Saturday, August 18, 2007

18 Aug 2007 08:36 pm

The Next Generation

I just want to say, after reading most of the hundreds of emails from heterosexual readers offering me tips and support and memories in advance of my marriage, how amazing it is to feel such support from so many of you. Thanks. The truth is: we gays need our straight friends and families to help us with this marriage thing. It's new to us. And you've made me much less queasy. I was also struck by this email from a gay reader. It says a lot:

Reading your marriage posting made me cry today. You summed up so well what we all feel now that this is a reality. It made me realize today as a young gay man living with my boyfriend in Massachusetts how special it is that I think about him proposing to me one day. Ten years ago no one even dreamed of that. Now someone at 23 years old gets to live the same boring life and have the exact same hopes and desires as all of his straight friends. It is something I could never imagine when I was in high school crying to God to change me.

I never asked God to change me. But He has. Which is why I'm getting married. My church will be absent. But my faith and my fiance's faith made all this possible. And one day, I suspect, God's people will see that as well. So many already do.

18 Aug 2007 08:06 pm

"No End In Sight"

A longtime reader writes:

If you haven't seen "No End In Sight", I highly recommend it. This is not an anti-war screed. It's a devastating analysis of the incompetence that lost postwar Iraq - who, what, and some attempt at why - all through interviews with former top-level Bush administration players.

Nothing here you don't already know, but five years condensed into any hour and a half (and very well edited) makes for a powerful indictment. However incompetent you thought they were - and we both share similar opinions on that score - you will walk away shaken. It was worse - much worse. It was Katrina writ large - and on that score, keep your eyes peeled for an interviewee named Walter Slocombe - the Iraq war's "Brownie", and the most important player I'd never heard of - my god, unbelievable. Bush has completely destroyed our credibility. We are a lesser country, in so many ways, and surely in the eyes of the world - including those of our enemies - but most criminally, in the eyes of our friends. Fools.

It's a movie I'm desperate to see as soon as I return to DC. Here's the website. In deciding whether to continue this ill-starred venture next month, it's helpful to remind ourselves of its entire history, and the shameful negligence, arrogance and hubris that has led us to this point. We are about to decide whether to occupy the Muslim Middle East for the rest of our lifetimes. We should not make that decision lightly.

18 Aug 2007 07:24 pm

Mr Sensitive

The president is irked by a fashion review.

18 Aug 2007 05:33 pm

The View From Your Window

Ryadh, Saudi Arabia, 2 pm.

18 Aug 2007 03:19 pm

Thompson On A Marriage Amendment

Fred Thompson will do what he can to resurrect a DOMA-style constitutional amendment. He has clarified that he doesn't want an amendment to ban marriage rights in every state, as the FMA would have done. He seems, alas, unaware that the Full Faith and Credit clause of the constitution has never applied and will not apply to civil marriage. Don't you think it would have happened by now if it did? Federalism can work without needlessly tinkering with the Constitution. And that's the conservative position.

18 Aug 2007 02:38 pm

Padilla's Love For The Decider

It rivals Hugh Hewitt's. But Padilla needed three years in solitary to achieve the same level of absolute trust in and love for the Decider. A reader writes:

From this portion of your quoted text in your Padilla post:

Also he had developed, actually, a third thing. He had developed really a tremendous identification with the goals and interests of the government... He was very angry that the civil proceedings were "unfair to the commander-in-chief," quote/unquote. And in fact, one of the things that happened that disturbed me particularly was when he saw his mother. He wanted her to contact President Bush to help him, help him out of his dilemma. He expected that the government might help him, if he was “good,” quote/unquote.

I'm reminded of another quote, and there is no need to identify the source:

He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.

