The tonic chord of the last line — that’s our topic.  The tonal and thematic closure of a literary episode found with the right string of words.  The well-struck final sentence of a well-structured novel or essay or even film brings a session of the reader’s consiousness to a close.  Within a definable portion of one’s finite existence, the last line marks the cessation of a who and a when and a what that was spent with a piece of writing.  

Meaning does not stop with the final line, of course; that’s not my claim.  The life of a lived work does not stop when we close the cover for the first time.  A piece of writing is alive after it is read, learned by heart, sometimes, though it need not be learned by heart to live, and then it is alive in us until our death, if it meant a lot to us.  We may return to the work even if we never see it again.

Rather, when I say that the final line, if right, brings an end, what I mean is that an aesthetically, even ethically comprehensible finitude has been created in the space of life.  A mortality in miniature, a totem is there in the soul where before there was none; an object round on all sides (or jagged if that is the author’s purpose) to be studied, kept in one’s spiritual pocket, remembered, cherished, or perhaps disquietedly revered.  A thing with meaning.

Something extremely fishy is going on in the US-Pakistan negotiations.

The world press is reporting that when Deputy Secretary of State Negroponte visited with Pakistani President Musharraf Saturday, urging Musharraf to ease off the “state of emergency” and schedule elections under acceptable conditions, Musharraf responded with a threat.  Essentially saying, “Nice world you’ve got there, be a shame if anything happened to it,” Musharraf told Negroponte that if the Pakistani Army lost control of the government, nukes could get loose.

This is being reported in The Times of India and the UK Telegraph, for example, as a harsh and decisive rebuke of US interference in Musharraf’s affairs.

However, there is something else going on.  Just as word of this remarkable rebuke by Musharraf comes out, we read in The New York Times a new story.  The United States, under a secret Bush plan, has been helping Pakistan secure its nuclear arsenal for years, with a hidden-budget supply of security equipment.

Ladies and gentlemen, the comedy stylings of Secretary of State Rice:

In an interview on the ABC News program “This Week,” Ms. Rice called on General Musharraf to end the state of emergency “as soon as possible,” saying that his vows to hold elections by early January and to shed his military uniform were “essential to getting Pakistan back on a democratic path.”

“The state of emergency has got to be lifted and lifted as soon as possible,” she said.

Ms. Rice conceded that even if General Musharraf gave up his role as head of the Pakistani Army and his re-election was certified by the nation’s Supreme Court, “this is not a perfect situation.” But she asserted that Pakistan had “come a long way from 1999 and the military coup,” and expressed hope that signs of political progress, seen before General Musharraf declared the state of emergency, would not be lost.

This, on the same day that General Musharraf asserted that martial law would continue through the January election.

Speaking at a news conference one day after President Bush called him the best president for Pakistan, General Musharraf said the emergency decree he issued on Nov. 3 was justified by the need to fight terrorism and would “ensure absolutely fair and transparent elections.”

That the Secretary of State is able to find air between the current state of affairs in Pakistan and the 1999 military coup is certainly intriguing.  But then, it’s not exactly inconsistent.  The Bush White House is known for thinking that elections held under conditions tantamount to military occuption (for example, actual military occupation) are, you know, possibly neat-o.

Admittedly not a hard thing to do to a man who would lose a game of checkers to a 16 oz. bag of shredded mild cheddar cheese.

We learn today that all of the reasons the White House has been backing Musharraf, and all of the ways in which the White House was trying to make it look pretty — make it look like they weren’t ever backing a dictator — are falling apart.

* The White House had hoped former Pakistani Prime Minister Bhutto would take part in a for-show power-sharing agreement with Musharraf.  It now apprears she will not do so.

* Musharraf’s aides are now admitting the declaration of martial law had little to nothing to do with cracking down on extremists.

* Those aides also say no moves are planned against said extremists.

More after the jump . . .

Mark this date on your calendar: 11/12/07.  On Monday, November 12th, 2007, we will be through the looking glass of US history.

On August 3rd through August 5th of 2005, Time/SRBI polled the American people and found that fifty percent of Americans approved and forty-six percent of Americans disapproved of President George W. Bush’s job performance.  50% to 46%.  That was the last poll by any of the major polling organizations tracked by Roper Center in which the President’s approvals were equal to or higher than his disapprovals.  August 5th, 2005 was two years, three months ago, tomorrow.

