal, calmly and soberly, with an unfolding event underscored how rarely, these days, we get a news event where the last relevant detail is who's right, or left.

Like many, I was stunned into relative silence as events unfolded yesterday afternoon; for hours, there was so little information, so little clarity around what had happened that it was impossible to know what to say... and yet, it was clear, there'd be something. And by the end of the night, I was struck by the fact that what's clear about yesterday's tragedy is what's been clear in precious ones, and someone needs to say it, yet again: the shootings at Fort Hood are going to be about a man who was mentally ill. And until we do something much more extensive, and more honestly, about identifying and treating mental illnesses, we're dancing around the edges of disaster.

The Belittled Foxes

As much as I find the Obama Administration's kerfuffle with Fox News to be reasonably diverting, I'm not sure there's a lot to see here: I've said before (and long ago) what I think of Fox, and it's basically the same complaint of dressing up opinion and commentary as news. But knowing that - and even as the Administration has, deciding to challenge it - I'm not sure anyone's answered the "what now" question.

Because it's not, really, that Fox is dominated by opinion journalism; it's that they've succeeded with it, and that success is warping the entire field of 24 hour news. Say what (nice things, I suppose) you will about Rachel Maddow... that's not news, either. And generally, Keith Olbermann isn't much more. MSNBC, which has been the favorite "what about them" excuse of conservatives trying to defend Fox, has been playing catch up for years with the more successful operations at CNN and Fox, and they've decided, clearly, when you can't beat it... join them. Let the shouting commence.

And it seems fair to observe, too, at least no one is pretending that Fox is brilliantly objective as a news organization. It's a measure of the playing field we now work on that no one, no one sane anyway, can essentially deny that Fox is where conservatives get information, because, clearly, it tells the stories in ways that reflect conservative views and ideals. As I always try to remind people at times like this, Fox has nt shown an ability to break hard news; it's reporting coverage is generally thin, and its reporters rarely reflect great skills at getting the substance of a story... but they're great for finding opinions about the news of the day.

I think the problem here is much the problem we're dealing with in talking about healthcare: if the profit motive is going to be our bottom line, if you have to have good ratings and better ad sales to be viable... then Fox is right; you do the things that get ratings. And you get ratings with controversy, drama, and a sense of conflict. You do not get ratings armed with facts, figures, and often depressing information about conditions in places that may not, really, have a good outcome anywhere in the near future. Look! A silver balloon! If we can't let news be unprofitable, if we can't be less concerned with ad sales and more concerned with information... then, no, we're not going to get good news coverage. We will get shouting, and name calling, and Chris Matthews and Sean Hannity. And blaming Fox, or calling them the "worst example" doesn't change the bigger problem - what they exemplify... is what's working.

And so, yet again, I find myself less than thrilled with the Obama folks, not because I think they're tilting at a losing windmill... but because they don't, really, have any interest in trying to change the status quo. Making Fox News the enemy suits their political agenda; "exposing" Fox as conservative (really? can you expose something so nakedly obvious?) is easy headlines... but no real payoff. Fox gets to be just what it is, the Obama folks get an easy scapegoat... and we get less and less served by good news outlets. Who's losing here? And who, really, is being outfoxed?

Afternoon Morsels: Preppy Snack Time

...for the frat boys of all ages:

• Dow over 10,000 - oh yeah, that's a perfectly sensible approach to the current business climate.
• And here's Calvin Trillin to explain how we got this way. Blame the preppy people.
• Beer pong turns out to be a great way to pass Swine Flu! But of course!
• Somewhere in New York, and everywhere else, in every market, someone is playing Taylor Swift. Right now.
• But in the real Hollywood Minute, Nikki Finke has some fascinating insight into the potential deal between Comcast and GE to sell NBC. And it seems Jeff Zucker would (finally) be replaced by the guy who used to run FX and developed The Shield, among other things.
• And... while not really a preppy moment, it turns out Michael Jackson's new song "This Is It" is actually an old song he co-wrote for Safire. And I know who Safire is... but in case you don't.

You Deserve An Award For The Role That You Play...

