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Saturday, October 21, 2006
Email of the Day
21 Oct 2006 10:38 pm
A reader writes:
Thank you for the Bronowski clip.
I have had the Bronowski quote "This is what men do when they believe they have absolute knowledge" on my board at work since 9/11. It sorrows me greatly to have to see it used about my own country less than 5 years later. But there it is.
Ned Lamont's Lineage
21 Oct 2006 08:23 pm
Jim Sleeper tells me something I didn't know.
The View From Your Window
21 Oct 2006 07:18 pm
Spokane, Washington, 11 am.
Quote for the Day
21 Oct 2006 06:02 pm
"Need to be going to sleep but just finished doing a small segment on Real Time with Bill Maher. Like most of these interviews I was piped into via satellite so I wasn't actually in the studio but I was struck by this:
At some point I said in response to a question that yes, Jesus actually does love everyone and that includes Democrats and liberals and homosexuals and the audience just erupted in applause. Here is the simple takeaway - people love Jesus they just disapprove of his self-appointed PR people who portray him as political and narrow and angry.
Maybe Jesus came to set us free so that sometimes we could turn around and set him free of the narrow portraits people paint of him, " David Kuo on this blog this morning.
David and I are planning on doing an online dialogue/interview soon about our respective books. Stay tuned.
The Vital Importance of Doubt
21 Oct 2006 05:30 pm
A reader writes:
Your comments about the necessity to recognize doubt reminded me of the most profound moment I ever witnessed on television, namely, the final episode of a series called "The Ascent of Man", which aired in the early 70's. You may of course be well versed in this already, and forgive me if you do, but briefly, the narrator (Dr. Jacob Bronowski) contrasted the certainty of Nazism with the contemporaneous Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
Standing in a swamp behind one of the Nazi death camps, Dr. Bronowski bent forward, and ran his hands through the muck of this swamp that contained the bodily remains of some of his family, while trying to explain the consequences of ideological certainty. I cannot think or tell of this without tears, and yet we seem never to learn these lessons.
By the miracle of YouTube, I found the moment my reader mentioned. He's right. When will we learn? Here it is:
Stay Home on November 7
21 Oct 2006 05:07 pm
The Derb issues a fatwa:
The only thing we can usefully do then is to assert our existence as a voting bloc in the one way that's available to us: by not voting. That lays down a warning to any future GOP administration that might be tempted to go as badly wrong on important conservative issues as this one has.
This nation survived Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton; it will survive Nancy Pelosi and Charlie Rangel. Ten, fifteen, twenty years from now, when our kids are voters, some GOP administration and Congress might be tempted to violate core conservative principles as egregiously as this one has. But they will hear key voices, the voices of party elders and wise commentators, warning: "Remember the Great Congressional Massacre of '06! Let's not risk that happening again!" And Congress and the admin. will then turn the wheel to the right.
Amen, sister.
Vatican Evil
21 Oct 2006 04:35 pm
The Catholic hierarchy is still protecting child rapists. In the name of God. Meanwhile, the Pope condemns "weak and deviant" gay relationships. I recall something Jesus said about motes and beams.
The End of the "Values Voter"?
21 Oct 2006 04:05 pm
A reader writes:
I read with interest your reader's comparison of the GOP's cynical attitude toward evangelical Christians with the Democrat's attitude toward African Americans and homosexuals. There are some very real parallels there, but with one crucial difference: African Americans and homosexuals are part of historically oppressed groups. They will never forsake politics, because they cannot afford to.
I cannot say the same for the evangelicals. In spite of a persecution complex that the leaders of the Religious Right have been cultivating for years (the secularists are out to get us!), conservative Christians, as a group, have never really felt the sting of persecution. And although many of them have a fundamentalist streak, they also have something that I like to call "world-flight syndrome." As much as they'd like to change the world politically, there's a big part of them that just wants to sit in their corner and pray for the apocalypse, pray that God will take them away from this world that they, secretly, hate and distrust. If they become disillusioned with the Republican Party, they will not hesitate to abandon politics and focus on saving souls.
The Republicans are in a tight spot: they can't give the evangelicals what they want for fear of losing moderates and sane conservatives, but if they don't give the evangelicals what they want, they'll lose them, too. It happened once before, when conservative Christians tried to block evolution from entering public schools - after the Scopes Monkey Trial, many of them abandoned politics, only to be revived in the 80s by the Moral Majority. And it's happening again.
Evangelicals may come back this November for more punishment, but in my opinion, it's only a matter of time. What we're seeing is the beginning of the end of the "values vote."
Not Quite So Sorry
21 Oct 2006 02:55 pm
Reading Kim Jong Il's fine print.
