Bill Moyers interviews Jane Mayer, author of The Dark Side: THE INSIDE STORY OF HOW THE WAR ON TERROR TURNED INTO A WAR ON AMERICAN IDEALS
A couple of excerpts below. Emphasis added, mine.
BILL MOYERS: Who were some of the other conservative heroes, as you call them, in your book?
JANE MAYER: A lot of them are lawyers. And they were people inside the Justice Department who, one of whom, and I can't name this one in particular, said when he looked around at some of the White House meetings - he was in where they were authorizing the President, literally, to torture people - if he thought that was necessary, he said, "I can't, I could not believe these lunatics had taken over the country." And I am not talking about someone who is a liberal Democrat. I'm talking about a very conservative member of this Administration. And there was a-
BILL MOYERS: Your source?
JANE MAYER: My source.
BILL MOYERS: And, yet, when these conservatives - as you write in your book - when these conservatives spoke up, Cheney and company retaliated against their own men.
JANE MAYER: People told me, "You can't imagine what it was like inside the White House during this period." There was such an atmosphere of intimidation. And when the lawyers, some of these lawyers tried to stand up to this later, they felt so endangered in some ways that, at one point, two of the top lawyers from the Justice Department developed this system of talking in codes to each other because they thought they might be being wiretapped. And they even felt-
BILL MOYERS: By their own government.
JANE MAYER: By their own government. They felt like they might be kind of weirdly in physical danger. They were actually scared to stand up to Vice President Cheney.
***
BILL MOYERS: What do you think the country would gain or lose from pursuing war crimes?
JANE MAYER: Well, you know, I think that it could be very toxic in some ways to hold people as criminals who were doing what they thought was right for the country. But, at the same time, I have to say I think that we need accountability in this country in order to make sure that people abide by the laws. And I can tell you when I interview people at the CIA, a number of people said that they didn't want to get involved in this because they thought there'd be criminal repercussions. So, if there never are any criminal repercussions, I'm not sure where that leaves us.
***
"Do as I say, not as I do", said Uncle Sam to the rest of the world.
After an informal survey of friends and colleagues, I’d say that I’m definitely in the minority of finding this cartoon successful as satire. I saw the image Sunday night on Drudge Report before the issue hit the newsstands and my immediate response was a knowing smile. I understood the artist’s intentions and found the artwork mildly amusing.
Putting an ear to the streets the next day, I heard quite a lot of vitriol and admonishment aimed at editor David Remnick and The New Yorker. Hearing how the cover provoked such a visceral response in some was a bit surprising. I didn’t find it offensive, not to Obama, not to blacks and not to Muslims. I just thought it was satire. If you looked up 'liberal magazine' in the dictionary, it'd say: 'see: The New Yorker'. So it never crossed my mind for an instant that this was some kind of dig at Obama.
I’ve heard some fairly cogent responses as to why it was ineffective satire. The most persuasive argument was that the image was too close to mimicry (indeed, but considering the absurdity of the allegations, it's hard to figure how much room there is left to exaggerate things). Fair enough. The only thing I didn't agree with was this defensive hand-wringing suggesting that the left-wing media better behave itself lest we surrender yet another presidential election. If there are voters out there who will look at the New Yorker cover and go, "Yup, I knew it.", chances are they weren't voting for Obama to begin with. As I've said before, this country gets the elected officials it deserves.
Last thought: instead of being outraged, I wish the Obama camp would have used this to bring up the much more widespread problem of Islamophobia in the U.S. Alas, I don’t think that’s somewhere any public official wants to go right now. Unless you’re working from the fringe of politics, some battles just aren’t prudent to engage in. As I get older and start really paying attention to how these things work, the more likely I find myself thinking about living out my final days in the Siberian tundra.
P.S. - I am curious as to what a successful satire of Obama as Islamo-Manchurian Candidate would look like.
So, remind me again why I'm supposed to be so excited about Mr. Obama's presidency?
Just to recap the last couple of months in which Obama:
-tried to court the Evangelicals with a proposed extension/expansion of Bush’s faith-based initiatives program. Oh, but he wants to put in anti-discrimination policies for anybody using federal funds. Yeah, that’s tenable. “Faith-based”-organizations, mainly churches, are already tax-free entities. Let them raise their own funds. Why my tax dollars should go towards organizations whose policies/beliefs I disagree with is beyond me.
-delivered a hawkish speech to AIPAC; back in May he gave a very thoughtful and somewhat nuanced interview with Jeffery Goldberg over at Atlantic Monthly. Sure there was some overt pandering which makes sense given the apparent uncertainty Jewish-American voters have about him, but he came across as fair-minded and willing to engage in actual debate. In contrast, the speech he gave at AIPAC would make you think he had a double-jointed spine.
