Saturday, May 20, 2006

20 May 2006 07:06 pm

We Torture

A fascinating exchange in the Senate yesterday between Senator Feinstein and the new CIA director nominee, Michael Hayden. You may recall that a law was passed last year by veto-proof margins banning all "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment of military detainees. It was the McCain Amendment. You may also recall that the president, in signing the amendment into law, issued a statement saying he didn't have to obey it. I don't think any serious person can define "waterboarding" as anything but torture; but even those who reserve such a term for applying electricity to people's testicles will concede that waterboarding is "cruel, inhuman and degrading" under the plain meaning of those words. It involves strapping a human being to a wooden board, tipping the board so that the victim's face is at a lower level than his feet, putting a cloth over his mouth and nose and pouring water over it to simulate drowning. It was a technique used by the Japanese in the Second World War and, famously, by the French in Algeria. In the old days, before Dick Cheney became vice-president, American soldiers found guilty of such a practice were court-martialed. No longer. Here's the money quote from a Washington Post editorial today:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) asked the nominee a simple question: Is "waterboarding" an acceptable interrogation technique? Gen. Hayden responded: "Let me defer that to closed session, and I would be happy to discuss it in some detail." That was the wrong answer... [W]hy couldn't Gen. Hayden say clearly that the technique is now off-limits?

I think we know the answer. The executive branch views itself beyond the law, is committing war-crimes, has endorsed and practised torture and abuse, and refuses to change. I don't see how any senator can vote for a nominee who can defend that position.

20 May 2006 06:30 pm

Iran's "Yellow Stars"

I've now read enough to feel confident in saying that the Canada National Post story about Jews in Iran being forced to wear yellow badges is almost certainly bunk. The Jewish delegate in Iran's pseudo-parliament denies it. A Human Rights Watch activist who has studied the legislation in question writes the following:

[The law] includes only generalities with regard to promoting a national dress code and fashion industry that should be subsidized and supported by the government. It is a troubling development; its main target is most probably Iranian women. But there is absolutely no mention of religious minorities. If the people behind the National Post article have some insider knowledge of how this legislation will be implemented, they should note their sources. Otherwise the legislation itself has nothing in it relating to what is being reported about mandates for religious minorities.

Was this active disinformation? If so, who was behind it? And for what purpose? That seems to me to be the next salient question.

(Photo: Lynsey Addorio/Corbis.)

20 May 2006 02:52 pm

Quote for the Day

"How much of the crap sluicing through this book does Raines really believe? All, I'm afraid," - Jack Shafer on Howell's latest exercise in self-service.

20 May 2006 02:47 pm

Iraq Has A Government

Good news. But, alas, the critical decisions have, even now, yet to be made. Money quote:

But the challenges facing the new government were obvious when al-Maliki was unable to make a final decision about the top three security posts: defense minister, who oversees the Iraqi army; interior minister, who is responsible for police; and minister for national security.
Al-Maliki, a Shiite, said he would be acting interior minister for now, and he made Salam Zikam al-Zubaie, a Sunni Arab, the temporary defense minister. Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh, a Kurd, was made acting minister for national security.
Al-Maliki hopes to fill all three posts with politicians who are independent and have no affiliation with any of Iraq's militias.

I'm glad to see some progress. But as sectarian violence intensifies, a real government will only be one where the militias and insurgent groups come under some kind of central control or even influence. So far: it's hard to be optimistic on that score.

20 May 2006 12:46 pm

McCain's Speeches

A reader writes:

These commencement speeches also seem to have begun the process of lancing a pair of boils: that McCain is too old and too hotheaded to be President. By stressing his half century of service and the manner in which age has matured and moderated his views and tempered his conceit of himself, he presents himself as the wise old man of politics, blessed with experience and the ability to put matters into their proper perspective. He may have more to do to combat these concerns, but these speeches seem to be a more than decent start.

Above all, however, McCain seems to be stating one obvious, but frequently over-looked, truth. You need not agree with me on every issue to support me. It's laughable to suppose otherwise, yet that's where we seem to be as any deviation form party orthodoxy is treated as an act of excommunicable heresy. That's crazy and childish. If McCain can change that dynamic then he'll have done his country yet another service. After all, that's how most people actually think and feel.

Above all, perhaps, McCain is interesting - and not just to journalists. He's not perfect, but nor does he pretend to be and that is another plus. But he does seem to have an honesty that allows him to gently, and politely, rebuke Falwell et al for their intolerance of dissent even while trying to reach out to voters who might be sceptical of his intentions. Since politics does require one to engage with folk with whom we disagree I should have thought McCain's willingness to speak anywhere, to any audience is a matter for celebration not regret. I'm not sure it counts as pandering.

Whether he can win with this strategy remains to be seen of course. It would be nice to think he could though, no?