Traitors, Spies, Murderers, Husbands
21 Oct 2006 02:46 pm
You want to know how the federal government thinks about the spouses of gay people? Congressman Gerry Studds' legal husband will be denied all his spouse's pension, thanks to Bill Clinton's and the Republican Congress' 1996 Defense of Marriage Act. The only other Congressional spouses treated this way are those convicted of treason, espionage or murder.
Yes, I feel rage. Rage at every politician who voted for the despicable bill, and rage at everyone who supported it.
The Anti-Neocon Gloat
21 Oct 2006 02:44 pm
Matthew Parris puts the boot in. He would be more persuasive if many neocons hadn't been making the point about the botched execution of the war three years ago.
Yglesias Award Nominee
21 Oct 2006 01:17 pm
"I think the regime change policy established under Bill Clinton was the right policy. I think taking Saddam seriously after 9/11 was the right policy. But, of the many arguments in favor of toppling Saddam in 2001-2002 one of the most important — in my mind and, I believe, in the mind of many others — was that toppling the Iraq domino and standing-up a stable, democratically inclined government was supposed to be comparatively easy. The demonstration-effect argument has not panned out.
I believe we're in for a long war on terror. I believe the Iraq war was — and is — part of the war on terror. But resources — political, economic, military, diplomatic etc — are finite. And, I find it hard to believe that if we knew everything we know now back then we would have agreed to allocate them in the same way. Of course you can pile counter-factual upon counter-factual. If we had that sort of perfect knowledge back then we would have handled the initial looting differently. We would have done all sorts of things differently. Fine, fine. But that's basically my point. I'm all for being on offense. But I think in retrospect we called the wrong play. But simply because you called the wrong play doesn't mean you walk off the field," - Jonah Goldberg, yesterday.
It's hard to disagree with him. I'm well into the Woodward book now and what's striking is how many people in the government warned very clearly that this was not going to be easy - and they were ignored or fired or lost traction in internal fighting. The interesting question - unanswerable but also essential to ask - is obvious, and has been wrestled with elsewhere. Was this project always doomed or did the execution doom it? I'm still struggling with that question. Woodward's evidence suggests that the incompetence and recklessness - almost carelessness - at the top was so staggering that historians will have a hard time separating out the variables for failure. But it doesn't mean it was ever "comparatively easy." I made the dumb error of thinking that the administration would never leap into such a scenario with no real plan for the aftermath. I made the error of believing these people had even a minimal sense of responsibility. My only defense is that I have tried to avoid that error ever since.
(Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty.)
What He Didn't Say
21 Oct 2006 11:56 am
Here's the formulation the president laid out yesterday about Iraq:
"Our goal has not changed. Our goal is a country that can defend, sustain and govern itself, a country that which will serve as an ally in this war. Our tactics are adjusting."
I notice that the word "democracy" is missing.
Window Pics
21 Oct 2006 02:50 am
I love them and they're wildly popular, and please keep sending them. But please remember to put a place and time of day. Also: no pets or rainbows, or we open Hallmark's box. And a window frame of some sort puts you way near the front of the line.
Life Choices
21 Oct 2006 02:33 am
TNR's Katherine Marsh asks:
When was the last time anyone even cared whether a male politician was happy with his life choices?
How about the day before in the same magazine, in a piece on Mark Warner by Ryan Lizza?
(Of course, I write this on a book tour in a hotel room in Wisconsin, missing my other half and the beagles, so maybe I'm just more touchy about life choices right now. But, you know, if you're lucky to have a happy home, it sucks to abandon it).
Goldwater vs Christianism
21 Oct 2006 01:15 am
No one said it better:
"On religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both.
I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in 'A,' 'B,' 'C,' and 'D.' Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of 'conservatism.'"
- Barry Goldwater, September 16, 1981.
Friday, October 20, 2006
Waterboarding and the Movies
20 Oct 2006 11:37 pm
A reader writes:
I urge you to see the Criterion Collection DVD of 1960's Tunes Of Glory in which John Mills, as Lt. Col. Barrow, speaks of his having been waterboarded by his Japanese captors. Plainly, from Barrow's words, it was known to the novelist, and screenwriter of the film, James Kennaway (a young ex-junior officer when he wrote the novel) that waterboarding is torture and that its psychological effect upon the tormented is profoundly painful and permanently harmful.
I shan't spoil for you the plot or other details of the film, whose roles in it were regarded by both Sir Alec Guinness and Sir John Mills as the finest of their cinema careers. It is, I should only say, a haunting story unforgettably told by director Ronald Neame.
That's what Netflix is for, innit?
Goldwater Republicans ...
20 Oct 2006 09:28 pm
... and JFK Democrats? A reader muses:
Like you, I greatly enjoyed the profile of Barry Goldwater done by his granddaughter. You may call yourself a "Goldwater Republican" - I would call myself more of a "JFK Democrat". Funny how that era had more inspiring leaders. It seems to me that while both of them had differing points of view they agreed on many "big" issues when you look back from 40 years down history's road. Sorry to say one died five years before I was born and the other saw his brand of conservatism thrown to the curb and retreated to his beloved Arizona.