Alright, he’s a politician and, as Crazy Uncle Wright said, he does what politicians do. I get that. However, if you compare this to how he engages with his black constituency, it makes a fellow feel a bit uneasy. Obama feels comfortable addressing our collective shortcomings (obviously to the chagrin of Jesse "Castrate'em" Jackson") as fathers, brothers and sons, yet he can't do the same when speaking about Israel’s missteps vis-à-vis the Palestinians? He goes so far as to say "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided." Is he campaigning for president of the United States or membership in Likud?
-voted for the FISA "compromise" - exactly what was the compromise here? I defy anyone to explain it. Anyone who sees this bill as a compromise seems disingenuous or uninformed. If you have the time, I’d highly recommend reading some of Glenn Greenwald’s extensive dissection and analysis of what this new FISA amendment actually entails.
Let's be clear: this “compromise” leaves the 4th amendment riddled with buckshot. It doesn’t curtail the executive branch’s snooping power; to the contrary: it legitimizes it and expands its breadth. As explained in this article, it's not as if the government (read: NSA) has a room full of guys with headphones on monitoring calls. Nah, this is more like something out of The Matrix. They have supercomputers that are able to snag and sift through terabytes of information and flag keywords and phrases in a nanosecond. They take this culled data and archive it indefinitely in a database. The telecoms who provide unfettered access in clear violation of our rights as private citizens then stand up and say: “Hey we were just doing our patriotic duty when called upon by the President.” Bull. Does anyone believe for a second that these companies didn't do what was in the best interest of the shareholders and the bottom line? How much in government contracts does AT&T have? How big is their K Street office? This isn't conspiracy theory, just an acknowledgment of the quid pro quo ethos of our political system.
So our brave Democrat-controlled Congress just voted retroactive immunity for crimes (and make no mistake, these were felony acts) that we will neither know nor ever be allowed to know the full extent of. Not only that but we're saying: hey, you broke the law and you can continue to do so into the indefinite future. We just got sold out. It’s so egregious, yet this seems to be eliciting at most a shoulder shrug from most corners, and anybody who calls attention to it is being branded a left-wing extremist. I don’t think the people of Wisconsin are in the habit of electing extremists though, so maybe you’ll listen to this guy:
Understand the extent of this: the White House-directed NSA has the authority and capability to warehouse all forms of electronic communication between the U.S. and any foreign location; email, text-messages, phone calls, faxes, voicemails--you name it, they can access it. They can do this whether or not it is demonstrably related to terrorism. They can do this whether or not there is a demonstrable threat to national security. Yeah, no room for abuse there.
Seriously, who am I voting for? If he can't stand up for something so obvious, what will he stand up for? This is the type of leadership that will reform our nightmarish market driven healthcare system? Hey, we might not stand up to the telecomm lobby, but we'll stand up to the AMA and Insurance lobby? This is the administration that will rein in Wall Street? Give me a f#$#ing break. To borrow a quote from Bubba: “This whole thing is the biggest fairytale I’ve ever seen.”
But Obama gets us out of Iraq! Right. Just from a logistic point of view, it seems we'd be out of there regardless of who was in charge. The war is too costly and our army is stretched to its limits. We have 160K troops currently deployed in Iraq plus an additional 25K in Afghanistan. Both candidates will withdraw troops and both will leave a sizable U.S. presence. You can bank on that.
I was never an Obama-maniac, but I was enthusiastic about the prospect of his presidency. Right now, I’m finding it more difficult to call up such enthusiasm. All’s I wanted was a guy who was going to adhere to principle and not allow special interest and the Republicans to bully him. This was the big difference between Clinton and Obama. He seemed rooted in something that went beyond calculating how well a decision would poll. His stance against a gas tax holiday seemed to be further proof of this. He's not the other guy, and I’ll still punch his name come November. It’s just sad to realize that right now, that’s all I can look forward to: him not being the other guy (BTW isn't this the same murky platform that lost Kerry the election in '04? Well, that and those lunatic Swift-boat vets and that goofy wind-surfing photo). It falls so short of what seemed possible just a few months ago.
I imagine if I ran into Chris Nolan and asked him about a random Batman comic book storyline from the eighties or nineties, he'd be able to converse about it for hours. This man knows Batman about as well as anybody. He expresses his respect and love for the character in practically every frame of his follow-up to 2005's Batman Begins. What Frank Miller did for Batman and comic books, Chris Nolan has done in his medium. The Dark Knight should satiate even the most demanding fan. More than that, it should satisfy even those unfamiliar with the source material. It's not just a damn fine comic book film; it's a great piece of cinema.