Yes, it would. And if he continues in this vein, I'll do what I can to support him. And I have a feeling I won't be alone.

20 May 2006 12:43 pm

Neuhaus Responds

Theocon-in-chief, Richard John Neuhaus, has a problem on his hands. No one has gone so far out on a limb defending Father Maciel from charges of rampant abuse and rape of minors. Neuhaus smeared the reporters who helped bring Maciel's abuse to light, and declared his innocence was a "moral certainty." Yesterday, we got two messages from Neuhaus. One is in the New York Times today, where Neuhaus refuses to budge from his previous position, and essentially says that Benedict XVI is wrong to discipline Maciel:

On Friday, Father Neuhaus, editor of First Things, an ecumenical magazine based in New York, said he still believed that the charges against Father Maciel were unfounded. "There is nothing in the Vatican statement that suggests that the word penance is meant as a punitive measure," he said. Asked why the Vatican would take any action, he said, "It wouldn't be the first time that an innocent and indeed holy person was unfairly treated by church authority."

On his blog, the clearly rattled Neuhaus says something else entirely. Not that he has the decency to apologize to the reporters he smeared. But there is the most minimal concession as to the evidence for Maciel's long and documented history of sexual abuse:

Since there was no canonical hearing, there is no canonical judgment regarding his guilt or innocence of the alleged wrongdoings ... I do not know all that the CDF and the Holy Father know, and am not privy to the considerations that led to their decision. It is reasonable to believe that they think Fr. Maciel did do something wrong.

Something wrong? He is accused of sexual predation and molestation. Then Neuhaus cites John Paul II for leading him astray:

It was hardly the only factor, but one of the many factors that entered into my moral certainty regarding Fr. Maciel's innocence was my great respect for John Paul II and his repeated statements of support for Fr. Maciel. With similar respect for the office and person of Pope Benedict, I do not protest this directive implying that Fr. Maciel is guilty of wrongdoing. It is obvious that CDF and the Holy Father know more than I know with respect to evidence supporting the guilt or innocence of Fr. Maciel.

So Neuhaus exonerated a man of sexual abuse with unsubstantiated "moral certainty" - and attacked the credibility of the victims of the abuse and the reporters who exposed it - because the former Pope supported Maciel. If the pope said someone was innocent, that was good enough for Neuhaus. Evidence and testimony be damned. There you have a central theme of theoconservatism: the abdication of rational judgment to ecclesiastical authority. That mindset is partly what enabled the sexual abuse crisis in the first place and the cover-up that continued for decades. It was sadly perpetuated by some of the most doctrinally conservative men in the Vatican. In the Maciel case, there can no longer be any doubt that among them was Pope John Paul II. The last Pope, and his enabler, the current Pope, were directly implicated in covering up minor abuse in order to protect one of their powerful friends. That's the bottom line.

20 May 2006 12:35 pm

Maciel's Defenders

They represent a Who's Who of American theoconservatives. Money quotes:

"The recent revival of long discredited allegations against Father Maciel would come as a surprise were it not for the fact that the U.S. is currently experiencing a resurgence of anti-Catholicism. One would have thought that Father Neuhaus's meticulous analysis of the evidence in First Things had put the matter to rest once and for all. As one who sat near Father Maciel for several weeks during the Synod for America, I simply cannot reconcile those old stories with the man's radiant holiness.

The most powerful refutation, however, comes from the spiritual vibrancy of the great organization he founded, and the thousands of lives that have been touched and transformed by the men and women he has inspired. As Our Lord has told us, "By their fruits ye shall know them." That irresponsible journalists keep dredging up old slanders is perhaps best viewed as a tribute to the success of Regnum Christi and the Legionaries of Christ in advancing the New Evangelization," - Mary Ann Glendon.

Bill Donohue came to Maciel's defense in this letter to the Hartford Courant:

The headline story of February 23 on the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, Father Marcial, might have been more persuasive if you didn't expect your readers to be so gullible. After all, what am I to make of the third paragraph: "Several [of the accusers] said Maciel told them he had permission from Pope Pius XII to seek them out sexually for relief of physical pain." To think that any priest would tell some other priest that the pope gave him the thumbs up to have sex with another priest — all for the purpose of relieving the poor fellow of some malady — is the kind of balderdash that wouldn't convince the most unscrupulous editor at any of the weekly tabloids. The wonder is why this newspaper found merit enough to print it.

Bill Bennett also backed the Legion against the claims of the victims of teen molestation. Duh.

20 May 2006 09:41 am

Christanism and Sex

A reader makes a good point:

You observe with regard to Tim Graham's remarks at NRO that "it's stigmatization that these people are so adamant about." That's spot on and it got me thinking. Why so adamantly oppose abortion, but also convenient access to birth control and sex education, or oppose the HPV vaccine? Because they allow people to "sin" without bearing the stigmatizable (if that's a word) results of that sin.

