v3#9
May 21, 1998 

        I was musing, a day or so ago, as I admired the magnificent view from my corner office on the 37th floor of the FRATRICIDE building in downtown Dallas, how strange fate can be. Here I am, a huge moral and financial success, against the odds; there you are, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Spotted Al Gore, Mike Espy, Bruce Babbitt, and now Alexis Herman, seemingly born to power and success, but brought low by the temptations of government service. And yet, you have one thing that I will never have. You have earned one thing that I can never earn, even with all the wealth, power, and influence of a successful magazine publisher. You each have that without which one is nothing in Washington: a special prosecutor!

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        I believe in political equality. But there are two opposite reasons for being a democrat. You may think all men so good that they deserve a share in the government of the commonwealth, and so wise that the commonwealth needs their advice. That is, in my opinion, the false, romantic doctrine of democracy. On the other hand, you may believe fallen men to be so wicked that not one of them can be trusted with any irresponsible power over his fellows.
        ... C. S. Lewis

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        A man who has faith must be prepared not only to be a martyr but to be a fool.
        ... G. K. Chesterton

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        I apologize for the tardiness of this issue of FRATRICIDE. By way of excuse, I can only claim that I was overwhelmed by the demands of this festive season, dominated as it has been by a two-week celebration of the death of Pol Pot, just now concluded. Interrupted only by the more general celebration of dead communists heralded by May Day, the festive observances surrounding the descent of Pol Pot into the nethermost reaches of hell have been uplifting in the extreme. I did not actually participate in the festivities (alright, I admit that on the seventh night, I did sacrifice a chicken), but the fireworks, the dancing in the streets, the speeches by local dignitaries, and so on, would stir the hardest heart to a state of sentimental nostalgia.
        "It was not a million. It was less than that," Pol Pot claimed in his final days. That's right, it was only a few hundred thousand people who were murdered at your order. We should hardly notice. In fact, we did hardly notice. Pol Pot's vicious regime ruled in the period 1975-77, while the U.S. was still congratulating itself for leaving South Viet Nam to the uncertain mercies of its communist conquerors. One could argue, in fact, that Pol Pot's success was a direct result of the U.S. abandonment of Viet Nam and repudiation of SEATO. Certainly, the U.S. did nothing to prevent it.
        Alright, the U.S. did not want to fight a war in southeast Asia. Fine, I can understand that. Frankly, I can understand not wanting to fight any wars. Great. But, the U.S. made commitments to the southeast asian nations, approved by the freely elected representatives of the American people. In failing to honor those commitments, the U.S. took a certain stain upon its honor and bore the responsibility for the predictable consequences of that abandonment. Like Pol Pot. To be sure, the Chinese bear a far greater responsibility, in that the Chinese government actively sponsored Pol Pot's accession to power, an act that might as well have occurred in the Tang Dynasty for all the attention it gets today. But this does not lessen America's responsibility. Pol Pot's bloody reign was a direct consequence of U.S. policy. It makes my generation of Americans accomplices, not a comforting thought. History, when all the data is in, will not deal kindly with this.
        Well, there was much wrong and much mistaken in that era. Robert McNamara's recent admission that he "knew" that the war was unwinnable in 1967 was shocking enough. The entire conduct of the war was an extremely expensive lesson. All we can do now is to learn from that experience and go on. I would think that the best idea would be to make a conscious effort to get rid of the Robert McNamaras in our policy-making establishment. But taking a look at the U.S. response to India's abrupt but predictable entry into the nuclear club, the half-witted counsel the U.S. offered to Pakistan, the recent U.S. treatment of Israel, and the general tendency in U.S. policy of trying to make countries do things that are against their interests for the sake of some unreachable ideal, it looks like McNamara's scions are firmly in control.
        So, Pol Pot will not be the last. The U.S. could prevent it, but its people have been trained to ignore the demands of conscience, to a large degree through the experience of Pol Pot. So, cast another coal on the fire for Pol Pot. There's plenty more where he came from (China).

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        I really thought I had seen it all. I really did. But President Clinton's attempt to assert privilege for the Secret Service is surely the White House's basest and most meretricious delaying tactic yet. The members of the Secret Service are, after all, sworn law enforcement officers. It is their duty, their freely-assumed obligation, to give testimony in a criminal investigation, when called upon to do so.
        The officers of the Secret Service have no business airing the President's dirty laundry for a news service or for the opposition party. That would be highly unethical, without doubt. But being ordered to testify by, not just the special prosecutor, but a federal judge, they must comply. Whether the individuals want to testify matters least of all.
        The special prosecutor, to his credit, took all this in his stride, as he has done throughout the investigation (far from being either the longest or most expensive such investigation). I am impressed with the way he has handled his task, ignoring attacks, focusing on the work. Both sides of the aisle have sought to undermine him at various times, disingenuously raising criticisms to sell to the media or to the folks back home or to their own colleagues in the Congress, with this difference: the Democrats accuse him of being a liar, like themselves, while the Republicans accuse him of being timid, like themselves.
        The assertion of privilege for the Secret Service was literally laughed out of court, thank goodness. If you want that kind of security and secrecy, Bill, go be president of Indonesia (I think there is going to be an opening soon).