Nolan the Director
Nolan doesn't so much expand his vision of Gotham as much as he fills it in. He populates it with a colorful bunch of characters and he gives them room to breathe. You believe in the world of Batman, because the actors sell it. Everybody in this film turns in top-notch work. Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman are their usual sublime selves. Gary Oldman continues to contribute some of his best work as the doggedly honest cop, Lt. Gordon. Maggie Gyllenhaal brings the needed emotional heft to the role of Rachel Dawes. Many considered Katie Holmes who played Rachel in the first film to be one of that film's weak spots. I don't disagree, but you realize she was miscast; she was too young to play the role. Gyllenhaal is much more believable as the conflicted love interest in this film; she actually seems tough enough to be a resident of Gotham whereas Holmes seemed woefully out of place.
Then there's Aaron Eckhart, an actor whose work I've enjoyed since In the Company of Men. He brings just the right blend of humanity, idealism and cockiness to the role of District Attorney Harvey Dent. He's the films "white knight", but he doesn't come off as one-dimensional. Instead he's the parallel of Batman, except he crusades in the light of day. The film is explicit about such symbolism, but it's not as overbearing as the first film was about the idea of fear.
Though Bale spends a much greater portion of the film behind the mask than in the last, he still manages to show you how distinct Bruce Wayne is from Batman and not just through the usual aloof playboy routine. To be sure, that's in there (usually providing much needed levity in a few spots), but Bale develops layers to the character as he exposes how dependent Wayne has become on the Batman persona, how much it has enveloped him. But I didn't expect any less. Bale is probably my favorite actor right now. He's as eccentric as Depp when it comes to selecting roles (in the last few years he's played a Vietnam P.O.W., an unemployed veteran with a homicidal streak, and a warped magician; he's John Connor in the upcoming Terminator 4 for godsake!).
Oh yeah, Heath Ledger is in this film, too
Man, I don't even know where to begin with The Joker. The first time you see him, there's this sound that I thought was just background noise, but then after a couple more appearances, I realized it was his "theme music". And after that, my response almost became Pavlovian. When I heard it, my guard went up in an instant. You soon realize, this is a character that will literally do anything at anytime. He seems dangerous even when locked in a cell, denuded of weapons. He'll have you laughing for a moment and in the next breath gasping at his brutality. Even the way he taunts his victims becomes this sort of warped joke.
The obvious question: Is it better than Nicholson's? Yes. Why? Because it scared the crap out of me. And that's what the Joker was always supposed to do. If your only experience with the Joker is Cesar Romero on the affable but hokey 1960s television show or Jack Nicholson's iconic performance in the 1989 Burton film, then you're in for a shock/treat. This is the Joker in his purest form, the way Dennis O'Neil, Alan Moore and Frank Miller envisioned him. This is the Joker who murdered Commissioner Gordon's wife and left his daughter a paraplegic in the comic books. This is the Joker who killed the Jason Todd iteration of Robin. He is psychotic and never for a moment do you think he is anything less than real. He's a nightmare made material. The Joker is chaos in the flesh, a counterpoint to Batman's rigid authoritarianism. Yeah, I read a lot of Batman comics. And either Ledger did too or Nolan really drilled this role into him. It's every bit as iconic as Nicholson's; actually it's more so because you don't really "see" Ledger, only The Joker.
The film clocks in at 152 minutes. It never feels indulgent, but it does leave you worn at the end. Nolan takes his time in telling the story and I applaud him for it. In too many films in the genre, the dramatic scenes feel like placeholders for the action sequences. Don't get me wrong, the action sequences in The Dark Knight are nothing less than spectacular (which is saying something considering how many comic book inspired action films have flooded the market as of late). What makes them work even better though is that they work in service of the story and not vice versa. The most impressive aspect of the movie to me was the tension that Nolan creates in the film. There are scenes that literally had me on the edge of my seat. There is a pervasive sense of dread that permeates the entire movie. The film certainly lives up to its moniker. This is the movie that all subsequent comic book films will be measured against.
I don't know where the franchise goes from here. As long as it remains in Nolan's hands, I'm willing to follow.
...but it's sort of like being one of the last emperors of ancient Rome. Generational bias to be sure, but I don't think anyone would argue that hip-hop will see a more fertile creative period than the late eighties to mid-nineties in its future.
Over a decade ago, back in my MTV-watching days, I remember seeing videos for a crew calling itself The Hot Boys. The group consisted of members Juvenile, B.G., Young Turk and Lil' Wayne. I laughed at what seemed like a bunch of backwater ostensible rap artists sporting the de rigueur thug aesthetic--wife beaters, shiny watches and baggy jeans. They had supplanted Master P's god-awful No Limit as the new face of the South. I figured they couldn't be much worse than "The Ice Cream Man" and his ilk. So on the strength of Juvenile's quirky hit song "Ha", I purchased his solo LP, "400 Degrees." I gave it a few spins. Then I proceeded to buy every release these guys put out.
