Saturday, June 9, 2007

09 Jun 2007 09:55 pm

Tagg On MySpace!

The enthusiastic son of the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, Tagg Romney, has a MySpace page, complete with contributions from his friends, including "Brittney":

hello. IS IT TRUE THAT YOUR DAD AND YOUR FAMILY ARE REALLY MORMONS? does the public now? will that effect the debate?

Who knows, Brittney, who knows? More Taggish shout-outs from his friends:

I'm SO EXCITED that Mitt is running!!!
He is just what this AMAZING country needs.

Or a simple series of gurgles from "Sam":

You're dad is awesome! ...  Excited for the debate? oh man, I can't wait to see your dad. He's so smart! I wouldn't want to debate him.

Tagg's favorite books:

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Rex, The Bible, The Hobbit, Lincoln, The Victome de Bragelonne, Battlefield Earth, Dragon Flight, Dune, Book of Mormon, Tale of Two Cities, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Screwtape Letters, Les Miserables, Harry Potter (my guilty pleasure), Pride and Prejudice, A Farewell to Arms, Ender's Game, Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage.

There's "Battlefield Earth" again. Uh-oh. It seems to have made quite an impact on the Romney family. Here's a good question for Romney if any reporter has the balls to ask: "What is your view of Scientology? Is it a religion?"

09 Jun 2007 08:12 pm

In Defense of Romney

A reader writes:

What's wrong with politicians doing whatever it is we want, regardless of their own personal views?  Isn't that what we elect them for, to do the will of the people?  It's better than politicians who stick to their own asinine views as a matter of principle, the will of the people be damned.

Maybe Bush is helping Romney, after all.

09 Jun 2007 07:11 pm

Ending The Bush Detainee Regime

Mercifully, the system envisaged by the founders seems gradually to be unraveling this president's ad hoc, arrogant and unconstitutional post-9/11 detainee policy. Here's a masterful post on the subject that sums up where we've come from and how. Money quote:

All this goes to show that creating a new system from scratch is a terrible idea, especially when we already have systems perfectly well suited for the exact tasks. We have courts that can try people for war crimes, and have done so. We have courts that can try people for crimes, and have done so. We have courts that can provide an independent review as to whether someone is or is not properly held, pending hostilities, under the laws of war.

This was done in the 1760s, and can be done as easily now. Now it may not fit the outsized view of executive power some people find in emanations from penumbras in the Constitution (I'll just note that people who think their legal theories are correct don't go around trying to have court jurisdiction eliminated prior to getting rulings) but it fits the actual Constitution that is our patrimony, that was crafted with similar concerns regarding conflict in mind, and was based on the proposition, well tested over the centuries, that diffusion of power best serves the interests of freedom and safety.

09 Jun 2007 06:35 pm

The $5 Million Man?

If the latest report pans out, Ron Paul has leaped out of the asterisk box in the GOP campaign. His largely online funding, if verified, would put him on a par with McCain. Money quote:

Observers close to the campaign are revealing – with some astonishment – that donations to the campaign in recent weeks have pushed the total up to perhaps $4 or $5 million. "That's a huge number at this stage," says one observer. "That starts to put him in a position where he can compete – state by state, anyway – with the major candidates."

I'd credit the Internet, wouldn't you? Stay tuned for confirmation. If it holds up, it means he's in this race for a good while yet - which is good for philosophical diversity in the GOP.

(Hat tip: Radley. Photo: Gabriel Bouys/AFP/Getty.)

09 Jun 2007 06:29 pm

Watching the Romney Pivot

No sooner do I predict that Romney will alter his position on Iraq depending on - what else? - his political interest, than he goes and does exactly that. It's not much of a step, because he's still appealing to the base. But it's an early first distancing from the extreme positions of Giuliani and McCain on endless occupation of the Muslim Middle East:

"Our objective would not be a Korea-type setting with 25-50,000 troops on a near permanent basis remaining in bases in Iraq," the former Massachusetts governor told the Associated Press.

"I think we would hope to turn Iraq security over to their own military and their own security forces, and if presence in the region is important for us than we have other options that are nearby," Romney said.

He aims to please ... whoever he needs to.

