Official Website of Andrew Klavan » politics

Me in City Journal on the Media

Andrew Klavan — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 14:00:45 +0000

The truly estimable City Journal has posted my reaction to–well, to several things: Journolist, Breitbart and the cancellation of my novel Empire of Lies in France for “political and religious” reasons:

The book’s French cancellation is, I realize, a rather small cultural event. Yet it gives specific color to the recent revelations on the Daily Caller website that left-wing journalists conspired to suppress scandals that might harm Barack Obama and to the brouhaha over Breitbart’s online release of a video that resulted in a government worker’s momentarily losing her job. In both stories, one thing leaps out at me: everywhere, the Left favors fewer voices and less information, and conservatives favor more. Everywhere, the Left seeks to disappear its opposition, whereas the Right is willing to meet them head-on.

Read it all here.

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Columbia VS The Murdoch Effect

Andrew Klavan — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 14:30:40 +0000

Columbia University is the place where leftists give leftist journalists Pulitzer Prizes and then tell each other how prestigious leftist journalism is because—wow!—look at all the Pulitzers they’ve won.

This week, the president of Columbia, Lee Bollinger, wrote a specious opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, crying that American journalism, dying in the free market, needs to be bailed out by government support.

Katie Couric Lip-Synching Foreground While Leftism Sings Behind.

Two memories come to mind from my years in England during the nineties:

In the first, recovering from an operation, I’m watching television and trying not to bust my stitches laughing at an hilarious sketch by young comedians Hugh Laurie (now TV’s House) and Stephen Frye. In a send-up of It’s A Wonderful Life, Frye’s angel is showing Laurie’s villainous Rupert Murdoch what the world would be like if he’d never been born: a virtual paradise!

And again, I’m watching TV. Innovative writer Dennis Potter, dying of pancreatic cancer, gives a final interview to presenter Melvyn Bragg. As Bragg chuckles amiably, Potter declares he has named his cancer after Murdoch and that he would use his last days on earth to “shoot the bugger if I could.”

Crikey! I knew little of Murdoch at the time. What atrocity had he committed, I wondered, to be treated as such a devil?

Well, it was this: the Australian-born media mogul had taken advantage of Margaret Thatcher’s loosening of broadcasting regulations to break the left’s government-funded stranglehold on information.

Now Murdoch is an American, the owner of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, among other things. His approach to news, he has said, is not to answer left-wing bias with right-wing bias but simply to remove the left-wing bias entirely. Though Fox News and the Journal have many conservative commentators, their reportage—on Special Report with Bret Baer and the Journal’s news pages—is far more fair and balanced than that on the networks or in the New York Times. (Peter Robinson of Ricochet does a useful comparison here.)

The effect of Murdoch’s approach has been something like the last scene in the classic film musical Singin In The Rain. Remember how Gene Kelly and friends pull the curtain up to reveal that the famous actress’s singing voice belongs to another woman standing backstage? Simply by telling the news straight, Murdoch revealed that it was the voice of the left speaking when the mouths of mainstream news readers moved. When they told us the war in VietNam was at a stalemate or that a conservative election result amounted to a tantrum or that the tea party was racist or—as this past week in the Los Angeles Times—they downplayed the Islamic motive of terrorists, they weren’t attempting to do their job and convey information but were trying instead to guide us in right attitudes and thinking—attitudes and thinking to be determined by themselves.

Why would anyone but a slave pay for such a service? The fact is, we won’t. Newspapers and network news are dying. And it isn’t, as Bollinger would have us believe, because of the internet or any other new technology. If that were so, Fox News and the Wall Street Journal wouldn’t be thriving as they are. Mainstream news outlets are dying because they distort the news in the name of leftism—and there’s simply no reason to use a news source that lies.

To combat the Murdoch effect here, Bollinger wants to build the British system that Murdoch helped enfeeble. If the people won’t pay for left-wing distortions by choice, they must be forced to pay for them through taxation!

Thwarted in their dishonest purposes, the left does what it always does: they demonize the opposition and unleash the brute force of government. But the fact is, we, the people, do not want their high moral instruction. We simply want the bloody news.

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Outrage of the Week

Andrew Klavan — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 14:03:31 +0000

Fantasy author Lars Walker – a welcome visitor to this site – has an amazing true story to tell over at our friends The American Culture. It’s rightly entitled “Outrage”:

I attend a Lutheran congregation in north Minneapolis, one that belongs to the church body I work for. It’s large but not huge. The senior pastor has made himself visible in the media for a number of years as a critic of the liberal church, and of modern trends such as universalism, women’s ordination, higher criticism of the Bible, and the normalization of homosexuality. He is a single man.

Last night, while watching local news on television, I discovered that he’d been “outed” as a homosexual.

He was not discovered in a “gay” bar. He was not discovered having sex with another man in a public rest room. According to the news accounts I’ve seen (emanating from liberal sources) he was discovered attending a support and accountability group in a Roman Catholic church. He was speaking honestly, to men he trusted, about his struggles, slips, and temptations.

