I certainly don't think you're "being too hard on him", nor that you're not being hard enough. (Which reminds me of that wonderful interview with Shane MacGowan, where the interviewer says in passing that, as is well known, SMG drinks too much. He says "I don't drink too much", so she says "Oh, I suppose you think you don't drink enough", to which he unforgettably replies "No, I drink enough".)
I just don't necessarily think this is a helpful or nuanced way to think about people - I think most interesting people are multi-faceted, with complicated worldviews and opinions, and unless these skew very much to the "evil" side of the scale, as long as the people are bright, knowledgeable and interesting it can be worthwhile considering what they say. Even sometimes (maybe even often) when one doesn't agree with them on whatever the topic is.
I was talking/thinking about purity politics, lj, a subject we have often discussed here on ObWi. You often refer to, or link to, Ezra Klein pieces, IMO very understandably, even though his Charlie Kirk comments were outrageous and no doubt he's behaved or expressed himself not absolutely as many of us would have liked/done on many occasions. But he provides interesting interviews, with interesting people, and he's an important voice to have on the NYT which is (if I understand correctly) still a hugely influential newspaper in the US media context.
That someone can be me! If this is what lj meant, the transcript is included in this gift link (it doesn't start in exactly the same place, but goes on with the stuff in lj's video):
Regarding any past missteps by Ezra Klein (I'm thinking of, as I assume lj is, his comments after Charlie Kirk got killed), my view is very definitely that one doesn't have to agree with every single thing someone has ever said or done to find their contributions useful, valuable or interesting. And Ezra Klein is certainly a frequent provider of all three kinds of contributions.
Particularly funny, apart from the obvious, because China, for example, is being allowed by Iran to send ships safely through the Strait of Hormuz according to the C4 News I watched half an hour ago. It looks like Trump is still being advised by the same experts who didn't factor in closure of the Strait when planning the war...
Trump seven days ago, still very pissed off that Starmer had refused permission for the US to launch offensives from UK air bases:
“The United Kingdom, our once Great Ally, maybe the Greatest of them all, is finally giving serious thought to sending two aircraft carriers to the Middle East. That’s OK, Prime Minister Starmer, we don’t need them any longer – But we will remember. We don’t need people that join Wars after we’ve already won!”
Trump today:
“We have already destroyed 100 per cent of Iran’s military capability, but it’s easy for them to send a drone or two, drop a mine, or deliver a close-range missile somewhere along, or in, this waterway, no matter how badly defeated they are.” In what appeared to be an appeal to the UK and other nations, he added: “Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others, that are affected by this artificial constraint will send ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer be a threat by a nation that has been totally decapitated.”
I liked this, in today's Times (a Murdoch paper, don't forget).
Pete Hegseth’s rhetoric gives me that sinking feelingWhen the US gloats over Iranian deaths and pumps out propaganda war videos, it’s not just their enemies who recoil
Already sinking under heavy fire at the Battle of Santiago de Cuba in 1898, the Spanish cruiser Vizcaya burst into flames. The ammunition store ignited, a torpedo went off, hell was unleashed and desperate, burning men hurled themselves into the sea. Watching all this was John Woodward Philip, commanding the USS Texas on the other side. “Don’t cheer, boys,” he admonished his men. “The poor devils are dying.”
Last week, the Iranian warship Iris Dena was sunk by the Americans off the coast of Sri Lanka, claiming almost 100 lives. Perhaps you saw President Trump at a Republican conference recounting what a navy official told him when he asked why ships like this hadn’t instead been captured. “He said, ‘It’s more fun to to sink ’em’,” reported Trump, with a smirk. And his audience guffawed. From one to the other. From “Don’t cheer, boys” to “It’s more fun to sink ’em.” Really, I could stop there.
Pete Hegseth, Trump’s self-declared secretary of war, has also had a chatty week. Here he is talking about Iran’s long-running antipathy towards the US: “They didn’t always declare it openly,” he said, “except for their constant chants of ‘Death to America’.” Ah, that old giveaway. His own rhetoric, though, isn’t terribly different. In the same speech, he gloated: “The regime who chanted ‘Death to America’ and ‘Death to Israel’ was gifted death from America and death from Israel.” Over the past fortnight, he has also said: “They are toast and they know it,” and, “We will hunt you down without apology and without hesitation and we will kill you.” Plus, “This was never meant to be a fair fight, we are punching them while they are down, as it should be.” And more, and more, and more.
One might say Hegseth sounds like he thinks he is in a film, but only if it were a really bad film, perhaps written by a 15-year-old using ChatGPT. A comic, perhaps. A computer game. Probably, one should not use the phrase “small dick energy” on the comment pages, and particularly not when accusing other people of cheapening the discourse. But damn it, I think I must.
Hegseth is a veteran. He served in Iraq and Afghanistan. What he’s trying to channel here, I suppose, is a sort of gung-ho military pep talk; how soldiers talk to other soldiers before leading them into war. Not all of them, though. Perhaps you recall Lieutenant Colonel Tim Collins addressing his men in 2003 before leading them into battle in the Iraq War. “Iraq is steeped in history,” he told them. “It is the site of the Garden of Eden, of the Great Flood and the birthplace of Abraham. Tread lightly there."
“Is it something they teach at Sandhurst,” wrote Jane Shilling in these pages, “that beautiful, bleak, apocalyptic turn of phrase?” Don’t assume my intent is to crassly contrast Britain and America. George W Bush admired Collins’s speech so much he had it displayed on the wall of the Oval Office.
Listening to Hegseth this week, and to Trump, I also found myself remembering Tony Soprano’s despairing wail to his psychiatrist. “Whatever happened to Gary Cooper?” he demanded. “The strong silent type? That was an American!” That’s Tony bloody Soprano. It’s quite something when the White House’s view of American values is less appealing than his.
Speaking of TV shows, you may have also seen the videos pumped out by the White House as another part of their propaganda blitz. Computer games mixed with real war footage alongside clips from films and TV shows. “JUSTICE THE AMERICAN WAY!” said the attached tweet, no matter that it includes Bryan Cranston saying “I AM the danger!” in Breaking Bad, from a sequence in which his character brags about being a murderer.