09 Jun 2007 06:12 pm

Face of the Day

Darcy Bussell hugging her two daughters Zoe and Phoebe after her final curtain call for her last performance 'Song of the Earth' at the Royal Opera House on June 8, 2007 in London, England. By MJ Kim/Getty Images.

09 Jun 2007 04:59 pm

This Is What A Martyr Is

The Islamists might want to take a look at the life of one Father Ragheed Ganni, a Chaldean Catholic priest, in Iraq:

They killed him on the Sunday after Pentecost, after he had celebrated Mass in his parish church, dedicated to the Holy Spirit, in Mosul.

They killed him together with three subdeacons who were with him – Basman Yousef Daud, Wahid Hanna Isho, and Gassan Isam Bidawed. The assailants led Bidawed’s wife away, and struck down the four men in cold blood. Then they placed vehicles loaded with explosives around their corpses, so that no one would dare to approach them. It was late in the evening before the police in Mosul were able to defuse the explosives and collect the bodies...

His testimony is that of an enthusiastic faith. The target of a series of threats stretching back to 2004, he witnessed the pain of relatives and the loss of friends, and yet he carried on to the very end remembering that there was meaning to be found in that suffering, that carnage, that anarchy of violence: it was to be offered up.

After an attack on his parish, on Palm Sunday last April 1st he said: "We empathise with Christ, who entered Jerusalem in full knowledge that the consequence of His love for mankind was the cross. Thus while bullets smashed our church windows, we offered up our suffering as a sign of love for Christ".

"Each day we wait for the decisive attack”, he said just weeks ago, "but we will not stop celebrating mass; we will do it underground, where we are safer. I am encouraged in this decision by the strength of my parishioners. This is war, real war, but we hope to carry our cross to the very end with the help of Divine Grace".

May he rest in peace.

09 Jun 2007 04:08 pm

Quote for the Day

"Anyone wishing to show respect for Jimmy and his family is asked to wear or display red, white and blue ribbons as he would not have wanted black."

That's part of a statement issued by the family of Jimmy Summers, from Bourbon, Missouri, whose death in Iraq on a rescue mission was commemmorated in this poignant window view from a Dish reader last week.

09 Jun 2007 04:02 pm

Hollywood For Hillary

She appears to have regained the initiative from Obama. (Cue theme-tune from Jaws.)

09 Jun 2007 03:36 pm

There'll Always Be An England

Even in a small corner of Baghdad.

09 Jun 2007 02:21 pm

Love, Rape, Whatever

Michael Medved is always pleasant when I go on his show, and then every now and again, we get a glimpse of the raging homophobia simmering beneath the surface.

09 Jun 2007 01:19 pm

"The Terror of a Romney Presidency."

Jon Chait begs to differ with Josh Marshall, and I tend to side with Chait:

To me, Romney's phoniness is exactly why I'm not terrified of the prospect of him as president. I see him as a competent, moderate-minded manager who has decided his only chance of being elected is to masquerade as a whacko.

The drawback to Romney is also what he has going for him. The Christianists need to be careful. Once he's gotten out of them what he needs, why do we think Romney would pursue the Christianist position in office? If he wins, it will be despite evangelicals, not because of them. He's going nowhere in South Carolina. A chameleon can change color back, remember? (Think: the Clintons and the gays.) I'd also bet that if Romney gets through the primaries, and the question isn't moot by then, he could easily pivot against the war and the surge - much more easily than McCain or Giuliani. Remember: he aims to please. Whomever he needs to. 

09 Jun 2007 12:17 pm

Clinton at Harvard

For all of you who love the old rogue, a reader has edited his Harvard commencement speech in handy YouTube segments. The first one is here.

09 Jun 2007 12:09 pm

A Blogger Or A Writer?

An old media-new media dust-up.

09 Jun 2007 11:08 am

Analyzing The Polls

Charles Franklin: "Who lost the Iraq funding/veto fight? Both President and Congress."

09 Jun 2007 10:59 am

The View From Your Window

Cape Town, South Africa, 8.45 am.

For an interactive gallery of Dish readers' window views across the world, click here.