It's way too simplistic, but "Southwestern" American Conservatism I understand and appreciate even where I wouldn't neccessarily always agree. It is expansive especially in regards to personal liberty and freedom. But "Southern" American Conservatism, which largely grew out of former Democrats (or as they called themselves "Dixiecrats") seems nearly devoid of all the principles previously held so dear by "conservatives". In my view that split is a great paradox of our time in American history.
Readers and Reviews
20 Oct 2006 08:19 pm
Well I didn't think of that. Why not have readers comment on a review? Here's one:
I have just finished reading the review of your book in the Economist. The reviewer (if he understood the book correctly) seems to use various keywords (quest, perplexing, personal, intriguing, unfinished) to describe your "brand" of faith and political philosophy. The last sentence the author writes on your book, ""The Conservative Soul" is peculiar and inconclusive, but it is also intellectually challenging and thoroughly captivating," was striking to me. Not so much that your book is "intellectually challenging and thoroughly captivating," but that it is described like a personal journey toward understanding the true meaning of faith. If so, it is an honest reflection of Christianity as I understand it: never fully formed and absolute (for that is the realm of the fundamentalist), but incomplete, full of doubt (for this is the true catalyst for a more meaningful search for understanding).
"Peculiar and inconclusive" - that is my life in a nutshell.
Mine too. And I'm grateful for it. For balance, here's a negative review I just received. The reviewer is actually cited in the book defending fundamentalism. Money quote:
Sullivan has given up the hope that his religion is true. When he finds a contradiction between tradition and experience, he jettisons tradition and appeals to himself.
For the record, this is what I write about religious tradition in the book:
How can a Christian exist without the Gospels? How can a Christian today believe without the church's centuries-long care in protecting an inheritance? How can a Catholic simply ignore the statements of those who have authority and leadership in the institution that baptized and educated him? He can do none of these things; and wouldn't want to. But he will subject all of them to scrutiny and will not stop at any of these points. Such a faith incorporates these things but aims to live them, to translate them into life, and to experience God in the living here and now.
I have great hope that what Jesus taught was and is true.
Was Pace Being Sarcastic?
20 Oct 2006 07:03 pm
Some of you think so:
I'm retired from the military and I read that quote as a jab at Rumsfeld.
A comment like that in front of troops would have caused eyes to roll and maybe a few laughs. The fact that General Pace felt he could make a comment like that about his boss is telling. If Rumsfeld could read that quote and not see the sarcasm, then maybe the SECDEF really believes he is channeling the will of God.
Maybe there's a YouTube and we can tell.
Losing the Idea of America
20 Oct 2006 06:54 pm
A reader writes:
Growing up in South Africa, I had more than enough opportunities to be confronted by injustice. The fact that people of my particular hue happened to be the beneficiaries on these daily cruelties didn't make it any easier. One (not the only, but certainly an important) source of consolation was the US’ example. You had segregation, but you ended it. You 'concentrated' Japanese Americans, but you apologized for it. Being gay, I appreciated your focus on individual liberty – the notion that people should live as they please. I liked the American project, and I wanted us to follow a similar dream.
I remember standing in the doorway to my bathroom (overly specific, I know, but that's how I remember it), and hearing on the radio that Nelson Mandela was going to be freed, and the ANC un-banned. I cried (I was about 14 at the time, so that was a big deal also). I remember thinking: 'Now we can be a normal country (like the US). Now we can make normal mistakes, fix them, and try to do better next time.'
I give you the background to put in context how incredibly disappointed I've been in America since September 11. Angry sometimes (Guantan√°mo), shocked a few times (Abu Ghraib, the fact that Dick Cheney and George W. are real people and not characters in a bad political satire). But the disappointment has been the worst.
So many lost opportunities to be the good guys.
In any event, the reason for my email: I had forgotten that the old dreams still live in America (if not in the White House). Your blog reminded me of that.
I'm reminded of it daily as I read my emails and tour the country. I have confidence - no, faith - that Americans will recover their country, its meaning, and its promise. Soon.
YouTube Satire
20 Oct 2006 05:44 pm
You've got be careful about what words you use in politics these days. With YouTube and naughty satirists, you can be edited and spliced to look, well, ridiculous. Ken Blackwell ... well, let's cut to the tape:
(Hat tip: Hit N Run.)
A Machine Pol For Marriage
20 Oct 2006 05:22 pm
Brooklyn's Democratic leader, Vito Lopez, marks a new level of acceptance for big city pols to back full marriage rights for gays - even while representing ethnic, often Hispanic, Catholic voters.
