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Decermber 10, 2002, 9:10 a.m. Remember Biscet. Head fakes in English. A girl named Xochitl. And more

airly regularly, this column reports on the fate of Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, the physician-turned-human-rights-activist in Cuba. He is one of the bravest people I know (or know of). On October 31, he was released from prison, after three years of vile, typically Castroite abuse. A couple of weeks ago, when we at NRO were asked to say what we were grateful for, I cited the release of Biscet.

He has now been rearrested. What happened is this: On December 6, he was among the members of the Andrei Sakharov Human Rights party who gathered for a vigil in support of prisoners of conscience. They sang the Cuban national anthem, called for the release of political prisoners, and prayed.

That’s when the police stormed in.

If you care for specifics, the group had gathered at the home of Manuel Galvez, Calle 246, Edificio 7, Apt. 22, in Abel Santamaria, Municipality of Boyeros. The National Revolutionary Police arrived in Patrol Car No. 1035.

None of this is difficult to find out — but don’t expect our Best and Brightest to bother. They’re too busy running front-page articles about the outrage and world emergency of Augusta National Golf Club’s membership policies.

Dr. Biscet is founder of the Lawton Foundation for Human Rights (Lawton is a neighborhood of Havana). His website is found at www.biscet.org.

I guess I’ve written just about all I can about the stance that American liberals — and the Western Left generally — take toward the Castro regime. (See, for example, “Who Cares About Cuba?” ) Their stance is a sickening one. The regime has been in place — torturing, killing, and stifling people — for almost 44 years now. Neither it nor its apologists will ever change.

I must say, this is part of why I find left-liberal preening over Iraq especially appalling. It was extremely hard to read George Packer’s article, entitled “The Liberal Quandary over Iraq,” in the New York Times Sunday Magazine. Packer pretends that only liberals could care about human rights and democracy and decency, and that everyone else is faking it. (For a superb piece on the same subject, see David Skinner writing for The Daily Standard.)

George Packer actually had the temerity to say, “Members of the Bush administration who had nothing but contempt for human rights talk until the day before yesterday have grabbed the banner of democracy and are waving it on behalf of the long-suffering Iraqi people. For liberal hawks, this is painful to watch.” He ends this wretched but revealing piece by celebrating Kanan Makiya, the Iraqi dissident who seems to be a recent discovery for him. Of course, “right-wingers” like me have been touting Makiya for years — most liberals were just too busy condemning “Jewish settlers” to hear, probably.

Elsewhere in his article, Packer writes, “The liberal hawk is a liberal — someone temperamentally prone to see the world as a complicated place.”

Hmm: Too bad the liberal “temperament” is not broad or supple enough to take notice of what Castro and his fellow “socialists” do to people like Oscar Biscet (who is black, by the way — it should make a difference to the Left. If he were Haitian, they’d demand an invasion to rescue him. Randall Robinson would be screaming, or fasting). Then again, the Cuban situation is probably not “complicated” enough.

The moral of my story is a simple one, and a very old one: People like me — and, I would hazard, you — don’t have to take lectures on human rights from any standard American liberal. Biscet would understand, I’m sure.

On to some good news: George W. Bush’s, and Condoleezza Rice’s, elevation of Elliott Abrams, to the post of National Security Council staff director for Middle Eastern affairs. Elliott has long been a champion of human rights and dignity and democracy. He is a hardheaded idealist, as all Americans should be (for my money). The Left has absolutely soiled itself over his elevation, which makes it doubly nice.

I took it as one of the great signs that the Bush administration would be something when Elliott was first appointed (to another NSC post) — that appointment and Otto Reich’s. Obviously, to know Elliott is to like him, admire him, and want to use him further.

It’s nice to see good guys — and guys maligned in the past — get ahead. Above all, President Bush has done himself a favor.

At the same time, I’m awfully sorry to see Larry Lindsey go. I would wager that much of what President Bush knows about economics — that’s sound — comes from Lindsey. He wrote a superb book (The Growth Experiment) and is the sort of mind one would want aiding the economy about now. He also knows the limits of governmental interference. If I were president — now there’s a shudder-making thought for you! — I’d want Lindsey whispering in my ear.

It was complained that he wasn’t good on television, and that he wasn’t a good communicator. Tough. Leave that — the communicating, the selling — to the president, and to various spinmeisters. I hope that Lindsey’s replacement as chief economic adviser is equally good. Sadly, I doubt it.

Funny thing about Paul O’Neill’s and Larry Lindsey’s getting the ax at the same hour: It made them look like twins, or confederates — when their economic views are, by all accounts, completely different (in favor of Lindsey).

Jimmy Carter, the Nobelist, says that as long as Iraq “continues to completely comply” with the United Nations, then he sees “no reason for the war.” Nice to know that the ex-president regards Saddam Hussein as in complete compliance. What else would we expect from him — from Carter, that is?

You want a little commentary on the White House Christmas card? Okay. It boasts on the front a stunningly “representational” oil painting of the White House’s Grand Foyer, featuring a fancy grand piano, with eagle legs. The artist is Zhen-Huan Lu — at least as likely an American name as “Norman Rockwell.” (I mean that, by the way, for all you sarcasm sniffers.) Inside, there is a verse from the Old Testament — very appropriate (Ps. 100:5) — and a greeting from the Bushes that says “May love and peace fill your heart and home during this holiday season and throughout the new year.” Very nice. No mention of Christmas — but who cares? We get the point.

