Kerry now seems invincible. And it’s a damned good thing. Time for everyone to stand together against the real opponent.

Following Andrew Sullivan’s lead, outspoken and frequently incoherent Fox pundit Bill O’Reilly is turning on President Bush, and apologizing for insisting last year that Iraq possessed WMDs.

The anchor of his own show on Fox News said he was sorry he gave the U.S. government the benefit of the doubt that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s weapons program poised an imminent threat, the main reason cited for going to war.

“I was wrong. I am not pleased about it at all and I think all Americans should be concerned about this,” O’Reilly said in an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

“What do you want me to do, go over and kiss the camera?” asked O’Reilly, who had promised rival ABC last year he would publicly apologize if weapons were not found.

O’Reilly said he was “much more skeptical about the Bush administration now” since former weapons inspector David Kay said he did not think Saddam had any weapons of mass destruction.

While critical of President Bush, O’Reilly said he did not think the president intentionally lied. Rather, O’Reilly blamed CIA Director George Tenet, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton.

It was all Tenet’s fault. And therefore, all the blame can be laid on Clinton. Makes sense to me.

UPDATE: Joseph Bosco chronicles other prominent right-wingt pundits who appear to be harboring similar doubts about their former idol. After more than two years of worship, this is absolutely extraordinary, and the reasons are fairly simple: fiscal irresponsibility and an inability to communicate. The WMD thing hasn’t helped, either.

This was really good for a laugh. It takes a while to load, but it’s worth it.

It’s official — Andrew Sullivan, formerly the snarling attack dog for Bush and the neocons, is now an outspoken and unforgiving critic of his former idol. Today he “fisks” (in his own words) President Bush’s interview on Meet the Press, and in so doing reveals just how much contempt he has for our swaggering leader

As he goes through the transcript, Suillivan adds commentary, such as, “OK, let me put this gently here. Is he out of his mind?” While he tosses in the obligatory praise of the president’s “niceness” and his national security record, Sullivan is clearly disillusioned, bewildered and infinitely disappointed. It’s as though he’d been jilted on the night of the prom.

But it was in the second part of the interview that things, to my mind, unraveled. Bush offered no compelling rationale for reelecting him. He offered excuses on the economy; and, on the critical matter of the country’s fiscal health, he seemed scarily out of touch.

After catching Bush in a shockingly irresponsible liepromise about the federal deficit (Bush says he can cut it in half in 5 years), with no supporting data, just a vacuous pie-in-the-sky wishful-thinking platitude-laden remark — after hoisting the president on his onwn petard, Sullivan lets it all hang out.

So, in one response, we have a one-word answer that means the opposite of what it should; we have an irrelevance; and we have a pipe dream. And the president expects the people to trust him with their money? If your financial adviser came up with such an answer, after a huge drop in your personal savings and massive loans coming due in a few years, you’d fire him.

This is only a small sample of Sullivan’s wrath. To see him turn the art of fisking on President Bush should be a cause for great hope among us all: The president is at risk of losing his most loyal base. The near-fanatical support some have exhibited for him since 2001 has generally faded. There really is hope to turn Bush out of office. When his most loyal evangelist calls him a bumbling obfuscating jackass who cannot be trusted with the people’s money — well, what can I say? What further proof do we need before acknowledging there is trouble in River City?

Despite the kernels of praise thrown in for a bit of balance, Sullivan makes it clear in the closing lines what he wants his readers to come away with:

I still believe he did a great and important thing in liberating Iraq (although we have much, much more to do). But, if this is the level of coherence, grasp of reality, and honesty that is really at work in his understanding of domestic fiscal policy, then we are in even worse trouble than we thought. We have a captain on the fiscal Titanic who thinks he’s in the Caribbean.

When Andrew Sullivan writes that President Bush is about to steer the country into an iceberg, strongly implying that he must be stopped, we all know the tide has turned. President Bush can be defeated. For all of John Kerry’s faults, I intend to support him, even if doing so demands some nose-holding. One has to ask not which is the better man, but which man is least likely to destroy America’s future? Do we really want to keep heading for the iceberg?

A massive article in the Washington Post recently did a amazing job explaining in layman’s terms the potential of nanotechnology — and its potential dangers. Could Michael Crichton be on the right track in Prey? I was quite blown away as I read just how dangerous and unpredictable this technology can be.

Scientists have known for years that tiny particles such as soot or metal powders can, when inhaled, cause lung disease, cancer and other ailments. But the laws of chemistry and physics work differently when particles get down to the nanoscale. As a result, even substances that are normally innocuous can trigger intense chemical reactions — and biological damage — as nanoscale specks….