Bad enough if you thought this was just an administration trying to communicate with its public in language it assumes they’ll understand. The suspicion, though, has to be that it’s worse than that. This is real. This is them. This is how they see what they are doing, their world view and their oomph.
Doubtless Hegseth, in his likeable way, would regard all this as “pearl clutching”. That’s what he said about those among America’s traditional allies, including the UK, who were sceptical about this war at the start. But language matters. When Trump smirks about dead sailors you can only conclude he is without doubts, without those 3am ceiling-staring moments of normal human horror at those poor devils lost at the bottom of the sea. Which in turn makes you wonder what he thinks about the collateral damage in Tehran as flames engulf the city. But you don’t need to wonder. “The president doesn’t like the attack,” a White House insider told Axios after Israel bombed Iranian fuel supplies. Why? “It reminds people of higher gas prices”.
So no, it’s not just pearl clutching. Nor is it just about aesthetics. This is a real war with real, huge costs, and not just for America’s enemies. Few in Britain would instinctively side with the Iranian regime even in a war of at best dubious legality, begun seemingly on a whim, with little coherent plan for how it might end. But do they grasp, these chest-thumping war bros, how hard they are making it for their traditional, instinctive allies, whose own populations can see and hear every word? “It’s more fun to sink ’em.” When our enemies talk like this we conclude they are dangerous and immoral lunatics. It’s going to take some circumspection, biting of tongues and blinkers if we’re to avoid the same conclusion about our friends.
You know, I really don't think there's that much disagreement here on this. It was clear from the piece that Butcher's repeated results were largely to do with her empathy and care for her dogs, and as a result it's great to see that her example has changed norms in that sport.
All I was trying to say was that it would be reductive to imply (which nous did not) that any female excellence in sport, or artistic pursuits, was because of the fact that women intrinsically have more care and empathy than men. Maybe they do, and maybe they don't. We'll never know unless and until on a large scale boys and girls are brought up the same, with the same expectations, from birth.
Meanwhile, on the question of soft=weak, I imagine that most of us find the behaviour of the Trump administration as pathetic as I do. Leaving aside their anti-DEI initiatives, which have a complicated twining of ideological motivations in addition to this equation, I can't be alone here in finding their absurd cosplay military posturing (Department of War, our "warriors" etc) the perfect illustration of arrested adolescent males desperately grasping for proof of their machismo quotient.
lj, I'd be delighted (and the world would be a better place) if everyone demonstrated care and empathy, and I'm definitely not talking about "giving women an out". But when I used the word "necessarily", I was talking about the implication that these characteristics are a prerequisite for strength and excellence in women whereas, although in my opinion they are important and hugely desirable in human beings, it is possible for a woman to be a strong, excellent performer of whatever sport, art form etc without those qualities being the obvious basis or baseline for the talent. "Caring" and "empathy" are so stereotypically part of what constitutes femininity in the world in which we live, that I think it important to retain the idea that women, like men, can be exceptionally good at something without a particularly high credit balance of those qualities.
I notice Lindsey Halligan is already under investigation by the Florida Bar….
Oops! In today's NYT (it's not worth a gift link - it's early in the month and I only get 10):
Florida Bar Retreats From Statement Saying Lindsey Halligan Was Under ScrutinyThe Florida bar said that it had “erroneously” made that assertion, disclosed in a letter last month, and that no investigation into Ms. Halligan was pending. The Florida Bar, which examines attorney conduct in the state, retreated on Friday from its earlier assertion that it was investigating Lindsey Halligan, a former U.S. attorney in Virginia who brought politically charged cases against some of President Trump’s foes.
The bar, in a letter dated Feb. 4, told a nonprofit organization called Campaign for Accountability that it had opened an investigation after the group filed complaints about Ms. Halligan related to her work as a federal prosecutor.
The letter said: “We are aware of these developments and have been monitoring them closely. We already have an investigation pending.” The New York Times and other news organizations reported on the letter, and the Florida Bar told outlets like CBS News that “it does not provide comment on active cases.”
But on Friday, a spokeswoman for the bar, Jennifer Krell Davis, said that in writing the letter, her organization had “erroneously” stated “that there is a pending bar investigation” of Ms. Halligan.
“There is no such pending bar investigation,” Ms. Davis said in a statement, adding that her organization had received a complaint against Ms. Halligan, and “consistent with standard practice, the bar is monitoring the ongoing legal proceedings underlying the complaint.”
After Ms. Davis’s statement was sent, Ms. Halligan texted a New York Times reporter, stating that the article published in the outlet a day earlier was erroneous. She added that the bar had clarified that no investigation was pending.
Ms. Davis declined to comment further when asked why the bar had taken a day to determine that the statement was erroneous, what led to the determination and whether she had been contacted by Trump administration officials.
After the letter was disclosed on Thursday, Florida’s attorney general, James Uthmeier, responded on social media, saying, “It’s time to end partisan law-fare and re-evaluate the need for a unified Florida Bar.”
And on Friday, responding to the bar’s backpedaling, Attorney General Pam Bondi posted on X that the “‘investigation’ of Lindsey Halligan is totally fake news.”
“Lindsey not only did nothing wrong — she did a great job!" Ms. Bondi wrote.
The question of ethics investigations into Trump administration lawyers drew attention earlier this week when the Justice Department issued a proposal saying it would seek to pre-empt state bar investigations into ethics complaints against department lawyers.
Some lawyers considered that action a veiled threat to usurp the authority of state courts and bar disciplinary bodies to police the conduct of lawyers.
Campaign for Accountability had filed complaints in Florida and Virginia against Ms. Halligan over her work as an interim U.S. attorney last fall. While in office, she convinced grand juries to indict the former F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, and New York’s attorney general, Letitia James.
Both indictments were later thrown out by a judge who found that Ms. Halligan’s appointment was unlawful. Other federal judges raised questions about statements Ms. Halligan made to grand jurors, and questioned her signing of court documents as U.S. attorney even after a judge had ruled her appointment invalid.
The executive director of Campaign for Accountability, Michelle Kuppersmith, said on Friday that she had not heard directly from the Florida Bar, but questioned its latest remarks.
“It’s hard to reconcile this latest statement with the bar counsel’s previous letter saying there is an investigation pending,” she said. “If there is no longer an investigation into Halligan, the question is why not, given that three judges indicated she engaged in conduct that appears to violate ethics rules.”