Their signatures are interesting. Bush’s is done with surprising flair (at least surprising to me). And what he writes, as far as I can tell, is “GgW Bush.” That second g — the lower-case one — goes right into the “W.” And Mrs. Bush’s signature is very feminine, with a pretty “L” at the beginning of “Laura,” a strand of which sort of underlines the rest of her first name.

So, there ya have it.

I spotted a confusing headline in the New York Times. It said, “Indian Point Guards Cite Security Flaws.” Did this refer to Apache players in the back court — who were concerned about protection from fans? No, it turned out that the article was about the warnings of security guards at a nuclear plant called Indian Point in Westchester County, N.Y.

Ah, English.

Do you want to know what they call what Saddam Hussein just did — flooding the U.N. with all those binders, those thousands of pages — at a law firm? A “document dump.” Same thing’s been known to happen to investigative committees in Congress.

I saw something in an ad that I thought was kind of clever. Delta Air Lines was telling folks that they would wait less when flying with Delta. And where it said “Delta Air Lines,” the “Lines” was crossed out. As I said, clever, huh?

(Sorry, that was kind of pompous: “Like I said” would have been better — more natural.)

Also, I was amused to find something unusual on an Internet page. There was an agreement that the user was asked to read, before clicking “Continue” or whatever. The page admonished, “Please read carefully. It’s not the usual yada yada.” That made me read the agreement — almost.

Was on the phone the other day with AT&T, trying to get something straightened out. A lovely (-sounding) girl came on the line and said, “Hi, my name is Social, can I help you?” And I said, “Yes — excuse me, but what did you say your name was?” She said, “Social.” I said, “That’s what I thought you said. May I ask how to spell it?” She answered, “X-o-c-h-i-t-l.” Xochitl, pronounced “Social.”

If you love names, as I do, you’ll really appreciate that one.

(Sorry: “like I do.”)

(FYI: Google “Xochitl,” and you’ll get a million hits. Very Aztec/Nahuatl. Possibly trendy. Keep watch.)

I was going to write something about the New York Times’s latest article on Skip Gates and the Harvard “Afro-American Studies Department,” but I’m so weary of race — and PC and higher education and the New York Times — that I just don’t have the heart, you’ll be delighted to hear!

The Times had an interesting article about an appearance by Garry Trudeau, the cartoonist, on Ted Koppel’s interview show (not Nightline — something else, even later than that). Apparently, Trudeau just about never gives an interview. The writer of the article said, “Mr. Koppel can sound starchy when interviewing rock stars. He seems more at home talking to Mr. Trudeau, who, like his host, uses words like ‘thereafter’ in conversation.”

That was kind of a weird sentence, or observation, I thought! It reminded me of something that George F. Will once wrote about Dan Quisenberry, the Kansas City Royals relief pitcher. “Quiz” thought that a teammate was intellectual because, and I quote, “he uses words like ‘however.’”

Incidentally, I once sat next to Garry Trudeau at a dinner. I’d had some qualms. Trudeau has written/drawn repellent things about Ronald Reagan, and the first Bush, and Dan Quayle, and others. I mean, really beyond the pale, in my (admittedly partisan) view. And Trudeau could not have been lovelier. Besides which, his wife (Jane Pauley) is one of the great babes of our culture, whatever her politics (and we know what they are, don’t we, Impromptus-ites?).

Ken Starr is involved as a lawyer in the campaign-finance case, and there was a little “sidebar” about him in the Times. The reporter (or analyst), Neal A. Lewis, said, “[S]ince his difficult turn as the independent counsel in charge of investigating President Bill Clinton on Whitewater and other matters, Mr. Starr’s reputation has been in intensive rehabilitation.”

Says something about our America — doesn’t it? — that Starr’s is the reputation in need of “intensive rehabilitation.”

But, please, don’t get me started on that again — or Elian, or . . .

Peter Jennings and Todd Brewster have a book out, called In Search of America. Apparently, they have a previous book called The Century. So, an ad for the new book includes the line, “Peter Jennings & Todd Brewster, bestselling authors of The Century”!

Very clever! Perfectly factual! It looks like — it reads like, especially if one is hurrying — “Peter Jennings & Todd Brewster, bestselling authors of the century.”

No doubt the good folks at Hyperion Publishers knew that!

In yesterday’s column, I noted that the contention of a lot of Texans and some southerners was that “y’all” is singular while the plural is: “all y’all.” This provoked an avalanche of mail, from people upbraiding me at various decibels. Y’all — or all y’all — I just want you to know that that item was largely tongue-in-cheek. The Texans et al. (“et y’all”? “et all y’all”?) were writing largely tongue-in-cheek; and I was passing on their mots in the same spirit.

I love what one reader wrote to me. Texans, I’ve discovered, are incredibly “patriotic” — exceptionally state-oriented. This lady signed herself, “Not born in Texas, but got here as quick as I could.”

Finally, a reader wrote to share with me his rule for contributing to NPR: “Every time I hear Nina Totenberg on there, I refuse to contribute — for another 365 days.” He hasn’t sent in a check in a while.

More left over for National Review, y’all — all y’all!

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