You MADE Me Write This!

Just a little reinforcement on the torture thing. A lot of people are upset about how the Times Square bomber was read Miranda Rights and not tortured, even though he still supplied good intelligence. This kind of mollycoddling wouldn't happen in China! Those guys even have no problem with torturing criminals to get to the truth. Only:

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese man who was supposedly hacked to death in a fight has reappeared in his hometown after 10 years, state media said, raising questions about police torture to extract a confession from the alleged killer.

Zhao Zuohai, the supposed killer, was acquitted of the crime and released by a Henan court on Saturday, state news agency Xinhua said, citing a court press conference on Sunday.

He had served 10 years of a 29-year sentence after confessing to killing Zhao Zhenshang in a hatchet fight in central China's Henan province, the China Daily reported this weekend.

A headless body was found in a village well about a year after the fight, at which point Zhao was arrested and confessed to the killing.

The victim, Zhao Zhenshang, reappeared in the village on May 2 to seek welfare support. He had fled after the fight because he feared he had killed the now-imprisoned Zhao.

Convictions in the Chinese court system are strongly dependent on confessions, motivating police to use force to get a confession and close the case.

See the thing about torture is that is ain't no truth serum. People will talk alright, but they'll say whatever they think will make you stop torturing them. Caveat emptor.

They May Have Been Wrong About All The Torture, and the Degregulation

Turns out the incompetent car-bomber was Muslim, probably related to a terrorist organization. Surprisingly cheerful lookin' fellah too! I don't know what to make of that. A lot of people say that the motivation was to punish Viacom for that South Park episode, but... well, I'm not going to try to climb inside the guy's mind but Comedy Central's offices are also in New York, and Viacom famously scrubbed the episode of all references to the prophet. Why not set up your pathetic non-bomb across town instead? No parking?

Anyway by all accounts Faisal Shahzad is singing like a canary, despite being read his Miranda Rights and no torture. All torture could add in this case is conferring martyrdom on a sad, confused individual. Whom we would then have to hold indefinitely because we could not effectively prosecute an American citizen who hadn't been read his rights.

Meanwhile even Sara Palin says don't trust the oil companies, via twitter:

Gulf: learn from Alaska's lesson w/foreign oil co's: don't naively trust- VERIFY. Livelihood affected by spill?Don't sign away remedy rights

Some might say that a way to streamline the individual negotiations among landowners and oil companies might be, I dunno, regulation by the government. 

Best Wishes To Dick Cheney

The former Vice President is said to be resting comfortably after a bout with chest pains today. I wish him the best.

Medically, anyway. Look let's be honest, I consider the man a war criminal. As it happens he committed his war crimes for the right reasons, because he believed that torture strengthened the country that he and I love. I disagree with him on that but, well, his heart was in the right place.

So again, best wishes to a man whom I wish had made radically different decisions than the ones he made.

Let's Not Look Back

FVP Richard Cheney has been lobbying the White House to unclassify memos which prove that torture yeilded valuable information from terror suspects, back when we were still doing that. Here they are!

Surprise number 1: They don't prove that the valuable information came from torture.

The first document, issued by the CIA in July 2004 is about the interrogation of 9/11 architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times in March 2003 and whom, the newly released CIA Inspector General report on torture details, had his children’s lives threatened by an interrogator. None of that abuse is referred to in the publicly released version of the July 2004 document. Instead, we learn from the July 2004 document that not only did the man known as “KSM” largely provide intelligence about “historical plots” pulled off from al-Qaeda, a fair amount of the knowledge he imparted to his interrogators came from his “rolodex” — that is, what intelligence experts call “pocket litter,” or the telling documentation found on someone’s person when captured.

Surprise number 2: Cheney says that they prove it anyway.

This intelligence saved lives and prevented terrorist attacks. These detainees also, according to the documents, played a role in nearly every capture of al Qaeda members and associates since 2002. The activities of the CIA in carrying out the policies of the Bush Administration were directly responsible for defeating all efforts by al Qaeda to launch further mass casualty attacks against the United States.

You may note that he avoids directly saying the TORTURE brought out the information, just that the people we tortured were the ones who gave us information. Distinction without a difference, if you regard torture as no big deal.