Read the whole thing here – really, do. The reporter invaded this pastor’s support group in order to expose the man as he chastely wrestled with his unwelcomed desires.

Which sparks my scientific curiosity, raising questions for future research. For instance, how does this reporter live with himself? Is moral self-blindness like his born or do you have to create it in a lab? And who assigned the story and how does he shave now that he can’t look at himself in the mirror? Inquiring minds want to know.

Listen, anyone who happens to care knows that I see nothing wrong or sinful in loving homosexual relationships. But I respect those who do see it as sin, as long as they’re not directing hatred at persons but merely declaring their interpretation of scripture and tradition in relation to actions.

Now here’s a man – a pastor – in the incredibly painful position of believing his own desires to be sinful per se. With courage and integrity, he preaches that belief and deals with his own suffering by turning for support in private to like-minded peers. A reporter who enters that meeting (and according to Walker, the journo agreed to the group’s confidentiality rules) and then exposes this pastor’s private life, is committing an act of pure, unvarnished hatred unacceptable to any side in this argument. He should be fired, along with the editor who assigned the story and anyone who approved it. Shame on them. It absolutely stinks.

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You Heard It Here First!

Andrew Klavan — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 14:28:11 +0000

Okay, get this. In today’s Wall Street Journal, we read:

Federal prosecutors alleged 11 people were spies living secret lives in American communities, from Seattle to Washington D.C., sent years ago to infiltrate U.S. society and glean its secrets.

In an extensive and bizarre affidavit whose details echoed Cold War spy thrillers, the Federal Bureau of Investigation claimed the alleged spies were sent here by the Russian overseas intelligence service known as the SVR—the successor to the Soviet KGB—as early as the mid-1990s, and were provided with training in language as well as the use of codes and ciphers.

Well, sure, easy to say the story “echoed Cold War spy thrillers,” but the least they could do is mention that it echoes my Cold War spy thriller, to wit “Sleeping With My Assassin,” the story that appears in Otto Penzler’s excellent new collection Agents of Treachery.

The story involves a group of sleeper saboteurs sent over to the US on a long term mission – and then abandoned after the Berlin Wall fell. Now, mysteriously, they’ve been reactivated but by whom and for what? And what’s it mean for our main character who is haunted by fond dreams of an all-American childhood…?

The collection would be worth reading, truly, even if it didn’t predict the future. But I’m just saying…

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Five Ways Toy Story 3 Is Not Like The Obama Administration

Andrew Klavan — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:40:49 +0000

Here are five ways Toy Story 3 is not like the Obama Administration:

1. Toy Story 3 is Great

Toy Story 3 is absolutely wonderful. It is well thought out, grounded in true and timeless values and shows a depth of understanding and respect for individual human nature, worth and imagination. In all of this, it is completely different from the Obama Administration, which is a mess, poorly conceived, unmoored because of its reliance on academic theory over unchanging morality and wholly lacking in respect for the free individual. Thus if we have to choose whether to give our money to the Obamacrats or go see Toy Story 3 a second time, there is no question we should return to the theater.

Why These People Are Smiling.

2. Toy Story 3 is Unifying

Maybe there’s someone so far to the left or, for all I know, the right, that they will find something to object to in Toy Story 3, but for the life of me, I can’t think what it would be. The story is so good-natured, so full of life, so well-plotted and ultimately so touching that there seems to be something there for everyone. As opposed to the Obama Administration which, despite its promises to unite us on common ground, has governed from the far left, polarizing the capital and the country. An administration that can’t shape legislation conservative enough to entice Olympia Snowe to break ranks is way, way out there.

3. Toy Story 3 Includes American First Principles

Toy Story 3 centers around an apparently lovable and benign leader who is really a corrupt bully – so okay, it’s like the Obama Administration there. But in the movie, even the Barbie doll understands that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. That doesn’t mean if you win an election you can do anything you want. It means you have to follow the rules set down by the nation’s founders and traditions. Backroom deals to pass incomprehensible regulations hidden away in unread legislation do not live up to that test. When you’ve lost Barbie, you’ve lost the nation.

4. Toy Story 3 Understands the Nature of Evil

Although the villains in Toy Story 3 have back stories that have affected their personalities, these are not the “root cause” of their wrongdoing. Ultimately, they make choices to be as they are and to do what they do. Just as the faithful Woody makes painful choices in order to follow his lights, just as the heroic Buzz Lightyear chooses to behave as a space ranger even when he realizes his powers are illusory, so the movie’s evil-doers choose whether or not they will continue to do evil. The Obama Administration clearly believes that Islamists will stop committing acts of savage violence if only we treat them right. Toy Story 3 understands that good people do not have ultimate power over whether others choose evil or not.