That's an interesting piece, nous, and I was glad to learn about Butcher. She sounds great. But I am slightly uneasy about any suggestion (which to be clear you weren't making, but which seems to be behind the last sentence you quote) that the strength and excellence of women should necessarily be grounded in their caring and empathy, which after all are qualities that are considered traditionally "feminine". Now clearly, these qualities were considered by men to be antithetical to the world of the Iditarod until eventually the results spoke for themselves. But if the main point you are making is that men should/can no longer see themselves as the gatekeepers of "the rules" in traditional pursuits, then you get no argument from me.
It's perfectly possible to be knowledgeable, hardworking and sensitive about music, while also being such an unreflecting product of the patriarchy that it never occurs to you that you are not entitled to comment on a talented young female musician's lack of "gravitas" and "modest" clothing. Pro Bono's link absolutely shows why she had had enough.
I know what to call it: contempt for the recipients of this ridiculous farrago of an excuse. It's like a truculent 15 year old coming up with an absurd explanation for his appalling behaviour, and daring the listener to prove it isn't true. As if everybody in the world doesn't know that if the US forbade Israel to attack Israel would have no choice but to obey. And, since Trump likes to act the irresistible hard man, it has no internal coherence or consistency either. It's pure contempt, for Congress, the American public, and the other nations of the middle east.
I've posted a lot on this thread about how many men act, or have acted, or want to act in what are now considered dodgy or immoral (or worse) ways. As a comment from the other side, which also has a lot of truth to it, this is Caitlin Moran in today's Times. I don't know what the proportions are (good v the other kind), but I know plenty of the sort of men she describes. The references are very English, but I think the men of ObWi will understand them...
Caitlin Moran: Stop calling all men toxic. They’re mostly goodThe men around me are a universe away from Dominique Pelicot, Nick Fuentes, Andrew Tate — funny, nerdy and very surprised by how much they’ve come to enjoy the gym Caitlin Moran Monday March 02 2026, 5.00am, The Times
What do we call the good men? In a world of “toxic masculinity”, incels and the manosphere? A world where the president of the United States hisses, “Quiet, piggy!” and the news is dominated by the Pelicot trial and Epstein? In a world where, only last week, the frighteningly popular activist Nick Fuentes said that all women need to be put in “gulags — breeding gulags”?
What do we call the men who aren’t like this? What do we call the good men? This week is also the first anniversary of Adolescence — which became a one-word reference for the kind of boy we’re terrified of. But what do we call the good boys? What is the one-word reference for them? I look around my world and it’s filled with men who seem to come from a wholly different universe from Pelicot and Fuentes. They have utterly different DNA. These men are both rock solid and lighthearted. They’re very funny, very nerdy and very surprised by how much they’ve come to enjoy the gym in later life. They can’t even discuss how devastated they’ll be when the dog dies. They take their mum flowers; they mentor younger men without really mentioning it, and they sit in meetings texting, under the table, ludicrous Eighties pop song lyrics to friends who are sad.
Their masculinity is the quiet, unshowy, utterly implacable kind. I’ve seen each and every one go into battle for the ones they love. I have seen them make the phone calls, cancel the deals. I’ve seen them, when necessary, take other men to one side — somewhere quiet, somewhere dark — to explain, in a manner that’s almost friendly, that it would be a very risky decision to behave like that again. That today is the day these behaviours end.
So what do we call these men? These men who are, evidently, the majority of men. For — let’s remember — the majority of men don’t want to put women in gulags. They don’t want to build a gulag! Building a gulag would be a nightmare. Putting up the shed was hard enough. “You call them ‘the Good Men’!” shouted one audience member at a live event, when I asked this question on stage. “Because … they’re the good men!” And, obviously, I love that idea. But the problem is, everyone thinks they’re the good men. No one thinks they’re the baddie. Andrew Tate and Donald Trump believe they’re saying what every man would say, if he only had the balls. Dominique Pelicot claims he loves his wife. Epstein denied everything. They don’t think they’re the bad guys. After all, history is full of men who act like this. In Greek mythology; in Roman history; in the reports of every invading army. Marital rape was still legal in this country until 1991. 1991! After Kylie, and acid house! So you can’t call the good men “the Good Men” — because, ultimately, it means nothing. It describes nothing specific.
The fundamental problem is, we still have no male equivalent to feminism. There is no global movement for male progress and happiness — that wants to leave the bad old ways, of history and mythology, behind. It is inevitable there will be a movement, at some point. There is only so long people can keep discussing “the crisis in masculinity” before some smart young man sighs, opens his laptop, lights a fag and starts writing the male equivalent of The Female Eunuch.
But until there is a movement, with a name, and objectives, there is no name to call the men who would be part of that movement. Nick Fuentes has named himself an incel; Tate, a misogynist. But the good men have yet to name themselves. And the lack of a name means that, even though they are the majority, they seem almost … invisible. Because we cannot talk about something if it doesn’t have a name. “How about ‘Gentleman’?”
I have been despairing to my husband that I am part of the problem; I cannot think of a name for the good men, either. “I love the word ‘gentleman’,” he says. “Gentle-man. As the Smiths lyric goes, ‘It takes guts to be gentle and kind.’ An old-fashioned gentleman is honourable and dutiful, while also being clubbable, well dressed, and ready to ‘have a quiet word’ with other men who are being loud, discourteous or just mad. The word already exists. It’s … ‘Gentleman’.” And — like some masculinity pH test — it seems to work. It immediately divides all men into two categories. Trump, Pelicot, Tate, Epstein, Fuentes? They test negative for “gentleman”. Attenborough, Palin, Rashford, Obama, McCartney, Southgate? Gentleman-positive. Chemically, taxonomically, genetically, gentlemen.
Perhaps the name of the good men is “gentlemen”. Until another name comes along.
It would be wrong not to give you the Guardian's article on this, with the headline Trump vies for Bush’s crown for worst foreign policy decision in history
Yes, Frum did indeed coin "the axis of evil", which is why I believed for many years that I would not be interested in his other views (and I was also influenced, later, by the fact that China and Russia seemed often to be included). But the emergence of Trump, and the abject surrender of most of the GOP, made me re-evaluate. The existence of the Never Trumpers has made me interested in the beliefs of what one might call "principled" conservatives, and I think that is worthwhile.
