Grade This! - June 24, 2005
The week’s wrap-up: China beats USA in global popularity contest, stupidity gets ratified and New York actually remembers that whole separation of church and state thing.
Stupidity Gets Ratified
The US House just ratified stupidity by backing President Bush’s decision to block funding to the UN Population Fund. Conservative organizations allege that the Fund has supported horrible measures, like sterilization and forced abortions in China. That’s the justification offered for denying the money. Of course, there’s no evidence that the Fund has ever done any such thing. In fact, the Bush Administration’s own investigative team found the exact opposite. But in a war between facts and stupid principle, America’s conservative movement has a strict “leave no fact standing” principle. What’s next? Ending NASA due to concerns from the Flat Earth Society?
Making Crap Up: B (for a healthy imagination)
Basing Public Policy on It: F
Matt Singer, University of Montana
Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner?
As if President Bush’s human rights record needed more tarnishing, a collection of six senators – four Republican and two Democratic – have warned the administration to reconsider its close relationship with the government of Uzbekistan. It’s been four years since Mr. Bush’s Faustian bargain with Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan’s president since the fall of the Soviet Union, who is renowned for rigging elections, torture, and even boiling people to death. It took a bloody military crackdown on protestors in Andijon to get the congressmen’s attention; before that, Mr. Karimov was in our government’s good graces with his cooperation in the War on Terror. Chalk up yet another repressive dictator as a War on Terror ally and a close friend of President Bush.
But hey, why stop there? Human rights abuse apologists can now be proud to add Salah Gosh to the White House’s Christmas party invitation list. Gosh, current bloodthirsty Sudanese intelligence and military leader and mastermind of the genocidal crusade against non-Arabs in the Darfur region of Sudan (and maker of one killer falafel platter for potlucks at Camp David) is the latest winner of the With Us or Against Us dictator sweepstakes! Washington has forged a cozy relationship with the government of Sudan, guilty of the deaths of nearly 400,000 in Darfur since 2003. The alliance is so snug that, in April, the CIA hired an executive jet to fly Mr. Gosh from his barracks in Khartoum to power-broke in the Beltway.
The Bush Administration’s deals with the Devil: D-
The genocidal Government of Sudan: F-
Salah Gosh’s turkey casserole: B+
Compassionate conservatism at its finest: D
Andrew Garib, Cornell University
Thank Heaven
The NY State Senate passed a bill to allow Plan B, aka the morning-after pill, to be distributed over the counter by pharmacists, midwives or nurses. Under the law, anyone wishing to obtain the medication can do so without a physician’s visit, which provides the most common obstacle to getting the medication in a proper time frame (its effectiveness severly decreases after 72 hours). Thrilling as this news is for residents of New York as well as anyone who cares about reproductive rights and health, the most intriguing part of the bill is that it was sponsored by a Republican State Senator Nicholas Spano, who also happens to be Roman Catholic. In response to some Democrats who claimed that “abortion is murder…all indications show that this pill might cause abortion” (Sen. Ruben Diaz Sr.), Sen. Spano replied “I was elected senator, not a cardinal.”
Providing an oasis of hope in the current desert of reproductive rights: A
Defying conventional party lines, thereby demonstrating that some legislators DO have their own opinions: B+
The fact that anyone thinks preventing pregnancy is equivalent to abortion: D
Sen. Spano’s all-too-rare rationality on church and state: A+
Amy Schiller, Brandeis University
Special Two-China Policy Dueling Grade This items :
An international poll recently found that China, an authoritarian regime, is viewed more favorably than America, a democracy. Maybe it’s just Iraq and our rejection of the ICC, the test ban treaty (CTBT), the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), and a host of other international acronyms, but Joshua Kurlantzick suggested in a New Republic article (subscription only) that skilled Chinese diplomacy and soft power were to blame instead.
Regardless, Congress was having none of it. No doubt a little alarmed by Chinese purchases of major American companies, Republican members of Congress have introduced legislation to force China to reevaluate its currency or face higher tariffs. The bill, called Currency Harmonization Initiative through Neutralizing Action (CHINA) Act of 2005, goes against the wishes of Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, no doubt because he gagged on the CHINA acronym.
Fortunately for us however, the Chinese are still in love with McDonalds and KFC. Guess they haven’t seen Morgan Spurlock yet.
Chinese Diplomacy: A
American Public Relations: D
McDonalds: D-
Silly Legislative Acronyms: F
Pandas: Fat … and getting fatter
Andrew Fong, Harvard University
Once upon a time the world viewed America with admiration and loathed the "red" communist countries like China. According to the recent Pew Global Attitudes Survey, that doesn’t seem to be the case any longer. Apparently, more countries now view China more favorably than the United States. To quote the director of the Pew Research Center: "It’s amazing when you see the European public rating the United States so poorly, especially in comparison with China." Perhaps it’s because we’re about to appoint a rude, dishonest unilateralist to be ambassador to the UN. Or maybe it’s because we have a Senator – Zell Miller – who wanted to challenge a media pundit to a duel. Of course, don’t forget Poland! You can’t forget Poland.
George W. Bush’s foreign policy: D-
John Bolton: F
Zell Miller: F
Americans pronouncing Polish names: D
Gilbert Martinez, Stanford University
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