Tradition and Conservatism
20 Oct 2006 04:55 pm
"Think of history as a giant, unpredictable pool game. Tradition is simply the pattern that exists at any given moment on the table. It is where you start from; it constrains what you can do; it commands attention and respect; and yet there is still enormous potential for change. A skilled player will immediately intuit imaginative ways to reorder the whole table; or to play it safe; or to just move it along. In Michael Oakeshott's words,
"A tradition is not something to which we must adhere; it is something which provides the starting point and the initiative for fresh enquiry. It is no use looking to it for finished conclusions, for settled answers to fixed questions because it is not a tradition of conclusions or even of questions, but of enquiry."
This is what time is; and it is the universe in which practical life has to occur. One thing leads to another; and every moment presents us with choices of how to act and what to do. Yes, there are constraints: the historically contingent pattern you are born into; the genetic lottery; the hazards of physical life. But in the end, practical life does not relent in offering every individual a constant array of choices, trivial and profound, that she has to make. Even not making a decision is a decision...
The conservative, unlike the fundamentalist or Marxist or any other adherent of a direction for time, simply observes that this is the way the world is. He will confront the fundamentalist with a puzzled look, and ask him how he knows for sure that something beyond contingency and choice is at work in human history, that some other force is directing human action and ends. He will enjoy pointing out the collapse of this great theory of history and that one. And in the meantime, he will simply make the choices he wants to make and live.
Laurence Olivier put the conservative temperament in this respect rather well when he said: 'I take a simple view of life: keep your eyes open and get on with it,'" - The Conservative Soul, Chapter Five.
Malkin Award Nominee
20 Oct 2006 04:15 pm
"I didn't need a former Bush administration official to tell me that most White House political operatives don't really like the evangelical base that brought them to power. I've seen the evidence for myself, up close and personal. But the more astonishing phenomenon is how current high-level officials of the Bush administration daily go out of their way to insult this critical constituency just weeks before the vote.
Here's an example: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, someone who claims to be a Christian herself, which, by definition, means you submit to the authority of Jesus and the Bible, last week swore in to the position of AIDS coordinator an open homosexual. The position carries the rank of ambassador. The photo accompanying this column shows the smiling first lady, Laura Bush, and Mark Dybul's partner, Jason Claire, leering at him.
During her comments, Rice referred to the presence of Claire's mother and – sit yourself down for this one – called her Dybul's "mother-in-law." Do you get the picture? Do you believe God will honor an administration that behaves this way? Do you believe God will continue to protect a country that flagrantly disregards His laws? Do you believe God will be mocked like this without consequences? Do you believe God will bless a party that acts so duplicitously? Remember what I told you on the evening of Nov. 7," - Joseph Farah, Christianist, editor of the conservative website, WorldNetDaily.
Leering?
Quote for the Day
20 Oct 2006 03:43 pm
It's an open letter by Kevin Tillman, Pat Tillman's brother (both pictured above in a family photo). It's brutal and honest and there is so much in it that speaks to our moment. Money quote:
Somehow those afraid to fight an illegal invasion decades ago are allowed to send soldiers to die for an illegal invasion they started.
Somehow faking character, virtue and strength is tolerated.
Somehow profiting from tragedy and horror is tolerated.
Somehow the death of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people is tolerated.
Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and The Constitution is tolerated.
Somehow suspension of Habeas Corpus is supposed to keep this country safe.
Somehow torture is tolerated.
Somehow lying is tolerated.
Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma, and nonsense.
Somehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world.
Somehow a narrative is more important than reality.
Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.
Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most irrational, belligerent, feared, and distrusted countries in the world.
Somehow being politically informed, diligent, and skeptical has been replaced by apathy through active ignorance.
Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country.
Somehow this is tolerated.
Somehow nobody is accountable for this.
Well, the founding fathers ensured that every two years someone can be held accountable for this. So you now know what to do.
Reviews
20 Oct 2006 03:14 pm
What's a blogger supposed to do about reviews of a book? I've already been pretty crass in promoting the book on the blog - but mainly because I believe in its arguments and see no reason not to try and get it out to as many people as possible before the election. Reviews are different. Do I link to them? Ignore them? Respond to them? Reviewers have every right to criticize a book without the author jumping down their throats. So I'll link to the few I've seen, and if any raise a serious argument that's worth addressing, I'll try and respond just to that argument. Anyway, here's the Economist's review. Make of it what you will.
Christianism Watch
20 Oct 2006 02:51 pm
"He leads in a way that the good Lord tells him is best for our country," - Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Donald Rumsfeld.
Surely the military leadership can be a place where expression of religious faith of one particular variety is restrained. Especially when we are at war with Islamic extremists, and when we must take every care to make sure our millitary actions aren't perceived abroad as religiously motivated. And surely military decisions should be made on an empirical, pragmatic basis, rather than on messages from Heaven.