Regarding the appalling cost to the US of the Iraq war, I have to say I don't even think that is the worst consequence. Frum was wrong in his opinion, and he admits he was wrong. I don't think that renders his opinions worthless. In fact, when people are capable of admitting they were wrong it makes me take them more seriously.
Back early, and don't need to go out again for a while, so here are my comments on what Pro Bono and nous said.
Luckily for me, I don't find discussions of this sort unpleasant, as long as I am talking with people who a) take it with appropriate seriousness, and b) don't get turned on by it.
On Pro Bono's comment, I wonder if how he defined rape is influenced by what was, when I was in law school decades ago, a very narrow definition in English law. In those days it was defined, leaving aside the issue of consent, as the insertion of the erect penis into a vagina, and in the Act (as far as I remember) they didn't even say "penis" but "person". Which meant that the addendum was unforgettable, even after all these years "For the purposes of the Act, for 'person' read 'penis'." So I think that is where Pro Bono might be getting his idea that "for a man, rape has to be partly about sex". I believe the definition may have been changed (although I am not sure even now that it includes "with an object", which might be classed as a serious sexual assault), but whether it has or not, I think rather than "sex" one might more usefully substitute "desire", and in that case I agree with what lj says in his final paragraph. And that allows one to say, which I think is correct, that rape is not to do with desire for the victim, but desire for power, or desire to inflict pain, or desire to humiliate etc etc, like nous's other examples (with all of which I agree). For the purposes of this conversation, by the way, I am perfectly prepared to include "with an object" in the definition of rape. What the Pelicot case unfortunately makes impossible to ignore, is that the number of men who have such desires is far higher than one might otherwise have thought, which explains some of the shock and disbelief which have greeted the details, particularly among men.
Regarding what nous calls Pro Bono's "first disagreement", which nous thinks is with me, this is a mistake. I did not say, and have never thought, that "of course men want to rape". That was reported (imagined) speech, in a substack post by someone called Celeste Davis, which I posted in three parts. And I believe (without going back) that she was quoting it in order to disagree with that argument. What I believe is that the patriarchy encourages men subconsciously or consciously to believe, from birth, that their desires are more important than those of women, children, effeminate men etc. And that men who have warped paraphilic desires of certain kinds are therefore predisposed to allow themselves to enact them.
russell, I think Frum was identifying both of THEM as resistance liberals. And though he/they might not have stood toe to toe with cops, they both spoke very highly of the people of Minneapolis who had done so. As I've said before, I would never have believed this in the "axis of evil" days, but I find myself wishing these were the kinds of people we were opposing nowadays.
I know what you mean about who are these leftists, though. I don't know enough about all the people he or you mention to understand it, but he does seem to have it in for Mamdani. However, he said he would (reluctantly) vote for AOC over Trump, and I thought in US terms she counts as something of a leftist?
Ha, nous, I was hoping you'd be our informant on the cool leftist kids! I considered directly asking you. Hugely reducing (or eliminating) the existence of the precariat and the policies which produced them is necessary, and fairly fast. "Making ICE do more training" is nothing near what is necessary.
Also, cleek and I cross posted. You're not all in it together, cleek. The billionaires aren't in it with you. They're building their compounds in order to be self-sufficient in New Zealand while the world burns. Reversing the policies which have made them richer and richer while making working people's salaries stagnant does not have to threaten the life savings of the lower X%. (X% because obviously the calculation will be difficult - 80%? 90%?)
Sorry guys, very soon after that I got a notification from the Atlantic about the transcript of David Frum's interview with Tim Miller of The Bulwark, which includes this question from Frum:
Now, I wanted to ask you about something that—and I don’t know how real this is, but people who keep up with this more than I do tell me that there is a mood among the young that there’s something lame about the project that you’re engaged in, and I guess I’m engaged in, too, of standing up for what they would call “resistance liberalism.” And this is somehow unfashionable, uncool. And I wonder, is this a perception of something that actually exists, or is this just chat? And if, to the extent it exists, let me ask you about two different strains that I can see for what’s motivating it.
One is—and there’s just nothing to be done about this—is real leftists who say, "Look, you’re standing up here for the Constitution, the rule of law, for international free trade, for—you don’t wanna say open borders; you just wanna say orderly police procedures without abuses and without violence. So you’re not a real leftist. You’re not smashing the system. You’re not overturning the hierarchy. You’re not socializing the means of production. You’re not globalizing the intifada. It’s just lame". So, okay, real leftists, I get why they would have a beef.
But the other thing that seems to be going on, to the extent that this is a real phenomenon I’m describing, is a feeling that simply having beliefs is, in itself, a sign of lameness and that the cool thing is not to have any. Am I talking about anything real? You’re at the center of this business. Do you see this? Am I describing something you recognize?
Plus, there was also a lot of interesting stuff about Minneapolis.
So I reckoned there was a chance that some of you might be interested in reading about this. Apologies for monopolising the thread, I'll go away now.....
And, as part of my continuing mission to bring various diverse but interesting voices to ObWi, including those of Never Trump Republicans, this is David Frum on last night's SOTU (which I actually watched, for my sins). It was a) embarrassing, and b) the ultimate illustration of what it looks like to be in a completely post-truth world:
On “Iran and the US”
I certainly don't think you're "being too hard on him", nor that you're not being hard enough. (Which reminds me of that wonderful interview with Shane MacGowan, where the interviewer says in passing that, as is well known, SMG drinks too much. He says "I don't drink too much", so she says "Oh, I suppose you think you don't drink enough", to which he unforgettably replies "No, I drink enough".)
I just don't necessarily think this is a helpful or nuanced way to think about people - I think most interesting people are multi-faceted, with complicated worldviews and opinions, and unless these skew very much to the "evil" side of the scale, as long as the people are bright, knowledgeable and interesting it can be worthwhile considering what they say. Even sometimes (maybe even often) when one doesn't agree with them on whatever the topic is.
"
I was talking/thinking about purity politics, lj, a subject we have often discussed here on ObWi. You often refer to, or link to, Ezra Klein pieces, IMO very understandably, even though his Charlie Kirk comments were outrageous and no doubt he's behaved or expressed himself not absolutely as many of us would have liked/done on many occasions. But he provides interesting interviews, with interesting people, and he's an important voice to have on the NYT which is (if I understand correctly) still a hugely influential newspaper in the US media context.