As a movie geek (news about that is a-comin', but let's not tangentalize) I can't help but think of Star Wars (A New Hope) or Marathon Man, or really, every single damn American movie up to 2004, in which the heroes were easy to spot because they were the ones who DIDN'T torture. The ones who torture are Nazis or stormtroopers. I know, I know, pre 9/11 thinking.

Don't Trust Things From Chicago

Word had it that popular Chicago radio personality "Mancow" may have faked his own waterboarding. I'm disappointed because he had come to the conclusion that it really is torture, which was a reversal from him. Still, we have Christopher Hitchens, whose waterboarding was authentic, and he came to the same conclusion.

Hannity need to be the tiebreaker on this one, I think.

How To Find Out What Nancy Pelosi Knew

I'm having a little trouble following the motivation behind the right's attack of Nancy Pelosi concerning whether she KNEW about waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques. I'm just a simple country lawyer but it seems a tad confusing. If I'm writing a screenplay, I'd have to throw this plotline out because the motivation doesn't make any sense.

IF YOU belive that torture is wrong, (I do! I do!) then the idea that Nancy Pelosi knew about it and did nothing to stop it is troubling. But on the other hand, what should she have done? She couldn't speak out because it was a classified program, and if she registered a complaint internally than it seems unlikely that it would have stopped the program. Ultimately if you believe that torture is wrong, you're not going after Pelosi, you're going after whoever authorized torture.

IF YOU believe that torture is just fine, the only way to protect the country against its enemies, then you go after Pelosi not for keeping silent about it then but for speaking out against it now. And to be clear about it, you preface your statements with "To her credit, Pelosi kept quiet about the program at the time even though she had points to gain." I mean, obviously she would have, otherwise why exploit public opinion against torture now?

However, the critics of Pelosi are trying to have it both ways, stirring up hatred of Pelosi for supporting torture without mentioning that they're pro-torture as well.

(By the way, the concept of being pro-torture in itself is pretty interesting. Couldn't have seen THAT as a public relations option before Bush-Cheney! Just one more innovation of the previous administration, along with all the ways of ensuring that the buck never, EVER stops here.)

Well, be careful what you wish for - demanding that Nancy Pelosi reveal what she knew then can only lead to investigations. And any investigation of that situation is unlikely to come to the conclusion that hey, you gotta commit a few crimes during war time and whatever anyone did is cool, as long as they don't lie about what they knew afterward. More likely it would lead to war crimes trials, and ain't no one saying Nancy committed any.

Tortured Rationalization 2: The Pelosi Factor

Let's look at another torture-related talking point: Nancy Pelosi knew, and did nothing about it!

This one is a head scratcher, coming from people who endorse torture and yet despise Nancy Pelosi. What am I, a liberal, supposed to conclude from this? That Nancy Pelosi, like all people who were fully briefed by the Bush Administration, knows we should get behind this torture thing, but is lying about it to win votes. Since I LIKE Nancy Pelosi, I should either hate her or endorse torture.

This is, when you think about it, a real scorched earth strategy. We're going down like the Hindenburg, the right says, but we're going to take down anyone we can with us.

Assuming the point isn't to get me to like torture, this talking point serves as an admission that the majority of Americans are horrified by these tactics. If only we hadn't said all those bad things about them at the Nuremberg trials! Therefore the right is saying "Pelosi, like us, is abhorrent to you. Please hate her as much."

This is why I'm not as worried about 2010 as they want me to be.

(By the way, I should probably add that Pelosi was told they might employ these methods but WEREN'T, which is why the idea that she didn't object to them at the time is mighty ridiculous. What, she's supposed to go blabbing about classified programs during wartime? I'm supposed to hate her for not doing THAT? I am a little annoyed with her for not pushing prosecution now, but I think she behaved responsibly under the circumstances then.)

Tortured Rationalization

At the beginning of the week I read this tidbit on WHERE ARE MY KEYS:

... "the terrorists are called by their faith to resist as far as they can -- and once they have done so, they are free to tell everything they know. This is because of their belief that "Islam will ultimately dominate the world and that this victory is inevitable." The job of the interrogator is to safely help the terrorist do his duty to Allah, so he then feels liberated to speak freely.

Quoting Marc A. Thiessen in the Washington Post.

This idea gave me pause, because I have to admit that it would justify torture, if only of reverent Muslim terrorists. But the more I think of it, the less it seems true.