From ancient times until now, abortion wasn't condemned because it was the destruction of "human life," but because it allowed women to conceal the result of an illicit affair. Similarly, the pill and HPV vaccine prevent society and medicine from stigmatizing sinful women's bodies as the proper punishment for their behavior. Allowing gays full civil rights, or teaching tolerance of homosexuality, removes from their lives the stigma they deserve to live with as a result of sin. What Christianists (as well as their Islamist brethren) fear most is a world where any expression of sexuality outside the confines of a procreative marriage goes unpunished and women's sexuality in particular slips out of the control of religious patriarchy. Imagine a world where sexual pleasure were possible with no risk of pregnancy or STD, or even in the case of gays, occurs entirely from outside a procreative framework. Modern medicine makes it possible and it's the Christianists' worst nightmare.

Hence the growing realization that they have to stop contraception.

Friday, May 19, 2006

19 May 2006 11:43 pm

Da Vinci Decoded

The Telegraph's Craig Brown has the scoop.

19 May 2006 09:24 pm

Heads Up

Tomorrow - live at noon on C-SPAN, I'll be part of a political lunch session at the Book Expo of America. Pat Buchanan, Arianna Huffington, Frank Rich and I will be talking about our respective upcoming books. I'll be previewing "The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How To Get It Back." I just sent off the final copy-edits. C-SPAN will have me taking listener calls from 2 pm till 2.20 pm.

19 May 2006 09:14 pm

Gore Fever

Washington has a bad case right now. Ana-Marie Cox witnessed the source of the infection - the new documentary hailing the prophet of global warming. Money quote:

Viewed through the optimistic lens of the post-premiere chatterers, An Inconvenient Truth is intended to be a political biography whose power comes from the film's terrifying argument about global climate change: Elect me or we will all die.

Or ManBearPig will eat you alive!

19 May 2006 09:13 pm

Email of the Day

A reader writes:

My wife and I loved your essay My Problem with Christianism. We have been discussing the same issue for a while now but so far we have not been nearly as articulate and precise as you were in that essay. We both grew up Catholic and have remained so. Our kids are in 2nd and 3rd grade and right now going to a Christian school. However, we have decided to send them to a Catholic school next year because of the exact problems you describe in your essay. The administrators and the teachers at the Christian school, as you say, believe "Christianity is compatible with only one political party" and can't understand how any Christian could possibly be truly Christian and vote for a Democrat. They are intolerent of others to the point of almost constant condemnation.  Their narrow view of the world is almost unbelievable.
I hope your essay and others like it will convince others that the Christian right has gone too far in this area. In expressing our views though, I believe we have to stop just short of condeming them the way they condemn others.

Agreed. But what we have to do is describe them in plain English. I'm encouraged that two weeks after its publication, the essay is still among the most emailed articles on Time.com. There are more Christians out there disgusted by the religious right than the MSM would have you believe.

19 May 2006 08:35 pm

Iran's Badges

The story I linked to earlier today is now being questioned. I'll link to any developments as soon as I come across them.

19 May 2006 08:25 pm

McCain at the New School

From Rich Lowry's account, it seems as if he was subjected to the usual leftist incivility. Too bad. If the left cannot respect McCain, they cannot respect anyone who differs from them. I'd also add the following. It seems significant to me that McCain has given two commencement speeches - at the far right Liberty University and the p.c. left New School. His choice of venues is in itself a statement. He intends to be a uniter, not a divider. Unlike the current president.

19 May 2006 08:05 pm

Iraq Through A Glass Darkly

Amir Taheri sees an influx of emigres and other positive indicators. The NYT sees an exodus of the middle class. Who's right? None of the rejoinders to the NYT account manage to debunk this:

In the last 10 months, the state has issued new passports to 1.85 million Iraqis, 7 percent of the population and a quarter of the country's estimated middle class.

Whether they have actually left or not is, I suppose, the salient question. But they are clearly making preparations. Middle classes don't like living in anarchy. And anarchy is what Donald Rumsfeld has ensured for them.

19 May 2006 07:31 pm

Opus Dei and Government

In Britain, it's a live issue, since a follower of Opus Dei, Ruth Kelly, is now the Equality Minister in the Blair cabinet, bringing calls for removal from some gay groups. I think those groups are mistaken. Kelly has every right to her religious faith; and she has also publicly insisted that as a public servant, her first loyalty is to uphold the laws as they stand. That's exactly the right position; and exactly the right distinction between faith and politics. The gay groups should lay off. Danny Finkelstein gets it exactly right in this column in the Times.

19 May 2006 06:40 pm

Quote for the Day

"I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it," - John Stuart Mill, in a letter to Sir John Pakington, a Conservative MP, March, 1866.