Between October 8th and October 13th of 1950, Gallup showed forty-three percent of Americans approved and thirty-six percent disapproved of President Harry S Truman.  43% to 36%.  That was the last Gallup Poll in which Truman’s approvals were equal to or higher than his disapprovals.  Eisenhower took office two years, three months and seven days later. 

Nixon does not bear comparison here.  His approvals beat his disapprovals for the last time on May 4th through May 7th of 1973.  He resigned on August 9th, 1974. That’s only one year, three months and two days in the tank.

In other words, if President Bush’s approval ratings remain below his disapproval ratings for another eight days, we will be through the looking glass.  Bush will have been on his unpopularity run for two years, three months, and seven days.  He will have beaten Truman for the longest unpopularity streak in the history of reliable approval polling.  A record.  Mark it down. 

But further than that, I, for one, am willing to bet that Bush will continue his streak until the end of his term in office.  In other words — on the not-very-risky assumption that I’m right — in the political history of the United States nothing like this has ever happened before. 

As with Joe DiMaggio’s batting streak, hitting singles-or-better in 56 straight games, Bush’s record will be an incredible achievement, probably never to be repeated.

Unless the country elects Giuliani.  Then all bets are off.

A large truck showed up on the main quad of my university campus today.  Some people got out and set up an impressively large display.  Tall photographs and tall signs tacked to tall folding diorama walls.  The group, numbering maybe six people, set up perimeter signs at the edges of the quad, warning folks that graphic images were ahead.  If students prefered not to see the graphic images, they should choose an alternate route to their next class. 

“Warning: Graphic Images”.  “Warning: Images of Genocide”. 

From the Times of London, breaking news:

Turkish Prime Minister warns US: we will attack Kurdish rebels in Iraq

Recep Tayyip Erdogan tells The Times that he needs nobody’s permission to defend his country

[Oct. 22, 2007]

Martin Fletcher and Suna Erdem

Turkey will launch military action against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq despite frantic appeals for restraint from America and Nato, its Prime Minister has told The Times.

Speaking hours before the PKK, the Kurdish Workers’ Party, killed at least 17 more Turkish soldiers yesterday, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey had urged the US and Iraqi governments repeatedly to expel the separatists but they had done nothing. Turkey’s patience was running out and the country had every right to defend itself, he said. “Whatever is necessary will be done,” he declared in an interview. “We don’t have to get permission from anybody.”

Mr Erdogan, who begins a two-day visit to Britain today, also offered a bleak assessment of relations between the US and Turkey, a country of huge strategic importance to Washington. He said that a “serious wave of antiAmericanism” was sweeping Turkey, called America’s war in Iraq a failure, and served warning that if the US Congress approved a Bill accusing the Ottoman Turks of genocide against Armenians during the First World War, the US “might lose a very important friend”.

— snip —

This is a potential distaster.

[Update: 10/21/07 11:27 PM by LithiumCola]:

More; the Times headline might be overhyped:

Military action could be avoided only if the Americans and Iraqis expelled the PKK, closed its camps and handed over its leaders, he said.

Mr Erdogan said that last week’s parliamentary vote authorising military action showed that Turkey’s patience was exhausted. He would not be drawn on the scale or timing of any operation, but Turkey is thought to have more than 60,000 soldiers massed along the Iraq border. Other Turkish officials said that the PKK had six training camps and 3,500 fighters in the mountains of northern Iraq.

[Update #2 11:40 PM 10/21/07 by Lithiumcola]: more below.

In last Monday’s Washington Post, Thomas E. Ricks and Karen DeYoung wrote, “The U.S. military believes it has dealt devastating and perhaps irreversible blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq in recent months, leading some generals to advocate a declaration of victory over the group, which the Bush administration has long described as the most lethal U.S. adversary in Iraq.” 

One of the funnier little episodes of the past week has been watching the right decide whether or not they should take this advice; decide whether or not they should declare victory over al Qaeda.

That the US cannot declare victory over al Qaeda is generally agreed.  The reasons vary; Democrats, journalists, and even, tangetially, al Qaeda itself are cited.  Out of this confusion, it takes Dick Cheney to provide the right a real lesson in rhetorical consistency.