Say after me: The Decider Is Always Right. He Loves Us. And Will Protect Us. He is Guided By God's Will. And He Is Never Wrong. Let Us Now Praise The Decider. All opposition is a function of psychological illness - Bush Derangement Syndrome. In the words of comrade Hinderaker:

"I had the opportunity this afternoon to be part of a relatively small group who heard President Bush talk, extemporaneously, for around forty minutes. It was an absolutely riveting experience. It was the best I've ever seen him. Not only that; it may have been the best I've ever seen any politician. If I summarized what he said, it would all sound familiar: the difficult times we live in; the threat from Islamic fascism - the phrase drew an enthusiastic round of applause - the universal yearning for freedom; the need to confront evil now, with all the tools at our disposal, so that our children and grandchildren can live in a better and safer world. As he often does, the President structured his comments loosely around a tour of the Oval Office. But the digressions and interpolations were priceless."

Like the constitution used to be.

18 Aug 2007 01:34 pm

Quote for the Day

"We are all perpetually smoothing and rearranging reality to conform to our wishes; we lie to others and to ourselves constantly, unthinkingly. When, occasionally - and not by dint of our own efforts but under the pressure of external events - we are forced to see things as they are, we are like naked people in a storm. There are a few among us - psychoanalysts have encountered them - who are blessed or cursed with a strange imperviousness to the unpleasantness of self-knowledge. Their lies to themselves are so convincing that they are never unmasked. These are the people who never feel in the wrong, who are always able to justify their conduct, and who in the end - human nature being what it is - cause their fallible fellow-men to turn away from them," - Janet Malcolm, In the Freud Archives.

(Photo: Paul J Richards/AFP/Getty.)

18 Aug 2007 11:11 am

The Lost Art Of Pin-Ups

Or a sad tale of political correctness making our lives drabber.

18 Aug 2007 10:05 am

How "Serious" Is Giuliani?

Very:

A merely ignorant Giuliani would be worrying, but what we actually see here is a man deeply invested in a deeply wrongheaded worldview which, I think, is much more dangerous. To observers looking on from the outside, the Bush administration has been a case study in neoconservative folly. To neoconservatives themselves, however, the Bush administration has been a study in betrayal.

Fred Kaplan's fisking of Rudy's foeign policy statement is well worth a weekend read, if you missed it. I think Giuliani is still the likeliest Republican nominee. He can paper over the deep divisions on the right by a campaign of pure xenophobic belligerence and torture. He can deflect the Christianists with a judicial policy of only appointing Dobson-approved judges; and he can cover his tolerance of gays by whittling away civil unions and targeting illegal immigrants. But it's a very tough year for a Republican in favor of the Iraq war, and he needs Clinton to be his opponent to win. Only Clinton can polarize the center enough to contemplate a Giuliani protectorate.

(Photo: Scott Olson/Getty.)

18 Aug 2007 07:53 am

Sex In Baghdad

Prostitution and war often go together. In Iraq, the long - now apparently permanent - occupation has made the desperation of women, especially young widows, particularly acute. The Cunning Realist has done some digging and reports on the

"International Sex Guide." It features reports from men who have visited prostitutes in various countries. Yes, there's an "Iraq" section.

Here are three postings he discovered.

Damn the IED's, anal sex with Persian girls makes it worth it.

Well done Dirk. If she's good-looking and speaks English, you've found a keeper. As one of many young widows in Iraq, she's doing this out of necessity and not for a lifestyle, so you know what she wants (the "R" word). Could be a good two-way thing. Also, Iraqi women are usually pretty hot when they're young. Keep us posted.

Outside the IZ you can get a girl for the evening for $25 you can also be unceremoniously beheaded for free. Many Iraqi women are gorgeous, and, since there is nothing that really resembles a functional economy, some of them are up for screwing to support themselves and their five kids. I ended up getting some girls from an Iraqi security contactor. Some business people who live outside of the wire have gotten contacts from the hotel staff where they reside. That being said, Ali Babba is the word of the day and most people are simply blowing smoke when they say they can get you a girl—especially within the IZ. I was EXTREAMLY stupid, LUCKY, and DRUNK one nite when I took a taxi around downtown Baghdad looking for women. I met a pimp and he took me to a house where I banged 3 girls for 60 bucks until I heard morning prayers.

Ah, war in an Islamic country.

Friday, August 17, 2007

17 Aug 2007 08:41 pm

Fox vs Fred

Ouch:

Ambers has more.

