Archives for 2003

The other day I commented on Matt Yglesias’s site that I never felt that Josh Marshall had committed to a pro-war stance. That is a personal interpretation of Marshall’s writings, so it is not open to debate. I just never believed he was committed to it.

After reading what he has written the last few days, I think he simply needs to be committed.

Taranto, and those who believe as he does, see the decapitation of the Iraqi government as the linchpin of international peace and security. We see it as extremely important, but a means to creating a more stable, safer world order. Fundamentally, we see the preservation of our key alliances and standing in the world, indeed the ‘world security system’ itself as even more important than Iraq.

Why is the preservation of or key alliances important if they are not willing to undertake what you describe as extremely important “means to creating a more stable, safer world order.”

One point that deserves notice — and which we’ll try to return to — is that the Bush crowd is now pursuing a logic on the international stage which is inherently self-validating. Every bust-up of an alliance, every disaster is proof that this or that alliance or relationship or global norm was worthless in the first place and thus we’re even more right than we thought we were in bulldozing through.

No, Josh. Just because a couple gets divorced does not mean the marriage was once worthless. What the divorce might lead one to believe is that it is NOW worthless.

We’re in international affairs not just for today but for the long haul. And our political leadership in the world community matters profoundly.

Josh is clearly working from a different definition of leadership than I am. Leadership means leading- not acquiescing to petty tyrants and becoming neutered by international organizations.

Next, to the United Nations. One hears that the United Nations was basically a wrecked or never-functioning institution. So the costs of putting it out of its misery are not so great. I’m not so sour on the UN. But what worries me here is not principally the UN. NATO sidestepped the UN in 1999 during the Kosovo war because of Russian intransigence. And I was happy to see NATO do it. Anti-UN types now see this as a bit of internationalist hypocrisy. But again, it’s not the UN I’m worried about. It’s the destruction of NATO that’s the issue here.

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Josh MarshallPost + Comments (3)

You can count me as a Frog-hater of the first order. I have not liked them since I lived in Germany a dozen or so years ago. They smell, they are rude, they are overtly obnoxious to all Americans, they intentionally gave bad directions, they didn’t have ice cubes, and overall, the place just sucked. yes, I am generalizing- I did have a few positive experiences in France.

Regardless, there is no point to renaming French Fries and French toast (to freedom fries and freedom toast, respectively) is. Matt Yglesias links to this Joe Conason story pointing out that “French Toast” is actaully an American invention:

[A] gastronomic historian writes: “French toast was not invented in France. In fact, it was invented in Albany, NY. Tavern owner Joseph French is credited with inventing the famous breakfast in 1724. Supposedly, Mr. French didn’t know the proper usage of the possessive apostrophe and, instead of ‘French’s toast’ he put ‘French toast’ on his menu.”

Interesting. More interesting is the France/Belgium debate over the origin of french fries. I had always thought they were french fries because they had been ‘frenched.’

French Fried LogicPost + Comments (1)