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Sir, you make a mistake listening to people who tell you how much our stand alienates black men in this country. I’d guess actually we have the sympathy of 90 percent of the black people. There are 20,000,000 dormant Muslims in America. A Muslim to us is somebody who is for the black man; I don’t care if he goes to the Baptist Church seven days a week. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad says that a black man is born a Muslim by nature. There are millions of Muslims not aware of it now. All of them will be Muslims when they wake up; that’s what’s meant by the Resurrection. Malcolm X in a conversation with Alex Haley, Playboy Magazine, May, 1963.

The recent week has seen two major stories about the political baggage of “being Muslim” in United States.

The first was Mitt Romney’s refusal to consider a Muslim as a Presidential advisor in his Cabinet – specifically to advise him on “jihadism” (obviously, that is the only field in which a Muslim can claim expertise). On Nov 27th, Mansoor Ijaz, “an American-born citizen of the Islamic faith”, reported this exchange in the CSM:

I asked Mr. Romney whether he would consider including qualified Americans of the Islamic faith in his cabinet as advisers on national security matters, given his position that “jihadism” is the principal foreign policy threat facing America today. He answered, “…based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration.”

Mitt Romney denied that he expressed this as reported, but multiple sources have since emerged confirming Ijaz’s account. The story, as it was covered on DailyTPM, Freepers, etc., received lots of comments that generally tended to agree with Romney. “Having a muslim in the cabinet would be like having a Japanese guy in the cabinet in WWII” and “Wait… how does this hurt Romney?!? From what I can see, he will get a bounce out of this! Much of middle America would strongly support his perspective and likely hold it themselves”.

The other story was the WaPo front page story, Foes Use Obama’s Muslim Ties to Fuel Rumors About Him, Nov 29, 2007:

Since declaring his candidacy for president in February, Obama, a member of a congregation of the United Church of Christ in Chicago, has had to address assertions that he is a Muslim or that he had received training in Islam in Indonesia, where he lived from ages 6 to 10. While his father was an atheist and his mother did not practice religion, Obama’s stepfather did occasionally attend services at a mosque there.

Despite his denials, rumors and e-mails circulating on the Internet continue to allege that Obama (D-Ill.) is a Muslim, a “Muslim plant” in a conspiracy against America, and that, if elected president, he would take the oath of office using a Koran, rather than a Bible, as did Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the only Muslim in Congress, when he was sworn in earlier this year.

We live in a rumor-based society where spurious flyers can derail campaigns and invented words like “swift-boating” scarcely raise a Colbert eyebrow. So it is no surprise that such internet rumors are given equal credence by the WaPo. The entire story is written with the “he said/they say/people claim” and the denials are restricted solely for the campaign – which “keeps a letter at its offices, signed by five members of the local clergy, vouching for the candidate’s Christian faith” – and for Obama – “If I were a Muslim, I would let you know”. At no point, does WaPo sully itself by actually reporting that Obama is not a Muslim. Understandably, some are upset at the WaPo. [The story itself gained prominence almost a year ago. See an earlier post].

It is perhaps no great shock to anyone that a healthy amount of Islamophobia exists in the current political and cultural climate. The absurdities of teddy bears named Muhammad are constantly played in our media as de facto expressions of an irrational and medieval faith – with nary a word on the political machinations behind the street protests.

These stories about Obama’s faith and Romney’s Islamophobia, however, cannot be lumped in with the more generic fear of a Muslim planet. They illustrate, much more starkly, the fear of hidden loyalties within a population that cannot ever be assimilated (birth in America being no benefit) and draw on a more a complicated history in America – a history of Islam’s arrival and subsequent life on American soil – which is intertwined with the history of slavery and an oppressed minority. Islamdom’s medieval encounter with Christendom has received ample historical and scholarly attention but the American continent has largely remained unexamined. Or if examined, it is noted for obscurity.

Islam came to America with the Africans who were kidnapped, enslaved and shipped to the New World for labor. Here is an early Virginia Law from James City, 1682 covering Muslims (negroes, moores, mollatoes), mandatory conversions, and the continuance of the state of slavery:

An act to repeale a former law makeing Indians and others ffree.