The head-smacking, obvious absurdity of it all can't just be explained away: there's basically no reason Barack Obama should be the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, it's inappropriate and embarrassing that he was considered and that, apparently on their merits, he won.  And I suppose, to be generous, the real point here is what critics have laid out for a long while, and what, I think has been catching up to the Nobel committees for a while: the Peace Prize is becoming irrelevant. And no more so when a young, untested President is rewarded for doing, essentially, nothing.

Liberal and progressive bloggers are already howling about the sighs of derision from the right (and let's be fair, they really can't muster outrage; who can?), but in this case, and with a half hour of Rush under my belt from lunchtime today, I'm inclined to take their points, especially the one about how convenient it is that recent lefty leaders of America (Carter, Gore, Obama) have the Prize while right side ones (Reagan, Bush, Bush for starters) do not. And no, it's hard to say in the thirty years that cover all of these men, any of them have, ultimately, made the world more peaceful, or safer for the cause of peace.

If we plan to make this one of the dividing lines between true believing liberals and everyone else... I think I'll stay outside the lines. I do think, in a series of events filled with absurd moments and bad Presidential theater, we may have a turning point - there is a point where all that "he's the one" energy really does spoeak to a negative, unpleasant impulse in people to go over the edge in sycophancy. And the blowback, in these moments, is hard to undo. I suspect, more than I have lately, that we've reached the apotheosis of Obama's anointing... and it's about time - okay, honestly, well past time - this nonsense was called out, and stopped. For the good of us all.

Seriously, after working for two days on a post on the continued presence of absurdist future speak, I literally hit the "publish" button and not ten minutes later heard the Peace Prize news in the car in stunned disbelief. It's one thing for us to talk about a set of vague, as yet unseen developments in domestic policy... but we're really over the edge now. Just over it. And if you are among the well meaning, good hearted people who want to try and make this seem okay... well, ya lost me at 5 am. Wish you well... I cannot stay.

The Future Is Now. And Really Far Away.

I haven't written politics for a while... indeed, a lot of my writing struggles have been to find something, anything, else to write about instead. Bring on the movie reviews!

Sure, some things have happened... but it's striking to me how little robust political discourse there is, just now, and few issues to really debate. My barometer in these things is dinner conversation with my Mom: if we can find  have a lively back and forth to wind up basically agreeing, things are okay. If we actually find a contentious point of serious disagreement, things are really good.

Lately, we're lucky if there's even one topic to discuss from an op-ed in the Times. And that's pretending that there's something even worth debating.

When I started thinking about this the other night, and trying to explain my political thinking just now, I realized... I said my peace about six months ago; and almost nothing has changed since then... except that things have gotten worse.

Back in April I said:

I think we may miss the biggest accomplishment the Obama Administration's first three months have wrought: that we now live in an exciting time... the future.

Yes, the biggest change, I'm starting to notice, is that we no longer live or speak politics in the present tense, but in a fascinating, conditional future tense - "If healthcare reform happens" or "when this economic crisis is over...."

If a picture paints a thousand words... we can't seem to paint one about how things actually are; or actually admit that... well, not much has actually happened. And herein lies a critique of The Obama Administration that hasn't quite taken hold yet: for all the talk about bold plans and brave ideas... we have very little to show in the way of actual change, actual reform, or any real action on all those multiple "key issues" that we're told are so crucial.

And mostly, I find the observation still holds: whether we continue to debate a healthcare reform plan - best described, at this late date, still, as "sketchy" - or the illusory elements of an economic recovery that is really not happening, our way of talking about politics continues to be in the conditional tense... how we will live if various developments take place... and much less consideration for things as they actually are.

Romanspeak

As a kid of the seventies, I find the return of the Roman Polanski case fascinating, because it's treated now, as if it was a big deal at the time... and it wasn't.

Polanski's arrest, legal troubles, and subsequent flight generally caused barely a blip in coverage. It was later, when Polanski returned to fairly prolific filmmaking that the question of his "exile" became more of a story... and prompted a return examination of the initial story.

And even then, probably two events really raised the temperature to where we are now: his Oscar for The Pianist and the subsequent documentary Wanted and Desired, which both laid out the events of the rape of a 13 year old girl, and made the point that there was, in fact, no serious effort to return Polanski to LA for any kind of resolution.

In the flurry of attention and energy that's been generated since Polanski's arrest, in Zurich, for extradition to the US, I think there's been a push to pick a side... and less acknowledgment that, in fact, there's an uncomfortable middle that's probably where we belong. Should Roman Polanski come back to LA? Probably, yes. Does that serve as the end of this story? Probably not.