19 May 2006 05:16 pm

Benedict and Maciel

A quite astonishing development has occurred in Rome. The founder of the Legion of Christ, Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, has finally been disciplined for what was a long and brutal history of sexual abuse and harassment of young seminarians in his care. The case against Maciel has been voluminous and exhaustive. The best account of it appeared in the Hartford Courant, under the by-lines of Jason Berry and Gerald Renner. ABC News also ran a splendid segment, which included the unforgettable footage of then-Cardinal Ratzinger prissily slapping the wrist of Brian Ross, while stonewalling on the inquiry. In Benedict's defense, Maciel has finally been held to account. But the puny disciplinary measures brought against him are a sign that the Vatican still doesn't get the gravity of the crimes committed by Maciel against innocents. The statement by the Legion of Christ is even more astonishing:

1. Fr. Marcial Maciel has received during his life a great number of accusations. In the last few years, some of these were presented to the Holy See so that a canonical process would be opened.

2. Facing the accusations made against him, he declared his innocence and, following the example of Jesus Christ, decided not to defend himself in any way.

3. Considering his advanced age and his frail health, the Holy See has decided not to begin a canonical process but to "invite him to a reserved life of prayer and penance, renouncing to any public ministry."

4. Fr. Maciel, with the spirit of obedience to the Church that has always characterized him, he has accepted this communiqué with faith, complete serenity and tranquility of conscience, knowing that it is a new cross that God, the Father of Mercy, has allowed him to suffer and that will obtain many graces for the Legion of Christ and the Regnum Christi Movement.

Outraged yet? They still don't get it. A full-scale criminal investigation into the Legion - and its past practices - seems to me to be warranted.

(Photo: Andrew Medicini/AP.)

19 May 2006 05:15 pm

Maciel's Enablers

One thing remains: to hold to account those who protected Maciel, denied the charges, covered up the evidence, intimidated witnesses, and slandered good reporters. Chief among these enablers was Pope John Paul II, a close friend of Maciel, who essentially sided with his archconservative friend against the victims of sexual abuse for years, and even granted him honors at a time when the accusations were well known. In this, Pope John Paul II was no better than Cardinal Law. The evidence against Maciel was overwhelming, but John Paul refused to take it seriously. John Paul II's complicity in his own church's record of covering up child-molestation has still not been fully elaborated or publicy understood. Somehow, he ducked blame for a crisis that occurred on his watch and, in the Maciel case, with his active, criminal collusion.

But we should not forget Richard John Neuhaus either, the chief theoconservative, editor of First Things, defender of Maciel and slanderer of the journalists who tried to unmask Maciel's crimes. Here's Neuhaus on Berry and Renner:

It is not the kind of stuff you would find in any mainstream media, but then Berry and Renner are not practitioners of what is ordinarily meant by responsible journalism. Berry's business is Catholic scandal and sensationalism. That is what he does. Renner's tour at the Courant was marked by an animus against things Catholic, an animus by no means limited to the Legion.

Neuhaus owes both men a public apology. Here is Neuhaus on the Maciel case itself:

I can only say why, after a scrupulous examination of the claims and counterclaims, I have arrived at moral certainty that the charges are false and malicious. I cannot know with cognitive certainty what did or did not happen forty, fifty, or sixty years ago. No means are available to reach legal certainty (beyond a reasonable doubt). Moral certainty, on the other hand, is achieved by considering the evidence in light of the Eighth Commandment, 'You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.' On that basis, I believe the charges against Fr. Maciel and the Legion are false and malicious and should be given no credence whatsoever.

The italics for the words "moral certainty" are Neuhaus's, not mine. For Neuhaus, what mattered was defending an arch-conservative institution within the Catholic church, and describing the sexual abuse crisis as one caused by liberals and homosexuals. He was wrong on both counts. And the beauty of it is: the Pope himself has now corrected him. Is Neuhaus going to accuse the Holy Father of anti-Catholic bias now, as well? Or will he do the decent thing and apologize?

(Photo of Richard John Neuhaus from Time, courtesy of "First Things.")

19 May 2006 04:07 pm

America - Through British Eyes

The lefty U.S. correspondent for the Guardian just penned his farewell column on this country. I loved this passage:

Time and again, while on the road, I would experience just how warm, wonderful and occasionally warped Americans can be. In Montgomery, Alabama, the cradle of the Confederacy, I was driven the wrong way up a one-way street by a young white woman high on life and Martini whom I had only just met. By day, I was covering Rosa Parks' memorial services. By night, I accompanied my new companion from gay bar to night club, drinking plenty and talking about drugs as though the cast of Letter to Brezhnev had ended up in the Deep South.

