Oh, Give Me a Break!

I can't take it anymore about this Saudi hand-holding kissy-poo schtick.

I was getting more and more pissed off last night about it, but Brooke's driven me over the edge with allegations of "ethnocentricity" and "vague homophobia" against those of us who were wondering what the hell is going on with that.  (A gay friend this morning asked me in so many words: "What the hell is going on with that?"  Maybe he's a homophobe.  And yeah, those guys at Reason are just renowned for their homophobia...)

First of all, Prince Abdullah was coming here to visit us, the most powerful country on the planet.  In diplomatic terms, the visitor engages in the home country's culture, not the other way around.  So when Abdullah comes here, he can listen to country music and do the boot-scootin'-boogie.  The U.S. president isn't supposed to look like a lapdog for a Saudi prince.  Especially on U.S. soil.

Second, I don't give much of a care what the hell Saudi traditions are.  If it's customary for heads of state to spoon and smoke hookahs in that country, and we decide that's appropriate, then whatever.  But does our President get to do things his way when he goes to Saudi Arabia?  Like, you know, shake hands and chit-chat with unveiled women in public?  Dance?

Third, I wonder how those images of the lovebirds play to jihadi-symps in the Arab world.  Oh, wait a minute, no I don't.

Fourth, this is just the most outrageous act given that our soldiers are being asked to bleed, be dismembered and die in a sandswept hellhole for the freedom of the Arabs while our president dry-humps the leg of one of the most odious thugs in the region.  A man who has incessantly undermined our interests, played both sides against the middle on terrorism, and generally wagged us at will.

I'm not one of those "Topple the House of Saud!" nutjobs, but for God's sake, at the very least an arm's length relationship (in both physical and figurative terms) is in order.  This whole sleep-with-the-Saudis approach is rooted in that most odious of fallacies: the oil weapon.  If we just got our heads on straight, we wouldn't have to do this sort of shameful, foot-washing posturing.

Of course, a thorough treatment of such matters often requires soul-searching conversations about foreign policy, so maybe best to leave it at that.

Comments

[brooke]

That's sort of an inverse of an ad hominem there J-Lo..."Oh he can't be homophobic. He works at Reason."

I didn't mean to accuse anyone specifically of homophobia, but it seems like a pretty good indication that our society is vaguely homophobic when the very sight of something this innocuous gets folks all in a tizzy--I mean just looking at the pictures, wouldn't it still be a little weird to you if it was Dick Cheney he was holding hands with instead of Abdullah? Yes.

The titles of the posts are somewhat revealing here, I think: "Does This Mean They're Going Steady?" and "Don't Call It a Man-Date." They don't sound like posts about the foreign policy implications of hand-holding. Although now that I re-read Welch's post, his closing line "Why do they always insist on holding handsies??" was obviously a critique of the state of affairs in the Middle East. And obviously your suggestion that hand holding is on par with dry humping was actually about oil. My bad for not seeing that before.

I'm sorry you got so defensive about a comment that wasn't originally directed your way, but I'll gladly stand by what I said, no soul-searching required. Keeping in mind that it's customary in one man's country to hold hands and customary in the other man's country to help an 82 year old man navigate a path that had Condi Rice keeping an eye on the ground, the idea that this display--that didn't actually last that long for all the pictures it produced--should have actually pissed you off strikes me as freaking bizarre. Did you actually watch it or just get your drawers in a bunch over the pictures? Because it really didn't last that long.

I probably share your sentiments about the governing powers of Saudi Arabia. And there are plenty of things about the relationship between Bush and Saud to get legitimately upset about and criticize. But lambasting a two minute show of diplomacy for being too "kissy poo" just strikes me as foolish. If there was something that happened at the meeting that suggests metaphoric dry humping went on, by all means, comment on it. But the discussion of the hand holding is just stupid.

[Violet Slandre]

It's not homophobic to wish that we lived in a world where the president could be more open about his bisexuality.

[brooke]

Now that is funny.

[Justin]

Homophobia, vague or otherwise, is a pretty serious charge. I do find it ironic that anyone at Reason would ever be labeled homophobic. If gay innuendo and double entendre connotes homophobia, we're in trouble more than I knew.

There was also an element of riffing on the ostensibly anti-gay president going for a walk "hand-in-hand through Texas bluebonnet wildflowers" with an equally ostensibly anti-gay Saudi dictator. But maybe I'm the homophobe. (As an aside, I always thought crass puns were a required part of the blogosphere. I'll try to raise it up and use some polysyllabic words around here more.)

More substantively, "all the pictures it produced" is quite the point. The White House has control of when and where the press corps can and can't go on the president's ranch. They have to stage these things. And they decided that this was appropriate: to have them follow the two through Texas bluebonnet wildflowers with the president looking for all the world like a lapdog. Diplomacy is a subtle thing -- appearances mean a lot. When a Chinese leader comes here, we don't change things to do them their way. Same with the French. And Afghans. And everybody. Except the Saudis.