WHEREAS by the 12 act of assembly held att James Citty the 3d day of October, Anno Domini 1670, entituled an act declareing who shall be slaves, it is enacted that all servants not being christians, being imported into this country by shipping shall be slaves, but what shall come by land shall serve if boyes and girles untill thirty yeares of age, if men or women, twelve yeares and noe longer; and for as much as many negroes, moores, mollatoes and others borne of and in heathenish, idollatrous, pagan and mahometan parentage and country have heretofore, and hereafter may be purchased, procured, or otherwise obteigned as slaves of, from or out of such their heathenish country by some well disposed christian, who after such their obteining and purchaseing such negroe, moor, or molatto as their slave out of a pious zeale, have wrought the conversion of such slave to the christian faith, which by the laws of this country doth not manumitt them or make them free
…

And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid that all servants except Turkes and Moores, whilest in amity with his majesty which from and after publication of this act shall be brought or imported into this country, either by sea or land, whether Negroes, Moors, Mollattoes or Indians, who and whose parentage and native country are not christian at the time of their first purchase of such servant by some christian, although afterwards, and before such their importation and bringing into this country, they shall be converted to the christian faith; and all Indians which shall hereafter be sold by our neighbouring Indians, or any other trafiqueing with us as for slaves are hereby adjudged, deemed and taken, and shall be adjudged, deemed and taken to be slaves to all intents.

These Muslim “slaves, Africans, mulatto’s, moors and all” – unable to change their beings, whether converted or not – largely disappear from the main streams of American historiography, even as fears of rebellions, miscegenation and foreign loyalties plague the white American imagination.

The Ahmadiyya movement, the Babist movement and a world wide ‘resurgence of Islam’ were key anxieties for the American public at the turn of the century. Babist Propaganda Making Headway Here declared an alarmed NYT in December, 1904. Islam Gaining on Christianity; Missionaries Admit They Are Losing Ground Against the Teachers of the Koran was heard a decade later. The emergence of the Moorish Science Temple and the Nation of Islam in the 1920s and 1930s – led by Nobel Drew Ali and Elijah Mohammad – certainly crystallized these fears: Calls Negroes to Islam; Detroit Man Would Lead Exodus to Anatolia, Fleeing Color Prejudice. FBI surveillance, community policing and militia-formation ensued.

The rumors about Obama’s faith, then, are not just manifestations of a post 9/11 Islamophobia or a peculiar xenophobia about his African father. They are, in fact, uniquely American – based on our long history of mis-trust and mis-apprehension of a faith that we associate with our own ‘Others’.

Last week, I signed my name to a public statement issued by Historians for Obama. I wasn’t too enamored by the statement itself; I thought that historians could certainly demonstrate the historical import behind Barack Obama’s candidacy much more forcefully. I hope that historians who signed that statement will carry forward their impulse. I hope they write about the burdens of history hoisted upon Barack Obama as he moves towards the nomination. He is certainly a unique individual, and uniquely placed, to force this nation to remember, again and again, what it constantly chooses to forget – its histories of oppression, fear and hatred. Barack Obama’s own personal history is a testament to a brighter future for our nation. We can certainly make that case to the American public on his behalf – perhaps even counter some rumors.

The White House maintains a special website for Barney.
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When President of South Korea visited with Supreme Commander of the Korean People’s Army, Kim Jong-Il of North Korea, they toasted their pact with blueberry wine and Kim played the eccentric and charismatic host, as is his wont. President Roh presented the Commander with many gifts, including the DVDs of “YMCA Baseball Team, Strokes of Fire, and the hit drama Daejanggeum (대장금), which features Lee Young-ae (이영애), known as one of Kim’s favorite South Korean actresses.” President Roh added that “The stories are good but the qualities of the pictures are just as good. These days, there are a lot of movies that gather a lot of attention with good visuals.”

Thoughts on the Pekingese by Empress Dowager Cixi:

Let the Lion Dog be small; let it wear the swelling cape of dignity around its neck; let it display the billowing standard of pomp above its back.

Let its face be black; let its forefront be shaggy; let its forehead be straight and low.

Let its eyes be large and luminous; let its ears be set like the sails of war junk; let its nose be like that of the monkey god of the Hindus.

Let its forelegs be bent; so that it shall not desire to wander far, or leave the Imperial precincts.

Let its body be shaped like that of a hunting lion spying for its prey.

Let its feet be tufted with plentiful hair that its footfall may be soundless and for its standard of pomp let it rival the whick of the Tibetans’ yak, which is flourished to protect the imperial litter from flying insects.

Let it be lively that it may afford entertainment by its gambols; let it be timid that it may not involve itself in danger; let it be domestic in its habits that it may live in amity with the other beasts, fishes or birds that find protection in the Imperial Palace.