And that's because the person who really needs to speak out and explain himself is... Roman Polanski.

Don't Scandalize My Name

Everybody likes Taylor Swift.

You can't have the moment Swift is having - crossing over from Country to Pop, and not be well liked, in a general way, by pretty much all concerned. Yes, she's a little bland and her big successes - Love Story, and You Belong With Me are treacly, fairy tale romance singles... but when you can leaven that sweetness with a song like White Horse ("I'm not a princess, this ain't a fairy tale... and it's too late for you and your white horse... to come around"), clearly, there's a lot going on.

At nineteen. And you wrote all of it.

That, really, is what makes Kanye West's behavior so appalling; it would be one thing if Taylor Swift were just some American Idol winner, processed and polished beyond all recognition (that woud be Kellie Pickler, for those who don't know), but Swift belonged on the stage just as much as the young women she competes with in the marketplace. Watching the VMA crowd - Pink, Lady Gaga, Beyonce, hell, even Madonna - you could see these women flash with the recognition of a kindred spirit: they had been her, too, at 19. And Kanye had no right to step on that, or take it away.

Let's pause for a minute too and just point out the obvious: who the hell cares about the VMAs? Does anyone really believe they recognize the real breadth and artistry in music videos? Can anything really encompass what has become, clearly a short film art form as well as a commercial vehicle? Can you recall anyone who's won the award Swift won, ever? Me, either. So let's not wax too rhapsodic. It's a minor award, and the real excitement has always been the balance of control and anarchy in the show itself. Those are what we remember.

And so, Kanye added to the chaos. And yeah, he's real sorry about it, and wasn't Neyonce gracious to try and right the wrong. But still; one reason the right had, essentially, no way to add fuel to their massed outrage is that the distance from Kanye West to Joe Wilson was about 3 inches and 2 days. You want to end rude, disruptive behavior... well, start somewhere. And all of this before we get into the mess that Serena Williams created for herself.

Of course, David Brooks gets it: these are rude, unthinking times. Ones where people feel free to insert themselves into whatever moment however they feel. The right has tried, for years, to blame a permissive, liberal culture.. but we're way past that when last week had Joe Wilson and the weekend had the DC tea party. No one, it seems, remembers the words "boundaries" or "standards" never mind fundamental decency. It's nice that Kanye's sorry... it'd be nicer if he'd never done it in the first place. Or never did it again. But then, as long as we, as a society keep rewarding the bad behavior, rather than the better ones - when we make Kanye the story, rather than the grace of Taylor Swift in a horrible moment, or the graciousness of Beyonce Knowles to try and make things right - we're already answering what matters - the scandal, the bad behavior, and the outrage. Surely... we can do better than this.

Across The Battle Lines In Joe Wilson's War

I'm not all that upset by Representative Joe Wilson's "You're a liar!" outburst during Wednesday's speech by President Obama. It's a free country with the right to speak... and yeah, I guess that includes yelling at the President while he's giving a speech. You're free to do it, that's for sure.

It's also rude, and really kind of inappropriate.

That Republicans and conservatives can't decide whether to be happy or upset about Wilson is a reminder, really, of what a mess they're in as a party. As much as Wilson managed to hijack the coverage of the speech (which, yes, I think was very well done), and probably pressed the hot button of health insurance for illegal immigrants, after 8 years of complaining that President Bush was thoroughly disrespected by liberals, and that's bad... suddenly Wilson, you know... was probably just "speaking truth to power."

I tend to think this reflexive "you have to show respect for the presidency" stuff is a bit overblown; one of our great distinguishing aspects, as Americans, is that the President is one of us, not better than all of us. He's picked by us, from among us, and he remains one of us. All men - all of us - are created equal. If we're equal, then the level of respect we're looking for is the common decency you show others, not some magical extra special respect or reverence. It's an aspect of conservatism - the reflexive genuflecting to the notion of your "betters" by title or social class - that I think liberals, in our far more egalitarian notions of these things, pretty much reject outright.