17 Aug 2007 08:14 pm

Title IX and Your Toilets

Be afraid. More background here.

17 Aug 2007 07:58 pm

Obama in California

Several readers say I'm too gloomy abut Clinton's lead in California. She has a massive lead among blacks, but that may well disappear by next February. And this time in the last election cycle, Lieberman, Gephardt and Dean were the front-runners. I guess by hyping Clinton's poll numbers, I'm merely playing into her strategy of inevitability. But although I'm obviously hoping that Obama manages to help us put the Clinton era behind us, this blog tries to look at unpleasant facts as best I can. She isn't inevitable, of course. Just relentless.

17 Aug 2007 07:13 pm

The Case For Silence

A plea from a music-lover. (Hat tip: Arts Journal.)

17 Aug 2007 06:08 pm

From the Army War College

An analysis of the last four years:

Our response to 9/11 may have done more to further the interests of our jihadist opponents than our own, in that we have weakened an international system they view as illegitimate and destabilized the Middle East in a manner they now seek to exploit... Perception of the inability of the United States to deliver global security (and unwilling to be constrained by international opinion and cooperative arrangements) will erode global confidence, contribute to economic and political instability, and encourage non-state insurgents. Within the Middle East region, our natural allies in this fight are strong, moderate states, even if some of those states espouse views that run counter to our own. To restore vitality to the system we must begin to reconcile with proto-democratic Iran and secular Syria...

...Promoting the primacy of economic over political development is as crucial to stability in the Middle East today as it was in our own history. In the end, encouraging the growth of strong, vibrant and moderate states in the Middle East is our best hedge against the global jihadist threat.

17 Aug 2007 05:05 pm

Yglesias vs Brooks

An attack from the right on Edwards.

17 Aug 2007 04:03 pm

Pot and Skin Allergies

Another possible medical use.

17 Aug 2007 03:55 pm

Banning Circumcision

In Australia, public hospitals in Victoria will soon prohibit the barbaric practice of involuntary male genital mutilation:

The $2 million a year saved by the ban will be spent on urgent elective surgery.

"It is important to ensure hospital services are prioritised towards treating patients who have a clinical need for surgery to improve their health," Mr Andrews said.

Win-win.

17 Aug 2007 03:40 pm

"A Very Messy Probable Defeat"

Brent Scowcroft back in 1996, predicting the result of invading Iraq, an interesting coda to the Cheney YouTube:

17 Aug 2007 02:59 pm

Why People Stand On The Escalator

A cost-benefit analysis.

17 Aug 2007 02:35 pm

Wedding Jitters, Ctd

To say I was moved by the avalanche of emails about my wedding jitters would be an understatement. I feel a lot better having read scores of good wishes and advice and reminiscences. Thanks so much. This may be the best advice:

Sorry, it's not about how to relax. You're fucked there. That's just the way it works.

However, here's the best advice I ever got for my wedding:

Take 5-10 minutes at some point during the reception, find Aaron, grab two glasses of champagne, and walk away with him. Find a nice spot to sit, enjoy the drinks and each other, and as you do, survey all the people, family and friends, who have come to celebrate with you. Remember them all.

The rest of the night will be a blur, but you'll remember those 5-10 minutes, and all of those people, and that moment, forever.

Will do. And this is the toughest love:

You're nervous? Of course you are. You're submitting your autonomy to the State in exchange for legal recognition of and protection of your relationship. You're entering a contract to regard your beloved as family, a contract that (some day in your future) will supersede love and affection. You don't really know what marriage is about until the day you have a fight that so bad the only reason you stay together is because you're married.

The storm will pass. You'll both still be there, still married, and glad you are, and you'll say "Oh, that's what the big deal about this piece of paper is all about."

17 Aug 2007 02:24 pm

Clinton In California

This strikes me as pretty damaging to Obama's prospects:

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton is expanding her lead in California as excitement for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama is fading among Golden State voters, a new Field Poll revealed Thursday.

The New York senator held a commanding lead over the Democratic field, with 49 percent support to 19 percent for Obama and 10 percent for former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards...