In the first place, if this were based on Muslim teachings then it's odd that someone hadn't brought it up earlier than this week. I mean much earlier, like the 1800's. More likely it's either completely made up or a grasping-at-straws interpretation of the Koran that nobody but the guy who wrote the torture memo ever thought of. Certainly not the people being tortured.

Then, what about all that yapping to the press over the years that what we're doing isn't torture? Doesn't that just serve to embolden the prisoners? If you keep saying "waterboarding is no worse than shampooing" you're simply fortifying future prisoners against "reaching their limit." I can endure this, says the prisoner, because no matter how bad it feels in truth it is no worse than shampooing. People who bought the point in the memo would never risk dampening it's effectivness unless they thought it really IS torture.

Most telling reason why I think it's not true: it's just too good to be true.

Fox Torture Roundup

For the record I still think Fox News is neither fair nor balanced, but I'll admit they're not some monolithic Pravda-like enterprise either. Case in point: several Fox News personalities have expressed the view that not only did the Bush Administration employ torture, but that torture is bad.

Interestingly Hannity volunteered to be waterboarded for charity, the point presumably being that it's no big deal to be waterboarded. If he really wants to prove this point I'd suggest this scenario: a bidding war, where the money is to go to soldier's families. But the people administering the session have to be affiliated with either Cindy Sheehan or Code Pink, so Hannity can legitimately believe there is a chance that they might kill him. Then, my friend, you have a real demonstration.

Taken By Propaganda

I am swimming in the same waters as Warner Todd Huston today. He has posted about the forthcoming WATCHMEN movie, fretting about the unheroic qualities of the the lead characters. As it happens, I am about to the do same about another movie, but at least I've SEEN it. (Note: apologies to WTH; he never claimed to be writing about the movie, but the graphic novel)

Warning: SPOILERS AHEAD! Among them the revelation that Fox is finally using the movie division to push Rupert Murdoch's worldview onto us.

TAKEN, starring Liam Neeson as an estranged father who will do anything to save his teenaged daughter from an Albanian white slave ring in France. I caught this Monday afternoon and the audience applauded at the end, so it's clearly a crowd pleaser. In his quest Neeson kills around twelve people (torturing one to death) and shoots an innocent woman in the arm to force her corrupt husband to talk. France is depicted as decadent and creepy. I left the theatre with a nagging question on my mind, and sure enough, when I took the trouble to look it up, I was right.

It's a Fox release.

Just as Fox TV's 24 exists both as entertainment and a shorthand legal argument for Justice Scalia to explain why torture is a handy tool to have in your bag, TAKEN is a way to make you think, "well given the right circumstances I guess I'd hook some guy up to a lamp cord." I wrote elsewhere about the phenomenon of "movie morality", a screenwriting convention that generates sympathy for the hero. If someone does wrong and is punished for it somehow, the audience is satisfied. Even if they're struck by lightening or they choke on a hunk of meat, something bad has to happen to them.

Neeson is not punished for torturing here, so what gives?

I'm spitballing here, so bear with me. I think Neeson is given the DEATH WISH exemption to the movie morality rule here. In this loophole, if the character does terrible things in the service of punishing characters who have done even worse things, it's cool. The guy Neeson hooks up to electricity is part of a ring of villains who kidnap young girls, drug them, and sell them into prostitution. He's got it comin', and someone's gotta do it.

Even so, Neeson does two incredibly gratuitous things here which put him into flawed anti-hero territory as far as I'm concerned. The first one is this guy above - Neeson tortures information out of a guy, then keeps torturing him anyway. Considering that he's on the clock, this is both villainous and a waste of precious time. Secondly, he shoots this woman as a way of dragging information out of her husband. An innocent woman who clearly has done nothing wrong. He mitigates the act by asking her husband to apologize when she regains conciousness. But I cannot reconcile this act with movie morality. There were alternatives to shooting the innocent woman, among them taking the husband into another room and shooting him.

That second one is what fascinates me about this movie, because it's so clearly bad propaganda that I'm wondering if the filmmakers threw it in as a slap in the face to the producers. There's precedent for this too: Roman Polanski's FRANTIC, in which another American chases around France to rescue a female he loves, ends with a gratuitous long take of a garbage truck driving away, as if taking this commercial populist merde with it.

So this is why I think TAKEN is a propaganda movie, because it goes out of its way to violate the movie morality rule and yet keep the hero likable. It's trying to negate the rule by making the immoral actions themselves palatable. Creepy. Making a movie like this is so counter-intuative, releasing it takes a Triumph of the Will.