Inhaled particles do not always stop at the lungs. Experiments by University of Rochester toxicologist Gunter Oberdoerster showed that nanoparticles can make their way from a rat’s throat into its brain, apparently via the nasal cavities and olfactory bulb.

“Who knows how they interact with cells there?” Oberdoerster asked. “Maybe they do something bad and lead to brain diseases.”

Other scientists have wondered at recent meetings whether nanoparticles can cross the placenta and get into a developing fetus.

Scientists in France recently showed that carbon nanotubes — thousands of which could fit inside a cell — can easily penetrate living cells and even make their way into the nucleus, the inner sanctum where DNA resides.

The researchers hope to harness this capacity and use nanotubes as vehicles to deliver drugs into cells. But the approach could easily backfire, they conceded.

I’ve read a lot of pieces on nanotechnology, but I have to admit this was the only one I completely understood. What an image, armies of particles only a few atoms wide, parading through our lungs, through our brains, with no way to stop them…. In the hands of the wrong guy, it sounds like they would make the most perfect weapon ever. (Please don’t forward this post to Kim Jong-Il.)

It’s certainly the most intersting technology I’ve ever heard of, with the most thrilling potential. And, according to the article, it involves a huge number of unknowns, and a huge number of risks.

I read it in a comment yesterday, and now I’ve seen it documented: Shanghai is not quite ready for The Vagina Monologues. At least not in Chinese.

THE internationally-acclaimed play The Vagina Monologues has been banned in Shanghai because conditions in China are “not ripe” for the taboo-breaking drama.

Eve Ensler’s award-winning play, which features a series of interviews with women about sex and sexuality, was to be staged at the Shanghai Drama Arts Theatre for one month from tomorrow.

While the play has been performed in English in China, the Shanghai venue was to present a Chinese-language version in the country for the first time.

To me, the ban comes as no big surprise. (The big surprise was that they were considering perfoming this in China at all.) But there’s an odd twist to the story, one that sets it apart from other entertainment banned in China:

Chinese authorities often ban or censor performances they deem too risqué. Even the mainstream sitcom Friends is under the censor’s scrutiny for its many references to sex. But the ruling against The Vagina Monologues follows praise for the play in China’s state-controlled media.

The website of the English-language China Daily newspaper includes interviews with the producer and director of the cancelled performances, who say the play is inspirational and teaches women not to feel embarrassed about their sexuality.

The article, posted last month, reports that it took Li Shengying, the producer, nearly two years to negotiate with Ms Ensler the rights to perform the play in Chinese, since she insisted that the original script be performed in its entirety.

All that work, for naught. Last I heard it’s still going to be performed in Beijing, but only in English. (The censors are far less nervous about subversive or dangerous materials when they are not in Chinese.) It’s really too bad; I saw it as a great step (not quite a leap) forward.

(Link is via a tip from Adam.)

This is something I almost never do, but I went back and re-read the article I cited in the Hu/Maoism post, and decided to delete the whole thing. The article offered only one quote from a 3rd party, and no other specifics, so I worried it was one-sided, reflecting a belief of the reporter’s and not necessarily the truth.

I want to like Hu, and I had strong hopes for him at first. I’ve tried to give him the benefit of the doubt wherever I could, but I admit I’ve been disappointed so far. But I don’t think he is a Maoist, and that article I cited could be misleading (and, by association, could mislead readers into thinking it echoes my own viewpoint).

I still feel a tremendous cynicism toward the CCP — why shouldn’t I, after watching them manipulate coverage of bird flu, step up Internet censorship, and tolerate acts of real badness by local cadres? Human rights and political reforms so eagerly expected last year, have failed to materialize. To the contrary. But if we don’t keep our charges against them grounded in reality, we can fall into the trap of propagandizing. And that’s something I want to leave to the CCP.

Interesting story of exploitation, despair and courage:

Seven of 13 performers defected last week after performing with the Xinjiang acrobatic troupe in Toronto and Ottawa. As Uighur Muslims, they say they detested being used by China’s Communist regime in its propaganda to cover up grotesque human rights violations against the ethnic minority group. “We performed for the government and they used us to create this image of ethnic unity. We didn’t have a choice. We had no right to oppose,” said juggler Dilshat Sirajidin who, at 40, is the oldest of the five men and two women.

The seven are now in hiding in Toronto, where they’ve filed claims for refugee status, a process that can take years. All of them are married and have children at home in China; this must have been an incredibly painful decision.

UPDATE: Here’s a good follow-up article on the heroism of the defectors and the alleged human rights violations against Uygurs in China.

A look at why the staging of The Vagina Monologues in Beijing and Shanghai marks the fall of yet another traditional taboo in China. Actually, more than one taboo; , the play’s debut (“V-day”) is perfectly timed with the release of a landmark study on domestic voilence against women in China, another topic that is usually not discussed over dinner in China.