Southern rap acts (with the exception of groups like Outkast) are often derided for the simplicity of their lyrics and song composition. I tend to attribute that to the fact that Southern hip-hop is sort of still in its adolescence. For years, the only notable things coming out of the South were the Geto Boys and Too Short (Luke and 2 Live Crew were always more affiliated with the booty bass scene, hip-hop's cheeky cousin). Now the South is coming into its own with the likes of artists like T.I. and Ludacris who can drop one-liners with the best of them. None of the Hot Boys would ever be mistaken for a cajun Rakim, but the group does have a notable musical legacy. This is thanks in large part to one man: Mannie Fresh, producer for the bulk of Cash Money's output in its nascent years. Fresh is one of the most under-appreciated producers in hip-hop history. Largely eschewing easily recognizable samples, Mannie Fresh crafted some of the most kinetic and idiosyncratic beats this side of Timbaland. Fresh gets frenetic with the primordial elements of rap: snares, high-hats and the thump of the 808 percolate at 120 bpm. You can hear his signature sound in the hit songs that defined and established the label: B.G.'s "Cash Money Is A Army", Juvenile's "Ha" and "Back that Azz Up", and Lil Wayne's "The Block is Hot" (BTW, the video for Juvenile's "Ha" is almost like a cultural artifact with its portraits of life in the wards of New Orleans in the late nineties; worth seeking out on YouTube). Granted many of the songs were lyrically execrable (especially those on any Big Tymers--a group comprised of Baby and Mannie Fresh--record), but the beats never disappointed.
So jump ahead ten years and Lil Wayne is the last Hot Boy standing (all the others having left the label, Cash Money Records, due to alleged financial improprieties by the co-founder of Cash Money Records, Bryan "Baby" Williams--infamous for his platinum dental work). I'd been aware of a growing groundswell of support championing 'Weezy Wee' (as he sometimes refers to himself) as the next greatest thing in hip-hop. Apparently he appeared on every third rap and r&b record released over the last few years. Prolific? Undoubtedly. Great? I was skeptical to say the least until I listened to a freestyle he did called "Dough is What I Got" on which he rapped over Jay-Z's first official un-retirement track, the oddly tepid "Show Me What You Got." The old guard (Jay-Z, Nas, Wu-Tang, etc.) had recently been lamenting in the press the perceived slow death of hip-hop in the last few years (ironically, the same death knell sounded in the late nineties during that generation's ascendancy). "Dough is What I Got" served as a rebuttal of sorts with Weezy launching a salvo directly at Jigga himself ("When it comes down to this recording/I must be Lebron James if he's Jordan"). After he threw down the gauntlet, the pressure for Lil Wayne to deliver a record on par with previous crown-claiming albums such as Paid in Full, Illmatic, Life After Death and Vol. 2 Hard Knock Life increased exponentially.
Is the Carter III the greatest thing since yogurt with fruit on the bottom? Well, not exactly. It's still serves as pretty solid testimony to his dominance over the current field of contestants.
What makes Lil Wayne so appealing? He's a singular personality in a genre full of clones, wannabes and interchangeable voices. It comes down to his charisma and inventiveness, his willingness to attempt things that might fail (e.g. his fondness for riff-heavy guitar-backed tracks). You get the sense that when he steps in the studio, he just follows whatever impulse enters his mind. This is simultaneously his greatest strength and weakness. Take a song like "A Milli"--simple driving beat, repetitive sampled hook; he takes it and runs roughshod over the track with an at times haphazard flow, creating something that feels both ephemeral and classic in the same breath. Then he'll follow that up with a fairly derivative track like "Got Money" that wears its pop aspirations on its sleeve (but again, he miraculously saves even that effort with a few playful lines, specifically his riff on Rhianna's ubiquitous "Umbrella" song). He carries the album the way Will Smith is able to carry a movie with a mediocre script (*cough*I Am Legend*cough*).
The Carter III suffers from the same maladies as many contemporary rap albums: too much filler, too many guest stars, inconsistent production. Still it manages to overcome these faults on enough occasions to make it a worthwhile purchase (or if you prefer ala carte, I'd recommend between 8-10 of the albums 18 tracks). I don't know how long the reign of Wayne will be, but I'm not mad about it.
On a side note: I'm not sure what to make of Wayne's Zapp-like obsession with voice modulation. I swear at least a third of the tracks on his new album use Auto Tune.
Tracks worth a listen, or two:
A Milli
Dr. Carter - concept song about him literally saving hip-hop
Phone Home -Wayne expands on his "I'm a Martian" conceit
Tie My Hands - moving piece about the aftermath of Katrina
Mrs. Officer - gives a new meaning to a classic NWA song
Born and raised in Detroit. When food became scarce and the white man began occupying our homeland, I migrated to the island of Manhattan eventually moving to Brooklyn due to high rents.
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