"
That someone can be me! If this is what lj meant, the transcript is included in this gift link (it doesn't start in exactly the same place, but goes on with the stuff in lj's video):
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/14/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-ali-vaez.html?unlocked_article_code=1.TVA.Pk5_.8_X0pkHJtduY&smid=url-share
Regarding any past missteps by Ezra Klein (I'm thinking of, as I assume lj is, his comments after Charlie Kirk got killed), my view is very definitely that one doesn't have to agree with every single thing someone has ever said or done to find their contributions useful, valuable or interesting. And Ezra Klein is certainly a frequent provider of all three kinds of contributions.
On “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran”
wj: I did consider putting the word experts in quotes, but rather thought it wasn't necessary!
"
Particularly funny, apart from the obvious, because China, for example, is being allowed by Iran to send ships safely through the Strait of Hormuz according to the C4 News I watched half an hour ago. It looks like Trump is still being advised by the same experts who didn't factor in closure of the Strait when planning the war...
"
Trump seven days ago, still very pissed off that Starmer had refused permission for the US to launch offensives from UK air bases:
“The United Kingdom, our once Great Ally, maybe the Greatest of them all, is finally giving serious thought to sending two aircraft carriers to the Middle East. That’s OK, Prime Minister Starmer, we don’t need them any longer – But we will remember. We don’t need people that join Wars after we’ve already won!”
Trump today:
“We have already destroyed 100 per cent of Iran’s military capability, but it’s easy for them to send a drone or two, drop a mine, or deliver a close-range missile somewhere along, or in, this waterway, no matter how badly defeated they are.”
In what appeared to be an appeal to the UK and other nations, he added: “Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others, that are affected by this artificial constraint will send ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer be a threat by a nation that has been totally decapitated.”
"
I liked this, in today's Times (a Murdoch paper, don't forget).
Pete Hegseth’s rhetoric gives me that sinking feelingWhen the US gloats over Iranian deaths and pumps out propaganda war videos, it’s not just their enemies who recoil
Hugo Rifkind
Wednesday March 11 2026, 7.11pm, The Times
Already sinking under heavy fire at the Battle of Santiago de Cuba in 1898, the Spanish cruiser Vizcaya burst into flames. The ammunition store ignited, a torpedo went off, hell was unleashed and desperate, burning men hurled themselves into the sea. Watching all this was John Woodward Philip, commanding the USS Texas on the other side. “Don’t cheer, boys,” he admonished his men. “The poor devils are dying.”
Last week, the Iranian warship Iris Dena was sunk by the Americans off the coast of Sri Lanka, claiming almost 100 lives. Perhaps you saw President Trump at a Republican conference recounting what a navy official told him when he asked why ships like this hadn’t instead been captured. “He said, ‘It’s more fun to to sink ’em’,” reported Trump, with a smirk. And his audience guffawed.
From one to the other. From “Don’t cheer, boys” to “It’s more fun to sink ’em.” Really, I could stop there.
Pete Hegseth, Trump’s self-declared secretary of war, has also had a chatty week. Here he is talking about Iran’s long-running antipathy towards the US: “They didn’t always declare it openly,” he said, “except for their constant chants of ‘Death to America’.” Ah, that old giveaway.
His own rhetoric, though, isn’t terribly different. In the same speech, he gloated: “The regime who chanted ‘Death to America’ and ‘Death to Israel’ was gifted death from America and death from Israel.” Over the past fortnight, he has also said: “They are toast and they know it,” and, “We will hunt you down without apology and without hesitation and we will kill you.” Plus, “This was never meant to be a fair fight, we are punching them while they are down, as it should be.” And more, and more, and more.
One might say Hegseth sounds like he thinks he is in a film, but only if it were a really bad film, perhaps written by a 15-year-old using ChatGPT. A comic, perhaps. A computer game. Probably, one should not use the phrase “small dick energy” on the comment pages, and particularly not when accusing other people of cheapening the discourse. But damn it, I think I must.
Hegseth is a veteran. He served in Iraq and Afghanistan. What he’s trying to channel here, I suppose, is a sort of gung-ho military pep talk; how soldiers talk to other soldiers before leading them into war. Not all of them, though. Perhaps you recall Lieutenant Colonel Tim Collins addressing his men in 2003 before leading them into battle in the Iraq War. “Iraq is steeped in history,” he told them. “It is the site of the Garden of Eden, of the Great Flood and the birthplace of Abraham. Tread lightly there."
“Is it something they teach at Sandhurst,” wrote Jane Shilling in these pages, “that beautiful, bleak, apocalyptic turn of phrase?” Don’t assume my intent is to crassly contrast Britain and America. George W Bush admired Collins’s speech so much he had it displayed on the wall of the Oval Office.
Listening to Hegseth this week, and to Trump, I also found myself remembering Tony Soprano’s despairing wail to his psychiatrist. “Whatever happened to Gary Cooper?” he demanded. “The strong silent type? That was an American!” That’s Tony bloody Soprano. It’s quite something when the White House’s view of American values is less appealing than his.
Speaking of TV shows, you may have also seen the videos pumped out by the White House as another part of their propaganda blitz. Computer games mixed with real war footage alongside clips from films and TV shows. “JUSTICE THE AMERICAN WAY!” said the attached tweet, no matter that it includes Bryan Cranston saying “I AM the danger!” in Breaking Bad, from a sequence in which his character brags about being a murderer.
Bad enough if you thought this was just an administration trying to communicate with its public in language it assumes they’ll understand. The suspicion, though, has to be that it’s worse than that. This is real. This is them. This is how they see what they are doing, their world view and their oomph.
Doubtless Hegseth, in his likeable way, would regard all this as “pearl clutching”. That’s what he said about those among America’s traditional allies, including the UK, who were sceptical about this war at the start. But language matters. When Trump smirks about dead sailors you can only conclude he is without doubts, without those 3am ceiling-staring moments of normal human horror at those poor devils lost at the bottom of the sea. Which in turn makes you wonder what he thinks about the collateral damage in Tehran as flames engulf the city.