And for its colour, let it be that of the lion – a golden sable, to be carried in the sleeve of a yellow robe; or the colour of a red bear, or a black and white bear, or striped like a dragon, so that there may be dogs appropriate to every costume in the Imperial wardrobe.

Let it venerate its ancestors and deposit offerings in the canine cemetery of the Forbidden City on each new moon.

Let it comport itself with dignity; let it learn to bite the foreign devils instantly.

Let it be dainty in its food so that it shall be known as an Imperial dog by its fastidiousness; sharks fins and curlew livers and the beasts of quails, on these may it be fed; and for drink give it the tea that is brewed from the spring buds of the shrub that groweth in the province of Hankow, or the milk of the antelopes that pasture in the Imperial parks.

Thus shall it preserve its integrity and self-respect; and for the day of sickness let it be anointed with the clarified fat of the legs of a sacred leopard, and give it to drink a throstle’s eggshell full of the juice of the custard apple in which has been dissolved three pinches of shredded rhinoceros horn, and apply it to piebald leeches.

So shall it remain – but if it dies, remember thou too art mortal.

The moral of this tale, my friends, is never use an acrylic-based varnish with watercolors. Is it any mistake it happened to the First Family? Could this be inadvertent acrylic voodoo?

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In pictures of Cheney following the failed assassination attempt in Afghanistan, he seems to be smiling in an almost non-smirkish way. According to Wonkette, this is his first real smile in years. Afficionados of the Cheney smirk will remember, however, that Cheney may not be able to move the right side of his face. In this picture, his head is tilted a bit to disguise that fact. Interesting to note that Hamid Karzai also appears to be having a bit of a laugh. Maybe that’s because no one has yet guessed his secret identity, despite the squint in his right eye.

…so I went ahead and made a picture of him. Well, three, actually. Here they all are together, as per sepoy’s request (below), in a PPP flag triptych. To see them individually, up close and personal, here’s red, black and green.

Today I met some local Hyde Parkers wanting to get Obama elected. It was nice to chat with them but I was thinking more about the conversations I had had 2 weeks ago in Ohio. I brought up Barack Obama in various settings with a number of people. The responses were:
1. What did you say? Obama bin Laden?
2. That name is funny. What kind is he? I mean, what is …. Is he American? He is Black??
3. I thought you liked Kerry.

Obama’s work is cut out for him – in Ohio or in Iowa. Hillary certainly has the name recognition; and Edwards the experience from ’04; or Vilsack the pure nuttiness. The shine on Obama has receded as far as the media is concerned. The tone of the articles is getting harsher. The dominant themes so far have been his blackness [will Black voters go for this 'African' American guy???], his liberal street cred [he has sold out to the mainstream!!!] and the meta-commentary on Barack Obama thinking about a Barack Obama run [he is too immersed in himself!!!]. In the days forward, I expect the focus to shift on foreign policy (his Iraq position is not enough), on terrorism, on America’s role in the world, on health care, on what he intends to do about global warming etc. etc. Or whether his father secretly made him a member of the cult of Mohammadans. Probably just the last topic, actually.

We all got some work to do.

First in a series of posts on the junior senator from Illinois.

Gary Cooper: Perfect. It’s a matter of fact. Everything about you is perfect.

Audrey Hepburn: I’m too thin and my ears stick out, my teeth are crooked and my neck’s much too long.

Gary Cooper: Maybe so, but I love the way it all hangs together.

–Love in the Afternoon

Like Cooper’s character in Love in the Afternoon, we’re terribly jaded: we’ve lived the capitalist high life and rolled with all sorts of exotic dames, Swedish twins, Spanish princesses, you name it. Frightened Republicans, cranky pessimistic Democrats and The Main-Stream Media alike may ridicule us for our sudden infatuation with the new pair of ankles in town, but what they don’t understand is that like Ms. Hepburn, Senator Obama is the real deal. You can get to Hepburn’s waif-weight on a steady diet of club-hopping, methamphetamine and cocaine cut with strawberry Quik, or you can get there by gnawing on tulip bulbs in the basement during the Dutch Famine. You could achieve the grace and poise of Hepburn by hiring a personal trainer and doing pilates every day or you could get there by cutting short your training as a professional ballet dancer due to poverty-induced malnutrition. Similarly, you could give speeches as well as Obama by hiring a stable-full of professional speech writers, or you could get there by spending a lifetime reading literature and honing the craft of writing. You could adopt a message of hope, non-partisanship and reconciliation after consulting with a team of highly paid pollsters, or you could hold such a message as a conviction, a lesson learned through personal experience and public service.