In the last state Field Poll, Obama led Clinton 39 percent to 38 percent among voters between the ages of 18 and 39. In the new poll, Clinton led him among the younger voters by 47 percent to 24 percent.

Meanwhile, she expanded her support among male Democrats from 41 percent in March to 47 percent in the latest poll taken Aug. 3-12.

The California poll results were similar to a recent national Gallup Poll, in which Clinton led among Democrats with 48 percent support to 16 percent for Obama and 12 percent for Edwards.

Her strategy is to be the overwhelming favorite. It's working.

17 Aug 2007 01:53 pm

The Summit That Failed

More evidence that the surge is not making political progress possible in Iraq:

Al-Arabiya is reporting that the emergency political summit of Iraq's leaders has failed to produce even nominal political reconciliation. This is a devastating outcome for the Maliki government and for those Americans who hoped to have some political progress to show in the upcoming Crocker/Petraeus report. There's no other way to spin this: this summit was billed as the last chance, and it has failed.

....I thought there was at least a chance that they would cobble something together out of desperation and find ways to lure the Sunni parties back in....They did not. Instead, Talabani announced the formation of a new four party coalition in support of the current government without any Sunni representation. What's left is a government stripped to its sectarian base — the two Kurdish parties and the two major Shia parties — and a world of political hurt.

Kevin Drum observes:

[T]he eventual fate of Iraq (outside the Kurdish north) is the establishment of a Shia theocracy closely aligned with Iran. As far as I can tell, no one has even a colorable argument that things are moving in any other direction, and equally, no colorable argument that there's anything we can do to stop it.

17 Aug 2007 01:28 pm

Hewitt's For Clinton

Read the love-bomb. And remember that there is only one principle animating Hugh Hewitt: the power of the Republican party. The GOP is not without hope, of course. But Clinton is the only national politician who can save them now.

17 Aug 2007 01:09 pm

What Happened To Padilla

Readers will recall that there was considerable doubt about whether Jose Padilla was mentally fit for trial. After three years of solitary confinement, manacled by feet and hands and guarded with almost military aggression - he was forced to wear sound-proof earmuffs and goggles to get a tooth fixed by the dentist, for example - he was a wreck. One of his psychiatric evaluators, Dr Angela Hegarty, spoke to Amy Goodman about what she saw in this broken man after observing him for 22 hours:

AMY GOODMAN: What was the effect of over three-and-a-half years of isolation on Jose Padilla?

DR. ANGELA HEGARTY: I think there’s two things, really. Number one, his family, more than anything, and his friends, who had a chance to see him by the time I spoke with them, said he was changed. There was something wrong. There was something very “weird” -- was the word one of his siblings used -- something weird about him. There was something not right. He was a different man. And the second thing was his absolute state of terror, terror alternating with numbness, largely. It was as though the interrogators were in the room with us. He was like -- perhaps like a trauma victim who knew that they were going to be sent back to the person who hurt them and that he would, as I said earlier, he would subsequently pay a price if he revealed what happened. So I think those would be the two main things.

Also he had developed, actually, a third thing. He had developed really a tremendous identification with the goals and interests of the government. I really considered a diagnosis of Stockholm syndrome. For example, at one point in the proceedings, his attorneys had, you know, done well at cross-examining an FBI agent, and instead of feeling happy about it like all the other defendants I’ve seen over the years, he was actually very angry with them. He was very angry that the civil proceedings were "unfair to the commander-in-chief," quote/unquote. And in fact, one of the things that happened that disturbed me particularly was when he saw his mother. He wanted her to contact President Bush to help him, help him out of his dilemma. He expected that the government might help him, if he was “good,” quote/unquote.

Now put this picture together with the Jacoby memo, noted in this must-read post by Marty Lederman. It all makes much more sense.

Continue reading "What Happened To Padilla" »

17 Aug 2007 12:10 pm

The View From Your Window

Passe-A-Grille, Florida, 11.50 am.

For a newly updated, global gallery of Dish readers' window views, click here.