But you don’t need to wonder. “The president doesn’t like the attack,” a White House insider told Axios after Israel bombed Iranian fuel supplies. Why? “It reminds people of higher gas prices”.
So no, it’s not just pearl clutching. Nor is it just about aesthetics. This is a real war with real, huge costs, and not just for America’s enemies. Few in Britain would instinctively side with the Iranian regime even in a war of at best dubious legality, begun seemingly on a whim, with little coherent plan for how it might end. But do they grasp, these chest-thumping war bros, how hard they are making it for their traditional, instinctive allies, whose own populations can see and hear every word?
“It’s more fun to sink ’em.” When our enemies talk like this we conclude they are dangerous and immoral lunatics. It’s going to take some circumspection, biting of tongues and blinkers if we’re to avoid the same conclusion about our friends.
On “The ides of Texas”
Interesting points, hsh.
On “Yuja Wang, networking, transactionality and that guy”
You know, I really don't think there's that much disagreement here on this. It was clear from the piece that Butcher's repeated results were largely to do with her empathy and care for her dogs, and as a result it's great to see that her example has changed norms in that sport.
All I was trying to say was that it would be reductive to imply (which nous did not) that any female excellence in sport, or artistic pursuits, was because of the fact that women intrinsically have more care and empathy than men. Maybe they do, and maybe they don't. We'll never know unless and until on a large scale boys and girls are brought up the same, with the same expectations, from birth.
Meanwhile, on the question of soft=weak, I imagine that most of us find the behaviour of the Trump administration as pathetic as I do. Leaving aside their anti-DEI initiatives, which have a complicated twining of ideological motivations in addition to this equation, I can't be alone here in finding their absurd cosplay military posturing (Department of War, our "warriors" etc) the perfect illustration of arrested adolescent males desperately grasping for proof of their machismo quotient.
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lj, I'd be delighted (and the world would be a better place) if everyone demonstrated care and empathy, and I'm definitely not talking about "giving women an out". But when I used the word "necessarily", I was talking about the implication that these characteristics are a prerequisite for strength and excellence in women whereas, although in my opinion they are important and hugely desirable in human beings, it is possible for a woman to be a strong, excellent performer of whatever sport, art form etc without those qualities being the obvious basis or baseline for the talent. "Caring" and "empathy" are so stereotypically part of what constitutes femininity in the world in which we live, that I think it important to retain the idea that women, like men, can be exceptionally good at something without a particularly high credit balance of those qualities.
On “The Last Noem Standing”
I notice Lindsey Halligan is already under investigation by the Florida Bar….
Oops! In today's NYT (it's not worth a gift link - it's early in the month and I only get 10):
Florida Bar Retreats From Statement Saying Lindsey Halligan Was Under ScrutinyThe Florida bar said that it had “erroneously” made that assertion, disclosed in a letter last month, and that no investigation into Ms. Halligan was pending. The Florida Bar, which examines attorney conduct in the state, retreated on Friday from its earlier assertion that it was investigating Lindsey Halligan, a former U.S. attorney in Virginia who brought politically charged cases against some of President Trump’s foes.
The bar, in a letter dated Feb. 4, told a nonprofit organization called Campaign for Accountability that it had opened an investigation after the group filed complaints about Ms. Halligan related to her work as a federal prosecutor.
The letter said: “We are aware of these developments and have been monitoring them closely. We already have an investigation pending.”
The New York Times and other news organizations reported on the letter, and the Florida Bar told outlets like CBS News that “it does not provide comment on active cases.”
But on Friday, a spokeswoman for the bar, Jennifer Krell Davis, said that in writing the letter, her organization had “erroneously” stated “that there is a pending bar investigation” of Ms. Halligan.
“There is no such pending bar investigation,” Ms. Davis said in a statement, adding that her organization had received a complaint against Ms. Halligan, and “consistent with standard practice, the bar is monitoring the ongoing legal proceedings underlying the complaint.”
After Ms. Davis’s statement was sent, Ms. Halligan texted a New York Times reporter, stating that the article published in the outlet a day earlier was erroneous. She added that the bar had clarified that no investigation was pending.
Ms. Davis declined to comment further when asked why the bar had taken a day to determine that the statement was erroneous, what led to the determination and whether she had been contacted by Trump administration officials.
After the letter was disclosed on Thursday, Florida’s attorney general, James Uthmeier, responded on social media, saying, “It’s time to end partisan law-fare and re-evaluate the need for a unified Florida Bar.”
And on Friday, responding to the bar’s backpedaling, Attorney General Pam Bondi posted on X that the “‘investigation’ of Lindsey Halligan is totally fake news.”
“Lindsey not only did nothing wrong — she did a great job!" Ms. Bondi wrote.
The question of ethics investigations into Trump administration lawyers drew attention earlier this week when the Justice Department issued a proposal saying it would seek to pre-empt state bar investigations into ethics complaints against department lawyers.
Some lawyers considered that action a veiled threat to usurp the authority of state courts and bar disciplinary bodies to police the conduct of lawyers.
Campaign for Accountability had filed complaints in Florida and Virginia against Ms. Halligan over her work as an interim U.S. attorney last fall. While in office, she convinced grand juries to indict the former F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, and New York’s attorney general, Letitia James.
Both indictments were later thrown out by a judge who found that Ms. Halligan’s appointment was unlawful. Other federal judges raised questions about statements Ms. Halligan made to grand jurors, and questioned her signing of court documents as U.S. attorney even after a judge had ruled her appointment invalid.
The executive director of Campaign for Accountability, Michelle Kuppersmith, said on Friday that she had not heard directly from the Florida Bar, but questioned its latest remarks.
“It’s hard to reconcile this latest statement with the bar counsel’s previous letter saying there is an investigation pending,” she said. “If there is no longer an investigation into Halligan, the question is why not, given that three judges indicated she engaged in conduct that appears to violate ethics rules.”
On “Yuja Wang, networking, transactionality and that guy”
That's an interesting piece, nous, and I was glad to learn about Butcher. She sounds great. But I am slightly uneasy about any suggestion (which to be clear you weren't making, but which seems to be behind the last sentence you quote) that the strength and excellence of women should necessarily be grounded in their caring and empathy, which after all are qualities that are considered traditionally "feminine". Now clearly, these qualities were considered by men to be antithetical to the world of the Iditarod until eventually the results spoke for themselves. But if the main point you are making is that men should/can no longer see themselves as the gatekeepers of "the rules" in traditional pursuits, then you get no argument from me.