In Salt Lake City, the main town in the most conservative state in the union, I would wait for the mayor in a Hispanic biker bar, watching slides beamed onto the wall of scantily clad women writhing around on motorcycles. In Mississippi, three elderly people threatened to shoot me when I asked directions. A few months later, in the same state, a policeman would threaten to jail me for "giving him a look".

Yep, I recognize that country. And I love it beyond measure. The rest of the essay, with which I'm not in total agreement, can be read here.

19 May 2006 03:56 pm

A Celebration of Mill

I guess I should say that I am not a Millite. I'm no utilitarian; but no lover of freedom can ignore the resilient power of Mill's great work, "On Liberty." Here's a group blog, "Catallarchy," that is devoted today to a celebration of Mill, warts and all. If you want to read an engrossing dialogue about the great thinker's legacy, go no further.

19 May 2006 03:48 pm

The Uber-Tory

Roger Scruton takes aim at John Stuart Mill today. He would. Scruton belongs to the tiny band of paleo-Tories who still refuse to come to terms with the logic of liberal society. Mill's distinction between self-harm and harm to others as the critical criterion in modern politics violates the paleo-Tory principle of defending "the sacred and the prohibited." But what does Scruton mean by this mysterious phrase - "the sacred and the prohibited"? What can he mean by it? There is surely no reason to believe that a liberal political order cannot retain a space for the sacred - in fact, the American liberal order, unlike the Tory English one, has sustained the sacred and religious in vigorous fashion. And what is "prohibited" surely varies through the ages, as societies evolve and change, and mores shift. In college, I found Scruton's Toryism entrancing and exciting because it was so thrillingly radical. It dared to offer arguments that rested on something "deeper and rarer than rational thought." And which teenager isn't thrilled to upset his teacher's liberal assumptions? But when I grew up and analyzed what those things were, I found that they were just one person's concocted notion of what the past might have been like: fantasy Victorianism. Think of a Tory squire hunting foxes, muttering about Jews, before attending Evensong. When all is said and done, that's Scruton's idea of the "sacred and the prohibited."

What Scruton has not comes to terms with is that the liberalism of Mill has become our custom. It has generated a culture that is itself "deeper and rarer than rational thought." Anglo-American society, as it is today, is customarily liberal, in the Millite sense. Our sense of liberty, our resistance to being bossed around, our civil religion of "live and let live": these are now the sacred principles of our customs. Oakeshott's genius was to recognize this shift - to see that the principles of liberal society themselves generated a custom of what he called "civil association;" that these liberal principles had become conservative customs; and that the true conservative today is someone who defends the social architecture of liberal society, rather than pining for a past that never was in order to buttress prejudices that merely mask bigotry. That's the distinction between conservatism and reactionaryism. And one can have serious reservations about Mill's utilitarianism and still recognize that.

19 May 2006 03:25 pm

Christianism Watch

Tim Graham, at NRO, says the following:

On the occasion of the final episode of NBC's Will & Grace, Katie Couric insisted, "on a serious note," that it's one of her daughter's favorite shows, and it's so important to teach tolerance of "people who are different" at a "very early age." Anyone who expected a fair and balanced anchorwoman at CBS on the hot-button social issues, shred your illusions now.

Is Graham saying that he favors active intolerance of people who are different? I guess we should be grateful for gaffes like Graham's. They help reveal that the Christianist right is not actually that interested in social policy as such, in issues such as whether marriage rights for gay couples will hurt or help society, or whether discrimination laws make sense. They're not even interested in judging whether Will and Grace is a decent show (for the record, I can't stand it.) They're interested merely in sustaining stigma against people different from them. That's the real impulse behind the movement to ban legal protections for gay relationships: such legal rights may defuse the remaining stigma now attached to being gay. And it's stigmatization that these people are so adamant about.

19 May 2006 03:19 pm

Yellow Stars?

I can remember when many people ridiculed the idea that Islamic dictatorships, like Iran's, should be described as fascist. I think the ridicule should be officially over now.

19 May 2006 03:48 am

Email of the Day

A reader writes:

I very much appreciated your article on the co-opting of Christianity by the right.  While I tend to be conservative in my theology, my politics are far more libertarian than right-wing, so I am very sympathetic to your position.

However, one thing does bother me about your term "Christianism".  Specifically, it uses Christ's name as a part of a label for a philosophy that I'm not sure he would approve of.  I'm thinking that perhaps there's a historical, even biblical, term that might be more suitable.  Christianists, as I suppose you would call them under your nomenclature, seek to apply their own narrow interpretation of God's law to society at large, punishing those who disagree, and emphasizing adherence to rules over grace and mercy.  They might even invent new laws based on their understanding of scripture.  Folks like that were called Pharisees back in Jesus' time.  Maybe it's just as good a name for them today.

19 May 2006 12:24 am

Dean and Gays

It's getting uglier. And uglier.

