A SHORT HONEYMOON. A poll discussed in today's Tageszeitung (Berlin) shows that the ruling SPD would probably lose big if it were up for election today, rather than a few weeks ago. Today, according to the poll, the SPD's ruling prime minister, Gerhard Schroeder, would lose to the conservative Christian Democrats' Angelika Merkel if there were a direct election. I would render the Tageszeitung's headline as "SPD crashes and burns." The SPD is now paying the piper in a sense: instead of being able to fulminate against U.S. foreign policy, they must now begin to tackle Germany's dismal economy.

I really, really like Oxblog. Josh Chafetz notes that I am his blogchild, since it is from him that I learned what a fine blog should be. (Thanks, Dad!) And they are smart folks, even though I don't always agree with them.

Today, David Adesnik does something strange with Charles Krauthammer's column in yesterday's Washington Post.

Krauthammer manages not to be a blazing fool in yesterday's editorial. No, really! This, in itself, is important. But what he argues is this: the current American discussion over whether or not Islam is inherently violent or peaceful is a red herring. Religious traditions are internally complex. What matters for a contemporary evaluation of Islam, according to Krauthammer, is that Islam has "bloody borders." Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" is real. Islamic extremism has led to the worst violence on the world scene today, from NYC through Nigeria to Pakistan and beyond.

Krauthammer gives two basic causes for the ascendance of islamic extremism and violence: (1) a deep sense of cultural humiliation (as in, even the South Koreans can become powerful, so why can't we?), and (2) the inability of the overwhelming majority of peaceful muslims to stand up to islamic extremists.

Fair enough. For David Adesnik, Krauthammer is saying that "Islam has given its answer," presumably to the question of whether or not it is a predominantly peaceful religion. I gather that for David, "Islam" has answered the question in the negative.

It seems to me that the reason why Krauthammer's article doesn't suck is that he resists precisely the conclusion that "Islam" has decided anything. Or maybe it's my own wishful reading of Krauthammer. But as far as I can see it, the overwhelming danger in American discourse on Islam is that we will conclude that there is a "clash of civilizations," that "Islam has given its answer," and that what remains is to fight those bloody border conflicts in order to win them. Krauthammer believes that there is a clash of civilizations, but he also admits that Islam is internally complex. He should take the next step. With respect to the multiple faces of Islam in Turkey, Iran, and Indonesia (to name a few), surely a fine-grained sensibility is necessary, if we are to respond appropriately to developments in those countries themselves.

Plus, isn't it weird that we even are asking the question, "is Islam peaceful?" Krauthammer doesn't dwell on this point, but he should. To me, the question, "is Islam peaceful?" sounds a lot like the earlier American questions, "can catholics be good democrats?" or "are asians fit for democracy?" Such questions tell us more about our own fears than they do about the phenomena themselves.

The 9th circuit weighs in on the 2nd Amendment. Both the LA Times and the Washington Post have articles on the 9th Circuit's opinion upholding a lower court's ruling in favor of California's assault weapons ban and the court's repudiation of the Bush administration's stance on the meaning of the 2nd Amendment. The briefer WP article focuses on Ashcroft's view, while the LA Times article goes into more detail concerning the background of the law and thrust of the opinion itself.

For a critical review of the opinion, go to Eugene Volokh's post on his blog, The Volokh Conspiracy. Volokh's argument is one that he has developed in print before: stated simply and without the historical nuance, state bills of rights and acknowledged legal authorities from eighteenth century (onwards) claimed that the right to own firearms was an individual right. The word "militia" in the 2nd Amendment has led the 9th Circuit astray, according to Volokh; the word originally referred to the body of citizenry and is thus more inclusive than today's national guard. It's also worth nothing [oops! meant, "noting"; sorry! -BEM] that the 9th Circuit cites Volokh in a list of scholarly supporters of the "individual rights view" of the 2nd Amendment. You can read the opinion itself by following the helpful links in Volokh's commentary.

What fascinates me about this particular issue is not the question of the original intent of the 2nd Amendment. The translation of original intent into contemporary political and legal idioms requires critical judgement that will always be subject to contestation. What interests me is the character of the contestation itself. Go to the NRA website and see the kind of world that is created there. I just searched their site for the phrase "9th Circuit" and found "no results." Hmm. A search for "California" brings up this page, which has no mention of an assaults weapons ban. Instead, we're treated first to a "Gun Collectors Program" article and a "Youth Wildlife Art Contest" article. This is not just a ranking issue: the story isn't there yet. Double-hmm.