09 Jun 2007 10:53 am

Verschärfte Vernehmung In Europe

The report by the the lead investigator for the Council of Europe, Dick Marty, into the secret interrogation and torture sites operated by the CIA these past few years makes for extremely grim reading. For decades, the KGB deployed the classic Gestapo techniques on prisoners; now, under the Bush administration, it is the United States that has adopted the same methods:

Ventilation holes in the cells released bursts of hot or freezing air, with temperature used as a form of extreme pressure to wear down prisoners, the investigators found. Prisoners were also subjected to water-boarding, a form of simulated drowning, and relentless blasts of music and sound, from rap to cackling laughter and screams, the report says.

The report, which runs more than 100 pages, says the prisons were operated exclusively by Americans in Poland and Romania from 2003 to 2006. It relies heavily on testimony from C.I.A. agents...

According to the report, suspects were often held for months with no contact except with masked, silent guards who would push meals of cheese, potatoes and bread through hatches.

The defense of the Verschaerfte Vernehmung (which are all war crimes under international law and were subject to the death penalty fifty years ago) is the Giuliani defense:

"Here's my question. Was the guy a terrorist? 'Cause if he's a terrorist, then I figure he got what was coming to him."

Of course, there is no due process to determine who is or who is not a terrorist, and thereby subject to torture. Many detainees aren't even captured by U.S. soldiers or agents. Only 19 percent of the captives in Gitmo, for example, were actually captured by U.S. forces. Americans' system of justice has been outsourced to Pakistani bounty-hunters. And then the Gestapo-process takes over. But, hey, if they're terrorists, they get what's coming to them, no? That's exactly the system of justice and warfare the Founders had in mind, isn't it?

09 Jun 2007 09:54 am

"Illegals"

A reader writes:

This vitriol with which conservatives demonize a variety of groups reminded me of a line from the movie "The Good Shepherd," which I saw recently. Joe Pesci's mobster character asks Matt Damon's CIA agent: "You know, we Italians have our families and the church, the Irish have the homeland, the Jews their tradition, the niggers their music. What do you guys have?" And Damon responds "We have the United States of America. The rest of you are just visiting." I think that sums up the conservative movement's attitude towards our society.

09 Jun 2007 07:31 am

"I am pro-life. He is not."

Brownback slams Romney.

09 Jun 2007 07:15 am

"The Right to Keep and Bear Alcohol"

Iain Murray explains part of the unwritten British constitution.

Friday, June 8, 2007

08 Jun 2007 08:38 pm

Face of the Day

A competitor plays a video game during the Major League Gaming Pro Circuit event June 8, 2007 at the Meadowlands Expo Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Over 2,500 pro and amateur gamers from across North America have converged onto the Meadowlands Expo Center to compete in the games Halo 2, Rainbow Six Vegas, and Gears of War. The gamers will compete over three days for up to $20,000 in prizes. By Spencer Platt/Getty Images.

08 Jun 2007 08:29 pm

Dissent of the Day

A reader writes:

I think you are being a snarky asshole about Paris Hilton - going to jail is a scary, disorienting, horrible experience. Sympathy and compassion and the right attitude, not mocking joviality - especially from a Catholic. This is actually a real person we are talking about.

08 Jun 2007 07:35 pm

From Hanoi To Paris

A reader writes:

The Nick Ut thing is amazing. And what's more, Wikipedia tells me that the Pulitzer-winning photo of the Vietnamese girl was taken 35 years ago today.

First time: tragedy. Second time: farce.

08 Jun 2007 07:26 pm

Unfortunate Logos

It's very hard to beat the Brazilian Institute For Oriental Studies.

08 Jun 2007 05:38 pm

In Paris Hilton's Limo

As one might expect, man's best friend has the appropriate response to being stuck in a limo with the stupid spoiled whore who just got sent back to jail:

More SSW action here.

08 Jun 2007 05:31 pm

Powdered Booze

I really must go back to Holland soon. They've now invented Booz2Go.

08 Jun 2007 05:28 pm

Maybe Al Has A Point

A reader notices something telling: the photographer responsible for the weeping Paris Hilton photographs today, Nick Ut, has a slightly different journalistic pedigree. He took the Pulitzer-winning napalmed Vietnamese girl photograph. And the beat goes on.