Thursday, May 18, 2006

18 May 2006 11:18 pm

Quote for the Day

"I didn't realize marriages were so threatened. Nor did my wife of 44 years," Senator Patrick Leahy, today.

He doesn't understand. They get especially threatened every two years. Usually before Congressional elections.

18 May 2006 10:35 pm

Email of the Day

A reader writes:

Over my lunch break, I couldn't help pondering Derb's Lolita article a little more and I found the bright side!

If I understand Derb's rationale, my 29th birthday will really be cause to celebrate! If, as Derb suggests, rape is mainly a function of the victim's hotness, and if a woman's hotness (and therefore probability of being raped) drops off like a "continental shelf" at age 29, then come November, I'm virtually home free! As I enter my last year as a twenty-something and my buttocks begin to sag, I'll be able to walk without worry down darkened city alleys, jog with my headphones on through the park after sunset, and forget about double-checking the locks on the doors before bed! Alas, a life free from all that fuss about personal safety. 

And all this time I've been under the mistaken impression that older women might - might - be less likely to be raped because they (like most adults, about most dangers) are more in touch with their own mortality/vulnerability and more savvy in avoiding dangerous situations. But Derb has made perfect sense of those rape statistics: Hot girls get raped because they're hot and once you're past your mid-twenties, you're not hot.

On this birthday, I'll drink one (or ten) for Derb and stumble home worry free!

18 May 2006 10:14 pm

Rudy and the Christianists

Who, one wonders, is coopting whom?

18 May 2006 09:10 pm

Hewitt Lashes Out

The Sid Blumenthal of the Bush administration, Hugh Hewitt, is throwing a lot of personal insults around these days. Professor Bainbridge is the latest target. Bainbridge's sin? Putting a coherent conservatism before Bush-worship.

18 May 2006 08:10 pm

Rove Indictment Watch

Feverish anti-Rove speculation here; wet blanket here. Enjoy.

18 May 2006 07:41 pm

A Friend and a Kidney

Virginia Postrel tells all.

18 May 2006 07:30 pm

I Call It Funny

Yep: the Competitive Enterprise Institute has decided to launch a p.r. campaign in defense of carbon dioxide. Money quote:

"Carbon Dioxide: They Call It Pollution. We Call It Life."

I'm not making this up. Now, I'm not going to knock CO2. And when you watch the ad, you'll find it comes out of your lungs in short, sharp bursts of laughter.

18 May 2006 07:08 pm

Yglesias Award Nominee

"An aggressively annoying new phrase in America's political lexicon is "values voters." It is used proudly by social conservatives, and carelessly by the media to denote such conservatives. This phrase diminishes our understanding of politics. It also is arrogant on the part of social conservatives and insulting to everyone else because it implies that only social conservatives vote to advance their values and everyone else votes to ... well, it is unclear what they supposedly think they are doing with their ballots," - George F. Will, today.

Will has one of the best records in punditry in recent years - his tenacious Toryism managing to resist some of the powerful Republican currents of our time. His rebuke of the "values voter" appropriation is overdue - and not far off my own revulsion at having the word "Christian" purloined for political purposes. Next up: the attempt by the Christianists to coopt the term "family." Something is growing out there in the culture, and it's gaining strength.

18 May 2006 06:42 pm

The Return of the Perot Voter?

A reader thinks we're seeing the same phenomenon that occurred under a previous Bush administration:

You have lately been publishing a lot of emails of Republicans who have become disenchanted by - or enraged at - the Bush administration for its manifest failure to live up to the plainest conservative principles. These folks sound very much like those who in another era voted for Ross Perot and (possibly) handed the presidency to Bill Clinton.

With the GOP firmly in the hands of Christianist extremists, and with the Democrats still bickering, I wonder if the time might be ripe for another consequential third-party candidacy. Just look at the contortions that McCain is having to go through in order to make is candidacy palatable to the crowd that currently runs the Republican party; wouldn't it be nice if McCain could run as an independent and not have to suck up to the Christianists?

Of course he can't and he won't, but...

The current Perotian cause is obviously fiscal balance. In many ways, the fiscal situation is much worse now than it was in the early 1990s. The new Medicare entitlement, the boomer retirement crisis, and the dawn of big government, big borrowing conservatism makes a Perot-style candidate very attractive. This time, of course, it would be better not have a complete nutcase.

18 May 2006 05:42 pm

Christianism Watch

Here he goes again.

18 May 2006 04:27 pm

Victory in London!

Yay! Tom Cruise failed to prevent a free showing of South Park's episode, "Trapped in the Closet", at the National Film Theatre in London on Monday. Still, they couldn't charge for the screening; and the show still has not been shown on British television. It is also still not in rotation in the U.S. The power of the Super Adventure Club endures. But it's a start. Surrender, Viacom!