The mood around the Obamanan has a lunatic edge, primarily because it is far too difficult for anyone to believe in the notion of the genuine article. Pundits are disturbed by his unrelentingly rock star appeal because it hasn’t been hand-crafted by them. Even ‘experts’ and journalists who are ostensibly on his side are poised and ready to spring into a much anticipated maelstrom of negativity when the time comes. No one wants to be the naive one who canonized the rising star too soon. In anticipation of the fall of Obama ( cause for speculation as early as March 2006 by the NYT), everyone is jumping on the superficiality bandwagon as fast as they can. We are deluged daily by a perplexing array of critiques of Obama’s physical appearance (eye candy!), clothing (business casual!) and name (Iraq! Saddam Hussein! Osama bin Laden!). The name bit, an embarrassing act of desperation, results of course from the rightist spin machine: maybe we can get people to think he has something to do with those things! True, many people still do not know who Barack Obama is and give rise to news reports like this and this that make us fear still further for the intelligence of our populace, but lack of name recognition isn’t the sort of thing that lasts long around a public figure who appears on Oprah,the Daily Show and Larry King, and introduces Monday Night Football.

And then there’s Obama and fashion. Maureen Dowd, doing her best come-hither-Barack wink, while simultaneously not wanting to look dumb if he turns out not to be all that, seems to have gotten the ball rolling. With her piece ‘Project Obama,’ she warns the object of her affections not to get carried away with all the adulation lest he come to appear too light in the loafers for the job of Commander-in-Chief. This time her TV Guide metaphor-du-jour is Project Runway, and she wrings her hands at the prospect of Obama, with his Annie Leibovitz photo shoot for Men’s Vogue, appearances on Oprah and a little too much time spent at the gym, ending up as everyone’s favorite celebrity guest star. She closes with the dramatic and thought-provoking punchline, “Does Barack Obama want to be a celebrity or a man of history, or is there no longer any difference?”

The fashionisto in Obama is all the rage now, most strangely in this

exchange between Wolf Blitzer and Jeff Greenfield, which Greenfield now

claims was a joke:

GREENFIELD: The senator was in New Hampshire over the weekend, sporting what’s getting to be the classic Obama look. Call it business casual, a jacket, a collared shirt, but no tie….But, in the case of Obama, he may be walking around with a sartorial time bomb. Ask yourself, is there any other major public figure who dresses the way he does? Why, yes. It is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who, unlike most of his predecessors, seems to have skipped through enough copies of “GQ” to find the jacket-and-no-tie look agreeable.

Whether or not this was, in fact, a joke, clearly the most insulting part of it all is being compared to the distinctly unfelicitous sartorial style of Ahmadinejad, who, politics aside, is a man who wears white socks with leather shoes and whose suits and dress shirts clearly contain no small number of synthetic fibers.

In fact, it is the article in Men’s Vogue which takes no interest in Obama’s sartorial choices, and the Annie Leibovitz photo spread unveils the Junior Senator from Illinois wearing his own clothing, with no apparent attempts at pre-shoot styling. The combined article and photographs contain so little reference to appearances or the fashion world that one is led to wonder just what the gang over at Vogue is up to. As one skeptical participant in the Men’s Vogue discussion boards, sir_elton, reflects plaintively, “Obama didn’t look right. He wasn’t pressed. Not presidential in my book. Who chose those clothes, anyway? Was that A.L.?”

Well that’s just it, kids. Barack Obama doesn’t need a stylist because the man’s got original style. Anna Wintour, editor of Vogue, High Priestess of Style, knows this. The article in MV is remarkable because it lets Obama speak for himself, through his writings, speeches and conversation. The Leibovitz photos shoot him doing the things he does in the clothes he wears (which, granted, are quite tasteful). And, most arrestingly, we learn that his most stylish asset is his command of language. One hears and reads very often that Obama has ‘boatloads of charisma’; that he speaks eloquently; that he writes well. But in the context of the language skills and rhetoric of, let’s say, all politicians today, that means nothing. The fact is that Obama writes and speaks beautifully.