Regarding your request for substantive criticism, see points one, two, three, and four.

Oh, and I'm not defensive, just SHRILL. C'mon, get it straight.

I'd use an emoticon, but I'm afraid somebody'd call me gay...

[brooke]

I happen to think that saying they were walking hand in hand "like fucking lovebirds" was a bit beyond innuendo.
But I'll repeat again that I didn't intend to label anyone homophobic, so much as point out that the tone of Matt's original post was simply indicative of our generally homophobic culture. And I don't think it was a wrong or unfair assessment on my part.

If you can't see that the reason you think it's funny for two anti-gay men to walk hand in hand--or if you can't see how truly odious it is that you equate a traditional show of friendship that happens to make you uncomfortable with dry-humping--is because of a pretty deep-seated cultural bias on your part, then being part of a vaguely homophobic society is the least of your troubles.

I saw your substantive criticism: I think points one and two are horseshit. If our diplomats went around acting like Americans wherever they went, we'd have some big fucking trouble and probably some incarcerated or dead diplomats. Our country happens to be a little freer than most, which most people think of as a good thing--it isn't, for example, against the law here for two men to hold hands. It is, however, against the law in Saudi Arabia for men to speak with unveiled women or dance in public. Now we can argue all day about whether or not those are good laws, and I think you and I would agree that they aren't--but brazenly breaking those laws is probably not the best diplomatic course of action. Surely you can see that the president engaging in hand holding that makes you uncomfortable is different than the president going into a country and actively breaking laws, can't you? If the visitor engages in the home country's culture, and our country's most over-riding cultural characteristic is that people are free, I see no problem with Abdullah doing what makes him comfortable within the confines of our laws. Now if you ever see him on the street and don't want to hold his hand, by all means, don't. But I don't think I'm out on much of a limb here when I say you'll never be much of a diplomat, J-Lo. Diplomacy can be subtle, you're correct. What is not subtle is shunning the customs of world leaders publicly.

Your third point I also think is horseshit. Why do you think the White House press office would've allowed such a display with so many cameras around? Do you think their intent was to make the president look like a buffoon here at home, which he doesn't need the press office for? Or do you think that maybe it was a photo-op for domestic Saudi consumption, perhaps intended as a direct nose-thumbing to Osama bin Laden and the would-be jihadis to show that they have utterly failed to destroy the relationship? That seems more logical to me than the idea that the press office didn't realize that the hand-holding wouldn't play well in Peoria--or Columbia Heights, as it were.

Your fourth point has hints of coherence buried underneath the "Support Our Troops" rhetoric. Objectively speaking, he's a bad dude who shouldn't be coddled in negotiations and our dealings with him should be limited. But part of diplomacy is show--I don't think a symbolic show of solidarity given the Saudi's renewed interest in cracking down on terrorists is necessarily a bad thing. I don't think we should bend over for him, to vary the theme, but I see no need to be openly hostile or rude during a freaking photo-op.

[dwilkers]

Yes. Please read Brooke's second paragraph very carefully. She has it exactly right.

[Matt Welch]

Here's a little test for homophobia, or at least obsession with sexual preference -- Imagine for a second that my post was about Bush meeting a *female* dictator from one of the dozen most oppressed countries in the world. Now, would a single word have to be changed? Does the joke depend on code phrases? Would there be any less reason to point out the revoltingness of this physical intimacy with one of the foulest despots on the planet?

Or is it simply that polite people are not supposed to make jokes about political "lovebirds" when they are from the same gender? If that's the case, I would gently suggest that those eager to assert such mores have more interesting hang-ups than I.

[Dawn]

How does anyone know that the gloves didn't come off once they got inside?
It was a 'suck-up' thing for the cameras and the rest of the idiots who NEED to see that stuff around the world.
The Saudi's are right when they say we can't produce enough gasoline on our own soil.
Bush was right when he said things should have been done a long time ago and that we could have been well on our way towards freedom from dependence on the Middle East for oil.

[brooke]

If you can honsetly say, Matt, that in the situation you've described above, you still would've used the phrase "holding handsies," I'll withdraw that particular criticism. But I can't imagine your describing a man and a woman holding hands as "holding handsies."

The ethnocentricity charge stands as is, and is reinforced by your second paragraph there--I don't think it needs to be made any clearer that when Arabic men hold hands, it has absolutely nothing to do with their being "lovebirds."

[dwilkers]

Actually I think Matt has it right when he points out this is more sexual preference obsession than homophobia. But we've set that up by throwing the term around so carelessly haven't we? Much as we use racism now interchangeably with bigotry when in fact they are completely different animals.

I have to point at this though:

"(A gay friend this morning asked me in so many words: "What the hell is going on with that?" Maybe he's a homophobe. And yeah, those guys at Reason are just renowned for their homophobia...)"

Having been raised in the south I cannot tell you how many times I have seen this sort of rhetorical device used ("all my black friends say...") and it is just as lame now as it was then. Maybe you actually were approached out of the blue by your gay friend in the way you describe. I must say though that using that the way you do certainly raised my eyebrows.