17 Aug 2007 12:07 pm

Prison Reform

It is, in so many ways, one of the great moral callings of contemporary America. A society that consigns so many of its citizens to jail should be concerned with conditions and treatment within them, as well as the integrity of the justice system that sends them there. Glenn Reynolds deserves real kudos for championing this (even as a back-handed attempt to defend the Bush administration's detention and torture policies). I'm also glad that at the Atlantic, we seem to have a cross-bench consensus. Check out Ross's pragmatic case for reform here; and Matt's concurrence. One of this magazine's great legacies was the abolitionist movement. It's good to see bi-partisan moral causes being championed again.

17 Aug 2007 12:03 pm

For The Record

A love-bomb (for which much thanks) and a snarl from the Corner today. In response to JPod, I have never compared America's Christians to "Germans who adored Hitler." I wrote that political theology is a very dangerous thing, and cited Mark Lilla's superb new book to that general effect. My use of the term "Christianist" is precisely to avoid smearing most Christians with the label of political theology. Anyone who actually read "The Conservative Soul" will see that it is a defense of Christianity from the depredations of Karl Rove's and James Dobson's ambition. As for my alleged "bemoaning the guilty verdict of Jose Padilla." Readers can see what I have written here and here. In fact, I am relieved that justice was finally done on charges far lesser than those originally thrown about. My concern is about the path to that judgment and the serious damage to liberty and the Constitution it has wrought. If K-Lo wants to know why I consider myself a conservative (and plenty of others do too), a defense of constitutional liberty against an executive that detains without charges and tortures is a pretty good definition of what conservatism once was. I know where Burke stood on such matters. I am proud of that label and appalled by what National Review's authoritarianism and contempt for individual liberties has done to conservative honor and integrity.

17 Aug 2007 10:54 am

Best. Movie. Line. Ever.

"Sometimes being a bitch is all a woman has to hold onto." "Dolores Claiborne", not Hillary's forthcoming campaign slogan.

17 Aug 2007 10:16 am

Drug War News

Radley Balko reports:

This is worth repeating. The FBI has determined that in some cases, it's better to let innocent people be assaulted, murdered, or wrongly sent to prison than to halt a drug investigation involving one of its confidential informants.

Could Murphy assure the U.S. Congress, Delahunt and Lundgren asked, that the FBI has since instituted policies to ensure that kind of thing never happens again?

Murphy hemmed and hawed, but ultimately said that he could not make any such assurance. That in itself should have been huge news.

So why wasn't it?

17 Aug 2007 08:00 am

Chub Love

A new sex and fat finding:

A study out of Aberdeen University found that people are usually attracted to others based on their social class, height, and race — no big surprises there. However, after further research, they discovered that many people seek out partners — consciously or subconsciously — with similar fat levels to their own.

Bear culture begins to make more sense, doesn't it?

17 Aug 2007 07:44 am

Quote for the Day

"A great majority of Germans remained faithful to their fuehrer, many of them to the end, and, it has to be admitted, quite a few even after the end. That, for a historian, is a puzzling situation. Stalin was feared by the Russians—admired by only a section of the population. Roosevelt was hated by many people in America. Churchill was hated by many people in England. But in Germany, you find adoration of Hitler — even after Stalingrad, even towards the end when everything was in ruins. The psychology of this I do not understand very well," - Saul Friedlaander, Dissent. It is the psychology of political theology, fused with unrestrained nationalism and hero-worship. And it's far more powerful than many seem now to believe.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

16 Aug 2007 09:05 pm

Walking While Buff

A new offense in Sweden, apparently, where a body-builder was forced by a cop to take a test for illegal steroids.

16 Aug 2007 07:09 pm

Padilla

It's hard to disagree with Andrew Cohen's take in the WaPo:

For the defense, it's further proof that if you can convince an American jury that a man in the dock had anything to do with al-Qaeda, you can pretty much bank on a conviction no matter how tenuous the evidence. And in this case, all the government's resources were brought to bear upon this trio of (let's face it) losers who were so inept as terror "trainees" that the feds gave up their trail in 2000...