Brownback's Questionnaire
20 Oct 2006 02:37 pm
The good Senator from ... er, Heaven, has a form for potential judges. Enjoy.
Why Warner Quit
20 Oct 2006 02:15 pm
He didn't want it enough. Who can blame him?
The View From Your Window
20 Oct 2006 02:03 pm
West Chicago, Illinois, 11.50 am.
American Exceptionalism
20 Oct 2006 01:34 pm
Is it now a danger to America's national self-interest? There's a discussion here. Money quote from David Rieff to Gregory Djerejian:
I think it is American exceptionalism itself, as our official national ideology, that is now dangerous to our national interest in a way it has not been in the past. The reason for this is simple. During much of the 20th century, much of the world (outside of Latin America, that is, where we were always viewed as the empire) concurred with America's image of itself. Perhaps that was because of what we represented; perhaps, to take the realist approach you and I both favor, it was because it was in Europe's and much of East Asia's interest to do so. But at the very least, the sense we had of ourselves did not seem illegitimate to much of the world as it does now. But now is now, and we are still proceeding as if we get a kind of moral free pass no matter what we do, that we are exceptional.
Quote for the Day II
20 Oct 2006 12:58 pm
"It will make you feel better to say, I didn't lose the election; Foley lost it for me. Your wife and kids will believe it," - Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform.
If the Republicans lose this election, it will be for a simple reason. They have forgotten what conservatism means. You cannot spend and borrow more than any Democratic Congress since FDR and remain a credible conservative. You cannot elevate executive power permanently above individual liberty and remain a credible conservative. You cannot wage a war without the care, resources, and troops needed to win and remain a credible conservative. You cannot wage a religiously-based culture war and remain a limited government conservative. It's not that complicated really.
YouTube of the Day
20 Oct 2006 12:49 pm
Every now and again, the plight of the heterosexual male deserves some sympathy. Wired for sex, yet programmed for marriage, and forced to deal with an opposite sex they can neither fully understand nor easily resist, straight men do not have an easy time of it. Gareth Keenan, in a deleted scene from the British comedy classic, "The Office," explains:
Quid Pro Kuo
20 Oct 2006 12:26 pm
Here's David Kuo's appearance on Colbert.
My favorite line:
"I think someone had to point out that Jesus and George W. Bush are different people..."
Yep, one was tortured; and the other tortures.
Quote for the Day
20 Oct 2006 11:28 am
"One day I will be asked whether I have been in touch with someone who told me we would win, and I will respond: 'Yes, I have been in touch with God'," - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (Hat tip: Tom Gross.)
Is Europe Doomed?
20 Oct 2006 10:29 am
Not so fast, says Clive Davis, with a particularly sharp elbow toward Mark Steyn.
Dogs Rule
20 Oct 2006 01:05 am
If you didn't know that before, you do now.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
The Christianist Revolt
19 Oct 2006 11:43 pm
This quote can't be good news for Rove:
"The Republican leadership spent $1 million on helping Chafee, and then it wonders why conservatives don't think they're wanted in this party. They think the leadership wants them to come out every year, shine your shoes, then go sit in the back of the bus, take their Bibles and read them and shut up."
The Catholic Hierarchy and Gays
19 Oct 2006 10:18 pm
Rocco has a leak of the imminent document from the American Catholic bishops on pastoral care of homosexual Catholics. No big surprises - but a nod toward baptizing the adopted children of same-sex couples.
Campaign Ad Watch
19 Oct 2006 09:31 pm
Attacking Jerry Brown - and "flaky liberals" everywhere. The last words? "Amen to that."
Electricity in Baghdad
19 Oct 2006 08:21 pm
Here's a graph compiled from data provided by Brookings.
A first-person account of the unraveling of civil order in much of the country can be read here.
From the Lesbian Complaint Rock Contingent
19 Oct 2006 07:56 pm
A reader writes:
Whoa there, Andrew. To quote another great libertarian, Dave Barry, "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and in this case, yours is wrong." I think by "whiny, lesbian complaint-rock", you meant "staggeringly brilliant contemporary rock fueled by searing individualistic rage." I'm sure you'll correct this minor wording error expediently.
Actually, I'm too busy watching '80s videos. I hope to get the results up by early next week.
Mr Cheney, Meet Reality
19 Oct 2006 07:35 pm
A sign that he isn't completely immune to the bleeding obvious:
TIME: Mr. Vice President, if you had to take back any one thing you'd said about Iraq, what would it be?
CHENEY: I expressed the sentiment some time ago that I thought we were over the hump in terms of violence, I think that was premature. I thought the elections would have created that environment. And it hasn't happened yet.
Quote for the Day II
19 Oct 2006 07:06 pm
"I now officially regret supporting this war back in 2003. The guilt is too much for me to handle," - Zeyad, from the Healing Iraq blog.