[Thom]

Justin writes: "I'm not one of those 'Topple the House of Saudi' nutjobs."

May I ask, why not? A much better case could be made for Saudi Arabia than Iraq or most certainly Iran.

Saudi Arabia: a corrupt and despotic regime that has brutalized it citizens while funding and promoting the most virulent sorts of Islamic fundamentalism.

If you were in Dubai, UAE, for example, Justin, and decided for whatever reasons to go to a mass on Christmas, you would have your choicies of places of worship. In Saudi Arabia, your participation in such an event is illegal.

UAE has draconian labor laws that border on theocratic serfdom--I've worked there, I know. Guess what? Saudi Arabia's are worse--though seldom for political reasons enforced against American ex-pats.

Even among the kingdoms and emirates of the Middle East, Saudia Arabia stands out for hyprocricy, corruption, intolerance, and near complete disregard for civil society and individual liberty.

So what's your case, please, for the USA support that keeps the Saudi family in place as rulers?

I'm fascinated. Please explain. Even if I'm not for overthrowing the House of Saud, I'm certainly--for many of the reasons you nominally ascribe to as a professed libertarian--against US support for the House of Saud.

Does your concern with cheap oil or a possible [short-term] disruption to global economy trump your principles?

[Matt Welch]

Well Brooke, there's apparently a lot you "can't imagine"; I certainly would have used the exact same phrase if Abdullah would have been a girl (which, given the Kingdom's brutality toward women, is even less likely than you working full-time for The American Spectator). "Handsies," like "lovebird," is meant to imply a playground, giggly romance. If I had wanted to say "man-date," I would have said "man-date."

And I'm heartened to see that "the ethnocentricity charge stands." One must stand for *something* nowadays! And if that means groveling presidential deference toward one of the foulest dictators on the planet, and PC whining when someone expresses outrage at it, well that's just the price of diligence!

I guess some of us vague homophobes just care more about diplomatic symbolism with truly evil (and truly gay-bashing) oppressors, than taking pains to exhibit sensitivity about their physical customs. You know what other Saudi "customs" we're sensitive about? No female air-traffic controller for Abdullah's inbound plane to Texas. Also, no Jewish religious ceremonies allowed on Saudi soil by U.S. soldiers stationed there (during the run-up to Gulf War I they were forced to conduct them off-shore on a Navy ship). But hey, at least we're not being ethnocentric!

[brooke]

Listen, I can't say enough that I agree 100% with your assessment of Saudi Arabia's rulers and their general backwardness--or evil, as you seem to prefer. But apparently you think I'm trying to argue that point--I'm not.

I'm saying that your original post struck me as ethnocentric and vaguely homophobic. It still does. Your points about Abdullah being evil are no less well taken because of it.

I'm not a particularly PC person in general, so for your tone to have struck me as a little homophobic and ethnocentric should say something to you. But if you don't want to take my word for it, just look where your readers on Hit and Run took the discussion--obviously the folks who responded to your post picked up on the things I'm talking about.

By the way, what do you mean there's a lot I can't imagine? So far, there's just the one thing. And I still don't think you--or anyone else--would've used the word "handsies" if it had been a chick.

I'm going to take the cheap cop out now and say I'm pretty well finished with this discussion--apologies. I don't think you're likely to suddenly see your own cultural bias just because I say it's there, and I'm not likely to be convinced that there was no cultural bias to begin with. So I see no point in dragging this out.

[Matt Welch]

Brooke -- It boils down to you believing something about me you can't possibly know (my motivation for using "handsies" & suchlike), and feeling that this, plus cultural sensitivity, is a more pressing issue than your president coddling a dictator. Fair enough!

To answer your question, you apparently "can't imagine" any legitimate reason why anyone would, ahem, get their "drawers in a bunch" over Bush showing physical intimacy with a despot ("freaking bizarre," you called it).

Strikingly, you also apparently "can't imagine" the vast gulf between outrageous diplomatic deference to a dictator, and having "our diplomats [going] around acting like Americans wherever they went," or having "Abdullah doing what makes him comfortable within the confines of our laws," or "shunning the customs of world leaders publicly," or being "openly hostile or rude during a freaking photo-op."

I have never claimed not to be "culturally biased," and frankly I'd be suspicious of anyone who did. And I also don't go around insisting that I'm not homophobic or ethnocentric, even though I don't as a matter of fact fear homosexuals, and I lived abroad for eight years & married a foreigner. There is certainly darkness in my heart, and it surely comes out as bias and insensitivity, so I don't waste breath elevating my purity. But neither do I impugn the secret motives of strangers based on Talmudic readings of their blog posts (or the *reactions* to said posts).

To close this thrilling discussion, you are dead right about one thing -- "for your tone to have struck me as a little homophobic and ethnocentric should say something to you." It certainly does, just not the "something" you were hoping for.