For this jury, the simplest explanation was that these guys were up to no good. They were acting suspiciously (or at least not innocently). They were talking like spies (or at least not like relief workers). Teenagers are expected talk and text in code so that their parents don't know what they are up to. Makeshift humanitarians are not.

None of this in my view necessarily justifies today's verdicts -- but it certainly in my mind helps explain them.

In the outrage some of us have expressed with respect to Padilla's fate, it's worth stating a few things that are often left unsaid. Defending Padilla's rights as an American citizen to a fair trial is not the same as believing that terrorist plotters and cells should not be aggressively investigated and followed. It isn't to say that we don't have a legitimate interest that terrorists captured in a genuine battlefield in a foreign land be taken hors de combat. It is to say that if the war is to be conducted against American citizens and anywhere in the world, then such citizens must retain the protection of the Constitution and habeas corpus. It is to say that prisoners of war should be treated in accord with the Geneva Conventions.

Continue reading "Padilla" »

16 Aug 2007 06:00 pm

Straights for Gay Marriage

A reader writes:

I wanted to say how moved I was by the story you linked to in Indiana about Brett Conrad and Patrick Atkins. While it is a scenario I have certainly heard before, everytime it is personalized, it is painful.

I have been married to my wife for about a year and a half after a lifetime of doing whatever I could to avoid getting married, and she has really transformed my life. In that short time, I have become one of those irritating people who says "we" instead of "I." I can only imagine how I will feel after 23 more years of shared life. I never really believed in marriage, but now I do -- and I have come to believe that there are really fewer injustices in our society more cruel than the apartheid-nature of marriage and marriage-rights. I guess this email is mostly about me, but opponents of marriage equality tend to argue that it somehow diminishes marriage if gay couples are included. It is obvious to me that it diminishes marriage when loving couples are excluded, and I feel that more now than ever.

I feel the same way. My marriage has been an immense source of joy and strength to me. To tell an entire group of children that they will never be worthy of this, that they are beneath such commitment, they they will never have a relationship as worthy as their perants' is one of the deepest wounds anyone can inflict on another's nascent psyche. We are changing this. But it has been a struggle. And it is by no means over.

16 Aug 2007 05:15 pm

Sorry, Al

A Pew report finds that media consumption hasn't changed much in two decades:

On balance, there is scant evidence that during the last quarter century -- despite major changes in the news "menu" -- the American audience has moved toward a diet of softer news. News tastes have become neither less nor more serious since the 1980s.

But the Internet has given us all an opportunity to become better informed. And more effectively entertained at the office.

16 Aug 2007 04:50 pm

John Donne On Torture

Scott Horton digs up a revelatory sermon from 1625.

16 Aug 2007 04:37 pm

Face of the Day

Elvis Presley impersonator, Mark Omdahl from Conway, North Dakota holds a candle during a vigil outside the front gates of Graceland Mansion, the home of Elvis Presley, on August 15, 2007 in Memphis, Tennessee. This week marks the 30th Anniversary of the death of the Rock and Roll legend. By Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

16 Aug 2007 04:31 pm

One Horny Spider

And boy does he have rhythm. If you can't hear, turn your volume up. And tell the boss it's porn. Insect porn. (Hat tip: Sherillmix.)

16 Aug 2007 04:09 pm

The Healthcare Debate

I think criticism of my minimalist link to a Brit who died because the National Health Service refused him a costly, experimental drug is legit. I should explain what I was trying to convey with less Instapundit-style passive aggression. I guess what I'm saying is that the reality of healthcare in a world where technology is making the whole concept of health a relative and constantly shifting term is that there will always be limits. This will be the case whatever system we're in. The cost of some new treatments, or procedures, or drugs will always exceed the capacity to pay for them for everyone who needs them. Someone will die or suffer because of this. It's relative, of course. A few decades ago, there would have been fewer agonizing choices because we didn't have such an amazing array of options. But it stings nonetheless.

The market enforces these limits by its usual brutal mechanism - price. A socialized system enforces it by its only real option - rationing.