08 Jun 2007 05:10 pm

Stem Cell Research

Why Pelosi's rhetoric is dumber and more insulting than Bush's. I take the point. Can you believe she said something as moronic as this:

"Science is a gift of God to all of us and science has taken us to a place that is biblical in its power to cure. And that is the embryonic stem cell research."

Gag.

08 Jun 2007 05:02 pm

A Uniter, Not A Divider

Let's take a moment to assault reason, shall we? The latest, glorious twist in the Paris Hilton story is something that can surely bring us all together, red or blue, male or female, rich or poor. Whoever doesn't feel an ounce of pleasure at the sight of this mega-rich non-entity finally being treated with a modicum of justice has surely lost the capacity to feel anything. Sorry, Al, I know I should be studying carbon offsets. But far from undermining democracy, this little story about this pathetic, pampered wretch can only restore a little faith in the criminal justice system. It's almost enough to make up for O.J.

By the way, here's a site especially for Al Gore. It's called The Superficial. And it's currently going cable on Hilton. Bonus points: TMZ says her lawyer is filing a habeas corpus suit! That's some corpus.

08 Jun 2007 04:26 pm

The Immigration Bill's Death

Good for McCain? Plus: the inside story of the GOP revolt.

08 Jun 2007 04:05 pm

The Black Family and The Black Church

They need each other:

Statistical analyses of partner supportiveness — such as affection, understanding, and encouragement — indicate that fathers' religious attendance is linked to higher reports of supportiveness by both partners at three years after the birth of the child. Specifically, both mothers and fathers are significantly more likely to rate their partner as supportive if the father attends church several times a month or more. These results hold for both married and unmarried parents and do not vary by race.

A measure of overall relationship quality — which ranged from poor to excellent and, again, was measured at three years after the birth of the child — is also related to fathers' religious attendance. Once again, both mothers and fathers are significantly more likely to report that they have an excellent relationship with one another if the father, but not necessarily the mother, attends church frequently. The association between paternal churchgoing and relationship quality holds for married and unmarried couples, and it does not vary by race.

I guess religion doesn't poison everything, does it?

08 Jun 2007 03:37 pm

A Second Cultural Revolution?

There are serious signs of student unrest in the Iranian theocracy. Above is a video of a student activist recently being detained and roughed up by Islamist government thugs at Amir Kabir University in Tehran. He's not alone:

Universities in different parts of Iran are experiencing a new wave of repression by security forces. Between 6-8 student activists, members of student associations, and independent professors who dare to think and express their ideas differently than the Iranian establishment, have been arrested in recent weeks, or are awaiting court hearings and decisions from disciplinary committees - some for allegedly failing to respect strict Islamic dress code.

Check out the best English-language blog covering the Iranian opposition:

They broke Arman’s glasses and kicked and punched Salmanpour to the ground until he went unconscious. Both students have been taken to hospital. Soon there were clashes between students and the university guards & Basijis.

Know hope.

08 Jun 2007 03:18 pm

Bed-Blogging

It's here! It's completely insane! Get over it! Tips for doing it yourself can be found here.

08 Jun 2007 02:49 pm

The Imprisonment of Children

One of the eeriest aspects of the Bush administration's conduct of the war on terror has been the inversion of previously held assumptions about the meaning of the West. We fought a war to end torture; we then occupied Saddam's own torture prison and tortured people there. We fought a war to bring democracy to the Middle East and to show Arabs and Muslims how superior it is as a system; we then spawned chaos, civil war and genocide to brand democracy as a nightmare for an entire generation of Muslims and Arabs. But I recall one moment when I felt most secure about our rationale for the war: we liberated a prison full of children who had been targeted by the monster, Saddam. If ending a regime that jailed children was not right, what was?

Except now we know that the U.S. has itself detained, imprisoned and interrogated children. The young sons of Khaled Sheikh Mohammed were detained, and used as a lever in the torturing him. We don't know what was done to them, but one fellow prisoner has claimed that they were mistreated. We do know that KSM was told they were detained, a flagrant violation of international and domestic law. The CIA reassured us four years ago that it would not harm the kids (who were nine and seven when captured):

"We are handling them with kid gloves. After all, they are only little children," said one official, "but we need to know as much about their father’s recent activities as possible. We have child psychologists on hand at all times and they are given the best of care."

