BuzzMachine

Return to Baghdad
: I started reading Sean Penn’s story of his return to Baghdad, a year and a war later, with trepidation (a reader sent me a warning shot). But I was surprised to find a more balanced and open view than I’d expected:

For Iraqis, there was no pro-war or anti-war movement last spring when the United States invaded their country. That, in their view, was a predominantly Western debate. They’re used to war; they’re used to gunshots. What’s new is this tiny seed and taste of freedom. It is a compelling experience to have been in Baghdad just one year ago, where not a single Iraqi expressed to me opinions outside Baathist party lines, and just one year later, when so many express their opinions and so many opinions compete for attention. Where the debate is similar to that in the United States is over the way in which the business of war will administer the opportunity for peace and freedom, and the reasonable expectation of Iraqi self-rule.

Even Sean Penn sees that it’s not as simple as war=bad.

: Andrew Sullivan had a similar reaction. He says: “But it is good to see the left regain some of its moral bearings and also see the good that we have done.”

Times-o-meter
: Aaron creates the Times Rage-O-Meter.

Butt out of the home, Mr. President
: The NY Times reports today that the Bush administration wants to spend $1.5 billion to promote marriage.

None of government’s GD business.

Government is there to run the government, not our home.

Neither the sanctity nor the success of marriage is government’s business.

This should cut across ideological lines.

In fairness, NPR said tonight that the Clinton administration also pushed marriage as a backdoor to reducing welfare.

Well, it’s still not government’s business. Rightwingers (other than religious nutballs) should object to government spending money on this. Libertarians should object to government interference i nthe home. The left should object to this closed moral stance.

Save the money. Go to Mars. Whatever. But stay the hell out of our homes.

: Matthew Yglesias suggests instead a Federal Dating Service.

What’s $2 billion between friends?
: I could swear that when I looked at the NYTimes.com front page an hour ago, it said that JP Morgan Chase was buying BankOne for $60 billion. Now it’s $58 billion. Aw, billion here, billion there, who’s counting?

Blogger of the Year… But first… Lunch at Harry & Tina’s
: So I had lunch at Harry Evans’ and Tina Brown’s home today… with about a hundred others.

I was at the kiddie table — that is, the bloggers’ table. But I was glad to be there. As someone at that table said, who wouldn’t walk through glass for lunch at Harry & Tina’s?

We were there for the presentation of The Week magazine‘s first annual Opinion Awards — including, significantly, an award for Blogger of the Year. More on that in a moment. But first — priorities! — we’re talking about lunch at Harry & Tina’s!

: Yes, it’s like a matinee of Tony & Tina’s. It’s a performance and you’re trying to figure out who acting and who’s not.

We come to the front door out of a day colder than a Timesman’s heart and we’re given little envelopes with our table assignments — 11, bad sign — and directed to a ground-floor door with the admonition that the furniture has all been moved (so we won’t be getting the real experience). It’s still obviously a lovely home with pictures everywhere — an original Sorel here, a fine old news print there — and books filling remaining space (with reporters desperately scanning the spines, hunting the elusive color).

In a small parlor, we become more and more crammed. Abe Rosenthal totters about. Mario Cuomo holds court. (I got in his way in the hall and said, “Excuse me, governor.” Felt odd to say, as if I’d left Tony & Tina’s and entered My Fair Lady.) Jim Hoge, the ageless Dick Clark of publishing (editor of Foreign Affairs and a former boss of mine at the Daily News) is over there. Edward Epstein, Vartan Gregorian, and other luminaries abound. The jury for the print awards included these folks plus others: Susan Cheever, Robert Caro, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Lani Guinier, Edward Rollins, Wendy Wasserstein, Steven Ratner, Walter Isaacson, Alex Jones, Lauren Hutton (Lauren Hutton?!?). And there were reporters, including Matthew Rose of the WSJ and Greg Lindsay of WWD and Keith Kelly of the NY Post. I don’t know nearly as many of the luminaries as I should because I’m a hermit, aka a blogger.

: Time for the awards. I’ll save the best (the blogger) for last.

The Week Editor Bill Falk (a very nice guy whose weekly columnettes you should read) introduces Harry, who does the honors.

: They give a Local Columnist of the Year award to Tommy Tomlinson of the Charlotte Observer, a mountainous guy (the other winners are all minimen) who gives a charming thank you: He loves his local gig but he sometimes wonders whether anybody else notices. He dreams that John Updike — he’s not sure why it’s Updike — finds himself in the Charlotte airport between flights and picks up a paper and reads his column and says, “Not bad.” This, he says, is better.

: They give an award for Single-Issue Advocate of the Year. Finalists: Michele Malkin, Joel Mowbray, William Safire, Andrew Sullivan.

And the winner is… Paul Krugman.

Harry says that in Britain they have a parliamentary opposition but here we don’t need that; we have Krugman.

Krugman says it’d be nice if we actually had a parliamentary opposition. And he adds: “I didn’t think I was an advocate. I think I’m fair and balanced.”

: Now Columnist of the Year. Finalists: David Brooks of the Times, Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune, William Kristol of the Weekly Standard.