Continue reading "The Healthcare Debate" »

16 Aug 2007 03:22 pm

Wedding Jitters

So this is what it feels like? We decided on the most minimalist wedding possible - basically close family only. (We'll have a bigger party for friends later). We're getting married in the same place - a beach house - that we're having the tiny reception. It's a block down the beach from where we live. We have the license, the judge, the clothes, the menu, the photographer (although he hasn't been in touch lately - gulp), and the rings. I've written out the civil liturgy. We've settled on the vows. I should relax now, right?

But last night it hit me for the first time that this is really about to happen. I guess I just put it out of my head until it's only a matter of a week or so away. We're effectively married and have been for quite a while. I have no jitters about our actual relationship. For me, this is for life. I have no reservations. But standing up in front of my family and my spouse's and saying the vows out loud has me in a state of butterflies. I can go on TV and barely break a sweat, but I'm terrified of performing in front of my own family. I'm scared I'll lose it. I bawled through the last same-sex wedding I went to. You fight for something, never expecting it to happen, let alone to you, and then it does, and it can overwhelm. Taking yes for an answer can be harder than no. Maybe it's a function of having over-thought this issue for so long; maybe it's just handling a big family occasion of any sort (Christmas is bad enough). Maybe it's a lifetime in which my actual relationships have always been private, or so targeted by political enemies I've become very defensive. Maybe I'm scared that two decades of passionate advocacy in theory is easier than a simple act in practice. But whatever the reason, going public with my husband - even in front of our supportive families - is suddenly much tougher than I expected. My throat is a little dry. My stomach is a little unsettled.

My sister emailed support:

Don't worry, it is natural to stress, I practically had a baby the day before mine! 75 to the church, another 75 in the evening, the food, the flowers, the photos, all those people watching me! On the day it just felt like a dream, I felt like I was letting out a huge breath all day, like that waiting to exhale, I exhaled all day and it was wonderful.

Our wedding is much smaller. My old friend and marriage advocate Evan Wolfson reassured me as well:

You're supposed to be in a zombie-state till the beauty of it breaks through.

Are zombies nervous? They never seem to be. They just stagger forward. Oh, well. Here goes ...

16 Aug 2007 02:51 pm

Blacks for Obama

Whatever the polls say now, he'll likely sweep the African-American vote in the Democratic primary. Mark Kleiman explains here. Newsweek recalls history:

Even though polls show that blacks still have doubts about Obama, he weathered similar skepticism in the 2004 Illinois Senate primary before winning nearly all of their votes. "He soared with elites initially," says Mark Blumenthal, who polled for Obama's chief rival. "But it took until the last week of the campaign for blacks to decide." If they break his way again, says Blumenthal, Obama could ride a new black-upscale majority to the nomination.

In South Carolina, that could be critical. If Obama rivals Clinton in Iowa and New Hampshire and then wins South Carolina, he could catapult to victory.

16 Aug 2007 02:41 pm

"Guilty"

I'm going to read the legal analyses carefully before commenting substantively further. But I will take this moment to observe a couple of salient facts. The verdict is not on the original charge of plotting a dirty bomb, and it was this charge that had Padilla arrested and detained without charges and allegedly tortured for three years in solitary. The question of Padilla's innocence or guilt on a much lesser charge is therefore less salient than the way in which he was treated by the government. That remains a travesty; and the government should be relieved its clumsy handling of the case did not lead to his acquittal. It is also important to recall that Jose Padilla was interrogated in a fashion to render his mental capacity to stand trial a question. He claimed torture, and was sequestered without being charged for three years in solitary confinement. The result was a broken man, according to Time magazine:

The government itself cited the affidavit of a psychiatrist for the defense, Dr. Angela Hegarty, who said that Mr. Padilla did not understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings against him and that he suffered "impairment in reasoning" as a result of post-traumatic stress disorder "complicated by the effects of prolonged isolation."

Mr. Padilla's lawyers said he opposed this request that his competency be evaluated. Dr. Hegarty, one of two mental health professionals who examined him, said Mr. Padilla was "fearful of being thought of as crazy." She described him as "hypervigilant," his eyes darting about, his face twitching into grimaces, his "startle response" on constant high alert.