But, of course, we don't know what happened to them if they were released, what they said, if anything, and how their detention was used against KSM. Ron Suskind did some reporting:

At the darkest moment we threatened grievous injury to his children if he did not cooperate. His response was quite clear: "That's fine. You can do what you want to my children, and they will find a better place with Allah."

The CIA conceded:

"His sons are important to him. The promise of their release and their return to Pakistan may be the psychological lever we need to break him."

We do know that, in principle, the Bush administration is prepared to torture the children of terrorists, because the chief architect of their detention policy, AEI's resident war-criminal John Yoo, was quite explicit:

"Cassel: If the president deems that he's got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person's child, there is no law that can stop him?

Yoo: No treaty

Cassel: Also no law by Congress -- that is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo...

Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that..."

Michael van der Galien is trying to find out what happened to them. I tend to think that even Bush's CIA would not abuse children, apart from imprisoning them for the crimes of their father. But I have learned the bad way that Bush and Cheney cannot be trusted with the humane tradition of American warfare. These children belong, like many others, in the black hole of the Bush-Cheney torture and detention regime, beyond the reach of the law, treaties or civilization. Just as Cheney likes it.

08 Jun 2007 02:29 pm

An Ethanol Breakthrough?

Good news from the green front:

At a Brazilian ethanol conference June 4-5, Brazilian government-funded researchers said they have perfected a method of producing cellulosic ethanol that drastically reduces the cost of processing. At this point, the assertion - and many other similarly optimistic claims made at the conference - is unconfirmed. But should it prove true, the world could well be peeking over the horizon at a massive geopolitical, not to mention economic, shift.

Details here.

08 Jun 2007 02:10 pm

Most. Awkward. Interview. Ever.

An instant classic from CNN, in which a pubescent boy behaves exactly as a pubescent boy should - except he's on cable.

 

Spelling Bee Winner

Posted Jun 05, 2007

08 Jun 2007 01:31 pm

Clinton At Harvard

A reader comments:

A wonderful speech, but hard to ignore the "hypocrite" label when contrasting those words with the advice Clinton gave to Kerry in 2004 to focus on the "one tenth of one percent" by demonizing gays and supporting a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Or the fact that he signed DOMA into law. Or Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Plenty can talk the talk (and Clinton is a master), but I'd like to see the walk. 

Picky, picky. My reader needs to be sent to HRC re-education camp, in order to erase something called memory of the 1990s.

08 Jun 2007 01:07 pm

Fear and Loathing On The Right

A reader writes:

Absolutely right Andrew. I am an occasional listener to talk radio on my drive to work and I have been listening in on the anger of conservative talks show hosts (Limbaugh, Levin, Hannity) and, oh my God, their callers. It's unbelievable. You would think that these people, who are here because the primarily Republican business owners wanted and used cheap labor, would be treated with more sympathy. Or that their desperate attmepts to arrive in the land of the free and the brave would elicit at least some measure of admiration for their determination to seek a better life. In one actual sense these "illegals" are the cream of the crop - those, evolutionarily speaking, who are adapting as best possible to their environment. Yet, the hate spewed against them on radio was so intense I literally gagged.

I agree with you: if Hispanics were listening in on these shows, they are hardly likely to vote Republican for years to come. It wasn't just about illegals, it was about what kind of illegals these were.

If you don't see this, you need to think for one second how this stuff sounds to someone who isn't a member of the majority in this country.

(Photo: David McNew/Getty.)

08 Jun 2007 12:26 pm

A Date With Tagg!

Gosh, I swear it will be fabulous. Promise. Swell, even. He's celebrating his dad's super leads in New Hampshire and Iowa after his amazing successes in the debates. Aren't you excited? Gee-willikers, I know I am.

08 Jun 2007 12:17 pm

Romney In New Hampshire

A 11 9 point lead over Rudy? (I can't add.)

08 Jun 2007 11:29 am

The View From Your Window

Kuwait City, Kuwait, 1 pm.

08 Jun 2007 11:19 am

Obama and Responsibility

A reader writes:

Obama said:

"... by taking mutual responsibility for each other as a society, and also by asking for some more individual responsibility to strengthen our families."