I know how he feels. Other Iraqi bloggers are venting in an unprecedented way about the anarchy and violence that is now consuming their country. Check it out.
Hastert In Deeper?
19 Oct 2006 06:38 pm
The former House clerk who oversaw the page program on the Hill testified before the House Ethics Committee for four hours today, according to ABC News. His testimony? Trandahl testified that
a top aide to House Speaker Dennis Hastert was informed of "all issues dealing with the page program," according to a Republican familiar with the investigation.
The Republican source said Trandahl planned to name Ted Van Der Meid, the speaker's counsel and floor manager, as the person who was briefed on a regular basis about any issue that arose in the page program, including a "problem group of members and staff who spent too much time socializing with pages outside of official duties." One of whom was Mark Foley.
Trandahl's testimony before the House Ethics Committee could provide additional evidence that key members of the speaker's staff were aware of problems involving the page program for years.
Full disclosure: Trandahl has long been a friend of mine. I haven't spoken to him since this Foley affair surfaced. But the signs are clear. Both he and Kirk Fordham have testified that Hastert's office knew very well for a long time what predators like Mark Foley were up to. If the committee finds Fordham and Trandahl credible before the election, Hastert will have to quit. He would have caused less damage to the GOP had he quit already. This thing, in other words, is not over. And it could detonate at a very precarious time.
How Many Gays?
19 Oct 2006 06:20 pm
We don't know is the only real answer. But the number of people prepared to tell interviewers they are gay has gone up a great deal in the past few years. And the number of self-identifying same-sex couples has leapt in the last decade as well - across the entire country. Marc Fisher has the stats and a link to the PDF report from UCLA's law school. The five gayest cities in America? San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, Portland and then Washington, D.C.
You Think The Christianists Are Angry?
19 Oct 2006 06:00 pm
Now imagine how the stingrays feel.
Malkin Award Nominee
19 Oct 2006 05:17 pm
"What David Kuo is saying about the President and his efforts is nothing more than a cynical attempt to sell books and line his pockets with 30 pieces of silver," - David Contreras, Texas director of the Council on Faith in Action. So that makes Bush ... Jesus?
Live and Let Die
19 Oct 2006 04:29 pm
When Dick Cheney says that the new Iraqi government is doing "remarkably well," he is not only ignoring reality; in many ways, he is being callous in the face of extraordinary suffering that the Iraq invasion has unleashed. After a long silence, Iraq's Riverbend blogger has just vented about the debate over the numbers of civilian casualties since the invasion. Are they 400,000 or 600,000? Money quote:
For American politicians and military personnel, playing dumb and talking about numbers of bodies in morgues and official statistics, etc, seems to be the latest tactic. But as any Iraqi knows, not every death is being reported... So far, the only Iraqis I know pretending this [600,000] number is outrageous are either out-of-touch Iraqis abroad who supported the war, or Iraqis inside of the country who are directly benefiting from the occupation ($) and likely living in the Green Zone.
The chaos and lack of proper facilities is resulting in people being buried without a trip to the morgue or the hospital. During American military attacks on cities like Samarra and Fallujah, victims were buried in their gardens or in mass graves in football fields. Or has that been forgotten already?
We literally do not know a single Iraqi family that has not seen the violent death of a first or second-degree relative these last three years. Abductions, militias, sectarian violence, revenge killings, assassinations, car-bombs, suicide bombers, American military strikes, Iraqi military raids, death squads, extremists, armed robberies, executions, detentions, secret prisons, torture, mysterious weapons – with so many different ways to die, is the number so far fetched?
There are Iraqi women who have not shed their black mourning robes since 2003 because each time the end of the proper mourning period comes around, some other relative dies and the countdown begins once again.
Let's pretend the 600,000+ number is all wrong and that the minimum is the correct number: nearly 400,000. Is that better? Prior to the war, the Bush administration kept claiming that Saddam killed 300,000 Iraqis over 24 years. After this latest report published in The Lancet, 300,000 is looking quite modest and tame. Congratulations Bush et al.
How to disagree? She is living this nightmare. We are merely watching it unfold.
(Photo: Wisam Sami/AFP/Getty.)
Kuo's Democratic Parallel
19 Oct 2006 03:42 pm
This reader makes a good point:
The perfect parallel to the Kuo and Christianism post is the Democrats' treatment of blacks the past 30 years. I'm sure senior staff in the Clinton administration would roll their eyes at the antics of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and call them 'the nuts'. But when election time rolled around play 'race card' and poverty pimp games to gin up African-American turnout.
Gays too. But neither gays nor African-Americans believe that their various issues are all God's will, in the way Christianists do. What you have with Christianism is the worst of liberal special interest group politics with the worst of Republican intolerance and rigidity.