5. Toy Story 3 Creates Wealth and Jobs

By creating a brilliant story that didn’t exist before, the good people at Pixar have created jobs that weren’t there before and money that wasn’t there before, raising the economic tide for everyone by giving people what they want in exchange for payment and paying people for doing the work they need. The Obama Administration hasn’t created a single new job or dollar. To be fair, no government can create wealth or jobs. But if the Obama Administration understood that, they’d stay out of the way instead of making things worse by plunging us into generational debt.

Inescapable Conclusion: Toy Story 3 yes, Obama Administration – not so much.

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Most Important Story of the Week

Andrew Klavan — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 14:04:24 +0000

Oh, sure, sure, you probably think it was this brilliant, essential examination of the Obama administration by Dorothy Rabinowitz in the Wall Street Journal. Ha, I say! And did I remember to say: Ha?

You must have missed this winner from Right Wing News: “The 20 Hottest Conservative Women.” Appearing at the occasional winger confab, I have repeatedly remarked that, if I were younger and sort of more, you know, not married, I would become a conservative for the girls alone. Brilliant and effective but also beautiful, lady-like and charming, they are living proof that conservatism is good for living creatures.

Tough Crowd: Megyn Doesn't Make the Cut.

As for the list… PJTV’s own Dana Loesch, a lady so attractive I’ve even learned to spell her last name, is on there, as is Ann Coulter, a beauty inside and out. Can’t leave out Laura Ingraham. Or SE Cupp. And Michelle Oddis interviewed me on the phone last week: Michelle, it goes without saying, if I’d known you were that attractive, I would’ve been much nicer to you.

The comments at the bottom of the piece supply a lot of the women who’ve been unforgivably left off.

Some people – jealous liberals mostly – have said that this sort of list demeans women. At least, I think that’s what they were saying. Frankly, I was too busy looking at the pictures to pay much attention.

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Anderson Saves The City

Andrew Klavan — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 14:00:40 +0000

Brian Anderson, editor of the remarkable City Journal, (where, remarkably, I’m a contributing editor) has given an excellent and wide-ranging interview to the Atlantic. Conor Friedersdorf (a highly intelligent interviewer who Q&A’d me once a while back) does the honors in a feature called The Future of The City. The interview, called “Saving The City: An Interview With Brian Anderson,” talks, among other things, about the policing revolution that pulled New York City out of its crime-ridden hole and made it the shining world capital it is today:

Sometimes you’ll hear the argument that maybe policing did cut crime in New York, but by making it a racist, semi-authoritarian city. That’s absurd. Go to community meetings in minority neighborhoods, and you’ll often hear the demand for a greater police presence. Complaints about police abuses are minimal and usually acted on swiftly by the department.

For more reality, read the whole thing here. And don’t miss Brian’s mention of yours truly when he lists top City Journal articles and kindly includes “The Lost Art of War.”

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Wondrous Inanity of the Week

Andrew Klavan — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 14:00:08 +0000

Not every week throws up a wondrous inanity, but a week when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opens her mouth has a good shot. Nanny Nan, speaking at the Catholic Community Conference on Capital Hill, told the audience our public policies must be governed by The Word made Flesh.

“We have to give voice to what that means in terms of public policy that would be in keeping with the values of the Word. The Word. Isn’t it a beautiful word when you think of it? It just covers everything. The Word. Fill it in with anything you want. But, of course, we know it means: ‘The Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us.’ And that’s the great mystery of our faith. He will come again. He will come again. So, we have to make sure we’re prepared to answer in this life, or otherwise, as to how we have measured up.”

Fill that Word in with anything you want, folks. Nancy does. Claiming her church was “flexible” on the issue of abortion, she tried to block the ban on partial birth abortions made law in 2003.

Now, of course, if a conservative pol had made these comments, the New York Times would have printed the headline in red ink: Conservative Assails American Church/State Separation. But for the Nanny, it’s all a-ok. And by the way, I’ll believe Pelosi’s policies are in keeping with the Word when she can find the Gospel passage in which Jesus says, “Steal Thou Money From Others to Give to the Poor.”

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Happy Memorial Day

Andrew Klavan — Mon, 31 May 2010 14:00:20 +0000

I’m taking the day off so there’s no Monday column this week. Have a great day. Give a thought to the people who make it possible–especially because, as of this writing, their commander-in-chief will reportedly not be visiting Arlington Cemetery to pay tribute to them. But then, hey, why should he pay tribute to them? After all, they’re not him! Oh, forget it. Just have a great day.

Where's Barry?

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Mark & Rob & Peter & Me

Andrew Klavan — Tue, 18 May 2010 19:29:42 +0000

This is pretty amusing, if you haven’t come across it. Some of the gang from a new conservative website called Ricochet (see the news item) have been gathering at intervals to chat in the run-up to the site’s launch in the next few weeks. This time, it was the formidable Mark Steyn, the hilarious Rob Long, the brilliant Peter Robinson – and, uh, me. Well, someone had to empty the ashtrays. Anyway, it was entertaining stuff – and yes, that’s me singing the opening song… no, I’m joking.

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