Still, the point is that Wilson's outburst wasn't some blot on the Presidency... it's that, common decency and rude behavior are inappropriate on a solemn occasion. It's happening more and more, particularly as the outlandish charges and pointless debates wail on. It's the nonsense of the "birther" movement and the fact that Republicans can't simply set  it aside. And much more. That the right - still - can't draw a line and call something out of bounds, even something as basic as, well, an inappropriately rude outburst, reflects how deeply they've failed to center themselves around mutual, basic principles of civil discourse, debate over actual issues, or proposals that are focused on improving the common good. This is childish, we can't back down, every tantrum gets to be shouted and yelled and pushed around. And it leads... basically, to chaos. 

The really smart move, I think, which would have catapulted Wilson to a new kind of leadership within the GOP would have been for the man himself to draw the line. If Wilson came to the microphone, called himself out for being inappropriate, said something to the effect of "we can have disagreements, but we should do it with some basic level of decency and respect" and taken responsibility for lowering our discourse... I think he'd have shown remarkable, hard to argue with moxie. Chances are, privately, he knows it was a bit much and probably went too far. But backing down? Heck no... that's weak. And so he sort of apologized, now sort of took it back, and gets to be a conservative hero... even as his days in Congress may well be numbered.

Joe Wilson doesn't have to apologize. The Presidency will not rise or fall on the basis of a heated, and fairly foolish, outburst in a joint session of Congress. Nor is the point here, really, about debating the semantics of prohibiting illegal immigrants from having health insurance - like most of the immigration debate, there's more heat than light in this charge, and serious consideration of immigration reforms is about a lot more than health insurance, anyway. But then... these are not serious people. If they were, someone would know enough to draw a line, and say Wilson crossed it. And then, they'd leave him on the other side, to battle it out alone.

Get Off The Crazzy* Train

What's amazing (to me anyway) about the "speech to schoolkids" flap is that we're trying to take this seriously. The crazy assertions about a "socialist agenda", the cries of "indoctrination".... all of this is so thoroughly absurd, and yet somehow, there has to be some attempt to "respect" an alternative viewpoint.

Bollocks. Though I suspect that with each new addition to the crazy train, it's becoming clearer that this stuff is just getting more and more "out there", we've got to move more firmly to draw a line, and realize that it's been crossed. And stop pretending that there's anything here worth debating. That means letting go of reflexive defensiveness when crazy conservatives use hot button words like "socialist" and "fascist" to throw a generalized label over their opponents. It means ignoring and marginalizing foolish activities like bizarre boycotts, misplaced "marches", dopey "tea parties" and the like. Don't treat these absurdities as news, don't give the sensationalists the attention they crave... and when you do talk about them, be clear about what they are: fringe elements and outliers, whose bizarre assertions aren't just fabricated... they're not worth serious consideration. Of any sort.

Look, never mind the part about Obama selling some sort of blinkered "socialism" as if liberal ideas were dirty and foreign; consider the absurd notions of "indoctrination" as if any kid could be thoroughly brainwashed by a speech. On television. By some old guy in a suit. This isn't how indoctrination works. And indeed, the more salient point is... indoctrination generally doesn't work. And Americans - who have culturally enshrined a notion of free thinking, questioning authority and challenging symbols of status quo and the establishment - really have neither the patience, nor the discipline, for it.

I think the left has three main foibles that let this stuff gain traction - a decided willingness to give everyone a chance to share, in a forum of mutual respect; a reverence for the right to dissent; and a fear of seeming, well, too authoritarian and rigid. Add those things up, and you get an amazing breadth of room for crazzy* cons to offer up their best outlandishness, without evidence, or grounding in reality, or really, any connection to reality at all.

The day may not be today... but I think the national tolerance for this kind of asinine pointlessness is evaporating quickly, and for myself, I think it's time to say it - there's no reason to pay attention to this craziness, to take it seriously, or give it any place in a reasoned discourse. It's well past time for thinking, reasonable people to stop staring, stop arguing, and stop pretending. There's nothing to see here. Really... nothing. Let's get off the crazzy* train - and let it fly off the rails all on its own.

(* Years ago, my J in B would sing me Patsy Cline's "Crazy", but mispronounce it as "Crazzy" - i.e. wthout the long "a" sound - and for me, anyway, it became a shorthand way to refer to the "crazier than crazy"  people and events one runs into in every day life. So no, unlike my usual misspellings... it's not a typo. It's deliberate.)