Can there be any other politician who has as strong a policy regarding semi-colons and lists? From his elegant and looong post to Daily Kos, in which he makes the fascinating argument that liberals should be nicer to the Democrats who voted for Judge Roberts, even though he himself voted against him (and the way the list is embedded in a set of double dashes– it just gives you the shivers):

I shared enough of these concerns that I voted against Roberts on the floor this morning. But short of mounting an all-out filibuster — a quixotic fight I would not have supported; a fight I believe Democrats would have lost both in the Senate and in the court of public opinion; a fight that would have been difficult for Democratic senators defending seats in states like North Dakota and Nebraska that are essential for Democrats to hold if we hope to recapture the majority; and a fight that would have effectively signaled an unwillingness on the part of Democrats to confirm any Bush nominee, an unwillingness which I believe would have set a dangerous precedent for future administrations– blocking Roberts was not a realistic option.

And how many people quote the poetry of Borges to discuss their turn toward religion (‘a choice, not an epiphany‘)? How many people quote the poetry of Borges at all? And this quote is from a love poem:

“I offer you that kernel of myself that I have saved, somehow—the central heart that deals not in words, traffics not with dreams and is untouched by time, by joy, by adversities.

“I think Borges is talking to a mistress or lover” Obama said. “But that kernel that is untouched;that doesn’t traffic in the trivial or the mean or the petty;that sounds like God to me.”

(In the previous line of the poem, rather confusingly in this context, the narrator states,

I offer you the loyalty of a man who has never been loyal.

This last being, no doubt, a priceless thing to offer, but probably the sort of association one should avoid as a politician. But he didn’t quote that part, and he acknowledges it is not a poem about religion, but a love poem, and it probably doesn’t matter that it was allegedly written for his comely young apprentice, Adolfito Bioy-Casares, by an elderly Borges, in English, in honor of their ‘English Friendship’.)

And when have we heard a public figure intelligently discuss the role of religious imagery in the rhetoric of politics, instead of just pumping more and more hackneyed phrases and tired cliches into the atmosphere?

“If we scrub language of all religious content, we forfeit the imagery and terminology through which millions of Americans understand both their personal morality and social justice,” he argued. “Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, William Jennings Bryan, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King;the majority of great reformers in American history;were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. So to say that men and women should not inject their ‘personal morality’ into public-policy debates is a practical absurdity.”

Obama is indeed a man of style, but that style stretches far beyond a make of clothing, an aspect of his physical appearance, or an over-abundance of charm. It’s not Project Runway style, it’s Chicago Manual of style. And we just love the way it all hangs together.

“It takes a confident man to wear a military jacket complete with rows of brass buttons. It’s incredibly chic if it can be pulled off but it’s difficult.”

–Domenico Dolce of Dolce & Gabbana

It seems that military chic is in nowadays, but not that frightfully down-market camouflage type we’re used to seeing on TV. This new variety evokes Napoleon, Barry Lyndon and various other elegant high-ranking officers from eras past. This way, liberal-minded snappy dressers can show they’re thinking about the war, yes, but thinking about it with elegance. No one is interested in bringing to mind on the runway the unpalatable associations of urban combat gear, nor does any fashionable gentleman of the aughts wish to be mistaken for a member of the quickening horde of Iraq and Afghanistan-returned traumatic brain injury cases. In the face of those distasteful harbingers of PTSD doom, camouflage and kevlar, it is now left to the fashionisti to pick up the slack and conjure the image of a gracious military mystique of time past, when a soldier riddled with shrapnel was allowed to die honorably of mortal wounds to his internal organs.

Pondering these questions of fashion so deep and complex, I felt moved to attempt a portrait of one of the most elegant military men of all time, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Father of a nation, extraordinarily natty dresser, and possessor of a most elegant profile, Ataturk is a style icon to which more men ought to aspire. I’d like to see Mssrs. Dolce & Gabbana or the Banana Republican family bring out a fur hat even a fraction as magnificent as that trademark accessory of the first president of the Republic of Turkey. Like Napoleon, Ataturk logged a good many hours on the battlefield, but unlike Napoleon, he was known for more than one fashion look, did not have a complex or a puff pastry named for him, and did not mysteriously keep one hand inside his coat jacket at all times, a look echoed, perhaps, by Michael Jackson’s peculiar little glove in the 80′s.

Barack Obama appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press today and acknowledged that he is now considering running for Prez in 2008. Looks like Oprah’s campaigning is paying off– let’s hope she can influence elections as much as she can booksales. He’s out on the campaign trail right now, stumping for the November election and his new book, which is #1 on Amazon today. This guy is outta control, he’s got every voter base covered. Some quotes from the Larry King transcript:

Soccer moms:

KING: What do you make of all of this, Senator? You’re on the cover of “Time,” the book is out, everyone’s talking about you what’s that like?