18 May 2006 04:11 pm

The CIA's Crisis

Here's a quote to get you sitting up straight:

"If I were at the CIA now and was asked to work on an National Intelligence Estimate [on Iraq], my first response would be, 'How the f*** do I get out of this?' The most courageous, honest person in the place would be reluctant to do it because every time someone says the emperor has no clothes he gets his head lopped off."

That's a former "senior CIA official" talking to Ken Silverstein, in a new blog post. There seems to be a real crisis at the CIA, especially with respect to Iraq. Honest assessments of the situation are ignored and their authors punished. And so our intelligence on the ground has deteriorated to the point of useless. Money quote:

The New York Times and others have reported that in 2003, the CIA station chief in Baghdad authored several special field reports that offered extremely negative assessments of the situation on the ground in Iraq—assessments that later proved to be accurate. The field reports, known as "Aardwolfs," were angrily rejected by the White House. Their author — who I'm told was a highly regarded agency veteran named Gerry Meyer — was soon pushed out of the CIA, in part because his reporting angered the See No Evil crowd within the Bush administration. "He was a good guy," one recently retired CIA official said of Meyer, "well-wired in Baghdad, and he wrote a good report. But any time this administration gets bad news, they say the critics are assholes and defeatists, and off we go down the same path with more pressure on the accelerator."

This cannot be good news for the effort in Iraq. We need empirical clarity if we are to make good policy. But empiricism has been replaced by blind ideology. 

18 May 2006 03:35 pm

Islamists, Christianists

A reader comments:

I applaud your efforts to call out the Christianists. At the same time, I wonder why you don't have more company in doing so. I want to draw a parallel between Islamism and Christianity that points to something I've never quite been able to understand: the apparent willingness of many Muslims and Christians to allow the appropriation of their religion's public face by those who seem to constitute only a small fraction of believers.

Tom Friedman, among many others, has been correct to point out the hypocrisy of Muslim leaders who quickly condemn many American actions as anti-Muslim while barely uttering a word when Islamic terrorists bomb mosques and murder Muslims. Similarly, many Muslims are eager to point out the unfair perception that violence inheres in Islam, but it seems (to me) that Muslims are more vocal and more mobilized in denouncing the West for stigmatizing them as violent than they are in opposing actual violence carried out in the name of their faith.

An analogous observation can be made of American Christians. Many of my Christian friends hate - indeed, are offended by - the notion that as Christians people assume them to be intolerant, bigoted, and (worst of all) Republican. But how is it that Christians in the States have allowed American Christianity to be more commonly associated with intolerance than humility? If the perception has been allowed to slip so far, don't all Christians deserve the blame? Isn't their faith important enough to be defended from those who would, if you'll pardon the term, hijack it?

Well, two points. The first is that the Christianists are not involved in anything like the extremism of the Islamists; and the Constitution protects us from full-bore theocracy. And so acquiescence among American Christians is far more defensible. Secondly, the Christianists have a lot of authority on their side. The Vatican has embraced the politicization of Christianity; and the Christianists in America have proven able to deliver votes to Karl Rove, thus cementing their own political power. Ordinary Christians, especially those whose faith is a little less dogmatic and a little more self-effacing than the Christianists', can easily be intimidated into silence or acquiescence. But that silence is slowly ending. As the political project of the Christianists crumbles - as all such political projects inevitably do - we'll see another cycle of withdrawal from politics and concentration on, you know, actual Christianity. That's my hope, at least. And history gives it credence.

(Photo: Thomas Michael Alleman for Time.)

18 May 2006 02:56 pm

Foer's For Gore

Frankie went to Hollywood and saw Al's new movie. He's a convert. Yes, I know he's editor of TNR. But you have to suck up to Gore to get the job, not to keep it. (Unless you're Mike Kelly, I suppose. Oh, well.) Foer's for Gore. I'll see the movie just as soon as I've read Ramesh's book. Promise.

18 May 2006 02:32 pm

What Will Borders Do?

They refused to carry one magazine because it included the Muhammad cartoons. Will they now refuse to carry Harper's? Let's see, shall we?

18 May 2006 02:29 pm

Three Red States Left

Count 'em.

18 May 2006 02:16 pm

In Defense of Fox

A reader writes:

I read a profile of O'Reilly in the New Yorker recently. The article indicated that people on the left side of the spectrum are increasingly reluctant to appear on the Factor, and that O'Reilly is having trouble booking the guests he would like to. This may be O'Reilly's fault because he's such a jerk, but apparently it's not his preference to have a one-sided "intra-Republican" debates.
But my main point is that I truly believe that although Fox News in general is right-leaning, it does want to provide both sides of a debate, assuming that it can actually get persons from both sides of the debate to appear.

I was available. So, I'm sure, were actual Republicans who oppose the FMA. Besides, it's now left-wing to believe in states' rights? And leftist to want to stop meddling with the Constitution? Will someone please wake me when this nightmare is over?