Free Speech on Campus
19 Oct 2006 03:05 pm
You cannot even put a Dave Barry quote on your office door at Marquette university? Perhaps it has something to do with the message:
"As Americans, we must always remember that we all have a common enemy, an enemy that is dangerous, powerful and relentless. I refer, of course, to the federal government."
That's "patently offensive"? It's funny and too often true.
The View From Your Window
19 Oct 2006 02:15 pm
Forest Hill, Maryland, 6 pm.
YouTube of the Day
19 Oct 2006 01:59 pm
Vernon Robinson, the Republican candidate responsible for this disgraceful ad, self-immolates on cable television. Even Hannity cannot rescue him.
The End of Multiculturalism?
19 Oct 2006 01:45 pm
The British Labour government wants Muslim immigrants to integrate, not separate. It's something of a volte-face. The Telegraph comments here. Some of you have argued that my opposition to public school teachers wearing the full, face-covering veil is contrary to my generally laisser-faire approach to cultural and social issues. But the distinction in the case of a public school teacher is obvious: in representing the state, and doing a job paid for by the government, you are obliged to follow the rules. One of those rules is that teachers should be able to explain fully what they are teaching, which is somewhat hard when everything but a small slit for your eyes is covered. Dress codes in public offices are not an infringement of freedom. We require many public officials to wear uniforms. No one is suggesting making wearing the chador illegal. What many are urging is an attempt to discourage meretricious cultural separatism. I see no problem with that.
Kuo and Christianism
19 Oct 2006 01:28 pm
A reader challenges me:
During the past week I became dimly aware of the Kuo book, but only from skimming over posts about it on your blog and the Corner, etc. I heard him interviewed on Fresh Air tonight and got up to speed on the theme of his book. I'll take him at face value - he seemed like a straight shooter.
The thing I was most struck by is that the gist of what he said amounts to a strong contradiction to your thesis that the Christianists are running the White House, Congress, and the Republican party in general. His main point is that the White House doesn't take the religious people seriously and mostly just uses them for political purposes. That's pretty unseemly, but it also suggests that you're wrong to think that a bunch of fundamentalists have the Republican party in their collective pocket.
The only problem with this analysis is that it assumes that Christianist dominance of the GOP policy agenda and cynical exploitation of it by party operatives are mutually exclusive phenomena. They're not. What Kuo is arguing, it seems to me, is that the base is genuinely committed to Republican politics for their own religious reasons, and that the party leadership sees this - or, simply by using it, came to see it - as a political tool and lever to win elections. And so cynicism crept in at the top and rage built at the bottom. And each reinforced the other. In fact, if the base weren't sincere it would be impossible for the elite to condescend to them.
But have the Christianists gotten nothing from this deal? Kuo's case is that not enough federal money was shoveled into their coffers. He was expecting an $8 billion bonanza - and got one percent of what Bush promised. But we also have the following set of facts: a party platform committed to criminalizing all abortions (including rape and incest) and banning legal same-sex unions by federal constitutional amendment; unprecedented federal and presidential intervention in the Terri Schiavo case; advancement of Christianist activist judges at all federal and many state levels; 39 states where same-sex unions are banned or gutted; the promotion of religion as science in the classroom; a federal ban on funding for stem cell research; restrictions on Plan B contraception; explicitly religious appeals by political leaders like Tom DeLay; a stepped-up federal war on state medical marijuana decisions; a concerted effort to withdraw Catholic communion from many Democratic politicians; and sectarian worship within the Armed Forces. Have Christianists overhauled the entire country? Of course not. Have they had unprecedented access to power and influence? Ask James Dobson and Jerry Falwell who gets to vet Supreme Court Justice nominees. Have the Christianists been bamboozled? To some extent, yes. But the radicalism of their agenda is self-limiting in a diverse, liberal society. There was simply no way that their cherished constitutional amendments could leap the hurdles the founders set for such drastic changes in one presidential term. But in the long term, the foundations have been laid - in organization, structure and policy. The shift in the judiciary is palpable - and would become far more permanent with another presidential term.
I think of the GOP and Christianists as being in an alliance of mutual use and abuse. After a while, who is using whom can become blurry. Both would be better off, in my view, with a lot more clear sky between them.
Republicans and Pork
19 Oct 2006 12:39 pm
Here's another handy graph when people like Rush Limbaugh start telling you that today's GOP is conservative. He's lying. This graph is from the Heritage Foundation, which, last time I checked, was conservative. And don't be deceived by the reduction of earmarks in 2006. As Heritage explains:
There were more earmarks in 2005 than from 1991 to 1999 combined. Although the number of earmarks went down in 2006, their cost increased $6 billion in one year - from $23 billion in 2005 to $29 billion in 2006.
Quote for the Day
19 Oct 2006 11:30 am
"All conservatism begins with loss.