OBAMA: Well, you know, it’s a lot of fuss and, you know, fortunately I’ve got a wife at home who is more interested in whether I rinsed out the dishes and put them in the dishwasher, which you know I think keeps me grounded.

Nationalists:

KING: David Brooks, the conservative op-ed columnist in “The New York Times” wrote a piece today asking you to run. If fact, the headline was, “Run, Barack, Run.” He says you should run for president for the good of the party because of your age, because of your world view.

And, while he disagrees with many of your notions he might end up agreeing to be one of your — he might end up agreeing more than with one of your opponents in a White House race but he still thinks that you should run. Didn’t that flatter you?

OBAMA: It’s very flattering and I think maybe what, you know, I’ve tapped into and some of it, as I said is luck and happenstance and timing, but hopefully what I’ve tapped into, and this is what I tried to write about in “The Audacity of Hope,” was the idea that there are a set of common values and common ideals that we all believe in as Americans, whether we’re Republican or Democrat or Independents.

And that if we focus on what we have in common, rather than what divides us, that we can actually make progress in common sense, practical terms on some of the challenges that we face in the country. And, I think that tone is one that the country seems to be hungry for right now.

Religious nationalists:

KING: What do you mean by “The Audacity of Hope?”

OBAMA: Well, you know, I got that title from a sermon that my pastor gave probably 18 years ago. I was a young community organizer on the south side. I attended one of the first church services that I had attended at this church and my pastor, Jeremiah Wright, Jr. (ph), at Trinity United Church of Christ, had this sermon called, “The Audacity of Hope.”

And, his basic premise was, look, in our community we see poverty and despair and crime and drugs. In the world you see war and famine. And so, sometimes it’s hard not to feel cynical and to feel a certain sense of despair and feel that we can’t make progress.

And, it’s precisely at those times that I think we have to rely on that audacious, risky sense that, in fact, things can be better if we persevere, if we push forward.

And, I think there’s a strain in the American character that has always been like that, has always been fundamentally optimistic and believe that there’s no problem that we can’t overcome in some fashion.

Probably the most disturbing thing about the Joan Didion article on Dick Cheney in the New York Review of Books this month is that she tries and tries, but she can’t really figure out what makes him tick. Is it ideology? No, none there, really. Is it will to power? Maybe, but that’s not really it either. Greed? Could be greed. In the end it seems, Cheney’s terrifying acts of international prevarication and his apparent total lack of inclination to take responsibility for anything (as when he shot his hunting companion in the forest, and then proceeded back to the house to fix himself a drink) issue forth from an elaborately constructed void of his own micro-engineering. His will to hide all things, including himself (even when he has been seen arriving at his vacation home, he’s in an undisclosed location), the activities of his office (no one is allowed to know which individuals work on his staff), any activities of the Executive Branch of the government (he’s basically classified everything he can get his hands on), is perhaps his single-most powerful motivation, stronger still than the greed or the fondness for autocracy. Cheney would never want to be President, because that would mean cavorting about in the open all the time and kissing babies or cutting a rug or playing loads of ice hockey the way presidents always have to, from W to Nelson Mandela to Alexander Lukashenko.

[rejected by US Weekly]

They’re CRAZY about celebrities!

Dictators can meet any celebrity they want. They can even kidnap them and force them to make movies for them while they eat live lobsters with silver chopsticks. But that doesn’t mean a dictator can’t be starstruck. Chairman of the National Defense Commission of North Korea, Supreme Commander of the Korean People’s Army, and General Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea, the notorious Kim Jong-il can’t believe his good luck: he’s standing right next to the beautiful and talented singer Kim Ryon Ja!

They LOVE their pressure cookers!

President of Cuba and Comandante of the Cuban military Fidel Castro loves to cook with Chinese pressure cookers! Not only are they energy-saving for his entire nation, but they really lock in the flavors of meats and vegetables…without boiling out all the nutritional content, like with regular pots and pans! Usually people share cookery tips with their friends and family without expecting everyone to set up their kitchens the way they do, but when you’re a dictator, you can command everyone else in your country use your favorite cooking utensils too. It’s just like being Martha Stewart or Emeril Lagasse, only with a whole country, and not just a franchise and a series of trend-setting media appearances.

They can’t ignore a GREAT pair of legs!

President of Pakistan, Chief of Army Staff of the Pakistani military and celebrated memoirist General Pervez Musharraf: a guy thinks he’s got everything he could possibly want and then some cute little thing in a short skirt waltzes by and he realizes he may be a military dictator, but he’s only human!