I Crack Myself Up

A remark I made regarding Obama's rendition policy:

...you can look at this as a violation of human dignity -- or you can look at it as bipartison outreach! Glass half full, dude.

Ah, politics. It makes strange bedfellows, eh?

It's Not The Economy, Stupid

Well, it looks like the ticking clock scenario of the bailout (investment!) is about to be solved as of this hour. That's a relief, because I worried the administration was going to have to abduct some economists and torture a solution out of them.

Still, McCain isn't backing down on his insistence that the Friday debate must be postponed, if the bills aren't all signed. I was joking earlier that he wants to postpone it indefinitely, but McCain actually is suggesting a date, which is Thursday, Oct. 2.

Let me check my calendar.

I don't have anything sched... oh wait, there is the Vice Presidential debate that night! Well, we could postpone THAT indefinitely I suppose. I wonder if this exchange with Katie Couric had anything to do with the strategy?

Palin: I can give you examples of things that John McCain has done, that has shown his foresight, his pragmatism, and his leadership abilities. And that is what America needs today.

Couric: I’m just going to ask you one more time - not to belabor the point. Specific examples in his 26 years of pushing for more regulation.

Palin: I’ll try to find you some and I’ll bring them to you.

I'd like to point out the implications of this move-the-VP-debate-further-down thing: they think that Sarah Palin will come out looking worse than JOE BIDEN. Also, if McCain doesn't show Friday and Obama does, they'd probably have to change the format - maybe make it more a town-hall style event.

You know why I keep pushing for Sarah Palin to do more interviews and appearances? I'm tired of doing all the heavy lifting.

(h/t to Wonkette)

Ignoring the Elephant

(H/T to WAMK) Quin Hillyer of The American Spectator has done something fascinating with a short item in the Washington Post about a psychological study. It's a a pretty nifty trick, and I'll have to go into some detail to explain what he's up to, so bear with me.

First of all, the short item. It's the third item in a column called "Science Notebook" in which researchers for the Journal of Applied Psychology interviewed people about, basically, their sense of right and wrong. Salient idea follows: "...their research highlights the idea that people with exceptionally strong convictions about their moral goodness are likely to follow extreme courses of action because they can convince themselves that whatever they do is good."

Hillyer uses this as a jumping off point to attack the Clintons. Then William Jefferson and then Elliot Spitzer. Then Patrick Leahy. He then denies that he's claiming only Democrats do it, then goes back to attacking more Democrats. The point of course, is that Democrats delude themselves into doing immoral things.

If I hadn't given it more thought, I'd have simply believed that he was looking for a hook to hang the usual Clinton character assassination on - new wrapping paper for an increasingly shopworn box. But something nagged at me. This study resonates much more strongly elsewhere, and I think Hillyer saw this story as a train that he had to derail before it reached it's logical destination.

"Enhanced interrogation techniques."

With the nomination hearings for Michael Mukasey centering on his claiming to not know if waterboarding is "torture," or if any of the torturing we do nowadays is "torture," the last thing the meme-watchers need a reminder that we've somehow talked ourselves into endorsing behavior that was once only the province of third-world communists, terrorists and B-movie villains. Because we are absolutely sure what we do is right, we're okay with torturing our captives. A lot of us are even okay with torturing innocent captives. Price you have to pay, right?

To me the question is: does Quin Hillyer KNOW he's diverting the debate from its main point or is he doing it unconsciously? Or does he even think it applies? I wrote Quin Hillyer and if he responds, I'll report.

Turtles All The Way Down

TV Producer Joel Surnow has plenty to answer for. First of all, he's responsible for Fox News' 1/2 Hour News Hour, a show which is to comedy what Fox News is to accuracy. But even worse, he has warped one of our greatest legal minds.

The Canadian Globe and Mail reports from a legal conference in Ottawa this week, and passes along the following account concerning panelist Justice Antonin Scalia:

The conservative jurist stuck up for Agent Bauer, arguing that fictional or not, federal agents require latitude in times of great crisis. "Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. ... He saved hundreds of thousands of lives," Judge Scalia said.

Then, recalling Season 2, where the agent's rough interrogation tactics saved California from a terrorist nuke, the Supreme Court judge etched a line in the sand.

"Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?" Judge Scalia challenged his fellow judges. "Say that criminal law is against him? 'You have the right to a jury trial?' Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don't think so... So the question is really whether we believe in these absolutes. And ought we believe in these absolutes."

That really fired up the panel, and made for a plenty lively discussion, you betcha.

Presumably the eccentric Justice S. was being provocative by citing a fictional character from Surnow's 24 to prove his hypothetical points, but he's running into the same problem that all pro-torture advocates face. It's a logic thing that Scalia is familiar with, because he used it himself in a decision he wrote.

In our favored version, an Eastern guru affirms that the earth is supported on the back of a tiger. When asked what supports the tiger, he says it stands upon an elephant; and when asked what supports the elephant he says it is a giant turtle. When asked, finally, what supports the giant turtle, he is briefly taken aback, but quickly replies "Ah, after that it is turtles all the way down."

Yep, it's basing your conclusion on unproven assumptions. To support torture you have to assume that it's your only way of getting the information, that your subject HAS the information, that he'll tell the truth only if you torture him, and that he's even the terrorist you thought you had in the first place. If not you're committing cruelty on someone for no reason. And if you don't have a problem with that, you're a Nazi. (Reducto Ad Hitlerum for illustrative purposes only.)

It is amazing to me how conservatives, who are so opposed to change, are willing to drop traditional pre-ratings code film mores as their guidelines. Look at any good-versus-evil movie. Star Wars - who tortures, the rebels or the empire? The empire! Marathon Man - who tortures, the method actor or the evil Nazi dentist? Dentist! Saw, Saw 2, Saw 3, Hostel, Hostel 2, Touristas, Texas Chainsaw Massacre (original and remake) who tortures? The EVIL people!

Up until Jack Bauer, the hero is the one who avoids torture. Scalia endorsing torture is like Nixon growing his hair long and smoking weed because it looked cool in Easy Rider.

Global Warming Doesn't Scare Me Like This Does

Last week I was making fun of the then-upcoming 1/2 Hour News Hour on FoxNews. Even before it premiered it got devastating reviews. People (okay, including me) cited it as proof that Neocons simply can't be funny. Of course, I hadn't seen it yet.

I just watched the first segment on the Fox News Website, and God help me, I fear it may have potential.

Look, the reviews are right. That first episode sucks. From that sadly imitative swooping crane shot to the c-list material (Dennis Miller would have turned these gags down, and he's in no position to turn ANYthing down) to the very obvious laugh track, the show is painful to watch. However, it's a pilot. The pilot always sucks. The trick when watching it is to look for the things that MIGHT work one day when they get their act together.

In this case, the male anchor. Didn't quite catch his name - Kurt Long? Ned Rice? I bet it's Ned - has pretty good comic timing. I watched him and thought, if he gets a funny joke, he'll hit it out of the park. And while that certainly didn't happen this time, law of averages says sooner or later he could. The female lead might be good too, but because it's a conservative show they probably don't believe women can be funny and they will save the good jokes for him. And the material wasn't all awful - a few of the jokes were serviceable. When the pressure's off, it could get better.

On the other hand, this is a comedy show produced by the creator of 24. Any really free writer will risk torture if he strays too far outside the lines.

I'm just saying... the pilot for 3RD ROCK FROM THE SUN was pretty awful and that turned out okay. On the other hand, the pilot for COP ROCK... time will tell.

Good Review for PAN

This weekend I managed to get out to see PAN'S LABYRINTH, the acclaimed foreign film from the guy who directed HELLBOY. I can't remember his name now and the firewall prevents me from looking it up, but I believe he also did BLADE 2, KRONOS and that Mira Sorvino movie about giant subway bugs.

The director's history is important here because the project is really really odd, in the same way that LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL is odd. (What the hell is that guy's name? Benicio Del Toro? Nawww.) Just as Roberto Begnini got sparks by rubbing his normal goofy persona against the very serious subject of concentration camps, this movie gets its biggest charge from putting a monster fantasy in a brutal fascist command post in Franco's Spain.

I'll avoid as many spoilers as I can here. Suffice it to say that it structurally winds up being two stories, both of which would be well-made but so-so movies in their own right, but when you put them together they augment each other in surprising ways. And because the fantasy element is so well integrated it makes for an ending which is both heart-breakingly tragic and transcendentally joyous. I love it when a movie fixes it so that it can have it both ways. This also goes for the fascist captain, well played by... uh, some Spanish guy. He gives his cruelty a full humanity which paradoxically makes him less sympathetic, because you realize that he's capable of avoiding such monstrous behavior but he chooses not to.

