David Rodeback's Blog

Friday, December 9, 2005

Smart Stuff to Read

Steven Spielberg, Republican moral cowardice, Peggy Noonan on Iraq, and a good piece on immigration reform.

There's an interesting review of Steven Spielberg's new movie, Munich, in The New Republic. The film is about the Israeli retaliation for the 1972 Olympics massacre. The reviewer, Leon Wieseltier, does not do what most critics will do, prostrate himself before Spielberg and utter incantantions like "important" and "courageous." Actually, he calls it "demagoguery," and criticizes Spielberg for being "afraid to take sides or weigh moral inequivalencies." Translated, that means he can't tell the moral difference between the terrorists and those who pursue them.

The film proclaims that terrorists and counterterrorists are alike. "When we learn to act like them, we will defeat them!" declares one of Avner's men, played by Daniel Craig, already with a license to kill. Worse, Munich prefers a discussion of counterterrorism to a discussion of terrorism; or it thinks that they are the same discussion. This is an opinion that only people who are not responsible for the safety of other people can hold.

Speaking of moral cowardice, check out Tony Snow on the moral cowardice of Republicans. 

John Kerry, once and (in a crazy world) future presidential candidate is reverting to type, but who wants to read about that? Instead, read this very sensible piece on immigration by Peggy Noonan.

Mark Steyn is very much worth reading and, finally, Norman Podhoretz writes what may be the best long piece I've read on Iraq in quite a while.

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