And the winner is… Thomas Friedman.

A better award is rarely given.

Friedman doesn’t say much. He mentions starting a synagogue (“like all good Jews”) with Bill Safire. News to me (more on this here). He tells about recently asking the editor of Ha’aretz why they run his column. “You’re the only optimist we have,” the editor replies.

: Now Blogger of the Year. Glenn Reynolds, Daniel Radosh, and I picked this one, separately from the luminary-judges above.

What mattered most to us — if I can speak for my colleagues — is that a blogger was included. That meant that all bloggers were included.

The finalists:

: Mickey Kaus, “a pioneer blogger who helped set the tone for the medium: sly, wry, knowing, and head of the news.”

: Gawker, “a snarky New York-centric blog that snipes at big shots in media, politics, and showbiz — has reinvigorated the stale art of gossip.”

: Volokh, “a libertarian collective that excels at analyzing legal, political, and academic trends.”

: Winds of Change, “always thoughtful, thorough, and full of links to things you’d probably never see on your own.”

: And the winner for Blogger of the year is… Joshua Micah Marshall, author of TalkingPointsMemo.

I liked Josh and all the finalists and plenty more. What swayed me on Josh is that he not only pundits but he reports. In fact, he came to this do on his way to his blogosphere-supported reporting trip to New Hampshire.

Josh accepted the award and said, “I’d like to thank you not so much for choosing me but for choosing bloggers.”

Amen, blogging brother.

I’ll reprint the writeup on Josh below, under the “more” link.

: So then we ate: a nice something of mushrooms and chicken over damned rich polenta and a nice chocolate thing (Jackie’s going to fire me as a food critic) and cookies with The Week printed on them (who knew that ink tasted so good?). Choire Sicha of Gawker was desperately trying to find something to write about for The Observer. When accused of underblogging, Elizabeth Spiers protested that she’s on vacation (she’s also tracking down big financial stories for the new New York Magazine).

And Tina Brown was gracious if just a wee bit tense and nervous whenever she passed by this gaggle of bloggers, for we’ve all snarked at her expense. Well, you could say, live by the snark, die by the snark. But it was quite cool that she and Harry threw this do and we’re not even mad that they didn’t give us a single thing to snark about.

: Afterwards, I got to meet the one luminary I most wanted to meet: Friedman. Nothing better to say than, in the fine tradition of Stuttering John, “big fan, big fan.” To my utter delight, Friedman knew this very URL and, no surprise, he knows blogs. I then asked the obvious: Are you going to blog? He said he’d been asked whether he wanted to (note that blog/Times watchers) but in his line of work, he somewhat fears the immediacy of it. He’s supposed to think for three days, and sometimes, he said, that’s not enough. Oh, I get that. But still, I’d kill to see just links to what he’s reading: Tom Friedman’s Quick Links.

From left: Tomlinson, Krugman, Evans, Falk, Friedman, Marshall

Here’s the write-up on Blogger of the Year:

(more…)

The better memorial
: I have to say I feel better about the World Trade Center memorial after reading reports on its massive revision in the NY Times and NY Post today.

My problem with the design as first announced was that it was so cold and sterile — as cold and sterile as a bathroom floor, as inhuman as an East Berlin plaza — when this is a very human tragedy and human lesson that requires a human memorial.

It’s better.

The trees give it life.

The lower rooms give it contemplative space.

The artifacts from the buildings and the day give it reality.

I am still concerned that it is too architectural. I’m also concerned that, at street level with the street so near, it is not a place of memory but instead just a park to pass by or perhaps gawk at.

It is still not the memorial I would have wanted.

But for the first time I can imagine growing to it.

Vote for me (and I’ll invade Indiana)
: Well, shucks. I’m included on a list of candidates for New York Magazine’s best blog nod.

I’m a f***ing hypocrite
: Michael Powell wants to ban the f word from the airwaves. Now you probably thought it was already banned, but the FCC staff ruled that when Bono uttered it at last year’s Golden Globes, it wasn’t indecent, so Powell wants to make sure that doesn’t happen again. Mind you, if Howard Stern ever said it, they’d slap him with gazillions in fines without a moment’s deliberation. Hypocrites? Yes.

But so am I. I use the f word often. But I hit the tape-delay button on myself when I’m around my kids, of course — because if I didn’t, you’d call DYFS on me. And because kids can come here, that’s why I don’t use the f word here and kill comments that use it and other allied bad words.

But I wish it weren’t a bad word. I wish there weren’t any bad words.

It’s offensive that we get offended by a mere word. What we should be offended by are offensive ideas or insults or attacks. But a mere word? We can’t handle a simple word?

This lexicographic puritanism is the predecessor of political correctness: Somebody holds the list of the things you can’t say — and you can’t say anything about it. This empowers the holder of the list. It subjugates those who would use the word but now can’t. And it insults everybody else who would hear the word, for the holder of the list thinks that he’s protecting them and that that they can’t protect themselves.

See also the CBS post below.

I don’t need Michael Powell or Les Moonves to be my protector. F’ em.