Since I'm a moonbat liberal I'll add that, yes, he is a Fascist who tortures his victims and that seems much much too familiar nowadays. Note to my friends at Townhall.com... there is a reason why the torturers are always the villains in movies. Torture is evil! Even Jack Bauer has a pretty rotten life. Fascists have only fared well in movies directed by Leni Riefenstahl. I hope you see where I'm going with this.

Guillermo Del Toro. I knew it would come to me.

The Use Of Torture

Tell them what you're going to say: The only legitimate use of torture is to supress freedom.

Say it: I've been kicking around Townhall.com again, looking for people to argue with. And James Biga, of Biga's Rants, has supplied me with with an epiphany. Today he put up a post entitled "Is The Use Of Torture Legitimate?" To his credit, he shows some ambivalence on the subject and indeed, decides that he wishes torture wasn't necessary. This is refreshing because he is so strongly anti-Muslim.

The main thrust of his argument is that sometimes torture is the only way to get information, and even if only 20% of the information you get from torture is accurate or useful, it's still wrong to not torture if it can save human lives. Call it the Bauer Doctrine, if you will. It's on this point that he and I differ. And good liberal that I am, I'm going to take the devil's advocate side and demonstrate the good use of torture.

Let's dispense with this information argument first. Pure nonsense. People will say anything to stop the pain. Sometime it's a betrayal of secrets, but surely in the vast majority of cases it's whatever the torturer wants to hear. Otherwise, why stop? So you're as likely to get dangerously wrong information ("the, uh, the bomb is.... under the bridge! Send all your men there before 4:00!") as useful.

I'm going to assume good motives on the part of the administration. Only super villains run for office to destroy the world. Bush and Cheney and Company are in politics to make a positive difference. I can't see putting yourself through the hell of politics just to secure an oil investment. So, assuming they're good at heart, and not stupid (also probably true), why throw away all that political capital and international good will by publically supporting torture?

Because torture, while being a lousy information extraction mechanism, is quite useful as a threat.

Sensible people, seeing dissidents kidnapped and then returned with burn marks and rope scars, will seriously weigh the options of speaking out. How important is it to say their leaders are wrong, really? Dying for an ideal is one thing, but enduring extended pain for it quite another.

I think that the neo-con agenda is aimed at calming the world, at creating peace through the United States' unprecedented firepower. For obvious reasons, this idea doesn't sell well on its face because it sounds so much like, you know, fascism. So instead, we are doing all this to "protect ourselves" from "terrorists", such as "the democrats". Ha ha, just kidding Ann C. And George B. And Karl R and Tom DeL. Guess I'll throw in Michelle M. while I'm at it, and RedState.com. I hope they keep that graphic up!

Since the idea of jettisoning liberty and privacy is distasteful to Americans, I can only assume the PNAC looked at the horizon and saw Islamofascism rising, and decided that their only good option was an American version. Am I right? I don't know, but this narrative sure makes more sense than the one they're putting out.

And no, I don't think it's a good strategy. Based on my myriad of assumptions here, this is a bold and unbelievably stupid strategy. I think the best way to keep islamofascism down (if there would ever be such a thing) would be to stop buying their oil, because their tourism and agricultural resources are somewhat more limited. But hey, what do I know? I'm on my way to an Atheist Camp any day now. I look forward to showing off my scars.

Tell them what you said: The administration is lying to us about why they want to use torture. They think they have a noble reason to do so. They are wrong.

Whither 007

Finally managed to see CASINO ROYALE last night. Loved it plenty. I will now throw out spoilers like free waffles as I explain what was great and not so great about it. Spoilers... they give away important surprises and plot points. If you want the movie to be a surprise to you, stop reading. I'm being as plain as I can about this. I will ruin the movie for you.

First and foremost, the good folks at Broccoli Inc have finally succeeded in making Bond vulnerable again. He hasn't been since GOLDFINGER. I almost said "making him human," but the interesting thing to me about James Bond is he's really not. He's psychotic. He's a sociopath who has found an acceptable role in society. The biggest reason that Sean Connery made such a splendid Bond isn't his physicality or his acting chops; it's that he understood that the character likes having a license to kill. You never got that from any of the other Bonds, especially Roger Moore, even from my favorite Pierce Brosnan. Even Timothy Dalton (who looked more like the literary Bond than any of them) didn't enjoy killing. He didn't seem to enjoy anything.