18 May 2006 02:11 pm

Ponnuru on Stewart

I missed it. We were watching the new Woody Allen movie, "Match-Point." It's not available on the Daily Show site yet, but I'll make sure to watch when it is. I saw Ramesh on "Real Time" and, in a debate about abortion, he never actually stated his position. Odd. A reader comments:

The first word that came to my mind after watching him last night was "evisceration". Besides his extremely offputting voice and deer-in-the-headlights manner, Ramesh didn't make any statement that approached coherence. Stewart's question asking Ramesh to justify killing innocent people in the war was the highlight. Ramesh's only response was that he was opposed to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Gulp!

Oh, be nice. That whole just war argument is so pre-Benedict. Opposing war is not part of the Party of Life. Neither is opposing torture. Puhlease. Besides, in Ponnuru's mind, more full-fledged human beings die in a womb in an average fertile woman's lifetime than have perished in many wars. Priorities, priorities.

Update: I just saw it. I'd say Stewart did an extremely good job of flushing out the absolutism of Ramesh's position. And the title of the book is obviously a huge impediment to constructing the kind of debate we need. I wonder if Ponnuru regrets it now. I should say I will read this book as soon as I get a chance. It isn't fair to keep commenting on it without reading it. Today, I finish the copy-edits on my own. So time will open up, I hope.

18 May 2006 01:58 pm

An Apology From a Bush Voter

This one's a doozy - from someone who voted for Bush twice in 2000 and is no fan of the Democratic Party. Money quote:

I believe that George W. Bush has taken us down a terrible road. I don't believe the Democrats are offering an alternative. That means we're on our own to save this magnificent country. The United States of America is a gift to the world, but it has been badly abused and its rightful owners, We the People, had better step up to the plate and reclaim it before the damage becomes irreparable.

So, accept my apology for allowing partisanship to blind me to an obvious truth; our President is incapable of the tasks he is charged with. I almost feel sorry for him. He is clearly in over his head. Yet, he doesn't generate the sympathy Warren Harding earned. Harding, a spectacular mediocrity, had the self-knowledge to tell any and all he shouldn't be President. George W. Bush continues to act the part, but at this point who's buying the act?            

Does this make me a waffler? A flip-flopper? Maybe, although I prefer to call it realism. And, for those of you who never supported Bush, its also fair to accuse me of kicking Bush while he's down. After all, you were kicking him while he was up.

You were right, I was wrong.

I take some comfort from this fiscal conservative revolt in Pennsylvania. But I think the entire Bush-Rove edifice has to be destroyed for a conservative renaissance to begin.

18 May 2006 01:49 pm

Christianism Watch

A town in Missouri starts evicting households who do not conform with the family standards its majority finds morally acceptable. An unmarried couple with three children has just been denied the right to live there. I'm not making this up. More here. The couple in question have been together for thirteen years.

18 May 2006 11:50 am

Pedophilia Chic

It's all the rage at National Review. It's defended as "human nature."

18 May 2006 10:46 am

Gore vs Hillary

Arianna's with Al.

18 May 2006 10:23 am

Iraq's New Taliban

Shiite militias, following strict Islamic theology, continue to terrorize Baghdad. Although Sistani may have revoked his murderous fatwa against all gay people, the pogroms continue. Money quote:

The death threat was delivered to Karazan's father early in the morning by a masked man wearing a police uniform. The scribbled note was brief. Karazan had to die because he was gay. In the new Baghdad, his sexuality warranted execution by the religious militias. The father was told that if he did not hand his son over, other family members would be killed.
What scares the city's residents is how the fanatics' list of enemies is growing. It includes girls who refuse to cover their hair, boys who wear theirs too long, booksellers, liberal professors and prostitutes. Three shops known to sell alcohol were bombed yesterday in the Karrada shopping district.

Rumsfeld's policy of just enough troops to lose has resulted in a new Taliban in Iraq. It pains me beyond measure to see the following quote from a gay activist in Iraq:

"We could never envisage this happening when Saddam was overthrown. I had no love for the former President, but his regime never persecuted the gay community."

God help them.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

17 May 2006 11:44 pm

Fair and Balanced

I just sat through an entire segment on the O'Reilly Factor dedicated to discussing the president's position on the proposed federal marriage amendment. Should the president take it on more aggressively? Or not? Fair debate. The only guests are both paid-up members of the movement to pass the amendment, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, and Maggie Gallagher. Even if the debate were entirely an intra-Republican affair, wouldn't it have been appropriate to have a Republican like LCR head, Patrick Guerrerio, to debate this; or Jim Kolbe? Or Mary Cheney? Or someone who might actually put the opposing point of view? Or are my expectations for Fox insane?