If we never knew loss, we would never feel the need to conserve, which is the essence of any conservatism. Our lives, a series of unconnected moments of experience, would simply move effortlessly on, leaving the past behind with barely a look back. But being human, being self-conscious, having memory, forces us to confront what has gone and what might have been. And in those moments of confrontation with time, we are all conservatives...
The regret you feel in your life at the kindness not done, the person unthanked, the opportunity missed, the custom unobserved, is a form of conservatism. The same goes for the lost love or the missed opportunity: these experiences teach us the fragility of the moment, and that fragility is what, in part, defines us...
Human beings live by narrative; and we get saddened when a familiar character disappears from a soap opera; or an acquaintance moves; or an institution becomes unrecognizable from what it once was. These little griefs are what build a conservative temperament. They interrupt our story; and our story is what makes sense of our lives. So we resist the interruption; and when we resist it, we are conservatives," - "The Conservative Soul," Chapter One.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Please Stop
18 Oct 2006 11:51 pm
Well, I asked for it. I now have well over a hundred 80s videos to sift through. (And a book to promote; and a blog to write; and two columns due.) Thanks much. But I can't watch any more! Results as soon as I'm able.
Rush vs Glenn
18 Oct 2006 10:48 pm
Instapundit is making the right enemies.
Quote for the Day
18 Oct 2006 09:43 pm
"I remember a time when, following an event of international significance, the world would wait to hear what the president of the United States had to say about it. In Britain we would have an impatient few hours before America had woken up. Because until the President had spoken, you couldn't be sure of even the shape of what might happen next.
On Monday we woke to the news of North Korea's nuclear test, and to a banal commentary of people who didn't really know what to say about it. Just when you wanted some real insight and even facts, the [BBC radio] Today programme again indulged its tiresome obsession with Iraq, focusing upon whether Tony Blair's actions there had made this move by Kim Jong Il more likely blah blah. That didn't surprise me. What did was my instinctive reaction when George W. Bush did speak much later in the day. There he was gravely intoning on one or other news channel that this "constitutes a threat to international peace and security", and "Oh sod off" I heard myself muttering, with no desire to hear any more. It was as much ennui as irritation: I didn’t believe he would have anything useful to say and found it faintly annoying that he spoke as though the world would care.
One reaction from a completely insignificant voice in the political process. Yet it reveals, I think, a sad truth: the 43rd President of the United States of America has squandered the political authority of a great country," - Alice Miles, The Times of London.
How The GOP Can Win
18 Oct 2006 09:30 pm
Mike Allen explains it all for you.
C.S. Lewis and Sexual Sin
18 Oct 2006 09:01 pm
He wasn't obsessed with it, as a reader reminds me:
Note one important corollary [about Lewis' distinction between civil and religious marriage]: Lewis wouldn't have regarded such a distinction as permissible if he thought that "non-Christian marriage" and relatively easy divorce was a really serious sin, any more than he regarded, say, murder or thievery as morally permissible for non-Christians. The same thing is true of his attitude toward homosexuality - as far as I can determine, he mildly disapproved of it but was simply too morally sane to regard it as a serious sin:
"I have never been able to understand how sexually normal people can regard homosexuals with anything other than a kind of bewildered pity."
We don't need the pity, but this is certainly infinitely more agreeable than self-righteous hatred. And in the chapter of his autobiography dealing with the year he spent in a horrendous private school that he calls "Belsen", he notes that the top-ranked bullies had an accompanying set of catamites - and then talks at some length about how this was the only sign of genuine human affection that existed in the place, and points out that there are infinitely worse sins. (He wrote this in the Britain of 1958.)
K-Lo and Mitt
18 Oct 2006 08:25 pm
Hold the vapors. And watch the swoon.
Republicans and Spending
18 Oct 2006 07:31 pm
Here's a graph that helps illustrate the astonishing leap in federal spending under the Bush Republicans. It's from the conservative think-tank, the Heritage Foundation. There are more helpful graphs here. Note that in the 1990s, spending plateaued and even fell slightly. As soon as Republicans controlled the White House and the Congress, it took off. Whatever else these people are, they are not fiscal conservatives.
YouTube of the Day
18 Oct 2006 07:19 pm
It's South Park's version of the anti-immigrant campaign ad I posted yesterday. "They took our jobs!"
Goldwater vs Bush
18 Oct 2006 07:07 pm
A reader writes:
I saw your interview with Brian Lamb on C-Span last night. I think if Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan were alive to have seen it, they would have been cheering you on. They would have been saying, he has got it. He understands us, in contrast to President Bush who does not. In fact, they would be saying George Bush is not even close to understanding what it means to have a Conservative Soul.
There are more anti-Bush conservatives out there than you'd think. At least judging from my email in-tray.
Bush on Waterboarding
18 Oct 2006 06:51 pm
Someone f