Books reviews, current events, and other musings

 
Sidney Blumenthal's new book The Clinton Wars has an intriguing insight.

In the absence of anticommunism, the glue that had held conservatism together for so long, Clinton was the enemy who now served that purpose.

This is the most plausible explanation that I've heard of the animosity towards Bill Clinton. His specific traits - being a Democrat, winning the Presidency twice, avoiding Vietnam, racial tolerance, having a strong-willed wife, coming of age in the 60's - never added up to a compelling rationale. However, Clinton-hatred as a substitute for anti-Communism makes psychological sense for a large segment of the population.

Hatred of one group towards another has been a major destructive force in history. Religion, ethnicity, nationalism, or other divisions can drive the haters to despise the outside group. Many Americans still view the world with that us vs. them, good vs. evil mentality.

For most of the nation's history, the hatred was directed towards Catholics, Jews, Blacks, Hispanics, and other groups from different backgrounds. Later, the Cold War absorbed much of that angry energy, as old prejudices slowly diminished. After the Soviet Union collapsed, conservatives, needing someone to hate, settled on Bill Clinton as the enemy. Now, of course, terrorists are the evil outsiders that everyone despises.

I still can't grasp why hatred and paranoia play such a major role in the human psyche, but it's the sad truth. Racism, rabid anti-Communism, Clinton-hatred, and anti-terrorist hysteria are just manifestations of that aspect of human nature.

posted by Julian at 12:05 PM

 
Maureen Dowd has one of the best (worst?) puns that has come out of the Iraqi war:

Iran and North Korea actually do have scary nuclear programs, but if we express our alarm to the world now, will we be accused of crying Wolfowitz?

posted by Julian at 11:20 PM

 
There's a neat on-line 20 questions game (from Follow Me Here). It's surprisingly good, figuring out half of my objects in 20 yes/no questions, and most of the others soon thereafter. Afterwards, it displays any answers that it disagrees with and any contradictions in your responses.
posted by Julian at 10:45 PM