I noticed this same phenomenon a few months ago: when the DC sniper shooter was plastered on headlines and TV screens all across the country, the NRA basically ignored it, but reacted strongly to the resulting ballistic fingerprinting proposals by Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, who was in a tough election battle for Maryland governor, which she ultimately lost to Republican Bob Ehrlich. Now I was sick of the sniper coverage, too. But I also don't structure my world around the absence of certain kinds of news stories. Consciously, at least.

Just as the NRA presents a partial view of the world, so, too, does it present a partial constitutional argument. Partial views of the world are necessary given the fact that we must rank information in importance in order to process it. Partial views of constitutional provisions do not spring from such pragmatic adjustments to our limited rationality; rather, they spring from the facts of advocacy and the dynamics of mobilization. The NRA is no different from any other pressure group here, such as the ACLU (partial view on speech) or NARAL (partial view on abortion).

The NRA needs an individual rights view of the 2nd Amendment because it needs a strong, nay, unambiguous hook on which to hang their claims. But it needs the hook less for the courts and more for its own mobilization efforts. In this context, it's not surprising that the main NRA website omits the first half of the 2nd Amendment (the "militia" part) and has, as its slogan, the second half of the 2nd Amendment, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

For the NRA, the 2nd Amendment is actually the second half of the 2nd Amendment.

THIS makes me glad I'm not in DC, even though the Post tries to warm your heart with pictures of frolicking snow-children. THIS makes DC [weather] totally irrelevant for me, though. Father Frost is back in my life with a vengeance after the move to sunny, lakeside Oswego, New York. BRING IT ON, OLD MAN WINTER!!

BABRI AFTER 10. The Indian Express is relieved that the tenth anniversary of the destruction of the 16th century Babri Mosque in Ayodhya appears likely to pass without incident. Rediff USA notes the same story. The Times of India has a good retrospective of the demolition, the resulting riots that killed 3000 people, and the ensuing court cases and inquiries that have been lumbering along, as the Times says, "at a snail's pace".

The Times's lead editorial by Deb Mukharji castigates (unnamed) state officials for remaining passive during the Babri riots and for actively supporting the murderous mobs in Gujarat earlier this year. Mukharji invokes the tolerance, and diversity that he sees as central to the strength and survival of Indian civilization. One passage has an application that goes beyond India and is worth quoting in its entirety:

Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan wrote: “Many great civilisations seemed in their day to be permanent and now the wind blows through their halls and stirs the dust of forgotten cities.’’ If Indian civilisation in the broadest sense has not met the fate of many others great in their day, it is not only because of philosophy but also due to its capacity to absorb and evolve. Its essence has not been majoritarian or exclusivist. It must be a matter of the greatest pride that in the past India has given refuge to peoples fleeing suppression of their faith. And all are jewels in the mosaic of this land.

I believe this is the same Deb Mukarji who was Indian ambassador to Nepal.

RADIO MARYJA. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung reports on "Poland's Problem with the Ultrareligious." A conservative, antisemitic priest named Father Tadeusz Rydzyk has been stirring up opposition to Poland's attempt to join the European Union, and the Polish government has decided to do something about it, namely, go after his popular radio station for tax evasion.

Rydzyk has at least 5 million listeners (he claims to have 15 million). The parties he supported in the last local elections in Poland did pretty well (33%, more than the ruling socialists got). According to the NZZ, the government has recently been investigating claims that the station has been making a profit and hiding behind its status as a religious -- and tax-exempt -- organization.

Radio Free Europe has a good article on the station, and Germany's tageszeitung has an August article claiming that the Polish Church threatened to withdraw financial support for the station, but the NZZ claims that the Church and the station have patched things up. The BBC has an article from early October that you can read here. There's some tanatlizing stuff on Radio Maryja's website, including a funny-looking graphic with a map of the U.S., but you'll have to work on your Polish to figure out what the text says. If you know Polish, you might want to e-mail the station and tell them to fire their web-designer. Better yet, leave them to it.

Just started reading PRAVDA online. Once upon a time it was pretty entertaining stuff. . .and now it is, again, but for different reasons. Favorite headline for today: Yugoslav President Pissed Off With West. There's not a lot of information behind that thrilling claim, unfortunately. According to the article, Kostunica wants more support from the West and has decided not to withdraw Yugoslavia's 1999 lawsuit against NATO members at the International Court of Justice. Pravda misidentifies the court, though (the case is rumbling its way through the ICJ, not the International Criminal Court, which isn't functioning yet). The article then leaves Kostunica, still pissed off, to talk about Milosevic, whom the reporter, Pyotr Bely, obviously admires. A linked article on the site wishes Milosevic a "Happy Birthday" and sends him an apology as a gift. The accolade-laden type of apology.