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        Formerly, persecution of Christians was confined to the heathen lands east of the Prime Meridian, exempting those Teutonic countries in which Christianity, by an enormous effort of war and will, won a shaky suzerainty, and also, depending on one's point of view, the Romish lands. Otherwise, persecution of Christians is carried out in the eastern hemisphere with the impunity and easy self-assurance of a meter maid ticketing scofflaws. In the West, the persecution of Christians is thought by most to be at least boorish, and in extreme cases, unconstitutional.
        But the White House, feeling up to the challenge, has, in the person of Sidney Blumenthal, attacked Judge Starr and one of his assistants on the grounds that they attend conservative Christian churches regularly. From this, he infers that Starr is on a "mission from God," and terms the other a "fanatic," characterizations which remain, to my knowledge, uncontradicted by the White House.
        While it is a long step from criticism of this kind to religious disqualification from public office, it is important to see that this just a step and not a leap. The Clinton Administration has gone out of its way to see to it that no cabinet members are noticeably Christian. Mr. Clinton does follow the forms, but recent information seems to indicate that he does not take Christian principles seriously in his personal life. Is that too judgemental? Well, I ask, what are we supposed to think?
        Now, we might wonder why the White House thought that this charge of fanatical Christianity would stick. Why is the description, "conservative Christian," a pejorative? Primarily, I suppose, because a conservative Christian might be expected to have values that are not received from Freud, Marx, Ira Magaziner, and ABC News. This makes them different: one suspects them of being insistent on integrity, not just lip service; skeptical about the degree to which government can or should attempt to provide security on this earth; willing to make considerable personal sacrifices in the interests of justice.
        But why should anyone feel threatened by such people? In the cold light of reason, one would assume that living among people who are actively committed to truth, honesty, and so on, would be highly comforting and delightfully refreshing. As for their supposed "mission from God," whom better to receive a mission from, and what better kind of mission could there be? As for fanaticism, doesn't it seem better, given the choice, to be fanatical for righteousness than to live a commitment to the shallow, complacent world of tarnished ethics and mediocre values? In the final analysis, the outward distinguishing characteristic of conservative Christians is that they have made a public commitment to personal reform and to be guided by God. Frankly, that seems to me to be hard to criticize.
        I have no doubt that this administration would bar Judge Starr and all other Christians from office if they thought they could. They fear this vision: devoted Christians in office throughout the government, scrupulously honest, unreliable when it comes to covering up fellow officials' wrongdoing, loyal not to the government but to the truth. Well they might.

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        Here's an idea: the way to increase competition in the computer software business is to add a few hundred Washington lawyers to the mix. That seems to be the notion driving the inJustice Department with respect to the Microsoft anti-trust litigation.
        There are a thousand different viewpoints about this complex (and anything involving anti-trust is going to be complex) subject. My view is that the marketplace has spoken: Internet browsers have a value of zero. Therefore, they cannot, ipso facto, be a focus of competition. The other issues can be summed up easily: Microsoft has driven the competition out of various areas of software because its products are better. But this success is not, in and of itself, anti-competitive.
        One observation can be made about all the anti-Microsoft litigants. If I am any judge of character, the common component to their attitude and appearance is envy. They envy Bill Gates and the success, power, and wealth of Microsoft, and they seek to use the power of government to break it. The pattern of demonization and plunder goes on (because we let it).
        The thing that makes all this effort useless is that the marketplace will have its way, regardless of the litigation. The only thing that the lawyers can achieve is to make Microsoft suffer, which means we, the users, will suffer. After all, Microsoft is not going to pay for all this; we are, every penny.

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        I understand that I was one of only six people on earth not watching the final episode of "Seinfeld" last week. Well, I couldn't. I had to run out to find a pair of shoelaces. An aglet (that's the little piece of plastic around the end of the shoelace that makes it possible to thread it through the holes) had torn off, making it imperative that I purchase a replacement at once. It turns out that the other five people who missed the show were making bombs in India -- see what happens when you turn your back! I received a phone call from the network president berating me for my lack of civic pride or whatever. Fortunately, he just got my answering machine.
        Truthfully, I was not even aware of "Seinfeld" until I began to hear the hype about the final episode on the radio a few days ago. Thank goodness I have a way to keep up with the changing currents in the mainstream of popular culture.
        I did recently catch an episode of "The Jerry Springer Show." People on radio talk shows have been complaining about how wicked it is, so I thought I ought to check their facts. I made a mistake at first. Indistinguishable from the ABC Evening News, Springer is vile, base, pedestrian, and apparently wildly popular. Frankly, I found it boring -- there are simply no new sins -- somewhat like the Saturday Night Rasslin' with a thin plot and a bit of dialog. Better than being forced to watch an episode of 47 Minutes and 20 Seconds. Surely, making pizza would be much more fun.
        Where are we going as a society, and why?

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        Maybe there is an alternative:

        Like as an hart desireth the waterbrooks, so longeth my soul after Thee, O God.
        ... Psalm 42:1

        Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
        ... Philippians 4:8

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