On “The Last Noem Standing”
I’m worried that schadenfruede will be addictive.
I know what you mean, personally I can't wait for Pam Bondi. I notice Lindsey Halligan is already under investigation by the Florida Bar....
On “As it all falls down around our ears: An open thread”
Open thread, so: this is cheering:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/04/opinion/elections-college-crisis-democracy-summer.html?unlocked_article_code=1.QlA.ymem.uzB0QrJw98CR&smid=url-share
On “Yuja Wang, networking, transactionality and that guy”
It's perfectly possible to be knowledgeable, hardworking and sensitive about music, while also being such an unreflecting product of the patriarchy that it never occurs to you that you are not entitled to comment on a talented young female musician's lack of "gravitas" and "modest" clothing. Pro Bono's link absolutely shows why she had had enough.
On “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran”
I know what to call it: contempt for the recipients of this ridiculous farrago of an excuse. It's like a truculent 15 year old coming up with an absurd explanation for his appalling behaviour, and daring the listener to prove it isn't true. As if everybody in the world doesn't know that if the US forbade Israel to attack Israel would have no choice but to obey. And, since Trump likes to act the irresistible hard man, it has no internal coherence or consistency either. It's pure contempt, for Congress, the American public, and the other nations of the middle east.
On “Perpwalk Imperial”
I've posted a lot on this thread about how many men act, or have acted, or want to act in what are now considered dodgy or immoral (or worse) ways. As a comment from the other side, which also has a lot of truth to it, this is Caitlin Moran in today's Times. I don't know what the proportions are (good v the other kind), but I know plenty of the sort of men she describes. The references are very English, but I think the men of ObWi will understand them...
Caitlin Moran: Stop calling all men toxic. They’re mostly goodThe men around me are a universe away from Dominique Pelicot, Nick Fuentes, Andrew Tate — funny, nerdy and very surprised by how much they’ve come to enjoy the gym
Caitlin Moran
Monday March 02 2026, 5.00am, The Times
What do we call the good men? In a world of “toxic masculinity”, incels and the manosphere? A world where the president of the United States hisses, “Quiet, piggy!” and the news is dominated by the Pelicot trial and Epstein? In a world where, only last week, the frighteningly popular activist Nick Fuentes said that all women need to be put in “gulags — breeding gulags”?
What do we call the men who aren’t like this? What do we call the good men?
This week is also the first anniversary of Adolescence — which became a one-word reference for the kind of boy we’re terrified of. But what do we call the good boys? What is the one-word reference for them?
I look around my world and it’s filled with men who seem to come from a wholly different universe from Pelicot and Fuentes. They have utterly different DNA. These men are both rock solid and lighthearted. They’re very funny, very nerdy and very surprised by how much they’ve come to enjoy the gym in later life. They can’t even discuss how devastated they’ll be when the dog dies. They take their mum flowers; they mentor younger men without really mentioning it, and they sit in meetings texting, under the table, ludicrous Eighties pop song lyrics to friends who are sad.
Their masculinity is the quiet, unshowy, utterly implacable kind. I’ve seen each and every one go into battle for the ones they love. I have seen them make the phone calls, cancel the deals. I’ve seen them, when necessary, take other men to one side — somewhere quiet, somewhere dark — to explain, in a manner that’s almost friendly, that it would be a very risky decision to behave like that again. That today is the day these behaviours end.
So what do we call these men? These men who are, evidently, the majority of men. For — let’s remember — the majority of men don’t want to put women in gulags. They don’t want to build a gulag! Building a gulag would be a nightmare. Putting up the shed was hard enough.
“You call them ‘the Good Men’!” shouted one audience member at a live event, when I asked this question on stage. “Because … they’re the good men!”
And, obviously, I love that idea. But the problem is, everyone thinks they’re the good men. No one thinks they’re the baddie. Andrew Tate and Donald Trump believe they’re saying what every man would say, if he only had the balls. Dominique Pelicot claims he loves his wife. Epstein denied everything. They don’t think they’re the bad guys. After all, history is full of men who act like this. In Greek mythology; in Roman history; in the reports of every invading army. Marital rape was still legal in this country until 1991. 1991! After Kylie, and acid house!
So you can’t call the good men “the Good Men” — because, ultimately, it means nothing. It describes nothing specific.
The fundamental problem is, we still have no male equivalent to feminism. There is no global movement for male progress and happiness — that wants to leave the bad old ways, of history and mythology, behind. It is inevitable there will be a movement, at some point. There is only so long people can keep discussing “the crisis in masculinity” before some smart young man sighs, opens his laptop, lights a fag and starts writing the male equivalent of The Female Eunuch.
But until there is a movement, with a name, and objectives, there is no name to call the men who would be part of that movement. Nick Fuentes has named himself an incel; Tate, a misogynist. But the good men have yet to name themselves. And the lack of a name means that, even though they are the majority, they seem almost … invisible. Because we cannot talk about something if it doesn’t have a name.
“How about ‘Gentleman’?”
I have been despairing to my husband that I am part of the problem; I cannot think of a name for the good men, either.
“I love the word ‘gentleman’,” he says. “Gentle-man. As the Smiths lyric goes, ‘It takes guts to be gentle and kind.’ An old-fashioned gentleman is honourable and dutiful, while also being clubbable, well dressed, and ready to ‘have a quiet word’ with other men who are being loud, discourteous or just mad. The word already exists. It’s … ‘Gentleman’.”
And — like some masculinity pH test — it seems to work. It immediately divides all men into two categories. Trump, Pelicot, Tate, Epstein, Fuentes? They test negative for “gentleman”. Attenborough, Palin, Rashford, Obama, McCartney, Southgate? Gentleman-positive. Chemically, taxonomically, genetically, gentlemen.
Perhaps the name of the good men is “gentlemen”. Until another name comes along.