They can’t keep their minds off HAUTE COUTEUR!

President of the United States and Commander-in-Chief of the US Military George W. Bush is no stranger to the catwalks of Fashion Week. Our Dubya just can’t disguise his admiration for right-hand gal Condi’s stylish evening duds on the occasion of a state dinner at India’s Rashtrapati Bhavan. When you’re the Emperor of the Free World, you can feel free to feast your eyes on all the high fashion you want! No wonder George B. chose the finest dressed dominatrix in the land to send forth his message of dominion to the Four Seas!

They let their wives dress them up in MIX ‘N’ MATCH outfits!

Executive President of Zimbabwe and Chancellor of all Zimbabwean universities, Robert Mugabe may intend to rule his nation with an iron fist until he turns 100 years old, but when it comes to picking out the Dictator’s outfits, his lovely and talented wife Grace is the Commander-in-Chief!

Numerous reports have surfaced in Indian publications over the past 24 hours ridiculing the copy editing of General Pervez Musharraf’s recently published memoir, In the Line of Fire. Most of these reports are nearly identical, and all cite as a source a report by The News International, the English language publication of Jang. The reports have appeared in The Hindu, The Hindustan Times and The Times of India. The original article was written by Shaheen Sehbai, a reporter whose anti-Mush stance is notorious. The article begins thus:

Simon and Schuster, the New York publishers of Gen Pervez Musharraf’s memoir, are seriously embarrassed and hiding from the media because of a number of publishing, spelling and grammatical mistakes in the famous book.

It then goes on to enumerate various spelling errors and inconsistencies as well as some stylistic and grammatical errors. Interestingly, the Sehbai article contains a number of its own errors, some of which have been corrected in the Indian reports.

On learning that Mush’s autobiography could be riddled with errors, the team at CM decided to get to the bottom of these claims discrediting the General’s publishers. Our fact-checkers have been scouring the celebrated memoir for each instance cited by Sehbai (whose Wikipedia entry, written in the inimitable style of an auto-Wiki-ist, states that he was framed by the Pakistani military for “Arm Robbery”, which could mean that he is a grave robber or mannequin dismemberer, or worse). Below, we give you a point by point analysis of the claims that were made. But a host of troubling questions remain in all of this: Why target the copy editors? Do RAW and its henchman Sehbai have a particular bone to pick with Simon & Schuster? Does someone feel sore that his memoirs didn’t get picked up by a major New York publishing house? Are there people on the Subcontinent who really care about typos and name spelling inconsistencies?

Catalogue of Faults:

Claim 1: Islamabad is spelled ‘Islam bad’ (“…the capital city of Islamabad has been mischievously turned into ‘Islam bad.’ What terrible damage a missing ‚Äòa‚Äô in Islamabad can do is evident.”)

Finding: In this instance (p. xxii), Islamabad is spelled ‘Islambad.’ Not nearly so pernicious an error as reported. What a difference a tap of the space bar makes!

Claim 2: Inconsistent spellings of Shaukat Aziz (“Shaukat Aziz is surprisingly the prime target in the line of fire of this misspelling offensive of Simon and Schuster. Thrice his name has been spelled incorrectly, once as Shuakat (P-179) and twice as Shaukut (Cover Jacket Flap and P-232)”)

Finding: Wouldn’t it be strange if this were not true? Intriguingly, the name is spelled ‘Shaukat’ 10 times on p. 179, and ‘Shuakat’ only two times on that page. This seems an admirable win for the correct English spelling and we see nothing to complain of here.

Claim 3: Misspelling of Manmohan Singh’s name in the photo captions, but not in the text of the book (“Ironically another prime minister, that of neighbouring India, also comes under fire with his name Manmohan [Loved by the Heart] turned into Manmo ‘Ham’ [whatever that means] in the captions of his pictures published in the book while his name is correctly written in the text pages.”)

Finding: This is another space bar trick on the part of Sehbai and his co-conspirators. The labels on the photographs actually say “Manmoham Singh”, making it merely the matter of a single letter, and one so close to ‘n’! It is odd that Mr. Sehbai does not know what a ham is, after living so long abroad. Perhaps he has been too busy adding to his collection of severed arms to notice what is being sold in the coldcuts section of his local delicatessen.

Claim 4: Misspelling of Prince Karim Aga Khan’s name (“Likewise in the pictures section, Pakistan‚Äôs great friend Prince Karim Aga Khan has been renamed Prince Kasim Aga Khan”)

Finding: Sadly, this is true. We are sure the Prince will understand, and anyway, Kasim is not such a bad name.