More heated election rhetoric in Gujarat. The Hindu notes once again that BJP Minister Narendra Modi has attacked his main rival, the Congress Party, for being divisive and for supporting Muslim terrorism. Modi's words: "The Congress is responsible for all the problems faced by the country today, be it the problem of terrorism or corruption. Then the Congress can be rightly called the mother of terrorism and corruption." This is election rhetoric on religious-ethno-nationalist steroids.

For its part, the Congress Party has been hitting the hustings in Gujarat in what The Times of India calls a "carpet-bombing of netas" (leaders). The most prominent of the netas is, of course, Sonia Gandhi, who arrived in northern Gujarat on Tuesday.

With respect to the Congress campaign, an editorial in The Times argues that the Congress has been playing a bit of a double game in its campaigning: raising the issue of communal riots in its English language election materials but downplaying it in its Gujarati materials. The editorial notes no such duplicity in the BJP campaigning however: "The BJP’s focus [. . .] is almost exclusively on Godhra."

Again, keep your fingers crossed for Congress here.

Two Germans review Die Another Day: Karl-Heinz Schaefer for the Rheinicher Merkur, and Tobias Knebe for the Sueddeutsche Zeitung. Both make a big deal out of the fact that the movie is the 20th Bond film, and both focus on the record-breaking product placements (120 million dollars' worth, in case you hadn't heard). One thing I did not know: eleven identical Aston-Martins were destroyed in the film, to the tune of 2.5 million dollars. What a crying shame.

For the record, Schaefer is on the money (the movie is "pretty unimaginative"), while Knebe is rather lame, (the director, Lee Tamahori, "does not disappoint").

Also from Sydney: reports on SUI, Strolling Under the Influence.

From the Sydney Morning Herald. Priceless.

An editorial in The Washington Post clarifies the significance of District Judge Henry Kennedy's decision to allow Hawaii Right to Life to run issue ads in the special congressional elections currently being held in Hawaii. According to the editorial, the ruling is less a defeat for the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 than a reminder of the kinds of financing loopholes that the law cannot really address head on, given the Supreme Court's apparent views on the relationship between money, nonprofit organizations, speech, and elections. Today's editorial is responding to the hype created by an article in the Washington Post last week, with the misleading headline, "Campaign Finance Law Fails Its First Test." The Post's goof is pretty big, but understandable given the complexity of campaign finance reform.

And in other campaign finance related news, Senator Mitch McConnell is having his day in court today. He is leading a challenge against BCRA. Oral arguments were heard today before a three-judge panel.

As far as I understand the issue, BCRA is a good attempt to get at a real problem with the currently available tools. It's a good attempt because, hopefully, it will pass muster with the Supreme Court (although it's ultimately problematic to have a Court that is so willing to intervene in the self-policing of Congress in this area). It addresses a real problem because the massive funds necessary for political campaigns do, in fact, distort the legislative process. It uses the "currently available tools," including reporting requirements and various restrictions on funding sources, but a more effective attempt to change the way campaigns are financed would ultimately need different tools, such as public funding of elections, free air time, and other kinds of regulations on campaign advertising.

After this broad statement of principle, more details, of course, will follow. We'll have plenty of opportunities to talk about this one, I'm sure.

In Tuesday's Tagesspiegel (Berlin), Nadja Klinger has a fine piece on Marchwitzastraße 1–3, a so-called "Plattenbau" (an enormous apartment building, the name for which means "built from slabs") in Marzahn, Berlin, that is being demolished. You can see some good pictures of Plattenbauten here, courtesy of Brian Campbell, a graduate student in history at the University of Rochester. If you've ever been to any former socialist country, you've likely seen buildings like these. There are some striking similarities between socialist urban planning of the kind that brought the world Plattenbauten, and American urban planning of the kind that brought the Route 34 connector to lovely New Haven, Connecticut. The similarities shouldn't be overdrawn, of course, but both kinds of urban planning were grandiose, misguided, and ultimately produced less livable -- and less human -- urban spaces. The destruction of old neighborhoods in the search for a more "legible" urban housing stock had similar effects in both places.

Klinger's piece presents the demolition as something which the residents of Marzahn are looking forward to, partly for the spectacle, partly for the increased sunshine and space that the operation will bring to the neighborhood. Marchwitzastraße 1-3 was the first Plattenbau, so one might expect a certain kind of nostalgia from people in Marzahn itself. Yet Klinger finds none. Apparently, folks there are glad to see the building go.