"During questioning, he often exhibits facial tics, unusual eye movements and contortions of his body," Mr. Patel said. "The contortions are particularly poignant since he is usually manacled and bound by a belly chain when he has meetings with counsel."

Another piece of context: a key DVD of interrogation evidence was "lost" by the government:

The missing DVD dates from March 2, 2004. It contains a video of the last interrogation session of Padilla, then a declared “enemy combatant” under an order from President Bush, while he was being held in military custody at a U.S. Navy brig in Charleston, S.C.

Continue reading ""Guilty"" »

16 Aug 2007 02:04 pm

The View From Your Window

Radomir, Bulgaria, 2 pm.

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16 Aug 2007 01:55 pm

Mutilating A 12-Year-Old

A religious right? Or a barbarism? There's an interesting court case involving circumcision in Oregon.

16 Aug 2007 01:38 pm

Padilla Verdict Imminent

Stay tuned. But the best recent summary of the case can be found in the Christian Science Monitor here. It tells you all you need to know in assessing the coming news. Money quote:

This is a part of the war on terror the Bush administration would rather keep quiet. But details are emerging. What they reveal is the aggressive – and at times, ruthless – pursuit of intelligence information, and the selective public release of some of that intelligence when it serves the administration's goals.

16 Aug 2007 12:59 pm

Quote for the Day

"I get it. I get that she has been reaching out to all sides on Iraq. I'm a pragmatic man, but you have to be vigilant about pragmatism. I wanted to say, 'Hillary, let's have a line in titanium that you will not cross,'" -  Nick Salamone, whose new play, "Hillary Agonistes" is now playing.

16 Aug 2007 12:26 pm

"All For Jesus!" Ctd.

Ross takes a swipe that deserves unpacking a little. His argument is weak, which is why, I suppose, he feels the need to grace it with a whiff of nativism:

Andrew misunderstands American history, American religion, and the intersection thereof, and how he's trying apply a continental model of faith and politics to a context where that model has never applied, and so and so forth.

Please. If someone thinks I'm wrong about a country I wasn't born in but have lived in my entire adult life, then please say why I'm wrong. Don't play the "you weren't born here" card, however guilefully. Ross's beef was with my concern with Sam Brownback's recitation of the Mother Teresa line "All for Jesus! All for Jesus! All for Jesus!" as part of his primary stump speech. You can see it above. For Ross, this kind of appeal is fine in American politics. I disagree.

Now, of course, American political rhetoric has been much more saturated with religious imagery and idiom than British or much European discourse since the Enlightenment (though not before). Some of this, as the theocons keep reminding us, has been to the good - the abolitionist and the civil rights movements spring to mind. What they're less likely to say is that the institutional core of today's Christianism was on the wrong side of those struggles (SBC anyone?) and that abolitionism and the civil rights movement emerged to undo the Christianist impulse to enslave, torture and then segregate a race that God had allegedly set apart. Moreover, much of the rest of Christianist campaigning over the centuries has also been for the bad - Prohibition, anti-miscegenation laws, vicious persecution of homosexuals, etc. The difference between the good and the bad in Christianism is that the good was also often framed in terms of secular, non-sectarian arguments (as MLK took pains to do), while the bad, having much less logic to stand on, was more reliant on pure Biblical authority. The more explicitly Christianist you get, in other words, the greater the likelihood of abuse to human dignity and individual freedom.

The notion that this kind of politics has no victims, has not led to evil, has not at times led to absolute insanity (like Prohibition), and is not still a constant threat - is preposterously complacent.

Continue reading ""All For Jesus!" Ctd." »

16 Aug 2007 11:53 am

What Happened To Dick Cheney?

Brink Lindsey notices another drastic evolution from 1998 - this time on Iran. 9/11 changed everything. The question we need to ask and answer is: how much should it change? Cheney does not seem to have reflected on that more than once.

16 Aug 2007 11:45 am

Best. Movie. Line. Ever.

"I get older. They stay the same age." Dazed and Confused.