The unspeakable horror of the Beslan massacre of school children is so evil, so death-worshiping it is almost beyond comprehension. Yet in some places -- the pages of the sadly debased New York Times for example -- there is deep moral cowardice to call it what it was, an outrageous monumental evil act by evil people. Across the Islamic world many serious religious scholars denounced it for what it was, a terrible sin and a signal affront to God. Sure a few lunatics praised the killers, but they are beyond the pale in any case.
A jumpy Russia is a very dangerous thing in this world. The day after the taking of the Middle School Number One in Beslan, the Russian military and security forces seize more than forty relatives of identified hostage-takers. Worthy of the ruthlessness of Ivan the Terrible or Stalin, this is just a clear indication that when threatened at home, Russians do not respond according to the Marquis of Queensbury rules.
It appears the more rational and intelligent Chechyn rebel leadership knows this -- three or four centuries of living with and fighting Russians has enlightened them, made them face the real consequences of dealing with a very moody and -- when it feels necessary -- very cruel adversary. They understand the gravity of their situation. It would be an excellent time for the Chechyn leadership to find a Muslim patron, perhaps the Foreign Minister of Turkey or King Abdullah of Jordan, the King of Morocco or a senior Egyptian diplomat to go to Moscow and make a seriously acceptable peace offering. For example, the Russians would be asked to allow Chenya to become an autonomous Republic within the Russian Federation. In return the Chechyns would accept that they will remain a part the Russian Federation and provide a secular government respectful of its Islamic identity but not sectarian -- not attempting to impose the views exclusive views of one Islamic school (sect) on their nation. The Chechyns would also expel all foreign terrorists and turn any future foreign interventionists over to the Russian authorities for trial as enemies of the RODINA and the delivery of such justice as is appropriate -- from deportation, imprisonment of one form or another and where their crimes warrant it, execution.
To continue the war now that the Russian nation is enraged and vengeful would be foolhardy. From their own history the Chechyns know what the consequences would be and they would be crushing -- like Stalin’s exile of the nation to Siberia at the end of WW II when he made an example of them and killed through maltreatment, malice and disease 40% of the population -- man, woman and child. The Stalinist authorities went right up to the edge of genocide and their sole scruple was not crossing over that fatal threshold.
The sight of mothers kneeling in grief over the bodies of their children is an image I shall never forget. All civilized people must denounce such bloodly evil and work to stop it from occurring again to any nation and any people.
A major campaign staff problem is always a candidate problem.
On the Presidential campaign, Senator Kerry’s bad luck continues from a jinxed August into a vital September. No sooner do the Republicans rap up their Convention when the media sky falls on the Kerry campaign. The massacre in Russia, the huge devastation of Hurricane Frances across all of Florida, former President Clinton’s emergency hospitalization and then his by-pass operation knocked the Presidential campaign off the front pages and the first half of newscasts. President Bush had a real “bounce” perhaps as much as 11% if you believe the news magazines. Some say the weekly magazines over-sampled Republicans. OK, he still got a bigger “bounce” than Kerry did if you accept Gallup, which showed Dub'ya ahead before the Convention, unlike the newsmagazines. Take your choice.
Pundits are talking about discord among the Kerry Campaign staffers. Let me tell you, “staff problems” are not just a bit of bad temper by the professionals or infighting (a constant and inevitable fact in every campaign), they are symptoms of deeper and real problems with the candidate. Every politician gets the staff he wants and deserves. There I said it. I have known one major political figure who was killed because of his inability to choose and direct his personal staff.
Some politicians have a large and contentious staff and play them off each other as a means of controlling their own operation. Former President Bill Clinton was a prime example -- his staff was always in loud open public turmoil and that’s just the way he wanted it. FDR also ruled by tilting this way then that in his staff’s eternal civil strife. The Kennedys, President Reagan, and George W. Bush liked it just the other way. They ran tight, disciplined staffs where everybody knew where they stood and who they answered to, and what they were responsible for.
Senator Kerry has a large staff of experienced people, but he does not have a quarterback calling the plays like Ken O’Donnell did for the Kennedys, Stu Spencer for Reagan, Lee Atwater for George H. W. Bush’s 1988 race, or Karl Rove for George W. Bush. Senator Kerry is far more involved in both the strategy and day to day tactics of his campaign. The politicians who have a good quarterback let him call their tactical plays, follow the daily plan as prepared for them and from time to time tour the horizon with their quarterback...then go back to the schedule prepared for them. In general, this is the best system. The FDR Clinton model can also work if the candidate is strong enough to make it work for him. When necessary both Clinton and FDR could jerk the reins hard and everybody would fall into line. A weak candidate can never jerk reins hard enough to the get his staff to fall into line or recognize that a discussion of this or that question is over and a the campaign has now has a firm position.