In Beijing, this self-declared “celebration of female sexuality in all its complexity” will be staged the week after a shocking new report lifted the lid on domestic violence against men – and alongside another stage drama which explores the emotional fallout following the partner-swapping antics of two couples….

V-Day in Beijing will include the staging of the play alongside modern art exhibitions and installations raising awareness of women’s rights, said Shadow Zhang. A study released last year by the All-China Women’s Federation revealed that nearly half of Chinese people believe it is reasonable for husbands to beat their wives. More than a third of married couples admitted to resorting to violence when disagreements broke out.

The play poses unique challenges to the average Chinese viewer unaccustomed to such matter-of-fact usage of the V-word.

The real challenge for the audience, though, is hearing the word “vagina” repeated hundreds of times within the space of 90 minutes. Notwithstanding the popularity of pirated DVD copies of Western TV hits like Sex And The City, “vagina” tends to be spoken only within hospitals and on the football terraces amongst fans unhappy with their team’s performance.

Could it be that the production will initiate a shift in the Chinese people’s relationship with the human body? I wouldn’t be surprised. Even in the US, people can be very uptight about saying “vagina” in an open conversation. I think the play certainly helped many in America overcome their queasiness over the word, and it could well do the same in China.

That’s what a commenter asked me a few minutes ago, even after I said I didn’t want to address this subject. Well, too late now. After I wrote my reply, I decided it was worthy of its own post:

Genocide has been here forever and it will probably never go away. Turks and Armenians, Serbs and Croatians, Pol Pot and the Cambodians, Chiang Kai Shek and the Communists, Stalin and Lenin and Mao against the aristocracy and bourgeoisie. In terms of numbers, Stalin may have murdered more than Hitler did, and Mao just may top them all. So why does the Holocaust stand apart?

The Germans were a people that had attained an unmatched level of civilization — lliterate, educated, sophisticated and artistic. They had brought the world some of the very greatest geniuses, Bach and Mozart and Kant and Nietzsche and Goethe and Heine, to name just a few. That this most-refined society then descended to the point where barbarism was licensed and actively encouraged is one of the great anomalies of history, and new books come out every year as to why Nazism was able to take root and thrive.

The Nazis inflicted this barbarism against the people of Eastern Europe in a way that is literally unimaginable. This in itself is extraordinary enough considering Germany’s great culture. But then, just when we know they couldn’t get any more monstrous, they bring us The Holocaust.

Here was something that no one could have envisaged because it was simply beyond the scope of human capabilities. An advanced society, technologically adept and renowned for its efficiency and force of will, actually turns this knowledge and skill and determination to a cause so profoundly evil, so totally bad that even today, 60 years later, we try to grapple with it, usually without success. For the first time in man’s history, modern assembly-line efficiencies and state-of-the-art technologies were implemented for the primary purpose of exterminating an entire race of people. The sheer level of collaboration and organization is staggering. And it showed us “sophisticated Westerners” just how thin our veneer of civilization really can be.

At least when Stalin and Lenin ordered the mass shootings after the glorious revolution they believed (deludedly and insanely) that they were shooting active, threatening enemies. In the case of the Jews, the Nazis butchered babies, children, mothers, husbands, grandparents, teens — people who had posed literally no threat, who had done nothing aside from exist. Yet their mere existence was cause enough to invest billions of dollars into the gulag of death camps that would commoditize the mass murder of innocents.

There are many other aspects of the Holocaust that set it apart, like the wanton cruelty of doctors educated in the world’s finest universities. (And when I say cruelty, I mean really, really cruel.) Man’s inhumanity to man is an old story. But never did we see it displayed like this in the modern age and in the Western world, which had supposedly been reshaped by the Enlightenment into a more tolerant and rational society. It was a grotesque hiccup of history, as though in an instant an entire modern society dropped through a time warp into the dark ages.

There is a reason why the Holocaust has the mystique it does, why it is so disturbing. Unfortunately, “the Holocaust industry” has exploited it, created several myths and in some cases exaggerated its history. But that doesn’t take away from what actually happened. Genocide was a thing of the past in Europe. It was from a darker, more violent age. And then the unthinkable happened, and we were forced to face the fact that there is a dark side to man, no matter how civilized or educated he may be.

It’s a subject I can go on and on about. Studying the Holocaust offers infinite insights into all aspects of man, from the most base to the most noble, and it will always stand apart as one of the great aberrations in man’s history, and one that must never be forgotten. Men were capable of doing it then, and we can repeat it at any time if we fail to remain vigilant against intolerance, hatred and tyranny.

The most poignant photograph ever captured?