Bond is an antihero. He's a criminal. And Daniel Craig, with his opaque blue eyes and inscrutable expressions, is able to draw you in when you need to feel what he feels. But he's also able to keep you out when it gets really ugly.

I like that the movie kept in the most horrific plot point of the novel, Le Chiffre's crude bottomless-wicker-chair torture of Bond. I never thought I'd see the day. Just now, as I write this, I'm wincing. Like the rest of the movie, it's refreshingly low-tech and effective. No ritual introduction of deus ex-machina gadgets! Just a rope, a chair and a scrotum is all you really need to tell this story. And cell phones -- dozens and dozens of cell phones.

What the movie gets wrong, I fear, is the procedural - specifically, the famous stunt set pieces that are a hallmark of the series. What's with the implausible leaping chase through a construction site? Why allow Bond to blow up a foreign embassy? Or rather, why does he still have a job after?

Somewhere along the way Bond went from being a spy, someone who lies to you so he can steal your secrets, to a state-sponsored terrorist. Now everyone knows who he is, and he's very good at going to foreign countries and assassinating people and blowing up their property. Not only is it hard to root for a terrorist, it's so implausible a situation that the story can't recover. On the other hand, if you don't include these sequences then it just isn't Bond, old fellow.

My thinking is this: Sony had the rights to this book, which is why they were able to muscle in on the Bond Franchise. If they were smart, they would have started COMPLETELY from scratch. Called the movie Casino Regale, name the character Jim Bande or something. Make him more like John Drake from Secret Agent, a quiet guy who actually protects his cover. Do press telling people, yeah, it's really Bond. Then start a whole string of sequels with the new guy. Maybe in fifteen years have a face-off between Bande and Bond, like Frankenstein Vs. The Mummy. You know who I'd be rooting for.

A Shortage Of Evils

Hearing about the reascension of Trent Lott got me thinking about punditry. Lott, who is a good Republican with some unfortunately quirky racial ideas, presents a problem for Larry Elder, a well-spoken African-American pundit who is also a good Republican. Can you guess what it is?

Why yes, that's exactly right!

I don't agree with everything the left stands for either. We are too often unfair to business, for example. We can be shrill and corrupt. Michael Moore isn't always as funny as he thinks he is. James Carville is probably not human. We insist on listening to all points of view, even the incredibly stupid ones. I'm a Democrat not because I think Democrats are swell, but because they're the lesser of two evils.

And when I'm arguing with conservatives (anonymously in the comments sections of blogs, just in case one of 'em is the guy who sent all that anthrax around) I am sometimes disingenuous because there are only two sides, and I don't want to weaken my own argument. Sometimes I have to defend positions I disagree with, because it's what Democrats support. I'd still rather defend raising property taxes then say, torture and wiretapping. Or Michelle Malkin's pet issue, internment camps.

The obvious problem here is that there are only two evils to choose from here. America would only benefit from a 5 party system. Center, Left, Right and maybe far left and far right; maybe we could call the last 2 left and right surround. And maybe have another center party that just handles a small portion of the important issues. We can call that party ".1".

Incidentally, just by publishing stuff like this, I am an amateur pundit. And I'm willing to go pro! With a little training I could be better on camera than either Robert Novak or Alan Colmes; for one thing I don't appear to be a reanimated zombie. Which reminds me: If Lott doesn't work out, maybe Strom Thurmond would take the gig.

Michelle Malkin: Republican Loose Cannon

I have misjudged Michelle Malkin - when Tony Snow and Matt Drudge stepped up to defend or minimize Foley's creepy ways, I had mused publicly that it was going to be a blast to read Malkin and Coulter on the same subject. Malkin has weighed in with surprisingly humanistic leanings:
Michelle Malkin: Discussion on Foley's IM trail
To put it simply, she's not defending Foley simply because he's Republican, which is very refreshing. She's still on the wrong side of torture and and internment camps (thinks they're FABULOUS) so I don't recommend all her views, but it's nice to know that they are her own and they don't come from the famous talking points memo.
What about you, Ann?