Claim 5: The use of a lower case letter to start off the writing of the nation of China (“…while it does not matter to the publishers whether China is spelled with a small ‚Äòc‚Äô or a capital ‚ÄúC‚Äù as they don‚Äôt seem to care. A picture of General Musharraf with the Chinese president, inspecting a Guard of Honour, proves this.”)

Finding: Also true, though perhaps the spirit of the error is not so damnable as Mr. Sehbai would like to suggest. And while we’re at it, Mr. Sehbai’s own editors appear too disinterested in the maligning of the great house of Simon & Schuster to bother to deal with single and double quotes with any consistency, a point proven within the above example, in which the lower case ‘c’ is given single quotes and the upper case gets double (because it’s bigger and better?).

Claim 6: Spelling mistakes have ‘screwed up’ the index section (“The spelling mistakes have screwed up the Index section of the book as well. Because Muzaffarabad has been misspelled in the Index as ‚ÄúMuzafarabad‚Äô, [sic!] it shows only one entry at P-57 though Muzaffarabad has been mentioned at several other places, specially the chapter on October earthquake, which the Index does not show.”)

Finding: While this is true, we are not sure how many people will need to look up Muzafarabad or Muzaffarabad, or whatever, in an index, of all places! Furthermore, our suspicions as to the reliability of The News and the commitment of that paper to our impromptu grammarian grow stronger when we note that in the above instance, the name of the city in question has been set off by a double quote on one side and a single quote on the other. A slow petering out of resolve on the part of the editors? Or does Mr. Sehbai himself feel unsure of the validity of his own arguments?

Claim 7: Something is wrong with the months on pp. 111-12 (“The editors of the book have committed a major blunder in the chapter titled ‘The Conspiracy’. On P-111 the chapter says Nawaz Sharif‚Äôs father-in-law died in September 1999. Following that a sequence of events is mentioned including a meeting Shahbaz Sharif had with General Musharraf ‘a few days later’. But on the next page, P-112, the book says: ‘Soon after that the PM invited my wife and me to accompany him and his wife to Mecca for a pilgrimage in August 1999….’ How could Nawaz Sharif have invited Musharraf to go to Saudi Arabia in August 1999 when he is describing the events after September 1999? There is a major mix-up in the months, which editors of the book Humayun Gauhar or Bruce Nichols should have detected, had they paid attention.”)

Finding: It is indeed true that August tends to fall before September. Something is not right. Of course, it is also unseemly to pin this on the supervising editors. Do errors of this nature suggest that Mssrs. Gauhar and Nichols did not read the book at all? Our correspondent hopes we will follow his logic to this conclusion.

Claim 8: The book is full of grammatical errors and ‘loose expressions’ (“Grammatical mistakes and loose expressions also abound in the book. On P-32 while the definite article is missing before ‘most muscular physique’ on P-285 the phrase ‘the world holds its breath at our every confrontation’ or on P-336 the line ‘The Drug trade is an international ill,’ or on P-337 the words ‘international comity of nations’ do not make good reading. There is an international community or a comity of nations. Simon and Schuster could have done better.”)

Finding: This is the most interesting series of claims made in the Sehbai Report. We had thought the term ‘loose expressions’ might refer to inappropriate language or profanity, but apparently it has something to do with poor writing style. In his examples, Sehbai cites only on grammatical error, namely, the missing definite article in a sentence on p. 32. Here is the full sentence:

Muhammad Iqbal Butt, who had competed creditably in the Mr. Universe competition, told me I had a most muscular physique.

Despite the self-congratulatory tone of the entire paragraph about the author’s early achievements in athletics, a tone which might be considered unbecoming in a military dictator in some circles, we find the General’s choice of the indefinite article in this context, and his editors’ subsequent approval of same, to be most appropriate and judicious. In fact, a switch from the indefinite to the definite article would have made this passage excessively self-congratulatory.

As to the other phrasings that Mr. Sehbai finds unfelicitous, we find them at least as good, if not better, than the non-sequitur contained within the sentence in which these examples of the General’s poor literary style are cited. The balancing of a missing direct article (which is not missing) on one end of a lengthy sentence, with several instances of poor phrasing that “do not make good reading” on the other has us all confused. Perhaps someone is not interested in editing their news reporters properly. Which brings us to our last point: Mr. Sehbai’s Wikipedia entry mentions that he was forced out of The News a number of years ago. Why is he writing for them now?