It's a lovely soundbite. But the problem is not that society doesn't take enough responsibility, but that the division of responsibility between society and the individual has lost all balance. And you don't fix a balance problem by adding weight to both sides.

Senator Obama talks like this because he wants more spending and social responsibility and so offers a trade: we'll look for more individual responsibility if you take more social responsibility. It's lot like Bush, who got the idea from Clinton. But his basic motivation leads to statements like this:

"We need to start supporting parents with young children. "

What's with the "start"? I thought that with welfare, Medicaid, food stamps, head start, public education, public housing, etc, we "started" supporting parents a long time ago. Don't get me wrong, there's a place for all of that - but it's a bit much to say we haven't yet "started"  with the support.

I don't want politicians talking about individual responsibility as a marketing strategy for their constituencies' interests. I want them talking about it because they understand it's the source of the problem. Anyone who is talking about equal additional increments of social and individual responsibility is marketing, not solving.

08 Jun 2007 11:02 am

Challenging The Christianist Left

The attempt to dragoon the Democrats into Christianist politics is celebrated here by Jim Wallis. But check out the comments. Most are mad as hell. I don't think the religious left has appreciated how much of the current Democratic popularity is bound up with a secular revolt against Christianism (and that secular revolt includes many people of faith). Re-tooling Christianism for the left is not an answer. It compounds the problem. If the Democratic leadership continues to pander to the religious left, I suspect their party will split more deeply than the GOP.

08 Jun 2007 11:00 am

Mickey Explains

His explanation of the collapse of the immigration bill:

Maybe it's about not being able to take the worst ideas from the left (instant legalization of illegals) and the right (second class guest workers), put them together, call it centrism, bask in fawning MSM coverage and ram it down the throat of voters who don't want it!

Maybe it is. And maybe it's all about the collapse of the Republican coalition. My feeling is that this kind of bill requires a president to corral it through the Congress, a president who is able to persuade his own supporters and explain to the public why this kind of compromise is the best available. We don't have such a president right now. He is despised by the entire middle and left, and he has alienated the base of the right. As a lukewarm supporter of the bill - I can't see any other feasible rubric to deal with border security and the 12 million people who are already here, won't leave, and have jobs to do - I was nonetheless never persuaded that this bill was essential. The president's arrogant condescension toward his critics didn't help. And the passion was almost all on the extremes.

So no tears. In general, I'm happy to see laws not being passed. I'm not convinced that this bill or any bill would dramatically increase national security, and so fail to see the urgency. If this means that we can concentrate on border enforcement in the near future, so be it. Politically, I tend to think this will hurt the GOP badly in the long term. The reason is not the cogency of many of the arguments; it's the patent cultural and social panic that animates the Republican gut. This fear of the other and need to demonize and objectify it is obviously the emotional core of the opposition. You can see it in their faces. If these immigrants were Poles or Italians or Irish, I can't see the Mickey-Dobbs-Limbaugh coalition getting so upset. I say that not from the basis of their arguments (which are largely respectable) but from the hysterical tone of their remarks. I guess as a gay man, I have come to recognize that tone. More and more members of minorities hear it coming from the GOP. It will come back to haunt them.

08 Jun 2007 10:55 am

Blogging The Bible

David Plotz finishes an online odyssey. I have to say it has read at times like the best of web journalism: a simple idea, followed through persistently, egged on and informed by thousands of reader emails. All to bring ancient texts to new life. Mazel Tov, David. And check out the final entry.

08 Jun 2007 10:28 am

Swear Jar

For casual Fridays in the office:

08 Jun 2007 08:38 am

The U.S., Turkey and Iraq

A helpful primer on "the great underreported story" of the war so far.

08 Jun 2007 07:58 am

Hannity and Hitchens

A match made in heaven, so to speak. Another clip:

08 Jun 2007 07:54 am

The French Left

After Sarkozy, what's a socialist to do?

08 Jun 2007 07:53 am

"Almost Fascist"

Chris Matthews gets Rudy right. Giuliani has no understanding of what it is we're fighting for in this war. Given his crude 9/12 analysis of the terror war, I don't even think he understands what we're fighting against. His candidacy speaks to the worst part of us: fear, loathing, and an instinctual belief that freedom is a threat to us, rather than the core of us.