Then you have candidates like Senator Kerry who cannot and will not accept management. They always fuzzy up the lines of authority, blur day to day tactics with long term strategy, have their fingers in everything on a haphazard crisis-driven trampling of lines of authority. In a campaign you have the strategic planners and pollsters and idea men who report to the campaign manager. These are the people who plan and direct the course of the campaign. Under the campaign manager you have the field and advance staff who do it, who call the tactical shots, get the candidate through the day with a minimum of off-message sound bites and gaffes. They will know when a venue has soured and will not let the candidate appear. They will keep the candidate stoked. They will make sure he gets enough sleep and pull him out of public venue when he is tired or angry or otherwise not fit for prime time. They tell him his fly is open, not to use the joke that worked yesterday because Charlotte, NC is not Kenosha, Wisconsin. They make sure his hair is groomed, his clothes are appropriate for the venue and he is on message and projecting his best “happy warrior” face and posture.
A further problem with Kerry, it seems to me, is that he has spent too much time in the sheltered waters of the Bay State and not enough in rough and tumble world of competitive politics. The Senator’s often-touted ability to close at the end of the campaign is less remarkable than it seems when you realize that in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans almost three to one, victory is possible even when a large portion of his own party refuses to vote for him. Put bluntly, Kerry is not guy who can make a strong close in a highly competitive state like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida or Missouri. His ability is like that of a Republican who can campaign badly yet usually wins in Orange County. We are not talking about great and often overlooked skill of Bill Clinton who could keep every kind of Democrat in harness -- Liberals and Dixiecrats, Labor and Business Democrats, blue collar and yuppie Democrats, plus every one of the other cranky factions of the Democratic party. We are very much not talking about a great candidate like Rudy Guilani who carried New York City by convincing Jewish and Puerto Rican Democrats to vote for him.
A movie woth seeing.
Saw a movie on DVD last night, “Ned Kelly.” Sadly it played just a few weeks at one small theater in LA last December and got a savage three paragraph review in the LA Times.
Well their movie reviews are as stupid and ill informed as their political reporting. If you recall last year, they had Governor Gray Davis easily defeating the recall and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
A retelling of Australia’s icon story, this film is a great picture telling a great story. The story of Ned Kelly is critical to molding the Australian national character. He was a reluctant outlaw, an Outback Robin Hood, a freedom fighter for the rights of his Irish kinsmen and his brother Australians. All of this, yet little known or understood in the United States.
I was bowled over by the force and power of the film. It is an epic and, like all epics, a tragedy. Ned Kelly is the tragic Australian hero, son of Irish parents “transported” to Australia by the Crown as form of clemency instead of hanging them in Ireland. They live in a ramshackle place outside a small town in the Outback, a large noisy fractious Irish family ever the ready target of petty injustice and bullying by the local constables.
The story is one of a doomed Irish hero and as portrayed by Heath Legger Ned Kelly is a grand Irish (and Australian) hero in the line of Chuchulain, Brian Boru, the Irish Brigade at Fredricksberg, the 7th Cavalry at the Little Big Horn and the New York Fire men at the World Trade Center on 9/11/01. He moves ahead boldly sure of his certain death. The movie is an unabashed tragedy. Legger’s Ned Kelly is a sum of all the manly virtues.
In production design the film follows the slate hued colors of the tinted lithographs of the late nineteenth century. It celebrates the strange and unique beauty of Australia, its exotic aromatic foliage and exotic birds and Australia’s totem animal, the kangaroo.
This truly is modern film that is also very much a dark John Ford movie. Legger’s Kelly is handsome, a man of few words but with an ironic humor at times. He is what the Auzzoes called a bushranger, like the American cowboy, he is a marksman, he man with special power over horses and over women too. There were moments in the movie when the young Australian actor made me believe he was John Wayne come back from the grave. Legger is actor of incredible skill and economy of word and gesture. He looks into the camera and makes you believe in the sincerity of his skill.
The slightly younger British actor Orlando Bloom plays his best friend and second in command Joe Byrne. He plays the other familiar Irish character, the doomed hero who has a ready smile and a teasing eye and graceful good-natured charm. We’re talking Jack Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. Even in his final scene Bloom’s character looks death in the face with grace and undimmed bright ironic eyes.
It is a fine movie, hardly the fluffy or esoteric sort of thing most films offer today. It tells a bitter story and tells it without flinching. It has the hard edge of John Ford’s best work. I cannot recommend it highly enough. The whole cast is fine and except for Bloom, Australian.
One caution, if you ear isn’t attuned to the Irish accents of most of the characters, activate the subtitles on the menu at the back of the DVD. I honestly think the LA Times reviewer was frustrated because she was not “getting” large amounts of the dialog. It wasn’t just the accent, there were a lot of Irish words that are familiar to most Australians but not many Americans.
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