On “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran”
It would be wrong not to give you the Guardian's article on this, with the headline Trump vies for Bush’s crown for worst foreign policy decision in history
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/28/trump-iran-analysis-us-foreign-policy-george-bush
On “As it all falls down around our ears: An open thread”
Yes, Frum did indeed coin "the axis of evil", which is why I believed for many years that I would not be interested in his other views (and I was also influenced, later, by the fact that China and Russia seemed often to be included). But the emergence of Trump, and the abject surrender of most of the GOP, made me re-evaluate. The existence of the Never Trumpers has made me interested in the beliefs of what one might call "principled" conservatives, and I think that is worthwhile.
Regarding the appalling cost to the US of the Iraq war, I have to say I don't even think that is the worst consequence. Frum was wrong in his opinion, and he admits he was wrong. I don't think that renders his opinions worthless. In fact, when people are capable of admitting they were wrong it makes me take them more seriously.
On “Perpwalk Imperial”
Back early, and don't need to go out again for a while, so here are my comments on what Pro Bono and nous said.
Luckily for me, I don't find discussions of this sort unpleasant, as long as I am talking with people who a) take it with appropriate seriousness, and b) don't get turned on by it.
On Pro Bono's comment, I wonder if how he defined rape is influenced by what was, when I was in law school decades ago, a very narrow definition in English law. In those days it was defined, leaving aside the issue of consent, as the insertion of the erect penis into a vagina, and in the Act (as far as I remember) they didn't even say "penis" but "person". Which meant that the addendum was unforgettable, even after all these years "For the purposes of the Act, for 'person' read 'penis'." So I think that is where Pro Bono might be getting his idea that "for a man, rape has to be partly about sex". I believe the definition may have been changed (although I am not sure even now that it includes "with an object", which might be classed as a serious sexual assault), but whether it has or not, I think rather than "sex" one might more usefully substitute "desire", and in that case I agree with what lj says in his final paragraph. And that allows one to say, which I think is correct, that rape is not to do with desire for the victim, but desire for power, or desire to inflict pain, or desire to humiliate etc etc, like nous's other examples (with all of which I agree). For the purposes of this conversation, by the way, I am perfectly prepared to include "with an object" in the definition of rape. What the Pelicot case unfortunately makes impossible to ignore, is that the number of men who have such desires is far higher than one might otherwise have thought, which explains some of the shock and disbelief which have greeted the details, particularly among men.
Regarding what nous calls Pro Bono's "first disagreement", which nous thinks is with me, this is a mistake. I did not say, and have never thought, that "of course men want to rape". That was reported (imagined) speech, in a substack post by someone called Celeste Davis, which I posted in three parts. And I believe (without going back) that she was quoting it in order to disagree with that argument. What I believe is that the patriarchy encourages men subconsciously or consciously to believe, from birth, that their desires are more important than those of women, children, effeminate men etc. And that men who have warped paraphilic desires of certain kinds are therefore predisposed to allow themselves to enact them.
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I'm going to be out most of today, so won't be able to comment on what Pro Bono and nous said til later. But I definitely will then!
On “As it all falls down around our ears: An open thread”
russell, I think Frum was identifying both of THEM as resistance liberals. And though he/they might not have stood toe to toe with cops, they both spoke very highly of the people of Minneapolis who had done so. As I've said before, I would never have believed this in the "axis of evil" days, but I find myself wishing these were the kinds of people we were opposing nowadays.
I know what you mean about who are these leftists, though. I don't know enough about all the people he or you mention to understand it, but he does seem to have it in for Mamdani. However, he said he would (reluctantly) vote for AOC over Trump, and I thought in US terms she counts as something of a leftist?
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Ha, nous, I was hoping you'd be our informant on the cool leftist kids! I considered directly asking you. Hugely reducing (or eliminating) the existence of the precariat and the policies which produced them is necessary, and fairly fast. "Making ICE do more training" is nothing near what is necessary.
Also, cleek and I cross posted. You're not all in it together, cleek. The billionaires aren't in it with you. They're building their compounds in order to be self-sufficient in New Zealand while the world burns. Reversing the policies which have made them richer and richer while making working people's salaries stagnant does not have to threaten the life savings of the lower X%. (X% because obviously the calculation will be difficult - 80%? 90%?)
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Sorry guys, very soon after that I got a notification from the Atlantic about the transcript of David Frum's interview with Tim Miller of The Bulwark, which includes this question from Frum:
Now, I wanted to ask you about something that—and I don’t know how real this is, but people who keep up with this more than I do tell me that there is a mood among the young that there’s something lame about the project that you’re engaged in, and I guess I’m engaged in, too, of standing up for what they would call “resistance liberalism.” And this is somehow unfashionable, uncool. And I wonder, is this a perception of something that actually exists, or is this just chat? And if, to the extent it exists, let me ask you about two different strains that I can see for what’s motivating it.
One is—and there’s just nothing to be done about this—is real leftists who say, "Look, you’re standing up here for the Constitution, the rule of law, for international free trade, for—you don’t wanna say open borders; you just wanna say orderly police procedures without abuses and without violence. So you’re not a real leftist. You’re not smashing the system. You’re not overturning the hierarchy. You’re not socializing the means of production. You’re not globalizing the intifada. It’s just lame". So, okay, real leftists, I get why they would have a beef.
But the other thing that seems to be going on, to the extent that this is a real phenomenon I’m describing, is a feeling that simply having beliefs is, in itself, a sign of lameness and that the cool thing is not to have any. Am I talking about anything real? You’re at the center of this business. Do you see this? Am I describing something you recognize?
Plus, there was also a lot of interesting stuff about Minneapolis.
So I reckoned there was a chance that some of you might be interested in reading about this. Apologies for monopolising the thread, I'll go away now.....
https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/2026/02/david-frum-show-tim-miller-counterculture/686141/?gift=cx0iluuWx4Cg7JjlT8ugCdeJRjbNQ3nJbg9K2eprfR0&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
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And, as part of my continuing mission to bring various diverse but interesting voices to ObWi, including those of Never Trump Republicans, this is David Frum on last night's SOTU (which I actually watched, for my sins). It was a) embarrassing, and b) the ultimate illustration of what it looks like to be in a completely post-truth world:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/02/trumps-childish-state-of-the-union/686133/?gift=cx0iluuWx4Cg7JjlT8ugCatXRzFLbHu8MkuaA3ijO-A&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
I have not yet watched the Dem rebuttal, that treat awaits.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.